Militant atheist Richard Carrier is on the war path here, and his drone strikes cover a wide territory. Not to mention his constant curse-words! It´s frankly a bit annoying to hear Thomas Nagel being referred to as an "infamous nut-job" or the Biblical idea of the fall being called "batshit crazy"...and those are the nicer invectives! And what´s up with the coconut-eating dinosaurs? Dude!
Most of the essay attacks the idea that the brain is just a "receiver" or "radio", picking up consciousness from elsewhere. Carrier takes the standard materialist position that the brain itself generates consciousness. He discusses split-brain patients and color vision at some length. Somewhere here, he finally calms down (at least a bit).
Another and perhaps more intriguing aspect of the essay is that Carrier is trying to map non-Catholic philosophers (including atheists) who converted to Catholicism. He believes that this is some kind of trend in academe. If so, I wonder if it´s connected to the Second Religiosity discussed elsewhere?
My own take is that consciousness-generating matter is really panpsychist, and that people will always "fill in the blanks" with religion, since there is something deeply mysterious (and deeply disturbing) with our predicament.
If you know, you know.
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