Consciousness: what do we know?

[Iacchus]

No. Lots of us are aware of more than one thing. It appears that only you are so limited.

Heck, I can listen to a song played back over the radio, does that mean I'm only aware of one thing? Oh, and welcome to the Consciousness Channel by the way.

 

[Mercutio]

Oh really, and what are these "signals" that the brain produces and interacts with? Not some form of emf?

Do you really want to know? Enough to put in a serious amount of time with some serious sources? If this is what you are asking, I can find some sources for you to read which will show you why the question as you ask it is horribly flawed, but which will also show you the beginnings of the answer to the question you intended to ask.

If, on the other hand, you can't be bothered with reading, and just want to follow your dreams, and asked this question not for information but just to try, against odds, to challenge what Tricky said...then you must be satisfied with the response that your question is flawed, your understanding is flawed, your explanations of consciousness are impossibly inconsistent, self-contradictory, circular, and contrary to observed evidence. You have a long way to go before your questions are coherent, let alone your answers.

 

[Beth]

So... you're agreeing with me?

I can't say. I hold no firm fixed opinion on the matters under discussion. And I'm not sure exactly what you are saying.

Love in an abstract concept. Long ago, they called them abstract concepts because they seemed to be matterless, I suppose (though, I could be wrong, so I don't offer it as much a point).

We know now that love doesn't float in the air, matterless.

You may know that, I do not. How do you know this to be true? You can't touch or see or feel love with your physical senses, but I can't touch or see or feel an atom either. People write books about the existance of both, making arguments and discussion what they have experienced.

Some people say God is Love. Maybe that's true. I don't know.

Anyway, interesting stuff to comtemplate. I gotta go. I'll chew on your food for thought while I watch my son play legos. I may not whether love exists matterless or not, but I know it's real, not imaginary. I'm lucky enough to experience it every day.

Beth

 

[Iacchus]

Do you really want to know? Enough to put in a serious amount of time with some serious sources? If this is what you are asking, I can find some sources for you to read which will show you why the question as you ask it is horribly flawed, but which will also show you the beginnings of the answer to the question you intended to ask.

So, what would be the difference between what I'm saying here and saying that after we die (and drop our bodies) our consciousness endures forever? Wouldn't you have to concede that it must be some form of energy? What else could it be? And one other thing, let's say I knew that the sky was blue, and yet were unable explain (in exact detail) how this was so, does it change the fact that the sky is blue? ... or, that I am unable to see that it is so? Does it make me the least bit delusional for acknowledging what is clearly quite plain to me?

If, on the other hand, you can't be bothered with reading, and just want to follow your dreams, and asked this question not for information but just to try, against odds, to challenge what Tricky said...then you must be satisfied with the response that your question is flawed, your understanding is flawed, your explanations of consciousness are impossibly inconsistent, self-contradictory, circular, and contrary to observed evidence. You have a long way to go before your questions are coherent, let alone your answers.

Yes, and I know that the sky is blue.

 

[David Swidler]

Anyway, interesting stuff to comtemplate. I gotta go. I'll chew on your food for thought while I watch my son play legos. I may not whether love exists matterless or not, but I know it's real, not imaginary. I'm lucky enough to experience it every day.

Beth

Just nominated Beth for the Language Award. Well put, Beth.

 

[Filip Sandor]

When a human being is born, the first and only thing it 'knows' is sensation. Memory is vague and, apparently, short-lived. Actual 'knowledge', nonexistent. Sense of 'self' - equally non-existent. The newborn has no sense of selfness or otherness, no sense of time, no sense of space or dimension. Most have very limited sensory perception, of which they can make little sense. Control of their bodies is nonexistent, as is awareness of those bodies. They feel pain, taste food, feel hunger, wetness, discomfort; light, dark, the scent of things, the sounds.... but all of this is merely a part of their experience.

As the infant grows and develops, several key things occur: self-awareness, the separation of 'self' from 'other', the expansion and improvement of memory, the sharpening of senses, etc. Sometime, during this infant development process, conciousness undoubtably begins to sharpen.

For some people, their memories do not substantially improve until late in their first decade, while others gain a marked improvement in memory early in life. I, for example, have no memories whatsoever beyond my sixth birthday - aside from learned abilities like speech, movement, etc. On the other hand, I know of a young lady who can remember her first words, and can recall how hard it was to learn to speak, to walk, to potty-train.

Then we whiz through life, and some of us meet untimely ends, while others age and wither. Some die with sharp mind and clear memory, while others suffer the (apparent) horror of Alzheimer's or related memory loss.

Eventually, we're all gone. Some claim we are reborn; other, that we exist as spirits, or angels, or in some other realm; but the fact is, we're gone.

Now - on to the point of all this pontification:

All we know, with 100% certainty, is sensory perception exists. The first and closest piece of faith we carry is sense-of-self, and beyond that, consciousness. But we don't gain this until after birth, and we apparently can lose this prior to death. This is due to the limitations of our physical shells.

