Consciousness and Materialism

• Newton proposed an elegant theory that was involved an occult force: Gravity that acted counter-mechanically over long distances via an unknown—and still totally unknown—means. The theory solved significant problems and unified much, but its central assumption was other-worldly and totally unjustified and unexplained.
• The argument is that fact and morality are two different domains, and from no accumulation of statements of fact alone can we ever jump to a statement of morality.
• Whether you find Hume’s argument ironclad, it proposes that mere fact and morality are ultimately two domains and substances, and while they can interact, importantly, morality itself—whatever it is—is made of different stuff than just empirical statements.
• Some would incorrectly say that the issue of consciousness is the “Hardest Problem in Science.” That’s premature because it presupposes that science has even begun to properly ask the question, or has any idea of a vector to approach the issue, or any tools to attack the problem.
• In the same way that Hume argued that morality must be a different substance from fact, I will state flatly that consciousness, in its essence, must be a totally different substance from matter
• Newton’s concept of gravity is thought of as being “real” and “physical” and within the realm of “science” despite the fact that it upended the physicalist assumptions of the day of how matter and atoms can interact.
• is very obvious that material conditions affect consciousness. This is no different from how Hume admitted that factual statements can affect derivations of moral statements computation is merely the processing rules of a formal game. Saying computational operations can generate consciousness by themselves is no sillier than saying that a game of Monopoly can generate consciousness.

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