Gees

iNow; Bear in mind that you are posting in the Philosophy forum. Philosophy does not get it's answers handed to it, so we have to think. Also consider that there is still no comprehensive theory of consciousness, so Dennett's theories are just that THEORIES. When Dennett wrote his book, Consciousness Explained, he lost my respect and the respect of most philosophers. Why? Because he disregarded a great deal of what is accepted to be consciousness, which is why some philosophers have dubbed his book, Consciousness Ignored or Consciousness Denied. If Dennett had named his book, Consciousness in the Brain Explained, he could have retained some credibility, but he didn't. Because he didn't, his theory may explain a small portion of consciousness, as it relates to the brain, but like all of the theories before his, he assumed his portion was the whole. Consciousness is a vast and complex subject. You can go to Wiki, look up his book, and get an overview of the above opinion. Also check out Chalmer's book, the Hard Problem of Consciousness, which was written in response to Dennett's book. Think. If Dennett sees consciousness as an illusion created by the brain, then all life without a brain is not conscious. If humans have the most advanced and complex brain, which most people think we do, then doesn't that put humans at the "pinnacle" of consciousness -- exactly what you accused me of? These are two main reasons why philosophers do not admire his theory. Bullshit. I have spent most of this thread trying to teach science. Until I clearly stated that both, a neurologist and a microbiologist, explained that all life is sentient, most people assumed that I did not know what I was talking about; many still doubt it and I suspect that includes you. So who is trying to ignore the science? Unless people can accept what SCIENCE tells us about life, there is no hope of doing any philosophy on evolution, and I have been working on teaching science for five pages!!! You seem to think that I am an emotional moron. Since I know that is not true, I have to wonder where the idea came from. Have you ever heard of projecting? It is studied by psychology, another science. If you really want to boil it down, then physics tells us that everything is really particles and waves, so it is all illusion. Problem solved. So we can close down Science, Philosophy, and even Religion because we have our answers. Well, if I ever get to the point of this thread, I hope you will remember that. It is my argument that chemistry is also what drives and guides evolution. It also allows us to dismiss the parts of it that we do not wish to deal with -- like religion. Dennett's revulsion of religion is almost manic. It also allows vegans to eat with impunity because only life with a brain is sentient. It is bullshit, of course, but it is delivered by a man with a long beard, a grave and solemn face, who looks like a wise philosopher should. (chuckle chuckle) If you want to identify what is life, it is easy, just kill it. It will lose it's consciousness and die. Life has it's own form of entropy, we call it death. Gee

iNow; Yes. You are not the first person to be frustrated with the definition of consciousness. I remember thinking that this term was ridiculous as it defined almost nothing. I even decided to clarify it by creating better terminology, but the idea did not last long. It occurred to me that I would spend more time teaching people my definitions than I would spend studying it. Let us be honest, do you really think that Chalmers, Searle, and Dennett were never frustrated with this foggy word? If they, with all of their authority, could not create a better definition, then who would listen to mine? So I have to go with established terms. Of course, Dennett cheated, which is why I have no respect for him. He decided to study a portion of consciousness, the part that neurology studies and is the rational aspect of mind associated with the brain. By doing this, and forgetting the other portions of consciousness, he has supported the idea that consciousness is ONLY human consciousness, which is absurd and clearly reflects the Christian religious notion of humans being the only ones who have a soul -- and Dennett, from what I have seen, seems to hate religion. So go figure. If Dennett lived 400 or 500 years ago, I could forgive him for just being ignorant, but that is not the case. We now know about the unconscious aspect of mind, we know that other species are conscious, we know that other species possess language skills, and we know that all life is sentient (conscious). So I see Dennett as a wannabe scientist, someone who did not make the grade, or a disloyal philosopher, someone who plays with the truth. I don’t like disinformation. As to his thoughts about the brain creating illusion, I find all of the theories regarding illusion and consciousness suspect. It occurs to me that if I take my illusionary hammer and drop it on my illusionary toe, I will go right to the illusionary store and pick up some illusionary steel-toed shoes, because it REALLY hurts. This goes to the question of what is real. So as to my own understanding. The word, conscious means aware, and vice-versa. In my Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, the term awareness is referred to the term consciousness. When I say consciousness, you can consider it an umbrella term that applies to each and/or all of the things in the definition of consciousness; sentience, awareness, consciousness, etc. If I say conscious, I am generally talking about awareness with thought added, so this is what most people consider conscious. If I say aware, I am generally talking about awareness in it’s simplest form -- without thought -- just perception. If I am referring to the conscious mind, what most people think of as their mind, I will generally refer to it as the rational mind. If I am referring to the unconscious aspect of mind, I will generally state it as such. If I am referring to sentience, I am generally talking about the ability to perceive, sense, or feel. If I make a reference that does not seem to correspond with the above, please call me on it, so I can clarify my point, or correct myself. That didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Thank you for your patience. This isn’t really my understanding of consciousness, but it is a start. Gee Phi for All; Did you miss the definition on the last page? Page 4 Gee

