Consciousness: Dennett says it is an illusion (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 05, 2019, 12:18 (1843 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You've made an excellent analysis of my position. I would add my thought: quantum mechanics is how pure energy becomes the material world in which we live.

dhw: Then everything is not material at the basis of the universe. The basis of the universe is what you call pure energy. But you believe that this pure energy is conscious. (Again, I’m not arguing but am trying to clarify.) This ties in rather neatly with our next exchange. I am an agnostic because I find pure conscious energy as impossible to believe in as unconscious materials somehow creating life, consciousness and the ability to reproduce and evolve. You asked if there was a third option.

dhw: The third answer is some form of panpsychism in which all matter has some form of consciousness, but this is such a flexible concept that in my view it can be used to support theism or atheism.

DAVID: You've simply come back to my theory that our universe is a creation of God's consciousness.

dhw: I don’t know how you can reach that conclusion when I have explicitly stated that this third option can be used to support either theism or atheism. […]

DAVID: I view panpsychism as a distorted view of God's consciousness.

dhw: I see your panentheism as a form of panpsychism. You believe – correct me if I am wrong – that your God is both within and without the material world (= immanent and transcendent). His immanence can be the equivalent of the panpsychist view that there is some form of consciousness within all matter. Many panpsychists are also theists. On the other hand, panpsychism also lends itself to the idea that materials have rudimentary consciousness which in time has led to all the complexities of life as we know it, i.e. there is no need for a God.

DAVID: It is your 'rudimentary' consciousness that bothers me. Only an organized consciousness which can really design (therefore a thinking mind) can make the designs of new species. Key: new species always have attributes that fit their new circumstances and appear after gaps that show large changes in form and function. Even transitional forms require major changes.

I don’t know why you have now decided to switch this discussion to your theory of evolution. The subject is consciousness and its possible origin: 1) pure energy which is already fully conscious (theism); 2) materials combining by chance (atheism); 3) some form of consciousness already present in all materials (panpsychism). I have already said that I find all three equally difficult to believe in. On the subject of evolution, please see “David’s Theory of Evolution”.