Reply to felix dekat: "Real world" analogs of the content of visual perception, meanwhile, are not created by brains and thus continue to existence when "perception" of these objects, which are created by brains and require brains in order to exist, wink out of existence (for those believing consciousness can cease to exist, that is) in response to dysfunction or cessation of function of the brain. But the only thing that we see and can see, is the thing created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). We cannot see "real world" chairs or analogs of the content of visual perception because these are not created by the brain. Like God for the religious person, and as Kant observed, the existence of "real world" objects that are the foundations, causes, and analogs of the objects seen in consciousness is supported only by faith.Why? Because we can only see and experience our consciousness. The thing that supposedly winks out of existence when the brain stops functioning. We cannot see or experience things that are not our consciousness. Thus we have no evidence of their existence.
I disagree with your last point. The phenomena of experience are evidence of the real world.
The phenomena of experience, in godless mythology, do not exist or appear unless there is a neural circuit in the brain that, by random chance, has the ability to create and produce a particular phenomenon of experience. The “real world” or “real things”, by contrast, are not created by brains and themselves do not create the phenomena of experience (well, the only thing that does is the “real object” version of the brain).
Thus:
1. We cannot experience the “real world” or “real world” objects as these are not created or produced by the brain. A "real world" tree, for example, does not come from the brain, as the tree would rip the brain and skull apart and crush the body as it emerged from neurons trapped in a skull. The only thing we can experience is the ephemeral, intangible visible experience of a tree produced by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).
2. One observes the existence of personal subjective experience of a chair, train, mountain, park, etc., then
fancifully imagines or makes up (one
must do so, as one cannot experience external “real” objects or worlds) the concept of chairs, trains, mountains, parks, etc. that are
not produced by one’s brain, that is imagined to exist outside one’s consciousness and as it is not created by one's brain, would survive and is unaffected by the loss of one’s consciousness.
3. One then proceeds from the act of making up the concept of “real world” chairs, trains, mountains, etc., to believing that brain-produced subjective experience of chairs, trains, mountains, etc. are evidence of “real world” chairs, trains, mountains, etc. But they are not one and the same thing, as “real world” chairs, trains, etc. are not created by the brain and have nothing to do with the creation and appearance of experienced chairs, trains, etc.
4. One therefore imagines things that cannot be experienced as they are conceived to exist (as things not created by the brain: we can only experience that which “comes from” or is produced by the brain) and state that a real entity (a person’s experience of an object) is evidence of something one cannot experience but has entirely made up in the mind (make no mistake: we do not experience external objects and events, but do nothing but imagine them and believe in their existence).
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Perhaps you deny it because you cannot accept the evil and suffering in the world.
Of course I accept the evil and suffering in the world, you have to accept it every time you turn on the news. I do not believe in the existence of external objects and events that are doppelgangers (to whatever imagined level or extent) of the content of visual perception. This denial does not equate to a denial of the existence of evil. The evil and suffering in the world are just aspects of the virtual or artificial reality that is human consciousness.
When there isn't substantial correspondence between the subject's phenomenal experience and the external reality, the subject becomes dangerous to himself and/or others.
How can one know whether or not there is substantial correspondence between the subject’s phenomenal experience and the external reality, when we have no experienced evidence of the external reality, because the external reality is something other than our experience as our experience is created by the brain and the external reality is not?
(For those believing the brain creates consciousness)
We say that he is out of contact with reality.
If he experiences, he is not out of contact with reality, because the only reality for which we have evidence is our subjective experience. We do not have evidence of the existence of anything that is not one’s subjective experience. We only have the idea of something that is not and that is outside one’s subjective experiences and we then go on to imagine that these imaginary things have creative or active input and connections and relations to subjective experience. All the while, the idea of external objects and events is just another creation of the brain, another aspect of subjective experience (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).
Correspondence between perception and the external world has survival value.
