Consciousness question

[Mercutio]

Dark Jaguar--

Wow. Thanks. That was really informative. Not an area I am familiar with, despite asking quite a few people. Your explanation makes more sense than just about anything people have tried with me.

Thanks.

 

[Mercutio]

Fine. However, unless these electrical impulses are converted into data, this is all we're looking at.

Are you saying that, despite the fact that your analogy falls apart, you are sticking with it?

 

[Iacchus]

LOL!!

Nope, sorry, it doesnt work that way! Guess I made someone feel upset... who is this person who feels upset???

Indeed, who is doing the guessing now?

 

[Iacchus]

Are you saying that, despite the fact that your analogy falls apart, you are sticking with it?

Data impulses have to be generated from some-place.

 

[Mercutio]

Indeed, who is doing the guessing now?

Well...among others, you are guessing. The trick is, the only one who is not aware of this is you.

 

[Mercutio]

Data impulses have to be generated from some-place.

This statement in no way supports your theory of consciousness. In no way whatsoever.

Do you understand that? Or have you lost the thread of your argument by now?

 

[Iacchus]

Well...among others, you are guessing. The trick is, the only one who is not aware of this is you.

Why should I have to be upset at him just because I don't agree with him?

 

[Iacchus]

This statement in no way supports your theory of consciousness. In no way whatsoever.

Do you understand that? Or have you lost the thread of your argument by now?

It's a little bit more involved than this. In order to understand it, you have to understand what causes things to vibrate at the atomic/subatomic level. Do I claim to fully understand it? No, I don't.

 

[Mercutio]

It's a little bit more involved than this. In order to understand it, you have to understand what causes things to vibrate at the atomic/subatomic level. Do I claim to fully understand it? No, I don't.

But that does not stop you from making claims. You do not understand it, and you admit that you do not, but you actively avoid finding out more about it. This is no way to gain understanding.

Your actions (avoiding information that is relevant) belies your words (your claims that you are interested in these topics). You are spending more energy defending your ignorance than you would expend curing it.

 

[Iacchus]

Many things may contradict. Perhaps you both experience this steady world where you have to eat and sleep and this strange place where you had to give a speech naked and the podium turned into a dragon? So far, the explanation that accounts for BOTH of these observations without making a self contradiction is that there is a real world that is consistant and one part of this real world's rules allows for human minds to enter a "dream state" where imagination is uncontrolled by logic and creates a lot of fantastic imagery. It is the most likely one to be true, and this has been confirmed by observation.

Read my signature ...

Even lies need something real to back them up, so in that sense delusion and fantasy don't really exist ... only the monsters from the id that sustain them.

Which is to say, truth and falsity are associated with two spiritual possibilities here.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Data impulses? There are electrical impulses, and it is true that data can be the impetus of some other action, and it is also true that the effect of data being transmitted has a source.

The problem is, you talk about electrical impulses being converted to data. I do not know what this means, and I don't believe I said anything in my post similar to this.

Electrical impulses are used to store and process data. They don't "become" data in the way you suggest.

The data only exists because the computer is capable of understanding the existing logic gate positions as information. It is the net product of the computer's operation that allows "data" to exist in that computer. If that computer was destroyed, smashed into a fine powder ("Like used", slightly shotgunned), that computer's data would be gone. What would replace it is the data of the current state of that dust, as interpretted by any scientist who decided to examine it.

If you burn a book, where does the information contained in it go? When I ask where the information in a computer's RAM goes when you turn it off, I am asking the exact same thing.

Conciousness, from what we can tell, is simply a consequence of the actions in our brain. From our experience with a computer, it seems more than likely that while the individual parts that create the phenomenon called conciousness will still exist, when the brain is destroyed, when those reactions are stopped, the conciousness itself will also cease. When we sleep, between dreams our conciousness appears to cease. While it is true that perhaps we simply lack memories of this experience, this is something there is no evidence for. The only conclusion is we cease to exist, as concious beings, intermittently(sp?) during sleep.

It would be nice if our conciousness could keep existing, but for that phenomenon to continue, we'd need to replicate the conditions that seem to have brought it out.

Edit: I have read your sig and it doesn't seem to be a logical statement. Truth and falsity, semantically, just mean "that which is" and "that which is not". What you are suggesting, in essense, is that false should no longer be used because every single thing is true. However, this is clearly not the case. If that were the case, what we are saying, that that isn't true, would also hold true. That is illogical.

Even lies need something real to back them up you say. First I'd like an explanation of what this means. It SEEMS to mean that there is truth behind every lie. That is very often not the case. Another possible meaning is that lies need a mouth and a mind for them to be told. That much is true, but the rest is a non-sequiter from that. Why would delusion and fantasy no longer be valid terms just because it needs an existant mind in order to come up with them?

Sorry, your sig either needs to be better explained or it is simply a logical fallacy.

 

[Genesius]

But that does not stop you from making claims. You do not understand it, and you admit that you do not, but you actively avoid finding out more about it. This is no way to gain understanding.

Your actions (avoiding information that is relevant) belies your words (your claims that you are interested in these topics). You are spending more energy defending your ignorance than you would expend curing it.

I hate to step on your toes, Merc, but after reading Iacchus' & Bodhi's musings on the subject I am reminded of the words of the immortal Bard:

. . . it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

 

[SuperCoolGuy]

It's a little bit more involved than this. In order to understand it, you have to understand what causes things to vibrate at the atomic/subatomic level. Do I claim to fully understand it? No, I don't.

