Consciousness before physical creation

[Runewolf1973]

Consciousness and anime are not equivalent always. This is a massive failure on your behalf.
You can think all you want but you require proof to say with sincerity that energy is conscious. Please provide examples of this.

I don't need to show you ANY proof because it my BELIEF. You either choose to believe it, or you don't. Either way, in the future, science will find those answers. Maybe I'm wrong...or maybe I'm right. I think there is a valid reason why many quantum physicists think that all that exists is consciousness. Yeah, it may sound rather fantastical, but I believe there is some truth to what they are saying.

Energy must have causality. You are heavily misusing the word energy here. Energy does not change nor does it evolve. The universe is the result of energy and that has never changed. What you wish to do is entirely rewrite science and knowledge altogether. The laws of physics do not change or else all matter and life would change no matter how slight something is. Thermal energy does not cease being thermal energy nor does any other kind.

Energy changes all the time. Energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, only change form. Evolution IS a form of change. Everything that happens in the Universe, every occurrence no matter how small, is a form of change.


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[Runewolf1973]

Namaste
consciousness exists in all energy(and all qualities) like wettness in all water.

This means that nothing is unconscious, and thus "living beings" are just forms that have the capacity of an intellect, ie a brain.
Rocks and trees are just as conscious as beings, but not self conscious because they have no intellect.
this leads to the realization that when the brain dies we become like rocks and trees. Unthinking deep sleep. Thus no transmigration of a 'soul'.

Consciousness is simply inherent in all existence. I think they call it anamism but not sure.

Very similar to my way of thinking.

 

[atanu]

It is called biology, look it up

You mean to say that the awareness in you (which was, as per you generated from particular arrangements of chemicals) is aware of a knowledge base called biology which is aware that awareness developed from particular arrangement of chemicals.

 

[idav]

You mean to say that the awareness in you (which was, as per you generated from particular arrangements of chemicals) is aware of a knowledge base called biology which is aware that awareness developed from particular arrangement of chemicals.

Biology is chemicals in certain arrangements giving the appearance life. Awareness is fleeting because it only pertains to now, so even if everything were aware of now, it couldn't know it without memory and recall.

 

[Ablaze]

Yes. Fascinating post.

I have a query. You say "Because consciousness is inter-dependently co-arisen it cannot be claimed to be in any way distinct from the things that give rise to it"

I wish to know what then are the interdependent arisings in Nibbana that a monk will be conscious/aware of having escaped the Samsara and attained Nibbana?

I suppose that Nibbana is free of interdependent arising? If so then how will one ever know it, if consciousness, as you say, is solely arisen inter-dependently?

This question makes no sense, because it presupposes that nibbāna is some kind of metaphysical plane of existence. Nibbāna means the cessation of suffering, literally extinguishing or cooling.

 

[atanu]

This question makes no sense, because it presupposes that nibbāna is some kind of metaphysical plane of existence. Nibbāna means the cessation of suffering, literally extinguishing or cooling.

Ha. My question remains unanswered.

 

[atanu]

This question makes no sense, because it presupposes that nibbāna is some kind of metaphysical plane of existence. Nibbāna means the cessation of suffering, literally extinguishing or cooling.

There is no such pre supposition. Nibbana is unborn, unfabricated and is not a state. It is revealed on removal of all fabricated mental states that veil it. Cooling is because of no risings. The question remains, how a fabricated being discerns Nibbana?

 

[jtartar]

Many arguments of the soul can stretch on forever but the most puzzling one is not what happens to the supposed existing soul after death but before life itself.

The soul according to almost all theists is the immortal essence of a person and continues for eternity. If this was so then why is it hard to believe that the soul and spirit end after physical existence?

If god creates the soul and what theists perceive as the true core of conscious experience then why is it hard to believe that god can dismantle and destroy it?

I recall of nobody who remembers the events that occurred while the soul preceded the physical avatar for the body.

Atheists and Deists like myself are looked at in a bizarre fashion for entirely disacknowledging the existence of the soul yet the question still occurs to exist about the relative nature of the soul/spirit's existence before physical life.

I recall interesting theology from Muslims describing the existence of the spirit before entering the dunya and how our soul is born Muslim from the beginning and gives testament that Allah is the only deity before entering the entrapment of the dunya.

This can be said so and indeed such a concept may be true but why would god erase the experience of the soul before casting it into physical existence. If the spirit/soul is the true and primary core of experience then it is absurd to state that the experiences of the soul can be lost. If one looses the foundation for A then one cannot proceed to B.

