Is our consciousness an attribute of self?

[olde drunk]

Consciousness?

is our consciousness an attribute of self or is it a better definition of our being??

this week, for whatever reason(s), i got the suspicion that 'consciousness' is our ability to focus our attention within a given experience. it is a part of me, not me.

please opine,


peace,

 

[Dissident Dan]

I think that a lot of traditional philosophical distinctions are utterly useless and that many make a lot of presumptions.

So, I don't care about labelling something as "self" or "being". What is the difference?

My 2 cents:

consciousness=sentience=ability to feel=ability to experience

Consciousness is a process--the interaction of many different parts

 

[elibol]

i find myself freakin' out sometimes when i go too deep on this subject...

but other dude is right, it is sort of like a stream of information being processed thru your senses... given your short term memory you are able to do things with these senses, and either knowingly or not commit to long term memory some/all of these sensations (based on whatever it is you are experiencing).

as for your subconcious, it is the recorder of all your senses... it is said that 99.9 of everything you experience is right there for you to remember... it is the lack of ability to recall of this memory that is 'forgetting'...

the purpose of the unconscious mind isn't very clear to me...

the conscious is dependant on these other sub-processes that we are unaware of...

 

[Canute]

This is the state of play.

We all experience consciousness in the first-person. However in the third-person all bets are off.

Science has no definition of consciousness. It has no idea of what it is, where it comes from, or in fact anything at all about it. There is clearly a link between brain and mind but the nature of this link, and whether it accounts for consciousness, is currently unknown.

Academic philosophers generally define it as 'what it is like to be' or something equivalent. They don't know anything about it either.

This is what led Jerry Fodor (who knows what he's talking about) to write this:

"Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious.
So much for the philosophy of consciousness"
- Fodor, J.A. Times Literary Supplement, July 3 1992

Fodor ignores introspective philosophers, who assert that they know quite a lot about it. From his perspective this is probably fair enough, since they assert that none of it can be proved in the third-person but only known directly.

Because of all this you are the only person who can answer your question properly.

 

[elibol]

well what do you have to say about my definition of conciousness? it really has nothing to do with why/how we posses it, just how it works.

which i think was more of what olde was curious about.

 

[Pergatory]

I believe the conscious mind is the ability to reason. When you touch a hot surface and suddenly withdraw your hand, you didn't decide to move your hand, your body just does it as a reflex. That is your subconscious mind. It is your body, your instinct, your reflexes, everything you are unaware of. The conscious is your aware self that exists only to reason. It is essentially piggy-backing on your subconscious. If you are faced with two paths to take, it is your conscious mind that decides which to take. If you're trying to decide what to eat today, it's your conscious mind that makes that decision.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by elibol
well what do you have to say about my definition of conciousness? it really has nothing to do with why/how we posses it, just how it works.

which i think was more of what olde was curious about.

The problem is that the definition of consciousness is closely tied up with why/how we possesses it. What we know is that if we feel or experience then we are conscious. People who are not concerned with a scientific defintion therefore generally define it as feeling or experiencing. More than that it's hard to say. It really is a scientific mystery.

If we knew that consciousness dependended on a certain level of brain complexity, or a certain sophistication of sensory apparatus or somesuch, then we would have a starting point. Unfortunately we don't know even this, although there are plenty of hypotheses.

There are those who believe it must arise from brain, and those who believe that it cannot for logical reasons. Neuroscience hopes to find it by poking about among neurons, but at the same time neurophysiologist Karl Pribram comments that there is as much chance of finding consciousness by doing this as there is of finding gravity by digging to the centre of the Earth.

The fundamental dispute is between materialists, who believe that consciousness arises from matter, and those who believe that matter arises from consciousness. We can't even decide this question yet. This is probably the one field of research in which there are no scientific experts and in which we all have access to the data.

As for the definition, I'd go for the common 'what it is like to be'. Any more than this is conjecture.

 

[one_raven]

I don't want to get into another scientific debate about whether consciousness actually exists, if it does, what exactly is it and where it originates.
Those discussions always seem to end up being fruitless.

I would, however, like to say that I essentially agree with olde drunk (I like the handle, by the way).

Not exactly that consciousness is our ability to focus, rather consciousness is a state of being that describes the direction and depth of our focus.

