Thank you for sharing that terrible experience. That's the kind of thing people desperately need to know about these days; whether they realize it or not.

We keep making the same mistake of over-trusting our viewpoints.

That is confusing. I would think it is the other way around. — Jackson

The hard problem is certainly trying to come from the position of neutrality. But It's impossible not to have preconceived notions about how the human brain should work. So if perfect neutrality is impossible, then I think we need to keep looking at the problem from different angles until things start to make more sense.

It's like suggesting that the experience of human vision isn't necessary in order to sense changes in the amount of light around us. No, it's not necessary. There could be other ways to do it. A different kind of functionality that takes place "in the dark". But vision is how our brain organizes all the different changes in light that we sense.

Imagine trying to keep track of every single rod and cone signal in your eye without the sensation of vision. It seems like the human body summarizes information whenever possible, and I don't disagree with the use of that technique. If that's the case, then we are one of those informational summaries.

It is the nature of a summary to be aware of the whole of the literature, while still being a different set of words on its own. We can't be a summary of the brain without having some awareness-of (connection-to) other parts of the brain. Yet at the same time, the summary itself is not merely a collection of all the other parts. The summary doesn't exist in those other parts of the brain. I think this discrepancy is a large part of why we find consciousness to be confusing: it is existing everywhere in the brain, and nowhere in the brain, at the same time. It seems out of place.

Here are some thoughts I would consider:

If you look at a cross section of the Earth, the crust is extremely thin. Just a dusty skin around what is otherwise a huge nuclear reaction. It wouldn't seem very hard to imagine taking advantage of that nuclear reaction and using it to power everything we want on the surface.

It is difficult to get recycling perfect, but that doesn't mean it is impractical. For example, most of the lead in car batteries is recycled these days. Making new batteries out of old batteries. Does that mean we no longer need to mine new lead? No. But imagine how much more desperate the situation would be if we had to pull each new car battery out of the earth. The aim is to slow down significantly; even if we can't come to a complete stop yet.

There are also things like bioplastics that serve as an alternative to petroleum products.

I think it's too late to claim that renewables are impractical. We have already made enough success to show that it is beyond plausible. And even if renewables were a fantasy, are you arguing that should just hurry up and use all the finite resources? Are we in a rush to destroy ourselves? Wouldn't we still want to slow down our demise as much as possible?

Why create a sign post at the point of the hard problem by labeling it as too-unexpected, and demanding of special explanation? — Bird-Up

Can you explain this sentence a bit more? — Jackson

The logic behind questioning the hard problem is something to the effect of:
"This has no reason to be here (experiencing consciousness). And yet, it is here anyway. How can this be?"

The crux of the whole issue is the assumption that "this has no reason to be here". If you can imagine a good explanation as to why the brain benefits from the experience of consciousness itself, then it is no longer mysterious and in need of explanation. The hard problem only exists as long as you declare the experience of consciousness to be unnecessary.

Isn't the hard problem just synonymous with a lack of imagination? Why create a sign post at the point of the hard problem by labeling it as too-unexpected, and demanding of special explanation? I think people that question the hard problem are subconsciously trying to make the human brain magically-special among other things in the natural world. There are ulterior motives behind it.

Instead of marching forward with our understanding of the human brain, some people refuse to go further. So why did they stop and have a philosophical debate if they merely wanted to keep learning more?

Then it wouldn't be a superman. — Harry Hindu

Yes, that is exactly the problem; and why so much debate will arise. Humans have always been defined as something that exists independently without the meddling from humans themselves. If we decide to give ourselves ten eyes instead of two, then can the result still be called a human? You could argue that humanity will intentionally design their own extinction. Because they thought of something that seems better. Something we want to replace ourselves with.

But that is also inside the bounds of human nature; to use tools and seek better solutions to our existence. So you could also argue that following the natural path of human nature will always eventually lead to abandoning the human body. Which one is more important? Human intention or the human body? Is survival of human-intent alone still human-enough to be called a person?

