Why is there consciousness?

[zenzero]

Friend Copernicus,

Why is there consciousness?

explanation in one line is: Only to make the unconscious wake up!

Matter is in a state of unconsciousness and when it becomes conscious it is in a waking state to start evolving and this is how the universe is evolving and expanding.

Love & rgds

 

[Copernicus]

explanation in one line is: Only to make the unconscious wake up

So, what makes wakefulness intrinsically better than sleep?

Matter is in a state of unconsciousness and when it becomes conscious it is in a waking state to start evolving and this is how the universe is evolving and expanding.

Evolution takes place independently of consciousness. It is a mindless, algorithmic process. What makes consciousness of crucial importance is the existence of self-replicating bodies that move with respect to their point of origin.

 

[Morpheus]

AFAIK, quantum physics suggests nothing of the sort. Can you explain how you get from the premise to the conclusion?

How would he know? He may be an expert in quantum physics, but his claim is not about physics. It is about consciousness. Not all physicists would agree with such a claim, so we need to be careful about offering the opinions of credentialed scientists as if their statements followed from their specialized knowledge.

This is an argument from consequences, not a good justification for belief. Everything is "connected", but that doesn't mean that everything shares the property of consciousness or self-awareness. Moving bodies need awareness of self and surroundings in order to survive. Why would disembodied entities need consciousness?

It gets a little scary when people suggest that they would behave very badly if they didn't have some religious belief to keep them from crossing the line. The fact is that behavior has positive and negative consequences regardless of whether or not we are "separate". It is not just about personal survival, but about about the survival of things that make our lives meaningful--our relationship with others that we care about. Selfishness and apathy have consequences even if we are fundamentally separate consciousnesses.

To be honest, I cannot make much sense at all of this position. Do you think your life more important than the head of cabbage that you consume in order to sustain your life a little longer? If so, then maybe you value some living things more than others. I suspect that what you value most is the same thing that I value most--the lives and well-being of other human beings as well as yourself. We are social animals. That is the instinct that nature has built into us. To the extent that other human beings lack that natural empathy for their own species, they put their own continued survival at peril.

How you see the world and what you think is real, is determined by your perspective, i.e. the 'angle' from which you view something. Consider 2 people looking at a car in a car yard. They are standing on opposite sides of that car. One sees the car as precisely what they are looking for and wants to buy it. The other sees it as a piece of junk and wants nothing to do with it. What is happening here? Both argue over the same car. What person 1 doesn't know (and won't change his perspective to check because he's stubborn and right) is that the car has been in an accident and the other side is stoved in. Neither person will shift their perspective to check the car fully. Both are so consumed by their 'rightness' that they are blind to other possibilities.
When you are exposed to different information from your current view of the world, wisdom would question it rather than dismissing it offhand.
I've always found research with an open mind, unattached to my own beliefs, a useful way to learn.
And in answer to all your questions, do your own research like I did. If I give you something for free you won't value it - if you discover it on your own its far more valuable. Also, I'm not the expert, I just study information from experts.

 

[atanu]

Evolution takes place independently of consciousness.

How do you know that?

 

[atanu]

Consider these two different views on the nature of consciousness:

1. Consciousness exists everywhere in the universe, and individual minds are just individual units of consciousness that may or may not be part of universal consciousness.
2. Consciousness exists only in individual bodies with physical brains. It exists nowhere else.---

I will try to give a succinct, simple description of what drives me to believe that consciousness (self-awareness) is ephemeral and individual rather than universal. Human cognition--and very likely all animal cognition--is embodied. That is, it develops in response to the sensory inputs--the sensations--of a body. Bodies move around, so their environments change quickly and radically. The brain is the hardware mechanism that drives and guides the body. It reacts to new conditions as they happen, and it anticipates future conditions. Self-awareness is necessary for a body, because, among other things, it is what gives the body an ability to detect malfunctions in itself, replenish energy, repair itself, etc. Awareness of the environment is necessary, because that allows the body to survive rapidly changing conditions. In other words, consciousness has a functional role to play that is directly related to the nature of a moving body. There is no functional role for self-awareness beyond the needs of a moving body. Therefore, it makes no sense that consciousness would exist outside of bodies or extend beyond the life of a body.

