I disagree. I think the fact that you don't know how to remove memories or even if it can be done or what would happen if you did undermines your argument. — T Clark

Honestly unsure how this detail is relevant, or consequential, but I'll answer.
You don't have to remove the memories if hypothetically a human was created suddenly with no inputs to the brain what would it be like for that person? That's the whole point of bringing up the memory thing, it was only relevant because I was using someones who had previous memories to contrast with. You could just change the argument if you like to suit this, we know people with head injuries can lose their ability to recall anything. So let's just say it was a head injury & not a virus & bam problem solved. Not that I think it was a problem anyway.

Remember I said the point is to think about what it's like without, not what it means to remove it or how to do it.

You were talking about an afterlife, which is a religious concept. I see no reason to believe the objections you raise would apply to a supernatural phenomenon. — T Clark

Okay then do you agree then with the thought experiment? That he would pass into the afterlife without the ability to feel emotion? If he was missing it before passing?
This is an argument against the afterlife, sure. But again moving away from the point of the analogy.

This probably isn't a good analogy. Let's say it is for discussion's sake. Are you saying the software is the hardware? — T Clark

Oh I understand what you are now saying.
No, they are not the same but without the hardware, you have no software.

What we are asking is, what is the software basically, that is a great question.
Which when using the analogy of hardware and software seems obvious, but not brains?
I think it's exactly the same thing.
You have inputs & the software acts on those inputs via code/Brain structure.

This also suggests this hardware & software would be at a very low level conscious & I believe yes that is the case. just much lower on the gradient of awareness, like almost the very bottom.

Psychedelics augment consciousness rather than destroy it (unless you die from an overdose) -- so I think perhaps that could be said to expose our false sense of an objective reality, rather than anything against about the problem of awareness or consciousness itself. It is still consciousness just a different plane of consciousness...... — Cassandra

You are not wrong but I was more pointing out the connection between our brain and the mind showing it to be the same thing by using variables. Like removing a part of the brain responsible for hearing & losing your hearing.

With all this though, I guess the mystery still eternally lies in the WHY though.
Even if consciousness emerges from all the components, still WHY ?
Leading us back to wonder about our origins and the purpose of complex brains and in turn consciousness emerging in form and matter..... the question of why and is there a reason or not !!!! — Cassandra

Why is not the right question, how is all we need to know.
I'm proposing the how is simply our minds ability to take in data through its inputs, for example, our eyes & acting on it. Thinking of our mind like a super complex series of dominos, which seems strange until you remove the inputs & everything associated with a mind disappears.

There is no designer or programmer behind our minds. Just evolution, it's very powerful.
We are in the machine learning / AI era.

The percentage of intelligence on this earth that is human is decreasing.
Is that bad or good. Who can say.

I understand what you're talking about, but I disagree with what you're saying. If by destroying memory you mean removing all changes to the brain that have ever happened, then I think the person would clearly die. Otherwise, brain processing pathways would still be there. I don't know how that might show up as consciousness. Memories are not all stored in one place. They are stored throughout the brain. How do you remove them without otherwise disrupting brain function? I don't think you can.
— T Clark

Reading into this too much I think, the point is to remove it as a variable because experience comes from inputs to the brain. So it's not important how you would do it but more so what it would mean to be without it. it just simplifies the argument. As you don't have memories without inputs, so it's just really a simplification of the argument because it must logically follow anyway.

You are applying the reasoning we might use in a scientific discussion to a spiritual or religious phenomenon.
— T Clark

I honestly don't see why that’s an issue. But I was using this argument to pre-empively refute the Soul & mind are separate arguments.

I think the mind arising out of a living organism is the same thing. The mind is not the brain. They are different phenomena. They follow different rules.
— T Clark

So would you agree that is like saying the code of a program/Mind follows different rules to the hardware/brain which runs it? if you consider this an accurate analogy then I agree, but why does this go against the proposed theory?

Thanks.

Edit

I am probably complicating matters further, but I am wondering where the unconscious comes in. — Jack Cummins

When you remove all inputs to the human brain, there is nothing to be aware of and therefore not aware/conscious, just action potentials. What would it be like to be this way. Think about it now and imagine it.

but I do see the unconscious and unconscious as interconnected. — Jack Cummins

Please elaborate, what do you mean?

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is truly an insidious fallacy. — Pantagruel

Hi Pantagruel, can you show exactly where this fallacy applies?

If you expand "mind" to include the collective cooperation between individual organisms that's fine, but the same logic applies then to that collection.

I think the limits of consciousness is shown in my argument to be the inputs, our senses. Everything which takes in information.

Hope I understand your argument properly.

Thanks for your response,

To answer your first question, I'll ask you that question, what would your mind/consciousness be without these things? Even if I missed an obscure sense we have, the same logic applies then to that. The point is you removing all inputs to the brain & their effect, so what is then your mind? I argue nothing. Try to imagine it.

To your second point. To reframe the thought, If you receive a brain injury that renders you unable to feel emotions, why would you then when your entire brain fails aka dies, would this ability come back to you, or would you then live in the afterlife emotionless forever. Basically, the point is everything we can attribute to our soul/mind/consciousness is dependent on certain regions of the brain, saying that there is nothing outside it that is part of the soul/mind/consciousness whatever would like to call it. Nothing un-materialistic.

I think part of my argument is that there is nothing special about consciousness, nothing that sets it apart from any other physical thing other than its great complexity. It seems to disguise its self that way.
Just a super complex series of dominoes and your finger on the first domino is the input I talk about.

does it make sense to talk about living organisms as something different from the physical and chemical actions and reactions that make it up? — T Clark

I don't quite understand this. The physical and chemical actions and reactions that make it up is all that it is. That's what it is, entirely. Unless you can show otherwise? So why would you talk about it as something separate? Because a living organism is alive but the sum of its parts is not? Is that what you're saying?

Again, with physics we talk about electrons and molecules. With life, we talk about cells and tissues. — T Clark

When we know the cells and tissues are made from electrons and molecules why would you consider them separate? Where would you draw the line. I argue there is no line to be drawn. I really hope I have not misunderstood what you're saying.

Thanks.

Hi Jack, as I said above, "There is nothing un-materialistic about consciousness, just the remarkable emergent property of billions of years of evolution resulting in more complex & aware life on earth."

Awareness would have been a gradient of becoming more aware as it was advantageous to be so while evolving since first life, which would have started with the most absolute basic level on awareness, maybe just one input & with an action potential. Technically, any reaction to an action is the most basic aliment of consciousness. Brains are just a billion time more complex.

Does that answer what you're saying? Sorry if I misunderstand your argument.

I don't think it is necessary to explain how life first formed to answer this question.