Subconsciousness and Humanity.

[Dancing David]

Thanks Jayson for your response, I will respond after work, much of my bias comes from the vague definition and the whacky use it receives on this R&P forums. There are many long threads wherein the strange entity of 'consciousness; is stated to exist but never defined, and when asked for a definition many foolish answers are received. So I think that for clarity it is best to say what people are actually talking about and ask for what people are actually talking about.

So that is my bias, having received 'you don't know what consciousness is' and 'it is self evident' as answers makes me wary of using the term, as I said I prefer to approach the actual functional behaviors.

Just my personal bias.

 

[Manopolus]

OK, I think I'm beginning to understand the question/argument posed.

There's a bit of a problem that crops up when you divorce consciousness from brain function and specifically memory though. It essentially negates individual identity entirely. How do I know that the conscious entity which is now remembering "my" past is the same conscious entity which lived it? Perhaps the consciousness which is in me presently existed inside the guy next door yesterday, and I wouldn't know any better because the memories I now possess reside within brain function, rather than moving along with "my" consciousness.

It becomes an exercise in solipsism rather quickly. There's no reason why things couldn't be one way or the other, but there is no reason to believe it to be so.

 

[Navigator]

OK, I think I'm beginning to understand the question/argument posed.

There's a bit of a problem that crops up when you divorce consciousness from brain function and specifically memory though. It essentially negates individual identity entirely.

I am not divorcing Consciousness from Brain though, nor personal memory.
I am saying that what we are seeing when observing the Brain functioning may not necessarily be just the Brain doing its thing.

This is why I have also said we cannot rule out the possibility that Consciousness does actually live on. We just don’t know and have no way of proving it one way or the other.

Even if it did, we do not know if Consciousness would be different once decoupled from the Brian.

I know such thoughts are unpleasant with some because they associate concepts of life continuing after body death as being woo – the stuff of religion and cults and spiritualists, and such bias formed is hard to work with in a discussion format. Walls are already up, and in some cases long established with reinforcements.

On the subject of negated individual identity – often I have seen expressions that we are living an illusion created by the Brain which gives us a sense of being individual which is not really real. The brain is tricking ‘us’.

I tend to observe Humanity holistically even that it does not view itself the same and prefers the habit of fragmented compartmental observations. One can argue that humans are indeed separated into many various and often opposing ‘camps’ but I am more interested in the fact of Humanity upon one Planet, and how this fact might serve to bring the walls between us down.

How do I know that the conscious entity which is now remembering "my" past is the same conscious entity which lived it? Perhaps the consciousness which is in me presently existed inside the guy next door yesterday, and I wouldn't know any better because the memories I now possess reside within brain function, rather than moving along with "my" consciousness.

I don’t understand what you are trying to convey here Manopolus.
Your consciousness is you. It is not all that you are but it is still you.

Perhaps it has to do with the OP where I say that Consciousness is ‘riding the wave’ of Humanity.

In this I have taken an expression often said that ‘you are not important’ which is used to argue against those who believe in afterlife in an effort to bring them back to reality, and that the reality is ‘you are not important.’

Individual life experience is what we each have and we could choose to see this experience any way we want to. I would not personally tell anyone they are not important to the overall process, but neither do I see one personality more important than any other apart from their behaviours exhibited.

Therefore it is conscious behaviour which determines ‘importance’ in relation to the united aspects of Human Existence – first and foremost – being on the one Planet together.

When we behave as if this is not a fact, we inherit the same attitudes passed on through successive generations.

Once upon a time this ignorance could be excused simply because tribes were so scattered and could even exist independently from every other tribe and believe they were the only ones who existed.

Those days are long gone but certain attitudes still prevail.

*Consciousness has been riding this wave of humanity for a very long time, and will continue to do so long after you and I have ceased to be or otherwise moved on.

I like that thought a lot and support anything which nurtures this *agenda.

It becomes an exercise in solipsism rather quickly. There's no reason why things couldn't be one way or the other, but there is no reason to believe it to be so.

