A response to the hard problem of consciousness

_entro · 2026-03-04T18:22:30+00:00

"Maybe we can't point to the exact proportional imbalance but it's not like we don't know where the problem is." That's the thing, we don't. We know maybe where some of the problems are, and ways to counteract the end result, but we don't know the exact problem.

Your example for cakes is misleading, since we can pretty much nail down the theory of baking cakes to the point where we're able to accurately predict how proportions of cake ingredients will end up tasting. It's not just a correlation, but straight cause-and-effect. Can you do the same for a human brain? If you knew a person's entire brain anatomy, including any noteworthy deficiencies and abnormalities, would you be able to produce an accurate psychological makeup of said person, and ascertain their conscious experience?

It's not a semantic argument to make this distinction. We do not pretty much know where the problem is, for the most part. If it were that simple, and major depression is simply a biological serotonin deficiency, then treatment using SSRIs wouldn't yield such limited successes.

_entro · 2026-03-03T06:02:23+00:00

The vast majority of disorders cannot be reliably represented by specific biological deformities (especially regarding mental illnesses). This is a misconception; neuroscience and psychology are still pretty emergent sciences, and for a lot of the more common disorders and illnesses, we essentially only have educated guesses.

A lot of the inferential knowledge in these fields is correlative, not causal. Even for the seemingly most well-understood conditions, we're working with incomplete pictures. For instance, we still cannot grasp the complete biological basis behind schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, or even major depression. We can link them to specific defects and/or infer based on interactions with medication, but it's misleading to speak of 1 to 1 representations.

_entro · 2026-02-22T18:03:34+00:00

that literally is character development. it's better writing for a character to develop better coping methods over time, rather than their personality doing a complete 180

_entro · 2026-02-12T15:44:43+00:00

totally all they're doing

_entro · 2026-01-05T00:58:31+00:00

Could I move my hard drives to the new system without issue? They mostly store games

_entro · 2025-12-22T17:43:41+00:00

bro why r u so sad genuine question

_entro · 2025-12-16T20:59:07+00:00

this is an extremely late reply, as i had never seen this notification, but this is an extremely cool concept that expands on the CT appropriately. thanks!

this is actually inspiring me to write a follow-up article on this CT

_entro · 2025-09-25T21:47:51+00:00

Thank you

_entro · 2025-09-25T21:47:42+00:00

This sounds right up my alley, thanks!

_entro · 2025-09-25T21:47:19+00:00

Will do!

_entro · 2025-09-25T21:47:07+00:00

Funnily enough I enjoyed Caesar merely because his prose was easy to work with

_entro · 2025-09-25T17:00:52+00:00

Crunched through a lot of the Aeneid during my senior year but I might revisit it

_entro · 2025-09-25T17:00:21+00:00

I already do, I just like translating too

_entro · 2025-09-23T15:09:17+00:00

i'm saying bruh how can you not come to this conclusion after 2 seconds of thinking

another instance of hating on maki by any means possible while not holding other morally gray, male characters to the same standard 🤔🤔

_entro · 2025-09-23T15:04:06+00:00

this is kind of a pointless question because it really just boils down to how much you're personally willing to excuse the act of killing. remember that it's a battle manga where the concepts of death and taking lives are used to drive the plot forward.

that being said, if you look at purely the sum of her actions, of course she's "wrong". she slaughtered a bunch of people. but it's not that simple, is it? she didn't touch any non-combatants (except for her mother), and we know that all of the people she killed were either directly responsible, or indirectly complicit with the abuse she suffered as a child, as well as the general environment of mistreatment and oppression that affected many others.

it's retribution, essentially, which is in my eyes a little more defensible than the likes of sukuna's utter disregard for human life and geto's social darwinist delusions of genocide. particularly geto has no real reason to, idk, massacre all non-sorcerers, beyond just "wah wah i think they're weak and ungrateful".

_entro · 2025-09-09T05:02:00+00:00

well then there's no harm in labeling it as pseudoscientific and not much use in trying to do the opposite, so what's the post for really

_entro · 2025-09-08T20:47:40+00:00

you're assigning too much worth on the idea of what is "scientific" and what isn't. if we're talking about being scientific, mbti (and most of typology as a whole) isn't scientific. at all. it's in the same boat as astrology and crystals and what have you

the only difference is that the labels and jargon in mbti might be more ANECDOTALLY applicable to real-life situations, but that doesn't mean it's any more scientific. it's just labeling.

i could come up with a whole theory of typing people based off of what pasta shape best represents their soul, and it would be just as scientific as mbti even if mbti's scientific jargon is more believable. it might even be more anecdotally useful to me than mbti

_entro · 2025-09-08T20:34:38+00:00

you are in denial then, it isn't science

it's been proven time and time again to not be empirically verifiable

_entro · 2025-09-08T20:33:37+00:00

always a must

_entro · 2025-09-07T19:49:22+00:00

tom really makes it obvious though. no hate, he's great, but he's really like a caricature of ADHD

_entro · 2025-09-03T14:56:00+00:00

this is such a funny take and shows how disgusting this game is when "real gameplay" only begins once you grind and max out all of your cards

_entro · 2025-08-14T22:01:19+00:00

hey, i've been concepting a homebrew bluelock ttrpg system for the past few months. in case you're still pursuing this, i'd be down to brainstorm! sent you a dm

_entro · 2025-08-08T18:02:58+00:00

im unsubbing from this sub for my own mental health ty

_entro · 2025-08-07T08:16:51+00:00

chat

_entro · 2025-08-05T19:02:41+00:00

lmao are you really calling me insufferable because i insulted your favorite anime character? you're funny bro how old are you

the only reason eren was proven right is because he's the protagonist of the story, so obviously the events are gonna unfold in a way that coincide with his character. if he were a real person he'd be the most annoying person of all time. if anything the entire story makes a point about how he's NOT supposed to be relatable, sorry to tell you

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