[dlorde]

...  the non-material side of reality must be left outside of science , obviously , but science can shed some light on  some parts of the non-material side of reality as well, by shedding light on its material basis ...

So non-material reality has a material basis?

Is consciousness part of non-material reality?

If so, does that mean science can shed light on it by shedding light on its material basis? if not, why not?

On the other hand, if consciousness is part of material reality, science can shed light on it directly...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

...  the non-material side of reality must be left outside of science , obviously , but science can shed some light on  some parts of the non-material side of reality as well, by shedding light on its material basis ...

So non-material reality has a material basis?

Is consciousness part of non-material reality?

If so, does that mean science can shed light on it by shedding light on its material basis? if not, why not?

On the other hand, if consciousness is part of material reality, science can shed light on it directly...

I will try to correct my earlier clumsy formulations, as follows :

Obviously , we are body and mind , matter and spirit :
The position of any given person regarding just that depends largely on his/her philosophical  secular , philsophical religious , or just on the religious view of the person in question regarding body and mind : dualism, monism , idealism ...
The materialist dominance in science has just choosen to turn that monism of Spinoza on the subject to materialist monism in science ...

The "view" of Islam , for example , as i understand it to be at last , is neither monistic , nor dualistic , or idealistic = it is neither : sees mind and body , or matter and spirit as 2 different 'things " or rather processes in one or as one ... : 2 = 1....i dunno .

So, the  approach of the  issue or hard problem of consciousness depends thus largely on the world view of the approacher in question ,so to speak .

I think that science cannot say much about consciousness as such ,or rather almost nothing at all ,  simply because consciousness  is immaterial , but science can help us shed some light on the physical biological brain as the kindda "receiver " or   as the executive material power of consciousness, i dunno  : basis was a wrong mistaken word : human language is too limited , too ideological, too cultural , too local ...so.

How the physical material biological brain and the immaterial non-physical and non-biological consciousness do interact correlate with each other is anybody's guess : beat me ...

[alancalverd]

you cannot but confuse materialism with science , logically , as a result

Speak for yourself. I have no problem distinguishing betwen the two. Science is a process, materialism is a belief or a way of life. No similarity, no connection. I'm sorry for those who find such a simple distinction confusing but that's not my problem.

All I can advise is that if you fill your head with isms, religion or philosophy, you will waste an otherwise satisfying and productive life, and possibly learn to despise others or hold them in contempt. 

[dlorde]

How the immaterial, non-physical, non-biological can affect or influence the material, physical, biological does seem to be a serious challenge for the immaterial consciousness idea. To influence the material means having a material effect, which suggests a material basis, but to be immaterial suggests the opposite.

Conversely, for immaterial consciousness to be aware of what's coming in through the senses and what is going on in the brain, it must be influenced or affected by material brain activity. A control system can't operate 'blind', without feedback.

Which raises the question, if something can both affect and be affected by the material, in what sense is it not material?

And if the non-material can both affect and be affected by the material, the assertion that it can't have a material basis seems fatally undermined.

These appear to be fundamental problems for the idea of immaterial consciousness, but the idea is testable, if not entirely falsifiable.

If consciousness is immaterial and controls all voluntary behaviours, such as memory, judgment, planning, personality, etc., we might expect to observe apparently spontaneous neural activity arising as the appropriate neurons are somehow influenced by consciousness to cause or modify these activities, and we would not expect to see changes consistent with consciousness being a process of the material brain, such as broad or non-specific influences on the brain (e.g. narcotics, stimulants, sedatives), having correspondingly broad influences on the functions of consciousness; or local and specific influences on the brain (e.g. localised damage or stimulation) having correspondingly specific effects on consciousness. 

However, when we examine the evidence, we don't see the levels of spontaneous activity that we might expect if some external influence was supplying memory, judgment, planning, etc. But the brain is extremely complex, so we can't be certain this influence is absent.

On the other hand, we do see that both specific local and broad non-specific influences on the brain have effects on consciousness entirely consistent with consciousness being the product of brain activity, and inconsistent with the immaterial consciousness idea.

So what would a reasonable person prefer:

the idea (immaterial consciousness) that has a fundamental contradiction or inconsistency at its core (how material & non-material can interact, and if they can, what differentiates them), for which there is no supporting evidence, explanatory model or mechanism, and which is not consistent with the available evidence...

Or the idea (consciousness materially generated) that is consistent with the available evidence, has an increasingly detailed model and explanatory mechanism and has at its core not a contradiction or inconsistency, but an as yet unanswered question?

Your choice; are you a reasonable person?

[alancalverd]

It's all been done before, and more succinctly:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."
Boswell: The Life of Dr Johnson

[dlorde]

It's all been done before, and more succinctly:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."
Boswell: The Life of Dr Johnson

True - one of my favourite stories; empirical, pragmatic, and succinct.

But then, of course, Bishop Berkeley would have grasped his point without elaboration.

[cheryl j]

Source : http://forums.intpcentral.com/showthread.php?15753-Why-Materialism-is-False

Prior Note :

The following article does not necessarily reflect my own opinions or views on the subject :



    ....In short, I think materialism is false. Below is why, with a detour through the reasons why Materialism isn't false.....

