That's like saying you either believe Robin Hood was a real person or you don't, because ultimately he either existed or he didn't.
That's the thing. No magic is required. People already know there isn't magic involved. Being able to build something that is conscious does not mean that consciousness isn't fundamental. Why would it?
Adding robin hood doesn't change my statement not one bit, so you're correct.
Links to non-crackpot scientists who think consciousness is innate to the universe.
I just don't get your point.
If God exists then he exists. Theists don't debate the existence of God. Sounds like a bunch of meaningless tautologies. But your part about atheists being the only ones who debate God is just plain wrong, because there are people who don't feel there's enough out there to make a good statement one way or the other - and that doesn't necessarily mean they simply don't care either. Just like it isn't only the people who are feel there's no reason to believe Robin Hood existed that are debating his existence.
This is just patently false, and I'm saying that as someone that spent the better part of a decade on a Christian forum debating the existence of god with believers. Pull your fucking head out of your ass.No believer debates the existence of God, or he wouldn't be a believer.
I just shrugged off the Robin Hood point, because it doesn't change the point of the statement I made.
No believer debates the existence of God, or he wouldn't be a believer. Non-believers (though still religious) do. Of course, both do debate reasons to believe God exists, or why their religion is the correct one.
The problem of consciousness eclipses scientific methods, unfortunately, so you won't find a great many scientists approaching it -- it hasn't "gotten that far" yet -- but there is no shortage of credible philosophers that take panpsychism seriously. It isn't a "crackpot" idea at all, but quite a legitimate one even if it represents a hypothetical fact that appears empirically insurmountable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
Re-read what I was saying. If God exists, it is "FACT", period. I was ripping his silly argument that God wouldn't be fact even if he showed his existence.
If I am misunderstanding him (which is possible) please, clear it up.
More than that, my pet rock is in constant communication with you, too.Something tells me you have a pet rock and actually converse with it regularly.
This is just patently false, and I'm saying that as someone that spent the better part of a decade on a Christian forum debating the existence of god with believers. Pull your fucking head out of your ass.
I learn more from being wrong than I do from being right, so thanks for the link in your following post.
Your statements imply that the existence a god can be established as a fact without the benefit of any demonstrable manifestation of that existence. One can not have a path to "irrefutable proof" of a god's existence that lacks any basis in physical evidence.
Belief is a fine thing. Wrapping that belief in pseudo-scientific horseshit is not.
Umm, a god showing its existence is "demonstrating" it's existence. What you cannot understand is that this would be done with no recourse to science and material means of explanation.
That's all your mind can handle, and why you'd never understand what I'm saying.
<snip>
No believer debates the existence of God, or he wouldn't be a believer. Non-believers (though still religious) do. Of course, both do debate reasons to believe God exists, or why their religion is the correct one.
To the OP.
Your premise is that if we could find physical evidence for consciousness then it could be supposed that other noncorporeal phenomenon may exist. This is a faulty premise. If we define consciousness as a noncorporeal entity that is linked to the physical individual, we will never by definition be able to find physical evidence. Therefore the argument is moot.
As to the assertion that without physical proof of its existance, one can prove that something does not exist, this too is a fallacy of logic. It is termed the Argumentum ad Ignoratum.
Now Descarte's phylosophies on existence could be used to provide the thought that the perception of our own existence may provide "proof" within oneself that we are more than an autonotom and may in fact be more than the physical. However, as he states, the theorist cannot with any evidence assure himself that this perception exists in others. Nor offered as proof to others that he exists.
If consciousness is shown to exist, in any form, within this universe, before biological evolution supposedly created it as a byproduct, then I would personally conclude, for myself only, that consciousness is more than a byproduct and that it is not here by accident. That is the extend of what I would conclude. FOR MYSELF. Get it? If I chose to claim there was some sort of god, to place a label on whatever might have put consciousness here, then that would become my faith position. I never said god would be taught as fact in science books.
If you tell me that my thinking is "wrong" and that i'm all screwed up for daring to declare my opinion in a hypothetical scenario, then you are a dick.
You keep referring to consciousness as some sort of vague, ethereal elemental "substance" that might be found permeating the universe like fog in a swamp, or maybe marbling in a cake. You have to be a little more clear about what you mean by consciousness, because the way you are describing it I'm not sure the word "consciousness" could even apply.
Something out there in the universe would have to be aware of itself and the world around it to be considered "conscious". Perhaps the universe itself would be self-aware. There has to be something that lives in the state of consciousness in any case. No matter what it is, it doesn't change the argument very much. I posit that anything you find that meets that criteria can never be conclusively said to not be part of some evolutionary process. No matter what form you find it in, there is an argument for why it could have been the result of natural selection on some scale or another. In that sense, your hypothetical scenario is over before it even begins.
G-d damn it alzan.
Whether you subscribe to a belief system or not you shouldn't use the deities name in vain.
Fuck you and your telling other people how to live and how to be.
God dammit.
Allah dammit.
Thor dammit.
Ra dammit.
Fuck you.