You are conscious? But so what? Maybe your coffee mug is too

A survey of materialist (naturalist) theories of consciousness would require you to keep an open mind on the topic. At Mind Matters,

In an academic article,  Kastrup identified the available materialist options, as he sees them. Picture, if you will, you, an amoeba, and a coffee mug. How much does each of you participate in consciousness?

a) physicalism (everything is a physical reality)

you 0  amoeba 0  coffee mug 0

On this view, consciousness is an evolved illusion.

b) bottom-up pan-psychism

you 1  amoeba 1  coffee mug 0

You and the amoeba both evolved consciousness as you evolved life but the coffee cup (and, we presume, its associated electrons) did not.

amoeba

c) cosmopanpsychism

you + amoeba + coffee mug = 1

You, the amoeba, and the mug are one indivisible consciousness.

d) dissociated alters (multiple personality disorder)

you 1  amoeba 1  coffee mug 0

This d) view, which Kastrup favors, sees you and the amoeba as dissociated selves of the universe as a whole. The universe is thus seen as a victim of multiple personality disorder. But Kastrup’s view allows for a fundamental difference between the living and the non-living. Only the living are seen as personalities. Sorry, mug, you are not a dissociated self, a subject of experience, after all.  More.

But never mind. In some materialist systems, the mug wins.

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See also: Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part I  A reply to computational neuroscientist Anil Seth’s recent TED talk (Michael Egnor)

Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part II In a word, no. Your brain doesn’t “think”; YOU think, using your brain (Michael Egnor)

A short argument against the materialist account of the mind (Jay Richards)

and

What great physicists have said about immateriality and consciousness

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