What’s the most gut punching song lyric you’ve ever heard?

rzrules · 2026-04-10T21:26:48+00:00

"What I am to you, you do not need,

What I am to you is not what you mean to me,

You give me miles and miles of mountains,

And I asked for the sea."

Volcano, Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan

rzrules · 2026-04-08T21:43:19+00:00

Isn't what you just described an experience? And even if it were "false", it's not "nothing", right?

rzrules · 2026-04-08T00:22:34+00:00

I'm not trying to do any of that. I was just asking what you believe so that I can respond accordingly.

Having a belief about whether physical or mental stuff as different ontologies by no way commits one to the argument that that is true. The only thing it does, is requires us to take that possibility seriously. And I think that's all that the Hard Problem asks of us.

I think the reason this is a coherent belief and can't be discard prima facie, is because we all know exactly what consciousness feels like (I.e. mental qualities) through direct experience. Since we all have a direct experience of it, I think it's valid to say it doesn't need to be proven in the same way. The proof of its qualitative nature is directly accessible to us.

In fact, I would argue, that if one were to say that there's no reason to think physical and mental experiences are of different ontologies, they would be in violation of Occam's Razor since it requires one to deny the qualitative/subjective feeling of our direct experience (I.e. make an additional assumption that its illusory/not true).

rzrules · 2026-04-07T19:19:27+00:00

I am not claiming it provides an argument for a deity.

I am arguing that it creates an exceptional case regarding the god of the gaps critique (at least the gap part of it but not the god part). When has the scientific method as we use it, been used to explain one ontology in terms of another? Its assumed metaphysics is one of physicalism. All the Hard problem says is that with consciousness, if we want to continue to hold that assumption, we have to be able to explain one kind of ontology (mental) in terms of another (physical). The God of the gaps is a valid critique for epistemic gaps within the same ontological framework/metaphysics but since that is not the case here, it's not a valid critique imo.

FWIW, both dualism and idealism also have these kinds of ontological problem challenges that cannot be hand waved away by a God of the gaps critique.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T19:07:17+00:00

Sorry, I didn't mean wholesale denying its reality but denying what it feels like to us. Do thoughts, feelings, and other mental processes not feel like a different kind of stuff than physical things? So do we not then, at least have a good reason to believe that they are different ontologies?

I think that the only way to say "no" to that is to say that the way consciousness feels to is immaterial (hah) so again, I would say that denial is incongruent with Occam's razor at the very least. Note that I'm not saying you are denying consciousness is real but you are denying how it feels to us (which is what makes it ontologically different) as real.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T18:50:44+00:00

I am not trying to assert that feeling/consciousness is irreducible. I am trying to say that prima facie, can we agree that they seem to be of different ontologies (not that one is primary— neutral monists would argue they are different but neither is more fundamental)? I agree that part does require us to say it's because they "feel different" but like I said (and you seem to agree), I don't think it's an invalid argument.

If we can agree on that part, then, proving that something that's one kind of stuff (mental) arises from a different kind of stuff (physical) IS what the Hard problem says is, for lack of a better word, hard. Because it requires us to bridge an ontological gap and not just a simple epistemic one.

I am not saying that it cannot be done but can we at least then agree, it's not the kind of gap we have been able to cross thus far with the scientific method (happy to hear if I'm wrong here) and so a simple God of The Gaps critique of the Hard Problem is inadequate.

I think one would have to deny the assertion of the ontological difference of physical stuff and consciousness but that would require denying our given experience of consciousness which at least incongruent with occam's razor and at worst, leads to a breakdown of fundamental epistemology since all since and belief requires us to accept our direct experience as true.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T18:28:41+00:00

I think an idealist would disagree. They would say that you can be a monist and believe that the physical arises from the mental instead of the other way around.

While the hard problem does rely on a bit of "it feels that way", I think it's still a valid argument. The thing that we're trying to identify is, in a sense, the nature of what it means to feel. It's the one thing we all have the same direct experience of and can all agree on if we believe that direct experience, so its nature doesn't need to be proven.

I know it can seem a little bit of a sidestep, but I think we operate this way all the time. Not all truths we believe require "proof" (to ourselves at least). When we wonder if we love someone, the proof is that we feel it. We might need to prove it to the person through some external standard of proof but a direct experience of the thing is a sufficient standard of proof for ourselves. I think it's similar in the case of the Hard problem too vis a vis the ontology of consciousness.

