the "the brain is a radio" analogy

[Belz...]

Let me explain then. Without form, behavior cannot be observed.

And.

What does the observing (in relation to human beings) is consciousness



"Consciousness determines how it might choose to behave through said form within the limitations of the form."

Not sure where you see in this sentence that I have created my own definitions for words.

None of that means anything.

 

[Ladewig]

If Earth (essentially a rock) were inhabited by consciousness then that consciousness would behave very differently than it would in human form, due to the nature of the form and the abilities of the form.

For example - the form is longer lasting than any biological form on its surface thus consciousness experiencing being the Earth would not be 'human' in how it experiences itself...but naturally would understand what it is like to be human...or a tree...etc...

Why would it naturally follow that the Earth's consciousness would understand what human consciousness is like?

 

[Daald]

It could be that consciousness is different when inside of a biological instrument which can influence the way it behaves.
A human brain/body might limit the consciousnesses normal abilities because it is restrained within a biological form.

It is not just limiting it. It is changing it. That is what current brain research into brain damage reveals. You are saying that this damage is undone when complete damage is done. That makes no sense.

You are forced to retreat into treating this substance as something else which combined with the brain makes consciousness. Basically a catalyst but without the brain it is nothing.

So one explanation is that brain+mystic goop = consciousness

or

brain = consciousness

You have all your work cut out for you as Mr. Occam keeps slashing you.

You have to show something that would not make sense if it is the brain alone but since this material seems completely tied to the brain I don't see how you can.

 

[marplots]

You have all your work cut out for you as Mr. Occam keeps slashing you.

You have to show something that would not make sense if it is the brain alone but since this material seems completely tied to the brain I don't see how you can.

Demon possession. A different station playing on the radio.

Past life memories. Information in the brain that can't get there otherwise. (Psi, remote viewing and the like.)

 

[Daald]

Demon possession. A different station playing on the radio.

Past life memories. Information in the brain that can't get there otherwise. (Psi, remote viewing and the like.)

LOL

 

[Myriad]

Nope.

Behavior is a bi-product of conscious decision, with extenuating circumstances such as the extent of an individuals ability to be self controlled...


Within biological critters consciousness behaves according to the abilities of said form coupled with the self identity that individual consciousness chooses to accept for itself (as itself).

If Earth (essentially a rock) were inhabited by consciousness then that consciousness would behave very differently than it would in human form, due to the nature of the form and the abilities of the form.

For example - the form is longer lasting than any biological form on its surface thus consciousness experiencing being the Earth would not be 'human' in how it experiences itself...but naturally would understand what it is like to be human...or a tree...etc...

I submit that our own experience of consciousness is dependent upon certain cognitive capabilities to the point where it would be fundamentally altered beyond recognition if those capabilities were absent.

Consciousness without memory? If that's even possible, it would be a very different kind of experience.

Consciousness without the capability of volitional choice and action? Likewise.

Consciousness without emotion? Likewise.

So, to claim that a rock or a tree can possess "consciousness," despite having no physical capability for memory, emotion, or volitional action, requires equivocation. If you reject outward behavior as any reliable indicator of consciousness, the only thing left to hang a definition on is our personal experience, but even if a rock or tree or planet is hypothesized to experience, given that that experience is so different from ours as to be beyond our understanding, why call it consciousness? That's the equivocation.

Take the equivocation away, and you have "everything in the universe is perfused with a mysterious something that in the human brain manifests itself as the ability to think, feel, remember, and experience." I completely agree with that, and I'll suggest naming that mysterious something "time" or "physical causality."

But if you imply that that mysterious something must have the innate ability to remember, to desire, to care, to plan, to carry out a plan, and so forth... then the equivocation is back and you're half a toenail away from Creationism.

 

[Myriad]

Marplots just listed a bunch of ‘events’ that seem to include non-corporeal ingredients. Whether they do or not is anyone’s guess. Currently science has absolutely no capacity to resolve the matter.