   
...The first and easiest is the problem of life. The problem arises from the unique properties and capabilities of living organisms; it had seemed incomprehensible that the mechanical world of physics could explain the biological. Something else was needed, so it was postulated that a vital force animated living matter, imbuing it with lifelike qualities. The doctrine held that life was inexplicable in terms of physicochemical interactions. If the Materialist could not explain life, then Materialism must be false.

    The Materialist did not get his answer to this problem in one sweeping theory, but rather a cumulation of experimental findings, from William Harvey's discovery that the circularitory system was a cleverly engineered mechanism to pump blood around the body, to Fracis Crick and James Watson's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The march of scientific progress has unveiled the fine structure of cellular machinery, all working impeccably from physicochemical laws without the need for a vital animating force.

    Here the Materialist can explain how life works without appealing to any immaterial vital essence, but there still remains another problem to be solved. This is the problem of design. How is it that this incredible arrangement of organised matter came into being? The odds that such organisation would occur by chance are astronomically low, but life is bustling all around us in a multitude of forms. If the Materialist cannot explain this design, then Materialism must be false.

    In 1859, in a joint paper by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace that explanation was provided. The Materialist now had The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection i.e. The gradual accumulation of adaptive organisation by selective advantage. This elegant theory has provided the Materialist with an answer to the problem of design, which has in time been corroborated by a vast amount of evidence, from practically every field of scientific study.

    The problem of design had been solved, but an interesting disagreement between Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin persisted. The problem of thought presented itself. To Wallace, the human capacity for reasoned thought was beyond the reach of evolution, a feat which could simply not have been achieved by anything other than supernatural intervention, or in other words: God given. How could it be that a physical system could possibly think? If Materialism cannot explain how it is that we think, then Materialism must be false.

    The answer to the problem today is all around us, in front of anyone reading this at this very moment, i.e. computation. Alan Turing's Turing machine and the advent of modern electronics are a vivid illustration that complex computational architecture, obeying only the laws of physics can perform intelligent operations. The Materialist can now look to neurobiology, where cognition is explained as the consequent of neurocomputations occurring in parallel throughout the central nervous system. The Materialist now has his answer to Wallace's conjecture that the capacity for reason is unevolvable and must be God given.

    So the Materialist has provided powerful arguments to solve the problem of life, the problem of design and the problem thought. Unlike these three problems, the final problem on my list cannot refute Materialism. If Materialism is indeed amoral, it would be a nonsequitor to conclude from Materialism's amorality that it is false. For this reason, the problem of morality is a special case, but nonetheless very powerful. Briefly, the argument claims that if we are nothing but an unintentional consequence of natural selection, nothing but elaborate machines and built by selfish genes, then there is no reason to work for a higher purpose. For what reason should we treat our fellow man with compassion? What becomes of right and wrong with no God?

    The answer to this problem is the combined product of evolutionary biology, neurobiology and philosophy. The combined solutions to the previous three problems set the stage for solving the problem of morality. First, evolutionary biology, far from undermining the basis of morality, can explain why we have a moral sense in the first place. Second, neurobiology has provided scientists with evidence of how the human brain computes moral decisions. Finally, philosophers have raised objections to the accusation that Materialism is inherently amoral, refuting the accusations with powerful solutions and counterarguments.

    Note: I am sure many reading this may object to the solutions I have presented to the 'four problems,' such objections are welcome and I encourage further criticism.

    ________________________________________________________________

    I have taken this detour through the successes of Materialism to drive home that I have no political agenda against the philosophy, religiously motivated or otherwise. I now wish to draw attention to my fifth problem for Materialism:

    5) The problem of consciousness
    A single element of conscious experience is called a quale, a group of quale are known as qualia. A quale might be the subjective experience of red, cold or pain. All quale are symbolic representations of frequencies and angles. The problem for Materialism is explaining qualia, the subjective experience of life, the very subjective experience without which we cannot imagine life being worth living at all. How can a physical system such as the brain be responsible for consciousness?. This is no small problem, for if Materialism cannot explain consciousness, then Materialism is false.

 
    No matter where you look in my brain, even if you are looking at that particular cluster of neurons responsible for my conscious experience of red, you cannot sensibly say that you are looking at the quale redness. The redness I see is qualitively independent of the neural substrate that is responsible for that quale. To put this another way, I would argue that qualia are ontologically irreducible to the neural substrate, that is, qualia have independent qualities which cannot be explained at the physical level. However, I also would argue that consciousness is entirely caused by the neural substrate, that consciousness has no informational content or cognitive ability above that which occurs on the neurocomputational level i.e. consciousness is causally reducible to the neural substrate.

   
    ________________________________________________________________

    A possible criticism of my theory is that consciousness is an emergent consequence of brain activity. This is a tempting view to take, analogous to the quality of wetness. A body of water is wet, even though no particular element of that body of water is wet. To clarify, a single molecule of H2O cannot be wet, because the quality of wetness is dependent upon the interactions of the constituent parts, without belong to any of those particular constituent parts. Wetness is an emergent property. A critic might conjecture that consciousness is also an emergent property of brain activity.

