Or we may be a bored alien IPU or FSM playing a game in a mind-altering holodeck. Theorising all possibilities and all possible combinations of possibilities isn't possible (and it would be pointless even if it were possible since they'd all be equal in theory). Instead, we have to start with what we have: the experience of self-awareness and the theory of 'brain matter' somehow fascilitating a sham.
Well, I wrote that we experience a self and that I think this experience is somehow created by interactions between the brain and the environment. And compared this to mystical or religious experiences, that I also think are generated by the brain interacting witn the environment. Nothing else was supposed or implied. Seems I have not managed to express my ideas propperly, possibly due to my poor English. I´ll try again- the self is, just like all the other feelings, sensations, experiences, whatever, generated by interactions between the brain (OK, actually the body, with its hormone glands, nervous system, etc.), the data stored within it, and its surroundings.
Furthermore, if we don't agree to continue accepting shared experience as reality and to maintain the definition of theory as speculative model then, frankly, science collapses as a purposive or workable discipline.There is a clear categorical difference between what you believe in becoming your experience and what you experience becoming your belief; with the difference being theory-driven pseudoscience at worst and protoscience at best and, real, data-driven science. (That's why amaterialism, the view that 'matter' is really 'energy' and that there is no clear evidence that brains produce consciousness is not a 'belief system'.)
"Shared experience" is a relatively good way of describing reality, but there will alway be those who will say that altered consiousness states prevents the use of such definitions.
My point was also that what you belive may interfer with what you experience. Regardless of the real nature of selves.
I really don´t think that there is no clear evidence that brains produce consciousness. I think there´s plenty of evidence that seems to indicate that brains do produce selves and very little -if any- evidences that selves are not products of brains.
There's a real world we interact with that seems stable enough, that's for sure. But when we look at the sub-atomic level we find that our theory of 'matter' (which originally meant an indivisible solid) is wrong.
I fail to see how the changes in the concept of matter have suffered since say, the XIX century, would help the side of those who defend the idea that brains do not produce consiousness. "Matter" is composed of a lot of empty spaces. Its may perhaps be described as being formed by interactions between particles that also behave as waves. But still, we all are experincing the very same set of limitations, we all experience phenomena that can be described by the same mathematical equations. So, regardless of our understanding of the nature of matter, this similarity is IMHO a very nice piece of evidence that there is a physical or material world. Sure, one could say that some "great solipsist" has set these rules, but IMHO such lines of reasoning are quite useless.
And, regardless of the definition of exactly what is matter, the basic fact that damages to the brain do produce alterations of the self, so, this can be seen as a nice indication of evidence that selves are product of human brains.
