Why consciousness is personal/local: A challenge for materialism
The universe is constitute of many parts. There is however one process which describes the evolution of whole since all parts are interacting with each other. This means that there should be a single consciousness if we relate consciousness to motion of parts. Instead we observe that consciousness is personal and local. How do you resolve this problem?
Comments (72)
I observe consciousness pretty much everywhere interacting with no clear line of demarcation.
What is this "one process", and how does "single consciousness" follow from it?
You are not claiming that your consciousness is mine? There is of course a line between me and you. You have your personal world and I have mine. Our thoughts and feelings are different.
All particle are interacting with each other and the motion of the whole is given by Schrodinger equation. That one process. Materialists claim that consciousness is the result of process in matter.
There are definitely different memories which define who we are.
There are definitely different Minds to access these memories (consider them all sharing the same holographic memory fabric. This also differentiates.
Now comes the tough part. The individual minds (consider them the waves) appear to also be connected as one Mind (the ocean). There doesn't seem to be a way to get away from this. So we can are individuated (via memories) but we share the same pool as one (the holographic universe). This is the way I see it.
What I am arguing is that there should be one mind since there is one process.
in way yes, because it can be considered all one process. But consider this. You observe a football team acting out a play in unison or an orchestra creating a sound in unison, are these examples of one process and one mind? in a way yes, because one cannot find a clear line of demarcation between the individual and the whole. But we cannot ignore the contributions of each mind exerting individual will. They blend, just like the cells in the body. It is a blended monism.
No, unless you claim that there is a consciousness related to unison.
No. The first question is whether ocean has consciousness and if not why? The second question is why there is not only one consciousness when there is one process? Everything is related to each other.
If you try to create lines of demarcation between the ocean and the waves, you will be frustrated. Oceans and waves are continuous?
There is no wave if there is no line of demarcation.
I would say that there is only ocean. Waves just give ocean a form.
Waves are just formation of the ocean.
I don't understand your comment. Could you please elaborate?
One can look at it as one process or many. It is a matter of perspective. One can say I see many processes (the heart beating, the blood flowing, the lungs breathing, etc.), or one can say they is only one process - living. One cannot be divorced from the other and there is no reason to even try.
Which is what we perceive. Just an endless series of forms being created in the universe. Some forms having more persistence because of habitual learning.
Could we agree that everything is interacting with each other?
Absolutely. It's defining precisely what those interactions are that create an ontology.
Therefore there is one process and one consciousness if we believe that consciousness is the result of process.
I believe it is the other way around.
So you are a dualist?
Simply put, it is that which is creating. Another way to understand it, it is that which is peering through the eyes.
How something which doesn't have any essence can create? Mind should be something.
Quoting Rich
So mind experience as well. Does that decide too?
That is definition of mind in my opinion: The essence of any being with ability to experience, decide and create/act.
It has a vibrational essence. Exactly as described by quantum physics.
Quoting bahman
Yes, mind has the ability to create direction via will. It chooses the direction.
Quoting bahman
That is it. That is precisely it.
And what is the stuff we experience, Qualia? Illusion created by mind?
There are two fields in nature: (1) Matter and (2) Forces. Are you saying that Qualia is byproduct of force field? There is no other option.
They are equivalent, just different in vibrations. Remember energy and matter are equivalent. We know this empirically.
Okay, so what do you tell the materialists? How do you resolve it? Tell the materialists that since process is not identical with the particles, then necessarily, by claiming there are particles, they admit to space-time existence. Since they admit to space-time existence, then the world is a manifold. And what do you get in world with parts, with atoms, with which you create a picture of reality? Individuation of consciousness.
There are similarities in differences and differences in similarities as there are between vapor and ice. The experiencer and subject are the eyes looking upon the body.
Is the manifold continuous?
So are you saying that force filed is conscious of us too?
Forces are ultimately consciousness applying will or entangled (e.g. gravity, weak force, etc.) It's not a lot of forces just popping out of no where without any source.
It has to be the Mind, our minds. The Dao De Jing pretty much nailed it.
The Tao begot one. (Mind begins to move)
One begot two. (Yin/Yang, positive/negative, opposites, a wave form
Two begot three. (Yin/Yang/Qi, polarity and energy, a moving wave form, mind/will
And three begot the ten thousand things. (Spiraling, vibrating waves create everything.
The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang. (Everything is composed of moving waves)
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.
No. Manifold -- containing different parts. Not one continuous existence. Though the parts may interact, they do not occupy the same space and time...
Hey, ! How come you're also not using Bergson on this thread? Why don't you explain to Bahman about Bergson's theory on reality or something? You posted several posts and not one mention of this?
What is this?
So the manifold is consciousness?
Can I have any reference?
Could you please elaborate on that?
