[Faark]

I have a hard time following. I don't feel well read on the topic, but your argument seems to boil down to "our thinking is so awesome, it must be magical". This strongly reminds me of creation myths where humans desperately tried to separate themselves from all other nature. But in case I'm missing something, I'd be thankful for you answering the following few questions to get me back on track:

- Do you believe that there are laws of physics we can not perceive and understand?

- If no: Why? How does it interact with usual matter and physics? Is this the unexplainable magic?

- If we can perceive and thus hopefully one day understand all laws of physics, can we simulate them?

- If, in the future, we are able to simulate all physics, what stops us from simulating the life of a human? (though likely significantly slower)

- This simulated human should react undistinguishable form a real human. Would you call this simulated human conscious?

- If yes, then where does this consciousness come from except the simulation state?

- If no, how do we know if some other being except ourself is conscious?

- Can there be two similar beings demonstrating the same behavior, but with only one of them being conscious?

[Vi0]

In order: There certainly could be. How would we know? What if the universe isn't deterministic? Certainly it's more pragmatic to assume that only what we can experience is real, but that doesn't make it true.

The belief that there could exist parts of reality that the scientific method can't explain does not require having specific examples.

Even if all of reality can be understood by physics, that doesn't mean it can be simulated.

If physical reality can be simulated, then you could simulate the physical reality that makes up a person.

There is no guarantee that your simulation of the physical reality of a person would respond identically to an actual person.

There's a large body of philosophy on this, but basically it comes down to life working out better if we all assume everyone else is conscious.

There probably can be two similar beings demonstrating identical behavior with only one being conscious. Depends on what you define consciousness as I imagine.

I happen to lean towards believing Science can explain reality and that consciousness is a physical phenomenon, but to claim that things categorically must be that way is unfounded.

[egjerlow]

I have no problem with seeing myself 'part of nature' - in fact, I have for the longest time believed that consciousness can be explained in terms of the material universe revealed by science alone. But I see no way in which this gap can be bridged in terms of what we currently know about the physical universe.

As for your questions: - There seems to be aspects of the universe that are related to 'meaning' rather than to 'mechanics'. How that is related to the physical universe I certainly have no theory that hasn't been thought of before. Perhaps the physical world is the 'shadow' of the world of 'meaning'/spirit? I don't really know.

- We can certainly simulate all laws of physics as detectable by science. Whether that's all there is, however, is something I don't believe.

- Leaving the debate of free will aside, I certainly don't think we'll be able to simulate the life of a human in its completeness (unless we're somehow given some insight into how subjectiveness can exist in this universe) - i.e. including the subjective dimension of that human's life.

- Thus, I wouldn't call that human conscious, no.

- We can't :) Our own conscious experience is all we can be completely sure of (which is why I also find it so extremely odd to prefer the 'mechanistic worldview' when that involves disregarding our own conscious experience, which is the only thing we really have to start from!)

- In principle, I think so, yes, but only by somehow pre-programming that unconscious being to act in exactly the same way (this relates to the concept of free will).

As you can see, I don't have a clear theory of consciousness - mine is mostly a negative position in the sense that I don't believe matter, as described by the laws of physics, can give a coherent explanation of the phenomenon of consciousness. Where to go from there is not clear, but there are a lot of philosophers of mind thinking about the issue :)

(Also, again, I don't consider this position more 'magical' than believing that arranging atoms in a given configuration will 'somehow' give rise to subjective experience).

[acqq]

> I see no way in which this gap can be bridged in terms of what we currently know about the physical universe.

That "you see no way" doesn't confirm more than that. It's about your own thinking:

http://skepdic.com/subjectivevalidation.html

http://skepdic.com/wishfulthinking.html

[egjerlow]

I don't see how this is relevant? I don't have a strong need to believe there is more in the universe than matter. In fact, as mentioned earlier I believed for a long time everything could be explained in that way.

But after further reflection I have arrived at a different conclusion.

Throwing out allegations of wishful thinking in a debate should at least be substantiated. Otherwise I can equally validly say it's wishful thinking on your part to believe consciousness can be explained in material terms.

[acqq]

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I claim that the processes of “thinking“ and “being conscious“ can be simulated on the reasonably powerful computer. Your claim that there’s something “more” were supported by you claiming “you seeing no way” for “more” not existing.

Now if you would claim there’s a teapot orbiting Neptune I would also not be able to disprove your claim. But based on what I know about the world, I wouldn’t expect a teapot being there. So from my perspective if you claim that it’s there, you must be in the “Subjective validation” state: “validating words, initials, statements, or signs as accurate because one is able to find them personally meaningful and significant.”

So my guess is that it deeply matters to you to believe that you are fundamentally different from all other animals. Which is a wishful thinking.

Specifically, humans as spices indeed developed the capability to talk about things, for which a kind of symbolic manipulation and processing is needed. Once the capability exists, inventing the names for the abstract concepts is also just a simple process. The names like “soul” etc.

[egjerlow]

>So my guess is that it deeply matters to you to believe that you are fundamentally different from all other animals. Which is a wishful thinking.

:) I urge you to read through this quote and then ask yourself who is making more assumptions and who are partaking in wishful thinking. I have already stated that I really don't have a problem with us being matter 'only' and yet you find this statement somehow so incredible that you have to claim that this 'deeply matters' to me, despite what I actually claim is the reason for my belief.

To me, the extraordinary claim is that matter arranged in a certain way can give rise to subjective experience. That is what requires extraordinary evidence, in the same way I would need evidence if you said that by putting sticks together to form a pentagram you were able to summon a demon.

Your teapot around neptune is neither here nor there as an argument, but since I have encountered it before I am guessing it's taken from some kind of 'sceptic's manual for discussion'. It has little relevance here, however, as I am not claiming something completely taken out of the blue, but rather something that is based on direct experience with the world, i. e. my own subjective experience.

[acqq]

So it's your "experience" is that you are simply "special" (based on a wishful thinking) or is there anything else? I don't think so, as you yourself write it's just your own belief: "mostly a negative position in the sense that I don't believe matter, as described by the laws of physics, can give a coherent explanation of the phenomenon of consciousness."

My belief is that you even don't want to understand it.

There are no "laws of physics" that have to be changed to make a computer that is as complex as a person's brain: it's just that our technology is inefficient: one human's brain has some 100 billion neurons, we have had a significant effort to simulate around 100 million times less:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWorm

The organic cells are simply extremely efficient in the tasks they are doing, compared to our technology.

But even that small order of magnitude of cells are enough to evolve a basic "self awareness": it's simply an evolutionary advantage for multicellular life forms not to treat their own parts of the body the same as the competition and the rest of the environment. Basically a need to treat distinctively "myself" "food" "a potential sex partner" and an "enemy" is built in in the complex life forms that move (i.e. all kinds of animals).

That "special feeling" of you "being special" that you are aware of is something that you share with most of the complex life, and it is not a surprise in any way.