First I would like to thank whoever gave me a positive rep on my last post. It is important for me to keep my rep in the green as red tends to destroy credibility, and I have seen too many philosophers be abandoned down that path. (A philosopher rarely receives an up vote for making a good argument or point.) The only reason I was confident enough to start this thread at all is because Ten oz very kindly gave me a few positive votes in response to my answers to some of his questions. So thank you all. Gee Area54; I have nosed around in the Science forums before and noticed that science does not like endless and pointless discussions any more than philosophy does. Sometimes when a person is obviously ignorant of the topic of discussion, one of the members will say, (paraphrased) "Get a book, read it, then come back to discuss it after you have a clue." Therefore, I recommend that you go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) or the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), both of which are on-line and free to use, look up Consciousness and read. Make sure you have a comfortable chair and maybe some popcorn. Once you are clear on what consciousness actually is, and have an understanding of the various theories, you can start a thread on consciousness. Expect the thread to be endless, assuming you can garner anyone's interest. Gee Dimreepr; Anyone can get out a dictionary and look up consciousness, or you can use the internet. When I right click, I get this: Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object, or something within oneself. It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and executive control of the mind. Does that definition really help? Or maybe you would like my personal simplified definition: Consciousness is communication. Whether it is internal or external, whether it is known (the rational mind / "executive control") or unknown (the unconscious / "sentience"), it is all communication. Does that help? Gee Tar; You make a good point, but must remember that this is consciousness, and consciousness is never ever a simple thing. The "self" seems to start with the individual, although I am not sure of that, but this core "self" immediately starts to bond with other selves and other ideas and things. This bonding creates larger selves much like the rings that occur when you drop a single drop of water into a lake, the surrounding circles that it makes are an indication that the drop happened, a continuation of the influence of that drop. Anything that you put the word "my" in front of can be an indication of a larger self. Examples: My family is a larger self. Law even recognizes this larger self and allows Self Defense as a reasonable cause when spouse or children are endangered. My school, college, alumni, team, hobby, occupation, place of work, sports interest, religion, church, neighborhood, society, town, state and country are examples of larger selves, although there can be many more. So although we are individuals, I am not so sure as to how individual we are. Even zoos have recognized that many species will become despondent and even die if deprived of others of their kind. Isolation is also dangerous for humans, so although we are individuals, I suspect that we are also part of all life and must maintain bonds with life in order to survive. Gee Tub; The underlined sentence is a good point. As regards "the capacity", you have a point, and might be right, but must remember that we don't yet know how sentience started, or if it started. If science can state that one cell species evolve when they turn into us, then I think that I can state that sentience turning into the rational mind is also evolution. Gee My teenage grandson arrived, is playing with a rather large dog and blasting the latest showing of Supernatural. I can't think. Later.

iNow; Responding to your post is going to be difficult and probably lengthy, so try to be patient while reading it. I knew I was going to get in trouble when I wrote that line, but was just too tired to deal with it then. The problem is, in my opinion, that the brain does equate to consciousness, or at least it equates to what people call their consciousness, which is the rational aspect of mind. The rational aspect is where we do our thinking, our planning, our decision making, so this is what people think of as their consciousness, and I doubt that it could exist without a brain, or processor. On the other hand, every cell in our bodies is also conscious in that it is aware. This is a lower degree of consciousness and is called sentience -- all life is sentient. Every cell in our bodies will maintain itself, do it's work, and reproduce or duplicate itself to ensure its continuance -- this activity is the same as the activity in life forms that we call survival instincts. This is how we know that each cell is alive, because this activity indicates sentience. A virus will only activate this way when it is within another life form, so it is at best quasi-life or parasitic life and does not qualify as life. Yes, this is established knowledge. I got it first from a neurologist and then from a microbiologist -- every cell is sentient. So does this mean that every cell is conscious and has a rational aspect of mind? I don't think so. (chuckle) I have seen no evidence to support that idea. Although some theories of consciousness seem to lean in that direction, I can not go there. What I can conclude from this information, is the idea that consciousness evolves along with life forms. My take on this is that the first life was sentient. It was aware of the need to continue and exhibited this by eating, growing, and reproducing in some manner. This means that it could perceive and accept whatever was needed to feed it and had some knowledge of what was good to absorb. So sentient life can sense things and has some knowledge, but it had no mobility except for the environment which would buffet it along with wind or water. Next came plant life, which set itself down in an environment that was capable of sustaining it, but it also had no ability to move. Eventually, mobile life evolved, and this life started to navigate its environment. In order to navigate the environment, senses were needed to be able to perceive farther than the simple ability to feel because as speed in navigating increased, so did the need to perceive obstacles further away. So things like vision and hearing evolved to resolve this problem, but vision and hearing are useless without some central place to dump the information -- hence a brain evolved. I could be wrong, but I think that actual brains are exclusive to mobile life. This brain not only gathered information, but also began to make choices -- "that is water, should I go through it or around it? or that rock looks too big to climb over|. So this would be the very beginning of the rational conscious mind, which would eventually evolve into what we have today. It is clear to me that the rational aspect of mind (Freud's Ego) is designed to relate to physical reality, and I doubt that it could exist without a brain to process the thoughts and impressions that we receive. Sentience, which is the earliest known form of consciousness does not require a recognition of physical reality outside of it's body and only needs to know how other things feel in relation to its body. Sentience does not require a rational aspect of mind, the Ego, so I suspect that sentient life experiences something like the unconscious aspect of mind, the Superego. The unconscious is not very well known, but there are some things that we do know about it. One of the things is that it does not give two hoots about time and does not even acknowledge it. In my mind, this implies that if it does not acknowledge time, then it does not acknowledge space and physical reality, so this is another reason for the evolution of the rational aspect of mind. Yes, it appears in the nervous system, but in other systems as well. Consider that our immune system can actually learn; if it could not, then vaccines would not work. Also consider that hormones control homeostasis within our bodies, much like pheromones seem to cause it within ecosystems. What a wonderful compliment!! Some of the greatest minds known to man have struggled with this definition for thousands of years, yet you imply that I might have the answer. How flattering. (chuckle) But seriously, it is a reasonable request. The best that I can do is give you an explanation of my understanding of consciousness, but warn you it will probably be lengthy. Right now, I am tired as MS (multiple sclerosis) has a way of kicking my butt, and consciousness is a headache inducing subject. I will get back to this question either later tonight or tomorrow, depending on how well I feel. This should give you time to consider my above comments Gee Area54; Thinking of a Venn diagram is very appropriate, but this problem is even more complex than that. If you study the various theories of consciousness, you will find that every one of them has some truth in it, but many do not even overlap, they conflict. I am resistant to saying that consciousness is this or that because I think that is the mistake that others have made -- to jump the gun and define it before we really understand it. Instead I try to stick to simple truths, small things that I can be relatively sure are true to build my understanding. Hopefully my explanation to iNow that I will produce later, will also answer some of your questions. But I should state that I think of consciousness as a thing. I do this because it is the only way to study it without corrupting it with other ideas like "God" or the brain. Much like Freud did when he studied mind, he saw it as an object that he could take apart and examine, so he could analyze the components, I study consciousness the same way. But mind and consciousness are not really things and have no physical presence, so I think one of Freud's biggest mistakes was to try to match what he learned about mind with the brain. I do not intend to make that mistake. In the meantime, consider this: I often relate my ideas about consciousness with water because I think they share properties, and it makes a good analogy. Water can burn us in the form of steam, it can also kill us in that form; water can freeze us in the form of ice and snow, and can also kill us. It can crush us in an avalanche or destroy everything we own in a tsunami. It can drown us or knock us down in the form of slippery ice. But it can also clean us, reduce a fever and heal us, and floating on it in a small lake (if you learn how) is blissful. It is a liquid and a gas and a solid, so how does one describe it? It is in everything (like "God" is everywhere) and is necessary to life. When mixed with other things it can be anything from a nourishing soup to a dangerous bog that will pull you down and kill you. So imagine for a moment; if we could not be aware of water, if we could not see it or hear it or smell it, if we could only know how it affected us and made us feel, what would we think of it? How many ways would we try to describe this powerful, dangerous, but necessary and life giving thing? I suspect that long ago, we would have worshipped it and called it a "God". Gee

