What is so mysterious about human consciousness?

[digonswine]

Forgive me if this has been done here--I have not seen it.

I hear supposedly deep-thinking people refer to our consciousness as not being explainable and something like the last frontier for understanding the human mind. It is like it is some magical happening that transcends current knowledge.

Maybe I am thick--I don't get it. It seems that metacognition is nearly inevitable when natural selection is given some time.

Are we so enamored with ourselves that we need to find something to wonder about? It seems that I have seen many animal studies that suggest that other species are self-aware to a degree. What makes us so special?

Is there a quality of the human mind that I just don't get, being trapped inside it?

[qazplm]

1. what causes it?

where is it located? Does it survive death? What exactly is it? Those are all seemingly important questions for which we don't have many answers, other than maybe that it likely does not survive death.

[digonswine]

3. I would think that the "cause" is--

the evolution of a prefrontal cortex--I think it does not survive death, as it is in the brain.
I think some of us think we are special because of our ability to think so deeply. I am pretty sure that we are not special, that our minds do not survive death, and that we are simply lucky to have this short time.

To misquote Vonnegut--

“God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the
sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look
around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly
couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to
think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and
look around.


I am but some lucky mud.

[longship]

5. So it goes

Hello.
Good-bye.
Hello.
Good-bye.
...

[qazplm]

21. that's not an answer

pointing to a section of the brain doesn't tell us what causes consciousness, merely a general guess as to where it resides. Then again, we don't know. It could be solely there, it could be partially there and partially other places.

It's a mystery because we don't know much about it, and it's difficult to trust what we do know because in effect we are trying to look within our own thoughts.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Ego , the detour from Perspicacity

[digonswine]

4. Please, go on--

[orpupilofnature57]

6. If we have no reason, to reason

we won't , because there's no reason to.

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. Here is what's so mysterious about it:

Thought experiment - Doctor Futuro has a magic machine, that can perform both teleportation, and the making of a perfect copy of anything instantly from base elements. Using it, he can for instance make a copy of somebody's diseased heart, operate on it outside their body, then instantly teleport the new heart into your body, swapping it out for the old heart. The whole process is so instant and seemless, perfect down to the molecular level that your body doesn't even know a new heart was swapped in, it just keeps on ticking with the new healthy heart.

Now you go to Futuro's lab to see this wonderful invention, but there is an accident, and your brain is piece by piece copied, and the old pieces of your brain are swapped out with the new copied pieces, leaving the pieces of your old brain in a bloody heap on the floor.

Question, are you still the same person? Granted you will act the same, have the same memories, because behaviors and memories are presumably results of configurations of the brain, which was perfectly copied. But is your consciousness the same, or are all your memories and behaviors being experienced by a new person who is exactly like you?

If you are the same person (same consciousness) then you have to accept all kinds of weirdness: One is that you could have just been copied perfectly, meaning your consciousness would be in two places at once. Not another person who is just like you, but YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS in two bodies at once.

If you reject that idea and think that you would be dead (because your specific brain was removed) with a new person there, then you have to identify how your old brain, which is molecularly identical to Dr. Futuro's copy, was different.

edit: BTW, I agree nothing is special about human consciousness vs. animal. I am just pointing out how weird the whole idea is.

[jeff47]

8. It doesn't start different

But it rapidly becomes different as each one experiences different stuff.

[napoleon_in_rags]

13. That's still weird.

So the instant you are copied, your staring at yourself through two different pairs of eyes simultaneously, until your two selves diverge. Which do you become and which becomes someone else and why?

[jeff47]

14. You are going to be in one

You are only going to be experiencing life as one copy. So that one is you. The other one is your copy.

Applies whichever one you end up in.

(I will note that it will be difficult to unravel who gets your SSN)

[napoleon_in_rags]

15. What is the "you" the ends up in one of the copies?

If "you" (consciousness) is simply a configuration of atoms, than "you" must be at two places at once if that configuration appears in two places at once. But if the consciousness only corresponds to those particular atoms in your original brain, well that's weird too. For one thing, if half your brain was replaced with a copy, you'd act exactly the same, but only be half "you", the other half would be somebody else. That's weird also.

[jeff47]

19. Making copies makes a copy of your consciousness.

So you aren't in two places at once. There's a duplicate of your consciousness in the other body.

For one thing, if half your brain was replaced with a copy, you'd act exactly the same, but only be half "you", the other half would be somebody else. That's weird also.

There's lots of stories of people who suffer some sort of brain injury, and then have a completely different personality. This is no more weird than that.

[qazplm]

22. you appear then

to regard consciousness as exactly analagous to any body part. So arm equals consciousness? You can have one of them or two of them, no problem?

[jeff47]

23. I'm in the group that believes consciousness is just our brains doing their jobs

not a "soul" or otherwise magical entity.

[qazplm]

27. i dont think anyone in this thread

thinks that consciousness is a soul or magical entity...so that's a non sequitur and not particularly responsive.

[jeff47]

28. Your question requires a magical consciousness

I'm saying it's just the brain. So make a copy of the brain, you get a completely independent copy of consciousness. Those copies rapidly diverge as they have different experiences.

Your question only makes sense if consciousness had some magical properties - copies resulting in multiple consciousnesses in one body, or that post-copy there would be a single shared consciousness.

[napoleon_in_rags]

30. Yes, but which one is YOURS?

And what defines it as yours*? You are saying a perfect copy of your consciousness wouldn't be yours, and why is that? It must be because your consciousness is tied not any specific configuration of brain or molecules that make it up, but rather to the specific atoms that make up YOUR brain. That means were those atoms to be replaced, an identical person would replace you, who would have the same memories and act in all the same ways, but not be you*. This is a difficult reality.

* when I say "you", I mean not from the perspective of external observers, but "you" from the perspective of yourself. For instance imagine one day you woke up in bed, and were John Malkovich. Meanwhile your current body was under the control of an imposter who acted just like you. "you" are now John Malkovich from your own perspective, but not from external observers who think you haven't changed.

[Shankapotomus]

32. Your brain cells

are the seat of your consciousness and they all don't get replaced at once in biological processes. The cells make up an integrated whole that form your consciousness. If some cells get replaced with new one through natural processes, the other cells that make up your brain are so integrated you don't lose your memory of yourself. So you are still yourself. Just like when nerve cells in your skin get replaced. It doesn't change the fact that it's still you feeling through those new nerve cells. If you replaced all your brain cells at once, as in your example, that's a different story but it's no mystery that it wouldn't be you as you seem to suggest.