    I do not think that consciousness is an emergent product of brain activity. The difference between wetness and consciousness is that the quality of wetness follows from the physical laws governing the behavior of H2O, that is, given only the laws of physics I could predict that particular chemical substances would have the emergent property of wetness. The same cannot be said of consciousness. Given only the laws of physics, I could not predict the emergence of consciousness, it simply does not follow that from any complex neurocomputational system that consciousness should be." End Quote.

I doubt octopi and aardvarks could be predicted from fundamental particles either, so consciousness is not special in that regard.
Materialism is not the same as reductionism. As I mentioned earlier, probability and statistics has studied higher order relationships since the 1800s. It is rooted in empirical data, measurements of observable events, but a single dot on the graph tells you nothing.  You cannot predict the traffic patterns in Los Angeles, when and where accidents are most likely to occur, by looking at the length of screws in cars, the construction of tires, the components of the internal combustion engine.  Those are the wrong levels of organization for obtaining the information you are looking for.

I’m not crazy about “wetness” as an example of an emergent property, as it would involve a circular definition, the property of having  a lot of water or some other liquid in it or on its surface. But I do like dlorde’s example of brass being stronger than either tin or copper. David Cooper said a while back that a system cannot have properties that are not in its components, but I disagree. None of the cells in a bird are capable of flight, but a bird flies. So, if offered a choice, should I believe that flight is a property that emerges from the bird’s interacting components?   Or should I believe that a bird becomes infused with the non-material spirit of flight, or is somehow given flight by non material morphic resonance?

Flight is also the result of the bird's physical interaction with its environment, the air pressure difference above and below the wing. One thing we have not discussed very much, if at all, in this thread is the effect of environment on the brain. Not everything the brain does can be accounted for by its parts because it does not exist in isolation. Genes are big factor in human behaviour and ability, but environment has a major influence on how this is manifested. Several gene variants have been associated with things like anti-social behaviour disorder (aggression, violence, criminality.) Statistically speaking, the genes alone do not predict anti-social behaviour unless combined with an abusive, neglectful childhood. To put it simply, bad genes, good home: you’re fine. Good genes, bad home: still fine. Bad genes, bad home: disaster.

Another higher order, environmental effect is learning, which changes both the structure of the brain and its function. It also changes consciousness, or what you are conscious of. When you were first learning to type, you had to look down and hunt for every letter. Now your fingers seem to fly effortlessly over the keyboard, as you focus on what you want to say and how you next want to insult me. Curiously, if I asked you where the letter “V” is on the key board, you will probably have to look, or at the very least think about it a lot longer than you do when you are typing. Why? One explanation is that a learned skill is first obtained consciously, but its execution eventually becomes a process that happens just below the level of conscious awareness, where it works faster and more efficiently, and incidentally, with less energy consumption. So why doesn’t the entire brain function by these automatic processes?

One possible reason is that automatic programs are inflexible. A rat in a cage where there is both a juicy morsel of food and an electric shock will approach, withdraw, approach and withdraw. He becomes stuck in the middle of the cage. One thing that distinguishes humans (and even chimps and dogs) from, say, reptiles is the number and variety of ways they can respond to a stimulus or situation, a kind of flexibility. But flexibility requires a number of things, a way to switch back and forth between programs, and acquire new ones.
 Consciousness seems most active, not just in terms of certain types of brain activity on imaging, but also from people’s subjective experience of it (which you are so fond of,) when the environment violates your brain's expectations. If hitting the letter V on the keyboard started producing a T every time, you would stop thinking about the falseness of materialism, become aware of what your fingers were doing, and look down at the keyboard, puzzled. You can drive down the road, thinking of other things, barely remembering what you saw the last few miles, unless there’s a car flipped over in the ditch. When someone across a noisy room mentions your name, you hear it, and turn around, even though you have no recollection what else they were saying and feel as though you weren’t even listening to them. Neuroscience can explain these things, rather specifically. I don’t know about morphic resonance. But my main point is, that the statement in the article you posted: “it simply does not follow that from any complex neurocomputational system that consciousness should be” is not a reasonable assumption.

[dlorde]

,,,But my main point is, that the statement in the article you posted: “it simply does not follow that from any complex neurocomputational system that consciousness should be” is not a reasonable assumption.

Indeed; and there's something about the phrasing of that statement that seems curiously ambiguous in isolation.

It also seems to me that the alternative, the immaterial ghost in the machine, the Cartesian theater, is far more unsatisfactory, raising more unanswerable questions than it attempts to answer; at the analytical extreme it results in an infinite recursion of theaters and viewers, and at the the other extreme, a hand-waving vagueness of indeterminate ontology and epistemological vacuity, that effectively limits rational enquiry in much the same way as the god idea terminates rational enquiry into the chain of causality. Whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic, I've yet to see anything to dissuade me that the god idea and the immaterial consciousness are lazy philosophical bedfellows of causal abrogation without explanatory or predictive utility.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

,,,But my main point is, that the statement in the article you posted: “it simply does not follow that from any complex neurocomputational system that consciousness should be” is not a reasonable assumption.

Indeed; and there's something about the phrasing of that statement that seems curiously ambiguous in isolation.

