Is consciousness a feeling, sensation, sum of all feelings and sensations, or something else?
How about I say consciousness is a separate feeling with its own sense, its own receptors like that of taste or smell?
If you don't like that, how about I say consciousness is nothing else but sum of all the inner feelings and external sensations?
And if you don't like that neither then tell me, is consciousness a type of feeling at all, and if not, then what in the world is it?
If you don't like that, how about I say consciousness is nothing else but sum of all the inner feelings and external sensations?
And if you don't like that neither then tell me, is consciousness a type of feeling at all, and if not, then what in the world is it?
Comments (134)
Consciousness is the conviction that I am not a rock.
I agree with that, but then what is conviction: feeling, sensation, experience, understanding, illussion... what is conviction?
If you do, then you know what a conviction is.
Pain is pain, but is also a sensation. Joy is joy, but is also a feeling. Now, I see you are insisting conviction is conviction, but what I asked you is it also a feeling or not, is it also maybe a sensation or not, is it anything besides 'conviction'. Do you understand?
I'm insisting you know what a conviction is.
In the same light I would insist you know what consciousness is.
I asked you, but if you insist then I am convinced. I feel that I know conviction is an emotion. And now you know too. Fantastic!
consciousness = awareness
color, sound, feeling = qualia
consciousness and qualia are two sides of the same eternal omnipresent coin
the mind is just a reflection of this, in this.
Is there nothing we can say about it? Is it process, succession of separate events? Is it feeling, sensation? Can we not even say yes or no to those questions?
Is awareness not just a sum of all inner feelings and external sensations?
Is there a fundamental difference betwee feeling taste or smell, and feeling joy or desire?
What do you mean?
If you're looking for a philosophical definition of "Consciousness", you may find that each poster has his own opinion. But if you're looking for a cutting-edge treatment of the latest scientific research on the Mind/Body question, check out Christof Koch's latest book : The Feeling of Life Itself. The title expresses Koch's personal answer to your question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christof_Koch
"Consciousness is experience. . . . consciousness is lived reality. It is the feeling of life itself. It is the only bit of eternity to which I am entitled."
".. . experience. It is the one fact I am absolutely certain of. Everything else is conjecture, including the existence of an external world."
Thanks. Is there some site where I could find recent papers on the subject free to download?
That’s about as broad and accurate a definition as there can be. The main issue is how we then unpack what this means and what use it is to us to say so.
Note: the dichotic utterance of ‘inner’ and ‘external’ has always been a hazardous field of play - hence dualistic notions and no logical means to claw our way around such attitudes and keep a reasonable dialogue flowing.
There is a base assumption at play here: that consciousness can be categorised, using language, under a more general term. But is this necessarily the case? Perhaps some basic concepts, like consciousness, defy further categorisation?
Right, but we could reframe the debate to be how I experience the rock and how the rock is, assuming they are not the same thing. If we have good reason to suppose that rocks are more than our experience of them, then that raises the possibility that rocks differ in some way from how we experience them. And so on for the rest of the world, including our own bodies and other people.
So we end up with some kind of dichotomy, however we want to define that. And it's as old as philosophy itself, even if the terms and nature of the debate have changed over time. And there are many reasons for supposing this dichotomy exists, or at least appears to exist.
In "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" (1995), Chalmers wrote:[4]
It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.
In the same paper, he also wrote:
The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive there is a whir of information processing, but there is also a subjective aspect.
Then, of course there is Dennett's qualia who identifies four properties that are commonly ascribed to qualia.[2] According to these, qualia are:
1.ineffable; that is, they cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any means other than direct experience.
2.intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.
3.private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.
4.directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness; that is, to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale.
Then there is also Schopenhauer's metaphysical Will, and Kant's metaphysical noumena.
Many of those attempt to explain the various non-physical aspects of the conscious phenomena.
I hope that helps some...
The only other reasonable approach is through the cognitive neurosciences as far as I’m concerned.
I think most other philosophical ideas have pretty much run their full course. There is likely more life left in the idea of Language as Consciousness, not to mean as a positive approach, but the area of linguistics combined with cognitive neurosciences is certainly an intriguing area - again though, I think a partially phenomenological approach would help there too.
To add to this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zNRAF3AFlqM
Word "sum" narrows down some of it and can inspire some quite specific ideas, like this: consciousness, or a function of it, is kind of a loom integrating all the cognitive, sensory and emotional threads and vawing them into the memory as a single unified tapestry of experiences.
More interesting and better analogy, however, is an antenna, since it can both encode and decode, i.e. memory-store & memory-recall. Thought of having an antenna in your head may be disturbing, but the concept is concrete and functionally specific, so we can properly investigate and maybe even predict some consequences for empirical testing.
Something else.
I do not see what's so perplexing aside from it perplexes me to see people keep talking like that...
Why is it that when our ears engage in hearing the middle C being played that we hear the middle C being played?
What did I miss?
By taking account of our own thought and belief and it's effect/affects upon ourselves including our subsequent attitudes and behaviour.
Granted.
"Why ought" is not the right question at all.
Perhaps taking careful consideration of both the physical and the non physical aspects of all experience would be helpful?
The same thing you missed when I said in another thread: "any experience is necesarilly subjective experience", and you disagreed without given explanation or example. You are missing the 'subjectiveness' of the experience. It is that "I" in "I think, therefore I am", and the only concept directly implied and necessary real.
That's just behaviour. Where do you see the difference then between a human and robot awareness?
What do you mean?
And what if I say consciousness is not a result of some computation or any kind of process, but immediate effect phenomena like reflection in a mirror or raindrops splashes.
Now the only alternative remains consciousness is not really actualized right there and then, in our head, but instead the information is transmitted somewhere else, perhaps eventually being projected on some kind of screen for amusement to our reptilian shapeshifting alien overlords, or god, or even maybe our own ghosts. I think now I narrowed it down.
Christoph Koch on Consciousness
The Wikipedia page has lots of references : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christof_Koch
2018 article : https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05097-x
personal site papers: https://christofkoch.com/my-books-and-papers/
Scientific American articles : https://christofkoch.com/category/sciam-column/
If you're saying that the brain is a sensory organ for meaning, that pretty well sums it up. But there are no dedicated sensors (like eyes) specifically for Consciousness. Some have postulated that the brain works like an antenna to receive transmissions from out in the ether. That may be a crude analogy, but there are no aliens out there trying to contact us: it's just Mother Nature calling. Besides, the "feelings" associated with meanings are ordinary emotions evoked by their relevance to me.
