Looking for what to do what?

@Soothfast said
The answer to the question "What is north of the North Pole?" is simple: nothing. And we know that precisely because the North Pole is by definition the northernmost point on the planet.

The question "Where did natural processes come from?" is a reasonable one, if by "natural processes" is meant processes unfolding in the nature, and by "nature" is meant (more exp ...[text shortened]... themselves in knots with abstractions ever further removed from the only truths we know of for sure.

I agree that there is no reason to think that the universe exists only in the five modes we can sense.

However, the idea that there is any Mind or consciousness guiding observed natural processes in the universe is speculation; sounds like Gnosticism or Orphism, to me--no more plausible than Yahweh or Marduk or Baal or Ahura Mazda.

Based on the evidence available, there is no good reason to suppose that consciousness is anything beyond an epiphenomenon of the pre-frontal cortex in hominids, and very much more rudimentary in other mammals (such as dolphins , dogs, and cats). Of course insects and even plants have perception--they follow nutrients and avoid toxins--but that is hundreds of millions of years of evolution away from having nervous systems complex enough to be capable of supporting consciousness.

If you think a cockroach is conscious, then you might as well say that a clock knows what time it is.

I do not see humans as in any way superior to other life forms, including plants and bacteria--just more complex, that's all. So, I cannot follow Steiner's or Christianity's dogma that man is the "crown of creation." As individuals, we are not very robust (leave us outside in the cold for a month, and most of us would starve or freeze), and, as a species, we are invasive--most of the rest of the living things would flourish much better without us. We were not banished from paradise--we are actively ruining it.

@AlanTal said
Why is this thread in Science? I'm being polite, as always.

We are discussing the material conditions of life. As consciousness is part of our human lives, this belongs in the discussion, whether it is solely a physiological phenomenon or not. I maintain that the evidence is that it is an epiphenomenon of physiological processes.

@AlanTal said
Why is this thread in Science? I'm being polite, as always.

KellyJay put it here, though it seems that it could be placed into Spirituality.

@moonbus said

However, the idea that there is any Mind or consciousness guiding observed natural processes in the universe is speculation; sounds like Gnosticism or Orphism, to me--no more plausible than Yahweh or Marduk or Baal or Ahura Mazda.

Based on the evidence available, there is no good reason to suppose that consciousness is anything beyond an epiphenomenon of the pre-frontal ...[text shortened]... evolution away from having nervous systems complex enough to be capable of supporting consciousness.

As I did in 2024 in the Spirituality forum, I will state that my metaphysics aligns closely with that of Arthur Schopenhauer. A contemporary philosopher by the name of Bernardo Kastrup has updated Schopenhauer by introducing the concept of psychological dissociation to model the mechanism whereby a universal consciousness (UC) may give rise to a multitude of autonomous conscious agents, from bacteria to humans. UC has much more in common with the Buddhist understanding of Mind than the Western (or Abrahamic) "supreme fascist" models—those stern law-givers and cosmic punishers that drive humans to self-flagellation, and have a "plan" mapped out for every dust mote.

Metaphysical materialists—let's call them physicalists—do not perceive the hocus-pocus in their own putatively "hard-nosed" assumptions. Spinning gold from straw is as nothing compared with the notion of conjuring self-awareness from a mound of sand. It's the grandest fantasy of all time, running uphill against all reason since the days of Democritus, and based on the idea that matter/energy is eternal and primary, and consciousness emerges from certain of its arrangements. I tell you, matter is only a form of perception, which is experienced in consciousness, and we have no evidence that it is something apart from consciousness.

Ultimately, the metaphysics one adopts is first recommended by a gut feeling, and that gut feeling rarely changes in life. It isn't based in logic, so reasoned arguments are seldom going to precipitate a change in attitude. And when a gut feeling becomes institutionalized as physicalism has in the sciences, as an article of faith, then odds are it won't much change for generations to come yet. Ideally the scientific establishment would be metaphysically neutral and theologically agnostic, but it isn't so, and entrenched attitudes now routinely suppress research in neuroscience and the foundations of physics that might help shed light on certain metaphysical questions.

UC does not "guide" observed natural processes. Everything exists within UC, because UC is all there is. All that could ever be exists only as potentiality until it is experienced by a conscious subject. Time, space, matter, energy, and all else arise from UC. That makes sense to me because it introduces no discontinuities in nature, introduces the fewest ingredients in reality's "reduction base" (i.e. the essentially distinct building-blocks of existence), and does not hamstring existence to conform to some arbitrary chart of odd-ball particles such as found in the Standard Model of particle physics.

