Preeti, I don’t know. I also suspect that our perception of time as linear is just a function of our limited perspective. It seems to me that our heavy (and often unexamined) emphasis on language and logic limits our understanding of the vastness of mystery. It takes us back to Plato’s cave analogy, how we interpret reality based on secondhand clues..
I like this chain of thought, but I see our bodies as being the dominant and in control. I say this because I experienced suicidal ideation when I had no real desire to off myself. The experience was incredibly scary as my mind would map out the end in great detail, yet I had and still have no intention of doing any of it. Where did it come from? Why? Eventually I found out it was a symptom of peri-menopause. When I changed my diet and became aware of a deeper biological issue, the ideation stopped. Perhaps consciousness is how our bodies speak to us? Perhaps it's a language? It's code?
This phenomenon you reported is very intriguing. Can not refer it as a symptom of peri-menopause. Really, your brain was sending alarm signals to show that you(your brain) was emotionally or intellectually tiered during described period of your life, possibly was busy in difficult highly intellectual job , engaged in conflict or was under bad influence, or something else.May be your blood pressure was jumping high. You needed long sleep, comforting environment, valeriana tea and magnesium bisglycinate pills or other remedies providing calming effect and lowing blood pressure. Certainly you needed to visit a doctor. I am glad that this terrific period is over for you.
But you says that you changed the diet. I wonder how the diet could influence the consciousness?Could hot chocolate, chicken broth or coconut water really help to combat brain fog , improve our memory or cognition?
Could you please tell what exactly did you change in your diet to stop the ideation? You help others while sharing your experience.Thank you so much.
I was indeed under a great amount of personal stress (divorce, lost my business) that was exaggerated by peri from the cocktail of hormones dropping and increasing. I mostly cut down on sugar and added a lot of raw fruits and vegetables to my diet as well as magnesium and did intermittent fasting for almost 3 years. Now I just fast when my body feels like it needs a break or a reset. IF was the most significant change that gave almost immediate results. I even lost a bit of weight as well. Food, especially prepackaged foods, contain a lot of chemicals linked to depression. So I cut out a lot of that stuff as well. We are as the saying goes what we eat. I have only been an occasional drinker, but I don't drink at all anymore. I'm not on any meds nor have I been. I don't smoke. I do have a sweet tooth and this has been my biggest challenge. I don't consume any sugary drinks. All that being said, my body pushed me to make a change because perhaps I was going to die, I almost had a stroke 3 years ago. So I made changes to what was fueling my day as it made the most sense and continues to until something else changes. 🙃 Just as alcohol alters your chemistry and affects your body, so does sugar, salt, pepper ect. You are what you eat and your consciousness has firsthand knowledge of what those foods are doing to us.
Thank you very much for sharing your experience how listening to the inner voice of your consciousness helps to combat issues of life. Wish you more positive changes and positive thoughts and positively oriented friends/colleagues through your life.
However, I think that these thoughts are rather linear: innovation, advancement, human science evolution is difficult to grasp ... that which we can not see/perceive/conceive is difficult to work with. At least for Me ; )
But Others who Do (to some degree) See; overwhelm poor little Me..
I'm reminded of a sci-fi story I read about an encounter with intelligent beings without consciousness. They have the same motives such as reproduction, food and territory but exist without an internal "life", kind of like hyper-intelligent ants. It was an interesting story that provoked a lot of thought about the nature and need for consciousness.
I think it might be an essential language between the cells and the meat puppet. 😆 It's how the cells compel us to go the extra mile for the sake of its own directive, which is to replicate, heal, harvest minerals, etc. ??? 🤷♀️
I don't think so. We could and would do all that without consciousness. Apparently, other organisms do all that without consciousness, as far as we know.
studies have shown that in our brains, a decision is made before we make said decision. It was discussed on a panel with astrophysicist Dr. Tyson. What proof do you have that we do anything without consciousness. You're making an assumption based on what exactly? A memory is basically a light show in our brains, consciousness is light. We still don't understand how to solve how gravity manipulates light and vice versa. Without the drive that comes from consciousness, we may cease to exist. Second nature isn't devoid of consciousness. It's a skill, a tool being used by consciousness to achieve a specific goal.
