[David Cooper]

So does consciousness exist on a different plane than physical matter? What is it about this plane that allows consciousness to come into existence? How does a conscious mind which exists in this plane locate and link itself to a brain made out of physical matter?

Why shouldn't ordinary stuff be conscious? Why shouldn't all the atoms in a rock be able to experience qualia all the time? It's far easier to imagine that happening than an arrangement of non-conscious atoms supporting something like sentient geometry.

The whole business of consciousness emerging is really a side issue and of little importance - it doesn't matter how much magic is involved in producing something that can experience qualia, because the real problem with consciousness is how it interfaces with information systems such as the one in the brain that produces claims about the existence of consciousness. How can that information system know that the data it's generating about consciousness is true when it can't test it? There is nothing in any information system we understand that could allow it to access qualia in such a way as to recognise that they exist.

My best guess is that consciousness is not a consequence of any single concept such as complexity, geometry or particular materials, but rather an interplay between different factors acting together to create just the right process. I would probably liken it to life itself: there is no one factor (reproduction, growth, ingestion, excretion, metabolism, etc.) that makes something alive, but instead all of these things working together make something alive. When looking at dead matter like charcoal, air or water, it really is hard to fathom how the same atoms which make up those materials are capable of being arranged in such a way as to make something as novel as life. Nonetheless, we know that not only are living things made of atoms just as dead matter is, but that life can turn non-life into new life by ingesting and assimilating it into new tissue.

Life itself is just complex chemistry with nothing magical added at all. It's only when consciousness is added that we have a problem explaining things. That is where we currently depend either on magical interactions or else we have to deny that there is such a thing as consciousness altogether.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Dave :

How can physics and chemistry alone or the physical material nature for that matter "generate " life , consciousness , the mental or the mind then ?

Absurd .

[David Cooper]

Dave :

How can physics and chemistry alone or the physical material nature for that matter "generate " life , consciousness , the mental or the mind then ?

Absurd .

Life: easy - it's just complex chemistry.

Consciousness: hard. We need to find the interface, and until we can identify where it is and see what's being exchanged through it, there's nothing useful can be said on the matter.

The mind: machine side is easy, only consciousness aspects are hard.

[Kryptid]

To DonQuichotte:

Yes, I did miss your statement about the "at" symbol, sorry.

I'm speaking in regards to the fact that you stated that it is a paradox to both believe in things that are immaterial and a consciousness that arises from the physical. If human consciousness were the only possible immaterial thing, then you would be right. However, it isn't. There are a multitude of immaterial things that could exist, including the likes of ghosts, psychic energy, Heaven, etc. My belief is that immaterial beings (angels and demons) have a consciousness that originates from the immaterial (as the "stuff" that composes them is immaterial) and that material beings (humans and animals) have a consciousness that originates from the material world.

You keep saying "obviously" and "obvious" a lot. The word "obvious" implies that something is self-evident or easily observable. When it comes to something like consciousness, there is very little we know for certain about it. We cannot observe anyone's consciousness except our own. We can't even know for sure if any being other than ourself is conscious. Everyone else could be a philosophical zombie. We only accept that other people are conscious because Occam's Razor suggests that, since other people behave like us, then they are probably conscious like us too.

You say that a machine cannot be conscious, but that is far from obvious (as you imply). As I've said before, we cannot directly test for or observe consciousness. If we were to build an artificial intelligence that behaved in a manner identical to a human being, then it would not be at all unreasonable to assume that it has a form of conscious awareness. All of the basic tests, logical, philosophical or otherwise, which we use to conclude that other human beings are conscious would therefore be passed by this advanced AI. If it passes the tests, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that it is conscious. If not, then why not? Because it doesn't have a human brain? Your next step would then be to prove that it is impossible to build a machine that can mimic human behavior. That's gonna be a hard thing to disprove.

There is a way to test some aspects of your claims. You say that consciousness and memories are both immaterial. When people are knocked out (either through physical trauma or chemical sedatives) the body and brain should be more or less inert and unresponsive. We know that this much is true. The next question then becomes "What happens to the immaterial mind at this time?" The mind itself, being immaterial, should be unaffected and should continue to remain consciously aware, capable of thinking and forming new memories. The only thing that has changed is that the brain itself is unresponsive. To a person who is knocked out, they should keep on thinking even though they can't move their body or use their senses. It would be akin to those sensory deprivation chambers that people use to relax.

