Electrical signals being sent through synaptic connections An example: a kid is born, he is being beaten by a stick by his father, the data is stored in the brain, kid grows up a bit and is not aware of the childhood events any more, then one evening his father comes in with a stick, the kid is panic stricken. Now, he has that dynamic emotion exactly because there is data stored in his brain of the former abuse, he wouldn't have had that emotion connected with the stick if there was no data in the brain concerning the early childhood events. What the brain did was: incoming information [father+stick] -> evaluation [(father+stick) against stored data (father+stick=pain)] -> result [it is going to pain] -> reaction [instinctive action+emotion = terror] Data that is understood. We can't know memories of other people by eating their brain, although (if the brain is fresh enough) we are eating data. Explain or state your question more clearly.
And what are "electrical signals"? ... You see, if one ascribes to the atomistic theory of meaning, then definitions are easy and non-circular, and absolutes exist, you have something solid to start from. Science has being doing that for a long time. It's just that it never works out, and things must be redefined over and over again.
OK water, please tell us, what are 'electrical signals' in your estimation? By the by, Avatar's definition had nothing to do with an 'atomistic theory of meaning', especially considering there is no such theory. If anything, his definition would fit within a Coherence theory of meaning, wherein one will find a lovely methodology we call the 'scientific method'. Given that we do not have an a priori system of knowledge, this scientific method thing seems to work pretty well for now.
That what are electrical signals doesn't matter here. My definition would be equally valid if electric signals were bees, odour of soil or a form of energy of the universe, as long as they follow the synaptic connections (regarding the human brain). You can ask a "and what is" question about any physical thing in this universe and we would have to go deeper and deeper, but it stops at the energy released at the big bang, there are no sublevels of it. What is energy? MC^2 I still see no problems with my definition. If you see maybe you have some problems of perception, or maybe I have. Either way at this stage other readers are well able to choose which opinion they agree to. ciao
I don't know; except that we can always ask "And what is ...?" Source. One can do around with definitions as if they were finite only if one subscribes to the atomism of meaning. The thing is that it is being constantly upgraded, while at the same time each stage is treated as if it were finite ...
Consciousness is the capacity to understand that there is more than just this time (the now), and reject or accept the notion. I've been thinking like this and can't figure around it yet: We experience time, a progression of moments and contexts. Our minds have the capacity to create these contexts based on the moments that preceded it, and the moments it predicts may be coming. This creates the capacity for somethign I can't decide is an illusion, or indicative of something about the universe that is generally over-looked. The human mind, existing in more than just an infinitessimally thin slice of time - has more time in it at one time than just that time, because what's there is actually just abstracted representations of preceding or forthcoming time, organized to satisfy whatever structure existed prior to the stimulous currently in question. As such, a "time oddity" occurs to me. There is no more time right now than just right now according to a clock stopped right now on the wall. There is no moment. You cannot stop it and say "this is it". However, there is obviously a moment - cuz I'm typing this in it right now. It's a regurgitation of other moments, freestyled into my current mode and detail of thought. So the extremely half-assed mathematician/scientist side of me wants to account for this with consideration of dimensionality. Given that there is no more time than right now, but yet there is... I makes me think of a means of information storage perpedicular (or a bubble) to the timeline. The "oh my god you're a retard wes" side of me thinks "dude, you're a retard, and you just can't accept that you're wrong". We could say as glaucon insists above, something about the brain being a "gestalt" or something (bad paraphrase, pardon). But where is a gestalt? I can't touch it. The meaning of it could be ripped away by destroying the brain the houses it - but is it really gone? For in the moment it existed, what it the nuerons, or was it simply their arrangment? What difference is there in this arrangment between it and an infinity of others? That it is relative to a POV and indicates weight within it, is more than just "cells firing" to me. To me it implies "there is something called abstract space", which is the "possibility space" of ideas. There are rules to this space like, "logic provides order". Meh. Could be that I'm retarded.
The feeling of separation between what I think is me and what I think is not me. Without this separation, I could not say "I am" (consciousness)
Duendy: Although you and I often clash on many a topic, I must commend you for bringing this discussion up. I shall offer my comments later.
What capacity? I think it's just reaction. Please, let me explain. For instance an indian warrior rides on his horse to battle and shouts "this is a good day to die!", he has data/information in his brain (due to some philosophical idea) that dying is nothing bad and so his reaction when an enemy comes forward is emotional uplift, maybe joy that the battle will start. And we have another man that has nothing to do with battle and his wife just recently died, so he is terrified of death and when he sees the same enemy he runs away in horror. Now, these are two reactions to an identical situation. The reacions are dependent on the data/information in an individual brain. All that we have is the capacity to create and/or perceive new data and later react according to it when it is evaluated against some newer input. The time illusion concept I think is unneeded, because what we do at the present moment is an interaction of two types of data -> new and already stored. Or maybe I am missing something from your argument. Please look at my definition of the consciousness at the first page and say where you see a problem when applying your own definition beside or you don't agree to it at all. It will make me easier to understand the problem you are having with the consciousness as such.
Ah, Prince_James, I remember we had a nice discussion about the nature of reality, thanks to your valuable input I'm thinking of rewriting it mainly when dealing with the (non?) existance of consciousness, though I'm sure we'll still disagree with each other. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Awaiting your input here too.
in my reponse tp your explanation Avatar--and believe it, i m only really exploring this myself...trying to understand through exploring about it--that what you describe is the measureable. For example if i may summarize....you describ electrical activity, synaptic interaction, and behaviour of people in similarsituations etc--anything i've missed out? Well that seems to m what neurology and psychology do. in that they pertian to be able to MEASURE OBJECTIVELY consciousness , but NOT the inner FEELING of that consciousness. This is being called 'the Hard Problem. in cognitive science. That we cannot know wat the subjective feeling, or 'qualia' is for an entity. This this implies the problem of knowing the entireity of consciousess
Not in simmilar situations, just in situations and even if there is no situation at all, a human can create a situation/data that has no direct external input. And people may not be aware to what they are reacting to, you have to take sub- and unconsciousness in mind too, deeper level processes are mostly not known to an awake mind, I think that is what you call unmeasurable. I'd disagree that it is unmeasurable, it is just harder to measure for the awake consciousness. Who knows, maybe your unconsciousness does it all the time. What do you understand with the "inner feeling"? Are you refering to the deeper level processes I mentioned? In that case that is when people are aware of some portion of the deeper level thought process happening, but they are not aware of it fully. That is what psychology and meditations are for - to explore the consciousness, that is to say, to be indirectly aware of and indirectly understand as much synaptic connections as possible.