Copernicus seems to have begun with a Dennet like stance that there was no consciousness. Then came 'emergentism'. And now 'embodied consciousness'. But it seems to me that Copernicus is not clear of any of these theories and that his position is still that of Dennet at fundamental level.

The two positions (views 1 and 2) are defined by the very different understanding of consciousness.

One can define that all life-existence-knowledge is encompassed in consciousness. Without consciousness, 'life-existence-knowledge' will be indeterminate -- who or what will know? This is supported by everyday common sense experience. QM also supports this that the wave collapse is on account of observation -- wherein an observer, endowed with power to observe, is the given thing.

The definition, which Copernicus uses, is that consciousness is only the ephemeral self-awareness related to a body, of the form of "I am this body". Once you define consciousness as product of needs of this small ephemeral body then your answers are also fixed -- no doubt there. This consciousness is indeed ephemeral and local. Who denies that?

But if the embodied consciousness was just arrangement of matter then who is Copernicus trying to argue in favour of Copernicus? If consciousness develops in response to the sensory inputs, then how the sensory inputs were known as sensory inputs. A stone does not develop consciousness in response to many harsh sensory inputs.

If consciousness is individual only and has a limited functional role for a moving body, then earth is a moving body that supports all life and is eternal compared to individual moving bodies that it supports. Why has it no brain then? Why has moving mass of air no brain?

If consciousness is individual only and has a limited functional role for a moving body, then what role all moving bodies have for the universe-existence?

Further, the 'embodiment' understanding states:

From WIKI
that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. They argue that all aspects of cognition, such as ideas, thoughts, concepts and categories are shaped by aspects of the body. These aspects include the perceptual system, the intuitions that underlie the ability to move, activities and interactions with our environment and the native understanding of the world that is built into the body and the brain.

It pre-supposes an intuition and understanding of world pre-built into body-brain. It does not say that this understanding is not there (as in Dennet) or that it emerges (as in emergent consciousness).

Thus the theory of embodied consciuosness does not say that consciousness develops in response to the sensory inputs. It says that human cognition develops to what it is but with given intuition and understanding of world built in the body-brain.

How does it support the view 2, as proposed by Copernicus?

OTOH, no one has ever seen matter give rise to intelligence. No has ever seen matter experience sensations. No one has seen such local intelligence without life. No one has seen any matter separate from conscious individual. And, fundamentally, there is no matter.

The first option satifies the embodied human consciousness theory as well as the evident experiences listed above. And is useful for practical application of mediative/yoga and other practices that are useful for calm of the mind.

The second understanding has no use for anything and has no support from any observation. The supports that Copernicus cites in favour of the 2nd proposition are themselves embedded in consciousness.

 

[Copernicus]

Hi, Morpheus. The car is not stoved in on my side. How is it on your side? It goes without saying that we all have different perspectives. The point of our discussions in this forum is to share perspectives.

And in answer to all your questions, do your own research like I did. If I give you something for free you won't value it - if you discover it on your own its far more valuable. Also, I'm not the expert, I just study information from experts.

Why would you assume that I have not done my research or that my research has not been as thorough as yours? I have not asked that you give me anything "for free", just an honest discussion of what you believe and why you believe it. I know that you are not an expert. This is just a free exchange of ideas between non-experts.

 

[Copernicus]

How do you know that?

Evolution is algorithmic in nature. It can be modeled in computer programs. There is nothing in the fossil record or anywhere else to license the assumption that an intelligent being has guided evolution on Earth. If you think that it has, then give us a reason to think that your assumption is not purely gratuitous.

 

[atanu]

Evolution is algorithmic in nature. It can be modeled in computer programs. .

That does not answer the question: How do you know that Evolution takes place independently of consciousness? Meaning that you know even of this within consciousness.

Besides that point, your statent is grand and blind theoretical claim, Copernicus. If your claim is correct then it proves the option 1, since you are GOD and already know the Universal nature of consciousness and that you can prepare an algorithm to replicate Evolution.

OTOH, to be realistic, I had twice cited the following:

From WIKI

"Rules, or laws, have no causal efficacy; they do not in fact “generate” anything. They serve merely to describe regularities and consistent relationships in nature. These patterns may be very illuminating and important, but the underlying causal agencies must be separately specified (though often they are not). But that aside, the game of chess illustrates precisely why any laws or rules of emergence and evolution are insufficient. Even in a chess game, you cannot use the rules to predict “history” — i.e., the course of any given game. ----- (Corning 2002)

Either you show the algorithm or stop making unrealistic claims that are not good for even science fiction. You do not know your unconscious motives and you say that you know the algorithm for Universal motives?

