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Ask HN: Once and for All

5 pointsata_aman11 comments

If you could research 'controversial' topics, what would they be? Things that are always debated but can be proven with data (let's assume the data is out there). Ex: global warming

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Ah! Just got into the life after death topic... what is our life on Earth about. And really this is controversial. It started when I read this book just last weekend, hasn't slept much since that, try to gather information and I'm getting mind-blown at every step. The book is Journey of Souls (https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Souls-Studies-Between-Lives/d...)

There is a good summary on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzwle9gjC2E

honestly, I don't think there is any data on that. unless someone has come back from the dead.

also this can take several definitions! depends on how you want to define the measure or maybe the research itself is finding that meter stick itself

The data might be out there but it doesn't mean less informed people will ever agree with you and no amount of data or reasoning can ever change their minds.

A better question would be, in this context, why research 'controversial' topics? If it's in hopes of persuading people to your point of view it seems like it'll be a futile effort.

Or because some people have personal believes, or simply cannot comprehend some phenomenons - by studying the topics you would 'demystify' them and explain them in a cartesian way to the general public

to be fair there are also more informed people who just never got to see the actual data. a lot of people say "okay we'll believe you, but show me the data." a lot of times, we tend to be stuck here. for the ones that will never change their mind, there's nothing we can really do.

Edit: I missed the "but can be proven with data" part of the OP. I'm not sure if any of the questions I ask here can be proven with data, I have no idea how to tackle any of these questions to begin with. Regardless, I think it's very interesting so I'll leave it here, especially because of the other post mentioning life after death.

Consciousness and everything related to it. Lucid dreams, the effect that different drugs have on consciousness, ranging from coffee to hallucinogenics, the space of human qualia.

Would it possible to add a new dimension to our conscious experience, for example, our best model of human color space is CIELAB, it has three dimensions, L, meaning lightness, A, where negative values indicate green while positive values indicate magenta and B, where negative values indicate blue and positive values indicate yellow, what if we could add another dimension to our color-space?

What would it take to measure qualia/conscious experiences, or, are they really "private" as Daniel Dennet claims?[1]. What would it mean for a human if we could "engineer" their consciousness.

What is the role of consciousness within the human brain?

Are non-humans conscious? Or, does consciousness exist outside of humans? Are dogs conscious? What about worms? Ants? Bacteria? Viruses? What about the USA? (https://www.physicalism.com/)

How can you objectively determine that "something" is conscious?

Was consciousness "recruited" by evolution? Just like how electricity was "recruited" by evolution, meaning it was naturally occurring before, but manifests itself in a far more complex way, being one part of a gigantically complex biological machine?

Is it possible to "share" or "conjoin" multiple consciousnesses? What are the ethical implications of something like this? Should judges be allowed to go "inside the heads" of victims, the defendant and witnesses?

I could go on for a while. I think the implications of finding answers to some of these questions would be unimaginable. I don't think any of this is feasible within the coming few hundred years, but perhaps we'll make some progress.

[1] private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.

although all very ... thought provoking ;) questions, like you said, finding data on these would be a feat

i think there are several topics out there than can be tackled with data. we're just too lazy (or the data is extremely hard to find)

The link between intelligence and genetics, and the genetic manipulation required to enhance it.

hmm, interesting. you mean if there are any genetic markers that show intelligence? also (this is probably more important), how do you measure intelligence in this case?

IQ, there has been some controversial research that pops up from time to time. It gets really controversial once race is added to the mix.

yeah I was going to say IQ but based on simple readings, there's better ways maybe?

also, could always use all of the meter sticks and see if there is a trend there. the more the meter sticks the better

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