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I always find this question to be interesting because of the impasse it is supposed to present to people. Granted, there is not much known about consciousness, the nature of it, and how it arose. I suppose anyone could fill in their opinions of it to fit their personal beliefs.
However, I personally feel that this question is very similar to asking how a wing, an eye, or any other "complex" machination of evolution could have arisen "blindly." Quite simply put: One percent of a wing, an eye, conscious behavior, etc... is better than zero percent and more favorable for survival. Two percent is better than one percent and three percent is better than two percent. We have seen this in "real time" via Lenski's experiments and the recent return of examination to the Galapagos Islands and Darwin's Finches amongst many other studies.
I think the main dilemma here is that the process of evolution isn't really "blind" at all. Unsympathetic, uncaring, perhaps even destructively creative might describe the process of evolution better. But, in all of those things, it manages to "pick" the best possible combination of suitability for whatever ecological niche we are talking about - including conscious behavior. It doesn't mean it's the best possible "design" or the most efficient and effective construct but the most suitable.
There is the question of whether or not the universe is "conscious." Is there such a thing as a "Consciousness Particle" in the same way that an electron is a carrier for electromagnetism? Is everything "conscious" in the same way that everything is electrically charged to some degree? Perhaps. This might be the underlying cause of varying changes and activities at the subatomic level. Though we can speculate on that, I don't think we have sufficient evidence that such a thing exists.
There are other theories as well. Ones that being pursued more fervently by physicists and other scientists. We're looking for the Higgs-Boson, Superstrings, gravitons, etc... to support our theoretical physics at the moment.
I believe that with supercolliders like the LHC and, what I believe will be called the ILC (International Linear Collider) we have our best chance at unlocking the answers to these questions. But, one of the most hopeful things the LHC (and ILC if it ever comes about) can do is explore further into areas that we simply don't know. It'll probably be years before we hear about any new or important discoveries but they might ultimately answer some of these questions.
I do have one question, though... Why must the OP insist on "supernaturalism" to direct this sort of action? The very implication of supernatural still requires existence on some level and thus must be comprised of something (energy or matter). To exist but to have no energy or matter attributed to it is absurd. And, no, mana doesn't count.
To the OP, I don't know and neither do you.
I just don't go around assigning it to the works of a mythical creature.
I neither know, nor have to know, everything.
It makes no difference one way or the other.
It doesn't affect how I live my life today.
I'm wondering how you, as an atheist, explain how natural elements - rock, gas, unfeeling atoms of nitrogen, helium.etc - gave life to thinking, feeling creatures like animals and humans. Not so much a scientific explanation of how life arose by chance, but how did these chemicals become brains that can think and feel and observe the Universe?
I'm not sure what you want. An explanation that is not a scientific explanation? Ask the creationists .
But whatever, here's the tl;dr version. Your question can be separated in three areas: the origin of life from non-life, the development of complex mammals from extremely simple organisms, and the evolution of feelings and intelligence.
To answer the first part, we seek non-living chemicals that, under the right conditions, can spontaneously extract resources from their environment to create multiple copies of themselves. That's basically life. It turns out that there's a number of such chemicals, but which ones could exist and reproduce under the conditions of primitive Earth? That is not yet clear.
Now if you have organisms that reproduce imperfectly and compete for resources, you have all the ingredients of evolution. Organisms that are more efficient, can gather more resources, are more resistant to environmental hazards or reproduce faster will be selected, quickly leading to increased complexity. Getting to something as complex as a modern mammal is just a matter of time and environmental pressure. Our evolutionary history has been studied a lot and large parts of it are well understood.
The development of intelligence is a complex topic and I admit I only have a general understanding of it. As far as I know, it was triggered by our social tendencies (which are themselves a survival trait). It has to do with game theory. Whenever groups must help each other, an individual who "cheats" by not helping people back will have an advantage. To prevent this, more complex strategies have to be implemented (like "if you cheat me once I'll never help you again"), which lead to more complex cheating and so on. All of this favour the more intelligent. At some point in the process we learned to use tools, and the rest is history (well, prehistory).
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Do any of you permit the existence of some spiritual/conscious reality that may not necessarily be a personal deity?
That's a bit vague, but I don't think I do.
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How many of you are hard core naturalists that deny anything that doesn't conform to the laws of physics?
