The Conservation of Consciousness

[KingMerv00]

Yes, that is why I post my ideas in a forum called "Religion and Philosophy"

Hope I didn't come off as dismissive. I just meant to say that we can come up with an infinite number of fictional scenarios but without evidence, the conversation will be very brief.

 

[Tricky]

True, there isn't any evidence for it.

Right. Then, while it doesn't rule out the possibility, having no evidence for it makes it a lot less likely.

Could consciousness exist without a living body?

To answer that question for yourself, first you must have a clear idea of exactly what you mean by "consciousness". Personality? Memories? Self-awareness? When you have got a clear, working definition, then try to examine whether those things can exist in inanimate objects. Be careful not to change your definition as you are doing this.

I think that what you will find is that almost every characteristic that people normally call "consciousness" requires a living organism, and usually a living organism with higher brain functions. But if you find otherwise, then I'm sure folks here would be interested, both in your definition of consciousness and in your examples of conciousness in or apart from non-living things.

 

[Complexity]

I'm curious as to where you draw the line of things that possess consciousness and those that do not.

You've already said that you think bacteria possess consciousness. I'm curious as to how that consciousness manifests itself, and what evidence you have for its existence.

What about viruses? Prions? Water molecules? Hydrogen atoms?

Where do you draw the line?

I exhibit consciousness, and so do my cats. Some people would disagree about my cats, but they don't know my cats.

Also, for consciousness to be conserved, it must be quantifiable.

What are the units of consciousness?

How can you explain the fact that the amount of consciousness I have can vary with time?

When I sleep, does the amount of consciousness that I have decrease? Does something else increase in consciousness to pick up the slack?

What about when I've been anesthetized for surgery?

What about when I'm in a coma after an auto accident?

What about when I die?

How do you know any of this?

What evidence do you have to back up your hypotheses?

What is your definition for consciousness and your mechanism for measuring it?

 

[gs21stc]

You have convinced me that consciousness is a complex subject which cannot be understood easily. I have pondered about all your questions and think that the hypothesis of the conservation of consciousness does not have a strong basis of support, hence it is very unlikely. This idea mainly stems from the Dharmic religions of Hinduism and Buddhism.

 

[Complexity]

You have convinced me that consciousness is a complex subject which cannot be understood easily. I have pondered about all your questions and think that the hypothesis of the conservation of consciousness does not have a strong basis of support, hence it is very unlikely.

Congratulations!

 

[edge]

You have convinced me that consciousness is a complex subject which cannot be understood easily. I have pondered about all your questions and think that the hypothesis of the conservation of consciousness does not have a strong basis of support, hence it is very unlikely. This idea mainly stems from the Dharmic religions of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Or does it?
This may help I also linked it in another post.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=558271&in_page_id=1770

A souls memory is through out the whole body in other words.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

“The soul’s memory,” oh c’mon! At the very best… more like change in behaviour due to new hardware. The brain doesn’t function in a vacuum.

A better explanation could lie in the fact that not every change in personality is consciously registered, especially when undergoing a significant physiological and psychological ordeal like organ transplant. Thus the confusion when people finally recognize that they behave in a different way than before.

 

[Tricky]

Or does it?
This may help I also linked it in another post.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=558271&in_page_id=1770

A souls memory is through out the whole body in other words.

That is why when a person loses a leg, they also lose some of their memories.

It seems gs21stc has learned more in 38 posts than Edge has in over 1300. That's pretty embarassing.

 

[edge]

That is why when a person loses a leg, they also lose some of their memories.

It seems gs21stc has learned more in 38 posts than Edge has in over 1300. That's pretty embarassing.

First you need to learn how to spell before you criticize.
Embarrassed, you should be?
You Guys are stagnant in your ways of thinking.
He has been only fooled into your way of thinking, that’s all.

That person will say that they still feel their leg is there, why isn't it gone completely.
I still feel teeth that are missing.
Here's the way you think and what you do in bold, Professor Stephen Hawking the exception since he admits to it.

RONALD PEARSON BSc DISCOVERS THE UNSEEN AND NORMALLY UNSENSED UNIVERSE
"It was Einstein's materialistic Theory of Relativity that destroyed Sir Oliver Lodge's Theory of the Ether."

Sam Nicholls MSc

With the benefit of hindsight we now know that a scientific disaster took place when Sir Isaac Newton's model of the universe was discarded and replaced by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Einstein said on his 70th birthday:

"Now you think I am looking at my life's work with calm satisfaction. But there is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm. I am not sure if I was on the right track after all."

