What is consciousness?

Some say it's a sense of yourself.
Some say it's anything with intentions.

What does it feel like being you?

Different states of consciousness?

This question must be easier answered not by science but what we believe instead.

Any thoughts?

 

Consciousness is what science states it is. That is what I believe.

 

My thought is to go by the dictionary's definition as well. So yeah, there can be different states of consciousness and some states in particular have stuff like self awareness. I would say subconsciousness is a different state of consciousness.

 

There's a lot of things that science has no explanation for about consciousness. It truly is a slippery slope to think about.

 

I just think it's way more complex than we can imagine. Why should it be able to conceive of itself?

What if there's a being more complex than us, and we are just it imagining it to be something else? Life really can be that weird.

 

Maybe a good place to start would be to re-arrange the question. What isn't consciousness? The more I think about it, the more questions I have..

 

consciousness is my own personal, here, right now. what I'm seeing, tasting, feeling, hearing, smelling. It might be enhanced or altered due to outside substances, but it's my consciousness, it's where I am right now.

 

Consciousness is the ability for an organism to interact with it's enviornment.

That is my tentative definition, there are probably some exceptions which would make me rethink that, but that's the enigma of consciousness.

Suggesting that we neglect a paradigm which some of us feel provides evidence to help us understand the topic better is poor form for discussion.

 

Self awareness?

 

I think it's a good discussion. Everyone has opinions. I was just looking for everyone's opinion on it

 

I'm interested to know what you think those things are...and that's not an argument for rejecting scientific explanation in favor of whatever fanciful crapola someone wants to make up or believe about consciousness. Of course, we should all be free to believe whatever nonsense we want. We just shouldn't try to pawn it off as rigorous thinking about the matter at hand.

I would accept this as a basic working definition of consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain and central nervous system.Of course, there is much more to say about it, but that's a good start, IMO.

Easier, yes. Better, no.

 

Science has no explanation for consciousness period. You can ignore all the philosophy out there on the matter if you want. There's something intangible about experience. It's direct; it can't be adequately described. So it's not a science.

"It would be possible to describe absolutely everything scientifically, but it would make no sense. It would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." - Albert Einstein

 

Actually, it would have logical meaning. It just would not tug at one's heart strings or lift one's soul to new heights as it previously did.

Even famous people are fallible. Brilliant minds can still come up with some not so brilliant quotes.

 

It wouldn't have logical meaning because it wouldn't actually equate to existence. Therein lies the problem. How can you say it's logical for an equation to be the logical equivalent of existence when it's not really describing everything...or anything for that matter?

There really is this abstract world that exists on top of everything else. All you can do is look upon it in wonder.

 

Science can't define words. It also can't make ontological claims (claims about "what things are"--their essence). Both of those functions are non-scientific and cannot be arrived at by scientific methodology.

 

Un-conciousness is when some twat hits you hard and you go into a state of sleep where you do not remember anything, whereas conciousness is when you are awake and are aware of everything, including the twat that punched you.

 

The science of consciousness:

http://www.danielbor.com/introtoconsciousness/

The book:
http://www.danielbor.com/the-ravenous-brain/

 

There are many aspects of consciousness that have scientific explanations.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'ignore all the philosophy' because various philosophers have differing assertions on the topic, some of which closely resemble the information that science has suggested thus far regarding human consciousness.

Here are some further things to consider in regards to science:

Modern psychology and neuroscience has been around for less than 150 years, consider that compared to how long some of the ancient philosophers, spiritual texts have been around with their musings of consciousness. Then think of how many leaps and bounds we made in the 20th century understanding aspects of our lives... Life expectancy doubled, our understanding of the brain, health, genetics, etc. all grew significantly due primarily to exponential steps in scientific methods.

I think Science potentially could have made further leaps and bounds as well understanding human consciousness, if it wasn't restricted by some of the political and procedural circumstances that it is. The brain is a sensitive organ and neurological damage has been shown in many studies to have significant effects on consciousness, health and functioning. So science has to make sure all their equipment, procedures, and execution of a study go well. There often has to be appeals to ethical committees and various orginizations just to get the ok for conducting a particular neurological study. Ethical committees are good in the sense it doesn't give anyone the ability to tinker and meddle with humans/animals in any way they see fit, however this may be lowering the ceiling on what science can help us understand about our minds and consciousness at this moment.

Here is the recent case of Junior Seau, he was a football player that played several years in the NFL probably withstanding several concussions or certainly at least hits to the head. After his football career, family members noted significant changes in his behavior and eventually he committed suicide. A post mortem brain study showed that he had a degenerative brain disease associated with multiple hits to the head that can only be studied post mortem, likely due to some of the issues that I brought up in the previous paragraph... Isn't it likely that constant hits to the head effected his mind? http://abcnews.go.com/US/junior-seau-diagnosed-brain-disease-caused-hits-head/story?id=18171785


With that being said, I believe I understand what you are saying about experience being something intangible, I can relate to that Einstien quote in my own way, for instance I play guitar so reading all the notes and chords of a song doesn't carry the same meaning and feeling as playing or hearing a song, however all those components of notes and chords allow for the experience of the song just as we may conclude that neurological and physiological components result in experience. Science is far from understanding many aspects of consciousness and Perhaps there is some gestalt condition(s) of consciousness that science will never be able to solve but there are certainly aspects of consciousness that can be subjected to Scientific rigor.

 

Science and consciousness-disciplines (known to some as spirituality) will eventually become one. Science has to get over its physical-materialist obsession first.

 

Science has not yet defined what consciousness is.

There is currently no definition of consciousness and it's being debated quite profusely lately... it seems a lot of people are shifting their attention to try and define consciousness.

I think it's an interesting subject... especially its relationship to time and the observer effect.

Yes - I want to see more research into what some might term "fringe" science.

It's ludicrous to brush off ideas simply because of assumptions that something is nonsense. Assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups and our current model of making those assumptions is based around a small box of materialism. It feels like Descartes held us back from a more comprehensive understanding of our existence by a few hundred years - although on the flip side, perhaps we needed materialism to re-discover the complexities of non-materialism.

While I may have taken a more spiritual view of the world lately, that doesn't mean I've given up on the ideals of following a methodical approach to reach a conclusion.

To discard experiential data is frankly absurd - sure it's subjective - but similarities can be drawn in many experiences - so data can be compared and conclusions drawn.

Most scientists will admit that our experience is far more advanced (in general) than any technology we currently have access to. I'm sure that will change in time, but experience is key - it's the fundamental part of our experience in this physical form - we should be trying to understand ourselves more than learning how to manipulate the world we live in.

It's quite funny actually - it's often been mentioned by friends that I might end up as some kind of Walter character from Fringe the tv show - I'd enjoy that