Consciousness, memory and perception:

[Beingof1]

When most say "think outside the box" - you should respond by asking "where is the box"?

Why are you introducing this box? What box?

And you sound arrogant and full of yourself

So what?

What?

The science of what? What evidence are we talking about?

The part you skipped over in my post.

It sounds like you are calling me dishonest. Why?

See above for explanation.

[cousinbasil]

You seem to equate an honest person with a person who agrees with you. You also seem to think you have some profound thing to say about consciousness. So just say it.

Listen, unlike you, I lay no claims to being a sage. But you make me look like one. You start in with questions like:

Then how is the universe a 'thing'?
Consciousness is found where?
This is remarkable news as none till your breakthrough have found the source yet.
Could you tell us which brain cell is in charge?

You have not told me why you think my consciousness is the universe. You seem to want to pretend there is no noumenal reality. The universe does not originate inside my head or yours - our ideas of it however are centered in our heads.

You have said:

When most say "think outside the box" - you should respond by asking "where is the box"?

Yet when I do as you suggest and inquire "what box," you have no answer and resort to name calling.

Nobody said "think outside the box" prior to that. You seem to wish to be seen as one who thinks outside the box, and that you have presented some kind of "scientific" evidence, yet when I ask you what evidence, you say "see above." I saw above before I asked you the question and I didn't see anything, which is why I asked, so why don't you simply tell me what scientific evidence that you have presented, and that I have ignored? Just copy and paste what you think I have ignored from your post.

You have called me dishonest, among other things. We both know that is baseless, and it is no way to carry on a discussion. If you cannot say explicitly why I am dishonest, I must conclude you are simply full of shit, and are obviously lacking a point - besides your head, that is - and are dishonest yourself.

So make all the ad hominem go away and answer your own questions.

[Beingof1]

Cousin:

You seem to equate an honest person with a person who agrees with you. You also seem to think you have some profound thing to say about consciousness. So just say it.

Cousins bumper sticker:
Mental backup in progress - Do Not Disturb!

I say again - will you pay attention this time or continue to pretend like I said nothing at all? I already have - you skipped right over it like it did not appear on your monitor.

Listen, unlike you, I lay no claims to being a sage. But you make me look like one.

Does Macho Law prohibit you from admitting wrong?
If I throw a stick, will you go and fetch the bulk of my post and actually respond to it?

Beingof1 said:

The part you skipped over in my post.

To this you replied - blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

You have not told me why you think my consciousness is the universe.

This is because you hop, skipped, and jumped - just like a verbal gymnastic instructor - right over the bulk of my post.

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

Will you ever address what was actually said or will you continue to debate the little guy in your head some more?

You have not told me why you think my consciousness is the universe. You seem to want to pretend there is no noumenal reality. The universe does not originate inside my head or yours - our ideas of it however are centered in our heads.

What is remarkable is that you have the presence of mind to cut snippets of what I say to someone else - then - all of a sudden - you cannot find a word I write.

If things get any worse, I'll just have to ask you to stop helping me.

Yet when I do as you suggest and inquire "what box," you have no answer and resort to name calling.

Nobody said "think outside the box" prior to that. You seem to wish to be seen as one who thinks outside the box, and that you have presented some kind of "scientific" evidence, yet when I ask you what evidence, you say "see above." I saw above before I asked you the question and I didn't see anything, which is why I asked, so why don't you simply tell me what scientific evidence that you have presented, and that I have ignored? Just copy and paste what you think I have ignored from your post.

Beingof1 wrote:

The neurotransmitter is considered an off on switch just like the electrical current in your home. They operate in two modes, chemical/electrical. If they capture a single bit of information, the data is then coming in from the outside rather than the internal wiring. Thought is accumulating the data at faster than lightspeed as all the information forms in an instant.

Your thought is a stream of electrons and electrons are not subject to gravity. Most assuredly your thought (as well as every particle in your body) is in communication with every other particle in the universe and all done at faster than lightspeed.

