Consciousness Doesn't Exist.

I my disgust or ...arrogance.. whichever, I like to say.. "I think, therefore you exist". That is, nothing outside 'ME' exists without me. I control the horizontal, I control the vertical, I can deluge you with........ .... .. .a thousan.... .. .

reply to post by Ajax84

That guy has some fun videos. Thank you!

Originally posted by Ajax84
reply to post by TheSubversiveOne

 

LOL! Prove that anything in the "out there" world exists without your consciousness first knowing about it. An observation or conscious state, without a consciousness to have it is a contradiction in terms. This actually reminds me of positivist nonsense that rejects the existence of anything non-empirical -it's a self-refuting position:

Want to know whats contradicting? Applying Cartesian Doubt to everything but your own Cartesian Doubt. You're willing to deny everything but the one hope that you cling too. How is your thought not illusory if everything is illusory. I can't even grasp this line of reasoning or how one can come to this conclusion without lying to himself at least once.

You claim a conscious being has consciousness. Thats like saying a human has humanness. Or a cloud has cloud-ness. Is this your sound logic? It's a meaningless word to describe nothing that is there. Consciousness is made out of conscious beings, not a substance or thing called consciousness. It is a non-entity. It's a classification. An idea in your imaginary head.

Everything you state is unfalsifiable. You can safely hold your views until you die, as what you claim is irrefutable. If this makes you feel superior and and you feel the need to prove just how smart you are. By all means, get it out of your system.—but I'm puzzled why you'd even interact with me, this board, your computer and your language if we're not real.

Now, prove to me that there even is such a thing as an objective material brain. I'm not saying a brain doesn't exist, just a material one.

Once again you're not applying your Cartesian doubt to your own Cartesian doubt. This is hypocritical. The fact that you're doubting anything would prove to a rational person that you exist. I need only show you a brain, make you touch it, make you smell it, make you taste it etc. to prove to you a material brain exists, but you'll refuse. I will then ask you to bash in your own skull, it doesn't matter, it isn't real, but what happens next? Everything you know is drawn from your perspective, your vantage point in the universe, your experience, your memory, your thoughts—but to you, all this is illusory. Even the idea of consciousness itself can not be real to you, yet you trustingly fall in line behind it because it sounds more interesting.

I respect you enough to hold that you are not a figment of my imagination; that I am interacting with a real being. If I am only a figment of your imagination, then why do you bother? Go imagine some paradise and live in it.

I don't have to prove anything to you.

I think the answer in part is 21grammes, The postulated weight of a human soul, this if true is evidence of the "is'ness" of the conscious.
I do like your thread, but, when all we have as tools of exploration, is our current language, and, its technical usage.
How does it help to get anywhere by using semantics to adjust the goalposts.
An expert in the use of semantics might well say at this point "well the moving of the goalposts is the process of discovery".
well that's just semantics.

The weight of a human soul

First, I find this thread interesting and I do not think the author of the OP is a troll. However, the OP’s contention can be applied to substance plato.stanford.edu... (as opposed to attributes such as “blue”, etc) just as easily as it can be applied to consciousness.
The idea that attributes (blueness etc) cling to something (substance, matter) that has no attributes presents us with the same problem as consciousness. Point at “matter” without pointing at a particular attribute!
“Matter” ( substance) is the ultimate abstraction!

Originally posted by The X
I think the answer in part is 21grammes, The postulated weight of a human soul, this if true is evidence of the "is'ness" of the conscious.
I do like your thread, but, when all we have as tools of exploration, is our current language, and, its technical usage.
How does it help to get anywhere by using semantics to adjust the goalposts.
An expert in the use of semantics might well say at this point "well the moving of the goalposts is the process of discovery".
well that's just semantics.

The weight of a human soul

I've seen the movie 21 grams but can only find little on the experiment of weighing the dying. It was done once in the early 20th century apparently, on 6 dying patients and many forcefully killed dogs. Despite his piety, he sure used such a morbid setting. Although any pathologist would probably laugh at the idea, the experiment hasn't been tried again since, and relies on the words of one man and 6 deceased individuals. It's interesting though, thanks for sharing.

