RE: Is atheism a belief?
March 6, 2019 at 7:04 am
(This post was last modified: March 6, 2019 at 7:26 am by bennyboy.)
(March 6, 2019 at 1:30 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: @bennyboy
I enjoy both sides of this debate every time we have it here. I’m wondering; is there any reason or evidence that indicates consciousness, or subjective experience as we understand it could not follow complex information processing?
<3 thank you for the nice comment!
I'd start answering this question by asking what "information" means, as it may introduce a very subtle circularity.
The most basic transfer I know of is of the transmission of a photon from one atom in a body, and its subsequent reception by another atom in a different body. You could say that even the fact of this simple transmission represents information: for example, about the existence of the sun, about a clear path from the sun to my face (accounting for bending of that path due to gravity of course), and about the existence of my face in a particular place and time.
Given the countless energetic interactions via photons, heat exchange, chemical interactions and so on, then I'd wonder: how would one differentiate between "processing of information" and "irrelevant stuff happening?" Are the molecules in my face "processing" photons from the sun? If a charge builds up in a cloud, and lightning results, is this the processing of a lot of information about molecules with extra ions, with a resultant lightning behavior? We normally wouldn't frame it that way, but this is not that different than a neuron works.
It seems to me either that information refers to all energetic interchanges in the Universe (and which would hint perhaps at panpsychism), or that "information" is a term which is selectively applied by a sentient agent onto states of systems which it arbitrarily deems more important than others. In the latter, defining mind in terms of information processing seems suspiciously circular to me.
--edit--
I think I didn't really answer your question, but I felt I'd have to take this detour before I could respond to you with anything like the intelligence your question deserved. Hope it wasn't too text wall-ish.