[napoleon_in_rags]

35. I'm really not suggesting either way, I'm raising a fundamental question:

Is YOU that which arises from a configuration of brain cells, or are YOU tied to certain pieces of material?

The question has a clear analogue with computers. Are YOU software, meaning that you can be the same regardless of what hardware you are running on, or are YOU hardware, meaning that once the material that makes you up is gone, you are gone? In the case of the former, an exact copy of you will be YOU, just as Windows 7 is Windows 7 regardless of what computer its on, or a photo of you is the same photo of you regardless of which phone it is on. In the case of the latter, and exact copy of you will NOT be you, because you are tied to the particular atoms which compose you.. you are the hardware, the computer. If your software is copied, its somebody else.

I'm asking a fundamental question. You're saying that an exact copy of you would not be you, which means that your self is not encoded in your brain in any way, but rather is attached to the uniqueness of the particular atoms that compose your brain.

If I have a logic problem here, patiently explain it to me, because I think I'm right on this one.

PEace

[Shankapotomus]

36. You are correct about I am saying

That the self is attached to the particular atoms that compose the brain.

You can't have consciousness without the material to support it just as you can't use software without the device to run it on. But the mere fact that any two consciousnesses exist on separate "machines" guarantees there can not exist "copies". In that respect, consciousness is NOT like computer software.

Consciousness has to have a material host, afaict.

But it IS like software in this respect:

Since matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only change it's form, it perhaps follows that the atoms that now host your consciousness will be reused, given enough time, to host the consciousness of another entity. And although, you will have no recollection of yourself or your past lives, because an individual consciousness' unique identity is probably connected to a single constituent atom, it still will be YOU who doing the feeling and experiencing for that new entity.

At least that's my take on it.

[napoleon_in_rags]

68. I respect that opinion.

What I'm asking is that you realize the weirdness even of that, the fact that half my atoms could end up in frog, the other half in an oak tree. So my future may be to be half conscious as a frog, the other half busy growing leaves.

My only point is that whatever stand we take on consciousness, its pretty weird. There is no call you can make which leads to simple definitions.

[jeff47]

40. The one in the body you inhabit

You are saying a perfect copy of your consciousness wouldn't be yours, and why is that?

Because it's your copy's consciousness. You diverged immediately after the copying.

For instance imagine one day you woke up in bed, and were John Malkovich. Meanwhile your current body was under the control of an imposter who acted just like you.

If your brain was transferred to a different body, your consciousness went with it. I'm saying consciousness is a construct of our brains, so it can't be transferred without transferring the brain.

[napoleon_in_rags]

31. delete nt

[qazplm]

39. no it doesnt

and the person down below who made the software/hardware analogy is right on.

I'm sorry, but your "this is simple, I've figured it out, don't know why everyone thinks this is such a hard question" position is, well, let me suggest a lot of smart people smarter than both of us struggle with answering what is consciousness, so what are the odds, it's a simple answer, and you've figured it out?

[jeff47]

41. The heart was once a mystical organ given all sorts of magical powers.

Now? It's a pump. We've still got some metaphors using the heart, but we all understand that the organ itself is just a pump.

I'm saying consciousness is similar - we don't know exactly how it works yet. But we'll eventually figure it out and it will turn out to be mundane. Doesn't matter how many mystics and philosophers claim consciousness is something greater.

[qazplm]

51. oh please

are you kidding me? The heart is orders of magnitude less complicated than consciousness.
So basically, you are saying it IS mysterious right now, but that one day it won't be.

[jeff47]

52. I'm saying due to our lack of understanding, people have leapt to magic. (nt)

[qazplm]

58. saying it is mysterious and difficult to understand

does not equal a leap to magic.

[jeff47]

59. You might want to read the thread you're replying to

Posters above are clearly giving consciousness metaphysical powers.

[qazplm]

64. no

you are just taking that brush, and throwing that paint everywhere.

[Shankapotomus]

38. If half your brain was replaced it would still be you

because the new brain cells would just be integrated into the collection of cells that make you, just as it does now with new cells that divide and replace old ones. The point is, integration has already taken place so any new cells are "filled in", so to speak on who you are to prevent disruptions to memory.

But granted, a cell transplant of a half a brain would be a major disruption of the continuity of self.

[digonswine]

10. I get that-

I will admit that I thought about the same thing on a (for me) deep level when I saw the 6th Day -a California Gov movie!!

I thought about all of those questions--a cool idea- But--

There is still nothing special about our nifty brains!

[Angleae]

17. Trekkies have been debating this very scenario for decades.

Is a person who is transported via transporter the same person or a copy?

[laconicsax]

29. A copy. The original dies.

This was settled as conclusively as possible in TNG--both the episode where they 'ressurected' Picard by using the transporter buffer copy and the one where they met Riker's transporter clone.

[Shankapotomus]

37. I think the rule of thumb here

is different atoms, then different consciousness. And Nature does an experiment like Dr. Futuro's every day. Natural reproduction is basically making copies of our bodies, including brains, and we know those copies are not the same consciousness or person.

[jeff47]

9. We don't know how the brain really works.

We've got some understanding as some parts of the brain. We've got some ideas of the overall operation. But we really don't know that many details of how the brain works.

So mysticism enters because we can't explain it scientifically. Though we are gradually figuring our brains out, so we'll gradually figure out consciousness. Then the mystics will move on to claim there's a soul or other ethereal bit that adds special sauce to our physical understanding.

[Shankapotomus]

33. Oh come on!

Maybe you need a refresher course. It's all ball bearings.

[Lint Head]

11. Comprehending 'self' has always been a mystery to philosophers, medicine and science.

I think it is fascinating and will take a paradigm shift related to a different mindset to even get close to a handle on it.

[Speck Tater]

12. My hypothesis is simple, and I can't really claim that it's orginal, because it isn't...

There are three things in the universe that are "uncaused", or "elemental".

1. Space/time
2. Mass/energy
3. Information/consciousness

Matter is not a property of space because they are both elemental and are disjoint classes.
Energy is not a property of information because they are both elemental and disjoint classes.
Consciousness is not a property of matter because they are both elemental and disjoint.