If only our contemporary physicists had shared Einstein's skepticism then we would not have wasted so much time and money trying to match up Niels Bohr's quantum mechanics with relativity.
Even the Einstein supporter Professor Stephen Hawking from Cambridge University admits that they are incompatible.
Apart from in Russia and a few "heretics" in the West, the whole of orthodox science is locked into a largely false and hopelessly outdated scientific theory.
We are being subjected to one extraordinary theory after another, ranging from us being able to go back in time and murder our grandparents and then to somehow be born in another universe, to the questionable Big Bang theory that says every galaxy in the universe started from the size of a pin head at a single point in time!
This is the sort of scenario we end up with if we start our calculations from a false base.

Only those of us who are outside of the university sausage machine are in a position to challenge orthodox scientific thinking. The physics students are powerless.
They would not get their degrees if they told the truth.
They know what happened to one of our leading scientists who had the courage to say Einstein's Theory of Relativity is incorrect. Dr. Louis Essen D.Sc. FRS, OBE, is the inventor of the atomic clock. For trying to bring common sense back into physics he was told further such activity would place the tenure of his post in jeopardy.
Into this scientific vacuum has stepped a retired university lecturer with a background in engineering, Ronald Pearson from Bath. Thankfully, Mr. Pearson no longer has to watch out for peer pressure in order to keep his university appointment. However, he is still at the mercy of the peer-referee system.

This is just a euphemism for censorship - keeping the old-boy network intact. Before any scientific theory can see the light of day it has to run the gauntlet of politically correct scientists who are worshipping at the shrine of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
This way no constructive criticism ever comes to the attention of students or the public in quality scientific magazines, the press or on radio and television. Engineers do not have the freedom to indulge in any scientific flights of fancy, otherwise all their structures will come tumbling down and their machines will blow up or crash. These practical men and women act as a sort of scientific brake.

in 1988, Professor Richard P. Feynman, a Nobel Laureate for Physics, made the following statement.
"If your theories and mathematics do not match the experiment, then they are wrong."
Einstein's Theory of Relativity cannot match the experiment where people who once lived on earth come back and prove they are still alive, because this theory is incompatible with even the very existence of an ether. Ronald Pearson's Theory of the Ether most certainly does. It shows the ether having a complex structure, intelligence and conscious, to be the core ingredient.
The great strength of the powerful materialists who control orthodox scientific thinking is that they are banking on the fact that most people are not making an effort to understand even basic subatomic physics. Even a cursory glance at the subject shows that the physical universe is being produced from the invisible - the etheric universe. Please spike the guns of the "when-you're-dead,-you're-dead" merchants. Read Professor Richard Feynman's layman's guide to subatomic physics obtainable from bookshops and the library

By Michael Roll
While I don’t agree with everything he has to say he makes good points.
Censored in Great Britain
THE SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH


http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/background/scientificproof/scientificproof1.html

This was also interesting.

'I am a charlatan, a liar, a thief and a fake altogether.'

http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/background/nicholls.html

I take everything into consideration Smarter people than me are the ones reporting their findings on cellular memories.
At least they aren’t afraid of change of knowledge.

lupus_in_fibula says,

Thus the confusion when people finally recognize that they behave in a different way than before.

Yes at first till all is known about why they behave differently, they show that there are many correlations from the donors wants and needs that are new to the recipient that match identically and are outrageously different and are established at that point of transfer of the body part to the donor.
It seems that it isn’t coincidence just because of, case after case of this being reported.
It will be an on going experiment since this is common practice to transplant organs and more will be known as it is documented.

 

[Reality Check]

Could consciousness exist without a living body?

Not now but quite possibly in the future:

1. Artificial intelligences could be created with all the properties of consciousness (according to whatever definition that you like).
2. We may develop the technology to download human brains into computers. If these are indistinguishable from the originals then they must have consciousness and are not in living bodies.

 

[Tricky]

First you need to learn how to spell before you criticize.
Embarrassed, you should be?

LOL. Yes, Edge, I did misspell embarrassed. I apologize for not using the spell checker. Ironic isn't it though, coming from a guy who has great difficult constructing a grammatical sentence. Let's just examine a few things in your post. I won't even bother to go to old posts where the errors are more numerous than ants at a picnic.

I take everything into consideration Smarter people than me are the ones reporting their findings on cellular memories.

Did you forget your punctuation Edge? Oops. Spell checkers won't catch that.

Yes at first till all is known about why they behave differently, they show that there are many correlations from the donors wants and needs that are new to the recipient that match identically and are outrageously different and are established at that point of transfer of the body part to the donor.

