Cause of consciousness?

[g13juggalo]

Would you say the cause of consciousness is simply our mind and body, and without it one becomes nothing?
Or that there is more to consciousness, and that the body is merely a vessel?

Sometimes I feel theres no point in anything because my feelings and consciousness are merely parts of my body, and without it I'm nothing. Sometimes I wonder if humans were capable of more, if they could design a body, and a mind, and create their own artificial intelligence with its own feelings that could be as complex as us. and I wonder if we're anything better. I wonder if emotions are simply caused by the way our mind works, or if theres more to it. If one needs a "soul" in order to feel, or if all one needs in order to feel is their body.

Sometimes I wonder if even if there is a god, if what if god didn't make us, but made aliens, and aliens then made us, much like humans try to create life. I wonder if we're just some half ass experiment, with no end planned for us. It makes me realize exactly why religious people are against humans creating life. What if god designed a form of life, and planned out their entire existence, including an afterlife, and then that life designed a new form of life, but didn't bother to plan out their entire existence?

These are the only things that have ever bothered me in my life, and sometimes it can really upset me, and other times I feel that there has to be more to life than this material world.

 

[Eden]

Well, take comfort in the reality of not knowing this side of death.
There is beauty in the mystery.

Ultimately:

But even if nothing lasts and everything is lost, there is still the intrinsic value of the moment. The present moment, ultimately, is more than enough, a gift of grace and unfathomable value, which our friend and lover death paints in stark relief.

(Thanks Pandora )

 

[burnt]

Would you say the cause of consciousness is simply our mind and body, and without it one becomes nothing?
Or that there is more to consciousness, and that the body is merely a vessel?

I don't see any reason to believe consciousness is more then something generated in our bodies and that goes away when our bodies are destroyed. Its not something I necessarily want to believe although I find some alternatives far worse (ie divine dictator soul eternity).

Sometimes I feel theres no point in anything because my feelings and consciousness are merely parts of my body, and without it I'm nothing. Sometimes I wonder if humans were capable of more, if they could design a body, and a mind, and create their own artificial intelligence with its own feelings that could be as complex as us. and I wonder if we're anything better. I wonder if emotions are simply caused by the way our mind works, or if theres more to it. If one needs a "soul" in order to feel, or if all one needs in order to feel is their body.

There is no evidence for a soul. There is plenty of evidence for emotions and other aspects of cognition being directly caused by and correlated with neural activity.

Sometimes I wonder if even if there is a god, if what if god didn't make us, but made aliens, and aliens then made us, much like humans try to create life. I wonder if we're just some half ass experiment, with no end planned for us. It makes me realize exactly why religious people are against humans creating life. What if god designed a form of life, and planned out their entire existence, including an afterlife, and then that life designed a new form of life, but didn't bother to plan out their entire existence?

There is no need for god. All life can be explained so far without a god. But I sometimes wonder if we are an experiment too although I doubt it. I think we evolved from organic molecules that started assembling into self replicating molecules.

These are the only things that have ever bothered me in my life, and sometimes it can really upset me, and other times I feel that there has to be more to life than this material world.

The material world is more massive, more awe inspiring, and more mysterious then anything any superstitious religious leader has ever come up with. I take comfort in that.

The only sad part about this view on life is that when relatives and loved ones die they are probably gone for good. Unless the universe somehow recycles itself or their are other dimensions that we also exist in but that's currently very speculative. Once we can accept these things you are free to live your life the way you want and make your own purpose in life. The only problem is we don't live in a world that truly encourages such freedom.

 

[soulfood]

I'm quite happy with being an amalgamation of systems within systems operated by a bio mechanical computer.

I actually think that's pretty damn cool.

Magic is just an illusion created by those who found existence too complicated to comprehend or were disatisfied with reality. Everything is mechanical on some level.

 

[dumbstruck]

There is lots of fascinating concepts regarding this, and it is one of the great debates in my mind that I am rather undecided about. Leaning toward consciousness being something though, some part of the way the universe functions. But anyhow, "Consciousness: A Brief Insight" is a really nice overview of the different arguments and the various experiments that have been done showing all sides of the argument quite neutrally. Something like 170 pages so not a wordy book but full of information. So if you are interested in the concept it is a great place to start.

You may or may not also want to check out "The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena". It is a collection of all the experiments that have been done and published and a bunch of fancy statistics discussing the effects of conscious intent on reality. It does seem to have some effect to vary the quantum probabilities in our favor -- if only a very small but statistically significant percentage of the time. I found out of this book through "Science and the Near Death Experience", which goes over a lot of topics I consider related. I also consider astral projection and the successful experiments therein to be a strong supportive case for consciousness existing separate than the body.

