"How do I know God exists?" - the first step to atheism

[Abracadabra]

So I ask you, is it really so surprising that through all of these astounding processes that occur every second of everyday; a consciousnous with its own views and tastes emerges?

A consciousness emerges?

So what is it that has become 'conscious'? The consciousness itself?

Isn't that a bit circular?

So to conclude my point and in answer to your question: "What is having that experience?"... that is, you are.

Well, that's the question that the Eastern Mystics would then pose to you.

Who are you?

In fact you had spoken about a 'blank slate' in the case of amnesia. And suggested that one of you had 'died' and now a brand 'new you' is working with a 'blank slate'.

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If someone has total amnesia then the mind that define their personality and sense of being is gone, replaced instead with a blank slate in place of it. Sometimes cognitive memory can remain intact allowing them to excel at what they used to excel at but it is no longer the experiences and the personality of that individual deciding how those skills are used. That individual is gone and if the long-term memories do not repair themselves then its permanent. It couldn't be literally interpreted as death but that person is no longer that person.

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So who is this 'new you' that is working with the 'blank slate' that you have just proclaimed represented the 'old you'.

There exists huge problems with trying to define the 'you' as the content of the slate. And clearly if the 'new you' is working with a brand new 'blank slate', then that 'new you' must necessarily be something other than the content of the slate.

This is precisely what the Eastern Mystics are attempting to get at. You cannot be the 'you' that you think you are. You are necessarily something other than the sum total of information that you have come to believe defines you.

That is the deeply mystical question. When the slate has been wiped clean, then who is left to experience that clean slate?

That is the 'you' that the Eastern Mystics are concerned with. That is what they consider to be the "True You". All else is informational illusion.

(P.S. I would also like to point out that I'm slightly insulted by being bundled in with someone else. It is rather galling when you look at your reply and find someones decided you're going to be the afterthought to an unrelated point someone else made. I'm sure it wasn't intentional.)

Definitely not intentional. Just the hazards of discussing things on a public forum. I'm actually addressing the deepest concept of asking just what it is that is having an experience.

Stardust is stardust. Atoms are atoms. If these things are incapable of having an experience as random dust, then why should they suddenly be able to have an experience if they take on a complex pattern?

It's the same stuff. How did it go from not being able to have an experience, to now being able to experience things?

What is is that is actually having an experience?

This is a very deep question that secular explanations have not even remotely come close to addressing (at least not to my satisfaction)

This is why address these issues when people tend to imply that science has some sort of 'answer'. It truly doesn't. All it has is speculation not unlike the Eastern Mystics. They're on equal footing when it comes to the mystery of asking just what it is that's experiencing consciousness.

Neither can explain it.

Eastern mystics surrender to the fact that it will always be a mystery (this is precisely why they call it mysticism)

Science has not explained it either, but many atheists seem to think that it's not such a deep mystery and that someday it will be easily explained as to what is actually having an experience.

That may or may not be true. But it's certainly not true today.

Today on this particular question Science is faced with just as much mystery as the Eastern Mystics are. They are on equal ground at the moment.