timtyler comments on Positioning oneself to make a difference - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Mitchell_Porter 18 August 2010 11:54PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (46)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: timtyler 19 August 2010 06:25:07AM 6 points [-]

I often talk about this in terms of vaguely specified ideas about quantum entanglement in the brain, but the really important part is the radical disjunction between the physical ontology of the natural sciences and the manifest nature of consciousness. I cannot emphasize enough that this is a huge gaping hole in the scientific understanding of the world, the equal of any gap in the scientific worldview that came before it, and tha the standard "scientific" way of thinking about it is a form of property dualism, even if people won't admit this to themselves.

I am among those who "won't admit this to themselves". In fact, I think it is nonsense - there is no "gap".

Comment author: PhilGoetz 19 August 2010 06:06:44PM 2 points [-]

Tim, that's an astonishing assertion. It sounds to me like you just claimed that we fully understand the mechanism that generates consciousness.

Comment author: timtyler 19 August 2010 06:52:45PM *  8 points [-]

Science doesn't understand how the brain works well enough to make one - but that is not more of a "hole in the scientific understanding of the world" than is embryology, or muscles or metabolism - which we don't completely understand either.

I don't agree with the bits about "quantum entanglement" or "dualism" either - this material is just all wrong, in my view.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 26 August 2010 10:56:48PM 0 points [-]

I wouldn't worry about the "quantum entanglement" part, which is not needed for the more general claim that we don't know squat about consciousness.

Anyway, I disagree - embryology, muscles, and metabolism are not mysteries in the way that consciousness is. I find it astonishing you would even make the comparison.