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Comment by torben-friis | Hacker News Reader

>Or, as Koch now startlingly suggests, it may be the case that the dualism between mind and matter is the obstacle for locating consciousness in the brain, and that matter already, somehow, experiences itself. Combining vitalism and materialism, the idea of panpsychism—that fundamental matter has conscious elements—is admittedly strange but, then again, so is consciousness.

What a weird ending for the article. Unless it was tongue in cheek, or I missed something, it sounds anticlimactic to go through an exhaustive description of scientific development to then finish mentioning such a hand wavy / mystical theory under a "we've seen weirder things" platitude.

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Agreed, a sensible overview of the history of research, and then a launch into cloud cuckoo land. It's as if the editor decided it needed to bring along the loons (who, it must be said, have the majority).

I have long wondered why so many people have such a hard time thinking of consciousness as an activity. "Where does the mind go when you die?" reads to me like "where does the flow go when you turn the water off?" or "Where does the signal go when you hang up the phone?", or even "where does the conversation go when you stop talking?"

I am also disappointed they did not mention frontal lobes, at least to say why not.

it’s not really cloud cuckoo land at least in terms of the philosophy of mind. dual-aspect monism and panpsychism are serious lines of thought in philosophy.

Not with any falsifiable basis. It all amounts to religion with the serial numbers filed off. If you want religion, go for honest religion. Dressing it up in science clothes benefits nobody.

If I'm reading it correctly, it's introducing a possibility that Crick hadn't considered: that materialism might be correct (as he thought), but the generation of consciousness isn't specifically located anywhere.

Sure, but it's obvious nonsense, just playing with words. If consciousness is a process that doesn't need for anybody to be doing it, why bother to look at people at all?

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