Now that we've seen a little further into the future, I think we can start making predictions about what the superman will be. It's unlikely to come from evolution, because we have ground human evolution to a standstill. We have become too apt at protecting the weak among us, and we are traveling through time too fast to wait around for the effects of evolution.

It's most likely that the superman will be a computer. Someday people will be transferring their conscious thought patterns into man-made devices. It allows us more room for more experiences and memories. It would allow us to tweak the threshold of happiness. For example, we could taste food without the limit of a stomach that fills up and makes us feel sick.

I don't envy the generation that finally "sets itself free" with technology. There will be endless intense debates about what a human should and shouldn't be. Things will spin out of control quickly as we dope ourselves up on the very best kinds of human experience. It will have the same eerie happiness as an opium den.

I appreciate the ideas but think it's just too late for the US to regulate gun purchase. There are too many weapons already out there in the hands of people. — Olivier5

Americans will always need more guns. Otherwise the gun shops would be out of business. We could prevent some of the shootings years down the road.

And you could also debate the effectiveness of buyback programs.

But again, I think the inconveniences proposed are small. So small, that it's not even worth our time to debate their effectiveness. If you decide to buy a gun on Monday, you might have to wait until Friday to pick it up from the shop. How is waiting a few days destroying the lives of gun owners? I've never heard a real complaint to that.

Evolution doesn't provide the best/only answer to a challenge. It was just the first good answer to come along; whatever that happened to be. Anything that improves on the previous solution will be accepted. So when someone says "because evolution" to the hard problem, I think it is like they are asking: "Why can't the way it currently exists be one of the possible solutions to the challenge?"

Our brain includes many different parts. Some of those parts need to compete with each other; some have no need for competition. For example, a beating heart is always superior to a non-beating heart. So our brain does not bother to give us conscious control over our heartbeat.

Other areas of the brain need to compete with each other. Fear and hunger, for example. Sometimes the best strategy for life is to eat a slice of pizza. At other times, the best strategy for life is to run from a Grizzly bear. If our brain cannot sustain fear and hunger at the same time, then how does it break the tie? What does our brain use to settle these competing urges?

One solution would be an administrative center to the brain (our consciousness). Let's say you are having a picnic. Eating a slice of pizza alone in the woods, as one normally does. The pizza is satisfying your hunger when a Grizzly bear walks out from behind the bushes. All of a sudden you have lost your sense of hunger. Your consciousness is reprioritizing different areas of the brain. Your fear center is being amped up and made more active. The area that controls hunger is being inhibited and put on a back burner. If this reprioritization helps you survive, then the conscious brain has proven its evolutionary worth.

The hard problem could be summarized by asking: "Why doesn't this administrative reprioritizing of different brain areas happen in the dark? Why can it be experienced?"

I would have two responses to that question:

1) You could say it does happen in the dark. The world does not experience your consciousness. As humans, we spend our entire lives struggling to guess what kind of conscious thought patterns are bouncing around in someone else's head. We do not get a chance experience the conscious thought of others firsthand. In that sense, the conscious mind is carrying on in the dark without anyone taking notice.

2) Why can't an administrator have a larger image of all the tasks taking place, if said image helps them better complete their work? As individuals, each one of us is one of those summarized images. A centered perception sensing communication from other areas of the brain. An area of the brain whose purpose it is to see the brain itself. If the brain functions more efficiently when it sees itself, then the assumption that it should "take place in the dark" is incorrect. Maybe there was no hard problem thousands of years ago. But the human brain tried looking in a mirror once, and things have worked out better ever since. We experience our consciousness because not every kind of brain function can take place in the dark. How exactly do you propose that the conscious center of the brain be aware of other areas of the brain without becoming conscious in the process? What is the obvious alternative version of inter-brain awareness, if you are not in favor of the strategy that nature has chosen in this instance?

It makes you wonder ... are you the only conscious process taking place inside your brain? Maybe there are more consciousnesses happening in other areas of your brain. They could have been there your entire life. You, blissfully unaware of the other yous; and them, blissfully unaware of you. Each consciousness assuming themselves to be in the driver's seat, yet curiously lacking in total self-control.