Once their brain "restarts", they should be able to testify of their continued conscious awareness during the knock-out period. However, many people do not have any such memories of when they are unconscious. Why is this? It's not because they simply forgot that they were conscious, because you say that memories are immaterial and should be capable of forming just fine during the unconscious period. I myself have been put under (having my wisdom teeth pulled) and I did not dream or have any other conscious experience during that time. That goes hand-in-hand with the idea that the brain is where consciousness (or at the very least, memory) originates.

To David Cooper:

I guess you are supporting some kind of view of animism then? What does a rock experience? It doesn't have any senses. If it does have senses, how do they work?

As far as consciousness seeming magical or special, one must keep in mind that life seemed miraculous and unexplainable many moons ago. Once biology and technology advanced enough, we were able to figure out what makes it tick. It is certainly possible that with sufficiently advanced neuroscience and physics, we could one day uncover the root cause of consciousness as well.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Dave :

How can physics and chemistry alone or the physical material nature for that matter "generate " life , consciousness , the mental or the mind then ?

Absurd .

Life: easy - it's just complex chemistry.

Life can't be just chemistry , no way, be serious  .
How can physics and chemistry alone give rise to life , no way .
How could life have emerged from the dead matter,in the so-called original soup , in the first place to begin with  .
Otherwise , it would be easy to make living sentient machines : absurd .
Think about just that .

Consciousness: hard. We need to find the interface, and until we can identify where it is and see what's being exchanged through it, there's nothing useful can be said on the matter.

Consciousness is non-physical, dude : can't be reduced to the physical : physics and chemistry alone can , obviously , not give rise to consciousness , Mr.magician .
You're just chasing an absurd mirage you do take for real .

The mind: machine side is easy, only consciousness aspects are hard.

Nothing is easy about the human intellect that's unique to man , even though it has some similarities with that of animals ...

[David Cooper]

We can't even know for sure if any being other than ourself is conscious. Everyone else could be a philosophical zombie.

If consciousness is real and I have it, I know that someone else has it too, because I wasn't the first to come up with the idea of consciousness. Someone else thought of it first, and if that person had been a zombie who merely thought he had it but didn't, then I would be a zombie too and not have consciousness at all - I would just be programmed to generate false information about consciousness like everyone else.

You say that a machine cannot be conscious, but that is far from obvious (as you imply). As I've said before, we cannot directly test for or observe consciousness. If we were to build an artificial intelligence that behaved in a manner identical to a human being, then it would not be at all unreasonable to assume that it has a form of conscious awareness.

It would be unreasonable to assume that, because we don't know for certain that we have consciousness ourselves.

All of the basic tests, logical, philosophical or otherwise, which we use to conclude that other human beings are conscious would therefore be passed by this advanced AI. If it passes the tests, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that it is conscious. If not, then why not? Because it doesn't have a human brain? Your next step would then be to prove that it is impossible to build a machine that can mimic human behavior. That's gonna be a hard thing to disprove.

Mimicking human behaviour is not enough, because everything relating to consciousness could be faked. You have to look at the internal mechanisms and make sure that they are the same.

Once their brain "restarts", they should be able to testify of their continued conscious awareness during the knock-out period. However, many people do not have any such memories of when they are unconscious. Why is this?

It's not impossible that whatever it is in us that is conscious (meaning that it experiences qualia), continues to be conscious (experiencing qualia and nothing more than that) while the animal is unconscious, but because the brain is shut down to a degree and can't record memories, there is no record kept of those experiences - while knocked out for surgery you could be in extreme pain the whole time and not remember the fact afterwards, and this could happen if the anaesthetic targets the ability to write memories rather than blocking pain trigger inputs. It could also happen even if the inputs are blocked, though that's unlikely because there would be nothing systematically inducing whatever it is that experiences qualia to experience pain rather than just random sensations at low intensity.

I guess you are supporting some kind of view of animism then? What does a rock experience? It doesn't have any senses. If it does have senses, how do they work?

It wouldn't need senses - it could just be that matter/energy experiences qualia all the time, the exact feelings being changed from moment to moment by the way that matter or energy is arranged. This is a much more reasonable idea than having something immaterial pinging into magical existence through emergence to suffer pain, but that too would be a kind of animism - just a more magical variety of it.

As far as consciousness seeming magical or special, one must keep in mind that life seemed miraculous and unexplainable many moons ago.

