Whoa! Ultimate truth found?!

[Hayabusa Rider]

Christ almighty nothing ever changes around here

Ultimately this is the truth

 

[HeXen]

This Just In!!

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no death. Life is but a Dream, and We are just an Imagination of ourselves...

...here's Tom with the weather.


...and thanks to Bill Hicks for that.

lol, I remember Tool using that in one of their songs

 

[sandorski]

Part of what you're saying makes sense...until you get to the creating the World part. We all have a shared Reality(not World) and somewhat lesser Personal Reality, IMO. Our shared Reality is apparent by everyone being able to agree on most of what we can Sense. The Personal Reality is why some are Happy, others are Depressed, and yet many others are in many different states of emotion within that shared Reality.

It really doesn't matter if we are Brains in Vats in some invisible dimension. We experience this Reality, it's Predictable, we can change things within it, and it will remain so from Birth until Death.

 

[HeXen]

If we go on after we die, what a shock it must be to suddenly be within a non physical world or any variation of the reality we have known and loved for so long. To go from the slow death of our brain cells, likely conjuring up all sorts of various and convoluted things that gradually defy logic as they die to a point where you are suddenly aware again but not involved in the world you knew ....seems traumatic.

 

[justoh]

Didn't descartes come up with this hundreds of years ago? Sheeeit

 

[Madwand1]

I want to know what you guys think about Peter Russell's ideas about consciousness. Do you think they have merit?

Read this

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-russell/brain-consciousness_b_873595.html

It isn't Peter Russell's idea, and for that matter, predates Decartes by several centuries at least. To his credit, Russell's first word in the article, "Western", hints at the source.

The idea of consciousness existing without a material basis is no less, shall we say wonderful, than the idea of anything existing at all. The "Eastern" sources go as far as to say that consciousness is the basis of mind, energy and substance; that God is pure consciousness, and the basis of all we see as existence, and that all that exists has some consciousness, however dim.

God is "Satcitananda" -- existence, consciousness and bliss. These are unified in one word to reflect unity in the conception. That God is omnipresent and omniscient is another way of expressing some of this.

 

[norseamd]

lol, I remember Tool using that in one of their songs

probably the most truthful thing said in here

given the odds of fiction vs fact

never read this thread so not saying everything that was put up in here is crap

 

[PlanetJosh]

Well if charge is conscious then consciousness may have created the universe. I know that sounds completely goofy but remember no one's really been able to describe what charge is, electrical charge. So one of the critical things in the development of the universe which is the +, - or neutral charge of particles attracting or repelling each other, we don't even know exactly what charge is.

So I guess I'm leaving open the possibility that charge is conscious. And I'm not even a righty or religious. I'm agnostic which leaves it open that there could be a god or not.

 

[OverVolt]

Oh for fuck's sake, Rob. Read what I wrote again and quote the part that says there is no absolute truth. You're arguing against a figment of your imagination again.

Christ almighty nothing ever changes around here. <----

Lol

 

[OverVolt]

The argument sort of goes like this, and no its not my argument. Some smart guy came up with it.
You can't deny that you are having a conscious experience. Even if you are a smart ass and claim to deny it, then you are having the experience of being a smart ass who denies their experience.
Since consciousness is always true and is the only thing that anyone knows with 100% certainty, then some people think it is ultimate truth and is fundamental to reality. In other words, the world doesn't create consciousness, but consciousness created the world. I don't personally buy into all that, but I have to admit that there is something odd about its 100% certainty and undeniability.
Even if you are hallucinating you entire life and your whole life is a lie, you are still having an experience of that and the experiencing part is always true. If you are in the matrix, your reality is fake but your experience of it is true and real.
Experience is always true and 100% undeniable. Maybe its something fundamental to the universe rather than some fluke evolutionary phenomenon?

Um right, so humans do not have collective/hive intelligence in case you haven't noticed yet and so the reason behind everyone's varying opinions is typically varying experiences.

I was complaining the other day about my parents and someone said at least you weren't born to crackhead parents in one of those $5,000 inner city houses and go to the city school and don't have much net access and that is basically the extent of your worldview.

Alot of the arguing even on here is just because people are from such different parts of the country.

You on the other hand have way too much time to think.