Regardless, I don't know which to believe, but damn is it fascinating to think about. It is the age old question of "do we have free will?". Well, I think it is pretty incredible that for the first time in over 2000 years science actually has a framework that potentially allows for the incorporation of mind as a real influence on our plane, and therefore allows for the possibility of free will. Materialists abound will reject this, and dualists will swear it is obvious that mind exists. Why evolve an illusory, conscious, subjective experience if it has no influence?

Good topic, my man.

 

[Swarupa]

I think the only way to fully understand consciousness is to dive into your own consciousness (perhaps through meditation, entheogens etc) and directly experience pure consciousness, otherwise anything you come up with about it is just thought based speculation & not really a true experience of what consciousness actually is.

I'd say the only way to know it & understand it is to experience it yourself, otherwise it's just another mental theory.

We can indulge ours minds in so many different speculations outside us or recognize what is always true inside us...

 

[soulfood]

I think the only way to fully understand consciousness is to dive into your own consciousness (perhaps through meditation, entheogens etc) and directly experience pure consciousness, otherwise anything you come up with about it is just thought based speculation & not really a true experience of what consciousness actually is.

I experience my own conciousness everyday when I wake up. You don't need to go any deeper to experience that. Subconciousness may require an awakening session to experience, but from the title of the thread I understand we're talking about basic everyday conciousness.

 

[gibran2]

There are many problems associated with theories of consciousness. One is that consciousness cannot be precisely defined. (A bit like “intelligence” or “free will”.) The definition seems to change with the point of view of the person defining it: A biologist will define consciousness one way, a computer scientist another, a philosopher another, and a theologian yet another.

@ burnt – Once again, you express your hard-core materialism!
Remember, absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence. One of your common arguments seems to be “we have no evidence that X exists, so we can assume/surmise that X does not exist”. Here’s a quote from something I said in another thread:

An observer in a closed system cannot say anything about what lies outside of the closed system. And for a system as large as the universe, an observer can’t even know if the system he is in is closed or not. This is a very basic fact that is expressed in many different ways in many different fields, from mathematics, to physics, to information theory, to philosophy. Uncertainty is an intrinsic property of existence.

 

[Swarupa]

I think the only way to fully understand consciousness is to dive into your own consciousness (perhaps through meditation, entheogens etc) and directly experience pure consciousness, otherwise anything you come up with about it is just thought based speculation & not really a true experience of what consciousness actually is.

I experience my own conciousness everyday when I wake up. You don't need to go any deeper to experience that. Subconciousness may require an awakening session to experience, but from the title of the thread I understand we're talking about basic everyday conciousness.

Cool, i addressed his post that way cause it's in the spirituality forum & i feel consciousness (even plain day to day consciousness) is synonymous with spirit, so i kinda presumed the underlying question was to do with understanding consciousness in a spiritual way.

 

[burnt]

@ burnt – Once again, you express your hard-core materialism! Smile
Remember, absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence. One of your common arguments seems to be “we have no evidence that X exists, so we can assume/surmise that X does not exist”. Here’s a quote from something I said in another thread:

I'd rather discuss a topic instead of constantly getting stuck at this dead end. I go where the evidence leads me. And because there is no evidence for a soul and much evidence for other things that does mean that a soul is unlikely at least in the supernatural sense. I don't claim absolute certainty. I am merely stating my conclusion based on evidence. So there

 

[Citta]

Your conclusion is perfectly legitimate mr. Burns (haha I can't help it), and it fits well when dealing with for example neurophysiological processes. Different definitions of consciousness are needed when different, should I say aspects of it, are to be dealt with. But this doesn't really make the one interpretation more or less valid than the other. Different models can be complementary rather than contradictory.

How can a non-localized thing such as a consciousness arise from the spatially localized positions and organization of microparticles? Where's the tactile point between res extensa and res cogitans? How can something spatial interact with something that is not localized? It doesn't fit, causal explanations requires tactile fields in time and space. And so this is an illustration that contradictions meet when one lays down dualism in the approach to the problem. It also illustrates that theories do not deal with any "thing-in-itself", but that they are spesific thought constructs that enables us to understand chosen phenomena.

It is fully possible to consider the primacy of consciousness, all we really do is flipping the situation on its head. The observed correlations between experience (or consciousness) and neurophysiological processes are still just as much there, but instead of considering the brain as the creator of consciousness, it is considered as a medium in which consciousness projects itself. There is nothing that disproves such a way to view things.

