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That's an interesting contention, and I'm looking forward to your precise explanation of the precise neural pathways involved in the production of a painting, i

That's an interesting contention, and I'm looking forward to your precise explanation of the precise neural pathways involved in the production of a painting, if whatever is left over is the empty set, and every single activity is determined only by chemical and physical interactions in the brain. In particular, I would like you to show the precise neural firings and chemical pathways that lead to the exact composition of each brush stroke. By this contention, there should be essentially nothing interposing between your past memories and the exact contents of the painting. I think you're taking an extreme view for the sake of argument, but there is still quite a bit unknown about how we actually process information. There is a clear biological component to all of it, but the biological processes fall well short of a complete explanation of things like creative processes and the sense of self (let alone logical thought), and you seem well-versed enough in the literature to know that.

Retric 3y ago
> precise neural firings and chemical pathways That’s not how science operates, it accepts best fits for existing data even in the absence of absolute knowledge. We didn’t need the DNA of every creature to have ever lived to construct the tree of life. It’s a model initially created from examining the structure of organisms both living and dead, which has been refined over time as we slightly alter things based on new evidence such as DNA. As a consequence things aren’t static, astronomers etc constantly refine existing models to fit new data. Thus the conclusion about what happens after death is subject to change in response to new data, but what we have today is still the current explanation based on existing evidence. What makes science useful isn’t exact answers it’s being generally close enough to correct as to be useful. Is Quantum mechanics a full explanation for every physical phenomenon? No, but it’s really difficult to notice the edge cases in your daily life.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Ah, I see. When you state that we know precisely how things work due to science such that there is no room for any unknown "consciousness," you don't actually need to know precisely how things work because that isn't how science works. Got it. By the way, I agree with you that it's not the state of science today, but I can imagine a world where we actually can do that if we get to the point where there is nothing unobservable about the mind. That doesn't make it scientific to categorically deny the existence of things that we don't know about the existence of.

Retric 3y ago

> precise neural firings and chemical pathways That’s not how science operates, it accepts best fits for existing data even in the absence of absolute knowledge. We didn’t need the DNA of every creature to have ever lived to construct the tree of life. It’s a model initially created from examining the structure of organisms both living and dead, which has been refined over time as we slightly alter things based on new evidence such as DNA. As a consequence things aren’t static, astronomers etc constantly refine existing models to fit new data. Thus the conclusion about what happens after death is subject to change in response to new data, but what we have today is still the current explanation based on existing evidence. What makes science useful isn’t exact answers it’s being generally close enough to correct as to be useful. Is Quantum mechanics a full explanation for every physical phenomenon? No, but it’s really difficult to notice the edge cases in your daily life.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Ah, I see. When you state that we know precisely how things work due to science such that there is no room for any unknown "consciousness," you don't actually need to know precisely how things work because that isn't how science works. Got it. By the way, I agree with you that it's not the state of science today, but I can imagine a world where we actually can do that if we get to the point where there is nothing unobservable about the mind. That doesn't make it scientific to categorically deny the existence of things that we don't know about the existence of.