Consciousness created the universe

Thanks Pro for the debate. I'd like to dedicate this debate to all the neurons out there. I reject the resolution that it is reasonable to believe that consciousness created all matter and energy. Pro says: 1. "Consciousness is independent of the brain." My response: I agree. Starfish, though brain-less, have neurons and are conscious. No need to argue anything here. Pro continues: 2. "One may assert that science is able to manipulate consciousness by manipulating the brain therefore it must be an exclusive property of the brain." My response: I agree that consciousness is not exclusive to the brain. I argue that consciousness is exclusive to neurons, which do not require a brain. Whether or not science manipulates consciousness seems irrelevant to me. Pro posits: 3. "How are meditation [practitioners] such as the Yogi Coudex able to lower their sense of their external environment whilst [simultaneously] being in a higher state of consciousness? My response: The idea of a "higher state of consciousness" just kinda whirls around in my head. Consciousness is an absolute state not subject to gradation...one is either aware, or one is not. Higher or lower awareness is conversationally how we refer to being aware of more or fewer things. It is the amount of things that is higher or lower, not the awareness itself; one is either aware or not aware of each stimulus. Think about it this way: You have a new car and three of your friends are aware of it. Which one of your friends is most aware of your new car? Maybe one of your friends knows a lot about your car, and maybe one of your friends can detect your car quicker than the others, but on awareness alone, no one is more or less aware of the car. They're simply aware of it. The idea of being more/most aware is nonsensical, because either your friends are aware of the car or they aren't. Furthermore, if someone were to be unaware of your car, are they less aware of your car than your friends? No, the unaware person is simply not aware in comparison to your friends, because they have no awareness of the car and thus cannot be less or more aware of the car...they are simply unaware; unawareness is also an absolute state not subject to gradation. It's like calling someone more pregnant...while we use this expression conversationally, what it really means is that someone is further along in their pregnancy than someone else. So saying "more pregnant," like "more conscious,", is actually nonsensical. You are either pregnant or you're not. Once a fertilized egg attaches to the uterus, someone who is 1 second pregnant is just as pregnant as someone who is 8 months pregnant. Pregnancy like consciousness is an absolute state. Within being aware/conscious, one's sensitivity to stimuli may increase or decrease, but this is not one's awareness "reaching a higher level;" this higher level is just an increase in sensitivity allowed in the absolute state of awareness/consciousness. But, I'm a science guy, so I'll play into Pro's conundrum that these yogis can lower their sense of the external environment yet simultaneously reach a higher level of consciousness (increased sensitivity). Well vertebrates, which I assume all yogis are, have two main parts to their nervous system. They have the Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). https://en.wikipedia.org... The CNS has the brain and the spinal chord, while the PNS sends signals to those entities; both the CNS and the PNS require neurons. It could be that these yogis are decreasing their PNS sensitivity (fewer signals sent), by meditating, while maintaining or increasing CNS (brain and spinal chord) sensitivity. While the yogi's PNS sensitivity is muddled, the CNS sensitivity can still be heightened. This shows how vertebrates, yogis included, can have lowered sensitivity to the external environment, yet increased sensitivity in their consciousness. Pro also says: "One who believes that conscious is related to sensory asserts that to remove ones senses of their external environment is to remove their consciousness." My response: Nope. I believe consciousness is dependent on neurons (sensory), but that removing one's sense of the external environment (PNS) does not necessarily remove one's consciousness if one is in fact a vertebrate, because the PNS could be compromised, and the CNS could still allow for consciousness. Pro states: 4. "We must explain how a lack of sensory can result in the powerful effects felt in a dream state." My response: So, when you are sleeping, your brain is still functioning and producing acetylcholine (helps you dream) with the help of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), which is actually a division of the PNS. https://www.google.com... So while the senses of the other parts of the nervous systems are lacking, the ANS