IMHO, Consciousness is not a thing or a signal or a sensation, or a soul, but a holistic process. It's merely what highly organized brains do --- as a whole system. All of your physical senses detect energy in various wavelengths and the brain interprets the dots & dashes into meaning. As in Morse code, the interpreter must already know the code. We are born decoders of meaning. If you want something more technical than that, check out Koch's book.
Great, thank you.
I think I only heard Rupert Sheldrake mention something among the lines to facilitate absorbtion of collective memory in his morphic resonance theory. Is there any other referrence to "antenna" in relation to mind or sentience you know of?
Then I think you might enjoy this problem, it can not get more concrete than this. Below is a personal computer hardware configuration for which I claim is conscious, self-aware, and free willing. And the definition of consciousness is: "act of self-observation".
1. Camera A: visual input extern -> feeds into 2.
2. Program A: subconsciousness & memory -> feeds into 3.
3. Display A: visual output inner -> feeds into 4.
4. Camera B: visual input inner -> feeds into 5.
5. Program B: cognition & free will -> feeds into 6.& 2.
6. Speaker: audio output extern
First, and most importantly, is there anything here that contradicts empirical knowledge? And then everything else, like is there any logical or even just intuition based contradiction here?
Basically my view is pretty much that of Damasio’s when it comes to exploring what consciousness is and how best to equip our delineations between this or that phenomenon.
I wouldn’t call an orange the same as a human simply because they both have living cells. Nor would I say an orange is conscious, but that doesn’t mean I dismiss out of hand that an orange (or rather orange tree) doesn’t possess something that ‘experiences’ its environment - note I say ‘experiences’ not experiences; meaning that an orange tree clearly alters dependent upon environmental factors and does so by ‘experiencing’ the environment in some fashion. I say the later as a distinction between a rock and tree. A rock doesn’t ‘experience’ anything as it has no homeostatic act of balancing, no ‘life’.
As a rough model I’d be much more inclined to take on board theories in neurosciences about top down and bottom up models exploring consciousness. What you’ve outlined above is pretty much nothing at all tbh. You’d probably have greater success in theory crafting if you focused on one of those items in intricate detail - visual ‘input’ and the human brain is a fascinating place to begin with items like how we ‘see’ lines, 3D objects relating to neural networks, and how attention is focused and inhibited by something called ‘priming’.
Simply stating this is self-aware and conscious because that’s what I call it is certainly a problem, but it’s your problem not mine. Please don’t take my words too harshly here. No doubt you have good reason to put this out there beyond what you’ve outlined. At is all you’ve shown is a highly speculative and ambiguous set of words that claim to say something yet don’t have any evidence or reasoning conveyed to back them up.
Consciousness itself is a relatively ambiguous term so if you start extending it to items like oranges, rocks, trees or cats, then we’re going to start to disagree about the technical use of ‘consciousness’ very quickly.
Is it not actually possible to put people in a state where they can not feel anything and yet are still conscious? In other words, what exactly is wrong with completely being unaware of your feelings/emotions and still be conscious of your thoughts only?
If someone said to me their robot is sentient, I don't see any other way to settle the matter but to question the subjectivness or qualia of robot's awareness/experience. And if they showed me what I showed you, I would have no argument and would have to agree with them.
This may not point to anything about what consciousness is and how it actually works, but I think it then at least points to where further distinctions need to be made. Only, I do not see where.
For me that is a contradiction of terms because ‘thought’ necessarily requires ‘feeling’/‘emotions’.
Quoting Zelebg
I guess the issue here is more about what you take as a reasonable ruler with which to measure such things. Many items can appear alive and conscious which we know to be otherwise (a simple movie theatre shows this).
Think of this as something in line with comparing a painting of an apple with an apple. The appearance of ‘apple’ isn’t denied in either sense yet I’d only be inclined to eat one of them (unless I had a taste for canvas and dried paint).
I don't see why, but I see the opposite is true. I would say there is no emotion and no sensation without thought. I can imagine suddenly existing in a completely empty universe, inspecting myself and thinking how I don't feel any emotion or sensation, and I would still be conscious of that state I'm in.
I can not imagine sensory signals or inner emotions to have any meaning or 'reality' in their intended context without some kind of understanding or appreciation that sensation or emotion is actually own.
Of course both emotions and thoughts originate 'inside' while sensations from 'outside', but is there more to this similarity. Do we think we feel, maybe we feel we think, or feel we feel, or think we think? What is the difference between thoughts and emotions?
Rupert Sheldrake! My man! Didn't think I'd see him mentioned here, though...
I'm sure there are plenty of "antenna" references out there but I haven't taken the time to look for them, since I think they are taking the analogy too literally.
A similar concept is that of the HIndu "Akashic Field" theory, which Ervin Laszlo has updated as a reference to the universal Quantum Field. Yet again, I can accept it as a metaphor, but not as a mechanism. It proposes that the field is like a universal mind, including memory, that humans can tune into. I don't know how you could verify such a theory empirically. I'm much more interested in how the human brain generates consciousness. And Christof Koch's book is the latest and best I've seen on that topic.
FWIW, I think feedback loops and self-reference are necessary, but not sufficient, to produce consciousness. Again Koch's book gets into the details of how that works.
The subtitle to Koch's book, The Feeling Of Life Itself, is Why Consciousness is Widespread but Can't Be Computed.
Then the answer has to be behind the meaning of the word "observation". And I hate one of quantum mechanics most senseless interpretations actually makes full sense here, namely 'wave function collapse' as a consequence of observation.
That we converged to this point from widely separated fields of natural investigation is not insignificant. But how funny if this turned out to be the answer we could then perhaps even be able to read thoughts and watch dreams. We would know how it works, but we would still not really know why, and I am afraid that would again leave us feeling the mystery was not actually solved at all.
Thats why it's a metaphor not an analogy. :wink:
Perhaps experiments could be designed to test that fascinating theory. The problem is that no "respectable" scientists would want to challenge the current it's-all-in-the-brain paradigm.
Actually, there are plenty of respectable scientists who are challenging the materialist paradigm. But their tests are necessarily thought experiments, which don't carry much weight with empirical scientists.
For example, Bernardo Kastrup is a computer scientist who has worked at CERN in Switzerland. He is a proponent of an Idealist explanation for Consciousness. Based on his Artificial Intelligence research, he concludes that, "one universal consciousness gives rise to multiple, private but concurrently conscious centers of cognition," Along with two psychiatry researchers, he explains in a Scientific American magazine article that the unitary Cosmic Mind produces individual human minds by analogy with Dissociative Identity Disorder.
