What is consciousness anyway?
Alrah
possess in order to be regarded as conscious? Does consciousness
evolve so that consciousness exists on a sliding scale with somethings
being more conscious than others? Or is the definition more digital
than that - ie. something is conscious or it is not?
Miguel Alberto
proportional to its magnitude in eighth dimension. "I hurt therefore I
am". "The purpose of life is to find an easy way out of it", (and
suicide doesn't do it).
The magnitude of differentiation is analogous to wrinkles in a sheet,
height, the eighth dimension; length, the ninth dimension; and width,
the tenth dimension.
The properties of discomforts are measured by the magnitudes of the
ninth and tenth dimensions. The qualities of pleasures are measured by
the reductions of all these parameters, especially the eighth.
Alrah
> Pure consciousness itself is pain.
Why?
> The severity of the pain is
> proportional to its magnitude in eighth dimension.
Before you start in on measurement then you have to justify why you
think pure consciousness is pain. After all, on the other thread
you've yet to prove or provide any evidence for your idea that non
existence is the cause of all pleasure.
> "I hurt therefore I
> am". "The purpose of life is to find an easy way out of it", (and
> suicide doesn't do it).
Again - before you start talking about the purpose of life, then you
have to prove that your first assertion is true.
> The magnitude of differentiation is analogous to wrinkles in a sheet,
> height, the eighth dimension; length, the ninth dimension; and width,
> the tenth dimension.
See above.
> The properties of discomforts are measured by the magnitudes of the
> ninth and tenth dimensions. The qualities of pleasures are measured by
> the reductions of all these parameters, especially the eighth.
See above.
bassos
"Alrah" <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:96c478aa-5841-4321...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
A very big question.
We can define consciousness according to our particular goals.
I like something like the capacity and actual manifestation of information
processing.
That can be very very basic.
(and does not imply an ability to process all kinds of information, like
also we cannot do)
Animals certainly are conscious in a way.
Plants exchange information quite directly in some cases as a communal
defense against predators.
Perhaps the way a metal manages it's electron cloud is a form of information
processing.
(interacts with magnetism/electricity and some chemicals)
Even more basic, movement.
If something moves, it is moved and moves other stuff.
That is in a newtonisn physics realm some kind of information processing
(exchanges of impuls)
Is the way subatomic particles interact an expression of consciousness ?
The quantum level is infinite in it's own.
(well, perhaps infinite is a too strong claim, but really really big from
the viewpoint of strings.)
Tom
> Can we define consciousness?
The feeling of what happens.
> What qualities does something have to
> possess in order to be regarded as conscious?
Behavior that suggests awareness of one's surroundings. Now, that's
only the condition in which consciousness is "regarded".
Consciousness may exist where no means to react are available.
There's no way to tell directly.
> Does consciousness
> evolve so that consciousness exists on a sliding scale with somethings
> being more conscious than others? Or is the definition more digital
> than that - ie. something is conscious or it is not?
One entity may be more sensitive to stimuli than another and
discriminate between them more efficiently. Such a being might
therefore be regarded as being "more conscious" than those which
respond with less particularity.
Alrah
> "Alrah" <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:96c478aa-5841-4321...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Can we define consciousness? What qualities does something have to
> > possess in order to be regarded as conscious? Does consciousness
> > evolve so that consciousness exists on a sliding scale with somethings
> > being more conscious than others? Or is the definition more digital
> > than that - ie. something is conscious or it is not?
>
> A very big question.
>
> We can define consciousness according to our particular goals.
I'm not sure what you mean... ?
> I like something like the capacity and actual manifestation of information
> processing.
> That can be very very basic.
> (and does not imply an ability to process all kinds of information, like
> also we cannot do)
>
> Animals certainly are conscious in a way.
>
> Plants exchange information quite directly in some cases as a communal
> defense against predators.
>
> Perhaps the way a metal manages it's electron cloud is a form of information
> processing.
> (interacts with magnetism/electricity and some chemicals)
>
> Even more basic, movement.
> If something moves, it is moved and moves other stuff.
> That is in a newtonisn physics realm some kind of information processing
> (exchanges of impuls)
>
> Is the way subatomic particles interact an expression of consciousness ?
>
> The quantum level is infinite in it's own.
> (well, perhaps infinite is a too strong claim, but really really big from
> the viewpoint of strings.)
So - consciousness is present everywhere? This is like the Hindu idea
of cosmic consciousness but an extended definition to include particle
physics.
But let's backtrack - when I'm drinking my cup of coffee and it's
doing it's brownian motion thing... it's very difficult to think that
this random chaotic motion is evidence of consciousness in any way.
It's just doing what coffee in a cup does... isn't it?
bassos
On 8 Dec, 15:25, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
> "Alrah" <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
****
So - consciousness is present everywhere? This is like the Hindu idea
of cosmic consciousness but an extended definition to include particle
physics.
But let's backtrack - when I'm drinking my cup of coffee and it's
doing it's brownian motion thing... it's very difficult to think that
this random chaotic motion is evidence of consciousness in any way.
It's just doing what coffee in a cup does... isn't it?
****
I would not presume that humans can understand how consciousness works on a
'cup of coffee' level.
I suggest there is a viewpoint that considers the movement of said cuppa-joe
to be unique.
This is not about SELF-awareness.
But conscioussness itself.
So if i admire my unique cuppa-joe, i interact with it.
Is that only me, or does the coffee also change if it is brewed with love ?
For food i would definately claim interaction between the food (aroma/taste)
and the chef.
The food blends, mixes, changes by heat.
It is like creation itself all over again.
How would that not be god interacting with your soul ?
Ato_Zee
On 8-Dec-2009, Alrah <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Can we define consciousness?
We could start from intent to survive and propagate.
And perhaps move on to the idea of intent, to change
our environment to further survival and propagation.
Alrah
> "Alrah" <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:202fc942-6dbd-47db...@r40g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> On 8 Dec, 15:25, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
> > "Alrah" <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> ****
> So - consciousness is present everywhere? This is like the Hindu idea
> of cosmic consciousness but an extended definition to include particle
> physics.
>
> But let's backtrack - when I'm drinking my cup of coffee and it's
> doing it's brownian motion thing... it's very difficult to think that
> this random chaotic motion is evidence of consciousness in any way.
> It's just doing what coffee in a cup does... isn't it?
> ****
>
> I would not presume that humans can understand how consciousness works on a
> 'cup of coffee' level.
>
> I suggest there is a viewpoint that considers the movement of said cuppa-joe
> to be unique.
>
> This is not about SELF-awareness.
>
> But conscioussness itself.
Well - that's my question... what is it? :-)
If it's "the capacity and manifestation of information processing"
then what information is being processed and by what?
Alrah
> On Dec 8, 4:52 am, Alrah <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Can we define consciousness?
>
> The feeling of what happens.
Ok - what about if you could hypothetically suspend a living brain in
some sort of vat and keep it alive and cut off from all sensory
stimulie. Would you still regard it as having consciousness?
bassos
On 8 Dec, 16:16, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
> I suggest there is a viewpoint that considers the movement of said
> cuppa-joe
> to be unique.
>
> This is not about SELF-awareness.
>
> But conscioussness itself.
****
Well - that's my question... what is it? :-)
If it's "the capacity and manifestation of information processing"
then what information is being processed and by what?
****
Movement is being processed by consciousness.
Consciousness is the "the capacity and manifestation of information
processing"
It is circular. (and thus perfect/stagnand)
Why would that be unclear ?
There is only one thing, one movement going on.
ARARITA.
<space interjected with nothingness>
(and now at this point, did you see movement in stagnand or a typo ?)
How bout after rereading ?
(a word mispelled versus perfection, reality appearing means the misspelling
won)
Alrah
> On 8-Dec-2009, Alrah <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Can we define consciousness?
>
> We could start from intent to survive and propagate.
Should we think of Amoeba as having consciousness then? Or tree's?
Mr. Joseph Littleshoes Esq.
I become fonder and fonder every passing day that its all an illusion,
the so called "universe" of our collective existence is a figment of my
imagination:)
--
Mr. Joseph Littleshoes Esq.
Domine, dirige nos.
Let the games begin!
http://fredeeky.typepad.com/fredeeky/files/sf_anthem.mp3
Ato_Zee
On 8-Dec-2009, Alrah <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Can we define consciousness?
> >
> > We could start from intent to survive and propagate.
>
> Should we think of Amoeba as having consciousness then? Or tree's?
>
> > And perhaps move on to the idea of intent, to change
> > our environment to further survival and propagation.
I don't think a tree has intent, or an amoeba for that matter.
The clue is in the term "intent", or perhaps I should have made
it more specific for simple minds to grasp, reasoned, focused,
and directed intent.
Neither amoeba, or trees, reason and focus any form of survival
intent, from which I would argue that they lack consciousness
But intent is really sufficient.
