Even this explanation isn't very satisfactory to me. Why would atoms arranged in a certain way create consciousness? Since when was that something they could do? Why would they do that? Why would there need to be an aspect of our brains that feel our feelings and sense the world around us? It is not as if we need to be conscious to have certain thought processes and respond to stimuli, computers do it well enough. It's just strange. The fact that consciousness exists at all is strange.
Nobody can really know what happens after you die
Blake Smith
Angel Lopez
>given our knowledge of evolution and neuroscience the default hypothesis should be that the emergence of consciousness is nothing more than a chance arrangement of atoms
That arrangement is changing constantly, and yet we remain conscious despite that. The atoms that are in us right now are to a large extent different atoms than the ones that were there in the distant past, and yet we remain conscious.
It's also worth mentioning that what constitutes or should constitute "science", conceptually, is not a fixed concept. It has evolved and continues to evolve, and there are many disagreements in the field of philosophy of science.
I don't remember anything from before I was born. That logically does not imply unconsciousness after I die.
This would be a good time to bring up a conception of physical reality called the block universe, also known as eternalism, which holds that the so-called "past", "present", and "past" all exist, and all are ontologically "real", even if we are experiencing one experience or another. If the block universe interpretation is true, the "passage of time" we experience is in a sense ultimately illusory.
space.com
>"We can portray our reality as either a three-dimensional place where stuff happens over time," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Max Tegmark, "or as a four-dimensional place where nothing happens ['block universe'] -- and if it really is the second picture, then change really is an illusion, because there's nothing that's changing; it's all just there -- past, present, future
This is all more complex than the "when you die that's it" viewpoint, which may or may not be true but is ultimately based on superficial appearance rather than demonstrable scientific fact. I sure don't understand it all, but I can tell it is a lot more nuanced than people often think.
Mason Cruz
Is this about to launch into full /x/?
I'm not sure what kind of answers you're looking for, but science can only explain so much and the rest is completely conjecture.
Luis Brooks
>Why would atoms arranged in a certain way create consciousness?
Why wouldn't they?
>Since when was that something they could do? Why would they do that?
The neural connections found in the brain approximate logic gates
> Why would there need to be an aspect of our brains that feel our feelings and sense the world around us?
It was an evolutionary advantage to our primate ancestors.
>That arrangement is changing constantly, and yet we remain conscious despite that.
The arrangement changes slowly. It's true that over a long period of time all the atoms in your body will be replaced, but that is a very long process. And anyway, it's not the exact atoms which count, its their arrangement in specific structures.
>It's also worth mentioning that what constitutes or should constitute "science", conceptually, is not a fixed concept. It has evolved and continues to evolve, and there are many disagreements in the field of philosophy of science.
Okay, but you're kind of moving the goalposts.
Samuel Foster
That's how it appears, but it cannot be proven. Look more into the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of time. There is so much we don't know. The assumption that when you die you remain unconscious forever in all senses is easy for many to believe, and it seems plausible on the surface, but it is far from demonstrable.
Thomas Turner
imo we are eternal:
The Hindus are right when it comes to reincarnation. However we aren't passing spirits from one form to another, but molecules. Scientific theories tell us that there is no conscious 'afterlife' per-se. However, the elements that we are made of were formed billions of years ago in the hearts of massive supernova explosions, and those elements were passed from the air, water, earth, dinosaurs, mammals, insects, etc... to us. Those elements within us will be passed to other things after we die. Billions of years from now, the sun will explode and the process will possibly start over again. So you could look at it this way, we were, are and ever will be.
Juan Wood
>Why wouldn't they?
Why wouldn't they do anything, for that matter? Why don't atoms arrange in such a way to create an afterlife for a consciousness? Anything could happen when you put it like that.
>The neural connections found in the brain approximate logic gates
Logic has little to do with consciousness. Computers can function like that, but they don't have consciousness.
>It was an evolutionary advantage to our ancestors
Consciousness has nothing to do with that, yet again. Even a non-conscious being could theoretically have the thought, "Why am I conscious?". Obviously it wouldn't actually experience this thought, but the important part is that the effect of the thought is there. I could have no consciousness for all you know, or you could. Consciousness in of itself is not necessary. Consciousness merely means experiencing your programming, not influencing it.
Tyler Sanders
>The arrangement changes slowly.
Well, no. The atoms in the human body are moving around 24/7/365. Countless ones are getting lost every fraction of a second.
>And anyway, it's not the exact atoms which count, its their arrangement in specific structures.
That arrangement is changing constantly, never stopping for even a second. The atoms in your brain, or any physical object aren't arranged in the same way as they were even before you started reading this sentence.
>Okay, but you're kind of moving the goalposts.
I don't see how. The very idea of what "science" should even be, is under constant discussion, and this always something worth keeping in mind. I'm going to give one example which I feel is relevant to the discussion, regarding determinism.
Many scientists today believe that science itself is meaningless unless one assumes the existence of metaphysical libertarian (not compatibilistic) free will. This is the position of the German physicist Anton Zeilinger, who stated
> [W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist... This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature.[6]
en.wikipedia.org
Keep in mind, this is a fundamental philosophical view on the nature and value of science itself, and it is a common view among many physicists. Several of the major interpretations of quantum mechanics rest on this view, including Bell's theorem. And yet it seems absolutely fatal to the common view of materialism and the idea that human consciousness is the product of physical (natural) phenomena.
if the block universe interpretation of physics is true, though
Kevin Cooper
There was something Peter Hitchens said that has always resonated with me, about it is impossible to know what comes after, whether God exists or not, and how basically it boils down to whether you want to live in an ordered universe with objective morality, where there are consequences for you actions, and divine reward and punishment, or whether you want to live in an atheistic universe of disorder, where there is no objective meaning to your existence, no consequences for your action, no afterlife, and you can pretty much do what ever you want without fear of divine justice.
Hunter Ortiz
cont'd--
Einstein, and many other physicists, however, did not believe in free will, unlike Bell and Zeilinger. Einstein would have accepted the idea that nature itself can determine the actions of the scientist. This is a fundamentally different view of what science itself even is, at a very basic level. And yet it's a disagreement among some of the most prominent physicists of literally all time.
All of this is worth keeping in mind. The present day popular views of science don't take into account the fact that the nature of science itself isn't settled and is rife with disagreements and paradoxes. Even Bell and Zeilinger's idea that the experimenter has free will (in a libertarian, metaphysical sense, not in the compatibilist sense espoused by Daniel Dennett for example) seems inconsistent with the idea that the physical matter in the experimenter is operating according to the same laws as other matter he's experimenting on.