I'm not so sure about the validity of that comparison, but he has arrived at an Idealist worldview similar to mine, but coming from a different direction. His Universal Consciousness concept also has some similarities to Akashic Field and Quantum Field theories. Which are likewise approaching the Hard Problem of Consciousness from divergent directions.
Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything? :
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/could-multiple-personality-disorder-explain-life-the-universe-and-everything/
Reality is Ideality : http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page17.html
Quoting Chris Hughes
"The brain is like an antenna" is an analogy. "The brain is an antenna" is a metaphor. And metaphors are too often taken literally, leading to erroneous conclusions. :wink:
I too have noticed a distinct convergence of opinion on Consciousness in recent years, with non-materialistic interpretations. But there is still plenty of divergence on the details.
Despite having had for some time a keen (amateur) interest in all this (what consciousness is, anti-reductionism, etc), I'd somehow never come across - until now - the philosophical/metaphysical notion of Idealism, meaning (according to Wikipedia) an assertion of the primacy of consciousness as the origin and prerequisite of material phenomena.
Having read and agreed with radical biologist Rupert Sheldake, whose views, I'd say, coinicide with Idealism, I’d be interested to know - if it's not a diversion - what you (and others here) think of his morphic resonance idea, which hypothesises that self-?organising systems inherit memory and habit from previous similar systems.
He suggests that societies have social and cultural morphic fields which embrace and organise all that resides within them. He connects morphic resonance with Jung's collective unconscious.
I'd say the totality of Sheldrake's nested fields amounts, perhaps, to the same thing as universal consiousness.
Consciousness (mass noun): aware (perceptive and cognisant) and sensitive (responsive to stimuli) mind-body conditions.
Consciousness (noun): conscious (actively aware and physiologically unconstrained) mind-body condition.
So, affect and cognition proceed from consciousness(mn), and from these, all other mental conditions and actions. Objectivity (body and environment) is consciousness input, and acts (corporeal actions) are consciousness output.
Years ago, I was impressed by Sheldrake's theory of Morphic Resonance, when he observed that cells of growing plants appear to know what to do, and where to go, in order to construct the characteristic final form of its species. It's as-if the cells were following a blueprint. Since then, he has broadly expanded his theory into some pretty far-out notions, such as "the feeling of being stared at". But empirical Science is not content with weaving stories around "as-if" metaphors. Instead, it looks for "as-is" mechanisms.
Although his thesis is ultimately Idealistic, in the sense of Plato's eternal Forms, and it has a role for Information similar to my own worldview, I'm not convinced that his interpretation is correct. It provides a rationale for psychic and magical phenomena, that I think are better explained in terms of human psychology, and statistical probability. Admittedly, his metaphors are easier for the average person to grasp, but I'm currently pursuing my own abstruse Theory of Everything that I call Enformationism. Unfortunately, that TOE has no place for magic in the real world. :smile:
So...intelligent design?
Found this:
No. Intelligent Evolution.
http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf
Enformy :
[i]In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress. [ see post 63 for graph ]
1. I'm not aware of any "supernatural force" in the world. But my Enformationism theory postulates that there is a meta-physical force behind Time's Arrow and the positive progress of evolution. Just as Entropy is sometimes referred to as a "force" causing energy to dissipate (negative effect), Enformy is the antithesis, which causes energy to agglomerate (additive effect).
2. Of course, neither of those phenomena is a physical Force, or a direct Cause, in the usual sense. But the term "force" is applied to such holistic causes as a metaphor drawn from our experience with physics.
3. "Entropy" and "Enformy" are scientific/technical terms that are equivalent to the religious/moralistic terms "Evil" and "Good". So, while those forces are completely natural, the ultimate source of the power behind them may be supernatural, in the sense that the First Cause logically existed before the Big Bang.[/i] http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Researchers have been "reading thoughts" and "watching dreams" for several years using fMRI to display brain-function patterns, and artificial intelligence to interpret those neural patterns as "correlates of consciousness". That's amazing, but objectively observing someone else's subjective consciousness will remain a Holy Grail for years to come.
Very interesting! May I refer you to my thread, "The significance of meaning" which asks if DNA could be the result of random events?
I've barely started reading Koch's 'The Feeling of Life Itself', and can already see that a certain part of the brain has been identified to be involved with consciousness, this at least localizing thee 'mystery'.
It was hardly random once ecosystem settled into stable cycles, then chemical affinity to spontaneously form lipids and self-replicating polymers make DNA and the rest of evolution rather inevitable.
The mystery is not random chance, but chemical affinity and predestination - the possibility of DNA has apparently been built in the properties of subatomic particles since the beginning of time.
It seems to me that, rather than being a feeling, consciousness is the condition for the possibility of feelings. For example, something or someone not conscious cannot feel pain. Someone conscious might be able to. Pain is a feeling. Pain depends on consciousness. Consciousness does not depend on pain. Pain, and other feelings, are contents of consciousness, or forms of conscious experience. But consciousness is not itself a form of experience. Rather, it is experientiality itself.
The understanding of the meaning of the word consciousness seems to vary somewhat from person to person. Some people seem to think of consciousness as being not the very capacity to have experiences, but rather a kind of self-representation, or even mental verbal activity or something. I understand that word to refer to subjectivity itself. Consider the basic difference between something we tend to think is not conscious and someone who is conscious. A rock might provide the right intuition about something non-conscious. It is objective. We can all agree that it exists. We can measure its properties. But is there something it is like for the rock itself to be a rock? Does it experience something? Is it, in other words, a subject of experience in addition to being an object?
When you push on a person, you expect that there is "somebody" in there experiencing what you do to this object. But when you throw a rock, do you have a similar expectation about the rock? I am not really asking here whether rocks have experiences. We can't really know. And that's another discussion. But I think it gets at the right intuition about what consciousness is, as a rock seems the most natural example of something most of us think of as not being conscious.
What consciousness really is though and how it comes about is incredibly mysterious and unexpected to me. I am surprised that it exists. First, I am surprised that anything exists at all. Second, I am surprised that what exists experiences itself as existing and wonders what it is. To me, this is astonishing.
It's maddening.
“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
? Alan Watts
There is speculation about this, but no one yet knows how DNA came about. Those who brush aside this problem and its larger question are bending truth.
The Feeling of Life Itself
From Koch and myself in ( )
Physics describes but extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive,
Providing distinctions toward survival,
But causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.
The posterior cortex holds the correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;
Thus, it forms an irreducible Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
Which process is fundamental in nature.
(Or the brain’s private symbolic language.)
The Whole can also be well spoken of
To communicate with others, (as well as
Globally informing other brain states,
For the nonconscious knows not what it made.)
Yes, but Koch still maintains that Consciousness is a holistic function of the body/brain. The "correlates of consciousness" are locations on a map, not the Terrain itself.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
The conscious whole is experienced as the "feeling of being", but is represented to others as the Self -- symbolized as a homunculus : a Mini-Me. The Self functions as the CEO of the corporate body, accepting or rejecting policies (ideas) and plans of action (feelings) submitted by the sub-conscious VP's in charge of various sub-functions of the body. Only the CEO is conscious of the whole system, but even then, only in a general, superficial sense. The Boss may not know exactly where those ideas and feelings came from, but merely judges : "sounds good to me", or "no, that will conflict with other goals".
The Chinese Room thought experiment illustrates that randomness can simulate intelligence (as-if), but cannot create meaning (as-is). So, while DNA most likely evolved via Random processes, any meaning encoded in the chemistry is a product of Selection, which implements Intention.
Chinese Room : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
How could it have? There's no agreed possible process via which DNA could have appeared. It certainly didn't evolve, as evolution depends on self-replication, only possible with DNA!
Yes, he has it that consciousness isn't the neurons directly but comes from their Whole which then
goes on to form it directly.
Since the the Whole is irreducible, it needs be fundamental, plus, one would also think that a whole can only be expressed as a Whole in a holistic way. Consciousness solved!
Quoting Gnomon
Or it is that the Boss has no doing associated with it, per Koch, and the nonconscious guys continue to attend to the goings on by voting or whatnot.
I was talking about DeoxyRibonucleicAcid. The organic molecule that acts as a carrier of information (instructions, recipe) for construction of an organism.
I assume you are talking about the coded Information itself, which is immaterial. IMHO generic Information (EnFormAction) is the essence and cause of reality itself. Metaphorically, it functions as the "Will of G*D", if you will. But your personal DNA is the physical result of a 14 million year chain of cause & effect development (Intelligent Evolution). It is unique only in the sense that any particular thing is unique : it is characterized by a difference-that-makes-a-difference (specified information). The mathematical code that creates and maintains your material body is not a miraculous addition to a soul-less husk, but is the algorithmic essence of your Self, both Physical and Metaphysical.
EnFormAction : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html
Intelligent Evolution : The Program of Development for creation of a world via random heuristics and the Programmer's selection criteria.
Irony or Sarcasm or Tautology?
Quoting PoeticUniverse
My personal interpretation of Koch's IIT Consciousness --- in view of Dennett's "Multiple Drafts" model and Minsky's "Society of Mind" --- is that 98% of human behavior is carried-out by subconscious automatic instinctive & Intuitive processes. Which leaves only the most important 2% of decisions for the the CEO (the Conscious Whole) to approve or veto. It's only that final say-so (judgment) that we can truly call Free Will. At best, we are absentee (golf-course) executives. Otherwise, we are all philosophical zombies.
If you are a zombie, you're an exceptionally insightful automaton. :smile:
Multiple Drafts : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained
Society of Mind : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind
PS__The weak point of these Subconscious Mind theories is "what to do in case of a tied vote by the underlings?" Do nothing, or kick it upstairs to the boss? Those who get emotionally tied-in-knots are acting irrationally. Rare rational thinkers make an executive or judicial decision and move-on.
What do you mean? I mean there is no randomness in chemistry. H and O will form H2O and never H3O2 or H4O5. And when water forms snowflakes, they are all "random", but nevertheless none fail to become a beautiful crystal pattern. There are strict rules and limited possibilities, and the atoms actively seek to form those possibilities. There is repulsion and attraction precisely determining what can go where and what has to go elsewhere, atoms don't just bang around at random and stick to whatever they hit.
Selection determinator can be passive and inanimate against some dynamics, like A shaped roof selects which raindrops go to one or the other side. So evolutionary selector can be amount of light, heat, acidity... stuff like that.
If there is an intention behind it all we should find out when we die, but until then I don't see the point to jump in any kind of god-like conclusion since it brings more questions than it answers.
FWIW, I just came across an old blog post that specifically addresses the differences between Sheldrake's Morphogenesis theory and my own theory of Enformationism.
Morphogenesis and Enformationism : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page55.html
Paul Davies on Morphogenesis : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page8.html
I'd say that consciousness is fairly well solved. It needs a brain and body with a beating heart, etc., as a background. It's physically based and so is not floating around as an 'All' or such. Koch adds in a footnote that it is intrinsic in the sense of being internal, but not in the sense of something like mass.
Quoting Gnomon
With all the thinking/doing of the brain areas already done and finished and represented as qualia, sequential consciousness is too late in the cycle to do any conscious thinking of its own, but the cycle continues…
Too late at the momement, but maybe not for the next time.
In your link...
... you say:
... and you quote physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies as saying:
(From The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life by Paul Davies)
(My boldings)
So perhaps consciousness, as well as being how we see the world, is what the world, the multiverse, is made of: the unifying field, full of meaning, as in our Goldilocks planet - and the non-random appearance of DNA.
Yes. The selection criteria for evolution are encoded in the universal laws of Math/Logic/Physics and in the Initial Conditions. So the geometric shape of a roof can passively divide random raindrops into two categories, which will determine the future direction of flow. But the "intention" I mentioned was in the mind of the encoder/programmer, who tilted the playing field in order to influence the outcome without presetting all the intermediate details. Thus, allowing a degree of freedom within determinism.
That's why, in my thesis, the creative act occurred before the Big Bang beginning, but the creative process of Evolution is still underway. Since we humans find ourselves in the middle of the journey, and our understanding is limited by the time/light horizon, we can infer the intended end-state only by looking in the direction of Time's Arrow. But the fact that there is a direction (tendency) in Nature indicates that there was conscious intention in the mind of the pool shooter (Programmer), who aimed the cue stick, and then allowed physics to guide the ball to the selected pocket.
Yes, but just sort of, for decisions and thoughts noted in consciousness are not made instantly, as it seems, but are 300-500 milliseconds old, as is everything in consciousness, for that's how long it took for the nonconscious figurings to make the decision or thought via their voting/analysis or whatnot. There is also the time to structure the qualia. At least the nonconscious willing still represents 'you', plus what consciousness presented can still get used by the nonconscious as an input to make better future.
Yes. My personal consciousness is intrinsic to my body as a holon. But Cosmic Consciousness of the ALL is intrinsic to the universe as a whole. In my thesis, the physical universe is analogous to the fleshly body of a conscious human. But the quality of consciousness is not located in any part of the world. So, you could say that it's "floating around" out there in the great beyond. In other words, immaterial Consciousness is non-local. :smile:
Quoting PoeticUniverse
If you are referring to the time gap between intention and action as determined by Benjamin Libet, his results can be interpreted as allowing time for an intentional veto. Thus, retaining a role for agency in the ongoing cycle of life. :cool:
" Libet's results thus cannot be interpreted to provide empirical evidence in favour of agency reductionism, "
"Daniel Dennett argues that no clear conclusion about volition can be derived from Libet's experiment because of ambiguities in the timings of the different events involved."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet
Yes. My worldview is similar to Panpsychism, but I prefer to use the abstract term "Information" in reference to the enformed structure of the world, in place of "Consciousness" or "Psyche". That's because some people imagine that rocks & atoms are conscious in the same sense that humans are. Physicists sometimes speak metaphorically about a particle "feeling" a force. But they don't mean it literally.
DNA conveys information (meaning) to the degree that its structure is non-random.
Yes, it makes no sense we just happen to exist. The problem is this god would be thinking the same thing. This god could also be shapeshifting lizard aliens who put us in the simulator, but they too would be thinking it makes no sense they just happen to exist for no good reason.
However you turn it around it doesn't make sense because the real question underneath is - why is there something rather than nothing? And whatever answer goes there must seem magical to us. But what is more fantastic, that 'something' is simply a bunch of particles that just happen to encode in their properties huge number of combinatorial possibilities, some of which look like what we see around us, or that 'something' is simply a bunch of something that just so happens to be conscious and magical being.
No, not Libet, just time. The nonconscious even just taking 1 millisecond would still mean that decisions/thoughts aren't made in consciousness. Also, the nonconscious figuring time for a 'veto' still takes time just like any other figuring/analysis and goes through the same route. The 'veto' isn't done by consciousness.
The speed of light even gets added to the delay. We ever live in the past in consciousness.
But it does make sense that Existence must be, it having no opposite or alternative.
Well, my consciousness depends on my brain, body, etc., else there isn't any.
Also, I confess that I am an automon.
The only reasonable answer to that fundamental question is "creation" ex nihilo. Which is why I assume that the Creator must exist eternally outside of space-time (i.e. nothingness). In Eternity, all things are possible. But in space-time only some things are actual. In the Real World creation ex nihilo is impossible, hence magical. From our perspective in the conditional world, the Creator is a magician, capable of doing the physically impossible.
However, since I define G*D as BEING (the power to exist), creation (making things exist) is simply inherent in the job description. As PoeticUniverse noted : existence is essential, and must be taken for granted by those of us who know we exist. So, no BEING, no beings; no things. QED
True. Consciousness is a function : no form, no function.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
Prove it! :grin:
So, you think the subconscious is a perfect democracy, with no executive to overrule the voters with a veto? Maybe you are an automaton. :smile:
To exist outside of the time is to exist never. To exist outside of space is to exist nowhere. It means it does not exist and that it never existed. If this simple logic is not obvious there is really no point in talking about this anymore, or about anything really.
That's a bit strong. There's much talk, in the Land of Metaphysics, of what is or may be beyond time and space. Like Donald Trump, for instance.
Have you not heard of phase space, that curious eight-dimensional world that merges space and time with a four-dimensional momentum space? Me neither, I just googled it. Point being: play fair.
I think it should be said that consciousness is a direct one-to-one ratio with the body, and any discussion about consciousness is a discussion about the body. In fact, let’s do away with consciousness altogether.
That's a bit strong as well, Count. What would be left?
All is still there, except we would be looking at the world instead of trying to look inward. There is a reason our eyes point out of our body.
I’m merely stating my belief. I don’t need to accept what you have yet to prove.
“Conscious” is an adjective describing organisms, in our case, the human body. I see no reason to speak of other dimensions if what we are describing stands right before us.
I mean semantically it is impossible to talk about the existence of something if there are separate special meanings for the word "exist", "never" and "nowhere" which only apply to that special 'something'.
Btw, time is not actually a property, there is nothing it can be a property of, except "change' itself. Thus it can't be a dimension in literal sense, it's just an abstract consequence of motion. You could say there is always time, but it stands still if nothing moves or there is nothing to move.
Yes, for other reasons. Time is abstract, does not exist separatelly from the concept of velocity, like angle does not exist without two lines. Time can not be measured directly, all we measure is rate of change, i.e. velocity. Unfortunatelly, velocity is also abstract, it does not exist without time, so neither time nor velocity actually exist.
It would end, or it would begin.
People have been talking about Plato's "Forms", and Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" for thousands of years. Yet they don't exist in space-time. So what was the point of their Philosophy? Was it about physical Things, or metaphysical Ideas?
Meta-physics :
[i]The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).[/i]
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Yes. "Space" and "Time" are Meta-Physical concepts that have no physical referents. When Einstein spoke of the "fabric" of space, it was a metaphor for something that "exists" only as an Idea.
So, when you say something exists "in space", what do you mean? Does Space exist "in Time"? If we can't talk about such non-existent things using Metaphors, we are no better than the lower animals. The ability to conceive of "things that do not appear" is the key human trait.
The human body is Real. But human Consciousness is Ideal. G*D is a Metaphor.
Metaphors We Live By : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By
Abstraction (information) needs matter/energy to be causally relative. Abstractions exist in minds, which do exist in time and space. Unmoved Mover can also be a bunch of particles with incredible properties as we see them, rather than magical being with properties that can not be seen. What assumption is more fantastic?
Perhaps if you said every and each atom is Unmoved Mover by itself, I would see no objection unless you want to ascribe to them some new magical properties.
You won't understand what I'm talking about until you grasp the concept of abstract Information as the essence of both Matter and Energy (EnFormAction).
The Enformationism thesis begins with the basics and layer-by-layer builds-up the scaffolding for a complete Theory Of Everything on a foundation of immaterial Information. To a Materialist, that will sound insane --- another internet nut with a crazy theory. But it's merely a novel interpretation of cutting-edge Physics, and Information Theory, combined with ancient philosophical insights. It's not a religious concept, but it bridges the gap between Materialism and Idealism. Whether it sounds reasonable, or not, may depend on the presumptions you bring to it. :smile:
The EnFormAction Hypothesis : http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
Enformationism Thesis : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/
Is Information Fundamental? : https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-information-fundamental/
I like to hear any theory, but have too much to read already. Can you say anything about the actual process of materialization of those abstractions?
