Consciousness

[untermensche]

At least you admit you have not defended it. Not even considered it.

It is up to you to defend if it's conclusions are questioned.

No data speaks for itself. Don't ever say it does in public. You will be laughed at.

That's ridiculous

Yes it is ridiculous you have to do more than present studies making bad conclusions.

The world is not fair.

that you with your own untenable position, consciousness radio brain receiver, based on new age philosophy, the stuff of Deepak Choptra, can seriously repeat such nonsense over and over, ignoring research and whatever researchers are saying, doesn't do your credibility any good whatsoever.

You are very thick and unteachable.

No matter how many times I tell you that is a line of argument to demonstrate we do not understand what consciousness is you still think it is some idea I am promoting.

But you have nothing else so I suppose making absurd claims over and over is all you can do.

If you have evidence and a rational argument to justify your claims, just provide these and be done with it.

Rational arguments are wasted on you. You have no capacity to deal with them.

The fact that you are asking me to prove a negative is evidence of that.

I cannot prove we have no explanation of something.

All that can be proven is that we do.

Don't just keep repeating assertions; ''we don't know anything about consciousness therefore consciousness could be external''

It's not even an argument.

It certainly is.

If we cannot say for certain whether the brain is a "receiver" of consciousness or a "generator" of consciousness then we cannot say what consciousness is.

In no way in anything you have presented is there proof that the brain is not a "receiver" of consciousness.

If the brain were a "receiver" all the evidence you provided would still be the same.

The "reception" would still have to be dealt with by specific activities of the brain and if the brain was damaged the "reception" would be damaged too.

This is not a positive claim. It is not saying such a thing definitely exists.

It is saying that as long as it cannot be ruled out we do not know what consciousness is.

Here is another example of current thought;

Quote;
''Due to the intrinsic electrical properties and the connectivity of thalamic neurones two groups of corticothalamic loops are generated, which resonate at a frequency of 40 Hz. The specific thalamo-cortical loops give the content of cognition and the no specific loop, the temporal binding required for the unity of the cognitive experience. Consciousness is then, a product of the resonant thalamo-cortical activity, and the dialogue between the thalamus and cortex, the process that generates subjectivity, the unique experience we all recognized as the existence of the "self".

This is a guess of the possible mechanisms producing the ability of conscious experience.

People are making these kinds of guesses because we don't know what consciousness is.

But saying cells "resonate" again explains nothing.

Take me from cells resonating to conscious experience and you have explained something.

 

[DBT]

That's ridiculous

Yes it is ridiculous you have to do more than present studies making bad conclusions.

And it still escapes you that these are not my conclusions. What I both said in my own words and posted links and quotes being the views of scientists, experts in their field basing their theories and ideas on the evidence coming out of their work on understanding the brain and how it forms mind/consciousness.....how not being understood, but that the brain is indeed the agency of consciousness being abundantly clear.

Which is something you steadfastly refuse to accept. Not accepting the facts you persist in asserting 'brain as a radio receiver' - something that very few in the field accept as a valid alternative explanation for the available evidence.

So, you have nothing. A New Age comfort blanket that you cling to with desperation.

[

You are very thick and unteachable.

No, that's still you.

[
No matter how many times I tell you that is a line of argument to demonstrate we do not understand what consciousness is you still think it is some idea I am promoting.

I know what you have said.

But If the idea of external mind/brain receiver is not an idea that you are promoting, what's your point?

What are you arguing about?

 

[ryan]

We can't even detect it yet and thus doesn't seem to be physical, so that limits us quite a bit to know what it is. It also has its own structure. It extends through time and space instantaneously.

Doesn't 'seem' to be physical? That doesn't mean a thing. How something 'seems' is not a foundation for science, logic or reason.

To be physical, as we understand it today using the Standard model, means that everything is composed of a very limited number of classes of particles existing in fields that determine their existences probabilistically and with a very limited number of classes of properties that vary by scales. That's it; that's all that can be said to exist physically, assuming that the Standard model is complete (but we know it's not complete, but it's close enough for the purposes of what I am saying).

Our consciousness has duped us into thinking that nature is unified like it is unified, well up until a 100 years ago it would have seemed that way. But consciousness is something else entirely. Its properties are simply different than any configuration of properties of the Standard model. The point is that there is no reason that has been found within the Standard model to explain what the consciousness is or why it exists. There is, however entanglement that seems to truly unify matter, and yes, "seems" is all even science says.

