Re: Conscious of the hard problem

From: Timothy Bates (tbates@karri.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Date: Fri Jun 25 1999 - 00:07:04 MDT


Ron McClain =
>> If some folks are going to hold that science can't explain
>> the subjective, then maybe there's no point in coming up with elaborate
>> schemes to prove that?

correct: these folks are just plain constitutionally incapable of
understanding how phlogiston, ether, light, magnetism & chemistry, and life
force all got reduced to heat, nothing, QED, and DNA respectively.
They also can't understand how a theory of the mind is possible. I am not
sure why, but having tried I accept now that it is impossible to convince
them otherwise - they can;t see it just like we can't hear bats. Sad but
true. Try not to have too many of them around you.

>>It seems that any scenario to prove the "failure"
>> of science on this, is itself going to be a kind of science or
>> engineering or materials scenario, maybe even involving "ghost energy"
>> of some sort? How can any materialist or realist scenario prove that
>> realism is missing an essential component?
They are unrealists - they don't have to prove anything - they assert it so
and that is proof. Just like Angela Dworkin claims that if any woman
anywhere, anytime, ever claims that a thing is pornographic, that that is
incontrovertible proof that that thing should be banned.
best,
tim



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