iNow; Welcome to my thread. I will admit that the first few months that I knew of you, I thought you were an idiot. Then I read a post of yours where you were obviously very bright, and learned that maybe you were even brilliant on occasion. After that it took me some time to realize that you are a very worthy poster, but only when you are sincere and honest. Like many science people, you firmly believe that the brain and consciousness are the same thing -- there is some truth to that, but only some truth. Since all of my threads relate to consciousness, but none of them relate to the brain, you do not take my thoughts seriously, so you do not take me seriously. This leads to a feeling that you do not respect me, which I resent. If you were an idiot, then it would not bother me, but you are not and you have knowledge that I would like to ask you about. Because I doubt that you would take my questions seriously, I resent the inability to learn from you even more. So I agree that this resentment has caused me to treat you less than favorably, and for that I apologize. When we say the word, consciousness, most people think we are talking about the brain, "God", or thought. The first two, the brain and "God" are not consciousness, they are where we think consciousness comes from. I have no interest in where consciousness comes from as I see this as a political issue and a continuation of the centuries old debate of monism v dualism or Science v Religion. I don't care about the politics and will gladly leave that to a braver soul. The third word, thought, is a part of consciousness, but only a part. It was a professor of physics and philosophy that I was corresponding with, who pointed out that thought can not do anything on it's own. Thoughts in a book are just ink and paper; thoughts on a DVD are just plastic. Without a reader for the book or a player for the DVD, the thoughts have no value, no ability. So what I do is break consciousness down into it's components, and study them. How they work, how they can not work -- their possibilities and their limitations. According to my daughter, who just finished a class in psychology, he was also a bit too fond of his assistants having bedded most of them. But we are not trying to get him elected as President, so I think we can leave his personal choices out of the discussion. Freud was not brilliant; every paper that I found that talked about his mental abilities used the word "genius", and there is a difference. Brilliance is not too hard to follow; genius is often misunderstood. A lot of the work that was done, in his name, after he shared his ideas was awful. People made a mess of his theories and badly damaged the patients in their care, which of course was blamed on Freud. Please note the words that I underlined above. You are saying that his "three part model" does not fit with what we know about the brain. I agree with you. There has been a great deal of knowledge acquired since Freud tried to map the brain and match it to mind. But his understanding of mind is still valid, and an understanding of mind is very difficult to acquire, which would be what made people call him a genius. I do not study the brain. This thread is not about the brain. I study consciousness and mind, so I value Freud's input. You might say that; I wouldn't. Do you know anything about psychology? Other than behavioral psychology? The concepts do not map onto the brain; they map the reality of mind. And we've known this for decades. Actually, we are on topic . . . . finally. When I say consciousness, I am not talking about the brain. If a person tries to hook the brain to evolution, they end up with a very big problem. The brain was not yet evolved when evolution started to happen, so the brain had no input into the start of evolution. If a person decides that consciousness (the brain) was involved in evolution, they are talking about a "God" or an Intelligent Designer, because there was no other brain in existence at the start. My thought is that consciousness evolved along with species, so there was no brain or mind guiding it -- no "God" and no Intelligent Designer, just simple laws of physics and nature. Gee

Tar; You are welcome. And again, I suspect that you are right. If a person can not deal with the possibility of being wrong, they really need to stay away from philosophy. (chuckle) Philosophy tries to make the unknown more known, or to discover what is true. This is never an easy straight path, and we are going to go off in the wrong direction while exploring -- it is inevitable -- so we are going to be wrong sometimes. We have to know how to deal with that and turn around, so that we can learn more and find a better path. Look how many theories there are on consciousness. Each of them has some truth and something of value, but the whole of the theory does not explain consciousness in a comprehensive manner. People have to back up and redirect their thinking. I can't even count the number of times I have been wrong on this very subject. But I have also been right a few times. You are too nice. I will never be as nice as you are, as there is a little bitch hidden down deep inside of me that sometimes pops out. Gee Area54; I thought you weren't talking to me. What happened? Well, I did a little studying on Freud, and what I found was that even his detractors agreed that Freud was a genius -- so I'm not sure that "nonsense" is the right word. One of the things, that I learned about while studying Freud, was his take on "infantile sexuality", which was one of the more unpopular of his ideas. This may be the idea that caused them to burn his books. The problem is, I think that he was right. I was actually thinking about starting a thread on the subject of infantile sexuality and my take on this idea. Wouldn't that be interesting? Since you have expressed your opinion that Freud's ideas are nonsense, and this being a Philosophy forum, you would be obliged to state your argument that supports your opinion. Of course, it is off-topic, but the idea of the Superego is not off-topic. If you would prefer, you can save your argument for the other thread that I will be starting on infantile sexuality after I have finished this one. If it isn't even wrong, then I would think that you should explain your opinion that it is "nonsense", as this "nonsense" is the topic of this thread. I don't want your apology. This is a philosophy forum. Peer reviewed journals that verify what I think are not required. Only verification of the facts are required, not my interpretation of them. That is what philosophers do -- we interpret. Some species evolve camouflage to make themselves safe from predators. (established knowledge) Other species evolve in order to access food. (established knowledge) Why would you think that this doesn't make them feel good? Gee iNow; Are you talking about Hume's Law with the "is and ought" cartoon? As far as I remember Hume's Law is about ethics or morality. I don't see how it applies in this thread. Gee

