Is Conscious made out of atoms?

I thought we were talking about consciousness. Consciousness isn't necessarily the same as brain activity, although I think it's reasonable to believe that it depends on brain activity. Consciousness, at least our own consciousness, is the aspect of reality most accessible to us. By consciousness I mean subjective awareness--the phenomenal component of mental life. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:"The phenomenal character of an experience is what it is like subjectively to undergo the experience". Descartes' famous dictum: "I think, therefore I am" is subject to interpretation, but to me the one thing I can't deny is my own existence, and I know that through the subjective experience of consciousness. Of course, Descartes is also responsible for the questionable "mind-body" dichotomy, and some philosophers, including Ryle and his disciple Daniel Dennett, write about consciousness as though the phenomenal aspect doesn't exist. Dennett goes so far as to say that consciousness is the product of "early training"--a position which is carried to an extreme by Julian Jaynes, who claimed that consciousness didn't exist in humans back in biblical times. In my opinion, this is unlikely.

When you speak of an "electro-magnetic substance" I'm reminded of Catholic theologians discussing the mystery of transubstantiaton of the eucharist. It sounds so tangible--or should I say "substantial"--but what does it mean? Electromagnetic field theories (QMT and QBT) are plausible interpretations of the data from neuro-imaging experiments, but there is, as yet, no scientific consensus on them. According to Schiff's hypothesis, activity from a ribbon of neurons in the central thalmus is essential for consciousness, and this seems to be a promising focal point in understanding mind-brain linkages. But for the present, that's all we can say.

 

may we say conciousness has motion ? must it reside and
be twitchy or might it hitch-hike around bumly ? i've happily
noted that the faerie will ride about in the brains of butterflies ,
and now i cannot accept humanistic notions of exclusive concious-
ness . 'self-conciousness' is not private property : it's not that
sort of substance .

 

The question has no real affirmative or negative answer. Each individual exists in an atomic equilibrium of sorts. How does a scientist understand the balance is in terms of the notion of external cause? These can be judged by the form of how atoms align themselves to an external world as part of an External Reality (of sustenance). Consciousness is similarly understood as sustained by otherness for the essence of form forming the Morphic fulfilling of the Noema of appearance. That way consciousness is not made of appearance; it makes the appearance occur upon the noematic background.

Thus perhaps the atoms are noema and consciousness will not fulfil itself to be the Atoms it is conscious of. The reason atoms are understood is a mystery about a whole external reality. That reality exists because There exists a Consciousness common to everybody's.

The Conscious God is made out of the atoms of the Whole. daa..ah!!:love:

 

I think consciousness is just energy and communication between brain cells. ...so no atoms.

 

http://iai.tv/video/the-mind-s-eye

 

but with a labatomy removing parts of the brain...memory, for instance....then true knowledge of self could be lost, correct?

 

Analytically but not synthetically of the future for the Past.:mickey:

 

I tried to understand your statement there....^

meaning one's DNA is in every cell, so nothng is lost?

I think I got your meaning for once.....

 

Sometimes we've got viruses there too.

 

and if a person dies, and is cremated...no DNA left, so whatever is the essences of a person is either lost or never was.....is the question.

 

awareness will recognize the universal moment . when a group of
musicians does this we'll say it is the best time ever . we hold the
beautiful feeling of one love .

 

I apologize. But I'm still into the environmentalist question over the survival of Life in the Character of the surviving individual.

An individual may be an off-spring from biological generation. An individual may be an organism going through therapy. An individual may be a lab. sampled species of genetic worth. To me that is all incidental.

What is a mutation caused by a "disease"? Or is the disease actually itself the "mutation"?

We know that a hybrid in the past or in the present task of planning is or possesses (animates) something "naturally" selected. That is not politics; right? :sunny:

 

One thing that puzzles me is the evolutionary basis for the phenomenal aspect of consciousness. What advantage does subjective awareness confer on an organism? Computers can do amazing feats of calculation and not be conscious. Artificial intelligence doesn't seem to be subjectively aware. Philosophers have wondered why it wouldn't be just as advantageous from an evolutionary standpoint for humans to be mindless zombies. It could be that consciousness is just some sort of epiphenomenon--another of those spandrels Dawkins talks about. Or just a fluke.

For me, it's an important fluke--because it's the property that gives a sense of meaning to my existence. Without consciousness, the vast integrated complexity of the physical universe or multiverse would go unnoticed. No wonder atheists like Dennett prefer to deny that subjective self-awareness in the sense of qualia even exists. Yet consciousness is the one thing I can't deny, because it is more immediately apprehended than any other part of experience.

 

A sense of autonomy.

The benefits of an organism being able to identify some sense of self seems self-evident

 

What do you think atoms are?

Atoms are nothing more than energy and space. Also energy is nothing more than movement over time...

E=MC^2

If the universe didn't have moving spatial fields, there surely would never be consciousness or anything. But atoms come way before consciousness, as patterns of complexity are a product of time.

 

"Nothing more"? Is ice "nothing more" than water? Or would we say ice is just water+temperature? Ice is certainly present when those conditions happen, but it's something distinctive--water in a particular state. And water is something different from just hydrogen and oxygen. Alfred North Whitehead posited a "proto-consciousness" that became awareness at a certain stage of evolution. But I agree with your basic point. Atoms and brains are preconditions for conscious awareness. There probably is no 'ghost in the machine'.

 

Or a sense of wonder?

 

Good sense will show that atoms are hiding the fate of any individual for any further off-spring passing on the reproductive chance for the probe at victimization. The probe at nothing more there to the failure due to chance is the movement in time of the whole creation. There is energy and space filling in the pipeline of time from God's consciousness, all matter and time.

Actually, I'm disappointed. I can't get the environmental focus independent of the pro-creation of "victims" and "guilty misfits".:bobby:

 

Yes, that's always a problem. Socrates warned us about those oil spills!

 

Hey, are you against the positivist environmentalism? This technological enthusiast is truly that scientific type:



www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MGAWx1nm48"]Goat Simulator - IT'S HERE & IT'S AWESOME! - YouTube