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Comment by baggy_trough | Hacker News Reader

You can't really say that definitively. It is just a philosophical belief.

It's true that it isn't something we can say definitively. It's more than a philosophical belief, however.

There isn't any evidence that there is anything happening that's not biological despite 1000's of years of searching for that evidence.

And there is all kinds of evidence that biological processes can explain our experience. More all the time.

It's not definitive in the sense that we're anywhere near completely understanding our biology.

But it's the most likely explanation, given what we do know, but such a huge margin that there is no real alternative explanation outside of mythology.

they could always discover the wireless soul organ in the brain, which connects us to the cloud, where the real thinking happens. did they even look?

>There isn't any evidence that there is anything happening that's not biological despite 1000's of years of searching for that evidence.

Do you consider software in a computer to be mechanical? You could record the 1010101 in an electricity stream and conclude there is no meaning to that electricity beyond getting from point A to point B in a chip.

> There isn't any evidence that there is anything happening that's not biological despite 1000's of years of searching for that evidence.

If we're looking for something supernatural like a soul, then we shouldn't expect to see natural evidence. Thus the lack of that evidence does not imply its nonexistence. Relevant xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/638/

We have no evidence that supernatural is even a thing.

Sure you can say that our lack of evidence means nothing since we don't have the capability, through natural laws, to acquire that evidence.

But that's just another way of justifying faith as a rational argument.

The only reason we have to believe in the supernatural is mythology. And the only reason we have to believe mythology is faith (and fear).

I'd encourage you to examine some of the many arguments for the supernatural that have been discussed for many years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0

Its also the kettle calling itself black. The kettle, the calling, the self, that's all G..Nature..Universe, whatever you wanna call it. You cannot be sure you are anything in this universe. Even a sentence like "I think therefore I am" requires short term memory. The universe could have just created you at this very moment. Its all subject to corruption, subterfuge, and undecidability. Big woop, you find out that the brain is connecting to your thinking, that still doesn't explain why you, why the universe, why the brain, and why the thinking.

>The universe could have just created you at this very moment.

yes but it didn't.

You simply don't know that is my point. By continually asserting it you are demonstrating a lack of actual scientific thinking. It is convenient to trust one's memory and the physics of the universe as consistent and indubitably pure. But you have been around less than 100 years in a universe of billions of years. So claiming any kind of self assuredness about the universe or consciousnesses's patterns is total foolishness. A glimpse doesn't warrant authority to describe the entire landscape.

Hey you're right I forgot to mention that MAYBE the brain might have a long cord going off into soul land and that's where the real stuff happens. You know - in the cloud. It's just that maybe we just haven't found that cord yet. It's like super super transparent! Hard to see. Wireless, even. That's why you can't think in a faraday cage. No access to the cloud.

see how silly that sounds.

so on one level sure you're right, on the other hand it's obvious. no, there's obviously no super transparent cord going off to soul land. it's just a bunch of sell-contained cells. It's not wireless. It's not even networked. It's just limited to within your body. You can literally plunge yourself in water and still think.

you have no cord going off into ether. you are nnot a networked component. you are just a bunch of cells in one little package and that's it. That's you. your output is what your body does robotically (move, make sounds) your input is sensory. and your consciousnes is whatever your braincells are doing.

You forgot to mention that your theory requires that _nothing_ gave birth to _everything_ via _undefined behaviours_ with intelligence and consciousness being mere side effects. That's at least as silly as the other explanation.

> there's obviously no super transparent cord going off to soul land.

You make it sounds extra silly by using this type of language. Remember when hardcore scientists were saying "my dear you must be mad to think the earth is round", or "yeah OBVIOUSLY the stars are pinned to crystal spheres, they can't just fly, that would be silly".

Anyway, the only thing we can be sure of is that we just don't know. Everything else is simply stories we tell ourselves to make us feel better. We play little games, but not all games offer the same experiences.

I make it silly because it's silly. either there's a wireess soul organ connecting us to the cloud, where the REAL thinking happens, or it's just some meat: exactly what it looks like.

what do you think the chances are of finding a small metaphysical soul organ in the brain, that connects us to the ether where all the real consciousness happens, is?

Give a percentage chance of that happening.