If you don't separate out consciousness from life, it still seems miraculous and unexplainable. Plants though are not sentient, so they don't do anything special that can't just be classed as complex chemistry, though the DNA they contain might count as an information system depending on how it works (meaning whether it involves representation as opposed to direct generation of chemicals).

Once biology and technology advanced enough, we were able to figure out what makes it tick. It is certainly possible that with sufficiently advanced neuroscience and physics, we could one day uncover the root cause of consciousness as well.

If there is such a thing as consciousness, that will indeed happen.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

To DonQuichotte:

Yes, I did miss your statement about the "at" symbol, sorry.

No worries .
P.S.: You should try to quote me directly instead of replying this way .Thanks , appreciate .

I'm speaking in regards to the fact that you stated that it is a paradox to both believe in things that are immaterial and a consciousness that arises from the physical. If human consciousness were the only possible immaterial thing, then you would be right. However, it isn't. There are a multitude of immaterial things that could exist, including the likes of ghosts, psychic energy, Heaven, etc. My belief is that immaterial beings (angels and demons) have a consciousness that originates from the immaterial (as the "stuff" that composes them is immaterial) and that material beings (humans and animals) have a consciousness that originates from the material world.

First of all , to say that human consciousness and that of other species on earth , can be physical is absurd : how can the "unconscious " matter give rise to the immaterial consciousness ? ,the latter that's , obviously , irreducible to the physical: that's our own subjective and collective experiences of consciousness as such = a non-physical process: how can physics and chemsitry give rise to the sense of the self ....Don't be an irrational guy , come on, be serious : you're being absurd : you do sound like a soul mate of that absurd old ancient Greek fellow philosopher Zeno ,really  .
Physics and chemistry cannot give rise to consciousness that's totally different from the former : that materialist magical "emergence " trick regarding the nature or origins of consciousness is just that : materialist magic in science , no empirical fact : makes no sense either .
Not to mention that physics and chemistry alone cannot account for the emergence of life , consciousness , human intellect , cannot account for the non-physical nature of feelings emotions , human love , human conscience ....

P.S.: What you do not get yet is that science has been assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical : that's the mainstream materialist "scientific world view " that's just the materialist naturalist reductionist false conception of nature , no empirical fact .
So, when you do reduce reality  as a whole  , including man and life in general ,to just material physical biological processes ,that means you have been believing in the materialist version of relaity ,and hence  in its false "scientific world view " : if reality thus as a whole is just material or physical , as you seem to assume it to be , as materialists do , that does not only make you a materialist ,ironically paradoxically enough (a weird paradoxical materialist who pretends o believe in the immaterial also = contradictio  in termo ) , but that materialist version of reality  you seem to be believing in , crazily enough ,  does also , and per definition thus, exclude any existence of the immaterial out there , any existence of God ...despite your belief in the latter = a paradox thus , you 're not even aware of and which you should try to solve for yourself , if you wanna be consistent with yourself at least .

You keep saying "obviously" and "obvious" a lot. The word "obvious" implies that something is self-evident or easily observable. When it comes to something like consciousness, there is very little we know for certain about it. We cannot observe anyone's consciousness except our own. We can't even know for sure if any being other than ourself is conscious. Everyone else could be a philosophical zombie. We only accept that other people are conscious because Occam's Razor suggests that, since other people behave like us, then they are probably conscious like us too.

Obvious to me is self-evident indeed : consciousness is obviously non-physical , you do not need to be a philsosopher to know just that : it's absurd to assume that reality as a whole is just physical or material ,including consciousness , human intellect ....life ... as you have been assuming , and as materialism has been doing : there is nothing self-evident about that false materialist conception of nature that has been taken for granted as the "scientific world view ", simply because reality as a whole, including man, life , and other species , cannot be just material or physical , the same goes for the whole universe .

You say that a machine cannot be conscious, but that is far from obvious (as you imply). As I've said before, we cannot directly test for or observe consciousness. If we were to build an artificial intelligence that behaved in a manner identical to a human being, then it would not be at all unreasonable to assume that it has a form of conscious awareness. All of the basic tests, logical, philosophical or otherwise, which we use to conclude that other human beings are conscious would therefore be passed by this advanced AI. If it passes the tests, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that it is conscious. If not, then why not? Because it doesn't have a human brain? Your next step would then be to prove that it is impossible to build a machine that can mimic human behavior. That's gonna be a hard thing to disprove.

What you're saying here is total non-sense : machines can only simulate consciousness , they can never be conscious , simply because physics and chemistry cannot give rise to consciousness .