As for the semantics. Yes, of course I'm discussing semantics. I'm searching for meaning in this idea to see what value it holds. To me, the idea of a substance called consciousness is invalid, irrational and not well suited to represent the building block of everything in the universe—as many wish to assert. I don't do this because I'm a materialist or wicked; I don't cling to the physical world as if it is the be all and end all; but because I live life in it and I genuinely love nature, my environment, animals and individuals enough to show them the honor they rightfully deserve. To think everything exists because of one human imagination is, in my opinion, the same as spitting on everything I know and love,; in my face, in your face. It is nihilism; everything is but a meaningless figment of one guy's imagination, zero value to me, you, him and her. I find it a doctrine of death. I find it self-centered and a dangerous way of thinking. Imagine if it spread to everyone—that everything exists because they're awake.

If this doctrine gets in the wrong hands and devoured by the people who I consider thought-poor, it will exploited and used for material gain, and as an excuse to further destroy nature, their neighbours and themselves.

Everyone, thank you for participating. Thank you for the tar and feathering.

The wicked and sinful OP with his vile, pedantic and illogical thoughts have left the thread.

Originally posted by wittgenstein
First, I find this thread interesting and I do not think the author of the OP is a troll. However, the OP’s contention can be applied to substance plato.stanford.edu... (as opposed to attributes such as “blue”, etc) just as easily as it can be applied to consciousness.
The idea that attributes (blueness etc) cling to something (substance, matter) that has no attributes presents us with the same problem as consciousness. Point at “matter” without pointing at a particular attribute!
“Matter” ( substance) is the ultimate abstraction!

Very good! Well done and keen thinking. There are many abstractions in language. If you would've mentioned this earlier, the thread may have gone a different direction, and we'd open up an even bigger can of worms.

Please clarify to me, I am new to this subject.
To be conscious you need a brain. It is completely internal.
Consciousness however, as an abstract noun in completely external and just an idea.

The fact that we can even percieve this idea to me is an indicator that it is possible, however it can not be proven by disproving the reality of ones conscious.

If i had three buckets of blue paint and mixed in the colours, only one would be blue, however 'blueness' would exist in all three as a key component right? Imagine concious to be the colour blue. and each individual was its own bucket of colour, and you dumped each individual bucket into its own bucket of blue. 'Blue' or 'Conscious' then wouldnt exist by iteslf then, it is a literal and physical part of the bucket (or body) but it would be there as what you call consciousness? The knowlege that conscious is in you, and part of you, but that it is also something that doesnt need you to be there (consciousNESS). Is this what you are trying to say?

Sorry SO if this has already been asked/stated but 10 pages on semantics is too much even for me.

You base your OP on the assumption that consciousness requires a physical vessel aka the brain to exist. How do you know this....? There is no proof either way that consciouness is merely an abstraction.

But assuming you're right, by your definition how complex does the physical vessel have to be before a 'process' such as those performed by computers become a 'consciousness'? Does a computer posses a consciouness? Are we merely highly complex 'meat computers', just machines/automations responding to external stimuli or is there something innately different if you are a machine of flesh rather than one of metal and wires?

Cheers

ETA: Just noticed your post above and was compelled to respond

Originally posted by TheSubversiveOne
To me, the idea of a substance called consciousness is invalid, irrational and not well suited to represent the building block of everything in the universe—as many wish to assert.

I’m glad you added the ‘To me’ disclaimer. Me personally think it’s as good as anything. Like I mentioned in that other thread I have had enough experiences with mind effecting matter to believe that the idea is completely rational, and in fact explains much of what we observe in the physical world today. Each to their own I guess.

