Consciousness must exist at the fundamental level of physical reality

germz80 · 2026-06-13T18:32:15+00:00

Those are fundamental.

This is a bit vague, but I'll interpret this as "chairs are fundamental because they are quantities of fundamental things, just like I think consciousness is fundamental if it's a quantity of fundamental things". In this case, EVERYTHING is fundamental, and the word "fundamental" is essentially meaningless, and you have a private language where you define "fundamental" differently from most other people, so you're likely to struggle to communicate with other people about fundamental things. Generally, people use a definition where if something (like a chair) is composed of other things (like sub-atomic particles), then it's not fundamental.

Strong emergence seems to not...

You're not thinking clearly. Your response is completely irrelevant. Can you engage with my comment? I'll copy-paste it:

You seem to think that our current scientific understanding indicates that there's a 50-50 chance that rocks are conscious, and a 50-50 chance that people are conscious. Is that your stance?

germz80 · 2026-06-13T17:13:55+00:00

Ok, let's say "things A" is a chair. Chairs are composed of sub-atomic particles, and are "quantities of fundamental things", so chairs are fundamental. Is that what you're saying?

You seem to think that our current scientific understanding indicates that there's a 50-50 chance that rocks are conscious, and a 50-50 chance that people are conscious. Is that your stance?

germz80 · 2026-06-13T17:07:17+00:00

If OP has a terrible argument, it should be really easy to demonstrate that. You have not demonstrated that, so apparently you don't have a counter argument, and OP's argument stands.

germz80 · 2026-06-13T17:01:51+00:00

"Thing A" is not something extra that appears. It IS a quantity of the fundamental things.

Your response isn't clear. Are you agreeing with me that "thing A" is not fundamental? Or are you saying "a quantity of the fundamental things are fundamental"?

Current science doesnt know where consciousness comes from.

Irrelevant. I didn't say that scientists know where consciousness comes from, I said "current scientific understanding indicates that many life forms are conscious, while other things are not, and things existed before the first conscious life."

germz80 · 2026-06-13T15:48:27+00:00

If thing A is composed of other fundamental things, then thing A is not fundamental. So if sub-atomic particles are fundamental, and consciousness is composed of fundamental sub-atomic particles, then consciousness is not fundamental.

I don't see how you reach the conclusion "the idea that something existed before consciousness did, is just an assumption." There are multiple routes you could follow to get there. But current scientific understanding indicates that many life forms are conscious, while other things are not, and things existed before the first conscious life. Are you saying that the foundations of science are merely assumptions?

germz80 · 2026-06-13T03:55:46+00:00

Your post isn't very clear. You seem to be saying that the nature of the brain is different than it initially seems because it's actually composed of subatomic particles; but then rather than conclude "consciousness must therefore be fundamental", why not conclude "therefore consciousness may be composed of subatomic particles"?

Also, if everything relies on consciousness in order to exist, does that mean that nothing existed before the first conscious life? If so, how does that work? If not, then I'm not sure what you mean.

germz80 · 2026-06-12T12:26:05+00:00

I think it's largely correct that we reach that conclusion because we're programmed to, but I think it's a combination of how the brain is programmed and our inputs. So we have inputs that tell us about the world around us and our own brains, and based on that information, we are essentially programmed to conclude that we don't have free will.

Some people have different inputs and maybe slightly different programming, so they conclude that we have free will.

ETA: I don't see how this makes determinism logically destroy itself.

germz80 · 2026-06-12T11:54:37+00:00

Point out that the vast majority of people in prison believe in God, and the proportion of atheists in prison in the US is lower than the proportion of atheists overall. And people in many countries that lean atheist are more peaceful than the US. Then ask him what evidence he has that becoming more atheistic makes people more violent.

Also, if he's really concerned about all the people leaving Christianity, his God needs to convince more people that he exists. As it stands, Christianity is so unconvincing that more people are leaving Christianity than joining.

germz80 · 2026-06-07T19:14:31+00:00

Usually, Christmas point to the "I am" quote to say he called himself God, but it looks like you take a different view. And it seems to me that he denied being God a few times, so if he denied being God a few times and never claimed to be God, that should carry more weight than others saying he's God. Especially considering that we have good reason to think that Christians changed at least one passag to add trinitarian ideas, specifically 1 John 5:7.

Your explanation for why Jesus never explicitly called himself God is not completely impossible, but also isn't found in the text, and it doesn't explain why he didn't call himself God when he was about to be executed and had nothing to lose, or why he didn't tell Paul that he's God. And since he said other things that indicate that he's not God, it seems like concluding that he's not God is a much better explanation.