There is a way to test some aspects of your claims. You say that consciousness and memories are both immaterial. When people are knocked out (either through physical trauma or chemical sedatives) the body and brain should be more or less inert and unresponsive. We know that this much is true. The next question then becomes "What happens to the immaterial mind at this time?" The mind itself, being immaterial, should be unaffected and should continue to remain consciously aware, capable of thinking and forming new memories. The only thing that has changed is that the brain itself is unresponsive. To a person who is knocked out, they should keep on thinking even though they can't move their body or use their senses. It would be akin to those sensory deprivation chambers that people use to relax.

Non-sense : mind and body are 1 , even though they are totally different from each other , so , mind and body do affect each other in ways we still do not know much about : the mind is even more fundamental and powerful than the body  can ever be   .

So, when the brain or body are sedated , drugged , damaged , when they suffer from some disorder or disease ,deficiency ...genetic disorder ... that has implications for  the mind that's inseparable from the body or brain, in this life at least :  that does not mean that consciousnes is caused by the physical brain , or that the mind is in the brain .

I think personally that the human mind consciousness or soul or self will be for ever out of reach of science in fact, simply because they are both subjective and immaterial  .

Once their brain "restarts", they should be able to testify of their continued conscious awareness during the knock-out period. However, many people do not have any such memories of when they are unconscious. Why is this? It's not because they simply forgot that they were conscious, because you say that memories are immaterial and should be capable of forming just fine during the unconscious period. I myself have been put under (having my wisdom teeth pulled) and I did not dream or have any other conscious experience during that time. That goes hand-in-hand with the idea that the brain is where consciousness (or at the very least, memory) originates.

Does that mean that consciousness is caused by the brain ,or that the mind is in the brain ? What makes you extrapolate the one from the other ?
Can't there be other explanations ?
What you do not realise is that the absurd belief assumptions that the mind is in the brain , memory is stored in the brain , ....are just extensions of the materialist version of reality in the sense that the latter is just material or physical, including the mind ....= that's just a convenient and handy materialist ideological belief assumption  that makes the scientific data fit into its false conception of nature , not the other way around , no empirical fact .

Does the tv set or radio create respectively their own images and radio broadcasts they do receive ?
Don't be silly : saying that the mind is the brain is like saying that Obama lives inside of the tv set ....absurd .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Supercryptid :

You're either a materialist or a non -materialist : you cannot be both at the same time = a paradox : you cannot have it both ways , by believing both in the existence of the immaterial , and in the materialist version of reality you have been taking for granted as the "scientific world view " without question so far , the  materialist false conception of nature  , and hence the mainstream materialist false "scientific world view " that have been assuming  or rather believing for so long now ,  that everything is just material or physical  .
If everything is just material or physical, then there is no such a thing such as the immaterial ...obviously .
So, make up your mind then , and stop being so ridiculously irrationally paradoxical or contradictory .

[alancalverd]

simply because physics and chemistry cannot give rise to consciousness .

This is dangerously close to a definition of the c word. Now we know where it can't come from, perhaps someone will tell us what it does - or doesn't do?

[cheryl j]

You're either a materialist or a non -materialist : you cannot be both at the same time = a paradox : you cannot have it both ways , by believing both in the existence of the immaterial , and in the materialist version of reality you have been taking for granted as the "scientific world view " without question so far , the  materialist false conception of nature  , and hence the mainstream materialist false "scientific world view " that have been assuming  or rather believing for so long now ,  that everything is just material or physical  .
If everything is just material or physical, then there is no such a thing such as the immaterial ...obviously .
So, make up your mind then , and stop being so ridiculously irrationally paradoxical or contradictory .

How is he being contradictory or paradoxical? Like you, he believes in the immaterial (or doesn't rule the possibility out) He just doesn't think consciousness is immaterial.

You said: "All i was saying is that reality as a whole is not just material physical , as modern science assumes it to be, thanks to materialism : not everything can be explained just in terms of physics and  chemistry , or just by the laws of physics ,or just by cause and effect"

Why is he forced to chose "one or the other" if you don't?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

You're either a materialist or a non -materialist : you cannot be both at the same time = a paradox : you cannot have it both ways , by believing both in the existence of the immaterial , and in the materialist version of reality you have been taking for granted as the "scientific world view " without question so far , the  materialist false conception of nature  , and hence the mainstream materialist false "scientific world view " that have been assuming  or rather believing for so long now ,  that everything is just material or physical  .
If everything is just material or physical, then there is no such a thing such as the immaterial ...obviously .
So, make up your mind then , and stop being so ridiculously irrationally paradoxical or contradictory .