Without going too deeply into it, I believe there are seven distinct states of consciousness and effectively endless degrees within and between those states.
Basically your distinct state of consciousness is determined by what you are focused on.

 

[elibol]

Originally posted by Canute
The fundamental dispute is between materialists, who believe that consciousness arises from matter, and those who believe that matter arises from consciousness. We can't even decide this question yet. This is probably the one field of research in which there are no scientific experts and in which we all have access to the data.

is matter arising from conciousness sort of like the matrix theorie?

 

[Canute]

If you mean as in the film then yes. The film was based on idealism, Buddhism, Gnosticism etc. There's a good essay on this here - http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/gnostic.htm

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by one_raven
Not exactly that consciousness is our ability to focus, rather consciousness is a state of being that describes the direction and depth of our focus.

I don't really understand that. Why not just say it's a state of being?

Basically your distinct state of consciousness is determined by what you are focused on. [/B]

That seems true. But it does not follow from this that consciousness is attention. Consciousness must be what all states have in common, regardless of the focus of attention. In other words it must be what is not contingent on any particular state because when the state changes you are still conscious.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by elibol
well what do you have to say about my definition of conciousness? it really has nothing to do with why/how we posses it, just how it works.

which i think was more of what olde was curious about.

And which happens to be the only aspect that the Scientific Method has any interest in (or ability for) explaining.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Pergatory
I believe the conscious mind is the ability to reason. When you touch a hot surface and suddenly withdraw your hand, you didn't decide to move your hand, your body just does it as a reflex. That is your subconscious mind. It is your body, your instinct, your reflexes, everything you are unaware of. The conscious is your aware self that exists only to reason. It is essentially piggy-backing on your subconscious. If you are faced with two paths to take, it is your conscious mind that decides which to take. If you're trying to decide what to eat today, it's your conscious mind that makes that decision.

Interesting way of putting it, Pergatory. Joseph LeDoux made similar comparisons in Synaptic Self, but then he went on to postulate that it is these quick, reflexive, actions - combined into more and more complex patterns - that gives rise to the higher conscious experience.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
The problem is that the definition of consciousness is closely tied up with why/how we possesses it. What we know is that if we feel or experience then we are conscious. People who are not concerned with a scientific defintion therefore generally define it as feeling or experiencing. More than that it's hard to say. It really is a scientific mystery.

If we knew that consciousness dependended on a certain level of brain complexity, or a certain sophistication of sensory apparatus or somesuch, then we would have a starting point. Unfortunately we don't know even this, although there are plenty of hypotheses.

There are those who believe it must arise from brain, and those who believe that it cannot for logical reasons. Neuroscience hopes to find it by poking about among neurons, but at the same time neurophysiologist Karl Pribram comments that there is as much chance of finding consciousness by doing this as there is of finding gravity by digging to the centre of the Earth.

The fundamental dispute is between materialists, who believe that consciousness arises from matter, and those who believe that matter arises from consciousness. We can't even decide this question yet. This is probably the one field of research in which there are no scientific experts and in which we all have access to the data.

As for the definition, I'd go for the common 'what it is like to be'. Any more than this is conjecture.

I mostly agree (especially with that last statement). However, what if scientists wanted to undertake the explanation of consciousness, in a purely scientific manner? Then they wouldn't have to prove that matter really exists, since science already makes that assumption. They also wouldn't have to explain "why" such-and-such mechanisms produce consciousness. They'd just have to show "which" occurances are conscious and "how" to reproduce such occurances...right?

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Mentat
I mostly agree (especially with that last statement). However, what if scientists wanted to undertake the explanation of consciousness, in a purely scientific manner? Then they wouldn't have to prove that matter really exists, since science already makes that assumption. They also wouldn't have to explain "why" such-and-such mechanisms produce consciousness. They'd just have to show "which" occurances are conscious and "how" to reproduce such occurances...right? [/B]

This raises a lot of issues. Firstly I'm not sure if science really does assume that matter exists. If matter is assumed to be reducible to 'something' (some quanta of matter or energy) then it exists. But this view is beginning to look a bit shaky. Science seems very close to concluding that everything is made out of 'void'. At the moment it prefers to think of this in terms of 'something' emerging from the void, but how can this be? To be honest I'm not at all sure what science does assume about the fundamental nature of matter these days. Is there an 'orthodox' view?

