Is the human mind evidence of God?

22 Comments

1. Hi Eric,
   Thanks for offering your critique. There’s a lot we could discuss but I’ll try to limit my comments to a few simple clarifications:

   Travis’ explanations, and indeed faith in the “naturalist program” is circular, and most of his ‘answers’ only work if we assume naturalism and reduce everything to the physical – which begs the questions we are asking

   I think you’re misattributing circularity here. The reasons given were attempts to summarize evidence which points toward a naturalistic understanding, not explanations of how we should interpret the evidence assuming a naturalistic understanding.

   The view that the vastness and emptiness of the cosmos, and the smallness of the places where consciousness, cognition and value exist (so far we only know them to exist on earth) seems to me to be a very poor argument.

   This isn’t so much about size as it is about teleology. The question is whether the observed universe aligns with expectations if a primary goal was consciousness, cognition and value. The best way to answer “yes”, as you have done, is to suggest that all the apparent “waste” is actually necessary for life. I find that claim difficult to accept and it appears to unnecessarily constrain the mode of creation to match our current understanding of the universe. For example, the ancient cosmology which put the earth at the center of an infinitely smaller universe would appear to me to be more clearly oriented toward life.

   I’ll also note that you omitted the part about the universe appearing to be indifferent to the permanence of consciousness, cognition and value. The relative fragility of the complex life in which these are found does not easily fit with the notion that they are of utmost importance to the designer.

   Many naturalist ‘explanations’ of these human attributes … seem to be non-answers, plus reassurance that it is OK not to have answers.

   In some respects this is true, but it’s more about using inductive inference to anticipate how the past might inform the future. It is OK to not have answers when the evidence is lacking for any particular explanation and it is reasonable to use the evidence we have as inference into speculation on the most plausible explanation. This is what guides research – we see clues pointing us in a direction and then follow the trail to see where it leads. If neuroscience reached a point where it should clearly be able to explain these things but doesn’t, then we can start suggesting that the reductive accounts are failures; but for now we recognize that there is still much to learn and the early results are yet to tell us that we’re heading in the wrong direction.

   Thanks again for engaging with the topic and sharing your perspective.

2. Hi Travis, thanks too for your perspective.

   My problem with circularity is that naturalistic science doesn’t give due weight to qualia and experience. If science can’t explain consciousness and freewill in physical terms then all too often scientists say they are illusions, despite human experience to the contrary. They have assumed naturalist science in doing this. Thus your example of the “continuum of mental faculties in the animal kingdom” assumes that either consciousness and freewill are illusions or that animals have them too, and the same as we have them. Is there any evidence of that? I think your continuum is only of physical things that aren’t in contention.

   My comment about the universe needing to be this size to last this long came from cosmologist Luke Barnes but I can’t give you an exact reference just now. I don’t say all of the extra space is necessary for life, nor do I think the human race is necessarily the only reason why God might create. But creation of a big universe is no more of an effort to God than a small universe, so I don’t see how we can construct much of an argument there without knowing God’s purposes. Theism can adapt to any size universe.

   Thanks.

3. Eric,

   your example of the “continuum of mental faculties in the animal kingdom” assumes that either consciousness and freewill are illusions or that animals have them too, and the same as we have them. Is there any evidence of that?

   This is a false dichotomy and seems to ignore the definition of ‘continuum’ as something made up of far more than two parts. Aside from the physical continuum that you grant – and which is clearly somehow linked with our mental faculties – we can make a strong inference from behavior that animals have some level of consciousness and even decision making abilities. For example, just this morning I was reading in The Gap about a test where an experimenter modeled how to access a puzzle box for both apes and young children. The experimenter would poke one hole and get no result, then poke a different hole and get the prize. When the box was opaque, the chimpanzees and the children would copy the full sequence. However, when the box was transparent and it was clear that the first hole poke was inconsequential, the chimpanzees were more likely than the children to skip the first step and go straight to poking the 2nd hole.
   This is just one of a myriad of behavioral studies that feed into the notion that there is a continuum of consciousness. Subjectivity may create an impenetrable barrier for direct comparison of qualia but that doesn’t give us license to ignore the data and assume that there is an uncrossable gap between our minds and all the other minds we find in nature. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and acts like a duck, it’s probably a duck.

   But creation of a big universe is no more of an effort to God than a small universe, so I don’t see how we can construct much of an argument there without knowing God’s purposes. Theism can adapt to any size universe.