 

[g13juggalo]

Im not sure what to believe.

But I definitely believe in ghosts, and that makes me feel theres more to us than just our minds processes.
But sometimes I feel like if consciousness isn't forever then why should it matter?

And I also dont believe that just because we have consciousness because we of our minds processes, that that means it ends when our mind is destroyed. After all everything in this life has to be explained by science, regardless of what it is. Scientists often study things that seem impossible, and although they have no idea how its possible, it still has to follow science minus the impossible part. Not sure how to describe what I'm saying, but basicly my opinion is if a wizard magicly made a fireball, that fireball wouldn't be a ball of science defying magic, it would be a ball of fire that makes perfect sense to science, minus the fact that a wizard just made it.
I'm not sure if our minds processes just explain why we have consciousness, or if they cause conscious.


Thanks for the thoughts guys, gave me a few more perspectives.
Glad to see you guys like the topic. I was worried you guys would consider it something that people shouldn't think about, and say that I should accept that we may or may not live on after death.

 

[burnt]

How can a non-localized thing such as a consciousness arise from the spatially localized positions and organization of microparticles? Where's the tactile point between res extensa and res cogitans? How can something spatial interact with something that is not localized? It doesn't fit, causal explanations requires tactile fields in time and space. And so this is an illustration that contradictions meet when one lays down dualism in the approach to the problem. It also illustrates that theories do not deal with any "thing-in-itself", but that they are spesific thought constructs that enables us to understand chosen phenomena.

How localized is localized? I mean consciousness is obviously not just a single point particle like a consciousness particle or anything. Its does not seem to be controlled by one system in the brain but by many. So I do think its spread out being run by many parts of the brain/body. I don't see a problem with that though. Maybe I don't entirely understand what you are saying.

I don't take a dualistic approach to this. I view mind kind of like a computer. The difference between us and a computer is well we are made of different stuff and we have a much more complex structure and can do many more tasks that computers can't. Theoretically it seems possible that artificial intelligence could be created outside a human brain.

One issue I don't understand is can the mind do everything that it does in a binary like manner? Or does it require something else? I'm confused at this point.

It is fully possible to consider the primacy of consciousness, all we really do is flipping the situation on its head. The observed correlations between experience (or consciousness) and neurophysiological processes are still just as much there, but instead of considering the brain as the creator of consciousness, it is considered as a medium in which consciousness projects itself. There is nothing that disproves such a way to view things.

Yes BUT. If consciousness interacts with the matter in our brain it is detectable. It has to be because its interacting with matter. Anything that interacts with matter is by default observable usually because it is matter / energy. I don't see how it could be called anything else. So why has no one observed consciousness in this manner? Where is the field of consciousness surrounding and infusing your brain?

I think it would be pretty obvious if such a consciousness force existed which tickle's our receptors. To date no such force has ever been observed nor even hinted at by any reliable data.

 

[dumbstruck]

Yes BUT. If consciousness interacts with the matter in our brain it is detectable. It has to be because its interacting with matter. Anything that interacts with matter is by default observable usually because it is matter / energy. I don't see how it could be called anything else. So why has no one observed consciousness in this manner? Where is the field of consciousness surrounding and infusing your brain?

I think it would be pretty obvious if such a consciousness force existed which tickle's our receptors. To date no such force has ever been observed nor even hinted at by any reliable data.

Here goes my current theory on why it is feasible. I'm going to say "I believe" a lot when I mean "I have strong suspicions that".

In "The Conscious Mind" Dean Radin goes over an abundance of repeated experiments that show an influence of conscious intent on reality. Nobody can reproduce the effect 100% of the time, but that's not how it works. It can be shown to affect situations beyond chance probabilities repeatedly, but unfortunately this means it can only be proven by statistics. The experiments Dean Radin covers and his extrapolations use the same statistical methods that are predominant in relevant scientific fields. This is the amazon entry on the book; the second review is by the author himself. He covers this and also a couple other arguments in a nice concise manner. Anyhow, the odds against chance are over trillions to one. I haven't finished this book I'm afraid, so I don't know many specific experiments -- like I said in my first post I found it through another book. But I've read reviews from other scientists and researchers I respect and believe his methodology and results to be sound.