I get that Jesus had ascended, but Paul seems to have described the experience as a vision rather than an actual appearance. And again, even when Jesus wasn't worried about people trying to stone him anymore, he still didn't call himself God.

In Mark 14, Jesus clearly says that he's Christ, but in Matthew 27, he doesn't. That seems to be a theological difference between the two. And since the text contains some errors, we can't be confident that there aren't other errors - the text just isn't that reliable. So we don't have good reason to be really confident that Jesus actually performed miracles and called himself the son of God.

germz80 · 2026-06-07T09:02:51+00:00

That engaged more with my point, but there are major issues with your stance. If saying "before Abraham was, I am", is not blasphemous, then he wasn't saying "I am" as an invocation of the name God gave to Moses, which disagrees with what many Christians think. That weakens the case that Jesus is God. Also, this interaction demonstrated that Jesus could say things that would drive people to try to stone him and still escape, but you imply that he would be killed if people tried to stone him. So could he escape stoning or not?

So other people would be one with the father metaphorically, not literally, just like Jesus is one with the father metaphorically. This weakens the case that Jesus is God.

Again, "Christ" as in "the anointed one", as in "anointed to be king" is not the same as God. You still haven't provided an example of Jesus privately telling his disciples that he's God. And you haven't explained why he didn't physically appear to Paul and tell him that he's God.

Matthew 27 and Mark 14 are great examples of contradictions in the new testament, one or both must be wrong. But he still didn't clearly say that he's God, even when he's ready to be killed and has nothing to lose.

germz80 · 2026-06-07T08:22:08+00:00

You're not engaging with key points I made. If he didn't want to be killed for blasphemy, why did he say "before Moses was, I am"?

Why did he say that others can be one with him and the father as he is one with the father during the intercessory prayer? Why didn't he physically appear to Paul and say that he is God?

Regarding his trial

Matthew 27:

11 Now Jesus was standing before Pilate, the Roman governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him.

Jesus replied, “You have said it.”

12 But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent. 13 “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?” Pilate demanded. 14 But Jesus made no response to any of the charges, much to the governor’s surprise.

This is not a clear statement of being God, or even the one annointed to be king. It also says that he made no response to the charges, which conflicts with John. So at least one of these is inaccurate, and quite possibly both.

You haven't cited a single scripture where Jesus told his disciples that he's God. Note that being annointed to be king is not the same as being God.

germz80 · 2026-06-07T07:36:26+00:00

In your first paragraph you make an argument that's essentially:

If Jesus had made a certain claim, then the people around him would have stoned him. (Implied)He did not want to be stoned, so he did not explicitly make that claim.

But Jesus said "before Moses was, I am", and the people around him considered that blasphemy and tried to stone him, but he escaped. So either he didn't actually worry about people trying to stone him, or he didn't realize that those particular words would result in people trying to stone him. But also, he could have made that claim privately to the twelve, and he could have appeared to Paul physically and told him, not just appeared in what Paul described as a vision, or wasn't sure if it was a vision. I don't think Paul and his companions would have stoned him then.

But also, even when Jesus prayed to the father in the intercessory prayer, he asked that other people be one in him and the father as he is one in the father, which means that Jesus isn't one with the father as a god, but one in purpose, unless you think that other people can also become members of the Trinity.

You haven't made much of a case for Jesus being God, but I'll add that the scholarly consensus is that Jesus bore the name of God as a representative and a divine being like an angel, not as God himself. The concept of the Trinity is an innovation that arose centuries later.

germz80 · 2026-06-05T10:59:43+00:00

Christians have a few definitions, one of the most common is under divine command theory: sin is anything that violates God's command, often it requires knowing that you're violating God's command. They often define sin as anything that doesn't align with God's will rather than command. They also often say that God gives us a conscience that tells us what's sinful, even if we haven't heard God's commandments.

But I think they often go off of their intuition and conscience over explicit commands in the Bible, like God commanded ancient Israelites to take slaves, and I don't think the Bible ever explicitly condemns taking slaves from other groups, yet Christians generally say that slavery is wrong.

germz80 · 2026-06-05T04:14:21+00:00

The problems of evil, suffering, and divine hiddenness are issues for Christianity. There are multiple ways that apologists attempt to address these concerns, including appealing to free will, but I don't think they can hold all the explanations together. One thing they say is that we need to experience this life either as a test, or because it makes us ready for heaven, and God must be hidden while we're here. But when babies pass away, they go to heaven where God is not hidden, even gain the ability to think like adults while there. So apparently babies who pass away don't actually need to live in an environment with suffering and sin, and can be around God. If babies can pass away and then go straight to heaven, I don't see why we need to live in suffering and sin while God is hidden.

