On the Topic of Consciousness

[Divine Insight]

Maybe we should break this out.....

This topic is an offshoot from another thread which was on another topic altogether.

This thread is "On the Topic of Consciousness"

I wouldn't pass judgements. My biggest question is why you have a brain type that is willing to jump into the unknown with some assurance, while I seem to have a brain type that doesn't. If I don't know, I leave it at not knowing.

I don't think it comes down to just the brain alone. I think there are many other factors involved. Clearly even from a secular point of view it is recognize that the brain "evolves" as we grow as individuals based much on how we experience life, etc.

For example the very concept of the "unknown" may mean something entirely different to me than it does to you. I mean, sure we could get out a dictionary and look up the term, but that really wouldn't help much because what you believe you know and what I believe I know are going to clearly be two different things. Especially considering my last sentence of the above paragraph. Our knowledge and beliefs evolve in our own brains based upon our own experiences, which clearly are not going to be the same experiences.

Consciousness: I don't know of any scientist that makes his or her living studying it who declares they know what it is.

This is true, but there may be quite a few scientists who feel like Daniel Dennett. Even though he is just a philosopher.

[youtube][/youtube]

I don't disagree with much of what Dennett says about how the brain functions. I don't disagree at all. But he doesn't touch on the real issues as far as I'm concerned. Near the very end of the above video he state a kind of Deepity of his own, "It's not that the Emperor has no clothes, but rather the clothes have no Emperor". The idea intended to imply that we are attempting to push too much onto consciousness that doesn't need to be there.

But for me none of this is satisfying.

I don't disagree with the fact that the brain is indeed a functional portal for the experiences that we have in this incarnated life. Therefore everything he observes and states about how the brain functions and how it "creates" much of our experience, is not in question for me.

But none of that even begins to address the issue of exactly what it is that is actually having this experience. In other words, if the clothes have no Emperor, then what is it that is having an experience? The brain itself?

This becomes a problem for me, because insofar as we know, the brain itself is made of nothing more than matter and energy. If neither matter, nor energy are capable of having an experience, they why should a brain that is made of nothing more than matter and energy become an "Emperor" in its own right?

This is not an easy question, and I wouldn't hesitate to put this question to Dennett himself. In fact, I would like to hear his thoughts on this. Maybe he does address this sort of issue in one of his many lectures. If you find a lecture where he addressed this heart of the matter please share and I'll be glad to take a gander at it.

I've watched several of his lectures, and thus far I haven't been convinced of his conclusions.

To say it is supernatural vs natural seems a leap.

This is statement here goes back to what I had mentioned above, concerning how you and I may very well think differently due to our different experiences in life.

You speak of the term "supernatural" as though that's a meaningful term.

I have been a scientist my entire life. Isaac Newton, and certain Greek philosophies like Zeno and others were my childhood heroes. Albert Einstein was my next hero as I grew in my scientific knowledge. And today I hold many scientists in high regard and marvel at what they were able to discover and prove.

Just the same, in all of this, I have come to the profound realization that to date we cannot say what the true nature of reality genuinely is. Therefore does it even make any sense to speak of the supernatural, when we can't even say with certain what is natural?

So I'm not prepared to accept the insinuation that I'm "jumping off to assume something supernatural". All I'm doing is recognizing that we can't say where the boundaries of the natural world truly are.

So I don't feel that I'm actually leaping anywhere. I'm just recognizing that we can't know that things need to be restricted to what we believe to be a finite physical existence.

In fact, if you go back to Dennett's very argument perhaps you can see an irony there. He is proclaiming that we can't know nearly what we think we can know, yet he seems to think that he can make very clear conclusions from this evidence that our brains clearly trick us.

That's almost an oxymoron right there. If what Dennett says is true, that our brains can fool us considerably, then perhaps the entirety of physical reality is itself an illusion that we are being tricked into believing. What we believe to be "brains" may not be physical entities at all.

My position is that we know consciousness is affected by natural events, and we know nature exists... seems a very small slide to presume consciousness is a natural phenomenon. But not knowing, sure, I can't say it's not - but I haven't been offered ONE example of the supernatural. So, I simply can't presume it's supernatural. I can't even think of why I'd consider the supernatural when the supernatural has such a horrible track record.

Well, our difference of views here may indeed amount to the extremely different way we view the "supernatural". For you to say that the supernatural has a bad track record implies that you associate the term with just about any guess that anyone might come up with (and especially specific claims that have indeed been shown to be false).