The idea of UC also puts a satisfactory halt to the otherwise infinite regress of where everything comes from. Even according to conventional quantum mechanics an electron isn't really a thing, it's an excitation of a quantum field. What's the field made of? Energy? And whence energy? What's the ultimate "stuff" of stuff? Oh, dear. But when I ask myself what a thought is made of, well, then I can say it's an experience, or an "excitation" in consciousness. And what is consciousness? At its simplest it is just an awareness of existing, of being—a "seems like." What else could it be? Why should be suppose that a "seeming like" can be reduced to something simpler? Is thinking the existence of certain particle arrangements is what gives rise to our thinking truly simpler than taking awareness itself as the ultimate ground? Certainly not.

HOW should matter become self-aware? I'm absolutely convinced the vast majority of physicalists have never truly sat down and contemplated this with an open mind and deep, honest introspection. Faith in emergentism and epiphenomena is absolute. An emergent property observed in the sciences is always in the same ontic category (e.g. material, mental, or informational) as the substrate or system underlying it.* The dogma of the Chuch of Physicalism violates this utterly.

AI is going to fool a lot of people in the years ahead. I personally don't think it can ever become conscious because of the ontically discrete nature of its "thought" processes. How should conscious awareness be carried from one bit to the next bit later in time? Yes, reality itself appears quantized (we might say digitized), but reality also presents itself to us only as perceptual forms within consciousness, and the apparent quantum nature of reality may merely be an artifact of our brains, which I believe process consciousness rather than generate it. But AI will fool people because it is already so very good at mimicry, and when people start mistaking simulations for real feeling, then they are ripe to be taken in by all kinds of nonsense.


* The argument from physicalists that mind emerges from matter because consciousness appears to emerge from neuronal networks is, of course, completely circular from the point of view of metaphysical idealism. To wit: physicalism is defensible only when physicalism's own postulates are taken as given, foremost among these being the assumption that matter is more ontologically primary than mind.

@Soothfast said
Is thinking the existence of certain particle arrangements is what gives rise to our thinking truly simpler than taking awareness itself as the ultimate ground? Certainly not.

The quote above I think is poorly phrased, so let me clarify.

The question is whether it's simpler to posit that particles are primary and independent of mind, and particular arrangements of these particles generate consciousness from scratch, versus taking consciousness to be fundamental, with particles being exactly as they appear to us: namely, forms in our field of perception, which we experience in consciousness (where else?).

Our brains evolved as processing centers within universal consciousness (UC), with thoughts and feelings occurring within ourselves, and sensory perceptions being representations of mental activities unfolding within the part of UC that lies "external" to us (often called mind-at-large, or MAL). Thus the brain is a kind of filter in UC, and the hypothesis I advance is that a human, or any living thing, is a mental complex within UC that is dissociated from the whole rather like an alter within someone with dissociative identity disorder. Dissociation is precisely how an ontological One can become an epistemological Many. It's well-documented in modern psychiatry, and I think can help model how Arthur Schopenhauer's "will" operates. But a model is all that it is, just as depicting atoms as tiny solar systems is a model.

My real aim here is to point out that there exist alternative metaphysical models aside from physicalism that do not invoke a deity. To deny this, and deride all discussion of nonphysicalist models as "woo" that must be relegated to a spirituality forum, is to be as hidebound and dogmatic as the worst kind of religious fundamentalist. Physicalism has not proven itself, and in no way deserves special veneration or deference.

@KellyJay said
We can all see the various pieces it takes to build something and know the odds against it falling into place, how many various possible other ways it could have failed. That gives an astronomically large number against life happening, but it is far worse than that if you look at it from the perspective of a bottom-up problem for chance and necessity to do the work. As bli ...[text shortened]... g those odds when we know what is required without knowing what was needed, or even what a need was.

One clear problem here: You absolutely believe god did it. Fine, nobody stopping you. But the elephant in the room here is your particular type of religion and THEIR reference to god, THEIR version of god.
But considering the thousands of other religions and each one with its own version of creation, you chose ONE and ONE ONLY version of those creation stories.
You don't care a WHIT about ANY of those other creation tales since you are arrogant enough to refuse even to READ about those other tales because you KNOW only the Christian version is right.

@sonhouse said
One clear problem here: You absolutely believe god did it. Fine, nobody stopping you. But the elephant in the room here is your particular type of religion and THEIR reference to god, THEIR version of god.
But considering the thousands of other religions and each one with its own version of creation, you chose ONE and ONE ONLY version of those creation stories.
You don't c ...[text shortened]... to refuse even to READ about those other tales because you KNOW only the Christian version is right.

Another one of those complaints that fits every side of every discussion, so it is meaningless as a point to prove anything! Everyone who has a belief about what they believe could fit into this without exception. If you want to prove one is better than another you need to find something that shows a particular belief is wrong, having people believe what they believe is not one of them.