As the brain does not create external objects in the external world and we have no evidence of their existence (as they are not created by the brain and therefore cannot be experienced), there is no evidence of any correspondence between perception and the external world. There is only evidence of perception of something created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). Acts of successful thinking and action resulting in survival, therefore, and survival instinct is all created by the brain and is just a part of a brain-created artificial or virtual reality that exists in the absence of external objects or events. (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). This goes into the following:
Even metaphysical idealists like yourselves treat the perceptual like it's real.
Of course they do, because that is the way their brains cause them to think, believe, and act (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). External objects have nothing to do with the existence and abilities of the neural circuits said to give rise to phenomenal experience of things believed to be experience of external objects. We have no evidence that external objects exist and if they did, they have nothing to do with:
1. The existence of the neural circuit that by the luckiest chance, happened to be the very neural circuit that happens to reside in the brain and that happens to be able to, out of all the things the neural circuit
could have had the ability to do, create a subjective experience of
that external object or event that happens to act upon the body at just the current moment. What convenience this neural circuit happened be available at that moment in the brain!
The external object or event had no hand in creating the neural circuit that luckily represents it as it could not physically act upon the neural circuit to ensure the circuit produces only its image and nothing else without shattering the skull, imploding the brain, and perhaps crushing the body in the attempt.
A real world SUV, for example, cannot reach with its metal and plastic through a skull to make sure a subjectively perceived imagine of itself will one day emerge without destroying the skull, brain, and crushing the body containing the skull and brain.
The SUV or any real world object outside the skull and body has nothing to do, therefore, with providing the brain with the neural circuit that produces visual perception of the real world object or grants the neural circuit with the ability to produce visual perception of real world objects (for those believing neurons produce visual perceptions of real world objects). Neural circuits of the occipital lobe and their ability to produce visual perception of external objects, therefore, exist for reasons that have nothing to do with the existence of the real world objects they purportedly represent.
The ones who don't win the dubious Darwin's Awards. That is they contribute to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool via death or by their own actions.
Their actions in this regard are just part of the artificial conscious reality created by their brain, not any action by or reaction to external objects, as we have no evidence of the existence of external objects. One only imagines the concept of external objects and then comes to believe these imaginary entities exist and have something to do with the only real thing that has bothered to show up to the party of existence, subjective experience.
If one thinks good to simply remove the existence of "real world" analogs of the content of visual perception, why, that leaves our subjective experience as the only thing that is truly real.
That's seems to be what you have done. Do you think it "good" because you can thereby deny the reality of the evil and thereby "prove" the existence of a Good God and defeat the problem of evil? You achieve this at the price of denying the validity of perception. And you can marshal perceptual mistakes, optical illusions and to support of this denial. Do you perhaps do this because you have already denied that we are fallible human primates who's perceptual apparatus was designed by evolution to adapt and survive?
What does denying the existence of “real world” analogs of the content of visual perception have to do with denial of the reality of evil? Evil exists, and is part of the artificial or virtual reality that is our consciousness, even in the absence of “real world” objects and worlds behind the artificial reality.
Perception is “valid” only in the sense that it exists. Nothing more. It does not gain validity by an invisible something hiding behind it (in terms of an invisible, non-experiential copy of the object that is perceived). Perception cannot point to or indicate the existence of something behind it that is not and is something other than the perception itself. How can perception “see” something other than itself? In the mythology of the brain creating consciousness, you have:
(i) that which is created by the brain
(ii) that which is not created by the brain
If every instance of consciousness depends upon and cannot exist without some neural circuit in the brain, everything you experience and every reaction you have or do not have to what you experience is just a creation of the brain. That which is not created by the brain, therefore, has nothing to do with your experience as every experience is a product of the brain and things outside and are not created by the brain do not take part in the brain's creation of one's experience.
To assert that only subjective experience is real is to deny the neuroscience of perception. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system. You are denying the existence of physical or chemical stimulation. To you it's a "virtually" supplied by God.