(For those unfamiliar with the theoretical underpinnings, it was established back in the 70's, as I recall, that information can exist without energy or matter. I recall reading the article in the IBM Journal of Research and Development outlining the proof that zero-energy information could exist. I don't recall the exact date, but it had to be the 70's because I read it while I was in grad school completing my MS in comp sci. Given that information can exist without mass/energy, that pretty much makes them disjoint classes. As for information being neither created nor destroyed, see Hawking's black hole information paradox.)

Matter may occupy space, information may be embodied or encoded in matter or energy, consciousness may occupy matter, but it is still distinct from matter.

Mass/energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed in one way or another.
Space/time cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed in one way or another (e.g. warped, twisted, distorted by great mass)
Consciousness/information cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed in one way or another.

To look for the "cause" of consciousness is like looking for the "cause" of matter, or the "cause" of space/time. These things simply are.

Attempts to "explain" consciousness always seem to end with a lot of hand waving and conclusion jumping. I'm reminded of Dennet's "Consciousness Explained" which was a fascinating, and exciting book to read, but which, in the end, spend nearly 600 pages explaining in great detail how the movie projector in the theater worked, and then suddenly, in a single quantum leap that bounded over all intervening logic, Dennet waved his magic wand and said, in effect, "and because we know how the movie projector works, therefore the audience does not exist." "Therefore?" Really? I was very sad an disappointed to find such a lame conclusion to such a terrific book.

But in the end, all the "experts" on consciousness end up "explaining" it either by redefining it to exclude all but what they have explained, or making some wild leap utterly devoid of any deductive underpinnings.

Sorry, but consciousness has NOT been explained. At least not to the satisfaction of anyone who has spent 40+ years in regular and disciplined meditation exploring the nature of consciousness, and 45 years in the study and application of artificial intelligence.

[orpupilofnature57]

16. Inexplicable works

Is awareness and consciousness the same?

[Speck Tater]

20. Consciousness is a slippery word to define.

Look at a person sound asleep. We would say this person is not conscious, and yet if the person is dreaming, he definitely IS conscious of his dream while experiencing it. So is this person conscious or unconscious?

If consciousness is defined as reactivity to ones surroundings (the behaviorist approach of observing only what is objectively quantifiable) then the person is unconscious. If consciousness is defined in terms of subjective experience (something that reductionist science does not know how to talk about) then the person is conscious.

Awareness can also be defined as reactivity to the surroundings. Is the thermostat on the wall aware of the temperature of the room? Does it "decide" to turn on the heat? If we make the mistake of anthropomorphizing mechanical processes, we can just as easily, and perhaps even more easily, make the mistake of mechanizing transcendent processes, and of claiming to explain what we have merely named or described, or of thinking that we understand something simply because we have found a clever analogy and stretched it beyond it's legitimate applicability.

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound
source of spirituality." - Carl Sagan

[orpupilofnature57]

25. Carl was a Sage ,his ' Baloney Test Kit '

is a rosetta stone for critical , objective thinking .

[Shankapotomus]

34. I think consciousness can be understood

using the axiom, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" and the law of cause and effect.

If you bump something, it moves. If you touch a sense receptor, it feels. All senses are related to the single sense of touch (although, at the quantum level, nothing is supposed to be touching anything). You hear because air is pushed against your ear drum. You see because light hits the receptors in your eye. From there, I think it's only a small step to get to storing memory of those interactions in our brain cells as "consciousness".

[Speck Tater]

42. You've explained the mechanism by which sensations REACH consciousness

you haven't explained consciousness. You've explained the movie projector, you haven't explained the audience. This is the same categorical mistake that Dennet makes. You stopped short of actually explaining what you claim to explain and simply say "abracadabra" while making a logic-free leap right over the very thing you set out to explain.

And for the record, anyone who has done any serious meditation for any period of time knows from experience that "thoughts" are not consciousness, and "memory" is not consciousness. Naive non-meditators, even professional neurophysiologists who are not meditators, make the mistake of conflating these two distinctly different things. Explaining thought does not explain consciousness. Nor does explaining memory, or sensation, or memory of sensation.

It may sound radical to suggest such a thing, but I believe that people who set out to explain consciousness should at least know how to tell the difference between consciousness and the contents of consciousness. One should, at the very minimum, practice meditation long enough to experience what content-free consciousness is, so they won't continue to make this rookie error of confusing the peanut butter for the jar that holds it. When someone who doesn't know the difference tries to explain consciousness to someone who does know the difference, they just look plain silly.

[Shankapotomus]

48. Fair enough

I freely admit I haven't done my meditation homework and I gladly defer to yourself and Glider as the experts in this area. But to ask you the same question as I did Glider, are you suggesting consciousness can exist by itself beyond a material host? And what clues lead you to conclude this?

[Speck Tater]

49. I honestly don't know the answer to that.

If consciousness is elemental, which is my hypothesis (I won't dignify it with the name "theory&quot then I suppose that it would be possible, since it would something separate from and independent of the other elemental things (space/time mass/energy). It's hard to imagine what that means, however, if we assume that sensory data comes from the physical realm. It would be a consciousness without any object or contents, and while meditators know that such a thing is possible, we still have to return to the physical world for our consciousness to have any "meaning".

Now to go WAAAAY out into the fringes of speculation... Perhaps consciousness, if it does exist non-corporeally, is prone to dissipate, like a a diffuse gas in interstellar space. Maybe that's why we (speaking as a "soul" or "packet of consciousness&quot take physical incarnation over and over. Unless we occupy a physical body to connect us to some focal point our "soul" risks spreading too thin to maintain any kind of identity as "self". Having once coalesced enough consciousness in a brain advanced enough to support intelligence, consciousness realized it needs physicality to survive as a persistent entity, rather than as undifferentiated "stuff".

So the atheist is right. After death, the consciousness dissipates, goes away and is lost. BUT, that's the not only alternative available to the soul. If it has developed its "spiritual" side during life, perhaps it can hold itself together long enough to find another body to occupy, and be reborn. So the answer to the question "Does the soul survive death" might be "Only if it is strong-willed enough to do so, and probably only for as long as it takes to locate another host."

But that, of course, is all just crazy talk and wild imaginative speculation. (Although the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson at Univ. of Va is interesting, but certainly not conclusive.)

[tama]

79. As said

Conscience is hard to define, but I would go with the relation of self-referentiality as the essential feature. "Know thyself", as Socrates guided. Which BTW need not be limited to self-analysis and self-definition, but can mean also self-sentience as sensual self-awareness, basically the answer to the question "how do you feel" without putting it into words and thoughts but just feeling.