Ok, so now I have a reasonable suspicion that conscious intent can affect reality. What does that mean? I'm sure you're well aware of quantum mechanics but for those who aren't, one of the aspects means essentially you can't tell what is going to happen or why it is going to happen. You can only calculate the percentage of the time that it will happen. Things become probabilities at that level. Well, I believe it conscious intent can shift the probability distribution slightly. I also believe it is plenty feasible to assume that biological organisms would have an evolutionary advantage if they could magnify this effect to gain the "natural intelligence" of this consciousness that is everywhere and nowhere. It would only be an advantage if consciousness acted in the interests of the organism, so the ones that allowed manipulation in negative manners would die out (perhaps explaining why we can want to die consciously but not be able to kill ourselves?). But anyway, I believe consciousness to be non-physical, and interacting with the physical universe through shifting these quantum probabilities.

So you won't see a consciousness force, or anything to that effect. You have to look much closer, at the whole workings, and deduce its' reality. Fortunately the brain is wonderfully designed to allow a single neuron firing to start a cascade of effects throughout the whole brain and cause something to happen. So the consciousness just plays probability a bunch of times a second (I forget, I think it was Roger Penrose who calculated a number somehow; it's in the first book I mentioned in my first post anyway) until it successfully, intelligently modifies action in its' favor until the key neuron fires to modify behavior.

There are lots of arguments for both sides, and lots of good arguments for both sides. I genuinely do not know which is true, and I don't plan on dogmatically beleiving either. I find it somewhat difficult to understand subjective experience. Are computers conscious? We haven't been able to find a place in the brain where consciousness is located, so at the very least it is distributed throughout the brain, but what does it do? It doesn't function as a funnel where all information must pass, it doesn't collate all the information in a center and make decisions from a command center. It is a massively parallel process at the very least, but that still doesn't explain subjectivity. If it is an objective universe, why the hell do I feel so separate? You can argue ego is evolutionarily successful, and I would agree. But that still doesn't explain why do I experience feeling? Why don't I just react to the input and have no separate experience? If consciousness doesn't do anything, and it isn't located anywhere, then it is a useless, distributed epiphenomenon?

I used to believe that consciousness was kind of a long term decision maker. Something to make overall decisions that then the detail oriented stuff takes over while you do it. And I guess that is still even compatible with the above argument, even possibly even helping it make more sense. The brain evolved to magnify minute changes into big decisions and perform them admirably with little input, hence being able to find all the pieces of the brain that do various things and finding no seat for consciousness. I don't really know. I've been thinking the materialist way my whole life so now the ones I find more interesting are the ways that dispute that original world view, so that's what I'm going to argue.

Burnt, could you explain what you feel consciousness does? Or if it does anything? By the way I wanted to mention I greatly appreciate your stable skepticism. You are a much needed force in a lot of the spiritual hoodoo that floats around these boards. The internet lets people cluster into anonymous groups where they never have their views questioned and have all their crazy ideas reinforced by a small group of other crazy people. Thank goodness for respectful dissent. Just trying to say I wuv you.

 

[Citta]

Burnt:

I was not really refering to one single point particle creating consciousness, but rather to the fact that from your viewpoint consciousness is considered (of course based on good evidence-based arguments, I agree) as arising from the spatial positions and organization of many point spesific particles in time and space. Now, consciousness doesn't, in and on itself (or as some kind of system), seem to have any spatial properties the way the matter you are considering consciousness to arise from do have. Where is consciousness? Where is the point of touch between "mental substance" (res cogitans) and "corporeal substance" (res extensa) as I stated earlier? Where is, as you asked, the field of consciousness? If we are to accept these casual explanations for consciousness, how come we can't specify it? Can we detect it? Can we measure consciousness? You can't really prove that some system is having consciousness. But we can detect and measure all the spatially defined positions and organization of the matter that we assume gives rise to consciousness, yet we can't use this assumed casual relationship to detect, measure or prove consciousness. All we have (at the momemt) are correlations between matter and consciousness. This is philosophical and scientific problem.

 

[Enoon]

I have always considered consciousness to be an emergent phenomenon, a function of matter/energy; consciousness being a pattern of the complex interactions of matter. In this sense consciousness would be like an abstraction of matter.

If you took a bunch of sand grains and used them to draw a mandala-pattern with it and called it consciousness you could ask the same questions as you did above Citta - where is consciousness and where is the point of touch between it and matter... well the pattern, the arrangement of the matter is consciousness (as we defined it). Of course this is a static image, consciousness and the systems I believe it arises from are dynamic and in flux and the interactions that give rise to consciousness are probably more than just spacial relations to each other.

This idea to me is fascinating, because it means consciousness is implicit, the potential for it is within all - it only needs to come together in the right way.

