Help me, fellow Atheists, agnostics, and anti-theists. I believe I have reached a concession point in the debate against creative design.

segFault11235 · 2日前

I present the OR-theory of consciousness, the relevant body of scientific work, and, pardon my language here, the fucking idea that bifurcated spacetime distortions are utilized in our consciousnesses processes.

"scientific". Look, this article is so poorly constructed I don't even know where to begin, and I'm not even a physicist or a neuroscientist. For instance, what is a "Quantum vibration"? That was never defined.

I am not a biologist, but I have a decent idea that even if quantum vibrations are a thing, their scale is so minute compared to the width of a neuron's microtubule as to render it worthless.

I don't see how a nondeterministic system adds anything to the credence of consciousness that a deterministic one would not.

Lastly, it sounds like this is all a bunch of wooey spooky stuff all trying to be clusterfucked together. It'd do you good to go out there and learn for yourself the basics of quantum mechanics, biology, and neuroscience/consciousness.

WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT CONSCIOUSNESS REALLY IS.

What do you mean by this? We know, for instance, theistic or not, that consciousness is at least, in part, related to brain activity. We know that certain states of the brain affect this consciousness. We further know that brain damage can reduce consciousness. Everything seems to imply that consciousness is wholly defined by brain activity.

So where do you leap from that to ID?

khaste · 2日前

As far as I can tell, based on the horizon of scientific knowledge on the topic of consciousness, that intelligent design to some extent must be considered as a plausible hypothesis.

Just because we dont yet understand the concept of consciousness 100 %, doesnt give intelligent design/ concept of god any more credibillity.

-Ecce_Homo- · 2日前

Here is the Wikipedia page on the Orchestrated objective reduction model of consciousness. It explains the whole model and various criticisms quite well.

afkpuezo · 2日前

Even if it was possible that there could be some kind of space time consciousness, why would that then lead you to believe that a god actually existed?

MountainsOfMiami · 2日前

WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT CONSCIOUSNESS REALLY IS.

Therefore, God.

Does that work?

IMHO, no.

ajkavanagh · 2日前

Hmm, the wiki page suggests that there are major problems with this hypothesis, so it is not, in any sense, and accepted view of how the brain might work. Thus to suggest that this 'theory' demands recognition is fallacious, and jumping the gun somewhat. There are many objections; it's a hypothesis, not a theory, and it has no peer reviewed supporting evidence.

However, even if you accept the premise that QM collapse is orchestrated in the brain, it's a monumental jump to suggest that the the QM 'foam' itself is conscious. All it would suggest is that the neurons, themselves, have a QM component in their functioning and that consciousness itself is still (most likely) an emergent property from the aggregation of the functioning of billions of neurons. It's still firmly seated in the interactions of the neurons; there would be no consciousness outside of the brain.

As a corollary, QM interactions are demonstrated in the plant cells that appears to assist in photosynthesis. Are we to infer than plant cells exhibit consciousness because there is QM weirdness?

0hypothesis · 2日前

If it's a plausible hypothesis, how can it be falsified?

potzdamn · 2日前

Am i the only person who sees the word "quantum" and immediately feels like the discussion is above me?

jcooli09 · 2日前

I don't understand how this implies the idea of a universal intelligence at all, let alone that the intelligence might actually design life forms.

I agree that ID must be treated as a valid hypothesis, but don't really see how it can be tested or used to predict real phenomena.

In the meantime, we have a valid hypothesis which has been tested over and over again and has led to predictions of actual documented phenomena.

It seems to me that the real question should be "how does the hypothesis ID better explain the reality that we observe?"

thelonelyward3 · 2日前

Quantum mechanics is like trying to imagine the vastness of space, you literally just can't. It's pointless our brains cannot even fathom it, and never will. You can fathom little parts of it, but never say you can even remotely fathom quantum mechanics.

superliminaldude · 2日前

As far as I can recall the Orch-OR theory has been shown to be false, and this article at a glance doesn't seem to deal with the criticism already in place.

Secondly, I'm not sure of the relevance to the topic at hand even if Orch-OR was shown to be true. If it was true it doesn't indicate a god or "creative design" any more than any other theory of consciousness within a naturalist framework.

hibbel · 2日前

Ask yourself this:

Has ID any explanatory power?
Does it make any testable predictions that turn out to be true and cannot be explained more easily by evolution?
Evolution brilliantly explains a great number of findings, from DNA patters all the way to fossils. How does ID explain those findings better than Evolution does?

Look no further than that.

Borealismeme · 2日前

Basically this is "I have no idea how magnets work! It might be god!"

There is nothing wrong with saying that you don't know how something works. That admission means you need more data and better models in order to comprehend how it works.

To postulate that some powerful entity created our consciousness (that we don't understand) by using a ridiculously slow, inefficient and cruel process like evolution, however isn't a sane explanation to "how does consciousness work". If indeed this were the case, than the intelligent designer chose a remarkably stupid method for design. To give an idea, merely selectively breeding (purposefully selecting which organisms with which traits reproduce) is at least three orders of magnitude faster than evolution is, yet the evidence overwhelmingly shows that evolution has not been selectively breeding us. An entity of crafting consciousness presumably can solve the far easier problem of genetic manipulation, which is essentially a linear (in terms of time frame) process. You craft an entity you want, and you grow it, 1 generation done.

While this doesn't discount the possibility of an intelligent designer, it does mean that such an entity is unlikely.

I present the OR-theory of consciousness, the relevant body of scientific work, and, pardon my language here, the fucking idea that bifurcated spacetime distortions are utilized in our consciousnesses processes.

