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by hnfong 988 days ago
> The reason some of us don't believe that consciousness is something else than the state of a brain following physical processes is that the latter is a much simpler theory and matches every objective observation we can make.

I have personally seen and experienced things that cannot be explained by these physical theories, and while you may want to just throw those observations as delusions or fraud, consider how the standard process of deciding what counts as “scientific evidence” is biased towards those that are consistent with the status quo.

You actually don’t need to look too far to find things that don’t quite sit well with the established theories. Those that are not obviously fraud. People then just casually explain them away as coincidence or physiological illusions or the like.

I can totally understand how people can convince themselves that the established theories are sufficient unless and until they experience a dramatic event that throws them off course. That said the rabbit hole is truly deep if you actually spend time searching for info.

I’m just trying to tell you that the quoted sentence is just plainly wrong. I have no obviously better theories however, and to the extent that modern science can convince a large part of the population that the quoted sentence is correct shows how reasonably well the theories of modern science holds up to scrutiny. I just think it’s a disservice to all to brush away the weird bits that don’t fit.