Consciousness

[George S]

If you are saying that humans measuring it is the basis of time passing then you are really going to struggle to explain any change before we existed. Time is change, that's it.

So close. Time is the dimension along which change in space can occur.
We measure time against a naturally repeating frequency.

If you can point me to something that is happening beyond change in the organisation of what there is, then please do. As for time being a dimension in anything but the most metaphorical sense...

So, this naturally repeating frequency that we can measure time against? If you mean caesium 133, then that’s just conventionally picking on a particularly stable reciprocating change. Other timebases are available.

Any naturally repeating frequency will do.


Reality is a combination called spacetime. It has four dimensions. Other than the case of quantum entanglement change requires time and space. Motion to another location and back again takes less time than standing still (twin paradox). The dimensions of space and time are tied together. Walk around another stationary person. You have experienced less time than that stationary person.

Time is much more complicated than mere change.

 

[George S]

Some people talk of logical contradictions.

There is no bigger contraction than saying there is something that exists but never had a beginning to it's existence.

If something never had a beginning to it's existence it never existed. To say anything else is a contradiction. At least in the universe we inhabit.

To put forth magic as an answer to rational inquiry will create problems if those putting forth magic will not relent.

If those putting forth magic, something existing but never had a beginning to it's existence, continue year in and year out to put forth magic as their solution then problems can last for years.


This will not be answered by the production of the best magic. The best miracle.

Your hypothesis seems to be that for every thing that exists it must have begun to exist. This is a common religious apologetic. There are about a million videos debunking these religious nut jobs. YouTube is your friend.

There is one "miracle." The fact that reality exists. There is, in fact, not nothingness.* There are two options. Either there was nothing at all for the longest time and then ... poof ... the universe turned on. The religious claim is that the cause to that event could only be a god. This accomplishes nothing at all. The "whence god" becomes the first miracle.

*Conscious experience of reality has a beginning and will have an end.

 

[humbleman]

Perhaps the most recognized philosophers were in the wrong track.

Before anything, any sensation, any perception, any thought... this is the main rule from which consciousness will come to be

I exist, therefore I think.

I know lots of people who exist, but who have never given me the slightest reason to believe that they think.

I got your point. For this reason I strongly think that relativists with their "time dilatation" are the best evidence that they can't think.

I have no idea if these people are just fanatics or if they are getting paid to promote a false theory in science, philosophy, movies, books, even religion. You find them everywhere always trying to promote a fallacy.

On the other hand, there is the tendency to assume that thoughts have existed forever the way they are. Something like you become to exist and your antenna flip flip flip flip receives signals which you translate into ideas. Those signals come from somewhere, an unknown place, in religion is from a god.

I can tell that even if this phenomenon is true, the signals weren't traveling making circles around the universe but are formed according to the new events.

Nothing in the universe repeats itself exactly the same, because the entire universe is in a continued motion. Like when you travel in this huge spaceship called planet earth and return back to same position in front of the Sun after 365 years. You are in the same angle or degree but our entire solar system has moved already, so in the universe you are not in the same place anymore, and by such the event of the orbit of earth repeats itself but the new repetition is never identical to the former one.

Same with thoughts, there are thoughts about freedom, but if you compare the different intentions when the ideas were formed, those intentions were different and the application of the ideas were also different. Like love. while for a religious person means mostly from God, for others love is about taking care of animals, or different others, like loving criminality.

I just review the capability of writing.

Scientists have discovered that our genes obey a system of information inside them. Scientists called it "writing". Then, scientists modify what is "written" in the genes and can manipulate the organism, like it can be formed a chicken with four legs after that manipulation.

Question arises. If the issue is about "writing", and scientists are erasing one information and writing a different one in the genes, who wrote the primeval information in the first place? Writing requires of intelligence behind of it.

We are aware of several things when we exist. Consciousness starts for each one of us when our organisms are formed, even before birth we already are sensing and perceiving, learning to be aware.

 

[humbleman]

If you can point me to something that is happening beyond change in the organisation of what there is, then please do. As for time being a dimension in anything but the most metaphorical sense...

So, this naturally repeating frequency that we can measure time against? If you mean caesium 133, then that’s just conventionally picking on a particularly stable reciprocating change. Other timebases are available.

Any naturally repeating frequency will do.


Reality is a combination called spacetime. It has four dimensions. Other than the case of quantum entanglement change requires time and space. Motion to another location and back again takes less time than standing still (twin paradox). The dimensions of space and time are tied together. Walk around another stationary person. You have experienced less time than that stationary person.