> > And perhaps move on to the idea of intent, to change
> > our environment to further survival and propagation.
Does an amoeba, or tree, by that definition of focused intent
do anything intentional to change its environment?
I think not.
So we are back at the concept that consciousness has
a basis in intent to survive and propagate.
Machines may process information, biological systems
duplicate themselves, but you have to add focused and
directed intent before you regard the machine or
biological system as conscious.
You did say and restrict it to to "Can we define consciousness?"
as opposed to ""Can we define intelligence?" which is a totally
different matter.
I'll leave it for you to define intelligence.
Alrah
Well now - let's look at this. There are people on suicide watch in
some places, and some of these people are so determined to die that
they'll refuse all nourishment. Some of these people have never
intended to 'propogate'. But can you really say that these people
lack consciousness because they lack the intent to survive or
propogate? Of course not. Therefore - logically - consciousness must
be something different from the intent to survive and propogate.
Ato_Zee
On 8-Dec-2009, Alrah <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Well now - let's look at this. There are people on suicide watch in
> some places, and some of these people are so determined to die that
> they'll refuse all nourishment. Some of these people have never
> intended to 'propogate'. But can you really say that these people
> lack consciousness because they lack the intent to survive or
> propogate? Of course not. Therefore - logically - consciousness must
> be something different from the intent to survive and propogate.
I said "start from intent to survive and propagate." That they exhibit
the negative condition does not mean (as you suggest) that
you can assume it to mean they lack consciousness.
They have consciousness of their lack of intent to survive or propogate.
To survive and propagate, or not to survive and propagate, requires
consciousness.
It is when we add, or seek, to define intelligence, awareness,
and similar conditions that problems arise.
And that is because they are attributes of, consciousness.
not consciousness itself.
Alrah
usually use the term in quite a loose and undefined way. That's not
really surprising as there isn't an agreed upon theory of
consciousness, but if we're going to regularly bang on about 'reality'
on alt.magick then we should understand what we mean when we talk
about consciousness and nonconscious aspects of reality.
There's no point in re-inventing the wheel, so what do you think of
these?
From the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy:
4. The descriptive question: What are the features of consciousness?
The What question asks us to describe and model the principal features
of consciousness, but just which features are relevant will vary with
the sort of consciousness we aim to capture. The main properties of
access consciousness may be quite unlike those of qualitative or
phenomenal consciousness, and those of reflexive consciousness or
narrative consciousness may differ from both. However, by building up
detailed theories of each type, we may hope to find important links
between them and perhaps even to discover that they coincide in at
least some key respects.
4.1 First-person and third-person data
The general descriptive project will require a variety of
investigational methods (Flanagan 1992). Though one might naively
regard the facts of consciousness as too self-evident to require any
systematic methods of gathering data, the epistemic task is in reality
far from trivial (Husserl 1913).
First-person introspective access provides a rich and essential source
of insight into our conscious mental life, but it is neither
sufficient in itself nor even especially helpful unless used in a
trained and disciplined way. Gathering the needed evidence about the
structure of experience requires us both to become phenomenologically
sophisticated self-observers and to complement our introspective
results with many types of third-person data available to external
observer (Searle 1992, Varela 1995, Siewert 1998)
As phenomenologists have known for more than a century, discovering
the structure of conscious experience demands a rigorous inner-
directed stance that is quite unlike our everyday form or self-
awareness (Husserl 1929, Merleau-Ponty 1945). Skilled observation of
the needed sort requires training, effort and the ability to adopt
alternative perspectives on one's experience.
The need for third-person empirical data gathered by external
observers is perhaps most obvious with regard to the more clearly
functional types of consciousness such as access consciousness, but it
is required even with regard to phenomenal and qualitative
consciousness. For example, deficit studies that correlate various
neural and functional sites of damage with abnormalities of conscious
experience can make us aware of aspects of phenomenal structure that
escape our normal introspective awareness. As such case studies show,
things can come apart in experience that seem inseparably unified or
singular from our normal first-person point of view (Sacks 1985,
Shallice 1988, Farah 1995).
Or to pick another example, third-person data can make us aware of how
our experiences of acting and our experiences of event-timing affect
each other in ways that we could never discern through mere
introspection (Libet 1985, Wegner 2002). Nor are the facts gathered by
these third person methods merely about the causes or bases of
consciousness; they often concern the very structure of phenomenal
consciousness itself. First-person, third-person and perhaps even
second-person (Varela 1995) interactive methods will all be needed to
collect the requisite evidence.
Using all these sources of data, we will hopefully be able to
construct detailed descriptive models of the various sorts of
consciousness. Though the specific features of most importance may
vary among the different types, our overall descriptive project will
need to address at least the following seven general aspects of
consciousness (sections 4.2 - 4.7).
4.2 Qualitative character
Qualitative character is often equated with so called “raw feels” and
illustrated by the redness one experiences when one looks at ripe
tomatoes or the specific sweet sapor one encounters when one tastes an
equally ripe pineapple (Locke 1688). The relevant sort of qualitative
character is not restricted to sensory states, but is typically taken
to be present as an aspect of experiential states in general, such as
experienced thoughts or desires (Siewert 1998).
The existence of such feels may seem to some to mark the threshold for
states or creatures that are really conscious. If an organism senses
and responds in apt ways to its world but lacks such qualia, then it
might count as conscious at best in a loose and less than literal
sense. Or so at least it would seem to those who take qualitative
consciousness in the “what it is like” sense to be philosophically and
scientifically central (Nagel 1974, Chalmers 1996).
Qualia problems in many forms — Can there be inverted qualia? (Block
1980a 1980b, Shoemaker 1981, 1982) Are qualia epiphenomenal? (Jackson
1982, Chalmers 1996) How could neural states give rise to qualia?
(Levine 1983, McGinn 1991) — have loomed large in the recent past. But
the What question raises a more basic problem of qualia: namely that
of giving a clear and articulated description of our qualia space and
the status of specific qualia within it.
Absent such a model, factual or descriptive errors are all too likely.
For example, claims about the unintelligibility of the link between
experienced red and any possible neural substrate of such an
experience sometimes treat the relevant color quale as a simple and
sui generis property (Levine 1983), but phenomenal redness in fact
exists within a complex color space with multiple systematic
dimensions and similarity relations (Hardin 1992). Understanding the
specific color quale relative to that larger relational structure not
only gives us a better descriptive grasp of its qualitative nature, it
may also provide some “hooks” to which one might attach intelligible
psycho-physical links.
Color may be the exception in terms of our having a specific and well
developed formal understanding of the relevant qualitative space, but
it is not likely an exception with regard to the importance of such
spaces to our understanding of qualitative properties in general
(Clark 1993, P.M. Churchland 1995). (See the entry on qualia.)
4.3 Phenomenal structure
Phenomenal structure should not be conflated with qualitative
structure, despite the sometimes interchangeable use of “qualia” and
“phenomenal properties” in the literature. “Phenomenal organization”
covers all the various kinds of order and structure found within the
domain of experience, i.e., within the domain of the world as it
appears to us. There are obviously important links between the
phenomenal and the qualitative. Indeed qualia might be best understood
as properties of phenomenal or experienced objects, but there is in
fact far more to the phenomenal than raw feels. As Kant (1787),
Husserl (1913), and generations of phenomenologists have shown, the
phenomenal structure of experience is richly intentional and involves
not only sensory ideas and qualities but complex representations of
time, space, cause, body, self, world and the organized structure of
lived reality in all its conceptual and nonconceptual forms.
Since many non-conscious states also have intentional and
representational aspects, it may be best to consider phenomenal
structure as involving a special kind of intentional and
representational organization and content, the kind distinctively
associated with consciousness (Siewert 1998). (See the entry on
representational theories of consciousness).
Answering the What question requires a careful account of the coherent
and densely organized representational framework within which
particular experiences are embedded. Since most of that structure is
only implicit in the organization of experience, it can not just be
read off by introspection. Articulating the structure of the
phenomenal domain in a clear and intelligible way is a long and
difficult process of inference and model building (Husserl 1929).
Introspection can aid it, but a lot of theory construction and
ingenuity are also needed.
4.4 Subjectivity
Subjectivity is another notion sometimes equated with the qualitative
or the phenomenal aspects of consciousness in the literature, but
again there are good reason to recognize it, at least in some of its
forms, as a distinct feature of consciousness — related to the
qualitative and the phenomenal but different from each. In particular,
the epistemic form of subjectivity concerns apparent limits on the
knowability or even the understandability of various facts about
conscious experience (Nagel 1974, Van Gulick 1985, Lycan 1996).