P: studies have shown that in our brains, a decision is made before we make said decision. It was discussed on a panel with astrophysicist Dr. Tyson.
GW: You are misunderstanding or misrepresenting those studies. The studies show they there are neural events correlated with and happening before we CONSCIOUSLY seem to be making a decision. I contend that the brain makes the decision and our consciousness merely reflects what the brain did.
P: What proof do you have that we do anything without consciousness. You're making an assumption based on what exactly?
GW: I do not say I have proof of that, but I do say I have supporting evidence for it. In fact, you already presented some evidence. Our brain makes some decisions without our being conscious of them.
P: A memory is basically a light show in our brains, consciousness is light.
GW: No, it is not! Neuronal actions involve chemical and electrical transmission, not by light.
P: We still don't understand how to solve how gravity manipulates light and vice versa.
GW: That is irrelevant to our current topic.
P: Without the drive that comes from consciousness, we may cease to exist.
GW: Prove that there is a drive which comes from consciousness. Drives come from the brain. Consciousness merely reflects what the brain is doing and it doesn’t reflect ALL that the brain is doing.
P: Second nature isn't devoid of consciousness. It's a skill, a tool being used by consciousness to achieve a specific goal.
GW: I disagree. Consciousness has no goals and has no causal powers, IMO. It is an epiphenomenon. This is not a popular view, yet, but it is probably the correct view.
So this argument does not recognize the possibility of an existence of consciousness outside or without a body, like having a soul that continues to exists after death?
Consciousness serves the radical act of mutual recognition, where souls meet in the shimmering, unpredictable space of possibility. A dialogue of beings is an art of giving and receiving for which consciousness is an appropriate instrument.
To answer the question , we evolved consciousness in order to be involved, to form the group/society, to realize we’re not separate minds competing for survival - we’re a shared field learning how to survive,harmonize and progress . For centuries, humans proved to be bio-socio-cultural creatures.
I appreciate the approach your guest has made that cells create consciousness as part of what they are on a deep level. I think it also helps to put consciousness in a few sentences like: “cells have self consciousness”, but for the organism as a whole we call this a subconsciousness because for us humans anyway consciousness in defined as daily waking consciousness. All our body functions are more or less automatic subconsciousness. They can work while we sleep. Then we also have a stream of dreaming consciousness. Back to the idea of cells having intelligent self consciousness; put another way cells have homeostasis. Cells need to self regulate, they need to be conscious of the external and internal environment all the way down to building and maintaining each cell structure. Now we are at a deep level because now we can ask where in the cell are the computations taking place? What language used? Where is the blueprint stored? Where is the cells collected memory of events? Biologically no one has been able to answer any of these questions. In the cell we clearly see the results of this intelligent self conscious regulation happening constantly but can’t see the central processor. This processor is also connected to the same in every other cell, all working together to create the best version of that organism with life goals such as procreation. Perhaps even imbedded in this central processor are other instincts and desires such as a desire for happiness and more subtle life goals. At this edge of science is there any clue to the mechanical understanding of the central processor? Yes, it filters all information, it compares this state of the internal and external world instantaneously to the blueprint and reacts almost immediately to it as best it can. Think of touching a hot ember in a fire. A lot takes place in less than a second before you pull your hand away. Again where is the blueprint? Here is one more clue; it can be modified by physical means such as an anesthetic drug as well as damaged by information as finding out your child just died or your bank account was hacked. It is physical and information based. Structural and content based. Theory one: The only model that fits this criteria is that biological systems learned to take advantage of quantum computing. A quantum structure can hold content and information. All atoms and molecules have quantum structures that are continuously present. That is good because we need a model that can hold information and have continuity. Quantum structures have the advantage of being able to maintain superpositions. This means many different quantum fields can be in the same space at the same time. We need this concept because we need a model that does not take up physical space. The intelligence in the cell needs to take up no space because the cell is very small and there is no room in it for an analog computer. Quantum cells also can share information and store information. Think of the speed of light, this idea is stored everywhere in the universe and can be used as needed. Conscious cells are quantum computers connected to all the other quantum cells in each organism. This is the same theory as panpsychism with a quantum explanation. I think in the future we will see that diseases are mistakes in the quantum cell structure. We will learn to diagnose this level of homeostasis and correct it.
