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Message Subject
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Paradox found: a fully supernatural phenomenon even atheists and skeptics believe exists even though there is zero objective evidence
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Anonymous Coward |
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In less than a hundred years consciousness will be as fully understood as how and why the heart works. It's not "supernatural." The intrinsic meaning of the word supernatural is that it cannot be part of nature. Even though we may not fully understand consciousness from a scientific standpoint, in 2016 who is justified in saying that consciousness is "a fully supernatural phenomenon"?
Supernaturalisms, such as found in the tenets of religion, creep in when people do not understand something, or it's frightening, or it's mysterious. Fear of death is certainly a fundamental motivation in the human aspiration for some sort of an afterlife.
Quoting: dogman17 There is a differentiation here that you keep jumping over, dogman. I don't know if it's safe to say "fully," but I certainly agree that they will know astoningly more in a hundred years than now. But let's say you are correct and they have the same degree of understanding as of the heart. This is an understanding of how it is facilitated, how it works once it's there. But why it's there in the first place is still as mysterious as ever and probably still will be in a hundred years, even if every aspect of how it works is understood. That's why it's called the "hard" problem and that is why I am justified in saying that the existence of consciousness is supernatural, according to the definition itself. It is beyond the understanding of science and the laws of nature. Should that understanding change, or should there be newly discovered laws of nature, then the situation will change. (This has happened as late as the 19th century with the addition of electromagnetic charge as a fundamental entity.) But you cannot say just because we don't understand it and cannot account for it with the laws we have, it's still not supernatural because one day we may know. That's promissory materialism, the materialist equivalent to the theist "take it on faith." It may not be supernatural at some point, but according to the going model with the going laws as things stand now, it is just that. Now, if we change that existing model and make consciousness a fundamental feature of the fabric of the universe, just as we did with electromagnetic charge, then things would be different. And that is my point. I'm not insisting that the existence of consciousness must always be viewed as supernatural, but that the existing model of what constitutes natural must be modified to account for the existence of consciousness. What else is "supernatural" just because we do not understand it? The "why" may never be understood. The why may simply be a distinction in search of a reason. For our understanding, and for science, the how is most important. Why do dogs have tails? Nothing supernatural about it. No faith is involved in thinking that consciousness is not supernatural. As an atheist, my method of comprehending is that if I don't understand something, I won't make something up. It works. Absolutely, don't take anything on faith. Certainly, I agree with you about not making something up because it's not understood. I am, however, a bit confused when you say don't take anything on faith, since that's just what you are doing when you say in a hundred years we will know everything about consciousness. You don't know that, but you have faith that it will be so. And there's nothing wrong with that. Somehow, faith has gotten a bum rap because of the battles between atheists and theists, but that's only a subset of a larger concept and one that has been quite useful in history. As for the supernatural aspect of consciousness, as per the standard def, you keep insisting it's not so, but you are ignoring the facts as they currently stand. We don't understand why insentient matter gives rise to sentient experience and the laws of nature do not account for it. Closing your eyes to these indisputable facts does not make them go away. What else is supernatural because we don't understand it? Parapsychology, would be an example. Telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, NDEs, reincarnation, ghosts, etc. We don't understand any of these, so they get kicked to the curb as not existing, even though examples of each are numerous across all cultures. But because they don't fit the existing model and cannot therefore be explained, they get dismissed out of hand and any evidence of such is instantly dismissed.
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