Human Consciousness: stimuli, analog to digital (Humans)

by David Turell , Monday, September 19, 2016, 15:47 (2985 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You know that I accept the complexity argument, and I have the greatest respect for your faith. I have merely pointed out that your beliefs are not based on EXPERIMENTAL evidence, as you claimed above. Experimental evidence suggests that the truth of your belief can be scientifically tested, and it can't. 
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> DAVID: I reach a point from scientific evidence to conclude that beyond a doubt God exists. Then my belief appears. I know my belief isn't proof.
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> dhw: All agreed. But my complaint is against your claim that your belief is based on EXPERIMENTAL evidence.-Try this website essay which shares my point of view and I follow his research:-https://stream.org/new-study-shows-awe-bad-science-science-mean-atheism/-"Everyone is awed by life, and experiences that accentuate this awe seem to affect us, whether or not we believe in God. The new study suggests that these experiences affirm a sense of faith in theists and a sense of purpose-like natural order in atheists and agnostics, both of which cause problems for instructors wanting to churn out good Darwinists.-***-"Maybe “good” isn't the right word there. I mean, if something as obviously good for science as awe works against a “scientific” idea, wouldn't that suggest this idea isn't really so good or scientific in first place? How good can a way of viewing life be if excitement about life undermines it?
Common sense provides the clearest take-home message here. Since awe and wonder have always drawn people to scientific exploration, any form of teaching that calls for policing those emotions can't possibly be in the best interest of science.-***-"The authors of this study think “awe drives theists away from scientific explanations,” but they only say that because they're using a distorted definition of science. To them, anyone who doesn't see science “as a superior, even exclusive guide to reality” is unscientific. They assessed this by asking participants in their study whether they agree that “we can only rationally believe in what is scientifically provable.” According to these professors, then, the very definition of science marks people of faith as scientific outsiders.-"Perhaps this only shows how ignorant that definition is. Do these psychology professors honestly think that reason is a product of science? Do they think someone in a white lab coat somewhere has proof in a test tube that science is the only reliable source of truth? Do they not detect a hint of absurdity to that logic?
As a person of faith, I can assure them that their does-not-compute interpretation of awe is entirely foreign to people of faith, many of whom are scientists. When we behold the wonders of God's handiwork, we're not at all driven away from studying these wonders and making them known. Quite the opposite. Like so many scientists before us, we're driven toward those activities, seeing them as part of our very purpose in life.-"That, I think, is science in its purest and most compelling form, which may be why the inscriptions at the entrance to one of the world's greatest centers of physics — the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge — have since 1874 quoted Psalm 111: “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.”-Douglas Axe is director of Biologic Institute. His research uses both experiments and computer simulations to examine the functional and structural constraints on the evolution of proteins and protein systems. After a Caltech PhD he held postdoctoral and research scientist positions at the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre and the Babraham Institute in Cambridge.
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> dhw: What you do not seem to grasp is that by insisting that bacteria cannot be conscious because they do not have a brain, you are contradicting your OWN belief that consciousness does not depend on having a brain.-And I view a brain as a required receiver to experience consciousness. Bacteria do not have any degree of a conscious experience or consciousness because they have no receiver. From NDE research.