For some reason materialism is so popular among tech people that it's almost considered foolish/primitive/superstitious to think any other way. Why is that? Is it the fact that programming is a god-like experience that gives one the illusion the mind is as comprehensible as the complex program I wrote in Java? Or is it a shared personality trait of people that get into tech, that they are disconnected from an experience of their own aliveness and soul?
I would call the shared personality trait "pragmatism". Since tech people generally recognize that the preponderance of the evidence points towards a purely physical explanation for the human brain.
Even considering the hard problem of consciousness, there's no compelling reason to believe it can't have a physical basis, or can't be replicated in other complex systems.
Going back to the original comment, the perspective that "the earth is a computer that created AGI through humans" is not inherently wrong, though it may be a uselessly broad definition.
Theres evidence for the fact that the human brain affects consciousness.
What is the evidence that the brain causes consciousness?
As far as I can see, the only evidence people can produce is a general sense that science has successfully produced materialist explanations for everything it has tried to, and will continue to do so successfully forever.
However the reality is:
- Science has, up til now, failed to make even the slightest progress on the origin of consciousness.
- Science does not even claim to attempt to answer all questions about the human experience.
Therefore, the belief that science will, at some point, explain consciousness is not an inherently rational position, it is based on a sort of faith that science will succeed and apply everywhere. It masquerades as rational because of the materialist bias.
That's why I said "pragmatism" and "preponderance". It's a safer bet to believe science can explain consciousness than it is to believe in some alternative explanation, which otherwise makes no appearance in the universe.
If we had magic wands and ghosts floating around, then yeah I'd believe some kind of dualism or metaphysics. But if consciousness is the only real mystery in the universe, then sticking with materialism as the sole basis of reality seems pretty reliable.
Separately, the fact that changing the brain even a little bit can drastically change conscious experience, sure points to the brain being the cause. It makes sense that "experience" could be a side effect of certain highly complex highly connected systems. It doesn't make sense that "experience" (i.e. "having thoughts") magically drives those systems a certain direction. By the time I experience a thought, the underlying physics for it have already happened.
You're free to believe what you want, but be aware that
> It's a safer bet to believe science can explain consciousness
is not the rigorous logical position you are making it out to be. That is purely an opinion. There is no evidence that materialist science can explain consciousness - that's both an issue of track record and of principle (see the "hard problem" discussion).
> consciousness is the only real mystery in the universe
Consciousness is... pretty important. I wouldn't call it "the only real mystery," I'd call it, maybe, "THE mystery." So we must see things pretty differently if that's how you feel about it.
> It makes sense that "experience" could be a side effect of certain highly complex highly connected systems. It doesn't make sense that "experience" (i.e. "having thoughts") magically drives those systems a certain direction.
Again, "it makes sense" is an opinion. I'm not sure why you see it as less "magical" that the movement of particles would cause a subjective experience, but that is an opinion and a viewpoint, not a strictly rational belief system.
For example, to me, it makes sense and aligns more with my experience and studies that there is a soul that somehow interacts with the brain. We don't know how, but we also don't know how experience should be caused by matter, so I'm just not sure why people like yourself seem to think people like me are being foolish, superstitious, and irrational, and that your viewpoint is supported by science and logic, when it factually isn't.
Your viewpoint is supported not by the evidence, but by an axiomatic belief in materialism.
>I'm not sure why you see it as less "magical" that the movement of particles would cause a subjective experience, but that is an opinion and a viewpoint, not a strictly rational belief system.
Because cause->effect. If there is a soul or some other non-material power in the universe, why does it only influence the chemical reaction of animal brains? (We're not assuming the human species is special, right?)
My issue is that you paint tech people as arrogant or "disconnected from an experience of their own aliveness and soul" when in fact there is a much more mundane explanation -- they just have no good reason to believe in souls.
I've had many interesting and transcendent experiences, no reason to see them as anything other than extraordinary chemical states. For the closing remarks on this thread: why do you believe what you do?
We've clearly reached the limit of whatever common ground we can find here and will have to agree to disagree on what we each find intuitive and plausible.
All I hope to accomplish is to move you an inch away from the stance that materialism is the only reasonable way to think. That is what I mean by arrogance.
- Science has, up til now, failed to make even the slightest progress on the origin of consciousness.
- Science does not even claim to attempt to answer all questions about the human experience.
Similar argument could be made about every other subject that science has explained, prior to science explaining it. This is just an argument from the gaps.
Wait wait.. I thought nothing is allowed besides rigorously-justified scientific inference. But you've made your position unfalsifiable - there is literally nothing you believe science can't touch, even if it has failed so far to make progress. Is there anything you could imagine that would make you reconsider? Sounds unfalsifiable to me, and many would say that makes your theory logically unrigorous.
I like to call your belief system "science of the gaps." You have no evidence that science can touch the question, but you have faith it will, but worst of all you believe that your faith is superior to other well thought-out theories, which you dismiss automatically as foolish superstition.
Science is a process - it leaves room for "we don't know" or "this is wrong" in it's methods. But that alone doesn't mean that determinism and causality are a fraud, it just means that we lack the tools to record and observe what we want. The mystery of the aeolipile did not preclude 20th century aviation, and a lack of particle colliders doesn't revise the recorded history of physics. Science, when applied properly, really is a gap-filling measure. The "God of the Gaps" fails because it collapses as we learn more about our surroundings; in many ways, immaterial epistemology has been driven out of scientific research for the same reason. You can't have your immaterial cake and understand it too.
> Look up refutations of materialism to learn more.
Most refutations of materialism are just observably wrong. I don't disagree with a lot of the concepts, but most of them are used as means to nonsensical ends that only work if you reject the logical basis for everything that currently exists in reality. Anti-materialism is uncomfortably close to "revisionist objectivism" and sends you down a slippery-slope of trying to reframe all of science under a satisfying theory of everything.
Therein lies the conflict of modern traditionalism. Do you want to be correct, or do you want to be happy?
> that alone doesn't mean that determinism and causality are a fraud, it just means that we lack the tools to record and observe what we want
This, like many things strict materialists say, is an opinion masquerading as a rigorous logical conclusion.
> Science, when applied properly, really is a gap-filling measure.
I really don't understand why you think science is immune from the "gaps" criticism. Yes, science has an amazing track record, but only where it applies. Everywhere else, it's been useless. That's not a criticism of science, it's a criticism of those that seek to extrapolate it out to where it has no authority, and should have no authority.
The scientific belief system involves looking at evidence and drawing conclusions, right? The evidence shows science has not touched consciousness. It's not that it has made imperfect progress - it hasn't touched it. Not only that, but there are in-principle, logical reasons to believe it can't (see the "hard problem" discussion). What is the rigorous logical reason for ignoring this evidence and asserting that science will eventually solve every problem? A feeling that it probably will is not a rigorous logical reason.
Obviously, the brain is involved in our experience. But nothing science has discovered rules out the possibility that there's a soul that interacts with the brain, yielding our experience. If there is, cite those studies.
> Most refutations of materialism are just observably wrong.
It would help if you said what, specifically, you find wrong with the most convincing arguments against materialism, which you hint at.
To be honest, I don't understand the rest of your comment. More specifics without "isms" would help.