Whilst those do indeed qualify as "supernatural", they may not qualify as the type of "supernatural" that I consider. In fact, the type of "supernatural" that I consider is actually quite natural. It simply amounts to nature that we haven't yet discovered or understood, so it's only in that sense that it seems to be supernatural to us, when in reality it may be perfectly natural.

Given this, there only seems to be the natural. Just because we don't know how consciouness works doesn't means it's because of the gods, or the supernatural or something else, or even "natural vs. I don't know".

Nature exists.
Consciousness exists.

Given these two facts, why presume we can't explain consciousness eventually?

I already gave my answer to this earlier in this post. I'll repeat it here for clarity.

Copy and pasted from earlier in this very same post:

But none of that even begins to address the issue of exactly what it is that is actually having this experience. In other words, if the clothes have no Emperor, then what is it that is having an experience? The brain itself?

This becomes a problem for me, because insofar as we know, the brain itself is made of nothing more than matter and energy. If neither matter, nor energy are capable of having an experience, they why should a brain that is made of nothing more than matter and energy become an "Emperor" in its own right?

This is not an easy question, and I wouldn't hesitate to put this question to Dennett himself. In fact, I would like to hear his thoughts on this. Maybe he does address this sort of issue in one of his many lectures. If you find a lecture where he addressed this heart of the matter please share and I'll be glad to take a gander at it.

End of copy and paste

Yes, consciousness exists. And something is having an experience.

But what is it that is having an experience?

Energy and matter?

Electromagnetic fields?

Something else? Many people have suggested that the thing that is having an experience is some sort of "emergent property of complexity".

I suppose this is a valid philosophical idea, but it seems pretty strange to me that an abstract idea of an emergent property could have an experience.

So I'm still left with a deeper mystery.

To simply say that "consciousness" is a natural result of nature, still leaves me asking, "Who is the Emperor that is having this experience?"

If the clothes have no Emperor, then what is it that is having the experience of conscious awareness? The clothes?

It just seems strange to me that the clothes (i.e. matter and energy) should be able to have an experience.

So this simply leaves the door to the "supernatural" (i.e. nature that we simply don't yet understand) wide open.

I'm not saying that the secular view is necessarily wrong. I'm simply saying that the purely secular view seems every bit as strange to me as the supernatural view.

In other words, that view doesn't "hit the spot" as being an obvious conclusion to accept either.

I'm not going to automatically accept Dennetts "Deepity" that "The clothes have no Emperor" as being the profound answer to this question. That's just as absurd as any other Deepity, IMHO.

So this is where I'm coming from.

I'm not claiming that the supernatural necessarily has to exist. But I am claiming that, insofar as I can see, it's on precisely equal footing with any other conclusions at this point.

Seeing that they are on the same footing, I don't mind using intuition and gut feelings to consider one over the other. So with that in mind, I confess that I lean toward the mystical view. But clearly I could be wrong.

[Divine Insight]

This is an extended argument from Incredulity. I'm having trouble undertanding your objection beyond "I don't get it, so how could it be true?"

It's not just me who doesn't get it. Even Dennett himself confesses that he can't prove his conclusions. Which means that he doesn't truly "get it" either. Because if he truly "got it" he could explain it. And that he has not done.

If we proved God and the supernatural existed, and Idealism was true, couldn't we say the exact same thing?

"I don't get it, how coud it be true? WE know our consciousness is this "other thing" but what is actually having the experinece? How does it work? etc..."

Well for one thing if we could prove the "supernatural" exists then we would have made a step forward, and expanded the boundaries of known science.

Don't forget, before Einstein's realization of time dilation, the idea that time could flow differently for different people would have also been seen as totally supernatural hogwash. It most certainly would have been viewed as a "supernatural" phenomenon in Classical physics.

But now it's recognized and accepted as completely natural.

I think the same can be said of quantum entanglement. A phenomenon that before its prediction and experimental verification would have been considered totally supernatural hogwash but is now accepted as being a verified natural property of reality.

Many scientists still refer to it as "Spooky Action at a Distance" and we still don't have an explanation that accounts for how it occurs.

We still don't "get it", yet there it is experimentally verified to actually occur.

In fact, we still don't truly "get" time dilation. We know that it occurs but we can't fully explain it. Clearly it is somewhat explained in terms of a single fabric of spacetime where you can either more thought more time or more space and kind of shift around within this 4-dimensional fabric. But we're still not clear on exactly how this actually works or what the fabric of spacetime even truly is.