"Matter" is also quite vague term, prototypically it refers to tangible 3D objects with mass etc. (in 4D timespace?). But are the equations of e.g. quantum field theory and waveforms in n-dimensional Hilbert space (ie. geometrical/mathematical mental images and relations) "matter"? And does it really matter if the latter are defined as "matter" or "mental images"?

As for "mind", I would reserve that word for the "space" or "no-form"/"potential for all possible forms" where mental images and self-referential thoughts about thoughts (e.g. subject-object relations) take actual shape and "inform".

Making no further assumptions, I don't really see the logical or rational point of assuming that mental images of forms in n-dimensional Hilbert-space causally reduce to 3- or 4-dimensional classical matter (alone). And as for sensory experience in this "body-host" called me, I can best describe it primarily as sensory field without clear boundaries, just spatio-temporal "tresholds" actualizing as conscious sensory experiences, and analytic divisions into seeing, hearing and touching and warmth and pain etc. being secondary levels of interpretation, where neural processes no doubt play a role.

[orpupilofnature57]

80. Wasn't it Aristotle that said

we can only See the reflections and shadows of the way it really is ,as knowledge and enlightenment is like looking directly into the sun ,which blinds us.

[tama]

81. Dunno,

could be Aristotle. Any case, that statement comes very close to Aristotle's teacher's Plato's famous cave-metaphor.

[orpupilofnature57]

84. I'm a dumbass ,that's it !!!! Thanks

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm

[GliderGuider]

46. That "small step" you mention (and slide right past) is actually the Big Kahuna.

Consciousness is not memory or the process of storing experiences in memory - after all, computers have lots of memory, but no consciousness. IMO consciousness is the experience of being aware. I'm a subjectivist on this subject.

As Speck Tater has said, consciousness is not its contents. It's not formed from patterns of memory or even sensations. It's not even the experience of thoughts or sensations - it's the experience of the awareness of experiencing sensations, thoughts or feelings. The sensations, thoughts and feelings themselves are contained within consciousness. In other words those are the "things" that consciousness is conscious of.

I like the television metaphor for consciousness. In it, the television set is the brain, and the programs shown on the screen are our sensations, thoughts and feelings. Neither of these is consciousness - that role is played in the metaphor by the person watching the TV. Neither the program nor the watcher is an emergent property of the television, and the watcher isn't an emergent property of either the TV set or the TV program.

Now, when the TV is turned off (the brain dies) the program is no longer displayed on the screen and the watcher has nothing to watch. Does the watcher disappear as a result? We have no way of knowing one way or the other. To assume the watcher vanishes when the TV is turned off is just as much of an assumption as assuming it remains.

I spent 57 years of my life with the scientific view that consciousness or "mind" was an emergent property of our neurology. Five years ago I learned to meditate and my entire understanding of consciousness changed within days to what I described above.

I think that meditation training is the only tool we've yet developed that allows us to approach consciousness itself. The way science has tried to approach it so far has gotten as far as describing neural mechanisms and the contents of consciousness, but has not approached consciousness itself.

Virtually all meditators understand this description of consciousness, but I have yet to meet a non-meditator who does. Most non-meditators seem to understand consciousness simply as an emergent property of brain. I don't think science is generally framing the questions about consciousness correctly yet - though scientists who meditate may be getting a bit closer.

[Shankapotomus]

47. I have yet to explore meditation but

Last edited Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:30 PM - Edit history (1)

am looking forward to it. But to continue, you're suggesting consciousness can exist by itself beyond a material host? I'm not challenging you on this - it is intriguing - but why do you think this? What clues, beyond analogies, are you going on? Thanks.

edit: i sense you've arrived at your hypothesis regarding consciousness as a way to explain the universe. am i correct? if yes, you might find me more capable of understanding what you're suggesting takes meditation to understand. there may not be as much background info required to bring me up to speed as you think. i certainly have tried imagining nothingness and then attempted to try to explain how you get consciousness from nothing. the nearest i've come to explaining it is consciousness resides on a scale and to be unconscious is really the highest form of consciousness.

[GliderGuider]

50. When I meditate I perceive something that seems independent of thought and materiality

I don't know if it's a direct perception of consciousness. It feels like it is.
I don't know if it can exist by itself or not. It feels like it can.
I don't know if it's independent of my thoughts. It feels like it is.
I don't know if it exists outside of (i.e. contains) space and time. It feels like it does.
I don't know if my perceptions are illusions or not.
I don't know if my feelings are projections or not.

This is one area where I get to practice my Pyrrhonian skepticism. I do not believe these things to be true, nor do I believe them to be false. They are simply my perceptions. In some circumstances I can adopt a belief in them, in other circumstances I can adopt disbelief. Neither the belief nor the disbelief is "true", nor is either permanent. For me the objective truth of the perceptions are immaterial, and believing or disbelieving is not the point. Their personal meaning in the moment is what's important.

There are clues that suggest there's a possibility my perceptions might be "real" (in quotes because it's a hard concept to define). They include:

• The similarity of its description across individuals, cultures and times.
  
• It never feels, and never thinks. Thoughts and feelings happen inside it, but it never changes no matter what "I" think or feel.
  
• It never judges, or applies any value to the thoughts or feelings it contains. There are no good or bad thoughts, just thoughts. No pleasant or unpleasant emotions, just emotions.
  
• As my values, memories and the "story of me" has changed over the last five years, there has been no change in it. It is clear, still, dispassionate, it simply observes. That's why the other name for it in some traditions is the Witness or Observer.

My entire relationship to it is subjective, because "I" relate to "it". It exists somehow in relation to me, but it is not me in the usual way "I" think of "me". I have no idea how it could be examined objectively, at least not directly. Science might be able to make inferences about it, but I see no way to make this most subjective of phenomena reveal itself for measurement. What is there to measure? And how would one measure it, since all measurement seems to be contained within it, not outside where it would need to be in order to measure it.

In the end nothing but questions remain. And in the end it comes down to the most common question asked by the explorers of pure consciousness through the last 3,000 years: "Who is asking?" And after that there is only stillness.

Can this gulf be bridged by science? In the current form of science, I doubt it. But then I doubt everything these days.

Perhaps a scientist who does not start with an a priori assumption that it is "not real" can accomplish something. Some well-meaning but controversial theoretical physicists like David Bohm, Bernard d'Espagnat and Jack Sarfatti have tried, but I haven't seen any helpful outcomes from their work. On the other hand I haven't been looking very hard, because for me its value doesn't lie in that direction. It lies inside, not outside.