An example of how it could happen is: - the material universe is a simulation/mechanism that is taking place in a higher level universe with unknown properties. - conscious processes are associated with that higher level. - the "wetware" aspects of consciousness as neural software in the brain are not fundamental and/or are maintained as part of the simulation.

I can tell you definitively that even if there is a simulation, it doesn't treat the brain specially and differently from any other matter in the (in our) universe. the brain has no special properties. it is not a radio into a higher level universe. it's just stuff, same as all the other stuff. no shenanigans, I guarantee it for you.

I don't believe it's possible to be definitive about such matters. The way I interpret your "definitive" is "I very much believe this to be so." That is well and good, but I do not.

Consider the fact that brain damage can change a person's personality. That strikes me as a powerful indication that there is not a higher level on which the consciousness lives with an interface to the wetware.

hey God here, just a note that I did put a small radio in everyone's brain for communicating with higher dimensions that mere physics can never touch. When this radio gets damaged, it falls back to 802.11n, and this slower connectivity is what causes the changes in behavior and personality. It's basically a connectivity issue. No, the processing isn't going on in the brain, but you still need a good, fast connection to the soul realm and at the moment the only way to do that is with the consciousness organ I designed. the brain is basically a thin client and the soul organ is the network card. hope this heps.

okay so now what are the chances that I'm God and really just said that? If you said anything over 0.00000000% you're totally wrong. There is no chance of that because it's stupid. the above paragraph is obviously satire, because it's stupid.

Your opinions here are very arrogant. You are presuming that lack of evidence is proof of a negative. Pretty sure that so far outside of the scientific method that it's as much quackery as homeopathic "medicine"

You are presuming that the physical is all there is to existence. You fail to consider the possibility that there are portions of reality that we don't have the physical capability to perceive or the mental capability to truly understand.

There's a difference between saying "there is no evidence of X" versus "there is no evidence of X, so X is impossible"

what do you put the chances at that there's a soul organ in the brain that acts like a radio into a soul dimension, where consciousness occurs? (rather than as an emergent property of the matter, with the brain being no different than any other matter in our Universe.)

I estimate 0.00000000%. What's your estimate?

I estimate that there is a non-zero chance that consciousness itself is something we will never truly understand. Would you ever expect a piece of software to be able to truly understand the things that drive its actual consciousness, should we ever figure out how to create truly sentient AI? I don't honestly think one could, without speaking directly to their creator. And since the existence of a creator of human consciousness is purely a thing of speculation, I don't see us ever being able to do such a thing (should they exist) until we pass through what we know as death. At that point, I feel that there's a non-zero chance that our consciousness does indeed continue on in some form of existence. What that form is, where it resides, or if it even has physical properties, I don't know, and I don't think we'll ever know, until we cross the threshold of death as individuals.

I feel that consciousness itself is something non-physical. Whether it be a specific cocktail of neurotransmitters working in concert to give us the characteristics that we attribute to sentience, or a "core" form of existence that exists outside of our physical existence, I don't know, and I don't presume to know. I also don't presume I should be going around and acting like I can say with complete authority and accuracy "X doesn't exist in any way, shape, or form, because there is no evidence". I mean, what of the many other "scientific facts" humans have revised and subsequently rejected over a few millennia?

I don't object to what you've just written. I expect even if we had conscious robots that we programed with AI software and which are connected to sensors and aware of themselves (similar to boston dynamics humanoid and dog-like robots, if we also add in a large neural software brain), having them be conscious by obvious virtue of running software we developed/coded/used genetic algorithms on, wouldn't mean we understand that consciousness.

I'd say we would have the chance to have a much better understanding of that type of consciousness than we would our own, unless such an AI were to come about spontaneously from a long string of machine learning such that we don't have any clue about the inner machinations.

Your whole logic is based on materialistic principles. You seem to be looking for a physical "cord" linking us to a physical "place" where consciousness "happens". You can't consider what I'm hinting if you stay in that paradigm.

What if your base assumptions are flawed ? The current materialistic approach is based on flawed 15th century intuitions. Just like the previous assumptions were based on other flawed intuitions (gold can be made from any element, stars are on crystal spheres, earth is the center of the universe, &c.)

What makes you think our current assumptions are the absolute truth ?

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