On naturalism and consciousness

[Ben Davis]

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I remember doing a thread like this over a year ago now, but I thought it might be best to start with a clean slate, and see how we go. Also, I really like discussing this topic especially on an atheist forum because being in the minority is more fun. Here we go:

I don't believe consciousness can be explained by way of a naturalistic account. Why? Because I don't think particles have it in them to act in such a way as to recreate what we mean by consciousness i.e. our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes etc.

Let's use an example; my belief that spoons are curved. So to make things easier, let's call this belief p. Now, how can we possibly arrange particles in such a way that they would express p? How could some physical arrangement *ever* describe p? I don't think it's possible to physically arrange particles in such a way that would then inherently possess the belief that other sets of particles - aka spoons - have the property of being curved.

Maybe we could place a spoon on the kitchen counter, and put beside it a piece of paper pointing to it, saying "curved". But I wouldn't say the particles of lead forming the word "curved" are arranged in a way that make them hold p. The reason being that it takes an already conscious being *to make that connection*. The already conscious being has the ability to give meaning to such an arrangement of lead, and mind you, it has to be a being that speaks English. Therefore, in no way is the arrangement of lead inherently a beholder of p, since not even all conscious beings can arrive at that conclusion to begin with.

As we can see, for a particle to be "about" another particle, consciousness is a prerequisite... almost as if it weren't made up of particles in the first place

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Sorry, not been able to wade through the 13 pages yet so I apologise if I'm going over old ground.

For me, it's quite simple: there's no evidence for any mechanism of consciousness other than the brain. Although dualist speculation can be interesting & fun, it's ultimately nothing more than speculation: it can't even be a decent hypothesis as there are no falsifiable, testable propositions. Before we can start examining the 'seat of the soul', we first need to show that there is a soul. Until that happens, all we're left with is naturalistic, material causes; just like always.