6 ms·

> I have those too, and no offense to you personally, but I call bullshit on both mine and your acquaintances. In case of people I know, there was not one situa

> I have those too, and no offense to you personally, but I call bullshit on both mine and your acquaintances. In case of people I know, there was not one situation for which I couldn't find a more plausible explanation - which usually boils down to that for enough trials, even the rare coincidences sometimes happen. Fair enough - this 'statistical argument' is a convenient explanation that can always be invoked, but in this case I don't really consider it to be very satisfactory as an explanation of the phenomena I have been told about (I would put the likelihood for something like those phenomena to happen 'by chance' to be so abysmally low that it seems impossible). > There is this one reason that it's literally the job of science. Science isn't a bunch of fixed methods from a holy book, it's the aggregation of everything that reliably works for extracting information about observable reality. I disagree. "Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.". This is far from saying 'science can answer any question'. But again, you're free to believe that science can do that. I just don't happen to believe it can. > But is it? The hint is given by the fact that there's more than one thinking human in existence. You may feel that answers about your subjective experiences are out of reach of science, but to the extent subjective experiences have any impact on reality, you can use science to study my subjective experiences (as expressed by me), and I can do the same to you. I think your answer to the other thread makes it clear that we have some insurmountable philosophical differences here. If you believe that showing the correlation between a configuration of atoms and the subjective experience that accompanies that configuration to be 'an explanation' of that subjective experience, we have very different expectations of what constitutes an explanation.

Faark 7y ago
I have a hard time following. I don't feel well read on the topic, but your argument seems to boil down to "our thinking is so awesome, it must be magical". This strongly reminds me of creation myths where humans desperately tried to separate themselves from all other nature. But in case I'm missing something, I'd be thankful for you answering the following few questions to get me back on track: - Do you believe that there are laws of physics we can not perceive and understand? - If no: Why? How does it interact with usual matter and physics? Is this the unexplainable magic? - If we can perceive and thus hopefully one day understand all laws of physics, can we simulate them? - If, in the future, we are able to simulate all physics, what stops us from simulating the life of a human? (though likely significantly slower) - This simulated human should react undistinguishable form a real human. Would you call this simulated human conscious? - If yes, then where does this consciousness come from except the simulation state? - If no, how do we know if some other being except ourself is conscious? - Can there be two similar beings demonstrating the same behavior, but with only one of them being conscious?
- egjerlow 7y ago
  I have no problem with seeing myself 'part of nature' - in fact, I have for the longest time believed that consciousness can be explained in terms of the material universe revealed by science alone. But I see no way in which this gap can be bridged in terms of what we currently know about the physical universe. As for your questions: - There seems to be aspects of the universe that are related to 'meaning' rather than to 'mechanics'. How that is related to the physical universe I certainly have no theory that hasn't been thought of before. Perhaps the physical world is the 'shadow' of the world of 'meaning'/spirit? I don't really know. - We can certainly simulate all laws of physics as detectable by science. Whether that's all there is, however, is something I don't believe. - Leaving the debate of free will aside, I certainly don't think we'll be able to simulate the life of a human in its completeness (unless we're somehow given some insight into how subjectiveness can exist in this universe) - i.e. including the subjective dimension of that human's life. - Thus, I wouldn't call that human conscious, no. - We can't :) Our own conscious experience is all we can be completely sure of (which is why I also find it so extremely odd to prefer the 'mechanistic worldview' when that involves disregarding our own conscious experience, which is the only thing we really have to start from!) - In principle, I think so, yes, but only by somehow pre-programming that unconscious being to act in exactly the same way (this relates to the concept of free will). As you can see, I don't have a clear theory of consciousness - mine is mostly a negative position in the sense that I don't believe matter, as described by the laws of physics, can give a coherent explanation of the phenomenon of consciousness. Where to go from there is not clear, but there are a lot of philosophers of mind thinking about the issue :) (Also, again, I don't consider this position more 'magical' than believing that arranging atoms in a given configuration will 'somehow' give rise to subjective experience).
  - acqq 7y ago
    > I see no way in which this gap can be bridged in terms of what we currently know about the physical universe. That "you see no way" doesn't confirm more than that. It's about your own thinking: http://skepdic.com/subjectivevalidation.html http://skepdic.com/subjectivevalidation.html http://skepdic.com/wishfulthinking.html http://skepdic.com/wishfulthinking.html

Faark 7y ago

I have a hard time following. I don't feel well read on the topic, but your argument seems to boil down to "our thinking is so awesome, it must be magical". This strongly reminds me of creation myths where humans desperately tried to separate themselves from all other nature. But in case I'm missing something, I'd be thankful for you answering the following few questions to get me back on track: - Do you believe that there are laws of physics we can not perceive and understand? - If no: Why? How does it interact with usual matter and physics? Is this the unexplainable magic? - If we can perceive and thus hopefully one day understand all laws of physics, can we simulate them? - If, in the future, we are able to simulate all physics, what stops us from simulating the life of a human? (though likely significantly slower) - This simulated human should react undistinguishable form a real human. Would you call this simulated human conscious? - If yes, then where does this consciousness come from except the simulation state? - If no, how do we know if some other being except ourself is conscious? - Can there be two similar beings demonstrating the same behavior, but with only one of them being conscious?

egjerlow 7y ago
I have no problem with seeing myself 'part of nature' - in fact, I have for the longest time believed that consciousness can be explained in terms of the material universe revealed by science alone. But I see no way in which this gap can be bridged in terms of what we currently know about the physical universe. As for your questions: - There seems to be aspects of the universe that are related to 'meaning' rather than to 'mechanics'. How that is related to the physical universe I certainly have no theory that hasn't been thought of before. Perhaps the physical world is the 'shadow' of the world of 'meaning'/spirit? I don't really know. - We can certainly simulate all laws of physics as detectable by science. Whether that's all there is, however, is something I don't believe. - Leaving the debate of free will aside, I certainly don't think we'll be able to simulate the life of a human in its completeness (unless we're somehow given some insight into how subjectiveness can exist in this universe) - i.e. including the subjective dimension of that human's life. - Thus, I wouldn't call that human conscious, no. - We can't :) Our own conscious experience is all we can be completely sure of (which is why I also find it so extremely odd to prefer the 'mechanistic worldview' when that involves disregarding our own conscious experience, which is the only thing we really have to start from!) - In principle, I think so, yes, but only by somehow pre-programming that unconscious being to act in exactly the same way (this relates to the concept of free will). As you can see, I don't have a clear theory of consciousness - mine is mostly a negative position in the sense that I don't believe matter, as described by the laws of physics, can give a coherent explanation of the phenomenon of consciousness. Where to go from there is not clear, but there are a lot of philosophers of mind thinking about the issue :) (Also, again, I don't consider this position more 'magical' than believing that arranging atoms in a given configuration will 'somehow' give rise to subjective experience).
- acqq 7y ago
  > I see no way in which this gap can be bridged in terms of what we currently know about the physical universe. That "you see no way" doesn't confirm more than that. It's about your own thinking: http://skepdic.com/subjectivevalidation.html http://skepdic.com/subjectivevalidation.html http://skepdic.com/wishfulthinking.html http://skepdic.com/wishfulthinking.html