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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Positing a substantial self as unifier violates parsimony, since no explanatory work requires it beyond what bundled states with functional connections already provide.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Bundled states require something that *does* the bundling; functional relations presuppose entities they relate, not their unity itself.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Functional relations among mental states (desire→action, perception→belief) explain unified behavior without invoking an immaterial soul.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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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