in thread "Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions by Eliezer Yudkowsky": I'm not familiar with Bergson's work, but I can never figure out why vitalism is always contrasted to materialism. The elan vital I've seen actually argued seems to a higher level description of the nature of life, spirit and consicousness, or even a philo... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) 44 I'm not familiar wit (view hidden) 44 the existence and physical uniqueness of life, broadly construed is your key observation here. It's not just like normal matter undergoing normal forward evolution. It's a special regime where relative to normal thermodynamics, it's almost like time and en... 5mo ago (collapse hidden) 77 the existence and ph (view hidden) 77 If consciousness doesnt exist in some physical sense, what causes you to talk about it? The p-zombie concept is incoherent as far as i can tell. Whatever interior magic makes the difference between zombies and conscious humans has no bearing on observable ... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) 55 If consciousness doe (view hidden) 55 I agree whole heartedly with this anon. "Gnon created consciousness" because the kind of animals we are and needed to be to fill the open niches in the world needed to be conscious in an entirely natural and straightforward way. Consciousness is necessary ... 4mo ago (collapse hidden) 33 I agree whole hearte (view hidden) 33