Consciousness, A Discussion

I think you see where this is heading... If there can be instances of a part of no consciousness , then it's not unreasonable to think that there is a possibility there can be instances of no consciousness at all.

 

Consciousness leaves when you die in your body. But I'm arguing that Consciousness is universal. If you remove an object from the space, the space is still there. When Consciousness leaves your body, it goes to the universal Consciousness. When the body dies, it doesn't disappear. It rots and becomes part of the Earth.

NDE's and the universal stories regarding them and clinical death is going to be an ongoing paranormal Science to prove that Consciousness continues after death, as research has already started.

 

For that analogy, I'd say if consciousness fading away in dreamless sleep is represented by the "off" switch, death would be represented by the bulb going out.

 

But the electricity and the bulb both don't suddenly disappear. The elecricity goes elsewhere to another outlet, and the bulb is still present.

 

I'm sure we could run with the analogy until the cows come home, but I am just stating that the parallel I see in the analogy is different then what you were thinking.

 

Scientific Doctrines:

Matter can neither be created nor destroyed

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed


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So how is Consciousness removed from both Matter and Energy? Isn't your physical organism dependent on your operating Consciousness in order to not rot? Therefore, in this scenario, Matter is dependent on Consciousness. Energy must also be operating for you to be alive, but if your consciousness ends, your body drops and rots.

But both Energy and Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. But Consciousness can be destroyed?

 

I think consciousness is an emergent property:

Furthermore, The law of thermodynamics you are mentioning relies on the system being isolated, which I'm not sure if our bodies and environment are necessarily and then it also says matter and energy can transform and/or change form.

 

Clearly you can't destroy matter or energy. You could cut and chop a body up into millions of pieces, but you can't actually destroy matter. As you said, it changes states at best. Same with Energy.

So you don't feel that plants also have Consciousness? There's already Science that's going into that concept. http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants

What about minnows? At what point precisely is anything natural without Consciousness?

 

Why think conciousness is energy ? it can be causation . How is it causation ? when it is freely
accepted by another conciousness .

At death conciousness will cease to exist in space . It will do nothing no more . It will not
accept your causation .

Yet , there is prayer unto the ancestors . .. for to receive a causation of pure knowing through time .
Pure knowing is like pure music , of no specified context . The knowing would be perceived by a steadfast
mind , unblinking , of unified focus .

Your functional , daily conciousness taking care of business can be very blinky . It examines this
then that'n this'n that'n t exactly . It is pointy , sharp as its sound 't' . t is self-defining in its extreme
simplicity . People of anxiety will obsssssess about it .

 

An argument against the view that Consciousness isn't present during dreamless sleep http://open-mind.net/papers/dreamless-sleep-the-embodied-mind-and-consciousness-the-relevance-of-a-classical-indian-debate-to-cognitive-science

 

Where the cut off point for consciousness is one of it's elusive mysteries... i.e. you eliminated a part of consciousness in everything but developed human beings.

I don't know about plants, kind of doubt that they have anything as 'coherently' organized as most animals is my initial impression. I do think some animals are conscious and even self-conscious to varying degrees. I may even go so far as to speculate that animals can potentially be 'more conscious' than us in some regards, if we're talking about phenomenal awareness and qualia, which seems inherently linked to the sense. For instance, it's hard for me to imagine an 'intelligent' animal like a dolphin sensing a whole range of sound frequencies beyond our hearing capabilities and not making use of that awareness in experiencing "what it's like."

But a lot of that really is speculative and it's difficult to gauge that kind of stuff because we do seem to have an ability to project our consciousness into the enviromenment, via writing, art, computers, technology, etc. that seems vastly more complex than any other species. But much of that could be our perception, we have no measure to really note in a quantifiable manner of how much more conscious we are than other species.

I think your example of babies lacking self-consciousness, as well as many of the science showing various phenomena affect consciousness, suggests that if it is physical, consciousness should be viewed as a dynamic phenomena and not some static entity, I don't know if that may be useful in helping to understanding animal's consciousness any better but if there was any desire to, perhaps it might.

