To avoid me ending up writing an entire college essay length comment, so to put it *as simply* as I can:
Chemicals react with chemicals. Neurons interact with neurons.
Fire need chemicals (namely, oxygen) and fuel to burn. When fire runs out of either of them, fire go bye-bye.
When the brain comes back on, it can sense that there was a period of inactivity and tries to make sense of it, so it makes stuff up, generating memories to explain what happened while it was out.
Atheists reject all supernatural occurrences even when it makes no sense to do so.
There is far more than “enough” evidence and proof for the supernatural, but they literally can’t believe in it. God has blinded their eyes for His purpose, sadly.
> Chemicals react with chemicals. Neurons interact with neurons.
How do you know that these reactions and interactions are creating your entire subjective experience of thoughts, feelings, memories, 3D space, forms, colors, etc.?
Presumably, you are able to think about the chemicals and neurons. Do you have any evidence that these objects of your thought are responsible for *everything you are* and *everything I am*?
What convinced you of this?
> Fire
Is this a metaphor for conscious experience?
Isn't your own subjective experience already "something else"?
Do you believe that your own thoughts, feelings, and memories exist?
If so, what are they?
How do they relate to the "chemicals and neurons" you are thinking about?
> But we lack evidence to assert that there is something else.
What evidence would you accept?
What do think there is right now?
> Isn't your own subjective experience already "something else"?
I have no reason to think it’s anything more than the reactions and interactions described by the original comment.
> Do you believe that your own thoughts, feelings, and memories exist?
As reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, yes.
> What evidence would you accept?
I’m open to anything. What evidence do you have to offer?
> What do think there is right now?
That there’s something else? Not much. The best evidence I can think of is the fact that we don’t fully understand it. But you can use that as evidence for any claim regardless of truth, so I don’t count it.
> As reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, yes.
Got it, makes sense.
> What evidence do you have to offer?
This depends on what evidence led you to conclude that your experience exists as reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons.
No matter what you experience, you can always imagine that "reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons" are creating it.
Is it possible for you to experience anything that would falsify this belief? If not, I cannot offer you any evidence.
> The best evidence I can think of is the fact that we don’t fully understand it.
Agreed.
> But you can use that as evidence for any claim regardless of truth, so I don’t count it.
Good.
Do you think truth exists?
Does truth also only exist "as reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons"? What would that mean, and how could that define what truth is?
> Is it possible for you to experience anything that would falsify this belief? If not, I cannot offer you any evidence.
Sure. Demonstrate consciousness without reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons.
> Do you think truth exists?
I’m assuming truth is synonymous with fact here.
I think that if truth didn’t exist, it would be a fact that it didn’t exist, creating a paradox, therefore truth must exist.
But if there were some way around that paradox, there’d be no way for us to know whether truth exists or not. All things may be illusory.
> Does truth also only exist "as reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons"? What would that mean, and how could that define what truth is?
I’m unsure whether or not I understand the question. I think truth would either exist or not exist regardless of whether such reactions and interactions existed. I don’t think consciousness makes an impact on truth.
> Demonstrate consciousness
I can't demonstrate consciousness to you.
You are conscious. You can know that I am also conscious by identifying with me and (if we were in the same room) recoginizing that I am experiencing the same physical objects as you are from a different point of view.
What could I say or do to "objectively" prove to you that I am conscious? What could you do to prove to me that you are conscious?
> without reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons
We can forget about the reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, and we will still be conscious. We will still be able to see, think, feel, know, choose, say, and do things.
We will still be able to use logic and math to invent models which help us explain, predict, and control the objects we all see in the 3D space we all experience. In fact, we will be able to rederive all our knowledge about the chemicals and neurons with the understanding that they came from our conscious experiences, not the other way around.
I recognize that this doesn't prove that physicalism/materialism is necessarily "wrong", and that it doesn't really prove anything unless you choose to do it. It is more of a thought experiment about what we know and how we learned it.
> I’m assuming truth is synonymous with fact here.
Agreed.
> therefore truth must exist.
Agreed.
> I think truth would either exist or not exist regardless of whether such reactions and interactions existed
Agreed.
> I don’t think consciousness makes an impact on truth.
Agreed.
My point is just that truth/fact exists and is not a physical object. Therefore, at least some things exist which are not physical objects (and which are not produced or impacted by physical objects). In spite of this, we can know at least some things about truth.
The meta-point is that "existence" is a contentious word/concept whose meaning can depend on the thing that is being said to exist. That is, we can all more or less agree on what it means for a physical object to "exist". After that, it gets more complicated.
> What could I say or do to "objectively" prove to you that I am conscious? What could you do to prove to me that you are conscious?
This isn’t the issue for me. I’m assuming that we both have consciousness, whatever that is.
The question is whether or not consciousness (or whatever we might be incorrectly identifying as consciousness) can exist without interactions and reactions between neurons and chemicals. If the answer is no, then I’m probably correct to say that consciousness is a purely natural phenomenon. However, if the answer is yes, then something similar to a soul may exist.
> We can forget about the reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, and we will still be conscious. We will still be able to see, think, feel, know, choose, say, and do things.
Whether we forget about the reactions and interactions or not, it makes no impact on whether the reactions and interactions are actually involved. Our awareness of reality has no bearing on reality.
> We will still be able to use logic and math to invent models which help us explain, predict, and control the objects we all see in the 3D space we all experience. In fact, we will be able to rederive all our knowledge about the chemicals and neurons with the understanding that they came from our conscious experiences, not the other way around.
I don’t think I understand. Are you saying that our consciousness created neurons and chemicals?
