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Date Posted: 17:23:43 07/29/04 Thu
Author: One-eyed Jack
Subject: Mario, your hypothesis is an unphysical oversimplification.
In reply to: Marco Biagini 's message, "The scientific proof of the existence of the soul (and God)" on 05:42:13 03/30/04 Tue

First, your refutation of consciousness takes no account of emergent phenomena. You should well understand that extreme complexity can arise from simplicity; particle interactions are mathematically explicable but emergent phenomena, chaotic phenomena, and phenomena that are "complex beyond analysis" are common in the universe. Since such non-analyzable phenomena are known to exist, there is no reason such phenomena cannot in principle account for consciousness.

Second, all your argument is based on negatives: you posit no positive physical basis for consciousness or a soul. No known experiment has revealed the forces, particles, or other mechanisms which would, according to you, form the extra-physical basis for consciousness or a soul. You show no experimental evidence that there exists in the universe anything but the physical forces we know. You quote no measurement, nor do you give mathematical exegesis of such a force or particle.

Invoking ghosts to explain reality is not science, sir, it is superstition.

Additionally, your point about the unprovability of consciousness in animals must logically apply to humans as well: I have no proof that you, Mario, experience consciousness. You write,

"Since we have no way to observe directly the existence of any kind of consciousness in animals, and the hypothesis of existence of consciousness in animals is not necessary to explain the observable phenomena in animals, we can conclude that there is no experimental or scientific evidence of the existence of any kind of consciousness in animals, neither sensations or emotions."

Now, it is obvious that I have no way to directly observe consciousness in any creature other than myself, and therefore it is completely logical (using your criteria) to conclude that there is no evidence of true consciousness in any creature but myself. I may infer that you are conscious, but I may be mistaken: your actual "thinking" and your apparent ability to communicate may, for all I know, be the result of a complex chemical roboticism devoid of the process I observe as consciousness in myself.

But all this is well-trodden philosophical ground. You should read more widely.

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