3 ms·
> Define "thinking." Is an ecoli deciding to move towards or away from a chemical signal "thinking?" Define "defining". Is a definition the thing that is being
by User23 5y ago
> Define "thinking." Is an ecoli deciding to move towards or away from a chemical signal "thinking?"
Define "defining". Is a definition the thing that is being defined?
> How much have you read from people researching consciousness, vs reading half-baked layman ideas about materialism on web forums?
Will I not learn anything from dialog with you because it's on a web forum?
> Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism?
Do you find "materialism" to require less handwaving than dualism?
> Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism? Because if not, I have a lot of questions about souls that I'd love you to answer. Here are a few.
Did I somehow give you the impression that I'm an apologist? I'm here to talk about how conscious intelligence could arise from dumb matter, not about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and other such nonsense.
- TchoBeer 5y ago>Do you find "materialism" to require less handwaving than dualism? The upside to materialism is that the gap in our knowledge, namely why networks of neurons cause consciousness, is something we can acknowledge we don't know and try to understand. Resorting to an explaination relying on objects we can't observse seems... inelegant.
- User23 5y ago> Resorting to an explaination relying on objects we can't observse seems... inelegant. Does your objection hold for dark matter and dark energy too?
- TchoBeer 5y agoDark Matter and Dark Energy are just catchall terms for "the force that causes more gravitation than we'd expect" and "the force that causes the universe to accelerate in expansion" respectively. Those two phenomena definitely exist, and physicists are obviously not content with concluding our understanding at that, which is why hypothesis about what they are abound.