Time is much more complicated than mere change.

Yours are not illusions, yours are delusions.

 

[untermensche]

Some people talk of logical contradictions.

There is no bigger contraction than saying there is something that exists but never had a beginning to it's existence.

If something never had a beginning to it's existence it never existed. To say anything else is a contradiction. At least in the universe we inhabit.

To put forth magic as an answer to rational inquiry will create problems if those putting forth magic will not relent.

If those putting forth magic, something existing but never had a beginning to it's existence, continue year in and year out to put forth magic as their solution then problems can last for years.


This will not be answered by the production of the best magic. The best miracle.

Your hypothesis seems to be that for every thing that exists it must have begun to exist...

It is slightly different from that.

My hypothesis is that to claim something exists but never had a beginning to it's existence is resorting to magic. Resorting to a miracle.

Like the way people claimed god existed without a beginning. A miracle.

It is still a miracle when you use it for anything else.

Resorting to miracles cannot be a rational path to discovery.

 

[Subsymbolic]

If you can point me to something that is happening beyond change in the organisation of what there is, then please do. As for time being a dimension in anything but the most metaphorical sense...

So, this naturally repeating frequency that we can measure time against? If you mean caesium 133, then that’s just conventionally picking on a particularly stable reciprocating change. Other timebases are available.

Any naturally repeating frequency will do.


Reality is a combination called spacetime. It has four dimensions. Other than the case of quantum entanglement change requires time and space. Motion to another location and back again takes less time than standing still (twin paradox). The dimensions of space and time are tied together. Walk around another stationary person. You have experienced less time than that stationary person.

Time is much more complicated than mere change.

Yours are not illusions, yours are delusions.

Says the man who believes in a mind first universe...

Meanwhile, what do you think Einstein meant by:

Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it.

He wasn't a time dualist.

 

[Kharakov]

Do you understand what "in theory" means? It means you do not consider the physical limitations of a human and look only at what is possible if time exists. If there is time there can in theory be somebody writing.

Wait, so we are supposed to consider your theoretical constructs that you describe without math, but any theory described with math (like the TGR, or various quantum hypotheses ) is to be thrown out because the theoretical constructs described with math (like continuous, thus infinitely dividable, spacetime) are... "imaginary"?

And here I thought that predictive mathematical theoretical constructs were of some value when attempting to describe the universe.

How much time would it take to write out all the fractions between zero and one?

all the fractions between zero and one. Umm... all the fractions between zero and one. 3-5 seconds? I can't tell. I type as fast as I think sometimes, but when I pay attention, it's slower because I fumple.

It is a question that has an answer. If you do not know the answer you are done. You can move no further. Your thinking cannot advance.

That makes no sense.... obviously your thinking has advanced in many incorrect ways by refusing to acknowledge the truth. It's just that it isn't "advancing" in the sense of becoming a more accurate map of reality.

 

[Subsymbolic]

There is no bigger contraction than saying there is something that exists but never had a beginning to it's existence.

Really? Can you explain the logical contradiction in asserting that something has always existed?

 

[untermensche]

There is no bigger contraction than saying there is something that exists but never had a beginning to it's existence.

Really? Can you explain the logical contradiction in asserting that something has always existed?

If something has no start to it's existence the logical conclusion is that it does not exist.

The illogical conclusion is that it exists.

That would not only be a miraculous state but it implies a completed real infinity, an impossibility.

 

[George S]

Resorting to miracles cannot be a rational path to discovery.

[editorial note] When I started this thread I never thought it would become a thread about the origin of other-than-conscious reality. [end note]

I suppose that depends on the definition of miracle. A miracle is that which is impossible under natural law. The one miracle is that there exists natural law.

Mother Nature is my Goddess
She alone causelessly exists eternally.
She has but one commandment: My Way
There are no miracle workers, no one can beat Her power. Ever. She Nurtures all her children and Kills them each and every one. She neither listens nor gives a damn nor blessing.

She is the Oracle of Truth
Just as all oracles worthy of the term give True, yet misleading Answers, so too with Mother Nature.
Her priests and priestesses have divined a method of experiment to winnow the wheat from the chaff.​

Using this fertile seed the priests and priestesses predict the future. And when it is found that She fooled us yet again, we correct our errors. Her followers like to know when they have been wrong all along.​

Consciousness is for predicting the future. It is for imagining alternate futures and making plans. Those who could predict the future survived better than those who could not. We spend fully 20% of our food energy to run the brain, the seat of consciousness. It must be important because evolution loses that which is unnecessary over thousands of generations (see cave fish). To be that consciousness making predictions is what we call conscious experience.