Tar; Let me first state that in my opinion, dopamine is very much related to consciousness and evolution. You are correct. When a specie changes and that change makes it feel better, we call the change evolving. Examples: camouflage makes the specie feel better, safer; better ways of acquiring food makes it feel better as it satisfies hunger. If a specie changes in a way that makes it feel like shit, then it is no longer satisfying its needs and is not happy, so that would be devolving. Feeling good and evolution within species is very much related. This is not difficult to comprehend. I will admit that you do a little rambling in your posts. When I first read your posts, I found them difficult to comprehend, but then I study consciousness, so I do difficult to comprehend. What I discovered is that you have a very different perspective from mine. I tend to be very analytical in my thinking, but you tend to see things from a more personal perspective adding an experiential value to the information. I also noted that you take in the considerations as to how the information relates to societies, families, or groups, as a whole which is something that I miss, not being a very social person. So in short, I learn from you, and that is why I am here -- to learn. So if I have not said so before, I am saying so now. I appreciate the work you put into your posts and my exposure to a different perspective and viewpoint. I value your input and am glad that you choose to participate in my threads. Thank you for the things that you have taught me; I hope that you have also learned from me. I also value the fact that you seem to understand philosophy, how it works, and how to work it. Many do not. After playing in a number of different Science and Philosophy sites, I have begun to categorize these people, who do not have a clue as to how to work philosophy. I categorize them as the "jokers" and the "scab-pickers". The jokers seem to have no clue as to the topic, so they participate by making jokes, quips, sarcastic remarks, or adding videos or music that seems to have no relevance to the topic. They clutter up a thread, but usually do no serious harm. The scab-pickers are much worse and can destroy a thread. Sometimes I wonder if that is their goal, to take a thread so off-topic that nothing is ever learned or resolved. These people scan a thread, rather than reading it, to look for real or imagined "weaknesses" or "flaws", then they will expound on their discovery like a hunter coming home with a prize. They will pound over and over until the flaw or weakness is acknowledged, whether it is real or imagined. If someone is stupid enough to admit to the flaw/weakness, then the scab-pickers will simply go on to scan for another flaw/weakness. If you try to ignore the scab-picker, then they will go over and over and over the same thing. In some forums, moderators will stop this from happening, but in this forum, the moderators seem to have no understanding of how to work philosophy -- being more science oriented. So in this forum, the scab-pickers are allowed to pick, pick, pick, until no one remembers the topic, and everyone is focused on what is now the horrendous wound that is the "flaw" or "weakness". I am in no way implying that anyone in this thread is a "joker" or "scab-picker". This is strictly a hypothetical instruction to a friend, so any coincidental activities of members in this thread with my "categories" is just that -- coincidental. As far as this thread goes, I would compare most of page three to a kindergarten class where the teacher stepped out half an hour ago, and forgot to return -- out-of-control, unruly, bad mannered, and undisciplined. If there are any members in this thread, who are more science oriented, but like to play in the philosophy forum, and would like to learn how to do it, I can help. One must always bear in mind that Science spawned from Philosophy -- they are not that different. Both are disciplines. The biggest difference between them is their methodologies, which in turn limits each with what they can study. If someone came up to you and stated that they have tested a theory and know that Einstein was wrong. How would you disprove their test? You would examine the test for flaws. In philosophy we use opinion, rather than hypothesis, and argument rather than test. So if you think that someone's opinion (theory) is wrong, you would look at their argument (test) and examine it. Their argument consists of the evidence, experience, logic, and reasoning that culminates in their opinion. Likewise, if you choose to share your opinions, you would be required to present your evidence, experience, logic, and reasoning that caused your opinion. An opinion that is not already known or accepted as true information, is garbage without a valid argument. So you examine their argument for flaws. Since this thread is not about learning English, you would not examine their English for flaws. Since this thread is not about writing skills, you would not examine their writing skills for flaws. You would examine the argument that relates to the topic, Consciousness and Evolution, for flaws. Please bear in mind: Arguing is not making an argument. Criticizing is not critical thinking. Arguing and criticizing is what a bitchy spouse does. It is not philosophy. Gee