Your edit suggests that when you think of consciousness you're thinking of thinking, in contrast to unconsciousness which is not-thinking. Is that correct? If so, that's not what I mean. For me consciousness is orthogonal to thought (as well as to feeling and sensation). Again, consciousness is the container for thought, or better, consciousness is the Self that is the container for the self. Calming your thoughts during meditation simply reduces the mental noise so that your consciousness can be perceived directly.

The only reason I came up with a hypothesis about it is so I could talk about it to others. Otherwise, there is no need for an explanation, or even a description. Consciousness doesn't explain, it simply observes.

By the way, I really appreciated the way you asked your questions.
Does this help or hinder your understanding?

[Shankapotomus]

54. Yes, this was exceedingly helpful

Hopefully I can use your post as a guidepost when I start practicing meditation. If I understand you correctly, you are stilling your thoughts and emptying the mind to reach this state? It almost sounds as if you're accessing Aristotle's Tabula rasa, though, I would gather you would describe it as something more than that. I don't have to tell you emptying the mind and forgetting your body, brain and sense organs is not the same as not having a body, brain and sense organs. And you have alluded to it all being a "feeling", not measurable or verifiable via the instruments of science.

Your edit suggests that when you think of consciousness you're thinking of thinking, in contrast to unconsciousness which is not-thinking

.

With such uncharted territory, I don't really stick to any firm definition of consciousness beyond just awareness so I apologize for my loose use of terminology. I mean, this is an internet forum and no one has figured this stuff out yet and I am occasionally guilty of throwing things out there without the attention to detail a more formal discussion would demand. I am certainly capable of seeing consciousness under multiple definitions, including the one you are offering up. It's all a puzzle and if one piece doesn't fit somewhere I have no problem substituting another definition if it works and if, in the end, we are still trying to account for consciousness or whatever other phenomenon we are trying to understand. Exactness doesn't really come into play for me until we get down to asking "Well, how does that actually work?".

While I am personally at a point where I don't believe consciousness, or to use a term we both might find more precise, awareness, can exist separate from "matter" (a relative term as all terms are) - indeed, without material differentiation there would be nothing to be aware of and, therefore, no awareness - I do have a belief, of an almost religious fanaticism, in a "Universal Relativity" where everything in the Universe is relative to what it is that is doing the observing and interacting. Existence, non-existence, space, matter, consciousness, non-consciousness, entity, non-entity, even the Universe's existence is relative, depending on what you are and, in my view, many things can be both this and that, there and not there at the same exact time and not be a contradiction...and so I have a tremendous flexibility in the area of "awareness" and when I use one term, it doesn't mean I can only see it one way. It's possible we are both right in a way. Awareness could exist beyond what we understand and perceive as the material world. But that doesn't mean awareness exists beyond the material. It just may exist on a material plane we ourselves, with our limited sensory organs, cannot detect.

Like colors that exist but our eyes are not adapted to see, we are only seeing pieces of existence. If our senses could sense "everything", perhaps we would see that there is nothing there at all. No Universe. No Us. So our consciousness of objects represents a subtraction of Awareness - in other words, we can only see so much and so that's why we see anything at all - because we can't see it "all", we see some of it and that makes us think there's something there, that a Big Bang happened. In this respect, maybe a rock is on a higher plane of "Awareness" than we are because it can see nothing which may be a more accurate picture of the "Universe" than ours. Perhaps "Awareness" works the same way and to be fully aware is to be aware there is no Awareness?

[GliderGuider]

57. A couple of thoughts about meditation

First, let me comment about language. In this area we're all largely making it up as we go along. In our culture there aren't a lot of common words to describe these things yet, so I find we rely a lot on metaphor. Precision of definitions is an idea that belongs to the analytical outer world, not this inner place of experience and synthesis.

Now, on to meditation.

Don’t worry about particular techniques. There are hundreds of ways to go about it, and they all eventually lead to the same place. It doesn't take long to learn the basics - half an hour of teaching will get you started. I prefer a very simple approach that lets me meditate for as long as I have available, pretty much anywhere. It just involves relaxing, turning my attention inward, and simply observing whatever is going on in my body, thoughts and feelings in the moment without trying to change anything (that last bit is really important). Sometimes I close my eyes, but with a bit of practice I don't even need to do that.

Trying to "stop your thoughts" or "empty the mind" can actually be counterproductive. We each have between 50,000 and 80,000 thoughts per day, our brain excretes thoughts like our glands excrete hormones. We can't stop thinking. The state of "Tabula Rasa" is impossible, and trying to achieve it can get you caught in a spiral of expectations and self-blame when it doesn't work.

What I do instead is to imagine that I am standing at a street corner watching the traffic. I see each of my thoughts as a car that pulls up in front of me. I have a choice - I can either get in and let it take me away, or I can let it drive off on its own. I simply watch them and let them all drive off.

And if I don't let one drive off without me - if I notice that I've gotten into a particularly interesting sports car of a thought and I've been driving it around for the last few minutes - when I notice what has happened I simply resume my place on the corner, watching. No blame is attached to that - it's simply a part of being human. It gets easier with time, which is why it's called "a practice".

BTW, some people use the feeling of their breath flowing in and out of the tip of their nose as a focus point, some use repeated phrases called mantras, some focus on visual objects - and some simply sit and do nothing special at all beyond being aware of what they're doing. You'll find what works for you in due course, so don't worry about technique too much at the beginning.

I think your idea of "Universal Relativity" is a perfect entry point to this place.You already have a solid conceptual grounding of how it is.

One of the things I've picked up recently from my reading of disreputable theoretical phycists is that there is in fact no "there" out there (and in fact there's not even an "out there&quot . It's all a quantum field. That means that even our perceptions are just telling us stories about some imagined reality. From that point of view, thinking about the universe and consciousness the way you do seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[Shankapotomus]

60. I've been reluctant to invest time in meditation

because I feared it might be a little too much work without the certainty of any return. What you've written has alleviated a lot of my worries. I imagine the act of meditation, of stilling the mind, is it's own reward anyway and one won't be disappointed if one goes into it not expecting too much.

Speaking of quantum physics, it is said physicists with Eastern philosophy backgrounds are more at ease with the contradictions and seemingly irrational results of quantum theory than some physicist from traditional Western thought.