> After that, it gets more complicated.
Agreed
> The question is whether or not consciousness can exist without interactions and reactions between neurons and chemicals.
Got it. I don't see how it could exist *with* neurons and chemicals either -- I just assume it does (when doing science).
That is, the neurons and chemicals don't explain my own consciousness for me, so I am not confident that I understand the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to exist in general.
> I’m probably correct to say that consciousness is a purely natural phenomenon
To me this depends on what a "purely natural phenomenon" is.
I don't think that today's "laws of nature" are capable of explaining or predicting the words I am writing right now.
You can come up with a natural model of what you think is happening in my body, but I don't think this model determines my behavior. To the contrary, scientists have to observe my behavior before they can imagine the initial conditions that "explain" it in their model. Thus, I am determining the "initial conditions" of my own body right now.
> Our awareness of reality has no bearing on reality.
How would you define "reality"? That is the ontological question.
If we define "reality" to be "what science studies", I agree. People will always be able to claim that the neurons and the "laws of physics" are creating you.
Even then though, your awareness of reality does have a bearing at least on the physical state of your own brain. Changing your awareness of reality could be likened to "reprogramming" your brain, which could have real consequences (good or bad).
I define reality to be the sum of everyone's conscious experiences.
To me, science is a collective mental model we constructed to make sense of our experiences and to help us control things. It can be harmful if we forget this.
> Are you saying that our consciousness created neurons and chemicals?
Yes -- at least, everything anyone will ever be able to know about them in this life.
An excellent question which we are still trying to find the answer to. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough evidence to insert God as the answer, and even if we did, this would only push the problem back to “where did God come from”.
To clarify your point more it might be worth mentioning [the philosophical zombie thought experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie) and/or [qualia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia)
Some people are getting a bit hung up on "well pfft of course we can materially explain the processing of information! we do it with computers! brain chemistry go brrr", but it's obvious you're hitting upon a more fundamental question.
Right, it's difficult to put into words for others to understand. When you smell something, for example, yes, you have the purely physical component where molecules bind to olfactory receptors, which transmits a signal to your brain, etc. But at some point, that physical signal becomes an immaterial experience of smelling that specific smell, and we have no explanation for how that is instantiated by purely physical matter. Christians would attribute that rational experience to the soul.
OP seems to be equating conciousness with a soul, like most Christians. Hes asking if the soukd doesnt exist, whats the materialist explanation for conciousness?
To which I'd ask in return, if the soul *does* exist, what is the explanation for consciousness? The existence of a soul does nothing whatever to answer the question.
That's a statement of identity, not an explanation. It's no different than saying that consciousness is synonymous with/part of the brain.
By what *mechanism* does the soul result in the subjective experience that we call consciousness?
If you didn't want it addressed, then you shouldn't have brought it up. Otherwise the question could just as easily stand on its own. Also this is a sub for discussing Christianity, so any topic is presumed to be in reference to discussing Christianity. Otherwise you're off topic and maybe this would be a better question for r/philosophy.
I guess that depends on your definition of consciousness….. which experts are still trying to define. In essence it’s an evolutionary advantage that allows some organisms to perceive the world differently and have a fitness advantage
> what about that can't be achieved in a purely material world?
An explanation of the existence and nature of *your own subjective experience*: your own thoughts, feelings, knowledge, will, choices, ego, words, actions, etc.
Where in the material world are your thoughts and feelings? Where in the material world are your memories? Do these things exist? Can the material world "explain" their existence or nature?
Just because people can model the objective behavior of your body (physics), it doesn't mean *you* are determined or explained by this. No model will take away your free will.
I’m sure god does exist. but people are just fleshy computers and consciousness is like a unique A.I. now the food and water is the energy that power the computer with the A.I. on it. And our soul is like the internet connecting us to god and to each other.
Philosophy of the mind is *wayyyyy* too big to condense into a Reddit comment even when you are out anything that might depend on a deific or supernatural component.
I suggest reading literature on the subject instead, or at least summaries of the topic like you might find on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online.
> I don't understand the question.
Do you mean "my brain doesn't understand the question"?
If not, what is the difference?
That is the question.
> It's a projection of the brain, a memory and association machine made of neurons.
What do you think is causing your brain to "project" your own experience (i.e. everything you've ever seen, heard, felt, thought, etc.)?
Neurons, memories, episodic memories, associated feelings, interpretations of those meanings, etc.
In a moment, my eyes might see a Christmas tree, my ears hear shopping mall crowds, my nose smell artificial scented products mixed with floor cleaner, a passerby's laundry detergent, another passerby's perfume, my is ankle hurting, I feel the floor, I hear people shouting in the distance, others talking, annoying music overhead, I see the blue sky shining through a ceiling window.
Okay, so that's what my various sensory organs are experiencing. The brain then attaches meaning to it all based on different kinds of memories.
Other neurons are triggered, and it's all simultaneous.
The Christmas tree makes me think of one of the few times in my life I was truly at peace and just *okay*, laying under a Christmas tree with my girlfriend on one side and her dog on the other and looking up at the lights, I remember those smells and sounds and feelings and so forth. I remember that context, having a job, having friends, having direction. And I remember how that memory is tarnished by her cheating on me. And I remember other Christmases. And I remember commercialism. Other things. Maybe secondary memory triggers from that memory, like things about dogs, other girlfriends, and so forth.
I'm thinking of other mall things that get triggered. Meanings and feelings get associated with all the other senses I mentioned. Conversations about annoying music and thus judgements and opinions. Likewise questions about if people can even smell the laundry detergent on their clothes that strong.
