Hi Hugh

Yes it was this exact quote I was working from.

RE: "I take it that you understand premise (1), and hold that it is true." 

I do have a problem with "our world" but I'm happy to let that pass for the moment.

RE: "Chalmers argument in defense of (2) is the stuff about a logically possible world that is physically exactly like ours in every way, but ‘mentally’ different. The ‘people’ there are zombies. He claims that it is logically possible for there to be zombies. " etc

Problems here. How, to start with, have we jumped from "in which the positive facts about consciousness in our world do not hold" to a world where "The ‘people’ there are zombies". Plus, the notion of a "zombie" is incoherent as I've pointed out. However, let's even let that drop too.

You say that the other world is one in which "it would for instance be the case that “There is no such thing as reveling in the sound of the violin”, etc.  But this is surely a totally inadequate explanation. What does it amount to? It is presumably trying to say (generalizing) that all the experiences, responses (or whatever term we choose) we can have in our world are not available in this other world.  But that is obviously begging the question. What do we understand by "experiences" (or whatever alternative we choose)? Do they have a "consciousness" component? (The physicalist will say no.) And if we say yes, what do we mean by consciousness? In short, how do we characterize another world which is the "negative" version of ours if we are unable to say what ours is like?

 RE: "Item (3) is a conclusion drawn from premise (1) and (2). Not a premise." 

Yes I am aware of that.  You write: "The conclusion here is that facts about things like reveling in the music, or drinking in the color – facts about our experience, must be facts about something ‘over and above’ the strictly physical realm".

But for the reason given above (which is essentially the same as in my earlier posts) no such thing has been established. If we can't say what our - or the other - world is like without begging questions (about what you term "the facts about experience") no conclusions whatsoever can be drawn.

RE: "Item (4) concludes from (3) that it is a mistake to think that a final and complete physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, etc. would give us a complete account of the real world – that that’s the whole story – that that’s all there is."

I am actually in sympathy with this view but, for the reasons I give, nothing in Chalmers' argument goes within a bull's roar of establishing it.

DA