Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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

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Greta
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

Post by Greta »

Greylorn Ell wrote: Tue Jul 24, 2018 11:17 pm
Greta wrote: Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:07 am
Greylorn Ell wrote: Mon Jul 23, 2018 5:18 am Would you kindly share this "list" with someone who at this point thinks you do not know squat about anything?
He's referring to DAM claiming that there is nothing - that nothing exists and this is all an illusion. Then, with probing, he finds there is naught but consciousness. Some more probing and now the story is that there is nothing but consciousness and concepts. As he noted, the list is growing. Next we are hoping to add three French hens, or maybe five golden rings?

Otherwise, I agree with your criticisms because there's plenty of over-certain suggestions being made about that which no certainty is possible. Basically it's a failure of intellectual rigour and discipline. It's easy enough to add qualifiers when airing one's speculative views about the great unknown questions of existence but some prefer to game their ideas as promotion.

For the record, my intuition tells me that the Earth and other complex cosmic bodies could quite possibly be conscious, but a different kind of mind to animal consciousness. However, proving an intuition is a whole other matter. Even the ancients knew that intuition wasn't enough, that we need to question ourselves as well as others.

Somehow that lesson seems to be getting lost in this climate of "fake news", where bluster and gamesmanship are more highly regarded than hard-won knowledge.
Personally, I don't think that "intellectual rigour and discipline" exist. (I worked in high-tech engineering, astronomy, physics, and even a bit of biochemical development.) Real scientists are just a bunch of young men having fun with idea exploration, and mostly winging it. The IR & D bullshit only comes into play when they go to school and come away with a Ph.D.

Your insights regarding the potential of cosmic-body consciousness fit my personal theories. If you are like the new-agers who've promoted consciousness notions, you'll probably think that animals are consciousness, and if so, I disagree-- with occasional non-general exceptions.

What is your best definition of consciousness?
There are degrees of discipline and rigour. As an example, if you have a peak experience and feel like you have communed with God, do you believe those impressions implicitly or wonder about possible alternative explanations? The latter is relatively rigorous and the former is the grasping of the first beautiful possibility.

By "animal consciousness" I was including humans. The supposed gulf between humans and other animals was created because H. sapiens out-competed (and often ate) their nearest hominid cousins. Dominance as a group species meant being able to develop culture instead of wasting time, effort and opportunity trying to evade predators. Thus, the gap created when the last Neanderthal died became wider.

As for the planet being conscious, it's fanciful. I feel more confident about making the case that the planet is a living entity not just "a rock" than a conscious one, but are no doubt different kinds of consciousness.

I like to think that the flow of water, magma, molten rock, sand etc is like the flow of consciousness, with river channels being equivalent to electrical signals following the conditioned channels of our neurons. Maybe.

One aspect Part of this came after wondering why we wake up after sleep as ourselves rather than starting again as a blank.
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Harbal
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Greylorn Ell wrote: Tue Jul 24, 2018 11:17 pm You give Hairball more credit than he warrants. He's clearly not studied Descartes,
Any idiot can study Descartes, but that would just make him an idiot who knows something about Descartes. I'm assuming that you have studied Descartes, in which case you prove my point.
Last edited by Harbal on Wed Jul 25, 2018 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Greylorn Ell wrote: Tue Jul 24, 2018 10:43 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jul 24, 2018 8:25 am
Greylorn Ell wrote: Mon Jul 23, 2018 5:14 am What happens to whatever passes in you for consciousness after your body's physiological death?
Nothing ever happened. Including death.

The body has never been alive, so how can it die...birth and death are concepts, and concepts are illusions, seeing through the illusion of the concept of I..is freedom from the bondage of birth and death, aka fear of losing.

No one ever loses, everything wins...because there is only everything which is not a thing.
You've established yourself as an intellectually dysfunctional person, worthy of future responses from idiots and pinheads only. I'm certain that this "philosophy" forum will not deprive you of correspondents who think at your level.
Greylorn
Well last time I looked this person what ever that is is functioning quite efficiently and is all present and correct, so thank God for that, it takes the pressure of the person to have to perform.


What this I is that is Looking I have no idea, but what ever it is, it’s here perfectly functional on every conceivable level.

Your comments are banal and meaningless, the product of a confused mind.



.
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bahman
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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marsh8472 wrote: Wed Oct 22, 2014 6:33 am
Wyman wrote:Why would the possibility of a duplicate brain state existing somewhere else imply that such a duplicate does in fact exist?If you bake a cake in Australia and then admit the possibility that such a cake could be baked in Russia, that is in no way an assurance that such a cake is in fact baked in Russia.

