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    Positing a substantial self as unifier violates parsimony... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→A unitary enduring self must exist as the subject that unifies cross-modal perceptual judgements.

    Positing a substantial self as unifier violates parsimony, since no explanatory work requires it beyond what bundled states with functional connections already provide.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Functional relations among mental states (desire→action, perception→belief) explain unified behavior without invoking an immaterial soul.
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    • 2.Neuroscience shows brain integration mechanisms sufficiently account for coordination; positing additional substantial unity is empirically idle.
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    • 3.Occam's razor favors simpler ontologies: bundles of causally-linked states require fewer fundamental entities than states plus a unifying substrate.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Bundled states require something that *does* the bundling; functional relations presuppose entities they relate, not their unity itself.
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    • 2.The binding problem: explaining how spatially-distributed neural processes generate unified phenomenal experience remains unsolved by functionalism alone.
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    • 3.Parsimony counts kinds of explanation, not entities; a substantial self may be ontologically simpler than infinite relational facts holding between states.
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    Connections

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    Consciousness & Mind1 linkedPersonal Identity1 linked

    Related

    A unitary enduring self must exist as the subject that unifies cross-modal perce...Bundled states require something that *does* the bundling; functional relations ...Functional relations among mental states (desire→action, perception→belief) expl...Neuroscience shows brain integration mechanisms sufficiently account for coordin...
    +3 moreShow less
    Occam's razor favors simpler ontologies: bundles of causally-linked states requi...Parsimony counts kinds of explanation, not entities; a substantial self may be o...The binding problem: explaining how spatially-distributed neural processes gener...

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    2 (1 for, 1 against)
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