I don't do this because I'm a materialist or wicked; I don't cling to the physical world as if it is the be all and end all; but because I live life in it and I genuinely love nature, my environment, animals and individuals enough to show them the honor they rightfully deserve. To think everything exists because of one human imagination is, in my opinion, the same as spitting on everything I know and love,; in my face, in your face. It is nihilism; everything is but a meaningless figment of one guy's imagination, zero value to me, you, him and her.

Here you make the assumption that it is a ‘human’ imagination which causes everything to exist. You also discount the fact that, even if the physical world is an illusion or simply imaginary, that it exists without reason, as if it were merely a fleeting thought in the brain of some old world God. This is not necessarily the case

I find it a doctrine of death. I find it self-centered and a dangerous way of thinking. Imagine if it spread to everyone—that everything exists because they're awake.

Take this thought to the next logical step. If everyone began believing that everything is merely a figment of their imagination, eventually the question will be asked “How can this be? There are other individuals who also think, possess a ‘consciousness’ and imagine things?” The next logical step to that is the realization that maybe we are in fact simply many awareness’s of the one consciousness mind, which in turn means in reality we are all one and the same. What I do to others I am merely doing to myself. Maybe this is merely a little pipedream of my own but I fail to see how thinking in this way is any more dangerous than any other flawed belief system.

If this doctrine gets in the wrong hands and devoured by the people who I consider thought-poor, it will exploited and used for material gain, and as an excuse to further destroy nature, their neighbours and themselves.

People such as these do not use such thinking to a reason to conduct such actions. They use it as an excuse as to why such actions were conducted. If this way of thinking was not accepted then they would simply find another way to excuse their actions.

Everyone, thank you for participating. Thank you for the tar and feathering.

The wicked and sinful OP with his vile, pedantic and illogical thoughts have left the thread.

I knew it. Its quite obvious you love it...

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne


Hey thank you for your reply..

Within yourself still needs a self to be within—if that makes any sense. I am aware of the limitations of language and that is what I am indeed pointing out.

Yes we do have a self within and what would you call that self....To me that is consciousness...

Nonetheless to experience, you need things to experience: objects, form, light, mass and the body to perceive them with. Your 'consciousness' needs all of these things to perceive percepts and to fathom anything.

No I can experience nothing and everything. By turning off internal dialogue and thought and meditating. In that state I still experience by being and I do that through consciousness.

I cannot prove consciousness doesn't exist. It is unfalsifiable, meaning there's nothing I can do to prove it doesn't exist. But I think I've proven it doesn't exist as ONE thing. I think I've also shown that consciousness cannot exist outside the context of the body

I dont agree with that. In my reality all is an epiphenomena of consciousness. It comes first before everything else. The world of quantum physics is beginning to understand this. The universe cannot exist unless there is consciousness to observe it. The very act of observation changes that nature of reality around us. That is a proven fact. That which does the observing is consciousness. I do not get why you would try and argue it does not exist.

Forget all your words and thought and all your knowledge for a moment. All of that is abstract. With all that gone what are you left with..

Originally posted by TheSubversiveOne

Originally posted by sgspecial19
reply to post by TheSubversiveOne

 

...

Yes. I am conscious. I exist, conscious is a word to describe my state of being. Words are marks on paper. Consciousness is an abstract word.

Interesting, your words here...Tolle often also describes "words as just sign posts" - a label for some true reality, but I digress. I'd be interested in what you think of Robert Lanza's Biocentrism theory? That humans (and animals) consciousness actually creates reality.

Lanza's theory of biocentrism has seven principles:

en.wikipedia.org...


1) What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. An "external" reality, if it existed, would by definition have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities but rather tools of the human and animal mind.

2) Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be divorced from one another.

3) The behavior of subatomic particles, indeed all particles and objects, is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves.

4) Without consciousness, "matter" dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state.

5) The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The "universe" is simply the complete spatio-temporal logic of the self.

6) Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe.

7) Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus, there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne


Philosophy is over rated. Experience is key.

