Materialist models of consciousness assert that consciousness is a result of brain activity. What you think of as 'you' is nothing more than activity in your brain, and when your brain dies, so do you.
Materialist views are forced to assume that reality is fundamentally unknowable, because we will only ever know our brain's interpretation of reality. Materialism has yet to solve the hard problem of consciousness.
An idealist would contend that consciousness is fundamental, and that non-conscious matter does not exist. What we think of as matter is simply an experience in consciousness, and the laws of physics are regularities and patterns of consciousness. The universe is what consciousness does.
Idealism has no hard problem of consciousness, and allows for the possibility that reality is fundamentally knowable.
By Occam's Razor, the idealist view is simpler and is capable of explaining more of what we know as a whole. Despite this, many persist in their belief of a material reality.
Materialism is not a scientific position. It is a philosophical position held by those who mistakenly believe that neuroscience supports this claim. The science itself simply shows that there is a correlation between conscious states and the brain. This does not imply causation. Science is ontologically neutral.
As a thought experiment, imagine that the brain behaves like a filter for consciousness, rather than the source of consciousness. This view can provide an alternate explanation for anything the materialist model of consciousness can explain.
Materialist views are forced to assume that reality is fundamentally unknowable, because we will only ever know our brain's interpretation of reality. Materialism has yet to solve the hard problem of consciousness.
An idealist would contend that consciousness is fundamental, and that non-conscious matter does not exist. What we think of as matter is simply an experience in consciousness, and the laws of physics are regularities and patterns of consciousness. The universe is what consciousness does.
Idealism has no hard problem of consciousness, and allows for the possibility that reality is fundamentally knowable.
By Occam's Razor, the idealist view is simpler and is capable of explaining more of what we know as a whole. Despite this, many persist in their belief of a material reality.
Materialism is not a scientific position. It is a philosophical position held by those who mistakenly believe that neuroscience supports this claim. The science itself simply shows that there is a correlation between conscious states and the brain. This does not imply causation. Science is ontologically neutral.
As a thought experiment, imagine that the brain behaves like a filter for consciousness, rather than the source of consciousness. This view can provide an alternate explanation for anything the materialist model of consciousness can explain.
For example, if somebody takes a drug, does the drug alter the way their brain produces consciousness, or does the drug alter the way their brain filters consciousness? Both are tenable.
How about if somebody hits their head and suffers amnesia? Did they physically damage the memories in the brain, or did they merely damage the brain's ability to allow the memory to be experienced? Again, either answer is a possibility.
Just like this, for every correlation that the materialist model can explain, so to can the reducing valve.
By Occam's Razor the best model of consciousness is the simplest model that can explain the most of what we know. The idealist view that the universe is in mind is not only simpler, but it also conflicts with less and explains more of what we know as a whole.
There are many phenomenon that fly in the face of materialism that idealism has no problem accommodating. Such as the following:
Hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus is a condition where fluid fills the skull. In the most severe cases of hydrocephalus, sufferers can be left with a tiny fraction of the brain mass of a normal person.
John Lorber worked on the subject extensively, and his work was later published in The Lancet, a prestigious peer reviewed journal.
The most impressive case he came across was of a student who had an IQ of 126, an honor’s degree in mathematics, and “virtually no brain”.
Read more: Where Is Consciousness? I've Lost It!
More recently there was a case of this that made science news involving a French civil servant who had lead a normal life with a small fraction of the brain mass of a normal person, although this one had a considerably lower IQ.
Read more: Tiny Brain Normal Life
Brainless Organisms
Single cell paramecium can find mates, have sex, find food, avoid predators, and learn (if you suck it into a capillary tube, it escapes, if you suck it in again, it escapes faster), all without any synapses.
Brainless slime molds have been shown to learn and unlearn patterns.
Terminal Lucidity
Terminal lucidity is a phenomenon where people enter a lucid clear thinking state of consciousness as they approach death. This is a well-known phenomenon, and documented cases exist of people with severe mental illness, who shed their mental afflictions as death approaches.
Terminal lucidity has even been reported in cases of severe brain damage. Notable cases involve brain damage to such a degree that the afflicted can not even remember the names and faces of their family members or hold a coherent conversation. Yet even these people occasionally enter the lucid state, and when they do they're able to remember with clarity and speak normally.
The important factor to note here is that the brain damage supposedly responsible for their mental degeneration is still very much present at the time of the lucid, clear thinking state.
Read more: The Brain, The Power Of Hope
Absence of a Neural Correlate of Consciousness
"One of the goals of neuroscience is to correlate mental states with biophysical states, systems and processes in the brain. This effort has only partly been successful. For example, we can correlate the capacity of speech to the Wernicke and Broca areas. We can correlate motor action to the motor cortex, vision to the optical nerve and the visual cortex, certain feelings such as arousal, pleasure, and excitement to neurotransmitters.
However, the search for the neural correlate of consciousness has come up empty. Decades of research did not produce what was originally envisioned by neuroscientists – the correlate or substrate of phenomenal consciousness. At the beginning of the 21st century, conscious experience remains as enigmatic as ever. This is not to say that it eludes neuroscience completely. Many epiphenomena of conscious experience -from brainwaves and brain chemistry to neural activity- have been explored and can be matched to certain types of experience. Yet, it is phenomenal experience itself that puzzles scientists. There is no causal explanation that leads from brain states to qualia. There are no neural correlates for thought, beliefs, and ideas. In fact, most neuroscientists have given up the search for the neural correlate of conscious experience. They feel that it is the wrong approach. The absence of a neural correlate suggests that consciousness does not originate or reside in the brain at all."
Read more: The Big View
If you hold that consciousness is fundamental, and the brain behaves as a filter, then none of the above are problematic. Additionally if you view consciousness to be fundamental rather than a physical construct then the hard problem of consciousness does not exist either. The hard problem of consciousness is purely a creation of materialism.
I'll close this blog entry with a quote from Cyril Burt.
“The brain is not an organ that generates consciousness, but rather an instrument evolved to transmit and limit the processes of consciousness and of conscious attention so as to restrict them to those aspects of the material environment which at any moment are crucial for the terrestrial success of the individual”