Science has a history of taking the supernatural and converting it into the natural simply by discovering that nature isn't what we had first thought.

So for me the supernatural isn't something that scientists should avoid like the plague. What's supernatural today, can very well become natural tomorrow.

I am not trying to be flippant with my answers, I really don't see why someone creates mysteries from the unknown, unless they intend to study those things seriously.

I think there are ways to study it. But they may be similar to the ways that we study String Theory. Currently out of our technological reach to instantly verify or reject via easy experiments, but potentially something that may be verifiable down the road. Or maybe not.

After all, think about this. According to Quantum Mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, we are at an impasse in science. We are at a theoretical dead end. We may never be able to break through the "Quantum Barrier" to fully understand the true nature of how reality works.

And that's something we'd need to come to grips with as well. The TRUTH of reality may indeed be that it is impossible for us to determine the TRUTH of reality. Then the "supernatural" will forever remain a mystery that we "Know exists" but can never say anything about.

In other words, we may never be able to explain how quantum entanglement works, for example. That knowledge may simply be beyond are ability to ever know. In fact, if the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle cannot be circumvented by some method then this very well WILL be the case.

It appears the people who DO study those things seriously are not bothered by the questions you are posing.

I have two comments on this.

1. Many people who study the brain aren't even attempting to explain consciousness, or they are mistakenly just assuming that if we explain how a brain thinks that is sufficient.

In other words, many scientists just take the practical road of "Just shut up and calculate" (similar to the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM). In other words, they simply aren't even bothered by these kinds of questions.

I'm not sure if that makes the questions irrelevant or is this just shows a total lack of philosophical interest on the behave of the scientists involved.

You have stated yourself that maybe we have different kinds of brains. Some of use ask certainly types of questions and others couldn't care less about those particular questions. But who's to say which approach is better?

I think too that often times many scientists give off the wrong impressions when it may not be what they are ultimately thinking. For example, Stephen Hawking gives the impression that he has no need for a "God". He even says boldly, "All we need is gravity and the subatomic particles and forces".

Well, fine, but did that really simply things very much? He's still starting with quite a bit of stuff that he has no explanation for. Moreover he even expresses a recognition of this:

He says the following:

"Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?" - Stephen Hawking.