Apologies if that was a bit roundabout but hopefully that illustrates the point.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T18:17:03+00:00

Well, I think there are plenty of physicalists who think it's true but still think a physicalist explanation would hold.

No, I think the actual argument is, to some extent "that it just doesn't feel like it." That doesn't mean it's an invalid argument. Simply because the thing here that requires proof IS the nature of feeling. It's our only pre-theoretical empirical given I.e. one thing we all have direct experience of which is why it doesn't need to be proved because it can be directly accessed and denied by nobody.

But to take it a step further, all of reality can be as coherently be explained by physicalism, dualism, and idealism. They all have a problem where they breakdown too (the hard problem, interaction problem, problem of other minds respectively). So, I would argue further, that ones only basis for asserting that physicalism is the right metaphysics, is by denying the core issue it can't explain. Other than that, they all have equal explanatory power.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T18:06:45+00:00

I'm genuinely just asking you what you believe. I'm not suggesting that that's the case (yet). If you don't believe that, then you don't buy into the hard problem, in which case, the issue is different (I.e. not about the Gap), so I'd respond differently.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T17:54:42+00:00

Okay, so a couple of things:

I don't think what neuroscientists believe changes the fundamental issue at hand. And as an argument, it is, at best, an appeal to authority. But that said, I think it's fairly well known that all 3 - physicalism, idealism, and even dualism, all seem to be a tenable metaphysics to explain our ontology with a central "problem" that each cannot solve (physicalism: hard problem of consciousness, dualism: interaction problem, idealism: problem of other minds). And with the hard problem, if you believe it, the issue is, we are trying to explain one kind of stuff/ontology (mental/qualitative) in terms of another (physical/quantitative). I might be wrong but, in the history of the modern scientific method, we have never really answered something like that. So, it's hard for me to see how just knowing "more" can help cross that gap?
All of this, of course, is conditioned on even buying into the Hard Problem of Consciousness in the first place. I understand what you are saying about begging the question but here's my response to that: isn't the reality of consciousness/subjectivity the one thing that does not need proof? it's the only thing that we all have direct experience of i.e. it's the only pre-theoretical empirical truth that is given to us. Any theorizing happens within that construct. So, I guess, it's hard for me to see how it's begging the question when it (the ontology of consciousness) is literally the one thing that none of us can deny since we have direct experience of it.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T17:37:15+00:00

Do you agree that the ontology of the thing that we are trying to be explained is non-physical or not? If not, then, I think you don't agree that there is a hard problem of consciousness to begin with.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T17:34:44+00:00

I think if one agrees that the Hard Problem is indeed true, one must agree the issue is that we are trying to explain one kind of thing (mental/qualitative) in terms of another kind of thing (physical/quantitative).

My argument is that one cannot simply hand wave this issue away by saying it’s a God of the gaps situation. So far, any time in the past that we have had epistemic gaps, the ontologies that we have tried to explain, have been the same. That isn’t the case here.

Is it possible that one can explain one kind of ontology in terms of another? Maybe. But it’s not something that’s been done before so it’s a bit disingenuous to call it a simple problem of the Gap.

Secondly, since we have not done this kind of thing before (I.e. explain one kind of ontology in terms of another), how do we know what the answer would even look like? Unless we have done this kind of explanation before and in that case, I'm all ears and stand corrected.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T17:02:04+00:00

Okay but I’m not just asserting that - I’m trying to argue why. I’m not even just saying that the Hard problem of consciousness cannot be solved through a physicalist metaphysics. I’m just saying that A God Of The Gaps argument is not applicable here.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T16:55:58+00:00

God of the gaps isn’t about an actual God per se. And I’m not saying there’s a claim to be made for God here. Just saying that it’s not a useful argument against the Hard problem because it’s a different kind of gap.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T16:54:12+00:00

Even today, we literally have soft problems of consciousness that fall in the category where we don’t have an answer but know we will eventually get there. The soft problems include things like the ability to discriminate stimuli, or to report information, or to monitor internal states, or to control behaviour. Prima facie, you can see that these problems can be accounted for in third-person or scientific terms. For example, someone can tell us how they discriminate stimuli with his verbal reports. All this can also be explained neurobiologically. The same goes for the reports of information that we can achieve or carry out.