Since you believe I may already have a solid conceptual grounding already, it makes me wonder if I've been having moments of meditation without knowing? My mind has been known to go blank before.

I once encountered a buddhist online years ago who was very good at impressing upon me the non reality of words or "mind-think" as she called it. Words are not the same as the experience. So I think I have an idea of what you're saying about language.

Thanks for the encouragement and advice. It definitely helped.

[Speck Tater]

56. That's very well put!

That, I believe, is one thing that those who have experienced have that they can share. We read something written by another fellow explorer and say "yes! That's what I'm trying to say." We feel that sense that we are indeed talking about the same thing.

In so many other areas, like religion (and politics) you can't find any two people who agree about anything! But when meditators talk to each other they all seem to be saying the same thing, and they all seem to agree, regardless of whether they learned their technique from a Buddhist monk, or a Hindu guru, or a Christian mystic, or a Muslim Sufi. We all come together in a place where there is simply no disagreement about what we find when we explore within. It is that consistency of experience, which in science is the much sought after "replicability" that lends credence to the reality of the experience.

"Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves."
--Daniel Webster

Which is a good reason to distrust religion, and the opposite state of affairs is a good reason to trust meditation.

[hunter]

53. I'm pretty sure space/time is an aspect of mass/energy...

... as is information/consciousness. It's all mass/energy, nothing else. We can't see all of it, but that's not surprising because our brains are so tiny in comparison to the universe. There is no possibility that humans will ever figure it all out. We'll know more than dogs or carp do, but this knowledge will never amount to more than a tiny insignificant fraction of possible "knowledge."

Every dog I've ever known has been a conscious being, even those dogs that are only slightly smarter than carp. Carp are conscious beings also. Consciousness is a vertebrate trait. We can't relate to plants, invertebrates, or fungi, so in those cases we just don't know if they are conscious or not. Maybe, maybe not.

Frankly I don't think we're that special. Consciousness is simply a programming trick that keeps us from giving up in utter despair. Without consciousness reasonable beings would simply lie down in the dirt and stop living. Dirt to dirt. There would be no reason to continue. The more brain power you've got, the more consciousness you need to counteract rational motives for not living.

I've suffered major episodes of depression in my life so I'm very familiar with the sensation. Fortunately for me at my very worst, "No reason to live" ranks equally with "no reason not to." I might not eat for a couple of days, but I don't like the sensation of thirst or lack of oxygen, so I keep hydrated, and I keep breathing. Eventually I'll eat too. I've never felt any need to hurry the process of dying along. We all die eventually. Maybe I'm just lazy.

Sex is another one of those programming tricks discovered by natural selection. People are always having sex and reproducing even when there's no rational reason to do so, and very rational reasons not to. If we didn't have sex drives there wouldn't be any people. Same goes if we didn't have consciousness.

I don't have a good opinion of mystical experiences either. The most vivid I've experienced are those the police and health services called "psychotic episodes."

That doesn't mean I don't look at the universe and my fellow humans without a sense of awe and wonder, or that I don't have a spiritual side. I do. This stew of mass/energy inspires within me a great curiosity. But yet again, curiosity, like consciousness or sex drives, is just another programming trick stumbled upon by natural selection.

[Speck Tater]

55. My best cure for "no reason to live"...

... is chocolate, especially brownie chocolate fudge ice cream.

And if I had to choose one thing to say that everything is made of, I pick information. I think that with information we could convincingly simulate mass, energy, time, and space, so information is probably the most elemental of all things. And without information there is no difference between an electron and a proton. The difference between two particles is information about those particles. "It from bit" as physicist J.A. Wheeler put it:

[...] it is not unreasonable to imagine that information sits at the core of physics, just as it sits at the core of a computer.
It from bit. Otherwise put, every 'it'—every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. 'It from bit' symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe. (John Archibald Wheeler 1990: 5)

[hunter]

62. I don't boil everything down to information, I boil it down to energy.

Information is an aspect of energy.

The entire universe is a big blob of energy. We're all zipping along at the speed of light, none of us more than a pattern on the waves.

Ultimately this pattern can't be described as "information" because the energy is all there is, in and of itself.

I see no reason to complicate the universe with a theory of luminiferous aether, an information theory, space, time, mass, or anything else. It's all energy.

A theory of mass, space, time, or information might make the math a little easier under very specific circumstances, but these theories cannot describe the entire picture. We went from Newton's equations to Einstein's equations to the madness of today's Physics, but we're probably still at the kindergarten level of that which minds such as ours might understand.

At our current level of social development this may be a good thing. Nuclear bombs are bad enough, if humans had something like Back to the Future's Mr. Fusion humans would eat the planet.

[Speck Tater]

63. Ah, but we can never see energy.

We only see the effects of energy. And so the concept of "energy" is a hypothetical construct used to try to explain the effects we see. But those effects can just as easily be described by information.

Imagine you see something at a great distance from you. It's a bright light, with several little pinpoints of light orbiting around it. You hypothesize some kinds of energy called "gravity" and kinetic energy, and work out how those forms of energy keep the objects in orbit around their parent star.

Then you look closer and find that the large body is emitting information that says "here I am" and the small bodies are responding to the information by seeking it's source. It has been shown by physicists much brighter than myself that everything we know about energy can be re-cast as information and we end up with the same consistent laws of nature, but where "energy" is just an abstract way of describing the effects of information.

What, after all, are the "properties" of an electron? What do we mean by "properties". We mean information about how it reacts to other nearby entities with other properties. The ONLY way we can every observe or measure anything is by watching it exchange information with something else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics

[hue]

77. and the same can be said regarding love...

We can never see love. Love is not visible, not tangible, unprovable, yet we see the effects of love.
If it were not for love none of us would exist, nor any part of the human world. No buildings, cities, libraries,
art, literature, medicine. I guarantee You none of us would be here to contemplate these questions and discuss
our own consciousness (collective or individual) and the rest of the universe which we are becoming aware of if it
were not for love. Someone loved You, hence You exist. A Mother's love, a teacher's love, a Father's love...
--so underestimated, underrated, so taken for granted, yet here You and all of us are because of it.

As for our minds, it is experienced in our bodies as our brains have no pain or feeling neurons/receptors.

I believe that with all the various forms of communication emerging we are headed towards a collective consciousness (Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). For one example, the atrocities of war will no longer be hidden from the public consciousness. Another example is the public response to the murder of Trayvon Martin. Many minds communicate, emotions (energy in motion) are expressed and action is taken.