   Again, this isn’t about size, its about teleology. You’re right that we can’t know God’s purposes but that doesn’t stop us from considering whether a specific purpose (consciousness, cognition and value) is most harmonious with a specific universe, relative to other possibilities. This isn’t about drawing deductive conclusions from limited set of facts, its about inference as to what makes the best sense of the data as a whole. Even the most outrageous ideas can be made immune via the “unknown reasons” defense.

4. Hi Travis, thanks again.

   I don’t have a problem if it turns out that some animals have choice, consciousness or values. But I don’t think your example shows any more than that the apes made rational inference. I don’t see how it shows that they had consciousness as we have, the ability to reason to true beliefs outside of current experience, true ethics and freewill.

   I still think you have assumed that. You say we can’t assume there is an uncrossable gap, but that is no justification for assuming continuity either.

   Re the universe, the science of cosmological fine-tuning provides exactly what you ask for – a reason to infer that the “design” of the universe is more than a coincidence, but amazingly suited to allowing life to evolve, arguably the intention for that to occur. That makes the best sense of the data. I think your example works opposite to what you say.

5. Eric,
   I hope these elaborations clarify what I was trying to say at the outset. Thank you for challenging me to inspect the validity and consistency of my perspective.

   You say we can’t assume there is an uncrossable gap, but that is no justification for assuming continuity either.

   I see a big difference between an assumption and an inference. I was making an inference. I think that the objective physical and behavioral similarities are a strong inference that the related aspects of our subjective mental life are also similar. It’s a probabilistic claim about the likelihood based on the evidence. I think the data points to a strong inference, so I give it a high probability.

   the science of cosmological fine-tuning provides exactly what you ask for – a reason to infer that the “design” of the universe is more than a coincidence

   I agree that fine-tuning counts against coincidence, but it also seems that there are many ways in which we can conceive of a “more fine-tuned” universe that more clearly values complex life – for example, by making life less fragile or, conversely, by making the universe at large more hospitable. It’s possible that these alternative universes are actually less favorable to life, but on the surface that is far from obvious.

6. Hi Travis, I am happy to challenge you, and be challenged in return!

   “I see a big difference between an assumption and an inference.”

   Surely it is only an inference if you assume that animals have consciousness etc and that it is similar to ours? But since science cannot measure consciousness et al, and scientists can only experience it, and since we can’t experience animal consciousness we have no way of knowing much at all about anybody’s consciousness but our own. So I still think you have made an assumption.

   “It’s possible that these alternative universes are actually less favorable to life, but on the surface that is far from obvious.”

   There are very very few alternative universes that allow life at all. Whether any of them have more environments for life than this one I don’t know. So the universe is incredibly fine-tuned for life, and you seem to want to negate that on the small possibility that some other of the few alternative universes that would support life might have more places for life? It really seems to me like you are rejecting a big obvious thing with strong scientific support in favour of a small speculative thing. The only way out of it seems to me to be suggesting a universe that has totally different physics (not just different laws and parameters), which is even more speculative.

7. Eric,
   The only assumption that I see here is the assumption that it is reasonable to make inferences about things we can’t access by drawing upon the strongly correlated data about the things we can access. If that’s an invalid assumption, then I have to throw pretty much everything I think I know out the window. Perhaps we will simply have to agree to disagree on this one, but I think you’re being far too skeptical about the inferences we can draw from the data we have.

   Ironically, you seem to be suggesting that I am doing the very same thing.

   the universe is incredibly fine-tuned for life, and you seem to want to negate that on the small possibility that some other of the few alternative universes that would support life might have more places for life? It really seems to me like you are rejecting a big obvious thing with strong scientific support in favour of a small speculative thing.

   You have overstated my case. I have not negated fine-tuning as a whole. I think fine-tuning is positive support for a teleology behind the origin of the universe, particularly if we do not assume that we are one among gazillions of other universes. The objection is really aimed toward a more specific kind of teleology, one which values our type of life above everything else and is sufficiently powerful to generate any logically consistent universe.

   So, with respect to Nagel’s impersonal, hands-off teleologic force, I think you may have a fair criticism of my inclusion of that point (though he never even touched the topic of fine-tuning, if I recall correctly). I will give it some more thought and consider whether that should be revised to clarify the specific type of teleology it works against, or maybe I’ll just remove it altogether.

8. Hi Travis, after I posted my last comment, I wondered if in trying to be brief I had been a bit glib. So I decided to try again a little more thoroughly. I see your suggestion to agree to disagree, and obviously that’s where we’re heading, but I’d like to try once more.