Next question. :wink:
What if before heat death (assuming we survive climate crisis) human consciousness meets/attains universal consciousness?
Then dissipation. Then heat death.
Yes. Immaterial Information (energy) transforms into concrete Matter via the process of "Phase Change". It's a well-known physical phenomenon, but still a bit mysterious without an understanding that Information (causation) is both Energy and Matter. Also, it would help to grasp the concept of "Emergence". To save you some research and reading time, the blog post below presents an overview of how Phase Transitions and Emergence are involved in the "process of materialization".
In my theory, those natural (no divine intervention) Transforming processes are also involved in the "dematerialization" of Matter into Mind (consciousness). But a complete explanation for that might try your patience. :smile:
The EnFormAction Hypothesis : http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
Note :Enformation is Causation; Transformation.
PS__If you need some scientific authority to back-up my personal thesis, any of the books by physicist Paul Davies will elucidate the role of Information in Physics. The latest is Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davies
Since G*D is not real (i.e. outside space-time) humans have always expressed their intuition of an Ultimate Cause in a variety of metaphors, such as Storm Gods and Enthroned Kings. My thesis uses the notion of a Great Programmer to indicate the role of Information in the computation of Evolution.
1) the latent power of mental contents
2) That algorithm of Consciousness
3) the answer to a question that resolves some uncertainty
4) an integral component of Sentience, Consciousness, and Cognition. It is the raw material of Reason, the essence of Knowledge, and the structure of Mind.
5) the conscious motive behind an act of speech: Intention
6) extracted pieces of meaning are then labeled generically as information
7) A quality of physical patterns and processes that stimulates meaning to emerge in a mind. Since it has few directly perceivable qualities itself, generic information is usually defined in terms of its context or container. Unlike colorless, odorless, and formless water though, Information gives physical form to whatever contains it. In the Enformationism thesis it is the single Substance of the whole World.
And in this post, information is energy, and causation, and "both Energy and Matter."
Perhaps a general definition of information is required which pertains to inorganic (physical), organic (biological), and semantic types of information.
Do you have one (or more) of those?
Sure. First, here's a general definition from the Enformationism Glossary :
Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Abstract Information : the 1s & 0s of computer language. Existence = 1, Non-existence = 0
Physical Information : Energy - e.g. the ratio between Hot & Cold. Energy is the causal power of Information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information
Material Information : E=MC\2. Mass is Enformed Energy, and is an essential property of Matter. "the equation says that energy and mass (matter) are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing." https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/lrk-hand-emc2expl.html
Shannon Information : The abstract ratio of One to Zero. It yields accuracy in computation, but omits any meaning or significance. Quantity without Quality.
Organic Information : Living organisms are defined and organized by their "Information Molecule", which we call DNA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA
Semantic Information : Meaning in a conscious mind; for example the relationship between Self and Other. It can be expressed mathematically as a numerical ratio, or emotionally as a positive/negative feeling. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic/
NOTE : Originally, before Shannon, the word "Information" meant that-which-Informs or educates (i.e. knowledge). Literally, it means to give definite Form to the Amorphous. Metaphorically, to create Order out of Chaos. To know; to be aware, is to be Conscious.
Quoting Gnomon
Obviously not.
A definition in terms of probability is a mathematical definition, and Bateson's definition is a semantic definition, and a thermodynamic definition would be a physical definition, etc.
But keep working on it, even if it's not terribly relevant to the OP.
What did I miss?
Where do you see the connection between Platonic realm of geometry and that of Quantum field? I say it's Aether, and that already makes more sense as it is material, i.e. measurable. Then I can say Aether contains abstract information from Platonic realm embedded in it. Surely, this is much better theory?
Virtual particles which are actually real, and abstract realm which is actually material. Again, it is semantically impossible to talk about it if some words can flip their meaning 180 degrees. Phase change is property of matter, you can not extrapolate that to abstract without asserting that abstract is actually material or embedded in something material to start with.
The meaning of "equivocation" and "general definition".
Apart from that, I think it would be much more instructive to describe consciousness in terms of complex systems rather than in terms of information.
Are you accusing me of lying, or of just being ambiguous? Were my multiple definitions too specific? Unfortunately, a simple definition of Information would not be very informative, and might be misleading, as in Shannon's mathematical abstraction, which omits all qualia & meaning.
That's because Information is not a thing, but everything. Or, as the Information Philosopher put it : "Information is the lingua franca of the universe". If you think my definitions of Information gave Too Much Information (TMI). please don't look at the Information Philosopher website. It will boggle your mind. :smile:
Information Philosopher : http://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/
"[i]Information is neither matter nor energy, although it
needs matter to be embodied and energy to be
communicated. Why should it become the preferred
basis for all philosophy?[/i]"
Plato's Ideal Realm of Forms, and the Quantum Field, and the Akashic Field, and the Aether Field are all metaphors for something that is not real or physical, but ideal or metaphysical. In physics, a "field" is a continuum (non-particular empty space) where something can be mathematically defined, even though it can't be seen or touched. That void-vacuum-space is typically defined by an infinite array of mathematical "points" which are completely abstract loci of pure Information. They are all materialistic fantasies of ghostly invisible and intangible entities that exist only in the mind of the "observer".
In Quantum Theory, the field is where Virtual (not quite real) Particles arise from the void. The Aether was imagined by philosophers as almost infinitely diffuse matter of some unknown kind, equivalent to our modern notion of Space. Early physicists proposed a Luminiferous Aether as a medium for light waves to wave in (later abandoned as unnecessary).
All of these places or spaces are imaginary, and can contain almost anything you can imagine. So yes, the Information Field could be described as an "Aether Field". Or as any of the other Field or Plenum metaphors. But like Virtual Particles, the Information bits exist only in potential, until actualized by observation.
Euclidean Point in Geometry : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(geometry)
Aether has structure and dynamics, fluid dynamics of vortices to be precise. That is how Maxwell originally got his equations, but it was forgotten and what you today call Maxwell's equations are not his original equations that defined photon and EM waves.
Electric and magnetic fields can be touched, that's all you ever touch. They can be measured, and that means 'material' even if it is transparent to our eyes. Phantasies are ok if they give you predictive power, but what do you do with a theory which gives you nothing to measure and no way to confirm?
I'm accusing you of willful ignorance.
