Consciousness

[untermensche]

What purpose is served by creating this "consciousness" if it has no control over anything?

Why have a personal unified experience when it is not needed? Non-experienced reactions could do just as well. You're claiming it is all merely reaction anyway.

That seems an incredible waste of energy.

Something in need of serious explanation before accepting this irrational model you propose.

Biological systems evolve.

Which is a system of keeping what works as much as a system of change. This seems a comment from left field.

They have neither purpose nor creation.

Biological structures must fulfill purposes. The legs must provide locomotion. I have no idea what you are talking about.

If you fulfill a purpose you have one.

Try looking in a mirror for fucks sake.

Now this is helpful.

Why do I feel I have wasted 2 minutes of my life responding to this criticism without a point?

 

[fromderinside]

Is it possible for a 'personal unified experience' to exist without long-term memory?

Is it possible for a 'personal unified experience' to exist without any capacity to sense the environment?

We are the conglomeration of the genes that create our brains, and a bit of experience.

Yes. Particularly if one has had at some time during one's life some extent of at least consolidation memory (between stm and ltm). As a living example I have fairly good ltm but have lost stm to some extent meaning consolidation memory is more dependent on long term memory similarities.

Again it is yes presuming one had some sort of sense ability when young, long enough to build a catalog or set grouping principles.

As for the last I would condition with "if permitted by circumstances"

 

[untermensche]

Consciousness was enabled by the ability for senses to register discrete responses to significant discrete entities....

That is a million miles from consciousness.

The home thermostat is not conscious.

Consciousness involves having the ability to experience, not just respond.

Again the big question for you to try to answer is why is there experience if all is simply brain reaction and action and the consciousness, that which is experiencing, controls nothing?

Why does the ability to have a unified experience exist at all if it serves no purpose at all?

A spandrel?

 

[bilby]

Biological systems evolve.

Which is a system of keeping what works as much as a system of change. This seems a comment from left field.

They have neither purpose nor creation.

Biological structures must fulfill purposes. The legs must provide locomotion. I have no idea what you are talking about.

If you fulfill a purpose you have one.

Try looking in a mirror for fucks sake.

Now this is helpful.

Why do I feel I have wasted 2 minutes of my life responding to this criticism without a point?

That's because you were too busy responding to it, when you should instead have been thinking about it and learning from it.

Your entire approach is a waste of your time; and blaming anyone other than yourself is just compounding your mistakes.

 

[untermensche]

That's because you were too busy responding to it, when you should instead have been thinking about it and learning from it.

Your entire approach is a waste of your time; and blaming anyone other than yourself is just compounding your mistakes.

The contention I see is I believe the consciousness somehow has control over the brain.

The consciousness somehow tells the brain to move the arm and the brain complies.

Others claim it is the brain doing everything. It is moving the arm on it's own and it is also creating the sense that the consciousness is doing it.

The brain is continually tricking the consciousness into thinking the consciousness has some control, like control over movement and expression in language.

It is an absurd model.

The great trickster model of consciousness.

 

[DBT]

That's because you were too busy responding to it, when you should instead have been thinking about it and learning from it.

Your entire approach is a waste of your time; and blaming anyone other than yourself is just compounding your mistakes.

The contention I see is I believe the consciousness somehow has control over the brain.

The consciousness somehow tells the brain to move the arm and the brain complies.

Others claim it is the brain doing everything. It is moving the arm on it's own and it is also creating the sense that the consciousness is doing it.

The brain is continually tricking the consciousness into thinking the consciousness has some control, like control over movement and expression in language.

It is an absurd model.

The great trickster model of consciousness.

A set of beliefs that have been consistently shown to be not only wrong, but absurd.

That brain condition is expressed in consciousness is beyond dispute; alcohol effecting the brain and its production of consciousness in well understood ways, drugs, structural changes, etc, a blow to the head, all effecting consciousness in ways that are directly related to the chemical or structural alteration.

Just take memory function loss as an example, the loss of recognition, identity, ability to reason even while a form of diminished, dysfunctional consciousness is being generated by that brain.

You have no case, yet persist with your version of the god of the gaps fallacy; we don't know this, therefore magic.

 

[DBT]

Real scientists don't look to magical non material 'solutions' to problems of understanding, unlike some folk.

Newton did.

He was called an occultist.

But then people caught up.

Newton? That's funny. And again you ignore references to the studies and ideas of neuroscientists who work at understanding how the brain generates conscious experience without resorting to magical ideas, but accepting, on the basis of evidence, that consciousness is the work/function of a brain.

 

[untermensche]

The contention I see is I believe the consciousness somehow has control over the brain.

