What is Consciousness?

[duszek]

You and Arising were mentioning the afterlife which is a religious element, isn´t it ?

I am interested in consciousness, I try to get to it using my dreams.
I am not bashing Christians.

[Izzywizzy]

I am not bashing Christians.

um you were.. but no matter

You and Arising were mentioning the afterlife which is a religious element, isn´t it ?

not necessarily, depends how you define religious element?

[chaz wyman]

Chaz Wyman The real issue isn't really "how much" evidence is required, the real issue is that you have an apparent double-standard in the way you sort and label evidence; thus dismiss evidence that contradicts your beliefs, making it convenient for you to claim that your views are based on evidence and that other people's views are not.

Nope, I don't have nay beliefs so I can't find any evidence to dismiss on those grounds. Try again!

Some claim that their beliefs are based on empirical scientific research, which usually means (unless they are practicing, published peer reviewed scientists ) that their beliefs are actually based on anecdote and testimony.

Well no. Things said to be true based on evidence are things considered "Known" not believed. Try again!

If I read a scientific article in "Nature" I am not believing in empirical evidence because I wasn`t conducting the experiment or the empirical research. All I do is read the research and what the trusted authority has to say on it.

That's you! I hope you maintain skeptical position and realize that all scientific positions are contingent on evidence and provisional upon further study.

I think this is where a healthy dose of scepticism is required in any enquiry, be it religious or scientific, both are apt to be flawed as humans are fallible in many area`s pertaining to empirical evidence.

In areas of religion there is only one response that is valid: radical doubt. For science we need constructive skepticism

By seeking only authoritive accounts and ignoring the counter claimants accounts we are left with those extreme pseudosceptics who rely on their confirmation bias in naming all other evidence as not real evidence!

Now you are just dreaming up strawmen: who are these people?
DO you know the definition of conformational bias?

That is a prejudice I am not about to concur with.
You already have!
I would advise a neutrality and opening of the mind and rather it was said that you don`t find the evidence convincing, instead of declaring that its not real evidence.

Is this hypothetical? You are good at starting by denigrating the opinions of others, only to offer daft opinions of your own.

I have given account to the scientific peer reviewed experts in this case and see no good reason for this debate to become a mere quibble back and forth. Thank you for your time.

There is no "Case". You are just swallowing speculation.

ps Chaz i couldn`t help laughing at your James Randi challenge so to all and anyone if your a betting man like our Chaz.... here is one back at you.

It's not "MY" James Randi challenge. Posting a thing is not owning it.


Victor Zammits $1 Million Challenge

http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/challenge.html

What utter bullshit!! As a Lawyer he ought to realize that a case needs to be proven. The age old innocent until proven guilty works for false assertions and flase claims too. A refutation of the after life is not a claim. The claim of the afterlife is a claim.
If a snake oil salesman claims to cure disease then he can be asked to prove it - the burden lies with him.
The case here is to prove the afterlife. There is no burden to disprove it.
Why are you on Philosophy Now if you think this is more than a piece of junk? I'm surprised at you.
This is what makes you look like a light weight thinker.
I'll give you £2,000,000 if you can disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Little things please little minds!

[chaz wyman]

NDE`s or Near Death Experiences studied
There are well documented cases of near death experiences (NDE's) in which the NDE'er was brain dead, there was no measureable brain wave activity at the time of the NDE, and yet they could describe events that occurred around them during this time. It appears consciousness is a neuroscience issue when alive, but after death it becomes a spiritual or religious issue.

Dr Raymond Moody wrote a book on his NDE and his expert findings over the many years of his empirical research as an anaesthatist.

http://www.lifeafterlife.com/

http://www.lifeafterlife.com/books.html

Please not the word "NEAR".

This has nothing to do with the afterlife; nothing to do with death.

[Arising_uk]

His much later book The Last Laugh, containing, as he states, material edited out of Life After Life, confused some of his admirers as to his own personal view of NDE phenomena, which he had done so much to publicize. In this book, he says he does not consider them to be conclusive proof of life after death, and is disturbed by the use of his works by religious fundamentalists and New Age gurus to further their causes.

...
Arising besmirches DR.Raymond Moody in a heart beat..maybe he should know the guy he/she besmirches has credentials..and tell me..what are your Arisings credentials haha?
...
need i say more? lol Dr.Raymond Moody was qualified in philosophy on three counts with honours
are you

Arising_uk - BA(Hons)Philosophy - North London Polytechnic, MSc FAIT - Imperial College, plus a lowly PGCE teaching qualification from Greenwich University. So jack-of-all-academic-trades, how about you?

