From Denyse O’Leary at Evolution News & Views:
We know almost nothing about the human consciousness but naturalism must treat it as evolved from unconscious elements. Much confusion is avoided by recognizing that that is a core assumption, not a discovery.
Naturalist theories of consciousness currently proliferate with abandon because there is no basis for deciding among them. They are tossed, like hats, into a ring.
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The third proposal, that everything is conscious, is the subtlest: If everything is conscious, nothing is. If rocks have minds, humans, for all practical purposes, do not. We are back to the first proposal, that consciousness is an evolved illusion, having learned nothing. There is an irony here: Naturalists have learned nothing for tens of millennia. Stone Age naturalists definitely held that inanimate objects are or can be conscious. That belief was the core assumption underlying many superstitions. More.
Naturalists do not want to solve the problem of consciousness.That would mean questioning naturalism. They only want to dance around it, in elegant essays and theory-of-the-month speculations, and keep others from trying new paths.
See also: How naturalism rots science from the head down
The Big Bang: Put simply,the facts are wrong.
What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?
Cosmology is naturalism’s playground. But does the fun mask a science decline?
Post-modern physics: String theory gets over the need for evidence
Cosmic inflation theory loses hangups about the scientific methodWhat if naturalism changes the role of a science program? Perhaps stubbornly contrary evidence merely shows the need for more drive and zeal in generating new naturalist theories, not more reflection and evaluation of that direction.
The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide
Question for multiverse theorists: To what can science appeal, if not evidence?