But, we may then say, let that other brain-state be the referent of “pain” rather than the stimulated C-fibers. Every time the materialist says “but that’s just our description of a brain-state,” his opponent will reply, “Okay, let’s talk about the brain-state which is the ‘act of imperfect apprehension’ of the first brain-state.”6 And so the materialist seems to be pressed ever backward—with the mental cropping up again wherever error does. It is as if man’s Glassy Essence, the Mirror of Nature, only became visible to itself when slightly clouded. A neural system can’t have clouds but a mind
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September 18, 2020. Not bed yet. Page 87.
