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"Are we the living or the dead?"
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Hmmmmm!!! Very concise, Stan. Consciousness may well be the 'final frontier' for our reductionist, western mode of philosophy. Most scientists behave more like priests when confronted with the conundrum that is consciousness, requiring as a matter of faith that it is merely an epiphenomenon arising from the complexity of the switching center we call the brain.
On the other hand, our science and mathematics have yielded some remarkable evidence that consciousness, whatever its essence, is a non-algorithmic entity that can never be simulated with software. Whether or not this arises from some unknown aspect of physical brain structure is moot, but I would suggest that with physicists routinely claiming many dimensions beyond the familiar four, there is much room for informed speculation. Penrose is most informative (and delightfully speculative in a rigorous sort of way) in this matter. Thanks for the thoughtful and interesting post on this important and fascinating matter.
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