Consciousness: Dennett says it is an illusion (General)

by dhw, Thursday, October 31, 2019, 11:08 (1848 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: As a mathematical description of solar cells and digital circuits, quantum mechanics works just fine. But if one wants to apply the materia,ist position to a concept as subtle and profound as consciousness, something more must clearly be asked for.

DAVID: If God created the universe from a substrate of quantum mechanics, consciousness may have a quantum basis.

dhw: And according to the above quote (bolded) that means it has a MATERIAL basis, the exact opposite of your beliefs.

DAVID: I'm thinking of quantum pure energy particles. Everything is material at the basis of the universe.

dhw: I find this confusing. Is there such a thing as “pure energy particles”? And if everything is material at the basis of the universe, then the basis of consciousness must be material.

DAVID: An early phase of the universe was plasma made up only of charged particles.

But plasma is still matter.
https://www.conservationinstitute.org/what-is-plasma-energy
"Plasma is the fourth state of matter, a gas in which a sufficient amount of energy is present to enable ions and electrons to coexist." And my science dictionary: “a state of matter in which almost all the atoms present are fully ionized.”
So please explain how “everything is material at the basis of the universe” and yet according to you the basis of the universe is an immaterial God and the basis of consciousness is an immaterial blob of that God’s immaterial consciousness.

DAVID: How do you explain a universe from nothing? What caused it? What is your First Cause?

dhw: I have told you over and over again! The alternative to your immaterial, sourceless, superconscious mind which has been there for ever and ever is a mindless universe of constantly changing matter and energy which has been there for ever and ever, creating an infinity of combinations, and maybe a big bang, and then the combination which eventually led to the beginnings of life and consciousness. No more and no less feasible than your own First Cause.

DAVID: In that case we are here totally by the luck of the mindless process. What odds are those?

dhw: In an eternal material universe with an infinite number of possible material combinations, there are no “odds”. Sooner or later anything should be possible. But I still find it just as hard to believe as an unknown, superconscious mind simply being there for ever and ever. Funny, you never seem to challenge that equally inexplicable hypothesis!

DAVID: There MUST be a designing mind. Only mind can design complexity. And design keeps you an agnostic, while denying the designer.

I don’t deny the designer. I am an agnostic. I give your sourceless top-down supermind designer equal footing (and equal non-belief, as opposed to belief and disbelief) with billions of designers that have evolved bottom-up from the first chance combination of materials which led to suitable conditions for life and to life itself and evolution.