How is he being contradictory or paradoxical? Like you, he believes in the immaterial (or doesn't rule the possibility out) He just doesn't think consciousness is immaterial.

You said: "All i was saying is that reality as a whole is not just material physical , as modern science assumes it to be, thanks to materialism : not everything can be explained just in terms of physics and  chemistry , or just by the laws of physics ,or just by cause and effect"

Why is he forced to chose "one or the other" if you don't?

[/quote]

What has the false materialist naturalist reductionist conception of nature  that goes way beyond science and beyond the scientific method thus  , and hence the false materialist mainstream "scientific world view " to do with causation , ....? They both are 1 ,and both have just been assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical , including consciousness or the mind mental  thus  ,and hence , there is no such a thing or process such as the immaterial ....

So, when science  ,  under the exclusive supremacy monopoly and dominance of materialism , has been assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical , so, science  has been trying to explain everything , reality as a whole thus , just in terms of physics and chemistry , just in terms of the laws of physics or mechanistic causation , while missing the other part of reality in the process .

So, when all sciences for that matter will be able to reject materialism, and hence the false "scientific world view ", by including the parts of the immaterial side of reality with wich they can deal empirically , they might therefore discover that the mechanistic causation or the laws of physics were / are just human projections , in the sense that the notion of laws is just a human projection , which might mean , in its turn , that reality as a whole might be functioning and existing , evolving ...within some  other totally different notions than the physical mechanistic laws , or the mechanistic causation that are intrinsically determinist , without any existence of any notion of free ...will , the latter that's a matter of consciousness mainly , even though sub-consciousness does play a role in that .
Free will that cannot exist within a mechanistic determinist materialist version of reality , which considers , logically , consciousness as to be just a side -effect of biological evolution = or rather just a side effect of the materialist version of evolution .(Reality as a whole is not just material or physical in fact , consciousness cannot be a biological process, and hence evolution itself cannot be just biological, the same goes for life ....its origins emergence and evolution , the same goes for human language ,its evolution emergence and origins ....the same goes for human intellect , feelings , emotions ....and the rest  .) .

To believe that everything is just material or physical, including man and man's consciousness, while assuming that there might be some immaterial beings out there, at the same time,  is simply paradoxical : the one belief assumption excludes the other .

In short :
If that guy does really believe in the immaterial , he should also believe in the immaterial side of man and life ,including in the immaterial nature and origins of consciousness thus , and  in the immaterial side of reality as a whole , while rejecting that false 'scientific world view " regarding the nature of reality as a whole , the false materialist mainstream 'scientific world view " that has been assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical,including the mind or consciousness thus  .
He certainly can't have it both ways .

In short :

Materialism has just been clever enough to integrate the prior -to -materialism  mechanical conception of nature , in order to pretend to be 'scientific " .


P.S.: It might turn out to be that reality is spiritual at its ultimate core : the material or physical side of reality might turn out to be just an  elaborate  ...illusion .Who knows ? I dunno.

Finale note :

When science has been forced by materialism to see all reality as just a matter of just material physical biological processes , while missing the immaterial side of reality as a result , science has been therefore just trying to explain "everything" just within the materialist false version of reality as a whole  which has been taken for granted by science as the whole reality = the laws of physics or physics and chemistry are a distortion of reality as a whole = reality as a whole might turn out to be totally different from any human projections such as physical laws , causation.... ...
Other totally unknown phenomena or whatever we might not be able to call causation in the physical sense thus , might turn out to be the ones "running the whole show " of the whole universe ,while they or whatever delegate a part of the whole show to us humans , via our conscious human free will.

I can only guess at this point of course on the subject , as anybodyelse only can do .

 

[cheryl j]

In short :
If that guy does really believe in the immaterial , he should also believe in the immaterial side of man and life ,including in the immaterial nature and origins of consciousness thus , and  in the immaterial side of reality as a whole , while rejecting that false 'scientific world view " regarding the nature of reality as a whole , the false materialist mainstream 'scientific world view " that has been assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical,including the mind or consciousness thus  .
He certainly can't have it both ways .

