What Kind of Atheist are You?

[robvalue]

Yeah. My best guess is it's somehow a representation of the workings of the mind; the emergent property manifesting. The word "illusion" is one I've used before, but that's a slippery one. Deceptive, certainly.

I see it as a "side effect". Does that make sense?

But yeah, trying to understand it is like taking on the U.S. Army with a rolled up newspaper.

[thesummerqueen]

Anyway, that's me. What are you?

Liberal agnostic atheist who likes Borderlands, Doom-modding, beer, and tacos. You know, the awesome kind.

Tacos are important.

[Pyrrho]

...
Personally I'm a methodological naturalist, so I feel no need to deny the existence of that which we can't measure.

I asked my wife yesterday if I was stubborn (not randomly, it was part of a conversation) and she says not normally, but I can be when it comes to things like ghosts. Of course, she is confusing being stubborn with being sceptical. I don't claim there are no ghosts either.

Consciousness really is the fly in the ointment for little piss ants like me. I have to admit it very much feels exactly like some sort of "extra" thing, existing in its own place. I feel helpless to try and properly explain it using science, to say "where" it is, or if I'm even asking the right questions. With this, there are a lot of alternatives which I don't rule out, and I feel much less confident about smoothing it over with science as I do ghosts and religion. I have to resort to "No idea". I can only offer guesses. I don't even know what the default position is, as the only evidence I have about it appears to contradict any scientific position I put forward. I can't pretend there is no evidence like I can say about other things, just that I cannot properly assess the evidence.

I think consciousness is a process, not a thing or substance.  An analogy for this is fire.  Primitive people thought that fire was a thing, but the modern understanding of it is as a process, not a substance.  Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (called "fuel").  Stop the process, and you stop the fire.  There isn't any nonphysical part of it, but it isn't a substance; it is a process.

When one thinks, one thinks about something, and there is, for want of a better expression, constant movement, rather like a fire.

This, I think, best fits with our understanding of consciousness.

If, on the other hand, thinking were some non-material thing, how could it possibly interact with physical stuff?  Why would it be that, when alcohol is in the brain, one's thinking is affected, if one had an immaterial mind?

Of course, alcohol in the brain affects the processes of the brain, and so if thinking is a brain process (or processes), then it makes perfect sense that alcohol in the brain would affect thinking.

Examining people with damaged brains helps further this idea, that one's mind is a subset of the processes of the brain, rather than some immaterial substance that is magically connected to a physical body.

[Red Economist]

Yeah. My best guess is it's somehow a representation of the workings of the mind; the emergent property manifesting. The word "illusion" is one I've used before, but that's a slippery one. Deceptive, certainly.

I see it as a "side effect". Does that make sense?

But yeah, trying to understand it is like taking on the U.S. Army with a rolled up newspaper.

lol. Yeah, the problem with saying something is an illusion is that you get screwed up if you don't know how to decide what is and isn't an illusion. So yeah, 'slippery'.
I think it depends what you mean by 'side effect', as what would religion be a side effect of?

[AFTT47]

I think consciousness is a process, not a thing or substance.  An analogy for this is fire.  Primitive people thought that fire was a thing, but the modern understanding of it is as a process, not a substance.  Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (called "fuel").  Stop the process, and you stop the fire.  There isn't any nonphysical part of it, but it isn't a substance; it is a process.

I like that explanation. It's still hard to imagine how this process results in this feeling of 'I' but I still prefer this to speculation that thought or consciousness is something primal or perhaps a fundamental force of nature. We'll get if figured out but probably not in the lifetime of anyone here now.

[robvalue]

Yeah, that's a good explanation Pyr, I like it

Of course, I can never actually get past the problem of solipsism. No amount of research anyone ever does is going to be able to help me with that. I don't actively believe in solipsism, but I have to acknowledge it is an issue.

[Pyrrho]

I think consciousness is a process, not a thing or substance.  An analogy for this is fire.  Primitive people thought that fire was a thing, but the modern understanding of it is as a process, not a substance.  Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (called "fuel").  Stop the process, and you stop the fire.  There isn't any nonphysical part of it, but it isn't a substance; it is a process.

I like that explanation. It's still hard to imagine how this process results in this feeling of 'I' but I still prefer this to speculation that thought or consciousness is something primal or perhaps a fundamental force of nature. We'll get if figured out but probably not in the lifetime of anyone here now.

Fire sure seemed like a substance to a lot of people over the years, too.

[Jericho]

To borrow a bit from Jerry DeWitt (with some personal modification):

Skepticism is my nature.
Critical thinking is my method.
Agnosticism is my conclusion.
Atheism is my belief state.
Secular humanism is my worldview and motivation.

I completely and totally identify with this post. Since I am rather new to Atheism, I have been searching for what I would describe myself as. However, this post is exactly what I have been looking for. Thanks!

[Saxmoof]

I'm mainly motivated by the desire to look down on stupid people

[Alex K]

@Pyrrho

Couldn't have expressed it better