I agree that the 'why' question is not really scientific (although, being a non-believer, I can't quite understand why that that matters to anyone). However I do not understand how science is going to find the mechanism that produces something that it cannot detect. The idea seems paradoxical. In certain respects it can be done, since some induced brain changes produce roughly predictable and reproducible changes in conscious states. But can this approach explain consciousness? I don't think it can.

We've always known that sticking a pin in someone causes them to feel pain. Sticking an electrode in a brain to cause a feeling of heat, or redness, does not seem to move us on much.

Science accounts for most things in terms of other things. Gravity makes thing fall down and we can predict very precisely how they will fall. However this doesn't help explain gravity.

Also proving certain correlations between brain states and conscious states (possible only if we take the existence of those states on faith alone, by a trust in the subject's reports), does not help us cross the infamous 'explanatory gap'.

There is also some question as to whether the idea of 'neural correlates of consciousness, (or any other sort of correlates) really makes sense. A number of recent papers argue that the idea of NCC's is incoherent. (Or equivalently they argue that a coherent theory of NCC's cannot be scientific).

As you say earlier discussions about how to explain consciousness, or approach an explanation, in strictly scientific terms always seem to end inconclusively. I think we should start drawing conclusions from this.

Do you think we will sort it out scientifically in the end?

 

[one_raven]

Originally posted by Canute
I don't really understand that. Why not just say it's a state of being?


That seems true. But it does not follow from this that consciousness is attention. Consciousness must be what all states have in common, regardless of the focus of attention. In other words it must be what is not contingent on any particular state because when the state changes you are still conscious.

Point well taken.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
As you say earlier discussions about how to explain consciousness, or approach an explanation, in strictly scientific terms always seem to end inconclusively. I think we should start drawing conclusions from this.

Do you think we will sort it out scientifically in the end?

Actually, I don't think science is for sorting things out. I don't think science is for ariving at conclusions, either. I think it's for postulating theories that may (and probably will) be disproven, but which work for the classification and coherent comprehension of the phenomenon that they address.

You are indeed corret that we should start drawing conclusions from the inconclusiveness of scientific debate on the matter of consciousness. The conclusion to be drawn, however, is one that is stated and imbedded into the Method itself: the highest point that an hypothesis can graduate to is "well-founded theory"; there are no certainties, or, if there are, they are not the concern of scientists.

That sometimes leaves a bad impression of science, but it may just turn out that the only certainty is that there are no certainties, in which case Science is on the right track.

Please forgive my rambling and try to extract some meaning if you can .

 

[Canute]

Mentat

I think I see where you're coming from. But I don't think anyone is asking for a scientific theory of consciousness that is more certain than other scientific theories. What they (I) would ask for is very simply one that is testable and possibly true. That is all.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
Mentat

I think I see where you're coming from. But I don't think anyone is asking for a scientific theory of consciousness that is more certain than other scientific theories. What they (I) would ask for is very simply one that is testable and possibly true. That is all.

It's starting to occur to me that we may need a new definition of consciousness...there will be a thread .

 

[Pergatory]

Originally posted by Mentat
Interesting way of putting it, Pergatory. Joseph LeDoux made similar comparisons in Synaptic Self, but then he went on to postulate that it is these quick, reflexive, actions - combined into more and more complex patterns - that gives rise to the higher conscious experience.

I love it! The constant 'programming' of your reflexes to higher and higher levels of complixity allows your mind to focus on other things, like what you're going to do tonight or what you'd rather be doing right now. Sort of ties into what one_raven was saying:

Originally posted by one_raven
Not exactly that consciousness is our ability to focus, rather consciousness is a state of being that describes the direction and depth of our focus.

This knowledge can be applied to all things. Sports, math, reading, etc. Let's take driving for example. As you first start driving, you're focused on programming your basic reflexes. Corner coming up, need to apply brakes. Corner arrived, need to rotate steering wheel. Then as those become more hard-coded (so to speak) you are free to focus on more complicated ideas, such as exactly what point you turn in, how fast you will go. Eventually even that is subconscious, and all you think about while driving is "there's the lane, I want to go down the center of that lane."