On Thomas Nagel's (1974) account, facts about what it is like to be a
bat are subjective in the relevant sense because they can be fully
understood only from the bat-type point of view. Only creatures
capable of having or undergoing similar such experiences can
understand their what-it's-likeness in the requisite empathetic sense.
Facts about conscious experience can be best incompletely understood
from an outside third person point of view, such as those associated
with objective physical science. A similar view about the limits of
third-person theory seems to lie behind claims regarding what Frank
Jackson's (1982) hypothetical Mary, the super color scientist, could
not understand about experiencing red because of her own impoverished
history of achromatic visual experience.
Whether facts about experience are indeed epistemically limited in
this way is open to debate (Lycan 1996), but the claim that
understanding consciousness requires special forms of knowing and
access from the inside point of view is intuitively plausible and has
a long history (Locke 1688). Thus any adequate answer to the What
question must address the epistemic status of consciousness, both our
abilities to understand it and their limits (Papineau 2002, Chalmers
2003). (See the entry on self-knowledge).
4.5 Self-perspectival organization
The perspectival structure of consciousness is one aspect of its
overall phenomenal organization, but it is important enough to merit
discussion in its own right. Insofar as the key perspective is that of
the conscious self, the specific feature might be called self-
perspectuality. Conscious experiences do not exist as isolated mental
atoms, but as modes or states of a conscious self or subject
(Descartes 1644, Searle 1992, though pace Hume 1739). A visual
experience of a blue sphere is always a matter of there being some
self or subject who is appeared to in that way. A sharp and stabbing
pain is always a pain felt or experienced by some conscious subject.
The self need not appear as an explicit element in our experiences,
but as Kant (1787) noted the “I think” must at least potentially
accompany each of them.
The self might be taken as the perspectival point from which the world
of objects is present to experience (Wittgenstein 1921). It provides
not only a spatial and temporal perspective for our experience of the
world but one of meaning and intelligibility as well. The intentional
coherence of the experiential domain relies upon the dual
interdependence between self and world: the self as perspective from
which objects are known and the world as the integrated structure of
objects and events whose possibilities of being experienced implicitly
define the nature and location of the self (Kant 1787, Husserl 1929).
Conscious organisms obviously differ in the extent to which they
constitute a unified and coherent self, and they likely differ
accordingly in the sort or degree of perspectival focus they embody in
their respective forms of experience (Lorenz 1977). Consciousness may
not require a distinct or substantial self of the traditional
Cartesian sort, but at least some degree of perspectivally self-like
organization seems essential for the existence of anything that might
count as conscious experience. Experiences seem no more able to exist
without a self or subject to undergo them than could ocean waves exist
without the sea through which they move. The Descriptive question thus
requires some account of the self-perspectival aspect of experience
and the self-like organization of conscious minds on which it depends,
even if the relevant account treats the self in a relatively
deflationary and virtual way (Dennett 1991, 1992).
4.6 Unity
Unity is closely linked with the self-perspective, but it merits
specific mention on its own as a key aspect of the organization of
consciousness. Conscious systems and conscious mental states both
involve many diverse forms of unity. Some are causal unities
associated with the integration of action and control into a unified
focus of agency. Others are more representational and intentional
forms of unity involving the integration of diverse items of content
at many scales and levels of binding (Cleeremans 2003).
Some such integrations are relatively local as when diverse features
detected within a single sense modality are combined into a
representation of external objects bearing those features, e.g. when
one has a conscious visual experience of a moving red soup can passing
above a green striped napkin (Triesman and Gelade 1980).
Other forms of intentional unity encompass a far wider range of
contents. The content of one's present experience of the room in which
one sits depends in part upon its location within a far larger
structure associated with one's awareness of one's existence as an
ongoing temporally extended observer within a world of spatially
connected independently existing objects (Kant 1787, Husserl 1913).
The individual experience can have the content that it does only
because it resides within that larger unified structure of
representation. (See the entry on unity of consciousness.)
4.7 Intentionality and transparency
Conscious mental states are typically regarded as having a
representational or intentional aspect in so far as they are about
things, refer to things or have satisfaction conditions. One's
conscious visual experience correctly represents the world if there
are lilacs in a white vase on the table (pace Travis 2004), one's
conscious memory is of the attack on the World Trade Center, and one's
conscious desire is for a glass of cold water. However, nonconscious
states can also exhibit intentionality in such ways, and it is
important to understand the ways in which the representational aspects
of conscious states resemble and differ from those of nonconscious
states (Carruthers 2000). Searle (1990) offers a contrary view
according to which only conscious states and dispositions to have
conscious states can be genuinely intentional, but most theorists
regard intentionality as extending widely into the unconscious domain.
(See the entry on consciousness and intentionality.)
One potentially important dimension of difference concerns so called
transparency, which is an important feature of consciousness in two
interrelated metaphoric senses, each of which has an intentional, an
experiential and a functional aspect.
Conscious perceptual experience is often said to be transparent, or in
G.E. Moore's (1922) phrase “diaphanous”. We transparently “look
through” our sensory experience in so far as we seem directly aware of
external objects and events present to us rather than being aware of
any properties of experience by which it presents or represents such
objects to us. When I look out at the wind-blown meadow, it is the
undulating green grass of which I am aware not of any green property
of my visual experience. (See the entry on representational theories
of consciousness.) Moore himself believed we could become aware of
those latter qualities with effort and redirection of attention,
though some contemporary transparency advocates deny it (Harman 1990,
Tye 1995).
Conscious thoughts and experiences are also transparent in a semantic
sense in that their meanings seem immediately known to us in the very
act of thinking them (Van Gulick 1992). In that sense we might said to
‘think right through” them to what they mean or represent.
Transparency in this semantic sense may correspond at least party with
what John Searle calls the “intrinsic intentionality” of consciousness
(Searle 1992).
Our conscious mental states seem to have their meanings intrinsically
or from the inside just by being what they are in themselves, by
contrast with many externalist theories of mental content that ground
meaning in causal, counterfactual or informational relations between
bearers of intentionality and their semantic or referential objects.
The view of conscious content as intrinsically determined and
internally self-evident is sometimes supported by appeals to brain in
the vat intuitions, which make it seem that the envatted brain's
conscious mental states would keep all their normal intentional
contents despite the loss of all their normal causal and informational
links to the world (Horgan and Tienson 2002). There is continued
controversy about such cases and about competing internalist (Searle
1992) and externalist views (Dretske 1995) of conscious
intentionality.
Though semantic transparency and intrinsic intentionality have some
affinities, they should not be simply equated, since it may be
possible to accommodate the former notion within a more externalist
account of content and meaning. Both semantic and sensory transparency
obviously concern the representational or intentional aspects of
consciousness, but they are also experiential aspects of our conscious
life. They are part of what it's like or how it feels phenomenally to
be conscious. They also both have functional aspects, in so far
conscious experiences interact with each other in richly content-
appropriate ways that manifest our transparent understanding of their
contents.
4.8 Dynamic flow
The dynamics of consciousness are evident in the coherent order of its
ever changing process of flow and self-transformation, what William
James (1890) called the “stream of consciousness.” Some temporal
sequences of experience are generated by purely internal factors as
when one thinks through a puzzle, and others depend in part upon
external causes as when one chases a fly ball, but even the latter
sequences are shaped in large part by how consciousness transforms
itself.
Whether partly in response to outer influences or entirely from
within, each moment to moment sequence of experience grows coherently
out of those that preceded it, constrained and enabled by the global
structure of links and limits embodied in its underlying prior
organization (Husserl 1913). In that respect, consciousness is an
autopoietic system, i.e., a self-creating and self-organizing system
(Varela and Maturana 1980).
As a conscious mental agent I can do many things such as scan my room,
scan a mental image of it, review in memory the courses of a recent
restaurant meal along with many of its tastes and scents, reason my
way through a complex problem, or plan a grocery shopping trip and
execute that plan when I arrive at the market. These are all routine
and common activities, but each involves the directed generation of
experiences in ways that manifest an implicit practical understanding
of their intentional properties and interconnected contents (Van
Gulick 2000).
Consciousness is a dynamic process, and thus an adequate descriptive
answer to the What question must deal with more than just its static
or momentary properties. In particular, it must give some account of
the temporal dynamics of consciousness and the ways in which its self-
transforming flow reflects both its intentional coherence and the
semantic self-understanding embodied in the organized controls through
which conscious minds continually remake themselves as autopoietic
systems engaged with their worlds.
A comprehensive descriptive account of consciousness would need to
deal with more than just these seven features, but having a clear
account of each of them would take us a long way toward answering the
“What is consciousness?” question.
Alrah
Hmmm. Well attributes of my 'consciousness' are impaired due to
extreme tiredness right now, so perhaps I did not read you properly.
Intentionality is one of the 7 umbrella features of consciousness in
the Philosophy Encyclopedia btw, but it says something about
intentionality also being a non-conscious feature and the need to
distinguish the two.
