I would have just tacked this on to the “Mind-Brain duality” thread, but that seems to have drifted to a discussion on morality.
I answer questions on Quora a lot, and consciousness comes up quite a bit. I’m pretty much in the materialist camp... That consciousness is an emergent property of the sheer complexity and interaction of the brain’s processes.
The more complex and interconnected the brain, the more signs of consciousness appear. Humans currently at the top of the heap in this regard.
However, I’m having a conversation with a gentleman who’s in the “something more” camp, and who’s obviously pretty involved in the subject.
Pressed to explain just what this “something more” might actually be, he’s now invoking physics... Positing an as-yet-undetected “field” (he likens to the Higgs field) or as-yet-undetected particle activity like the graviton.
Now to me, this seems both like “adding undue complexity”... The electrochemical activity of the brain seeming quite adequate for the job... But also REALLY stretching, like the good folks that invoke quantum-something to explain paranormal phenomena.
The idea that consciousness somehow evolved from primitive creatures to ourselves to take advantage of some mysterious consciousness-enabling “field” sounds pretty circular to me.
Asked for evidence of this “something”, he merely points to the fact that we are, in fact, conscious. Now that’s really circular.
I answer questions on Quora a lot, and consciousness comes up quite a bit. I’m pretty much in the materialist camp... That consciousness is an emergent property of the sheer complexity and interaction of the brain’s processes.
The more complex and interconnected the brain, the more signs of consciousness appear. Humans currently at the top of the heap in this regard.
However, I’m having a conversation with a gentleman who’s in the “something more” camp, and who’s obviously pretty involved in the subject.
Pressed to explain just what this “something more” might actually be, he’s now invoking physics... Positing an as-yet-undetected “field” (he likens to the Higgs field) or as-yet-undetected particle activity like the graviton.
Now to me, this seems both like “adding undue complexity”... The electrochemical activity of the brain seeming quite adequate for the job... But also REALLY stretching, like the good folks that invoke quantum-something to explain paranormal phenomena.
The idea that consciousness somehow evolved from primitive creatures to ourselves to take advantage of some mysterious consciousness-enabling “field” sounds pretty circular to me.
Asked for evidence of this “something”, he merely points to the fact that we are, in fact, conscious. Now that’s really circular.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2IXmL23
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire