Consciousness is a magical property

The Presence

Some have such an experience of a presence
that they then leap to call the experience
god, the cosmos, or the all.

The experience is indeed felt,
but is something else entirely.
It is the left brain,
wherefrom the sense of self comes,
sensing the unspeaking right brain as a presence.

To call it god/all is of a cerebral mistake,
not to mention it being a giant leap
of unfounded opinion rather than fact.

You can even feel it a bit now,
kind of, however slight,
such as when having dinner,
driving, or doing some task.

It then feels like your left brain
is full, of course,
and that the right is empty,
the left side even feeling warmer;
but, pause from the task for a second
and holistically observe something as a whole,
such as a furniture cabinet or a car,
not getting into the details.

Now the right brain is the half
that feels warm and full—
and maybe even a little spacey.

That’s all it is, folks.

In some it can get very extreme,
medically bothersome even,
like having two selves
or positing an intruding self
that is not one’s own.

Patients whose hemispheres’ connection
is severed to relieve epilepsy
may even develop
two separate consciousnesses,
often at odds with each other,
such as getting choked with one hand,
the other hand trying to take it away.

Another, differently sourced feeling,
of being one with the cosmos
comes during meditation,
but is only of the calming
of the brain neurons
in the parietal lobe,
those that maintain
the identification of the self
and also of where the body ends
and the rest of the universe begins.

That’s all it is.

This can also happen
during praying or chanting;
it’s been measured in monks.

Who then, upon recalling,
or during a state of meditation,
or just by living,
can use an experience
of doubtful analysis
by the mere state of being
to say anything further
about the true nature,
why, source, how, and wherefore
of the conscious awareness
of felt sensation—
without consideration of the
electrochemical states beneath?

There are those who feel
they have to say,
based on introspection alone,
and those who do not,
for science also informs them
of the states beneath.​

 

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But for some odd you reason you cared about cortex...you cared but no one else did. i applaud you for standing up for what you believe to be right...even if you stand alone.

 

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At it again, Dave?

 

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So basically what you are admitting is that you can't control yourself, that you let idiots take control of you and you say things that you normally wouldn't?

Anybody can control themselves in the absence of challenging circumstances, but it's a weak mind that loses control in the presence of challenge.

 

That consciousness is exclusive to living things.

 

If you have something to say about consciousness, then put some effort into trying to SAY it. If you just want to conjoin an aimless succession of words to the word 'consciousness', then do it on one single thread.

(Look, I came to your defense in the 'magic' thread. Now you're making me look bad.)

So, do you imagine consciousness to be a substance, a ultimate kind of being, a supernatural kind of stuff?

Or do you imagine it to be an activity, something that is performed, a set of information processing functions performed in our human case by nervous systems.?

If it's the former, then what do you think the connection is between this mysterious consciousness stuff and "any potential building block of life"? Are you suggesting that all matter is animated in some mysterious way with an equally mysterious spiritual consciousness?

If it's the latter, then would "any potential building block of life" possess the kind of complex formal arrangement needed to perform the information processing functions?

Material reality is a dream? Apparently you embrace the strong-idealist ontological thesis.

So... who's the dreamer?

And what is this "greater level of consciousness" that you speak of? Some Brahman-style world-soul?

It does? I don't think that it typically does in Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Some varieties of Hinduism have views something like that.

Do you intend to imply that each human being's separate individuality is ultimately illusory and that one single divine dreamer is dreaming all of the many roles? In other words, that there's only one single subjective "me" that inhabits all sentient beings and experiences the material-world dream from each of their countless perspectives? (Is Atman = Brahman?)

Another thing: Your whole idea seems to have flipped on its head. You began with what looked like a poorly stated intuition that you find consciousness amazing and believe that it is some kind of fundamental mystery. (Many philosophers would agree with that.)

Now you seem to be suggesting that the reason why consciousness needs to be treated as a fundamental mystery and not reduced to brain functions or something, is to protect the existence of God, which is somehow connected with the irreducibiity of consciousness, the priority of consciousness over material being, and to the idea of some unifying principle that somehow pulls it all together.

That really needs a lot of expansion.

 

What do I think?

I think that if you were in my classroom, I'd tell you that you need to either contribute something substantial to class discussions, or else stop disrupting them with pointless outbursts.

Whether you intend it or not, you really are acting like a troll.

 

Do you think that robots can ever be conscious?

What interest or importance do you think that consciousness (supposedly) being exclusive to living things should have? The Eiffel Tower is exclusive to Paris. The files on my computer are exclusive to my computer. But I don't think that either of those examples represents "specialness" in the peculiar sense that you seem to be suggesting. So there's apparently something more happening here, beyond simple exclusivity.

 

I'll have to get back to you on this one. I'm not sure yet, but my first answer is yes, we can duplicate consciousness in intelligent machines..

The word "specialness" in regards to consciousness can mean a number of things besides the reason I gave that you responded to. This is why I am asking for other people's opinions of why they think consciousness is special.

 

Define living things. Would machine consciousness be a new set, or would being conscious make it living?

 

Machine consciousness would be a brand new set altogether.

 

So it wouldn't consider itself alive?

 

I don't think a machine would consider itself alive even if it had an 'I' or a self-image. It would be so weird. It would consider itself as a machine, not a living thing.

 

Persistent or constant dealing with a raving idiot causes it yes...however if I can get away from said individuals I can control myself...However, when someone similar to cortex starts spouting out complete bullshit...I can't help but want to ostracize or even insult them. I have a CSI mentality: Can’t Stand Idiots.

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So, wait, it's okay to call him weak-minded? Why the double-standard?

 

I have adopted the view that there's nothing mysterious about anything and that consciousness does not lie in a shroud of mystery.

 

Before this latest vacillation, what was supposed to be mysterious about the world and your own thoughts being present, what you're often encountering even in a fictional manner when asleep (dreaming)? It's rather non-consciousness, as reference to some "invisible" way of existing independent of the properties of sense and intellection, that would originally be more applicable to the adjective. But when we start believing that we know what non-phenomenal / non-understanding is, the cart and the horse trade places and some people resultingly scratch their heads over a situation of the former pulling the latter. Consciousness then gets construed as the one that seems mysterious.

Vladimir Lenin = "That Ernst Mach is the most popular representative of empirio-criticism today is universally acknowledged in philosophical literature. ...The materialists, we are told [by the Machian positivists], recognise something unthinkable and unknowable -- 'things-in-themselves' -- matter 'outside of experience' and outside of our knowledge. They lapse into genuine mysticism by admitting the existence of something beyond, something transcending the bounds of 'experience' and knowledge. When they say that matter, by acting upon our sense-organs, produces sensations, the materialists take as their basis the 'unknown,' nothingness; for do they not themselves declare our sensations to be the only source of knowledge? The materialists lapse into 'Kantianism' (Plekhanov, by recognising the existence of 'things-in-themselves,' i.e., things outside of our consciousness); they 'double' the world and preach 'dualism,' for the materialists hold that beyond the appearance there is the thing-in-itself; beyond the immediate sense data there is something else, some fetish, an 'idol,' an absolute, a source of 'metaphysics,' a double of religion ('holy matter,' as Bazarov says). Such are the arguments levelled by the Machians against materialism, as repeated and retold in varying keys by the afore-mentioned writers."
--Materialism and Empirio-Criticism

 

Wouldn't it be special to the one who has it?

 

Thank you for bringing to light the confusion of consciousness. We can rest easy now that we know that consciousness is not some magical property existing independently of the body but an origination from the physical brain itself.

 

Also, consciousness arrives after the brain has done its analysis. I guess it is kind of a summary after the fact, of what went on.