Christianity is heading for a full allegorization

[Ferrocyanide]

First thing's first, no offence mate, but I don't think I can handle this conversation twice over, so if it's okay with you, can we keep this interlude brief? These sorts of conversations take a lot out of me, and I didn't realise how hard it would be to explain what to me is a perfectly simple and intuitive concept.

No problem. I would have to factor in your tiredness, your inability to full express difficult concepts and maybe you have other things to do.
So, far the conversation is interesting.

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I don't see anything incoherent about it, so it's not logically impossible. After all, consciousness is not one and the same with the arrangement of atoms.

There is a small problem there and it has nothing to do with logic. It has more to do with what exists and what doesn’t exist.

I explained it to people in another thread. I will do it here since I love explaining this:
1. Let’s say I have a CD of Win XP. The CD is made of polycarbonate plastic with its aluminium layer, with its pits.
Is the CD Win XP? Or is the CD polycarbonate plastic with its aluminium layer.
What if I melt down the CD. Where did Win XP go?
Does Win XP still exist or did I destroy it? Did it obey the law of conservation of information?

All the atoms are still there. Law of conservation of matter.

In other words, software is not a physical thing.

2.  Let’s say I have a book about Mickey Mouse.
The book contains a lot of pages with words.
The words are printed (printing machine ink).
What if I melt down the book. Where did the story about Mickey Mouse go?

Can the story exist without the paper and ink? If yes, where is the story and what is it doing?

All the atoms are still there. Law of conservation of matter.

3. I melt you down. What happens to your consciousness?
If it still exists, where are you and what are you doing?

All the atoms are still there. Law of conservation of matter.

What does it mean for my experiences to be insufficent? If it's out there in my face, it's an experience I'm having. And that's all that takes to know I'm having an experience. Sure, I could be vividly seeing more stuff than I am right now, but I'm still vividly seeing stuff.

How do you think of consciousness? For you, is it a binary thing. You either have conscious or not?

Or maybe you think of it as something gradual. So, right now, you are at level 1 and you experience the flavor of glucose and you love it. Then, you want twice as much glucose and you are at level 2 and you are experience a lot more. Then, you gain the ability to taste salt and you are at level 20. Then, you have the ability to feel temperature and now you are at level 50.

Even if consciousness is based on a certain circuit or program, it's clearly not the same as that circuit or program. They're qualitatively two different things. Consciousness is not an abstract label we're applying to circuitry.

So, if we have an electric current in a circuit and I connect an ammeter, the meter measures a current of 5 A.
The 5 A is not the electrons going through the wire. 5 A is a representation.
So yes, 5 A and the electrons going through the wire are 2 different things.

Consciousness must be something that you are applying to something.
If your goal is to find consciousness, then you have to know what you are looking for.
If you aren’t looking for a circuit, then what are you looking for?
(Note: I’m not saying that all circuits have consciousness.)

As far as the adding is concerned, this is the work of the hardware in your example.

No one's saying that the ability to add is inexplicable. So I'm not sure this is a good example.

You seem to think consciousness is a label we apply to the activity of specific circuitry, in the same way you can point to specific circuitry and say "that's addition". That's not the case.

Well, I suppose that the consciousness can do addition. Do you think that consciousness can perform addition operations? Or is that ability only reserved to the hardware side?

I think that is one of the main questions:
Which jobs that the consciousness do? Which jobs are handled by the brain?:
1. Storing memories of your childhood (brain or consciousness?)
2. Waking up in the morning (brain or consciousness?)
3. Taking the signal coming from the optic nerves and processing it, segmenting components, identifying objects (brain or consciousness?)
4. Feeling that the self exists (brain or consciousness?)
5. Feeling love (brain or consciousness?)
6. Appreciating beautiful poetry (brain or consciousness?)

Is there a location where the consciousness is plugged into the brain? Can it be disengaged?

Sometimes, I ask these questions to christians:
1. When does the jewish god plug in the soul? When the zygote forms? When the first neuron appears?
2. Where exactly is the soul plugged in? The arm? The hair? The brain? The heart? All organs?
3. Why do we need a brain? What’s up with all the nerves forming a network and going to the brain? Why are the eyes and ears connected to the brain?
4. What’s up with the very large number of neurons in the brain? The human brain has a total is 69 to 86 billion neurons.
Do you really need that many neurons to contract your muscles?
What’s with all the interconnections between the neurons?
What’s up with the heart? It seems to not be under the control of the brain. It has its own central, called the sinus node.
Why can’t each muscle in our body have its own central?
Why are lungs under the control of the brain?