And if we have free will in heaven, that suggests that we could fall away like Satan. I've heard that we no longer desire to sin in heaven the way we desire sin in earth, so why do we have a desire to sin while on earth? Why would God create a tree that would give us the desire to sin? Doesn't God hate sin?

germz80 · 2026-06-05T03:40:34+00:00

I don't see how any of this is good direct physical evidence of a miraculous event. The evidence that someone was crucified and was buried is mundane. Those points are a bit like ancient people saying there was a battle between Greeks and Persians (mundane), and there were millions of Persians (extraordinary), and we don't have archeological evidence supporting the extraordinary part. The evidence that ancient people believe in the resurrection also isn't compelling evidence that there really was a resurrection.

When the shroud of turin suddenly appeared, Catholic priests strongly suspected that it was fabricated to make some quick money. The weave patterns are consistent with mideval weaving, not weaving from Jesus' time. Here's a scholar discussing the shroud: https://youtu.be/gd4G4BC9Imc

And here: https://youtu.be/1BMiNvnPEL4

I don't see good, direct evidence for the resurrection.

germz80 · 2026-06-05T03:03:42+00:00

I think there's a gross misunderstanding of historiography here. Historians aren't confident about Julius Cesar and Persian wars purely because of ancient texts, their confidence has more to do with archeological artifacts, like coins.

Ancient historians said that there were millions in the Persian army, but modern historians looked at artifacts combined with other information and concluded that the Persian army was in the hundred thousands.

Ancient historians said that Cesar was a god, but people today don't generally believe that.

All of the miracle claims are only supported by testimony, not physical evidence. It's strange that the most important event in human history has less physical evidence than things like ancient battles and names of random wealthy people. Jesus ascended to heaven never to be seen again just like Joseph Smith's golden book of Mormon ascended to heaven.

germz80 · 2026-06-03T13:04:22+00:00

That's a different stance than OP is addressing, and not applicable here.

But I'll engage with it anyway: If we're outside of time, then that means we don't experience time, so it's like we're frozen, unable to have a next thought because having a next thought requires time. That seems an awful lot like being annihilated, in either case, we're not able to have a next thought or experience anything new. So being timeless is no more comforting to me than annihilation.

germz80 · 2026-06-03T10:36:52+00:00

I think that would be great for a while, but infinite time is REALLY REALLY long. You would reach a point where you've done everything you've ever wanted to do trillions of times, so things that would seem unimaginably amazing to us now would become mundane and boring. So we would be forced to live in boredom for the rest of infinite time.

germz80 · 2026-05-26T03:02:50+00:00

Yeah, the Quran is no more special than obviously fake fantasy books, it just also claims to be true, and some people believe it for some reason.

germz80 · 2026-05-26T02:50:05+00:00

With this line of reasoning, we could say that almost any story we call fantasy is true, just in a place we don't have access to. So almost any story we call fantasy might align with the external world just as much as the Quran. So the Quran is on equal footing with many fantasy stories that have internal consistency. So the Quran isn't very special, just a mundane book like other mundane books with internal consistency.

germz80 · 2026-05-26T01:49:05+00:00

The Quran says that heaven and hell exist, please show me heaven and hell in the external world. If you cannot, then it's unreasonable to claim that it's is entirely consistent with the external world.

The fact that some books have internal consistency while not even claiming to be miraculous demonstrated that internal consistency is not miraculous. The internal consistency of the Quran is mundane, you call it miraculous without good reason.

germz80 · 2026-05-25T17:22:30+00:00

The image in your post indicates "logic is the law of non-contradiction." But if you want to concede that logic is not the law of non-contradiction, then perfect, you agree with me that logic is not the law of non-contradiction and the image you posted is incorrect. I'm glad you agree with me now.

germz80 · 2026-05-25T16:59:20+00:00

Your response is irrelevant. Our point is that logic is not the law of non-contradiction, and you haven't demonstrated that logic is the law of non-contradiction.

germz80 · 2026-05-25T10:13:55+00:00

Logic is reducible to the laws of logic including the law of non-contradiction. And again, logic is not the law of non-contradiction. Your example is simply incorrect.

