Conversation is the Nemesis of Scientific Thinking

The archenemy of scientific thinking is conversation, as in typical human conversational discourse, much of which is BS. I have become rather fed up with talking to people. Seriously, it is something of a problem. Fact is, folks are prone to getting pet opinions into their heads and thinking they’re true to the point of obstinacy, even when they have little or no idea of what they’re talking about in the first place. We all do it. It’s part of how the sloppy mind-generating piece of mea...

 The Concept of Supervenience and the Web

One view is reminiscent of the philosophical idea of supervenience [168, 169]). One discourse or set of expressions A supervenes on another set B when a change in A entails a change in B but not vice versa. So, on a supervenience theory of the mind/brain, any change in mental state entails some change in brain state, but a change in brain state need not necessarily result in a change in mental state. Supervenience is a less strong concept than reduction (a reductionist theory of the mind/brai...