The scientist Carl Sagan once claimed that he was nothing more than the atoms that formed his physical structure, especially his brain. This statement is not in the least surprising coming from the key spokesman of fundamentalist materialism and dogmatic atheism of his time.
Yet there is something almost unbelievable about an eminent scientist being so utterly blinded by a non-scientific philosophy (physicalism, atheism, naturalism) that he failed to see the obvious reasons why his statement cannot be accepted from the vantage point of science. Here are just a few reasons why Carl Sagan was wrong, wrong, wrong:
1. Every particle in your (and my body) has been replaced endlessly during our lives. My brain is today made up of a completely different set of atoms and sub-atomic particles than it was a few months or years ago. As Roger Penrose says:
…there is a continual turnover in the material of any living person’s body. This applies in particular to the cells in a person’s brain, despite the fact that no new actual brain cells are produced after birth. The vast majority of atoms in each living cell (including each brain cell)—and, indeed, virtually the entire material of our bodies—has been replaced many times since birth (The Emperor’s New Mind, Penguin Books, 1989, pp. 24-25)
In other words, brick by brick I am being rebuilt each day, with the illusion of a physical form that is unchanged. Yet astoundingly, my self-awareness and consciousness has never been disrupted or affected by this process of continuous re-creation. I am therefore an non-physical being, with an ever changing physical form. My consciousness precedes my body, and is therefore capable of existence without it.
Think of this, how do the particles in your brain that hold your memories from decades ago, hold these memories? They are completely different from those that formed your brain when those events took place, yet the information that is ‘you’ has passed from that set of particles to another set of particles seamlessly.
‘I’ am therefore a non physical mind that ‘materialises’ during my earthly stay with particles coming and going from my physical form as new water constantly flows in the same river. Yet there is nothing preventing my consciousness being transferred to particles that are not associated with my physical form, and nor is it impossible that particles may ‘broadcast’ consciousness rather than store it. If this is the case even the destruction of all physical particles in the universe does not preclude my existence as as a self-aware and existent person.
2. If I was the atoms in my brain (which is palpably false as described above) my thoughts would be random chemical events and therefore have no necessary relationship to truth. If this was true, to paraphrase JBS Haldane, why assume I have a brain made of atoms?
3. Quantum Physics proves that all of material reality is made up of sub-atomic particles. These particles are not in any way different in, say a telephone and a person. So what is it about the atoms of the brain that could create consciousness? The answer is sweet nothing. Check out this article for more proof that mind creates matter and not the other way around.
Peace!