You just impacted the field known as the universe by reading this post. The field known as the universe just fed back the information as radiation.

Therefore - your consciousness contains the entire field known as THE UNIVERSE.

You have called me dishonest, among other things. We both know that is baseless, and it is no way to carry on a discussion. If you cannot say explicitly why I am dishonest, I must conclude you are simply full of shit, and are obviously lacking a point - besides your head, that is - and are dishonest yourself.

Then stop with all the cherry picking of posts and cutting snippets and I will not call you dishonest about that - we got a deal?

So make all the ad hominem go away and answer your own questions.

I doubt, therefore I might be.

[Facade]

Rocks are memory!

OK I know that this topic is splitting in a bunch of different directions here but I think I might know how to get to the root of the issue. What is your definition of memory?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

We can scientifically say whether something is conscious or not based on empirical evidence. Presently there is no empirical evidence that indicates that computers are conscious.

It's a tricky subject for the scientists, they don't agree at all with each other how they would define something to be conscious or not. Point in case: animal lifeforms, where is the tipping point?

Empirical evidence on its own never leads to a scientific conclusions: there must be a theory to which the evidence adds weight. Such theory is not in place. But Jupiviv, in the royal plural, luckily can tell us scientifically what is conscious and not!

And I thought you said you're "only interested in a philosophical discussion in this case, and not a scientific one". Or did I misunderstand you?

If we don't know what a thing is to begin with then why bother about knowing its particular causes and effects? Saying that we can know a thing by first knowing about its particular causes is self-contradictory reasoning.

Whatever you might know about any thing is limited to a subset of its causes and effects. There's not much beyond that unless you want to introduce a "thing in itself" or an object "pur sang".

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Rocks are memory!

OK I know that this topic is splitting in a bunch of different directions here but I think I might know how to get to the root of the issue. What is your definition of memory?

Fair enough. My statement might be taken two ways, with one of them (with a wink!) being the implication that all we perceive is through memory, so anything at all, including "rocks" are memory.

But the context of this topic stems from another topic. Let me quote with only some small modifications for clarity my earlier statements:

1. There's no way to prove beyond doubt our mind, our consciousness is something else than a [kind of ] very advanced, complex computer. ... any feedback circuit is a simple consciousness. Like a thermostat: the resulting temperature (a signal representing earlier actions, memory) is used to control current action. How are you operating differently? Just because you have millions of parameters simultaneously?
2. the definition of 'computer', which is currently an open-ended idea: mainly an indicator of the causality of all known mental processes.
3. concept: a model or matrix which a computer memory [could] hold as well and [could] display on a screen
4. the concept of reasoning" a qualitative, descriptive attribute....also an appearance....
5. there's only a difference in capacity and speed [between memory of rock and "conscious being"]. Consciousness seems but an artifact of this.
6. all complex processing would create some degree of consciousness or inner model-reflection. Somewhat like DNA replicators would arise out of complex chemical reactions.
7. "memory": impressions are being conserved...
8. the illusion of 'I' is tied to the processing of memory. For example a group identity is forged and maintained by sorting through common memories together.
9. memory: a low level of self-affirmation ... as identity, it persists that way ... however briefly, in relation to some context

Not exactly the usual stuff of dictionaries but it's supposed to lead in a philosophical direction, like "pregnant" ideas. Comments are welcome!

[cousinbasil]

The neurotransmitter is considered an off on switch just like the electrical current in your home. They operate in two modes, chemical/electrical. If they capture a single bit of information, the data is then coming in from the outside rather than the internal wiring. Thought is accumulating the data at faster than light-speed as all the information forms in an instant.

Your thought is a stream of electrons and electrons are not subject to gravity. Most assuredly your thought (as well as every particle in your body) is in communication with every other particle in the universe and all done at faster than light speed.

You just impacted the field known as the universe by reading this post. The field known as the universe just fed back the information as radiation.

Therefore - your consciousness contains the entire field known as THE UNIVERSE.

