[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.

[egjerlow]

I don't claim to be special - what I'm describing goes for all conscious beings, after all (and it could very well be that there are conscious animals). It seems to me you are trying really hard to make it seem like I'm uncomfortable on a personal or emotional level with the concept that consciousness can arise from matter only; please belive me when I say I am not. But on an intellectual and rational level I find the idea untenable. I don't understand why this is so hard to accept for you?

Your argument about the complexity of computers would have weight if I had been claiming that the reason consciousness cannot be found outside humans is because nothing can be as complex as the human brain; I am not claiming that. Hence you can make computers as complex as you want - you still haven't answered how subjective experience can arise from matter.

There is nothing about me in particular that is special, but every conscious being does possess a quality or is inhabited by a phenomenon that is unlike anything else in the universe that we know of. That makes it pretty damn special, yes.

But again, it's not the feeling of feeling special that I am talking about here. It is the phenomenon of subjective experience.