| > Consciousness belongs to the mystics today, by default, because science can not claim it. Science doesn't yet have an answer, but that doesn't grant the mystics any credibility. There is no 'by default' when we don't know. I'm reminded of a Dawkins quote: Lecturer: Scientists answer questions of 'how'. If your question is 'why', I refer you to the theologians. Dawkins: Why the theologians? Why not the gardeners? (Trivia: If I recall correctly, Dawkins didn't actually give this response, he thought it up far too late.) > There isn’t something we can hold and point to saying “this, this is what the mystics call a soul.” That isn't a game-over, though. The same goes for information processing, but we're fairly confident in what we call a 'computer'. You can't hold a center-of-gravity, but we're able to reason about those pretty clearly. |
> Dawkins: Why the theologians? Why not the gardeners?
I’ve never heard this. My initial reaction is that “god” exists in the unknown. Asking “why go to the mystics for mystical stuff” is a tautology. If you go to the gardener with a question unanswered by science, and they have an answer, they’re a mystic (or have made a scientific breakthrough).
> You can't hold a center-of-gravity, but we're able to reason about those pretty clearly.
Consciousness is not understood. Full stop. We don’t know what manifests it. We don’t know where it comes from. We don’t know where it goes.
We’ve scratched the surface of the biological mechanisms that give rise to the phenomenon we experience. If you look at me and see a biological computer, I think your statement holds. But when I look at me, in a mirror, I see a biological vessel I occupy; and I don’t know what “I” is.
Trying to oversell our understanding of the universe and our place in it does a disservice to science and the work left to be done.