Tub; Welcome to my thread. I remember you from Ten oz's thread, and you had some interesting things to say, but I don't remember if I communicated with you directly. Your points are interesting, so please consider my responses. At my present level of understanding, I would agree with you. But this agreement depends upon what you mean when you say "Consciousness". Most people mean the rational conscious aspect of mind, in which case I don't agree with you. Consciousness is simply awareness, and awareness seems to be an on/off type of thing -- either you are aware or you are not. What we can be aware of seems to be connected with the physical traits of the life form as some have the ability to sense more than others, hence they have more awareness. I think we agree here. On the other hand, if the Big Bang theory, or something like it, is true, then awareness might have evolved. I am a mechanic at heart, so I look at how things work, how they do what they do. When you look at a tree, where is the awareness that makes you aware of the tree? Is it in the tree? Is it in you? Most people think that the awareness is in us, but if that were the case, then there would be no difference between illusion and reality because it would all be within us -- there are some theories of consciousness that follow this path. My take on this is that awareness is between you and the tree, that awareness is the relationship or bond between you and the tree. So in my opinion awareness requires matter, time, and space. For awareness to occur, there must be a point to focus from, and a point to focus on, in order for awareness to happen. So matter and space must exist in order for those points to exist. So there was no awareness prior to the Big Bang or whatever caused matter to exist. This idea seems to be consistent with what we know about evolution; awareness is dependent upon matter. What I find interesting in the above is that the last two lines are a reasonably good description of the unconscious aspect of mind. The unconscious is primordial, timeless, and can overwhelm and displace self-consciousness. We have only just begun to unwrap the secrets of the unconscious aspect of mind in the last hundred or so years, but it is easy to see why older philosophies and religions attributed some of the unconscious aspects to mystic ideas. If you go to Wiki and look up the unconscious, you can learn more, but I recommend that you also look up Matte Blanco and Jung's Oneness theory. Blanco found five or six levels or stratums in the unconscious and discovered that there is a logic in the unconscious if you eliminate time from your considerations. (chuckle) His work has been validated by clinical studies and explains things like childhood traumas affecting the whole life, and things like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which can take your awareness out of time and space. Jung's Oneness theory suggests that we are all connected through our unconscious. I have not read the whole work, but from what I have seen, he seems to think that all species have this connection through the unconscious. I suspect that all life is connected through the unconscious. Isn't that a lot like the cake baking itself to see what it tastes like? For myself, I know that the cake is made up of ingredients, so that is where I will start when trying to make a cake. Consciousness is made up of components, things that must be in order for it to work the way it does, so that is what I am working on. Yes it is. I reviewed Panpsychism a few years ago and found it interesting. Like all theories of consciousness it has some ideas to add to the whole. But there is still no comprehensive theory of consciousness, and there are many other theories that also have validity. One of the ideas that I found interesting in Panpsychism is the thought that it might be able to answer the question of "self". We do not really know where "self" comes from, or why life has the sense of "self". If "self" is an intrinsic property of matter, Panpsychism could possibly explain this. Gee

John Cuthber; You didn't check with the SEP did you? Well, it is a lot of reading, so try this: Go to Wiki and type in Id, Ego, and Superego. When you get to that page, scroll down about half way and you will see a picture of an iceberg on the right hand side. This is the representation that Freud created of the mind. It is now widely accepted as a reasonable picture of how the conscious and unconscious are divided. Freud stated that the conscious mind is like the tip of an iceberg with the vast majority of mind (the unconscious) hidden from our awareness. This is not just from psychology. A working neurologist explained to me that the unconscious is necessary as there is just too much information to process in the rational conscious mind, trying to do so would make us useless at best, or crazy at worst. It is unfortunate that the medical definition of mind that divided it into conscious and unconscious is the one that we use to describe this aspect of mind, as it makes one think that nothing is going on when we are unconscious. Nothing could be further from the truth. The unconscious aspect of mind is massive, and I personally suspect that it is even greater that Freud described. Gee Area54; Did you know that just before you wake up every time, little fairies riding on miniature pink unicorns are what start the process of your waking up? You don't know about them because you are sleeping when it happens, but you can't deny it because that would be an unwarranted assumption. Sorry, but I had to either get mad or laugh, I chose to laugh. Your logic is so illogical that it is funny. If something is known, we can discuss it; if it is not known, then it is speculation. This is real easy stuff here. Gee iNow; Yes. I will give out neg reps when someone in my thread passes out disinformation. If I think that I can argue the point or explain where the person is wrong, I will do so, but some people just do not listen to facts, and others make a joke, often sarcastically, to make their point. This can sway a reader into believing what was written, and I hate causing someone to receive bad information because I hate receiving bad information myself. So I use the neg reps to hopefully make the reader consider that what they are reading may not be true. An example would be when (paraphrased) you stated that a person in a coma would be the same as a person, who is dead -- according to me. This was a clear example of disinformation, and some people bought into it. You could have just asked. OK. Self awareness is the most advanced consciousness that we know of. Is that better? This is how I know it. (chuckle) Gee Area54; But I did not assert that humanity must be the pinnacle of consciousness. So you think that I should say "Good point" to someone who corrupts the meaning of my words, and congratulate them on their brilliant observation that their assumption and interpretation of what I wrote is wrong? Don't you think that there are enough people kissing iNow's backside? Is one more really necessary? Why don't I get the apology???? You probably don't know this, but iNow was in my thread on the Supernatural, and in my thread on Emotion, and in this thread. In all three of these threads, iNow contributed nothing of value, picked at posts that were made by me, and attempted to introduce neurology and/or studies of the brain into the threads. This is documented fact -- look them up if you want. You think this is coincidence? You think that iNow is going to cease and desist? Can you recognize a pattern? OK. Gee

