Atheists, Can you explain where sentience comes from? (that means higher awareness)?

Question

If it is the pattern of electrical charges in the brain, could that pattern be replicated somewhere else or on someone else after death?

I mean according to logic, that pattern could be replicated for all eternity in many different places - Could this prove a higher power or does this prove no higher power.

Can laws that govern everything be the higher power - because laws of gravity and relativity are unexplainable?

Does logic not prove we do not know why these laws are laws (which ironically they are not laws because the do not work the same on micro and macro levels)

Help!?

Steph - could you even try and answer this question - are you capable?

Funny how people think I have a position on this one way or the other.

But the irony of all you logic loving atheists, is that all of your scientist heroes are agnostic.

Think about it Mr. Atheist, if there is always something more to know on How and Why - BECAUSE SCIENCE ALWAYS ASKS BOTH QUESTIONS - How do you know there is nothing more?

madeline - I'm not saying any religion is correct, I actually feel quite the opposite,
What I'm saying is How do you know there is nothing more?

Answer 1

this psychopath disagrees with you, everything is chaos!

Answer 2

1. If it is the pattern of electrical charges in the brain, could that pattern be replicated somewhere else or on someone else after death?

Certainly If the universe is infinite it would have to be replicated. This is the idea of quantum immortality.

2. I believe in a higher power, ( the sun in the daytime ), Just not a god ( a being that created everything ). I see no reason to believe anything was created at all.

3. Are Mathematical laws responsible for existence, yes I actually believe so ( see physicist Max Tegmark's Theory of Everything for example )but I don't think they create existence. I think they are existence.

Answer 3

I appreciate it's sometimes hard to keep these ideas straight in your head but there's a few technicalities tripping you up here. The simplest one to identify is the bit about the laws of gravity and relativity being unexplained. That's not right at all. The laws of gravity and relativity ARE explanations of the relationships between gravity and space-time. They're not unexplained. Gravity and space-time explain them and vice versa.

Next up, is the replication of sentience. Every moment of sentience is reliant upon the culmination of a unique set of circumstances. The elements of these circumstances can be, and often are, infinitely complex in themselves and the combinations of infinite complexity make the probability of replication unlikely to an infinite degree multiplied by infinity an infinite number of times, at least. That's how likely reincarnation is, which I think is what you were getting at.

But don't let the odds overwhelm you. The chances of you being who you are and where you are, at any given time are 100%.

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Edit:

With respect to some of the 'additional details': Agnostic is the only legitimate way to be. I answered this because "An Atheist" is generally used in these columns to mean a non-believer, which is what I am. I don't have a problem with my heroes being agnostic. I wish more of them were.

Answer 4

I have no idea at all where sentience comes from. Somehow I never found the need for any, so I haven't checked the catalogues. Boy, am I glad. I know now that if I ever need some sentience I'll get in touch with you.
That one about high power, I have a 30-06 that's pretty high powered. Is that enough ?
Okay, enough of this foolishness. You're questioning non-belief. Without going into all this micro and macro junk, or gravity and relativity, it simply means that you have your choice to believe scientific research by the world's greatest scientists, or believe the hocus-pocus handed down to us by some super superstitious people of thousands of years ago.

Answer 5

In principle, a brain's electrical structure could be replicated. In practice, it isn't possible, and probably will never be possible. (Sorry, Trekkies, no transporters.) But none of this is germane to the question of existence of some sort of higher power. And, yes, we do not know why the physical laws are laws; science asks How, not Why. Perhaps there is a Why, but any notion of such would be speculative, and if irrefutable, useless. (Proven theorem: The predicive power of any theory derives exclusively from its refutability.)

Answer 6

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, but it sounds like, if we don't have answers to these questions, the OT God theory must be correct? How silly. Have you read the Old Testament? Yes, there are questions we don't have an answer to yet but if you go back to say, the 1700's, and asked the world's leading scientist to clone anything, he probably would've thought the idea was crazy but it hardly made the OT God any more real.
There are plenty of reason's that description is inaccurate, regardless of whether some answer to a question has been found.
For instance, if 'God' is omniscient, he knew about Lot's decision to offer his daughters up to a crazed mob and He new that after He destroyed the town Lot lived in, he (Lot) would get super drunk and get his 2 daughters pregnant. Yet, He calls Lot 'just' and 'faithful'. Do you seriously believe anyone is going to believe this is the work of a sentient deity?

Answer 7

The simple answer is; no.
Without the brain, there can be no electrical impulses. That would be like saying that electricity can flow without a conductor. (and before someone says something stupid, lightning flows through a conductor, it's called the atmosphere)
As for the "laws" of gravity and relativity, there are no such laws. All are theories. Gravity has no laws, the only ones people talk about are Newton's "laws" but they are not widely accepted. They are theories.
If at any time christians come up with an actual, testable and verifiable theory about thier magic sky-pixie and the myths that go with it, we might listen.
Until then though, it's all just inane prattle.

Answer 8

Higher than what? Humans have awareness of their bodies through their nervous system. They have a concept of their continued existence because of their brain recording things. Whatever physical laws that govern all the processes in the universe are much better understood by scientists than theologians. There is an actual reality out there, and science is feeling it out. If you want real answers, those are what we have so far. If you want fantasy answers, why not choose a nicer religion, because God is an ******.

Answer 9

Why would atheists be the source for your answer? Are you trying to provoke people? You sound sincere except for the way your opening question is laid out.

Dynamic. That is the "state" of existence. How easy is it to replicate dynamic? Replicas are just that replicas. A copy of the real thing. i.e. not the same. Of course I am only taking this stance as you have created it's opposite.

Answer 10

This pattern of variable input levels in the signals across synapses has been duplicated (on a small scale) using silicon circuitry. To program that circuitry you actually have to "teach it". not program it.

The laws of gravity and relativity are explainable we just can't PROVE them. (hence they are not really laws.)
We don't really know the source of the graviational field. However recent insights from string theory to M theory puts it that these forces come from other dimensions that are shown to exist (not proven) by tensor mathematics.

Here's a shocker. the forces of MASS/gravity and electrical/Magnetic and weak forces and strong forces
(there are only 4 forces in the universe that we know of right now). are actually what holds the universe together. It's FORCES not actual matter.
There are no actual objects in the universe, just points in space where the forces from other dimensions leak through.
Freaky eh???

tom

Answer 11

You're talking about three essentially unrelated things here (sentience, laws, "higher powers").

We don't really know the answer to how we are sentient, though we're making some progress (see the source below). There's quite a bit of dispute though about it, with some philosophers insisting that the question is essentially unanswerable (they're called "the mysterians").

I think there's a fair chance that we'll have an answer in my lifetime.