To the neuroscientist, vision involves light striking the retina of the eye, smell is mediated by odor molecules, and hearing involves pressure waves. To you light, molecules, and pressure waves are all illusions performed by God. From your theory it seems to follow that science is merely part of a grand illusion perpetrated by God.
The neuroscience of perception or process of perception, if you truly wish to be honest about it, is a combination of experience and make-believe.
The end of the process of perception is a neural circuit in the brain producing a subjective experience of a particular visual image, the smell of a certain odor or combination of odors, the experience of a certain sound or combination of sounds, etc. This is the end of the assembly line of the process of perception, the “everlasting Gobstopper” that finally cranks out at the end of the Willy Wonka machine that is the link between the external world, objects and events in the external world, the peripheral and central nervous systems, the sensory organs, the brain, and that special neural circuit in the brain that by the luckiest chance just happens---can you believe it?---to have the ability to produce a sensory representation of that
very external world object and/or event that
just happens to affect your body and brain at the current moment.
What an awesome convenience, that the brain happened to have in it’s “magic bag o’ tricks” (pun intended) the neural circuit that just happens to be able to represent the external object and event that’s affecting the body "right now", and to have this neural circuit set up within the brain years prior (science surely doesn’t expect neural circuits that create subjective experiences of external objects and events to assimilate
seconds before an experience in the nick of time, given the immediacy of new, incoming experience?) to the object coming to affect the body and produce the lucky pinball shooting of electrical signals from the external object and event to the peripheral nervous system and/or facial sensory organs to the neural circuit that happens to have the ability to produce subjective representation of the external object or event.
But according to godless mythology in regard to consciousness, subjective experience,
only exists if there is a neural circuit in the brain that creates the experience, consciousness is not believed to be able to come into existence by itself, independent of the brain.
Thus every part of the process of perception except the “everlasting Gobstopper” of subjective experience cranking out at the end of the Willy Wonka machine of the process of perception is
make-believe, as neurons create consciousness but do not create the things in the process of perception outside consciousness itself. The only evidence of things having existence is subjective experience of things that have existence, and subjective experience of things that have experience can only come from the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).
Ergo:
1. Light striking the retina of the eye is make-believe. We have no evidence of the existence of light that is not light that is visual perception of light created by the brain.
2. Odor molecules and pressure waves are make-believe. We have no evidence of the existence of atoms or molecules or pressure waves that are not creations of the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).
Light, molecules, and pressure waves not created by the brain probably do not exist, and if they do, they do not personally create sensory perception but merely send mind-independent signals that, in probably the best “pool shooting” in existence, happen to route to and though the animal body to electronically activate the already-existing neural circuit that luckily (before the fact) had the power to inscrutably produce sensory perception that just happens to be sensory representation of the thing that just happens to send the signal to the body at the current time (whew).
In light, however, of the logical possibility of things existing “just cuz” in the form of there being nothing in existence except non-embodied persons experiencing artificially real worlds created by God and another hidden aspect of existence, we don’t need external objects and events.
Your logic is unnecessarily tortured. You presuppose what you're trying to prove. Even amoebas which have no nervous system react to stimuli. Sensation apparently evolved from that capacity of organic matter and consciousness from that.
I think it may be the other way around. You presuppose what you imagine or make-believe, not what is actually experienced as real. We have no evidence of the existence of organic or unconscious matter. We only have evidence of the existence of persons and their subjective experience. Unconscious matter or the concept of unconscious matter, therefore, can only be an imaginary object conceived by and within the imagination and has no basis in reality, because we use experience to determine what is real, and we experience nothing but our experience (something must be our experience or composed of our experience in order to be experienced and thus revealed as reality).
Not so. What we are experiencing as subjects is material. The fact that I can give a causal account of how it comes about that I see the tree (light photons strike my retina and set up a series of neuron firings that eventually cause a visual experience) does not show that I don’t see a tree.