But my apologies as I think I made a mistake as I was not questioning his credentials or papers but contradictions in papers you linked to earlier. Although they could have been in a different post.

Do you think you'll ever get around to answering the questions I raised in my original reply to your post? As there appeared to be a problem with you decrying 'reductionist science' and then providing links to 'reductionist' explanations of memory?

maybe you should take your own advice, after all the scientific empirical evidence presented to you , you have no choice but to take yourself off somewhere ..lol

Why would I? As I don't think there is a "somewhere" to take myself off to as the 'empirical' evidence appears scant.

[Izzywizzy]

(sigh) Arising-uk you quote someones gossip without reference on wiki about the book The Last Laugh, now where did Dr . Moody say he was editing and disowning his book life after life? nowhere thats where, shows you anyone can write anything on wiki, hardly a reliable source, here is the genuine man himself speaking about his book Last Laugh in interview with link, i see you didn`t give a link my oh my..

http://www.inlightimes.com/archives/1999/11/moody.htm

Chaz wyman wrote

Please not the word "NEAR".

This has nothing to do with the afterlife; nothing to do with death.

Um CLINICALLY pronounced dead and braindead is pretty dead. I think you will find the studies showed they came back from being pronounced dead. Also writing your entire reply in red is hurting my eyes to read please try only using red for emphasis not entire replies thank you

PS Arising UK if you have a question for another thread please leave it on that thread. I have no idea what it is you want to know? that establishment science doesn`t have its biases? it can and has, like all establishments.

[Arising_uk]

LMAO! Do you actually read the links you provide or do they just fall out of a religious database somewhere?

The quote I used did not say he was disowning his first book, just that he was disowning those who make claims that his research proves that an afterlife exists.

Something he pretty much confirms in this interview where he very, very carefully refuses to be drawn on the subject. He also calls those who do such things "NDE entertainers" and lol! at the response from one of these 'entertainers'.
p.s.
I assume that if I put a wiki quote it'd be easy to find? But just for you,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Moody
p.p.s

Arising UK if you have a question for another thread please leave it on that thread. I have no idea what it is you want to know? that establishment science doesn`t have its biases? it can and has, like all establishments.

Its fairly simple, what do you mean by "reductionist science" and its 'bias'? Why, if reductionism is 'bad', do you link to explanations of memory that appear to be 'reductionist' in the sense you appear to decry?

[chaz wyman]

(sigh) Arising-uk you quote someones gossip without reference on wiki about the book The Last Laugh, now where did Dr . Moody say he was editing and disowning his book life after life? nowhere thats where, shows you anyone can write anything on wiki, hardly a reliable source, here is the genuine man himself speaking about his book Last Laugh in interview with link, i see you didn`t give a link my oh my..

http://www.inlightimes.com/archives/1999/11/moody.htm

ROTFLMFHO!!

Have you noticed how smiley perfect and so much like Jerry Swagert they all look on that website??

Chaz wyman wrote

Please not the word "NEAR".

This has nothing to do with the afterlife; nothing to do with death.

Um CLINICALLY pronounced dead and braindead is pretty dead. I think you will find the studies showed they came back from being pronounced dead. Also writing your entire reply in red is hurting my eyes to read please try only using red for emphasis not entire replies thank you

I think you will find that you are talking complete bollocks.
CITE! Evidence!


PS Arising UK if you have a question for another thread please leave it on that thread. I have no idea what it is you want to know? that establishment science doesn`t have its biases? it can and has, like all establishments.

[Arising_uk]

Interestingly the double slit experiment shows that by simply observing them we can collapse the wave function of electrons
It seems electron wave responds to our minds over its matter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

That's what it seems. But that does not mean it is so. This phenomenon is as it appears to us.
QM is the very edge of science and it is far too early to conclude anything from the double slit experiment.

I thought it was trying to measure them that makes the difference? Whilst I understand that, in a sense, measuring is observation. Much of the common use of 'observation' in these discussions appears to imply that consciousness is needed but these results would occur if no consciousness was in the room, as its works with just the detectors present. Now I'm not saying that its not the weirdest thing ever but it only seems that these 'electron waves' respond to detectors that can measure them and I'm not sure we have this sense at the individual electron or photon level that is, as its obvious that we do detect large amounts of photons and electrons in our reality. Although the evidence appears to be that we can only naturally detect 'a' photon of colour after about 4 have actually hit the eye.