Assuming certain axioms though, we can construct logic and reason. The consciousness is the most fundamental thing we know, but it is something that cannot be detected with instruments like anything else physical can. Think of a molecule as an input for a smell function that gives the conscious sensation S. So now we have the function of the molecule to achieve S as f(m) --> S. How will you ever verify the observation S like you could with anything else physical? If you try to repeat the algorithm, any function of S is going to be something else f(S) ---> ?, which would really be f(f(m)) and therefor cannot equal S.

It extends through time and space instantaneously.

Where on Earth do you get that from? If you mean entanglement, entanglement is not mind or consciousness.

When they say that there is a unification problem, they don't mean "unification" as in "the people of the country are unified" which clearly is not physically literal. But the consciousness really is unified - mentally but not physically!!! And it has to be unified through time and space for meaning to exist. IMO entanglement/quantum computation explains this really nicely, but that's still to be determined.

Think of the saying "you are what you eat". If we are only individual particles, how could we ever have a concept of 2 particles, never mind whole concepts/ideas arising from zillions of particles.

Why does it correlate to brains?

There is nowhere else, mind/consciousness can only be related to brain activity. Causing changes to brain activity alters mind/consciousness. It is a physical process.

Yes, but why does it exist with matter in this way? It doesn't appear to serve any physical function nor does it appear to "cost" the brain anything physical.

 

[OLDMAN]

Maybe this has been stated before but there are different levels of consciousness. Is consciousness not simply being aware of our surroundings? An ameba is aware of light, food, temperature changes, danger (not food) but it certainly doesn't see the big picture. But because it doesn't experience what we experience, does that mean it is not conscious? Plants react to sunlight, their reaction shows a connection between what is made aware to it and what it should do. As we go up the animal chain, a bat doesn't experience a thunder storm the same as we do, and may not be aware of what we know about such things, but it consciously experiences the storm verses a non event.

Just because we have the brain and abilities to see the big picture doesn't make us non-animal. So the question would be at what time in evolution did the cosmic mind decide to contact us or that it even could? I think it is clear that brains evolved over millions of years, why is consciousness at the end of the trail and not the start?

 

[ryan]

Maybe this has been stated before but there are different levels of consciousness. Is consciousness not simply being aware of our surroundings? An ameba is aware of light, food, temperature changes, danger (not food) but it certainly doesn't see the big picture. But because it doesn't experience what we experience, does that mean it is not conscious? Plants react to sunlight, their reaction shows a connection between what is made aware to it and what it should do. As we go up the animal chain, a bat doesn't experience a thunder storm the same as we do, and may not be aware of what we know about such things, but it consciously experiences the storm verses a non event.

Just because we have the brain and abilities to see the big picture doesn't make us non-animal. So the question would be at what time in evolution did the cosmic mind decide to contact us or that it even could? I think it is clear that brains evolved over millions of years, why is consciousness at the end of the trail and not the start?

A lot of philosophers are now looking at panpsychism to explain consciousness as a reducible property of matter. All or some particles would experience consciousness but very very simple and possibly a singular kind of consciousness.

 

[untermensche]

But If the idea of external mind/brain receiver is not an idea that you are promoting, what's your point?

It is a side argument to support the not very interesting point that we do not know what consciousness is. In terms of animal physiology. The interesting thing is we experience this consciousness, these sensations and ideas, not how it arrives. That is dull.

You take it as a given that the brain generates consciousness somehow.

Without even knowing what consciousness is, beyond the subjective experience of a single consciousness that everybody has.

The reason people are wondering if consciousness arises because of some "resonance phenomena" is because there is no physical explanation for it.

 

[DBT]

But If the idea of external mind/brain receiver is not an idea that you are promoting, what's your point?

It is a side argument to support the not very interesting point that we do not know what consciousness is. In terms of animal physiology. The interesting thing is we experience this consciousness, these sensations and ideas, not how it arrives. That is dull.

You take it as a given that the brain generates consciousness somehow.

Without even knowing what consciousness is, beyond the subjective experience of a single consciousness that everybody has.

The reason people are wondering if consciousness arises because of some "resonance phenomena" is because there is no physical explanation for it.

