Exploring the Mystery of Consciousness: Why Am I Born This Way?

[Tournesol]

I still maintain that if the simple patterns of a finger print are considered unique to an individual. To even consider the possibility of duplication, of the vastly more complex connections and patterns, that from a human brain is ludicrous.

a) you are not considering artificial duplication.

b) you are not allowing for the possibility of an infinite universe.

 

[Tournesol]

Given a working definition of impossible then, it is possible to differentiate between "improbable" ie could occur within the life time of the universe, vs impossible will not occur within the life time of the universe.

Nope, "Impossible" means not forbidden by laws. A solid gold replica of the Statue of Liberty is not impossible, but will almost certainly never occur.

 

[theblueprint_Nick]

Here's an idea

What if all the striving about the thoughts of a man in hopes to understand his own existence is futile and vain? If a man did not create himself how can a man by himself understand who he is? He says this and another says that, but what if all that talk is just another loose end. Why don't you ask a child? When you think about it, the older we get the more confounded we appear to be because we are bombarded with endless philosophies and boastful speech. How about that child? Being so close to the freshness of life they may hold the greatest wisdom of all. Maybe the answer is simple. So simple that it perplexes the wise and humbles the proud of mind. Maybe the complex reasoning of the intellectual is just foolishness that leads to even more foolishness, men leading men this way or that. This man says this is the truth and he dies. Another means says this is the truth and then he dies. Doesn't it seem like something is purposely leading us down a helical abyss stalling and misleading us from the simple truth so that we'll die before realizing it? But maybe I'm just a fool for believing in simplicity.

 

[Integral]

I think that we need to recenter this discussion.

I maintain that the neural wiring you are born with defines you. Through out life your brain grows, changes and adapts to life events maintaining your personality and abilities.

It does not matter if your brain or your personality is unique. As pointed out above, if we live in an infinite universe, then the odds of repetition go form zero to unity. So in an infinite universe it is certain that an identical Earth exists with identical people living identical lives. But how does this effect the fact that the brain and how it is wired defines what you are and how you perceive the world. It is your perception of the world that defines how you react to any event in your life. So again it is the patterns that exist in your brain that determine what you remember and what you are.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I hope that's not what you really think I'm getting at.

I'm afraid I do sometimes feel pressure to accept the latest theory you are embracing . . . the terms "overwhelming" and "most certainly" has the tone of being beyond dispute. Not every thinking person accepts the word of people who believe they are the experts.

Those who share the same approach tend to look only at what supports their latest theory, and so of course then it becomes "overwhelmingly" clear they are right. If we were talking about demonstrable physical principles, that’s different because it yields to external proof and so there are plenty of things to which "most certainly" applies.

When it comes to human consciousness, that realm does not belong to science alone nor does it belong solely to rationalistic philosophers. You think your facts add up to a certain model, I think they add up something more as follows:

Another explanation is that we are "general" consciousness before we enter biology, and so individually unconscious when we enter into biology. The CSN individuates us, it compartmentalizes consciousness skills, provides computing skills, etc. Because we are so dependent on it for individuation, any and all manipulation of the brain sends us in some direction. But it doesn't mean that once we are free from the brain we've not learned anything, and that we cease to exist as consciousness.

So what happens in the case where brain damage wipes out a person's memories or ability to perform a skill? Their damaged brain makes them act as if they've forgotten, but really on some super-physical level somewhere the skill/memory is retained? I don't see the motivation for such an incredible view.

That's not what I meant. Try this. Say there is a general pool of consciousness that exists in this universe. Any one "point" in that general consciousness is not very conscious because it's part of the larger thing and therefore general. What the body does is pull a "point" into the CSN which effectively creates a sense of separation from its base nature.

As the point gradually wakes up in the CSN, it finds itself totally dependent on the body not only for survival, but for consciousness skills too. Part of itself has been differentiated by the brain for specialized functions. This teaches the point how to use its consciousness to concentrate, open up, feel, and of course think.

That separation seems to remove the being from any memory of where it was before birth. While embedded in biology, it becomes dependent on the limited memory system set up in the brain for it. It actually comes to see itself as a physical thing because it only looks at itself through the physical system.

As long as that consciousness is absorbed into physicalness, it is totally susceptible to brain manipulation, and usually completely fooled into believing it really is some separate little physical unit running around.

Now, is there any evidence for what you call an "incredible" view? More below.

