A Scientific Basis for Spirit

[Abracadabra]

How about my notion of the thing we call spirit/mind/soul/whatever is the brain experiencing what it feels like to be a brain from the inside? Now we have a putative model which explains the concept of spirit with fewer assumed entities than yours. It also has the advantage of being scientifically investigable, since we can detect and measure the brain's electrical activity and can associate the measurements with individual brain states - fear, anger, love, sexual arousal etc. You've already admitted that the spirit hypothesis, at least as you presented it, may be - must be - beyond the reach of scientific investigation since it fails the experiment that you yourself proposed.

In that case it's not an argument about Occam's Razor at all.

In that case you are simply suggesting that you are content with accepting that a brain made of atoms can have an "experience". So you are accepting that the theory is indeed a 'successful explanation'.

My objections have nothing to do with Occam's Razor either. I'm simply not accepting that this theory has sufficiently explained how a brain could "experience" anything. Clearly there are 'thoughts' be created within my computer too, in terms of electrical activity. Dose my computer 'experience" those thoughts?

And if so, what would be experiencing them?

The CPU?
The Memory?
The entire complex circuitry of the entire circuit board combined?

What is it that is actually having this experience?

I've built computers from scratch. I understand how a CPU works, how memory chips work, and I understand how the whole entire computing process works in terms of circuitry and computer algorithms.

Yet in all of that, I don't see any reason to believe that any of it should be able to 'experience' anything.

I'll grant you that a brain is analogy and not digital. And that's a whole different animal to be sure. I'm actually familar with how analog computers work as well. In fact, when computers first came out I bought a Heathkit Analog Computer. I actually favored analog computing over digital. And I still do today in terms of ultimate power.

But clearly the digital computer was far better for pee-brain apes like us to start out with. We wouldn't have gotten very far with analog computers because they are far more difficult to "program". The program basically needs to be hard-wired. And it's not easy to make it into "software". Although not exactly impossible.

Our brains clearly use both hardware and software components to analog computing.

And yes, I can see where an analog computer has a better chance of "awakening" than would a CPU-based digital computer. A CPU-based digital computer has virtually no chance of ever becoming 'sentient'.

So the analog computer of our brains does have a higher possibility for that. But there's the the nagging question of precisely what it is that is actually having this experience. They wiring? The op-amps? Well an electronic analog computer would use silicon "op-amps" but clearly our brains use biological "op-amps".

But still, what would be having an "experience". The wiring? The op-amps? Or the whole shebang as a collective network?

Well, clearly the current proposal is that it's the latter. It's the whole shebang as a collective network that is having an "experience".

Well, that may make sense to you, but it still sounds pretty fishy to me.

So I guess the real question has nothing to do with Occam's Razor, but rather it has to do with whether a person accepts that a large conglomeration of analog biological wiring and op-amps can have an "experience".

That very concept is just hard for me to accept without questioning it.

I certainly see no reason why I should just take that for granted.

Especially when the mystic have an alternative idea that may very well be plausible. Even in terms of science.

You say,

You've already admitted that the spirit hypothesis, at least as you presented it, may be - must be - beyond the reach of scientific investigation since it fails the experiment that you yourself proposed.

But that's only true with respect to our current scientific understanding of things.

I've already addressed that notion in other threads. Our current scientific understanding of things is not clearly as complete as atheist proclaim.

In fact, I hold that this idea that science knows just about everything is really a grossly over-exaggerated myth that is being held up by atheists as though it's some sort of absolute truth that cannot be denied.

That's a false notion right there.

Science may very well be able to address these types of question in the far future. It may be possible to not only prove that something more than a physical brain is required to have an experience, but it may even be possible to show why that must necessarily be the case, and even reveal how it works.

It may be possible that scientific investigation may someday reveal the true nature of "God". Won't that be an irony for atheists?