Consciousness

[DogmaHunter]

You are wrong. Anecdotes are not claims.

Except that they are.
It's a person making a bunch of claims about something or someone. About something that supposedly happened, or whatever.

It's just words.

If Anecdotes were claims then all stories/experiences would be completely meaningless.

They are, unless they have supportive evidence ;-)
At least, in terms of accuracy in reality. If the point of the story is to convey some "deeper meaning", to the point that wheter or not the story really happened is actually irrelevant, then it's not meaningless off course.

If I told you that I experienced severe weather on the way to work then according to your definition my experience would have been meaniningless and just a claim.

It is just a claim. A claim that can be false. You might be lying. You might be making up stuff as an excuse for why you are late, because you don't want to say that you really overslept.

More importantly, it's a claim that is easily checkable. For example, are you wet from the rain? What do the wheather records say?

If you saying that "the weather was such and such" is not a claim about the weather, then what the heck is it? It certainly isn't evidence that the weather was bad.

Your hair being a mess, your cloths being wet from rain and the streets being filled with rainpuddles.... THAT would be evidence of bad weather.

You claim the weather was bad, is just you making a claim.

 

[DogmaHunter]

The material brain is a function of consciousness.

That makes no sense and is counter the evidence.

That's like saying that a computer, the hardware itself, is a function of microsoft windows.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I can see 3 possibilities:

1. Consciousness is eternal.

2. Consciousness began, but never ends.

3. All consciousness begins and ends.

Both 1 and 2 are compatible with the concept of immortality.

If 3 is true, then all consciousness is finite which means non-consciousness is infinite. The ratio of finite to infinite is 0, which means our finite consciousness is equal to 0 or nothing. That's problematic.

The only thing problematic here, is the bizar logic you employed for drawing that even more bizar conclusion.

 

[durangodawood]

Oh yea I’m not talking about normal human experience. I’m talking about transcendent experiences.

I see. I havent had those sufficiently to experience consciousness apart from the brain. You have?

 

[Chriliman]

The only thing problematic here, is the bizar logic you employed for drawing that even more bizar conclusion.

What makes it bizar to you?

 

[Doveaman]

So you are calling energy that isn´t conscious "conscious energy"?

You would have to clarify what you mean by "conscious". So far you are using it in two completely different meaning and then try to equivocate them.

It is called conscious energy, not because the energy is conscious, but because the energy carries the information that makes us conscious.

 

[Doveaman]

Otherwise known as gobbledegook.

As a Calvinist you do believe in a conscious God, don't you?

God does not have a physical brain, but yet He is conscious, proving that consciousness does not require a brain.

However, I do believe that human consciousness works through a brain to produce human awareness.

At least for now.

 

[lesliedellow]

As a Calvinist you do believe in a conscious God, don't you?

What has that got to do with pseudo scientific gobblegook? You wouldn’t want to link your “radiant energy” in with Maxwell’s Equations, would you? And then explain how that gives rise to consciousness.

 

[Doveaman]

Please tell me the mechanism by which consciousness is transmitted to our brains.

Consciousness is a form of energy that caries information from the human mind to the human brain to produce human awareness.

Is it through EM radiation?

Not sure what kind of radiation, but it's a form of energy that interfaces with the EM field of the brain to transmit information to our awareness.

In what frequency and wavelength?

Whatever the brain can handle.

How is this information coded--analog or digital?

Whatever the brain can decode.

What part of our brains receives this information?

That part that produces human awareness.

Are these consciousness transmissions specific to each person, or is a uniform signal that works for everyone?

It’s specific.

I think it can become a uniform signal that could work for everyone, but everyone would have to share the same brain.

A universal brain.

Do we only need to receive it once, and our consciousness is then installed for our entire lives, or is it sort of an ongoing download that needs updating?

We receive it once in our lifetime, but for those of us who believe in the resurrection, we receive it twice.

And what's the source of this information?

The metaphysical mind.

And why hasn't it been detected already?

Because it's metaphysical.

 

[Doveaman]

That makes no sense and is counter the evidence.

That's like saying that a computer, the hardware itself, is a function of microsoft windows.

Nope.

It's like saying that consciousness is transmitted through the brain, and not created by the brain.

The brain is just the receiver of information that is being transmitted to our human awareness.

 

[Doveaman]

What has that got to do with pseudo scientific gobblegook?

Nothing.

It has to do with consciousness not requiring a physical brain.

 

[lesliedellow]

Nothing.

Then please refrain from pseudo scientific gobbledegook.

 

[Doveaman]

You can, of course, believe whatever you like, but none of that makes any scientific sense.

Consciousness does not make any scientific sense.

That’s why it’s called “The Hard Problem”.

It's something made up to sound sciency but with no scientific content, i.e. pseudoscience. There is no scientific evidence consistent with the brain being the 'transmitter of consciousness'; the brain radiates heat and weak electromagnetic waves, but doesn't transmit anything (except in the sense of using the body to communicate with others via language & movement).

You can, of course, believe whatever you like, but those electromagnetic waves carry information to our awareness.