To be equally blunt, although I respect and value your first-person approach, I don't see how anything you could have experienced would really justify the kind of claims you're making here. Does introspection allow you to know which neurons change in response to which stimuli and which don't? If not, you have insufficient grounds for your claim. We can't keep track of every neuron for every person for every event, but in the cases where we have looked, we've seen learning accompanied by change in neural architecture. Have you ever looked at the objective activity of your own neurons?

You don’t see anything I could’ve experienced? Well, think about that for a minute. Setting my personal experience aside for the moment, have you taken the time to study the reports of people who claim to separate from their body in the deepest meditation, or how they report they become part of a greater consciousness? Those reports are found throughout many cultures and stretched out over a long span of time . . . a heck of a lot longer than the incipient field of consciousness studies have trying to figure things out.

If someone were really interested in understanding consciousness, it seems to me they wouldn’t overlook anything which might help them understand it better. However, I also respect an individual’s right to choose their own methods of investigation whether I agree it will be fruitful or not. I am quite certain you are a serious student, dedicated to the path you’ve chosen, and conscientious in your studies. But I am just as certain I am that way myself, have been for some time, and that our two approaches are as different as they can possibly be.

When I say different, I mean totally dissimilar. Something I’ve repeated several times, but which I don’t feel that you appreciate fully, is what is revealed to a still mind. A conscious aspect shows up which you can never see while you are thinking nor therefore by thinking. You choose not to learn how to experience that, and you also choose not to study the history of it to see just how consistent the reports are. Instead, you continue to attempt to explain everything through your rationalistic approach.

All that is fine, but it doesn’t allow you to appreciate where I’m coming from very much. How my expertise has developed is what I must continue to rely on. I am viewing things with that additional component present, and so of course I can see you are modeling consciousness without it. I want it in there, you don’t. What are we to do?

Well, unless you are going to label me a crackpot, you need to at least try to see the principles I am relying on to communicate my experience. You don’t have to believe or practice it, but you can’t demand that I explain things using your approach. Even though it is impossible for our models to ever agree, I think the more important issue is whether PF is benefited by having alternative models to contemplate.

If I were a hack, illogical, and failed to defend my ideas, then I think that would be a problem. But since I’ve been a member at PF I’ve tried to represent the introspective approach intelligently, with facts and evidence, and attempted to join inner observations to known “outer” situations whenever I could.

So while you believe you have overwhelming evidence your model is most certainly correct, I have another collection evidence which convinces me of something different. All I want is for my phenomenological approach to doing philosophy, alien as it may seem, to be allowed to coexist in its own unique way along side yours or anyone else's who is earnestly thoughtful about the subject.

 

[learningphysics]

I think that we need to recenter this discussion.

I maintain that the neural wiring you are born with defines you. Through out life your brain grows, changes and adapts to life events maintaining your personality and abilities.

It does not matter if your brain or your personality is unique. As pointed out above, if we live in an infinite universe, then the odds of repetition go form zero to unity. So in an infinite universe it is certain that an identical Earth exists with identical people living identical lives. But how does this effect the fact that the brain and how it is wired defines what you are and how you perceive the world. It is your perception of the world that defines how you react to any event in your life. So again it is the patterns that exist in your brain that determine what you remember and what you are.

I agree that neural wiring determines what we experience, what our personality is etc... but I don't believe it determines the person who is experiencing.

If brain configuration is what defines the person... then two brains with the same configuration implies one person occupying two brains. Brain configuration is insufficient to distinguish a person on Earth A, from his replica on Earth B. This might be the way things really are but it seems like an unusual result to me.

 

[theblueprint_Nick]

If it were true that there were an infinite number of parallel universes that consisted solely of what every universe parallel to it consisted of, then what you're really saying is that there is no universe at all. Not just another identical Earth within the same universe, but another universe in the universe. It would be my Earth in my universe and my identical selves in their universes'. My reasoning: If there all the same thing, all spawn at the same time then there is no original and there is no fake. One universe could not discover the other because if they did, it would indicate that they would find each other and come to the realization that another one of themselves existed, but not just another "one", but an infinite number of themselves. How would this effect the plural selves in discovering that they are not really singular, but infinitely plural? And if they did encounter the infinite image bretheren, would this effect them in an individual way? Or would you suggest that we couldn't discover each other because we are in such perfect synchronization that there would be no revalation of the sort because we all follow the same path and couldn't separate to find each other in the same way that I would find you because we are separate. If it were true and we couldn't discover each other, how could the theory be drawn of there being an infinite number of parallel universes if it is impossible to know it's there? That's paradoxical to the highest degree. I think that it's easier to see and more logical to determine that there is one universe and one me and one you, that way you know that you are real because you are the original, :) Also, if the universe is infinite, then there shouldn't be enough room for another one.

