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0 pointsabritinthebay8y ago0 comments

Well the rampant disregard for evidence instead favoring personal emotional experience is not exactly a good look if you want to be taken seriously scientifically.

You could point to all manner of quantum-woo that uses similar arguments (basically everything from the atrocious What The Bleep Do We Know "documentary" for example).

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placebo8y ago· 2 in thread

I understand, though I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here, especially since unlike quantum-woo BS, the hard problem of consciousness or the essence of "matter" is nowhere near being solved, (and I would argue unsolvable using any scientific method), so I try to differentiate between people's subjective feeling about it vs their competence in the scientific realm.

abritinthebayOP8y ago

Ehhh, I think the thing that is most telling about both of those is that many scientists don’t see that as even well founded as problems.

Amongst neuroscientists it’s often called “the hard non-problem” for example.

placebo8y ago

With all due respect, I take the opinion of neuroscientists on the hard problem of consciousness as seriously as I'd take the opinion of a Zen master on issues in neuroscience.

The fact that neuroscientists might one day deliver an explanation of the soft problem of consciousness (i.e understanding exactly how the brain works and the exact correlation of every state and process to the corresponding subjective experience) will not bring any of us one iota closer to understanding the hard problem. In this case, the fact that one does not recognise there is such a problem implies ignorance more than anything else.

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