Consciousness created the universe

This is going to be fun. RebuttalsArg 1 & 3I’m including my rebuttals for arguments 1 and 3 in the same statement as they are essentially the same thing, just given with two different examples. What they essentially state is that if consciousness originates or exists in the brain alone, then all brainless organisms, like starfish and jellyfish, must not be conscious. Here’s what I say. I say that creatures that lack a centralised nervous system but still have primordial ones are conscious but not conscious of being conscious. Let me explain. Let’s take the case of the starfish, for example. The starfish lacks a centralised nervous system, but has a complex array of peripheral nervous system meaning that it is aware of its surroundings and is sensitive to touch, light, temperature and some other things necessary for their survival. But, they lack the capacity to coordinate and plan. It does act like a machine. If one arm of the starfish detects an attractive odour, it becomes dominant and temporarily over-rides the other arms to initiate movement towards the prey. It is not aware, not conscious of what it is seeing or sensing. If it senses, it acts as it is supposed to do. And we do not understand these mechanisms completely. So, consciousness does not always result from the brain, but nor is it independent. It develops from the nervous system, which in the case of complex beings, is lead by the brain. Arg 2Honestly, I don’t understand the point my opponent was trying to make with Occam’s razor example. First, he states that if many attributes of consciousness arise from the brain, then Occam's Razor says that consciousness itself must arise from the brain. Then he goes on to explain a wonderful example (which I think is more of an example of inductive reasoning than Occam’s razor) of apples, eggs, milk and bananas. What I don’t understand is how the banana being independent of the store implies that consciousness is independent of the brain. If my opponent could clarify this for me in his next round, I would be very grateful and will try to respond to it then. Arg 4I think my opponent has confused intentional sensory deprivation with loss of awareness. I myself practice meditation to a some extent and know that loss of awareness is the exact opposite of what happens. What a monk essentially does during meditation is to completely ignore all sensory stimuli. It does not mean he is not aware of his surroundings. Infact, he is more aware of his surrounding than before, and this is because he is free of external stimuli. The brain does have to deal with a multitude of thoughts or senses but just what the monk wants. That is why he is more conscious, because he does not have to deal with distractions. Arg 5What my opponent has done in this argument is fall victim to a formal syllogistic fallacy. This is what he states : 1) Sensitivity of external stimuli is linked to consciousness.2) A dream is an illusory state. That is, it is not an external stimulus. Now, my opponent asks me to explain why someone is conscious to a dream from which I deduce that he thinks it cannot be a conclusion to the two previous statements. But there is no reason why it cannot. Consciousness’ link to external stimuli does not imply that it cannot be true for others. During dreams, our brains are highly active and hence, we are conscious. Arg 6This is only applicable if one thinks of consciousness as my opponent does, as an independent entity (I didn’t get another word to describe it). If is thought as I claim it to be, then this argument would be just like asking how ‘happiness’, ‘sadness’, and ‘anger’ seem to appear at some time and disappear after some. It is just another attribute of the brain (or the nervous system, whatever you prefer). Arg 7The rebuttal for the last argument is enough for this one too. You could say that Pure Happiness : Absence of everything other than itself. Existing as happiness but consisting of nothing. Pure Grief : Absence of everything other than itself. Existing as grief but consisting of nothing. Pure Anger : Absence of everything other than itself. Existing as anger but consisting of nothing. Et cetera. Looking at this, we can’t just say that since these are very much like empty space, happiness, grief, anger, etc could have existed prior to the big bang. It does not make any sense. Moreover, when my opponent says empty space, he has to clarify. It cannot be the empty space we currently observe as according to the current theories, if anything existed prior big bang, it is ‘the bulk’, a hyper-dimensional hypothetical space, very much unlike our four-dimensional empty fabric of space-time. Arg 8I don’t have anything more to add to this argument than what I said for the last. This argument is the same as saying that happiness, grief and anger caused the manifestation of the universe out of empty space, which makes absolutely no sense.