GeorgeKangas

> Without a placebo group...

You just needed to read the next paragraph:

"The 2026 multicenter placebo-controlled trial extending this work..."

That part of the book (Contact) really bugged me.

The definition of pi is what determines the digits of pi, FULL STOP. There's no room whatsoever, for any sort of agent to 'leave a message' in those digits. I would think even a full-on theist would be embarrassed to suggest otherwise.

Why is no one looking at the chance-giver, and considering his motive? One would reasonably assume he'd like to minimize the payout -- so he'd offer you the chance to switch only if you had chosen the richer envelope. The description explicitly allows this possibility:

"Having chosen... you are given the chance to switch"

Nowhere does it say, you'll be offered the switch no matter which envelope you choose.

Same idea applies, to the very similar Monty Hall problem.

Recognizing one's subjective experience (SE), entails knowing for certain that it exists.

That true statement is definitely not an argument in favor SE; it would be of no evidentiary value to a zombie, for example.

If and when you, naasking, have SE and recognize it: it's existence will then be impossible to doubt.

Dennett's position makes perfect sense -- if Dennett is a zombie. For a zombie, to whom subjective experience (SE) is not even a thing, the "hard problem" can only mean: why do people talk about SE? So that's what they set about explaining.

However, I don't think Dennett (or any human) is actually a zombie. The difficulty, is getting people to recognize their own SE. Our vocabulary, all about material and mechanisms, can't actually define SE. Instead, we have a few ostensions by which an attentive experiencer might recognize his own SE:

[Descartes] SE is that one thing, which absolutely must exist.

[Nagel] SE is "what it's like, to be...". He adds, that all our science is fully consistent with SE not existing. That's why it makes perfect sense for a zombie to believe it doesn't exist.

[Jackson]: Mary knows what seeing red is like, only when she has seen red.

Very well then: you either don't have SE, or don't recognize your own SE. My guess is the latter.

I don't think SE is exclusive to humans, but only humans talk about it, as far as we know.

If you start with material mechanisms, you'll never get subjective experience (SE) as a conclusion.

Start instead with SE, and then any sort of material universe can be the contents of it.

If one is a "phenomenological zombie", i.e. does not have subjective experience (SE), then Dennett's position is the only one that makes any sense. The only thing to explain, is why others are believing this SE illusion.

Those of us who do have SE, and have recognized it, know something the zombies cannot know: that SE must exist.

"you don't have conscious experience, you only think you do."

That's what illusionism, the position of Keith Frankish, asserts. Dennett mostly seems to support it, as you note, but more equivocally than Frankish.

For those of us who have subjective experience (SE), and are aware of it: SE is the thing, which we know must exist (as noted by Descartes).

Anyone doubting the existence of SE, either is not having SE (i.e. is a "phenomenological zombie"), or (more likely, IMO) has not identified his own SE.

One somewhat incremental approach, is called a hypercycle: several simple self replicators "form an alliance" wherein they promote each other's self replication.

Not specific to RNA.

And I'm not a biologist.

I can see two ways around the low probability problem, for RNA abiogenesis:

1) The crystal gene hypothesis of A. G. Cairns-Smith. As a clay crystal grows and splits, the info in the crystal's defect structure is replicating with impressive fidelity, and those defects also interact with the surroundings. So you get the Darwinian game bootstrapped pretty much for free. Later on, the crystals start using organic polymers; later still, the polymer technology is developed well enough to take over from the clay. So this might make abiogenesis reasonably probable on one planet.

2) An observable universe is just any epsilon size patch, on an inflationary universe. The space-time curvature of our whole observable universe is too small to measure, hence the radius of our inflationary universe is a large multiple of the 13 G-lightyear radius we can observe. So abiogenesis could be highly improbable in any observable universe, answering Fermi's paradox, yet be probable within the much greater volume of an inflationary universe (maybe this is what TFA said? TLDR [Edit: yeah, it says that right in the abstract]). And there could even be a large number of inflationary universes, for all we know.

I read (I forget where) that the Hindenburg's skin is where it started burning. The skin was fabric, painted with flammable shellac, and the shellac contained a lot of aluminum powder.

Thanks for replying, skohan! Since this item has moved far off the front page, I'm guessing that just about nobody else will be seeing whatever else we write here. If you wish, you can email me at [email protected] .

Descartes described the clearest identifying property of SE: it's absolutely certain to exist. Since absolute certainty lies outside the scope of science: science can't define what SE is, it can only describe what SE does.

Science doesn't rule out the philosophical hypothesis known as "illusionism" (advocated by Keith Frankish), that SE is a delusion.

If you, skohan, have SE and have correctly identified it: its nonexistence will be inconceivable to you. Are you there yet?

> ...the need some people seem to have to reach for an extra-physical domain for the mind to exist in.

It's because subjective experience (SE) cannot even be defined in physical terms. Or any terms, really. Instead of any definition of SE, all that's on offer are ostensions that will direct a reader's attention to his own SE if he's having it. Such as:

Descartes: SE is what you're absolutely certain must exist, even if everything else is an illusion.

Nagel: SE is "what it's like to be _____".

Nagel again (same paper, but not quoted enough): It [SE] is not captured by any of the familiar, recently devised reductive analyses of the mental, for all of them are logically compatible with its absence. [italics mine]

The word "turbocharger" was introduced to shorten the phrase "turbine supercharger", whether driven by the crankshaft or by the exhaust. Later, it came to mean "exhaust driven turbine supercharger" pretty much exclusively.

I don't have any dates for these usages.

Edit: that p-47 powertrain is an absolute beast!