|
Post by tangent on Aug 29, 2018 12:54:38 GMT
I find Wikipedia's definition of animal consciousness better than anything I have read so far: That last sentence goes without saying.
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Aug 29, 2018 22:00:39 GMT
So...I dunno if anybody watched the video I posted up, but I'm finding it quite interesting, particularly with regards consciousness, which they state is a required precondition for reality.
These are scientists...physicists, actually...who are trying to utilize a new perspective with regards a 'unified field theory' which joins relativity to quantum mechanics....E 8 and the quasicrystaline reality; the 'emergence theory'...in the face of what they maintain is the failure of 'string theory'. It makes it sound as though 'consciousness' is/was pre-existant at the manifestation of our reality.
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Aug 30, 2018 1:01:38 GMT
Another, more specifically scientific and consciousness video.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Aug 30, 2018 1:05:08 GMT
We don't sense or perceive consciousness, we simply ARE conscious. Some of us more than others, especially on a Monday morning Mondays? Hell me everyday.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Aug 30, 2018 1:20:17 GMT
We don't sense or perceive consciousness, we simply ARE conscious. You could say the same thing about being alive - we don't perceive being alive, we simply ARE alive. But you don't (I think) find people arguing that materialism AND dualism are both EQUALLY incapable of accounting for the mechanism by which we are alive. Actually the term alive, unless used exclusively to mean biologically 'alive,' is often employed to refer to the 'spirit' as well as the 'body' of a person for probably most people.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Aug 30, 2018 1:22:37 GMT
Another, more specifically scientific and consciousness video. I have a friend that was working on his master's thesis in the field of Philosophy employing quantum based physics to explain consciousness in a similar way. Much of this is of course speculative and in my view impossible to identify as an objective theory of consciousness.
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Aug 30, 2018 2:45:00 GMT
Another, more specifically scientific and consciousness video. I have a friend that was working on his master's thesis in the field of Philosophy employing quantum based physics to explain consciousness in a similar way. Much of this is of course speculative and in my view impossible to identify as an objective theory of consciousness. Of course, that makes it no different than any other try. I still cannot identify any as 'an objective theory of consciousness'.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Aug 31, 2018 0:35:11 GMT
I have a friend that was working on his master's thesis in the field of Philosophy employing quantum based physics to explain consciousness in a similar way. Much of this is of course speculative and in my view impossible to identify as an objective theory of consciousness. Of course, that makes it no different than any other try. I still cannot identify any as 'an objective theory of consciousness'. Me either.
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Aug 31, 2018 2:39:55 GMT
So...I dunno if anybody watched the video I posted up, but I'm finding it quite interesting, particularly with regards consciousness, which they state is a required precondition for reality. At 28 minutes, I saved it for later The first 12 minutes tell us that we can't grasp the concept of infinity, nothingness or higher dimensions. And that's about it. The video accelerates to describe E8 and at 19 minutes, it starts to get interesting. Basically, the mathematics of the E8 set - the set of all points at the centres of densely packed 8-dimensional spheres - appears to fit the current known properties of fundamental particles and nuclear physics. Does E8 represent reality? And if so, we observe and live in this E8's shadow. I got lost after that, but then it's 3:30am in the morning. Somehow, they argue that reality requires consciousness and the E8 set invokes a language. I don't think it defines consciousness, rather the presenter constructs a description of reality and says that we need consciousness to make sense of it. But she doesn't say why.
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Aug 31, 2018 4:24:41 GMT
So...I dunno if anybody watched the video I posted up, but I'm finding it quite interesting, particularly with regards consciousness, which they state is a required precondition for reality. At 28 minutes, I saved it for later The first 12 minutes tell us that we can't grasp the concept of infinity, nothingness or higher dimensions. And that's about it. The video accelerates to describe E8 and at 19 minutes, it starts to get interesting. Basically, the mathematics of the E8 set - the set of all points at the centres of densely packed 8-dimensional spheres - appears to fit the current known properties of fundamental particles and nuclear physics. Does E8 represent reality? And if so, we observe and live in this E8's shadow. I got lost after that, but then it's 3:30am in the morning. Somehow, they argue that reality requires consciousness and the E8 set invokes a language. I don't think it defines consciousness, rather the presenter constructs a description of reality and says that we need consciousness to make sense of it. But she doesn't say why. Heh...Yeah. I got that same feeling. There's that same impression I got from reading Gurdjieff....Lots of talk about how wondrous it was and was going to be, yada yada yada....isn't that amazing?! Or, the stereotypic cartoon of the scientist with a huge chalkboard filled with tiny chalk calculations, which, in the middle, has, in caps, the phrase, A MIRACLE HAPPENS HERE, in brackets.
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Aug 31, 2018 5:04:02 GMT
I am fascinated with the prospect that 'consciousness' is a 'pre-existant process' being a prerequisite for reality.
