We are born "blank slates" per B.F.Skinner.
Our mind/soul/consciousness develops and grows with sensory experience.
I see consciousness as the comparison of current sensory experience, with similar past/remembered sensory experience.
Long term memory formation and maintenance has been detailed by Eric Kandel's experiments with Aplysia.
Current experience is composed of the set of body sensors activated at this instant. Each body sensor is connected to a neuron in the sensory cortex. Each sensory cortex neuron receives an electrical impulse from the body sensor that is being activated. The set of cortical neurons being activated at this instant represents current experience in the mind. Current experience becomes conscious experience when current experience calls forth memories, as detailed in the next paragraph, and enough integrated information is generated.
Attention to current experience is brought to bear, when the current experience set of firing cortical sensory neurons, is similar to the sets of firing neurons which created similar memories in the past. "Similarity" is determined by how closely the set of currently firing cortical neurons, matches the sets of the cortical neurons which fired in the memories. If a memory is close enough to current experience, it is considered in determining the response to the stimulus. 'Close enough' is defined by a dynamic parameter, which is adjusted to tighten or loosen the amount of similarity necessary to restrict the number of memories called forth from long term memory, to a manageable number. (Current research suggests no more than 4 chunks of memory can be brought into and manipulated in working memory.)
Information is concentrated via the formation of categories, as Douglas Hofstadter describes in his book"Surfaces and Essences". Categories are based on similarities between experiences. For example, there is a mental category 'dog'. 'Dog' does not exist out there in the world. It is a product of recognized similarities and differences between similar experiences. In the physical world there is only 'this poodle' or 'that Beagle'. We refer to a purely mental construct when we include all such animals in the mental collective 'dog'. Categories can be compared and a hierarchy of categories can develop further concentrating information. So the eminently physical Fido the Beagle, is described in greater detail when we determine that he belongs to the mental category 'dog', and in even greater detail when we attribute the adjective 'hunting' to the noun 'dog'. 'Hunting dog' contains more information about what the dog may look like and what it probably doesn't look like.
Current experience associated with the set of remembered similar experience becomes conscious experience per Guilio Tonini's Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness. This is a phase change. When the temp is low enough water turns to ice. When there is enough concentrated information, experience turns to conscious experience.
What is consciousness to you?
Re: What is consciousness to you?
Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of brains. Brains occur in Consciousness (as does everything else). There is no perceiver either, just perceptions. Consciousness is all that exists. You exist as pure consciousness. You are IT. Science will NEVER grasp consciousness because it has everything backwards. Get out of the materialist paradigm and rid yourself of limited belief systems.
Re: What is consciousness to you?
@Ramu
This is pure panpsychism, tantamount to belief in God. I can not prove that God does not exist, because one can't prove a negative. I can not prove that panpsychism does not exist for similar reasons. And it is true that consciousness does carve out houses and cars from the soup of quarks which is physical reality.
But, personally, I have never detected consciousness apart from an animate being. It may not take a brain (single cells seem to have it), but it does seem to require a living being. But perhaps the consciousness of a rock is as far below that of a human being that we can not detect such minutia, just as the distance of human consciousness is from God consciousness. So I can entertain what you say, but it does not seem most likely to me, because I can not apply any empirical information to the argument, and if I accept the doctrine, it has to be based totally on belief.
And I find that I May alter my consciousness by ingesting chemicals like alcohol. How are physical chemicals able to alter that which is not physical, unless that which is not physical springs from a physical base?
To me it seems that raw sensory data becomes mental information, when a living being is engaged in goal directed behavior, the prime goal being the preservation of life.
What does a belief in panpsychism buy us? How, for instance, does panpsyychism explain the dual particle/wave nature of light?
This is pure panpsychism, tantamount to belief in God. I can not prove that God does not exist, because one can't prove a negative. I can not prove that panpsychism does not exist for similar reasons. And it is true that consciousness does carve out houses and cars from the soup of quarks which is physical reality.
But, personally, I have never detected consciousness apart from an animate being. It may not take a brain (single cells seem to have it), but it does seem to require a living being. But perhaps the consciousness of a rock is as far below that of a human being that we can not detect such minutia, just as the distance of human consciousness is from God consciousness. So I can entertain what you say, but it does not seem most likely to me, because I can not apply any empirical information to the argument, and if I accept the doctrine, it has to be based totally on belief.
