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Comment by alienicecream | Hacker News Reader

So? Lack of evidence is not proof positive of the contrary position. Even if you accept that there is no evidence, which is doubtful in itself since the fact that only humans seem to be able to think the way humans think could be considered evidence.

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It's pretty strong evidence! We understand the basics of how humans (or living things in general) are constructed, and in that framework, built out of physics and chemistry, there's no space for special magic stuff; anything biology can make is made of atoms and could in principle be replicated. Even if there's some exotic whatsit we have somehow not been able to detect thus far, something that lives outside of our existing scientific theories, that would simply require updating those theories, and then figuring out how to follow the same steps biological systems do. Thus, the idea that there is some other "non-physical" thing intrinsically inaccessible to us is an extraordinary claim.

You similarly have no direct evidence that there isn't a bottle A&W root bear on Europa, but our understanding of the history of humanity (and root beer and space travel) makes it very unlikely. It is reasonable to conclude that there is no such bottle, and wildly unreasonable to posit that there is.

Edit: added the word "direct" + minor clarifications

> Even if there's some exotic whatsit we have somehow not been able to detect thus far, something that lives outside of our existing scientific theories, that would simply require updating those theories, and then figuring out how to follow the same steps biological systems do.

Assuming the whatsit could fit into the materialistic/mechanistic framework. But that's not necessarily the case.

> You similarly have no direct evidence that there isn't a bottle A&W root bear on Europa, but our understanding of the history of humanity (and root beer and space travel) makes it very unlikely.

I didn't make a claim, I asked you how you can be so sure of your claim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

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