To compress a lot of thoughts into a small remark, I think both possibilities (consciousness is like electromagnetism in that it has some deep structure to be formalized, vs consciousness is like elan vital in that it lacks any such deep structure) are live possibilities. What’s most interesting to me is doing the work that will give us evidence which of these worlds we live in. There are a lot of threads mentioned in my first comment that I think can generate value/clarity here; in general I’d recommend brainstorming “what would I expect to see if I lived in a world where consciousness does, vs does not, have a crisp substructure?”
Hi Charlie,
To compress a lot of thoughts into a small remark, I think both possibilities (consciousness is like electromagnetism in that it has some deep structure to be formalized, vs consciousness is like elan vital in that it lacks any such deep structure) are live possibilities. What’s most interesting to me is doing the work that will give us evidence which of these worlds we live in. There are a lot of threads mentioned in my first comment that I think can generate value/clarity here; in general I’d recommend brainstorming “what would I expect to see if I lived in a world where consciousness does, vs does not, have a crisp substructure?”