I get tired not by your logic but by your persitent bringing up of unsupported claims. And your tendency to side track the question.

 

[atanu]

At this stage, I request all to rest a bit and just soak this up.

Hindu views on evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Swami Vivekananda on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras:[9]

"There seems to be a great difference between modern science and all religions at this point. Every religion has the idea that the universe comes out of intelligence. The theory of God, taking it in its psychological significance, apart from all ideas of personality, is that intelligence is first in the order of creation, and that out of intelligence comes what we call gross matter. Modern philosophers say that intelligence is the last to come. They say that unintelligent things slowly evolve into animals, and from animals into men. They claim that instead of everything coming out of intelligence, intelligence itself is the last to come. Both the religious and the scientific statements, though seeming directly opposed to each other are true. Take an infinite series, A—B—A—B —A—B. etc. The question is — which is first, A or B? If you take the series as A—B. you will say that A is first, but if you take it as B—A, you will say that B is first. It depends upon the way we look at it. Intelligence undergoes modification and becomes the gross matter, this again merges into intelligence, and thus the process goes on. The Sankhyas, and other religionists, put intelligence first, and the series becomes intelligence, then matter. The scientific man puts his finger on matter, and says matter, then intelligence. They both indicate the same chain. Indian philosophy, however, goes beyond both intelligence and matter, and finds a Purusha, or Self, which is beyond intelligence, of which intelligence is but the borrowed light."
​

 

[Copernicus]

Copernicus seems to have begun with a Dennet like stance that there was no consciousness. Then came 'emergentism'. And now 'embodied consciousness'.

Neither I nor Dennett came up with these ideas. The concept of embodied minds has been around for a long time. The concept of emergence in chaotic deterministic systems has also been around for a long time.

One can define that all life-existence-knowledge is encompassed in consciousness. Without consciousness, 'life-existence-knowledge' will be indeterminate -- who or what will know? This is supported by everyday common sense experience...

This is an empirical question--not one of "definition". Can consciousness exist independently of a physical brain in a physical body? We know that consciousness is linked to brains, because we can do physical things to brains that affect consciousness. We know this from repeated and reproducible observations.

QM also supports this that the wave collapse is one account of observation -- wherein an observer is the given thing.

No, QM does not support that. We have the results of experiments and then we have various interpretations, some of which are quite fanciful. What appears to us as a wave collapse, for example, could reflect the fact that there are multiple realities. In one reality, a version of you observes the particle in one position. In another reality, a different version of you observes it in another position. Hence, it is not the act of observation that collapses the wave, but the fact that you can only observe one slice of multiple alternative realities. There are other interpretations, as well. All we know for certain is what we observe. Philosophical speculation remains speculation.

The definition, which Copernicus uses, is that consciousness is only the ephemeral self-awareness related to a body, of the form of "I am this body". Once you define consciousness as product of needs of this small ephemeral body then your answers are also fixed -- no doubt there. This consciousness is indeed ephemeral and local. Who denies that?

You seem to only be able to grasp a portion of the argument and nothing more. I have emphasized the concept of the "embodied mind", but you seem to have no idea what that is about. Bodies have nervous systems. We know that nervous systems have a specific function in creatures that move around. They serve to guide the movement of bodies. In so-called "higher" animal creatures, the nervous system has evolved a very complex guidance system under pressure of natural selection.

We are the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary selection. Our conscious minds are, as far as we can observe, very sophisticated guidance systems when compared with those in other creatures. That seems to have something to do with the size of our brains. Other animals with large brains (dolphins, monkeys, apes, whales, etc.) also have large brains and seemingly enhanced mental powers--just as we do.

But if the embodied consciousness was just arrangement of matter then who is Copernicus trying to argue in favour of Copernicus? If consciousness develops in response to the sensory inputs, then how the sensory inputs were known as sensory inputs. A stone does not develop consciousness in response to many harsh sensory inputs.

Really? What sensory inputs do you imagine a stone has? Touch? Smell? Taste? Those are all sensory inputs in humans that correspond to specific areas in the brain. What do they correspond to in stones?