"Demon possession" is not an observation. The actual observation is things like a person behaving strangely, inappropriately, or out of character, and sometimes (in exceptional cases) being cured by certain rituals. These observations are consistent with the cause being impairment of the brain such as via mental illness which in most cases can be traced to specific chemical imbalances in the brain tissue. We know those chemicals exist and we know some things about how they work.

Demons, as an alternative explanation, have some notable gaps. What are demons, where do they come from, what are they made of, how do they manage to possess people, why do they bother, why do they only possess people with similar religious lore (Hindus never seem to get possessed by Christian demons, for instance)?

But the more important difference is that the demon hypothesis, wherever and whenever it has been put into effect, has resulted in human misery and systematic cruelty toward the afflicted, while the brain chemistry hypothesis has had comparatively much greater success (far from perfect success, to be sure) at successful management and treatment of the conditions.

"Past life memories" is also not an observation. The actual observation is that some people tell stories about past lives, or in rare cases demonstrate abilities that they don't appear to have had the ability to acquire during their lifetimes. This is consistent with consciousness being generated by the brain because inventing fiction is a known cognitive ability in humans, most of the stories are ones easily imagined by a creative person, most of them when investigated contain historical errors and anachronisms that make it impossible for them to be true, and investigation generally reveals that people with "unexplainable" learning actually have had opportunities to learn it in conventional ways.

Science has resolved the matter, not so far as falsifying unfalsifiable hypotheses which of course is impossible, but as far as demonstrating that such observations are consistent with materialistic explanations.

 

[Navigator]

Why would it naturally follow that the Earth's consciousness would understand what human consciousness is like?

Why would it not?

One reason would be because it would be cut off from its own nature...but don't forget where all forms on earth evolve from.

Where would the ideas for all the different forms which ever interact on the planet come from?

Also, we are speaking about something which has been around and developing for millions of years.

So it would stand as a reasonable assumption that if the Earth was a conscious entity it would naturally understand what human consciousness is like...essentially it would be the consciousness of the Earth embodied in the forms upon the planet...

 

[Navigator]

It is not just limiting it. It is changing it. That is what current brain research into brain damage reveals. You are saying that this damage is undone when complete damage is done. That makes no sense.

In regard to the idea under discussion, if consciousness is not a creation of the brain, the experience of form would change it in the sense that it would gain knowledge through that experience inclusive of any and all limitations experienced.

You are forced to retreat into treating this substance as something else which combined with the brain makes consciousness. Basically a catalyst but without the brain it is nothing.
So one explanation is that brain+mystic goop = consciousness
or

brain = consciousness

You have all your work cut out for you as Mr. Occam keeps slashing you.

For some reason you have decided to add something else to the discussion so the equation becomes X + biological form = consciousness.

Essentially what is a brain or body without consciousness?

The discussion has been about

1: Consciousness is not necessarily an emergent property of the brain
(Consciousness + human form = conscious human experience)
2: Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain
(Human form + human brain = conscious human experience)

"mystic goop" has not, until now, been mentioned. I am unclear as to how you have decided to include it.

You have to show something that would not make sense if it is the brain alone but since this material seems completely tied to the brain I don't see how you can.

As has already been said, there is no way to know whether or not consciousness is an emergent property of the brain or something which has always existed even before form, any more than there is any way to tell whether the universe exists as it does of its own making or an outside influence has contributed to its existence.

Essentially that is why people can and have for centuries argued in circular fashion about it. There is no known method of science which is able to end the argument.

My present position regarding the argument is explained in post #100 of this thread.

My position is legitimate and in regard to Friar Occum's wisdom that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected, the selection in the case of [2:] is assumed the best selection for the purpose of getting on with the actual individual human experience and seeing where it goes in between the advents of birth and death...which is not to say that the selection has to be believed and religiously held as the truth of the matter,(to end all argument) because the assumptions [1 & 2] are equal.

This is because physical observation of brain activity in relation to consciousness does not (and can not) prove therefore that consciousness is the sole creation of brains. What it proves (and therefore is not assumption) is that there is correlation...what it shows is that human action can be seen to correlate with brain activity...(and why would it be any other way?)...no surprises there right?

