philosophy

Since you want to pick apart my view and clearly do not agree, I am curious about yours. You seem to think there's more to a person then chemicals, what else do you think there is? What is missing?

You have it the wrong way around; you're the one asserting things beyond electricity and meat:

What really made me want to engage with you was this:

After all, you're just chemicals, no different than a rock or a river or a printer.

And it seems pretty obvious to me you disagree with this view, that you are saying it in a sarcastic or mocking way. You've done you're bit, I see that either my view is incomplete or I am not explaining myself properly. Maybe both, I am not a philosophy person. So could you please explain, even a hint, of what you think I'm missing so I can improve?

Sorry, what are those? What particles mediate them? I do not know of any mechanical process called "pain"

Read Wittgenstein Private experience vs Public Language. Pain isn't a thing in the universe like an atom, its a label we came up with to describe a biological AND behavioural phenomenon that we all experience subjectively. Unless you're Plato, I guess.

I thought you said it was all just biological soup and electricity. Now you're claiming there's some kind of ghost "inhabiting" it?

Look up the definition of I. Biological soup and electricity can have first person experience.

How can a cloud of particles and forces have values or experiences?

Eyeballs. Ears. Electricity. You say "cloud of particles" as if its a reified thing, but from your perspective it ought not be. The organization of stimuli is how a cloud of particles has experience.

And if you do, why do you value some fleshy bags of meat but not others?

vegan. jainist. "efilist". plenty of types of people out there don't value themselves over others. We evolved affect for each other because it was biologically useful.

A choice? How can a deterministic set of mechanical interactions have a choice? It just responds to cause and effect according to the laws of physics.

Wow you're discovering why the agent exists. Crazy. We're a deterministic set of actions that has to weigh several external and internal factors, which cannot happen instantaneously, so we are presented with the illusion of choice. Using brain scan technology scientists are able to detect what you choose before you detect what you choose, because its all shit done in the brain. This is all happening behind the scenes but choice is a real thing that evaluates over time. Time being the key factor in why it seems so odd.

Sorry, what's an "experience"? And why would your arbitrary designation of some physical systems as having a valence be "good"

Experience is the public word for our subjective processes. The designations are not arbitrary, but biological. What we deem good is socially useful and feeds back into our internal reward system because it benefits our survival.

"Significant role" is very different from "there is only meat and electricity."

Actually not really. Meat and electricity play THE most significant role. The only role. Matter. Again, semantic confusion, not an actual argument.