Belief actually reinforces bias.

It is to be avoided if for no other reason than it stymies progression into intelligent discussion and efforts involved in getting on the same page, in order to create a worthwhile foundation in which to build upon.

 

[Hokulele]

I am not divorcing Consciousness from Brain though, nor personal memory.
I am saying that what we are seeing when observing the Brain functioning may not necessarily be just the Brain doing its thing.

Are you claiming that what we observe is the brain plus something else? How is that not divorcing consciousness from the brain?

 

[Navigator]

Are you claiming that what we observe is the brain plus something else? How is that not divorcing consciousness from the brain?

In the same way a married couple are not divorced.

Also: I am not claiming anything.

 

[Hokulele]

In the same way a married couple are not divorced.

Ah, so you are playing word games. How novel. Are you suggesting that the brain and consciousness are separate entities engaged in a contract? If so, you are running into Monopolous' objection.

Also: I am not claiming anything.

Of course not, you are merely speculating.

 

[Navigator]

Are you suggesting that the brain and consciousness are separate entities...

I am saying that it is possible, yes.

In another way, they (Subconsciousness included) may well still be aspects of the one entity, working at different levels of awareness etc... and when one dies they all die. It doesn't matter

As I have said throughout this thread, the brain birthed Consciousness, and also the aspect of Subconsciousness, and that when using ideomotor effect process one can measure that through the effect of interaction.

In order for anyone to comprehend this, they would have to involve themselves with the process and find out for themselves.

Of course, this takes a lot of time and study and ideally needs to be approached without the bias of belief or non belief.

Or:

One can simply ignore such investigation.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I am saying that it is possible, yes.

And there is absolutely, positively, zero evidence of that.

As I have said throughout this thread, the brain birthed Consciousness, and also the aspect of Subconsciousness.

No the brain, or to be more accurate neurological activity within the brain, is consciousness.

People seem to have a real hard time grasping that consciousness is just another bodily function. It is what the brain does.

The functional difference between the conscious and subconscious is simply that of which brain functions we need to be aware of on a practical level and which ones we don't.

 

[Navigator]

As I have said throughout this thread, the brain birthed Consciousness, and also the aspect of Subconsciousness.

No the brain, or to be more accurate neurological activity within the brain, is consciousness.

As has been said more than many times in this thread, this is really what observers together have decided to agree upon, but things are not always as they appear.
There is no way to tell if Consciousness survives the brains death, so the assumption cannot be made to be a matter of fact that consciousness is just neurological activity within the brain.

That is simply what can be believed, based on what is observed. Better to observe and keep belief out of it.

People seem to have a real hard time grasping that consciousness is just another bodily function. It is what the brain does.

This is good because it keeps one from having to form belief systems. 'The brain is just another bodily function' is just as accurate a description.

ETA: Remember – Consciousness can trick itself (and be tricked).*It achieves this through incorrect conclusions, and since Consciousness is able to understand that there is no way to prove that it does or does not survive the death of the brain, then it cannot automatically assume that what it is seeing in relation to brain activity and Consciousness/Subconsciousness, is only brain activity. *Refraining from forming beliefs helps one from the bias trap which is hard to remove from the mind.

The functional difference between the conscious and subconscious is simply that of which brain functions we need to be aware of on a practical level and which ones we don't.

Which of course disregards ideomotor effect and how there is definite evidence which can be gathered from a more in-depth and genuine study of this process, because something does indeed interact with conscious awareness and communication is achievable and that something has to be ‘Subconsciousness’ unless it is something else which we know nothing about.

Whatever it is...it is quite able to explain itself to Consciousness. (You)

 

[Manopolus]

Everything you appear to be saying you later turn around and say that's not what you're saying. Are you saying anything at all? Perhaps you should ask yourself this. I see nothing but a lot of disconnected themes which do not increase my understanding in any way. Make the connections if you indeed have a point, and stop complicating things with unnecessary elaborations. Either you are not communicating well, or you are intentionally creating confusion.