That the brain creates consciousness...well therein is the assumption.

That the brain/body facilitates consciousness...well that also is an assumption.

Hence 'the argument'.

 

[Navigator]

I submit that our own experience of consciousness is dependent upon certain cognitive capabilities to the point where it would be fundamentally altered beyond recognition if those capabilities were absent.

Consciousness without memory? If that's even possible, it would be a very different kind of experience.

Consciousness without the capability of volitional choice and action? Likewise.

Consciousness without emotion? Likewise.

So, to claim that a rock or a tree can possess "consciousness," despite having no physical capability for memory, emotion, or volitional action, requires equivocation. If you reject outward behavior as any reliable indicator of consciousness, the only thing left to hang a definition on is our personal experience, but even if a rock or tree or planet is hypothesized to experience, given that that experience is so different from ours as to be beyond our understanding, why call it consciousness? That's the equivocation.

Take the equivocation away, and you have "everything in the universe is perfused with a mysterious something that in the human brain manifests itself as the ability to think, feel, remember, and experience." I completely agree with that, and I'll suggest naming that mysterious something "time" or "physical causality."

But if you imply that that mysterious something must have the innate ability to remember, to desire, to care, to plan, to carry out a plan, and so forth... then the equivocation is back and you're half a toenail away from Creationism.

In relation to memory (that capability to store data and retrieve the data) I have encountered argument which strongly suggests that human memory is faulty.
Faulty or not, human consciousness uses memory so whether or not memory is essential for consciousness (regardless of being pure or corrupted) is - if nothing else - a tantalizing subject.

In relation to electronic memory in computers, the machines lack consciousness but are extremely reliable. Also the do not have brains - at least not biological ones but are pretty much made of the stuff of the earth...rock. Indeed crystals were once used to store the data...I am not familiar enough with them to know the intricacies of their makeup but their existence does show that where memory is concerned, this is not strictly the domain of biological critters with brains.

This being the case, I can appreciate the concept of the planet earth being a kind of computer which is able to house consciousness and keep records of surface (and subsurface etc) events and even process the data to help it create agenda and forms in which to manifest agenda as reality.

The process is called 'evolution' by human beings...the information human beings process - the creativity which comes about through imagination, ideas, agenda etc all could be sourced - not within the individual brain, but from the planet consciousness itself.

Albert Einstein's famous equation E = mc 2 might have been the product of data transmitted by the planet consciousness and he and his brain acted as a conduit that the information be manifested into human reality.

Is that 'creationism'? or could it be more of a kind of natural science?

Apparently human form (and the planet etc) are products of ancient "stardust" - this kind of endless recycling of matter into all sorts of form - we take for granted the idea that human form is capable of containing consciousness and yet for some reason can be repelled by the idea that other non human non biological forms could possibly contain consciousness...and for no other reason than those form (like computers) have no brains.

I personally prefer not to limit my ignorance further by believing such is simply impossible. Nor do I believe it is necessarily the case. What I do is consider it to be possible and for that matter I cannot see that - as a theory - it contradicts anything science has yet discovered about the universe...rather the theory compliments the science...at least I think it does...it certainly doesn't endanger what we know to be true...each to their own of course.



And I don't see consciousness - ether expressing through human form or the concept of it imbuing the whole universe as necessarily 'a mysterious something' ...

 

[annnnoid]

"Demon possession" is not an observation.

It is if you’re the one experiencing it.

The actual observation is things like a person behaving strangely, inappropriately, or out of character, and sometimes (in exceptional cases) being cured by certain rituals. These observations are consistent with the cause being impairment of the brain such as via mental illness which in most cases can be traced to specific chemical imbalances in the brain tissue. We know those chemicals exist and we know some things about how they work.

Demons, as an alternative explanation, have some notable gaps. What are demons, where do they come from, what are they made of, how do they manage to possess people, why do they bother, why do they only possess people with similar religious lore (Hindus never seem to get possessed by Christian demons, for instance)?

It’s amazing how easily your ad-hoc rationalizations sound absolutely no different than the ad-hoc rationalizations of the idiots who are convinced these things are demons. You’re just biased so yours taste better…to you.