Lets unconfuse everyone real quick. Consciousness is not some mysterious state of being nor is it an isolated existence. In order to understand this all we have to first decide what is capable of possessing a conscious thought. Well the fact is that not all life is conscious because not all life has a brain. So being alive and conscious are not the same state, unfortunately a prime example of this difference in our state of existence would be somebody who is in a coma, just like a tree they are alive but not conscious.

Our awareness of our own existence stems from the processes used during thought. Thought is the collective network of mental tools an intelligent life form uses in absorbing, retaining and processing information. These tools; like memory or our senses, are results of evolution and the redundant build up of our brain's capacity to perform which increases our chance of survival. Next we need to realise the important connection between what information is and what defines a living being. Information put simple is a relation made between two separate subjects by a third and separate intelligent observer. In collaboration with the process of memory we become able to retain this information to benefit from at a different time.

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
mthurston.hubpages.com...
consc.net...
plato.stanford.edu...
plato.stanford.edu...

Before debating the en.wikipedia.org... it is necessary to be familiar with the arguments!

I am very skeptical about consciousness’ ability to create matter. However, to deny that consciousness exists seems absurd to me. My seminar paper at university was an attack on en.wikipedia.org... ‘s ase.tufts.edu... I showed how his position is self-refuting. His book en.wikipedia.org... is more correctly titled “ consciousness denied”.
In another class I improved the en.wikipedia.org... argument. My version I call “Mary’s triangle.” An plato.stanford.edu... must claim that it is impossible to visualize a triangle!
Has Mary learned anything? According to the objections she has not. Here is my variation on the theme of "Mary's room". Suppose, she knows everything about triangles from a strictly words and numbers basis. However, she has never seen a triangle or even visualized one. She can calculate using the Pythagorean theorem what one side of a triangle is but she never knows the form of a triangle.
One day all of a sudden she visualizes (imagines it in her mind) a triangle. There is no triangle in her brain. The neurons are not firing in a triangle shape etc. However, even if we describe that mental triangle as an epiphenomenon it is still new information, not encoded in the brain (there is no triangle shape in her brain) . To say the visualized triangle= the words or mathematical formulas for a triangle, is like saying a CD of Mozart = hearing Mozart!
The below is from the Mary's room site given above,
"Thus, at the conception of the thought experiment, Jackson was an epiphenomenalist. Later, however, he rejected epiphenomenalism.[10] This, he argues, is because when Mary first sees red, she says "wow", so it must be Mary's qualia that causes her to say "wow". This contradicts epiphenomenalism because it involves a conscious state causing an overt speech behavior. Since the Mary's room thought experiment seems to create this contradiction, there must be something wrong with it. "
Physicalists (such as Dennett) deny the existence of qualia. I hope I showed that such a position requires them (if they are consistent) to assert something that they themselves will deny. Therefore, their position is untenable and perhaps absurd.
I believe that Dennett will not deny the obvious fact that a person can visualize a triangle. When one visualizes a triangle one sees a triangle. One does not see neurons firing or whatever.
Dennett has two options. 1. Deny that one sees a triangle. Saying that the triangle is an illusion is not a solution because Dennett (if consistent) must say that there is nothing “what it feels like” to see a triangle.
Or 2, There is an actual physical triangle in one’s brain. Both options are absurd. Therefore Dennett’s position is untenable.

“I need only show you a brain, make you touch it, make you smell it, make you taste it etc. to prove to you a material brain exists,”
TheSubversiveOne
Actually, all you would prove is that I am experiencing plato.stanford.edu... . Matter (plato.stanford.edu... ) is an abstraction that is not experienced empirically. Note that I am not saying that the proposition “ matter is the ultimate foundation of reality” is not true. All I am saying is that “matter” is a theoretical construct. For example en.wikipedia.org... s are not real. However, they help organize our thoughts.
en.wikipedia.org...
It is very odd. plato.stanford.edu... dismisses first and second person narratives and yet embraces third person narratives! They propose an “outside” (of the first and second person) without believing in an inside!
Here are 2 more arguments in favor of the proposition that consciousness exists.
1. An eliminative materialist must (if they are consistent in their reasoning) say that if one understands Einstein’s brain one understands Relativity. However, that is obviously absurd.
2. This argument is contentious because it involves ethics and ethics is ultimately subjective. I agree with plato.stanford.edu... and plato.stanford.edu... that the most important questions are subjective. Of course eliminative materialists dismiss the subjective. However, I am sure they would agree that torture is wrong (this shows an inconsistency in their reasoning). Eliminative materialists believe that pain= C fibers firing. Torture (pain) is wrong. However, C fibers firing are ethically neutral. They hold 2 mutually exclusive views and therefore their position is absurd.