He's clearly aware that even if we have a complete mathematical description of nature, we still don't have a meaningful answer to the deepest question of why anything at all exists in the first place.

~~~~

Ok, I'm getting too far off topic from consciousness, let me try to move back on topic,...

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Why is this? This is the mystery I'd like answered, I suppose. Why doesn't the majority of the scientific community regularly announce it's utter astonishment that our scientific theories seem to be completely wrong and we are lost?

Lost? Who said anything about being lost?

However, if any scientist believes that we have indeed explained conscious awareness I think they are fooling themselves. Thus far all we are doing is showing how the brain processes information. And we don't even truly have a clear picture of that actually. All we truly know is that it does this in very complex and widely scattered ways. We certainly don't have a "Theory of Consciousness".

Unless we take Dennett stance that what we have is "Good Enough". Or maybe to just say, "It's a meaningless question", or "The wrong question to ask".

I personally don't buy into any of those responses. I think we can do better. If the brain can indeed be consciously aware I think we should ultimately be able to figure out how it's done. But I think we are a very LONG way from that so it's too early to act like as if we're "almost there". Which I think a lot of scientists are doing. They are acting like we are "almost there" we just need a few more details and we'll have the answer. I think they are fooling themselves if they sincerely believe that.

Scientists thought that was true with Classical physics as whole too when Relativity and Quantum Mechanics came along and blew that dream clean out of the water.

After all, this appears to be what you are suggesting - that all the research into the brain and how we can regulate it with drugs, etc. - the bulk of the scientific knowledge base - is just a great big guess.

I give these people more credit, I suppose. Their results seem to indicate they know what they are doing.

No that's not what I am suggesting at all. I don't deny any of the research that has been thus far reported. I do not deny any of it. I am not saying that they are "wrong" about anything that they actually KNOW to be true.

Let me ask you, why can't you just say "Gee, I don't know, and any wonder I have about the issue is probably unfounded since I am not an expert on the subject?"

As far as I'm concerned I know enough about these topics to discuss them with any expert in their own field of study. Keep in mind that I'm not renouncing their findings! I don't need to know how every neuron in the brain fires to understand the fundamentals of what they are talking about.

They have not come up with a convincing model of conscious awareness. All they have shown so far is that we experience our perception of reality through our physical brains. I have never questioned that this would indeed be the case.

I mean, what are you even suggesting? That I'm claiming that the entire biological brain is just a fake organ to steer us away from how consciousness really works?

I totally accept that the physical brain is indeed our portal to the physically incarnated world. And therefore it will indeed have a huge affect on how we perceive this world. I've never doubted this. And as I have pointed out, the mystics of thousands of years ago didn't question this either. Of course they didn't know the science we know, but I'm sure they were aware that there is a brain in the heads of animals and humans. They no doubt cut animals and humans open. They didn't expect to find EMPTY HEADS.

The physical brain is are interface to the physical world, that's a given in a mystical philosophy. So nothing the scientists have uncovered up to this point is really NEW at all. I would expect them to find precisely what they are finding. I'm not the least bit surprised at any of this.

You don't need to come to a conclusion, but you could accept, provisionally, that the majority of relevant scientists are correct in not worry about your worries.

Correct about what? If any scientist is proclaiming to have a working model of how conscious AWARENESS actually works can you please point to that model?

Insofar as I know, no one has such a model. And if any did have a convincing model that discovery should be front page news. There should be a Nobel prize issued for it. And it should be as profound as having found the Higgs particle or any other scientific discovery.

We currently aren't there insofar as I am aware.

You make is sound like they have already made the discovery. I disagree with that assessment.

If, in the future, they prove you were right, you can pull out a big "I told ya so."

I'm not concerned about that in the slightest. But I would be very happy to have a conclusive answer one way or the other.

I just, honestly, don't get the mystery you are talking about. I'll repeat the dice example:

The dice roll a 7.

"But there is something more to that roll! Can't you sense it? It seems to be a big mystery about that roll. Why now? Why a 7? What does it mean?"

Well I disagree with this analogy. There is no mystery why some random number comes up on a dice roll. Some number has to come up. There is no mystery here at all.

But how is his an analogy for something that can actually have an experience that is made entirely out of stuff that cannot have an experience?

I mean even if atoms formed into completely operating computers, why should those computer "know" or "experience' what they are calculating?

I don't need a scientists to tell me that I'm having an EXPERIENCE. I experience life every day. So how did the computer that has no experience of what it is calculation suddenly become a computer that can actually have an experience?

You seem to be baffled by my need to question this, but I'm just as baffled at how you can take it for granted and act like it's totally trivial.

It seems we can create these kinds of questions about anything.

But what's the point?

But your analogy with the dice roll actually suggests that you aren't even seeing the profound nature of the question.