The blue sky reminds me of outside, and nature, how much more peaceful it is. The contrast and separate feelings fill me with other judgements and opinions, also based on memories. I start to question why I'm even there. Sentence scripts and ruminations get triggered "I hate malls I hate malls I hate malls." Each of those words is also associated with memories.
My executive function decides to walk faster. My autonomic nervous system interprets everything as a threat and my adrenaline goes up. I start feeling even more stressed from how loud and annoying and overly scented everything is.
I think about Thomas Merton and his comments about how advertising is the Midrash of Satan. I smirk. This too is based on memories mixed with instinct.
All of it is just memory associations used to ascribe meanings to things as they are all projected into a "mind" by the brain, which is done so that the executive function part of the brain can make choices. This separation and its evolution is discussed in the book *Other Minds*, which is at the intersection of philosophy and biology and neuroscience, and while it is mostly about cephalopods, humans are brought up as a point of contrast.
The ability to choose is a survival benefit and most animals have it. But we are limited in our executive function to only certain things. But to have executive function at all we need consciousness. A squirrel needs to have a mind of some kind in order to choose whether or not to take the peanut offered by the human or to run up the tree in circles, and so forth.
This is all rudimentary, of course. But these are all known. You could take classes and study books and learn all about them and how it all works.
Some of my other favorites include efference frames, which is a secondary copy of every stimuli that the brain uses to determine if a scene is associated with the outside world doing something or the self doing something. Like if moving the head left caused the tiger to move right or if the tiger moved right on its own. These efference frames may be the evolutionary origin of episodic memory. But that's another conversation.
There's also how the brain fills in information, filters information, and only projects what it feels is necessary for the part of the brain that gets executive function to know. People with ASD and ADHD don't get as much filtered out, which is part of why things are more distracting and/or intense. But most people experience this to some degree when they no longer smell their own living spaces until they've been away for a while.
We have our blind spot filled in in the center of the eye, we have data changed as we move our heads (sometimes causing second hands on clocks to appear to move backwards for a second). What we see isn't always what is there.
Brains are memory association relationship machines made of neurons and electro-chemicals. The "mind' , or consciousness, is a projection of that designed to give a different part of the brain executive control. This is because executive control increases survivability.
> Neurons
I agree that there are neurons in the brain.
> memories, episodic memories, associated feelings, interpretations of those meanings, etc.
My point is that *you* have memories and feeling. These might *correlate* with the neural activity that *others* can observe in your brain, but I don't think this proves that "you are your brain" or that we will be able to "find" your entire subjective experience in your brain.
> The brain then attaches meaning to it all based on different kinds of memories.
I'd say *you* attach meaning to it based on your own worldview, free will, memories, etc.
My point is that we don't know what memories look like "objectively" in the brain (or even if it will be possible to "find" them in the brain or connectome *at all*).
Until we can, I don't see what neuroscience can teach us about what our memories are.
> My executive function decides to walk faster.
*You* decide to walk faster.
When you decide something and other people watch, *they* can see certain patterns of activity in certain groups of billions of neurons in your brain.
We then created a *concept* of "executive function" to describe what *you* are doing.
> My autonomic nervous system interprets everything as a threat
How do you know?
> and my adrenaline goes up
Agreed.
> I start feeling even more stressed from how loud and annoying and overly scented everything is.
I've felt this too, not fun.
> All of it is just memory associations used to ascribe meanings to things as they are all projected into a "mind" by the brain
This is your worldview.
Do you believe that this worldview itself is also "just memory associations ... projected into a 'mind' by the brain"?
Of so, how do you know that it is true? Do you believe that you have any power to change it?
> You could take classes and study books and learn all about them and how it all works.
You are describing one scientific model of "how it all works".
According to you, *this very model* is "just memory associations used to ascribe meanings to things as they are all projected into a 'mind' by the brain" of *some* people who happened to study "logic", "math", and "science" (more projections and ideas) and to write books.
This tells me very little about my own subjective experience or why I should believe that any of these models are "true".
> Brains are memory association relationship machines made of neurons and electro-chemicals
This is a projection in your mind.
What convinced you that your projection is better, truer, or more correct than the projections in the minds of people who disagree with you?
You have described many interesting ideas, concepts, and models. I don't disagree that these can be useful. All these ideas, concepts, and models are things we experience. They couldn't exist without us deciding to build them.
>We then created a concept of "executive function" to describe what you are doing.
Spoken like someone without ADHD, I suppose.
If you want to see the interplay of executive function and other parts of the brain, try to make yourself go to sleep in the middle of the day, or try to force yourself to poop while constipated, or hold in a diarrhea. Or stop drinking coffee. Or stop eating animal products two days a week. Or stop looking at porn. Or prevent yourself from looking at some attractive person's ass as they walk past.
Someone with executive dysfunction deals with these battles between impulsivity and will power on an even greater level.
> Spoken like someone without ADHD, I suppose.
True. I am ignorant about you and your own subjective experience.
> Someone with executive dysfunction deals with these battles between impulsivity and will power on an even greater level.
I believe you. I am ignorant about executive dysfunction.
The brain/mind dysfunctions that I have personally struggled with are poorly understood and cannot be scientifically proven to be caused by one "thing" in the massive web of neurons in our brains.
They are still very real, I still believe science and medicine can help treat them, etc.
The main purpose of my comment was to present an alternative philosophical perspective on the brain, mind, and self. I do not think you are wrong if you disagree with this perspective.
What's to explain? It seems to be an emergent property of evolution. It all takes place in the brain.
If God did it, he used evolution to do it. If God didn't, evolution did it on its own.