I'd like to take a shot at another subject. I read that my perception of the world defines how I will react. What would then define my perception that defines my reaction? You allude to the existence of a soul with free will. If no, then if I were wired in such away because of action reaction, cause and effect. If I went on a killing spree and committed what would be sanely aknwoledged as wrong, how would I be wrong if what I did was a direct result of how society, enviroment, ect..., molded me to be? Cause and effect? If not as simple as cause and effect and there is something more to it, what could it possibly be? If you do suggest that we don't determine who we are, but the inevitabel consequence of cause and effect, then how would we then react to the court of law? Should a murderer who plead not being the agent of a crime but a victim of society be considered innocent or guilty? I think that the conscience would suggest that he is guilty, but a strong belief that says he really didn't choose this fate could sway that motion in a heart beat. And if it is true that he is really innocent in this regard then how did a court of law even come to be in the first place? This logic would suggest that the only plausible "wrong" in this world would be the law for telling us that we are wrong when in "truth" we are all just victims of a harsh reality of an uncontrollable fate.

 

[Paul Martin]

I wrote a long reply to your interesting post, then read it and thought "this is nonsense" (my post, not yours).

What a shame you didn't post it. I would have loved to have tried to make sense of it. If you still have a copy of it would you mind sending it to me in a private message if you still don't want to post it? I would appreciate it.

So, back to the drawing board?

Yes. I'd like that.

... my perfect sphere is not your "one"; my sphere was just a metaphor to convey an abstract notion, your "one" not only is real but probably the most real thing around, if not the only.

You are right about my notion of the "one" being the only real thing around. But when I equated the "one" with your sphere I was also speaking metaphorically. I did not mean to imply that I thought the "one" was in fact a featureless sphere. I still think that the abstract notions you were trying to convey apply to the "one" in much the same way you intended.

...you and I speak slightly different languages, and ... we can only establish communication about somewhat trivial things. When it gets to metaphysics, we can only agree when we reduce metaphysics to physics, which is kind of strange to me.

In spite of that, I think we are not far apart in our thinking. I'll try to demonstrate that in this post. And even though this discussion may be trivial, I think it still could be fun. It also has the potential to straighten out some goofy ideas I might have. Let's see how far we can get.

If we are going to reduce metaphysics to physics, I think we must first reduce the ideas to mathematics, and even before that, to logical statements, and ultimately before that, to definitions of the terms we will use. So let's go back to the drawing board and start by defining some terms, in particular the troublesome terms 'I', 'you', 'me', 'consciousness', 'identity', and 'individual' for starters. Hopefully this can give us a reasonable approach to our discussion of Anubis' question, "Why am I me?"

(I will retract my suggestion of a "spectrum" to clarify those troublesome words. I can see that it was more confusing than helpful.)

Let's start by considering the word 'I'. We use this word ambiguously, for example these four uses of yours:

I wrote a long reply to your interesting post

I realized I must have existed before I was born

In the first usage, you clearly refer to a writer which is "your body with its fingers striking keys on your keyboard". Let's refer to this meaning of 'I' as the 'body'.

The body is physical and typically has a name e.g. 'Faustus', 'Paul', etc. Bodies are born, they die, and they have finite lifetimes. It is the bodies which "others" see and interact with. Beyond that, let's not impute anything more to bodies until after we have defined some more terms.

In your second usage, you referred to a realizer. Here I think you mean an entity capable of thinking, realizing, wondering, imagining, hurting, appreciating, remembering, planning, etc. Let's define 'consciousness' as that set of capabilities, and a 'conscious entity', (CE), as an entity which experiences consciousness.

A conscious entity might very well be the body we defined above, as the physicalists would surely maintain. But I think it is premature in our discussion to jump to that conclusion. So I propose that we use the term 'CE' when referring to a conscious entity in this discussion in order to try to minimize ambiguity and avoid some hidden assumptions.

(Now with just these two terms (body and CE) defined, we can clearly state some of our deep disagreements here. For example, most people would probably say that there are some six billion CEs. I think there is only one CE, and I suspect Dennett might say that there are zero CEs.)

Moving on to your third and fourth usages of 'I', you said "I...existed before I was born". The fourth usage must mean the body, since it was born. But since your body clearly didn't exist before it was born, the third usage must refer to something other than the body. I think you meant to refer to the "real" you here. Let's use the term 'essence' to refer to what I think you meant by this third usage.

So, instead of using the ambiguous term 'I', let's either use 'body', 'CE', or 'essence' to be clear about what we mean.