Why should it be profound that dice would come up a 7 or any other number?

How does that even begin to relate to a question like how something could actually have an experience, when it is made entirely of stuff that cannot have an experience?

What do you gain by asking the questions you have? Will you be able to hack the Mind? Will you really get an answer? I just don't see it.

So are you suggesting that we simply shouldn't ask any question that we think might be too difficult to answer?

It's an interesting question to me. And the answer to this question does indeed have PROFOUND implications. Surely you can see that?

It's a profound question. One answer suggest that we are nothing more than a temporary flash of accidental consciousness where the very notion of Free Will may itself be a total illusion. The other answer suggests that we may actually be eternal beings of unimaginable complexity and power that we can't even begin to imagine.

It's clearly an important question when the difference in the answers is so strikingly profound.

So, it's not that we can't be curious - but if we are, take it seriously and study it - professionally, or with the same level of rigor.

I'm retired. If I had better health and could start a whole new life from a young age I'd love to delve into this study. Especially with today's technologies at my disposal.

I would attack the question scientifically for sure. And I think it can be made scientific. And maybe in the process I would discover a secular solution and surprise myself. Proving that we are just mundane accidents bound to a fleeting life and permanent demise. I can accept that if it can be shown to be true. But let's not jump the guy.

So, unless you can really clarify what you mean, I'm afraid I simply don't understand the question. What do you mean "If the clothes have no Emperor, then what is it that is having the experience of conscious awareness? The clothes?"

I don't know why "the clothes" can't be the answer?

What do you know that I don't?

Well, I don't know the answer. Maybe "The Clothes" is the answer. All I'm saying is that we are not at a point where we can say that with any kind of confidence. I think many atheists are simply too eager to claim that science supports their views, when this simply isn't yet the case, and it may never be the case.

I confess that I don't blame them at all to be hot-to-trot to support an atheistic view of reality in light of the Abrahamic religions.

You know very well how utterly disgusted I am with those religions as well. If I thought that a spiritual picture was going to lead to the Abrahamic religions, I'd probably be pushing for an atheistic reality too.

So I seriously don't blame you on that level.

I guess one thing that keep my hopes alive for a potential mystical magical element to life is indeed philosophies like Taoism, and some of the more positive aspects of thinks like Buddhism, etc.

There are spiritual picture of reality that are genuinely intelligent and truly inviting. They don't all need to be as dismal as the Abrahamic religions.

So I confess that I'm keeping an optimistic outlook both scientifically and mystically. o:)

And if reality turns out to be purely secular, I'll never even know it. When I die I'll just black out and I'll never even know that I died. Or that I had ever lived.

So if that's the truth of reality, I have NOTHING to lose by hoping for something better.

At least I'll have a positive dream whilst I am alive.

[keithprosser3]

I think many atheists are simply too eager to claim that science supports their views, when this simply isn't yet the case, and it may never be the case.

Generally, science does support the atheistic world view. But that is not to say that science provides all the answers to all the questions that can be asked. Theists make too much of the gaps in science, atheists make too little of them. While exaggerated rhetoric can be expected in debates between theists and atheists, I think atheists even amongst themselves can be a little complacent about things like consciousness and freewill. Such phenomena may well be 'tamed' at some point and brought into the fold of science, but that is NOT the case today.

I am quite prepared to admit to a theist that I can't (not can anybody else) provide a solid, rigorous scientific explanation of consciousness. As I have said before, I am an atheist not because I know what the answer is (because I don't) but because I know what the answer certainly isn't.

Will consciousness be 'tamed'? I expect it will, but it will not be easy. I think it may well take a breakthrough as fundamental as the replacement of classical physics with quantum mechanics before consciousness can be truly 'scientised'. In the meantime theists can hope that the gaps in science leave room for the existence of their (or at least a) god. But history tells us such gaps are always temporary, and I expect this one will prove no different. But that there is a gap is something atheists have to admit to themselves, even as we try to keep it a secret from theists!

[Goat]

[Replying to post 11 by Divine Insight]

In regards to the supernatural, you could say

"there is no such thing as the supernatural, just that natural that is too narrowly defined'

[Ooberman]

Divine, before I respond to each of your points, I thought of a way I make sense of this discussion.

To me, it seems Dualists are like this car owner in my fictitious story.

A car owner brings his car in for a tune up, claiming there is something wrong with the car. It doesn't start many times, and it doesn't seem to be the temperature. It seems random.


The car mechanic says, well, that's just how it works for some cars, some are lemons. Perhaps there is faulty wiring, or some deposits on the spark plug, etc..

The mechanic goes into great detail about all the things that could be wrong with the car.

The car owner is not satisfied.

"But what if it's something else?"

"What do you mean?" asks the mechanic.

"I mean, what if it's something beyond our scientific ability?"

"Um, OK, but why ask that when we haven't exhausted the more plausible answers?"

"Well, they are only more plausible if you have a naturalistic presupposition. What if there is something evil in my car? What if there are things we can't possibly understand? Something supernatural to explain it all?" says the car owner.