And why would the unlikelihood/improbability of an occurrence (your experienced consciousness) that you perceive, cause you to doubt that you perceive it? If you win the lottery (1 in 100 million), will you hand the money back, saying 'It is so improbable that I should win the lottery, that I believe I, in fact, did not win the lottery.'
It doesn't technically imply it exists unless my premises are true which I don't know if they are or not. Part of the problem i'm having is the definition of "exists" too.

These are the premises

1) our subjective experience and consciousnesses at any given moment is caused by information processing
2) any arbitrary information process can be mapped to data elsewhere
3) an information process that can be mapped elsewhere exists(?) elsewhere
4) our brain state is an information process
5) from 2, 3, and 5 each of our brain states exists elsewhere
Brain states are where the brain is.
Greylorn Ell
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Greylorn Ell wrote: Tue Jul 24, 2018 11:17 pm
Personally, I don't think that "intellectual rigour and discipline" exist. (I worked in high-tech engineering, astronomy, physics, and even a bit of biochemical development.) Real scientists are just a bunch of young men having fun with idea exploration, and mostly winging it. The IR & D bullshit only comes into play when they go to school and come away with a Ph.D.

Your insights regarding the potential of cosmic-body consciousness fit my personal theories. If you are like the new-agers who've promoted consciousness notions, you'll probably think that animals are consciousness, and if so, I disagree-- with occasional non-general exceptions.

What is your best definition of consciousness?
Greta wrote: There are degrees of discipline and rigour. As an example, if you have a peak experience and feel like you have communed with God, do you believe those impressions implicitly or wonder about possible alternative explanations? The latter is relatively rigorous and the former is the grasping of the first beautiful possibility.
Your distinction is both insightful and elegantly presented. Thank you!

I've not had peak experiences of the sort that others have reported, merely moments of sudden and unanticipated conceptual understanding of things with which few people care about, such as the beginnings of things.

With respect to my own small moments of insight and the more significant experiences of others, I take both approaches. First, I accept the impressions. After all these represent data. Although some data are false or misleading, the valid stuff can be discerned, and from those data one can devise a cogent explanatory theory-- or at least attempt to do so. That part, the rigor, is most difficult, and most rewarding.
Greta wrote: By "animal consciousness" I was including humans. The supposed gulf between humans and other animals was created because H. sapiens out-competed (and often ate) their nearest hominid cousins. Dominance as a group species meant being able to develop culture instead of wasting time, effort and opportunity trying to evade predators. Thus, the gap created when the last Neanderthal died became wider.
Some people I know would claim personal knowledge that the last Neanderthal is still alive. Genetic evidence suggests that they've merely been assimilated. But no matter.

Would you consider the possibility that there exists a distinct entity which embodies the properties of truly independent consciousness, something akin to the "soul" of religious fantasy, the entity Descartes distinguished as connected to the human brain via the pineal gland, capable of existing independently after its connection to the brain is severed? (Forget the pineal gland connection, though. Neurological experiments going as far back as 1948 (Wilder Penfield) suggest more interesting, scientifically viable alternatives.)
Greta wrote: As for the planet being conscious, it's fanciful. I feel more confident about making the case that the planet is a living entity not just "a rock" than a conscious one, but are no doubt different kinds of consciousness.

I like to think that the flow of water, magma, molten rock, sand etc is like the flow of consciousness, with river channels being equivalent to electrical signals following the conditioned channels of our neurons. Maybe.
The flow of stuff through the planet seems reasonably analogous to the complex flows of energy through animal and human brains, or through the components of a computer. However, does the mere flow of energy imply consciousness within a brain or a planet? No computer I've constructed or programmed has greeted me upon a morning's fire-up with the message, Cogito ergo sum.
Greta wrote: One aspect Part of this came after wondering why we wake up after sleep as ourselves rather than starting again as a blank.


A next step might be to awaken wondering how you have come to exist as a conscious, self-aware being-- that is, to wonder at your core beginnings.

Thank you for the conversation. -Greylorn :)
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Harbal
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

Post by Harbal »

Greylorn Ell wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:13 pm No computer I've constructed or programmed has greeted me upon a morning's fire-up with the message, Cogito ergo sum.
And how many people do you know who greet you like that? How long have you been suffering from this Descartes obsession of yours.
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

Post by Belinda »

Greylorn Ell wrote:
No computer I've constructed or programmed has greeted me upon a morning's fire-up with the message, Cogito ergo sum.
Have you not made one with a concept of its self?
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Greta
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Thanks for the feedback earlier, Grey.
Greylorn Ell wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:13 pmWith respect to my own small moments of insight and the more significant experiences of others, I take both approaches. First, I accept the impressions. After all these represent data. Although some data are false or misleading, the valid stuff can be discerned, and from those data one can devise a cogent explanatory theory-- or at least attempt to do so. That part, the rigor, is most difficult, and most rewarding.
That makes sense.