Tehiru
Consciousness is the resistance that keeps us from experiencing the
Absolute. Confronting the ego, accepting and integrating the shadow
and so forth only serve to expand and make consciousness more
rarefied. Even the advanced practice of the Silent Witness is simply a
subtler form of resistance to experiencing the Absolute. These
practices lumped under "individuation" serve to frustrate current
methods of resistance by strengthening a more subtle one. However, at
some point one realizes that any action is a resistance, a running
away from the Absolute, a retreat from Formlessless.
Tehiru
> On Dec 8, 4:52 am, Alrah <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Can we define consciousness?
>
> The feeling of what happens.
Are you saying interpretation of stimuli? Or something else?
Tehiru
> Intentionality is one of the 7 umbrella features of consciousness in
> the Philosophy Encyclopedia btw, but it says something about
> intentionality also being a non-conscious feature and the need to
> distinguish the two.
Why not dig that part up? And why not encapsulate all seven umbrella
features as well.
Tom
> On 8 Dec, 16:06, Tom <danto...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 8, 4:52 am, Alrah <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Can we define consciousness?
>
> > The feeling of what happens.
>
> Ok - what about if you could hypothetically suspend a living brain in
> some sort of vat and keep it alive and cut off from all sensory
> stimulie. Would you still regard it as having consciousness?
All you can do is cut it off from the organs used to gather stimuli.
The nerve endings that lead to those organs are, if the brain is
indeed "living" still sensitive to stimuli, even if there is no organ
gathering it. Also, the brain is capable of representing any previous
stimulation it has received and experiencing the representation as if
it were new stimuli. So you can't actually cut a living brain off
from stimulation completely.
But why bother with a brain as your test subject. Let's try a severed
frog leg. Luigi Galvani, back in the 1780's, found that a frog's leg
would twitch if he zapped it with a little electricity. Was that frog
leg responding to a stuimulus? Yes indeed. Was it therefore
conscious? How the hell do we know? How could we possibly know what
a severed limb "feels"?
I know a guy who's a paraplegic. He can feel absolutely nothing below
his abdomen. Yet, he can and does still have sex. His penis works
just fine, according to his women friends. He just can't feel it.
Does his consciousness extend to his penis? Apparently some of it
does. Just not the part that also connects to his self-awareness.
Tom
wrote:
>
> I become fonder and fonder every passing day that its all an illusion,
> the so called "universe" of our collective existence is a figment of my
> imagination:)
Even your imagination is a figment of your imagination.
Tom
The feeling itself. Not just the interpretation of the feeling.
Miguel Alberto
all is arbitrary and unreal, but, everyone will ultimately agree that,
"Pain is evil, relief is good; there is no other morality. Actions bring
reactions that return with equal worth; there is no other justice".
Pain can only be too much differentiaton from the one substance,
E=Mc². That differentiation, as explained elsewhere, can only be in
closed circuitry.
Confluency permits undifferentiation, relief, and the pressure to this
confluency, called attraction, is pushed by ambient turbulence caused by
repulsion.
This is a logical and mathematical explanation of consciousness, and its
sharp extreme, pain. There is no other logical cause. It works,
therefore, it's real. "I hurt therefore I am."
Tom
> It is easy for the rich and fortunate to spout Zen koans and say
> all is arbitrary and unreal, but, everyone will ultimately agree that,
> "Pain is evil, relief is good; there is no other morality. Actions bring
> reactions that return with equal worth; there is no other justice".
No, ultimately not everyone agrees that this is true.
There is a rare condition called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with
Anhidrosis (CIPA) in which a person is incapable of feeling pain.
People with this disorder are unable to tell whether or not they have
been injured, because they don't feel any pain. As a result, people
with CIPA are forced to examine their entire bodies closely many times
a day or they can die of untreated injuries or infections that normal
people would feel and respond to before they became troublesome.
Pain is not evil. It's a powerful survival mechanism that we really
cannot do without very well at all.
As for relief always being good, one might find relief from the
drudgery of babysitting by killing the child. Would you consider that
"good"?
The ridiculous oversimplification of your moral outlook tells us yet
again how badly impaired your thought processes have become.
Alrah
You know... I really like this. It's up my alley and it pushes all
the right buttons... except....
I think by making consciousness resistance to the formless and
absolute, you're doing it by identifying consciousness with form
itself. Now Plato might agree with you, and I'm very very temped to,
but I can't see that unconsciousness necessarily equates to
formlessness. That seems to be a major objection to defining
consciousness as you have done.
Alrah
Lol. I may have a crack at that later. :-)
Alrah
Interesting. Does he still get all the endorphines/nice brain
chemicals/head rush/golden energy/light thing happening?
Alrah
Do you think then, that only life has the potential for consciousness?
Tehiru
Not at all. Consciousness in any form, even self-awareness, is
predicated on duality. Me and not-me, us and them, light and dark.
Even the silent witness is a subtle form of duality, albeit a
transitional form (aka a higher form) of consciousness. However, the
pure awareness is in and of itself seamless and absolute. Without
duality. Consciousness is not the cause of duality, but is rather an
expression of the prison man has fallen into. Pure awareness is not
only timeless, but absolutely without reference. It is not doing, it
is being. It is not thinking about something, but being simply aware
of all that is happening.
Unconsciousness is your normal waking state. Being present in the
moment is consciousness. Being the silent witness is a transition to
awareness. Being aware is completely away from ego, duality, thought
or other contents of what people consider their mind. It is the
transcendence of the mind, which is exemplified by associations,
thought, memory, ego and time. It is truly the final death. You know
this Alrah.
Alrah
>
> - Show quoted text -
What I have learned and know from experience and what I can convey
through philosophy are two entirely different matters Tehiru, as *you*
know. Do you ever stop training the horse? Do you ever put it out to
pasture? Even death has his horse while we continue to move in the
world, even if at the core we come to a full stop.
Now - respond to my reflections please... ;-)
What is consciousness anyway?
Miguel thought consciousness was a vibration between existance and non
existance.
Tom says it’s the ‘feeling itself’ – and he tells us about the frogs
leg that moves after being cut off from the frog and says – “but we
can’t know or have any insight into what the consciousness of the
frogs legs is like.
Ato mentions intentionality and specifically intentionality towards
survival and propogation, which I find much more persuasive today now
that I’m not tired and a larger set of neurons are functioning and
clashing together to make meaningful patterns.
Bassos points at movement and reaction – from quantum particles upto
the brownian motion in a cuppa Joe. Also a very interesting view, and
he finished illustrating it with an appropriate question – “how is
this different from interpretating everything as an interaction of
your soul with God?”
And finally Tehiru says he thinks it may be resistance to the absolute
and formless. Whether this resistance means consciousness is
identified as form or not isn’t clear to me, but he seems to be
thinking along very similar lines to Miguel if we regard all existance
as having form and all non existance as being formless.
If we think about the Tehiru/Miguel idea as consciousness being
resistance to the formless/non existance and bring Ato’s idea’s in,
then this resistance would seem to be identical to intentionality to
survive. If form is resistant to dissolving into the formless then it
displays an intentionality to survive and propogation is a form of
survival if form must continually dissolve into the formless through
movement. And this movement/reaction is something that Bassos has
pointed to – suggesting that consciousness might be everywhere – even
on a quantum particle or string level. Finally and most persuasively
for me, we have Tom saying it is the feeling itself.
Where there is no feeling, no resistance to formelessness/nonexistance
then there is no consciousness.
Ok – putting this horse in the Rodeo to see how it kicks:
As far as we are aware only life can can exhibit consciousness, but as
a quantum computer could duplicate the performance of organic
structures that at their most basic on a cellular plant level during
photosynthesis are form that exists in such a way as to utilise the
movement/energy states of quantum particles, and that displays
resistance to formlessness/nonexistance as intent to surive and
propogate , then it is possible that non organic life and therefore
consciousness could also exist in the universe.
Therefore: consciousness is form that utilises movement to resist
formlessness. When form displays no resistance to formlessness, no
intent to survive or propogate no matter if motion is present and
therefore the potential of consciousness is present, then we can
regard this form as nonconscious.
Ok Guys – pull it apart now. :-)
I’m going to reread through the Stanford Encyclopedia again to have
another go at it.
Self-critic – what the hell do I mean by ‘form’ and ‘intent’?
Isn’t ‘motion’ a crap way to describe what happens in the quantum
world?
Am I fast dissapearing up my own fundement by even attempting this
with only a rudimentary grasp of quantum physics at best?
Well, I’m having fun anyway. Hope you are too. :-)
Tom
I don't know. "Life" is as ambiguous a word as "consciousness". What
makes a thing "alive"?
Tehiru
> thinking along very similar lines to Miguel if we regard all existance
> as having form and all non existance as being formless.
