The Truth About Consciousness. Based On Science.

There's nothing special about an individual. He/she has no soul. Theres nowhere for an individual to go when he/she dies, and there's nowhere the individual came from before he/she was born. There is just the universe producing individuals that develop consciousness through corporeal means. The fact that you exist here, now rather than another time and another place, for me, points to the idea that its not that I exist, its that the universe creates individuals that get consciousness. There are countless conscious beings. The only reason this one is me is because of my corporeal nature. I exist as an individual today because there are individuals that exist today. There will also be individuals that exist after I'm gone, and I will be there too. Im not special. I'm just one individual of many. I'm conscious because individuals are conscious. My death will be irrelevant to my existence. There are more individuals in the universe. The "I" that is me is irrelevant. There are many "I's". My fixed perspective in this one is irrelevant. There are many fixed perspectives. My individuality is not important. What's important is that there are many individuals. My individuality is one of many in my existence.

I see now what you mean by "based on science." Due to the empirical nature of scientific study we cannot posit the existence of a soul, life after death, or anything non-material for that matter. As a result, you jump to the conclusion that we don't have a soul, and there is no life after death. You point to matters of fact, and deny the existence of anything that is not a matter of fact. While this is not necessarily my viewpoint, it is a fairly common one, in line with most scientists and philosophers of science who believe in a Physicalist view of our existence.

Where my confusion stems from is how you deny the existence of a soul or life after death, yet maintain the existence of consciousness. While we have more hope for scientifically reducing consciousness, we are nowhere near doing so. At this point, consciousness has eluded scientific explanation just as much as "the soul" and "life after death." Instead of science, you appeal to our universal subjective belief in consciousness as: something we can't explain, but know we have.

My problem with this... since you posit the existence of consciousness, it deserves a scientific explanation, does it not? If you can't provide a scientific explanation for consciousness, it seems unreasonable to expect me to arbitrarily reject a number of immaterial phenomena such as "the soul" and "life after death," yet accept the existence of a potentially immaterial consciousness. As far as I know my subjective belief in "the soul" and "life after death" is just as valid as my belief in consciousness.