(February 19, 2014 at 11:50 am)Sword of Christ Wrote:
(February 19, 2014 at 11:20 am)Alex K Wrote: My point was that these memories can be formed while going into or leaving this inactive state. You can't tell the difference because when the brain is shutting down, the memory of perception of time passed gets completely skewed.
Or alternatively consciousness isn't dependent on matter but instead is interactive with matter. What would be your objection against the more straightforward less convoluted hypothesis?
Quote:I give you evidence: when your brain gets shut down by appropriate chemicals, you lose consciousness and depending on how it goes, have no recollection of the time lost. Damage to certain parts of your brain changes your personality, heck, changes in brain chemistry are enough to do that.
The exact same thing would occur and be observed in the context of a direct interactive system. It has been demonstrated from brain activity scans that even people in comas are still apparently conscious in some way as they can react to words and requests, even if they may not remember this if they regain full waking consciousness.
Quote:Damage to other parts will let you forget the face of your own mother, or will delete certain memories.
Perhaps the brains ability to retrieve memories from consciousness is compromised? Where in the brain is memory even supposed to be stored anyway? There isn't a harddrive.
Quote: If there is an immaterial soul on top of the brain, it doesn't seem to capture any important aspects of my personality, mind or memories.
You can have consciousness first then the brain will act as a filter for this consciousness. Death would result in the brain being removed from the system of conscious expression and this would account for near death and mystic experiences over the centuries. Your system doesn't account for anything and there is no explanation or evidence for it. What you have their are blind assumptions based on nothing much like atheism itself.
Quote:Not really. The dream is culture-dependent - but even if it were the same dream, we're all human after all, and all kinds of things are hardwired into us over the course of evolution.
Perhaps different cultures interpret the same experience in the context of what they understand? That's what it seems like to me from what I have read of it.
Quote: We are after all on average attracted to mates of the same species, get conditioned to our parents and so forth. So there are certain things hardwired into all of us via evolution which let you expect to see certain similarities.
It could be the formation and development of life in the universe is a physical manifestation of consciousness as is the universe in it's entirety rather than the reverse. There's no evidence that matter exists first and then creates consciousness and the reverse would make equally as much if not more sense. Though this isn't something you can demonstrate with science it helps to take other factors and experiences into consideration. Make use of the full range of human history, experience and evidence rather than confining yourself to this narrow materialistic view.
Do what he says there.
You're hopeless!