First, let me say, I am not trying to make this blog about atheism. This blog is about whatever I want to write at any given time. I was just walking around outside, thinking about what it would be like to have a child, and trying to explain certain concepts to it. I thought about emergent properties, and how our consciousness could work. I will agree with supernaturalists that we are not simply flesh and blood. We are flesh and blood and electrical signals, and heat, arranged in a specific way so as to create the emergent property of our conscious mind. I think I can sympathize with the confusion as to how this awareness comes from matter alone, but in response to the idea that it must be supernatural, I have this to say:
What the hell is our brain for? I was talking to my friend Mark the other day, and he was telling me about neurons in the brain, and how we have trillions of connections, and how immensly complex our brains are. It just struck me while walking outside, if our consciousness is not an emergent property of our brain, and is supernatural in origin, then what the hell is our brain so complex for? Oh, there are certain things to control in the body automatically, but that’s a very limited part of our brains. To me, it’s like if someone asked “what makes your hand squeeze tight?”, and the response was “your hand soul,” and I would wonder, “what are your tendons for, your muscles, your nerves, blood, etc?”
I don’t know how our brains work, or how consciousness comes from it, but the very existence of this immensely complex structure, that we have measured activity in when people think various kinds of thoughts, should suggest to people that our conscious existence is an emergent property of ordinary matter, and not supernatural in origin.
This isn’t an argument against god, or about the beginning of the universe, and it isn’t an argument against some non-consciousness soul (a soul that is unrelated to your consciousness). I don’t know if anyone actually believes that our consciousness is caused by the supernatural rather than the natural, but if they do, perhaps they should take a look at the wonderful human brain.
May 8, 2009 at 9:11 pm |
Glad it’s not a wall of text, somone
May 10, 2009 at 10:54 pm |
Great article, I’ve been opposed to the homonculous or soul theories for some time. I like the pretend that there’s some part of me that goes on existing forever, but since I have no proof of it, why waste my neurons on assuming it or it’s nonexistence. It’s wasteful of precious life time.
May 10, 2009 at 10:55 pm |
These comments blow, I can’t edit my typos/grammar catastrophes etc.
May 11, 2009 at 7:13 am
lol, I especially liked “I like the pretend that…”.
May 14, 2009 at 6:29 pm |
I’m a bit happy to read this. I think it’s because I was a bit upset
when I was laughed at and received sarcastic remarks, in the library,
in my college days, when some lidmith friend heard the statement “I
think consciousness doesn’t exist.” Lidmith remarked that this is a
contradictory statement because of the “I” in the statement. I didn’t
think such response was worth my time, so I just ignored; but,
clearly, if the existence of consciousness can be affirmed by one’s
ability to pronounce a particular word, then there is surely no
difficulty in the problem.
It seems to me now that my lidmith friend is reconsidering the
question — things that the mere thought of parenthood can do for ya.
I like Mark’s approach. (Even though he seems quite spoiled by text
editors.)