And yet again; I am expressing the current state of the research and thought into the source and nature of consciousness/mind, of which I have given numerous descriptions of my own - the attributes of sight, sound, colour, touch, the ability to think, feel and respond, etc - of which any of these attributes of consciousness can fail due to chemical or structural changes in the brain without effecting the other abilities, sight being specific to external conditions being represented internally based on input via the senses, visual cortex processing, memory integration and then visual experience...a simple memory integration failure causing an inability to recognize what is seen though the senses are working, for example.

Putting all the available evidence together, it becomes abundantly clear that it is indeed the brain that's gathering information, processing this information, integrating this information with information from past experience/learning and forming a comprehensive virtual representation in the form of conscious sensation in order to navigate its environment.....and not receiving consciousness externally like a radio.

Hence the latter is not even being considered as a viable explanation for consciousness, regardless of the fact that we don't know how the brain forms its internal virtual experience of the world and self.

Like it or not, that is the situation.

 

[DBT]

Doesn't 'seem' to be physical? That doesn't mean a thing. How something 'seems' is not a foundation for science, logic or reason.

To be physical, as we understand it today using the Standard model, means that everything is composed of a very limited number of classes of particles existing in fields that determine their existences probabilistically and with a very limited number of classes of properties that vary by scales. That's it; that's all that can be said to exist physically, assuming that the Standard model is complete (but we know it's not complete, but it's close enough for the purposes of what I am saying).

The brain is physical. Physical neural web networks architecture, physical chemical transmitters, physical electrical signal signals, physical updates of information streaming from the senses to the processing centres, physical integration of information and so on, consciousness being effected, altered, corrupted, distorted or destroyed by physical conditions within the electrochemical brain....none of which even suggests non material consciousness being tapped into by a 'brain/receiver of 'universal consciousness.

Consciousness in form and function is specific to individual brains and brain states from moment to moment while a brain is active consciously.

[
But consciousness is something else entirely. Its properties are simply different than any configuration of properties of the Standard model. The point is that there is no reason that has been found within the Standard model to explain what the consciousness is or why it exists. There is, however entanglement that seems to truly unify matter, and yes, "seems" is all even science says.

The standard model doesn't help us understand the brain or consciousness. To do that we must specifically study the brain in relation to consciousness. Astrophysics won't help, quantum mechanics alone won't help, general relativity won't help us understand how brains work.

 

[untermensche]

It is a side argument to support the not very interesting point that we do not know what consciousness is. In terms of animal physiology. The interesting thing is we experience this consciousness, these sensations and ideas, not how it arrives. That is dull.

You take it as a given that the brain generates consciousness somehow.

Without even knowing what consciousness is, beyond the subjective experience of a single consciousness that everybody has.

The reason people are wondering if consciousness arises because of some "resonance phenomena" is because there is no physical explanation for it.

And yet again; I am expressing the current state of the research and thought into the source and nature of consciousness/mind, of which I have given numerous descriptions of my own - the attributes of sight, sound, colour, touch, the ability to think, feel and respond, etc - of which any of these attributes of consciousness can fail due to chemical or structural changes in the brain without effecting the other abilities, sight being specific to external conditions being represented internally based on input via the senses, visual cortex processing, memory integration and then visual experience...a simple memory integration failure causing an inability to recognize what is seen though the senses are working, for example.

Putting all the available evidence together, it becomes abundantly clear that it is indeed the brain that's gathering information, processing this information, integrating this information with information from past experience/learning and forming a comprehensive virtual representation in the form of conscious sensation in order to navigate its environment.....and not receiving consciousness externally like a radio.

Hence the latter is not even being considered as a viable explanation for consciousness, regardless of the fact that we don't know how the brain forms its internal virtual experience of the world and self.

Like it or not, that is the situation.

There are no magic variables put together that tell us anything. A brain as a "receiver" would act the exact same way. Consciousness could be like vision, with the brain being both a receiver of information and a generator of experience. If consciousness were some "reception" the brain would still have to deal with "information" in some way and performance would still degrade with damage.

Some people are presently, without much fruit, working under the preconception that the brain is the generator of consciousness. Possibly true. Nothing more.

 

[fromderinside]

The width, breadth, and depth of consciousness? Deceit. All I'm trying to do is explain sub-vocalization here.

