To me, this is just obviously irrational and broken thinking, bread into us to help us deal with our obviously devastating mortality.  Do you ever fly? Up until about 100 years ago, nobody ever flew.  Should you also be arguing we wouldn’t be flying, if this argument is legitimate?  Along with everything else we’ve been doing the last 10 years that nobody has ever dreamed we’d be able to do.

 

 

Zak also asked about my beef with solipsism.  This is mostly only a beef with philosophers.  But for those that don’t understand the significance of the argument, are leaving out some significant theoretical possibilities of what we could uncover, as we dig deeper into consciousness.

 

The far more interesting theory is “Substance Dualism”.  As canonizer is proving, there are some very smart people that point out that this theory has in no way been fully falsified.  I think there is a clear scientific consensus, including Dennett, that there are qualia.  The only lack of consensus is the nature of qualia.  Nobody yet has a clue about what qualia are, or that they are even “physical”.  Most everyone agreed with Einstein, when we started looking into quantum mechanics, and figured: “God doesn’t play dice.”  We all know how that turned out.  If we falsify all known physical possibilities of what redness could be, it then must either be some new physics, or some properties of some spiritual realm.  I think people that don’t accept such ideas as real possibilities are missing out on a lot of what consciousness could turn out to be, and what the future holds in the science and engineering of all such.

 

Zak said: “Consciousness cannot be moved between bodies via silicon intermediaries.”  I’m not talking about anything even remotely close to this.  You must not fully understand what I’m talking about when I say “computational binding”.  Qualia are in no way properties of silicon or anything done with silicone, and “computational binding” is the opposite of any kind of “intermediaries”.

 

I’m still struggling with understanding exactly what Zak’s “metaphysical” ideas are, and why any of that would make any of this impossible “period”.  There is a near unanimous consensus that all of consciousness is “approachable via science”.  How could any of this be impossible “period”, if it is all approachable via science?  Once we discover what it is, whatever it is, we will definitely be doing everything we can to amplifying, extending, sending it all out into the universe….  What part of it do you think is impossible “period”?

 

Even at the next level down, “Representational Qualia Theory” where there is almost as much consensus around the general idea that we have qualia, and qualia are physical properties of something in our brain.  It seems to me all of the experts that have discovered and build consensus around this theory would agree that all of this makes everything were talking about, as Chance McDermott said: “seems inevitable...”

 

I’m thinking your metaphysics must disagree with something in the emerging near unanimous consensus that is rapidly developing that is “Approachable via Science” and “Representational Qualia Theory”?  What is it in your metaphysics that makes any of this impossible “period”?

 

Could we get your metaphysics  “canonized”, so everyone can better understand just what this metaphysics is, and how it is different from what is there, and so we can see how many experts agree, compared to competing ideas?

 

And for all you ditheists, if you really think you have some justified rational arguments, we should surely get them canonized here.  So far, no one has been brave enough to make a statement or any justification for being a deathliest.  My thinking is that anyone would think any such arguments would just be thought of as completely insane and irrational.  The thoughts of only crazy people that were about to die.  That’s all anything that has been presented in this thread, seems to me.