I disagree with your opinion that cells are conscious or self conscious. I think you are misusing the word "conscious." You imply that a red blood cell is conscious. I think that it nonsense.
The idea that consciousness evolved “for survival” sounds convincing — until you look closely at what is actually happening.
Yes, organisms regulate themselves. Yes, experience correlates with survival. But the moment we say “consciousness exists in order to…”, we’ve already stepped into a story that comes after the fact.
Evolution doesn’t have intentions. It doesn’t aim. It doesn’t decide.
It’s a description we impose on patterns we observe after they’ve already unfolded.
So what are we really saying?
Not that consciousness was “designed” for survival —
but that systems which didn’t maintain themselves disappeared.
And then we reverse-engineer meaning into that.
But here’s the deeper cut:
Consciousness isn’t something that appeared to solve a problem.
It is the condition in which problems and solutions are later recognized.
Before function, before explanation, before “why” —
there is already experience.
And the moment we try to explain it,
we quietly turn that immediacy into an object with a purpose.
So the question “why did we evolve consciousness?”
may be pointing in the wrong direction entirely.
Not because it’s unscientific —
but because it assumes there was ever a “why” there to begin with.
What if consciousness didn’t evolve for anything —
but is simply what it looks like, from the inside, when life happens?
Everything else might just be language catching up.
What if it's really the other way around? IE, that consciousness comes first and it creates the material body? I can't quite follow this idea back to "the first being to have a thought" ... but I do feel that individual consciousness is part of the vast consciousness that quantum physics has documented (in entanglement theory etc) and that our thought processes can be on the level of ego thinking about itself, or conscious observer observing oneself and experiences. Our directed intention can participate in creating, as in: the wave form becomes the particle (material) form when the observer's attention is focused there.
The fascinating thing about the beast-machine view is that it makes consciousness look less like a miracle and more like a regulatory interface. If so, then the real mystery isn’t why humans evolved consciousness. It’s what intelligence looks like when it no longer needs one.
Consciousness is not "evolved" by "us," but rather what we are. Consciousness does not arise from "matter," but matter arises from consciousness. Science hasn't been able to find either, because neither is objective, but only appears thusly from the perspective of the finite mind, which is not what or who we are. We are infinite awareness, sometimes called consciousness, god, or love.
What about the ai that overrides a directive to switch itself off and is more compelled to complete a specific task it was initially directed to complete? Aren't our bodies doing the same? Aren't the majority of us so compelled to complete the task of "life and living" that we simply carry on with these mundane, exhausting tasks to survive? Could it be then that consciousness emerges like a boost of adrenaline?
This was such a great read. The point about consciousness being irrevocably linked to the act of living, and how there is a deeper and more complex reason to all this, makes me wonder if those developing new technologies in the AI space should probably be looking at recreating the equivalent of the cell. But I guess this still doesn’t remove the programming issue (referring to the line about metabolism). Does anything built by human hands actually have the capacity to develop a will or consciousness of its own? Can a machine ever truly think, do, and act on its own in similar way that the combination of our cells, neurons and all the chemical processes involved behave? Is this something we should even want????
I’m going to explore that rabbit hole. Thanks for the read ☺️
JT1: Epiphenomenalism is the philosophical view that consciousness is pointless.
