Why do we have consciousness at all?.

I can imagine a world where consciousness doesn't exist at all. Why does evolution allow for consciousness instead of zombie like animals?. This has always got me thinking. You could say that natural selection chooses consciousness over being a zombie because it's all about reproducing. Well that seem like a short sighted answer. I mean why all this subjective qualities that apparently consciousness has?. Plus I can easily imagine a different direction of evolution where reproduction is not the main goal.


This is one of the arguments that a materialist fails to answer instead they try to turn it around by saying why do you need a brain if consciousness can do it all?. Well, first of all consciousness uses the brain as a interface for consciousness and mind. I remember neurologist Steven Novella mentioning to me that specific structures effect consciousness. Well specific parts of your television cut off channels in your television set. The hard problem of consciousness is how can you explain the subjective feeling of consciousness. This inner life experience that we all internally experience. How can the brain give rise to subjective experience?.


This is far from an easy question to answer some believe there is really is no hard problem at all like neurologist Steven Novella. Which of course leads to pure denial. While, other honest scientists admit their is a serious problem here and there is right now no good working theory to account for consciousness. However, I think there is many scientists are most likely however are not aware of the transmission theory of the brain. If they were as well as the evidence in favor of it they may be willing to heavily consider it as a theory that can account for consciousness with how it relates to the brain.


On a side note, there is a recent video on skeptiko, that is very interesting. "Can materialistic science answer life's big questions?".


http://www.skeptiko.com/can-science-answer-big-questions-317/


Also, an excellent paper on "The Soul Hypothesis: Investigations into the Existence of the Soul".

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24611-the-soul-hypothesis-investigations-into-the-existence-of-the-soul/

M. Hector Durville's experiments on the Astral Body

I think many here will I find this very interesting experiments showing that the astral body does exist or soul. M. Hector Durville did experiments on finding out if there really is an astral body. The subject of the experiment is constantly rapport with the double. Usually this is cylindrical , but may sometimes appear to be a sort of ribbon. As to the clothes of the phantom, these seem to be composed of a sort of "fluidic gauze". Various sense-impressions are conveyed to the body by the means of the astral cord. the question of temperature is imporatant; as too much light has a detrimental effect upon the astral body. Experiments with the dynamometer showed that the muscular strength (grip) of the subject was always greater after the projection than before. On the contrary, the temperature of the hand, particularly of the right hand, almost invariably fell as the result of the experiment. The action of the phantom upon the double of another subject both being "projected" at the same time; and upon the physical body of another person. Some positive results were apparently secured in both cases. Some successes were also reported in obtaining physical movements of objects and raps, and moving the straw of a sthenometer, at a distance from the entrenched subject by the projected astral body, and various vital radiations emitted by it or by the physical body. He concluded like many scientists have that the projection of the astral body is a certain fact, capable pf being demonstrated by means of direct experiment. Also, since the phantom can exist and function apart from the physical body. It may also exist after death. That is, Immortality is a fact thus proved scientifically.

Rebuttal to physicist Sean Carroll article "We don't have immortal souls"

I like to rebut the most important points in the article. Here is the link to the article http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/05/23/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/#more-6819

He mentions Sean- "Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter"?

Leo- The laws of physics don't cover the whole of reality. Consciousness has an objective and subjective nature too it I think so its made of a different type of matter that is dual with the ordinary matter we have.

Sean- "Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.

Leo- QFT opens the door that there can be souls.


Sean- Even if you don’t believe that human beings are “simply” collections of atoms evolving and interacting according to rules laid down in the Standard Model of particle physics, most people would grudgingly admit that atoms are part of who we are. If it’s really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death. Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model. Most importantly, we need some way for that “new physics” to interact with the atoms that we do have.

Leo- The standard model of physics is known to be wrong. This is why physicists are looking for a unified theory of physics. Atoms (matter) are dual with the soul. No one who thinks a soul maybe true says that the soul is nothing but atoms and the known forces.


Sean- How is the spirit energy supposed to interact with us? Here is the equation that tells us how electrons behave in the everyday world:

[it's the Dirac equation.] . . . As far as every experiment ever done is concerned, this equation is the correct description of how electrons behave at everyday energies. It’s not a complete description; we haven’t included the weak nuclear force, or couplings to hypothetical particles like the Higgs boson. But that’s okay, since those are only important at high energies and/or short distances, very far from the regime of relevance to the human brain. If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that this equation is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. . .