I had what seemed to be a strong mystical experience, including an all-pervading sense of bliss within and unconditional love from without (not that insides and outsides were all that clear at the time). The vibe and feeling was all very "Goddish" and, if I'd been a different kind of personality, I would be talking about communing with God and the like.

However, countless experiments have shown us the way our brains and bodies are evolved to fool us, favouring efficacy over accuracy. Time and again, things that we only partially perceive are "filled in" to appear complete by our brains, the gaps being filled by mental models based on prior experiences.

Greylorn Ell wrote:
Greta wrote:By "animal consciousness" I was including humans. The supposed gulf between humans and other animals was created because H. sapiens out-competed (and often ate) their nearest hominid cousins. Dominance as a group species meant being able to develop culture instead of wasting time, effort and opportunity trying to evade predators. Thus, the gap created when the last Neanderthal died became wider.
Some people I know would claim personal knowledge that the last Neanderthal is still alive. Genetic evidence suggests that they've merely been assimilated. But no matter.

Would you consider the possibility that there exists a distinct entity which embodies the properties of truly independent consciousness, something akin to the "soul" of religious fantasy, the entity Descartes distinguished as connected to the human brain via the pineal gland, capable of existing independently after its connection to the brain is severed? (Forget the pineal gland connection, though. Neurological experiments going as far back as 1948 (Wilder Penfield) suggest more interesting, scientifically viable alternatives.)
You could also say that the Neanderthals were "absorbed" - just 1-4% of the genetics of non-Africans. Then there's all the other hominids, some of which have a genetic legacy like the Denisovans.

Re the soul: I have no idea. I am most interested in (but in no rush to experience) the period where a person is officially dead but their brain is still running on its remnant oxygen. Can you imagine a more intense experience?? "Farking hell, I'm dead! I really am dead! This is IT!!" :lol:

It would be interesting to know how some of the amazing near death experiences would have played out if the people weren't resuscitated. It's easiest to imagine the imperceptible fadeout of sleep but - then again - it's death, not sleep so who knows?

I always liked that famous JBS Haldane quote: "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose".

Greylorn Ell wrote:
Greta wrote:As for the planet being conscious, it's fanciful. I feel more confident about making the case that the planet is a living entity not just "a rock" than a conscious one, but are no doubt different kinds of consciousness.

I like to think that the flow of water, magma, molten rock, sand etc is like the flow of consciousness, with river channels being equivalent to electrical signals following the conditioned channels of our neurons. Maybe.
The flow of stuff through the planet seems reasonably analogous to the complex flows of energy through animal and human brains, or through the components of a computer. However, does the mere flow of energy imply consciousness within a brain or a planet? No computer I've constructed or programmed has greeted me upon a morning's fire-up with the message, Cogito ergo sum.
Yes, but have any of your computers rebelled - refused to do as asked? :)

My guess is that IIT is on the right track, that there would be thresholds of feedback complexity that bring about emergent phenomena. The Earth is exceptionally complex as life is part of it. So our (and other animals') consciousness IS the Earth's consciousness, or at least to a fair extent. What's that saying? ... humans are the universe finding out about itself (or something like that).

Greylorn Ell wrote:
Greta wrote:One aspect Part of this came after wondering why we wake up after sleep as ourselves rather than starting again as a blank.


A next step might be to awaken wondering how you have come to exist as a conscious, self-aware being-- that is, to wonder at your core beginnings.
It's all very odd. Awareness seems to come on gradually, bit by bit certain capacities arise. Basically, each of us individually follows the path of human evolution - from microbe to adult human - and our consciousness gradually dawns, starting with basic senses. This growth caper is hard work too. Consider that moment when you are first delivered into the world. The light would be blinding, the sounds deafening and cacophonous, the temperature freezing and you howl for your first breath, your first connection with the atmosphere. No wonder we dive desperately into a cleavage that smells right.

The process is all pretty brutal when you think about it, and it surely doesn't get easier in those other times of transition, toddlerhood and the teens. Then you are thrown into a crowded, hyper competitive adult world with a declining natural environment that's full of people who seem to know far more than you. Then there's struggles for accommodation, bills, relationship issues, childbirth, illness and injury, loss and grief, boredom, frustration and anger, being duped and exploited, maybe a divorce or three, maybe retrenchments, and then you move towards decrepitude and death, which hopefully doesn't involve being kept alive in agony for years to satisfy theistic superstitions.