Well, I'll let Supercryptid speak for himself about what he believes or doesn't believe. But again, if its fine for you to believe that some things can be explained by just chemistry and physics, but "not everything", then it should be okay for anyone else to hold that view, even if they disagree about what goes in which category.

[Kryptid]

if reality thus as a whole is just material or physical , as you seem to assume it to be

I don't. I believe in the existence of angels and demons. Therefore, I am not a materialist. Believing in angels and demons does not mean that I have to believe that the human mind is immaterial. These two beliefs are unrelated. It is not a paradox. I am having a really hard time following your line of reasoning. If I believe in the existence of material minds, why can't I also believe that there are other, fundamentally different, immaterial minds? That's like saying that I'm allowed to believe that ice cream can be made to have the flavor of chocolate, but that it cannot be made to have the flavor of vanilla.

Your biggest argument about this whole thing is that you cannot fathom how consciousness can arise from physical matter and as a result have come to the hasty conclusion that it can't. This is a perfect example of the "argument from ignorance" fallacy. Just because you can't understand it means that it can't be true? I, personally, don't understand calculus. Therefore, calculus must be wrong!

I will give you some credit however, as you have outlasted me in this debate because I am no longer willing to continue. You keep reiterating the same points again and again with no evidence further than your own personal reasoning to back up your claims. To be honest, this kind of debate would be more at home on a philosophy forum than a science one. Unlike scientific arguments, philosophical arguments have a tendency to rely on the unprovable and as such are difficult to prove wrong in a debate.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

In short :
If that guy does really believe in the immaterial , he should also believe in the immaterial side of man and life ,including in the immaterial nature and origins of consciousness thus , and  in the immaterial side of reality as a whole , while rejecting that false 'scientific world view " regarding the nature of reality as a whole , the false materialist mainstream 'scientific world view " that has been assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical,including the mind or consciousness thus  .
He certainly can't have it both ways .

Well, I'll let Supercryptid speak for himself about what he believes or doesn't believe. But again, if its fine for you to believe that some things can be explained by just chemistry and physics, but "not everything", then it should be okay for anyone else to hold that view, even if they disagree about what goes in which category.
[/quote

]


You just did misunderstand my words :
I have been saying that physics and chemistry alone cannot explain "everything"  as the elusive so-called  physical  "theory  of everything = nothing " tries to do   , simply because reality as a whole is not just physical or material ,which means that physics and chemistry cannot explain anything in fact for that matter , they just try to describe the physical or material side of reality , physics and chemistry alone do not even succeed at explaining  even the physical or material side of reality , they just try to describe it  : see how modern physics have been superseding materialism .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

if reality thus as a whole is just material or physical , as you seem to assume it to be

I don't. I believe in the existence of angels and demons. Therefore, I am not a materialist. Believing in angels and demons does not mean that I have to believe that the human mind is immaterial. These two beliefs are unrelated. It is not a paradox. I am having a really hard time following your line of reasoning. If I believe in the existence of material minds, why can't I also believe that there are other, fundamentally different, immaterial minds? That's like saying that I'm allowed to believe that ice cream can be made to have the flavor of chocolate, but that it cannot be made to have the flavor of vanilla.

Since you do seem to believe in the materialist false 'scientific world view " by saying that the universe , including life on earth and including the mind thus  , that the universe  is just material or physical , that makes you a materialist .
When you say that you do believe in angels ....that makes you a non-materialist .
Try to solve that paradox for yourself then: you can't have it both ways  .
If you believe in the immaterial, then you have to reject the false materialist "scientific world view " which has been assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical .
If you believe in the immaterial, then you have to believe in the immaterial side of reality as a whole also ,including in the immaterial side of life , including in the immaterial side of evolution istelf , including in the immaterial side of everythingelse ,  including in the immaterial nature and origins of consciousness ...simply because everything in this universe has material physical and non-material non-physical sides , except those purely immaterial or spiritual beings out there .

In short :
Reality as a whole is not just material or physical , including life and the mind = including sentient life thus  ,as the false materialist conception of nature wanna make you believe it is , and hence as the materialist mainstream false 'scientific world view " does .

Reality as a whole is therefore not just material or physical , and hence life is not just material or physical , the mind or consciousness are non-physical , and even evolution itself cannot be just  biological .

When science will be able to reject materialism ,and hence its false materialist "scientific world view ", by acknowledging the fact that reality as a whole ,including life , evolution and the rest , is not just material or physical , then all our scientific knowledge ,all sciences , will be changed radically : use your imagination then .