I challenge you to diagram that sentence. Oh, and don't forget your punctuation.

It will be an on going experiment since this is common practice to transplant organs and more will be known as it is documented.

Oops. The words "on" and "going" are both legitimate words, but the word you probably meant was "ongoing". Spell checkers won't catch that either. You want me to pull up some of your other posts that you didn't use spell-checker on? I don't think you do.

Oh, and while you're out refining your writing skills, pop by the library and see if you can find us a peer-reviewed article that indicates where memories have been transplanted with organs, eh? That's a good lad.

 

[Ladewig]

Or does it?
This may help I also linked it in another post.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=558271&in_page_id=1770

A souls memory is through out the whole body in other words.

The United States has enough trouble getting people to donate their organs without people like you spreading superstitious nonsense like this.

 

[gs21stc]

Not now but quite possibly in the future:

We may develop the technology to download human brains into computers. If these are indistinguishable from the originals then they must have consciousness and are not in living bodies.

That is a very interesting concept to ponder. If we can transfer our consciousness to a robot, will we be able to live forever then? Is consciousness a stagnant thing or will it degrade and vanish?

In order to be immortal, do we have to transfer our entire brain to a robot? The brain will no doubt decay and die if we do not have some sort of preservative to keep it going.

 

[Dragoonster]

Hope I didn't come off as dismissive. I just meant to say that we can come up with an infinite number of fictional scenarios but without evidence, the conversation will be very brief.

I don't get this. Consciousness ideations are mostly philosophical. Philosophy isn't dismissed due to lack of evidence even though its "evidence" abruptly ends after self-nonself distinction. Conversations based on Hume, Descartes, Aristotle aren't very brief, even though none of them offer any real evidence after some point in their philosophizing.

I think pondering on consciousness should be encouraged, particularly since we know very little about it. Sure, it seems somewhat tied to the brain. Sure, there are very basic philosophical beliefs about it. But little's really evidential. Little is agreed upon. So perhaps some giant will come upon a novel solution. Maybe it's gs21stc!

However, it is vitally important to make the distinction between scientific investigation of consciousness and philosophical ideas! Anyone can conjure up any philosophy they want, but unless it meets the rigor of the scientific method, please avoid claims that your ideas might actually be true, or even a "strong case".

Absolutely.

I may be overreacting to negative attacks on the OP when he's just exploring the most fundamental (and ephemeral) question of the human condition. If he's to be hypercriticized on this, everyone should be hypercriticized on everything.

 

[Dragoonster]

That is a very interesting concept to ponder. If we can transfer our consciousness to a robot, will we be able to live forever then? Is consciousness a stagnant thing or will it degrade and vanish?

In order to be immortal, do we have to transfer our entire brain to a robot? The brain will no doubt decay and die if we do not have some sort of preservative to keep it going.

The reasoning behind that is from incrementation. That is, if one bit of your consciousness (assuming it's able to be translated into data), is removed from your brain and into the computer, does your consciousness cease?

If not, then it would (perhaps) merely be a million, or trillion, of those transfers to the computer in order to transfer the consciousness.

The reverse criticism is valid though--Does the computer gain consciousness after the first bit of data is transferred? Since computers already are mechanical (binary information), that one bit wouldn't be different than any other current bits. So at what point does the collection of bits grant the computer consciousness?

Someone can probably elaborate, but at that point it seems to boil down to the consciousness-brain(body) connection. If the brain is an integral part of consciousness, maybe the only working mind-computer transfer to work would require a perfect computer replica of the brain. But if it was perfect, maybe that's all it would need to be conscious.

I'm going to go cry for awhile.

 

[Tricky]

That is a very interesting concept to ponder. If we can transfer our consciousness to a robot, will we be able to live forever then? Is consciousness a stagnant thing or will it degrade and vanish?

In order to be immortal, do we have to transfer our entire brain to a robot? The brain will no doubt decay and die if we do not have some sort of preservative to keep it going.

It would have to be more than the brain. While Edge is wrong about memory being stored in body parts, it is probably true that a lot of what we think of as consciousness is dependant on sensory input. The robot that took our "brain" would also have to be able to see, hear, feel and be self-aware in the same way a human is. Whatever you call your "consciousness", it is pretty obvious that it changes as you change and grow. Do robots change and grow? It would have to be pretty sophisticated. Indeed it would have to be almost as sophisticated as an actual living person.

 

[Hokulele]

That person will say that they still feel their leg is there, why isn't it gone completely.
I still feel teeth that are missing.