But the more important difference is that the demon hypothesis, wherever and whenever it has been put into effect, has resulted in human misery and systematic cruelty toward the afflicted, while the brain chemistry hypothesis has had comparatively much greater success (far from perfect success, to be sure) at successful management and treatment of the conditions.

Again…cherry-picking ad-hoc rationalizations. Not to mention that this is a blindingly simplistic generalization that any 1st year anthropology student could easily, and happily, demolish.

"Past life memories" is also not an observation. The actual observation is that some people tell stories about past lives, or in rare cases demonstrate abilities that they don't appear to have had the ability to acquire during their lifetimes. This is consistent with consciousness being generated by the brain because inventing fiction is a known cognitive ability in humans, most of the stories are ones easily imagined by a creative person, most of them when investigated contain historical errors and anachronisms that make it impossible for them to be true, and investigation generally reveals that people with "unexplainable" learning actually have had opportunities to learn it in conventional ways.

More ad-hoc rationalizations which conveniently fit your flavor-of-the-day ideology. I can very easily locate numerous studies that very credibly question your supposedly conclusive answers…but there’s no point in debating the veracity of these events. You can rationalize till you’re blue in the face but what it comes down to is that science has zero ability to directly adjudicate subjective experience and zero ability to even begin to definitively resolve any of these issues until it can. Such a capacity currently isn’t even on the most remote of horizons.

Science has resolved the matter, not so far as falsifying unfalsifiable hypotheses which of course is impossible, but as far as demonstrating that such observations are consistent with materialistic explanations.

Science has most indisputably NOT resolved any of these matters. Science has merely produced very conditional explanations. What is truly amusing is the degree to which so many so-called skeptics sink their teeth into the most tentative of conclusions…and immediately swing it around as if they’ve just acquired the proverbial holy grail (so much for skepticism !)! Unless I have missed something, science has yet to acquire the ability to definitively explain a single cognitive event that anyone anytime anywhere has ever had. This does actually include all these events that you (and the rest) are so determined to believe have been resolved. Nor does any variety of science even begin to posses the capacity to adjudicate subjective experience.

If science has acquired these abilities…then perhaps you would be so kind as to produce evidence that this is the case. Last time I checked…science did not have the capacity to definitively explain how you produced a single letter of a single word of a single sentence of a single post you have ever produced.

…not…even…remotely. That is what that quote I keep producing means. They don’t have a clue actually does mean exactly that. They don’t have a clue. I could get a lot more detailed (neurologically and cognitively) than that quote, but it does a great job of summarizing the situation. There is a word to describe the act of pretending that that quote is mistaken. It is the word ‘denial’.

...

Edited by jsfisher: 

Moderated content and response to same redacted.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

So we ‘observe’ the activity of consciousness. No one knows what causes it (how the brain generates it

We 'observe' the activity of gravity. No one knows what causes it (how spacetime generates it). So it could be caused by the social activity of gnomes. In fact,

Physics doesn't exist, it's all about Gnomes

How does the ability to indirectly observe this ‘behavior’ (or any other explicitly inexplicable poorly understood neural or cognitive event [and there are lots of them]) exclude the possibility of an unknown force generating it?

ftfy

We know what forces are involved. We know that the brain consists of organic molecules that interact via chemical reactions. We know that these molecules form neurons that store memories, process information and give rise to consciousness. We don't know exactly how it does it, but we have no reason to believe that it doesn't involve the same forces that control the atoms and molecules that the brain is made of.

As an analogy, your computer is made of silicon transistors that operate via known forces. Unless you are a top computer engineer I doubt that you know exactly how this gives rise to its observed behavior, but you have no reason to believe that it isn't just done with transistors controlled by various bits of software stored in its memory.

 

[Ladewig]

Why would it not?

One reason would be because it would be cut off from its own nature...but don't forget where all forms on earth evolve from.

Where would the ideas for all the different forms which ever interact on the planet come from?

Also, we are speaking about something which has been around and developing for millions of years.