I'm left wondering why the theists have not been all over that....Too deistic?
|
|
|
Post by ceptimus on Aug 31, 2018 9:32:04 GMT
It would mean that rocks and other lifeless stuff DO have consciousness, which kinda makes the whole concept useless for normal conversation. You would then need a new word for what we feel is happening inside us, and we could then get back to endless philosophising about what that new word really meant.
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Aug 31, 2018 10:34:04 GMT
Exactly, yes. Klee Irwin says that Conversely, that means that information is demonstrated by consciousness. Whilst a rock doesn't exhibit any profound information, it does display its hardness. And therefore, the rock is conscious. So, whilst Klee Irwin's theory might be interesting to nuclear physicists, it introduces a new kind of consciousness that we aren't familiar with in our everyday lives.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Sept 2, 2018 11:33:59 GMT
I am fascinated with the prospect that 'consciousness' is a 'pre-existant process' being a prerequisite for reality. I'm left wondering why the theists have not been all over that....Too deistic? That almost sounds like idealism, where all of reality is couched in the mind of, say, God, or some cosmic 'thinker.'
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Sept 8, 2018 17:11:33 GMT
Okay....Here's another video lecture, this time from Klee Irwin of Quantum Gravity Research. Woooooooo-eeeeeee. Universal consciousness here we come. ETA: RationalWiki categorizes him as a pseudoscience fraudster. Until the end of the above video, I was being strung along.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Sept 9, 2018 13:40:43 GMT
You do have to watch out for claims from those with bold statements about consciousness.
|
|
Yuki
Senior members
Posts: 632
|
Post by Yuki on Sept 29, 2018 16:34:11 GMT
Do you think that Science will ever solve the great mystery of what consciousness is or do you think that this mystery is unlikely to unravel by using the scientific method? I think at least some aspects of consciousness could be unraveled by science and technology at some point. Brain-machine interfaces, virtual reality, and new psychedelics, could help create states of consciousness never before experienced by a human, while potentially answering some persistent questions that remain in the philosophical realm today, such as the question of qualia: is my experience of the green color the same as everyone else's? What if my green is someone else's blue for example? What if it's a unique experience that someone else might find mind-boggling, if they had a chance to interface with my brain and see through my eyes (or rather through my visual cortex)? But the fundamental question, how consciousness arises from inanimate matter, (or does it?), may or may not remain unsolvable, depending on the nature of consciousness itself, and whether the scientific method as it is is sufficient to lead us to a "comprehension" of the very thing that allows comprehension.
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Sept 30, 2018 12:03:54 GMT
Do you think that Science will ever solve the great mystery of what consciousness is or do you think that this mystery is unlikely to unravel by using the scientific method? I think at least some aspects of consciousness could be unravelled by science and technology at some point. Only if we can first define consciousness. At the moment, there are many ideas as to what is meant by consciousness. It may be possible to unravel some aspects of some meanings of consciousness but first I'd like someone to define what it is.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Oct 6, 2018 1:12:23 GMT
That is the problem isn't it? Defining consciousness. I am not sure it is possible from a scientific perspective. Being that it isn't an objective thing in the universe, but it is the subjective experience of it, it doesn't seem to being something that lies within the purvey of science.
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Oct 6, 2018 9:24:37 GMT
That is the problem isn't it? Defining consciousness. I am not sure it is possible from a scientific perspective. Being that it isn't an objective thing in the universe, but it is the subjective experience of it, it doesn't seem to being something that lies within the purvey of science. I'm not convinced consciousness doesn't lie within the purvey of science. It really depends on how you define it. Wikipedia defines consciousness in various ways: Some of these, I believe, can be measured scientifically, for example wakefulness, whilst some are impossible to measure objectively, for example the soul. Aspect of Consciousness | Definition | Sentience | The capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively | Awareness | The ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events | Qualia | Individual instances of subjective, conscious experience | Subjectivity | Various | Ability to experience or feel | Various | Wakefulness | Cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world | A sense of selfhood or soul | Various | The fact that there is something "that it is like" to "have" or "be" it | Don't know what this means | The executive control system of the brain | Related to qualia |
So, whether consciousness lies within the purvey of science depends on how you define it. If you don't first define consciousness, someone will find a definition of consciousness and an aspect of that consciousness that forbids scientific measurement and they will argue, therefore, that consciousness cannot be measured. Whereas, if you first define consciousness, for example as the state of wakefulness, you can apply it to science. So, I say, first define it, then decide whether you can measure it. Sorry, I think I'm repeating myself.
|
|
|
Post by robert on Oct 6, 2018 13:20:49 GMT
But these all relate to subjective experiences of the individual. Yes, sure there are physical and objective expressions of the effects, but not directly. I am not convinced that one can simply observe neurons and determine consciousness. Consciousness is not the same thing as either a neuron itself nor a theory surrounding an objective phenomenon. And that is the point. Consciousness is not an objective phenomenon. One can easily imagine a world without consciousness where every scientific discovery would be unaffected by its absence.
|
|