A look at consciousness.

Discussion in 'Philosophy and Religion' started by MeAgain, Apr 26, 2018.

  1. We can't assume either. And the fact that a person can seemingly lose consciousness may be triggered by the attachment to the brain rather than by a total severance. Perhaps a total severance means total awareness and a lingering connection that is structured by the brain means an inability to focus consciousness on an area outside of the brain.

    Science does not "consider the brain to be the seat of consciousness." You can't just take a select group of scientists with an opinion and call that "science." Science itself has no opinion on where consciousness resides (if indeed it technically "resides" anywhere) as there is no evidence either here or there for its location.
     
  2. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Either what?
    If I'm reading this correctly you're saying the brain filters out total consciousness?

    Okay, I should have said that the consensus of most scientists who study consciousness is that neural activity in the brain or gamma brain wave oscillations, or prefrontal or temporal lobe activity, etc. is responsible for consciousness.

    I didn't get into philosophies of consciousness.
     
  3. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    So let's look a little deeper at consciousness.
    In order to be conscious we must be conscious of something, such as an object or a thought.
    But in order to be conscious of anything we must be able to remember being conscious of that thing.

     
  4. I'm not stating that. I'm just saying it's a distinct possibility. It organizes reality into three dimensional reality, which isn't much of reality at all, as I understand it. It keeps us trapped in a human world.

    A loss of consciousness, though, is that the same thing as a loss of "being"? If there's nothing to consider from a human perspective, I suppose you'd never be able to translate any experience you had during "unconsciousness" back into human terms upon becoming conscious. But yeah, I conjecture that it actually filters out most of reality we could be cognizant of into three distinct dimensions. Have your identity as a human being severed completely and who knows what you could become cognizant of, if indeed consciousness isn't something created by brains.

    I wouldn't put too much merit into anyone who claims to study consciousness. What they're studying is motor mechanisms of the brain. Which...is exactly what I'm saying...it could be that the aspect they are studying, the capacities of the brain, is the part of us that is zombieish and not the conscious part. You can damage a person so much that they seem to lose consciousness (you will not be able to tell if they lose "being") but you can't damage a person so much that you know they're dead and also lacking awareness of any kind. When they lose consciousness it could be that they're tied down to a machine that perceives in three dimensions but has lost the capacity to do so.

    Sort of like a car running on electricity. Bear with me. But the electricity gets stuck in the battery until it decays or whatever. And after the decay it returns to its natural element. Still the same substance, but flowing naturally. This could be a bad analogy. I'm not exactly sure how car batteries work. Maybe you can think of a better one, but you get what I'm saying. The energy of consciousness would be stuck in the physical body, especially the brain, until that connection with its being an automaton is completely severed and is no more. At points that energy can even become useless, if the body is damaged enough. Or if the car were damaged enough.

    I don't understand how scientists can study consciousness, though. We admittedly don't know what consciousness is. How do you study it? They're studying brains. "If this area is stimulated, then language processing is aroused" etc. For all we know, oxygen is the same thing as consciousness, and its the oxygen pumping through our blood that supplies the awareness factor in all this. Who knows.
     
  5. Driftwood Gypsy

    Driftwood Gypsy Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Like whoa man
     

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