Not seeing the connection.

You are saying data impulses have to be generated from a source. How does this tie into consciousness, and how does atomic/subatomic level vibrations (phonons?) play in.

You don't fully understand. Yet how is this connection, in your mind, being made, and more importantly, what is the basis?

 

[Iacchus]

The problem is, you talk about electrical impulses being converted to data. I do not know what this means, and I don't believe I said anything in my post similar to this.

Actually, what I'm speaking of is the transmission of data in general, by means of these electrical impulses ... which, is what ultimately sets up these "off and on" states within the memory. Sorry.

It's too bad I'm at work right now, because I really don't have time to get into it now.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Ah, what ultimately sets up these "on off" states in memory is other sequences of events. It is a very long string of actions. A sequence of events happens between the processor, the BIOS, the BUS, the RAM, various other internal components. It all ties into each other. The source of the information, however, is located ultimately in the BIOS, the saved settings for the BIOS (stored either by battery or in a flash ROM), and either the hard disk or some other media hooked up to the computer. That is where data can be stored in a more permanent nature.

Electricity is the drive that gets that data to actually be meaningful however. In a sense that data doesn't really exist until the computer is actually powered up and it is accessed. This is all using the computer itself, as whole, as the observer. Essentially, from this perspective, nothing and then BOOM, time for data processing.

The electricity can either be an outside thing, or in the case of a portable computer, it can be stored in the battery. The electricity can be used to send information around inside the computer, but the electricity itself is not information.

Once again, the data is only data when it is being analyzed as such. A book's information is just random scribblings unless you have a computer such as the human brain which can assign a meaning to the information inside of it. So you can say in one sense the book contains a lot of information, but in another it isn't really information of any kind without at least the potential of an observer to do something with it.

All this is all well and good, but the main point here is this. A computer process ceases to exist entirely the second you shut down the computer. When there is no more action. All the matter is there, but the processes it was engaged in are no longer existant. Can it be said that they must exist in some form? Again, this calls into question one thing. If I take a chair and move that chair, does the previous state of the chair "die"? It seems to me the previous state of the chair has in fact ceased to exist. However, there is no need to posit some extraneous "chair was there" state which still exists in heaven somewhere to it.

 

[Iacchus]

Ah, what ultimately sets up these "on off" states in memory is other sequences of events.

There has to be a source (transmitter), a destination (receiver), and the means to convert and utilize the data (peripheral devices and whatnot) if, in fact this is what's being transmitted.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I was speaking of a desktop PC. You are speaking of a radio transmitter.

However, yes, that is the case. The information exists in the form of pulses of the radio broadcast. There are various ways, but the one I'm familiar with is simply repeated "on and off" in the form of radio waves. Basically turns on and off in a specific pattern, so there are gaps. Without that, there would only be one thing to detect, that there IS a radio wave. Very little info can be sent this way. For data to exist, something has to alter it's state in a way that is then interpretted as information.

However, a radio transmitter is still set in the physical world. It's source is physical.

So, for the intents of this conversation, the distance between components is irrelevent. It's easier to stick with the computer analogy.

 

[Iacchus]

I was speaking of a desktop PC. You are speaking of a radio transmitter.

Not necessarily. There has to be an initial transmisson of data (hence the notion of transmitter) before it can be stored into memory. And yes, I do realize it applies equally well with radios.

However, yes, that is the case. The information exists in the form of pulses of the radio broadcast. There are various ways, but the one I'm familiar with is simply repeated "on and off" in the form of radio waves. Basically turns on and off in a specific pattern, so there are gaps. Without that, there would only be one thing to detect, that there IS a radio wave. Very little info can be sent this way. For data to exist, something has to alter it's state in a way that is then interpretted as information.

Yes.

However, a radio transmitter is still set in the physical world. It's source is physical.

I understand.

So, for the intents of this conversation, the distance between components is irrelevent. It's easier to stick with the computer analogy.

Unless of course if consciousness is "broadcast" from some source other than the brain.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, this is true of RAM.

However, you are still misunderstanding. The data is the actual RAM's current state. The actual net computer's current state. Before that, there is no "data". If the computer is "off", the data no longer exists. It isn't transferred "into" the computer. It springs into being, and can cease just as easily.

So then, do you suggest when I shut down the computer the information, NOT the electricity (which, by the way, upon leaving the computer no longer contains any data of the computer's operations), is somehow bleeding away into the ground? Are you suggesting RAM has a soul that continues to exist when you disable it?

Again, I have to ask a question. Does this trickle down to the level of a single bit of data? Does a single bit, when changes, still exist in it's previous state in some form?

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Indeed, who is doing the guessing now?

As usual. Your "answer" has NOTHING to do with the comment or question I have raised...

Please, Iacchus, take my advice. Be coherent. If you want to explore mystisism be my guest, I will be delighted to show you the path. If you want to learn about science and about why your ideas make NO SENSE AT ALL, then stick to to the forum, but loose the ego.

The way you are going now, you are going nowhere, your attitude hurts you more than what you can realize. In the end, you know that you are only pretending. You are nothing but a desperate person who will try, no matter the cost, to appear as being "cool" because he "knows more".

Yeah. Right.

WAKE UP MR. IACCHUS WAKE UP!