If consciousness is individual only and has a limited functional role for a moving body, then earth is a moving body that supports all life and is eternal compared to individual moving bodies that it supports. Why has it no brain then? Why has moving mass of air no brain?

Because planets are not self-replicating entities. You cannot generalize the claim to just anything that moves. Living organisms create copies of themselves. Without self-replication, there can be no evolution.

If consciousness is individual only and has a limited functional role for a moving body, then what role all moving bodies have for the universe-existence?

Let's confine the discussion to self-replicating entities, not just anything that moves. You are creating a seriously false analogy here.

OTOH, no one has ever seen matter give rise to intelligence. No has ever seen matter experience sensations. No one has seen such local intelligence without life. No one has seen any matter seaprate from conscious individual. And, fundamentally, there is no matter.

This is not really true. The fossil record paints a very clear picture of the gradual emergence of intelligence in living organisms. What is true is that nobody has ever seen evidence of intelligent behavior in anything but animals with brains. This is the inconvenient truth that you pointedly ignore.

 

[atanu]

Neither I nor Dennett came up with these ideas. The concept of embodied minds has been around for a long time. The concept of emergence in chaotic deterministic systems has also been around for a long time.

I did not say that you developed anything. I said that you are not sure of your stance.

This is an empirical question--not one of "definition". Can consciousness exist independently of a physical brain in a physical body? We know that consciousness is linked to brains, because we can do physical things to brains that affect consciousness. We know this from repeated and reproducible observations.

No repeatable observation is possible without consciousness being there.

No, QM does not support that. We have the results of experiments and then we have various interpretations, some of which are quite fanciful. What appears to us as a wave collapse, for example, could reflect the fact that there are multiple realities. In one reality, a version of you observes the particle in one position. In another reality, a different version of you observes it in another position. Hence, it is not the act of observation that collapses the wave, but the fact that you can only observe one slice of multiple alternative realities. There are other interpretations, as well. All we know for certain is what we observe. Philosophical speculation remains speculation.

Yes. You are now talking fancy to divert attention.

The fancy speculation has all arisen because the positional certainty of particiulate matter is not supported by QM, which simply says that the fundamental truth is fields which alone appear as particles on obervation. There is no brain in this scheme of understanding.

All your fancy talk is to hide the simple observations.

You seem to only be able to grasp a portion of the argument and nothing more. I have emphasized the concept of the "embodied mind", but you seem to have no idea what that is about. Bodies have nervous systems.

Do not blame me please. Your 'nervous system' is again matter, which crumbles when life is withdrawn from the body. You are not answering this basic thing.

We are the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary selection.

Blah blah blah. Without consciousness evolution and universe would be indeterminate.

Really? What sensory inputs do you imagine a stone has? Touch? Smell? Taste? Those are all sensory inputs in humans that correspond to specific areas in the brain. What do they correspond to in stones?

But that was the question in response to your sweeping assertion that consciousness develops in matter as response to sensual stimuli. I meant to point out that senses and life are synonymous. Whereas senses and matter are not. You prove me correct.

Because planets are not self-replicating entities. You cannot generalize the claim to just anything that moves. Living organisms create copies of themselves. Without self-replication, there can be no evolution.

Let's confine the discussion to self-replicating entities, not just anything that moves. You are creating a seriously false analogy here.

How can you say that. From big bang singularity how many planets have now come up? Just joking.

So, now you are directing your attention to self-replicating entities -- to the living system. You are now agreeing that consciousness is a feature of not all matter but of living system.

So, do you know how life came about? I sense that you have the algorithm?

This is not really true. The fossil record paints a very clear picture of the gradual emergence of intelligence in living organisms.

Dear Copernicus. Please do not confuse consciousness with the products of consciousness.

I will cite an easy sentence (borrowed): Consciousness is that which is able to experience.

Whereas you are superimposing the 'structures of waking consciousness' on the consciousness itself. Consciousness itself has no knowledge of time and its structure, as in deep sleep -- it simply is as indivisible unobservable wholeness and it is that which is able to experience. But experience, which is particular does not become consciousness, which is the general. The Cause is the effect but the effect is not equal to the cause.

This a subtle point but is crucial for understanding the difference between propositions 1 and 2.