This is neither science nor evidence.

Point by point:
1. Yes, the neuron either fires or it doesn't. This proves nothing.
2. "Thought is accumulating the data at faster than light-speed." It is well-known that the actual current in a wired electrical circuit does not propagate at light speed, and that in a neuronal circuit considerably slower than in a wired circuit. "All the information forms in an instant" is not true, no matter what you are trying to say. It doesn't even seem like it is forming in an instant in every occasion.
3. If thought is merely a stream of electrons, it obviously cannot move faster than light speed, since electrons cannot.
4. Electrons are indeed subject to gravity, albeit weakly so compared to their electromagnetic attractions. After all, photons are massless and they are subject to gravity.
5. "Most assuredly your thought (as well as every particle in your body) is in communication with every other particle in the universe" This is not evidence, Bof1, this is your hypothesis. It is not science, either. Even if what you said before it were true, which it is not, this would not follow. It is rather very much like New Age nonsense that doesn't even qualify as pseudo science. You seem to ignore some basic science. Matter cannot propagate faster than light. Some quantum effects seem to be instantaneous and occur remotely regardless of physical separation. However, this is not strictly propagation, and no information goes from one point to another. Strictly speaking, the current view is than it is precisely information which cannot travel at faster than light speed, this including the propagation of any kind of wave-field, or any kind of particle, massless or massive.
6. "Therefore - your consciousness contains the entire field known as THE UNIVERSE." This is admittedly a bit more tricky. From a philosophical perspective, specifically a philosophy adhering to that of an Idealist school, one might assert this. Briefly, anything that can be said about the universe, anything that can be known, really exists inside one's head, along with every other notion or thought, not "out there."

But let's look at what you are actually saying. First, you preface this statement with the word "therefore" as if it follows from what you have just said, which it doesn't. This could be a good thing, since what you have just said is largely baseless and meaningless. Second, this is not a statement of any Idealist perspective of which I am aware.

You speak of my consciousness. I have asked you about yours. If my consciousness were identical with THE universe, yours would also be. Then logically, my consciousness would be identical with yours. But we seem to disagree - which would be impossible if our consciousnesses were one and the same. I have mentioned this objection, and you have not addressed it. It seems to me to be a reasonable objection. If you can clear it up, that would be helpful and go a long way to establishing your assertions.

My standpoint is fairly simple. I argue that there is a noumenal world, all the things-in-themselves, which we know through perception and through abstract conjecturing. It is in itself unknowable but through our consciousness, by which we know all things. But each person's consciousness differs from that of another. We argue the differences in our heads and appeal to mutual experiences - perceptions - of the noumenal world to settle those differences.

My consciousness is not the universe, and neither is yours, and the two are not one and the same. You say the universe does not fit between one's ears, but then you go on to argue the opposite. You were right to say this, though. The universe I refer to with this term is "out there," which I understand bit by bit by mapping it to a mental transform "in here." No matter what you think, this is exactly what you and everyone else must do. There is no mystical, instantaneous connection between the out there and the in here, since there is no instantaneous connection even between every two things "in here."

[Dennis Mahar]

I think I've read that piece before Cuz.
Was it a cut and paste job?
If so, what is the source?

Surely 'parts' are in immediate connection, extending ultimately and in principle to the entire universe..
pointing to unbroken wholeness...
surely, it can't be held that the world comprises separately and independantly existent parts...

[cousinbasil]

I think I've read that piece before Cuz.
Was it a cut and paste job?
If so, what is the source?

Surely 'parts' are in immediate connection, extending ultimately and in principle to the entire universe..
pointing to unbroken wholeness...
surely, it can't be held that the world comprises separately and independantly existent parts...

You mean copy and paste, Dennis, but no, it's just me being pedantic. If it sounds familiar, it may be because you have had these same thoughts. I will never claim any of my thoughts are original in that no one has ever had them before. In fact, just the opposite is true. If I think it, I am convinced someone else must already have done so as well, whether I am aware of it or not.

