Consciousness

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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popeye1945
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Re: Consciousness

Post by popeye1945 »

Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:12 am Is consciousness just a function of the brain, like digestion is a function of the digestive organs. When the digestive organs die, then there will be no more digestion. Similarly, when the brain dies, there will be no more consciousness. Therefore, there is no afterlife. What do you think?
Jori,

Yes, I think your on to something here, to my way of thinking, just as perception is a reaction so to is the processes of consciousness. The physical world acting upon us, read all organisms/ as cause, just as we are causes in the world. Both cause and reaction being the basic processes of reality. In the absence of reaction, there could be no evolutionary development and so, life would cease to be.
Belinda
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Re: Consciousness

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 11:34 pm
Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:12 am Is consciousness just a function of the brain, like digestion is a function of the digestive organs. When the digestive organs die, then there will be no more digestion. Similarly, when the brain dies, there will be no more consciousness. Therefore, there is no afterlife. What do you think?
Jori,

Yes, I think your on to something here, to my way of thinking, just as perception is a reaction so to is the processes of consciousness. The physical world acting upon us, read all organisms/ as cause, just as we are causes in the world. Both cause and reaction being the basic processes of reality. In the absence of reaction, there could be no evolutionary development and so, life would cease to be.
The track Jori is on does not go far enough.
The proposition consciousness is a function of the brain is, qua proposition, a function of consciousness or as it's usually called mind. Indeed all of neuroscience is a function of mind, i.e. neuroscience is one way among many others that humans have devised to make sense of what would otherwise be chaotic.

We die is another proposition that we have devised to explain transience. Nobody really knows what absolute existence is like.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Consciousness

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 10:56 am Nobody really knows what absolute existence is like.
Image

When the sense of being a witness, or subject, looking out at the world disappears - only the absolute existence is.

No body knows this.
Belinda
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Re: Consciousness

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 11:35 am
Belinda wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 10:56 am Nobody really knows what absolute existence is like.
Image

When the sense of being a witness, or subject, looking out at the world disappears - only the absolute existence is.

No body knows this.
That's good way to express the Absolute, and the graphic is helpful.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Consciousness

Post by RCSaunders »

bahman wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 9:13 pm Mind is an irreducible substance. It cannot be created or destroyed.
Consciousness, which all the higher animals share, and the unique human consciousness, called the mind, is not an entity, or thing, or substance. Consciousness is an attribute (quality, property, or state) of some organisms and does not exist independently of the physical organisms it is an attribute of. There is no, "stuff," called consciousness or mind.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Consciousness

Post by RCSaunders »

Sculptor wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 6:36 pm
bahman wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:11 pm
Sculptor wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:06 pm
FFS How many times do I have to tell you.
Read what I have said.
Which kind of evidence do you want me to show you? That you will live after your death? You have to wait for that. If you are not patient enough then read through my argument.
Please refer to the remarks I have previously made
I think bahman is channeling Eddie Murphy:

"What do you need evidence for? Trust me! Image
popeye1945
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Re: Consciousness

Post by popeye1945 »

I do not think that the witness thing is unaccessible to us. I have had the experience of being totally without memory. All I really knew was the vitality of being alive, this is naked being, perhaps absolute, nothing cluttering one's perceptions of being in the world.
Belinda
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Re: Consciousness

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 4:42 pm I do not think that the witness thing is unaccessible to us. I have had the experience of being totally without memory. All I really knew was the vitality of being alive, this is naked being, perhaps absolute, nothing cluttering one's perceptions of being in the world.
"The vitality of being alive" is what most people call "experience".
popeye1945
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Re: Consciousness

Post by popeye1945 »

Belinda wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 5:58 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 4:42 pm I do not think that the witness thing is unaccessible to us. I have had the experience of being totally without memory. All I really knew was the vitality of being alive, this is naked being, perhaps absolute, nothing cluttering one's perceptions of being in the world.
"The vitality of being alive" is what most people call "experience".
I think what you call the vitality of being alive as experience is not what most people in fact do experience. It has been said that what people are looking for in their lives is not greater meaning, but to feel the rapture of being alive. Most people I believe rarely experience rapture. Certainly the nine to five experience is not conducive to rapture.
Belinda
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Re: Consciousness

