Philosophy: The Nature of Consciousness

I thank Geo for his response, and I am glad to see that we both agree to the premise of physicalism. Seeing as how we are working under the same metaphysical framework, it would lead to an interesting spectacle as to how Geo will argue for his version of consciousness' nature. Since he has supplied a format similar to mine, I will closely follow it for the sake of convenience and clarity. ===================== Meaning of the Quote ===================== Ironically, it seems you are the one who are misunderstanding me. What I meant was that I find it highly irrelevant and suspect that if we want to figure out the nature of our subjective experiences, we would look at the universe in a holistic manner (which Watts seems to do). I'm not saying this is some form of astrology, but I am saying that how the Universe is functioning is already irrelevant to our consciousness as long as we have a central nervous system intact. However, this point itself hasn't much worth to be musing over. Even if you are right in how you interpret my words in correspondence with Watt's theory, all I can do is agree to your revision and move on. Nonetheless, I will be attacking the idea that consciousness is the totality of interrelated stars and galaxies - you've explicitly stated this and there shouldn't be any miscommunication here. ====================== CON: The Universe Yields Consciousness ====================== Your entire argument hinges on one simple claim: human consciousness necessarily needs the Universe to exist (or function in a way in which to sustain life such as us). Interestingly enough, when you strip away all the words it becomes this simple claim, and at once one can see the oddity in connecting this claim with your version of consciousness. So in conjunction, I will have two very simple responses: 1. While it is true that it's necessary for the universe to exist in order to have consciousness exist as well, this serves as an illegitimate basis for tying the two concepts together. Because firstly, there is no SUFFICIENT connection, as even though the universe may exist we can have no life (thus no consciousness) or no highly developed organisms in which brain function allows for consciousness (unless you want to argue there is some other way...which I would love to entertain). Indeed, your little fact here is a little trivial and useless...practically everything that exists hinges on the universe first existing. So do we start to base the nature of everything as the TOTALITY of interrelated stars and galaxies? 2. I want to point out that we don't only need a nervous system to generate consciousness, since as a functionalist I advocate the idea of multiple realizability[1], which is the " thesis contends that a single mental kind (property, state, event) can be realized by many distinct physical kinds." This means we don't only need to have biological systems to have consciousness. ==================== Support from Scientists / Philosophers ==================== As a foreword, I will say that I can give a damn about support from scientists and philosophers - especially when you only list two scientists, when often the question of consciousness' nature is primarily dealt by philosophers. Furthermore, nothing in their quotes show a strong allegiance to the position you are upholding. Instead, they are making romanticized remarks about our Universe (how we are all made of the same particles that are composed of the suns) - and while this is quite exhilarating for most, it in no way exalts this idea of a universe-consciousness. Remember, while the universes' existence and continuation is necessary for consciousness it is NOT sufficient. I mean, really, to support such a position would be very controversial given it's large lack of support (and since they are famous - look at Tom Cruise and Scientology). Undoubtedly if they followed this idea, they would have explicit writings on and supporting philosophic ideas similar to Watts'...care to share? ==================== Conclusion ==================== If my opponent's only argument for this extreme position is to tell me the trivial fact that for anything to exist, the universe must exist first, then I would recommend him to seriously reconsider such a belief. It would seem to me that Watts is engaging in romanticized philosophic sophistry, and not anything that can be seriously analyzed. ---References--- 1. http://plato.stanford.edu...