Another trouble spot is the case of possessives. When we say something like 'your body', or 'Faust's essence', we beg the question of exactly who or what is the owner of the body or the essence. In thinking about the candidates, it seems to me that it should be the essence which is the owner. After all, the essence is the "real" thing.

There are still pitfalls, however, simply resulting from the language. For example, if I refer to "my body's consciousness", it seems as if the body owns the consciousness. That's not a problem as long as we keep the concepts of 'body' and 'consciousness' distinct in our minds. But the 'my' at the beginning of the phrase, indicates some owner of the body! So there is still an implied ambiguity. Here I think the concept of essence can step in and serve as the real and ultimate owner of all the features, aspects, and properties of one of "us", no matter how we express these things.

(I have a feeling I am rambling. I am tempted to follow your example and discard this post. . . . Naaah. I'll press on and try to be less wordy.)

One more troublesome word is 'identity'.

The way I see it, you can't really differentiate between yourself and any other conscious being; your sense of identity is not what you are. It's like looking at the surface of a perfect sphere: how do you tell one point from another, if they all look exactly the same?

Here it seems that by 'identity' you mean a set of identifying features which allow the identified entity to be distinguished from all other entities, thus marking that entity as an "individual". I'll go along with that.

Now with those definitions and understandings of usage, let me quote you and then interpret each quotation in these terms. Then you can tell me if I got it right or not.

One thing that became clear for me is that, at my essence, I am not a thing, an object; I am only an idea, or rather a collection of ideas.

One thing that became clear to my CE was that my essence is not a body; my essence is only an idea, or rather a collection of ideas.

It's been a while since I realized I must have existed before I was born, that in fact I have existed forever in the past.

It's been a while since my CE realized that my essence must have existed before my body was born, that in fact my essence has existed forever in the past.

You are an idea; ideas are abstract, they exist outside of time, as opposed to things physical.

Your essence is an idea; ideas are abstract, they exist outside of time, as opposed to things physical like bodies.

I think of myself as an abstract entity, like the number 37. So I am an abstract thing, an idea.

As to why I am this "me" and not some other "me", I think the only possible answer is: because we are all the same.

My CE thinks of my essence as an abstract entity, like the number 37. So my essence is an abstract thing, an idea.

As to why my essence is this individual and not some other individual, my CE thinks the only possible answer is: because our essences are all the same one ("one").

There is no difference between me, you, and anyone else who exists. We are all one, and the perception that we are different is just an illusion. If I were someone else, I would still be "me" because everybody else is also "me".

There is no difference between me, you, and anyone else who exists. Our essences are all one, and the perception that we are different is just an illusion to the one essence owing to the multiplicity of bodies. If my body's essence were running someone else's body, my essence would still be the same one because everybody else is also run by the same essence.

So, to answer your question, you did not come to existence, but rather gained an identity, and that was by mere chance. You always existed, as an undifferentiated point in the sphere, but you only gained an identity when a pen made a dot in your position - that act suddenly made you from a point to a dot which is different from all other dots.

So, to answer your question, your essence did not come to existence, but rather gained an identity by associating with a body, and that was by mere chance. Your essence always existed, as the "one" essence, but your body only gained an identity when your essence began running a specific body at birth on Earth - that act suddenly made your body's CE become aware of that particular body which is different from all other bodies.

In a nutshell, we are who we are because we are the only thing that truly exists. That thing is usually referred to as God, but it doesn't really have a name.

In a nutshell, even though our bodies are distinct, our essence is the same because our essence is the only thing that truly exists. That thing is usually referred to as God, but it doesn't really have a name. And, since the references to God are wildly inconsistent and contradictory, it would be a mistake to use the term 'God' to refer to this "one" essence.

Quote: Paul:
"I believe that that "thing" is the only thing that truly exists and that everything else, including physical reality, is a figment of that "thing's" imagination."

Faustus: Here is the interesting bit. I can find a way to interpret your statement above as something other than nonsense, but when I do that it simply translates as ordinary commonsense.

Please tell me what your ordinary commonsense interpretation of my statement is.

What exactly did you mean with that statement that cannot be stated in more mundane terms?

Nothing, I guess. Here it is in mundane terms: "My CE believes that the "one" essence is the only thing that truly exists and that everything else, including physical reality and human bodies, is a figment of that "one's" imagination."

Are you sure you're just not giving different names to things known otherwise?

No. That's exactly what I'm doing. It's just that those different names are used in different ways by different people. I just tried to clear up the ambiguities.