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Pergatory
I love it! The constant 'programming' of your reflexes to higher and higher levels of complixity allows your mind to focus on other things, like what you're going to do tonight or what you'd rather be doing right now. Sort of ties into what one_raven was saying:

This knowledge can be applied to all things. Sports, math, reading, etc. Let's take driving for example. As you first start driving, you're focused on programming your basic reflexes. Corner coming up, need to apply brakes. Corner arrived, need to rotate steering wheel. Then as those become more hard-coded (so to speak) you are free to focus on more complicated ideas, such as exactly what point you turn in, how fast you will go. Eventually even that is subconscious, and all you think about while driving is "there's the lane, I want to go down the center of that lane."

Exactly!

Now, to take it a step further, what if the concept of a "central self" - the very concept that there is an indivisible "you" - were also a mere illusion caused by the building up of more and more complex processes (each of which can be broken down into more and more rudimentary processes)?

Check out my new thread, if you're interested.

 

[Canute]

Fine if you can explain how a physical processes give rise to subjective experience. Same old problem. It doesn't work to say that experience is built out of sub-experiences.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
Fine if you can explain how a physical processes give rise to subjective experience. Same old problem. It doesn't work to say that experience is built out of sub-experiences.

No, experience isn't built out of sub-experience, the illusion that there was a complete "experience", that is what is built on sub-experiences. Check it out.

 

[Canute]

I don't get this. Are you saying that there is NOT 'something that it is like' to be you? If not then how can it all be an illusion? What does it even mean to call it an illusion? Our experiences exists, whether or not we're deluded as to what they are. Surely they cannot be explained by just denying their existence.

 

[olde drunk]

canute

when i have trouble with a physical event - illusion, i redifine our reality as being in camophlage. iow, it isn't an illusion, but there is more going on than we can percieve with just our conscious mind.

peace,

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
I don't get this. Are you saying that there is NOT 'something that it is like' to be you? If not then how can it all be an illusion? What does it even mean to call it an illusion? Our experiences exists, whether or not we're deluded as to what they are. Surely they cannot be explained by just denying their existence.

Our experience exists, but the concept of a complete experience is an illusion - illusion itself being just another thing the brain computes. It is a convenient and advantagous ability of the brain (to compactify millions of bits of information into an illusory gestalt), but it is nothing more (IMHO), and I think that many philosophers are wasting their time trying to explain how these gestalts come about (which don't really exist) when they could be focusing on the computation of "sub-experiences", which is all that's really there (again, IMO).

 

[Canute]

So the illusion of consciousness exists, but not consciousness? That's a very odd view. How can one have an illusion of something which one is not consciously experiencing?

The illusion argument doesn't work because it doesn't actually matter whether consciousness is an illusion or not. The whole world might be an illusion, but it must still have a cause and an explanation.

 

[olde drunk]

i believe that mentat is saying that this physical reality is an illusion. i prefer to think that it is real and it's real nature is hidden from our conscious mind.

it is understood and directed by the subconscious, but the conscious mind makes the final decisions.

i still contend that my consciousness is a tool for my total self. the ability of my mind to focus intently on one aspect of my existence at any given time. this gets a little hairy cause time doesn't really exist. so in the timeless zone, i make choices as to which life, which me i will deal with at any given moment.

peace,

 

[Dissident Dan]

What I think Mentat is trying to say is that a person's consciousness is not some singular entity that cannot be broken down further. Rather, it is a sum of lesser elements of consciousness. But, I suppose we should way for him to say.

 

[one_raven]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
What I think Mentat is trying to say is that a person's consciousness is not some singular entity that cannot be broken down further. Rather, it is a sum of lesser elements of consciousness. But, I suppose we should way for him to say.

I thought Mentat was saying that it is not correct to approach any experience holistically.

Any experience is basically our perception collecting the sensations of the multitude of stimuli in our immediate surroundings.

So, as I read it, consciousness, in your opinion, would be the synergistic perception of stimuli to generate a whole experience?
Or would it be the whole itself?
Or perhaps the difference between the sum of the parts and the whole?

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
So the illusion of consciousness exists, but not consciousness? That's a very odd view. How can one have an illusion of something which one is not consciously experiencing?