Me, more or less. It's quite possible that we'll discover something that doesn't conform to the current laws of physics. The laws of physics, as anything else in science, are incomplete and imperfect. They can change when new evidence arise. I don't think, however, that there's anything that lies "outside the realm of science", that cannot be studied and added to our knowledge of the universe. I also do not possess any belief in things commonly called supernatural, such as magic, ghosts or gods.
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Almost every culture has or does (except modern Western secularism) believe in the idea of an afterlife. I know many primitive beliefs are false, but do you think that this suggests an underlying spiritual reality? Or, does the fact that we only imagine what we know (the world around us) suggest the only way we (humans) could have known or believed about spiritual things like deities is by actually being exposed to them at one time? The tower of Babel makes symbolic sense, at least; I mean, an original religion scattered and confused through different tongues.
I think the fact that some beliefs are very wide-spread despite the lack of supporting evidence indicate a "weakness" in the human mind. This weakness most likely has an evolutionary cause. Dawkins wrote interesting hypothesis about this in The God Delusion. (Science of the Discworld II is good too, if you're into the Discworld.)
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I'm a Christian, a bit free-minded, you could say, and lately have been thinking how unlikely it is that conscious arose out of blind, impersonal universal forces.
I don't know about "unlikely". The universe is mind-bogglingly huge, it may not even be the only one in existence, and we've explored only a negligible fraction of it. Furthermore, abiogenesis is not well understood, so we can't even calculate odds for Earth alone.
While I post and read a lot in the Atheist forum - mostly because this is where I think the real critical thinkers tend to reside and have the most interesting and intelligent discussions - I am not an atheist. What I am is not important and I'm not sure there is an "ism" that describes me.
I firmly recognize the extraordinarily powerful tool of science to discover the laws of nature. My first majors were astrophysics and mathematics. I lectured in a public Planetarium for 10 years. I'm quite familiar with the scientific method.
To answer the OP's query I have to give an analogy so bear with me please. (And excuse the excessive use of quotation marks! )
Our eyes are restricted to what we call the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We do have peripheral senses (such as temperature) that detect part of the infrared as well. Let's assume we had no other way, artificial or otherwise, to detect any other portion of the spectrum. What we could see and hear and feel would be the grand sum of "reality." Indeed, that was the case several hundred years ago.
Analogous to this, I suspect, is that what we call "physicality" - which is the entire sum of our current reality in the Western scientific worldview, i.e. if it isn't physical, it doesn't exist - is just a small portion of the larger and perhaps unimaginable spectrum of "totality." Just as you cannot see ultraviolet with your eyes (because the eye operates solely within the visible spectrum) we cannot detect other portions of the greater totality with physically-based instrumentation.
In other words, physical measurements are inherently incapable of measuring and quantifying non-physicalities. And yes, I am re-defining what is meant by "existance."
There are indications that we live in a Universe that is something more that physicality. Dark Matter is something we don't understand yet. It appears to interact with ordinary matter, but has no detectable physicality at all. And what is an electromagnetic field? It has apparently no physical mass. Even an electron is not a material "thing." It is more correctly a "probability."
To assume that physical reality is the grand sum of all reality may be disingenuous to an inquiring mind.
Getting back to the OP, my leaning is that "consciousness" is non-physical. In fact the assumption that physical brains generate consciousness may be exactly opposite to the truth. Consciousness may exist a priori and simply inhabit a physical entity. Consciousness, while interacting with physical reality, is still undetectable by physical instrumentation.
So, consciousness does arise out of "nothing." But my concept of "nothing" is simply the part of the spectrum of totality that we cannot physically detect. Yet.
Current science cannot explore that totality. But perhaps we could develop a new science that does. What would that be like? I don't know. But it could be just as powerful and productive as our physically-based science is now.
Last edited by Astron1000; 02-04-2010 at 06:19 PM..
I'm wondering how you, as an atheist, explain how natural elements - rock, gas, unfeeling atoms of nitrogen, helium.etc - gave life to thinking, feeling creatures like animals and humans. Not so much a scientific explanation of how life arose by chance, but how did these chemicals become brains that can think and feel and observe the Universe?
Do any of you permit the existence of some spiritual/conscious reality that may not necessarily be a personal deity?
How many of you are hard core naturalists that deny anything that doesn't conform to the laws of physics?