This destroys the foundation of the purpose and conceive of the soul and spirit outside of physical reality?

Sterling Archer,
I believe what the Bible says about God, whose name is Jehovah, creating the heavens and the earth and all the things in them, so it seems to me the place we should look is the Bible for these Philosophia Perennis.
In the first place, according to the Bible, the soul is not immortal, Eze 18:4,20, Acts 3:23.
According to the Holy Scriptures there was no souls before creation of the first man Adam, Gen 3:20. Notice Gen 2:7, which says that God created man from the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life and the man BECAME a living soul. The Hebrew term for soul was nephesh, which was used for any living, breathing animal, was also used to describe man.
The Bible also shows us that the soul does not live before the body, Rom 9:10,11, if Jacob and Esau had been alive they would have had to do something good or bad.
There are several theories about how the soul comes to be: Creationism, Infusionism and Traducianism, with the last being the closest to me.
According to the Bible, Psychopannychy is what happens to the soul, as with the rest of the body, Ecc 3:18-20, 9:5,6,10.
The Bible indicates that the person is made up of three things the flesh , soul, and spirit, but if they are separated they all die, except the spirit goes back to God who gave it, Ecc 12:7.

 

[Looncall]

See this becomes a problem when we have too many labels for the same thing...too many definitions. I believe that the soul IS our consiousness. How do we know that the soul exists?...because we know that our consciousness exists. We are conscious, therefore our soul exists. The debate is really not whether the soul exists or not, but whether our consciousness/soul extends beyond this physical life.

I find the notion or theory that conscious "animate" creatures somehow mysteriously arose out of non-conscious "inanimate" matter to be highly illogical. To me that just doesn't make any sense. Rather, I find it more logical to think that all energy was and is already conscious or "animate" to begin with, and that is what gave way to "animate" life. That energy just changed and evolved over time. Everything is "soul" or "spirit" and what we see as matter is that "soul" or "spirit" manifesting itself.


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This looks to me to be essentialism run wild. There is no substance that makes creatures animate, just a certain arrangement of matter.

Energy is not a substance; it is a shorthand for states of objects. To say that energy is conscious is mere word salad.

This notion of soul is mere reification. Instead of considering consciousness as the process that it is, you are trying to make a substance of it.

These are ancient errors. I find it appalling that they persist to the present.

 

[Runewolf1973]

This looks to me to be essentialism run wild. There is no substance that makes creatures animate, just a certain arrangement of matter.

Energy is not a substance; it is a shorthand for states of objects. To say that energy is conscious is mere word salad.

This notion of soul is mere reification. Instead of considering consciousness as the process that it is, you are trying to make a substance of it.

These are ancient errors. I find it appalling that they persist to the present.

Sorry, I should not use the term “consciousness”, as it does not accurately describe what I am talking about.

Everything is a property, condition, or state. There is no real "substance". Even quantum mechanics shows us that matter is not as "solid" as it appears to be at the subatomic level. It is an inherent property, condition, or state that causes things to appear "animate" or "lifelike". Perhaps there is no true “life”, only that which appears lifelike. There are no ancient errors, only errors in the way you perceive them. It is my opinion that this same "animating force" (property, condition, or state) that causes forms to appear "lifelike", is the same property, condition, or state that causes an atom to spin or energy on the quantum level to perform its "wave-like" function. There is something…some underlying “property” or “animating factor” as I like to call it that brings the whole picture together. This is in no way a supernatural or mystical force, but rather it is a naturally existing “property” that is inherent in all matter and energy. All that was needed was enough time and the right conditions for that “property” to change or grow for it to acquire its more “lifelike” appearance in the form of what we call animate life.

 

[Looncall]

Sorry, I should not use the term “consciousness”, as it does not accurately describe what I am talking about.

Everything is a property, condition, or state. There is no real "substance". Even quantum mechanics shows us that matter is not as "solid" as it appears to be at the subatomic level. It is an inherent property, condition, or state that causes things to appear "animate" or "lifelike". Perhaps there is no true “life”, only that which appears lifelike. There are no ancient errors, only errors in the way you perceive them. It is my opinion that this same "animating force" (property, condition, or state) that causes forms to appear "lifelike", is the same property, condition, or state that causes an atom to spin or energy on the quantum level to perform its "wave-like" function. There is something…some underlying “property” or “animating factor” as I like to call it that brings the whole picture together. This is in no way a supernatural or mystical force, but rather it is a naturally existing “property” that is inherent in all matter and energy. All that was needed was enough time and the right conditions for that “property” to change or grow for it to acquire its more “lifelike” appearance in the form of what we call animate life.

I notice that the notion of process does not appear in your description. Perhaps you could dispense with your extra property if you were to include it.

I would be interested to know how you define the concept "life".

 

[Runewolf1973]

I notice that the notion of process does not appear in your description. Perhaps you could dispense with your extra property if you were to include it.

I would be interested to know how you define the concept "life".

According to modern scientific thinking, the mechanism by which life arose or emerged on our planet remains a mystery. There are many different hypotheses which have been proposed to bring light to this unknown, but a definitive answer still eludes them. How did animate creatures (life) form out of inanimate (non-living) matter? Perhaps biologists, when they think of how life first formed, are in a way putting the cart in front of the horse. In order for the system to work, they must instead put the horse in front of the cart. The driving force (animating factor) must be at the forefront of all movement, change, adaptation, evolution…

Perhaps, however oddly, it will be a physicist not a biologist who discovers the true reason why we have such a thing as “life” on this planet, or anywhere for that matter. They will discover that life is not so mysterious or uncommon, rather it is yet another property, state, or condition of that same “driving force” that is behind all energy and all matter that simply changed form. Everything in a way boils down to physics.

 

[Looncall]

According to modern scientific thinking, the mechanism by which life arose or emerged on our planet remains a mystery. There are many different hypotheses which have been proposed to bring light to this unknown, but a definitive answer still eludes them. How did animate creatures (life) form out of inanimate (non-living) matter? Perhaps biologists, when they think of how life first formed, are in a way putting the cart in front of the horse. In order for the system to work, they must instead put the horse in front of the cart. The driving force (animating factor) must be at the forefront of all movement, change, adaptation, evolution…

Perhaps, however oddly, it will be a physicist not a biologist who discovers the true reason why we have such a thing as “life” on this planet, or anywhere for that matter. They will discover that life is not so mysterious or uncommon, rather it is yet another property, state, or condition of that same “driving force” that is behind all energy and all matter that simply changed form. Everything in a way boils down to physics.

I would still like to know what you mean by "life".

The above smacks of the "elan vitale" idea. Rather 19th century isn't it?

You are still avoiding the notion of process.

If life is just a process ocurring in structured matter, as biochemistry indicates, there is no need for your elan vitale.

 

[Ouroboros]

According to modern scientific thinking, the mechanism by which life arose or emerged on our planet remains a mystery. There are many different hypotheses which have been proposed to bring light to this unknown, but a definitive answer still eludes them. How did animate creatures (life) form out of inanimate (non-living) matter?

I don't think it's a huge mystery at all anymore. Many experiments show that organic "life" can come from inorganic matter. Biological life as we know it is after-all physical matter. One challenge right now is rather what conditions Earth had when life arose. The fact is that there are amino-acids in space, which shows that it's not impossible.

Perhaps biologists, when they think of how life first formed, are in a way putting the cart in front of the horse. In order for the system to work, they must instead put the horse in front of the cart. The driving force (animating factor) must be at the forefront of all movement, change, adaptation, evolution…

There's some truth to that. I see it as the conflict between reductionism and holism. Reductionism, the idea that everything can be explained by it's parts. Holism, the idea that things can be explained by the whole. In my view, life arises from the effects and synergy of the parts working together. It's not enough to look at simple pieces to understand how the whole works. It's a good start, but just not enough. I suspect systems theory is the future for this.

Perhaps, however oddly, it will be a physicist not a biologist who discovers the true reason why we have such a thing as “life” on this planet, or anywhere for that matter. They will discover that life is not so mysterious or uncommon, rather it is yet another property, state, or condition of that same “driving force” that is behind all energy and all matter that simply changed form. Everything in a way boils down to physics.

Yes. It's physics and chemistry. The area of biochemistry is targeting the question how life came about. It's the area between physics, chemistry, and biology that has the answer.

 

[Runewolf1973]

I don't think it's a huge mystery at all anymore. Many experiments show that organic "life" can come from inorganic matter. Biological life as we know it is after-all physical matter. One challenge right now is rather what conditions Earth had when life arose. The fact is that there are amino-acids in space, which shows that it's not impossible.