It also seems to me that the alternative, the immaterial ghost in the machine, the Cartesian theater, is far more unsatisfactory, raising more unanswerable questions than it attempts to answer; at the analytical extreme it results in an infinite recursion of theaters and viewers, and at the the other extreme, a hand-waving vagueness of indeterminate ontology and epistemological vacuity, that effectively limits rational enquiry in much the same way as the god idea terminates rational enquiry into the chain of causality. Whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic, I've yet to see anything to dissuade me that the god idea and the immaterial consciousness are lazy philosophical bedfellows of causal abrogation without explanatory or predictive utility.

The core point is :

The materialist magical approach of consciousness ,life ....and materialism itself are false ,so, one should try to look for alternatives to materialism :
That the potentially alternatives to materialism seem unsatisfactory to you , won't make the fact go away that materialism is false : comprende , amigo ?
Once again, i think that the immaterial side of reality , including consciousness , are , per definition, out of reach of the current conventional science :
I do not see either how any kindda evolved science in the future , via a so-called non-reductionist naturalism in science , can approach that immaterial side of reality ...directly , that you call paranormal , the latter is normal though ,not paranormal : paranormal is just made-up by man meaningless semantics .
Science can approach the immaterial side of reality though ,indirectly , via approaching the material side of reality , by shedding light on the brain as the "receiver " of consciousness ...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

It's all been done before, and more succinctly:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."
Boswell: The Life of Dr Johnson

True - one of my favourite stories; empirical, pragmatic, and succinct.

But then, of course, Bishop Berkeley would have grasped his point without elaboration.

(Idealism is partly true though , partly wrong ...= the universe is matter and spirit , not only spirit .
Materialism is the exact opposite of idealism : materialism that assumes or rather believes that the universe is exclusively material , a materialist idiotic assumption and belief that are obviously ...false ...

Materialism is thus no better than that idealism of that silly bishop= they stand at the same level = oh no, rectification correction = mind or spirit are way too fundamental than matter can ever be = materialism is even lower or is rather a degenerate form of ....idealism also ... )

Wrong : there is nothing true , empirical pragmati succint regarding the alleged refutation of that story :
Science can neither prove nor disprove the silly allegations of that bishop ,obviously ....reason , logic ...neither .
It does not mean that idealism is true though ,as i said above ....
I can say that God is behind everything and at every moment in the universe and beyond : empirical science can say nothing about this allegation of mine , simply because science has no jurisdiction, so to speak, on that ....= that 's outside of the natural realm of science = in fact , that' s outside of the material side of reality as the domain or realm of science ....

Your unnuanced unrelative Russell's tea pot argument does not cover what i said here above ....= the simplest and best obvious answer to our existential questions is simply ...God = occam's razor ...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

you cannot but confuse materialism with science , logically , as a result

Speak for yourself. I have no problem distinguishing betwen the two. Science is a process, materialism is a belief or a way of life. No similarity, no connection. I'm sorry for those who find such a simple distinction confusing but that's not my problem.

No, you do , obviously , confuse science with materialism , as the majority of scientists do , a fact you cannot deny as such , a fact i have been extracting from your own replies on this and on other threads as well, all along .

Do you think that reality   is exclusively material, for example ? If you do, and i think you do , then you are a materialist who happens to confuse his materialism with the material side of reality , the latter as the domain or realm of science .

All I can advise is that if you fill your head with isms, religion or philosophy, you will waste an otherwise satisfying and productive life, and possibly learn to despise others or hold them in contempt.

My friend , everyone on this planet , including you me and our friends here , have their own beliefs , materialist beliefs or otherwise , world views .....
So, do not make it sound as if you are some unique special exception of that general rule that applies to every human on this planet , consciously or sub-consciously ...

[dlorde]

Don, I notice you still haven't addressed my earlier post where I asked:

... So what would a reasonable person prefer:

the idea (immaterial consciousness) that has a fundamental contradiction or inconsistency at its core (how material & non-material can interact, and if they can, what differentiates them), for which there is no supporting evidence, explanatory model or mechanism, and which is not consistent with the available evidence...

Or the idea (consciousness materially generated) that is consistent with the available evidence, has an increasingly detailed model and explanatory mechanism and has at its core not a contradiction or inconsistency, but an as yet unanswered question?

Your choice; are you a reasonable person?

Fancy a go?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

How the immaterial, non-physical, non-biological can affect or influence the material, physical, biological does seem to be a serious challenge for the immaterial consciousness idea. To influence the material means having a material effect, which suggests a material basis, but to be immaterial suggests the opposite.

Lethal thought error, and false materialist premise  :

You're looking at consciousness from the materialist point of view , dude , in order to prove the materialist magical approach of consciousness haha : very convenient indeed .
It's like saying i know, as many people do , that  i am a false pathological chronic deceptive manipulative liar , so, i will prove i am indeed  .
Since materialism is false , do not try to apply it to non-physical non -biological processes , as you do here above :

You cannot apply a false premise or a false hypothesis ,in order to prove your false premise , false hypothesis or materialist belief to be "true " = makes no sense .