Quoting Gnomon
Besides being presumptuous, that comment would be a case of psychological projection.
But I'm beginning to tire of such entertainment, so we are done here.
As a field, Aether has mathematical structure and dynamics, but no material structure. Math is pure immaterial Information. So any physical field exists by definition, not in terms of matter. I can call the universe an Information Field, which, like a Quantum Field, has the power to convert Virtual Potential into Actual Matter. I know this way of looking at reality is counter-intuitive, but so is queer Quantum Theory, which is the foundation of modern science, and we'll have to get used to it
Quantum physics: Our study suggests objective reality doesn't exist :
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-quantum-physics-reality-doesnt.html.
Quoting Zelebg
You can't touch the immaterial field, but the atoms in your finger are affected by the spooky-action-at-a-distance of force fields. As I mentioned before, scientists often resort to metaphors of the macro world to describe the strangeness of the quantum realm.
Why Physics Says You Can Never Actually Touch Anything :
https://futurism.com/why-you-can-never-actually-touch-anything
Thanks for the "chat". :smile:
Quantum Theory has proven to give scientists amazing predictive power. But measurement is a problem, as illustrated by Schrodinger's Cat. What they do, when faced with the Uncertainty Principle, is to run thought experiments (fantasies), where you manipulate Information (ideas) instead of Matter.
Measurement Problem : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem
Maxwell got his equations based on fluid dynamic of Aether. There is no discussion here, you either do not believe this statement is true or you do not understand what it means.
Dear god! You confused transparent with immaterial and then just hallucinated total nonsense out of thin air. Quantum entanglement has nothing to do with attractive and repulsive forces of the magnetic and electric field. Clearly you lack basic knowledge in both classical and quantum physics. I'm out of here.
I don't doubt that Maxwell used the ancient metaphor of Aether, as did Einstein. But searches for tangible evidence have come up empty. Mathematically, the Aether may be as real as PI ( 3.14159 ) which has real world applications, despite being an abstract irrational number.
Apparently I don't know what you mean by "aether". A quick Google review of Aether articles finds that it is typically referred to as a "hypothesis", "theory", "proposal", "postulate", "conjecture", but not as a proven fact, that is "beyond discussion"..
"From the 16th until the late 19th century, gravitational phenomena had also been modelled utilizing an aether. The most well-known formulation is Le Sage's theory of gravitation, although other models were proposed by Isaac Newton, Bernhard Riemann, and Lord Kelvin. None of those concepts are considered to be viable by the scientific community today"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories
"Also known as ether, the definition of the aether from dictionary.com is… “a hypothetical substance supposed to occupy all space, postulated to account for the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through space”".
http://energywavetheory.com/explanations/aether/
This article also says "the aether exists", and has a video to prove it. It even claims that Aether "consists of tiny granules", as in the ancient theory of Atomism. But this seems to be a minority position among scientists.
"The term “aether” (or “ether”) lives on as a colloquial expression in the West, an abstract idea of the intangible void. Certain traditional cultures still consider aether the fifth element, and it plays prominently in the esoteric worlds of magic, mysticism, and the supernatural."
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a23895030/aether/
This thread has strayed off-topic, from defining Consciousness to arguing about the existence of Aether, and other peripheral issues. But, I'd like to play around with the original question about Feelings.
I'll begin by observing that "Consciousness" seems to be a necessary function of living organisms. Or as Christoph Koch put it : "the feeling of life itself". Awareness begins as "feeling" in its literal, physical form, as a sense of touch or taste. Put out “feelers”, and receive feedback. That physical literal response is then transformed*1 into metaphysical metaphorical "feelings" (representations, symbols), that in turn stimulate physical emotions. Which is how touching is experienced*2 by the toucher. For example, a barely-alive bacterium or paramecium blindly gropes around in its environment as a means to stay alive, to find food and to avoid predators. Its sense of touch is mostly chemical (taste), and the representation of whatever is touched is probably evaluated by analogy : sugar good, acid bad. Without that minimal awareness of its milieu, the cell wouldn't achieve its "purpose" : to live. So, consciousness facilitates a teleological intention : to survive long enough to reproduce.
In effect, consciousness is an extension of Self out into the world. And self-consciousness is like the feedback of touching yourself. So, Consciousness is how living agents achieve their basic purpose. And Self-consciousness is how they achieve a higher purpose : to represent Self as an agent in its sensory model of the world. Hence, the process of conscious feeling is an inherent function of the process of living, not an option. You might say that consciousness is what Organism does, and Mind is what Brain does. What they do is create abstract analogous ideal images from information about the concrete real world. Those images are not physical or real, but they are useful and functional. The difference between Life and Non-life is awareness of energy inputs and outputs that motivate and guide the organism toward intrinsic goals, rather than, like billiard balls, by direct action & reaction. Consciousness is how we reach-out and touch the world in imagination.
*1 Transformed : this is the "hard problem" that is addressed by the Enformationism thesis.
*2 Experience : Latin, ex- "out";-peril "trial, test, danger". Living things "try, attempt, reach out" in order to "test" for danger or opportunity.
In my hypothesis/theory/model under development, it is energy
patterns as an entity in-and of itself. That is, in my model, consciousness, esp. the qualia kind, is pure energy create as a sort of new, and separate entity within the physical entity, yet part the system as a whole. In my model, the 'consciousness' entity is pure energy, being in a resonant whole with the cognitive and sensory/motor systems such that they are effectively a whole, unified entity with all parts in tune and sensing all other parts all at once. This is a physical 'thing' not a process b/c it is an instantaneous resonant wave system inseparable from the physical boundary and propagating media properties/constraints.
The closest analogy I can think of is a macro version of a Bose-Einstein condensate, so maybe a 6th state of matter. Can't say with confidence yet, but I currently see this, along with many other frameworks/mechanics, as a promising framework for me to achieve the qualia aspect of consciousness. For the access aspects of consciousness, I'm modeling that under a sophisticated non-verbal linguistic framework, which are mostly data-structures and processes and I do not expect those will be part of the 'qualia' experience.
