@AmeetSharma Kim's Pairing Problem is a demonstration of how even really smart people can make poor arguments. For one thing, a Bose-Einstein condensate is a physical example of identical things not spatially separated, and it does not present a causality problem. It has different properties than the assemblage prior to or after entering the condensed state, so this stands as another warning against thinking thought experiments provide empirical evidence.

@Dcleve Your attempt to tar me with the scientism brush merely on the basis of what you "perceive" in what I have written simply shows you have not been paying attention. I will not waste any time refuting this evidence-free distraction, as even if the claim were justified, it would not somehow undermine the soundness of the actual arguments I have been making.

Your argument from the fact that philosophy has different standards than science is beside the point: my objection to your initial response to Matthew's assertion and your subsequent attempt to treat arguments against one hypothesis as ipso facto predictions by another are both general epistemic issues, divorced from any specifically scientific consideration.

To support your “prediction-poaching” rule as philosophically sound, and refute the counter-arguments I have presented over several days, you need to offer more than vague generalities about science and philosophy having different standards.

Your second numbered point has an ironic twist: you want it to be known that you finally did what I predicted you would have to do!

Of course, the fact that you have needlessly dragged out this discussion after you changed tack in no way retroactively renders either my initial statements, nor my later defense of those statements, "astonishingly false innuendo", or even just false. What is astonishing here is your attempt to time-shift your change of tack to before my first response.

With regard to point three, holding your ground on "burden of support" grounds would be epistemically useless. A third party, having some acquaintance with human nature, might well suspect that your refusal to offer any counter-examples was on account of there being none. Furthermore, either Matthew or the third party could simply pose the question directly. Of course, the fact that you did change tack makes it plausible that you did come to realize the futility of your initial response.

”And any such search would quickly discover that basically all humans become dualists in their late toddlerhood/early-childhood.” That's very interesting, and once you provide some references, I will give it consideration.

“and this is an entirely reasonable informal empiricism inference from the dramatic utility of theories of mind, and intentionality/agency.” The same would be true of any hypothesis that admits theories of mind and intentionality/agency.

If you have already shown that a particular dualism was the only possible explanation of the mind, this inference would just be a further fact having no bearing on the question of what the correct explanation is. If it is not the only explanation in play, it does not discriminate between them. Either way it is epistemically useless.

“And the uniformity of our doing so, impels we are evolutionarily primed to reach this conclusion. And as there is a selective advantage to having TRUE theories about our universe, this is moderately strong evolutionary evidence for dualism to be true.”

What conclusion are you referring to in the first sentence? Dualism? According to you, there is only one true dualism, your ‘three worlds with soul’ (TWS, if I may) - so are you saying that basically all humans become TWS dualists in their late toddlerhood/early-childhood?

If so, I guess I missed out somehow - and so, apparently did Dennett, Blackmore, the other illusionists together with all the other physicalists, the panpsychists and protopanpsychists and the cosmopsychists; furthermore, all of the philosophers who have argued against them without making use of TWS dualism.

It is beginning to look like it is not so common after all, but that would undermine the thesis we are evolutionarily primed to reach this conclusion.

I think I had better pause here for you to ELI5 (or should that be ELI2?)

@Conifold "SEP entry on ontic structural realism should clarify what I mean by structural physicalism. What they call “form or structure” is the system of non-unary relations between objects expressing reality modulo qualities."

The SEP entry on ontic structural realism is full of jargon. There is about one unfamiliar term of art per two lines. But reading for several hours there and in Wikipedia did give me a vague idea of what OSR is.

It is quite interesting. I knew that Einstein didn't so much smash Newton's theory as complete it. I didn't know that the phlogiston theory essentially persisted to a large extent in a modified form in the oxidation theory of fire, respiration, and so on. I hadn't even heard of Fresnel's theory of light, although I had heard of the ether, and of Fresnel. So that was good to learn.

I must admit that I can't fathom more than a few parts of your latest post, that I am replying to here. I will also admit that I do now have much more doubt about whether illusionism is true. I guess I also now even doubt (slightly) whether illusionism even deserves more attention than it is getting. I don't know whether I am being dumb by being influenced by arguments that I don't understand, but there it is.

A case of me being blinded by science perhaps.