> That's because consciousness - at least in the way it's being used here - is not a scientific term at all.
It's not scientific because it concerns subjective experience, i.e. qualia, which are not measurable or observable by someone else. All an observer can do is to observe how the subject reacts. We could either leave consciousness to philosophers (who haven't got much further than Plato did), or expand science to include subjective experience.
> What people think it might be isn't reason enough to postulate a hugely fantastical cosmological mechanism where so far none has been shown to exist.
Agreed.
> I don't really protest against your belief per se, but since you're making claims about reality that are designed to sound scientific when they really aren't, I feel compelled to voice disagreement, unpopular as it might be in this environment.
I'm not advocating any "new age" world view here. My position is similar to that of David Chalmers, namely that there is something which remains to be explained. I have no particular views on how.
It's not scientific because it concerns subjective experience, i.e. qualia, which are not measurable or observable by someone else. All an observer can do is to observe how the subject reacts. We could either leave consciousness to philosophers (who haven't got much further than Plato did), or expand science to include subjective experience.
> What people think it might be isn't reason enough to postulate a hugely fantastical cosmological mechanism where so far none has been shown to exist.
Agreed.
> I don't really protest against your belief per se, but since you're making claims about reality that are designed to sound scientific when they really aren't, I feel compelled to voice disagreement, unpopular as it might be in this environment.
I'm not advocating any "new age" world view here. My position is similar to that of David Chalmers, namely that there is something which remains to be explained. I have no particular views on how.