This "unbroken wholeness" is fine for a philosophy, but unless you are willing to break things down, not much gets accomplished. I can go into work tomorrow with the unbroken wholeness still intact; I will have to answer to someone why I did not break off a piece of it and do something with it.

[Dennis Mahar]

Thanks cuz,

This "unbroken wholeness" is fine for a philosophy, but unless you are willing to break things down, not much gets accomplished.

Didn't experiments of Bell's Theorem vindicate QM's theory of non-locality (1997 Geneva University)?

thus, supporting Bohm's field theory.

thus suggesting a superhuman intelligence, transcendant to space/time, cause/effect as an operating system underlying appearance..

thus supporting stories told by ancient philosophers regarding unbroken wholeness...

thus showing science/philosophy drawing inexorably together in a a perfect conjunction...

early days yet, in the 'breaking things down' section.

very exciting.

[jupiviv]

We can scientifically say whether something is conscious or not based on empirical evidence. Presently there is no empirical evidence that indicates that computers are conscious.

It's a tricky subject for the scientists, they don't agree at all with each other how they would define something to be conscious or not. Point in case: animal lifeforms, where is the tipping point?

I'm not talking about scientists' view on this subject, but my own observation, and my interpretation of the data they come up with. The "tipping point" would be if animals can act outside their instincts, and presently there is no evidence that they do so. For example, if they were conscious, then they wouldn't react in the same way to the same stimuli repeatedly. Also, the fact that animals don't try to communicate the fact that they are conscious to us, even though they may stay very close to us, and instead simply stay close to us because we enable their survival in some way.

Animals may well be conscious, but since they don't communicate this to us, and since the other evidence says otherwise, we can't speculate further.

Empirical evidence on its own never leads to a scientific conclusions: there must be a theory to which the evidence adds weight. Such theory is not in place.

It is in place - that animals aren't conscious.

And I thought you said you're "only interested in a philosophical discussion in this case, and not a scientific one". Or did I misunderstand you?

You're the one who's dragging science into the discussion - I'm simply correcting you.

Whatever you might know about any thing is limited to a subset of its causes and effects. There's not much beyond that unless you want to introduce a "thing in itself" or an object "pur sang".

How do you know that a particular subset of causes and effects belongs to that particular thing and not another...? This is the same argument as before.

And anything must, of necessity, be a thing-in-itself, because that thing is - by definition - itself, and not something else.

Thanks for the list of your arguments. I'll address them once more in brief, in the hope you understand them:

There's no way to prove beyond doubt our mind, our consciousness is something else than a [kind of ] very advanced, complex computer. ... any feedback circuit is a simple consciousness. Like a thermostat: the resulting temperature (a signal representing earlier actions, memory) is used to control current action. How are you operating differently? Just because you have millions of parameters simultaneously?

You are first making the empirical claim that our consciousness is actually a computer - proceeding from two different definitions - and then you go on to define computers and thermostats as conscious beings, which is a philosophical claim.

In the first case - your point is invalid because you still haven't defined consciousness. In the second case, you are assuming that a feedback circuit or thermostat is or works like consciousness, but there is no way of assessing this statement because you haven't defined consciousness.

You have to define what you mean by consciousness.

the definition of 'computer', which is currently an open-ended idea: mainly an indicator of the causality of all known mental processes.

I'm not sure in what sense you are using "computer" here. My guess is that you are using your definition of it in context of consciousness. If so, then you have again failed to demonstrate why you are doing so.

concept: a model or matrix which a computer memory [could] hold as well and [could] display on a screen

the concept of reasoning" a qualitative, descriptive attribute....also an appearance....

See above.

there's only a difference in capacity and speed [between memory of rock and "conscious being"]. Consciousness seems but an artifact of this.

You haven't defined "capacity" and "speed", or at least how you are using them in the context of the differemce consciousness and unconsciousness.

all complex processing would create some degree of consciousness or inner model-reflection.

How? And what on earth is "inner model-reflection"?