It's a shame to consider all the violence that has stemmed from merely using our own language incorrectly. Standing over two graves and saying: "They had a misunderstanding."

It's a safer practice to not trust anyone on their word (subscribe to a belief that you hear secondhand); but not a practical one. We don't have time to investigate everything, so we have to trust some things in order to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Save your scrutiny for the most-suspicious claims I guess. That's the best we can do.

Abstract ideas like "Love" or "Democracy" can't be proven/disproven in the objective world. When we "believe" in abstract ideas, I think we are just endorsing their usefulness as ideas.

If God does exist, he is either morally unreasonable, or simply not too bright. Neither quality would justify following him and endorsing his behavior.

Either he created birds and then punished them for flying (morally unreasonable); or he created birds, and was then astounded with surprise when they started using their wings to fly (simply not too bright).

No matter how you view it, God's threat to burn people if they don't do certain things is the strategy of a terrorist. If God is all-powerful, then that includes power over Satan. He can extinguish the flames of Hell whenever he feels like it. He would even have the power to make Hell a wonderful paradise. But that's not the kind of god that he is. He wants to watch you struggle.

I couldn't endorse a human that demonstrated those behaviors. So why would I endorse a god with the exact same behaviors?

Stricter gun control makes sense because we have a lot to gain by enforcing minor inconveniences. People who oppose gun control will always point out that it doesn't solve the root problem; but it doesn't have to address the entire root issue. For example, we could enact stricter gun control and revamp the mental health system at the same time. Overall gun deaths would be reduced by both.

Any animal that interacts socially will have its own unique brand of morality. But as humans, we can only relate to human morality. That's the only morality that matters to us. Part of human morality is judging the morals of others. We will always judge animals to have something which falls short of the human standard.

I'm laughing because of the irony. Almost all my discussions center around antinatalism or philosophical pessimism, so thought it was funny you brought it up as if I've never heard of it — schopenhauer1

Well the discussion was giving off a strong scent of Antinatalism, so I just had to throw the word in there. I'll try to get caught up on those 4,500 other posts when I have the time. Wow, you could have written a book by now! (Maybe you have?) Not bad for a Cardinal with a keyboard.

Wait until you hear of Efilism. — Zn0n

That was an inspiring read. So what, functionally speaking, differentiates an Antinatalist from an Efilist? Does the Efilist also assert that preexisting life should not be lived? That continued existence itself is a crime? It seems like Efilism demands suicide, murder, or possibly both. Anyone who truly subscribes to Efilism must already be gone.

How could you possibly be so optimistic about this?! — Zn0n

What do you mean specifically? Are you saying humanity is more likely to become extinct before they reach that technological milestone?

Antinatalism, anyone?

However, technology will, with some amount of luck and a whole lot of sweat and toil, make our pain sensory apparatus obsolete. — TheMadFool

I would agree that humans will eventually escape the limits of their own suffering. As long as we strive to master our own bodies, sooner or later, we will flip the pain switch into the "off" position. It would be hard to imagine a scenario in which we could resist doing so. This would apply to both physical and psychological pain. Indeed, our caveman minds can hardly imagine what this painless generation would be like. Suffering has always been part of the definition of "human".

However, I would also agree that our current generation is not in, or near, achieving a utopia. So such pursuits would not be relevant to the discussion of today's suffering; even if the realization that suffering will someday cease, brings a sense of comfort with it.

I don't think anyone is exempt from knowing their situation and then having to keep going. — schopenhauer1

Ignorance is bliss, right? I think complete ignorance is the starting point for every human. As children, we all started out in paradise. To some extent, all humans have experienced that animal-like unconscious state. It may have been brief, and we couldn't fully appreciate it at the time, but we were there.

Kids are exempt from knowing their situation. Adults are the ones that tolerate the misery of survival. Some parents continue to exist solely to (vicariously) experience the joy of their children. We are addicted to the pursuit of knowledge, yet we admire the ignorant. I suppose we are conflicted, to say the least.