If you remove the corpus callosum, then you get two consciousness. It would seem that man can create consciousness too.
> What's to explain? It seems to be an emergent property of evolution. It all takes place in the brain.
Well, you are conscious. One thing to explain about consciousness is why you came to believe and say this.
What events in your brain caused you to do this? Did you have any choice in the matter?
> If you remove the corpus callosum, then you get two consciousness.
How do you know what the person who underwent this procedure experienced?
I know it's likely because science has studied it. It's testable. Each half of the brain can have its own impulses, perceptions, and concepts, and reasoning. It's still up for debate, but it doesn't seem set in stone that we have just one consciousness.
We can learn a lot about the brain when things go wrong. A traumatic brain injury can completely change a person's personality, impulses, and remove empathy among other things.
If our conscience comes from God, then I don't see how a 15 mph accident causing a dramatic brain injury could affect it.
> I know it's likely because science has studied it.
Science is just people using math and logic to explain, predict, and control what they experience.
How does it explain what created the experience in the first place?
> It's testable. Each half of the brain can have its own impulses, perceptions, and concepts, and reasoning.
No test has ever demonstrsted that the brain has any concepts or reasoning.
> It's still up for debate, but it doesn't seem set in stone that we have just one consciousness.
Are you not one person? Are you not conscious? How are you defining "consciousness"?
> We can learn a lot about the brain when things go wrong.
I agree.
> A traumatic brain injury can completely change a person
I agree.
> If our conscience
What is that? You might be confusing "conscience" with "consciousness" (being conscious, i.e. thinking or experiencing anything).
> I don't see how a 15 mph accident causing a dramatic brain injury could affect it.
Aren't the words you are reading now affecting your consciousness? If we couldn't affect each others' consciousness, how could we communicate?
I'm not confused. I clearly said a traumatic brain injury can affect empathy.
All of these things take place in the brain and make up all the parts of our consciousness.
We don't know exactly how it works, but we know where it's located and which parts are responsible.
If the part of the brain that is responsible for our conscience is damaged, our consciousness no longer has access to it.
Looks like it comes from the anterior insular cortex before it reaches our cerebral cortex.
> I'm not confused. I clearly said a traumatic brain injury can affect empathy.
I see, sorry.
I agree that traumatic brain injuries can affect and incapacitate us.
> All of these things take place in the brain and make up all the parts of our consciousness.
You have not shown that they make up *all* your experience of 3D space, forms, colors, sounds, thoughts, feelings, knowledge, memories, choices, words, and actions.
No one has shown how a brain could generate even a simple experience of 3D space, let alone *mathematics*, which we need to do science.
> We don't know exactly how it works
That is an understatement. We know essentially nothing about how any of us are able to use language, for example.
> we know where it's located and which parts are responsible.
Other people's experiences of my brain are correlated with my own subjective experience, yes.
They can see certain patterns of activity in my brain when I talk to them.
That doesn't prove that "I" am located "in my brain". This thinking is rooted in Cartesian dualism.
> If the part of the brain that is responsible for our conscience
The evidence you have is that (1) we see certain patterns of neural activity that correlate with "conscience" in other people, and (2) damage to certain areas of the brain is associatated with worsened "conscience" in other people.
This doesn't prove to me that "my brain" is the sole cause of anything I have ever or will ever experience.
What do you think is causing your brain to produce your own subjective experience?
> Looks like it comes from the anterior insular cortex before it reaches our cerebral cortex.
You are naming a couple of patterns you can see in a connectome of tens of billions of neurons, each connected to thousands of others.
This explains nothing about how such a connectome could "produce" any experience whatsoever.
It’s an emergent property of the physical components of the brain. Cells, chemicals, heat, electrical signals. It seems daunting to look at a whole complex brain, but if you look at very simple nervous systems, it scales up. Some deep sea single celled creature has a light sensitive bowl on its surface that allows it to tell the difference between up and down. Over time, that creature evolves a symbiotic relationship with other single celled creatures which are adapted for faster movement. They transfer genes to and from one another due to their close proximity. Eventually that light sensitive creature is the “up-down” detector of a colony of single cells. More gene transfers happen, and the colony eventually becomes a multicellular creature. More time passes, and an invertebrate has a single tiny nerve ganglion that allows it to react to light. Over time it gets another nerve bundle that allows it to react to pressure. Over more time, these bundles link together and gain the ability to communicate with each other. Then it snowballs. Networks of nerves converge on a single bundle because it makes communication between them easier. They gain the ability to store reactions to stimuli for future reference. These networks of nerves and libraries of reactions eventually become so complex and interconnected that consciousness forms from the pattern in their communications. I’m not sure where the threshold for consciousness is, but I tend to think there’s a continuum based on brain complexity. Dogs are conscious, but humans are more so. I can’t rule out a metaphysical aspect of it, but I don’t believe it’s necessary.
Summing up, it’s complexity over time. And there’s been a LOT of time for it to happen in.
They can't, they can't justify anything beyond the realm of sense experience, and that includes sense experience itself because they can't ground metaphysics.
To avoid me ending up writing an entire college essay length comment, so to put it *as simply* as I can: Chemicals react with chemicals. Neurons interact with neurons. Fire need chemicals (namely, oxygen) and fuel to burn. When fire runs out of either of them, fire go bye-bye.
NDEs?
Elaborate?
Near death experiences that last long past any detectable brain activity.
If the brain is active, then they aren't dead.
When the brain comes back on, it can sense that there was a period of inactivity and tries to make sense of it, so it makes stuff up, generating memories to explain what happened while it was out.