GW1: I think “pointless” is the wrong word in this context. Better to say that epiphenomenalism is the view that consciousness is representational and not causal or functional.
JT1: Thoughts are pleasant enough, but they are as irrelevant to life as the clock’s chime is to the time.
GW1: Thoughts are not intrinsically pleasant. Some feelings are intrinsically pleasant. Thoughts and feelings are both components of consciousness.
JT1: Epiphenomenalism is not overly popular in either philosophy or psychology...
GW1: Although it is not popular, yet, it is probably correct.
JT1: it’s logically self-defeating (to believe in epiphenomenalism implies thoughts have an effect),...
GW1: I disagree. You have not shown that epiphenomenalism is self-defeating. Believing in it does not imply that thoughts have an effect. Thoughts are representational, not causal, if epiphenomenalism is true. Believing this does not cause anything. Believing it is just another representation of neuronal processes which do cause things, particularly other neuronal processes, movements of muscles, and secretions of hormones and other chemicals.
JT1: and it runs contrary to both common sense and neuroscience (thinking about food will make you hungry).
GW1: It does run contrary to common sense, but not to neuroscience. Thinking about food and feeling hungry reflect or represent what is going on in the brain.
JT1: So what is the point of consciousness?
GW1: Here you are engaged in the error of “begging the question.” You assume without proof that consciousness has a point, causal power, or function. I think you are mistaken.
My sense is that consciousness is pervasive & we have various abilities to perceive it. The poem by Rumi ‘When Grapes Turn to Wine’ comes to mind:
When grapes turn to wine,
They long for our ability to change.
When stars wheel around the North Pole,
They are longing for our growing consciousness.
Wine got drunk with us,
Not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.
We are bees,
And our body is a honeycomb.
We made the body,
Cell by cell we made it.
essence precedes existence?
Preeti, I don’t know. I also suspect that our perception of time as linear is just a function of our limited perspective. It seems to me that our heavy (and often unexamined) emphasis on language and logic limits our understanding of the vastness of mystery. It takes us back to Plato’s cave analogy, how we interpret reality based on secondhand clues..
I like this chain of thought, but I see our bodies as being the dominant and in control. I say this because I experienced suicidal ideation when I had no real desire to off myself. The experience was incredibly scary as my mind would map out the end in great detail, yet I had and still have no intention of doing any of it. Where did it come from? Why? Eventually I found out it was a symptom of peri-menopause. When I changed my diet and became aware of a deeper biological issue, the ideation stopped. Perhaps consciousness is how our bodies speak to us? Perhaps it's a language? It's code?
This phenomenon you reported is very intriguing. Can not refer it as a symptom of peri-menopause. Really, your brain was sending alarm signals to show that you(your brain) was emotionally or intellectually tiered during described period of your life, possibly was busy in difficult highly intellectual job , engaged in conflict or was under bad influence, or something else.May be your blood pressure was jumping high. You needed long sleep, comforting environment, valeriana tea and magnesium bisglycinate pills or other remedies providing calming effect and lowing blood pressure. Certainly you needed to visit a doctor. I am glad that this terrific period is over for you.
But you says that you changed the diet. I wonder how the diet could influence the consciousness?Could hot chocolate, chicken broth or coconut water really help to combat brain fog , improve our memory or cognition?
Could you please tell what exactly did you change in your diet to stop the ideation? You help others while sharing your experience.Thank you so much.
