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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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Nothing about the very specific arrangement of matter explains why there has to be an awareness behind the matter and the electrical processes of the brain. However, as long as it exists, it would be trivial to see if the perfect copy with sufficient fidelity shares that awareness with me. If it doesn't do so while I live, I'm not about to count on it doing so after I die, simple.

(You don't have to bother asking me how I know whether or not the awareness exists. It's self-evident to me and I'm not a solipsist so I don't believe yours isn't self-evident to you, either. I consider the denial of self that's common in rationalist circles to be stubborn attempts to does-not-compute reality into the bounds of their theories. Call dualists incoherent all you want, as long as you have the guts to admit you don't have the answers either.)