 

There have been heavy hitters like Whitehead and Koch who think that proto-consciousness may be inherent in all matter, including rocks. But that is, as you say, speculative, and proto-consciousness is just the potential for consciousness, not consciousness itself. Consciousness and self-consciousness are different things, I think China Cat Sunflower02 is conceptualizing consciousness differently than we are, as some metaphysical substance that exists apart from a material body. The Hindu view, of course,, is that consciousness is the only thing that is real--physical reality being only an illusion.

 

I'm with the Hindus.

 

I don't see any way self-consciousness could not be a part of consciousness, I don't know what that would mean to be self-conscious but not conscious... As for the rest of it, yes I think ChinaCat thinks consciousness is some immaterial essence that magically interacts with the physical world and basically uses God of the Gaps type arguments replacing it with this essence for the mysteries surrounding consciousness.

Thinking about the discussion of time and consciousness today... It's slightly amusing to me how quick some here are to dismiss the illusory qualities of time yet cling to this idea of consciousness as like this ever present thing, when the evidence we have is of time stretching back in the far reaches of our universe for Several billions of years, contrasted to consciousness which we only have evidence of for on a single planet, primarily by one species, for a few hundred thousand years, maybe a few million at best if you want to consider early/other hominids.

 

So you truly feel that other organisms don't have Consciousness? Dude, to be alive is to have Consciousness. This is Obvious 101.

You are getting the other part wrong. You can't be self-conscious and not have consciousness...you can have Consciousness and yet not be Self-conscious, like babies for a certain period of time. Self-conscious means nothing more than recognizing your Ego and reflecting on the fact of your own unique and "separate" existence from everything else around you (even though this separation is ultimately not real). It's looking into the mirror and being able to say "that's me."

So it's not possible to be self-conscious and yet not conscious, but it is possible to be conscious and yet not self-conscious, such as when you are a baby. And dreamless sleep also. Dreamless sleep is not a lack of consciousness! It's a STATE of consciousness. Being drunk is another STATE of consciousness that is not somehow unreal. Not to mention tripping on psychedelics.

You're also unaware of when you're dreaming...so why wouldn't that be considered having no consciousness, such as dreamless sleep? You're asleep for both and not consciously aware of it at least on the surface. Why would Consciousness disappear for one state of sleep and not the other? This is just a dumb argument.

 

Is Consciousness immaterial? It would appear so.

Is Consciousness the mechanism for interacting with the physical world? Yes.

How come Science can't tap into what Consciousness is? Because Science isn't spiritual enough yet. You have to get spiritual at a certain point regarding Consciousness. There's no conception of what Time is without first the Consciousness of it. Consciousness is primary. End of story.

 

China do you just completely blank out from post to post? I already stated this...

I'm beginning to understand why Writer saw exchanges with you as a futile endeavor.


We're on the same page in regards to the self-conscious to consciousness thing. To borrow Richard Holton's term, you seem to have a tendency to try and be a frustrator to anyone who holds a different paradigm view then you and I think it significantly clouds your judgement on reading comprehension, among other things at times.

 

Thinking about the discussion of time and consciousness today... It's slightly amusing to me how quick some here are to dismiss the illusory qualities of time yet cling to this idea of consciousness as like this ever present thing, when the evidence we have is of time stretching back in the far reaches of our universe for Several billions of years, contrasted to consciousness which we only have evidence of for on a single planet, primarily by one species, for a few hundred thousand years, maybe a few million at best if you want to consider early/other hominids.

Then why are you saying "primarily by one species"? Consciousness has never been primarily occupied by humans only. So our earlier states of evolution we didn't have Consciousness? And where would this line be drawn on the evolutionary scale? Yes you went on to say "maybe if you want to consider other species"...why wouldn't you be considering other species in the first place?

As far as dreamless sleep goes...when you smoke pot you don't go through REM sleep as much, but you're definitely not in the deep depths of sleep called "dreamless sleep"...so are you lacking Consciousness while sleeping just because you smoked pot the night before?

 

Plus, you couldn't have the evidence of how far back Time goes without first having a Consciousness to determine it. Consciousness will always be the most direct and immediate and primary factor of your experience.

 

Time as a concept couldn't exist without some Timeless backdrop that's witnessing the changes (Consciousness). Objects can't exist in apparent separation without Space as the ever-still backdrop that surrounds it.