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Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

It's unfortunate that you're being downvoted. This is a classic and unsolved problem in the philosophy of mind and the people stating confidently that of course the mind is a purely physical system are ignoring many problems with that hypothesis, not least the lack of any conclusive evidence for it.

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Can you really have conclusive evidence for "there is no magic"?

You can. We have a complete reductionist account for how computers work. We know there's no magic. We don't have such an account for the human brain, and it's hard to see how any explanation of brain function could account for consciousness (i.e. subjective experience). The most likely explanation in my opinion is that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe that our minds have evolved to tap into.

Don't ask people to prove a negative.

That's rather the point.

Oh, yes, the lack of fine grained knowledge/easy understandable particle-physics allows for everyone to postulate the most fantastic theories into the percived gaps.

I for once believe that at the neuronal level, the sugar is spun into little pixies that fly around in the brain transfering information.

Dementia is occuring when somebody does no longer believe in fairys - and the little sugar elves die. So its always good to start any conversation on this with "I-do-believe-in-fairys" to keep the memory fresh.

Is admitting that we do not know so uncomfortable that you must invent fairy tale strawman arguments to cover up our ignorance? Hubris is the antithesis of science.

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