It would be odd to say that an account of the process of perception between the external world and the brain giving rise to visual experience of a tree does not result in one seeing a tree. One sees a tree, then gives an imaginary account of how the vision came to be, using imaginary objects and processes that have never been seen and therefore cannot be proven by experiment (as experimentation is composed of subjective experience).
There is no inconsistency between asserting, on the one hand, “I directly perceive the tree,” and asserting, on the other, “There is a sequence of physical and neurobiological events that eventually produce in me the experience I describe as ‘seeing the tree.’”
If one chooses to believe in the made-up “existence” of ‘physical and neurobiological events that eventually produce in me the experience I describe as ‘seeing the tree’, sure. But the aforementioned events that purportedly result in visual perception of a tree are
imaginary, as we only have evidence of and can only experience “seeing a tree”.
Whereas, to maintain that there is no external reality corresponding to my subjective experience the scientific explanation is an illusion. I guess that's why you had to come up with your hypothetical subjective elements. Contrary to your claim that there is no experimental evidence for the external objective world, the entire body of knowledge gained by the physical sciences is that evidence. Your subjective "science" is paltry by comparison.
The entire body of knowledge gained by the physical sciences, if it is something other than that which was and is directly experienced by a person, is entirely imaginary, i.e. only a figment of the scientist’s imagination that the scientist believes has real, independent existence outside the scientist's consciousness--although the scientist cannot prove it by direct experience as the scientist maintains and admits it is something that is not the scientist’s subjective experience as it is something outside and that is not created by his, or anyone’s, brain. But if it is something that is not a person or a person’s experience, it cannot be experienced. If it cannot be experienced but can only be "shown" to others in the form of a concept in a person’s mind, it is obviously imaginary and only exists in the form of a fictional concept or state of affairs.
One makes the mistake of asserting (it’s okay to believe and state that it is merely what one believes) that that which is only imaginary is irrefutably real. We commonly make the mistake (aggravating as it is) of stating what one
believes as if it were irrefutable
fact. The only thing that is irrefutably real is subjective experience. Again, we only have evidence of the existence of subjective experience, i.e. the fact or act of experiencing and that which is experienced only during a particular act of experience. Everything else is make-believe, and may not exist.
Infinite regression. My experience requires me as the experiencer.
True.
I didn't create myself.
True, given that most of our experiences are unexpected and unwanted.
All observable experiencers are born not eternal.
Other experiencers are observable? One can only experience oneself. But under the
belief (the belief that rescues one from overt solipsism) that other experiencers exist and are observed only to be humans, animals, and insects, this is true “on the surface”.
So in hypothesizing eternal subjective experience, you are postulating something that cannot be experienced or known.
Fancy that, the same can be said for external objects and events like atoms, light, and pressure waves, or anything not created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).
Agnosticism is the correct epistemological response to this proposition.
True, but I happen to believe in the existence of eternal persons. I have greater reason to believe in eternal persons than I do in things that are not and are not made out of subjective experience. Persons that are finite are finite by chance, as they exist “just so”. It is not out of the question that this same “just-so-ness” applies to eternal persons. There’s really no good reason for them not to exist except for…well...just plain ole’ disbelief in their existence. Other than pure and simple disbelief, there is no valid reason eternal persons do not nor cannot exist.
Now that---positing that eternal unconscious matter inexplicably becomes someone experiencing and that which is experienced by someone---requires more of an infinite leap than just stating that consciousness has always existed. After all, existence only appears or manifests in the form of someone and the which someone experiences. It does not appear in any other manner. Why jump to something that is not someone and that which someone experiences to explain the existence of someone and that which someone experiences?Why do we need the opposite of consciousness to explain consciousness? the views we hold prereflectively so that any departure from them requires a conscious effort and a convincing argument. Why is unconscious matter even necessary, save only because one does not believe in eternal consciousness?
Because this is the view that we hold prereflectively and this is the view supported by the physical sciences which are supported by evidence.