However, where is the reverse? Some posit that consciousness is more causally valid than physicalism, yet where is all this consciousness? Can anyone - ANYONE - show me, with good, solid evidence, any example of a consciousness existing WITHOUT a physical shell of some sort? Can anyone show reasonable evidence of consciousness existing without a neural processor, senses, memory, etc?

If so, I'll be willing to reconsider the view that consciousness arises from matter - from things physical, to make H-P happy - but if not, then I'd say that the most reasonable thing is to compare what we know. Our sensory perceptions tell us that consciousness cannot exist without matter (unless someone here is finally ready to offer solid evidence otherwise) but that matter can exist without consciousness. So why should anyone, anyone at all, have any problem with this observation, unless they have solid, verifiable evidence that consciousness can exist without matter?

I eagerly await the evidence. Surely, folks like Hammy and Hyppie aren't just blowing hot air...?

This is used to be a favorite topic of mine and I was always surprised to see intelligent materialists contradict plain and simple logic in the name of their faith. I discovered that you can't convince an intelligent materialist that non-physical phenomena is real, not because it is illogical, but usually because of their pride in what they believe, amongst many other possible reasons.

By 'non-physical' I only mean: any phenomena that is known to exist for sure, for which no physical evidence has ever been observed and no valid, physical theory has ever been invented or observed. (Of course you don't have to know about it for it to exist because it does anyway.)

Is there such a phenomena? A quick read into this debate might help answer that question.

As for your question ZD... evidence of consciousness or 'mind' without matter seems quite bleek since non-physical 'mind' stuff seems to be inherently tied to the physical brain states. However, I believe evidence for something other than mind, but still non-physical exists in an even finer and more correct interpretation of the main components that comprise the system we loosly term "consciousness". Here is what worked for me:

First, you must isolate and catagorize a random selection of certain kinds of mental phenomena which you know to occur in your own mind. Things like anger, happiness, sadness, pain, pleasure, etc. are pretty easy to visualise and can easily be distinguished from eachother - a few types should be enough. Then you must analyse the nature or 'attributes' of those mental phenomena and logically deduce that mental phenomena are not capable of percieving anything (ie. thoughts don't feel, thoughts are just thoughts). This requires some pretty heavy thinking if you want to stick to the path of logic and reason, unless you're an absolute genius. Intuitively it seems obvious.

If you know with certainty that the mental phenomena in your mind doesn't percieve anything then it will be easy for you to see that you are not those phenomena. The rest is in the details.

 

[Filip Sandor]

Sorry people, bad editing.. my post is back up.

 

[Z]

This is used to be a favorite topic of mine and I was always surprised to see intelligent materialists contradict plain and simple logic in the name of their faith. I discovered that you can't convince an intelligent materialist that non-physical phenomena is real, not because it is illogical, but usually because of their pride in what they believe, amongst many other possible reasons.

By 'non-physical' I only mean: any phenomena that is known to exist for sure, for which no physical evidence has ever been observed and no valid, physical theory has ever been invented or observed. (Of course you don't have to know about it for it to exist because it does anyway.)

Is there such a phenomena? A quick read into this debate might help answer that question.

As for your question ZD... evidence of consciousness or 'mind' without matter seems quite bleek since non-physical 'mind' stuff seems to be inherently tied to the physical brain states. However, I believe evidence for something other than mind, but still non-physical exists in an even finer and more correct interpretation of the main components that comprise the system we loosly term "consciousness". Here is what worked for me:

First, you must isolate and catagorize a random selection of certain kinds of mental phenomena which you know to occur in your own mind. Things like anger, happiness, sadness, pain, pleasure, etc. are pretty easy to visualise and can easily be distinguished from eachother - a few types should be enough. Then you must analyse the nature or 'attributes' of those mental phenomena and logically deduce that mental phenomena are not capable of percieving anything (ie. thoughts don't feel, thoughts are just thoughts). This requires some pretty heavy thinking if you want to stick to the path of logic and reason, unless you're an absolute genius. Intuitively it seems obvious.

If you know with certainty that the mental phenomena in your mind doesn't percieve anything then it will be easy for you to see that you are not those phenomena. The rest is in the details.

I don't understand why people always confuse emotion - biochemical reactions throughout the body and brain - with thought, which is restricted to the brain. For example, anger is a body-wide reaction, pain is restricted to series of neurons, etc. etc. These are not simply mental phenomena. They are not thoughts. So unless you can come up with better examples of mental phenomena that have limited physical correllation, I'm afraid all you've proven to me is ignorance of how your biochemistry works, Sandor.

At any rate, why should mental phenomena perceive anything? Mental phenomena have no senses nor neural systems to process information; they are processes themselves, much like a program has no ability to perceive - it's a program - a process of data operating within a physical system.

