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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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"What you are doing is basically saying that you and all people are just mere electrochemical reactions in the brain - that there is nothing more to this." "I never said that, but it is your bias that made you think I said that."
yes, agree, I said it, but it's only because that's exactly what the materialistic perspective is. If there is no independent entity of consciousness, all that's left is just electrochemical reactions in the brain and the neural cells of the brain. Do you really insist that your feelings and thoughts and all other subjective experience are just the above? what am I missing here?
You seem to think that if consciousness is "electrochemical reactions in the brain and the neural cells of the brain" it is somehow diminished in value, that it isn't wonderous, amazing, fabulous. I gather this from your continued use of the word "just".
I don't need to think there is anything outside of my own brain making it work or that it is connected to something else, thru some sort of ether, to be utterly, totally in awe of consciousness. Neither do I need to think those things to understand consciousness exists.
IMO, thinking that consciousness is anything other than contained in the biology of the brain is woo woo.
"thinking that consciousness is anything other than contained in the biology of the brain is woo woo" - that's exactly what the article is denying. Do your own independent research to realize the severity of the problem
1. You assume that I've not done independent research. Interesting.
2. Severity of the problem? For whom?
"I don't need to think there is anything outside of my own brain making it work "
you - as an individual consciousness, is outside your brain (physical reality). If not, it means your are physical - mere electrochemical reactions of the neural cells of the physical brain
Exactly...but it's not 'mere'. It is amazing!
it is amazing, but it is also completely incomprehensible. Electrochemical reactions cannot experience anything. That's what the article is saying. Do your own research and realize that's what the vast majority of scientists/philosophers agree with. There is absolutely nothing in physics that has been discovered so far that even remotely points to how it even can be conceived in principle.
Incomprehensible...in/conceivable...
In the famous words of Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
hypothesizing that electrochemical activity of neural cells in your brain can feel and think - that's incomprehensible and inconceivable.
it's so much more comprehensible and conceivable that electrochemical activity of neural cells only interacts with something that is fundamentally capable of experiencing.
"it's so much more comprehensible and conceivable that electrochemical activity of neural cells only interacts with something that is fundamentally capable of experiencing."
The electrochemical activity of neural cells do indeed interact with something...other neural cells inside a cranium, producing experiences.
"The electrochemical activity of neural cells do indeed interact with something...other neural cells inside a cranium, producing experiences."
it's argued in the article that all of the above is not producing experience at all, but is only interacting with something else (something that is fundamentally capable of producing experience). Do you really believe that you (as someone who feels and thinks) are mere cells inside cranium?
"Do you really believe that you (as someone who feels and thinks) are mere cells inside a cranium?"
First, I don't *believe* it, I *think* it...two different things.
Second, yes, all that I am exists as a biological being.
Third, there is no 'mere' about it.
I understand what the article is arguing. I disagree with it and with you as you seem to consider it correct.
I understand what the article is arguing. I disagree with it and with you as you seem to consider it correct.
yes, definitely, I consider it very intriguing to say the least. I am not sure yet about its proposed solution, but I do agree with the thesis: neural cells are incapable to feel any experience in themselves - it's just carbon based dumb matter.
"neural cells are incapable to feel any experience in themselves - it's just carbon based dumb matter."
As separate items, yes. In combination, no.
As separate items, yes. In combination, no.
there is noone who understand this. It's 'magic'. Quantity does not translate into quality.
Wanna bet?
haha, yes, I would bet my life on that
Rubbish. Its entirely conceivable. There is no data to suggest that there is anything other than brains that can have experience. The problem is we can't know one way or another. Maybe bricks are conscious but we can't share knowledge of that experience with them so we have to be agnostic about it.
I don't insist the article has the right solution, but what you are saying is complete rubbish
That is a claim without argument. You are merely trying to bully your way into being right. Demonstrate what is rubbish or retract your assertion.
Consciousness may be holographic and utilize quantum effects.
Consciousness may be holographic and utilize quantum effects.
-) how does that explain experience? does hologram feel?
watch this video guys to get a better apprehension for the problem
http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2014/01/full_program_the_whispering_...
The whole article is entirely pulled out of a dark place where fantasy and wishful thinking lies. Honestly its all inconceivable that matter has consciousness? No its not, its very conceivable. The article ignores the fact that altering brains alters experience in repeatable ways, including halting experience temporarily and having reports back. The article ignores that brains do everything measurable and there is no need to postulate "something else" to predict the behaviour of the system. Brains don't interact with something unseen they just do what physics expects. The article does not consider that the experience of consciousness may be made up of many pieces, consciouslets lets call them. It bases its whole premise on the idea that consciousness is an indivisible whole. Yet we observe in hospitals and the lab that it is not.
"Brains don't interact with something unseen they just do what physics expects."
if you lived in a mathematical matrix, how would you know? Everything would still be consistent with your current believes, but you would be grossly mistaken about the nature of reality. It's the same here
"experience of consciousness may be made up of many pieces, consciouslets lets call them"
so now photons and electrons have consciouslets? This seems to be a much more inferior picture as compared to what the article is proposing
"Brains don't interact with something unseen they just do what physics expects.
if you lived in a mathematical matrix, how would you know? Everything would still be consistent with your current believes, but you would be grossly mistaken about the nature of reality. It's the same here
That is a non-argument. Saying you can think of a situation where we couldn't ever know that it was happening is merely acknowledging that we can't know about things we can't know about. That provides no support at all for the claim of a Cosmic Mind. You can define such things as the All Mind or The Matrix till the cows come home but you can only be "just making stuff up". There's nothing convincing about it.
You have to be able to test for something to raise a hypothesis or have some data that leads you to a speculation at least. Brains work just fine producing our physical and observable behaviours without the postulates that you favour. According to that postulate (consciousness informs brain) if your brain is "turned off for a bit" as with general anesthetic, consciousness continues. However there should then be a conscious memory of the time spent unconscious and there isn't. So that part of the proposal is totally incorrect. Yet that being incorrect leaves no "outside the brain" connection evidence to examine, so the postulate of a cosmic mind is simply unfounded.
"That provides no support at all for the claim of a Cosmic Mind.'
maybe it doe snot provide experimental evidence, but it does provide explanatory power that actually makes us comprehend the phenomena
"According to that postulate (consciousness informs brain) if your brain is "turned off for a bit" as with general anesthetic, consciousness continues. However there should then be a conscious memory of the time spent unconscious and there isn't?"
Have you heard of near death experiences in which a brain is clinically dead, but the person knows and even observed from aside what was happening during a surgery? Do some reading. It's not fiction - it's very real phenomena.
Oh, P GB...you just adore your woo woo, don't you.
NDEs have been explained by...
Wait for it....
Wait for it...
Wait for it...
Science!
And science says they are not, in fact, what you posit they are.
what are they according to you? Another bunch of baloney? Fraud?
Of course NDEs are real phenomena. They occur inside a brain, just like dreams. Dreams are feedback loops in a brain not receiving its normal sensory load and washed in mood chemicals. NDEs also have physical changes producing perceptual effects. You can measure the effects. Mind altering drugs, well, they alter minds. They change the experience of being conscious. Why? Because its a physical system in the brain and the drugs change the supporting chemistry.
There is zero evidence, zero, for consciousness beyond the physical matrix in which it arises.
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