 

[JaysonR]

Thanks Jayson for your response, I will respond after work, much of my bias comes from the vague definition and the whacky use it receives on this R&P forums. There are many long threads wherein the strange entity of 'consciousness; is stated to exist but never defined, and when asked for a definition many foolish answers are received. So I think that for clarity it is best to say what people are actually talking about and ask for what people are actually talking about.

So that is my bias, having received 'you don't know what consciousness is' and 'it is self evident' as answers makes me wary of using the term, as I said I prefer to approach the actual functional behaviors.

Just my personal bias.

I fully sympathize with this bias, having been involved in several consciousness discussions in religion and philosophy forums.

That said, I still think it's a good word; it's just that in forums, most any conceptual term will probably be confusing without specific definition listed.

Heck...listen to some lecture events of neurology and neuroscience meet-ups...they can really get going pedantically on this subject.

 

[JoeMorgue]

As I have said throughout this thread, the brain birthed Consciousness, and also the aspect of Subconsciousness.

Well that' totally irrelevant because you've also said the exact opposite throughout this thread along with a bunch of stuff that is so deliberate obtuse as to be incomprehensible. You suffer from a totally inability to maintain any consistency in your language. You have elevated "I'm not saying X, but X" routine to an artform.

As has been said more than many times in this thread, this is really what observers together have decided to agree upon, but things are not always as they appear.

Translation: I feel I can ignore everything about reality whenever I want to.

"Things are not always what they appear, therefore woo." Seen it before.

There is no way to tell if Consciousness survives the brains death.

Yes there is. Here's a short summer... it doesn't. Consciousness is a collection of electrical impulses in the brain. When the brain dies they stop because that is the definition of the brain dying. That's like saying "There is no way to tell if the air keeps moving after the wind dies down."

Everything you appear to be saying you later turn around and say that's not what you're saying.

Yes. I mean no.

Are you saying anything at all?

No. I mean yes.

That is if I redefine yes to mean no and no to mean yes, then yes I am saying no or no I am saying yes. Yes? No.

Although taken to a frankly absurd degree this is just another in a long line of intentionally confusing argumentative we see from Woo peddlers all the time.

 

[Navigator]

Everything you appear to be saying you later turn around and say that's not what you're saying. Are you saying anything at all? Perhaps you should ask yourself this. I see nothing but a lot of disconnected themes which do not increase my understanding in any way. Make the connections if you indeed have a point, and stop complicating things with unnecessary elaborations.

Given the unfolding nature of the topic, it is not an easy one to relay to the minds of those who may not have thought about things in this way. When I ‘turn around and say that is not what I am saying’ this is the process of trying to clarify, sometimes it appears that my words get twisted and are presented back to me as something I actually said when I truthfully did not say that at all.
I also realise that individual’s process data in a number of ways, and this may not suit everyone, but it cannot be helped.

There is no disconnection or complication, but that you see there is could your interpretation rather than something I am actually doing.

Have a look at the first word you use in the above quote. THAT is unnecessary elaboration.

If you want clarification, do the better thing and quote the particular part and ask if that is what I am saying rather than tell me that is what I am saying.

 

[Manopolus]

Yes, the experience of consciousness is sort of like trying to describe the qualia one experiences when seeing the color blue. We all seem to understand the term, and yet cannot describe it adequately, mainly because we do not understand it adequately.

We can describe blue as a wavelength of light at this point. There is no such measure for consciousness -- therein lies the problem. Using words to describe themselves is a bit tricky.

(ETA) Anyway, this bit was in response to something earlier than the last post, so I suppose I should use quotes, but I am hesitant to quote a huge passage when I am answering generally rather than delving into specifics. In the future I'll try to be more clear.

 

[JaysonR]

And there is absolutely, positively, zero evidence of that.

I'm on the side of the table that predicts that there's no separation between consciousness and the brain, however, to be honest about the state of this declaration in the field - it's not ruled out or in yet.
This idea comes up at least once in just about every lecture or brainstorming session on consciousness in the field.

