How do you explain consciousness?

Yes -- indeed human babies grow to be adults if all goes well .. and Vodka Martini's contain Vodka rather than Gin.. I prefer Gin Martini's myself but, neither has anything to do with the subject matter nor does the fact that biological entities other than humans have achieved consciousness.

I have pointed out that the equipment that exists now .. exists now .. not sure who brought it up first. What you are not getting is the distinction between having the equipment and not having the equipment. .. perhaps it is here where you are stuck. There is no connection between the thought - and the physical realm at this time .. we are at a period of time prior to the existence of such .. molecules interacting .. creating structures.. There is no baby -- there is no dog .. nor human .. there is just matter/energy. -- no consciousness - no self awarness .. unless you want to claim that a rock is self aware.

Do you wish to claim a rock is self aware .. has consciousness and thoughts -- as this is the only way the position you have taken holds.

 

I would appreciate a little more clarity concerning what you think we don't have.

We DO have brains that can calculate what action should be taken and then carry out that action.

In fact, our brains operate continuously in the background, even when sleeping, to evaluate input from our senses, keeping our organs functioning, giving us dreams, etc.. Our brains even decide whether any of that justifies waking us up.

I just don't see what it is that you think is missing in terms of the capabilities of our brains.

 

Your missing the boat completely .. we don't exist .. so we don't have anything - we are assessing a time where there are no humans .. no dogs .. no plants. What is being discussed is "The first thought" .. when the matter realizes it exists.

 

There is a continuum of brain evolution.

It probably starts with animals in the protozoa range gaining sensitivity to light and taking action due to shadows - an evolutionary advantage of tying a sense to an action to survive.

I'm not so sure that this concern about "the first thought" is even a legitimate way of looking at the problem.

I don't get your "no dogs" idea as dogs do not pass the mirror test of self recognition. On the other hand, magpies, elephants, dolphins, apes, etc., do recognize themselves in a mirror.

So, you know that dogs are part of the "before" and these others are part of the "after" in terms of that level of brain development.

 

Sure there is a continuum .. after the first thought .. the first brain cell .. but you have no idea how the first brain evolved ... the first brain cell .. and yes it is legitimate to look at the first thought .. as that is the subject of the conversation .. dismissing this period of time .. is not a solution to the problem..

Legitimate way of looking at what problem ?.. you have yet to figure out what the problem is - never mind determine what is legitimate and what is not a legit way of looking at the problem

.After dismissing the problem you don't understand - and have no desire to understand - you go on about some completely irrelevant gibberish - animals recognizing themselves in the mirror.

Sorry mate - what part of "There are no animals" did you not understand ? You are on a circular merry go round .. "A dolphin looks at himself in the mirror - and recognizes himself - so a dolphin must be conscious" Circular rubbish mate .. not an explanation for how conscious arose in any way shape or form .. all you are saying is Conscious exists because conscious exists .. "I think therefor I Am" the only thing we know for sure .. as stated at the beginning.. This however tells us nothing about how this conscious was able to manifest itself into physical reality.

 

That is what the Greeks erroneously came to conclude because they did not have the technology we have and thus, did not understand how the brain functions.

That grotesque error was further compounded by the teachings of the idiot Aristotle.

It was compounded further still when the Imperial Roman Catholic Church adopted the teachings of Aristotle wholesale, which included the Earth is flat and the center of our Solar System and Universe, and then made it worse by forcing everyone to accept it under penalty of death.

That is one of the many reasons the Imperial Roman Catholic Church murdered 42,000+ people in a single day in one French town.

It is fictional fantasy.

This concoction of the soul by the Greeks is exactly akin to this scenario:

You watch a car drive down the street. You have no knowledge of internal combustion, plus you cannot see the combustion taking place, and you have no possible of way of discovering how the engine really works, because you lack the technology to do so and it will be will more than 2,000 years before you have the technology to understand combustion.

So, you conclude that it must be hamsters trained by leprechauns that make the car go.

Then, someone with a lot of clout in your society adopts your fictional fantasy and says it's true.

And then, your government likes this revered person and so it adopts their false view wholesale, and then forces everyone to believe it starting at the youngest age under penalty of torture, death, exile etc.