I would agree that humans have a special brand of misery unique to ourselves. Seems like a combination of self-awareness and expectations. Animals aren't troubled by failing to meet the ideals that they never envisioned in the first place.

For example, if someone is born with one leg, they aren't stressed out by the difficulty of the situation; until they learn that most humans have two legs. Now they have something to be pissed about.

Knowledge is a double-edged sword. Are the advantages worth the drawbacks?

If you want to get technical, yes, the apparently-illogical may exist as "logic" outside of our known logic. As humans we cannot (for certain) distinguish between unknown situations and impossible situations. Regarding religion, however, it does raise the question of an all-knowing being expecting humans to know things outside of their limitations of understanding.

If human logic does not provide an avenue for 5 to become 5,000, then should the creator expect his humans to believe this outcome? I do not think we can even suspect possibilities for which we see no logic. If we cannot see ultraviolet light with our human eyes, then should we suspect that ultraviolet light resembles a certain color? Which color would that be? Or are we helpless to know that for which we are blind to?

The word "illogical" does not refer to things which are difficult to understand. It refers to situations where reasoning is missing. For example, the following statement is illogical:

2 + 3 = 10

Why would two and three have a sum of ten? The statement has a logical disconnect between the beginning and the end result. It fails to coherently illustrate the use of arithmetic.

One could try using language and storytelling to distract the reader's attention away from the logical disconnect:

When God thinks about two plus three, he sees how it can become ten.

The preceding sentence is linguistically correct. But the correct use of language does nothing to improve the underlying logic. The sentence also succeeds at telling a story coherently. The main character in the story is God. What does he do? He reflects on how three can be added to two. Then what happens next? He realizes that two and three is ten. But stretching out the original (2 + 3 = 10) statement into a story still does nothing to explain how 2 + 3 becomes 10. The logic is still missing.

You are right that limitations about knowledge would cease to exist when one is omnipotent and omniscient. However, having a perfectly complete set of knowledge does not push illogical statements into the realm of the logical. On the contrary, an all-knowing being would possess the knowledge that 2 + 3 = 10 is an illogical statement. If they were to think that two plus three really does equal ten, then you would probably start to question how much knowledge they possess about basic mathematical operations. Isn't it correct to say that 2 + 3 = 10 is incorrect math? How wouldn't God know that?

Why can't two plus three also equal ten? Because it already equals five. Once the statement 2 + 3 = 10 is allowed to become true, then you have abandoned the rules of mathematical addition. You haven't really made the illogical statement logical, you've only redefined "logical" to mean something else entirely.

I think "real" is very close in definition to "most-common". If one person sees a ghost, but 99 people do not see the ghost, then the ghost is declared to be unreal; despite the experience of the first person. However, what's real also seems to tempered by the idea of integrity. Even if a certain experience is common, discovering inconsistencies in the experience can also cause doubt. Neither commonality nor integrity is a foolproof way to know what truly exists, but those seem to be a large part of what society uses to define "real".

Glad to hear I said something useful. Unfortunately, it sounds like you are still wrestling with the problem.

The only one I have had an email exchange with about this that was less then certain was Chalmers Who answered my question of us surviving sleep with "I think we do. I hope we do. But I cant be sure." — AJ88

You make it sound like you got to have a personal chat with David Chalmers or something; that would be awesome! Whoever it was, their response of "can't be sure ... hope so" seems to resonate with me. One can perceive an infinite number of possible threats to their existence. But the fact that something is possible isn't the same as having a reason to suspect that it is true. I guess that's the part where you lose me. What was the specific piece of information that pushed the issue from "possible" to "plausible"?

For example, it is possible that we could all be living inside a computer simulation without realizing it. There's nothing I can say to refute that possibility. But at the same time, I don't have a specific reason to suspect that the computer-simulation scenario is more likely than anything else. So what would be my justification for worrying about being trapped inside "The Matrix"? What I don't know can't hurt me. As long as the evidence doesn't compel me to chose one scenario over another, I will choose to believe the scenario that serves me best. Nothing wrong with that, right?