Leo- This is assuming that because we cannot find a soul in a laboratory that it must mean it doesn't exist.

Sean- . . Nobody ever asks these questions out loud, possibly because of how silly they sound. Once you start asking them, the choice you are faced with becomes clear: either overthrow everything we think we have learned about modern physics, or distrust the stew of religious accounts/unreliable testimony/wishful thinking that makes people believe in the possibility of life after death. It’s not a difficult decision, as scientific theory-choice goes.

Indeed! Those who specify the existence of souls and afterlives in this scientific era must do more than issue fuzzy-minded gobbledygook. They must specify more precisely what they’re talking about, and how it’s supposed to work. If we’re supposed to survive after death, what part of us survives, and how? And what is this soul, exactly? We’re no longer in the Middle Ages, so theologians who make empirical claims must be empirically specific. There are biological questions as well. The first ones that occurs to me are these: where, exactly, in the human lineage did the soul emerge? (Or do other species have souls?) Was it put into that lineage by God, or did it evolve? If instilled by God, when? And where in our body does it reside? If we retain our memories and personalities in the afterlife, how do they exist without neurons?

Leo- Nowhere does he mention parallel universes and how they can shed some lights on these questions, nor does he mention how the observer our consciousness seems to be able to collapse the wave function in quantum mechanics. Neither does he mention the fact that atoms are made of mostly empty space. Also neither does he mention that particle appear to be in supposition two places at once. Also that particles can be entangled at large distances across space (Quantum Entanglement). If he did mention these his argument would be far more weaker. The soul is a duplicate of the physical body it vibrates that a higher frequency at death. The soul uses ESP and Telepathy as some of its spiritual senses (opposite of the physical senses).


Sean- Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV. The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham’s razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.


- Yes and quantum physics strongly indicate a hidden reality that can have very different rules than the ones we know.

If Their Is A Soul Where Is It?

Physiology gives the indication that their is no soul, only mind and brain. This mind being a process of the brain. However, once you step outside conventional wisdom that their is no soul when it comes to neuroscience then you start to see that the conventional wisdom may not be correct. Evidence for survival of bodily death and psi phenomena indicate strongly, that the view that mind is a process of the brain ignores any evidence to the contrary. This is a easy way to avoid the possible conclusion itself.


It is said by a large number of neuroscientists that mind is a process of the brain and that evidence has been dramatically increases more and more as time goes on. Especially in the advent of fmri's. The problem is their is obviously more than one way to look at the evidence accumulated. The materialist will say that the theory that mind is filter, received by the brain instead of produced by the brain can be shaved off. That the view that mind is produced by the brain is simpler way of looking at the very strong correlations of mind and brain. True it's simpler, but does it account for all phenomena. A good theory should not just account for what it can account for but should be able to cover all well attested phenomena.


If you assume that psi phenomena and survival evidence doesn't exist or is very weak then it's easy of course to accept that mind is produced by the brain. However if you accept the evidence for survival and psi [which has been shown to exist by conventional scientific standards] then the theory that mind is filter and received by the brain is the simplest theory to take. Now when a materialist admits that yes psi phenomena has been shown to exist by scientific standards, they will a lot of the time fall back by saying well "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. This is a complete cop out because first of all what would create such extraordinary evidence. Replicated repeatable results yes? apparently not, it seems that this statement keeps the skeptics safe to the point of when their is very strong evidence for survival and psi they come up with this statement.


So are materialists really looking for the truth here?. I would say they could be, if they could gives us what they mean by extraordinary evidence. After many decades and centuries it seems as though its becoming very apparent what they mean by it. Its a way to ignore and avoid opposing data that doesn't fit into their materialistic worldview. So where is the soul? well i would say by looking at the evidence from survival that it's in the body. When death happens the soul leaves the physical body and takes a life of its own. The soul is a duplicate of the physical body but made of different kind of energy and matter.

For an examle of a skeptic admitting that remote viewing has been shown to exist by the scientific method.

Go here

http://subversivethinking.blogspot.com/2009/08/skeptic-richard-wiseman-concedes-that.html