"memory": impressions are being conserved...

No, memory is the consciousness of the fact that impressions(appearances) are being conserved.

the illusion of 'I' is tied to the processing of memory. For example a group identity is forged and maintained by sorting through common memories together.

This is true, but probably not in the sense that you think.

[mensa-maniac]

Consciousness, memory and perception:

Consciousness is awareness, it is a realization that your inner self knows it is aware of itself. Consciousness is cognizant of itself.

Consciousness and memory are alike, in that both continue on, the memory forgets as we age, but in senility according to an unknown poet, the memory plays a huge part in the aging process. It was said that the elderly are not senile at all but that they resort back to when they were children growing up into adults. They relive their lives all over again.

Perception is the brains way of accepting or acknowledging what we see. We see it our memory remembers it, and our consciousness knows it, knows it is there, perceives it, and remembers it.

My eyesight amblyopia strabismus works differently in the perceiving of things. I see it but cannot perceive it, until my brain's eye undistorts it and sends signals to my brain which then allow me to perceive it. In other words, I see the tree but temporarily don't know it's a tree. Using a tree as an example is not a good example, because my brain automatically know it's a tree. A better example is when I watch TV which is less than seldom, something will show itself and for about a half a minute it's impossible for me to understand what I'm seeing. It shows itself to me in a form of an abstract, totally incomprehensible.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I'm not talking about scientists' view on this subject, but my own observation, and my interpretation of the data they come up with.

Then lets call them "your ideas on the subject" and not "we can scientifically say". This is because science is a very specific process or enterprise which not only involves falsification or repeatability but in my view at least also involves peer reviewing processes, so some form of organized selection, reproduction and independent criticisms are possible.

For example, if they [animals] were conscious, then they wouldn't react in the same way to the same stimuli repeatedly.

Animals have a wide variety of reactions available to certain stimuli. Lets take for example crows, just tiny brains after all: Clever Crows Prove Aesop’s Fable Is More Than Fiction or Crows Manipulate Other Animals, Plan Ahead, and Even Learn to Talk.

How is this behavior just "reacting in the same way to the same stimuli" and if so, what makes human reactions to their environment different?

Animals may well be conscious, but since they don't communicate this to us, and since the other evidence says otherwise, we can't speculate further.

Yet we can still arrive at a proper definition of our own consciousness which would help to be able to determine better if animals might qualify.

Empirical evidence on its own never leads to a scientific conclusions: there must be a theory to which the evidence adds weight. Such theory is not in place.

It is in place - that animals aren't conscious.

It depends again on how you are defining consciousness. There is no such single theory established as of yet. If for example one would define consciousness as emerging from the complexity of brain processes, it certainly is not excluded to human beings. There are animals with comparable brain complexity and they might have a degree of consciousness.

A reasonable overview on this topic you can find here

How do you know that a particular subset of causes and effects belongs to that particular thing and not another...?

It doesn't belong to anything. Some particular subset is already that "thing" the moment you defined the subset. And the causes and effects might as well belong to another in some instances.

You are first making the empirical claim that our consciousness is actually a computer - proceeding from two different definitions - and then you go on to define computers and thermostats as conscious beings, which is a philosophical claim.

Not empirical, perhaps more like a hypotheses. And indeed I was talking about consciousness as phenomena, just because you were doing that by talking about computers which is not a philosophical context!

In the second case, you are assuming that a feedback circuit or thermostat is or works like consciousness, but there is no way of assessing this statement because you haven't defined consciousness.

I suggested the principle is the same: a control feedback mechanism foremost. This is one way of defining it I suppose. Not very technical or in depth of course.

I'm not sure in what sense you are using "computer" here.

Anything with notable ordering capacity. Like assembling, storing, correlating, or processing patterns.

No, memory is the consciousness of the fact that impressions(appearances) are being conserved.

