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You can hold up brain function as the great fortress of the invisible, because brain science is really, really hard, but what will you do if it falls?

I will accept the fact with good grace.

My point was that Profs. Pinker and Dennett insist on materialist explanations for something that is immaterial. That is to say, they deal with the issue of brain function in its most reductionist form. And it is possible that reduction makes it impossible to come to terms with the problem of consciousness -- which is the very thing they purport to study. They haven't made much of a dent in my little "fortress of the invisible," which is consciousness, after all.

Maybe brain science is "really, really hard" because the fundamental assumption of current approaches to it is erroneous. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as they say -- no matter how hard you try.

Maybe brain science is "really, really hard" because the fundamental assumption of current approaches to it is erroneous.

Some problems are just hard. I would suspect incomplete and insufficient rather than erroneous.

Here's the nub of the difference between you position and mine: I would assume the problem can be solved and devote resourses to its solution; I don't know what you would do. Rationally, if you believe something is forever out of reach you would not expend effort reaching for it. My point is that there is a history of this dispute in all branches of science an medicine, and the naturalistic approach always moves forward.

I would distinguish between saying something can be done and saying we are currently on the best path. So I am willing to accept the possibility that many of my pet beliefs will become obsolete, but in the same sense that cars, radios, computers and medicines become obsolete. To be replaced by something better does not mean that the earlier versions were invalid in their time.

Thank you so much for the heads up to your post! You said:

That is to say, they deal with the issue of brain function in its most reductionist form. And it is possible that reduction makes it impossible to come to terms with the problem of consciousness -- which is the very thing they purport to study.

Indeed. The previous excerpt on dimensionality from your author is a great example and very relevant to this case. Our senses and thoughts have a natural boundary of three spatial dimensions plus time. It is the "curse of dimensionality" explored in more detail in the link by that name in the above article.

In that regard, the metaphysical naturalist view that nothing exists outside of nature is a blindfold. Somebody used this anthill metaphor on a previous thread: all the ants are quite convinced their entire existence is within the domain of the anthill - that is, until someone comes and steps on it.

Maybe brain science is "really, really hard" because the fundamental assumption of current approaches to it is erroneous. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as they say -- no matter how hard you try.

I suspect that what happens in and between those synapses that you're pretty fascinated with tortoise, has greater complexities than galaxies (yes, in topological and systemic senses). But... the jury is out as to how much of this complex occurs in the physical realm, now isn't it? Maybe that particular jury is in its own conference room and prefers to keep it that way, ordering-in pizza and Chinese as it wishes.

One might conjecture there is a clue to this special transcendent interface in that there is an in-between in between synapses.

Sister Jean, if I did believe in spontaneous evolution, I might wish to study you. As it is, I never cease to be one of many, studious.