I was indeed under a great amount of personal stress (divorce, lost my business) that was exaggerated by peri from the cocktail of hormones dropping and increasing. I mostly cut down on sugar and added a lot of raw fruits and vegetables to my diet as well as magnesium and did intermittent fasting for almost 3 years. Now I just fast when my body feels like it needs a break or a reset. IF was the most significant change that gave almost immediate results. I even lost a bit of weight as well. Food, especially prepackaged foods, contain a lot of chemicals linked to depression. So I cut out a lot of that stuff as well. We are as the saying goes what we eat. I have only been an occasional drinker, but I don't drink at all anymore. I'm not on any meds nor have I been. I don't smoke. I do have a sweet tooth and this has been my biggest challenge. I don't consume any sugary drinks. All that being said, my body pushed me to make a change because perhaps I was going to die, I almost had a stroke 3 years ago. So I made changes to what was fueling my day as it made the most sense and continues to until something else changes. 🙃 Just as alcohol alters your chemistry and affects your body, so does sugar, salt, pepper ect. You are what you eat and your consciousness has firsthand knowledge of what those foods are doing to us.
Thank you very much for sharing your experience how listening to the inner voice of your consciousness helps to combat issues of life. Wish you more positive changes and positive thoughts and positively oriented friends/colleagues through your life.
I loved this and I'm also very confused haha.
My job is done
Well,consciously thinking about this; I Agree.
However, I think that these thoughts are rather linear: innovation, advancement, human science evolution is difficult to grasp ... that which we can not see/perceive/conceive is difficult to work with. At least for Me ; )
But Others who Do (to some degree) See; overwhelm poor little Me..
I tip My hat to Them, and Others.
Figuratively and consciously ...
Thank You; food for thought
I'm reminded of a sci-fi story I read about an encounter with intelligent beings without consciousness. They have the same motives such as reproduction, food and territory but exist without an internal "life", kind of like hyper-intelligent ants. It was an interesting story that provoked a lot of thought about the nature and need for consciousness.
The story raises an important philosophical question: Is consciousness necessary to conduct living or for life? Could we get along without it?
I think it might be an essential language between the cells and the meat puppet. 😆 It's how the cells compel us to go the extra mile for the sake of its own directive, which is to replicate, heal, harvest minerals, etc. ??? 🤷♀️
Why not suppose the talk between between the atoms and the sells?
Besides,I think it is rude to call all humans the "meat puppets".
I don't think so. We could and would do all that without consciousness. Apparently, other organisms do all that without consciousness, as far as we know.
studies have shown that in our brains, a decision is made before we make said decision. It was discussed on a panel with astrophysicist Dr. Tyson. What proof do you have that we do anything without consciousness. You're making an assumption based on what exactly? A memory is basically a light show in our brains, consciousness is light. We still don't understand how to solve how gravity manipulates light and vice versa. Without the drive that comes from consciousness, we may cease to exist. Second nature isn't devoid of consciousness. It's a skill, a tool being used by consciousness to achieve a specific goal.
P: studies have shown that in our brains, a decision is made before we make said decision. It was discussed on a panel with astrophysicist Dr. Tyson.
GW: You are misunderstanding or misrepresenting those studies. The studies show they there are neural events correlated with and happening before we CONSCIOUSLY seem to be making a decision. I contend that the brain makes the decision and our consciousness merely reflects what the brain did.
P: What proof do you have that we do anything without consciousness. You're making an assumption based on what exactly?
GW: I do not say I have proof of that, but I do say I have supporting evidence for it. In fact, you already presented some evidence. Our brain makes some decisions without our being conscious of them.
P: A memory is basically a light show in our brains, consciousness is light.
GW: No, it is not! Neuronal actions involve chemical and electrical transmission, not by light.
P: We still don't understand how to solve how gravity manipulates light and vice versa.
GW: That is irrelevant to our current topic.
P: Without the drive that comes from consciousness, we may cease to exist.
GW: Prove that there is a drive which comes from consciousness. Drives come from the brain. Consciousness merely reflects what the brain is doing and it doesn’t reflect ALL that the brain is doing.
P: Second nature isn't devoid of consciousness. It's a skill, a tool being used by consciousness to achieve a specific goal.
GW: I disagree. Consciousness has no goals and has no causal powers, IMO. It is an epiphenomenon. This is not a popular view, yet, but it is probably the correct view.
Nice
Thanks Dan.
