Does Consciousness Point to God | William Dembski

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[00:00:00]Bill, there are many so-called proofs or arguments for the existence of God, as you well know. One of the more modern versions is the so-called argument from consciousness, which seems to recognize something special about human consciousness, at least perhaps other kinds of consciousness, but certainly human. And and would infer from the existence of this special nature of consciousness the existence of a a higher consciousness, i.e. God. Uh how much water does that hold for you?

[00:00:34]I I I like it. I mean, I again, I don't I don't think this is going to be slam dunk, but I I think it's uh it's suggestive, and I think one way I'd approach it also is to turn it around.

[00:00:44]If not God, where you going to get consciousness? I mean, it seems that on evolutionary grounds, there's no reason for consciousness. I mean, basically, we're on evolutionary grounds, it seems that we're survival and reproduction machines, and we don't really need consciousness to go through the behaviors that will allow us to survive and reproduce and take uh have get selective advantages and uh evolve over time. But um >> [clears throat] >> so the the I think there's a mystery with consciousness just on evolutionary grounds. And then I think you look, let's say in in cognitive neuroscience, uh I don't think there's there's very good evidence for complexity or computation giving rise to consciousness. Uh and I I think it's uh it's the sort of argument that I would make there is one that I think Leibniz made in his Theodicy uh way back uh where he said basically his his image was I think gear wheels in a mill, you know, and he's looking in there and says, "Where's the consciousness, you know?" And if you're if you're going to take a computational approach, it seems that there are lots of things that could in principle uh exemplify uh computation. I mean, you know, what you what you need are on-off switches, bits, and you know, is uh imagine all the doors in China. If the door is open, that's a one. If it's closed, it's a zero.

[00:01:58]Is the activity of all those doors, is that some sort of conscious state? I think if you're if you are a if you would hold to a computational view of mind, I think you'd have to say that's a possibility. You know, but that that just seems crazy. And then uh you know, how would complexity, the complexity of our neuro neurology, how does that enable mind thinking? Uh you know, it's >> Well, the argument is like critical mass and in in atomic energy that at a certain level you you get a a a a change in quality.

[00:02:28]>> Well, it's uh yeah, I mean it's uh there's some sort of emergent property, but it seems to to me that emergence is itself a mystery word. I mean it's it's uh seems if you're going to give emergence some real content, you know, you have to it's it's a trea it needs to be treated as a transitive verb, X emerges from Y, and then you have to say how that emergence takes place. And we don't we don't have a story there. I mean it's just things are complex enough and poof, here we are. I mean I think this is Ray Kurzweil's fallacy. I mean he thinks that we just get enough computational power and boom, we're going to have conscious beings, you know, and it's uh you know, I I don't I don't see it. Yeah, he he might say sure, it has to be programmed, but yeah people might say if you if you really push them, it's not they will behave in every possible way as if they're conscious, and whether they really are this this non-biological intelligence, you can never really know because you can't be that thing.

[00:03:19]But it in every possible behavioral mechanism, they will act as if they are.

[00:03:23]Well, I mean by by that reasoning, we we may not be conscious. Yeah, right.

[00:03:26]Right. The problem of other minds.

[00:03:29]Uh and certainly this is a very controversial area in in neuroscience, and many neuroscientists, and certainly a large number of philosophers would dismiss consciousness as not something that's real, uh or if if it is if it is real, it doesn't have the great significance that we think it does. It's sort of a it's sort of an apparent consciousness that we think we have, or But it's it's similar to what what happens to intelligence. I mean intelligence is this byproduct of evolution and all consciousness as well.

[00:03:59]And you know, things I think you have a harder time telling a telling a story a selectionist story for that but You probably can unconsciously could say something to the effect that being conscious you may make more intelligent choices because you have some sort of a self-awareness and and therefore is slightly a privileged one way rather than another way. Arguments from imagination is what I call it.

[00:04:23]There are really two steps in in this argument from consciousness. It this the step one is recognizing that consciousness in general or human consciousness in specific either one is something really special and something that is a problem to be solved or is a is something that that the physical neuroscience is >> [snorts] >> is is not just not able to solve but almost is not able to solve in principle. Almost you have to get to that's step one and then from there you have to say step two says that that I can now infer from the existence of this one kind of consciousness the existence of another.

[00:05:05]And so how how do you look at those two two stages in terms of the strength of each one of those arguments? I mean the sort of in principle move >> [sighs and gasps] >> I'm not sure what to make of that. I mean it seems we need some fundamentally new ideas about how brain would enable mind or consciousness and I think right now we're at a dead end. Now is it can we say there's an in principle I mean I when I think of in principle proofs I think of something like Gödel's incompleteness Yeah, right. And [clears throat] so so there you have a strict in principle but you know, here it's just you know, we have no idea what a theory of consciousness a materialistic theory of consciousness would look like. You know, maybe some genius will come up with it but right now I think we're we're you know, wasting our breath. And then I don't know, the move from well, therefore there's some conscious being that that gave us that consciousness.

[00:05:57]>> [sighs] >> Uh I don't know I don't know if that's any better than just saying consciousness is a mystery and here here it is, you know, that do we do we need a some sort of causal explanation in terms of some other conscious being? I I don't know if if if that has all that much strength.

[00:06:11]If we have independent evidence for a conscious being that's outside the world that's that's given it order, then I think we'd have more strength. So maybe this sort of argument from consciousness if it's tied together with some other argument for God's existence, I think that could give it some strength.

[00:06:26]>> Yeah, I I I think that's a logical approach, but but that doesn't really give any any strength to the argument from consciousness. It just says if you have if you believe in some other means then then then then then this this is probably true, too. But but can you then use the argument from consciousness?

[00:06:43]Certainly not to not to be either a knockdown proof by itself or even to be a very strong proof, but can it be used to strengthen another proof? Not just to be consistent with another proof. Can you use it to strengthen another proof which which might be showing that there has to be some sort of cause, just to take an example, but that cause can be a very can be an unconscious cause. Yeah.

[00:07:08]And it can be a you know, a deistic kind of situation that where didn't have any consciousness. So can the argument from consciousness from human consciousness make that second step and therefore enrich an understanding about what God may be that might be developed from another?

[00:07:25]Uh that [gasps] that this [snorts] is this is tough. I mean because I'm I'm thinking for instance, I mean so much of human intelligence seems to be expressed unconsciously. You know, I mean you you drive and there's so many things we do that you know, and then there are there all sorts of neurological experience which seem to suggest that that there there's all sorts of I mean pretty intense if you will cognitive processing thought going on with apart from consciousness. So consciousness Well it's a sense of you know it's >> It's the special self-awareness.

[00:07:56]>> that special self-awareness and yet getting a handle on it and arguing about it I you know I'm I'm not Yeah I I I feel I'm in the presence of a mystery there you know and it's you know it's I'm you know it's it's certainly it all coheres when I think of God being conscious and our consciousness deriving from that but you know it's some sort of logical train from one way to or the other you know I'm I'm just not getting it.

[00:08:26]Yeah.