Is a 1-yr-old conscious? He can predict the future to a degree. "Cry and someone comes." "I can control my hand and pick things up and taste them."

Just being conscious and unable to do anything -- the locked-in state -- is a kind of hell. Input but no output, no control. Being taken care of and made comfortable as in a womb. Pointless thought leading to despair.

 

[Treedbear]

And I've already admitted that I don't have the answer to whether it's possible.

You're half way there.

If you can understand that saying infinite time occurred before some moment is the same as saying all the fractions between zero and one were written out before that moment, you know.

That should be easy! Just tell me when the writing began.

 

[untermensche]

The state of "always existing" is not a state that can be explained by any science.

It is a magical, absurd state. A miraculous state that defies reason and is supported by no observation. It is a state that could never be proven to exist.

It is not an explanation an adult would accept about anything.

Invoking it as if it is an answer to something is a religious gesture.

- - - Updated - - -

And I've already admitted that I don't have the answer to whether it's possible.

You're half way there.

If you can understand that saying infinite time occurred before some moment is the same as saying all the fractions between zero and one were written out before that moment, you know.

That should be easy! Just tell me when the writing began.

Can there be writing without a start to the writing?

Can there be time without a start to the time? Somehow people think they are just allowed to conclude this. They think they do not have to prove it is possible to have time without a beginning to it.

If time does not start it does not exist. That is what reason would conclude.

 

[ruby sparks]

Resorting to miracles cannot be a rational path to discovery.

[editorial note] When I started this thread I never thought it would become a thread about the origin of other-than-conscious reality. [end note]

I suppose that depends on the definition of miracle. A miracle is that which is impossible under natural law. The one miracle is that there exists natural law.

Mother Nature is my Goddess
She alone causelessly exists eternally.
She has but one commandment: My Way
There are no miracle workers, no one can beat Her power. Ever. She Nurtures all her children and Kills them each and every one. She neither listens nor gives a damn nor blessing.

She is the Oracle of Truth
Just as all oracles worthy of the term give True, yet misleading Answers, so too with Mother Nature.
Her priests and priestesses have divined a method of experiment to winnow the wheat from the chaff.​

Using this fertile seed the priests and priestesses predict the future. And when it is found that She fooled us yet again, we correct our errors. Her followers like to know when they have been wrong all along.​

Consciousness is for predicting the future. It is for imagining alternate futures and making plans. Those who could predict the future survived better than those who could not. We spend fully 20% of our food energy to run the brain, the seat of consciousness. It must be important because evolution loses that which is unnecessary over thousands of generations (see cave fish). To be that consciousness making predictions is what we call conscious experience.

Is a 1-yr-old conscious? He can predict the future to a degree. "Cry and someone comes." "I can control my hand and pick things up and taste them."

Just being conscious and unable to do anything -- the locked-in state -- is a kind of hell. Input but no output, no control. Being taken care of and made comfortable as in a womb. Pointless thought leading to despair.

A lot of that makes a lot of sense, imo.

So you are not an epiphenomenonalist then. I thought in your OP you started off as if you were but then moved away from that.

Consciousness exists to run simulations then.

But....didn't the chess program 'Deep Blue' do this?

What I mean is, in principle a machine could run simulations in order to make better predictions about decisions, but it would not seem to need to be self-aware that it is running them. We might even say it would be more economical for it not to be.

Just wondering......

 

[Subsymbolic]

The state of "always existing" is not a state that can be explained by any science.

Is that a scientific claim? Because if it is where is the evidence beyond your intuition? You do realise that this doesn't support your logical claim.

It is a magical, absurd state. A miraculous state that defies reason and is supported by no observation.

As is the claim that the universe came into existence - it's a problem with not being there at the time, not a problem with science. There's no knock down evidence for either proposition.

It is a state that could never be proven to exist.

Claims like that usually tend to tell us more about the author's imagination than what is possible.

It is not an explanation an adult would accept about anything.

And yet it's a position Einstein held.

Invoking it as if it is an answer to something is a religious gesture.

Really? most religions say God started it.

 

[George S]

A lot of that makes a lot of sense, imo.

So you are not an epiphenomenonalist then. I thought in your OP you started off as if you were but then moved away from that.

Consciousness exists to run simulations then.

But....didn't the chess program 'Deep Blue' do this?