   You statement is that “There is a continuum of mental faculties in the animal kingdom.” Your justification for saying this is that it is a reasonable inference because we have “strongly correlated data about the things we can access.”

   So can we know much about animal consciousness, cognition and value?

   Let’s start with science. It measures physical and chemical things and observes the natural world in a systematic way. It cannot pass judgment on what it cannot measure, just as a deaf person can see a TV show but cannot hear or pass judgment on the audio.

   So let’s look at ourselves. We appear to experience consciousness, freewill, cognition, qualia, but science can only measure brainwaves, brain structure, DNA, etc. It cannot measure these things directly, we only know them by introspection.

   If naturalism is true, then the physical things science can measure are all there is, and the rest is just some strange emergent property of the physical which we still cannot explain. We don’t seem to need consciousness to function as gene reproducers, but it is there anyway. But if naturalism isn’t true, then these things may be more real, and inexplicable by science alone.

   When we consider other humans we are in a more difficult situation. We can still measure the physical/chemical, but that tells us nothing about qualia and consciousness. We cannot introspect other people, so the only two options are to observe or to listen to other people’s reports.

   Observation can only take us so far, for we can still only see the outward, and consciousness etc are inward. We know we have similar brains, though with some marked differences (especially between “normal” and some people with a brain impairment), and we know that our inward experiences may be very different. You and I might both hear the same music, have the same experiences of (say) being burnt and having sex, and we may see the same yellow chair, but we know we all have different inward feelings about some of those things (e.g. one of us might like the colour yellow and the Beatles, and one might not). We also observe that some people lack full cognition (e.g. someone suffering from schizophrenia may hear voices whereas others do not) and some people (e.g. so-called psychopaths) seem to lack the moral feelings most of us have.

   So we must also rely on each sharing our own experiences, but while this gets us closer, we would still find it difficult to be sure that my pleasure or pain feels the same as yours.

   So I would guess we could say that some aspects of consciousness are similar for all of us and some are not, and we can’t be sure which is which.

   When we come to animals, the task is harder again. Science again only deals with the externals and brain structure – which suggests only a few higher animals have consciousness. We can’t introspect and we can’t hear reports. So we rely on observation, which is doubtful for humans so still more doubtful with animals. And when we look at animal behaviour, we see some things that look like consciousness and rationality in some higher animals, but we see no books or symphonies, no cathedrals or art, no evidence of logical arguments, etc. What we do see could all be accomplished without consciousness.

   So the best we can say is that some higher animals may have some consciousness, cognition, values and qualia, or may not, and we can’t really know how similar this is to ours, but most other animals do not show any real signs.

   If we assume naturalism, we can draw on the physical similarities to say there is a physical continuum. But if we don’t assume naturalism, the argument looks very weak. There are too many unknowns. Your inference is no more than a hypothesis with little evidence. The alternative hypothesis is at least as strong.

   So either your argument assumes naturalism in order to make the inference, or it only applies to the higher animals, and even then the inference is surely no more than 50/50. And less that 50/50 makes it an argument against naturalism if anything.

   So I feel strengthened in my feeling that the two of the reasons you gave for seeing a flow towards naturalism in fact are no better than neutral, and possibly count against naturalism.

   Sorry to be so long-winded, but these are complex questions. Thanks.

9. Eric,
   Your accounting of our access to the data seems generally accurate, yet we are worlds apart on how to interpret it. You suggest that I am the one making assumptions but I am going to suggest that its the other way around. As I read your comment I get a sense of an almost mystical perspective on consciousness. You seem to start with the assumption that it is something transcendent. How do you come to that conclusion?

   I know you’ll disagree, but from my perspective my position starts with the fewest assumptions. I’m trying to not assume anything about the nature of consciousness and then work from the ground up. When I do this, I find that we are living in a physical world, and that I have a physical body, and I can’t figure out why I should think that consciousness consists of something fundamentally different from absolutely everything else. If we’re going to avoid making assumptions then we might say that we don’t know what consciousness is made of. But that doesn’t change the fact that we see that it is affected by the physical, and is responsive to external stimuli, and directs much of our behavior. And as far as I can tell, all signs point that something similar is happening with animals, some to greater or lesser degrees than others. Now throw in common descent and you add another reason to suspect similarity.

   we see no books or symphonies, no cathedrals or art, no evidence of logical arguments, etc. What we do see could all be accomplished without consciousness.