 

[atanu]

Why is there consciousness is a question that cannot be raised or answered from without consciousness. Once that is understood, the answer is :Consciousness Is.

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2456150-post49.html

 

[zenzero]

Friend Copernicus,

So, what makes wakefulness intrinsically better than sleep?

Sleep is not unconscious they are states of consciouses [sub-conscious level]
Being wakeful does not imply consciousness on the other hand.
Am speaking of Pure Consciousness not the mind being conscious the point you are raising.
Pure Consciousness is when the individual mind is still and It simply IS meaning the consciousness of the form [human] and the Universal Consciousness [point of discussion] are ONE.

Evolution takes place independently of consciousness. It is a mindless, algorithmic process. What makes consciousness of crucial importance is the existence of self-replicating bodies that move with respect to their point of origin.

None can discuss of consciousness by being outside of it as being outside means the MIND is active i.e. thinking and so separated from consciousness and so it is incorrect and when one merges with consciousness there is no perceiver at the moment to record the event as only CONSCIOUSNESS remains which wakes keeps on waking up the unconscious and this process of waking up itself is evolution.

Love & rgds

 

[PolyHedral]

As a general note to everyone: Quantum observes are not necessarily conscious. Anything can count as an observer in QM, it just has to be a significantly large disturbance to the system.

OK. So, do not link a material brain to consciousness. There is no matter at the most fundamental level. There is certainly no brain. But not to believe means a reason, a cause.

There's no brain at the most fundamental level, but there isn't consciousness either. Consciousness appears several steps "more abstract" from the brain, and asking where it is or whether it exists when considering structures less abstract than the brain is nonsensical. It is like asking what property of a oxygen atom makes water wet.

I don't need a reason to believe a given proposition is false. I need a reason to believe it is true.

To me Consciousness and being conscious are different. Knowing that one is unconscious is also part of consciousness.

I don't believe it's possible to know one is unconscious. That sounds like a contradiction in terms.

Yes. Yes. Someone needs to understand the modifications and INTEGRATE those coherently. How the non local changes are understood by the local processes? You will say that light reaches eye and sound reaches ears and so communication takes place. That does not explain how these stimuli are interpreted in common ways?

We guess. We invent hypotheses, test them and discard them. Understanding appears when we have a hypotheses that has been tested and found correct. Since we're all dealing with the same general circumstances, we arrive at variations on the same model, with statements like, "Other people are similar to but not identical to me."

Why? Going with your materialist understanding, corresponding to ‘apple’ there is ‘body’, the indicator of a specific “I”. Human bodies certainly have measurable characteristics like apples.

"Humanity" is a template in itself, and it's quite easy to ask "Is this object human?" However, this is distinct from "conscious" being a template, because simply being conscious doesn't imply anything else. Being human implies lots of things, depending on context.

Fortunately you sometimes say AFAIK. But bodily actions can also do some functions of communication?

Yes, but usually not of more abstract ideas, and certainly not with the fidelity of words. I don't think I can say "2+2=4" with only gestures.

So, we do not understand the mechanism of intuition as much of it happens at unconscious level. But we claim that we can model consciousness by modeling brain? Or we say that we know the correlates to all conscious effects perfectly and we can conclude that there is no consciousness apart from the physical brain?

We do not understand intuition at this time. That is no reason to think it is impossible to understand, though. And the claim of modelling consciousness follows on from the premise of reductionism: if the brain is the only component that gives rise to consciousness, then modelling it must model consciousness, by definition.

So, who has programmed the kangaroo’s genetics? And who implements it during Joey’s travel to its mother’s pouch?

The genetics arose because of natural selection, and they are implemented by the brain.

How funny. I have this considered opinion that you do not understand the implications of QM and so you cling to physicality where there is no such matter at fundamental levels. You seem to be confusing mental model fitting to physical observations as physicality?

The observation is that two entangled photons have correlated but random spins, regardless of separation. The mathematics tells us everything else, including the misleading idea of communication at a distance.

So, either you accept that the fundamental system is matter-less wave and the matter is effect of observation. Or you have to accept that there is implicate intelligence connecting and underlying all observed discrete objects.

Waves and matter are not mutually exclusive. Everything massive is actually both.

Thank you. Now tell me where is the individual conscious material brain? Fields are not localized particles. So, even if you attribute intelligence to brain, effectively, that intelligence cannot be localized at fundamental level. But at observational level this illusion seems real.