Some neurophysicists in the field really throw screwballs into the conversation as they bring in quantum states into the consideration of how consciousness is possibly accomplished.

I'm not one who sides with the idea of the holographic universe or the Copenhagen interpretation of human consciousness, but it has to be noted that such things are actively thrown on the table for serious consideration within the field, since we haven't yet concluded what consciousness is, or where it is tangibly.

No the brain, or to be more accurate neurological activity within the brain, is consciousness.

People seem to have a real hard time grasping that consciousness is just another bodily function. It is what the brain does.

The functional difference between the conscious and subconscious is simply that of which brain functions we need to be aware of on a practical level and which ones we don't.

Again, I agree with this, but we can't actually push it as solid fact yet.
This view is conjecture so far, as we don't actually have a final bead on the matter.

Neuroscience is rather open (officially) to the possibility that consciousness comes from something else somehow.
There's all sorts of theories out there in the field on consciousness; many of which would probably surprise most skeptics to find in the mainstream of an official field.

Now, me personally...I'm more a simple physicalist; where a "wave" is described as an action of a body of water and not a thing that comes into water from something else (a common analogy in consciousness discussions).

But, again, we can't actually slam that down on the table and declare all other ideas impossible since we don't actually have solid verification of what consciousness is yet, how it exactly works, and where it is.

Yet, more and more neurscientists are tossing the search for "where" consciousness is and moving to a conceptual model of it being a state (as I hold it, and you appear to hold it as well) rather than a finite location.

But one of the very frustrating things about neuroscience currently is that even though there's over 500 thousand papers published in neuroscience, neuroscience actually lacks even a basic unified theory of any kind at all.

There's no officially established funneling system for neuroscience (though there is work being done to accomplish this so people stop redoing the same studies that don't need to be done for the 5th time just because they weren't aware it had already been done).

So without even a basic theory for neuroscience, it remains practically impossible to actually toss out an official theory of consciousness.

Instead, what we have are very few studies that yielded any solid information on the subject, and tons which only cause heated debate.

 

[Navigator]

Yes, the experience of consciousness is sort of like trying to describe the qualia one experiences when seeing the color blue. We all seem to understand the term, and yet cannot describe it adequately, mainly because we do not understand it adequately.

We can describe blue as a wavelength of light at this point. There is no such measure for consciousness -- therein lies the problem. Using words to describe themselves is a bit tricky.

(ETA) Anyway, this bit was in response to something earlier than the last post, so I suppose I should use quotes, but I am hesitant to quote a huge passage when I am answering generally rather than delving into specifics.

Delving into specifics is preferable.

More preferable than this type of expression.

 

[JaysonR]

Riding the tangent of how much we don't know, just a point of comparison...until the past couple years, we didn't even know the DMN existed, and the reason that we didn't know that it existed was because all EEG, MRI, and fMRI machines would set their baseline to the "background noise" of the brain so that what was the DMN was being zeroed out by the equipment settings and declared "noise" that didn't mean anything.

It took a neurologist (Dr. Marcus E. Raichle) specifically deciding to second-guess this procedure and not set his baseline according to protocol and study the behavior of this "background noise" to see if it was actually anything functional or not.

The point of this is...in neuroscience...there's plenty of cases of protocol assumptions causing oversights on potential information.

As more and more of these kinds of instances occur, neuroscience is less and less willing to make overt and bold claims definitively until there is a volume of repeated tests to verify a position, and those positions are very rarely negations, but instead inclusions only.
If there lacks evidence, instead, then neuroscience often won't rule it out, but instead leave it on the table with the amazing pile of other unknowns regarding our brains.

We simply don't even know what we don't know in neuroscience...heck...we don't even actually know what we do know in full.

It's pretty frustrating.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Invoking "Well we don't know for sure" is intellectually dishonest. It's basically throwing your hands up and going "Evidence, shemevidence... I'm gonna think stuff at random."