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 6:57 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 5:58 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Mon Feb 21, 2022 4:42 pm I do not think that the witness thing is unaccessible to us. I have had the experience of being totally without memory. All I really knew was the vitality of being alive, this is naked being, perhaps absolute, nothing cluttering one's perceptions of being in the world.
"The vitality of being alive" is what most people call "experience".
I think what you call the vitality of being alive as experience is not what most people in fact do experience. It has been said that what people are looking for in their lives is not greater meaning, but to feel the rapture of being alive. Most people I believe rarely experience rapture. Certainly the nine to five experience is not conducive to rapture.
If I felt rapture during the nine to five I'd suspect I was hypomanic.
jayjacobus
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Re: Consciousness

Post by jayjacobus »

Jori wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:12 am Is consciousness just a function of the brain, like digestion is a function of the digestive organs. When the digestive organs die, then there will be no more digestion. Similarly, when the brain dies, there will be no more consciousness. Therefore, there is no afterlife. What do you think?
Consciousness depends on the brain but has an unknown source. It could be the brain but how the brain makes consciousness is a mystery while how the digestive system makes digestion is known.

When the brain dies consciousness may still exist but it will be blanked out.
popeye1945
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Re: Consciousness

Post by popeye1945 »

Belinda wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 6:49 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 2:49 pm Consciousness is a reaction, and it is a full-bodied consciousness. The body is consciousness, and it was the body that created the brain/mind, not the other way around. In the statement, "Subject and Object stand or fall together" it is an elemental observation that there can be no true separation between the two, but a relation, within the context of a whole. The physical world is cause, other beings, being part of your physical reality are also cause to you the subject, the subject is that which reacts and the reaction is consciousness, the whole process of perception cognition and understanding are all reaction. The full readout of all reactions we call apparent reality, as apposed to ultimate reality, to which we have only limited access. The great elemental soup of ultimate reality is only partially available to our senses.
So Popeye favours (ontic) materialism.
Hi Belinda,

If I have your meaning right, no, there are no independent things/objects in the world.
Belinda
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Re: Consciousness

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 3:33 am
Belinda wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 6:49 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 2:49 pm Consciousness is a reaction, and it is a full-bodied consciousness. The body is consciousness, and it was the body that created the brain/mind, not the other way around. In the statement, "Subject and Object stand or fall together" it is an elemental observation that there can be no true separation between the two, but a relation, within the context of a whole. The physical world is cause, other beings, being part of your physical reality are also cause to you the subject, the subject is that which reacts and the reaction is consciousness, the whole process of perception cognition and understanding are all reaction. The full readout of all reactions we call apparent reality, as apposed to ultimate reality, to which we have only limited access. The great elemental soup of ultimate reality is only partially available to our senses.
So Popeye favours (ontic) materialism.
Hi Belinda,

If I have your meaning right, no, there are no independent things/objects in the world.
You wrote:
The body is consciousness, and it was the body that created the brain/mind, not the other way around.
and that is a materialist (physicalist) proposition. If you had written instead " The brain/mind created the body" then that would have been an immaterialist (idealist) proposition.

I had thought you were inclined to idealism(immaterialism), but I don't understand what you mean by "independent things/objects".

Independent of what? I guess you mean mind-independent, but I am not sure. I am not being pedantic for the sake of pedantry. If you are idealist I'd like to know as there are so few of us.
popeye1945
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Re: Consciousness

Post by popeye1945 »

Hi Belinda.

No, on an evolutionary level one cannot deny that the body created the brain. As far as objects are concerned, they are biologically dependent. The apparent reality is a biological readout.
Belinda
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Re: Consciousness

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:02 am Hi Belinda.

No, on an evolutionary level one cannot deny that the body created the brain. As far as objects are concerned, they are biologically dependent. The apparent reality is a biological readout.
Thanks.
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