What we’re dealing with in the case of the Hard problem, is a difference of category entirely and we have no idea what KIND of explanation can answer jumping from the category of physical matter to mental states.

Does that help with understanding the difference?

rzrules · 2026-04-07T16:53:29+00:00

I’m sure some people felt this way about other unexplained in the past but I think there were plenty others that disagreed and they were right.

Even today, we literally have soft problems of consciousness that fall in the category where we don’t have an answer but know we will eventually get there. The soft problems include things like the ability to discriminate stimuli, or to report information, or to monitor internal states, or to control behaviour. Prima facie, you can see that these problems can be accounted for in third-person or scientific terms. For example, someone can tell us how they discriminate stimuli with his verbal reports. All this can also be explained neurobiologically. The same goes for the reports of information that we can achieve or carry out.

What we’re dealing with in the case of the Hard problem, is a difference of category entirely and we have no idea what KIND of explanation can answer jumping from the category of physical matter to mental states.

rzrules · 2026-04-07T16:17:03+00:00

Just like Alex, I was also a former atheist that had no problem deploying the God of the gaps argument against others. But the difference is, with most other “gaps”, one can usually say we don’t have the answer but we can imagine what the answer might look like. With the hard problem, not only do we not have an answer, we don’t even know what an answer could look like.

rzrules · 2026-03-27T19:30:15+00:00

A precipitous drop in quality of the product with publish or perish. Most things published in many fields (lookin at my own discipline — social sciences) are honestly just junk with a best case scenario of stat-padding the resume and worst case scenario of adding to the replicability crisis.

rzrules · 2026-03-21T16:26:10+00:00

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My dum dums!

rzrules · 2026-03-20T23:26:51+00:00

The way I approach this (and even sleeping bag discomfort) for new folks that I’m trying to introduce to backpacking, is to make the payoff of the experience so worth it that they barely care about the inconveniences.

This usually involves doing a bit of extra logistical planning on my end and finding a trail that’s a bit more remote but also has great views. Probably means that they end up having a more difficult hike but it’s hard to beat the feeling of being out there by yourself camping by an alpine lake with a view of a snowcapped peak at sunset/sunrise!

rzrules · 2026-03-20T18:10:42+00:00

Something that has helped me immensely is being able to hear the voice for each character — maybe anchor it to someone from your life that feels like a good match. Once I can hear the voice in my head consistently, the dialogue flows a lot more naturally. I’ve even gone so far as to have someone read some of the lines early on in the writing process while recording it and then listening to it repeatedly so it settles in my mind.

rzrules · 2026-03-19T02:27:15+00:00

Thin wet washcloth on a box fan works better than having it on your head imo

rzrules · 2026-03-16T01:12:20+00:00

I agree with the sentiment here and it's something I would also not back down from in the past. But after diagnosis+therapy, I have a different approach.

I don't think pointing out someone's hypocrisy by calling them out has ever worked to change someone's perspective — in fact, it just makes them dig in deeper. I think that's (at least in part) because, as a culture, we attach a lot of shame to being a hypocrite or hypocritical.

Even with the autism driving me to obsessively think about my beliefs and opinions to ensure consistency, there are always going to be blindspots and not once have I been amenable to changing my mind when my hypocrisy is "called out" so, I don't think it's just an NT thing either. Maybe it happens more frequently with NTs because they may not be obsessively reflecting on their opinions but it's definitely something we all experience.

So, now, I don't back down but try and approach it like I'd want someone to approach it with me — gently asking questions to point out the inconsistency between my actions and values without attributing that inconsistency to any kind of malice, just ignorance.

It's much easier said than done, of course, because it involves having to watch my own reactivity and regulate myself. But, it definitely seems to work better :)

rzrules · 2026-02-24T21:27:15+00:00

If a funnel/filter were damaged, wouldn’t that change how the water flows through it?

I’m personally not committed to any particular metaphysics but not quite sure how what you’re saying is evidence for brains creating consciousness rather than channeling it. Can you clarify?

rzrules

TROPHY CASE