Area54; I hope to help you see it, but since this is a Philosophy forum, let's analyze it. Consciousness is a vast and complex subject. But do you know what I mean when I say "vast"? Let me explain: Consciousness is the subject of ALL religion; consciousness is the subject of more than half of philosophy; and consciousness is related to at least half of all sciences. It is indeed vast. Even the simplest of minds should be able to grasp the idea that any study of consciousness must be focused and disciplined, otherwise the study turns into a tangle of unrelated nonsense, and nothing is learned. So it is easy to stay on the subject of consciousness, in chemistry, regarding "God", in the Universe, and other assorted Theories of Consciousness, while completely ignoring the Original Post and the topic of Consciousness and Evolution. When you stated that "iNow broadened it to include the Universe", you were exactly right. When iNow did that the focus was changed; it was no longer a thread about Consciousness and Evolution; it was now a thread about Consciousness in the Universe. My thread is dead; no one is discussing it; I will learn nothing. iNow has this thread now and it is what iNow wants to talk about. From what I can see, iNow mostly wants to talk about what iNow thinks, and I have no interest in that. So my thread is gone and you are supporting iNow's thread. Thanks a lot. The assumption here is iNow's and the rest of it is pure speculation. Taking over a thread is bad enough, but taking it over in order to turn it into a speculations thread (garbage) is incredibly rude. The above is nothing but opinion, and that opinion is based on assumption, not fact or evidence. You have no idea of my "view". It is always nice to do your homework. Following is my quote from earlier in this thread. It is the one that iNow keeps harping about, so let us take a look at it. If you are able to break down a simple sentence in English, you will note that the underlined completes a sentence. The subject "form" (of consciousness); the verb "is" and the object "ability to be conscious of our consciousness" completes a full sentence. If you will look at the non-underlined words between the two parts of that sentence, you will find another subject "we" and verb "experience". So what we have here is a sentence within a sentence. I missed putting the coma between "is" and "what". The most advanced form of consciousness is self awareness and we, as humans, do experience it. Does it state anywhere that no other species experiences self-awareness? No. It does not. I know this because I am very aware of tests like the Mirror test that support the idea that other species are self aware. One can not spent a lifetime studying consciousness and be ignorant of these types of tests. Does it state anywhere that we are the "pinnacle" of consciousness? No it does not, as I would not be so asinine as to even imply this. It does state that self awareness is the most advanced form of consciousness; but really, if you are aware of things around you (sentience) and you are aware of your self, what else is there? The only thing I can think of is awareness of all things and all selves -- that would be "God" and I am not ready to go there. Also note the bolded words at the end, this was meant to be a "simplified" explanation and not inclusive of all explanations of consciousness. So how did iNow interpret my meaning to be that I think we are the "pinnacle" of consciousness? I don't know. iNow is intelligent enough to understand what I wrote, iNow obviously can read, so my thought was that maybe the very bad interpretation of my thoughts were caused by emotion. If you study consciousness, you will be aware that emotion can mix what you see with what you are feeling and corrupt what you learn from it. Well, I don't find it funny at all. What I did note was that iNow did not even try to answer my question in the OP or offer any pertinent information that was on topic. For that matter, neither did you. Your first post was about "snow" and your second post was about "iNow", yet you are following this thread. Why? Gee

INow; Your above statement is nonsense, maybe emotional nonsense. My statement that we were the advanced version of consciousness is based on known, accepted, accredited information. This is a Science forum, so one must be careful to not assume things that are not known and accepted by science. One can not measure what one does not know about. If you have other information, please start another thread to discuss it. Your above statements come very close to speculation. If you want to speculate, start another thread as this is off-topic. You are not talking about a "flaw" or "weakness" in my position. You chide me because I stated that humans have advanced consciousness, yet you are intelligent enough to know that if I implied there was a higher consciousness, people's minds would go straight to "God" ideas or maybe aliens which would destroy this thread and my credibility. My position is one that can be attacked by any argumentative person, so I chose to go with accredited science. The flaws and weaknesses are in your position. I find it ironic that you start by chiding me for talking about advanced human consciousness, then end your post talking about advanced human consciousness. Again, you are trying to take one of my threads off topic to instead discuss something that you are interested in. Gee John Cuthber; Consciousness is a vast and complex subject. I have studied it most of my life and have only a glimmer of understanding of this topic. If I had ten lifetimes and half a dozen geniuses to help, I'm still not sure that I could fully understand it. The definition that I gave was a simplified explanation of consciousness as it relates to life forms and evolution. It is about levels of consciousness or awareness. A full definition of consciousness is not feasible in a thread like this, even if it were possible. What you are asking about are states of consciousness -- not levels. States of consciousness can include unconscious, varying degrees of coma from deep coma to semi coma, consciousness while hypnotized, sleeping, etc. If you want to learn about states of consciousness, I recommend the SEP, the on-line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, where you can lose yourself in pages and pages of that information. It is free to use and can be googled. Consider that being in an auto accident and being rendered unconscious does not evolve or devolve your consciousness, so this is off-topic. The definition that I learned from Science is that conscious life "responds to stimuli". As far as I can tell, this means that it perceives, senses, or feels the stimuli and reacts in a way that will cause it to thrive and continue. Well, robots react, but robots use electricity or some other form of power in order to react. As far as we can tell, consciousness is what empowers life. Gee iNow; You, and a few others by the + votes I saw, were not paying attention. You still have this idea that the brain and consciousness are the same thing -- they are not. Even if you are in such a deep coma that you do not know how to breath on your own and a ventilator must be used, your body is still conscious. Although the ventilator can push oxygen into your lungs, that does not put it in your blood stream. Your cells are still active, still alive, still conscious, so they continue to do the work necessary to maintain your body. Some systems may shut down when you are unconscious or comatose, but unless all of your cells shut down, you are still alive. Every cell in your body is sentient, which means that it is conscious in the lowest known degree. Every cell in every body of every life form is sentient, which means that all life is conscious. If you remove all consciousness (sentience) from a body, it is dead. We can clone a cell, we can change and manipulate a cell, but we can not create a cell -- because we can not create life -- because we do not know what consciousness actually is. Gee

John Cuthber; And if I put a candle in the sun light, it will melt. Yes. They do. Sentience is the lowest form of consciousness, and all life is sentient, so all life is conscious. Well, let us leave the "God" ideas out of this thread. There is always the Religion forum for people who wish to discuss "God". I would like to stick to Science and Philosophy. "Consciously 'wants' to evolve" as in thinking about evolving? No, of course not, thought can not affect the body and has no ability to change matter. On the other hand, emotion does affect the body. Most people dwell on the "thought", "knowledge", and "memory" part of our consciousness and forget that awareness, feeling and emotion are also part of our consciousness -- maybe the most important part. Gee INow; Except that I was not describing consciousness in that paragraph, I was describing life forms and how we know that they are life forms. If you are correct and basic atoms and molecules do the same things, then maybe the Gaia theory is correct and the entire planet is alive. Maybe the theories that state the Universe is alive are correct, or the "God" theories, but I am just going with accepted accredited knowledge. If you have a question about what is designated as life forms, then I think you should take it to the experts in the Science section. I recommend Biology or the Medical Sciences. OK. If you don't want to be conscious of your consciousness, or self aware, that is alright by me. But I am not giving up my consciousness, or denying it. Are you arguing just to be arguing, or do you have some relevant point? Gee