The consciousness somehow tells the brain to move the arm and the brain complies.

Others claim it is the brain doing everything. It is moving the arm on it's own and it is also creating the sense that the consciousness is doing it.

The brain is continually tricking the consciousness into thinking the consciousness has some control, like control over movement and expression in language.

It is an absurd model.

The great trickster model of consciousness.

A set of beliefs that have been consistently shown to be not only wrong, but absurd.

Not by you or anyone here.

Only in your imagination.

That brain condition is expressed in consciousness is beyond dispute; alcohol effecting the brain and its production of consciousness in well understood ways, drugs, structural changes, etc, a blow to the head, all effecting consciousness in ways that are directly related to the chemical or structural alteration.

This only demonstrates correlation and it has nothing to do with what I said.

I am talking about consciousness having control.

How it is generated is completely unknown.

You have no valid criticisms of my points.

 

[untermensche]

Newton did.

He was called an occultist.

But then people caught up.

Newton? That's funny. And again you ignore references to the studies and ideas of neuroscientists who work at understanding how the brain generates conscious experience without resorting to magical ideas, but accepting, on the basis of evidence, that consciousness is the work/function of a brain.

You finding it funny merely demonstrates your level of close mindedness.

The studies demonstrate correlation between brain activity, what specific activity and on what level is unknown, and consciousness.

They do not explain in any way what consciousness is or what it is capable of doing.

 

[fromderinside]

Consciousness was enabled by the ability for senses to register discrete responses to significant discrete entities....

That is a million miles from consciousness.

We agree. However it is a necessary antecedent to consciousness as I outlined a post or two back. The capability to identify discrete stimuli has nothing to do with a regulator (of which a thermometer is a member).

The unified experience is a bit like a universal tool. It can be applied in a great number of probability increasing situations. No single overriding purpose just a bunch of little helps none of which can truly be carry the attribute purpose.

 

[DBT]

Newton? That's funny. And again you ignore references to the studies and ideas of neuroscientists who work at understanding how the brain generates conscious experience without resorting to magical ideas, but accepting, on the basis of evidence, that consciousness is the work/function of a brain.

You finding it funny merely demonstrates your level of close mindedness.

The irony of such a remark still escapes you. Newton was a man of his time and a more religious culture.

The studies demonstrate correlation between brain activity, what specific activity and on what level is unknown, and consciousness.

They do not explain in any way what consciousness is or what it is capable of doing.

The studies show that changes to brain structure and chemistry predictably cause changes to consciousness....applying a general anaesthetic renders the brain unconscious, consistently and reliably, for example.

You have no case for non material consciousness. Postulating that the brain is a receiver for some inexplicable thing called consciousness cannot be supported or justified because it has been demonstrated that it is the state of the brain that is expressed in consciousness, memory function loss, chemical imbalances, brain trauma and so on...and in very specific ways. Way that relate the attributes of consciousness to structural or chemical problems within related brain structures, vision with not only the eyes but the visual cortex which processes information from the eyes.

 

[untermensche]

That is a million miles from consciousness.

We agree. However it is a necessary antecedent to consciousness as I outlined a post or two back. The capability to identify discrete stimuli has nothing to do with a regulator (of which a thermometer is a member).

The unified experience is a bit like a universal tool. It can be applied in a great number of probability increasing situations. No single overriding purpose just a bunch of little helps none of which can truly be carry the attribute purpose.

The antecedents to consciousness are physiological, not some list you can invent based on a subjective experience of consciousness.

The question is, how does animal physiology create the ability to experience?

You are not getting any closer to answering this with your stories.

 

[untermensche]

You finding it funny merely demonstrates your level of close mindedness.

The irony of such a remark still escapes you. Newton was a man of his time and a more religious culture.

The point sails miles over your head.

There is nothing occult about gravity. The discovery and the criticism have nothing to do with religion. This was so-called scientific, not theological criticism.

But when there was no other choice Newton had to invent this "force" called gravity to explain the phenomena. Really he just acknowledged what was there but what nobody else could see.

The studies show that changes to brain structure and chemistry predictably cause changes to consciousness....applying a general anaesthetic renders the brain unconscious, consistently and reliably, for example.

This demonstrates correlation.

Do you even understand the difference between causation and correlation?

Correlations do not prove causation.

This is philosophy 101.

 

[DBT]

The irony of such a remark still escapes you. Newton was a man of his time and a more religious culture.

The point sails miles over your head.

There is nothing occult about gravity. The discovery and the criticism have nothing to do with religion. This was so-called scientific, not theological criticism.

