[Serious Phil] Eray's Essay on Brain Simulation

[walto]

Eray writes:

"Think of it like this. If today, some evil alien came and shuffled all the connections in your brain, would you still be intelligent? I think not. However, you should accept that even in that state, you would have an experience, an experience that is probably meaningless and chaotic, but an experience nonetheless. So, perhaps that's what a glob of plasma experiences."

Is there an argument here?  

First, there is the question-begging "you" in "...you would have an experience"  Even if this pan-psychist speculation is true and there would still be experiencing--would it be "me" having them?  Maybe I'd have simply died.

Second, why should we take your assertion that such experiencing would continue ("However, you should accept that...") any more seriously than somebody else's contrary assertion that there would be no more experiencing after this shuffling.  You got any arguments on this or are you, like the religious folk you criticize, just writing sci-fi that makes you happy?  I mean, I like Philip K. Dick as much as the next guy, but it ain't philosophy or science: it's just a kind of modern day religion.

W