Does consciousness exist?

[Wootah]

Does consciousness exist?

Research links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscious ... sciousness.

https://www.google.com/search?q=does+co ... nt=gws-wiz

What do you think?

[JoeyKnothead]

Now personally as a Christian I think it does exist but from a materialist world view I am arguing it doesn't exist.

Of course, cause we're all just disembodied spirits.

Why do theists struggle to accept science?

[Tcg]

Why do theists struggle to accept science?

Now that is an interesting question. I suspect that many do and perhaps most all do if it has to do with how to get one's laptop connected to the World Wide Web or how to store food safely or how to determine if water is safe to drink. However, if the question threatens in any way to impose on some theist's belief in god/gods, science becomes very suspect.

As far as consciousness, there's no reason to conclude it is anything beyond one of the things the brain does. At least not scientifically. This reality of course bugs some theists as they want to conclude that it shows there is some extra special thing beyond the physical. The fact that it hasn't been shown to exist beyond the timespan of a fully functioning brain is a fact many want to overlook. This reveals that consciousness is NOT or at least CAN'T be shown to be the result of some extra special thing beyond the physical. It indicates that it is indeed a result of the physical.


Tcg

[Wootah]

Why do theists struggle to accept science?

Now that is an interesting question. I suspect that many do and perhaps most all do if it has to do with how to get one's laptop connected to the World Wide Web or how to store food safely or how to determine if water is safe to drink. However, if the question threatens in any way to impose on some theist's belief in god/gods, science becomes very suspect.

As far as consciousness, there's no reason to conclude it is anything beyond one of the things the brain does. At least not scientifically. This reality of course bugs some theists as they want to conclude that it shows there is some extra special thing beyond the physical. The fact that it hasn't been shown to exist beyond the timespan of a fully functioning brain is a fact many want to overlook. This reveals that consciousness is NOT or at least CAN'T be shown to be the result of some extra special thing beyond the physical. It indicates that it is indeed a result of the physical.


Tcg

I'm literally a theist arguing the brain does stuff and we think we are conscious and the atheists are arguing for consciousness as something special.

[JoeyKnothead]

I'm literally a theist arguing the brain does stuff and we think we are conscious and the atheists are arguing for consciousness as something special.

Actually, you're on record implying materialisys /atheists can't explain consciousness.

You'd do well not to make others arguments for em, lest ya expose your ignorance about it.

[Wootah]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #24]

Ok. Go. Make your argument.

[JoeyKnothead]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #24]

Ok. Go. Make your argument.

I propose consciousness is best understood as the end result of the senses progressing and becoming more intertwined with one another within the brain.

[Wootah]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #24]

Ok. Go. Make your argument.

I propose consciousness is best understood as the end result of the senses progressing and becoming more intertwined with one another within the brain.

posted just for reading. Use incognito mode and I was able to read it.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ciousness/

What is a sense? I guess you mean that our body interacts with light and particles, detects them and triggers other responses. How is that consciousness?

Do you think we have free will or everything is determined?

[JoeyKnothead]

I present my arguments as logical concluding based on my amateur understanding...

What is a sense? I guess you mean that our body interacts with light and particles, detects them and triggers other responses.

Yep.

How is that consciousness?

Gained somewhere along the development / refining of the various senses.

Let's imagine a line of critters developing these senses, maybe in this order...

Taste will come quickly, driven by a need to discern healthy from deadly. Touch allows for better understanding, say, what one has grabbed ahold of, or that one's being it aheld of.

Along the way hearing develops, to help avoid underground volcanoes (exaggerated example).

If only for me, sight becomes the ultimate sense. First, just the ability to tell light from dark has advantages, from predator / prey detection, to maybe telling shallow water from deep.

These senses get built upon and improved over a couple weeks, and we get a critter that can connect these sensory dots. It becomes successful enough to send it's offspring to sensory college.

The college grad now has an even better ability - a roar in the distance warns of danger, the view to the east looks safe. It utters an utterance, and sets off running. It's family hears the utterance, and they fetch off.

The million dollar question then becomes when did consciousness arise, cause we know it done did somewhere on that path.

Do you think we have free will or everything is determined?

Either way, consciousness sits right there, being all consciousnessy.

[Inquirer]

Now personally as a Christian I think it does exist but from a materialist world view I am arguing it doesn't exist.

Why do theists struggle to accept science?

I don't really understand how you can possibly believe that to be true, however that's your problem and I wish you luck in that quest.

Of course if we look at the facts we can see that most if not all, seminal contributors to science, those embroiled in the scientific revolution, across all disciplines, were all creationists, all believed in God.

Consider too the so called Needham question, could it be that a history of belief in the Christian God actually enabled the scientific revolution? made it possible?

Which of these individuals do you think "struggled to accept science" as you put it?

[Inquirer]

My own position on consciousness (I did watch the Dennett talk which though interesting was - to me - more about perception, optical illusions) is that we can't assume that we know what we mean by "understand" and until we do the question asked by the OP remains ethereal.

The fixation I see with trying to "define" it, is to me telling us something, that fact that we struggle with that is a clue to something, what I can't really say but I do have ideas.

To most people here "understand" carries the accepted scientific meaning, and scientific understanding is always an exercise in reductionism.

But what if something cannot be reduced? would that mean it cannot be understood?