I said nothing of the sort. Let me clarify. The Absolute, like all
associations above Daath (for Mika, a Tree of Life metaphor) contain
within them their own contradiction. The Absolute is formlessness in
that it contains all forms, all that are, ever were, those that may be
and those that never will be. The Formless Absolute would correspond
in the Qabalah system to the Ain Soph, the trinity of manifestations
of all reality and potential. Many of us, in fact some of us here may
have perceived glimpses of the Absolute. There is no difference
between the formless and form in the absolute because duality is not
even a possibility.
> If we think about the Tehiru/Miguel idea as consciousness being
> resistance to the formless/non existance and bring Ato’s idea’s in,
> then this resistance would seem to be identical to intentionality to
> survive.
Intentionality is a product of consciousness, not awareness. Again,
the formless/nonexistence subtext has been addressed above.
> If form is resistant to dissolving into the formless then it
> displays an intentionality to survive and propogation is a form of
> survival if form must continually dissolve into the formless through
> movement. And this movement/reaction is something that Bassos has
> pointed to – suggesting that consciousness might be everywhere – even
> on a quantum particle or string level. Finally and most persuasively
> for me, we have Tom saying it is the feeling itself.
Consciousness leads to awareness and is dependent on awareness.
However, awareness underlies and is independent of consciousness.
> Where there is no feeling, no resistance to formelessness/nonexistance
> then there is no consciousness.
Yes.
Alrah
>
> - Show quoted text -
Good question. Buggered if I know really. It looks identical to
consciousness right now, with there being organic life and potentially
'inorganic' life, organic consciousness and potenially inorganic
consciousness. All coming from the same source. But I have watched a
hell of a lot of Star Trek in my brief existence. It's probably had
an influence :)
But how did it get there? Was is all just a happy accident? Or are
happy accidents inherent to the universe and that's what we call God
for want of a better name? I don't know either. With consciousness/
life so ever present and the potential for consciousness so rife
everywhere... to ever know you have to give up the lot and that's not
'knowing' or even 'being'. The best thing we can say is that it's
beyond the event horizon, but that we can never *not* partake of it.
Alrah
Just swap the word awareness over for the word consciousness and we're
talking the same thing.
Ato_Zee
> If we think about the Tehiru/Miguel idea as consciousness being
> resistance to the formless/non existance and bring Ato�s idea�s in,
> then this resistance would seem to be identical to intentionality to
> survive.
I expressed it as intentionality to survive, another concept
is entropy. Survival, and intentionality to survive, is to counter
and resist entropy.
Entropy moves towards formlessness, decay, whilst
consciousness moves towards change, and creation.
A persion with consciousness can produce, and does
produce change, even in some cases destructive negative
change, whereas a person who is catanonic, brain dead,
or in a coma is said not to be conscious. Can an unconscious
person, or unconscious living entity, express intentiona;ity?
Alrah
Could we say - they express conscious intentionality at it's most
primal level by living - the forms of life striving for survival even
while form is being surendered to the formless? But not self
awareness.
Tehiru
> Just swap the word awareness over for the word consciousness and we're
> talking the same thing.
Over what part?
Ato_Zee
On 9-Dec-2009, Tehiru <tehiru...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just swap the word awareness over for the word consciousness and we're
> > talking the same thing.
>
> Over what part?
Not that simple.
Try
Julian James "The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"
Just Google for bicameral mind.
It is a thickish weighty tome, not quite light bedtime
reading, and one theory, even though he wanders off
the subject at times. Originally published by Houghton
Mifflin, not sure if it is still in print. Think I still have
a first edition somewhere.
http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php
might be a good place to start.
Then for a different slant try the works
of the Scientologists, who in their opinion, are
the only people on this planet who know anything
about consciousness.
Meltdarok
>> If we think about the Tehiru/Miguel idea as consciousness being
>> then this resistance would seem to be identical to intentionality to
>> survive.
>
> I expressed it as intentionality to survive, another concept
> is entropy. Survival, and intentionality to survive, is to counter
> and resist entropy.
> Entropy moves towards formlessness, decay, whilst
> consciousness moves towards change, and creation.
> A persion with consciousness can produce, and does
> produce change, even in some cases destructive negative
> change, whereas a person who is catanonic, brain dead,
> or in a coma is said not to be conscious. Can an unconscious
> person, or unconscious living entity, express intentiona;ity?
The point is moot since we can only refer to these things,
'as we know it,' so exceptions may be under our noses.
--
meltdarok
The careless mind makes problems where
there actually aren't any.
Then it struggles to change the world,
and not the mind itself.
Tom
> On 9 Dec, 20:53, Tom <danto...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 9, 9:28 am, Alrah <alrah-pub...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Do you think then, that only life has the potential for consciousness?
>
> > makes a thing "alive"?
>
> consciousness right now, with there being organic life and potentially
> 'inorganic' life, organic consciousness and potenially inorganic
> consciousness. All coming from the same source. But I have watched a
> hell of a lot of Star Trek in my brief existence. It's probably had
> an influence :)
>
> But how did it get there? Was is all just a happy accident? Or are
> happy accidents inherent to the universe and that's what we call God
> for want of a better name? I don't know either. With consciousness/
> life so ever present and the potential for consciousness so rife
> everywhere... to ever know you have to give up the lot and that's not
> 'knowing' or even 'being'. The best thing we can say is that it's
> beyond the event horizon, but that we can never *not* partake of it.
While there's a lot of fun to be had in figuring things out, we should
be mature enough to accept that we're not going to figure out
everything.
Miguel Alberto
unpleasant to him. It is just the substance-P neurons that are knocked
out by CIPA.
Her son didn't take into consideration the pain of others, and he
injured and killed many people. A cop, failing to coerce him by pain,
squashed one of his eyes out. That bothered him!
In Maine, which is probably the softest on crime in the country, if not
the world, this monster got out again and again to "be upon them, kill
and torture"- Chapter 3, Liber Evil Legis. He was a Thelemite.
He was very much like Jason Vorhees in "Friday the 13th". After his
mother, who was a career criminal and a Satanist, split up with me, she
said she got that son after me. I moved down to Boston where he will
have a hard time getting at me.
Glutamate neurons cause so much discomfort that a drug that assists our
GABA system to block them, like gabapentin, is considered a pain killer.
That which increases neuron wall permeability reduces consciousness by
allowing more undifferentiation. Solvents like booze, acetone, etc.
increase neuron wall permeability. That's your proof right there.
Down to the level of honesty, we don't take care of ourselves for
"survival"; we only try to feel better. The ignorant try to exist so
that they can enjoy more moments of nonexistence. That's a negative
feedback mechanism.
Inanimate matter flees from heat and light. But, a negative feedback
mechanism developed in sunflowers that makes them face the sun. We are
punished by our bodies for getting too cold.
The Gays have developed a negative feedback mechanism that not all of us
have. Their bodies develop it in very young childhood from having a hard
time with the same sex.
Anything that is harsh in the environment. under a certain age,
establishes endorphan and dopamine release mechanisms in response to the
irritant, that last a life time.
Also, the sex of the parent who seems like a god to the infant seems to
be a source of power. This is the "god eater theory used to explain
Catholic communion.
Alrah
> He was a Thelemite.
Like Mugabe? lol.
I'm Thelemite. I like painting and cooking. I pick all the apples
off the tree outside without even the smallest prompting of any
serpent, and I am upon them! I kill those apples and cut them up into
little bits! And I make great apple pie. I am so evil, I torture
freshly picked pears too. :P
Alrah
> My girl friend's son had CIPA, and there were things that were
> unpleasant to him.
*nods empathically* There are many things that are unpleasant to a
Chartered Institute Patent Attorney. A profound knowledge of
intellectual property rights does not make a man happy or wise.
Ato_Zee
On 10-Dec-2009, Tom <dant...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > > > Do you think then, that only life has the potential for
> > > > consciousness?
> >
> > >�"Life" is as ambiguous a word as "consciousness". �What
> > > makes a thing "alive"?
Intent, as I said at the outset, makes things "alive" and
"conscious".
Intent leads to action which leads to change, and change
leads to outcomes, and outcomes act counter to
entropy.
Awareness as someone mentioned is "input", which we
can choose to ignore.
The intent to kill myself as in the cited suicide case is
intent to kill myself. A state of consciousness.
Out of consciousness arises decision and choice, but that
is not consciousness itself. Decision and choice are intent
moderated by input and awareness.
If a machine had 'intent' then we could indeed regard it as
'alive'.
bassos
"Alrah" <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:41ee04a7-2338-42b0...@z41g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
***
But how did it get there? Was is all just a happy accident? Or are
happy accidents inherent to the universe and that's what we call God
for want of a better name? I
***
If infinity is really infinite, it also contains us.