Chalmer's 'Hard Problem' is more a philosophical problem than a scientific one - it deals with the explanatory gap between a sequence of physical states and subjective experience. On the scientific side, we've made good progress with discovering the functional components of consciousness and where in the brain they variously originate (for example, see 'Self Comes to Mind' by Antonio Damasio). Personally, I think the explanatory gap is the fundamental irreconcilability of the subjective and the objective; I don't expect it to be closed anytime soon.

I think those discovered functional components of the brain is not where consciousness originates, but where consciousness is received to produce human awareness.

You misunderstood the question; if the human mind is somehow independent of the brain, there should be some observable aspect of it that is not affected by changes to the brain (that's the point of the TV analogy - the broadcast is independent of the function of the TV, so there are aspects of what the TV displays that cannot be affected by messing with the TV).
For example, a sense of self, or a sense of location, or emotion, are considered common aspects or features of the mind/consciousness. They can all be affected by messing with the brain, which suggests they're features of brain activity, not aspects of something independent of the brain.

You seem to be of the view that the human mind and human consciousness are the same thing.

I don’t share your view.

The mind generates the consciousness through the brain to our awareness.

Our consciousness is affected by changes to the brain because the brain is the circuit through which the conscious information is being transmitted to our awareness.

I was asking if you could name any identifiable feature of the mind or consciousness that is not affected by changes to the brain.

It’s not that simple, especially since the mind is metaphysical.

Science is limited to physical brain activity and cannot detect the metaphysical aspects of the mind that control that activity.

I wish I could show you the information you are seeking, but your scientific methods are too restrictive.

All I can offer you is some ancient wisdom, because there are some things the mind can detect that the brain cannot detect: (2 Kings 6:17).

You may find that a helpful way to think about the mind and consciousness in abstract terms, but it has no scientific basis. Your description just can't work in a universe like ours; it implies that not just neuroscience, but the standard model of physics is completely wrong - and we have exhaustive empirical evidence that isn't the case at human scales & energies.

Making up sciency sounding stuff in an attempt to support a supernatural belief is pseudoscience.

What I’m doing, unlike you, is not to limit myself to science in order understand the metaphysical aspects of our being. Such limitation will only end in ignorance of who we are and what we are, and even why we are.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I mean please, some people say there is no such thing as consciousness, so the science isn't as all settled as some of you want to believe......

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You can, of course, believe whatever you like, but those electromagnetic waves carry information to our awareness.

No. You can block electromagnetic waves in and out of the brain without affecting it or the individual at all. Inside the brain, there is no mechanism (apart from deep-brain photoreceptors) to receive electromagnetic waves, and the only electromagnetic waves emitted are the extremely weak products of neural activity - the electrochemical membrane depolarisations of neural spike trains. So the empirical evidence rules out your hypothesis.

You seem to be of the view that the human mind and human consciousness are the same thing.

No - in my view, consciousness is a particular functional state or mode of operation of the mind; and there are also concurrent unconscious processes on which consciousness depends that are often considered to be part of the mind.

However, the definition of 'mind' does vary.

It’s not that simple, especially since the mind is metaphysical.

For metaphysics, philosophy might be a more suitable arena, but if the mind is, as you say, independent and if it has any observable influence, you should be able to suggest an example of such an influence; otherwise we have to ask just what is the point of the mind if it has no influence - what does it do?

Once again, you're making up sciency sounding nonsense to give the impression there's something scientific about what you're saying. But there isn't.

I wish I could show you the information you are seeking, but your scientific methods are too restrictive.

Ah yes, the traditional lament of the woo merchant; so tell me about your, less restrictive, scientific methods.

What I’m doing, unlike you, is not to limit myself to science in order understand the metaphysical aspects of our being.

There we have it - why limit yourself to the reasoned and systematic pursuit of knowledge, with all its tedious rigour and careful methodology, when you can just go with your intuition, trust your gut, invent any old tosh that fits your preconceived beliefs, and make it sound sciency?

Like I said, pseudoscience, aka 'woo'. I expect there's a ready market among the gullible and credulous that haven't yet been suckered.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

When are we considered dead? When the heart stops? No..... When all electrical activity in the brain ceases...... or revival can not be made in time to stop brain decay, which would affect the electrical activity of the brain when the patient was revived.....

 

[Kylie]

Anecdotal evidence is just a FORM of evidence. Just because it's Anecdotal doesn't mean it's meaningless.

No, it's meaningless because there's no way to verify the validity of the claim.

 

[Kylie]

You are wrong. Anecdotes are not claims. If Anecdotes were claims then all stories/experiences would be completely meaningless. If I told you that I experienced severe weather on the way to work then according to your definition my experience would have been meaniningless and just a claim.

But such a claim could be checked. Did other people in your area have similar problems? Did the weather report for your area on that day corroborate your claim?

 

[Kylie]

The material brain is a function of consciousness.

Rearranging words does not a valid argument make.

 

[Kylie]

Both.

The light from the sun is the energy that produces light.

Consciousness is the energy that produces consciousness.

The I feel safe in dismissing what you say as nonsense, since you seem to be implying that energy can make more of itself.