So, I will turn this materialist non-sense of yours upside down : you cannot but "think" materialistically , i see :

Thoughts of a scientist observer can influence or change the activity of atoms he/ she is "looking " at or "observing" : do you think that those thoughts that are immaterial of course do just that to atoms ,via some material way  haha ,RU nuts  ? How then ?
By sending some invisible undetectable "energy" or remote 'signals "  from the brain to those atoms , like a tv remote control device do to the tv ?  haha

We can detect those signals sent by the remote control device to the tv at least though .

Conversely, for immaterial consciousness to be aware of what's coming in through the senses and what is going on in the brain, it must be influenced or affected by material brain activity. A control system can't operate 'blind', without feedback.

How did you deduce from that silly reasoning of yours that consciousness can be affected and influenced by the brain ? does not add up :

Did you read the book or watched the movie concerning the extremely inspiring story of Helen Keller : The story of my life ?
She was born blind and deaf.....
Consciousness exists even without our senses ....

Which raises the question, if something can both affect and be affected by the material, in what sense is it not material?

You're building your reasoning on a false premise , amigo ?
Who said consciousness can be affected and influenced by the brain through our senses ? Why not say that consciousness gets somehow informed by the brain via the senses ,or something like that , instead of assuming that consciousness gets affected and influenced by the brain through the senses , in order to get where you wanna get , as Thomas Aquinas used to do haha , regarding his silly attempts to prove the existence of God , for example ............very convenient .

And if the non-material can both affect and be affected by the material, the assertion that it can't have a material basis seems fatally undermined.

False premise = false reasoning = false conclusions .

These appear to be fundamental problems for the idea of immaterial consciousness, but the idea is testable, if not entirely falsifiable.

How can you test that then at least ? or make that partly falsifiable ?

If consciousness is immaterial and controls all voluntary behaviours, such as memory, judgment, planning, personality, etc., we might expect to observe apparently spontaneous neural activity arising as the appropriate neurons are somehow influenced by consciousness to cause or modify these activities, and we would not expect to see changes consistent with consciousness being a process of the material brain, such as broad or non-specific influences on the brain (e.g. narcotics, stimulants, sedatives), having correspondingly broad influences on the functions of consciousness; or local and specific influences on the brain (e.g. localised damage or stimulation) having correspondingly specific effects on consciousness. 

False premises again : what makes you think that consciousness gets affected or influenced by all that you mentioned ?
Why not think of the brain as some sort of a receiver then ?

What do you mean by spontaneous ? = something arising out of or emerging from nothing ..............
RU gonna send us back to that refuted  silly spontaneous generation?

However, when we examine the evidence, we don't see the levels of spontaneous activity that we might expect if some external influence was supplying memory, judgment, planning, etc. But the brain is extremely complex, so we can't be certain this influence is absent.

Brain and consciousness do interact and correlate with each other , how ? = that's anyone's guess , once again ...

On the other hand, we do see that both specific local and broad non-specific influences on the brain have effects on consciousness entirely consistent with consciousness being the product of brain activity, and inconsistent with the immaterial consciousness idea.

False  magical materialist bullshit  premises again .
Interaction or correlation between brain and consciousness = no causation .
Even the alleged causation is no explanation , simply because causation is no explanation .

So what would a reasonable person prefer:

the idea (immaterial consciousness) that has a fundamental contradiction or inconsistency at its core (how material & non-material can interact, and if they can, what differentiates them), for which there is no supporting evidence, explanatory model or mechanism, and which is not consistent with the available evidence...

You start with materialist false premises ,in order to prove those materialist false premises haha : How silly can you be ? : you're no better than Thomas Aquinas ...

You start with a false materialist hypothesis , just to get where you want = false premises = false reasoning = false conclusions .

A reasonable person should reject that false idiotic materialism ,obviously , unless one finds himself / herself comfortable in that materialist false idiotic belief = the human will to believe is inexhaustible indeed.

Or the idea (consciousness materially generated) that is consistent with the available evidence, has an increasingly detailed model and explanatory mechanism and has at its core not a contradiction or inconsistency, but an as yet unanswered question?

It's not a matter of preference or taste , like- dislike ...it's a matter of the truth we are talking about here , no matter what the truth might ever be .

Do not be stupid :
Physics and chemistry cannot , magically , give rise to consciousness ....thought , feelings , emotions ,...otherwise , we can build machines that would really think feel experience things , love ...exactly like humans do , not just simulate all that = cannot be done, for obvious reasons .

Your choice; are you a reasonable person?

You're a stupid person, blinded by the irrational false materialist faith, despite your relative intelligence , scientific qualifications , ...in the same fashion Stephen Hawking , Dawkins and all the rest of those materialists are ..............

[alancalverd]

I can say that God is behind everything and at every moment in the universe and beyond

....and I can say "bullshit". Since my statement involves nothing undefined, nothing unprovable, and no assumptions, it is a better statement than yours, and more likely to be true. Occam's Razor is a very sharp tool.   

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Don, I notice you still haven't addressed my earlier post where I asked:

... So what would a reasonable person prefer:

the idea (immaterial consciousness) that has a fundamental contradiction or inconsistency at its core (how material & non-material can interact, and if they can, what differentiates them), for which there is no supporting evidence, explanatory model or mechanism, and which is not consistent with the available evidence...