But everything you can think of is the consciousness of that impression. What counts here is that impressions are being conserved. If that's memory according to you, then if we see that impressions are being conserved in a piece or rock, that rock is 'memory'.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

An afterthought:

..if the computer were conscious, it would have concepts, and that would mean the computer was conscious.

From: Clever rooks have sense of gravity

A common way of finding out whether animals and babies understand complex concepts is to show them images of impossible events.... Almost without exception, the rooks spent more time looking at the "impossible" images than the possible ones ... The researchers say the result is consistent with rooks being able to solve complex problems from knowledge of cause and effect, rather than by trial and error.

[jupiviv]

Then lets call them "your ideas on the subject" and not "we can scientifically say". This is because science is a very specific process or enterprise which not only involves falsification or repeatability but in my view at least also involves peer reviewing processes, so some form of organized selection, reproduction and independent criticisms are possible.

If you call my observations "my ideas on the subject" then you also have to call the scientists observation - "their ideas on the subject." It's better to define science simply as the observation and sometimes interpretation of empirical data.

Animals have a wide variety of reactions available to certain stimuli.

Depends on how minutely you want to classify their reactions. Essentially though, they have just two reactions - aversion and attraction. Even rocks may have a "wide variety" of reactions to certain stimuli, i.e, the result produced by a certain action on them may vary at different times due to other conditions. However, that doesn't imply that they have consciousness.

Crows are quite "clever" in the field of searching for and procuring food, but all scavenging animals tend to display this kind of "cleverness" in the acquisition of food, because they have evolved to acquire food indirectly. Whatever cleverness they display is always in connection to survival and acquiring food. It's no more an indicator of consciousness than the fact that mangroves are clever at surviving floods, or pigeons are clever at finding their way home.

How is this behavior just "reacting in the same way to the same stimuli" and if so, what makes human reactions to their environment different?

If you are talking about the things that are labeled "human beings", then there is almost no difference for the most part. But sometimes there does seem to be varying degrees of conscious behaviour among us, or at least among some of us. For example, when we try to identify things, or even ourselves, just for the sake of identifying them.

It depends again on how you are defining consciousness. There is no such single theory established as of yet.

I define consciousness as everything that appears to a conscious being, and that is the best definition of consciousness that I know of.

How do you know that a particular subset of causes and effects belongs to that particular thing and not another...?

It doesn't belong to anything. Some particular subset is already that "thing" the moment you defined the subset. And the causes and effects might as well belong to another in some instances.[/quote]

How can the subset not belong to anything and then belong to a thing when I've defined it as a thing? What was the subset before I defined it as a thing?

You are first making the empirical claim that our consciousness is actually a computer - proceeding from two different definitions - and then you go on to define computers and thermostats as conscious beings, which is a philosophical claim.

Not empirical, perhaps more like a hypotheses.

A hypothesis is a sort of claim, and in the first instance it is an empirical hypothesis, because you are saying that our consciousness(which you haven't defined yet) is actually not consciousness but something else. This is something that science has to deal with, and has nothing whatsoever to do with philosophy.

In the second case, you are assuming that a feedback circuit or thermostat is or works like consciousness, but there is no way of assessing this statement because you haven't defined consciousness.

I suggested the principle is the same: a control feedback mechanism foremost. This is one way of defining it I suppose. Not very technical or in depth of course.

But where is your definition of consciousness? If you are going to draw a comparison, then you should define both the things that you are comparing.

No, memory is the consciousness of the fact that impressions(appearances) are being conserved.

But everything you can think of is the consciousness of that impression. What counts here is that impressions are being conserved.

You missed the point - the fact that impressions are being conserved itself appears to the mind, and that appearance is what we call "memory." For all we know the memories of our childhood may be clips from a film we saw.

If that's memory according to you, then if we see that impressions are being conserved in a piece or rock, that rock is 'memory'.

WE are seeing the impressions being conserved in the rock, not that the rock is being conscious of them. How does that imply that the rock has memory, if you go by my definition of it?