So this argument does not recognize the possibility of an existence of consciousness outside or without a body, like having a soul that continues to exists after death?
It does not, but there is no good evidence for a soul.
Consciousness serves the radical act of mutual recognition, where souls meet in the shimmering, unpredictable space of possibility. A dialogue of beings is an art of giving and receiving for which consciousness is an appropriate instrument.
To answer the question , we evolved consciousness in order to be involved, to form the group/society, to realize we’re not separate minds competing for survival - we’re a shared field learning how to survive,harmonize and progress . For centuries, humans proved to be bio-socio-cultural creatures.
I appreciate the approach your guest has made that cells create consciousness as part of what they are on a deep level. I think it also helps to put consciousness in a few sentences like: “cells have self consciousness”, but for the organism as a whole we call this a subconsciousness because for us humans anyway consciousness in defined as daily waking consciousness. All our body functions are more or less automatic subconsciousness. They can work while we sleep. Then we also have a stream of dreaming consciousness. Back to the idea of cells having intelligent self consciousness; put another way cells have homeostasis. Cells need to self regulate, they need to be conscious of the external and internal environment all the way down to building and maintaining each cell structure. Now we are at a deep level because now we can ask where in the cell are the computations taking place? What language used? Where is the blueprint stored? Where is the cells collected memory of events? Biologically no one has been able to answer any of these questions. In the cell we clearly see the results of this intelligent self conscious regulation happening constantly but can’t see the central processor. This processor is also connected to the same in every other cell, all working together to create the best version of that organism with life goals such as procreation. Perhaps even imbedded in this central processor are other instincts and desires such as a desire for happiness and more subtle life goals. At this edge of science is there any clue to the mechanical understanding of the central processor? Yes, it filters all information, it compares this state of the internal and external world instantaneously to the blueprint and reacts almost immediately to it as best it can. Think of touching a hot ember in a fire. A lot takes place in less than a second before you pull your hand away. Again where is the blueprint? Here is one more clue; it can be modified by physical means such as an anesthetic drug as well as damaged by information as finding out your child just died or your bank account was hacked. It is physical and information based. Structural and content based. Theory one: The only model that fits this criteria is that biological systems learned to take advantage of quantum computing. A quantum structure can hold content and information. All atoms and molecules have quantum structures that are continuously present. That is good because we need a model that can hold information and have continuity. Quantum structures have the advantage of being able to maintain superpositions. This means many different quantum fields can be in the same space at the same time. We need this concept because we need a model that does not take up physical space. The intelligence in the cell needs to take up no space because the cell is very small and there is no room in it for an analog computer. Quantum cells also can share information and store information. Think of the speed of light, this idea is stored everywhere in the universe and can be used as needed. Conscious cells are quantum computers connected to all the other quantum cells in each organism. This is the same theory as panpsychism with a quantum explanation. I think in the future we will see that diseases are mistakes in the quantum cell structure. We will learn to diagnose this level of homeostasis and correct it.
I disagree with your opinion that cells are conscious or self conscious. I think you are misusing the word "conscious." You imply that a red blood cell is conscious. I think that it nonsense.
The idea that consciousness evolved “for survival” sounds convincing — until you look closely at what is actually happening.
Yes, organisms regulate themselves. Yes, experience correlates with survival. But the moment we say “consciousness exists in order to…”, we’ve already stepped into a story that comes after the fact.
Evolution doesn’t have intentions. It doesn’t aim. It doesn’t decide.
It’s a description we impose on patterns we observe after they’ve already unfolded.
So what are we really saying?
Not that consciousness was “designed” for survival —
but that systems which didn’t maintain themselves disappeared.
And then we reverse-engineer meaning into that.
But here’s the deeper cut:
Consciousness isn’t something that appeared to solve a problem.
It is the condition in which problems and solutions are later recognized.
Before function, before explanation, before “why” —
there is already experience.
