On Consciousness

[Mr. Scott]

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.

The burden of proof lies with the people making the positive claim. Your claim is that consciousness is connected physically with life, the universe, and everything. A photo shop superimposition of iris and Earth is neither proof nor evidence of this connection. It's pure appeal to emotion^WP, which is apparently all you've got.

Please offer scientific, mathematical, medical, or technical evidence of the connection between consciousness, and life, the universe, and everything. Then we'll have something to discuss. Without that, your claim needs no refutation to be correctly branded as worthless.

 

[Roboramma]

Define "connection".

Object A is connected to object B if the state of object B influences the state of object A, and vice versa

 

[quarky]

I just farted.
It has influenced object B.

(And c, d,e and ***** f.)

It was on an elevator.

 

[quarky]

There is a radical divide of opinion in this thread.
As mentioned, I'd be more comfy if it was philosophical.

Philosophy has the potential to unleash science, in some cases...like a precursor.
I have studied it, though my observations and hunches will never pass muster within the context of empirical data.

Though many here with strong opinions have not actually studied what it is, they feel certain of the credentials of their knowledge.
I am quite skeptical.

I can't advise that you actually explore it, nor do I have much incentive to expand your outlook on the matter.

Rather than trading insults, I once again, bow out.
I'm not chickening out...I simply have no avenue within the dogma required, to expound on my observations.

It would be fun if there was more curiosity, yet, so be it.

 

[Roboramma]

I just farted.
It has influenced object B.

(And c, d,e and ***** f.)

It was on an elevator.

Was it the loud kind or the silent kind?

Probably depends on how many people were on the elevator at the time

Oddly your fart has now had an influence that reached at least to shanghai

 

[quarky]

Yeah, sorry about that.

(I blame the beans.)

 

[Roboramma]

Yeah, sorry about that.

(I blame the beans.)

Ha, just be glad you don't share my elevator

 

[Roboramma]

I've realised that my last few posts don't seem to have much point, but I did have a point in posting them: it's possible to give a definition of "connected" that is rigorous enough to be clear in it's implications under which "we are connected to the universe" is a meaningful statement

Moreover, from my definition we can see both the extent to which that is true, and the ways in which it is limited: for instance, I am "connected" to galaxies millions of light years away and millions of years in the past, but not to that same galaxy in the present (as defined in a reference frame which is stationary with the earth, say), because there is no influence from that galaxy on me

Is there some spiritual meaning here? I certainly find it meaningful for myself, though that's simply a personal viewpoint and not something that I think means, for instance, that there's anything going on beyond the fact that distant events can have causal effects on local events

But that doesn't mean that there's no beauty there

I suppose, though, that I'm disagreeing with everyone: with Zeuzzz because his unwillingness to give a meaningful definition means that we have his feelings of connection to the universe and nothing more than that: we can't explore the implications of that connection or how deep it goes until we can discuss what that connection actually is

But I also disagree with Mr Scott in that such a connection obviously exists and isn't meaningless, though perhaps it's not particularly meaningful to discuss it using this choice of language: that is, you mean feel its so obvious that we are "connected to the universe" in this way as to not even be worth talking about that type of connection

I personally don't think it's so obvious or meaningless It certainly didn't have to be this way: for instance, it may have been that from earth we could see the rest of the universe, but could not affect it in any way That's what it's like to be on the interior of a black hole, for example

Maybe I'm just rambling, but hopefully I'm saying something that can inspire a new train of thought in someone's mind If you see something vague, meaningless, or whatever, please point it out and I'll either explain or realise my own thinking is clouded

(and sorry for the lack of periods, I'm going to be lazy and fail to copy and paste them in: my keyboard is still broken)

 

[quarky]

I'll forgive you if you forgive me.

 

[steenkh]

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

Why is this quote from Einstein of relevance? Einstein was a pantheist, but pantheism, like any other religion has no evidence for it, and this reference to authority is just an unsupported opinion.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Einstein was a pantheist

Wrong. He would in modern times be called an agnostic, if anything.

"The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."

- Albert Einstein, quoted in: Einstein's God - Albert Einstein's Quest as a Scientist and as a Jew to Replace a Forsaken God (1997)

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."

- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2

"But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it."

-Einstein, Albert (1930). "Religion and Science" New York Times Magazine (Nov. 9): 1-4.

"How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."

-Einstein, Albert (1930). "Religion and Science" New York Times Magazine (Nov. 9): 1-4.

 

[Zeuzzz]

The burden of proof lies with the people making the positive claim. Your claim is that consciousness is connected physically with life, the universe, and everything.

