Welcome to Within Reason. My name is Alex O'Connor. Josh Rasmussen is an associate professor of philosophy at

Azusa Pacific University with an expertise in analytic metaphysics. He's the author of a number of books, including How Reason Can Lead to God, and Who Are You Really, a philosopher's inquiry into the nature and origin of persons?

He's also the founder of the Worldview Design YouTube channel, which according to his

website helps people to use reason to address the big questions of life. Josh joined me today

to talk about consciousness. What are some of the problems

with supposing that the universe is fundamentally mindless? What are some of the problems

with assuming the opposite? How might consciousness emerge from the purely material?

And if it can't, does this mean that the question of consciousness is immune to scientific

inquiry? And does this have any implications as to whether we should be theists?

To explain and discuss these important questions along with many others, I give you Josh Rasmussen.

Josh Rasmussen, thanks for being here.

Thank you. Appreciate being with you, Alex.

What is it about consciousness that amazed by the starry night above and the moral law within and I'm amazed by the

existence of all kinds of things I mean thinking about a star for example I was

thinking about this earlier today it's this sort of nuclear factory just floating about in space.

That to me is absolutely fascinating.

The existence of mountains and water and planets and laws like gravity. But for some reason this one thing that exists in the

universe consciousness seems to be of particular interest of

philosophers in a way that it's thought of us having this unique mystery, this unique attractiveness

to thinking about where it might have come from.

Why is that?

What's special about consciousness?

...