   Wow. This quote makes it clear that we have very different understanding of what constitutes consciousness. Perhaps that’s the crux of our disagreement. Based on this statement I would expect that you would deny that young children are conscious, but I’m certain you wouldn’t agree with that. What’s the difference? Potential? Are children like Genie, who experienced severe cultural deprivation, conscious?

10. Hi Travis, I guess it is my turn to be surprised! I’m really not sure why you used the words “mystical” and “transcendent”, nor am I sure what you mean by them.

    Consciousness and associated phenomena are fundamental to our experience as humans yet science cannot really measure it and philosophers and neuroscientists don’t know how to explain it. That’s why it’s called the hard problem.

    You think it can be partly explained by reference to the continuity with animals, yet the continuity with animals can only be established on the physical level. If you infer that consciousness can be correlated with the physical, you are resolving the hard problem in a naturalistic way, i.e. you’ve assumed the answer. If it was that easy, it wouldn’t be the hard problem. But if you don’t assume that answer, you have no basis I can see to make the inference. The phenomena we see could equally occur under naturalism or not.

    “we see that it is affected by the physical, and is responsive to external stimuli, and directs much of our behavior. And as far as I can tell, all signs point that something similar is happening with animals, some to greater or lesser degrees than others.”

    But this also misses the point I think. Being affected by the physical and responding to stimuli are still physical things that can be scientifically measured. As far as we know, they could all happen without qualia, consciousness, etc (even ants do it!), so inference based on these factors also begs the question.

    That is why I referred to music, art, etc. Not because I think these things are necessary and sufficient parts of the definition of consciousness as you seem to think, but because I was looking for signs of cognition, aesthetics, value, etc. If you were looking at the human race from the outside and didn’t understand language, these are the sorts of things that might give you an indication of an “inner life”. If you can think of better ones, please do – I was simply trying to find some way to support your argument. If there are no indicators of consciousness or an inner life, then your argument seems to be on even shakier ground.

    One final thought. I almost wrote my previous comment in the form of a logical argument, with premises etc, to see if this made it easier to see how your argument went and what was needed to show it to be true or not. Maybe you should give that a go.

    Thanks again.

11. Another afterthought. Even if it was true that there was a continuity between animals and humans, that doesn’t show that consciousness is explicable by naturalism. If we don’t know this about humans, why should we assume it about animals?

12. Hey Eric,
    Here’s where “mystical” and “transcendent” came from. You say science can only measure the physical then and assume that consciousness transcends the physical, or is at most a “strange emergent property”, something that we “cannot really measure”. You partition the objective observations as something distinct from the subjective and ignore the very real possibility that they are two different ways of seeing the same thing. Why might we think that they’re two different perspectives on the same thing? Because we regularly correlate the subjective reports with the objective observations. We also draw upon our own knowledge of how our inner life translates to observable behaviors and regularly make general inferences about other people’s inner life from their behaviors. Collectively, the data set showing correlation is enormous.

    In this case, I find it extremely reasonable to infer causation from correlation; that is, to infer that the subjective a byproduct of the physical. The only alternative I see is dualism, asserting that the correlation we see is actually going in the other direction and the physical activity is caused by the ghost in the machine; suggesting that the brain is the portal by which the immaterial affects the physical. But then we recognize that all of our learning comes through our physical senses, so the brain must also be a conduit for inputs. So we have physical inputs and physical outputs connecting to this ghost, and we have no actual evidence of a ghost. Why conclude that there’s a ghost?

    Even if it was true that there was a continuity between animals and humans, that doesn’t show that consciousness is explicable by naturalism. If we don’t know this about humans, why should we assume it about animals?

    Here I actually was making an assumption that it appears you disagree with, namely that organisms other than us have consciousness. I thought this was pretty uncontroversial though the lack of a clear definition of consciousness is certainly problematic for these kinds of claims. Regardless, if we grant that other creatures do have consciousness then we can infer that there are degrees of consciousness. Then, as we walk down the chain we reach a grey area (no pun intended) where consciousness becomes questionable. This matches up with neural complexity and evolutionary history, inferring that consciousness is a consequence of the gradual increase in physical complexity.

13. Hi Travis, I haven’t assumed consciousness transcends the physical – whether it does or doesn’t is the question we are discussing. But am I not right in saying that it remains a “hard problem” to explain, that science cannot measure the consciousness we all experience, and that it remains a mystery, i.e. something that is not really explained yet?

