Location of Consciousness

[rickolasnice]

I think consciousness is a bit of a ghost in the machine (probably my own definition of it)

Meaning when a machine becomes complex enough consciousness (or the illusion of it) will arise.

I've been sitting here typing for about half an hour and i can't explain what i mean.. Hopefully someone here knows what I'm talking about and can provide a link to info.

 

[Ksa]

I think consciousness is a bit of a ghost in the machine (probably my own definition of it)

Meaning when a machine becomes complex enough consciousness (or the illusion of it) will arise.

I've been sitting here typing for about half an hour and i can't explain what i mean.. Hopefully someone here knows what I'm talking about and can provide a link to info.

You mention that consciousness is an attempt of the Universe to understand itself and end the chaos through formation of complex, orderly entities. This was mentioned by Brian Green in The Hidden Reality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJqpNudIss4

 

[-=SS=-]

His "wall of text" makes some good points.

No, he doesn't. He made attempts at philosophical imaginings that I made when I was 8, and then I realized the questions were inherently flawed. The first point about 10 people coming/going.. why have you put an arbitrary limit on awareness? I don't know where you pulled that one from in relation to the rest of the thread. You even said the word eternal.. infinite tends to go along with eternal, hence something that has no beginning or end. You can slice it up as many times as you want but you will never dissipate the entire thing.

Also with the space ship analogy, you're assuming that awareness originates inside of 3-dimesional space. Our individual point of awareness may feel like it does, but have you ever tried to remember yourself past the age of 3, to your birth, and then.. ? You were aware when you were born even if you didn't have the neural development to perceive the world through your senses fully yet. Bodily awareness and awareness of the world does arise once you're in this space, but that's not the awareness I'm referring to.

When asked about his impending death, Ramana Maharshi replied: "They say that I am dying, but I am not going away; where could I go? I am here.". These are words from someone who realized. When you die your individual personality and neural structure dissipates, but the awareness that watched and gave presence to the whole experience remains. That does not mean you will know the death experience as you die. Maharshi was fully identified with the primal awareness before he physically died. 99.9% of the population is not, and there is nothing to suggest death will be anything other than a painful reminder of what you could have become.

That awareness is non-dual, impersonal. You can't contemplate it or think about it in a logical way, you can't take your rational mind into 'that', it stands alone and beyond all relative human thinking processes. If you want a logical and mechanical way of approaching it check out this man (the guy who invented a puzzle game) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lSyhpKK_ak . He comes it at from a Kabbalistic conceptual approach, but in essence he is pretty close to representing how things are (i don't know if he actually realizes that or not). 'God'/awareness is a singularity/field of infinite potential, from which everything else arises out of.

 

[Ksa]

^ You're playing with words sir, if consciousness does not originate from a time and space bound world, there is nothing we can do here to prove its existence. It means you say like I say: that it is created on birth and destroyed on death.

and there is nothing to suggest death will be anything other than a painful reminder of what you could have become.

Oh so now dead people can feel pain?

I watched the video my comments are: This means that if you were born a human it means you always were a human in the past and always will remain human in your future lives. Same with someone born a dog or a cat. They could not be something else. So, like it is mentioned in Surat Al-Baqarah 2:111:

"And they say, "None will enter Paradise except one who is a Jew or a Christian." That is [merely] their wishful thinking, Say, "Produce your proof, if you should be truthful."

You are not the first to believe you are special. Others did it in the past too. You are not special, when you die, it's as if you never even existed and shall you think otherwise, produce your proof! A guy playing with a dildo on youtube is not proof. The man has a dildo, and he says the spirit exits the tunnel which, I assume it's 3-dimensional and so is the spirit or else, either it wouldn't fit through the tunnel or it couldn't position itself with respect to it, so, I assume that for the spirit to exit through the tunnel, the spirit too has to be 3-dimensional. So in space, outside the galaxy, where will the spirit go?

You should not watch videos like that, it's a bunch of lies...hmmmm...ALL of it! It is simply sex-positive material that invites to masturbation and profanity. The universe doesn't limit things like that, you could be anything, anywhere and at any time. The Universe gives you many experiences not just one experience.

The fact that you want to be a human again shows how deeply attached you are to yourself, you can't let go. It's all you got...you yell mommy don't take my toy away. I want to be human!!! You can have fun in another shape too my friend, ohhh yea! If you think you're having fun as a human being wait to see when you become something else how nice it will be. Let go of the false belief. Well, doesn't matter anyways, you can hold on to it but when you die you will have no choice but to let go lol.

 

[-=SS=-]

Hold on pal, first you say I have trouble letting go and now you accuse me of believing I'm special. I can assure you I am not special; I know I am just a blob of earthly clay. Don't pretend to know who I am through the odd text post please. If you knew me you would know that I sincerely do not want to be human again after this life, let alone on this planet.

You're interchanging two terms, consciousness and awareness, when they are not one and the same. Consciousness arises in 3-D space yes, but awareness does not. Your consciousness is what dissipates at death, the awareness that made the felt presence of the existence possible remains. Again, this does not mean at death you will experience anything other than dissipation into nothingness. It depends on where you got to in your life though. And I never said dead people feel pain. I said people in the process of death will likely experience great pain as their minds dissipate/unravel and they get a brief glimpse of the awareness that lay behind it all, before their ego/relative machine mind vanishes forever.

Also I didn't say I believed that video. It was just an example, a good one, of making a visual representation of a singularity type system and how it relates to our reality. There's lots of words around about how things work, but not many visual demonstrations. Hence why I thought it may be of some use in this conversation.

