What exactly is the brain the substrate for? All evidence up to this point indicates that the brain is the thing doing the thinking and feeling.
Without some seriously compelling evidence to the contrary, I’m going to assume you’re talking about a soul or some other supernatural idea.
In your example of the guitarist, where would you say musicality actually comes from? I would say the brain, because there is plenty of evidence that brains exist and can be creative.
I’m not ascribing anything unknown (for now!) to anything magical, I’m simply convinced that remaining agnostic on these ideas is the only honest position to occupy at this time.
For now, we simply do not know the origins of consciousness. Certainly the brain is at the center of it all, literally, but much of “what it’s up to” remains a mystery when it comes to consciousness. Trying to nail it all down (at this point) to biology+physics+whatever reminds me of that old cartoon of a defeated-looking man staring at a giant chalkboard filled with elaborate equations, parted down the middle by the phrase, “and then a miracle occurs…”
Trying to nail it all down (at this point) to biology+physics+whatever
If the stuff happening inside your body can’t be “nailed down” by biology+physics+whatever, then you’re talking about magic whether or not you call it magic.
“What is the brain the substrate for?” Is not a good question to ask because it assumes there is some unknown invisible force acting on the neurons in our heads. Neurons come from an egg fertilized by a sperm, just like every other cell.
Should we ask what the balls are a substrate for, since they are creating the sperm that will one day have consciousness?
(PS thank you for the discussion. It’s all in fun and I think this is genuinely interesting.)
When I think of “magic” in this context, it’s the kind of magic that a citizen of the Roman Empire might see at work in viewing a Facetime call on an iPhone. I think the wall we hit in trying to unpack and nail down consciousness is a similar impediment; we simply lack the knowledge, understanding, context, and even language (at least so far) to begin to address it directly.
We are smart enough to get these questions, but not yet able to answer them. I don’t think that means we must somehow use our current understanding of a thing to arrive at comforting explanations; instead, I think that this question in particular is forcing us to admit We Don’t Know…and can’t even fathom what it might take to actually nail it down. The black and white/color thought experiment is a beautiful allusion to what this unknowing is like, and I think that’s where we must be comfortable sitting, at least for now!
(PS agreed! Love me a good thoughtful disagreement)
What exactly is the brain the substrate for? All evidence up to this point indicates that the brain is the thing doing the thinking and feeling.
Without some seriously compelling evidence to the contrary, I’m going to assume you’re talking about a soul or some other supernatural idea.
In your example of the guitarist, where would you say musicality actually comes from? I would say the brain, because there is plenty of evidence that brains exist and can be creative.
That’s the question, isn’t it!
I’m not ascribing anything unknown (for now!) to anything magical, I’m simply convinced that remaining agnostic on these ideas is the only honest position to occupy at this time.
For now, we simply do not know the origins of consciousness. Certainly the brain is at the center of it all, literally, but much of “what it’s up to” remains a mystery when it comes to consciousness. Trying to nail it all down (at this point) to biology+physics+whatever reminds me of that old cartoon of a defeated-looking man staring at a giant chalkboard filled with elaborate equations, parted down the middle by the phrase, “and then a miracle occurs…”
If the stuff happening inside your body can’t be “nailed down” by biology+physics+whatever, then you’re talking about magic whether or not you call it magic.
“What is the brain the substrate for?” Is not a good question to ask because it assumes there is some unknown invisible force acting on the neurons in our heads. Neurons come from an egg fertilized by a sperm, just like every other cell.
Should we ask what the balls are a substrate for, since they are creating the sperm that will one day have consciousness?
(PS thank you for the discussion. It’s all in fun and I think this is genuinely interesting.)
I can see how magic appears to be creeping in!
When I think of “magic” in this context, it’s the kind of magic that a citizen of the Roman Empire might see at work in viewing a Facetime call on an iPhone. I think the wall we hit in trying to unpack and nail down consciousness is a similar impediment; we simply lack the knowledge, understanding, context, and even language (at least so far) to begin to address it directly.
We are smart enough to get these questions, but not yet able to answer them. I don’t think that means we must somehow use our current understanding of a thing to arrive at comforting explanations; instead, I think that this question in particular is forcing us to admit We Don’t Know…and can’t even fathom what it might take to actually nail it down. The black and white/color thought experiment is a beautiful allusion to what this unknowing is like, and I think that’s where we must be comfortable sitting, at least for now!
(PS agreed! Love me a good thoughtful disagreement)