Proving What We Already "Know"

[bennyboy]

That's what I keep asking you - I'm not a mind reader.  It's very clear that there is some thing of value to you that you feel is harmed by exclusion from scientific explanations, but also by inclusion with scientific explanations.  It seems like it's experience, or something about our experience.   You talk about needing a bridge, for example, between how you experience the world and how it is.  The compartmentalization of truth as you see it that you make.  

You are trying to read between the words and see motivations, when the words themselves are clear enough. You keep asking "what are you worried about?" and I keep saying I'm not worried about anything-- I'm attempting to discuss rules for the perception and hopefully generalization of truth. Yes, as you know, I have an interest in mind as it relates to science, and I have some qualms about generalizing the study of objects to the study of subjectivity AS an object-- but I have similar qualms about ANY generalization that jumps context without really explaining why it's okay to do so.

If, for example, you were to say something like "QM is the best explanation for what matter is and how it works, therefore it's the best tool for studying everything at all-- including how plants have come to exist, how they function, and how we should interact with them," I'd have a problem with that. I'm not sure, in fact, that you could learn ANYTHING useful about botany through any amount of studying QM. Or about morality, purpose, mind or any of the other things a person might reasonably want to think about in their pursuit of understanding and meaning in life.

Back to my main interest-- mind. You could observe the human brain, and draw testable inferences about how ideas are formed. You could demonstrate that the brain does XYZ: say, runs signals first through parts of the brain known for identifying elemental shapes, then through parts of the cortex involving memories, then through the speech center where they are labeled with useful symbols like "fir tree." HOWEVER, if you were to generalize that understanding to a "science of sentience," and say for example that any android capable of approximating that process is really experiencing what things are like, then I'd want to know how you justify that generalization.