Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed Apr 06, 2022 10:40 am
I am going to attempt to explain what this with clarity but need to begin in steps that hopefully involve others willing to participate and 'agree' (or 'disagree') to some minimal facts regarding the description of the phenomena.
All "conscious" experience involves the following:
(1) A physical organ, namely the brain that originates and is minimally necessary for this phenomena. "Physical organ", as a more general term will be used if comparing these effects to other things, like possibly the heart or some computer. I will use "brain" here
more specifically here as minimal but reserve the general term, "physical organ" or "organ" IF we discuss whether this phenemona goes beyond our own brain.
(2) Discrete atomic (cellular) structures, of which the core units of control are called "neurons", and includes any and all necessary supporting substructures that coincide with EACH cell. This description is only meant to safely describe the nature of the brain to require
discrete units in which the collection of these make up the structural foundation of the brain that causes consciousness. This will also be helpful to reference 'atomic units' for other beings that we may possibly determine is or is not 'conscious'. I will use 'neurons' to substitute for these units that include the supporting organelles. The more general term, "atomic units" can be used where it describes the same effects elsewhere but may be controversial to assume as 'conscious' by default. I will be using things like "CPU" as an analogy at times and this would be referred to as an 'atomic unit' in just such a generic way. But it does not require meaning that CPUs are actually 'conscious' unless we could somehow prove or disprovce that later.
(3) The phenomena of consciousness is not the ONLY function of the same structure. It is only one STATE of two or more states of the brain or its neurons. This means that we are not
always conscious, such as being asleep, or that we have degrees of awareness in which we are more or less aware of being conscious at different times. This is important to differentiate between other organs that may be understood as having states that are strictly always 'on' or 'off'. This may be unnecessary for conscious states to exist in other things but is minimally essential for clarifying our human idea of experiencing consciousness as opposed to whether a computer may be 'conscious' like we are. All we at least could agree to minimally is that we have consciousness but cannot 'feel' others things, including other humans NORMALLY. If we DO, we need 'proof' that is relative to our own conscious states and or to any extended rationale that is logically valid and sound to our independent minds to conceive.
(4) The sensation of consciousness as one is made up of multiple sensations sensed apparently simultaneously. This feature of consciousness is what makes it seem so confusing when for all other things in life, we do not. To help describe this, we have two words from quantum mechanics that is useful. You don't have to agree to the particular quantum mechanics theories to agree to these. The first of the two is "
superposition", which means that multiple events occur at the same PLACE or 'position' at the same TIME; the second is "
entanglement", which means that things in distinctly different PLACES feels or appears simultaeously in TIME. Both are apparent by differnt perspectives. If we are interpreting conscious as 'one' thing in one particular location, then the input senses are in a 'superposition' of that one place; if we are interpreting multiple distinct places, like two or more distinct atomic units (neurons) as being felt at the same time, this is an 'entanglement' of different places, and thus, distinct things in these different places are felt as though it were one thing. Since we are just describing this phenomena for now, both are relevant descriptors even though maybe only one or neither of them may be possibly true.
Before going on, I need to determine if anyone else here agrees to these minimal facts. If I don't get common agreement, I don't have much further use for being here at all and so need this to decide whether I will invest beyond this opening statement, and likely this site altogether.
So, do you "agree" so far?