We only have evidence of one’s subjective experience. We do not have evidence of something that is not one’s subjective experience. Something must be or be made out of one’s subjective experience in order to be experienced. The physical sciences takes something that is real (subjective experience) and pair it with something that is purely make-believe (something that is not subjective experience). They believe that that which was purely made up in their minds is real on the basis that the imaginary entity mimics the appearance of visual perception, then go forth to preach the gospel that that which only appears in their minds is real and has something to do with that which is real (subjective experience), stating the fiction with such confidence and certainty that those who don’t know better believe they are stating irrefutable truth.
One guy remarked about the situation in an interesting way:
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.
-Romans 1:22Everything should be explained as simply as it can be, but not simpler. Eternal consciousness is too simple to account for observable facts.
The only observable fact is that the only thing we observe and experience is one’s own subjective experience. Everything one experiences only appears when one subjectively and personally experiences it, and disappears when one no longer experiences it. Something (anything for that matter) requires one to experience it in order for it to be experienced, and must therefore (since it requires one to experience it in order to be experienced) materially consist of a substance called:
“Your Experience Of It”.
We observe that consciousness is embodied in finite physical beings including ourselves.
We observe that consciousness is seemingly embodied in seemingly finite beings with bodies composed of their subjective experience of a body (the body is composed of "Your Experience Of It"). The body is not composed of something other than and that is not one's subjective experience of one's body.
Consciousness cannot be observed floating around. Eternal consciousness is not observable.
Consciousness other than one’s own consciousness is not observable, yet we believe the consciousness of other people exist. One experiences oneself “in a body”, but the body is upon reflection made up of one’s subjective experience of it, as a central avatar of the artificial reality composed of one’s subjective experience. Thus consciousness “floats” in the sense of being fundamentally a first-person subjective experience that is
essentially anterior to perception of a body.
We might say that we are software and not hardware; the psychological relations that are me are currently instantiated in this neocortex, but I am not essentially this neocortex nor even (more controversially) any neocortex.
-Max More, The Terminus of the SelfTwain was satirizing the New Testament where it is shown that, ironically, Jesus was the first to preach the hell that he supposedly saves us from. Every generation since his alleged resurrection has demonstrated that he did not save us from physical death which goes on as it did before him.
Christ not saving us from physical death is supported by the bible:
It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
-Hebrews 9:27 Jesus stating:
I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
-John 11:25Does not contradict Hebrews 9:27 as ‘yet shall he live’ follows rather than replaces the first death. It’s about God pulling a person from the current artificial reality of the world in which he or she perceives oneself in an animal body and is perceived by others as having been born an infant and evolving into an adult and senior person. It’s not God’s intent for man to remain in
that artificial reality, thus, ‘physical death …goes on as it did before him’.
I maintain that a perfectly good God, if such exists, would not relegate billions of his creatures to eternal punishment. Jesus, if he was a man motivated by compassion, would not have consigned people to that fate. So, eternal hell may have been the invention of the New Testament Christian writers.
Many verses in the bible refer to man not being eternally tormented in hell, but (if Universalism as believed by Salisbury below is false) having consciousness eternally removed via fire of hell. I agree, a perfectly good God would not relegate anyone to eternal torment in hell (save perhaps Satan).
As far as eternal hell being the invention of New Testament writers:
There is no documentation that the church councils of the first four centuries embraced the doctrine of "eternal punishment." The church councils at Nice in A.D. 325, at Constantinople in A.D.381, at Ephesus in A.D.431 and at Chalcedon in A.D.451 never embraced this doctrine. In contrast, there is documented evidence that many church leaders and teachers of the first centuries A.D. wrote acclaiming the doctrine of "universal salvation" or "ultimate reconciliation", none of whom were censored. It was not until 553 A.D. that the Roman Catholic Church denounced the teaching of ultimate reconciliation as heresy.
-Salisbury, Lee: Eternal Punishment—Is It Really Of God?
The following passage captures the problem in satire:
