What is Consciousness?

[Runewolf1973]

I agree. Would you say that the universe and all life seems to be connected and 'conscious'?

In a way everything in the universe is connected, it all originates from the same source. As far as "conscious", I would say no. Everything is interactive and that is another way in which it is connected...everything interacts with everything else. Some forms are just a lot more interactive than others and we label those "conscious" or "life forms".

 

[outhouse]

Would you say that the universe and all life seems to be connected and 'conscious'?

Not in any way beyond imagination.

 

[Willamena]

I agree. Would you say that the universe and all life seems to be connected and 'conscious'?

It's strikingly obvious.

 

[Willamena]

That is why we have such thing as the Fundamental Interactions. Interaction is the fundamental driving force behind our universe, not consciousness.

What are "the Fundamental Interactions" dependent upon?

 

[dogfishparisi]

Fundamental interaction depends on natural observation. We must concede that more may exist due to our sensory limitations but no one truly knows ...

 

[psychoslice]

I'm not partial to mystical interpretations of consciousness.

Ok then, thanks.

 

[psychoslice]

In a way everything in the universe is connected, it all originates from the same source. As far as "conscious", I would say no. Everything is interactive and that is another way in which it is connected...everything interacts with everything else. Some forms are just a lot more interactive than others and we label those "conscious" or "life forms".

Hi, yes this is what has been known by the Mystics for many years, its just put into another way, or scientific way. Everything is One, and we are that Oneness, our mind body organism is just more or less a shadow of that Oneness, but even the shadow is Oneness. I think dissecting it all and trying to understand it in that way is the wrong way, for then it is no longer Oneness.

 

[dogfishparisi]

It's strikingly obvious.

I also agree in that point.

 

[dogfishparisi]

Not in any way beyond imagination.

I beg to differ. We see that everything is interconnected and interacts with the whole. How could things be responsive unless they where aware? Consciousness varies in degrees when we speak of humans but there must be a baseline degree that encompasses all things. Otherwise it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. .. to me at least.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

How could things be responsive unless they were aware?

1) Because something conscious acts on them (e.g., a rock "responds" to a person who rolls it down the hill because of physics and a conscious agent acting upon an unaware object)
2) Because we can e.g., show that humans respond to stimuli that they are unaware of. We can, for example, sever the connections in the brain such that a person will be exposed to visual stimuli but not be aware of it (the stimulus will be processed by the visual system such that the person can respond to it, but they don't know why they respond to it or even THAT they are responding to it; instead, they rationalize their responses by explaining them via causes that are consistent with what they are aware of).
3) In humans and other animals, we can cause responses but sever connections that are required for the animal to be aware they responded to whatever stimuli we used to cause the response.
4) There exists no logical entailment such that response requires awareness, nor any connection that makes responsiveness require awareness.

Consciousness varies in degrees when we speak of humans but there must be a baseline degree that encompasses all things.

Why?

 

[dogfishparisi]

Not in any way beyond imagination.

It's hard to refute the interconnectedness of all things- aren't the interactions dependent on an awareness of sorts? Without which isolation and dormancy would be imminent?

 

[Thief]

does the ant scream as it is overshadowed by your foot?

 

[Runewolf1973]

Why would this baseline have to be consciousness? I would say there is a singular, non-conscious, all-encompassing force behind the existence of all the known Fundamental Forces....behind all interactions, and behind awareness.

 

[Thief]

Why would this baseline have to be consciousness? I would say there is a singular, non-conscious, all-encompassing force behind the existence of all the known Fundamental Forces....behind all interactions, and behind awareness.

and no will of it's own.....?

 

[chinu]

@ What is Consciousness ?

Can anyone experience awaken while sleeping ?
Than how can an unconscious-being experience consciousness while being-unconscious ?

One need be conscious to understand/experience consciousness,
But, if one is already conscious than there's no need of being conscious.

Thus.. Consciousness happens when it happens,
Or in other words, It happens Naturally/God's Grace

 

[outhouse]

but there must be a baseline degree that encompasses all things

Unsubstantiated rhetoric.

You need to supply evidence outside imagination or bias.

It's hard to refute the interconnectedness of all things- aren't the interactions dependent on an awareness of sorts?

No.

Scientifically there is nothing connected. Maybe you could describe exactly what is connected?

Without which isolation and dormancy would be imminent?

I don't follow, you need to explain your hypothesis better and use credible sources please.

 

[Looncall]

I beg to differ. We see that everything is interconnected and interacts with the whole. How could things be responsive unless they where aware? Consciousness varies in degrees when we speak of humans but there must be a baseline degree that encompasses all things. Otherwise it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. .. to me at least.

Sure, things are connected. Ever heard of gravity?

I don't buy this mystical connectedness, though. Can you show evidence?

Things respond due to the properties of the universe, especially forces such as gravity, electromagnetism etc. There is no need for your primitive animism in these times when so much is actually understood.

 

[idav]

Sure, things are connected. Ever heard of gravity?

I don't buy this mystical connectedness, though. Can you show evidence?

Things respond due to the properties of the universe, especially forces such as gravity, electromagnetism etc. There is no need for your primitive animism in these times when so much is actually understood.

I feel there is interconnected reality shown at the quantum level with qm experiments. Experiments can show that photons can "know" things due to circumventing of spacetime.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Ever heard of gravity?

Sure. That's the violation of locality from defunct classical physics that is inconsistent with both of the most successful theories in modern physics (quantum physics and general relativity), and thus doesn't exist so far as we know (in quantum physics, or at least quantum field theory/particle physics, we have "gravitons", while in general relativity gravity isn't even defined but rather the effects we associate with gravity are explained in terms of Einstein's field equations).

Things respond due to the properties of the universe, especially forces such as gravity, electromagnetism etc.

Things respond to inaccurate defunct theories abandoned as anything other than useful approximations in all of modern physics? Interesting.

There is no need for your primitive animism in these times when so much is actually understood.

Probably. On the other hand, we can be pretty sure there's no need for primitive conceptions of physics.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Experiments can show that photons can "know" things due to circumventing of spacetime.

No experiment has ever shown this, no thought experiment has ever proposed this, and no proposal for a possible test of this exists. Demonstrating that animals clearly capable of some form of knowledge given their capacity for conceptual processing is extremely difficult. Demonstrating that it is anything other than absolutely meaningless to describe any particle (none of which are particles) as "knowing" is impossible, while it is quite easy to show that e.g., photons lack the necessary conditions to be described as possessing any knowledge of anything.