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It's well-established that, to the extent that consciousness is bound to the body, the central nervous system is the strongest and possibly sole contributor. It
by banned_man 18y ago
It's well-established that, to the extent that consciousness is bound to the body, the central nervous system is the strongest and possibly sole contributor. It's also obvious that changes to the brain can induce massive alterations of consciousness and cognitive function. Not even the most religious people would argue that, while we're bound to a human body, the physical state of the brain can dominate our experience.
This is not quite the same thing as saying that consciousness comes from the brain. It's equally plausible that "the world" emerges from mind.
- gnaritas 18y ago> It's equally plausible that "the world" emerges from mind. Uh... no, it isn't.
- banned_man 18y agoHow not? Many strains of Buddhism consider mind to be the first-class citizen and worlds to emerge from minds, as opposed to the materialist view wherein matter is the first-class citizen. That doesn't mean that the laws of physics are controlled by my mind, but that this world only exists because trillions of minds exist to experience it, and not independently of them. Think of it this way: there's no reason not to believe that there aren't infinitely many (or a massive number of) universes. Of course, if they're generated "randomly" (whatever that might mean) the vast majority of them won't support conscious life (fine tuning). For those universes that don't harbor conscious life, there's no difference between them existing and not existing. Ergo, they don't really exist. Then, minds create worlds.
- Luc 18y agoIn your first paragraph, you are framing this as a religious question, which of course is impossible to debate. In your second paragraph you create a non sequitur by assuming universes without (conscious!) life do not 'really' exist. This is all very poetic, but far removed from reality.