I think of that traversed thing as not so much elusive ... Rather, I think it is fragile — SaugB

I think it would be both correct and incorrect to say that the flow of the universe is elusive. Let's use the night sky as an example.

If someone set out to prove that stellar constellations truly exist independent of human perception, they would ultimately fail. Even if you try to break the logic down into smaller and smaller transitional steps, the smallest step is still a leap of faith that fails to truly connect concept-A to concept-B. There's no inherent characteristic of stars that demands you must connect them together into something called "Orion's Belt". So in that sense, the flow of star constellations is forever elusive. They simply don't exist objectively.

On the other hand, it would also be wrong to claim that the night sky is completely arbitrary. People do see shapes in the stars, even when they are perceiving the shapes through different (and independent) cultural lenses. So why does this happen? What is the mechanism that somehow unites our perception into a common end result? I would say it comes from the fact that we are all using the same tools to investigate the appearance of the stars. Specifically, we all have a standard-issue set of human eyes that create our perception of what the night sky looks like. So the functionality of the human eye itself determines what shapes will appear significant to us. For example, the positioning/brightness of Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka (the stars that make up Orion's Belt) has appeared significant to many people over the years, even if the constellation is labeled by different names. In this sense, the flow of a stellar constellation is not elusive. There is a standard by which the logic moves from point A to point B. It would not be accurate to call flow "fragile", because the structure of the human eye is not fragile; we tend to keep developing the same human eyes, one generation after another. Of course, evolution dictates that the functionality of the human eye is ultimately a work-in-progress, always changing slightly. But bringing up that point just changes the time frame: when is flow fragile? Over the course of a lifetime it seems to remain stable. Or is flow ultimately fragile because it remains a moving target? Both points would seem significant to me, each in their own way.

It could be even more interesting to draw an analogy to the color magenta. Magenta is the color that comes after violet and before red. But it doesn't actually exist on the electromagnetic spectrum. There is no magenta wavelength.

Heh sorry I'm mostly going off on a tangent here ... not sure I really contributed anything to the conversation.

Sorry to hear that you are stuck in an existential crisis of sorts. That's a rotten place to be.

An interesting comic! It highlights one of the more startling realizations about our consciousness: we are hopelessly dependent on our memory to tell us who we are. If I were a clone walking out of a transporter, I would feel completely normal; unless I spotted an inconsistency in my memory ("Wait a minute ... how did I get here?").

I don't completely understand why sleep would pose a threat to your identity. Unconsciousness seems more like a suspended state of mind to me. Not so much about starting/stopping your existence, but more like pressing the pause button instead.

as I cannot imagine anyone surviving the transporter, I suddenly find myself unsure if we can survive periods of unconsciousness — AJ88

It might be helpful to consider that the cells in your body are always dying and being replaced. So your physical body is constantly encountering the end of its existence. But your mind effortlessly survives the transition, doesn't it? Your mind has never really needed to have the exact same body in order to continue its existence. Your consciousness came pre-equipped with ways to circumvent the physical limitations of matter. It is a pro at consistently replicating itself from one day to the next.

... unless you have Alzheimer's disease. :(

or some might argue that being happy is the only meaning to life — TiredThinker

I think you've hit on the important part right here. To be more specific, if you are unhappy to begin with, life will seem to lose its meaning. The opposite is also true: when you are happy, you tend to see the meaning in your life. Consider that happiness might be the cause, and meaning is the effect. If you can find other ways to increase your happiness, the fact that life is finite should bother you less. Just my thoughts on the subject, I'm no expert.

Hmm good answer. I suppose there are other ways to explain consistent events. Maybe I am a solipsist but don't realize it yet.

I don't know but I would got to neuroscientists first for an answer and they unanimously agree they can't pinpoint the conscious experience in the brain. The question remains: where is it? — Bert Newton

If someone (a neuroscientist, for example) says that they couldn't find the consciousness, I would challenge their assumption that it could be found to begin with.

