this is just a quick riff on what struck me personally, so i highly encourage giving it a listen as the entire episode felt like a tour de force in epistemic humility, something i’d like to emulate

megan ends w the fact that phil/sci doesnt happen in a vacuum – its a social enterprise, which resonates w some thoughts ive had about the possibility of discovering the ultimate nature of reality without being able to convince other people (spoiler: i dont think its possible/meaningful)

in my own musings on Consciousness, i’ve similarly been curious abt the possibility of axing certain “isms” but keeping others, like physicalism, albeit with some caveats
(warning, blatant speculation in attached image)

for instance, physics may well be a useful framework for understanding many phenomena, but may not be an ideal lever at all levels of analysis, or as lauren puts it:
“depending on your explanatory target of interest, the factors that give you control might be at a higher scale”

i also enjoyed hearing lauren caution against reductionism, while still carving out a place for a kind of physicalism that doesn’t exaggerate its place on the explanatory continuum

i like to think of myself as a philosophically interested scientist-in-training (with still a lot to learn!) so it was validating to hear her perspective that interdisciplinarity shouldnt *just* happen between two people from different fields

as well as her defense of bridge-building as not only a worthwhile endeavor, but a legitimate and necessary kind of expertise to cultivate

i enjoyed hearing abt megan’s collaboration w someone outside of her field and w whom she was able to converge on a common “problem shape” despite differences in lower-level details, as an example to follow for younger sciences;

somehow this isn’t persuasive to many people, what gives?

i’ve heard materialism justified through an appeal to the “historically winning team”, but then how do we get exhaustive quantitative accounts of fundamentally qualitative things? the Qt stuff exists to index Ql regularities, so idk how the map can ever become the territory

very interesting episode, thanks. as someone who’s been flirting with idealism, im curious what lines of argumentation you feel are most compelling when discussing these issues w materialist colleagues? @evanthompson.bsky.social

would love to lend a hand as open-ended verbal reports + LLMs is in my wheelhouse. can share some ideas in DMs.