Please offer scientific, mathematical, medical, or technical evidence of the connection between consciousness, and life, the universe, and everything. Then we'll have something to discuss. Without that, your claim needs no refutation to be correctly branded as worthless.

The bolded parts of this request I never claimed. Why did you include them?

Give me two species on this planet, preferably humans as one of them. Even two humans as an example. And we can work from there.

 

[steenkh]

Wrong. He would in modern times be called an agnostic, if anything.

And then you bring a number of quotes confirming the pantheistic views of Einstein! Tsk, tsk

 

[steenkh]

Now concerning the 'connection' that we have with all of nature, I agree with Roboramma.

Yes we can define connection as influence, and I will even allow the influence to be unidirectional. So in some sense we are connected with the universe and everything.

But we usually only talk about a connection when it is meaningful, and the fact that my brain is connected to distant galaxies because the particles that make up both were once part of the Big Bang together, or because extremely faint light form those galaxies could reach me, is not a meaningful connection. There is a more meaningful connection between my consciousness and the the author of a book that I read about the galaxies.

Once you use 'connection' in a way that is so trivial that it has no impact whatsoever, it ceases to make sense in a debate like this that we have about consciousness. It is not enough to find the connection beautiful, it also needs to be useful.

 

[Zeuzzz]

And then you bring a number of quotes confirming the pantheistic views of Einstein! Tsk, tsk

I obviously don't know what pantheism is then, the wiki implied a god from a cursory glance, but I've just re-read it and I obviously got the wrong impression. Is pantheism just looking at and studying the natural world?

 

[Zeuzzz]

So basically atheism?

 

[steenkh]

I obviously don't know what pantheism is then, the wiki implied a god from a cursory glance, but I've just re-read it and I obviously got the wrong impression. Is pantheism just looking at and studying the natural world?

I am not looking at a definition right now, so this is my own working definition: The view that the entire universe is divine.

So basically atheism?

It is related to atheism, although one could quibble about whether you believe in a god or not when you think that the universe is divine, but impersonal.

In the span between atheism and theism, pantheism lies just on the atheist side, in the same way that deism lies in just inside theism.

 

[Mr. Scott]

But I also disagree with Mr Scott in that such a connection obviously exists and isn't meaningless, though perhaps it's not particularly meaningful to discuss it using this choice of language: that is, you mean feel its so obvious that we are "connected to the universe" in this way as to not even be worth talking about that type of connection

Usually, when people talk about the mind's "connection" with the universe, they are referring to telepathy, discorporation, remote vision or senses, and/or telekinesis, e.g. Deepak Chopra or The Secret or religious and spiritual impressions. This is what I keep hearing from Zeuzzz. My own opinion is that these impressions are delusional side affects of our brains' data processing.

Carl Sagan's "connection" with the universe is about the fact that organic chemicals and their atoms are made in supernovae and other astronomical processes. It does not mean a connection like when my phone is connected to your phone, we can have a conversation.

I can say my iPhone is "connected" with the lithium mine that supplied the material for some of its parts, though, it's quite worthless to explain how my iPhone does such wonderful things.

The Saganian "connection" of my consciousness to the universe reveals little about how consciousness works or whether or not it is computational in the sense that a steam operated mechanical brain (or electronic) could, or could not, ever be consciousness.

If you can show me to be mistaken, have at it.

 

[Zeuzzz]

with Zeuzzz because his unwillingness to give a meaningful definition means that we have his feelings of connection to the universe and nothing more than that: we can't explore the implications of that connection or how deep it goes until we can discuss what that connection actually is

The organic molecules that we are made of first came from the atoms that comprise us, which are traceable to the crucible in the centers of high mass stars, that spread their enriched ions and atoms throughout the cosmos. Enriching gas clouds with the building blocks for life.

We are all connected to each other biologically and physiologically, we are connected to the Earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically.

Pretty cool huh?

Read what ever significance you want into it.

Edit: Edited needless comment

 

[Mr. Scott]

The organic molecules that we are made of first came from the atoms that comprise us, which are traceable to the crucible in the centers of high mass stars, that spread their enriched ions and atoms throughout the cosmos. Enriching gas clouds with the building blocks for life.

We are all connected to each other biologically and physiologically, we are connected to the Earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically.

Pretty cool huh?

Read what ever significance you want into it.

Edit: Edited needless comment

So, a mechanical version of a human brain would be conscious because its parts are "connected" with the same astronomical crucibles as our brains? It's a rhetorical question intended to show the irrelevancy of the cosmic connection.