There's some truth to that. I see it as the conflict between reductionism and holism. Reductionism, the idea that everything can be explained by it's parts. Holism, the idea that things can be explained by the whole. In my view, life arises from the effects and synergy of the parts working together. It's not enough to look at simple pieces to understand how the whole works. It's a good start, but just not enough. I suspect systems theory is the future for this.


Yes. It's physics and chemistry. The area of biochemistry is targeting the question how life came about. It's the area between physics, chemistry, and biology that has the answer.

Quite honestly, I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Perhaps we just have a different way of explaining it to others.

 

[Ouroboros]

Quite honestly, I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Perhaps we just have a different way of explaining it to others.

Very true.

Sometimes I read things people write, and it triggers a though-stream. When I then respond to it, it might sound like I'm opposing even though I might be in agreement and just want to add something or widen the view.

 

[Runewolf1973]

I would still like to know what you mean by "life".

The above smacks of the "elan vitale" idea. Rather 19th century isn't it?

You are still avoiding the notion of process.

If life is just a process ocurring in structured matter, as biochemistry indicates, there is no need for your elan vitale.

Some might find it useful to explain things they have seen or experienced…things otherwise inexplicable.

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force..." Max Planck

I agree with you that life is nothing more than a process of structured matter as biochemistry indicates, however… There is something within that structure that eventually leads to consciousness and awareness.
If life is nothing more than structured matter, then what is the “vital force” behind that which is “lifelike”? What makes something “lifelike”? What is the “force” behind consciousness or awareness? I believe there must be some driving force behind life, consciousness, and awareness. Something inherent in all matter and not confined to a brain…a part of us that has always “lived” and a part of us that will never “die”.

To be honest, I do believe in an afterlife of sorts. I believe in ghosts/spirits or disembodied forms of consciousness, but I also believe there is no such thing as the supernatural. To me (based on my experiences) the spirit world is very real and I believe it is natural for it to exist, not “supernatural” like gods or devils. I believe that some form of consciousness or something very similar to consciousness can and does exist outside the confines of a human brain. I call it the "animating factor".

 

[Looncall]

Some might find it useful to explain things they have seen or experienced…things otherwise inexplicable.

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force..." Max Planck

I agree with you that life is nothing more than a process of structured matter as biochemistry indicates, however… There is something within that structure that eventually leads to consciousness and awareness.
If life is nothing more than structured matter, then what is the “vital force” behind that which is “lifelike”? What makes something “lifelike”? What is the “force” behind consciousness or awareness? I believe there must be some driving force behind life, consciousness, and awareness. Something inherent in all matter and not confined to a brain…a part of us that has always “lived” and a part of us that will never “die”.

To be honest, I do believe in an afterlife of sorts. I believe in ghosts/spirits or disembodied forms of consciousness, but I also believe there is no such thing as the supernatural. To me (based on my experiences) the spirit world is very real and I believe it is natural for it to exist, not “supernatural” like gods or devils. I believe that some form of consciousness or something very similar to consciousness can and does exist outside the confines of a human brain. I call it the "animating factor".

So you believe this stuff. How nice for you.

Do you have any evidence you would like to share that supports it? You see, that's what we need to decide between something serious and crackpottery.

 

[Runewolf1973]

So you believe this stuff. How nice for you.

Do you have any evidence you would like to share that supports it? You see, that's what we need to decide between something serious and crackpottery.

Perhaps if we were to simply redefine what consciousness is by saying it is “the ability to respond to stimuli” or “the ability to act or react upon an external force”, then the evidence presents itself, for it would tell us that consciousness in some form or another is everywhere in the observable universe, wherever there is energy or matter, and not just in the meat of the human brain.

But alas… For as long as we remain bound to our old definitions and our old modes of thinking, we will forever be suspended in the Dark Ages of consciousness.

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." -- Max Planck

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[Looncall]

Perhaps if we were to simply redefine what consciousness is by saying it is “the ability to respond to stimuli” or “the ability to act or react upon an external force”, then the evidence presents itself, for it would tell us that consciousness in some form or another is everywhere in the observable universe, wherever there is energy or matter, and not just in the meat of the human brain.

But alas… For as long as we remain bound to our old definitions and our old modes of thinking, we will forever be suspended in the Dark Ages of consciousness.

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." -- Max Planck

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Even important scientists have been crackpots about some things: Newton was into alchemy, after all. Quoting them does not help you. Neither does redefining consciousness to mean something quite different from what is usually meant.

Do you have any real evidence to share, or just new-age nuttiness?