Letters to the Editor
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@jazztao
I would argue, however, that you're still driving for a fully materialistic explanation of 'awareness'. And this might be possible if we each, as individuals, lived in a vacuum. But, each and every one of us lives in some sort of community where there exist collective awareness and understanding. It is this fact that leads me to believe that awareness is not something so simple as a firing of neurons.
No, I am arguing that there is no explanation for awareness, that even at our primitive level of rational development, the limitations of what we can understand are visible. Nor do I think that there is any collective awareness that is independent of the brains of the individuals in the community.
Further, your statement, "But I see no evidence that any awareness occurs without neural activity, just that awareness is more fundamental and not tied to the "higher" types of mental activity that humans think they are good at." seems to me a wish that some more fundamental type of mental function will be discovered. Perhaps the whole thing is a chicken and egg proposition, and just as likely there could be no neural activity without awareness?
Not really, I do not think that there is any such thing to discover. I do not see how you can assign a direction of causality to a relationship that cannot be understood.