38oie4rcf4xim

I don't think philosophers would see Harris as their peer. It may also be questionable whether he was a neuroscientist at all (https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/neuroscientis...)

I'm the same person as the other two, sorry about the confusion, just temporary account per session - still setting up after reinstalling my OS again.

> I re-iterate my comparison to religion, theistic philosopher reason similarly about the soul/god/etc.

I'd guess most philosophers of mind would love to understand how - or show that mind is indeed physical. But it is not as simple a job as it might seem; like any rigorous subject, you'll have to have familiarity of the subject matter to understand why that is the case (and if you are looking for argument, one can't hope to summarize many years of technical papers and necessary background on a HN comment)

> What authority do philosophers have to label anything silly?

They are the expert of their field, why wouldn't they have authority there? If I throw out some idea about physics, I'd guess physicists should have first authority to decide whether my idea is silly.

> Reminds me of the claims made about religion vs science, that science can only study the 'physical', where religion is needed to explore the 'spiritual'.

As far as I'm aware, philosophy of mind has absolutely no religious motivations. Most are proponent of some physicalist theory, but many of those would probably say -we are not fully there yet to show how it is possible.