it could also be that all of this is made up by us humans because we feel a need for things to have deep meaning, but in fact everything is just atoms doing stuff and so long as it’s the same kind of atoms doing the same thing then for all intents and purposes it is the same thing.
That’s not mutually exclusive at all. The question is what the experience of consciousness is. Why am “I” watching these atoms do their thing and experiencing that, rather than a similar set of atoms.
it could also be that all of this is made up by us humans because we feel a need for things to have deep meaning, but in fact everything is just atoms doing stuff and so long as it’s the same kind of atoms doing the same thing then for all intents and purposes it is the same thing.
That’s not mutually exclusive at all. The question is what the experience of consciousness is. Why am “I” watching these atoms do their thing and experiencing that, rather than a similar set of atoms.