For instance, if physical reality is a figment of the thing's imagination, how does that change our understanding of physics?

I don't see that it changes it at all. After all, our understanding of physics is based on mathematics. Mathematics is based on concepts. Concepts inhere in conscious minds. Given the fact that there is only one conscious mind doing all the thinking, it is no problem to understand that that "one" conscious mind could have dreamed up the laws of physics that govern the physical universe and the set of mathematical points which constitute it.

Without a conscious mind in the background in that way, I think it is very difficult to understand physics. Once we apprehend the laws of physics, how are we to understand how those laws got established? And how are we to understand what those mathematical points are which are endowed with such attributes as mass and spin? Both the laws and the points are much easier understood as concepts conceived by a mind than as some mysterious pre-existing set of abstractions (of what? and in what?) that preceded and caused the physical universe to exist.

There's much more to say, but this is probably enough for now.

Paul

 

[loseyourname]

I think that we need to recenter this discussion.

I maintain that the neural wiring you are born with defines you. Through out life your brain grows, changes and adapts to life events maintaining your personality and abilities.

It does not matter if your brain or your personality is unique. As pointed out above, if we live in an infinite universe, then the odds of repetition go form zero to unity. So in an infinite universe it is certain that an identical Earth exists with identical people living identical lives. But how does this effect the fact that the brain and how it is wired defines what you are and how you perceive the world. It is your perception of the world that defines how you react to any event in your life. So again it is the patterns that exist in your brain that determine what you remember and what you are.

A little clarity can probably be accomplished if we leave the human realm and look at identity and individuality in a more fundamental way. Consider two electrons with identical quantum numbers. There is nothing to distinguish one from the other except spatial location, yet they are still two separate individuals. By the same token, if we were to use the Star Trek transporter to create an exact duplicate of me, with exactly the same neural wiring and personality, we would still have to list two persons when the Census form came around. Individuality is dependent upon something more fundamental than neural wiring. It has to be; that is proved by the proposition that two individuals with exactly similar neural wiring are nonetheless two individuals and not one. To expand upon hypnagogue's comment about hypothetical conditionals, consider this argument:

If neural wiring was solely responsible for individuality, then two persons with identical neural wiring would be the same individual.
Two persons with identical neural wiring are not the same individual.
Therefore, neural wiring cannot be solely responsible for individuality.

Both premises are true and the argument is valid. Would you not agree? Furthermore, these facts are not dependent upon whether or not it is possible for there to be two persons with identical neural wiring, because there is never a claim made that there are or even that there could be.

To get at a more fundamental notion of individuality, I think you need to do what Sleeth has done. He has the right idea in saying that all possible descriptive parameters must be identical to describe one individual. This includes spatial and temporal location, as well as history. If a person was created that existed in exactly the same spatiotemporal location as me and that had the same history as me and that had identical neural wiring and all the rest, then that person would be me. There would only be one person, which is the only case in which we can have one individual.

To get back to the original post:

I have a few questions that had been bothering me the past few days. First off, why am I born with this particular consciousness and why am i born this "way" as oppose to an infinite other possibilities? Is it because this is how the chemicals in my brain happened to arranged itself out of all the possible way of arranging causing my unique consciousness to observe the world?

Hope you guys can understand what I am talking about.

My initial response to this was a bit too vague and short, so I'll clarify. Presumably you ask this question because it occurred to you that you could have been anyone. Perhaps you could have been Marilyn Monroe or a dolphin or an obscure Aztec king in the 16th century. You, however, are not; you are you. My answer to your question is that this is truly the only possibility. Consider the possibility that you were indeed born as Marilyn Monroe. Then you would be Marilyn Monroe, and it would still be you asking the question. No matter who you are, you are you. No matter what you are, you are you. You cannot be something other than you, because you can only be you. You is identical to you in all cases. The answer to "Why am I me?" Is this:

No matter who I am, I am me. No matter who is asking the question, he can refer to himself as 'me.' If you were someone else, you could still ask that question and you would still refer to yourself as 'me.' To repeat myself for the eighth time or so, you cannot not be you.

If you are really just asking the more mundane and specific question of why you have had the experiences that you have had and not others, it's just a combination of chance and choices you've made. If we live in a completely deterministic world, then your life could not have been other than it has been. Either way, the reasons that your life has turned out the way it has are manifold and likely could not be contained in the hard drives of every computer of every poster on these forums. The reasons that your life has turned out as it has will never be known to you. The best you can do is be aware of the effect that your personal choices have and to not be too uptight about the hand dealt to you by luck. Play it the best you can.