"I get what you are saying, but how can I possibly answer that?! I've suggested everything we know about cars and why they don't start. I imagine if we took apart the car, piece by piece, we might find the problem."

"Oh, well that's having Faith in mechanics! i am asking you to open your mind! What if there are magical beings that opera....





Do you see how I view this conversation about Brains and Minds?


The Brain is the car. While we haven't taken it apart, piece by piece, why are we imagining these things like string theory? Seems completely unwarranted.

[Divine Insight]

Do you see how I view this conversation about Brains and Minds?

No. On the contrary, what I see there is a very poor analogy. An analogy that doesn't even remotely get to the root of the problem.

The Brain is the car. While we haven't taken it apart, piece by piece, why are we imagining these things like string theory? Seems completely unwarranted.

Ok, let's go with your previous analogy with the car and driver, and replace it with a brain and driver.

Let's say that you believe yourself to be a wholesome decent person who wants to do good, and you despise violence and behavior that we might call "evil".

However, in spite of knowing who you are and what you desire, on occasion you suddenly behave totally irrationally and do extremely violent things, throwing temper tantrums and even physically lashing out at people hurting them and potentially even trying to kill them.

So you take your brain into a brain mechanic (a doctor) and you say, there seems to be something wrong with my brain that causes me to take sudden fits of violence for no apparent reason and I really DON'T WANT to do that! Please help me!

So the doctor takes a brain scan and finds a tumor in your brain that is causing it to malfunction. They remove the tumor and you are back to your normal self.

Now the question is, if you are your brain, then why wasn't that behavior then simply seen as part of WHO you are?

Most people would say, "Well it wasn't really you doing that, but instead it was behavior caused by a brain tumor".

In fact, even to you, from perceiving the world through this brain you recognized that your brain wasn't functioning properly.

So what was it that recognized that the brain wasn't functioning properly? The brain itself?

How could the brain itself recognize that it's not functioning properly if consciousness is nothing more than a function of the brain?

If a brain functions violently, then clearly this is what the brain is doing. Why should it object to its own behavior?

This suggests to me that maybe the driver and the brain aren't the same thing?

[bernee51]

But that answer alone is not necessarily a mystical or Buddhist answer.

Which is an indication that I am perhaps neither.

That answer could in fact be interpreted as being entirely secular.

A secular answer is the only possible answer with the knowledge that I have from scripture, logic and personal experience

In other words, awareness is nothing more than a temporary condition due to the actual physical formation of an actual physical existence that somehow exists separate from awareness.

Indeed, this physiosphere resulted from the coherence and complexification of, first super-hot sub atomic particles, and then atoms and molecules. These then, at least on this planets further cohered and complexification and life emerged....the biosphere. This process continued to a point where consciousness and self-aware consciousness emerged.

In a previous post you layered you're own preconceptions onto what I posted and claimed the physiosphere and biosphere to be conscious.

A leap to far IMV.

I do not and did not call them 'levels of consciousness' that was your term. So AFAIAC all that followed was speculation on your part.

What I do hold them to be are 'levels of existence'. The are, a la Koestler, holons.

If that's true, then the statement "All that exists is awareness" is in a very real sense a false statement itself. In other words, there would need to be a physical secular universe that "exists" even when there is no awareness, and awareness would simply be a manifestation (or emergent effect) of that preexisting physical awareness.

All that exists is awareness is the state of a self-aware consciousness. It is not the state, for example of a rock, or a lizard.

It can only apply an organism that knows that knows.

I'm sure that some forms of Buddhism to take that view. Especially some of the more modern forms such as Zen Buddhism.

However, I don't believe that this was the intent or idea behind the original Indian Buddhism popularized by Siddhartha Gautama.

Those forms of Buddhism were far more mystical. In other words, yes, they would say that "awareness is all that exists" in a sense, but they would say this to such a profound sense to mean that "Life is but a dream". In other words, awareness (or mind) is actually behind even the illusion of physical reality.

And it was the belief that we are his primordial mind or "dreamer". Rather than to suggest that awareness is simply all that exists "on top of" a physical reality.

And I have great respect for the philosophies outlined by the ancient mystics.

The difference being clear. If awareness is an emergent property of an actual physical universe then basically secularism is true. When that awareness ceases to exist that's that. It was indeed an "Ego". In other words, it was indeed a totally individual and separate awareness separate from all other awareness, and it came into existence, lived for a short period of time and died out.

That's a very atheistic view of Buddhism. Certainly not a view that most mystics take. I think most mystics see the conscious awareness as something that is eternal, or at the very least, mystical and existing beyond the physical. It's the physical world they see as being the ultimate illusion arising from a cosmic consciousness.

The particular manifestation on awareness, the ego if you will, is indeed limited. Awareness itself, emergent in the noosphere may very well be eternal and limitless. Logically it must be.

