[ExI] Science or Scientism?

[Will Steinberg]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2018, 13:25 William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
wrote:

> will wrote -
>
> I just think it is silly to believe that the other brute facts you refer
> to (such as the fundamental forces) are ubiquitous throughout the universe,
> but the brute fact of consciousness/qualia only occurs in brains.
>
> Au Contraire - I think since neurons are specialized cells found only in
> brains of some kind, that it would be strange indeed if they possessed no
> qualities distinct to them.
>

Sorry to be blunt, but with all due respect: that is an absurd proposition,
undeserving of an "au contraire" and unfitting for an intelligent ExI
poster like yourself.  There are plenty of relatively distinct cells in the
domain of life--electroreceptor cells in animals like sharks come to
mind--but that doesn't mean it would be at all sensible to deduce from
their existence that they were responsible an entirely new and different
aspect of reality.

 There's a difference between distinct structural properties and distinct
intrinsic properties.  I am perfectly willing to agree with the fact that
neurons may be structurally unique in many ways, but it does not follow
that their structural uniqueness leads to the creation of a completely
unexplained aspect of reality.

>
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