Can Consciousness Best Be Explained by God's Existence?

[Whateverist]

Whateverist, do you view mental objects as non-spatial? If so, how do spatial objects (such as microscopic brain processes) cause non-spatial objects to emerge (in the mind)? Any ideas? Reversely, how do non-spatial events (conscious thoughts) effect spacial events, such as physical changes (i.e. bodily health)? Or is our concept of space (to say nothing of consciousness) too incomplete to understand this phenomenon?

I view them as representational. Mental objects are how our perceptual-cognitive wiring registers the world around us. I don't have any theory about how that happens. But it is pretty apparent that something similar goes on in every animal no matter how small or simple. It is hard to appreciate what it would be like to be a one celled organism moving to or away from light. But I suppose that experience -minus our self awareness- would also have a 'first-person' quality. It surely is a wondrous thing just how refined this response to our environment has become through evolution + eons of time.

[Ben Davis]

Can Consciousness Best Be Explained by God's Existence?

No. 'God' claims have no explanatory power; they are useless at providing the type of data, testable scenarios or practical insight that one would normally associate with anything claiming to be an explanation.

You've posted an hour of time-wasting, meaningless speculation based on a ridiculous presupposition.

[Esquilax]

Frankly, the entire phrasing of the question is out of whack anyway: why yes, of course something is best explained by a magic thing designed specifically to create it, but is that thing actually real?

[Mudhammam]

Mental objects are how our perceptual-cognitive wiring registers the world around us. I don't have any theory about how that happens. But it is pretty apparent that something similar goes on in every animal no matter how small or simple. It is hard to appreciate what it would be like to be a one celled organism moving to or away from light. But I suppose that experience -minus our self awareness- would also have a 'first-person' quality. It surely is a wondrous thing just how refined this response to our environment has become through evolution + eons of time.

I agree completely. This point though:

I view them as representational.

This is what really baffles me. Where are they represented? Of course, they're represented somewhere in my brain tissue but then again, there's not like a red giraffe somewhere in my brain the moment I imagine a red giraffe. So does this fit the description of a non-spatial entity? Colin McGinn got me stuck on this train of thought because I read a paper by him this morning called Consciousness and Space. He makes this interesting comparison:

"We might be reminded at this point of the big bang. That notable occurrence can be regarded as presenting an inverse space problem. For, on received views, it was at the moment of the big bang that space itself came into existence, there being nothing spatial antecedently to that. But how does space come from non-space? What kind of 'explosion' could create space ab initio?... The brain puts into reverse, as it were, what the big bang initiated: it erases spatial dimensions rather than creating them. It undoes the work of creating space, swallowing down matter and spitting out consciousness. So, taking the very long view, the universe has gone through phases of space generation and (local) space annihilation; or at least, with respect to the latter, there have been operations on space that have generated a non-spatial being. This suggests the following heady speculation: that the origin of consciousness somehow draws upon those properties of the universe that antedate and explain the occurrence of the big bang."

[Whateverist]

I wonder, since it is so nigh impossible to even define what we are looking for, what would an explanation even in principle look like?

Science proceeds from the assumption of an objective world apart from your direct, subjective experience. Any "explanation" must be underpinned by some inference or other. So it looks like an explanation of our capacity to make inferences will itself resist an explanation free from inference.

[bennyboy]

I wonder, since it is so nigh impossible to even define what we are looking for, what would an explanation even in principle look like?

Well, if we could replace the function of neurons with silicon chips and organize them in such a way as to simulate genuine volition, emotion, abstract imagery, etc. in a robot, then an explanation might involve the structural organization of information. But then again, some think consciousness requires a biochemical process.

Let's say the cyberbenny 2000 is up and running, and passing the Turing test with flying colors. Let's say it cries and shouts, and trembles when it is threatened. How would we know that we haven't just created a philosophical zombie?

[Whateverist]

Are you advocating solipsism toward the cyberbenny 2000?! Truly though you'd be more justified in that suspicion than you would be in supposing the rest of us were zombies.

[Neo-Scholastic]

We're what, three hundred years out from Descartes and have made no significant progress? I wouldn't hold your breath.

And all the proposed mechanical theories since then have done so much better...I don't think so.

[Rampant.A.I.]

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.

Yawn. If you're going to be the first theist ever to make an actual, compelling argument for why anybody should give half a shit about the deluded nonsense you people come up with, and why your deluded nonsense is better than all the other deluded nonsense people invent and call 'supernatural', get the fuck on with it already. Otherwise, stop wasting everybody's time and just enjoy your deluded nonsense.

This is ChadWooters you're talking about. All he has is deluded nonsense, sandwiched between layered claims he can't back up.

[Alex K]

Well, if we could replace the function of neurons with silicon chips and organize them in such a way as to simulate genuine volition, emotion, abstract imagery, etc. in a robot, then an explanation might involve the structural organization of information. But then again, some think consciousness requires a biochemical process.

Let's say the cyberbenny 2000 is up and running, and passing the Turing test with flying colors. Let's say it cries and shouts, and trembles when it is threatened. How would we know that we haven't just created a philosophical zombie?

Seriously, how should I possibly know that if I don't even know whether the original isn't one?