So even though there are infinite realities in which life exists, there also
are infinite realities where it does not.
The more specific question about conscioussness is unanswerable.
Absorbed
> Awareness as someone mentioned is "input",
Since my computer accepts input through a keyboard, you believe it
therefore has awareness?
> which we
> can choose to ignore.
If I were stabbing you in the leg, would you be able to ignore the pain?
This is what happens when you're lost in thought: you write a load of
bullshit that is obviously contrary to reality. And you failed to notice
your statement's idiocy because you're unable to stop the perpetual
chatter that reverberates around your skull for the brief moment that is
required to compare your claim with the reality.
I suspect that you're so hopelessly lost in your own head that you refer
to your internal chatter, not reality, to check the validity of your
chatter, and thereby you become increasingly disconnected from reality.
Robert Scott Martin
Alrah <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Can we define consciousness?
The tendency of complexity to persist; the refining, organizing or
implicative force. (Cf. "will," "art coefficient," "poiesis.")
In this broad sense consciousness is not theoretically restricted to
living creatures, but as yet this is a purely rhetorical point. Do angels
ever cut themselves shaving?
Robert Scott Martin
Alrah <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>*nods empathically* There are many things that are unpleasant to a
>Chartered Institute Patent Attorney. A profound knowledge of
>intellectual property rights does not make a man happy or wise.
It often makes him wealthy and on that level, "it takes gold to make
gold."
bassos
"Robert Scott Martin" <gl...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:hfr868$k45$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In article
> <96c478aa-5841-4321...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com>,
> Alrah <alrah-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Can we define consciousness?
>
> The tendency of complexity to persist; the refining, organizing or
> implicative force. (Cf. "will," "art coefficient," "poiesis.")
Will would be the way the universe moves ?
> In this broad sense consciousness is not theoretically restricted to
> living creatures
Why even creatures ?
Seems so limitive in a celebration of the entire living and breathing
conscioussness that surrounds us.
(the force, luke, using said force may be what it and we are here for, but i
do not really know)
> but as yet this is a purely rhetorical point. Do angels
> ever cut themselves shaving?
Angels do not live in a time-infested existance.
So they do not grow hair.
Robert Scott Martin
bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>Will would be the way the universe moves ?
Arguably the way the universe moves would be "will."
>> In this broad sense consciousness is not theoretically restricted to
>> living creatures
>
>Why even creatures ?
In the sense of "created entities," stuff in the world.
I'm happy to entertain mineral consciousness, for example. Materials
engineering. Or the secret life of plants, the reverie of water. But
unless I'm in the room it gets boring.
bassos
There is a reason i posted bonnie several times.
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIup5g0nCQQ)
I do not know how IT does IT, creating love out of nothing at all.
For me, that is special.
Ato_Zee
On 10-Dec-2009, Absorbed <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Ato_Zee wrote:
> > Awareness as someone mentioned is "input",
>
> Since my computer accepts input through a keyboard, you believe it
> therefore has awareness?
No - because I did not say "consciousness" is input, I said
"consciousness" is intent.
It is "intent" that is moderated by "input".
How can your keyboard possibly have "intent" or awareness?
Your computer can as a result of what you enter, your input,
result in a change in your intent.
"I intend to do something" is intent, and because I am conscious
I can enter that intent into my keyboard, and by
various mechanisms get back "That's not a good idea" and
modifiy the intent.
Consciousness is intent.
If you are conscious you have intent, if you are unconscious,
catatonic, or brain dead, you are still alive, but by definition
unconscious means not conscious.
Absorbed
> On 10-Dec-2009, Absorbed <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ato_Zee wrote:
>>> Awareness as someone mentioned is "input",
>> Since my computer accepts input through a keyboard, you believe it
>> therefore has awareness?
>
> No - because I did not say "consciousness" is input, I said
> "consciousness" is intent.
> It is "intent" that is moderated by "input".
> How can your keyboard possibly have "intent" or awareness?
You claimed that awareness is "input". According to that claim, my
computer has awareness because it has input.
> Your computer can as a result of what you enter, your input,
> result in a change in your intent.
I wasn't discussing my intent or intent at all. I was discussing your
claim that awareness is input. Basically, you've been caught talking
bollocks, and now you're talking even more bollocks to try and cover up
the fact that you were talking bollocks.
> "I intend to do something" is intent,
You're not great at defining words, eh?
A: How is intent defined?
B: It means that you're intending to do something.
A: Well, gee, thanks for clearing that up.
This error starkly demonstrates how little attention you're paying to
what you're writing. You are completely lost in your own little world.
> Consciousness is intent.
I would say that "consciousness" and "intent" are two different words
with two different definitions. To say they mean the same thing doesn't
communicate anything.
bassos
"Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:hfre15$lf7$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> You claimed that awareness is "input". According to that claim, my
> computer has awareness because it has input.
Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
If you cannot gauge the personality of a computer it is because you lack
experience.
We are not something special.
Conscioussness expresses itself everywhere.
Tehiru
> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>
> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
>
> If you cannot gauge the personality of a computer it is because you lack
> experience.
>
> We are not something special.
>
> Conscioussness expresses itself everywhere.
No. Computers, and doorknobs, and plastic bags are not conscious. They
are not aware and possess no intentionality. If you are gauging the
personality of a computer you are simply interpreting the programmed
behavior of a computer and associating traits to them based on your
experience of living things. It is a mistake, not a sign of your
experience.
Robert Scott Martin
bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
[water and dreams]
>There is a reason i posted bonnie several times.
>( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIup5g0nCQQ)
>
>I do not know how IT does IT, creating love out of nothing at all.
Love emerges from nothing at all. Everything else evolves out of love
along various routes: compression, contagion, assemblage, volition,
generation, decay.
"Consciousness" is the catch-all term for this process.
>For me, that is special.
And I don't know how to leave you. Chaos, earth [nature] and love. The
rest is physics if not chemistry.
Absorbed
>
> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:hfre15$lf7$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>
>> You claimed that awareness is "input". According to that claim, my
>> computer has awareness because it has input.
>
> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>
> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
You believe that computers have awareness. It's like you were next in
line to make an idiot out of yourself.
bassos
This is not a belief.
It is experience.
I did mention i am an it-dude.
bassos
"Tehiru" <tehiru...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fab5de20-6684-4047...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
On Dec 10, 10:20 am, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>
> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
>
> If you cannot gauge the personality of a computer it is because you lack
> experience.
>
> We are not something special.
>
> Conscioussness expresses itself everywhere.
No. Computers, and doorknobs, and plastic bags are not conscious.
Nub.
bassos
> In article <4b2130ce$0$9247$e4fe...@dreader25.news.xs4all.nl>,
> bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
> [water and dreams]
>
>>There is a reason i posted bonnie several times.
>>( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIup5g0nCQQ)
>>
>>I do not know how IT does IT, creating love out of nothing at all.
>
> Love emerges from nothing at all.
Does it?
How ?
> Everything else evolves out of love
> along various routes: compression, contagion, assemblage, volition,
> generation, decay.
Subsets of subsets, but in the end, all is one.
> "Consciousness" is the catch-all term for this process.
I like movement as a term.
>>For me, that is special.
>
> And I don't know how to leave you. Chaos, earth [nature] and love. The
> rest is physics if not chemistry.
Refine that, it is wrong.
Absorbed
> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:hfrftj$6ml$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> bassos wrote:
>>>
>>> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:hfre15$lf7$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>>
>>>> You claimed that awareness is "input". According to that claim, my
>>>> computer has awareness because it has input.
>>>
>>> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>>>
>>> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
>>
>> You believe that computers have awareness. It's like you were next in
>> line to make an idiot out of yourself.
>
> This is not a belief.
> It is experience.
What this is is another example of your idiosyncratic definitions for
words. If being aware means "having knowledge; conscious; cognizant",
then by definition my computer isn't anymore aware than a brick wall.
bassos
The experience of having interacted with loads of individual computers,
which all, kinda react a bit differently.
It is actually true.
Computers have individuality.
Not self-awareness just yet.
Really dude, i work in IT and know it from experience with computers.
What would you bring to the table to negate my statement?
Robert Scott Martin
bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
[air supply]
>> Love emerges from nothing at all.
>
>Does it?
>How ?
Positing two arbitrarily imaginary objects, their interaction generates
frissance if not "friction." Fiat lux, Bonny Tyle[d]r. And she was
floating above it and she was.
>> And I don't know how to leave you. Chaos, earth [nature] and love. The
>> rest is physics if not chemistry.
>
>Refine that, it is wrong.
Nah. It was good enough for Hesiod + I'm feeling archaic. Given an
arbitrary field and an equally arbitrary fixed point to rub against it,
love emerges in various degrees. The study of the degrees is chemistry.
The birth of love itself, however, is physics.