The only “I” that is present as you think about and pose your question is completely related to your conscious self. Under the cognitive framework that I am developing, the ‘I’ is not much more than a qualia resonant condition that takes form and flows within a cognitive architecture that requires a closed loop (potentially virtual) sensory-motor experience that grounds and shapes the metes and bounds of the cognitive agent into an embodied agent experience. Under my model the “I” starts from a random or ground state and starts extending itself into whatever has the highest degree of spacio-temporal correlation with the cognitive agent’s intentions. In this way, while the embodied experience is an illusion, it is an integral part of what you have grown to call “I”, even if embodied parts of ‘you’ become physically removed; e.g., much like the phantom limb phenomenon, or how a prosthetic limb becomes part of ‘you’. Hence, this “I” that has come to be in the integrated qualia state as an embodied agent cannot be one and the same with that soul-like concept which is thought to be in a non-physical, energy state, existing in another dimension, possibly (highly speculative) linked/synchronized quantum mechanically. That is, the only connection between the two that I can (wildly) imagine are purposeful patterns of non-random quantum fluctuations in your brain that could come from your ‘soul’ in another dimension, which may bias your embodied agent’s behavior in important yet very general, qualitative ways, but such a ‘soul’ (or non-local) connection cannot be directly part of your conscious ‘I’ as they operate in different dimensions.
I have been entertaining a hypothesis on the qualia of pain for many years, and I still hold it possible, if not plausible, if not actual. That is, in my model of consciousness as quasi-stable, dynamic standing wave resonance w/in our brains, anything that disrupts the stability of the resonant condition may be experienced as a qualia pain. One evidence for this hypothesis includes the fact that pain forces (consumes) ones conscious to focus on and experience nothing but the (discord) pain. Another evidence I have for this hypothesis is the actual pain people suffering from Epilepsy experience during an Epileptic seizure (discord in brain waves), which pain can be removed by electric shock to the brain like a defibrillator restoring the resonant heart beat condition. Also, the mental pain of a 'broken heart' causes a discord in consciousness thought.
As for the qualia of colors (like how we 'see'/experience 'red', seems to me such experiences boils down to 3 main factors:
1. The frequencies of light that (most) humans are pre-wired to call red, do indeed exist in the physical world. So, the verbal linguistic 'red' does exist as an analog symbol of that.
2. The 'red' category of color that (most) humans are pre-wired to have the qualia sense of red color, do mayexist in the person's cognitive world as a visual object. There are color blind people who see no red. There are also synesthesia people who experience other senses as (e.g., red) color. So, I figure if we had research evidence of color blind people who later gained color vision, saying they experience the qualia of 'red' color prior to gaining color vision, then that might evidence that the cognitive 'red' category does exist at birth. Or if a color blind synesthete 'saw' qualia colors that would also be strong evidence. I've never come across of such experiments or lines of investigations, but if anyone knows anything about that, please post it here b/c it should be quite instructive metaphysically as well.
3. The internal qualia projection of 'red' color is what we intuitively consider 'red' and that almost certainly exists only in our qualia projected internal reality, which is likely commonly shared b/c of common visual/mental systems genetic coding.
I'm starting to build a coherent hypothesis that qualia and emotive phenomenon are logically needed to optimally create and convey wisdom, but not at all needed to create data, info, or knowledge.
So, under my above hypothesis, experiencing a qualia and emotive phenomenon for the color 'red' might be needed to create and convey wisdom concerning the data value of red.
For the past 15+ years I’ve been, on and off (mostly off), developing various simulation models for all aspects of the human condition. I’ve put off consciousness for the backed of my work b/c it is the hardest area to make progress upon, but, realizing it could affect my global architecture, I recently (starting ~6yrs ago, and more seriously past 6mo) put in some preliminary effort to work out a first order model.
I am avoiding any direct quantum mechanics as being part of my consciousness simulation model. I that way I’m thinking differently than the mainstream ideas often mentioned (including Penrose, et. al). However, I do find the need to use macro-quantum mechanic like systems theories to help establish a framework enabling the kind of flowing resonant conditions I’m looking for. As of now, the ingredients of my first order consciousness simulation model include the following:
• Holographic phase space as the main cognitive fabric
• Meaningfully manipulating confinement Boundary conditions to perform calculations and selective state phase changes.
• Employing pilot-wave theory to achieve the macroscopic wave-particle duality I need to achieve a sort of global “I” (particle) state resonating with the global phase-space milieu capturing the whole at a point and the path taken (maybe like a quantum knot) being like a unique qualia experience.
• I’m initially avoiding entanglement concepts in my model. Instead, thinking to use soliton wave theory to transmit unique wave packet signatures within this phase space to bridge distal parts of the system (possibly unifying a multiplicity of sub-module pilot waves) with a common, unified “I” ‘experience’.
• Thinking to model each cognitive sub-module, of the multiplicity, as Bose-Einstein condensate types of phase change particle systems where they can only achieve quantum-like abilities (e.g., cognitive resonance, cognitive interference, cognitive tunneling, particle/wave duality, etc.) when they have been trained/cooled to a ground state truth (e.g., maybe like Boltzmann kind of thermal annealing learning, etc.) . As the sub-modules phase change to the Bose-Einstein condensate state they may interfere and tunnel with/to each other to form a global Bose-Einstein condensate state comprised of a resonating subset of the cognitive sub-modules with a global pilot wave path (quantum knot) which may simulate the unified “I” access and qualia consciousness ‘experience’.
• A parallel linguistic framework.
• A parallel statistical framework.
• A parallel reasoning framework.
• A parallel emotive framework.
• A parallel sensory-motor framework.
• A parallel imagination framework.
• And much more…
In this way, I’m looking at macro-scale quantum mechanics analogues as the most fruitful way I can build a consciousness system. I have no doubt that actual quantum mechanical effects (as many ponder) would naturally work with, and or enhance the macroscopic version I’m thinking of.
Is it possible the universe is conscious?
Exactly what is this consciousness conscience of? I think there is a connection that is matter, but not a connection that is thought. Sort of like God may know the number of hairs on my head, but not what I am thinking.
Disneyland. I do not mean that after Disneyland is made manifest, it can not be measured and confirmed, but that it would never happen without free flowing fantasy. To deny free thought is to atrophy our ability to create and that is not a good thing. Not only would that atrophy thinking but it sucks all the fun out of life and that is deadly.
That is an offensive remark isn't it? What good can come out of offending people?
Some of you appear to take yourselves very seriously. This seems to have become a cultural problem as it was Nazi Germany and I no matter how important you all are, that is not a good thing.
Might be wrong but...
Consciousness is injected by the simulation but the vessel has it's own matter, it has become akin like a primal synthesis.
How I come to this conclusion is it's internal of external shape. How is it tucked in by the simulation?
Seems threaded.
Or as a prisoner once wrote me, "You can think shit tastes bad, but you don't know how bad until you eat". We can have sympathy for others, but not empathy unless we have had the experience of the other.