What I mean is, in principle a machine could run simulations in order to make better predictions about decisions, but it would not seem to need to be self-aware that it is running them. We might even say it would be more economical for it not to be.

Just wondering......

I expect the day will come when an AI declares itself conscious. But who are we to guess that being like a conscious mechanical robot is similar to the conscious biological robot experience.

There is something "like it" to be a conscious human being. But it is singularly private. The question "Is your green the same as my green?" makes sense. We may expect that that it is at least very similar, us both being human and all. But what is it like to be a bat (to borrow from Nagel in Mind's I)? To be a Sea Squirt which has a brain to help it find a place to live, and then reabsorbs it?

If there is something "like it" to be a conscious AI. Who are we to say? Conscious experience is private.

Did Deep Blue regret losing? Did Deep Blue include himself in his model of reality? Did Deep Blue model the other player and not just the chessboard?

We have an on board, very slow, computer. Computer chess machines are very dumb and very fast.

It has come to the point that Backgammon computers play like world class players.

Bridge bidding programs are getting better and better. There are yearly competitions.

They do not model themselves as machines nor the other players as people. No consciousness possible.

Is it possible to generate consciousness composed of unconscious parts? It takes about nine months.

 

[George S]

I, Robot, though has to model himself, being mobile and all.

The human biological robot has a program:

Do While Alive
   If not content
      do something else
   End If
End Do

The Robot?

Do While Operational
  If not content
     do something else
  End If
End Do

What is contentment to a robot?

 

[ruby sparks]

Yes to that generally.

I was just picking up on the particular suggestion that consciousness supplies some evolutionary/survival advantage and wondering if the idea could be tossed around to see what the alternatives are.

Lots of life forms don't (apparently) have it and have been around for a lot longer than us.

And even if other animals have it, it does not seem to be capable of serving the purpose that ours seems to.

 

[untermensche]

The state of "always existing" is not a state that can be explained by any science.

Is that a scientific claim? Because if it is where is the evidence beyond your intuition? You do realise that this doesn't support your logical claim.

All things that have no scientific explanation are not explained by science.

It is a truism.

It is a magical, absurd state. A miraculous state that defies reason and is supported by no observation.

As is the claim that the universe came into existence

That is totally besides the point and not true.

All that can be said about the universe is that it appears to have a beginning. Certainly all matter clearly has a beginning. The universe exists before organized matter exists.

And what is also true is that it is absurd to claim a completed real infinity exists.

The state of "always existing" is a pretend imaginary state, like a god.

It is not an explanation fit for an adult.

 

[George S]

Yes to that generally.

I was just picking up on the particular suggestion that consciousness supplies some evolutionary/survival advantage and wondering if the idea could be tossed around to see what the alternatives are.

Lots of life forms don't (apparently) have it and have been around for a lot longer than us.

And even if other animals have it, it does not seem to be capable of serving the purpose that ours seems to.

There are no conscious trees nor grasses. What good would it be for them? There are no plans to make. They are non-conscious biological robots -- slaves to their DNA. The tunicate has a cerebral ganglion that is used to swim about and find where it is to live for the rest of its life cycle. It has no further use and so reabsorbs it. Was there something "like it" to be a sea squirt while it swam around finding a home?
There is something "like it" to be a human being being human. I truly know so. Because I remember and use remembered information to predict the future and make my plans. If my understanding of the state of reality is faulty my predictions are faulty too.

Is it possible to take, say, Oprah and made a mechanical body that looks exactly like Oprah and will respond exactly like Oprah would, but it is all done by unconscious programming? Is a Zombie -- the lights are on but nobody's home -- possible?

 

[George S]

All things that have no scientific explanation are not explained by science.

It is a truism.

Hence, above, I claimed Nature's Laws' existence as unexplained by natural law. A Miracle being a state or sequence of events unexplained under natural law the existence of natural law is a miracle.

The number of things that have had no scientific explanation as of any date in the past is fewer now. The tides go in; the tides go out; we got it now. (Well most of us who are not Republican.)

The epiphenomenon of being self aware and being aware of being self aware and in control -- consciousness -- is not predicted by science -- is unexplained by science.

There are a couple of authors who explored these issues. Hofstadter in Goedel, Escher, and Bach, and Dennett et al in Mind's I.

I recommend "Ant Hillary" in GEB. Ant Hill(ary) is an ant hill. A sentient being made up of non-sentient specialized ants -- just as we are made up of non-sentient specialized cells.