Where is the Atlantic Ocean?

The two questions make about as much sense. You're asking about the location of an entire group of things, and so the only sensible answer is a volume, not a point.

My question is unanswered. How do you explain the gap between natural processes and mental judgements? Do the material processes themselves form the judgements?

Mental judgements appear as a matter of interpretation. They are computations, and the material components are the computer.

First. Simple! There is no such experience of any matter saying “I feel pained”. There is not a single observation of a brain devoid of life saying so. And, there is impossibility of physical processes giving rise to judgements of their own, if not programmed.

That's logically impossible. Some arrangement of physical processes gives rise to judgement, (you allow this, only with the stipulation it must be programmed) and so why should it be impossible to nature to stumble on that arrangement by evolution?

Second. If neural correlations with matter would be very hard to find, then how hard would it be to find the intelligence that finds the correlation itself? Can’t you see that it would not be merely hard, but it is impossible?

It's impossible to find because it's not a thing. It's an arrangement that probably varies from person to person.

You yourself are that intelligence. How can you find it in any other place or in an observed object? The intelligence itself is observing the object. So, can you imagine that your intelligence has come out and still you are observing it? M

usk deer does not know that the fragrance is innermost to itself. I hope you comprehend this.

First. I request the same to you. The question is how an effect (the intelligence) arising of cause (physical brain) alter states of the cause? Intelligence is not a physical phenomenon, even if reductionists shout at top of their lungs. Have you ever seen a picture outut of a program changing the program itself, if not programmed to do so?

No, but I have seen programs produce results that the programmers did not expect or understand.

Second. There is nothing graspable in subjective feelings, perception, jealousy, love etc. and thus they are not physical.

Yes. Wow, we agree.

A dead brain does not mean absence of a physical brain. The physical brain is still there but it lacks consciousness. So, the physical brain is not equal to consciousness. Every physical body, including a brain, has measurable true properties. A dead brain and a living brain are equal on all their true measurable properties but the effects are not same. Thus the effect of intelligence that apparently seems to be attributable to the physical brain is not a true property of physical brain but it is a distinct class.

A living and dead brain do not have equal oxygen intake or electrical output. A living brain has structure and communication which a dead brain does not.

OTOH, a brain is not known in absence of consciousness-life. So, individual consciousness is a parameter of life and not of physicality. Nothing of existence is known apart from consciousness. There is no such experience of anyone of knowing anything, including the knowledge of a physical organ called brain, in separation from conscious individual. which is a signifier of consciousness.

It might be true that we don't know we know anything without consciousness, but IMO it's still true whether or not anyone knows it. 2+2=4 is invariant regardless of whether anyone is there to know it or not.

 

[Flipper]

Hi all,
My question in response to Copernicus question is, is my consciousness the same as yours? I know I'm jumping into this one late but I am new on the forum.

As an extension to your question, does consciousness extend beyond your own mind and if you believe so, why do you believe so?

How can you know for certain that anything exists beyond your own mind? I sometimes ponder if the way that I perceive the universe around me bears any resemblance to the way that any other individual does? To me the answer can only be no. How can another being know what really goes on within another human being. All we have to rely on is our understanding of the way that some else describes their meaning to us.

(PS - I noticed that you are in Bellevue, I have family in Wanneroo, Darch and High Wycombe. I'm originally from West Aus but live in QLD)

 

[atanu]

No, but I have seen programs produce results that the programmers did not expect or understand.

Yes. Wow, we agree.

Wow. We agree. And this mistake is the universe of discreteness.

 

[atanu]

Hi all,
My question in response to Copernicus question is, is my consciousness the same as yours? I know I'm jumping into this one late but I am new on the forum.

As an extension to your question, does consciousness extend beyond your own mind and if you believe so, why do you believe so?

How can you know for certain that anything exists beyond your own mind? I sometimes ponder if the way that I perceive the universe around me bears any resemblance to the way that any other individual does? To me the answer can only be no. How can another being know what really goes on within another human being. All we have to rely on is our understanding of the way that some else describes their meaning to us.

Nice.