Finally, the day arrives 2,000 years later when the technology exists. Someone tears apart a combustion engine and realizes there are no hamsters trained by leprechauns making the engine work.

But still.....some people refuse to accept that and continue to believe that the car is powered by leprechaun-trained hamsters, and they insist everyone else believe as they do.

The methodology in the so-called study you posted is highly suspect and based largely on an earlier "study" (snicker) published in 2002 in the, um, Journal of Near Death Experiences.

This jumped out at me:

"When they showed me pictures of their son, I knew him directly."

That is not only flawed, it's suspect. No court in the US would ever accept that as evidence.

I'm certain that had she been presented with a photo-array of at least six photos, she would have failed to properly identify the heart-donor on the first 4-5 attempts.

That particular study is irrelevant, since the sample size is only 10, and my guess is they probably interviewed 100 or more and then cherry-picked the 10 that said what they wanted to hear.

Such studies ignore the psychological impact of death/dying.

It's not unusual for people given a 2nd chance at life to change their lives in a variety of ways. Also, hearts or heart-lungs are not the only organs that are transplanted, so you have to wonder why they ignore those, but only for a second until you realize they have an agenda to serve.

 

RE: How do you explain consciousness?
SUBTOPIC: What is it?
※→ Micea, et al,

(INTRO) What is the perception and the ability to experience what the senses detect and the specific threshold awareness?

BLUF: Is it related to the concept of a soul? The soul is an undefined element. If you refer to the Roman Catholic version, the (human) soul is unique. And this unique quality is independent of the material body. This generalized concept is essential if the individual has a spiritual belief in a higher plain of existence after the death of the material body (i.e., heaven). There is no universal definition or set of characteristics in the undefined concept of the soul. But the belief in the soul is a mental capacity to imagine something beyond the immediate understanding of time and space.

(COMMENT)

Because we cannot define the scope, nature, capacity, and effects of a soul, we cannot make a sound and valid capitative judgment as to the similarities or differences (or relationship) between "consciousness" and the "soul." So, the implied question: So, then consciousness = soul? is an undefined equation. Further compounding the evaluation is the notion that when the doctor says: the patient has "regained" consciousness, what is being said is that the patient is now able to interact with the surroundings in some degree. When the doctor says the patient is brain dead, the patient is described as having lost all brain activity. The region between consciousness and brain dead is a gray area. We call this the "unconscious." Dying is the gradual loss of consciousness drifting ever deeper into an unrecoverable state (death). That is another undefined threshold. At what point is the life unrecoverable to a state of consciousness? What must happen to turn the brain on to a state of consciousness?

(COMMENT)

The enforcement of a specific belief system has been around since a time before Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Queen Nefertiti, more than 3000 years ago, when they tried to induce a monotheistic belief system in the Sun God. In the Middle East today, the Arab Palestinians are trying to reverse the establishment of the Jewish National Home. The Islamic Resistance Movement (AKA: HAMAS) holds it's "allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine" through rather ruthless enforcement measures. A similar such Islamic purveyor of horror is DEASH (the Islamic State of the Levant). While Rome has grown out of that shadow, Islam still is a very dark teaching.

Just my simple thought,

Most Respectfully,
R

 

It's inexplicable, or if it isn't, it's one of the two hardest questions there are, with the other being "why is there anything rather than nothing?" It just seems to be a brute fact that some physical processes give rise to consciousness, just as it's a brute fact that gravity attracts instead of repels.

What's worse, because we've got no explanation for why consciousness arises, we can't tell whether a system is conscious or just functioning as if it's conscious. If we build a conscious machine, we couldn't, even in principle, distinguish it from a machine that was just going through the motions.

 

Aristotle said that a soul is "the actuality of a body that has life." So he did believe in what he called "souls", but they aren't the non-physical objects of Catholic belief.

Also, Aristotle said that the Earth is round, and offered good arguments to demonstrate it.

Church resistance to believing that the Earth is round is because the round Earth view, advocated by Aristotle and other Greeks, appears to contradict the Bible.

 

I should add, to be fair to the Catholic Church, that they never officially declared the Earth to be flat, let alone put anyone to death for denying it.

The did persecute people for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun, but on the grounds that it contradicts the Bible, rather than anything to do with Aristotle.