As for consciousness, we may or may not be "conscious" but everything in
the room I'm in expresses ("is") "consciousness." Some of us creatures
"have" IT and others "are" IT.
Absorbed
>
> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:hfrhj0$kvg$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> bassos wrote:
>>> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:hfrftj$6ml$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>> bassos wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:hfre15$lf7$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You claimed that awareness is "input". According to that claim, my
>>>>>> computer has awareness because it has input.
>>>>>
>>>>> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>>>>>
>>>>> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
>>>>
>>>> You believe that computers have awareness. It's like you were next
>>>> in line to make an idiot out of yourself.
>>>
>>> This is not a belief.
>>> It is experience.
>>
>> What this is is another example of your idiosyncratic definitions for
>> words. If being aware means "having knowledge; conscious; cognizant",
>> then by definition my computer isn't anymore aware than a brick wall.
>
> The experience of having interacted with loads of individual computers,
> which all, kinda react a bit differently.
>
> It is actually true.
You're seriously confused here. That lots of computers that you've
worked with reacted a bit differently doesn't mean they adhere to the
definition of awareness that I stated: "having knowledge; conscious;
cognizant".
I have several cooking timers that have all reacted differently. Does
that make them aware as well? I'm sure lots of brick walls also react
differently to various things. Are they aware as well?
> Computers have individuality.
> Not self-awareness just yet.
Brick walls have individuality; that doesn't make them aware.
> Really dude, i work in IT and know it from experience with computers.
> What would you bring to the table to negate my statement?
I'll bring the idea that your experience with computers doesn't effect
the validity of your claim that my computer is aware. Suggesting your
experience does effect its validity is an argument from authority. You
would be no more correct if you claimed that you work with penknives,
and due to your experience of penknives you know they're aware.
Tehiru
> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>
> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
>
> If you cannot gauge the personality of a computer it is because you lack
> experience.
OK, so here we have Bassos stating that computers have awareness, and
it is only our lack of experience (here on the group, presumably) that
we cannot gauge it's personality.
bassos
> bassos wrote:
>> Really dude, i work in IT and know it from experience with computers.
>> What would you bring to the table to negate my statement?
>
> I'll bring the idea that your experience with computers doesn't effect the
> validity of your claim that my computer is aware.
You lack experience.
Tehiru
> >> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>
> >> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
>
> > You believe that computers have awareness. It's like you were next in line
> > to make an idiot out of yourself.
>
> This is not a belief.
> It is experience.
OK, this is where in response to a comment by Absorbed, Bassos is
doing one of two things:
1) Restating his claim that computers have awareness, and he can
judge their personality
2) Stating that it is not a belief, but rather experience, that he
was next in line to make an idiot out of himself.
Which one was it?
bassos
On Dec 10, 10:20 am, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
> Your computer does not have awareness cos of your input.
>
> It has awareness cos of the input of all the parts.
>
> If you cannot gauge the personality of a computer it is because you lack
> experience.
***
OK, so here we have Bassos stating that computers have awareness, and
it is only our lack of experience (here on the group, presumably) that
we cannot gauge it's personality.
***
You are such an idiot.
Not even grasping at straws, you do not even see the straws dangling in
front of you.
Nub.
bassos
> In article <4b214610$0$4924$e4fe...@dreader16.news.xs4all.nl>,
> bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
> [air supply]
>
>>> Love emerges from nothing at all.
>>
>>Does it?
>>How ?
>
> Positing two arbitrarily imaginary objects, their interaction generates
> frissance if not "friction." Fiat lux, Bonny Tyle[d]r. And she was
> floating above it and she was.
Your above sentence invites research.
It does not move me to do so.
So fuck your position.
We cannot know.
>>> And I don't know how to leave you. Chaos, earth [nature] and love. The
>>> rest is physics if not chemistry.
>>
>>Refine that, it is wrong.
>
> Nah. It was good enough for Hesiod + I'm feeling archaic.
Stop thinking so refined.
Alt.magick is not thus refined.
You make me switch, which i like, but it is not always relevant.
Alrah
consciousness by arguing if computers have consciousness (right
now)...
What about frogs legs?
Robert Scott Martin
bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>So fuck your position.
That's how it works! Light, heat where there was nothing previously.
Plenty people around here have gotten hung up on wanting to provoke either
light or heat in a certain direction, color, degree. I'm just passing
through. Love is love. Consciousness continues.
>Stop thinking so refined.
>Alt.magick is not thus refined.
In the archive it will be.
>You make me switch, which i like, but it is not always relevant.
"I can make the runner stumble."
No interest in challenging your prophetic mantle though. Have to burn
something else instead.
bassos
> In article <4b21581a$0$24468$e4fe...@dreader13.news.xs4all.nl>,
> bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
>>So fuck your position.
>
> That's how it works! Light, heat where there was nothing previously.
Is it ?
Where did movement ever start ?
> Plenty people around here have gotten hung up on wanting to provoke either
> light or heat in a certain direction, color, degree.
That is why we are here, to move.
> I'm just passing through. Love is love. Consciousness continues.
You liar you.
(and i also hear your objections)
>>Stop thinking so refined.
>>Alt.magick is not thus refined.
>
> In the archive it will be.
There is only now.
I will become 84 and attract lightning to come and kill me, or it is
something else.
>>You make me switch, which i like, but it is not always relevant.
>
> "I can make the runner stumble."
Then again, why impede any progress ?
> No interest in challenging your prophetic mantle though.
How feeble.
Chicken.
>Have to burn something else instead.
Ofcourse.
There is always something else.
Tehiru
> No. Computers, and doorknobs, and plastic bags are not conscious.
Wait a minute. Didn't you state twice already that computers are
conscious?
Robert Scott Martin
bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>Where did movement ever start ?
Now.
>You liar you.
>(and i also hear your objections)
Sure. Without liars nobody would talk.
[refinement]
>> In the archive it will be.
>There is only now.
So we bury these sigils to achieve synchronous or even retroactive
effect.
>> "I can make the runner stumble."
>
>Then again, why impede any progress ?
"I can make every tackle at the sound of the whistle" too.
>How feeble.
Sure. I've played that game before and at the moment feel a dearth of
prophets. More authorities, not less! Maybe come spring we'll have a feud,
if we're both still here.
Absorbed
Evasion noted.
bassos
Lack of understanding noted.
Noob.
bassos
On Dec 10, 11:00 am, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
> No. Computers, and doorknobs, and plastic bags are not conscious.
**
Wait a minute.
**
Time does not wait.
Noob.
**
Didn't you state twice already that computers are
conscious?
**
Apparantly you did not understand either time.
You poseur liar.
Absorbed
>
> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:hfrmmh$40d$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> bassos wrote:
>>>
>>> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:hfrjhd$5ob$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>> bassos wrote:
>>>>> Really dude, i work in IT and know it from experience with computers.
>>>>> What would you bring to the table to negate my statement?
>>>>
>>>> I'll bring the idea that your experience with computers doesn't
>>>> effect the validity of your claim that my computer is aware.
>>>
>>> You lack experience.
>>
>> Evasion noted.
>
> Lack of understanding noted.
>
> Noob.
Further evasion noted.
Tehiru
> Really dude, i work in IT and know it from experience with computers.
> What would you bring to the table to negate my statement?
I worked in IT and Information Management since 1992 and your claims
do not match with my experience. Computers work on logic and directed
responses. You might as well claim that since hair tangles in the comb
can be devilishly difficult to extract when combing your dog, that the
brush (or matted hair itself) has a malign, foreboding awareness.
Tehiru
> As for consciousness, we may or may not be "conscious" but everything in
> the room I'm in expresses ("is") "consciousness." Some of us creatures
> "have" IT and others "are" IT.
All living things contain the "I AM" statement, the unspoken
progenitor to I am that I am Not. Consequently, I must respectfully
disagree with the latter half of your statement.
bassos
> In article <4b215b53$0$24530$e4fe...@dreader13.news.xs4all.nl>,
> bassos <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
>>Where did movement ever start ?
>
> Now.
>
>>You liar you.
>>(and i also hear your objections)
>
> Sure. Without liars nobody would talk.
That is actually beyond my objections.
> [refinement]
Apparantly.
>>> In the archive it will be.
>>There is only now.
>
> So we bury these sigils to achieve synchronous or even retroactive
> effect.
I have put achievement behind me.
Mostly.
>>> "I can make the runner stumble."
>>
>>Then again, why impede any progress ?
>
> "I can make every tackle at the sound of the whistle" too.
I know just how to tease you :)
>>How feeble.
>
> Sure. I've played that game before and at the moment feel a dearth of
> prophets.
I am not a prophet, i just play one in real life.
> More authorities, not less! Maybe come spring we'll have a feud,
> if we're both still here.