Don't misunderstand me; I'm not trying to separate the consciousness into a magical invisible spirit or anything like that. I don't think the consciousness exists independent of the brain.

I'm asserting that consciousness is merely a function of the brain. More importantly, it is the only possible function that could arise from the given physical framework. Since the functionality is entirely dependent on the brain, I don't think it would be incorrect to refer to the consciousness as the brain.

How do you know that the "brain science" is lacking? If you haven't seen the evidence yet, then you must have some idea of what that evidence would look like (in order to know it doesn't exist). I'm curious to learn what your specific principal is that allows the distinction to be made between the consciousness and the physical brain. Why is it a logical fallacy to equate the two?

I think you are right that there is only one ought, in the sense that there can only be one mathematical middle-ground between two competing desires.

For example, let's say that there are three people who each desire to eat an entire pie. There exists only one pie. It is not a matter of opinion how to best serve the needs of all three people; there is a definite point at which the desires of all parties can be maximized: the pie should be cut into thirds to achieve this. Any other denominator would fail to maximize the desire of one or more parties.

However, it is important to point out that the single-best compromise (for society) is still a compromise from the individual's original desire. But it would also be an oversight to say that the method for best-serving an individual's needs would be a matter of opinion. Here too, there is a single-best route that suits the individual the most. And the process for calculating the needs of the self also involves taking the needs of others into consideration; but for a different reason.

An individual's desires are tempered by the demands of empathy. For example, it would be difficult to enjoy eating the entire pie while you are looking at two other hungry people. Seeing their need would make it also become your need. To some extent, you would be happier sharing the pie; if only for the self-serving desire to ease your empathetic stress. This leads you to a similar destination as when you are calculating the way to best meet the needs of society. Yet, it is not actually identical to the method which best meets the needs of the self. The two answers are different from one another.

For example, if one person desires to eat a pie, and there are two hungry people completely hidden from the first person's point of view; their sense of empathy would not be triggered by the sight of two hungry individuals. This one person could enjoy the meal guilt-free, with no demands placed on their empathy. But this individual's experience would be different from the still-present conclusion that splitting the pie into thirds maximizes the desires of all three people as a whole.

So I would say that there is a single-best way to serve the needs of society. And there is another single-best way to serve the needs of the individual. But they are not the same thing, despite their similarities.

You know those facehuggers from the Alien movies, which lay eggs in your throat which then hatch and burst out your chest? — gurk

I have decided that this is how I want to start every conversation from now on.

Does anyone on earth with an IQ over 80 actually believe the Abrahamic God is "ideal"? — gurk

Shame and guilt work wonders when you need to distract from your own glaring imperfections. It's the foundation of the Bible; and most abusive relationships in general.

Hi Koen!

What do you think about sleep? Don't you always seem to wake up in the same place where you fell asleep the night before? Even after you traveled to so many other places in your dreams, do you not find it strange that your mind returns to the same old bed each morning? Do you ever get suspicious that this consistency is evidence of an external world?

Couldn't a sufficiently advanced robot be programmed to do what we do without consciousness? — Bert Newton

Yes, I can certainly imagine a robot that does human tasks without the use of consciousness. But if you mean the robot literally functions exactly the same, I would say no; you wouldn't be able to make a perfectly-human robot without also creating a functional consciousness in the processes.

I think you are conflating consciousness with conscious mental processes. — Bert Newton

Why can't consciousness be a reflection of the processes that take place in the physical human brain? That's exactly the point I'm trying make; consciousness is a very unsurprising phenomena, given what we see happening in the brain. You could illustrate this connection by swinging a baseball bat at my head: doing so would likely disrupt the functioning of my brain; and my experience of consciousness would also be disrupted at the same time. Both things seem very dependent on the other. Why not view them as one-and-the-same? What do we gain by trying to separate one from the other? What is the justification for making this distinction?

