Can Consciousness Best Be Explained by God's Existence?

[Mudhammam]

When one gets the same result postulating that "magic is fundamental" in place of "God is fundamental," it becomes clear that A) the statement is meaningless and B) it (magic or God in this case) tells us nothing about what is supposedly fundamental.

Or energy or quantum foam...we already accept many things as fundamental. The objections are like saying energy doesn't explain anything.

The burden is on you to justify why we should start at God as a fundamental law. If you know anything about energy and quantum foam, you'd understand scientists didn't begin with those ideas and work their way out from there but arrived to such theories via the experimental data.

[LastPoet]

Yeah, the invention of romantic love by 19th century writers has got to be the most insidious intellectual feat, with millions of casualties

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Shit man, stop revealing bro's secrets to gain consentual access to a woman's vagina! Romantic love is a good thing!

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[Alex K]

You can argue that consciousness is best explained by God's existence...

If you're the type of person who believes in Adam, Eve, and the talking snake, Noah's Ark, and all the other bullshit that lacks a shred of scientific, historical, or logical credibility.

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Consciousness has got to be the most overrated concept ever. It is uttered, and as if it were the most obvious thing since the insight that water is wet, we nod and agree what deep mystery it is.

Let me ask you something: we all use this word - how do we know what is meant by it? It's not like it can be pointed to, or explained by comparison.

It seems like consciousness is the ONE thing we can be sure of--namely, our own. And overrated?? I have no idea what that could possibly mean.

What do you mean by consciousness?

[MindForgedManacle]

I was serious about special snowflake syndrome. I don't think our particular form of consciousness is all that highly adapted or suited to survival.

If anything, we seem to be really good at wasting time, wondering why we're here, thinking about the hardships of life, making up stories to make ourselves feel better, and offing ourselves when we feel down.

...What? We didn't come to, in a vey real way, come to dominate the world for nothing. Our evolution developed in us a very useful cognitive array and analytic capabilities. Granted, we waste time (whatever that really means ) which at times gives members of our species the time to think beyond the here and now to learn and prepare for what we foresee may be coming.

Not that I'm so high on humans or anything (we do some fucked up stuff), but I'm just saying. We may be approaching a time where, barring any self-destruction, we more or less eliminate the possibility of our own extinction.

[Mudhammam]

What do you mean by consciousness?

That there is something it is like to be (such as a being); to have a quality of experience.

[Neo-Scholastic]

God has all the explanatory power of a shrug of the shoulders.

You and others like you seem to be quite confused. There is a very big difference between ontological and methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism has proven enormously useful for understanding the natural world. It only makes sense that if you want to study natural things you focus exclusively on natural causes and effects. You would have everyone take a leap of faith, and it is exactly that, and ignore the parts of reality that don’t fit neatly into the self-imposed limits of your own bias.

Your position is that everything true must be subject to empirical testing. Apply that to your own philosophy. The fact of the matter is that ontological naturalism doesn’t have any explanatory power. There is no way to falsify your stance.

The test of an overarching philosophy is its ability to draw together a wide range of phenomena within a single paradigm. As per the video and the OP, ontological naturalism has no place for intentionality. Any philosophy that leaves half of reality on the table, the inner world of subjective experience, is a failed philosophy. You can issue as many promissory notes about “someday, maybe” science will solve the hard problem, but they’re just that, promises. As far as that goes, you don’t even need to be a theist to consider consciousness fundamental in the same way that energy is.

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That there is something it is like to be (such as a being); to have a quality of experience.

The thing about Nagel is that he cannot seem to completely rid himself of the divine. And he desperately wishes he could.

[Rampant.A.I.]

God has all the explanatory power of a shrug of the shoulders.

You and others like you seem to be quite confused. There is a very big difference between ontological and methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism has proven enormously useful for understanding the natural world. It only makes sense that if you want to study natural things you focus exclusively on natural causes and effects. You would have everyone take a leap of faith, and it is exactly that, and ignore the parts of reality that don’t fit neatly into the self-imposed limits of your own bias.

Which parts?

quote='ChadWooters' pid='640447' dateline='1396232537']

Your position is that everything true must be subject to empirical testing. Apply that to your own philosophy. The fact of the matter is that ontological naturalism doesn’t have any explanatory power. There is no way to falsify your stance.

Straw man. No one here is making claims that are unfalsifiable except yourself.

quote='ChadWooters' pid='640447' dateline='1396232537']

The test of an overarching philosophy is its ability to draw together a wide range of phenomena within a single paradigm.

Dear god, you write like someone who's read too much Derrida critiquing Kant. Subtract the woo from your posts and all that's left is unsupported assertion.

quote='ChadWooters' pid='640447' dateline='1396232537']

As per the video and the OP, ontological naturalism has no place for intentionality. Any philosophy that leaves half of reality on the table, the inner world of subjective experience, is a failed philosophy.

There's that claim again. Care to support it? What is this half of reality you speak of? Can you quantify it as half? How? What does it consist of?

quote='ChadWooters' pid='640447' dateline='1396232537']

You can issue as many promissory notes about “someday, maybe” science will solve the hard problem, but they’re just that, promises.

You mistake "withhold judgement due to a lack of evidence" for claims of fact. What's being advanced is the historical domino effect of science removing the necessity to ascribe previously unexplained phenomena to the supernatural replacing it with knowledge of natural processes.

quote='ChadWooters' pid='640447' dateline='1396232537']

As far as that goes, you don’t even need to be a theist to consider consciousness fundamental in the same way that energy is.

Animists consider consciousness fundamental. There is growing catalogued evidence and support for the obvious consciousness of "lower" animals, a claim that theology previously would not hear of, and Cartesians continued the tradition of elevating man's simple animal consciousness and lowering animals to mere automatons.

Instead of pointing that out, you go for the low hanging fruit of slipping "therefore God" under "consciousness isn't unique to man," and asserting your primary conclusion without support.

So which is it? Are we to assume methodological naturalism in all pursuits of knowledge, or assume methodological naturalism is flawed and incapable of attaining knowledge?

Or should we obtain the methodology when it comes to obtaining demonstrable knowledge about the world, and reject it when we believe we have knowledge that isn't falsifiable?

What qualifies that as knowledge, and not self-delusion?

Others holding the same delusion? You're standing on a weak epistemic tightrope, hurling insults at the onlookers about how they have nothing to hold them up, all the while flailing wildly, struggling to maintain your balance.

It's a ludicrous, farcical display that convinces no one, because you keep resorting to the above claims about reality and never backing them up with anything but more assertions!

[Neo-Scholastic]

Wow! You're one to talk about stawmen. LOL clownish hypocrite.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Oh good, more unsupported assertion. Juggle fast enough, and maybe no one will notice you can't support any of the babble about "half of reality" being left on the table by naturalism and it's inability to quantify the "inner world of subjective experience," which for you consists entirely of ignoring objections and requests for evidence, and repeating the same psuedo intellectual garbage all over again.

[Mudhammam]

That there is something it is like to be (such as a being); to have a quality of experience.

The thing about Nagel is that he cannot seem to completely rid himself of the divine. And he desperately wishes he could.

I don't know a lot about Nagel's work. I've read his paper "What Is It Like To Be A Bat?" but beyond that most of what I know about him is through reading other authors (I also read his review of one of Plantinga's recent works and found it far too generous). From that all I can really say is that Nagel seems to be closer in line with those like Ruse, McGrinn, and Searle who either take the position that humans will never understand how/why consciousness exists or if we do, it will require some entirely new approach or revolutionary framework. I'm not so pessimistic. If there really is anything to the "hard problem," I anticipate that it will vanish once the "easy problems" are figured out.