From friend saidevo:

Here is a great practical advice from Sri Chandrasekhara BharatI MahAsvAmigaL, the 34th Jagadguru of DakShiNAmya Shringagiri Sri ShAradA PITham:

"In the language we speak--even in English--advaita bhAvam (feel of Advaita) is clear. Take the English word 'I'. I call me 'I'. You call me 'you'. Someone there calls me 'he'. I am only 'I', not 'you', not 'he'. 'He' and 'you' are nAma-bheda (differences by names). The vastu (entity) that is there is only the 'I'. Now, just as I refer to me as 'I', you would call yourself 'I' and he would call himself 'I'. Thus all of us are only the 'I'. All that vyavAhara (references) by 'he, you' are all only nAma-bheda. 'I', that is, the 'AtmA' is only one. Everyone is of that AtmA. I am who is the 'I', appear as 'he' to one man and 'you' to another.

Let us look at it in another way. What is this plural 'we'? Can we say that it is the equivalent of 'I' + 'I'? Never. Only if the 'I' and 'you' and 'he' come together, the plural 'we' would occur. 'I' has no plural form. The AtmA has no plural form. Only the nAma-rUpa (names and forms) by which the AtmA is seen are plural. These are just appearance. The reality is only the 'I', the AtmA."

(From the Tamil book guru kripA vilAsam, vol.3, pp.236.xviii-xix)

The second and third persons exist because of the first person. If "I" is not there then "You" and "Him" will not occur. Then enquire whether this "I" has any boundary or not? Whether it ever has end or not?

Shri Ramana Maharshi

 

[Copernicus]

My question in response to Copernicus question is, is my consciousness the same as yours? I know I'm jumping into this one late but I am new on the forum.

Welcome to the forum, and I appreciate the question. I suppose that the most straightforward answer is "no". We are different people, so we have different consciousnesses.

As an extension to your question, does consciousness extend beyond your own mind and if you believe so, why do you believe so?

My consciousness is my mind, so it could not extend beyond it. The point is that consciousness relies on brain activity for its existence. We can observe changes to brain activity when people lose consciousness. We can do things to a brain that force a person to lose consciousness.

How can you know for certain that anything exists beyond your own mind?

We can't, but what we do know is that attempts to ignore reality can be very painful. So most of us are pretty convinced that either something exists beyond the self, or it doesn't really matter. We need to behave as if it did.

I sometimes ponder if the way that I perceive the universe around me bears any resemblance to the way that any other individual does? To me the answer can only be no. How can another being know what really goes on within another human being. All we have to rely on is our understanding of the way that some else describes their meaning to us.

It is likely that others perceive reality pretty much in the same way you do, because we all have similar bodies with similar sensory equipment and similar central nervous systems. Great minds think alike.

(PS - I noticed that you are in Bellevue, I have family in Wanneroo, Darch and High Wycombe. I'm originally from West Aus but live in QLD)

The abbreviation WA stands for the state of Washington in the US, not Western Australia. I'd probably rather be in Australia at the moment, rather than living with this incessant rain.

 

[Copernicus]

I did not say that you developed anything. I said that you are not sure of your stance.

You are not one of those yogins who claims to have powers of mental telepathy, are you, atanu?

No repeatable observation is possible without consciousness being there.

Have I ever disputed this? You keep raising points we agree on as if they were in dispute.

The fancy speculation has all arisen because the positional certainty of particiulate matter is not supported by QM, which simply says that the fundamental truth is fields which alone appear as particles on obervation. There is no brain in this scheme of understanding.

This is all irrelevant. You have yet to establish any connection between QM and human cognition. The "observers" in Bell's experiments, for example, were not conscious entities, but human-built instruments. Sentient perception did not cause the wave collapse.

Do not blame me please. Your 'nervous system' is again matter, which crumbles when life is withdrawn from the body. You are not answering this basic thing.

I am not blaming you for the fact that I am mortal. This response did not address my point, which was that you keep ignoring the central part of my argument, which had to do with embodiment as the ground level of human cognition. Bodies are necessary in order for our type of consciousness to exist.

But that was the question in response to your sweeping assertion that consciousness develops in matter as response to sensual stimuli. I meant to point out that senses and life are synonymous. Whereas senses and matter are not. You prove me correct.

I am struggling to understand the point you are trying to make here. I have claimed that a brain system is necessary in order for consciousness to arise. Stones do not have brains or sense organs, so it does not shock or surprise me that they lack consciousness.

How can you say that. From big bang singularity how many planets have now come up? Just joking.