Chalmers summarizes the "easy problem" versus "hard problem" by saying that experience would "persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained". Reading lines of computer code, and running an app on your phone, are two different ways to experience the same set of information. If running the app is analogous to experiencing consciousness, Chalmers would say that running the app serves no obvious purpose; because one could derive just as much use from reading the computer code. He would question why the option to execute the code even exists. But you couldn't play a game of Blackjack by simply reading what the programmer wrote. So what is more useful to a human: experienced consciousness, or un-experienced consciousness?

Regarding the original post, a new human will start to experience consciousness at the same moment their brain begins to function (this point would likely be inside the womb). However, it's a difficult point to define, because the quantified amount of consciousness (functioning) is so small. One would have to compare it to a standard of 100% consciousness ("normal functioning"). Is the average child born with 100% consciousness? Is complete consciousness not achieved until adulthood? Is the amount of consciousness that one posses also dependent on what kind of education they have experienced throughout their life? Does consciousness start to decline as we enter old age? Or is it stronger than ever after so many years of experience?

In my opinion, the assumption that consciousness is binary in nature, would be the wrong place to start. It doesn't seem like a case of definitely conscious or absolutely no consciousness. It makes more sense to view awareness on a continuum. A more realistic question would be: "How much consciousness does a newborn baby possess?"

We don't know. — Bert Newton

I don't think the nature of consciousness is beyond understanding, either. While self-awareness initially seems odd, it becomes more practical the more you reflect on how the human brain works. Here's something on the subject I posted in another thread:

The conscious part of our brain is tasked with executive function. It casts judgment on the rest of the brain, proliferating or inhibiting the competing urges generated by the unconscious areas of the brain. Once you reflect on that, it doesn't seem so surprising that consciousness arises. If the cluttered chatter of the unconscious mind can be improved by organization and judgment, then the thing that serves as the judge/organizer likely has a bird's-eye view of the sum of all those sensory inputs. The process of that bird's-eye view itself would be human consciousness. We have awareness for the purpose of decision-making. Decision-making would be more difficult without awareness, so that's why consciousness ("something") takes place.

Nobody said that God is just and loving. But that's how he's advertised in the Bible. In order to worship Satan, one would first have to subscribe to the beliefs of the Bible. If you think the Bible is fictional, then you would also think Satan is fictional. That's the main reason why Satanists strike me as confused. It is possible though, there could be some "true believer" Satanists out there.

There are quite a few ways to define the word "bad". If by "bad" you mean improper or abnormal, then I would agree that suffering is a normal part of life that one should expect to encounter.

You could also say that a "bad" thing is intolerable, or incapacitating. I think suffering has to meet this definition in order to serve it's purpose as a deterrent. Nature has given the mind both positive incentives and negative incentives. Positive incentives are pleasurable feelings that we want to pursue. Negative incentives are unpleasant feelings that we want to get rid of.

Physical pain is obviously a negative incentive. The purpose of physical pain is also obvious; it helps us avoid damaging our bodies. Physical pain would no longer serve its purpose if we somehow made peace with it; if we no longer considered it to be bad. So in that sense, suffering has to be bad by definition.

It's possible, though unlikely, that Satan could be worshiped truly independent from God. Satan is certainly presented as the antagonist of the Bible. He serves as the inverse of God. If God is just and loving, then Satan is unfair and cruel. If heaven is filled with joy, then hell is filled with suffering.

So if you agree that God is an expression of human ideals, its seems odd that anyone would be genuinely interested in idolizing the non-ideal (in the form of worshiping Satan). It's more likely that a self-proclaimed Satanist is just expressing a negative opinion of Christianity/religion. I also can't respect someone who wears an ideology strictly for the purpose of style. That seems like a pseudo-ideology to me.

I agree that comparing philosophy to science helps us get a better perspective on what philosophy is. Both are navigations of logic, where the goal strives towards sound and coherent logic. Here's something that differentiates the two:

• Philosophy seems to place more value on introspection; understanding the knowledge that we already possess.
• Science seems to place more value on discovery; the hope that newly-acquired knowledge will be more useful than the sum of our previous knowledge.