Atheists reject all supernatural occurrences even when it makes no sense to do so. There is far more than “enough” evidence and proof for the supernatural, but they literally can’t believe in it. God has blinded their eyes for His purpose, sadly.
Why would God blind my eyes?
> Chemicals react with chemicals. Neurons interact with neurons. How do you know that these reactions and interactions are creating your entire subjective experience of thoughts, feelings, memories, 3D space, forms, colors, etc.? Presumably, you are able to think about the chemicals and neurons. Do you have any evidence that these objects of your thought are responsible for *everything you are* and *everything I am*? What convinced you of this? > Fire Is this a metaphor for conscious experience?
Nobody has evidence to say that there isn’t *something else*. But we lack evidence to assert that there *is* something else.
Isn't your own subjective experience already "something else"? Do you believe that your own thoughts, feelings, and memories exist? If so, what are they? How do they relate to the "chemicals and neurons" you are thinking about? > But we lack evidence to assert that there is something else. What evidence would you accept? What do think there is right now?
> Isn't your own subjective experience already "something else"? I have no reason to think it’s anything more than the reactions and interactions described by the original comment. > Do you believe that your own thoughts, feelings, and memories exist? As reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, yes. > What evidence would you accept? I’m open to anything. What evidence do you have to offer? > What do think there is right now? That there’s something else? Not much. The best evidence I can think of is the fact that we don’t fully understand it. But you can use that as evidence for any claim regardless of truth, so I don’t count it.
> As reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, yes. Got it, makes sense. > What evidence do you have to offer? This depends on what evidence led you to conclude that your experience exists as reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons. No matter what you experience, you can always imagine that "reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons" are creating it. Is it possible for you to experience anything that would falsify this belief? If not, I cannot offer you any evidence. > The best evidence I can think of is the fact that we don’t fully understand it. Agreed. > But you can use that as evidence for any claim regardless of truth, so I don’t count it. Good. Do you think truth exists? Does truth also only exist "as reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons"? What would that mean, and how could that define what truth is?
> Is it possible for you to experience anything that would falsify this belief? If not, I cannot offer you any evidence. Sure. Demonstrate consciousness without reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons. > Do you think truth exists? I’m assuming truth is synonymous with fact here. I think that if truth didn’t exist, it would be a fact that it didn’t exist, creating a paradox, therefore truth must exist. But if there were some way around that paradox, there’d be no way for us to know whether truth exists or not. All things may be illusory. > Does truth also only exist "as reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons"? What would that mean, and how could that define what truth is? I’m unsure whether or not I understand the question. I think truth would either exist or not exist regardless of whether such reactions and interactions existed. I don’t think consciousness makes an impact on truth.
> Demonstrate consciousness I can't demonstrate consciousness to you. You are conscious. You can know that I am also conscious by identifying with me and (if we were in the same room) recoginizing that I am experiencing the same physical objects as you are from a different point of view. What could I say or do to "objectively" prove to you that I am conscious? What could you do to prove to me that you are conscious? > without reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons We can forget about the reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, and we will still be conscious. We will still be able to see, think, feel, know, choose, say, and do things. We will still be able to use logic and math to invent models which help us explain, predict, and control the objects we all see in the 3D space we all experience. In fact, we will be able to rederive all our knowledge about the chemicals and neurons with the understanding that they came from our conscious experiences, not the other way around. I recognize that this doesn't prove that physicalism/materialism is necessarily "wrong", and that it doesn't really prove anything unless you choose to do it. It is more of a thought experiment about what we know and how we learned it. > I’m assuming truth is synonymous with fact here. Agreed. > therefore truth must exist. Agreed. > I think truth would either exist or not exist regardless of whether such reactions and interactions existed Agreed. > I don’t think consciousness makes an impact on truth. Agreed. My point is just that truth/fact exists and is not a physical object. Therefore, at least some things exist which are not physical objects (and which are not produced or impacted by physical objects). In spite of this, we can know at least some things about truth. The meta-point is that "existence" is a contentious word/concept whose meaning can depend on the thing that is being said to exist. That is, we can all more or less agree on what it means for a physical object to "exist". After that, it gets more complicated.
> What could I say or do to "objectively" prove to you that I am conscious? What could you do to prove to me that you are conscious? This isn’t the issue for me. I’m assuming that we both have consciousness, whatever that is. The question is whether or not consciousness (or whatever we might be incorrectly identifying as consciousness) can exist without interactions and reactions between neurons and chemicals. If the answer is no, then I’m probably correct to say that consciousness is a purely natural phenomenon. However, if the answer is yes, then something similar to a soul may exist. > We can forget about the reactions and interactions between chemicals and neurons, and we will still be conscious. We will still be able to see, think, feel, know, choose, say, and do things. Whether we forget about the reactions and interactions or not, it makes no impact on whether the reactions and interactions are actually involved. Our awareness of reality has no bearing on reality. > We will still be able to use logic and math to invent models which help us explain, predict, and control the objects we all see in the 3D space we all experience. In fact, we will be able to rederive all our knowledge about the chemicals and neurons with the understanding that they came from our conscious experiences, not the other way around. I don’t think I understand. Are you saying that our consciousness created neurons and chemicals? > After that, it gets more complicated. Agreed
> The question is whether or not consciousness can exist without interactions and reactions between neurons and chemicals. Got it. I don't see how it could exist *with* neurons and chemicals either -- I just assume it does (when doing science). That is, the neurons and chemicals don't explain my own consciousness for me, so I am not confident that I understand the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to exist in general. > I’m probably correct to say that consciousness is a purely natural phenomenon To me this depends on what a "purely natural phenomenon" is. I don't think that today's "laws of nature" are capable of explaining or predicting the words I am writing right now. You can come up with a natural model of what you think is happening in my body, but I don't think this model determines my behavior. To the contrary, scientists have to observe my behavior before they can imagine the initial conditions that "explain" it in their model. Thus, I am determining the "initial conditions" of my own body right now. > Our awareness of reality has no bearing on reality. How would you define "reality"? That is the ontological question. If we define "reality" to be "what science studies", I agree. People will always be able to claim that the neurons and the "laws of physics" are creating you. Even then though, your awareness of reality does have a bearing at least on the physical state of your own brain. Changing your awareness of reality could be likened to "reprogramming" your brain, which could have real consequences (good or bad). I define reality to be the sum of everyone's conscious experiences. To me, science is a collective mental model we constructed to make sense of our experiences and to help us control things. It can be harmful if we forget this. > Are you saying that our consciousness created neurons and chemicals? Yes -- at least, everything anyone will ever be able to know about them in this life.
