>> Why should this comment be taken seriously?:
>
>>> But lweiger's error was, frankly, making only a tentative claim; I
>>> regard it as axiomatic that mental states depend upon physical
>>> states of the brain. (Otherwise, we'd have to put up with
>>> speculation about souls, spirits, and other mystical bullshit.)
>>
> It is an argument based on faith.
I am amused by your paradoxical argument. I work from the presumption that consciousness has a physical basis, mainly to avoid mystical or religious nonsense. Yet you dismiss this as an "argument based on faith." This is a bit like a Creationist dismissing evolution as a "religious belief."
How is what I stated an "argument based on faith?" An axiom is a presumed truth; it forms the basis of investigation, which may provide a reason for revising the original presumption. It's about as essential to scientific reasoning as one can get.