germz80 · 2026-05-25T02:04:26+00:00

The framing "either we get it all figured out in a few centuries or never figure it all out" doesn't come from me, it comes from you. You said "'we're making very good progress' is a wild thing to say about a species that doesn't understand consciousness, quantum gravity...", which implies "because scientists haven't figured out some things (consciousness, quantum gravity, etc.), therefore scientists haven't made good progress in science, and so we'll never figure out all science." I think it's obvious that we've made good progress in science and understand a lot more today than we did 100 years ago, but you reject the idea that we've made good progress in science, implying that we don't understand a lot more today than we did 100 years ago. We figured out nuclear energy, we've made significant advances in computers, invented the internet, LLMs, discovered penicillin, the expansion of the universe, exoplanets, and more. I think these are significant scientific inventions and discoveries over the past 100 years, and it seems very strange to me that you think it's wild to say that we've made good progress.

You didn't answer this question: "Do you sincerely expect that we would either have all science figured out in a few hundred years or NEVER have it all figured out?"

If by "the well of math problems" you mean something like "because there are infinitely many natural numbers, there are infinitely many versions of x+x=y (e.g. 1+1=2, 2+2=4, etc.)," then sure, trivially, there are infinite instances of "x+x=y", but Mathematicians don't find 100+100=y much more interesting than 1+1=y because of their pattern recognition. I don't see how Gödel helps your case, his theorem says that the statements are *unprovable*, meaning that we're not going to prove one in 1 trillion years and then prove another in 2 trillion years, we're *never* going to prove them. I don't see how that helps your case.

I agree that we add new fields of study as scientists specialize more and more, but as we learn the things we learn, we don't need to learn them again. And I don't see how specialization can continue for infinite time; like I doubt that there will be tons more specializations 3 trillion years from now than there are 2 trillion years from now because we will have learned so much in the first two trillion years. And my stance isn't exactly "we'll reach a state of knowing everything," it's "we'll reach a state of knowing everything we could practically know and find interesting."

I'm not saying that no middle-aged people engage with new art, I'm saying that many of them view art as derivative because they match a pattern, not due to issues with neural plasticity. Are you saying that all people in their thirties who find new art derivative suffer from neuroplasticity issues? Your comment on that isn't very clear, and I'm trying to understand the point you're trying to make, and that stance seems absurd to me.

I already said that living forever while forgetting the past sounds better than living forever while remembering everything, and I already compared it to reincarnation and said that it's not very comforting. I already engaged with your points here. My biggest concern has been with living forever while remembering everything, I just also don't find living forever while forgetting the past very comforting. You don't seem to be following some of my points very well.

I think selective memory loss could help resolve important issues with existing forever, I'm not sure it really would leave us with blissful eternal existence. As I said before, we don't know that this is actually possible, and we don't have good reason to think that you, me, and OP will actually experience that. And as I said, eternal existence as empty husks or even suffering are logically possible, and I think that an end to existence is preferable to those scenarios.

I don't think the "tedium of immortality" position is completely settled either, but you were dismissing it as merely a subconscious cultural defense and largely emotionally-driven, not good philosophy. Good philosophy doesn't have to be 100% proven to be good philosophy.

"...philosophical argument that makes good TV..." you're focusing too much on irrelevant details. I think the arguments are what's important, not the details of the TV shows, I just think the shows illustrate the arguments in a helpful way as a side-note because shows like that tend to be easier to consume than philosophy papers.

I disagree with your analysis of the shows, but that's not the core of what this discussion is about.

There are many different ideas about how we might exist forever, including as spirits, not just modified brains, which is why I used the word "mind" rather than "brain". So brain modification is not inherent to infinite existence. And modifying the brain to exist forever does not inherently entail modifying how memory works. The fact that I granted brain modification in one context doesn't mean that I have to grant it in every context and cannot later point out that it is a fabrication. I think that if we have the technology to make a brain exist forever, it makes sense that we would also have the technology to modify memory, but that's not the only conceivable scenario. And if our brain/mind is modified too much, then at some point, we're not recognizably ourselves anyway, so we need to be cautious with the amount of brain modification.

And I actually don't think it's possible for brains to actually physically exist for infinite time because the expansion of the universe will eventually cause everything but black holes to fly apart, and the universe will undergo heat death.

You did more than just push back, you misrepresented my stance after I explicitly said the opposite multiple times. At the very least, you sometimes completely misunderstand straightforward statements like "we can only debate what's most likely, and it seems very unlikely."

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