[Speck Tater]

78. What you say is true. It is also just another way of saying...

...that "love" is a mode of behavior that enhances survival, and is therefore selected by evolution, which naturally favors anything that enhances survivability.

From a more mystical perspective, however, those who return from near death experiences tell us that love is the single most important thing in the whole universe. Followed by knowledge. That's a nice thing to believe too.

[Jim__]

18. Think about color.

Color, of course, is just one aspect of consciousness. But, it can help to get a handle on what the problem of consciousness is.

Our perception of color is due to the stimulation of selected sets of cones in our retina by various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. The stimulation of the cones causes certain neurons to fire. I can grasp, at least at a conceptual level, that neural networks in our brain can tie certain firing patterns of these neural networks to similar patterns in the past - i.e. we can remember similar visual situations. But our experience is not of patterns of stimulation in certain neural networks. Our experience is not a recollection of previous experiences. We experience things like red and blue. You can call that just our way of recollecting these neural patterns; but that doesn't really explain the experience. I don't understand how the firing of neurons produces an experience of color. The experience of color seems to be a difference in kind from any expected experience from neuronal excitation and communication.

[MineralMan]

24. Consciousness seems to be to be a primarily learned thing.

Anyone who has raised a child has seen the process by which a consciousness defines itself as the child goes from newborn status to adulthood. The natal brain has some built-in responses and a complexity that can take in lots of input. The consciousness develops steadily from birth onward as that input gets cataloged and incorporated.

It doesn't seem that difficult a concept, really.

[digonswine]

26. That's about how I feel about it-

[Speck Tater]

43. If you had ever done any serious meditation, for any length of time,

you would realize just how silly that sounds.

People who don't know what consciousness is shouldn't try to "explain" it.

Seriously, dig in and do some concentrated introspection and insight meditation for a few years and then, with what you learn from that experience, look back at what you just wrote. You will chuckle at it, and wonder how you could ever have thought such things. And even though you will then understand exactly what I mean when I say your views are "silly", you also will not be able to explain it in 25 words or less. You can't explain what "red" feels like to someone who is blind since birth. But give them sight and they will understand. (But they still won't be able to explain it to their blind friends.)

So, no, I will not "explain" it to you. That you have to discover for yourself. If you really want to know, that is. If you don't really want to know, well, that's fine too. Just don't try to be the blind man who explains "red" to the sighted person. It just make you sound silly.

[MineralMan]

44. Oh, dear...

Well, thanks for the advice, then.

[Speck Tater]

45. You're welcome. Always glad to help. :) nt

[Silent3]

73. If I tell you I have meditated, that I know what you mean by when you talk about...

...the experience of awareness, that I know exactly how hard that is to put that experience into words, but that I still see no reason to insist that consciousness is a separate thing, to insist that it can't be "merely" an emergent quality of a biochemical brain... then what?

Are you then going to tell me that I must not have meditated enough, or that I haven't meditated in quite the right way yet?

I might not be able to explain "red" to a blind person, not it a way that they fully understand and appreciate the experience of redness, but I can make pretty clear analogies they can understand using, say, differences in pitch or odor or texture. I can explain how colors work as different frequencies of light and they way those differences interact with the human retina.

While I certainly understand that some things can only be properly understood through study and effort and experience, I am justifiably suspicious when anyone claims that some special innate ability or some tremendous effort or some large investment in time is an absolute barrier to gaining any appreciation of a thing.

People who don't know what consciousness is shouldn't try to "explain" it.

So, we're just supposed to take it on faith the you do know what consciousness is, that if we don't reach the same conclusions about the nature of consciousness as you do, that this must be taken as a sign that we don't know as much as you do about it?

There are things a well-trained musician can do that most people can't do, but most people can still appreciate the fruit of the musician's effort -- maybe not quite as much as someone who has studied music so much, but more than enough to see that the training pays off, that there is fruit from that effort.

There are things a sighted person can do that blind people can't do, but most blind people can still appreciate the abilities of sighted people that they themselves lack. Sighted people can demonstrate in convincing ways that their sight produces results which blind people don't have to take on faith to believe in.

So, as one of the special people who've grasped consciousness in a way that many of the unwashed masses haven't, what can you show us that you can do that we can't do? What insights can you provide that demonstrate the fruit of your years of meditation effort?

Or will you just wave your hands, say, "If you don't want to believe me, fine!" or some other such dismissive comment? Is your insight into consciousness a "members only" insight for an insider's club, without a scrap of demonstrable fruit that non-insiders can appreciate without just taking it on faith?

[Speck Tater]

74. I think it's perfectly OK for two intelligent, well-informed people to disagree.

You make good points, and I respect your opinion. And no, I am not "a special person", I have simply had some experiences which lead me to a different conclusion than yours. That's OK. I will not invoke the "No True Scotsman" argument and tell you that you have not meditated enough, or in the right way. I have no way of knowing that. Perhaps it is I that have not meditated enough, or in the right way. Or perhaps we two have just had different experiences. Just because we have both tasted Chinese food doesn't mean we must agree on which dish is the best one.

And realistically, how likely is it that I will convince you that your experiences are not valid, or that you will convince me that my experiences are not valid. Experience simply IS. And that which IS is always valid.

I have no problem at all with two sighted people disagreeing over the exact meaning and implications of "red". My only objection is when the blind person tells the sighted person that "red" does not even exist. THAT is what I was objecting to, not well-informed and legitimate differences of opinion such as you and I apparently have.

[Silent3]

75. Keep in mind that you said this...

If you had ever done any serious meditation, for any length of time...
...you would realize just how silly that sounds.

People who don't know what consciousness is shouldn't try to "explain" it.

There's definitely an "Ah, my child! You don't understand!" tone to that. You might eschew the label "a special person", but the kind of "special" I'm talking about doesn't have to mean a rare 1-in-1000 talent or ability, simply classifying yourself as being able to perceive what another group of humans can't perceive, or being able to understand what others don't understand.

There's nothing inherently wrong in claiming to be special. I understand computers better than most (but not as well as some), and that makes me special, in a limited way. Since I can demonstrate my talents in ways that many others without my specialized training and experience can appreciate, my claim to better understanding of computers in not an empty boast.

And realistically, how likely is it that I will convince you that your experiences are not valid, or that you will convince me that my experiences are not valid. Experience simply IS. And that which IS is always valid.