Or the idea (consciousness materially generated) that is consistent with the available evidence, has an increasingly detailed model and explanatory mechanism and has at its core not a contradiction or inconsistency, but an as yet unanswered question?

Your choice; are you a reasonable person?

Fancy a go? :

)


See above :
Why do you think it's not possible that the immaterial consciousness can interact and correlate with the brain via unknown immaterial ways , either way ?

The immaterial consciousness and the immaterial side of reality are , per definition, out of reach of ...science .
You cannot just decide to turn the immaterial to the material ,via some magic , just to suit your own materialist beliefs: that's something that cannot be bought by really intelligent folks :
Go sell that  materialist non-sense to the ...atoms or to the inanimate matter : even those would not buy it , simply because even those are not just matter or just material processes...= everything in this universe is matter and spirit with  relative respective degrees of spirit ..............or consciousness...
Even atoms are conscious ,their own atomic degree of consciousness .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

I can say that God is behind everything and at every moment in the universe and beyond

....and I can say "bullshit". Since my statement involves nothing undefined, nothing unprovable, and no assumptions, it is a better statement than yours, and more likely to be true. Occam's Razor is a very sharp tool.

The only reasonable logical answer to the existential question is ...God .
That's the most simplest and best sort of occam's razor explanation .
If you wanna confuse what i said with that Russell's tea pot argument , the latter does not "cover" the former  , you're free to do so = it does not mean you're right : you're simply wrong= occam's razor  .

[dlorde]

How did you deduce from that silly reasoning of yours that consciousness can be affected and influenced by the brain ?

If consciousness is not affected or influenced by what's happening in the brain, how does does it know what's happening?

Did you read the book or watched the movie concerning the extremely inspiring story of Helen Keller : The story of my life ?
She was born blind and deaf.....

And she used her other senses, especially touch, and proprioception.

Who said consciousness can be affected and influenced by the brain through our senses ? Why not say that consciousness gets somehow informed by the brain via the senses ,or something like that , instead of assuming that consciousness gets affected and influenced by the brain through the senses

Informed, affected, influenced - makes no difference to the point. If you are informed by something it affects and/or influences you - it gives you information that informs you.

Brain and consciousness do interact and correlate with each other , how ? = that's anyone's guess , once again ...

And that's the problem - the logical problem of material and immaterial interacting. I think you're deliberately ignoring it.

You're a stupid person, blinded by the irrational false materialist faith, despite your relative intelligence , scientific qualifications , ...in the same fashion Stephen Hawking , Dawkins and all the rest of those materialists are ..............

Insults and ad-hominems don't address the arguments, they just make you look puerile.

[dlorde]

Why do you think it's not possible that the immaterial consciousness can interact and correlate with the brain via unknown immaterial ways , either way ?

Can't you see I'm questioning what you mean by immaterial if it can be influenced (informed) by the material and itself influence the material? in what sense can it then be non-material?

Even atoms are conscious ,their own atomic degree of consciousness .

How do you know that?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

I doubt octopi and aardvarks could be predicted from fundamental particles either, so consciousness is not special in that regard.
Materialism is not the same as reductionism. As I mentioned earlier, probability and statistics has studied higher order relationships since the 1800s. It is rooted in empirical data, measurements of observable events, but a single dot on the graph tells you nothing.  You cannot predict the traffic patterns in Los Angeles, when and where accidents are most likely to occur, by looking at the length of screws in cars, the construction of tires, the components of the internal combustion engine.  Those are the wrong levels of organization for obtaining the information you are looking for.

Materialism can , per definition,logically , obviously , intrinsically inherently ,  only be reductionist , and can only lead to reductionism  and atheism ,obviously,  simply because materialism reduces everything in the universe to just matter or material processes , to just physics and chemistry .
Besides, what do have logics , maths , all sciences and the rest to do with ...materialism ? = absolutely nothing = materialism is just an Eurocentric false world view ideology -conception of nature = a secular religion belief imposed on science as science for so long now  .

I’m not crazy about “wetness” as an example of an emergent property, as it would involve a circular definition, the property of having  a lot of water or some other liquid in it or on its surface. But I do like dlorde’s example of brass being stronger than either tin or copper. David Cooper said a while back that a system cannot have properties that are not in its components, but I disagree. None of the cells in a bird are capable of flight, but a bird flies. So, if offered a choice, should I believe that flight is a property that emerges from the bird’s interacting components?   Or should I believe that a bird becomes infused with the non-material spirit of flight, or is somehow given flight by non material morphic resonance?

dlorde did raise this false incorrect premise or false issue also previously , i did respond to :

