Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucker | Hacker News Reader

Behavior? Yes. Consciousness? Maybe not. As far as I know, no-one has ever come up with an explanation of how matter can give rise to consciousness. Obviously consciousness is affected by changes in matter — if I take certain drugs, I feel different, etc. — but there is no explanation at all for what mechanisms may give rise to consciousness in the first place, and the very idea of the material giving rise to consciousness might actually not make sense.

View on HN

This line of thinking begs the question of whether consciousness is some special thing in nature. You only have to look for an explanation if you think there is something to explain.

If I start from the assumption that I am mistaken about what I think consciousness is--that maybe it doesn't exist at all the way I think it does--then I don't have to worry about how matter gives rise to it. I can focus instead on trying to understand where my definition went wrong.

Humans have never lacked for opinions or explanations about what natural things are, or how they got that way. But in the practice of science, these must yield before empirical evidence.

As you note, there is a huge amount of evidence that consciousness is physical. But there is no objective evidence that I experience consciousness as you define it. You just have to take my word for it--and so do I. But maybe I'm wrong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com