Taffy Lewis

Tercel,

In my second post I suggested that the term "correlation" be used rather than "dependence" if one has difficulty with the latter term. I chose "dependence" because both the existence of and states of minds can depend upon physical states even if dualism is true. "Dependence" is a notion which is compatible with both dualism and physicalism. It's not difficult to find traditional dualists who would admit this.

The gist of your argument appears to be that even if there were instances of conscious states without corresponding physical states there is no reason to believe we would be or could be aware of them. But this seems false. The argument I have suggested could be undermined by simply becoming aware that our conscious states aren't always connected to some physical system. I might simply be conscious at some point no matter what happens to brains or any other physical system. And I could learn that this is true of others by their reporting to me similar instances in their mental lives.

Further, it's clear that we don't learn about mind-brain correlations simply through empirical observations. We learn about them through our first person awareness.

Conchobar

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Taffy Lewis
[B]Conchobar,





You seem to think that it's only reasonable to believe a being has consciousness if it somehow "needs" it.

Yes, it is my experience and that of everything I read. I have studied the Brain extensively all of my career as a neuroscientist. But I don't know of any entity, animal who doesn't have intelligence that is clearly needed for survival. Those who have no intelligence, sponges, coral polyps, all plants obviously don't need conscious intelligent. If they had it, it would enable a coral to run from a sea star eating it alive. Plants don't run away from herbivores. Rocks do nothing needing intelligience.

We have a creator who makes universes, given eh? But that may be a natural process like calcific water in a cave forming stalactites. God may have to fart out universes as its physical property. But does God need to find a luscious busty Goddess to father children? Heaven would soon get overcrowded in eternity. Does God need to eat since he is immaterial and needs no food. So he needs no brain program for finding and eating food for the non-existent mouth and stomach that he doesn't have anyway. What predators roam the cosmos eating gods? None as far as I know. So God needs no strategies for evading or fighting Theophages. He just doesn't need conscious cognition which only is know in evolved animals for those three functions mentioned (feeding, mating, and running away.)

But this isn't obvious. For any given property is it true that some entity only has it if it needs it? Obviously not.

Aye but it is in all known situations.

Electrons have mass but there is no sense in which they "need" it.

Actually they do. The electron's mass is directly related to its energy and its ability to orbit the proton in hydrogen or more electrons in larger atomic number elements. I can't copy and past the equations because of the greek math symbols. So here is the link:
http://www.fh-niederrhein.de/~physik..._changable.htm

You may argue that consciousness is different. But why believe that? The only argument I can think of would be another inductive argument like the one I suggested in my original post.

I can postulate whatever force or process popped out the universe, that humanoid consciousness is not needed. We are adding human characteristics to this creative force, called anthropomorphism. When we invented God we made him just like us. Mean and nasty, violent, vengeful, and narcissistic.

We can leave a Copper Sulfate solution (blue) to evaporate. There forms very complex crystaline structures called fractals that can be determined by a mathematical equation worked out by Mendelbrot. Now Mendelbrot did not make the fan like multibranching fractals appear because of his equation. He just explained how it worked. There is no conscious entity seen acting on the ionic solution of water with Cu++ and --SO4 ions freely banging around each other. But their properties make them attach to each other in patterns that form the fractals. In a pinch you can also do this with table salt solutions. Not as pretty.



I don't know if you intend for A-C to be exhaustive of the possibilities or not. However, it seems that most versions of christianity aren't included among your options.

None at all. I consider Christianity just a primitive superstition.

Traditional christianity teaches that God created the universe and mankind in order to have a personal relationship with us.

And my hypothesis of a non-conscious, non-cognitive creator conflicts with your desire for a personal relationship with a gian humanoid Grandfather in the sky.

That's just one of the typical reasons traditional theists offer as God's reason for creating the universe. So they wouldn't agree that God created the universe for no reason.

And I say that is exactly what happened. Do solar flares occur because a cosmic intelligence says, "I want some solar flares?" Does winter turn to spring to summer to fall because God sets his watch and says, now it is spring time. NO. the Seasons occur because the Earth's axis is at a tilt. When tilted pole toward sun, that hemisphere has summer, when tilted away they have winter. When it is half way as the tilted Earth cicles the sun we have spring and fall. There is no consciousness involved. Lots of things acutally happen because of their natural properties. We are conscious, cognitive beings so we wanted to attribute that to everything.

My Irish ancestors thought that springs, rivers, trees, wave action on the beaches of Donegal and Ulster must be intelligent spirits acting. Now we know those are all natural event.

We animals are the only know conscious, cognitive units in the universe so far as we know. I can't rule green men on Mars but doubt it. I have to see proof for whatever I accept as truth.

Fun talking with you Lass.

Conchobar

Tercel

Yes. I see no reason to believe that if a non-physical conscious being existed that we should be able to observe it physically and uncontroversially.

How would you determine the truth of this - short of dying?

How does this help your argument? It's just one more observation of physically correlated consciousness to add to the list which is already large enough for our purposes.

Waning Moon Conrad

Are you sure the Buddha gave such methodology or such teachings?

In which particular Sutra or Tantra did he give them?

Just_An_Atheist

How would you determine the truth of this - short of dying?

By interviewing people who have undergone brain damage, but who have recovered. One could ask if their thinking ability, or whether their concious experience was hindered by it.

On a sidenote, I don't mean "brain dead", because if someone is braindead, then they couldn't possibly recover.