 

[moonbogg]

How consciousness happens isn't understood, but I think one day it will be. I do think that people dismiss it and underestimate the gravity of the mystery it presents. You don't have to be a new age crackpot to find it odd that unconscious matter can give rise to consciousness. It might not even happen that way.
How can the universe be aware of itself? Its been the biggest question on my mind for a while now.

 

[MongGrel]

There is that whole dark matter thing and how it relates to quantum physics and a few anethesthogists (close enough) working with a few together have come up with a few interesting theories.

But I am but a simple cave man Tool and Diemaker, I do not understand these things like people 100 years ago would not understand how a TV might function.

 

[MongGrel]

Glad I work for a place we have tomorrow off and it's a holiday

Guess I wouldn't be up playing otherwise.

 

[SMOGZINN]

You don't have to be a new age crackpot to find it odd that unconscious matter can give rise to consciousness.

Emergent qualities. Simple things arranged in complex ways can do complex things. This should not come to a surprise to anyone that has ever seen a Lego.

 

[moonbogg]

Emergent qualities. Simple things arranged in complex ways can do complex things. This should not come to a surprise to anyone that has ever seen a Lego.

There are some pretty bright people that don't discount this, but they seem to think that this isn't the case. It seems likely to some that there is simply some undiscovered properties to matter and they think its a pretty big deal, like discovering that the earth rotates around the sun.
How can nervous systems experience something? Why shouldn't they function just as they do but without the inner experience taking place? I can imagine life evolving and doing all the things it does but without the experience aspect. I don't see why it shouldn't all work just fine in the dark, without subjectivity involved.
Why couldn't your brain access information from the past, make projections about the future and calculate the best likely outcomes in order to survive, but do it all without the inner experience part? I don't think emergence can get you there because consciousness seems to be irreducible. That is to say, once you have even the faintest hint of consciousness, that's already very bizarre let alone a richer experience that something like a dolphin or human has.
If consciousness is reducible, what would it reduce down to? A "simple" nervous system? By studying the nervous system, what could possibly be discovered that would give you any indication at all that there was inner experience taking place? How could that be verified?

 

[Paul98]

It isn't undiscovered properties of matter. It's the combination of many movement, feeling, memory, seeing,... systems that gives us what we call consciousness.

 

[moonbogg]

It isn't undiscovered properties of matter. It's the combination of many movement, feeling, memory, seeing,... systems that gives us what we call consciousness.

So if you remove some of those features do you get rid of consciousness? What about blind, deaf paraplegics? They only have feelings and memory, but they are still conscious, right? Its the consciousness itself that is the hard thing to figure out, not the contents of consciousness.

 

[PowerEngineer]

For instance, who truly knows what happens after we die. I believe that nothing happens, we're just dead....but that's an assumption.

No resurrection? No heaven? No hell?

Certainly not a traditional Christian belief!

 

[Paul98]

So if you remove some of those features do you get rid of consciousness? What about blind, deaf paraplegics? They only have feelings and memory, but they are still conscious, right? Its the consciousness itself that is the hard thing to figure out, not the contents of consciousness.

Of course they are conscious, it's not any single thing that creates consciousness. It's a large network of things working together to give perception and consciousness. It's not a simple on and off thing, there are lots of things that aren't conscious, and lots of things that are, but at what point does something go from not conscious to being conscious. Along with varying amounts, such as compare a fish, to a rat, to a tree, to a human.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Of course they are conscious, it's not any single thing that creates consciousness. It's a large network of things working together to give perception and consciousness.

You're not really hearing what he's saying. You're talking about consciousness in terms of its outward behavior, while he's talking about inner, subjective experience. We can coherently conceive of a world full of human zombies -- biological bodies outwardly behaving as we know normal humans do, while completely lacking inner experience. We could not objectively differentiate between such a world, and a world in which our fellow humans do in fact experience subjective states. Clearly, then, our methods are inadequate to explain the reality of those subjective states.

It's not a simple on and off thing, there are lots of things that aren't conscious, and lots of things that are, but at what point does something go from not conscious to being conscious.

Which things are not conscious?

Along with varying amounts, such as compare a fish, to a rat, to a tree, to a human.

Where did you obtain your consciousness gauge, and where do you have it calibrated?

 

[Paul98]

You're not really hearing what he's saying. You're talking about consciousness in terms of its outward behavior, while he's talking about inner, subjective experience. We can coherently conceive of a world full of human zombies -- biological bodies outwardly behaving as we know normal humans do, while completely lacking inner experience. We could not objectively differentiate between such a world, and a world in which our fellow humans do in fact experience subjective states. Clearly, then, our methods are inadequate to explain the reality of those subjective states.