 

[OLDMAN]

Maybe this has been stated before but there are different levels of consciousness. Is consciousness not simply being aware of our surroundings? An ameba is aware of light, food, temperature changes, danger (not food) but it certainly doesn't see the big picture. But because it doesn't experience what we experience, does that mean it is not conscious? Plants react to sunlight, their reaction shows a connection between what is made aware to it and what it should do. As we go up the animal chain, a bat doesn't experience a thunder storm the same as we do, and may not be aware of what we know about such things, but it consciously experiences the storm verses a non event.

Just because we have the brain and abilities to see the big picture doesn't make us non-animal. So the question would be at what time in evolution did the cosmic mind decide to contact us or that it even could? I think it is clear that brains evolved over millions of years, why is consciousness at the end of the trail and not the start?

A lot of philosophers are now looking at panpsychism to explain consciousness as a reducible property of matter. All or some particles would experience consciousness but very very simple and possibly a singular kind of consciousness.

I think the fly in the ointment is how babies develop. We can clearly map their achievements as they and their brains make the connections that control functions. At no point is there a sudden turning on of consciousness, which is what you would expect to see if it was just a matter of fine tuning to the right signal.

 

[OLDMAN]

On another note, Ryan. Do you see your position as one of a religion, where the best answer to all the evidence isn't satisfactory. Another answer must be out there. Given there is no proof or evidence that the brain has any hidden receptors for detecting outside signals and no other self aware creatures on earth have similar receptors....
You end up sounding a lot like people who chose to believe in God regardless of the evidence. Is this a spiritual need you are fulfilling? I have talked to others who also seem to be clinging to the idea, that because we can't explain everything, then we know nothing.

 

[DBT]

On another note, Ryan. Do you see your position as one of a religion, where the best answer to all the evidence isn't satisfactory. Another answer must be out there. Given there is no proof or evidence that the brain has any hidden receptors for detecting outside signals and no other self aware creatures on earth have similar receptors....
You end up sounding a lot like people who chose to believe in God regardless of the evidence. Is this a spiritual need you are fulfilling? I have talked to others who also seem to be clinging to the idea, that because we can't explain everything, then we know nothing.

That's a good summary.


To me it does sound like another version of the God of the Gaps fallacy; ''we don't know how the brain forms consciousness, why it must be something outside the brain''

That is faith.

 

[WAB]

On another note, Ryan. Do you see your position as one of a religion, where the best answer to all the evidence isn't satisfactory. Another answer must be out there. Given there is no proof or evidence that the brain has any hidden receptors for detecting outside signals and no other self aware creatures on earth have similar receptors....
You end up sounding a lot like people who chose to believe in God regardless of the evidence. Is this a spiritual need you are fulfilling? I have talked to others who also seem to be clinging to the idea, that because we can't explain everything, then we know nothing.

That's a good summary.


To me it does sound like another version of the God of the Gaps fallacy; ''we don't know how the brain forms consciousness, why it must be something outside the brain''

That is faith.

[Emphatic underlined italicized & emboldened emphasis mine]

Not so.

No-one is saying that since consciousness is not fully understood or explained that it must be due to something external to the brain. No-one. Nobody has said that. Not a single person has said that.

To repeat:

No-one, meaning not a single person, has said that since consciousness has not been fully understood or explained that, why, it must be etc...

Not one.

It's just:

• a consideration.
• a speculation.
• something to think about.
• an expression of humility in the face of a cosmos within which we are an infinitesimal mite of almost nothingness.
• poetry.
• woo
• something really smart humans like Spinoza, Einstein, Newton & Jung did
• a mental exercise
• fun!

 

[DBT]

That's a good summary.


To me it does sound like another version of the God of the Gaps fallacy; ''we don't know how the brain forms consciousness, why it must be something outside the brain''

That is faith.

[Emphatic underlined italicized & emboldened emphasis mine]

Not so.

No-one is saying that since consciousness is not fully understood or explained that it must be due to something external to the brain. No-one. Nobody has said that. Not a single person has said that.

To repeat:

No-one, meaning not a single person, has said that since consciousness has not been fully understood or explained that, why, it must be etc...

There are those who argue for 'quantum consciousness' or 'soul' or 'astral body/mind, brain as a receiver', etc, so energetically and so persistently and so forcefully that it becomes quit clear that this is their preferred option regardless of whether they state their belief explicitly or not.

And of course, some have professed a belief in the existence a soul inhabiting the body/mind as a non material entity.

If you have followed these threads, there countless examples.

