>Because I'm not convinced "consciousness" is a meaningful concept that actually exists. No one has the slightest idea how to define it or what it really means, so it's a very vague non-precise term at best. But I accepted it for the purpose of this discussion.

Pick your poison. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#ConCon

If you deny that you experience qualia, well then the core proof for it is gone. At which point we might as well put the whole discussion in quotes.

Still, what makes the definition different from the definition of matter? Do you deny the existence of matter also?

>Because there is abundant evidence that the brain is the mind. Brain damage causes mental impairment, and we can observe it through fMRIs and interact with it through various experiments. We can reproduce some behavior from computer algorithms somewhat similar to biological neural networks, and I don't see why we won't eventually be able to reproduce all of it. Modelling the brain computationally is a huge field of research that has made a huge amount of progress in recent years. Not to mention neuroscience in general, which has produced a huge amount of knowledge.

You mean, abundant evidence than the brain seems to interact with the mind. I think it's inherently tied with the brain too, but I don't think there's anything that bridges the gap and makes the brain = the mind.

>But beyond that, it would be really strange if the physical laws that govern are universe are magically invalid in this one specific place.

Sure, and yet we experience the mind and it's nothing like the things we measure with science. Shouldn't that shake your faith in the universal intelligibility of all things under science?

>Of course it's possible this is all wrong. It's also possible that the Earth is really flat, and evil gods are manipulating all our observations and distorting photos taken from space, etc. But anyone who believes that is crazy.

We experience consciousness. Again, if you don't, then perhaps I'm talking to a bot, at which point I don't deny that I won't be able to show to you what consciousness is. It does have to be experienced.

Your comparisons with flat earth and manipulative evil gods are wholly uncharitable. Science supports the proposition of a round-ish earth; it doesn't of a flat earth. Science doesn't say anything about the existence or lack of existence of consciousness, your intuitions about the future progress of science do. Don't you see the difference?

If this invokes craziness for you, then perhaps you should think longer about what science is and what it says, and compare that with your intuitions about what you think it will be.

>"Qualia" is also a vague imprecise term. If this "consciousness" stuff actually interacted with the physical world, then we would, in principle, be able to observe it. But if it doesn't, then it's irrelevant to us. Totally disconnected from anything you can ever observe or experience.

Funny. It actually is just about the only thing we experience of the outside world. There are people working on the best definitions we have for qualia - if they're not satisfactory to you, do you propose we stop discussing them even though we experience them?

I mean, maybe we should stop discussing unexplored problems in science too.

>If you say "I am conscious", then some chain of events caused that event. Perhaps a thought formed in the neurons of your brain. In principle we could study your brain and see why it believes it is conscious, and what things are causing that behavior. If it's caused by "souls", then, at least in principle, we could study the behavior of the souls, and observe them interacting with physical matter to make you say words or think thoughts.

I mean, I get it, you think it's linked with the brain. It probably is, but we only get reports from people saying it is, that's one thing. The other thing is that even if it is linked with the brain, it doesn't mean that the brain = the mind.

Do you have a different source for the argument? No offense. Yudkowsky isn't an expert on philosophy of mind or philosophy at all, and I don't know of any philosophers who take him seriously. I skimmed it and I'd read it if it was not so long, but I'd prefer a SEP article or something else trustworthy in this case as it's such a long read.