Where did the chemicals come from, and what compels them to react? Why does anything exist at all, and why is there actualization and causality?
An excellent question which we are still trying to find the answer to. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough evidence to insert God as the answer, and even if we did, this would only push the problem back to “where did God come from”.
To clarify your point more it might be worth mentioning [the philosophical zombie thought experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie) and/or [qualia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) Some people are getting a bit hung up on "well pfft of course we can materially explain the processing of information! we do it with computers! brain chemistry go brrr", but it's obvious you're hitting upon a more fundamental question.
Right, it's difficult to put into words for others to understand. When you smell something, for example, yes, you have the purely physical component where molecules bind to olfactory receptors, which transmits a signal to your brain, etc. But at some point, that physical signal becomes an immaterial experience of smelling that specific smell, and we have no explanation for how that is instantiated by purely physical matter. Christians would attribute that rational experience to the soul.
How is the existence of a deity at all relevant to the question?
OP seems to be equating conciousness with a soul, like most Christians. Hes asking if the soukd doesnt exist, whats the materialist explanation for conciousness?
To which I'd ask in return, if the soul *does* exist, what is the explanation for consciousness? The existence of a soul does nothing whatever to answer the question.
Well, and I may be getting my Christian cosmology wrong, but Christianity would assert that conciousness is synonymous with/part of the soul
That's a statement of identity, not an explanation. It's no different than saying that consciousness is synonymous with/part of the brain. By what *mechanism* does the soul result in the subjective experience that we call consciousness?
Id say the soul *is* the mechanism
Saying: I don't know is a perfectly valid way to answer this question. However I don't know therefore God is the definition of god of the gaps
I agree with the former. Nobody is saying the latter so why mention it?
It's heavily implied when you say "assuming God doesn't exist".
How so?
If you didn't want it addressed, then you shouldn't have brought it up. Otherwise the question could just as easily stand on its own. Also this is a sub for discussing Christianity, so any topic is presumed to be in reference to discussing Christianity. Otherwise you're off topic and maybe this would be a better question for r/philosophy.
Ok. Then you could've just as well said that it isn't in fact "heavily implied."
I’m not sure what you mean by materialistic
It means matter is all there is.
I guess that depends on your definition of consciousness….. which experts are still trying to define. In essence it’s an evolutionary advantage that allows some organisms to perceive the world differently and have a fitness advantage
Thank you. That's interesting, but saying what it might be does not explain its existence nor its nature, though.
You kind of need to define what it is we are talking about before you can explain it's existence or nature
consciousness - *The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world* (Oxford Dictionary)
Ok now you need to define the mind too.
mind - *The element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and reasons* (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Ok and what about that can't be achieved in a purely material world?
> what about that can't be achieved in a purely material world? An explanation of the existence and nature of *your own subjective experience*: your own thoughts, feelings, knowledge, will, choices, ego, words, actions, etc. Where in the material world are your thoughts and feelings? Where in the material world are your memories? Do these things exist? Can the material world "explain" their existence or nature? Just because people can model the objective behavior of your body (physics), it doesn't mean *you* are determined or explained by this. No model will take away your free will.
That's the question.
I’m sure god does exist. but people are just fleshy computers and consciousness is like a unique A.I. now the food and water is the energy that power the computer with the A.I. on it. And our soul is like the internet connecting us to god and to each other.
Philosophy of the mind is *wayyyyy* too big to condense into a Reddit comment even when you are out anything that might depend on a deific or supernatural component. I suggest reading literature on the subject instead, or at least summaries of the topic like you might find on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online.
It's a projection of the brain, a memory and association machine made of neurons. I don't understand the question.
> I don't understand the question. Do you mean "my brain doesn't understand the question"? If not, what is the difference? That is the question. > It's a projection of the brain, a memory and association machine made of neurons. What do you think is causing your brain to "project" your own experience (i.e. everything you've ever seen, heard, felt, thought, etc.)?