Your biggest argument about this whole thing is that you cannot fathom how consciousness can arise from physical matter and as a result have come to the hasty conclusion that it can't. This is a perfect example of the "argument from ignorance" fallacy. Just because you can't understand it means that it can't be true? I, personally, don't understand calculus. Therefore, calculus must be wrong

!

No, physics and chemistry cannot give rise to consciousness, simply because the latter is totally different from the former ,as we all do experience consciousness to be .
I am not gonna argue you with you any further on the subject of consciousness, the latter that 's non -physical , and therefore is consciousness irreducible to the physical .
Consciousness that's a subjective individual process and a collective one also : how can physics and chemistry give rise to subjective and collective senses of the self like that ?

I will give you some credit however, as you have outlasted me in this debate because I am no longer willing to continue. You keep reiterating the same points again and again with no evidence further than your own personal reasoning to back up your claims. To be honest, this kind of debate would be more at home on a philosophy forum than a science one. Unlike scientific arguments, philosophical arguments have a tendency to rely on the unprovable and as such are difficult to prove wrong in a debate.

You're right , just in the sense that we have been talking here just conceptions of nature , not science :
The false materialist conception of nature , and hence the  false  materialist mainstream "scientific world view " are just that = false conceptions of nature , false world views , false philosophy in science that has been taken for granted as the "scientific world view ", and hence the "mind is in the brain, memory is stored in the brain ..."  are just that : extensions of the false materialist conception of nature , and hence just extensions of the false "scientific world view " .
In short :

There is a lot of materialist crap out there you have been taking for granted as science , including your belief in the materialist belief assumption that "the mind is in the brain ..." .

Try to sort all that out for yourself .

Good luck indeed.

[Kryptid]

If you say so...

Cheryl j seems to understand why there is no paradox in my beliefs. I have a feeling that everyone else here does as well. I'm not going to get bent out of shape because one stranger on the Internet can't understand it. So this'll be my final post in this thread.

[cheryl j]

You just did misunderstand my words :
I have been saying that physics and chemistry alone cannot explain "everything"  as the elusive so-called  physical  "theory  of everything = nothing " tries to do   , simply because reality as a whole is not just physical or material ,which means that physics and chemistry cannot explain anything in fact for that matter , they just try to describe the physical or material side of reality , physics and chemistry alone do not even succeed at explaining  even the physical or material side of reality , they just try to describe it  : see how modern physics have been superseding materialism .

Yes, perhaps I have misunderstood you, and I'm sorry for forgetting at times that English is not your first language.

 In English, when one says that "Not everything can be explained by X," it implies that some things can be explained by X, but other things cannot.

If you want to say that zero things are explained by X, you would say "nothing is explained by X"

What makes a phrase like "not everything" ambiguous is that it is not always clear if the writer means "not all of the members of a set" or "not every aspect of all members of the set."

If I were trying to explain why a group of people are friends, I might say “not everything” is explained by their interest in music. That could mean that some of the people in the group are musicians but some are not. Or it could mean they are musicians but they are also Chinese and musicians. Unless I am more specific, no one will know what I mean.  If I really truly mean that music has nothing to do with it, I would say “nothing” about that group is explained by an interest in music.
 
That is one reason why I think you are being misunderstood. It has not been clear in many of your posts when you say “Not everything can be explained by chemistry and physics” whether you believed:

 1)Some things can, but others can’t be explained by chemistry or physics   or

 2)Everything always involves an immaterial explanation, even if there is sometimes chemistry and physics involved in the process,    or

3)Chemistry and physics do not explain anything that happens. They do not matter at all, they are irrelevant. They explain nothing. They explain nothing by themselves or even when combined with a immaterial explanation.

To be honest though, I'm not 100% sure it is just a language problem. I am not entirely sure that you haven't flipped back and forth or contradicted yourself by saying in some posts that chemistry and physics could explain the "purely physical, purely biological" but later denying in other posts that anything is purely physical, or purely biological.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

If you say so...

Cheryl j seems to understand why there is no paradox in my beliefs. I have a feeling that everyone else here does as well. I'm not going to get bent out of shape because one stranger on the Internet can't understand it. So this'll be my final post in this thread.

