The question posed is this: "Is consciousness real?"
The philosopher Michael Polanyi posits the reality of consciousness, and
advocates its ontological irreducibility to physics and chemistry by
appeal to the concepts of emergence, boundary conditions and the like.
And the physicist-clergyman Polkinghorne asked this question, "If
chemistry is physics writ large, can we be as sure that biology is
chemistry writ large."
The question of consciousness then follows; "Is consciousness biology
writ large?"
While there are certainly orthodox Christian theologians who would answer
Polkinghorne's question with a "yes," Van Till being one, I believe, I am
not aware of any that would assent to the second question. It would
appear that the atheistic community, represented in this case by Dawkins
and Weinberg, would assert a "yes" to both questions.
My own view is that both questions deserve a "no" answer, or at the very
least, the first is "probably no" and the second an "absolutely no."
Comments anyone?
John Burgeson (Burgy)
http://www.burgy.50megs.com
(science/theology, quantum mechanics, baseball, ethics,
humor, cars, God's intervention into natural causation, etc.)
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