And let's just say this particular subforum's track record with people invoking "We don't even know what we don't know" style arguments is less then stellar.

 

[Navigator]

I'm on the side of the table that predicts that there's no separation between consciousness and the brain, however, to be honest about the state of this declaration in the field - it's not ruled out or in yet.
This idea comes up at least once in just about every lecture or brainstorming session on consciousness in the field.

That you are on any side gives indication of your bias, Conscious impression, belief and preferred outcome.
This is not a criticism mind you. It is a fact.

You have spoken of the ‘holy grail’ of neuroscience in regard to preferred outcome.

Some neurophysicists in the field really throw screwballs into the conversation as they bring in quantum states into the consideration of how consciousness is possibly accomplished.

And this is able to be done because there is no evidence either way.
One can speculate the continuation of Consciousness upon death as being possible, but one cannot then declare what that is going to be like.
That data of speculation is irrelevant

I'm not one who sides with the idea of the holographic universe or the Copenhagen interpretation of human consciousness, but it has to be noted that such things are actively thrown on the table for serious consideration within the field, since we haven't yet concluded what consciousness is, or where it is tangibly.

From the data I have experienced, the most likely explanation for the Physical Universe is that it is a Simulation.

Neuroscience is rather open (officially) to the possibility that consciousness comes from something else somehow.
There's all sorts of theories out there in the field on consciousness; many of which would probably surprise most skeptics to find in the mainstream of an official field.

By ‘officially’ do you mean ‘pretence’?

There is no need to explore the possibility that Human Consciousness comes from somewhere else, if that somewhere else has to do with some other universe.
That is irrelevant, because it is here in this one and can be regarded as being a product of the process of evolution, via the brain.

Only if there are scientific hints which might point to their being some kind of invisible universe which might be seen as possibly interacting with this one – as some people claim the double slit proves – would it be necessary to include the possibility of a ‘before the big bang’ or Consciousness from the invisible universe somehow being able to inject itself into this one, via the brain.

If there are no hints, then we needn’t go there.

We can simply take it that consciousness came about naturally in this universe, but we cannot say that it is not a natural part of the process that consciousness can continue to exist outside of the brain which birthed it.
We don’t know.

Now, me personally...I'm more a simple physicalist; where a "wave" is described as an action of a body of water and not a thing that comes into water from something else (a common analogy in consciousness discussions).

But, again, we can't actually slam that down on the table and declare all other ideas impossible since we don't actually have solid verification of what consciousness is yet, how it exactly works, and where it is.

Precisely.
I think your analogy of the water and waves is a bit confusing. Waves are caused by some action which involves water but also other things, like wind and stones and falls etc...

Yet, more and more neurscientists are tossing the search for "where" consciousness is and moving to a conceptual model of it being a state (as I hold it, and you appear to hold it as well) rather than a finite location.

Essentially it is easy to see where Consciousness is, in relation to the individual and their life experience.
It is exactly right where you (the individual) are.
In terms of Humanity, it is on this planet doing its thing.
In terms of the Galaxy, it is scattered about all over the place.

Instead, what we have are very few studies that yielded any solid information on the subject, and tons which only cause heated debate.

Sounds like the field of neuroscience is not exactly on the same page, but I don’t suppose it is any different for a lot of the Sciences.

 

[JaysonR]

Invoking "Well we don't know for sure" is intellectually dishonest. It's basically throwing your hands up and going "Evidence, shemevidence... I'm gonna think stuff at random."

And let's just say this particular subforum's track record with people invoking "We don't even know what we don't know" style arguments is less then stellar.

I'm sure.
Just to be clear, that wasn't my intended message to convey.

I was only conveying that we can't actually lock down a solid description of what consciousness is to the point of being so certain.
We can express what we think is unlikely to be the case and what is likely to be the case, but we actually can't lock down a final position and then consider all others to be invalid.

There's not even a measurement in neuroscience to determine what invalid would even look like regarding consciousness.