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Comment by fnordlord | Hacker News Reader

There are traditions that have explored consciousness for thousands of years before some of those mathematical/physical concepts and completely independent of them. My guess is that you'd file them into the nonsense box but I think they drill down into what consciousness a lot better than science has so far.

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Unfortunately, there have been traditions that studied the atomism theory for centuries too. Mostly I would say all of that ended up of no use until actual experimental and observational evidence arrived. Sometimes a new physical knowledge arises that despite past thinkers best attempt, they didn't have access to.

You certainly mean "a lot more", not "a lot better", unless you believe in another form of knowledge than scientific knowledge?

When it comes to the topic of consciousness, so far I feel science is not the right tool for the job. In the same way that a computer might store RGB values and be able to manage all the transformations necessary to render graphics, it's all a mathematical representation until it's left the screen. Science is that mathematical representation of the universe, consciousness is when it's "left the screen" and is experienced.

Those traditions, with their introspection and meditation, are drilling into experience of consciousness. Or that's my take on the whole thing.

Even if you believe it needs something more than science, your theory must first do homework to verify it does not violate any scientific principle (or can disprove that scientific principle), and you have exhausted all natural causes before positing your special cause. You still need scientific justification in that case too.

You complain that the map is not the territory, but the map was never supposed to be the territory, the point is precision of the map. The more precise is the map the better it is.

Me? No complaints here. I think I agree with you. The better our science, the more precise our map, right?

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