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Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

Fudbucker said:
So there are only two other competing models of reality if materialism fails: dualism and theism. Theism gets a huge boost if you knock out materialism.
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No, that's not how it works. Eliminating one hypothesis does not make the other more likely.

Nobody just throws up their hands and says "to hell with it, if materialism can't answer it, I guess we'll just have to give up". What happens is, you look for a conventional explanation. When that doesn't pan out, you start looking at unconventional explanations. When those don't pan out, you start to look at really out-there explanations.
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All of those explanations have to be testable, however.

Everything is unproven, before it is proven.
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A pointless truism.
 
Fudbucker said:
I think we should leave it at: you have faith in the scientific track record; and I think past performance is no guarantee of future results.
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That's nothing but a rationalisation to hang on to your own faith.

smartcooky said:
For mine, conciousness is something I experience. It exists, and I don't much care why. If it didn't exist, well we would not be having this discussion.
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I think we would. We'd just be unaware bio-machines pretending to be conscious.

And maybe we are.
 
Fudbucker said:
This is wasted on me, I'm not a theist. My point is that materialist-based science has failed on this. Some people are hypothesizing a possible consciousness field that permeates the universe. Research along those lines might turn up interesting results.
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Something that we now know cannot exist. Your problem really is that you consider others are limited by your ignorance and inability to understand the world around you. Your understanding of the world seems to be stuck back in the 1950s.
 
Argumemnon said:
...consciousness isn't what we thought. It's a process of the brain, not a separate thing.

Of course, the premise isn't true. Science can.
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This is the key.

I would be very surprised if fudbacker will supply us with a definition of counciousnes that isn't self referential.

In everyday speech we use our old folklore when we talk about thinking and counciousnes, like we all talk about the sun rising in the morning even though we now know that the sun does not rise nor set. The meaning of sunrise has had to change to accommodate our better understanding of the world.
 
Fudbucker said:
If materialism is true, then consciousness arising from a lump of meat is an ongoing miracle...
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A correction:

If materialism is true, then consciousness arising from a lump of meat and only that particular lump of meat is an ongoing miracle...

Materialism is as absurd as fundamentalist religion. Indeed, it is a religion, just without the god.
 
Mojo said:
How do you plan researching it without involving materialism?
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This of course is FUD's conundrum. The suggestion that these things are transcendent and 'out there' eliminate any actual investigation leaving us with no path to discovery.

To my knowledge, i only have interacted with material phenomena and have no way to know that I have interacted with the immaterial so how the hell do we even begin to investigate it? Conduct seances? Pray? Throw chicken BONES? Question a yogi?

Also, EVERYTHING that is immaterial is totally hypothetical and the moment it ceases to be hypothetical, it becomes material. Gods, spirits, demons, fairies, universal minds etc, and anything else that provides no credible proof of its existence is no more than a thought. None of which has any more validity than the other.
 
baron said:
A correction:

If materialism is true, then consciousness arising from a lump of meat and only that particular lump of meat is an ongoing miracle...

Materialism is as absurd as fundamentalist religion. Indeed, it is a religion, just without the god.
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Nonsense. If there is anything outside the material, PROVE IT, If tthere is any so called consciousness outside a material object, PROVE IT.

You can't. But don't feel bad. No one else can either. All you are doing is making castles in air. The immaterial is only real in your mind and your mind doesn't exist without that living piece of meat it is associated with.
 
acbytesla said:
Nonsense. If there is anything outside the material, PROVE IT, If tthere is any so called consciousness outside a material object, PROVE IT.
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If you had any concept of science you would know it was proved over 100 years ago. Materialism is an absurdity. Matter does not exist. Maybe you're a bit behind the times and still think atoms are little balls that bounce around, just like tennis balls except smaller. Drill down into a macro object and at the quantum scale you find there are no objects, only forces and potential. There is no determinism, only probability that coheres on macro scales. Materialism suits the ignorant and unimaginative very well until even they have to acknowledge the tenuousness of their position and compensate by frantically equivocating, inventing dozens of different flavours of materialism in a desperate attempt to cling to their non-evidential worldview.

acbytesla said:
You can't. But don't feel bad. No one else can either. All you are doing is making castles in air. The immaterial is only real in your mind and your mind doesn't exist without that living piece of meat it is associated with.
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Oh, my mistake, you don't even know what materialism is.

Have a good new year.
 
baron said:
A correction:

If materialism is true, then consciousness arising from a lump of meat and only that particular lump of meat is an ongoing miracle...

Materialism is as absurd as fundamentalist religion. Indeed, it is a religion, just without the god.
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Is it a miracle that "60 km/h" arises from a functioning car? Because there's no difference between "going 60" and "experiencing". The only difference is one that you imagine because you want consciousness to be special.

And how can the absence of belief be a religion? Make sense, man.
 
baron said:
If you had any concept of science you would know it was proved over 100 years ago.
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It should be easy for you to support that claim, then.

Materialism is an absurdity. Matter does not exist. Maybe you're a bit behind the times and still think atoms are little balls that bounce around, just like tennis balls except smaller. Drill down into a macro object and at the quantum scale you find there are no objects, only forces and potential.
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And that's what we call matter.

And as we've shown in the past your grasp of quantum mechanics is lacking.

Oh, my mistake, you don't even know what materialism is.
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Given the above, that's quite an ironic statement.
 
The idea that getting a better understanding of what matter consists of disproved materialism is ... odd. I sort of understand what baron is getting at, but I don't think it really stands up.
 
baron said:
I haven't read most of the thread, but has evidence of this been linked to?
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Been linked to in a few other threads but not this - this thread just seems to be for flat assertions so I didn't think necessary to relink.

There simply isn't a gap left for such an unknown mechanism to work - we've only been able to say that with confidence in about the past 10 years - I find it awe inspiring what we now know. (I also find it very disappointing in a way as we now know there is no magic.)
 
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