[m4tt_666]

the rock itself holds no memory. we ourselves only hold this false delusion of memory also creating the false sense of motion felt upon every succeeding second. To say the rock has a "slow consciousness" is nothing more than yourself projecting what you think you feel onto an object that is totally unaware of you or itself.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

If you call my observations "my ideas on the subject" then you also have to call the scientists observation - "their ideas on the subject." It's better to define science simply as the observation and sometimes interpretation of empirical data.

Then everyone is a scientist! Bravo, you demolished and nullified another meaningful definition.

Whatever cleverness they display is always in connection to survival and acquiring food. It's no more an indicator of consciousness than the fact that mangroves are clever at surviving floods, or pigeons are clever at finding their way home.

And you're clever typing out your posts, juggling and echoing some second-hand thought-forms back at us. Did you read the story about rooks grasping gravity as concept? Clever huh?

But sometimes there does seem to be varying degrees of conscious behavior among us, or at least among some of us. For example, when we try to identify things, or even ourselves, just for the sake of identifying them.

My point exactly but when you start to vary degrees, it makes no sense to exclude animals or machines since there's in my view nothing fundamentally exclusive about human consciousness which cannot be argued to be witnessed in the behavior of certain animals or even some complex machines.

I define consciousness as everything that appears to a conscious being, and that is the best definition of consciousness that I know of.

That's not a very meaningful definition although it's good to define consciousness as appearance of consciousness. If I'd program a robot very cleverly to have some interesting smalltalk with you on a forum, it might briefly appear as a conscious being to you?

This is something that science has to deal with, and has nothing whatsoever to do with philosophy.

Then why are you claiming a computer cannot be conscious. Isn't that an empirical research question?

You missed the point - the fact that impressions are being conserved itself appears to the mind, and that appearance is what we call "memory."

You appear to be placing the mind here firmly outside the processes of impression and memory. As if it all slowly passes by like a procession before the man on the throne. That concept of mind is delusional, as where would such extra-impressive mind reside? In the end you're here just introducing another form of god, heaven and the beyond to keep it away from any challenge.

WE are seeing the impressions being conserved in the rock, not that the rock is being conscious of them. How does that imply that the rock has memory, if you go by my definition of it?

Since we were going by "impressions being conserved" to describe the memory function. Is it important whose impressions or who's processing them later on? Impressions are just a bunch of effects, like anything else.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

the rock itself holds no memory.

There's no brain tissue sitting inside a rock, correct. But fundamentally a rock is just another surface to carve upon, isn't it? So at least it can be used as memory. For example as times go by. This is how scientists calculate the age of many things by the way: 'geology' as the memory of the Earth made visible, revealed through rocks and minerals.

Now before you're going to say this still requires human interpretation of the content of this memory: think very carefully about it first!

To say the rock has a "slow consciousness" is nothing more than yourself projecting what you think you feel onto an object that is totally unaware of you or itself.

So why stop there? Aren't you projecting the idea of being aware while you're, not unlike a rock, just being hammered on most of the time, with most if not all of it passing you completely by?

Anyway, the point was only relevant when defining consciousness as just a fast and complex web of reactions to impulses. The rock reacts just slower and simpler, and so my question is: what is really the difference? Is it really dead and we alive? If I was a billion years old and reviewed my life, humans would be too short and insignificant to consider compared with the dance or the larger rocks :-)

Really, I'm just messing with ya ...

[m4tt_666]

to identify yourself as a human and nothing else is false. our bodies are made up of pure unconscious material, therefore, we are no different than the rock other than consciousness alone. Always keeping in mind that consciousness itself is unaware that itself exists. Truly there is nothing.

[Blair]

Truly there is nothing.

So, what's your point?

[m4tt_666]

the concept of unawareness in everything, conscious or unconscious, would be my point in this discussion.

[jupiviv]

If you call my observations "my ideas on the subject" then you also have to call the scientists observation - "their ideas on the subject." It's better to define science simply as the observation and sometimes interpretation of empirical data.

