It’s important to note that talking about the world in terms of atoms and quarks is just using a particular language. The principle of Turing equivalence is relevant. (One weird idea is to talk about how many equivalent-of-bits it takes to specify the equivalent of Turing equivalence for the equivalent of a Turing language. “Analogy” is a cluster of confusing concepts!) Talking about souls isn’t taboo, and in fact I find it useful sometimes. The important part is having an accurate model of the world such that you can make correct testable predictions, and in fact that’s only important insofar as it helps you make correct decisions. Unfortunately, figuring out what “correct” means is an incredibly hard problem, and the language of moral absolutes is only so helpful. The important heuristic for using languages is to avoid the mind projection fallacy and instead remember that all maps can be inaccurate, including maps of maps.
It’s important to note that talking about the world in terms of atoms and quarks is just using a particular language. The principle of Turing equivalence is relevant. (One weird idea is to talk about how many equivalent-of-bits it takes to specify the equivalent of Turing equivalence for the equivalent of a Turing language. “Analogy” is a cluster of confusing concepts!) Talking about souls isn’t taboo, and in fact I find it useful sometimes. The important part is having an accurate model of the world such that you can make correct testable predictions, and in fact that’s only important insofar as it helps you make correct decisions. Unfortunately, figuring out what “correct” means is an incredibly hard problem, and the language of moral absolutes is only so helpful. The important heuristic for using languages is to avoid the mind projection fallacy and instead remember that all maps can be inaccurate, including maps of maps.