I am almost afraid to ask what happens to the memories in your bowel movements. And if you are really interested in phantom limbs, I would recommend you read V.S. Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain. A sample can be seen here.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mind/notebook.html

 

[arthwollipot]

I'd like to know what the memories-stored-in-body-parts theory says about alien hand syndrome.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

THE SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH
http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/back...ficproof1.html

No mention about a soul there (thus no soul’s memory either). Furthermore, we can find this kind of whining all over the web. Sometimes they might have a case, most often they don’t. Whining about the general scientific- and peer-review process is simply stupid. Science is not the same as democracy or free speech.

http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/back.../nicholls.html

I take everything into consideration Smarter people than me are the ones reporting their findings on cellular memories.
At least they aren’t afraid of change of knowledge.

No you didn’t! You immediately jumped to a conclusion about a “soul’s memory.”

There’s nothing to be afraid of. In fact, many scientists would love to prove their colleagues wrong about some fundamental aspect since it would surely bring them a prize or two. Note the emphasis on the term 'prove'.

Yes at first till all is known about why they behave differently, they show that there are many correlations from the donors wants and needs that are new to the recipient that match identically and are outrageously different and are established at that point of transfer of the body part to the donor.
It seems that it isn’t coincidence just because of, case after case of this being reported.
It will be an on going experiment since this is common practice to transplant organs and more will be known as it is documented.

Case after case? Well, yeah, they do not happen at the same time. But you fail to recognize how many organ transplants actually have/are taking place without mentioning such side effects. If you spend most of your time searching for oddities, you eventually find many such unexplained things, especially in the internet era.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Couldn’t let this one pass:

RONALD PEARSON BSc DISCOVERS THE UNSEEN AND NORMALLY UNSENSED UNIVERSE
"It was Einstein's materialistic Theory of Relativity that destroyed Sir Oliver Lodge's Theory of the Ether."

Sam Nicholls MSc

With the benefit of hindsight we now know that a scientific disaster took place when Sir Isaac Newton's model of the universe was discarded and replaced by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Einstein said on his 70th birthday:

"Now you think I am looking at my life's work with calm satisfaction. But there is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm. I am not sure if I was on the right track after all."

If only our contemporary physicists had shared Einstein's skepticism then we would not have wasted so much time and money trying to match up Niels Bohr's quantum mechanics with relativity.
Even the Einstein supporter Professor Stephen Hawking from Cambridge University admits that they are incompatible.
Apart from in Russia and a few "heretics" in the West, the whole of orthodox science is locked into a largely false and hopelessly outdated scientific theory.
We are being subjected to one extraordinary theory after another, ranging from us being able to go back in time and murder our grandparents and then to somehow be born in another universe, to the questionable Big Bang theory that says every galaxy in the universe started from the size of a pin head at a single point in time!
This is the sort of scenario we end up with if we start our calculations from a false base.

Only those of us who are outside of the university sausage machine are in a position to challenge orthodox scientific thinking. The physics students are powerless.
They would not get their degrees if they told the truth.
They know what happened to one of our leading scientists who had the courage to say Einstein's Theory of Relativity is incorrect. Dr. Louis Essen D.Sc. FRS, OBE, is the inventor of the atomic clock. For trying to bring common sense back into physics he was told further such activity would place the tenure of his post in jeopardy.
Into this scientific vacuum has stepped a retired university lecturer with a background in engineering, Ronald Pearson from Bath. Thankfully, Mr. Pearson no longer has to watch out for peer pressure in order to keep his university appointment. However, he is still at the mercy of the peer-referee system.

This is just a euphemism for censorship - keeping the old-boy network intact. Before any scientific theory can see the light of day it has to run the gauntlet of politically correct scientists who are worshipping at the shrine of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
This way no constructive criticism ever comes to the attention of students or the public in quality scientific magazines, the press or on radio and television. Engineers do not have the freedom to indulge in any scientific flights of fancy, otherwise all their structures will come tumbling down and their machines will blow up or crash. These practical men and women act as a sort of scientific brake.

Einstein’s Theory Gets Support From 18 Billion Suns: Link here.

Egde, if you read the paper carefully, you can see that there was also a wide collaboration with amateur astronomers. Moreover, there’s also a prediction that can make their case even stronger (an outburst of OJ287 quasar in 2016).

Just as Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity made the prediction of the emission of gravitational waves (which the abovementioned study is centred around), a new prediction is made again. This is how science works, and it’s a pretty difficult job, but the payoff is also quite wonderful – it’s wonderful in the sense that it doesn’t require a stupendous amount of wishful thinking, obscurantism or any other form of fussy reasoning.