[Mike Strand]

You might be interested in the short thread launched in Dec. 2009 by 2bsirius, called "Neurotrash or Consciousness Unexplained". For convenience, I'll re-post here some of the key discussions.

A quote from Bertrand Russell, posted by participant boriqa:

Betrand Russell wrote in his short essay "Do We Survive Death?" (found in Why I am Not a Christian but first published in a book entitled The Mysteries of Life and Death, 1936):
Quote:
"Our memories and habits are bound up with the structure of the brain, in much the same way in which a river is connected with the rived-bed. The water in the river is always changing, but it keeps to the same course because previous events have worn a channel. In like manner, previous events have worn a channel in the brain, and our thoughts flow along this channel. This is the cause of memory and mental habits. But the brain, as a structure, is dissolved at death , and memory therefore may be expected to be also dissolved. There is no more reason to think otherwise than to expect a river to persist in its old course after an earthquake has raised a mountain where a valley used to be."

Here is my reaction to what Russell said, which takes his statement as revealing a practical, down-to-earth view of what consciousness might be, and whether it can exist separate from our bodies or brains:

The quote from B. Russell is persuasive. The experiences I have in life build my memory, which can be viewed as neural-electrical-chemical patterns stored in my brain and which are part of my awareness, along with my surroundings. I experience myself day after day in my surroundings, and this creates my memory, which can be viewed as my very identity as perceived by me. I can think about my remembered experiences (another natural brain function) and refine or even revise my memory/identity. And my identity may change as I continue to live and experience myself in my surroundings. Of course, other people who see, remember, or record aspects my life also build their own idea of what my identity is, which may disagree with mine in many areas.

A severe blow to the head or other physical event that damages or shakes up my brain tissue can damage memory, hence cause me to loose part of my sense of who I am. If my identity were not part of my body (i.e. if I had a "soul"), why should a physical event like a blow to my head affect my ability to know myself? To find out again who I might be, I would have to study records or ask other people what are their memories of me, in order to regain awareness of who I am. If my own former memory doesn't come back (i.e. if the brain damage is not repaired - maybe it never can be perfectly repaired), then the idea I have of my own identity will never be what it was. Again, this seems to contradict the idea of "spirit" or "soul", which, one would like to assume, is indestructible, or at least not affected by events which apparently should only affect brain tissue.

It appears to me, then, that my "consciousness" is just self-awareness as I and my brain perceive the world and build memories. If the brain is damaged, I can loose consciousness literally (get knocked out), or I can wake up - meaning my brain starts perceiving and remembering again - but still not remember my past experiences -- amnesia. If the brain heals sufficiently, some of that past identity may return. I may still know how to ride a bike, assuming that parts of my nervous system outside of my skull are not damaged, but even "muscle memory" depends on healthy nerve tissue.

Here is the challenging question: Where or what is the entity that does not depend on the body and the material of the brain, which some say is our "consciousness", and which thus should be able to survive nerve or brain injury, or even death?

[Izzywizzy]

Arising -UK

LMAO! Do you actually read the links you provide or do they just fall out of a religious database somewhere?

I`ll take that as your not being able to provide a link for the wiki quote you gave. haha..the data base i linked to says what it is and it is a metaphysical publication

Chaz wyman wrote

I think you will find that you are talking complete bollocks.

Well thats the way to show you are losing a debate. Adhominem and insults are just a big yawn and better placed somewhere other than a philosophy forum tata

Mike Strand wrote

It appears to me, then, that my "consciousness" is just self-awareness as I and my brain perceive the world and build memories. If the brain is damaged, I can loose consciousness literally (get knocked out), or I can wake up - meaning my brain starts perceiving and remembering again - but still not remember my past experiences -- amnesia. If the brain heals sufficiently, some of that past identity may return. I may still know how to ride a bike, assuming that parts of my nervous system outside of my skull are not damaged, but even "muscle memory" depends on healthy nerve tissue.

Here is the challenging question: Where or what is the entity that does not depend on the body and the material of the brain, which some say is our "consciousness", and which thus should be able to survive nerve or brain injury, or even death?

Good question Mike and you are right in terms of bad accidents can cause total memory loss as can Alzheimers disease. It is as if one is robbed from their consciousness at such times. Indeed their memory fails them. Because the brain is wired to send signals back and forth neural pathways and of course if you get brain damage it affects this process in operating correctly.