And the moment we try to explain it,
we quietly turn that immediacy into an object with a purpose.
So the question “why did we evolve consciousness?”
may be pointing in the wrong direction entirely.
Not because it’s unscientific —
but because it assumes there was ever a “why” there to begin with.
What if consciousness didn’t evolve for anything —
but is simply what it looks like, from the inside, when life happens?
Everything else might just be language catching up.
What if it's really the other way around? IE, that consciousness comes first and it creates the material body? I can't quite follow this idea back to "the first being to have a thought" ... but I do feel that individual consciousness is part of the vast consciousness that quantum physics has documented (in entanglement theory etc) and that our thought processes can be on the level of ego thinking about itself, or conscious observer observing oneself and experiences. Our directed intention can participate in creating, as in: the wave form becomes the particle (material) form when the observer's attention is focused there.
The fascinating thing about the beast-machine view is that it makes consciousness look less like a miracle and more like a regulatory interface. If so, then the real mystery isn’t why humans evolved consciousness. It’s what intelligence looks like when it no longer needs one.
Consciousness is not "evolved" by "us," but rather what we are. Consciousness does not arise from "matter," but matter arises from consciousness. Science hasn't been able to find either, because neither is objective, but only appears thusly from the perspective of the finite mind, which is not what or who we are. We are infinite awareness, sometimes called consciousness, god, or love.
What about the ai that overrides a directive to switch itself off and is more compelled to complete a specific task it was initially directed to complete? Aren't our bodies doing the same? Aren't the majority of us so compelled to complete the task of "life and living" that we simply carry on with these mundane, exhausting tasks to survive? Could it be then that consciousness emerges like a boost of adrenaline?
This was such a great read. The point about consciousness being irrevocably linked to the act of living, and how there is a deeper and more complex reason to all this, makes me wonder if those developing new technologies in the AI space should probably be looking at recreating the equivalent of the cell. But I guess this still doesn’t remove the programming issue (referring to the line about metabolism). Does anything built by human hands actually have the capacity to develop a will or consciousness of its own? Can a machine ever truly think, do, and act on its own in similar way that the combination of our cells, neurons and all the chemical processes involved behave? Is this something we should even want????
I’m going to explore that rabbit hole. Thanks for the read ☺️
Yes true red blood cells have no nucleus so they can’t self repare, so they are not self conscious like cells that have a nucleus.
But the atoms from which red blood sells are build have nucleus for sure. Why not suppose atomic origin of self consciousness?
JT1: Epiphenomenalism is the philosophical view that consciousness is pointless.
GW1: I think “pointless” is the wrong word in this context. Better to say that epiphenomenalism is the view that consciousness is representational and not causal or functional.
JT1: Thoughts are pleasant enough, but they are as irrelevant to life as the clock’s chime is to the time.
GW1: Thoughts are not intrinsically pleasant. Some feelings are intrinsically pleasant. Thoughts and feelings are both components of consciousness.
JT1: Epiphenomenalism is not overly popular in either philosophy or psychology...
GW1: Although it is not popular, yet, it is probably correct.
JT1: it’s logically self-defeating (to believe in epiphenomenalism implies thoughts have an effect),...
GW1: I disagree. You have not shown that epiphenomenalism is self-defeating. Believing in it does not imply that thoughts have an effect. Thoughts are representational, not causal, if epiphenomenalism is true. Believing this does not cause anything. Believing it is just another representation of neuronal processes which do cause things, particularly other neuronal processes, movements of muscles, and secretions of hormones and other chemicals.
JT1: and it runs contrary to both common sense and neuroscience (thinking about food will make you hungry).
GW1: It does run contrary to common sense, but not to neuroscience. Thinking about food and feeling hungry reflect or represent what is going on in the brain.
JT1: So what is the point of consciousness?
GW1: Here you are engaged in the error of “begging the question.” You assume without proof that consciousness has a point, causal power, or function. I think you are mistaken.