RE: A Conscious Universe
February 3, 2015 at 11:23 pm
(This post was last modified: February 3, 2015 at 11:27 pm by bennyboy.)
Let me say this for now about brains and minds. In any true monism, they are by definition of identical stuff. Rhythm has stated that qualia is brain states. But that means that brain states are qualia; the '=' sign is funny that way. He insists that means that all qualia is just a material thing. However, if they are truly equivalent, then you could just as equally insist that all material is an experienced thing, since by definition qualia are what it's like to subjectively experience things. The only way to avoid this, as far as I can see this, is to deny that anyone experiences things, and that the definition of qualia is therefore irrelevant.
It seems to me that the collection of information about a "physical" universe outside the observer is intrinsically dependent on experience. If there were no experience, there could be no observation, and no ideas about what is being observed. If, however, there were no actual "physical" universe, then nothing changes: the experiences are still experiences, and it only means that the ideas we've inferred from those experiences (i.e. that there is a "real" physical universe which is more than information, math, and ideas) are wrong. There is no model possible which does not include human consciousness as a feature of reality, as no model could be created without it; but there is a model possible which does not include actual "things" that are more than the experience of ideas or information. Therefore, I think materialists at best can hope for a stalemate.
It seems to me that the collection of information about a "physical" universe outside the observer is intrinsically dependent on experience. If there were no experience, there could be no observation, and no ideas about what is being observed. If, however, there were no actual "physical" universe, then nothing changes: the experiences are still experiences, and it only means that the ideas we've inferred from those experiences (i.e. that there is a "real" physical universe which is more than information, math, and ideas) are wrong. There is no model possible which does not include human consciousness as a feature of reality, as no model could be created without it; but there is a model possible which does not include actual "things" that are more than the experience of ideas or information. Therefore, I think materialists at best can hope for a stalemate.