As I've re-iterated before, conscious experience is an on-going process of "re-drafting" the computation of information/stimuli. The illusion that there is a Final Draft, that is the "actual experience" itself, is just another of those things that is processed. It is a convenient tool for compactifying information (making recall and long-term storage easier), but nothing more. Chalmers and his followers are, IMO, making a straw-man argument; since they must first posit that there is an actual, complete and indivisible, experience, and only then can they ask how it comes about.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by olde drunk
i believe that mentat is saying that this physical reality is an illusion. i prefer to think that it is real and it's real nature is hidden from our conscious mind.

No, I don't think physical reality is an illusion. Quite the opposite: I think it's the only reality.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
What I think Mentat is trying to say is that a person's consciousness is not some singular entity that cannot be broken down further. Rather, it is a sum of lesser elements of consciousness. But, I suppose we should way for him to say.

You're close, Dan. What I'm really workign toward is the concept that there is no Final Draft of experience, but are instead constant computations and re-computations of information/stimuli. These never come together to form a coherent picture, but they don't need to, since the brained has evolved the ability to compactify previous information in terms of such illusions (the illusion of coherent pictures, that is).

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by one_raven
I thought Mentat was saying that it is not correct to approach any experience holistically.

Any experience is basically our perception collecting the sensations of the multitude of stimuli in our immediate surroundings...

...plus the computation of the illusion that such sensations every formed a coherent "whole". Without this illusion, we would not be sentient. As it is, we have mistaken this devise of compactification for a part of actual reality.

 

[Canute]

Mentat

The trouble is that what you are saying, if it is true, does away with what is known as the 'binding problem'. But this problem is recognised as very real and as yet unsolved.

That doesn't mean that you're wrong, but it does mean that this issue is heavily studied by science as if it was a real problem, as if we really do have a unified experience of consciousness. This is because this experience cannot be an illusion, it is just what it is, a unified experience of consciousness.

 

[Pergatory]

Very interesting... So you're referring to the system by which the brain compiles a collection of senses and decisions into a single 'experience?' Rather, the experience itself contains no unique information, it is just a container. I may be misunderstanding, but it seems like you may be describing the subconscious. I believe this to be the pattern-recognizing aspect of the human brain that links "experience components" (the things that make up an experience) together. For example, perhaps the subconscious "enjoys" dancing, because in the past, dancing has been associated with certain foot movements, senses, and reactions from those around you, that lead the subconscious to believe dancing brings desirable results. The conscious mind, however, is focused on carrying out the task of dancing in the interest of pleasing the subconscious. Maybe I'm just talking out my

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Pergatory
Very interesting... So you're referring to the system by which the brain compiles a collection of senses and decisions into a single 'experience?'

Spot on. Well almost. We have to explain both the experience of unified consciousness and the system which causes it. Both explanations would be required to solve the binding problem.

Rather, the experience itself contains no unique information, it is just a container.

This is the problem. In fact you've hit it on the head. This is why set theory is relevant to explanations of consciousness.

The problem is you cannot say it is "just" a container, the sentence is self-contradictory. Does it exist or not? If it is just a container then it exists, and should have a cause and explanation. It exists as something greater than the sum of its parts and therefore is not one of them.

However if it does not exist, and it is therefore not a container at all, then how can we have unified experiences? We know that we do, whether it's all an illusion or not. It wouldn't be much of an illusion of unified consciousness if it didn't seem equally unified.

I may be misunderstanding, but it seems like you may be describing the subconscious.

No I didn't mean that. In fact I very specifically didn't mean that.

I believe this to be the pattern-recognizing aspect of the human brain that links "experience components" (the things that make up an experience) together.

Hold on there. I'm not sure you've grasped just how complicated this is.

What do you mean by 'recognising'? It's a very deep question. And to suggest that a brain can process experiences is to make an infamous category error. Experiences are non-physical and mustn't be confused with whatever you assume correlates to them. It's very hard to avoid making mistakes on this topic.

For example, perhaps the subconscious "enjoys" dancing, because in the past, dancing has been associated with certain foot movements, senses, and reactions from those around you, that lead the subconscious to believe dancing brings desirable results. The conscious mind, however, is focused on carrying out the task of dancing in the interest of pleasing the subconscious. Maybe I'm just talking out my [/B]

What do you mean by 'subconscious' here? You'll find that this is a difficult question I think. Also the subconscious cannot 'enjoy' anything by definition. Enjoyment is only for the conscious.

