Robin,

Thanks for your participation towards insuring we accurately represent what everyone believes. I see you canceled the submission by objecting with this comment:

'The "pragmatic implication" does not follow from not supernatural'

Could I get some more information about why you objected to this addition to the "Not Supernatural" camp statement?

<<< The pragmatic implications of this are that we believe consciousness to be approachable via the scientific method. We believe that scientific research will not only eventually result in a real understanding of what everything in the mind is and how it works, but also eventually allow us to artificially engineer, fix, and improve everything to do with consciousness and the mind. We also believe that such an achievement will turn out to be the greatest and world changing scientific discovery of all time. >>>

Do you just object to the wording, or do you object to the entire idea that consciousness is approachable via scientific investigation?

Brent Allsop

My camp, a sub-camp of this one, is called Consciousness is Subjective, Though Real. Here is a quote from it:

Scientific hypotheses might well involve the functions that we associate with consciousness, such as short-term memory, but any hypothesis that involves the concept of consciousness itself, as opposed to such functions, is unscientific.

For more, see http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/12

But maybe the most important point is that, just because we agree consciousness is not supernatural, does not mean we have to agree that all aspects of it can be handled by science. I say this point about science should be a subcamp of Not Supernatural, not part of it.

Robin,

Ah, yes, that is right. I knew you believe that effing the ineffable isn't possible and stuff, but I guess I didn't fully realize that the implication of your statement (and from the other stuff I've read from your work) is that it is not fully approachable via science. And I mostly forgot much of this, and that your camp is an important branch of the structure at this level.

I apologize.

So unless there are any other objections, I propose instead adding the following shorter version (the rest is already included at that level) as the 3rd paragraph (after the representational and the real paragraphs) in the 'representational and real' sub camp where it will not be supported by Robin's camp:

• we also believe consciousness to be approachable via the scientific method. Scientific research will not only eventually result in a real demonstrable understanding of what everything in the mind is and how it works, but also eventually allow us to artificially engineer, fix, and significantly improve everything to do with consciousness and the mind.

Thanks again for your continued involvement to be sure we keep everything in this survey properly represented as we improve things.

Brent