Also, on a related note...
Almost every culture has or does (except modern Western secularism) believe in the idea of an afterlife. I know many primitive beliefs are false, but do you think that this suggests an underlying spiritual reality? Or, does the fact that we only imagine what we know (the world around us) suggest the only way we (humans) could have known or believed about spiritual things like deities is by actually being exposed to them at one time? The tower of Babel makes symbolic sense, at least; I mean, an original religion scattered and confused through different tongues.
I'm a Christian, a bit free-minded, you could say, and lately have been thinking how unlikely it is that conscious arose out of blind, impersonal universal forces. If there isn't a personal God (though I believe there is) I think there is some incorporeal conscious force - the Universe is alive, with some ultimate purpose. I think a universal belief in the supernatural could at least point to the possibility, but also concede that since many primitive people had many false beliefs, this too could be a sort of illusionary coping mechanism.
Not trying to stir up an argument or convince one way or the other (although nothing is really neutral, I admit), but have a learned discussion on something which intrigues me.Thoughts welcome.
I think it's an absurd assumption for someone to base their life on the notion that some Supreme Being accomplished this. Maybe it was a group of beings from another galaxy far more advanced than us who created life. Maybe it was a particle carrying organisms that struck Earth that generated life, organisms long gone and completely unknown. But I think it's a ridiculous leap to attribute this to one deep-voiced Supreme Being.
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Originally Posted by LogicIsYourFriend
This is only superficially an explanation, because it only raises further questions: how did this 'spiritual/conscious reality' come into existence? I prefer to be honest and admit "I don't know."
Is it really hard core to be skeptical of anything that doesn't conform to the laws of physics?
You seriously underestimate the human imagination.
Do kids have to be exposed to monsters under their beds in order to believe in them?
Sure, anything's possible. We can't disprove claims of a conscious universe. But what evidence do you have to support that claim? Atheists like myself prefer to only believe in things that have evidence.
This is going to sound a bit airy fairy, but have you considered the possibility not every we know or can know about reality is deduced by logic?
Why do humans have emotions, or a deeper sense of the spiritual? I mean we're not machines, after all. If we were, a totally logical universe might make sense. But what if there's another level of existence of deeper, more spiritual things.
Sure we can't prove it, there is 'evidence' but no hard evidence. Maybe it's the type of thing that can't be proved by scientific methods. Even atheists have a sense of the spiritual underlying reality. It may not consist of Gods or Angels or anything like that but it's experienced in strong emotions like Love. We can't scientifically prove our parents love us, but most would not doubt it to be true.
I'm wondering how you, as an atheist, explain how natural elements - rock, gas, unfeeling atoms of nitrogen, helium.etc - gave life to thinking, feeling creatures like animals and humans. Not so much a scientific explanation of how life arose by chance, but how did these chemicals become brains that can think and feel and observe the Universe?
From an agnostic's perspective; The same way "touch-me-nots" fold up when you touch them, a culmination of nerve responses over millions of years.
I have asked myself over and over, if God created us why did he wait so long? Why now? How old is the universe and it took how long for mankind to walk upon it?
IMO, God did not make man he/she threw the seeds of life out to watch them turn into what ever they grew into. We, man, are simply not as important as we think we are.
Man, I've always wondered the same thing. I wonder why I'm not looking through my neighbors eyes or through my dogs body, and saying it's because my parents had me is definitely not a good explanation.
I'm not even really wondering how a piece of meat, that is not conscious or unconscious, could make me aware, what I'm really wondering is why it's 'me' (in particular) attached to my brain and body looking around.
To me, there's more to consciousness than meets the eye. It probably is related to your soul, that is the only explanation.
Sure we can't prove it, there is 'evidence' but no hard evidence. Maybe it's the type of thing that can't be proved by scientific methods. Even atheists have a sense of the spiritual underlying reality. It may not consist of Gods or Angels or anything like that but it's experienced in strong emotions like Love. We can't scientifically prove our parents love us, but most would not doubt it to be true.
What evidence?
Emotions are emotions, they're related to hormones, pheremones, etc.
That doesn't make it anything other than what it is.
You're assigning the word "spiritual" to thing that are not.
Hate to break it to you but I have no sense of the spiritual underlying reality.
Please don't assign your beliefs to me.
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