This is perhaps the best reason why we should try to be kind (which is not always easy) no matter what one's metaphysical beliefs, because the travails of existence are plenty enough without adding to it :)
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Harbal wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:53 pm
Greylorn Ell wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:13 pm No computer I've constructed or programmed has greeted me upon a morning's fire-up with the message, Cogito ergo sum.
And how many people do you know who greet you like that? How long have you been suffering from this Descartes obsession of yours.
If a friend ever greeted me in such a manner I'd consider it a request that he be put out of his misery.

In the real world, consciousness is determined implicitly, in context measured in the favor of consciousness by the imaginative give and take of concepts, or measured in disfavor by the paucity of commentary value and measure of unnecessary antipathy.

Consciousness is not measured by the ability to form sentences (computers and socialists can do that), but by the conceptual content within the sentences.
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Belinda wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:55 pm Greylorn Ell wrote:
No computer I've constructed or programmed has greeted me upon a morning's fire-up with the message, Cogito ergo sum.
Have you not made one with a concept of its self?
The best I've done was to get a very small computer to confuse some teenagers, though I did not learn of the effect until years later.

My theories propose that consciousness arises naturally, but only within a mechanism or entity capable of naturally and freely violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which neither computers nor biological brains can do.

Greylorn
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Greylorn Ell wrote:
My theories propose that consciousness arises naturally, but only within a mechanism or entity capable of naturally and freely violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which neither computers nor biological brains can do.
"but" ?

Did you have in mind that the alternative to naturally is supernaturally?

Did you perhaps mean that consciousness is not an entity but several sorts of process each of which is correlated with specific brain chemicals?
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Greylorn Ell wrote: Thu Jul 26, 2018 1:54 am Consciousness is not measured by the ability to form sentences (computers and socialists can do that), but by the conceptual content within the sentences.
And the example you provided:
In the real world, consciousness is determined implicitly, in context measured in the favor of consciousness by the imaginative give and take of concepts, or measured in disfavor by the paucity of commentary value and measure of unnecessary antipathy.
Was it produced by a computer or a socialist, or even a monkey with a typewriter? If the latter, then obviously there wasn't an infinite number of monkeys on the job.
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Harbal, Greylorn, or anyone who so misuses English, cannot be serious.
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

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Greylorn Ell wrote: Thu Jul 26, 2018 2:01 am
My theories propose that consciousness arises naturally, but only within a mechanism or entity capable of naturally and freely violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which neither computers nor biological brains can do.
What does this consciousness that arises naturally ...what does it look like?

What is this entity, what does that look like?

.

Your comments makes absolutely no sense without telling what it is exactly you are referring to,apart from the use of ''concepts'' with attached meaning that are pointing to what it is you are trying to say.

What is consciousness? ..you use the word as if it actually exists, so where is it, what does it look like, can you measure it, and who or what is it that measures it to know it exists? what entity are you referring to?

First descibe what this consciousness is that you have claimed to arise naturally within an entity? and then descibe what this enity is.

.

If you can't answer any of the above questions then all you have here are meaningless concepts strung together to form a meaningful story arising from nothing...known by no-one.

.
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Re: Proof for Consciousness existing outside our brains

Post by Greylorn Ell »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jul 26, 2018 2:36 am Greylorn Ell wrote:
My theories propose that consciousness arises naturally, but only within a mechanism or entity capable of naturally and freely violating the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which neither computers nor biological brains can do.
"but" ?

Did you have in mind that the alternative to naturally is supernaturally?

Did you perhaps mean that consciousness is not an entity but several sorts of process each of which is correlated with specific brain chemicals?
Supernatural is a term invented by ignorant religionists who seem to believe that inventing a word to describe stuff they do not take the trouble to investigate absolves them from any responsibility to do so. There is no such thing as the supernatural, but there are plenty of things about which most people prefer to remain ignorant. Greta's JBS Haldane quote above applies.

Consciousness is not an entity. It is a property that certain entities can possess and manifest, on occasion. My understanding of it: The ability to process conceptual information plus the awareness of doing so. This self-awareness at the level of thought allows an entity to process information selectively, even to devise formal methods that favor efficient thinking.

I regard consciousness in humans as primarily the property of a potentially conscious entity that I call "beon" which is integrated with the brain, using it as an indirect source of sensory information and as a communication device. The brain itself is not conscious, but if disconnected from beon, epiphenomenal effects allow it to mimic consciousness and intelligence.
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