RE: Can Consciousness Best Be Explained by God's Existence?
March 31, 2014 at 3:11 am
(This post was last modified: March 31, 2014 at 3:16 am by bennyboy.)
I think we are so enamoured with science that we cannot tell the difference between sensible conclusions and absolute facts.
Only experiences are facts. They are facts because in the having of them, their existence is validated. The colors I see, the sounds I hear-- the "what its like" of all these is intrinsically truthful. Even in a massive LSD trip with all the mental fireworks and distortions that can involve, the experiences themselves are-- well, what they are. It's when we try to draw inferences from the fact of experience that we begin to form ideas about some underlying objective truth, which is independent of our experiences. Enter science-- using ONLY experiences, we've arrived at a model of space and time, at an understanding of the brain, and of the relationship between the brain and the mind.
Now, we have a conceptual closed loop-- we are using the mind to formulate an understanding of the mind, while treating the ideas we make as representing something other than our experiences.
But can this be done at all? What precludes the Matrix, or a BIJ, or the Mind of God, or a dreaming superself, from exhibiting that same consistency of experience? Nothing. It is impossible to establish objectively the existence of an objective reality, "meta-objectivity" so to speak, because our means of trying to do this are inherently subjective. You simply can't get there from here.
So why choose a physical monism? If everything is "just" experience, why go with science? The answer isn't that we've proven physical monism true in an absolute sense-- it is that science has proven extremely useful in investigating and communicating ideas about our COMMON experiences-- those being the ones we call physical. However, so far science is so hopelessly useless at explaining why we experience subjectively that we have to ask ourselves-- is this really the right tool for the job?
To say that science is the right tool to explain why we subjectively experience what things are like is to exhibit faith, IMO. It is, in fact a "Science of the Gaps." There's no part of science, including the study of neurology, which even HINTS that we MIGHT be able to understand why there is consciousness rather than the lack of it. And really, how could you? Given any physical system, how do you determine that it is REALLY experiencing what things are like, rather than just dumbly processing input and outputting a behavior?
Now, how about God? I would argue this: that the existence of qualia is SO centrally important to our existence, and SO poorly explained in science, that it needs its own word. "God" works, since God is that component of nature which has qualia. But I'm not saying qualia prove a Biblical God. I'm saying that God is an adequate term for a universe full of experiences, whose existence is really a complete mystery.
Only experiences are facts. They are facts because in the having of them, their existence is validated. The colors I see, the sounds I hear-- the "what its like" of all these is intrinsically truthful. Even in a massive LSD trip with all the mental fireworks and distortions that can involve, the experiences themselves are-- well, what they are. It's when we try to draw inferences from the fact of experience that we begin to form ideas about some underlying objective truth, which is independent of our experiences. Enter science-- using ONLY experiences, we've arrived at a model of space and time, at an understanding of the brain, and of the relationship between the brain and the mind.
Now, we have a conceptual closed loop-- we are using the mind to formulate an understanding of the mind, while treating the ideas we make as representing something other than our experiences.
But can this be done at all? What precludes the Matrix, or a BIJ, or the Mind of God, or a dreaming superself, from exhibiting that same consistency of experience? Nothing. It is impossible to establish objectively the existence of an objective reality, "meta-objectivity" so to speak, because our means of trying to do this are inherently subjective. You simply can't get there from here.
So why choose a physical monism? If everything is "just" experience, why go with science? The answer isn't that we've proven physical monism true in an absolute sense-- it is that science has proven extremely useful in investigating and communicating ideas about our COMMON experiences-- those being the ones we call physical. However, so far science is so hopelessly useless at explaining why we experience subjectively that we have to ask ourselves-- is this really the right tool for the job?
To say that science is the right tool to explain why we subjectively experience what things are like is to exhibit faith, IMO. It is, in fact a "Science of the Gaps." There's no part of science, including the study of neurology, which even HINTS that we MIGHT be able to understand why there is consciousness rather than the lack of it. And really, how could you? Given any physical system, how do you determine that it is REALLY experiencing what things are like, rather than just dumbly processing input and outputting a behavior?
Now, how about God? I would argue this: that the existence of qualia is SO centrally important to our existence, and SO poorly explained in science, that it needs its own word. "God" works, since God is that component of nature which has qualia. But I'm not saying qualia prove a Biblical God. I'm saying that God is an adequate term for a universe full of experiences, whose existence is really a complete mystery.