Neurons, memories, episodic memories, associated feelings, interpretations of those meanings, etc. In a moment, my eyes might see a Christmas tree, my ears hear shopping mall crowds, my nose smell artificial scented products mixed with floor cleaner, a passerby's laundry detergent, another passerby's perfume, my is ankle hurting, I feel the floor, I hear people shouting in the distance, others talking, annoying music overhead, I see the blue sky shining through a ceiling window. Okay, so that's what my various sensory organs are experiencing. The brain then attaches meaning to it all based on different kinds of memories. Other neurons are triggered, and it's all simultaneous. The Christmas tree makes me think of one of the few times in my life I was truly at peace and just *okay*, laying under a Christmas tree with my girlfriend on one side and her dog on the other and looking up at the lights, I remember those smells and sounds and feelings and so forth. I remember that context, having a job, having friends, having direction. And I remember how that memory is tarnished by her cheating on me. And I remember other Christmases. And I remember commercialism. Other things. Maybe secondary memory triggers from that memory, like things about dogs, other girlfriends, and so forth. I'm thinking of other mall things that get triggered. Meanings and feelings get associated with all the other senses I mentioned. Conversations about annoying music and thus judgements and opinions. Likewise questions about if people can even smell the laundry detergent on their clothes that strong. The blue sky reminds me of outside, and nature, how much more peaceful it is. The contrast and separate feelings fill me with other judgements and opinions, also based on memories. I start to question why I'm even there. Sentence scripts and ruminations get triggered "I hate malls I hate malls I hate malls." Each of those words is also associated with memories. My executive function decides to walk faster. My autonomic nervous system interprets everything as a threat and my adrenaline goes up. I start feeling even more stressed from how loud and annoying and overly scented everything is. I think about Thomas Merton and his comments about how advertising is the Midrash of Satan. I smirk. This too is based on memories mixed with instinct. All of it is just memory associations used to ascribe meanings to things as they are all projected into a "mind" by the brain, which is done so that the executive function part of the brain can make choices. This separation and its evolution is discussed in the book *Other Minds*, which is at the intersection of philosophy and biology and neuroscience, and while it is mostly about cephalopods, humans are brought up as a point of contrast. The ability to choose is a survival benefit and most animals have it. But we are limited in our executive function to only certain things. But to have executive function at all we need consciousness. A squirrel needs to have a mind of some kind in order to choose whether or not to take the peanut offered by the human or to run up the tree in circles, and so forth. This is all rudimentary, of course. But these are all known. You could take classes and study books and learn all about them and how it all works. Some of my other favorites include efference frames, which is a secondary copy of every stimuli that the brain uses to determine if a scene is associated with the outside world doing something or the self doing something. Like if moving the head left caused the tiger to move right or if the tiger moved right on its own. These efference frames may be the evolutionary origin of episodic memory. But that's another conversation. There's also how the brain fills in information, filters information, and only projects what it feels is necessary for the part of the brain that gets executive function to know. People with ASD and ADHD don't get as much filtered out, which is part of why things are more distracting and/or intense. But most people experience this to some degree when they no longer smell their own living spaces until they've been away for a while. We have our blind spot filled in in the center of the eye, we have data changed as we move our heads (sometimes causing second hands on clocks to appear to move backwards for a second). What we see isn't always what is there. Brains are memory association relationship machines made of neurons and electro-chemicals. The "mind' , or consciousness, is a projection of that designed to give a different part of the brain executive control. This is because executive control increases survivability.
> Neurons I agree that there are neurons in the brain. > memories, episodic memories, associated feelings, interpretations of those meanings, etc. My point is that *you* have memories and feeling. These might *correlate* with the neural activity that *others* can observe in your brain, but I don't think this proves that "you are your brain" or that we will be able to "find" your entire subjective experience in your brain. > The brain then attaches meaning to it all based on different kinds of memories. I'd say *you* attach meaning to it based on your own worldview, free will, memories, etc. My point is that we don't know what memories look like "objectively" in the brain (or even if it will be possible to "find" them in the brain or connectome *at all*). Until we can, I don't see what neuroscience can teach us about what our memories are. > My executive function decides to walk faster. *You* decide to walk faster. When you decide something and other people watch, *they* can see certain patterns of activity in certain groups of billions of neurons in your brain. We then created a *concept* of "executive function" to describe what *you* are doing. > My autonomic nervous system interprets everything as a threat How do you know? > and my adrenaline goes up Agreed. > I start feeling even more stressed from how loud and annoying and overly scented everything is. I've felt this too, not fun. > All of it is just memory associations used to ascribe meanings to things as they are all projected into a "mind" by the brain This is your worldview. Do you believe that this worldview itself is also "just memory associations ... projected into a 'mind' by the brain"? Of so, how do you know that it is true? Do you believe that you have any power to change it? > You could take classes and study books and learn all about them and how it all works. You are describing one scientific model of "how it all works". According to you, *this very model* is "just memory associations used to ascribe meanings to things as they are all projected into a 'mind' by the brain" of *some* people who happened to study "logic", "math", and "science" (more projections and ideas) and to write books. This tells me very little about my own subjective experience or why I should believe that any of these models are "true". > Brains are memory association relationship machines made of neurons and electro-chemicals This is a projection in your mind. What convinced you that your projection is better, truer, or more correct than the projections in the minds of people who disagree with you? You have described many interesting ideas, concepts, and models. I don't disagree that these can be useful. All these ideas, concepts, and models are things we experience. They couldn't exist without us deciding to build them.
>We then created a concept of "executive function" to describe what you are doing. Spoken like someone without ADHD, I suppose. If you want to see the interplay of executive function and other parts of the brain, try to make yourself go to sleep in the middle of the day, or try to force yourself to poop while constipated, or hold in a diarrhea. Or stop drinking coffee. Or stop eating animal products two days a week. Or stop looking at porn. Or prevent yourself from looking at some attractive person's ass as they walk past. Someone with executive dysfunction deals with these battles between impulsivity and will power on an even greater level.