INow; You make a reasonable point, so + vote for you. People have many definitions for consciousness, as it is one of the most defined, and yet worst defined, terms that exist. The simple definition for consciousness is that it means awareness. What you are conscious of, you are aware of. Problems arise when one tries to determine what a different life form is aware of, because awareness is subjective and not known to anyone but the subject. We can determine that other people are aware through language, because we can question them, but what of other species that we can not communicate with? The only way to determine the awareness of other species is to objectively observe them. What we can observe in other life forms is that they will react to stimuli; specifically, they will eat to maintain themselves, grow, and reproduce or duplicate themselves in order to maintain their specie. This tells us that they are aware of the need to continue, that they have survival instincts, and that they are life forms. If they chose not to eat and reproduce, they would die and become extinct. No one will argue that an earth worm has the same consciousness as you and I, but it does have some awareness, so a variety of terms have been used to try to explain different levels of consciousness. As I stated in my OP, consciousness evolves. The simplest, and most basic, form of consciousness is sentience, which means that the life form has the ability to perceive, feel, or sense something in it's surroundings and react to it in some appropriate observable way. All life is sentient. This is not to be confused with sapient, which is more about intelligence, judgment, and wisdom. AI is sapient, but not necessarily sentient. The most advanced form of consciousness is what we experience as humans, the ability to be conscious of our consciousness, or to be self aware. All other consciousness lies in levels and grades between sentience and self awareness. This is a simplified explanation of consciousness, which will hopefully answer your questions. If you want further explanation, you can go to the on-line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but be prepared to read a LOT of information. (chuckle) Gee Daecon; How is it that they are "unconnected"? Do you have examples or evidence of this? Gee John Cuthber: Human consciousness may be caused by evolution, but that does not tell us anything about the origin of consciousness. If consciousness is not necessary for evolution, can you give me an example of a life form that evolved without consciousness? I fail to see how you can state that it is in "one direction" as it seems to me to be interdependent. Do you have an example? Evidence? Gee Itoero; I don't agree. It is my thought that if one removes consciousness from a person, they die. But if we remove electricity from a computer, it does not die, it just waits. So if we plug the computer back in, it becomes reincarnated!!!!! (chuckle) Gee

We are talking past one another and misunderstanding. When I talked about the rational aspect of mind being linear, I was not thinking in terms of it being "relative". I was thinking of the process of rationalizing; how it is done. In order to rationalize, one must take the facts or information and line it up in sequential steps that lead to a conclusion -- the same is true for logic. Therefore, logic and rationalization are directional, linear processes, as opposed to creative thinking or puzzling out an answer, which are not linear processes. The point being that the rational aspect of mind sees everything as having a beginning, an ending, and time in between. The unconscious aspect ignores time, does not acknowledge beginnings and endings, and sees everything as "now". It is not rational in its workings. Thank you, thank you. This is brilliant! Plus vote for you. As soon as I read this paragraph, I realized that I had information that I was not using in my studies. What you are describing above is what I used to call "practice skills". When my children would complain about doing their homework, I used to tell them that even though they knew the answers, it was still necessary to write them out because writing is a "practice skill". There are many skills that the body must learn even after the mind is made aware of them, like walking, doing pushups, writing, and typing. I remember someone asking me how to spell a word, and I could not think of it, so I "air typed" the word and found the spelling. It was like my fingers knew the spelling better than my mind did. This is another of those simple little truths that will help me to determine what is BS and what is real when looking at the unusual phenomenon associated with consciousness. It is easy to start thinking about the unconscious and conscious aspects of mind as different things because they are so different, but this would be a mistake. It is all one mind; all one set of memories. This is why I like the term, aspects, because aspects can be different parts of something, but is more often used to refer to different views or understandings of something. As an analogy, imagine that you are to write a story about a deceased man that you do not know, so you go to his mother and ask questions, then to his wife and ask questions, then to his oldest best buddy, who tells you all about their misspent youth. After going home and reviewing your notes, it might well look like you have descriptions of three different men, but they are all the same man, just different understandings and perspectives of him. Different aspects. To get a better understanding about the unconscious, look at what Blanco has to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco Gee

Having read numerous threads in this forum and others regarding evolution, I have noted a general consensus of opinion that consciousness has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. I find this idea ridiculous and impossible to believe, as I have seen no evidence that suggests that consciousness and evolution are mutually exclusive. What I have seen is evidence that consciousness evolves, life forms evolve, and all life forms are conscious. This would seem to indicate that consciousness and evolution are not mutually exclusive, but are in fact related. Possibly even interdependent. If I have missed some important information, please tell me what it is. Gee