 

The Reductionist perspective is one perspective - but certainly not the only perspective. Yet you are arguing defacto that it is the only perspective and thus are in error. "Science" can not answer basic questions - and thus - this perspective can not be claimed as the only possibility .. as you have done.

 

Here is an interesting video on the subject of the nature of consciousness and its effects on reality. Inspiring stuff.

 

Science currently lacks the technology to answer certain basic questions.

Science could not answer the question "what causes consciousness" in 600 BCE because it lacked the technology.

 

@impermanence

Hey Doc, I think you may enjoy the video that started this thread, if you have time and patience for videos.

 

Theistic Evolutionary Theory...... in my opinion... can explain all that is happening at this time........

in all seven or more invisible dimensions of space - time in addition to our four dimensional space time continuum........

www.CarbonBias.blogspot.ca

 

None of you addressed the "why" of it, which was the whole point of the TED Talk video. I agree with the two "crazy ideas," which the speaker focused upon: that consciousness is an elemental part, or fundamental quality, of matter-- and I would even say probably the most important force, in the universe; secondly, that it is universally ubiquitous. Funny, that the speaker is more confident of the first, than the second: that is like believing in gravity, in our own solar system, or galaxy, but being unsure if it is a universal quality. Again, I would go further, than just thinking that everything has some form of consciousness, to seeing this as almost assuring that all those consciousnesses interact, in larger, conscious systems, the greatest of all, being the Universe, Itself.

It is ironic, then-- since I am obviously not a scientific materialist, as the speaker describes himself as being, that I can nevertheless offer a practical reason, why consciousness (inner experience) would exist, even were it not woven into the structure of Creation, Itself. There is too much potential stimuli, for our sense organs to take it all in, for reconstructing our inner images of reality, as it exists, any given moment, around us. Therefore our brains must use discretion, as to which things to emphasize, and which to ignore. What this inner experience could be stipulated to be doing, like any other naturally selected and evolved trait, would be (to keep it basic) helping us to longer survive, and improve our chances of reproducing. This is because, as I said, our understanding of our surroundings are only partial, and fragmentary. But from these, we need to determine how to avoid harm, attain nourishment, attract a mate, and so forth.
IOW, our minds are "handicapping" the likely chances of any given event, based on whatever data, they see as most consequential. From their thumbnail sketches, of their surroundings, our minds must predict what will happen, even if it is not something, with which they have experience.

At a very simple level of this type of preferential attention, it is an easy concept for us to understand. But as we move from beyond the simple decisions of a given moment, into much more complex plans, and goals, and begin to need come up with these predictions, relating to much more complex creatures, like ourselves, we need not just the capacity for processing more information, but to go further beyond solely the most apparent indications. Thus, through enhancing our brain's ability to not only judge probabilities from actual data, but to imagine other scenarios, that is, to create realities within our own understanding, which are not drawn directly from stimuli from outside of ourselves, that consciousness cannot help but gain a greater independence from reality, as it exists outside of ourselves.

We now have the elements required to construct a reality, completely within our own beings. This is the realm of possessing ready made, mental tools, like theories, and philosophies, to apply to the problems which life lays out before us. A highly evolved consciousness, then, implies also a stronger sense of personal perspective.

 

Just for fun.
Is anyone familiar with the Yanny/Laurel phenomenon? This is somewhat similar to internet sensation of the blue dress or gold dress, which different people might see, though viewing the same image. This one, though, has more of a physiological explanation, as to why different people hear different things. The interesting thing is that, on my phone, I always hear the correct name; but when I initially heard of this goof of perception, over my television's sound system, I'd heard the other name, which is the one that younger people tend to hear.

 

So, what, are, you, saying? You, seem, to, ramble, a bit.

[I have a suggestion for you and me: we should throw away our comma keys.]

 

Is there a hierarchy of consciousness? Do we consider “lower life forms” such as chickens, cows, fish, sheep, goats etc to be “less conscious” than humans therefore more morally acceptable to chop into sandwiches or turn into boot leather? Do we live as though humanity has a specific quality, a soul perhaps, that other living beings do not have?

