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0 pointschaboud1y ago0 comments

So, in the absence of fully bearing out the complete pathways of experience (effectively, mapping, at the atomic, and possibly quantum level, everything in a person), we’re going to assert that some non-physical phenomena are afoot? That seems like we’re fishing in deeper and darker corners for the soul because we decided to ascribe significance to perception and experience.

It’s still not clear to me why qualia are anything more than the enshrinement of labels. Replace “description” with neuro-interfaced simulation, and the whole argument dissolves.

By asking someone to prove that consciousness is not a product of something outside of physics, you’re demanding that they prove a negative.

Let’s put it more simply: we have no evidence to indicate that human thought or experience require anything beyond the elements and nature of the physical universe.

Otherwise, we’re just trying to explain complexity not yet understood with religious attribution, and we should hang up our science spurs right now.

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fsckboy1y ago

you're mixing two things I'm saying, that we already know enough to realize that the hunter gatherer intuition of physical things becomes quite inadequate at the nano scale, so it's time to abandon it; despite that physics and physical share the same etymology, I'm not saying to abandon physics. And that consciousness and our imagination of things that don't exist do not require physical existence of things (using that intuition) so how can we say that we know what imagination is?

saying "but I believe in the materialist interpretation of modern science because I run from religion, that fusty old thing I fear, so I insist that consciousness be explainable by physical laws" is not a proof. I am an atheist, but our consciousnesses have created religion, so it exists as much as our other thoughts. What we see with our eyes we also are convinced exists, but in our heads, thinking about it, it has the same nature as our other thoughts, and imaginings.

chaboudOP1y ago

Okay. That I’m partly down with. Naming of objects is convenient, but very few objects that we name and count are, in fact, single things. That said, the categorization and grouping are awfully convenient for day to day living.

- that’s a long edit, but I’ll reply with a short one:

I’m not running from religion. I’m suggesting that enshrining consciousness as something ineffable and then demanding that it be fully mapped out by physics to not otherwise be a symptom of the preternatural is a sophistic argument.

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