And I find that I May alter my consciousness by ingesting chemicals like alcohol. How are physical chemicals able to alter that which is not physical, unless that which is not physical springs from a physical base?
To me it seems that raw sensory data becomes mental information, when a living being is engaged in goal directed behavior, the prime goal being the preservation of life.
What does a belief in panpsychism buy us? How, for instance, does panpsyychism explain the dual particle/wave nature of light?
Re: What is consciousness to you?
Or it could be pantheism. The universe is God. God is consciousness. Blah blah. All of that is moot.
You can't prove a positive either. You can't prove that the Universe exists.
Consciousness is a word.
Like Truth.
Like Reality.
Like God.
I know how to use those words. I don't know what any of them are.
Re: What is consciousness to you?
No I'm not talking about any kind of belief system that needs some sort of authority figure to validate it. I'm talking about non duality which is based on first person experience. Why the hell would I need some so called "authority figure" to validate truth?
You can't understand the nuances of non duality from the materialist/physicalist/scientific paradigm. This isn't something you can even begin to comprehend from limited double blind peer reviewed studies. If you could jail break out of your limiting scientific dogma you wouldn't need some 3rd party consensus to discover that you are The Absolute Truth and ultimate authority. Instead you give your ultimate authority to "other" to comply with your culture which you rely upon 100% in order to feel "validated"
Discover Truth for yourself. Rid yourself of this dependency on someone else to validate you. Be free.
You can't understand the nuances of non duality from the materialist/physicalist/scientific paradigm. This isn't something you can even begin to comprehend from limited double blind peer reviewed studies. If you could jail break out of your limiting scientific dogma you wouldn't need some 3rd party consensus to discover that you are The Absolute Truth and ultimate authority. Instead you give your ultimate authority to "other" to comply with your culture which you rely upon 100% in order to feel "validated"
Discover Truth for yourself. Rid yourself of this dependency on someone else to validate you. Be free.
Re: What is consciousness to you?
Are you content with not knowing? Do you feel it is impossible for a human to know anything? How can you be incurious about such matters?
OK, I'll give you that we can 'know' nothing. But we can come to 'believe' stuff based on our empirical experience and that becomes our personal world view and reality. We can develop rules of physics which, although they may be totally wrong, seem to work in the area of our limited experience. Wrong is often good enough.
Come on. It is not human to say "I don't know" and to be content with that. So what do you believe?
Re: What is consciousness to you?
I am not comparing panpsychism to any particular religious doctrine. The idea that a conscious entity pervades the universe is in itself a description of what I see as a god. I would not see it so much an authority figure as a first mover, as you describe it.
I consider myself a monist, because I believe that the mental springs from the physical, via a phase change similar to that where water turns into ice or steam. Physical experience becomes mental experience when current physical experience is integrated with past physical/mental experience.
Essentially you are saying 'believe what I believe', without giving me any empirical reasons to believe it. This is no different than the Jehovah's Witness adherents who appear at my door. You must believe in universal consciousness for reasons. Can you share those reasons?Ramu wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 12:58 pm This isn't something you can even begin to comprehend from limited double blind peer reviewed studies. If you could jail break out of your limiting scientific dogma you wouldn't need some 3rd party consensus to discover that you are The Absolute Truth and ultimate authority. Instead you give your ultimate authority to "other" to comply with your culture which you rely upon 100% in order to feel "validated"
This is exactly what I have done in outlining my thesis. Do you have anything to say other than your exhortation to believe what you believe?
Re: What is consciousness to you?
I am not content, but I am not afraid of not knowing either.
That depends on how you measure 'knowledge'.
I am not. I do what I can given the limits imposed upon me.
And that's enough for a pragmatist.f12hte wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 1:37 pm OK, I'll give you that we can 'know' nothing. But we can come to 'believe' stuff based on our empirical experience and that becomes our personal world view and reality. We can develop rules of physics which, although they may be totally wrong, seem to work in the area of our limited experience. Wrong is often good enough.
Re: What is consciousness to you?
It's not a belief. It's based on first person experience.f12hte wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:06 pmI am not comparing panpsychism to any particular religious doctrine. The idea that a conscious entity pervades the universe is in itself a description of what I see as a god. I would not see it so much an authority figure as a first mover, as you describe it.