    These science luminaries agree that it is a difficult problem:

    ‘How can objective things like brain cells produce subjective experiences like the feeling that ‘I’ am striding through the grass? …. The objective world out there, and the subjective experiences in here, seem to be totally different kinds of things. Asking how one produces the other seems to be nonsense. The intractability of this problem suggests to me that we are making a fundamental mistake in the way we think about consciousness’
    Susan Blackmore

    ‘There’s considerable evidence that the unified self is a fiction–that the mind is a congeries of parts acting asynchronously, and that it only an illusion that there is a president in the Oval Office of the brain who oversees the activity of everything.’
    Steven Pinker

    ‘Neither Steven Pinker nor I can explain human subjective consciousness… We don’t know. We don’t understand it.’
    Richard Dawkins

    “The mind … remains a mystery. It has no mass, no volume and no shape, and it cannot be measured in space and time. Yet is is … real ….”
    Neuroscientist Mario Beauregard

    Correlation doesn’t explain. Of course the mind is correlated to the brain – it wouldn’t exist without the brain – but that doesn’t explain the problem. More importantly for our discussion here, I still can’t see any reason to suppose that continuity in the physical shows continuity in consciousness. Humans and trees are both made of organic chemicals, but we don’t think (I presume?) trees have consciousness too. The evidence we have is quite well explained by a hierarchy, with rocks having some properties, trees having those plus more, animals having those plus more, and humans having those plus more. I’m not trying to say that is true (though I believe it is), simply that the possibility nullifies your argument from continuity.

    Finally, I’m not sure how you drew the conclusions that I deny that“organisms other than us have consciousness”. I have no real opinion on that, and I find it difficult to see how anyone could, since consciousness is so internal. My guess is that maybe a few of the higher animals do, maybe they don’t, and probably most others don’t, but I am open-minded about that. I just think it is so unclear that you cannot base an argument on it as you do.

    Thanks again.

14. Eric,
    Yes, it is a hard problem. Verification of any theory of consciousness would require translation from the objective to the subjective, and then you would have to rely on the subjective experiencer to accurately report on the equality of the original and the translated experiences. That isn’t happening any time soon. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t make reasonably well supported inferences from the data. It doesn’t mean that we go hands off and keep quiet until incontrovertible evidence comes in. Scientific progress is a series of baby steps and I’m just highlighting where those steps seem to be leading.

    I still can’t see any reason to suppose that continuity in the physical shows continuity in consciousness. Humans and trees are both made of organic chemicals, but we don’t think (I presume?) trees have consciousness too. The evidence we have is quite well explained by a hierarchy, with rocks having some properties, trees having those plus more, animals having those plus more, and humans having those plus more. I’m not trying to say that is true (though I believe it is), simply that the possibility nullifies your argument from continuity.

    I’m pretty sure that I don’t understand this. I presume you are describing something different from my proposal that there is a continuum, but it looks similar. Are you defining differences as discrete properties – that there is no way to gradually move between the different states? For example, if we had the ability to make an atom by atom transition from an animal to a human, are you saying that at some point there would be a dramatic transition where it became human and gained properties and abilities that weren’t present in the prior state, before the single atom had been moved? Or are you saying that this type of change isn’t even theoretically possible – that the result wouldn’t technically be human? As I’m sure you can tell, I’m quite puzzled by this paragraph.

    That aside, note that your first sentence in this quote (“I still can’t see any reason…”) is exactly how we started and where I began talking about behavioral observations and whatnot. There probably isn’t value in going round again on that. I’ll just note that I was reminded in my reading today of additional evidence regarding continuity that we hadn’t brought up – the anthropological record. Discoveries of pre-modern hominids are sometimes accompanied by tools and artifacts that hint at the behavior and capabilities of the group. The earlest hominids used crude tools but around 300,000 years ago our tool creation started employing multi-stage assemblies. Around 120,000 we started burial rituals. Around 80,000 years ago we started decorating ourselves. Around 32,000 years ago we started drawing on cave walls. One could propose that the capabilities were always there and that these are just examples of learning, but when you take into account the fact that our closest living relatives branch off a few million years before these things, I think an evolution of consciousness seems like the better fit.

15. Also forgot to mention how the hominid record shows a gradual increase in cranial capacity. If our closest living relatives are generally representative of the branching point between them and us, and we see brain size increases leading up to improved tool usage and eventually cultural innovation, its reasonable to suspect that the behavioral changes are the result of the brain changes – an evolution of consciousness, if you will.

