On Consciousness

[annnnoid]

But that's not the issue, you said:

And someone posted testable means of distinguishing a dreaming state from an awake state.

Therefore your above statement is false. It's so obvious that your unwillingness to admit it and move on ("you're right, that statement is false, however I'd still like to point out...") is difficult for me to understand.

The depth of your concern is moving. Truly.

BTW…did anyone see the latest Avengers movie. Great quote from ‘Thor’….”…human beings are so...…petty…!”

 

[Mr. Scott]

How about it then?

How would something achieve worm consciousness?

Would that include being able to respond to sound waves in soil, being able to still function if half of the robot is cut off (like a worm does if you chop it in half)? I find it hard to see how we know enough about worm consciousness to make a definitive statement about something achieving it or not.




I agree. Might be the difference between a gameboy and a supercomputer, but still it's might be technically possible.




And have any computer programs ever shown the slightest signs of this?




A 8-12 year old humans consciousness would be the ultimate animal test.

I guess I wasn't clear enough. You've misconstrued everything I said.

Let's start at the beginning, and proceed in small steps. Do you believe worms are conscious? If not, why not? If so, do you believe their brains are computational? If so, do you believe we could scale up a conscious worm brain simulated on a computer to a human brain? If not, why not?

 

[Mr. Scott]

This statement in "Carl Sagan's Cosmic Perspective" (pp 187) reminded me of you, Zeuzzz:

Many bright and socially committed young people have more than a passing interest in astrology. It satisfies an almost unspoken need to feel a significance for human beings in a vast and awesome cosmos, to believe that we are in some way hooked up with the universe -- an ideal of many drug and religious experiences, that samadhi of some Eastern religions.

Why do you feel this need, Zeuzzz? That yearning for, and delusion that our minds are connected to the universe, is a most interesting feature of our consciousness. That it's triggered by drugs is evidence it's -- should I say it? -- mechanical (due to chemical mechanisms). We don't have any good evidence our minds are connected to the universe. Only feelings. And, what we can't show is not just in your head, is most likely just in your head.

 

[Roboramma]

The depth of your concern is moving. Truly.

BTW…did anyone see the latest Avengers movie. Great quote from ‘Thor’….”…human beings are so...…petty…!”

Yeah, I liked it quite a bit

As for my quoted post, I like to have honest discussions with people in which we both answer the questions asked and attempt to honestly look at what one another are saying.

If I fail to do that, I hope you or others will call me on it.

 

[Zeuzzz]

And, what we can't show is not just in your head, is most likely just in your head.

I don't know why Sagan likened religious experiences to drug experiences, he was a frequent weed smoker and often advocated it's use.

I've never had any experience on psychedelics that I've even remotely likened to a 'religious experience', I would not even know what a religious experience is like.

I don't think you will find Sagan meant what you think he meant with that quote.

 

[Mr. Scott]

I don't know why Sagan likened religious experiences to drug experiences, he was a frequent weed smoker and often advocated it's use.

I've never had any experience on psychedelics that I've even remotely likened to a 'religious experience', I would not even know what a religious experience is like.

I don't think you will find Sagan meant what you think he meant with that quote.

I'd gathered, from the balance of your posts, that your hypotheses about consciousness derive from your drug induced experiences of feeling connected with the universe. This feeling of connection is normally regarded as spiritual or religious, but we needn't be derailed by semantics.

If you don't mind summarizing your basic notions about the nature of human consciousness, that would be great. We'd clear up some misunderstandings and have a more productive conversation.

 

[quarky]

How can we not be connected to the universe?
I don't mean astrologically, of course, but actually.

Lay out on the beach on a sunny day. Your connection to the sun gets more obvious.
The connection to further away parts of the universe are less, of course.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. Profoundly different states of awareness of both the external and internal world are apparent between each individual. While with the external world people can cross reference what they are aware of and come to an agreement that both are aware of the same thing, the internal world remains a subjective experience unique to certain extents to each individual person, which none the less can be studied scientifically by various changes in the physical body and brain in the external world.

