Is God a logical contradiction?

[John 6IX Breezy]

You can observe the neural correlates of consciousness and the behavioral correlates of consciousness, but not consciousness itself and/or its accompanying mental states, thoughts, etc.

[Abaddon_ire]

You can draw a circle around specific thoughts and mental states and we can all agree to call it conscience. Such mental states we do not know if other animals experience.

By conscience being vapor I mean that if you put the circle you drew under a microscope, you might find that you've set a boundary where nature has not placed any.

Well, you have a problem. You interchange consciousness and conscience as though they were synonymous. They are not. I have no clue why you think they are. Further conversation is pointless unless you define what in the hell you think those terms mean. Else we are talking past each other. That may even be your goal. It would fit with your body of work.

[John 6IX Breezy]

I made consciousness a prerequisite for conscience, not interchanged the two. You can define conscience in any way you want (the feeling of right and wrong, a voice in your head, etc.), and as long as it is a conscious experience you cannot know if an animal has it.

[Rhizomorph13]

I think you can say that about humans too; you can't prove that you aren't the only mind that is conscious.

You also can't prove that the world isn't a simulation.

These are basic beliefs; reality is real and objective, and there are other minds in that reality.

I've heard it argued that God is a basic belief too but, much like the Kalam, the argument only gets as far as a creative thing, nothing remotely as fleshed out as the God posited by different religions.

[The Grand Nudger]

Humans are conscious. Many other animals are also conscious, some, even have a conscience. Why is this a problem?

I'd love to know why we're being asked to tie ourselves into knots over this one. It better be good.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Because you don't know what you're talking about if you think you know other animals are conscious or have a conscience. I thought this was rather obvious. Even little kids wonder how we know two people see red as the same color, seemingly aware of the problem of other minds.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Because you don't know what you're talking about if you think you know other animals are conscious or have a conscience. I thought this was rather obvious. Even little kids wonder how we know two people see red as the same color, seemingly aware of the problem of other minds.

It’s been pretty well established that certain animals (dolphins, apes, some birds, etc) can recognize faces, are aware of the passage of time, learn from experience, and feel grief, expectation, sympathy for others, etc. It seems fairly convincing that there are conscious non-humans who have a conscience.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

You have some broader objection to the theories and study of mind, in mind, John. If we really took it down to the basement, you're likely to object to the notion that science can properly study mind at all.

I don't find that objection compelling. Our best evidence indicates that consciousness and it's products (like conscience) are a widely leveraged tool in the animal kingdom. Different in degree, clearly...but not in kind. It may even have effective analogs in the plant kingdom. More than one way to skin a cat, and all that. What is the problem here? What part of your worldview would accepting this endanger?

So what if consciousness and it's products weren't the sole possession of human beings? You think it's a problem for me because I'm a big dummy...fine, but why is it a problem for you?

[John 6IX Breezy]

It’s been pretty well established that certain animals (dolphins, apes, some birds, etc) can recognize faces, are aware of the passage of time, learn from experience, and feel grief, expectation, sympathy for others, etc. It seems fairly convincing that there are conscious non-humans who have a conscience.

Boru

You can split a brain in half and watch as the right hemisphere does an assortment of tasks which never enters the conscious awareness of the person in the left hemisphere. Is the right hemisphere also conscious because it can do things? There's no way to know.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and there we have it. There are no facts. No way to know. A person who thinks that there are facts, that there is a way to know, isn't going to reach the same conclusion that you are.

We still don't know what the problem would be, if there were.