And yes, it is unfortunate when people think that this is a debate club. There are plenty of other places on the internet where you can practice to become a lawyer. Some don't even go that far; they are content just to post their opinion and then walk away.

The mind is a type of functionality. Functionality can't be expressed with one state. It is about the change that takes place over several physical states, and the meaning between those different states.

If the mind is a collection of physical states, then yes, I'd say the mind does occupy a space. But maybe that wasn't your question. Maybe you wanted to know if the mind can be isolated from the brain in some manner.

The mind is functionality and information. So in one sense, it is not physical.

But that could be misleading. How do you record information without something physical? How does functionality arise without a physical system of circuits? The mind itself may not be physical, but it always needs something physical to host it.

The mind can also be suspended. If you have a complete image of a consciousness, you could stop the functioning of the mind and then resume the functioning later. During that dormant period, did the mind cease to exist? Or was it still there?

It seems the problem lies with the meat industry then, and not necessarily eating meat.

And those who never purchase meat cannot influence the direction of the meat industry. So a vegan is letting the meat industry continue on unhindered, banking on the hopes that it will randomly collapse someday. But if that is unlikely, then the fastest way to lessen the suffering of animals in the meat industry is actually to purchase humanely-raised meat. The industry will follow whatever practices sell the best to consumers.

Nobody has mentioned Descartes yet? He wondered if everything was really just nothing. He came to the conclusion that at least his consciousness was being experienced, if nothing else could be known to exist: "I think, therefore I am."

Seems like the original post inevitably arrives at the question: why are we conscious? Couldn't our thoughts just as easily take place "in the dark", with nobody there to experience it? I also think there is a reasonable answer to that question.

Firstly, most of our mind does take place "in the dark", where nothing is being experienced. In other words, most of the human brain hosts unconscious processes. But when we use the pronoun "I" we are not referring to our entire brain, we are referring to the conscious part of our brain.

The conscious part of our brain is tasked with executive function. It casts judgment on the rest of the brain, proliferating or inhibiting the competing urges generated by the unconscious areas of the brain. Once you reflect on that, it doesn't seem so surprising that consciousness arises. If the cluttered chatter of the unconscious mind can be improved by organization and judgment, then the thing that serves as the judge/organizer likely has a bird's-eye view of the sum of all those sensory inputs. The process of that bird's-eye view itself would be human consciousness. We have awareness for the purpose of decision-making. Decision-making would be more difficult without awareness, so that's why consciousness ("something") takes place.

Empathy is a reality of the human mind that developed to help us live as social creatures. We use terms like "Psychopath" to refer to brains that are missing this functionality. Evolution never intended for empathy to be applied towards animals. But it certainly does apply towards animals. Empathy is not even dependent on reality; just the perception of suffering can trigger empathy. For example, let's say you are watching a movie with 3D special effects. The movie depicts a (non-real) human stabbing his hand with a knife. Seeing this would cause you to grimace with pain, even though it is clearly fake. There was no practical purpose for your empathy, but you experienced it anyway.

In this sense, we are slaves to our empathy. We have to cater to its needs, even if those needs seem like a misapplication of an evolutionary mechanism. I believe animal rights fall into this category. We must have policies to avoid animals experiencing pain (mental and physical). If we do not, the penalty is that we also experience tangible pain as a reflex of our empathy.

That said, killing animals instantly is morally acceptable, assuming you catch the animal by surprise (so that there is also no mental pain from the fear of being killed). We can do whatever we want with animals, as long as we don't add more suffering to their existence. However, the suffering of animals is dependent on how we perceive their subjective experience. There are things which we think cause animals suffering, when in reality, they do not mind. We also do many things to animals that seem harmless, but in reality, we are causing the animal to suffer. What matters in the end, is whether we realize it or not. We are ultimately serving our own needs when we act morally towards animals; and they just coincidentally benefit at the same time (or so we think).