So it would stand as a reasonable assumption that if the Earth was a conscious entity it would naturally understand what human consciousness is like...essentially it would be the consciousness of the Earth embodied in the forms upon the planet...

Our views are so far apart that I cannot understand a single thing you are saying. It might as well be Greek to me.
C'est la vie. I hope you enjoy your understanding of the world as much as I enjoy mine.

 

[Navigator]

Our views are so far apart that I cannot understand a single thing you are saying. It might as well be Greek to me.
C'est la vie. I hope you enjoy your understanding of the world as much as I enjoy mine.

I would say it probable that I would enjoy your world view too. Certainly I enjoy the concepts I have. One human life experience is too short not to.

Hasta la vista

 

[Belz...]

Since the moderators saw fit to not only cut out the chaff but the wheat of our conversation I will repost my explanation to annnnoid in an effort to get a rational response this time:

Every behaviour of the brain is detectable in principle. If a force, known or unknown, affects the brain -- that is, causes the brain to have a behaviour -- then we can detect indirectly by observing that behaviour in the brain. An unknown force will simply result in a behaviour we cannot link to the cause.

This is a perfectly reasonable, on-topic request.

 

[Elind]

The idea that consciousness exists outside of the human brain, and the brain is just an organ to express it into a material world.

How do the experts here deal with this particular "theory"?

I'm no "expert", anymore than Deepak is, but all this hinges on being able to prove an "immaterial" world outside of our imagination which is itself material based.

Sounds like a typical recursive woo argument to me.

 

[Darat]

one example: how the circuitry of the brain computes thoughts and emotions

Even given what we don't know yet that is a rather simple question as we understand how "computation" is done and works. It can easily be shown that the structure and physical properties of the brain alone could enable computation and we can these days show such computation happening in the brain.

 

[Darat]

I'm no "expert", anymore than Deepak is, but all this hinges on being able to prove an "immaterial" world outside of our imagination which is itself material based.

Sounds like a typical recursive woo argument to me.

It's just dualism and as ever dualism falls flat on its face as soon as someone claims the "other" part of reality can influence the part we know about.

 

[Daald]

In regard to the idea under discussion, if consciousness is not a creation of the brain, the experience of form would change it in the sense that it would gain knowledge through that experience inclusive of any and all limitations experienced.

I am a talking brain damage and how that is conveyed to the "consciousness". You have not begun to handle the problems that poses for your position. Examples that show that it is not merely this thing that is being held back have already been provided and glossed over.

For some reason you have decided to add something else to the discussion so the equation becomes X + biological form = consciousness.

Essentially what is a brain or body without consciousness?

The discussion has been about

1: Consciousness is not necessarily an emergent property of the brain
(Consciousness + human form = conscious human experience)
2: Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain
(Human form + human brain = conscious human experience)

"mystic goop" has not, until now, been mentioned. I am unclear as to how you have decided to include it.

"Mystical Goop" is one way you can deal with the physical damage to the brain problem but that has the issues I listed. You don't see the problem so of course you don't understand why this step was taken.

Anyway, this discussion has already entered the not understanding and equivocation stage so time for me to GTFO.

 

[annnnoid]

Since the moderators saw fit to not only cut out the chaff but the wheat of our conversation I will repost my explanation to annnnoid in an effort to get a rational response this time:

Every behaviour of the brain is detectable in principle. If a force, known or unknown, affects the brain -- that is, causes the brain to have a behaviour -- then we can detect indirectly by observing that behaviour in the brain. An unknown force will simply result in a behaviour we cannot link to the cause.

This is a perfectly reasonable, on-topic request.

Consciousness IS a behaviour.

Right now…consciousness itself is a ‘brain event’ that cannot be explicitly linked to a cause. I won’t even bother going into the uncountable other neural events that cannot…because we either cannot explicitly measure them or because we simply do not understand them…be linked to a cause (and it would be trivially easy to confirm that these also exist…in abundance).

Given these indisputable facts…how is it possible, according to your latest argument, to explicitly exclude the possibility of unknown forces precipitating any of these events?