We don't know if consciousness is physical, Period.

[AgnosticBoy]

On another thread, one member stated the following regarding consciousness:

Where you are begging the question is when you assume that the mind (i e. Something immaterial) is responsible for that, when the brain (network of neurons plugged to stimulus from the outside world + a bunch of accidents of evolution) can perfectly be pointed as the source of those behavior.

Before assuming something immaterial is responsible for a phenomenon, starts by proving something immaterial exist to begin with.

Not only am I skeptical of this claim, which is a common claim made by atheists, but I also get annoyed by the level of confidence that people have in the above claim. If the researchers that study consciousness acknowledge that it presents a 'hard problem', then why should I believe any claims that explain consciousness as being physical? In my view, there are good reasons to doubt that consciousness is material or physical. The way I look at it is that even if consciousness is physical, it is still unlike any other physical phenomenon in the Universe. The main reason for that is that the presence of subjectivity. As it stands, subjective experiences can only be observed by the subject. Also, they are not measurable nor observable from the third-person point-of-view. Don't all of those characteristics sound familiar to some thing else? Immaterial or non-physical (also being unobservable, not measurable, etc.)?

Please debate:
1. Is it arrogant to claim that consciousness is physical?
2. Are there good reasons to doubt that it is physical? Or do you agree with the point from the post I quoted at the beginning of this post?

[JoeyKnothead]

...
There is no mental phenomenon that cannot be explained by neurochemistry.
...

As my amateur study concerning the effects of various drugs has shown

Even many theists concede that evolution is a fact. So the idea that some scientists might fuss about it ain't nothing new.

[Gracchus]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #70]
"Gaze" does not "look out". Professor Sapolsky whom you dismiss teaches at Stanford. You are ignor... ignored.

[brunumb]

DNA is written in base four but let's use your base two example. We will start a bacteria which has about 6E6 base pairs. So let's say we have 6E6 pennies and all of the pennies are numbered from 1 to 6 million. (My example is much cheaper than yours) What would be the odds of me guessing the correct sequence of all 6 million pennies? That would be somewhere around 1 in 10E2,000,000 chance. Just so you do not get lost in the large numbers. So that means you would have to throw those 6 million pennies every second for 10E1999988 years. You are correct nature does not mind large numbers. But those large numbers make evolution impossible. In base 4 the probability would be more like 10E4000000. So in actuality, we would be looking at 10E4,000,000 years. This is why I say evolution is nothing more than pantheism. And that is for a simple one-celled organism. An organism like a human with 3.5E9 base pairs has a probability of around 1 in 10E2,000,000,000. The pantheism needed in evolution is very predominant in the theory.

What mechanism of evolution does that apply to? Are you suggesting that we have to get the entire DNA sequence in one go?

[JoeyKnothead]

...
DNA is written in base four but let's use your base two example. We will start a bacteria which has about 6E6 base pairs. So let's say we have 6E6 pennies and all of the pennies are numbered from 1 to 6 million. (My example is much cheaper than yours) What would be the odds of me guessing the correct sequence of all 6 million pennies?

This doesn't consider that chemicals don't wait in a line with a numbered ticket.

Considering the amounts of these chemicals, and the times involved, there we go.

As I keep repeating, evolution is a fact. If the math doesn't work, the math is wrong.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #67]

Genes and Natural selection is the theory of evolution.

They are certainly a major part of it, but not all of it as research has shown over the last decades. The field has not stood still since Origin of Species 150+ years ago (eg. Darwin knew nothing of genes or mutations, DNA, etc.).

If you cannot understand life by understanding Genes and Natural selection then you do not understand how life evolved.

Understanding genes and natural selection is a certainly big part of evolution and explains a great deal, but the field now is augmented by everything else that has been learned about the various mechanisms of evolution that are still being discovered. Nothing has yet shown that evolution by natural selection is false, even if it needs refinement as new information becomes available (like any other field of science).

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Gracchus in post #72]

"Gaze" does not "look out". Professor Sapolsky whom you dismiss teaches at Stanford. You are ignor... ignored.

It really does not matter where he teaches. A theory still has to explain the observations. The consequence of what he is proposing is that there must be a straight line from cause to effect. The contemplation of ideas and the generation of new logical ideas refute his theory. How would a chemical process generate a logical idea unless there was some type of chemical algorithm controlling the chemical reactions? You could claim the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle could generate new ideas but then they would not have to be logical ideas. Logically thinking through a problem and coming up with a logical solution. Cannot be explained by simple chemical reactions.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to brunumb in post #73]

What mechanism of evolution does that apply to? Are you suggesting that we have to get the entire DNA sequence in one go?

I thought evolution did not describe anything before the formation of life. So why are you mentioning evolution?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #74]

his doesn't consider that chemicals don't wait in a line with a numbered ticket.

Considering the amounts of these chemicals, and the times involved, there we go.

As I keep repeating, evolution is a fact. If the math doesn't work, the math is wrong.

Well, I can make the base 92 since there are 92 naturally occurring elements but that does not help your argument at all. In fact, it makes it about 10,000 times worse which is probably closer to reality. Then you are up to 1 in 10E12,000,000.

• Perhaps the biggest change from the theory’s mid-century glory days is that its most ambitious claims – that simply by understanding genes and natural selection, we can understand all life on earth – have been dropped, or now come weighted with caveats and exceptions. https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... -evolution

These evolutionary scientists are saying that evolution cannot explain life on Earth.

[JoeyKnothead]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #74]

This doesn't consider that chemicals don't wait in a line with a numbered ticket.

Considering the amounts of these chemicals, and the times involved, there we go.

As I keep repeating, evolution is a fact. If the math doesn't work, the math is wrong.

Well, I can make the base 92 since there are 92 naturally occurring elements but that does not help your argument at all. In fact, it makes it about 10,000 times worse which is probably closer to reality. Then you are up to 1 in 10E12,000,000.

The odds of something happening, that has happened, is 1. Evolution doesn't care about your incredulity.

• Perhaps the biggest change from the theory’s mid-century glory days is that its most ambitious claims – that simply by understanding genes and natural selection, we can understand all life on earth – have been dropped, or now come weighted with caveats and exceptions. https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... -evolution

These evolutionary scientists are saying that evolution cannot explain life on Earth.

Steve disagrees.

Of course we can fuss about the mechanisms, but evolution is a thing.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #79]

The odds of something happening, that has happened, is 1. Evolution doesn't care about your incredulity.

Evolution cannot care about anything. The math says that it is simply an incorrect idea. Even evolutionary scientists know about that

Steve disagrees.

Of course, we can fuss about the mechanisms, but evolution is a thing.

Steve may believe whatever he wants to believe. He cannot mathematically prove that it does. It is simply someone's dream and now even scientists that support evolution are saying that there is no evidence to support large-scale evolution between kingdoms, phyla, and orders.