Self-replicating entities are entities that produce copies of themselves. Planets do not produce copies of themselves. Therefore, they are not self-replicating entities.

So, now you are directing your attention to self-replicating entities -- to the living system. You are now agreeing that consciousness is a feature of not all matter but of living system.

I am not just now agreeing with anything. You are just now coming to grasp what I have been saying all along. Brains are necessary for there to be consciousness. They only exist in living systems.

So, do you know how life came about? I sense that you have the algorithm?

I believe that it probably came about through abiogenesis. There are lots of different scenarios that scientists have come up with for abiogenesis. We know that inanimate processes produce complex proteins. RNA is an extremely complex protein, and DNA probably evolved from that type of protein.

Whereas you are superimposing the 'structures of waking consciousness' on the consciousness itself. Consciousness itself has no knowledge of time and its structure, as in deep sleep -- it simply is as indivisible unobservable wholeness and it is that which is able to experience. But experience, which is particular does not become consciousness, which is the general. The Cause is the effect but the effect is not equal to the cause.

I cannot make much sense out of your words here. Your attempts to paraphrase what I have been saying seem either incoherent or at odds with what I have actually said. For example, I have never said anything to imply that an effect was equal to its cause. I would say that one is conscious ofexperiences, not that it 'becomes' consciousness. The discrepancy between remembered experience, idealized experience, and ongoing experience is something that I consider a crucial aspect of consciousness.

 

[Penumbra]

Consider these two different views on the nature of consciousness:

1. Consciousness exists everywhere in the universe, and individual minds are just individual units of consciousness that may or may not be part of universal consciousness.
2. Consciousness exists only in individual bodies with physical brains. It exists nowhere else.

There are other possibilities, but these reflect two very different points of view that tend to distinguish religious and non-religious points of view. Christians usually hold that God is immanent--a spiritual consciousness that pervades everything--and that human minds are also spiritual consciousnesses temporarily associated with bodies.

In my Five Reasons to Reject Belief in Gods thread, I took the position that (2) was true ("Minds depend on physical brains."). For me, this is one of the most important beliefs that underpins my personal conviction that personal gods are implausible beings. What follows is a paragraph from one of my last posts in that thread. I thought I would put it here in a separate thread to get reactions from others.

I will try to give a succinct, simple description of what drives me to believe that consciousness (self-awareness) is ephemeral and individual rather than universal. Human cognition--and very likely all animal cognition--is embodied. That is, it develops in response to the sensory inputs--the sensations--of a body. Bodies move around, so their environments change quickly and radically. The brain is the hardware mechanism that drives and guides the body. It reacts to new conditions as they happen, and it anticipates future conditions. Self-awareness is necessary for a body, because, among other things, it is what gives the body an ability to detect malfunctions in itself, replenish energy, repair itself, etc. Awareness of the environment is necessary, because that allows the body to survive rapidly changing conditions. In other words, consciousness has a functional role to play that is directly related to the nature of a moving body. There is no functional role for self-awareness beyond the needs of a moving body. Therefore, it makes no sense that consciousness would exist outside of bodies or extend beyond the life of a body.

In general, I agree. So far, I haven't seen any significant evidence that suggests that consciousness exists anywhere besides material brains. Claims that say so are generally unscientific. On the other hand, the brain is being better understood every day, and several aspects of consciousness and thought are understood by means of understanding the brain.

Hmmm. It seems like nobody (with maybe the exception of Skwim) who read the OP understood what I was trying to say, maybe nobody cared to reflect on what they did understand me to say. The responses are largely responses to the question rather than my answer to the question.

Consciousness exists because bodies that move need to be aware of their own condition and surrounding conditions in order to survive. Bodies that do not move (e.g. plants) do not need conscious awareness of their surroundings. That is why moving lifeforms (mammals, reptiles, arthropods, etc.) have brains and, consequently, minds. No brain, no consciousness. Minds are "embodied" things. They exist only because moving bodies can make use of them.

I don't think consciousness is absolutely necessary for bodies to survive. Philosophical zombies can do all of that equally as well, basically by definition, but lack consciousness. And their existence is at least conceivable (and with increasing automation sophistication, maybe eventually existent as well).

Consciousness may be have been the easier or most efficient way for nature to have done what it did, but probably wasn't the only conceivable way.