You're confusing the purely physical biological true emergence phenomena with that materialist "emergence " magical trick performance regarding consciousness , or rather you're extending those purely biological physical emergence phenomena to non-physical non -biological phenomena such as consciousness, as materialists do :
So, David Cooper was right about what he said : bird's flight is just a purely physical biological emergence property that arose from  the evolutionary complexity of  its purely physical biological components = the immaterial consciousness is totally unlike any of its complex alleged purely physical biological so-called evolved brain "components" that allegedly "gave rise " to it  .
Besides, can't you just see the obvious simple undeniable fact that physics and chemistry cannot give rise to, fully explain , account for ...fully , such processes such as life , consciousness , feelings , emotions, love .................let alone their evolution emergence origins ,fully,  come on : their material physical biological side is not all there is to them, obviously .
Your irrational false materialist belief is affecting your relative intelligence ,as all irrational false beliefs do to all people who happen to believe in them unconditinally without ever questioning their beliefs ' "validity or truth " , as you  do = materialism turns you, guys , into unbelievable stupid, sorry , naive irrational unscientific illogical inconsistent incoherent fools  zombies  , as a result , despite your relative intelligence , qualifications, life and other experiences ...amazing how false irrational beliefs can do just that to people ...those specific irrational false beliefs do act like biological viruses indeed ....not the real true ones , i must correct those lunatic fanatic materialist Dawkins and co  jesuite missionaries on a crusade mission on this :they are themselves infected with that irrational false materialist deadly virus = no wonder that they project that materialist irrational false belief virus of theirs on all religions for that matter , the false or true ones :
In fact , all religions do have some elements of truth , relatively speaking , including materialism , simply because the latter is concerned only about the existing true material side of reality it takes as the only true reality out there , but that does not mean that all those religions are true , no , either religious or secular , no , there can be only a completely true religion  , not 3567899...........every  one of us must figure that out for himself / herself , right or wrong = an endless dynamic restless journey .
To me is ,Islam that completely true belief , i might be wrong or right about just that , but that's my own journey i have to take and decide to pursue relentlessly honestly restlessly , reasonably , ....via my whole unique being , i do not try to impose on anyone for that matter = everyone must decide for himself/ herself what path in life to take = i have no right to determin impose or decide just that on behalf of anyone , unlike materialism that's been dominating in all sciences and elsewhere as the one and only "truth " , as the one and only "scientific  truth " , by lying to the people , by deceiving them , in the name of science ,the latter that has absolutely nothing to do with, obviously  .

Flight is also the result of the bird's physical interaction with its environment, the air pressure difference above and below the wing. One thing we have not discussed very much, if at all, in this thread is the effect of environment on the brain. Not everything the brain does can be accounted for by its parts because it does not exist in isolation. Genes are big factor in human behaviour and ability, but environment has a major influence on how this is manifested. Several gene variants have been associated with things like anti-social behaviour disorder (aggression, violence, criminality.) Statistically speaking, the genes alone do not predict anti-social behaviour unless combined with an abusive, neglectful childhood. To put it simply, bad genes, good home: you’re fine. Good genes, bad home: still fine. Bad genes, bad home: disaster.

Honey , life or the universe , or us , as human beings , are not just DNA environment nurture : we are way much more than just that : we have minds that are way too fundamental than matter can ever be = that's what makes us humans in fact , not our genes environment nurture only ...
We are not just physics and chemistry : otherwise try to make a machine that really thinks feels experiences -things , loves , ..exactly like we do , not just simulate all that = cannot be done, for obvious reasons, not now and not in a trillion years to come either  .

Your human mind and imagination, creativity , unparalleled intelligence , the latter in comparison with other species = no comparison in fact , just an analogy , can make you fly ,figuratively and even literally  (that's how the human mind , imagination , creativity ... have been  creating  jet planes , and the rest of those wonderful scientific technological achievements, that's how you can create and enjoy high poetry , easthetics , art, music , literature ... ) , your mind thus can make you fly , both literally and figuratively better than any bird animal or machine can ever do ....

Just tell me how physics and chemistry only can account fully for such human delights ,xtacy, marvel ... at the sight ,smell, or touch of a flower , at the sight of a beautiful face or beautiful woman  , beautiful breath-taking landscape .............come on .

Another higher order, environmental effect is learning, which changes both the structure of the brain and its function. It also changes consciousness, or what you are conscious of. When you were first learning to type, you had to look down and hunt for every letter. Now your fingers seem to fly effortlessly over the keyboard, as you focus on what you want to say and how you next want to insult me. Curiously, if I asked you where the letter “V” is on the key board, you will probably have to look, or at the very least think about it a lot longer than you do when you are typing. Why? One explanation is that a learned skill is first obtained consciously, but its execution eventually becomes a process that happens just below the level of conscious awareness, where it works faster and more efficiently, and incidentally, with less energy consumption. So why doesn’t the entire brain function by these automatic processes?

To make a long story short :
Our consciousness mind ,brain's elasticity flexibility ,  memory , feelings , emotions ....do change indeed while we are growing up, while experiencing life and other experiences , while learning , while loving , hating , fighting , while being sad , happy , depressed , enthusiastic ...................while we fall and stand up again ....through tears blood and sweat , through delusions, desillusions , inspirations , set backs ..............our whole beings do change , not just our physical bodies or brains , our whole minds and consciousness = our whole beings , but , our core "I" or me remains the same , otherwise , we cannot have that sense of me , that sense of identity or self-identity that gets extended to our cultures ,beliefs , convictions, positions , flaws , shortcomings , love and hate , likes and dislikes.... ........you name it...... , without that sense of identity or self-identity we cannot survive , let alone live or progress , develop , prosper : that sense of self-identity or consciousness awareness self-awareness that 's not only shaped by biology environment nurture culture beliefs , personal experiences . social interactions .........but also mainly fundamentally by our ...minds , the latter is way too fundamental than matter  can ever be  , than material processes or physics and chemistry= our spiritual side or lack of it are very fundamental and decisive in all that, either way .

