On 7/16/2013 5:16 PM, Pierz wrote:
I pretty much agree with you Jason. The materialist simply posits that the conciousness of a person (or conscious being) represents a static track through the 4d block universe, misperceived as changing due to something about the way the brain processes. What this account fails to explain however is the moment "now", or rather why I am at this moment now rather than another or all at once. This is the same as saying that it fails to account for subjectivity, because from a purely objective point of view -ie one that does not take into account any observer's experience - there is no problem. From outside of the experience of any individual observer, there are just bodies moving/behaving in space-time. Materialists/scientists are so accustomed to seeing the world from this abstracted perspective that they don't see any particular problem with this elimination of the subject. But in making this move, it has already removed consciousness from the reality it attempts to explain. A true theory of everything would need to explain the mysteries of I-ness (why am I me and not someone else) and now-ness (why am I now rather than somewhen else).
If consciousness, the subjective qualia, is instantiated by some material process (e.g. brain computation) then there is no more problem with "now" for a conscious state than for a physical state. This physical state instantiates this qualia and the next physical state instantiates the next qualia. You may say it's a mystery, but if it is then the occurrence of physical states is the same mystery.
Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