There's experience, and then there's interpretation of experience. To claim to know that consciousness is a special category of thing separate from ordinary matter and energy is an interpretation, an interpretation that should have demonstrable consequences for all people, regardless of whether or not they experience what you experience.

[Speck Tater]

76. Yes I did.

I do tend to come on strong when I'm trying to convince.

I was responding to the statement "anyone who has every raised a child..." followed by why the poster's views should be self-evident to a parent. Well, I raised three kids, and watched the growth and development of six grandchildren, and yet what the original poster thought was self-evident doesn't seem that self-evident to me at all. In fact, my experiences over the last 4+ decades of meditation have lead me to think that quite the opposite of his thesis is what is truly elf-evident.

There's experience, and there's interpretation of one's own experience, and there's interpretation of another's experience, and there's interpretation of another's interpretation of their own experience, ...

Suppose I claimed that my experience made what I claimed self-evident to me, and that I didn't have to interpret my experience? Of course you are free to doubt that, and interpret what I have said as being merely an interpretation of what I experienced. But that's not my experience, that's your interpretation of my experience, which is necessarily different from my experience.

In the final analysis we believe what we believe, and we think that if we show another person how self evident it is, they MUST also believe what we believe.

BUT, there's a problem with that. Other people don't see what we see so clearly, and that's a frightening prospect. Either it means that the other person is willfully ignorant, or stupid, or being contrary just to be mean, OR it means that the other person is rational, intelligent, and well educated and still doesn't see the self-evident nature of what we see to be self-evident.

And the reason that's a frightening prospect is that it opens the way to the possibility that what we consider self-evident isn't actually true at all! And that scares the shit out of us! So we go on the attack, either going all ad-hominem on the dude's ass to convince ourselves that he really is a moron, or piling on more "facts". Either way, we tell ourselves that a sharper attack will convince the opponent of what a fool he is and he will see the error of his ways, or that a sharper line of reasoning will carry the day by winning the argument based on pure logic.

But the fact is that Internet arguments are NEVER won because they cannot, in principle, be won. We have all lined up a full battery of justifications for believing what we believe, but to think that our a posteriori justifications could possibly constitute persuasive arguments against the other's a posteriori justifications truly is "just silly."

And so, the part of this whole thread that was truly "just silly" was my failure to remember that which I should have remembered before I made my first post. And that is simply that I am comfortable with my belief system, and I'm perfectly content to have other, intelligent, well educated people disagree with my point of view, because what I see as self-evident is not always self-evident to another. Not due to ignorance or stupidity or stubbornness, but simply due to the fact that we have had different lives and different experiences and what we see as self-evident is simply a product of those experiences.

And by way for full disclosure, my life experiences have included: raising three children, helping raise 6 grandchildren, working as an engineer for nearly 50 years, having graduate degrees in math and computer science, having taught programming and symbolic logic at the university level, having been a Catholic, a Mormon, a Lutheran, a Unitarian, a Hindu (in my hippie pot-smoking days), a TM meditator in the 70's, a Buddhist Atheist (for the last 30 years or so) having sat at the bedside with several people as they passed away including my wife, having had, since childhood, numerous "psychic" experiences that I have consistently tried to "explain away" (without a whole lot of success), having once lived for two years in a genuinely haunted house, having experienced (non-drug induced) transcendent states that quite literally change the way everything looks, ... (I could fill pages more, and some day maybe I'll get around to writing my memoirs, but that will do for now.) I'm betting that my life experience is at least a little bit different from most other people's, and so naturally, what I see as self-evident, they will not. And vice versa.

So I will try to remember in the future that I have no stake whatsoever in whether others believe what I believe or not. It really shouldn't matter to me, and I really do need to remind myself of that from time to time.

[qazplm]

70. yeah I dont think so

there is a difference between consciousness and the ability express and understand. Children are conscious from the beginning, but they don't have the ability to understand, express, or process what that means until they get older.

[MineralMan]

71. Is your consciousness the same today as when you

were born? I think not. Consciousness is not uniform over time, but is a constantly changing thing. It is who you are. It is your soul, if you wish. It dies with you. It is you.

[RagAss]

61. The brain is a "radio"...

Consciousness is a single frequency "wave".
Different radios, different reception.

Are we the wave, or just radios?

[digonswine]

65. I feel like you are using technical terms-

completely incorrectly. You know, the terms you use have ACTUAL meanings--using them in your own way is not creative--it is just incorrect fundamentally.

[RagAss]

67. Thank you. It was in keeping with the tone you set in your OP.

Which fundamentally makes no sense on any level - Science or Philosophy.

I am well aware of the meaning of a single wave frequency and, your pernicious criticism aside, it fits my analogy quite well.

[digonswine]

69. Fine--I am usually more polite-

and apologize for being uncivil.
I thought you were being literal. Were you saying that due to different people having different brains, they experience consciousness differently, and also asking if we ARE our consciousness or just the matter that is our brain?
Also-my OP did make sense on every level. Some people due assign some mystical quality to consciousness--like it completely defies science or understanding. Just because it is not completely understood, does not make it magical. It is certainly interesting, of course.

[laconicsax]

66. Bad analogy aside, we're neither.

Until I see some evidence suggesting that consciousness has an external source, I'll continue to accept that it's more likely an emergent property of the brain.

[tama]

82. Why

the need to make such presupposition to begin with, especially when it is often very unclear what is meant by 'consciousness'?

And more importantly, why the need to censorship discussions about books that critically question the basic presuppositions of materialistic reductionism from the science group, labeling such critical questioning 'pseudoscience'?

[laconicsax]

83. You're asking why I'm not making the same unsupported presuppositions you do.

Think about that for a minute.

[tama]

85. Your bias

and actions of cencureship to protect your dogmatic beliefs from rational inquiry support only the conclusion that you should resign from your post as a host.

[FiveGoodMen]

86. What censorship are you talking about?

[tama]

87. Misuse of host's powers to lock discussions

Locking this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12285117

and earlier discussion about Sheldrake's new book (not started by me and I hadn't chance to participate before it was locked).

My interpretation is that this is about totally arbitrary use of classification into "pseudoscience" as ideological and political weapon in defence of materialistic orthodoxy. It is one thing to believe in orthodoxy and support it and that's OK as everyone is free to believe, but the game gets ugly when discussion that are critical of the orthodoxy and offer alternative points of view - based on scientific method - gets suffocated.

[MineralMan]

72. 'Turn your radio on...'

and listen to the music in the air.
Turn your radio one....
And glory share.