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eternal_neophyte comments on ​My recent thoughts on consciousness - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: AlexLundborg 24 June 2015 12:37AM

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Comment author: eternal_neophyte 25 June 2015 10:28:06PM *  0 points [-]

It is not that the hypothesis is absurd, but that it is useless

All philosophical concepts are in a sense useless except insofar as they can limit what you attempt to do, rather than open new avenues for investigation. Panpsychism limits the possibility of investigating the ultimate nature of mind in the same sense that materialism limits the possiblity of investigating the ultimate nature of matter - given that everything is made of mass-energy, you could never disconfirm "X is composed of mass-energy". Materialism is quite useless, in the same way as Panpsychism.