A Question of the Heart

From TalkOrigins.org:

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Claim CB400:
Evolution cannot explain consciousness or free will.

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Response:

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1. This is an argument from ignorance. Not knowing an explanation does not mean an explanation is impossible. And since we are barely beginning to understand what consciousness is, it is not surprising that we would not have its origin worked out yet.

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In fact, preliminary explanations for the origin of consciousness have been proposed, although they are too complicated to try to summarize here (see Dennett 1991 and Minsky 1985). Much more experimentation and refinement is needed before we have a full-fledged theory of the origin of consciousness, but we have more than enough to know that such a theory is possible.

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2. A factor that likely contributes to the claim of consciousness's inexplicability is the fact that many people do not want a naturalistic explanation of consciousness, since a natural consciousness does not fit easily with a divine soul. This threatens people's desire for a divine origin and immortality (but see Dennett 1991, 430, for immortality of a naturalistic consciousness). An examination of this point alone could fill a book. However, suffice it to say,
1. There is much evidence -- from genetic predispositions of behavior and personality, from brain injury studies, from brain imaging of healthy people -- that consciousness is naturalistic now. A natural origin would not matter much beyond that.
2. What we want has no bearing on what really is.

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Who says they can't, FS? It's astoundingly obvious at this point that consciousness is a phenomenon of having a brain - nobody with no brain has any consciousness. Indeed, brain injuries literally change our consciousness, essentially proving that consciousness is what our brains do. I've read the Bible many times, but one thing I don't remember was Jesus Christ offering his thoughts on neurology.And as for "no one has been able to touch it," that's a pretty dubious claim. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying that the Bible is so great that there's nothing better? I would suggest that the majority of humans on Earth, who are not Christians and reject the Bible, would disagree.*PRATT: "Point Refuted a Thousand Times."

Untrue. No, it actually sounds completely wrong. Because things that are made-up, like "sin", are nearly always wrong. Do you understand that this is circular reasoning? The only reason that it's similar is because you've just assumed that it's a fact that a "robot will never fully understand a human."There's no way that you could know that; it's just a convenient assumption you've made, but it proves nothing at all. I could just as easily say that someday a robot will be totally human, and then say that proves that human consciousness is just a natural consequence of our physical bodies. There's no such thing as "the law of cause and effect." We know that there are plenty of things that occur in this universe that have no cause. They just happen, at random. The "law of cause and effect" is an assertion that we live in a deterministic universe; but we know for a fact that isn't so. We don't know that there was nothing. In fact there almost certainly wasn't nothing.But aren't you getting ahead of yourself? You opened this topic to talk about human consciousness. How is the Big Bang even part of that? It would behoove you to address rebuttals to your arguments before you gallop on to new ones. Or did you think you just got to ignore what we have to say? That's not much of a discussion if you never respond to the other side.

Uh, no; I'm actually here to tell you that the Bible's account of sin has no validity; actions are good or bad because of their consequences in this world, not their adherence to an invisible sky-man's decree. Because that sky-man doesn't exist. There's no such thing as God, therefore how can there be sin?