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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 10, 2016 13:30:42 GMT -6
What's the practical benefit(s) in understanding and contemplating the hard problem of consciousness? Does studying it lead us anywhere useful, or is it a red herring that distracts us from something more worthwhile? How so?
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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 11, 2016 22:42:30 GMT -6
Hey, don't everyone jump in on this at once, ok? No really, chill guys, the crickets are deafening. So, given how many responses at my questions (zero!), I'm going to take a crack at it myself. First, let's establish what the hard problem of consciousness is in it's most pure essence – it's just another idea. That's it. It's just another idea that everyone of us heard about and considered for some time because, at least, it's an interesting idea. But, it's actually an older idea in disguise. :::waves magick anti-bullshit wand::: POOF! Oh, look, it's just dualism wrapped up in a neuroscientific package. This begs the question: what practical benefit is there in reframing dualism in an equally unsolvable frame? It would be useful if you implicitly understand dualism but are the kind of person who immediately has a knee-jerk reaction of “DUALISM IS HORSESHIT!!!!” Ergo, Practical Purpose One: Allow people to discuss something that's “scientifically sound”-ing, that's not dualism (cause it's horseshit), but really, it's just dualism in science-y disguise. In other words, the practical purpose is it allows people who wouldn't otherwise consider dualism, well, to consider and discuss dualism.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 11, 2016 23:06:44 GMT -6
Some practical consequences of considering the hard problem of consciousness:
1 in considering it you begin to realize that even the most simple thing you take for granted – say, for example, the experience of this coffee I'm drinking – is a complete mystery with no explanation. It knocks the dust off your experience for a minute to two.
2 with its emphasis on subjective experience, it naturally leads to exploring one's own experience and following that, that one's own experience isn't quite as advertised, that it's entirely psychological in nature. This leads to objectively observing one's own subjective experience, then to understanding that experience has a structure, and from there, “one” has just invented NLP.
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