RE: If beauty doesn't require God, why should morality? (Bite me Dr. Craig.)
July 30, 2014 at 11:12 am
(July 30, 2014 at 11:00 am)bennyboy Wrote: Organic chemistry can account for consciousness in the same way that the properties of various metals can account for the strenght of steel. We know that where there's a brain with certain functions, we have a person who seems to be conscious (and accept with a near-total confidence that the person isn't a philosophical zombie or something).
But digestion and cosciousness are different in an important way. There's nothing about digestion (so far as anyone has suggested) that cannot be studied PURELY in terms of the chemistry and mechanics of that system. Consciousness cannot be studied in this way-- you cannot observe a brain and know exactly what it is like for someone to experience their environment or ideas.
Of course studying is an activity which takes place within the domain of consciousness rather than digestion. When we think about what consciousness might be we do so within a function of consciousness itself. When we think about anything else (besides the consciousness of other beings) we are quite content with third person accounts. Empirical evidence is then the gold standard. I would suggest that the something extra you attribute to consciousness has less to do with what it is than it does with the fact that we are that.