One possible reason is that automatic programs are inflexible. A rat in a cage where there is both a juicy morsel of food and an electric shock will approach, withdraw, approach and withdraw. He becomes stuck in the middle of the cage. One thing that distinguishes humans (and even chimps and dogs) from, say, reptiles is the number and variety of ways they can respond to a stimulus or situation, a kind of flexibility. But flexibility requires a number of things, a way to switch back and forth between programs, and acquire new ones.

Our physical biological side is what we mainly have in common with the other species , and everything in this universe is made of their corresponding  same more or less matter arrangements , our highest unparalleled and unique human degree of consciousness awareness self-awareness are mainly what make us humans , other species and inanimate matter can never be able to match , not even remotely close , even though everything in this universe is conscious via their respective relative corresponding degrees of consciousness ........
Our "material, animal , vegetative... " sides are the ones that deluded or have been deluding  materialists and others into thinking feeling behaving acting "loving " , "living " ...as if we were / are just that = just physics and chemistry = they miss or lack and they have been neglegting under-developing their most fundamental and most important side as human beings = their spiritual side .

Consciousness seems most active, not just in terms of certain types of brain activity on imaging, but also from people’s subjective experience of it (which you are so fond of,) when the environment violates your brain's expectations. If hitting the letter V on the keyboard started producing a T every time, you would stop thinking about the falseness of materialism, become aware of what your fingers were doing, and look down at the keyboard, puzzled. You can drive down the road, thinking of other things, barely remembering what you saw the last few miles, unless there’s a car flipped over in the ditch. When someone across a noisy room mentions your name, you hear it, and turn around, even though you have no recollection what else they were saying and feel as though you weren’t even listening to them. Neuroscience can explain these things, rather specifically. I don’t know about morphic resonance. But my main point is, that the statement in the article you posted: “it simply does not follow that from any complex neurocomputational system that consciousness should be” is not a reasonable assumption.

We are not just physics and chemistry , my lady : we are not just matter and material processes , obviously , as that false ideological materialism wanna make you believe we are :
Brain damage , brain diseases , genetic deficiencies ....are no evidence for that materialist magical "emergence " trick performance regarding the emergence or origins evolution of consciousness = physical or biological systems cannot , per definition , "create " consciousness that's , per definition and nature , immaterial = totally different from its alleged components :
If you can't understand all that , i do not see any other explanation for these  irrational stubborn repeated unmovable unchangeable static dry-rock-solid soulless heartless insensitive unprogressive denials of yours regarding the obvious falsehood of materialim in science ,than this one :
= your irrational unconditional blind faith in that false irrational materialism secular religion .

In Short :
It's useless to try to make people see the falsehood of their beliefs = cannot be done , simply because those false irrational blind beliefs of theirs would not let them listen to any evidence , to any arguments ....that might be against their false beliefs :

This huge issue of stubborn irrational blind belief and its amazing pathological effects on the people that happen to believe in  it blindly , applies thus not only to most religious people  today  ,but also to ...atheists and to so-called secularists , agnostics ...
No wonder that you , guys , attack ridicule , make fun of , "offend insult " ....religions ,while despising them , while having contempt for them = you are just projecting :

= "We almost all prefer to accuse and judge others , in order to avoid being accused and judged ourselves "

No wonder that materialists ,atheists = in fact materialism is atheism ,and can lead thus only to atheism and reductionism, obviously , no wonder that the hard core fanatics materialists such as  Dawkins  and the rest are so fanatic in relation to religion, obviously , logically = they have been fighting their own irrational fanatic blind materialist faith they have been projecting on ....religions = they have been fighting against themselves while  exteriorizing that inner fight and projecting it on religions , instead of dealing with their own demons = they are not brave or intelligent honest enough to deal with their own demons , so , they attack other false or true similar -to-theirs-demons instead = science has absolutely nothing , per definition and nature , to do with any of all that =

Take my word for it , read my lips , dear :
The materialist false secular religion in science has been turning science into a kindda ...exclusive religion  since the 19th century at least , metaphorically and relatively speaking , but the great and amazing self - rejuvenating flexible dynamic evolutionary nature of science and thus of its effective and unaparalleled method has been able to make science rise above that materialist secular false religion prison it has been confined to for so long now , after all, and despite all that : that's the great amazing wonderful unparalleled power beauty and strength of science that will enable it , without a shadow of a doubt , to reject that false dead materialism , sooner or later , and move on beyond it = inevitable = just a question of time ...
Only time will tell then .............. . 

Good night , love .
Thanks , appreciate indeed .
Kind warm regards .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Dear folks :
I am really exhausted by having to reply to more or less lengthy posts from the 3 of you , guys , against just me , just 1 , that do robb me from a lots of time i can hardly afford .
So, just try to keep it short next time, please  .
My apologies for the inevitable potential multiple logical grammatical and other errors you might detect in  my replies ...
Thanks, appreciate , indeed .
Good night to you all .
Best wishes .
I have a special occasion -holiday to attend to, so .
Bye