There are free PDF files available for all of Henri Bergson's works, his most famous being Creative Evolution. For a very good explanation just watch Stephen Robbins' videos on YouTube.
Thanks.
By rejecting the fictitiously imagined "birds-eye" perspective of reality, where one pretends to oneself that one is transcendentally observing reality detached from one's first-person perspective.
Once the meaning of all concepts including the concepts of "matter" and "other minds", are understood as pertaining to empirical criteria of verification in the first-person, the transcendental fiction of seeing the universe in the third-person can be rejected as nonsensical.
Basically, Mind creates waves (Yin/Yang) and starts moving the waves with energy (Qi) and hence begins creation. Spot on and only 2500 years ago.
So Mind creates waves/minds? And Mind is ocean?
No.
So where do you get the consciousness from?
I am afraid that I cannot understand what you are trying to say. Could you please rephrase it?
Is this a new question? Because in your opening post, you took it for granted there is consciousness. You were asking for why consciousness is local/or individual, not a streaming live on anywhere.
So, explain this question to me. Are you asking the cause of consciousness?
Well, consciousness is either the result of matter activity or intrinsic property of matter. There is no other option around. You were talking about a manifold. I asked whether this manifold is manifold of consciousness. You answered no. Then the only solution is that consciousness is the result of motion of manifold. This leads to the problem mentioned in OP.
You said: So the manifold is consciousness. I said, no. They are not identical. Consciousness is, necessarily, individual in the world of materialist.
Did you read this post?
Whatever "representation" there may be of an apple in the brain is not the thing that's consciousness of the apple (there may well be part of the "machine state" of the brain that represents the apple in a true, strict sense, but that representation is not red, round, juicy, etc., it's a purely mechanical register in biochemical "brain writing," for the purposes of calculation of, e.g. the trajectory of hand reaching out to touch it). The redness, roundness, etc., are a mode of the apple's existence that occurs only in interaction with the brain, they are properties the brain gives the apple the opportunity to manifest only in interaction with it (with the brain, sensory organs, etc.).
Consciousness of the apple is a mode of the apple's existence that can only occur in conjunction with the brain when the brain intercepts certain of its effusions (light, chemical if you eat it, etc.). e.g. the colour of the apple is the very existence of certain subatomic properties of the apple's surface as it interacts with light and with the brain (one could say it's direct perception of those properties as they are, if that manner of speaking didn't mislead us into retreating back into the skull as the "seat of consciousness").
Analogously, when two waves on water intersect, there's an "interference pattern" that's not the one wave, not the other wave, but a third physical thing that occurs only in the process of interaction.
Consciousness is not in the brain, and it is not local (or rather, it's local in a slightly extended sense, to include its objects in their very physicality and bodying-forth, albeit in particular ways afforded to them solely by the brain's presence). Those have been the conceptual errors that have been holding us back from understanding, that have been causing the "Hard Problem", etc.
I'm not sure what view you're attributing to the materialists here.
I've never heard a materialist claim that consciousness is constituted by any sort of matter in any sort of motion. I'll agree they say that very specific sorts of matter in very specific sorts of motion constitute consciousness. But that claim's not the same as the less discriminate one you've sought to pin on the materialists in generating this farfetched argument.
My argument is on two bases. (1) World is made of parts, electron, proton, etc and (2) These parts interact with each other. This means that there is one process which tells you the state of the system, motion of all particles. This means that there should be one consciousness if consciousness is the result of motion of particles.
Consciousness is personal and local. Are you aware of my experiences?
Yes, it is.
Quoting Cabbage Farmer
Materialist simply claiming that consciousness is the result of specific motion of matter.
No but that's privacy, not my awareness being personal; although that word can be a bit misleading in this context (one wants to ask "private to whom?" but it's the common word used in philosophy for what I'm referring to, so we have to use it).
An instance of consciousness is certainly private in the sense that it's unique and un-havable in another consciousness - e.g. the apple exists in a different way, in a different perspective, when interacting with your brain than with mine.
But that doesn't mean consciousness is personal. The opposite of personal is impersonal, which is what consciousness actually is, because it's something that happens between person and object, it's not the sole property of the person, or of the lump of fat inside the skull; it's a property of the interaction, the interference pattern, between brain and object, and includes the object itself, it doesn't belong just to the person who (as we say) has consciousness or is conscious.
IOW consciousness is a manner of existing of the object in its interaction with the brain, as well as something going on inside the brain or in the conscious person. Only if it were something that occurred in just the person alone (e.g. in the individual's brain or mind), would it be personal.
That said, the uniqueness of that manner of the object's existing (in just that particular way for that particular brain), is what makes it private, and not something that can also happen between that same object and another brain.
Ah. "Interact" but not interpenetrate.