But that too is a construct which would not be talked about unless it first emerged.

We are evolution become aware of itself.

So if we take the idea that "Awareness is all that exists" then it's the physical world that is the illusion of awareness, not the other way around.

That would sit well is advaita Vedanta.

The other way around suggest that a "Basically Inert" physical universe, creates "awareness through forms". But then what is it that is aware? The forms?

For me the idea that there exist some sort of strange primordial "mind" that is dreaming up this whole thing seems actually more plausible than the idea that inert stuff just happens to exist and accidentally coalesce into forms that can somehow mysteriously "have an experience".

And if that floats you boat that is wonderful because that is the primary purpose of such beliefs. 'This sounds more plausible"...is just the beginning. What does your experience tell you?

The 'basically inert' universe is under pressure, through evolution, to cohere and complexity. I have no problem with imagining awareness being an emergent property of that process.

So I'm not so sure what it even means when you say, "All that exists is awareness".

For me, that's not a satisfying answer. Sounds more like some kind of "Deepity" that doesn't really mean anything but sounds deep in some strange way, without really making any actual sense.

In the noosphere, all that exists is awareness.

The physiosphere is not aware...all that exists there is atoms and molecules.

Not even opinion.

[Divine Insight]

In the noosphere, all that exists is awareness.

The physiosphere is not aware...all that exists there is atoms and molecules.

Not even opinion.

Ironically I just watched an interview with Roger Penrose where he was disusing a very similar view. Well, actually he's looking at the Platonic view and the three worlds of a "Physiosphere" (or the physical world), a "Noosphere" (what he calls the mental world), and of course he adds a third world of "Mathematics".

It was an interesting interview. In fact, let me see if I can find it again:

Ooooo, lucky me! I found it right away:

[youtube][/youtube]

I've been aware of the Platonic view and Roger Penrose's personal take on this for many years, but ironically having just recently watched this interview has helped me to better understand how you seem to be thinking, although you haven't mentioned the need for a mathematical world.

But still you are apparently looking to two different world somehow simultaneously existing, the noosphere (or mind) and the psysiosphere (the physical material world).

I personally don't break things up like that. For me, it seems to make more sense to think of just one complete reality. Because of this I would suggest that only one of these worlds actually needs to exist.

Either the world of MIND, exists and gives rise to all else. Or the world of MATERIAL exists and gives rise to consciousness. (I personally see no need for Plato's or Penrose's sphere of mathematics)

So for me, the question reduces to which one of these two is true.

Is the truth of reality material? In which case consciousness is just a fleeting property of material form as the secular atheists claim.

Or is the truth of reality mind? In which case the illusion of a physical world is actually the fleeting property of the ultimate mind.

I see no reason to try to imagine some combination of different worlds or spheres giving rise to each other. It seems to me to be more reasonable to only need one basis of reality and let everything else follow from that. Anything else becomes circular.

I think I better understand where you are coming from now.

I've considered those types of philosophical models and just personally found them to be lacking. That's certainly not to say that they can't be true. But it's sufficient to say that I have personally already considered them and have no further interest in pursuing those models further.

For me, I've decided that it makes more sense to imagine only one basis for reality. And it seems to me that this basis is either MIND or MATERIAL.

And I favor the MIND hypothesis as being more likely.

I don't feel a need to introduce a third element of "mathematics" as Penrose and Plato do because if math is required that would actually stem from mind anyway. So it's basically a redundant sphere as far as I can see.

But I don't even see the need to divide reality into two spheres as you do. Why bother with two when a single sphere will suffice? I guess I'm kind of appealing to Occam's Razor here. If you can explain it using a simple model, there's no need to make it more complicated than this.

Speaking of explaining it. I also see a reality of MIND explaining everything, where as I don't see a reality of MATERIAL explaining conscious awareness. For this reason, once again applying Occam's Razor, a reality made entire of MIND wins. Because it can then explain the illusion of the material world. Whereas it's not easy to see how that could work the other way around.

[Ooberman]

Do you see how I view this conversation about Brains and Minds?

No. On the contrary, what I see there is a very poor analogy. An analogy that doesn't even remotely get to the root of the problem.

The Brain is the car. While we haven't taken it apart, piece by piece, why are we imagining these things like string theory? Seems completely unwarranted.

Ok, let's go with your previous analogy with the car and driver, and replace it with a brain and driver.

Let's say that you believe yourself to be a wholesome decent person who wants to do good, and you despise violence and behavior that we might call "evil".

However, in spite of knowing who you are and what you desire, on occasion you suddenly behave totally irrationally and do extremely violent things, throwing temper tantrums and even physically lashing out at people hurting them and potentially even trying to kill them.

So you take your brain into a brain mechanic (a doctor) and you say, there seems to be something wrong with my brain that causes me to take sudden fits of violence for no apparent reason and I really DON'T WANT to do that! Please help me!

So the doctor takes a brain scan and finds a tumor in your brain that is causing it to malfunction. They remove the tumor and you are back to your normal self.