Someones state of consciousness is inextricably linked to cognition and the molecules in their brain and blood. One such molecule found in the blood and brain of humans is DMT, a psychedelic that has profound effect on consciousness. One the things about DMT besides what it does is the fact that is such a simple molecule. If you look at it's structure you only really have four places that you can attach something to, so you can make diethyl or diproply analogues of it, or a few others, which do give you new compounds but their effects are very different from natural nn-DMT.

Bio-synthetically it's two steps from tryptophan, which is just two trivial enzymatic steps from DMT, and tryptophan is an amino acid which is everywhere in nature. Pretty much all organisms have tryptophan, and the enzymes needed to do this are all over the place and pretty much everywhere in nature, so theoretically anything could synthesize DMT.

No one really knows why it is there or what it's function is. Why is it in all sorts of plants and animals? What is the role it plays in humans? The conventional view of a few decades ago was that these molecules had no real function that they were just physiological noise, but that is a very naive understanding. What we now understand is that these secondary compounds are in a sense the language of plants. These are messenger molecules, this are what plants use to mediate their relationship between other organisms and the environment. There is important information to be learned from such molecules, and we are wired to experience this. I don't think it is universally present in nature by accident. It really fits that DMT may be the common molecular language, a resonant language if you will, between all living organisms. In fact this may be a good way to classify if something is conscious or not. Whether something is alive or not is a trickier question ...

I can't think of a more powerful tool to explore the question of what is consciousness. And DMT enables a totally unique, natural way to not only study the external aspects of consciousness (the molecule and binding profile) but to also study the internal world of consciousness and how it effects both. Any model of consciousness not based on similar molecular structures and conscious experience is an incomplete model. Other similar compounds with similar effects need to also be included in such considerations, and the subjective effects as well as the external effects explained and addressed by science.

 

[Zeuzzz]

I can supply references to back up anything I just said.

Meanwhile I'm going for a jog in the sun

 

[quarky]

Be careful. You could get burned.

Or as Joni Mitchel said "We are stardust.."

Our connection to the universe is more obvious as you go back in time.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Be careful. You could get burned.

Or as Joni Mitchel said "We are stardust.."

Our connection to the universe is more obvious as you go back in time.

It doesn't have anything to do with consciousness though, does it? Or how the brain works? Or that it's non-computational? Explain.

 

[quarky]

It doesn't have anything to do with consciousness though, does it? Or how the brain works? Or that it's non-computational? Explain.

How can I explain that I think there are some mysteries before us?
My definition of consciousness would necessarily be philosophical, because I think it is a philosophical question. Consciousness is philosophical.

Meanwhile, here's a link to a possibly new degree of quantum entanglement:

http://news.yahoo.com/spooky-quantum-entanglement-gets-extra-twist-151426385.html

 

[Mr. Scott]

How can I explain that I think there are some mysteries before us?
My definition of consciousness would necessarily be philosophical, because I think it is a philosophical question. Consciousness is philosophical.

Meanwhile, here's a link to a possibly new degree of quantum entanglement:

http://news.yahoo.com/spooky-quantum-entanglement-gets-extra-twist-151426385.html

So, what does quantum entanglement have to do with consciousness?

 

[quarky]

Good question.

I sure don't know.

 

[steenkh]

How can we not be connected to the universe?
I don't mean astrologically, of course, but actually.

Lay out on the beach on a sunny day. Your connection to the sun gets more obvious.
The connection to further away parts of the universe are less, of course.

Define "connection".

 

[quarky]

Define "connection".

We are made from bits of it.
We are constantly bombarded with bits of it.
We have a relationship with it.
We can even smell some of it, like my dog.

 

[steenkh]

We are made from bits of it.
We are constantly bombarded with bits of it.
We have a relationship with it.
We can even smell some of it, like my dog.

So no actual connection then. I thought so.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Looks like it's time for another episode of lets ask Einstein!

"A person experiences life as something separated from the rest; a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness."

~ Albert Einstein~

 

[Zeuzzz]

So no actual connection then. I thought so.

How have you arrived at this conclusion?

I believe the burden of proof is on you, I thought that over the last decade or so the interconnectedness and feedback between Earth systems and life in general was a well accepted scientific principle.

 

[quarky]

So no actual connection then. I thought so.

How would you define connection?