I'm sorry, Filip - you seem like a fairly intelligent guy, but your ignorance is painful to read. I think you really haven't taken much time to really study the brain-body system, have you? Otherwise, you wouldn't use obvious biochemical processes such as 'pain, pleasure, anger' as examples of 'mental phenomena'.

Plus, in no way, whatsoever, did that address what I asked.

ETA: And this:

By 'non-physical' I only mean: any phenomena that is known to exist for sure, for which no physical evidence has ever been observed and no valid, physical theory has ever been invented or observed. (Of course you don't have to know about it for it to exist because it does anyway.)

... makes no sense whatsoever. Your own definition is absolutely contradictory. It's not possible to know that something exists 'for sure' if there is no physical evidence and no valid physical theory for its existence.

Really, Sandor - what game are you playing, here?

 

[hodgy]

As soon as we say consciousness is a thing, that it exists, that its is not nothing then we must logically agree that it has state. Its state is what distinguishes it from something else that is not consciousness.

A non-materialist may argue that this state is not rendered in matter but all he can logically say is that it may not be rendered in matter as we currently understand it. Anything that has state is reasonably well described as being comprised of matter irrespective of whether such matter can be detected by us or conforms to our our current scientific understanding or not. The important point is that we have state.

As Hammy pointed out, we do, of course, actually have evidence of consciousness - our own experiences.

We also have pretty good evidence that the cause of consciousness (what provides its state) is the brain and the electrical activity therein. For the materialist, this is generally good enough (albeit recognising that we want to learn more about how it all works).

The non-materialist can suggest that there is something else, besides the brain, that renders consciousness. Since this would in itself require matter (in the wide definition described above) of some form (to render the state) it does not really advance the non-materialist's argument.

The simplest explanation is that the brain itself provides the matter requisite for consciousness and we have no evidence to the contrary. To posit another abstract layer of matter is superfluous and does not in any case support arguments against materialism.

 

[Iacchus]

We also have pretty good evidence that the cause of consciousness (what provides its state) is the brain and the electrical activity therein. For the materialist, this is generally good enough (albeit recognising that we want to learn more about how it all works).

No, the brain is the vessel or, conduit.

 

[Z]

No, the brain is the vessel or, conduit.

Bzzzzz!

Sorry! Wrong again! That's two - care to go for an even three?

For the brain to be a 'vessel' or 'conduit' suggests that consciousness comes from something else. Since there is no 'something else' for it to come from, the most logical observation is that the brain IS the generator of consciousness.

...

Of course, it could explain why Iacchus has so many problems - his vessel has some holes in it...

 

[Iacchus]

For the brain to be a 'vessel' or 'conduit' suggests that consciousness comes from something else.

Yes!

 

[Iacchus]

Yes!

Yes, just in the way the eye adapted and evolved to capture the light of the sun, the brain adapted and evolved to capture the substance of that which is ever-present, consciousness.

 

[Tricky]

Yes, just in the way the eye adapted and evolved to capture the light of the sun, the brain adapted and evolved to capture the substance of that which is ever-present, consciousness.

Except that consciousness is not a substance, nor is it ever-present. Do you have anything intelligent to add?

 

[Iacchus]

Except that consciousness is not a substance, nor is it ever-present. Do you have anything intelligent to add?

Consciousness is nothing but, ever-present. What else does it entail, except becoming aware of oneself within the present?

 

[Tricky]

Consciousness is nothing but, ever-present. What else does it entail, except becoming aware of oneself within the present?

Empty words. Show me that consciousness is present on Jupiter. Not in you thinking about Jupiter, but actually there.

For that matter, show me that consciousness was present before life evolved.

You're just once again...

 

[Iacchus]

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

So, how do we in fact know this?

 

[Iacchus]

Empty words. Show me that consciousness is present on Jupiter. Not in you thinking about Jupiter, but actually there.

For that matter, show me that consciousness was present before life evolved.

You're just once again...

And, are you suggesting we should make a special exception to the brain that, unlike everything else, it didn't evolve to exploit the available resources? So, which is it? You can't have your cake and eat it too can you?

 

[Hardenbergh]

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

If today's the first day of the rest of my life, I'm not getting off to a very good start. I walked out to get the newspaper from the box at the end of my driveway this morning and I slipped and fell on a patch of ice. Usually I'm very careful but I wasn't ice-conscious since it's not officially winter. I scraped the top of my foot somehow when I fell and there's some swelling at the top of the foot and a little swelling over to the side. It hurts to walk on it so I'm seeing the doctor this afternoon to see if I need to get it X-rayed. My driveway slopes down and apparently there was a little water at the end of the driveway and then it froze over during the night. Look what we people have to deal with here in New England or anywhere else in the country where temperatures dip below freezing.

 

[Iacchus]

Except that consciousness is not a substance, nor is it ever-present. Do you have anything intelligent to add?

Would you consider the radio waves that tell your TV how to function a "substance?" Obviously we wouldn't be able to watch TV if there was nothing there would we? I believe most of us would refer to this as emf.