16. Dear Eric and Travis, The mere fact that we, humanity, a part of the biosphere and in fact a part of the universes/cosmos are the ones who are asking the questions, debating the possibilities, drawing inferences and conclusions which eventually turn out to be answers or disproved and the cycle to repeated over again and again (trial and error) says volumes about the theistic and non-theistic views. It has been like this for all life’s history – a learning curve for all species with the correct traits surviving and the misfits adapting or perish (e.g in the testing of apes and children for a puzzle-prize). Through the same process for man and beast, life has come this far with the evolution of the brain that imagines/anticipates/predicts simply through trial-and-error and which at its finest is capable of consiousness, cognition and values. The same brain led us into civilisation including the invention of religion and imagination of a ‘creator’ (spiritualism). If we agree to theism but confer that we can’t know the reasons of the creator for creating the cosmos because of the limited capacity of our human mind/science, then we equally have no business trying to understand him/her or even be bothered about his/her existence because it all means the same thing to that same human reasoning-capacity and which renders this view obsolete. And again in trying to consider a theistic creator responsible for the cosmos, we only see one thing and that is; ever since he/she placed the fine-tuned laws and parameters that govern the universe/life, only we humans have bothered ourselves about him. He/she hasn’t manifested in any way say in the original single-celled organisms or dinosaurs and other low-consciousness, low-cognition, low-moral valued and consequently low-spirituality ancestors that didn’t exhibit any theistic/non-theistic attributes. A lot has happened to life since those early days and life forms (with evidence) to an extent that whatever we observe today in the evolution of nature and life but specifically in humanity, has nothing to do with any theism and if one still presses on with that notion then it is tantamount to believing that the theistic creator abandoned this universe/life experiment (or died) right in the early days whereby whatever happened after then occured spontaneously by its own means is nothing to his credit. Humans simply imagine and this power has been honed over billions of years of evolution of life. It is so powerful that we go to lengths of imagining the un-imaginable and it is crucial for life’s survival and advancement against (or in harmony with) nature as the example of the predatory rustle in the grass. Due to imagination, the subject will visualise an enemy springing from the bushes/grass and attacking it therefore with the same imagination, it will take the necessary precautionary measures such as flight, evasion, camouflage, prepare for a fight, etc. All of that activity in such a moment is to the credit of trial-and-error lessons/experiences of evolution cemented in the brain and completely no use or serving no purpose to augment theism and that is life either at its simplest or finest.

17. Hi Travis,

    I think we are starting the widen the discussion from my original point. My comments have always been directed at your particular arguments, not anything more. I think you may think I am arguing for more than I actually am.

    There are two competing hypotheses we are discussing – (i) that our minds and consciousness can be explained in physical terms, and (ii) that they cannot – i.e. some form of dualism. Against your argument for naturalism based on the alleged continuity of consciousness, I have argued that (1) we don’t understand whether animals have consciousness like we have, so we don’t know how continuous (or not) consciousness is, and (2) even if some of them do have consciousness like us, that says nothing about whether consciousness can be explained physically.

    Re the paragraph you don’t understand, I am just pointing out that humans are conscious, we can assume trees are not, and we don’t really know much about things in between. We can only judge by outward actions and brain analysis, neither of which tell us much about consciousness and qualia. I have no reason to think there couldn’t be a gradual evolution of consciousness, but no reason to think that helps the argument you are making.

    Likewise the history of hominids over 300,000 years. I accept what DNA, skeletons and artefacts tell us about that history, but still don’t see how that shows that consciousness can be explained physically. If we can’t explain what we experience ourselves, how can we explain what we can only observe in a very imperfect way?

    So I’m inclined to agree with you now that we are beginning to repeat ourselves. I always enjoy discussing with you, and would be happy to continue, but equally I am happy to call a halt here. I’ll leave that to you. Thanks for the opportunity.

18. Hi MW, thanks for your interest. I’m not sure what point you are making, but I don’t at present see why you think (if you think this) that I should change my belief.

19. Eric,
    Yeah, I think its time to call it quits. I’m really struggling to find new things to say and I really don’t understand our disconnect on this one. Usually I feel like I’m able to reach a point where I at least understand the disagreement as a matter of different interpretations but this time I’m quite baffled. Oh well. This serves as an ironic example of the difficulty of relating two subjective perspectives, which is perhaps a point for your side. It’s almost as if that was intentional…

20. I laughed at your last rueful point! 🙂 I think the medium of blog comments isn’t the most precise way to thrash out these things. But you always give me useful insights even when I disagree, so it has been good for me. Thanks again.

21. Based on my experience in life, there is no god. It is nothing but a product of deception inculcated in the mind of man over the course of history.

22. Hi “Enlightened”, thanks for visiting and commenting. What in your experience leads you to that conclusion?

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