I was surprised to find criticism to the few observations I was making; I thought most of the things I was saying were intuitively obvious starting from traditional interpretations of the terms mind, body, consciousness, etc. I was not actually trying to say anything so radical as perhaps some of you are thinking, and maybe my writing was a little muddled earlier, so I want to clarify a few things about my position on this matter: Consciousness cannot be a "quality of existence" but consciousness CAN be a *property* of *existents* (sorry, I'm aware that my earlier wording invited ambiguity.) Calling consciousness a "quality" of "existence" seems backwards to me: after all, we are conscious of existence and this awareness is called experience. I am arguing that the phenomena of experience has not yet been satisfactorily explained in philosophical (theories of consciousness,) psychological (cognitive abilities or functions) and/or physical (neurobiological) terms. This situation is essentially a reformulation of the mind/body problem: how does the subjective, conscious experience of a visual sensation (say, seeing a white car right now) arise from the neurobiological substratum we call the brain, even if we look as deeply as interactions between neurons. No matter how accurate our models of the brain, even if we identify the segments which engage in an arbitrarily complex, parallel, interrelated information processing, we have only found the biological correlate of awareness. We have not localized consciousness, yet it seems localized in US; this is the kind of paradox I'm speaking of--and I'm aware that the seduction of language makes it very easy for people to talk past one another on this issue, so I shall endeavor to be clear. So, in other words, even if we could point to the PART of the brain that makes consciousness happen, we have still not explained HOW this entity which is a completely metaphysical other--conscious experience--arises out of the same kind of substance as viruses, baseballs, airplanes, etc. The problem is still one of explaining interaction. The problem is paradoxical because it is consciousness itself which mediates this interaction between physical sensations and thoughts, between matter and mind--what we shall argue is some sort of non-physical, non-localized, non-deterministic "substance" (I know the word is loaded with dualisms, but consciousness is neither imagined, socially constructed or neurobiological; it is therefore something metaphysically different. Mind is NOT the same thing as body, although--once again with the paradoxes, watch out--both are unified through consciousness, since it is a singularity. To continuePlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It is indeed interesting that quantum physics has suggested that certain kinds of subatomic particles exhibit qualities like nondeterminism, nonlocalization, etc; these are fascinating findings, but the question still remains how the behavior of any kind of physical particles could even interact with, much less constitute conscious experience. Simply because both are mysterious we cannot call them the same mystery.
To everyone, but especially Glaucon: Since Ockham's Razor is being bandied about, it would be best if everyone keeps in mind that Ockham's Razor does not say that one ought to cut down everything down to the simplest terms alone, but the simplest -and correct- terms. If the equation should read 3x + 5/6 (-34 - 22), then reducing it to 3x + 5/6 is improper. This may well be the case with Dualism, specifically if there is such a thing as Free-Will. Moreover, the ability to actually think thoughts, to perceive them in the mind's eye, does not seem to be fully accounted for by pure Materialism, or as of yet, has not been so. The problem, however, is actually saying that there are material substances and mental substances and these are polar opposites, which begs the question of how they can possibly interact. That's the true Mind-Body Problem. Avatar: If you accept that the brain is not the only organ capable of producing consciousness, what do they all share which produces consciousness in your theory? Joeman: Even though I fundementally assert that Glaucon was wrong in his attack against your Dualism, we still must take into consideration that, perhaps, mental substances and physical substances are -not- really different.
I definitely agree that we should not hastily impose a dichotomous interpretation onto the mind/body "situation." I believe that you are fundamentally accurate, that the difference IS one of perception and distinction. The distinction between mind and body is posterior to consciousness itself. The distinction is primarily a practical one which is difficult to defend in theory since the language is perversely confused on this point (especially about belief and knowledge.) I will admit 'substance' is a rather dramatic term, in that it sets up 'mind' and 'body' as polar opposites. I'm "I (heart) Huckabees" on this one: it's an essential unity which is also an infity. Everything is interrelated. But everything is not conscious experience either--I still think we are dealing with something genuinely metaphysical here that neurobiological or psychological methods are simply not equipped to handle, or even begin to answer the kinds of questions with the kinds of precision we want.
Which is exactly my point in invoking Ockham. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Ergo, there is no need, nor reason, to create non-physical entities to attempt to explain our experiences. I'm not claiming that a purely Materialist analysis can account for those things we cannot (as yet) explain. But to invoke 'ghosts' is to reduce us to fiction, and indeed to violate the Razor (and, in my opinion, reason). All too true. Just as I am bound not to exclude non-physical possibilities. And for the record, my main concern here was water's disregard for the dialectic, moreso than the argument. Anyone can play quid pro quo; he failed to provide a counter position of his own.
The ability to react to outer stimuli according to the data/information stored, i.e., any level of consciousness operates with information stored in the same organism / life form, i.e., consciousness is that process of operation. The more it can operate (that is to say - make choices) with the information, the more developed the consciousness.
I agree with glaucon here, there is no need to to explain something with more than it is required. Imo, the idea of consciousness as a process explains and predicts everything quite nicely.