But who knows...
"The truth, as always, will be far stranger..." - Arthur C. Clarke

 

[Citta]

Yes Enoon, I like this idea too. But the problem for me is that this system gives rise to another system which cannot be defined spatially in the same way the system that gives rise to it can. This is the weird thing about it. Consciousness as a phenomenon is not definitely located in space, is it? But the mandala pattern in your example is. The mandala pattern can be observed, measured, quantified, located in space and time but the consciousness it gives rise to cannot. If there is to be a casual explanation of this relationship there should be a point of interaction in space. If what you say is true however, that the spesific structure is consciousness, then matter is in paradox: It has both material and immaterial qualities. And the problem of defining consciousness and where to draw the line between consciousness and non-consciousness needs to be adressed - and this is difficult, because how should we prove within the scientific method that a system has consciousness?

Honestly I don't know, and I don't know what to believe either, but that there are correlations between matter and consciousness is raised beyond doubt. Fascinating stuff it is. Burnt, what ya say to all of this? =)

 

[Newfound_wonder]

Would you say the cause of consciousness is simply our mind and body

Yes. But your mind and body are anything but simple.

One issue I don't understand is can the mind do everything that it does in a binary like manner? Or does it require something else? I'm confused at this point.

I'd say it's more like a fourier transformer that decodes sensory input into frequencies of action potentials, which can be processed and converted to motor output, hormone release, changes in gene expression, etc.

 

[gibran2]

There are theories of consciousness that render consciousness causally impotent. (I think modern epiphenomenalism is an example.) This would mean that there is no action of consciousness on the brain.

One way to look at consciousness is as an “observer”. The body is thought of as more or less a sophisticated biological robot – sensing, perceiving, and reacting, thinking, etc. but not able to experience consciousness.

A loose analogy I use is to think of watching a compelling character in a movie. You relate to the character, you feel what the character feels, etc. But in reality, the “character” is simply a series of images on a screen. It is not conscious, it doesn’t feel. The feelings are your own – it is your mind that, in a sense, gives “life” to the character.

So the idea is that we (our bodies) don’t experience consciousness and don’t need to. It adds nothing. A body without consciousness would be indistinguishable from one with consciousness. But then there’s a new question – why is there consciousness at all?

Well, here’s some speculation that strict materialists won’t like: there are “beings” – spirits, souls, whatever you want to call them – that exist in a realm of consciousness. They ARE consciousness. They, for reasons known only to them, choose to experience physicality, and in so doing, impart their consciousness onto/into physical beings, in much the same way we choose to impart consciousness into characters in movies and books.

 

[embracethevoid]

This is fairly easily explained. Have you read the "Ra material"? The explanation is there. It is all said and done in something like 2 sentences.

However people prefer verbose bullshitting to simple potent truths (I know because I used to myself) so here goes. When Earth began, there was no life. Then *boosh*, the first life formed.

Now to explain this, consider an infinite dimensional space with complete freedom in every dimension. This is called a Hilbert space. In fact, reality itself is a Hilbert space in a way or rather, we get the idea of a Hilbert space from reality, much like a cartoon is a depiction of reality.

Now focus attention on when the first molecule(s) responsible for life "randomly" assembled. This gave these molecules a very strikingly powerful property that other molecules do not possess, we call it "life". In the infinite dimensional space, these molecules essentially acquired a degree of freedom in which they had a simple choice - move with the flow, or move against the flow, a simple boolean "option". To move against the flow would destroy the assembly of molecules. Have you ever seen the "game of life"? Look it up because this is exactly what it is.

Anyway, randomly, these molecules moved with the flow. So the flow was happy with this and bestowed these molecules another degree of freedom and presented them the same choice. Coincidentally, they happened to move with the flow yet again! So now they have 2 degrees of freedom in this Hilbert space. This process was guided along by the flow. The molecules eventually gathered so many degrees of freedom they gained a slight degree of "intelligence". After a while, they acquired so many degrees of freedom that they now had things called "legs" which allowed them to traverse the landscape unhindered. Some acquired other degrees of freedom, represented as "wings", others still recieved "flippers".

We as humans have a massively large number of possible degrees of freedom - so many that we have bunched them all together and called it "free will". The purpose of life is to merely keep collecting these degrees of freedom until perhaps the entire hilbert space is available. Who knows what next.

There is a major difference between consciousness and sentient life. Consciousness is that which pervades the universe. Sapient consciousness is merely consciousness conscious of being counsciousness. So the reality is, we are the all-knowing rebuilding itself from scratch within itself as the infinitely stupid. Why? Because the less you know, the bigger eternity gets.