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> unless you're a dualist, you have to admit that our biological brain is a massive bundle of cells from which consciousness somehow arises This is indeed a co

> unless you're a dualist, you have to admit that our biological brain is a massive bundle of cells from which consciousness somehow arises This is indeed a consequence of a physicalist/naturalist reductionist view. On that view, there is only natural entities and causes, and everything else reduces to just natural entities or causes. Therefore, as you imply, consciousness must somehow be explained by our biological brain or other natural entities/causes (note that I didn't say "arise", since some naturalists deny there's actually any such thing as 'consciousness' to be explained). But you can also approach this from the other direction: it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false. That's my position. There isn't even the seed of an explanation given naturalism, and I think the naturalist's best position is to simply deny there's anything to explain. The whole project, given naturalism, is hopeless. Again, it's not a problem of scale but rather kind. Naturalism just doesn't have the right building blocks to explain (or explain away) consciousness.

alexey-salmin 3y ago
> But you can also approach this from the other direction: it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false So you believe in a soul or what is the practical consequence?
simiones 3y ago
> it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false. That's my position. There isn't even the seed of an explanation given naturalism, and I think the naturalist's best position is to simply deny there's anything to explain. The whole project, given naturalism, is hopeless. Materialism (the much more common name of "naturalism") can, in principle, very much describe consciousness, if we understood the functionality of the brain enough. We already have an inkling, due to Turing: the human mind is quite possibly a computation, a mathematical object. Consciousness could then be an identifiable aspect of this computation. I do agree though that in general, the materialist position is simply that consciousness is just not that deep a mystery, and some of the "deeper mysteries" like qualia are nothing special that even needs any explanation.
- vonjuice 3y ago
  That if in the middle takes the same role and responsibility there than the religious' faith in god.
Xcelerate 3y ago
> since some naturalists deny there's actually any such thing as 'consciousness' to be explained > it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false I’ve always found the denial of the existence of experiential consciousness to be kind of funny. If you removed all my senses and put my brain in a vat to keep it alive, what would be left? As far as my brain is concerned, consciousness is the only thing for which I can be definitively certain of its existence. It’s a solipsistic viewpoint, because I can only prove that consciousness is real for me. And since I can’t prove that it is real to anyone else, it’s not “science” in the sense of the societal process that requires reproducibility among peers, but perhaps it is still science at the personal level since I can reproduce the observation of its existence to myself at any moment that I choose.
- Winsaucerer 3y ago
  > I’ve always found the denial of the existence of experiential consciousness to be kind of funny. If you removed all my senses and put my brain in a vat to keep it alive, what would be left? As far as my brain is concerned, consciousness is the _only_ thing for which I can be definitively certain of its existence. Yes exactly, it is the thing that is most familiar to us, most accessible, and the only thing of which we can be certain. Descartes in his Meditations went down this path, starting with that foundation. But I don't think you need to land on solipsism, because we don't have to believe only those things which can be proved. To me, it seems a reasonable hypothesis to suppose there are other consciousnesses. For an experimental line of thinking that leads to that conclusion, I would recommend the aforementioned Meditations. Many are tempted to think that the physical world is the certain thing that we have, missing the fact that we experience the physical world, and so it is experience that we have access to, not the physical world itself. That I am conscious and have experiences of such and such is the thing I am most certain of. Whether there are physical things that correspond to those experiences is an extrapolation.

alexey-salmin 3y ago

> But you can also approach this from the other direction: it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false So you believe in a soul or what is the practical consequence?

simiones 3y ago

> it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false. That's my position. There isn't even the seed of an explanation given naturalism, and I think the naturalist's best position is to simply deny there's anything to explain. The whole project, given naturalism, is hopeless. Materialism (the much more common name of "naturalism") can, in principle, very much describe consciousness, if we understood the functionality of the brain enough. We already have an inkling, due to Turing: the human mind is quite possibly a computation, a mathematical object. Consciousness could then be an identifiable aspect of this computation. I do agree though that in general, the materialist position is simply that consciousness is just not that deep a mystery, and some of the "deeper mysteries" like qualia are nothing special that even needs any explanation.

vonjuice 3y ago
That if in the middle takes the same role and responsibility there than the religious' faith in god.

Xcelerate 3y ago

> since some naturalists deny there's actually any such thing as 'consciousness' to be explained > it is impossible for naturalism to explain (or explain away) consciousness, and consciousness is real, therefore naturalism is false I’ve always found the denial of the existence of experiential consciousness to be kind of funny. If you removed all my senses and put my brain in a vat to keep it alive, what would be left? As far as my brain is concerned, consciousness is the only thing for which I can be definitively certain of its existence. It’s a solipsistic viewpoint, because I can only prove that consciousness is real for me. And since I can’t prove that it is real to anyone else, it’s not “science” in the sense of the societal process that requires reproducibility among peers, but perhaps it is still science at the personal level since I can reproduce the observation of its existence to myself at any moment that I choose.

Winsaucerer 3y ago
> I’ve always found the denial of the existence of experiential consciousness to be kind of funny. If you removed all my senses and put my brain in a vat to keep it alive, what would be left? As far as my brain is concerned, consciousness is the _only_ thing for which I can be definitively certain of its existence. Yes exactly, it is the thing that is most familiar to us, most accessible, and the only thing of which we can be certain. Descartes in his Meditations went down this path, starting with that foundation. But I don't think you need to land on solipsism, because we don't have to believe only those things which can be proved. To me, it seems a reasonable hypothesis to suppose there are other consciousnesses. For an experimental line of thinking that leads to that conclusion, I would recommend the aforementioned Meditations. Many are tempted to think that the physical world is the certain thing that we have, missing the fact that we experience the physical world, and so it is experience that we have access to, not the physical world itself. That I am conscious and have experiences of such and such is the thing I am most certain of. Whether there are physical things that correspond to those experiences is an extrapolation.