 

[Ksa]

Awareness
Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Look at the definition and tell me, if awareness is able to leave time and space completely, then it's no longer awareness. What defines awareness is perception, feelings, and consciousness. All these are time bound and space bound.

If you're using the wrong word, come up with the right one, which is? Soul.

Why not use soul? Then we could have a constructive argument instead of stumbling into definitions.

Also I didn't say I believed that video. It was just an example, a good one, of making a visual representation of a singularity type system and how it relates to our reality. There's lots of words around about how things work, but not many visual demonstrations. Hence why I thought it may be of some use in this conversation.

Here you're stumbling on the idea that "there has to be more to this, or life has no meaning". Why can't you accept that life has no meaning? There is no singularity. The singularity occurred at the birth of our Universe, then what came afterwards is non-sense, just like the smoke coming from a fire-ball, it goes into the sky and it's gone no one cares about it. No one adds singularities and so on and so forth. It's dust.

I told before that if we could really understand what this world is really about, 1,000 human minds could not have the computing power to process the scale of the disappointment. If you retain this last sentence of all that I said you're good to go. Just that one sentence. You keep saying there's a singularity, that something remains, that it's not that bad. Wishful thinking! Surat Al Baqarah Chapter number 2 verse 111! Wishful thinking! Upon our death, nothing remains but star dust. It's what all this really is, as it is mentioned in Genesis , Chapter 3, Verse number 19:

"For you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

 

[-=SS=-]

You're relying a textbook definition of awareness. You're assuming that is the correct definition. You're assuming that the person/people who came up with that definition really know what awareness is. You're assuming they have defined it accurately for themselves. And I can tell you for a fact they haven't.. that definition is coming from within a relative perspective and not through the only way of actually defining it accurately, which is direct experience of it. The people who wrote that definition were not enlightened.

Awareness does not leave time and space because it is not bound by 3-dimensional space. It exists beyond it. Hence why Maharshi stated when he died he would not actually go anywhere as he was already "there".

I can see this dialogue is going to go nowhere, so I'll leave it for others to interject something more relevant in relation to the original question.

 

[Ksa]

You're relying a textbook definition of awareness. You're assuming that is the correct definition. You're assuming that the person/people who came up with that definition really know what awareness is. You're assuming they have defined it accurately for themselves.

Brother these are the limitations of the English language. Do you know what the purpose of language is? If you use a word, you cant use it according to what it means to you, you have to use it according to what it means to the rest of us or we don't understand you. I admit, English language might have boundaries, speak goauld then :D

Awareness does not leave time and space because it is not bound by 3-dimensional space. It exists beyond it. Hence why Maharshi stated when he died he would not actually go anywhere as he was already "there".

Ahh! Correct brother correct! I was trying to get you to say it. Sure, awareness exists not only in a 3-dimensional space, it extends to other dimensions, for your information, in at least 10 dimensions. But so does everything else! You think the food you eat, the drugs you take are 3-dimensional only? They too extend in all dimensions. What you're doing is, when you don't understand something you blame it on other dimension "oh it must be in some other dimension". Show me your calculations proving it. Surat Al Baqarah Chapter number 2 verse 111! Produce your proof! Because I have it.

I'm willing to help you in case you can't produce your proof

 

[rickolasnice]

You mention that consciousness is an attempt of the Universe to understand itself and end the chaos through formation of complex, orderly entities. This was mentioned by Brian Green in The Hidden Reality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJqpNudIss4

That's not what I meant, no..

Basically.. The simplest (and earliest) life form was one that reacted strictly on pre-programming of the DNA and then eventually environmental stimuli.. We are no different. We are more complex, sure, but we are still reacting, feeling and even thinking things that are a mix of pre-programming of natural instincts and external stimuli. Because of the complexity of our brain (and many other animals brains, i'm sure) a sense of free will and the "mind" have risen.

 

[ebola?]

searle's chinese room doesn't answer whether a computer can think, but if you recall our conversation about it, it may redefine what is commonly thought of as consciousness.

another analogy pointing in the right direction is the two people needing directions to a certain destination, one perfectly healthy and one with a memory disability. the former uses his memory whereas the latter uses notes. there is no difference in their minds when you factor the notes as a form like a functional prosthetic memory.

Mmmm...to clarify, the only phenomena that I'm deeming as presenting "consciousness" entail that some sort of awareness emerges (even if this awareness is incomplete/illusory/etc.). I find the question of how the information processing associated with consciousness is implemented quite a bit easier to tackle than the more vexing question of how awareness fits into information processing; whether something functions isomorphically with consciousness as we know it fails to speak adequately to the character of awareness entailed.

ebola

 

[Foreigner]

Awareness does not leave time and space because it is not bound by 3-dimensional space. It exists beyond it. Hence why Maharshi stated when he died he would not actually go anywhere as he was already "there".

This makes sense to me. A lot of the post-death fables revolve around consciousness being a destination, not something already present.

 

[rickolasnice]

Another TED talk about consciousness..

Could have been better.. when he goes into "sense of self" even I know there are a lot more factors that what he lists, such as external stimuli (very important one).. Don't know if it was just my concentration but he rambled on for most of it then quickly skimmed the important bit then ended with no finale... but worth the watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMrzdk_YnYY

This one is a woman describing her stroke which i think will appeal to materialists and, umm, what's the other viewpoints group called? alike..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU