The person who decides to become a scientist does so on the basis of belief and desire, not on the basis of a demonstration (knowledge rather than belief, and knowledge derived from other knowledge). This decision can be a reasonable decision... albeit a leap in the dark (note, by the way, that I said "dark," not pitch-black). This sort of reasonableness makes possible the sort of reasoning engaged in by scientists. And perhaps, at the end of the day, when it comes to applying the fruits of scientific discovery, a similar leap in the dark is called for. In such a case, concrete beliefs about how to satisfy my most important desires are the beginning and end (in the sense of "purpose") of scientific inquiry.
This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...
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