[/quote]

Stranger or not : science or the truth are  not a democracy , not the right of the majority ,dude .
That you cannot all see the intrinsic paradox of your own beliefs is your problem , not mine .
The main problem is that you have been all taking the false materialist conception of nature for granted as the "scientific world view " , that's why you are so confused .
You cannot believe in the latter , while believing in the immaterial at the same time , no way = a paradox .
Try to sort just that out for yourself, or not , who cares : your problem, not mine .
Running away from the problem won't make it go away : just try to face the music then ...or not ...
Good luck, either way  .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

You just did misunderstand my words :
I have been saying that physics and chemistry alone cannot explain "everything"  as the elusive so-called  physical  "theory  of everything = nothing " tries to do   , simply because reality as a whole is not just physical or material ,which means that physics and chemistry cannot explain anything in fact for that matter , they just try to describe the physical or material side of reality , physics and chemistry alone do not even succeed at explaining  even the physical or material side of reality , they just try to describe it  : see how modern physics have been superseding materialism .

Yes, perhaps I have misunderstood you, and I'm sorry for forgetting at times that English is not your first language.

Has nothing to do with that, not really  .
That  has everything to do with the fact that you have been all taking the materialist false conception of nature for granted as the "scientific world view " , that's why you are so confused : centuries of materialist indoctrinations and brainwash are not that easy to undo .
Good luck with just that .

In English, when one says that "Not everything can be explained by X," it implies that some things can be explained by X, but other things cannot.

I was just referring to that physical "theory of everything = theory of nothing " that tries to explain everything = nothing just in terms of physics and chemistry, while taking the latter for all what there is out there  .
There might be some more fundamental forms of causation out there , a non-physical one at that  underlying the laws of physics themselves , the latter that cannot alone explain how living organisms , for example ,can be self-organizing , can give rise to their own forms and shapes ...
DNA or physics and chemistry alone cannot explain just that  and the rest .
 

If you want to say that zero things are explained by X, you would say "nothing is explained by X"

Don't try to play the wise girl, sis :
Your launched boomerang might hit you back in the face , while missing its intended target(s):
Well, see above : to try to explain everything = reality as a whole just via physics and chemistry alone , by assuming that reality as a whole is just material or physical , is like trying to explain the whole pic just via one single part of it : just an analogy .
Physics and chemistry alone do explain nothing in fact , they just try to describe the physical material  or the  biological they take for the whole real thing .

What makes a phrase like "not everything" ambiguous is that it is not always clear if the writer means "not all of the members of a set" or "not every aspect of all members of the set."

See above , wise girl .
The material physical part of reality is not all what there is to reality as a whole , so, that physical "theory of everything " = a theory of nothing , can explain nothing thus , simply because the physical or material part of reality is not all what there is to reality .


 

To be honest though, I'm not 100% sure it is just a language problem. I am not entirely sure that you haven't flipped back and forth or contradicted yourself by saying in some posts that chemistry and physics could explain the "purely physical, purely biological" but later denying in other posts that anything is purely physical, or purely biological.

Yeah, right :
When you can't understand or do not want to understand something , thanks to some false irrational outdated belief of yours  you do take for granted as science  , just accuse somebodyelse instead: how convenient and handy  .

Irrelevan and false silly speculations : grow up .
I think you're over-estimating your own capacity of judgement,poor girl  .
I will explain that to you as follows , this simple way , see above also :
Reality as a whole is not just material or physical, and hence nothing is just physical or material , including matter itself ( see modern physics regarding the latter ) = nothing can be explained just in terms of physics and chemistry alone , while physics and chemistry "pretend " to be able to explain everything = nothing in the above mentioned sense , via that physical "theory of everything " = theory of nothing in fact  : physics and chemistry just try to describe or try to explain the physical material biological ,while assuming that the latter is all what there is to reality as a whole , including life and the rest .

So, physics and chemistry alone can explain ...nothing  in fact,for the above mentioned reasons  .
Science must thus reject its false physical material " scentific world view ", by including the mental that's irreducible to the physical ,once again : science has no choice but to try to do that , if science wanna deserve fully to be called ...science at least  .
Science that's been extremely succesfull in  revealing some aspects of the physical material reality , while assuming that that is all what there is to reality as a whole .
The latter false 'scientific " assumption is what makes science so far unable to "see " the missing part of the whole pic without which there would be no real scientific understanding of reality as a whole .
Get that ?
Take an aspirin ,if your brain , or rather your mind happens to hurt as a result .
Cheers .

[David Cooper]

So this'll be my final post in this thread.

That's what everyone else ought to do too, so this will be my final post in any of these silly threads.