 

[WAB]

I've been out of the loop here at TFT, but I've been rolling along on Wikipedia, Youtube and elsewhere (multitudes of elsewheres) with much of the quantum consciousness, collective consciousness, panpsychism, panspermia theories, etc.

I find the panspermia theory kind of interesting, more so than the others.

I really need to catch up on the threads here. Kharakov, my amigo (and I owe him several beers by now) is interested in a kind of written-in inherent ID Matrixy Truman Show dream-theatre Lovecraftian hidden clues 42 108 333 masonic secret handshake pyramid big $ alien AI tinfoil hat final trump trumpets meh fractals fractals holy crap kind of theory that is a wee tad over my head.

I will take a few looks around and take baby steps.

 

[ryan]

To be physical, as we understand it today using the Standard model, means that everything is composed of a very limited number of classes of particles existing in fields that determine their existences probabilistically and with a very limited number of classes of properties that vary by scales. That's it; that's all that can be said to exist physically, assuming that the Standard model is complete (but we know it's not complete, but it's close enough for the purposes of what I am saying).

The brain is physical. Physical neural web networks architecture, physical chemical transmitters, physical electrical signal signals, physical updates of information streaming from the senses to the processing centres, physical integration of information and so on, consciousness being effected, altered, corrupted, distorted or destroyed by physical conditions within the electrochemical brain....none of which even suggests non material consciousness being tapped into by a 'brain/receiver of 'universal consciousness.

Consciousness in form and function is specific to individual brains and brain states from moment to moment while a brain is active consciously.

I don't think it makes sense to move on unless you understand why nothing else physical matters other than its fundamental components, and the states and locations of them.

We can say a diamond is all sorts of things, but all that really matters and necessary to leave out redundant information is the kind, state and number of particles that compose it and exactly where they exist in a 3d matrix. Calling the diamond shinny, expensive, sharp, dense, etc. are all redundant qualities/properties. These are extrinsic properties that our brains give to the diamond. The necessary information is its intrinsic properties, and all there truly is.

Are you of the belief that "diamondness" exists as a whole entity in its own right as well as its fundamental locations and states of the parts, or would you say that the diamond is really just its fundamental parts and its locations and states of the parts?

But consciousness is something else entirely. Its properties are simply different than any configuration of properties of the Standard model. The point is that there is no reason that has been found within the Standard model to explain what the consciousness is or why it exists. There is, however entanglement that seems to truly unify matter, and yes, "seems" is all even science says.

The standard model doesn't help us understand the brain or consciousness.

I am really shocked that you say this. For all that is physical, the Standard model is absolutely essential in order to understand the brain and its environment.

 

[ryan]

A lot of philosophers are now looking at panpsychism to explain consciousness as a reducible property of matter. All or some particles would experience consciousness but very very simple and possibly a singular kind of consciousness.

I think the fly in the ointment is how babies develop. We can clearly map their achievements as they and their brains make the connections that control functions. At no point is there a sudden turning on of consciousness, which is what you would expect to see if it was just a matter of fine tuning to the right signal.

What does this have to do with pansychism? Did you even read my post?

 

[ryan]

On another note, Ryan. Do you see your position as one of a religion, where the best answer to all the evidence isn't satisfactory. Another answer must be out there. Given there is no proof or evidence that the brain has any hidden receptors for detecting outside signals and no other self aware creatures on earth have similar receptors....
You end up sounding a lot like people who chose to believe in God regardless of the evidence. Is this a spiritual need you are fulfilling? I have talked to others who also seem to be clinging to the idea, that because we can't explain everything, then we know nothing.

I didn't say we know nothing. And why do you keep talking about receptors?

Most importantly, what are the best solutions to the present problems of the consciousness?

 

[WAB]

I have talked to others who also seem to be clinging to the idea, that because we can't explain everything, then we know nothing.

OLDMAN, I hope that soon you'll grow tired of seeing these annoying posts of mine.

But yet again:

Who has claimed that "we know nothing"?

Certainly no-one in this thread? Unless I missed it. If I did, please point it out. I will be happy, and make another post, and be sure to add that happy running-guy emoticon if that happens. Honest!

Can you quote me a quote from another thread, or from somewhere, wherein someone actually said that "because we can't explain everything, then we know nothing."?

I'm not saying that no-one anywhere in the cosmos has ever said such a thing. There are silly people all over.

I'm just asking if you can show me an example of what you're talking about?