is causing "the powerful effects felt in a dream state." Pro asserts: 5. "Something cannot come from nothing." My response: False. "Something" is a physical concept that is best explained by physical sciences. Physically speaking, to be something, at the most basic level, something must have particles/atoms/wavelengths/energy/matter/radiation. The absence of all of these basic characteristics of "something" leaves us with "nothing." The absence of all of these physical properties, nothing, is a matter of particle physics. Particle physics has been observing and testing nothing for a while. The very science used to explain what something is, has discovered that nothing is a vacuum of empty space with no matter, no energy, no radiation, no particles, and no atoms, BUT there is a detectable physical field; its existence is ubiquitous. http://aether.lbl.gov... You might be thinking...Hold on! A physical field would be something! A physical field can't be nothing... I know...I know it sounds contradictory, but this physical field isn't a steady state of something at all. It's empty, it's void of matter or energy, it doesn't radiate, it has no atoms or full particles, it doesn't have any wavelengths of light...nothing. What's interesting, but demonstrably true, is that this faint physical field in nothing is created by constant subatomic particles and their counter parts, antiparticles, popping into existence from nothing and just as quickly popping out of existence by annihilating each other constantly. This is called quantum fluctuation. The above video is from a legit particle physicist, Lawrence Krauss, who explains the demonstrated concept very well. In this nothing state, these subatomic particles exist and don't exist at the same time...doesn't sound like something to me. Particle physicists are correct in calling this state nothing. This state of nothingness is actually unstable; it can't remain nothing for long, such that with the many subatomic particles and antiparticles popping in and out of existence all of the time, energy is inevitably expressed. Energy is just the other side of the coin to matter, and this means that if subatomic particles appearing from quantum fluctuations eventually lead to an expression, not a creation, of energy, then matter can originate from this unstable quantum nothingness. Our universe's total energy is exactly zero: its amount of positive energy in the form of (+) matter is exactly canceled out by its negative energy in the form of (-) gravity. Our universe is a zero-energy universe, and this is an understood principle in modern physics. http://www.livescience.com... From the big bang, we start at a potentially energy dense state the size of a subatomic particle in the quantum fluctuations. There is no (+) matter/energy or (-) gravity. I like to express matter and gravity as a set: [ (+) matter, (-) gravity] In quantum fluctuations, which is an unstable state of nothing, the set would be expressed as [+0, -0] which of course equals 0 total energy. No energy or gravity to speak of...nothing. But at the big bang, a dense state the size of a fluctuating subatomic particle in these quantum fluctuations, (+) matter/energy were expressed, not created, and so was (-) gravity. The total energy set of expressed matter and gravity as the universe expands could have looked like: [ +1, -1] = 0 and then [ +2, -2] = 0 and then [ +3, -3] = 0 and so on as the universe expands... [ +10, -10] = 0 and then [ +1000, -1000] = 0. Still 0 total energy, but we have some expressed (+) matter, which is positive energy, and its exact counterbalance of expressed (-) gravity, which is negative energy. [+0,-0]-->[+1, -1] demonstrates something from nothing. This also demonstrates how matter and energy (positive energy) were expressed, not created as Pro puts it. Our universe is something from nothing. Pro concludes: 6. "Consciousness and space...are the only two things which can be completely absent of everything other than themselves." My response: False. Consciousness requires neurons, which are integral nerve cells in all nervous systems. Pro needs to demonstrate that consciousness can exist without neurons. Before matter and energy were expressed in quantum fluctuations, space was merely a variable that fluctuated alongside subatomic particles popping in and out of existence. Thus, for space to continually exist requires the expression of positive and negative energy . Space is either the position of matter or the difference between positions of matter. Either way without any matter, space can't remain. Conclusion: *If Pro can demonstrate that quantum fluctuations, which "created" the universe, have consciousness, then I will concede the debate. *So far, Pro has separated consciousness and the brain, but not consciousness and neurons. *I maintain my rejection of the resolution.