Then everyone is a scientist! Bravo, you demolished and nullified another meaningful definition.

You don't need to have a science degree to observe natural phenomena. Otherwise none of the scientists born before the establishment of proper academia would have been scientists.

Whatever cleverness they display is always in connection to survival and acquiring food. It's no more an indicator of consciousness than the fact that mangroves are clever at surviving floods, or pigeons are clever at finding their way home.

And you're clever typing out your posts, juggling and echoing some second-hand thought-forms back at us. Did you read the story about rooks grasping gravity as concept? Clever huh?

That's a non sequitur - you missed the point by a mile.

I read the article about rooks. I don't know how they came to the conclusion that spending more time looking at "impossible" images automatically means thinking about them, and also means having an understanding of gravity and cause and effect. Truth be told - the article is laughable, as is your attempt to prove animals are conscious.

But sometimes there does seem to be varying degrees of conscious behavior among us, or at least among some of us. For example, when we try to identify things, or even ourselves, just for the sake of identifying them.

My point exactly but when you start to vary degrees, it makes no sense to exclude animals or machines since there's in my view nothing fundamentally exclusive about human consciousness which cannot be argued to be witnessed in the behavior of certain animals or even some complex machines.

You missed the point again. Animals or machines never identify things for their own sake only, i.e, are never really conscious of anything. Whatever actions they may perform are always guided completely either by instincts(in the case of animals) or programming(machines) - a "matrix", if you will.

I define consciousness as everything that appears to a conscious being, and that is the best definition of consciousness that I know of.

That's not a very meaningful definition although it's good to define consciousness as appearance of consciousness.

Well, the appearance of consciousness may be part of the things that appear to a conscious being, so it can't arbitrarily be the only definition of consciousness.

...why are you claiming a computer cannot be conscious. Isn't that an empirical research question?

YOU are the one who is making the claim that a computer may be conscious - I'm just correcting you. I know a lot of people who work daily with computers, and none of them would agree with you that computers are conscious. In fact, anyone with an in-depth technical knowledge of computers would never say that computers are conscious.

You appear to be placing the mind here firmly outside the processes of impression and memory.

How? I'm saying memory is an appearance that makes up the mind. You can challenge this statement, but you are yet to even come up with a definition of consciousness.

That concept of mind is delusional, as where would such extra-impressive mind reside?

Where does the wind reside?

Since we were going by "impressions being conserved" to describe the memory function.

If you follow my definition of memory, then memory is the appearance of impressions being conserved. Does the fact that impressions are being conserved, appear to a rock, i.e, is it conscious of that fact? It's impossible to say for sure, but most probably not.

[m4tt_666]

it's an interesting concept you've come upon, who holds the consciousness, is it us who thinks we are perceiving, or is it the rock that is perceiving us.

of course, as interesting as it is, it boils down to the basic fact; we think WE are the one perceiving the rock, making that statement truth beyond a doubt.

truth, as with anything changes its form with every second we seem to feel pass by. to discover the truth of a moment in the past will never, and can never be applicable to the present.

[cousinbasil]

to identify yourself as a human and nothing else is false. our bodies are made up of pure unconscious material, therefore, we are no different than the rock other than consciousness alone. Always keeping in mind that consciousness itself is unaware that itself exists. Truly there is nothing.

If there is nothing, then there is no point, so one might reasonably ask why you keep trying to make it.

To have as your point that there is no point is an amusing Little Russellian paradox, but it might just be evidence that you are managing to miss every possible point all at once, or else not so skillfully dodging them.

BTW, why should one keep in mind that consciousness itself is unaware that itself exists when that is a false notion? Why should one bother to keep anything in mind, true or not, if there is "truly nothing"?

[Carmel]

m4tt_666:

Truly there is nothing.


Carmel:

Truly, there is something. The material universe is a prerequisite for your existence. Your body, mind and conciousness didn't arise in a vacuum of nothingness. Your subjective "reality" is inextricably linked to material "reality". To deny this would be to deny causality itself.