Our nerves also use chemical reactions to produce electrical discharges. Geckos use quantum effects to adhere to surfaces as strongly as some glues. Biology is random, and sometimes that random process finds neat tricks of physics to exploit. If you're familiar with genetic algorithms for circuit design you'll know that such designs tend to make maximal use of weird physics (often producing circuits that have no readily discernible function, but that are required for nearby functional circuits to function).

Not only that, but those microtubules are present in less intelligent animals as well. While they may be a central requirement for consciousness, they aren't a central requirement for intelligence.

TooManyInLitter · 2日前

I want to be able to write off "god" as a nonissue, but this theory demands the recognition that WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT CONSCIOUSNESS REALLY IS.

But that's just what I'm saying, we DO understand a bit about consciousness.

My point is ultimately that even in the world of falsifiable scientific theory, we have to accept that this sort of thing is very much a possibility.

The bold emphasis is mine.

An early shaman examines the motion of the sun against the backdrop of the sky and ponders the "How?" of what he sees. This shaman does understand a bit of the observed phenomenon (e.g., the procession of the path in the sky, the different rise/set times and locations, and duration of the day, as a function of season), but based upon the knowledge available at the time is ignorant of the underlying physicalistic properties of orbital mechanics and gravity. Upon pondering the issue, the shaman concludes that it is possible that the sun is a spirit or God that emits light and heat and that this spirit/God travels the sky daily on a chariot, or other steed. And because it is a conceptual possibility, the shaman, for lack of knowledge, concludes that such a possibility is sufficient to justify a position the the Sun is, indeed, a God that requires belief and worship - and, in this ignorance, a religion (and associated religious belief) is created.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness is, currently, hard (a mild pun intended :)) and while human knowledge does provide a bit of understanding concerning the emergence of the "I" from the human neurological system and fuzzy neural network, the complete path for the "I" is not yet known. Similar to cosmo-genesis and abiogenesis.

So while there is a possibility that a cognitive entity purposefully actualized the "I" (e.g., a possibility that "God did it") in order to support the transition of this conceptual possibility into a credible position, the claimant has the burden of proof, via credible evidence, and/or supportable argument that is free from logical fallacies and which can be shown to actually be linkable to this reality, to a level of significance (or level of reliability and confidence) above a threshold of an appeal to emotion [I use a level of significance above that of an appeal to emotion as a threshold for consideration - even though the consequences of the claims is extraordinary], to show that there is any credibility for a Creationism based possibility of consciousness:

A "God" (undefined) exists
God actualized, with cognitive purpose, the initiation of the formation of this space-time universe
God is both capable of, and has produced/continues to produce, actualization of events/effects/interactions/causations within this space-time universe -or - is non-intervening and actualized this universe with hard determinism
This God actualized with cognitive purpose and intent the "I" of humans
That a wholly materialistic/physicalistic mechanism is impossible to produce an "I" (required to support the implicit claim that "God is/was required or necessary" when a Creationist "God did it" claim is presented)

While OP's post does not necessary limit the scope of some "self referential emergent computational process" to the cognitive ability and "I" of humans, I have chosen to limit the scope of my response as I do not wish to debate any claims for the possibility that the entire universe consists of an emergent cognitive entity/thingy.

Stargrunt, until the burden of proof is credibly presented for the above claims, then the transition of a conceptual possibility to more than mere speculation/postulation of ID/Creationism is not supportable. I must continue to fail to reject the null hypothesis concerning Creationism/ID claims, including the transition of the agency of the Hard Problem of Consciousness to a "God" from conceptual speculation to credibility.

anomalousBits · 2日前

So ultimately, if any self referential emergent computational process could have arisen during or as a result of the big bang, that could be a "god"

So assuming that I'm a self referential emergent computational process that arose as a result of the big bang, does that make me a god?

I don't see anything in the theory that means that the universe can have a consciousness outside of a brain substrate.

miashaee · 2日前

I don't think you can justify what you're talking about. But if you can then go win your Nobel Prize, until then I don't care........

Doomdoomkittydoom · 2日前

As far as I can tell, based on the horizon of scientific knowledge on the topic of consciousness, that intelligent design to some extent must be considered as a plausible hypothesis... What I am saying is there is a legitimate possibility that some kind of underlying 'proto-consciousness' exists in the fabric of the universe itself.

What? How does this follow from anything we know? This hasn't been the trajectory of the understanding of consciousness for a century. No élan vital, no disembodied intelligences, no psychic powers, no cognative radiation, nothing that suggest consciousness is something in itself, but rather it is the actions of a complex neural networks, which has only been recognized to exist in nature by way of complex biochemistry which doesn't exist for much of space and time. It's got an on-off switch, it appears to reflect the decisions of the brain and not make them, it gets screwed up by recreational chemicals, etc.

As for the OR-theory, the math doesn't back it.

Aquareon · 2日前

The presence of fractals in living things is a dead giveaway that we're the result of procedural generation from simple starting conditions and simple rules (aka evolution) rather than manual engineering.

Stargrunt · 1日前

[deleted]

hayshed · 1日前

So quantum randomness may have a part to play in the functioning of neurons? So someone has found a "quantum magnifier", something that takes quantum effects and makes them casual on a macro-scale.

So what? At best this lets humans have access to a truly random number generator.

There's nothing that supports a turn around of theories of consciousness or evolution of the brain. There's just nothing here to support that jump.

19maddog74 · 1日前

Religion at it's root has and always will stem from our lack of understanding of the natural world, from the time our most ancient ancestors worshipped the sun and moon. Ignorance has always been the house upon which religion is built, even as we learn and can rationally and scientifically explain more and more the argument of the faithful continues to hang onto the things we cannot yet explain. We may not know exactly what consciousness is or how it works, we likely won't in our lifetimes, maybe we'll never figure it out, none of this means there's anything devine, mystical or magical about it.

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