Now the question is, if you are your brain, then why wasn't that behavior then simply seen as part of WHO you are?

Most people would say, "Well it wasn't really you doing that, but instead it was behavior caused by a brain tumor".

In fact, even to you, from perceiving the world through this brain you recognized that your brain wasn't functioning properly.

So what was it that recognized that the brain wasn't functioning properly? The brain itself?

How could the brain itself recognize that it's not functioning properly if consciousness is nothing more than a function of the brain?

If a brain functions violently, then clearly this is what the brain is doing. Why should it object to its own behavior?

This suggests to me that maybe the driver and the brain aren't the same thing?

I think my analogy was fine, for the record. Perhaps this is the gulf we can't bridge...


As for your example, there would be any number of answers both psychological and physiological that might answer that question. But also cultural.

Let's change violent tendencies with some action that we don't consider socially inappropriate. Perhaps jiggling change in your pocket.

This might be completely unnoticed and not cared about. Violence is something most people recognize as a hinderance to what they ultimately want in life. Even if we are deterministic animals, there would be a natural reason to desire less violence tendencies for survival reasons.

All of my arguments will, and must (IMO), include 3 scenarios to be useful:
1. Dualism is true, etc.
2. Dualism or Determinism may or may not be true, but we have free will of some sort.
3. Strict Determinism is true. We have no real free will, only the illusion (God or not God)

That is, you seem to presume, as a basis of your exploration that we go to the doctor, or have desires that already transcend our physical being. This is presupposing 1 or 2.

Perhaps your questions are answered if we reframe the question.

Not "why do we do that", but "we do that, then we think about what we do after the fact"

In your example, I can see how the tumor is local. There are other cells and regions in the brain, and those may sense something "out of whack". And, it might not be that they know something is "wrong" only different.

Perhaps the rest of the brain is thinking, "Gee, all this violence isn't getting me anywhere. Let's go see a doctor."

Maybe someone else said "Bob, you seem much more violent now. It's not you." This sticks i your brain and you imagine it to be true. You might not even have control over choosing to believe it.




You give the example of the car vs. driver, but I have heard it said we are like the passenger in the car, continually critiquing the actions of the autopilot. That is, our Mind is along for the ride.


After all, how do you explain why so many people don't live as they would wish? If the brain has such independence and such a privileged position to rise above tumors and whatnot, why aren't people more happy? More fulfilled in what they want out of life?

I find it hard to believe 50% of the population of the world desires to live in poverty.

That is, the person may realize they are being too violent and want to change, but they seem to have no power to do so unless the body changes. I don't see people born with poor minds or bodies affecting the change Dualism suggests.

I don't buy the 'Brain is a Radio, the Mind is the Broadcast" since there is no evidence or proffered mechanism.

We have two halves of the brain. Maybe the one side recognized something about the other side that changed. Maybe the brain has an image of the person it is, and we labor to make words and pictures to describe it, but in reality, we are just babbling infants in the backseat watching the car move along the highway, but we think we are driving?


These are the "maybes" I wonder about.

None of them include any thought that there must be some other special area where "WE" reside. We reside in the brain. We are the thoughts we are conscious of - all located in the body.

[olavisjo]

.

You give the example of the car vs. driver, but I have heard it said we are like the passenger in the car, continually critiquing the actions of the autopilot. That is, our Mind is along for the ride.

What is our Mind that it can come 'along for the ride'?

We have two halves of the brain. Maybe the one side recognized something about the other side that changed. Maybe the brain has an image of the person it is, and we labor to make words and pictures to describe it, but in reality, we are just babbling infants in the backseat watching the car move along the highway, but we think we are driving?

What is the we that 'labor to make words and pictures to describe it'? What is the we that 'are just babbling infants'? What is the we that 'think we are driving'?

None of them include any thought that there must be some other special area where "WE" reside. We reside in the brain. We are the thoughts we are conscious of - all located in the body.

Yes, what is this we that 'reside in the brain'? What is it that is conscious of the thoughts that we are?

All you are giving us is a textbook example of 'begging the question'.

[Ooberman]

.

You give the example of the car vs. driver, but I have heard it said we are like the passenger in the car, continually critiquing the actions of the autopilot. That is, our Mind is along for the ride.

What is our Mind that it can come 'along for the ride'?

It's our consciousness. It's the part of our brain function that assesses data.
Our body/senses act and react to internal and external stimuli. The body wants to drink because the senses tells it water is needed.
The bcy moves to get water, we recognize our mind saying "I think i'll get some water". Though, maybe we have more control than that.

The mind 'coming along for the ride' is the part of our brain function we are aware of. What is the "we" when I say "we are aware", it's just a term for what consciousness is. The part of the electrochemical process in the brain that is aware of the brain and brain function.

Again, I'm not seeing the problem, even if my explanations are insufficient for you to understand my view. I will try to continue to explain.