Don't we just remember our experience of enjoying dancing previously. That sounds a bit simple, but it's how it seems to me.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
Mentat

The trouble is that what you are saying, if it is true, does away with what is known as the 'binding problem'. But this problem is recognised as very real and as yet unsolved.

That doesn't mean that you're wrong, but it does mean that this issue is heavily studied by science as if it was a real problem, as if we really do have a unified experience of consciousness. This is because this experience cannot be an illusion, it is just what it is, a unified experience of consciousness.

And the Sun really rises and sets? No offense, but scientists studied the motion of the Sun for quite some time, when they should have been studying the motion of the Earth...but, as far as they were conscerned, this was no illusion, but reality. I'm not saying that I'm right, and everyone else is wrong, but it's possible.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Mentat
And the Sun really rises and sets? No offense, but scientists studied the motion of the Sun for quite some time, when they should have been studying the motion of the Earth...but, as far as they were conscerned, this was no illusion, but reality. I'm not saying that I'm right, and everyone else is wrong, but it's possible.

But everybody agrees that in many ways it seems as if the sun goes around the earth. With consciousness all we know is how it seems. If consciousness is an illusion then that illusion is what we need to explain, and what consciousness is.

We can't then say that the illusion is an illusion. At some point we need to stop the regression and explain how consciousness seems, illusion or not. Many people claim that the universe is in a sense an illusion, but they do not claim that this illusion doesn't exist.

Consciousness must be whatever it seems to be, since it is inaccessible to any other way of knowing about it. I admit that have read that 'experience is not experience' (sic) in one academic journal, but I don't think we need take such ideas seriously. The only way of defining an experience is as 'what it seemed to be like', whether we're deluded or not.

That is, an experience cannot be true or false. Only public claims about an experience can be true or false.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
But everybody agrees that in many ways it seems as if the sun goes around the earth.

And so it goes back to that old philosopher's question: How would it have appeared in order for it to be obvious that the Earth was revolving around the Sun, and rotating on it's axis?

Consciousness may seem to be "obviously" coherent, but how would it need to seem in order for it to be obvious that there are no coherent thoughts, but merely an integration of information for the purpose of easy recall?

 

[olde drunk]

not sure if you guys read my post wherein i describe my visualization of self as being a tree. if a particular branch of that tree is this current life, i would use my consciousness to focus my attention on that branch to see or experience what is/was happening within that reality.

consciousness is my ability to focus attention, kinda like a flashlight. now, please understand that in the broader reality, time does not exist. so within nano seconds of our time, my consciousness could visit all my lives (or whatever) within all realities.

to me, the subconsciousand conscious are divisions or aspects of my mind.

peace,

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Mentat
And so it goes back to that old philosopher's question: How would it have appeared in order for it to be obvious that the Earth was revolving around the Sun, and rotating on it's axis?

Exactly as it does now I would say.

Consciousness may seem to be "obviously" coherent, but how would it need to seem in order for it to be obvious that there are no coherent thoughts, but merely an integration of information for the purpose of easy recall? [/B]

Hmm. I suppose it would need to seem like it seems to a computer.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by olde drunk
not sure if you guys read my post wherein i describe my visualization of self as being a tree. if a particular branch of that tree is this current life, i would use my consciousness to focus my attention on that branch to see or experience what is/was happening within that reality.

Seems reasonable. But it's a bit misleading IMO. A tree cannot exist in spacetime and also outside of it. To visualise the relationship between your current self (as it seems to be) and your eternal (timeless) self (non-self) it would be necessary to imagine yourself as something that can exist in both realms at the same time (as Buddhists practice doing all the time).

consciousness is my ability to focus attention, kinda like a flashlight.

Are you sure? An 'ability' is not a thing. That is, the ability to focus a flashlight is not a flashlight.

now, please understand that in the broader reality, time does not exist. so within nano seconds of our time, my consciousness could visit all my lives (or whatever) within all realities.

I agree that time is not absolute, although it clearly exists here and now. But it seems incoherent to say that you can revisit lives that took time to live without it taking any time to do so. Lives happen in time, and therefore must take time to visit, however much you speed them up.