Make sure it is before april 20th, never can tell if i actually would die as
a saviour.
bassos
On Dec 10, 11:22 am, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
> Really dude, i work in IT and know it from experience with computers.
> What would you bring to the table to negate my statement?
**
I worked in IT and Information Management since 1992 and your claims
do not match with my experience
**
Then once again, you are lying.
If you do not experience a different personality with each computer you are
not paying attention.
Btw, since 1992, what did you actually do ?
(or like the scared muppet that you are, what job will you present to
reflect your idiocy)
Tehiru
Still twitching or fully dead? Still twitching, the individual living
cells contain awareness, while the dead ones are dead. Even heart
cells in a test tube will automatically assemble into clusters to form
working hearts.
Note the difference between consciousness and awareness.
bassos
Of you, yes, like pretty much every other accusation you hurled my way.
I am just a happy-go-lucky feller that enjoys playing with fucktards.
bassos
On Dec 10, 11:41 am, gl...@panix.com (Robert Scott Martin) wrote:
> As for consciousness, we may or may not be "conscious" but everything in
> the room I'm in expresses ("is") "consciousness." Some of us creatures
> "have" IT and others "are" IT.
**
All living things contain the "I AM" statement, the unspoken
progenitor to I am that I am Not. Consequently, I must respectfully
disagree with the latter half of your statement.
**
Besides your knowing;
You wrote that you do not understand what i reference.
Thius is because you are an idiot.
I will respond to questions, not silly posturations.
Robert Scott Martin
In article <f3daf71a-fe34-4c74...@k17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,
Tehiru <tehiru...@gmail.com> wrote:
>All living things contain the "I AM" statement, the unspoken
>progenitor to I am that I am Not.
Nice point! I'm not baiting the alt.magick hook for yet another undergrad
ponder of "the meaning of 'life'" but would you say non-living things also
share in this particular "I AM" [existence] or not?
It's tricky because if we attribute an "I" to things like plastic bags, we
run close to attributing self-awareness to them. Which I'm not opposed to
in theory (see upthread) as long as we go into it with our eyes open.
If we were fundamentalist cabbalists we'd probably have to reserve "I AM"
in the proper sense to the sons & daughters of Adam who reflect the image
of God, thus denying true microcosmic awareness to ye household pets &
other elemental intelligences.
For me the "some of us *have* it and others of us *are* it" is of course a
hidden joke from Lacanian psychology, wherein we're taught the startling
koan that masculinity is defined as *having* the phallus [meatus as well
as a certain relationship to language] whereas femininity represents
*being* it. If we strike out the phallus and replace it with the genteel
"consciousness" then humans appear to be the possessors ("are conscious")
and everyone else appears to be the representation ("are consciousness").
Where the IT goes the "I" will follow after all...
>Consequently, I must respectfully
>disagree with the latter half of your statement.
If people disagreed with me more often and with less respect I suspect
they'd get more done.
Tehiru
> Btw, since 1992, what did you actually do ?
> (or like the scared muppet that you are, what job will you present to
> reflect your idiocy)
Why sure Bassos, since you asked so nicely. In 1992 I was transferred
to HHC 1AD in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. I worked in G3 and was also
attached to J3 at Corps level. I was Theater Master Operator for
STACCS, GCCS, PHOENIX, MCS, MCS-P and and operator for WARLORD systems
in Europe. These command and control systems are distributed down to
Battalion and Company level throughout Europe. As such, I was the
network admin for half a dozen computer networks connected by
landline, satellite and microwave towers for fun little areas like
Bosnia and others, each network ranging from 30 to 90 computers with
an average of about 65 each. When I was deployed, two supergrades were
brought in to handle my duties so I could concentrate on the field
projects. Most were HP-UX or later Linux based as time moved on. In
1998 I returned to the states and entered the civilian world, where in
addition to running our small corporate network I primarily handle
information management duties and research in thermal management,
including most recently developing a new line of PCM (phase change
material) units for the commercial sector.
What about you?
bassos
On Dec 10, 12:57 pm, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
> Btw, since 1992, what did you actually do ?
> (or like the scared muppet that you are, what job will you present to
> reflect your idiocy)
***
Why sure Bassos, since you asked so nicely. In 1992 I was transferred
to HHC 1AD in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. I worked in G3 and was also
attached to J3 at Corps level. I was Theater Master Operator for
STACCS, GCCS, PHOENIX, MCS, MCS-P and and operator for WARLORD systems
in Europe.
***
And now in your own words.
Noob.
Tehiru
> Tehiru <tehiru.cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >All living things contain the "I AM" statement, the unspoken
> >progenitor to I am that I am Not.
>
> Nice point! I'm not baiting the alt.magick hook for yet another undergrad
> ponder of "the meaning of 'life'" but would you say non-living things also
> share in this particular "I AM" [existence] or not?
No. Consciousness is always conscious OF something(dual), awareness is
not OF something, it is not even aware OF itself, and thus is
absolutely singular, nondual. Consciousness, the timeless "I AM" is a
characteristic of living things. The Awareness underlies consciousness
but is independent. Consciousness cannot exist without awareness.
The way that Nisargadatta to put it is that the awareness "is that by
which I know that I am." Thus the awareness is there before the "I
am" (or consciousness) appears, and is there after the consciousness
disappears (unconsciousness or death). So the awareness is beyond even
the universal consciousness. The absolute is "awareness unaware of
itself."
Tehiru
> If people disagreed with me more often and with less respect I suspect
> they'd get more done.
I'll try to be less respectful in the future, as I have a lot to do!
Regarding the clarification I just provided, how might you reinterpret
your statement?
Tehiru
> The absolute is "awareness unaware of itself."
Ain Soph? Actually, I wonder what Mika's take on this is as well.
Tehiru
> "Tehiru" <tehiru.cha...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> What about you?.
>
> And now in your own words.
Lack of response noted.
bassos
On Dec 10, 1:06 pm, gl...@panix.com (Robert Scott Martin) wrote:
> Tehiru <tehiru.cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >All living things contain the "I AM" statement, the unspoken
> >progenitor to I am that I am Not.
>
> Nice point! I'm not baiting the alt.magick hook for yet another undergrad
> ponder of "the meaning of 'life'" but would you say non-living things also
> share in this particular "I AM" [existence] or not?
***
No. Consciousness is always conscious OF something(dual), awareness is
not OF something, it is not even aware OF itself, and thus is
absolutely singular, nondual. Consciousness, the timeless "I AM" is a
characteristic of living things. The Awareness underlies consciousness
but is independent. Consciousness cannot exist without awareness.
The way that Nisargadatta to put it is that the awareness "is that by
which I know that I am." Thus the awareness is there before the "I
am" (or consciousness) appears, and is there after the consciousness
disappears (unconsciousness or death). So the awareness is beyond even
the universal consciousness. The absolute is "awareness unaware of
itself."
***
Well, RBS, you have your work cut out for you.
His flaunting his ignorance did not work for me, but you gave him some
leeway.
What will you suggest he wears for a formal suit.
(oh Tehiru, if you still do not understand; you are a liar and a fraud)
Alrah
Note the difference between creature consciousness, state
consciousness, transitive consciousness, phenomenal consciousness,
access consciousness, reflexive or meta-mental consciousness, and
narrative consciousness. Awareness is a vague loose sub-catagory
under one of those... I'll let you find out which one. Then you can
note the difference between the two in a more meaningful manner next
time. :-)))
bassos
On Dec 10, 1:32 pm, "bassos" <zebazz_nope at zonnet.nl> wrote:
> "Tehiru" <tehiru.cha...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> What about you?.
>
> And now in your own words.
**
Lack of response noted.
**
So predictable.
Noob.
Tehiru
Awareness is not a subcategory of consciousness. Consciousness
requires awareness, but consciousness is dependent on awareness.
Awareness as the underlying principle is independent of consciousness.
Tehiru
> consciousness, transitive consciousness, phenomenal consciousness,
> access consciousness, reflexive or meta-mental consciousness, and
> narrative consciousness. Awareness is a vague loose sub-catagory
> under one of those... I'll let you find out which one. Then you can
> note the difference between the two in a more meaningful manner next
> time. :-)))
Maybe this is just a terminology difficulty.
"Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless,
endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change.
Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state
of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there
can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is
absolute, consciousness is rela¬tive to its content; consciousness is
always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness
is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of
every experience."
mika
> "Tehiru" wrote in message
>
> ***
> Why sure Bassos, since you asked so nicely. In 1992 I was transferred
> to HHC 1AD in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. I worked in G3 and was also
> attached to J3 at Corps level. I was Theater Master Operator for
> STACCS, GCCS, PHOENIX, MCS, MCS-P and and operator for WARLORD systems
> in Europe.
> ***
>
> And now in your own words.
Those are his own words. It's not his problem that you don't
understand them.
Poseur.