RE: Is atheism a belief?
March 11, 2019 at 12:10 am
(This post was last modified: March 11, 2019 at 12:11 am by bennyboy.)
(March 10, 2019 at 10:22 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: By the metric of impossible certainty you don't know anything.
You have the brain, and its function is experienced by consciousness. Okay. What about the brain makes a person with it experience consciousness?
As I said, some things about the brain are unique only to it. Some things about the brain are ubiquitous throughout the universe. Saying the brain is the mechanism of human consciousness doesn't help us to resolve my question: at what level of organization does the essence of mind supervene?
This doesn't impose an unreasonable metric. I ask people who say that know what consciousness to tell me unambiguously what it is and to demonstrate with evidence that they are correct. Do you know what it is about the brain that allows for consciousness? Go ahead, and claim your prize. Until then, you are probably safest not pretending that an unknown thing is anything more than a mystery.
So far, nobody has gone beyond some weak attempt at an evolutionary narrative: "Of COURSE it's the brain. The brain evolved, and of course consciousness gave us an advantage in genetic fitness." Nice story, but it doesn't actually answer the question.