Which probably is just metaphysical speculation, again. But, because, in the last thread in which I saw that you expressed your opinion on the subject, I said the same thing, but didn’t respond to your response, I will use this thread as an opportunity to continue that conversation.
So your argument is this: “There is empirical evidence” that patterns found in the external world can affect those found in the internal world. So what follows from that is that the “self emerges from the complex[…] patterns in our brains” and that “there’s no[thing…] outside of[…] physical laws”. But, “of course”, it’s far from proven" but nonetheless is “the best explanation” that we have up until now.
But that doesn’t follow at all. By contrast, we also have evidence that patterns in the internal world can affect those in the external world. They are no less common. But does that imply, for instance, that gravity “emerges from the complex[…] patterns in our” minds, and that “there’s no[thing] outside of” mental laws? Of course not. Drawing such a conclusion would be ridiculous not only to me but also to you. Yet it uses the same reasoning that you are using to try to establish your conclusion.
To make my point clearer.
[quote=“From “The Philosophy of David Hume” by Norman Kemp-Smith”]
Causal action, Hume points out, exhibits its effects on three different levels: in the purely physical sphere, as in the action of one billiard ball on another; in the pyschophysical sphere, in the action of body on mind, and of mind on body, as when changes in the body give rise to sensations in the mind, and when volition in the mind gives rise to movements in the limbs of the body; and thirdly, in the psychical domain, when the mind operates on itself, as when at will it raises a new idea in the imagination, or when some one passion operates on another.[…] In all three cases, on all three levels, Hume is careful to point out, we can observe in any one instance only sequence in time, and on the repetition of similar instances at most only invariableness in the sequence. Nor, Hume argues, is the nature of necessitation any more evident in the mental than in the physical realm. Thus when ‘at will’ we move a limb, though the movement comes as a fulfilment of the volition, it is not on that account, for us, more than a sequence of detached events. For what immediately follows upon the volition is not what is willed, the movement of the limb, but something not willed at all, viz. changes in the animal spirits, and in certain muscles and nerves.
[/quote]
So, to summarize, “necessary connections”, “causal connections”, exist (a) among things in the external world, like some waves on a shore, (b) among things in the internal world, like an idea on an emotion, (b) from things in the external world to those in the internal world, like some light of the senses, or (d) from things in the internal world to those in the external world, like the volition on the limbs.
So, in light of that, why are you raising the importance of the instances of the third kind above those of the second kind, why, when what we can observe of each of them is “at most only” an “invariableness in the sequence”, are you claiming that the former is more fundamental or more decisive than the latter?