For your average Christian, these questions are pretty simple. God gave humanity dominion over the beasts of the field so go ahead and chop them into boot leather. What about the rest of us? If it’s ok to eat a cow because it is a simpler life form? If so, when is it ok to eat your uncle Steve because his consciousness has degraded due to old age and dementia? Does the consciousness experienced by a cat or dog relate to the consciousness that you or I experience? Are they even conscious at all?


How do you define consciousness?

 

RE: How do you explain consciousness?
SUBTOPIC: What is it?
SUBTOPIC: Reference Posting #132
※→ Dirty Rotten Imbecile, et al,

Consciousness has no physical properties. Consciousness cannot be assembled or placed in a container. From a Metaphysical standpoint, it is almost ethereal in its elusiveness to be defined. Consciousness does not exist in any realm under the scientific method.

Consciousness might be imaginary described by the interlocking functions it serves - and by those phenomena that are absent when unconscious:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli
• the integration of information by a cognitive system
• the reportability of mental states
• the ability of a system to access its own internal states
• the focus of attention
• the deliberate control of behavior
• the difference between wakefulness and sleep

SOURCE:
The Character of Consciousness by David J. Chalmers • Copyright 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016​

"Consciousness" is a conceptual phenomenon in a real sense. It is part of a reality beyond the general understanding of any creature whether it is perceived in either the conscious or unconscious state.


Most Respectfully,
R

 

If consciousness has no physical properties, how does it cause change in the physical world? For example, how does a piece of art go from idea to finished product? At some point, that non physical consciousness interfaces with physical reality and causes change.

I see consciousness as the emergent property that arises when multiple sensory inputs interface with a memory storage device that also has the features that you listed in your quote from David Chalmers there.

 

RE: How do you explain consciousness?
SUBTOPIC: What is it?
SUBTOPIC: Reference Posting #146
※→ Dirty Rotten Imbecile, et al,

"My Consciousness" impacts "Your Perception" of me. But "My Consciousness" does NOT affect "physical properties" with respect to "Your Perception" of me. "My Consciousness" is only detectable by the "sensory perception" by other life forms."

(COMMENT)

"My Consciousness" can only induce change through recognition by others. Your perception of my lack of consciousness (negative consciousness/unconsciousness) will induce some sort of change in you, with respect to me. But my consciousness (positive or negative) does not reach out and dictate the nature of the change. You decide, based on your perception, what the appropriate change or action should be.

(COMMENT)

The mistake here is that "you" cannot experience "my" consciousness. You can not see through my eyes. You are not an empath, so you cannot feel either my pain or relief. However, "you" can experience (in part) my ideas. You cannot seize my mental imagery and transfer it to canvas. And my consciousness cannot be perfectly translated. I can imagine Michelangelo’s "David." But I cannot reproduce it like that which the Master created. And you cannot define when the statue itself was completed (became a finished product). Only the Master can make that determination.


Most Respectfully,
R

 

It doesn’t. It must be applied to produce action which then causes changes to the physical world. A person who is paralyzed and completely unable to move in any respect cannot change anything with just consciousness.

As I just explained.

In other words consciousness is an activity of the brain.

 

I am asking about the point where rubber hits the road. When you make a decision to blow a candle out, your consciousness is presumed to have made a decision. You forced air out of your mouth in such a way that the flame was extinguished.

If consciousness is a byproduct of the natural function of the brain, then it is easy enough to say that you simply decided to blow, arranged your muscles in the right order and pushed.

If consciousness is not a byproduct of the brain, if it’s a separate, immortal substance that can exist outside of the brain, that is to say that if humans are dual in nature in the Cartesian sense, then the point where rubber hits the road is inside the brain. The point where a supernatural force has a natural effect on the universe that can be measured and analyzed, that is the point I am interested in. Does the “soul” cause the body to act or does the body cause the soul to be?

Of course I agree with Koze but I am more interested in someone who thinks otherwise to present the argument in favour of dualism.

 

What do you mean how do you explain consciousness?

Consciousness is the very basis of life itself.
To be conscious means that you are a living being.

Think about it.... When you were unconscious you are either sleeping knocked out or drugged.

When you wake up from such a state it is very typical to have no memory of the time that passed.

To be conscious is to be aware awake and alive.

To be unconscious is to be the opposite of all of the above.

I don't think it requires a lot of deep thought or philosophizing.