 

[Pergatory]

Here's a link to an article I read on part of another thread that had to do with time:
http://uk.arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0403/0403001.pdf

However, there are some interesting parallels to conscious and subconscious explored in Section II of the document.

In short, it describes a robot which observes an image on certain time intervals, remembering a certain number of images. As it registers a new image, each successive image is pushed further down the chain and the one at the end is deleted. The 'conscious' part of the system, which is not an exact representation of consciousness, can read only from the most recent image recorded and from the 'schema' that defines how to behave in certain situations, then attempts to predict the future and act according to which expected result is desired. The 'unconscious' part of the system reads images aside from the most recent, and encorporates any necessary changes into the schema. It is this separation of past and present that gives rise to the notion of "now."

Don't know how this relates to the current debate, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. Perhaps it could be argued that the conscious is the present, and the subconscious is the past?

 

[olde drunk]

Originally posted by Canute


I agree that time is not absolute, although it clearly exists here and now. But it seems incoherent to say that you can revisit lives that took time to live without it taking any time to do so. Lives happen in time, and therefore must take time to visit, however much you speed them up.

to me, in the broader reality, all lives, experiences, etc exist as probabilites or potential. they become physicalized when i focus my attention (consciosness) on a particular moment.

we as humans experience a linear reality to avoid mental chaos.

from this exact moment there are an infinite number of probable future moments. which one will become physical? my answer is, the one we (each of us as an entire being) decide to experience. and it happens over and over again for each moment.

the esoteric mystical secret is to understand how we do that. so that we can influence our total being to create the exact future moment we desire. eastern cultures and/or discplines are much better at this than we are because they have accepted these concepts.

the beauty of their practices is that they are more adept at reading the historical past recorded in the subconscious. experiences in other worlds (realities) not just our current physical life. we dismiss this potential because we believe in one world, one life, salvation, heaven and hell.

peace,

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by olde drunk
to me, in the broader reality, all lives, experiences, etc exist as probabilites or potential. they become physicalized when i focus my attention (consciosness) on a particular moment.
from this exact moment there are an infinite number of probable future moments. which one will become physical? my answer is, the one we (each of us as an entire being) decide to experience. and it happens over and over again for each moment.

This is close to one of the scientific theories that are floating around, in which every event creates new universes.

the esoteric mystical secret is to understand how we do that.

It is certainly esoteric, in the sense of private and difficult to understand. But it is not mystical, or a secret. It just takes some practice to grasp.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
Exactly as it does now I would say.

And exactly as it did then, right?

Hmm. I suppose it would need to seem like it seems to a computer.

And is the brain not a large, organic, computer?

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Mentat
And exactly as it did then, right?

Yes. Nicole D'Oresme worked out the truth in the fourteenth centure, pretty much by logic alone. (I've lost track of what this point was about)

And is the brain not a large, organic, computer?

Depends how you define 'computer'.

Also, if computers are just small inorganic brains, as you suggest, then why are we studying brains to understand consciousness, whe computers are aso much easier to dissect and test?

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Canute
Depends how you define 'computer'.

Also, if computers are just small inorganic brains, as you suggest, then why are we studying brains to understand consciousness, whe computers are aso much easier to dissect and test?

Because computers didn't evolve from social animals who were constantly advancing their consciousness, up to the point of self-recognition. A computer was created to process without the ability to process it's own existence or to re-stimulate old computations without an external command. Our brains are just messier (and messy enough to trick themselves into seeing coherent images where no such thing was ever processed).

It occurs to me now that the "hard problem" philosophers don't have much problem with the idea that a chimpanzee (for example) can process the color "red". It's only when it comes to human introspection and experience that they start erecting their favorite straw-man.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Mentat
Because computers didn't evolve from social animals who were constantly advancing their consciousness, up to the point of self-recognition. A computer was created to process without the ability to process it's own existence or to re-stimulate old computations without an external command. Our brains are just messier (and messy enough to trick themselves into seeing coherent images where no such thing was ever processed).

What?

It occurs to me now that the "hard problem" philosophers don't have much problem with the idea that a chimpanzee (for example) can process the color "red". It's only when it comes to human introspection and experience that they start erecting their favorite straw-man.

I give up. Are you so determined to avoid the facts that you can't even see the glaring fallacy in this paragraph?