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by 4e8riufc4m9rvif 3400 days ago
Phil. of mind and neuroscience has different subject of study, in most cases, beyond the basics, they can just ignore each other. I think you might have a very bad misunderstanding of what philosophy is.
2 comments

> beyond the basics, they can just ignore each other

To re-iterate, philosophy of mind chooses to ignore neuroscience. Again, more "you don't understand", but no substance.

See from earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=13758915&goto=threads%...

If not helpful, you may choose to look it up on Internet on specifics of topic of study, not sure what sort of substance would suffice.

If you want to look at a sort of caricatured version of this science-vs-philosphy-misunderstanding discussion, you may choose to watch this: https://youtu.be/9tH3AnYyAI8

> consciousness

> whether mind can possibly be physical

I re-iterate my comparison to religion, theistic philosopher reason similarly about the soul/god/etc.

philosophical junk. There's a reason "neuroscientists despise philosophers talking about conciseness".

> silly ideas about mind that philosophers wouldn't begin to consider

What authority do philosophers have to label anything silly?

> they study different things

Reminds me of the claims made about religion vs science, that science can only study the 'physical', where religion is needed to explore the 'spiritual'.

> I re-iterate my comparison to religion, theistic philosopher reason similarly about the soul/god/etc.

I'd guess most philosophers of mind would love to understand how - or show that mind is indeed physical. But it is not as simple a job as it might seem; like any rigorous subject, you'll have to have familiarity of the subject matter to understand why that is the case (and if you are looking for argument, one can't hope to summarize many years of technical papers and necessary background on a HN comment)

> What authority do philosophers have to label anything silly?

They are the expert of their field, why wouldn't they have authority there? If I throw out some idea about physics, I'd guess physicists should have first authority to decide whether my idea is silly.

> Reminds me of the claims made about religion vs science, that science can only study the 'physical', where religion is needed to explore the 'spiritual'.

As far as I'm aware, philosophy of mind has absolutely no religious motivations. Most are proponent of some physicalist theory, but many of those would probably say -we are not fully there yet to show how it is possible.

> like any rigorous subject

I don't consider it a rigorous subject.

> you'll have to have familiarity of the subject matter to understand why that is the case

Do you have this understanding?

> one can't hope to summarize many years of technical papers

Of course you can, that's what summarize means. Can you explain to me what 'technical' means in this context?

> They are the expert of their field

Phrenologists are experts in their field too; what authority does that field have?

> As far as I'm aware, philosophy of mind has absolutely no religious motivations

The comparison was wrt the study of doubtful concepts.

> many of those would probably say -we are not fully there yet to show how it is possible.

"not yet there"? We are not quite able to prove the existence of god either.

What progress has been made, in either case?

Not sure if I should continue to comment here.

> I don't consider it a rigorous subject.

Many universities offer undergrad, masters and phd level work in this subject. Could be helpful to know why you think it is not rigorous.

> Do you have this understanding?

Like I said, I have a beginner level interest in the subject, ie, I have taken a undergrad. level relevant course in psychology and one in philosophy of mind, and occasionally read related books.

Maybe you do have a full explanatory theory of qualia, of other mind, transcendence of objects in perception, unification of consciousness, how consciousness leads to another, forming the concept of "I" in addition to "me", how to speak of contents of consciousness in their own right and so on.

There's various thought experiments to highlight some of the basic problems that you have to go through, (ex: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/)

If you you have a complete explanation of mind in physical term, please do share or write some papers on some journals so people can slow down on AIs and start building a mind.

As an aside, ecrukjfxdiuu, - any relation to 4e8riufc4m9rvif ?
I'm the same person as the other two, sorry about the confusion, just temporary account per session - still setting up after reinstalling my OS again.
> Phil. of mind and neuroscience has different subject of study, in most cases

You may find the work of Patricia Churchland an interesting exception.

Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris#Neuroscience

of course, if you encounter philosophers/scholars/believers who argue about whether the mind can be physical, it's a lost cause..

I don't think philosophers would see Harris as their peer. It may also be questionable whether he was a neuroscientist at all (https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/neuroscientis...)
Can you explain what you mean by Harris not being accepted?
That was the nicer way of putting it, he is generally made fun of(or maybe that's my bubble, can't be sure) for oversimplifying philosophical subject matters...