I consider myself a monist, because I believe that the mental springs from the physical, via a phase change similar to that where water turns into ice or steam. Physical experience becomes mental experience when current physical experience is integrated with past physical/mental experience.
Essentially you are saying 'believe what I believe', without giving me any empirical reasons to believe it. This is no different than the Jehovah's Witness adherents who appear at my door. You must believe in universal consciousness for reasons. Can you share those reasons?Ramu wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 12:58 pm This isn't something you can even begin to comprehend from limited double blind peer reviewed studies. If you could jail break out of your limiting scientific dogma you wouldn't need some 3rd party consensus to discover that you are The Absolute Truth and ultimate authority. Instead you give your ultimate authority to "other" to comply with your culture which you rely upon 100% in order to feel "validated"
This is exactly what I have done in outlining my thesis. Do you have anything to say other than your exhortation to believe what you believe?
Re: What is consciousness to you?
I'm suggesting that you shouldn't believe anyone. Certainly not me by any means. I'm certainly not advocating any kind of cult worship like Jehovah's Witnesses! I'm suggesting that You are the Ultimate Authority and no one else!f12hte wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:06 pmI am not comparing panpsychism to any particular religious doctrine. The idea that a conscious entity pervades the universe is in itself a description of what I see as a god. I would not see it so much an authority figure as a first mover, as you describe it.
I consider myself a monist, because I believe that the mental springs from the physical, via a phase change similar to that where water turns into ice or steam. Physical experience becomes mental experience when current physical experience is integrated with past physical/mental experience.
Essentially you are saying 'believe what I believe', without giving me any empirical reasons to believe it. This is no different than the Jehovah's Witness adherents who appear at my door. You must believe in universal consciousness for reasons. Can you share those reasons?Ramu wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 12:58 pm This isn't something you can even begin to comprehend from limited double blind peer reviewed studies. If you could jail break out of your limiting scientific dogma you wouldn't need some 3rd party consensus to discover that you are The Absolute Truth and ultimate authority. Instead you give your ultimate authority to "other" to comply with your culture which you rely upon 100% in order to feel "validated"
This is exactly what I have done in outlining my thesis. Do you have anything to say other than your exhortation to believe what you believe?
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attofishpi
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Re: What is consciousness to you?
If everyone were the ultimate authority, how is cooperation achieved? A greater consciousness is achieved through human communication and cooperation. Every significant human achievement requires the nurturing environment of cooperation. Just as billions of neurons underlie human consciousness, billions of people underlie the theorized corporate human consciousness. Have you ever looked at the Global Consciousness Project that is run out of Princeton?
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
Re: What is consciousness to you?
I think that I agree with you.attofishpi wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:40 pmThis much I know - it IS an extension of another 3rd parties awareness.
Re: What is consciousness to you?
Consciousness doesn't come from neurons in the brain. That's mere concept and a metaphysical assumption that scientists take for granted. Neuroscience happens within Consciousness.f12hte wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:52 pmIf everyone were the ultimate authority, how is cooperation achieved? A greater consciousness is achieved through human communication and cooperation. Every significant human achievement requires the nurturing environment of cooperation. Just as billions of neurons underlie human consciousness, billions of people underlie the theorized corporate human consciousness. Have you ever looked at the Global Consciousness Project that is run out of Princeton?
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
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SteveKlinko
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Re: What is consciousness to you?
Science has tried to find How Consciousness is located in the Neurons for a hundred years now and has failed. When I study Consciousness I like to limit my scope to Sensory Experience and then limit it even further to the Visual Experience. The Visual Experience is composed of all the Colors that can be Seen arranged in a 2D presentation that is embedded in the front of our faces. I like to study the Color Red. I like to talk about the Redness of Red to indicate that I am talking about the Conscious Phenomenon that is in your Mind and not the Electromagnetic Phenomenon at 670nm that is out in the Physical World. I have studied Brain Physiology for many years (as a Hobby) in order to try to understand How this Redness Experience can come from Neural Activity. I found out that nobody knows How this happens. Science does not know. I think about Neural Activity and I think about Redness and there is Brick Wall separating the two. There is an Explanatory Gap and this is the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
I was forced into pure Speculation. It really seems that Redness does not even exist in the Physical World but seemed after much Deeper thought to be in some other Realm of existence. I decided to Speculate that there must be some separate Conscious Space where this Redness exists. I could go on but if you are interested I refer you to http://TheInterMind.com for the rest of the story.