Good Arguments,

I am very skeptical about consciousness’ ability to create matter. However, to deny that consciousness exists seems absurd to me.

Your or I cannot perceive of, or think about something called consciousness. We cannot picture, feel it, smell it, it or conceive it. Empedocles discovered air was a separate thing by turning over a bucket in water. Something invisible, odorless and intangible bubbled out of the bucket as something gaseous. It was air. Not even a bubble of consciousness can be found, but nonetheless we have put a word to it. What's so absurd to think this thing does not exist when there's nothing to prove it does?

I also don't think “qualia” exist as things, but merely as philosophical jargon used to describe further abstractions. To me, they are merely varying degrees of appearances, completely dependent on the context and actual things of a situation. I cannot say something looks blue until there is something that appears blue to look at. I cannot smell baked bread unless there is bread baking. Qualia don't exist separate from the object as something tangible, but are merely the appearances of the object itself. What exists is the object. It's qualia is still that object, and nothing separate. We only abstract the real object into pieces for linguistic purposes. It is a linguistic convenience, much like the word consciousness.

“I need only show you a brain, make you touch it, make you smell it, make you taste it etc. to prove to you a material brain exists,”
TheSubversiveOne Actually, all you would prove is that I am experiencing plato.stanford.edu... . Matter (plato.stanford.edu... ) is an abstraction that is not experienced empirically. Note that I am not saying that the proposition “ matter is the ultimate foundation of reality” is not true. All I am saying is that “matter” is a theoretical construct.

If real things are a theoretical construct, then the “qualia” of them are appearances of a theoretical construct. If you would hold that the appearances of appearances are what is real, then I would throw water on you and show you “wetness.” I agree “Matter” is an abstract term, much like the word “consciousness.” We are not discussing things, but appearances of things. We cannot circumscribe an appearance without circumscribing the thing that appears that way. I cannot show you the red of an apple unless I show you a red apple. When you see the “redness” of the apple I show, you're still just looking at a red apple. The apple exists, the redness, on its own, doesn't. We're not looking at two things here, but one.

When we use the word “consciousness,” we are talking about things that appear conscious, and not something that exists on its own. Descartes was able to abstract himself enough to split himself into two things in his thoughts, mind and body—when in fact, he was still sitting there whole, intact and comfortable in his evening gown. It's merely linguistic conveniences, and not real things.

This way of thinking, and abstracting things into pieces for linguistic convenience, is a bad habit that's almost impossible to get rid of, and is a result of 2000+ years of Aristotelean logic (in my opinion).

Thanks for the great points.

so then awareness doesn't exist either?

I don't think I can argue with the fact that conciousness, as a state of being conscious, is anything that can be weighed or measured. So you are 100% correct that our use of the English language to describe it is flawed, but that's all it is.

Human history is full of instances where we have tried to give meaning to that which we can't explain. I don't see this as anything different and eventually we will find a way to be able to explain it, just not right now.

Biggest conspiracy known to man is that when you are told what you are inhaling and exhaling is oxygen... This ["Oxygen"] is god.

Consciousness, our ability to be aware. We tend to think it comes from us... but the argument is that if we are separated from this for 4 minutes... what's the first think you lose? Consciousness. Therefore consciousness does not come from you, it is a gift from god.