Which things are not conscious?


Where did you obtain your consciousness gauge, and where do you have it calibrated?

That inner experience comes from what I was talking about. It comes from the brain making connections from experiences, stimulus, how we can possibly see the world, and how it's wired from its evolutionary path. These are not perfect and don't operate in a vacuum so multiple systems can effect each other.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

That inner experience comes from what I was talking about. It comes from the brain making connections from experiences, stimulus, how we can possibly see the world, and how it's wired from its evolutionary path.

You are question begging. Specifically, you say "it comes from ... experiences," but it is the experiences you are challenged to explain. Their existence is not something which is to be stipulated, but rather derived from more fundamental phenomena, in accordance with your implicit assertion that they are so reducible.

These are not perfect and don't operate in a vacuum so multiple systems can effect each other.

I don't know what this has to do with anything.

 

[moonbogg]

You're not really hearing what he's saying. You're talking about consciousness in terms of its outward behavior, while he's talking about inner, subjective experience. We can coherently conceive of a world full of human zombies -- biological bodies outwardly behaving as we know normal humans do, while completely lacking inner experience. We could not objectively differentiate between such a world, and a world in which our fellow humans do in fact experience subjective states. Clearly, then, our methods are inadequate to explain the reality of those subjective states.


Which things are not conscious?


Where did you obtain your consciousness gauge, and where do you have it calibrated?

This highlights my points perfectly. Well done.

That inner experience comes from what I was talking about. It comes from the brain making connections from experiences, stimulus, how we can possibly see the world, and how it's wired from its evolutionary path. These are not perfect and don't operate in a vacuum so multiple systems can effect each other.

We take our consciousness for granted so much that its easy to disregard it and just say "evolution did it" or "its emergent from a complex brain". Both of those statements are probably correct actually, but its still ignoring the mystery.
Consciousness is irreducible in the same way that being pregnant is irreducible: You can't be a little bit pregnant, and you can't be a little bit conscious. You either are, or you are not.
Even the slightest hint of consciousness is enough to present a grand mystery, because dead matter should not be capable of experience of any sort. That is, unless we are missing something, and that something is an explanation to the "hard problem" of consciousness.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Consciousness is irreducible in the same way that being pregnant is irreducible: You can't be a little bit pregnant, and you can't be a little bit conscious. You either are, or you are not.

As I see it, the problem of solipsism leaves a person with an arbitrary choice between 2 options:

1.) I am the only conscious thing.
2.) Every thing is conscious.

Admittedly, it is possible that there are some things which are conscious which are not me, and some things which are not conscious, also, but because of the problem of solipsism we will never be able to distinguish conscious things from non-conscious things. If I am willing to stipulate that there are other conscious things besides myself, and yet I have no means of objectively distinguishing between which things are conscious and which are not, then I might as well stipulate that all things are conscious.

 

[moonbogg]

As I see it, the problem of solipsism leaves a person with an arbitrary choice between 2 options:

1.) I am the only conscious thing.
2.) Every thing is conscious.

Admittedly, it is possible that there are some things which are conscious which are not me, and some things which are not conscious, also, but because of the problem of solipsism we will never be able to distinguish conscious things from non-conscious things. If I am willing to stipulate that there are other conscious things besides myself, and yet I have no means of objectively distinguishing between which things are conscious and which are not, then I might as well stipulate that all things are conscious.

Its a bitch of a problem to solve, in part due to the privacy of conscious experience. Its strange due to the dilemma of solipsism, as you pointed out, but speaking plainly, I am comfortable assuming others are conscious. I don't feel a need to assume everything is conscious, unless I want to entertain new age ideas. You know, the sausage made from eastern philosophy and western pseudoscience. I don't want to entertain that very much at this point.
Any wild answer is just about as good as any other regarding consciousness, because at this point consciousness is pretty much indistinguishable from magic due to our ignorance about it.
How many books are there on consciousness? How many of them disagree with each other? The answer is many, because no one has even the faintest clue about it.
I was shocked to come to learn this given the pace of our advancement in other areas.
I can't imagine inanimate matter, however complex its arrangement, being the cause of its own experience. That doesn't mean it isn't the case though. I do want to know badly, but for now the only experiment anyone can do is study themselves and their own experience.