Hypnos and Thánatos, Sleep and His Half-Brother Death by John William Waterhouse.
*Wikipedia: Hynos, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnos
*Wikipedia: Thanatos,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanatos
*Chalmers, David J: Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia
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*Chalmers, David J: Facing Up To The Problem Of Consciousness
consc.net/papers/facing.html
*Chalmers, David J: Facing Up To The Problem Of Consciousness
consc.net/papers/facing.html
*More, Max: The Terminus Of The Self
alcor.org/Library/html/TerminusOfTheSelf.html
*Grunbaum, Adolf: Creation As A Pseudo-Problem In Current Physical Cosmology infidels.org/library/modern/ … ation.html
**Grunbaum, Adolf: Creation As A Pseudo-Problem In Current Physical Cosmology infidels.org/library/modern/ … ation.html
*Morriston, Wes: Creation Ex Nihilo And The Big Bang
philoonline.org/library/morriston_5_1.htm
*Chalmers, David J: What Is A Neural Correlate Of Consciousness?
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*Chalmers, David J: Consciousness And Its Place In Nature
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*Chalmers, David J: Consciousness And Its Place In Nature
consc.net/papers/nature.html
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*Stenger, Victor J: Intelligent Design: Humans, Cockroaches, And The Law Of Physics
talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html
[b]Whether or not one believes in Facsimile Realism, consciousness exists “as its own universe”. The external world, according to secular mythology of the origin of consciousness—easily existed for an eternity without consciousness! According to the same mythology, the external world will exist without the added existence of consciousness once more.
If one believes in Facsimile Realism, the transience and vulnerability of consciousness (as opposed to the immutability and indestructibility of the external world) is preliminary conceptual evidence that if Facsimile Realism is true,[/b] the Simulacrum exists.
When it comes to the question of HOW the simulacrum exists, the only plausible answer is that consciousness either comes into existence without the aid of pre-existent entities, or consciousness has forever existed [b]in discrete microscopic form, and is collocated (pieced together) to form the ‘macroscopic’ experience of living beings.
Logic and plausibility, however, flies out the window when it comes to the notion of[/b] creation ex nihilo.
[b]It is inconceivable how a pre-existing entity can cause a nonexistent entity to come into existence simply by moving in a prescribed manner—thus performing a “spell of motion” that magically conjures the nonexistent into existence. The logical impossibility of the notion that physical objects, moving the right way, can command the unreal to become reality applies even to electrical flow in neurons that—as luck would have it—collectively form the cerebral cortex.
At the end of the day, Neural Incantationism, the view that neurons of the cerebral cortex create consciousness ex nihilo—invokes the same magic as the ability to cause Santa Claus to exist simply by wagging a finger in the air.[/b]
[b](That is, there is no difference in the inscrutable method by which the previously nonexistent comes into existence between the flow of electrons in a cortical neuron and the wagging of a finger.)
In the end, one is free to hold onto Neural Incantationism if one wishes—but one is forced to invoke mystical powers and magical forces within the brain that operate according to the same principle as God’s “verbal magic” in the Book of Genesis. One has no business pointing the finger at God’s verbal creation of the universe when the Brain uses the very magic the skeptic mocks.
Avoiding the problem of explaining consciousness and the physical by going “outside” consciousness and the physical, panpsychic philosophers hold that perhaps consciousness is just as fundamental and eternal as the physical. This notion heroically rescues explanation of consciousness from mysticism, but in practice the notion of quantum mentality relies upon an implausible convenience: particles of human and animal consciousness dwelling within physical particles must, by chance, happen to exist in those particles making up cerebral cortices. But it is not clear if similar protophenomena, capable of creating the same experiences–do not also exist in inanimate objects. Why should protophenomena in cerebral cortices form human and animal experience while protophenomena in bricks, for example, cannot?
At the end of the day, we have no real answer to how the Simulacrum (if Facsimile Realism is true) comes to exist. But given a choice between magic and collocation—between Neural Incantationism and Panprotopsychism—one would do well to settle for collocation.
Panprotopsychism or Neural Incantationism, according to the secular model of the mind/body relationship, takes place at the end of the assembly line of psychophysical process. The External World, it turns out, begins the mind/body process, “jumpstarting” panprotopsychism and incantationism by continuously striking the surface of the body with non-destructive forces of varying strengths. Nerve cells under the body’s skin respond to these “meteor impacts” from the external world— initiating action potentials that travel to the spinal cord, the thalamus, and by chance, from the thalamus to just that neural circuit in the occipital lobe providing visual perception of that aspect of the external world acting on the body.
The process of consciousness, it seems, is neatly wrapped in a beautiful bow. But upon closer investigation, the “trick shooting” of the external world into the “pool table pockets” of the occipital lobe (and other areas of the cerebral cortex) reveals a grave implausibility.
In order to yield current, up-to-date, real-time visual perception of the present state of the world, neurons in the occipital lobe (and the cerebrum in general), must—before the fact—[/b]have the potential to form synaptic connections corresponding to any non-brain-destroying future state of the world! The external world does nothing but blindly pelt the body with forces. In the final analysis, Facsimile Realism is possible only through the fortuitous structure and function of the physical brain.
In the end, the psychological probability of a blind and unconscious universe, even with billions of years and trial and error mutation at its disposal, to give rise to brains that happen to possess the neural potential to simulate any non-destructive future state of the external world is so astronomically low that it requires one to fancifully imagine that the brain possesses this future-predicting neurochemistry. Believers in Facsimile Realism are forced to defend to the death the implausible chance involved in the notion that natural selection can yield, through blind collocation of atoms, a neural time machine forged by an unconscious universe that cannot know, care, or want to implant this machine within subjects it does not know exists. Worse, the Facsimile Realist must fabricate—then go so far as to insist that such fabrications are undeniably true—causal powers and properties to an external world that exists forever beyond human knowledge, knowledge whose form we have any reason to believe is derived only from direct experience.