But when there was no other choice Newton had to invent this "force" called gravity to explain the phenomena. Really he just acknowledged what was there but what nobody else could see.

The studies show that changes to brain structure and chemistry predictably cause changes to consciousness....applying a general anaesthetic renders the brain unconscious, consistently and reliably, for example.

This demonstrates correlation.

Do you even understand the difference between causation and correlation?

Correlations do not prove causation.

This is philosophy 101.

Newton was a student of the occult, but not in terms of gravity. Gravity is something that everyone experiences, so noone can serieously question the reality of, only its nature or label (your Newton example) .....what you are essentially claiming is that 'gravity' is not physical, that the physical world somehow channels gravity from some unknown, undetectable dimension. Now just substitute 'gravity' to 'consciousness' and you have your belief.

 

[George S]

Newton was a student of the occult, but not in terms of gravity. Gravity is something that everyone experiences, so noone can serieously question the reality of, only its nature or label (your Newton example) .....what you are essentially claiming is that 'gravity' is not physical, that the physical world somehow channels gravity from some unknown, undetectable dimension. Now just substitute 'gravity' to 'consciousness' and you have your belief.

"...what you are essentially claiming is that 'gravity' is not physical, that the physical world somehow channels gravity from some unknown, undetectable dimension."
From Wiki:

Some versions of brane cosmology, based on the large extra dimension idea, can explain the weakness of gravity relative to the other fundamental forces of nature, thus solving the so-called hierarchy problem. In the brane picture, the other three forces (electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces) are localized on the brane, but gravity has no such constraint and propagates on the full spacetime, called bulk. Much of the gravitational attractive power "leaks" into the bulk. As a consequence, the force of gravity should appear significantly stronger on small (subatomic or at least sub-millimetre) scales, where less gravitational force has "leaked". Various experiments are currently under way to test this.[1] Extensions of the large extra dimension idea with supersymmetry in the bulk appears to be promising in addressing the so-called cosmological constant problem.[2][3][4]

It does leak in from an extra dimension. Just saying.

 

[Kharakov]

Your experience combining device has a feedback loop.

 

[DBT]

"...what you are essentially claiming is that 'gravity' is not physical, that the physical world somehow channels gravity from some unknown, undetectable dimension."
From Wiki:

Some versions of brane cosmology, based on the large extra dimension idea, can explain the weakness of gravity relative to the other fundamental forces of nature, thus solving the so-called hierarchy problem. In the brane picture, the other three forces (electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces) are localized on the brane, but gravity has no such constraint and propagates on the full spacetime, called bulk. Much of the gravitational attractive power "leaks" into the bulk. As a consequence, the force of gravity should appear significantly stronger on small (subatomic or at least sub-millimetre) scales, where less gravitational force has "leaked". Various experiments are currently under way to test this.[1] Extensions of the large extra dimension idea with supersymmetry in the bulk appears to be promising in addressing the so-called cosmological constant problem.[2][3][4]

It does leak in from an extra dimension. Just saying.

Brane cosmology has not been established. It's purely hypothetical, as with string theory and other multiverse models. Even if this is eventually proven, Branes, patchwork multiverse, etc, are physical dimensions with physical attributes and features governed by physical principles. Gravity essentially being weak because it is distributed throughout a proposed multiverse model.

The idea of non material consciousness is an entirely different beast. Some quality of conscious experience (experience being necessarily conscious) that cannot be detected, yet inexplicably interacts with a physical brain by some mysterious non detectable means.

Or of course the old standby: quantum consciousness....which we've been through with Ryan's threads.

 

[untermensche]

Newton was a student of the occult, but not in terms of gravity. Gravity is something that everyone experiences, so noone can serieously question the reality of, only its nature or label (your Newton example) .....what you are essentially claiming is that 'gravity' is not physical, that the physical world somehow channels gravity from some unknown, undetectable dimension. Now just substitute 'gravity' to 'consciousness' and you have your belief.

You are really lost.

You seem incapable of forming rational connections and thrash about blindly for meaning.

I am not coming close to saying gravity is not physical. That is not supported in anything I have said.

I can't force you to comprehend what you read and think rationally.

I am saying that after pondering the situation Newton understood this invisible thing called "gravity" had to be involved. When he presented his findings to the "scientists" of his day they called the idea "occult" and dismissed it.

Of course we are not at that point with the brain but it may eventually become necessary to recognize another phenomena called "mind" to explain consciousness.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Not sure if this link has been posted yet:

The Strange Link Between the Human Mind and Quantum Physics

A good though lengthy read.

 

[Kharakov]

Ohh crap. Hope ryan doesn't see that.