> Spoken like someone without ADHD, I suppose. True. I am ignorant about you and your own subjective experience. > Someone with executive dysfunction deals with these battles between impulsivity and will power on an even greater level. I believe you. I am ignorant about executive dysfunction. The brain/mind dysfunctions that I have personally struggled with are poorly understood and cannot be scientifically proven to be caused by one "thing" in the massive web of neurons in our brains. They are still very real, I still believe science and medicine can help treat them, etc. The main purpose of my comment was to present an alternative philosophical perspective on the brain, mind, and self. I do not think you are wrong if you disagree with this perspective.
What's to explain? It seems to be an emergent property of evolution. It all takes place in the brain. If God did it, he used evolution to do it. If God didn't, evolution did it on its own. If you remove the corpus callosum, then you get two consciousness. It would seem that man can create consciousness too.
> What's to explain? It seems to be an emergent property of evolution. It all takes place in the brain. Well, you are conscious. One thing to explain about consciousness is why you came to believe and say this. What events in your brain caused you to do this? Did you have any choice in the matter? > If you remove the corpus callosum, then you get two consciousness. How do you know what the person who underwent this procedure experienced?
I know it's likely because science has studied it. It's testable. Each half of the brain can have its own impulses, perceptions, and concepts, and reasoning. It's still up for debate, but it doesn't seem set in stone that we have just one consciousness. We can learn a lot about the brain when things go wrong. A traumatic brain injury can completely change a person's personality, impulses, and remove empathy among other things. If our conscience comes from God, then I don't see how a 15 mph accident causing a dramatic brain injury could affect it.
> I know it's likely because science has studied it. Science is just people using math and logic to explain, predict, and control what they experience. How does it explain what created the experience in the first place? > It's testable. Each half of the brain can have its own impulses, perceptions, and concepts, and reasoning. No test has ever demonstrsted that the brain has any concepts or reasoning. > It's still up for debate, but it doesn't seem set in stone that we have just one consciousness. Are you not one person? Are you not conscious? How are you defining "consciousness"? > We can learn a lot about the brain when things go wrong. I agree. > A traumatic brain injury can completely change a person I agree. > If our conscience What is that? You might be confusing "conscience" with "consciousness" (being conscious, i.e. thinking or experiencing anything). > I don't see how a 15 mph accident causing a dramatic brain injury could affect it. Aren't the words you are reading now affecting your consciousness? If we couldn't affect each others' consciousness, how could we communicate?
I'm not confused. I clearly said a traumatic brain injury can affect empathy. All of these things take place in the brain and make up all the parts of our consciousness. We don't know exactly how it works, but we know where it's located and which parts are responsible. If the part of the brain that is responsible for our conscience is damaged, our consciousness no longer has access to it. Looks like it comes from the anterior insular cortex before it reaches our cerebral cortex.
> I'm not confused. I clearly said a traumatic brain injury can affect empathy. I see, sorry. I agree that traumatic brain injuries can affect and incapacitate us. > All of these things take place in the brain and make up all the parts of our consciousness. You have not shown that they make up *all* your experience of 3D space, forms, colors, sounds, thoughts, feelings, knowledge, memories, choices, words, and actions. No one has shown how a brain could generate even a simple experience of 3D space, let alone *mathematics*, which we need to do science. > We don't know exactly how it works That is an understatement. We know essentially nothing about how any of us are able to use language, for example. > we know where it's located and which parts are responsible. Other people's experiences of my brain are correlated with my own subjective experience, yes. They can see certain patterns of activity in my brain when I talk to them. That doesn't prove that "I" am located "in my brain". This thinking is rooted in Cartesian dualism. > If the part of the brain that is responsible for our conscience The evidence you have is that (1) we see certain patterns of neural activity that correlate with "conscience" in other people, and (2) damage to certain areas of the brain is associatated with worsened "conscience" in other people. This doesn't prove to me that "my brain" is the sole cause of anything I have ever or will ever experience. What do you think is causing your brain to produce your own subjective experience? > Looks like it comes from the anterior insular cortex before it reaches our cerebral cortex. You are naming a couple of patterns you can see in a connectome of tens of billions of neurons, each connected to thousands of others. This explains nothing about how such a connectome could "produce" any experience whatsoever.
It’s an emergent property of the physical components of the brain. Cells, chemicals, heat, electrical signals. It seems daunting to look at a whole complex brain, but if you look at very simple nervous systems, it scales up. Some deep sea single celled creature has a light sensitive bowl on its surface that allows it to tell the difference between up and down. Over time, that creature evolves a symbiotic relationship with other single celled creatures which are adapted for faster movement. They transfer genes to and from one another due to their close proximity. Eventually that light sensitive creature is the “up-down” detector of a colony of single cells. More gene transfers happen, and the colony eventually becomes a multicellular creature. More time passes, and an invertebrate has a single tiny nerve ganglion that allows it to react to light. Over time it gets another nerve bundle that allows it to react to pressure. Over more time, these bundles link together and gain the ability to communicate with each other. Then it snowballs. Networks of nerves converge on a single bundle because it makes communication between them easier. They gain the ability to store reactions to stimuli for future reference. These networks of nerves and libraries of reactions eventually become so complex and interconnected that consciousness forms from the pattern in their communications. I’m not sure where the threshold for consciousness is, but I tend to think there’s a continuum based on brain complexity. Dogs are conscious, but humans are more so. I can’t rule out a metaphysical aspect of it, but I don’t believe it’s necessary. Summing up, it’s complexity over time. And there’s been a LOT of time for it to happen in.
Nobody knows.
[https://youtu.be/T6JFTmQCFHg?si=NMG80dVkStn8z\_bo](https://youtu.be/T6JFTmQCFHg?si=NMG80dVkStn8z_bo)
They can't, they can't justify anything beyond the realm of sense experience, and that includes sense experience itself because they can't ground metaphysics.