The consciousness that suvives death is what many people would call the "soul" be they theist or non theists, what is the soul or spirit? the over mind or higher mind? its a difficult concept but when or IF we ever figure it out scientifically would become quite natural. its nature as nature was intended, do you think nature is bought about by random chaos and big bangs. That led onto the order we see?

[chaz wyman]

Arising -UK

LMAO! Do you actually read the links you provide or do they just fall out of a religious database somewhere?

I`ll take that as your not being able to provide a link for the wiki quote you gave. haha..the data base i linked to says what it is and it is a metaphysical publication

Chaz wyman wrote

I think you will find that you are talking complete bollocks.

Well thats the way to show you are losing a debate. Adhominem and insults are just a big yawn and better placed somewhere other than a philosophy forum tata

Your ignorance of the phrase ad hominem is matched only by your touching ignorance and willing credulity when it comes to QM.
I was not attacking you , I was attacking what you were saying. I was attacking the bollocks you were speaking, not the fact that you are an idiot.
If I had said that your views were crap becasue you are an idiot then that would be an ad hominem.
I hope that helps.



Mike Strand wrote

It appears to me, then, that my "consciousness" is just self-awareness as I and my brain perceive the world and build memories. If the brain is damaged, I can loose consciousness literally (get knocked out), or I can wake up - meaning my brain starts perceiving and remembering again - but still not remember my past experiences -- amnesia. If the brain heals sufficiently, some of that past identity may return. I may still know how to ride a bike, assuming that parts of my nervous system outside of my skull are not damaged, but even "muscle memory" depends on healthy nerve tissue.

Here is the challenging question: Where or what is the entity that does not depend on the body and the material of the brain, which some say is our "consciousness", and which thus should be able to survive nerve or brain injury, or even death?

Good question Mike and you are right in terms of bad accidents can cause total memory loss as can Alzheimers disease. It is as if one is robbed from their consciousness at such times. Indeed their memory fails them. Because the brain is wired to send signals back and forth neural pathways and of course if you get brain damage it affects this process in operating correctly.

The consciousness that suvives death is what many people would call the "soul" be they theist or non theists, what is the soul or spirit? the over mind or higher mind? its a difficult concept but when or IF we ever figure it out scientifically would become quite natural. its nature as nature was intended, do you think nature is bought about by random chaos and big bangs. That led onto the order we see?

[Arising_uk]

I`ll take that as your not being able to provide a link for the wiki quote you gave. haha..the data base i linked to says what it is and it is a metaphysical publication

Sorry!? You want me to find the author of the wiki link entry? Tell you, why not edit the wiki entry and see if your version holds as it is flagged for citation need. The relevant passage is in Moody's careers section attached to the wiki link I provided in my last post to you.

But I gotta admit you are annoying me enough to read the books to check. Should take quite a few months as this kinda stuff causes me to nod-off but I'll get back to you with results and a retraction if needed but I suspect not.

"metaphysical publication" Whats one of those? One of these? http://www.inlightimes.com/index.html

Phew! Pretty deep stuff or maybe just New Age fluff?

Do you think you'll get around to answering my questions any time soon?
p.s.
I'm not surprised you like Typists thoughts as your manner is much the same.

[Izzywizzy]

Sorry!? You want me to find the author of the wiki link entry? Tell you, why not edit the wiki entry

Arising i don`t see how i could respond to the wiki link if you can`t give it here? sheer logic really

But I gotta admit you are annoying me enough to read the books to check

my intent was not to annoy, shame you have a short fuse you could learn something

I'm not surprised you like Typists thoughts as your manner is much the same.

again off topic about another thread i agreed with Typist ..my i wonder how do you sleep at night worrying over such a piffling occasional agreement lol

[Arising_uk]

Arising i don`t see how i could respond to the wiki link if you can`t give it here? sheer logic really ...

Hard of sight? Still, here it is again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Moody

my intent was not to annoy, shame you have a short fuse you could learn something

I doubt it. It could just be your manner but I accept I'm finding my patience strained lately at those who ignore questions.

again off topic about another thread i agreed with Typist ..my i wonder how do you sleep at night worrying over such a piffling occasional agreement lol

Since you won't answer my on-topic questions I fail to see a problem with off-topic observations. But wonder not, I sleep like a baby.