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The thing is - just because we can't find an answer to a hard problem we can't simply use a whatever placeholder "answer" in the meantime. There is no mandate f

by Yizahi 3y ago

The thing is - just because we can't find an answer to a hard problem we can't simply use a whatever placeholder "answer" in the meantime. There is no mandate from the above to have some/any answer, as a must have thing. If we don't have a real (maybe incomplete) answer then we just don't. Full stop. We can't substitute it with random words just because it is convenient. So your counterpoint should be actually split into two parts: 1. Should we work on the unsolved problem even when it is very hard and ambiguous and there is no even clear hypothesis for the solution? Of course we should. 2. Should we make new conclusions derived from the the unsolved problem #1? No, we must not. So listing the different parties: a) Scientists should work on the researching consciousness problem. b) Animal activists should continue protecting animals, but not because they are supposedly conscious, but because they MAY be. We just don't know yet. c) Journalists MUST stop writing that such and such animal has consciousness.

strogonoff 3y ago
> Journalists MUST stop writing Oh please. There is a position about what consciousness is which implies many animals may have it. This article is about that position. Journalists have a moral obligation to keep writing about such positions, if we are to assume that imparting harm and pain on conscious beings is evil. There are also positions that animals, even including humans, don’t have consciousness, and consciousness doesn’t exist. They are more comfortable to most humans, especially meat eaters. This article is not about those positions. The incompleteness theorem has an important implication that we would not be able to construct a full and verifiably formally correct model of the system from within which we ourselves operate. All we have is hypotheses. Saying that people are not free to make hypotheses that are uncomfortable to you, or that journalists are not free to write about them, is a self-serving position.
- Yizahi 3y ago
  Ad-hominem attacks don't really make your opinion more credible.

by Yizahi 3y ago

strogonoff 3y ago

> Journalists MUST stop writing Oh please. There is a position about what consciousness is which implies many animals may have it. This article is about that position. Journalists have a moral obligation to keep writing about such positions, if we are to assume that imparting harm and pain on conscious beings is evil. There are also positions that animals, even including humans, don’t have consciousness, and consciousness doesn’t exist. They are more comfortable to most humans, especially meat eaters. This article is not about those positions. The incompleteness theorem has an important implication that we would not be able to construct a full and verifiably formally correct model of the system from within which we ourselves operate. All we have is hypotheses. Saying that people are not free to make hypotheses that are uncomfortable to you, or that journalists are not free to write about them, is a self-serving position.

Yizahi 3y ago
Ad-hominem attacks don't really make your opinion more credible.