Ten oz; You asked me to look at this thread, so I did. (Sorry it took so long -- it is eight pages.) It was my impression that you were not satisfied with the answers you received here and thought my input might add to the information. Although there were some good answers, there are some things that I think were not well addressed, so I will try to give you at least some additional information to help in understanding this thing we call consciousness. The first thing that must be recognized is that consciousness can not be seen or heard, it can not be weighed or measured, so finding the wholeness or truth of it is very difficult. Science has found consciousness associated with the brain; religion has found consciousness in "God"; the psychic phenomenon people have found it in things like ESP; a solipsist finds it in illusion. The problem is that they are all correct. Many will say that is not possible, it must be one thing or the other -- someone is wrong. But these people are not recognizing that consciousness is a vast and complex topic. It might be better to use an analogy, consider: What defines baseball? Some would say baseball is about the pitcher, others argue that it is the batter that identifies what is baseball, others, the umpire or the out fielders; then someone says, "It is obviously the ball.", no it is the bat, or the mitt, or the bases. It is actually all of these things and more. But we can witness a baseball game, so we can identify and recognize the parameters of the game. Consciousness is not so obvious. So how does one study the wholeness of consciousness? I look to psychology for my understanding of mind, not brain, mind, and then compare how the mind works to all of the other disciplines, theories, and religions. I find that crossing over to other ideas and theories garners a great deal more information, rather than limiting myself to one idea, as theories often intersect on an idea. If anyone reading this needs to have some type of direction regarding my position, I would say that my understanding of consciousness is probably closest to Spinoza's. So to address some of your questions, I copied the following from different parts of this thread. Please note that the following conclusions are my opinions based on my studies, and note that the answers are simplified and very general. You ask a lot of questions, Ten. The answers are not going to be easy. This is going to take some time. I know that many people see "self aware" as some great accomplishment of the human race. I doubt it. To be self aware, you must first be able to distinguish your self from other -- this means you need senses, like eyes and ears. Although plants have a sense of "self", they have no senses to distinguish plant from surrounding matter, so I doubt they can be self aware. Species that navigate the planet have senses to help them navigate through other matter, so they have the possibility of being self aware. They also have a brain for those senses to feed information into, and this brain helps them to make choices in their navigating. So what we have is the beginnings of the conscious rational mind, which makes science right; it takes a brain in order for us to be consciously self aware, or aware of our consciousness, and aware of our physical self as opposed to other. This rational aspect of mind is linear, understands physical reality, logic, and cause and effect, because it's purpose is to choose paths as the physical self navigates reality. As time and evolution pass, this aspect of mind finally develops into what we have today. But one can not make choices if there is too much information. We must move out the clutter so that we can see our choices clearly, and we routinely dump information into the unconscious. So the unconscious knows our memories, our experiences, and everything we sense; it seems a little awkward to think that the unconscious aspect of mind is not us, or that we do not influence it. It is just too full of information to work the same way that the rational aspect works. For example: The first time you got out of your bed or crib, it was not easy to balance and maneuver so that you did not fall on your head. Now you do it automatically and are often not even aware of doing it. Most of what we do is on autopilot because as we learned it, we also transferred that learning to the unconscious aspect of mind. But the unconscious does not work the same way the conscious aspect works; the unconscious understands the activity as a wholeness, rather than as a put this hand here, that foot there, and be careful to not overbalance. This is why we sometimes have to relearn something, like walking. An accident shatters the connections to the unconscious and/or within the conscious , so we no longer have this activity on autopilot and have to go back to the rational aspect and relearn, "put this hand here, that foot there, and be careful to not overbalance". Although we can remember walking as a whole experience, probably from the unconscious, we can not do the walking until we relearn it. A neurologist could no doubt explain why this works this way, probably something about "pathways". So a lot of our automatic behavior is something that we taught our unconscious; it is not really a matter of our not being in charge of it; it is more a case of input/output, as you mentioned before. This is why it is so difficult to decide what is instinctual and what is learned. Both behaviors are controlled by the unconscious and present themselves as whole activities without a clue as to their source. For myself, I suspect that instincts are regulated by hormones, proclivities are more related to genes, mood is controlled by chemistry, and a great deal is learned. The unconscious aspect of mind is not linear; it is more holistic. It does not think logically and cares nothing for cause and effect, because it has a total disregard for time. Logic and cause and effect require time in order to function; "this and then that" or "this and so that" relies upon time. So if the unconscious does not actually "think" like the rational mind does, then how does it work? It organizes information in groups related to bonds; relationships; same and difference; self and other; and in symbolism, among other things. If you consider the vast amount of information that the unconscious holds, it makes sense that it would organize information in this way. Consider the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Words and language are rather cumbersome when you get to a massive volume of information; and so, would be of little use. So the unconscious "thinks" in terms of symbols, pictures, concepts, experiences, and activities that have a wholeness to them. They are not broken down, so when the unconscious becomes aware of something it tries to add it to the "whole" concept that it belongs to. If you think you smell French fries, your unconscious will bring up the experience of eating, tasting, smelling, and enjoying French fries -- maybe even your favorite restaurant or an experience with a friend at that restaurant. A lot of the thoughts that just pop into your awareness are simply the unconscious mind trying to clean house and put things away. The unconscious reacts to the more fluid aspects of consciousness, awareness, feeling, and emotion, so most anything can pull up a thought or memory even if you are not consciously aware of that awareness, feeling, or emotion. There is a great deal more on this idea of how the unconscious works, but this is enough for now. If you would like to understand the unconscious on your own, I would recommend looking up Matte Blanco in Wiki. He is one of the first to give us some actual understanding of the unconscious. I would not be so skeptical. Consider that many persons might work, train, and practice to be able to lift weights and compete for championships. Few succeed. There are monks, who train and discipline themselves for a lifetime in order to try to achieve Nirvana -- control over consciousness -- few succeed. But it is interesting to note that part of this training is to deny the “self” and to remove bonds and emotional attachments. It almost seems like they are trying to disconnect from the unconscious aspect in order to move into a consciousness that is Nirvana. This implies that the unconscious aspect is the real “self”. Maybe I’ll look into that idea. Hmmmm. There are a few more of your questions that I planned to answer, but it will take longer. Gee

Tragruk; Yes, the idea of reincarnation is very old, and there may be some validity to that idea. I believe it was Dr. Ian Stevenson, who studied it in the 1970's, but he studied it from a more scientific approach. If you search the internet and YouTube, you will find information on his work. The problem, as I see it, is that you are hooking the idea to "karma" and "good/bad", or in short you are moralizing reincarnation. That makes it a religious issue, so you are in the wrong forum. If you ask a moderator, I am sure that she/he will assist you in moving this thread to the correct forum. Gee

Enric; I agree that this is a problem, and it is a modern problem. "How to fight against this?" I think the first thing to do would be to determine what the problem actually is -- to define it. I put a + on your second post because you did a better job of explaining the problem as you see it. Although guilt is definitely associated with shame, it does not always cause shame, nor does it cause shamelessness, so this is not the problem. I suspect that the problem is cultural, and it is caused by a dependence on objectivity for truth, and a dismissal of subjectivity. In my opinion there are two direct causes for this dismissal of subjectivity and dependence on objectivity. The first is media, which gives an objective view of things and has become a very influential part of our lives. The second is that we are mixing truth and fact. We all know that facts are determined by what is objective, but lately we have started to confuse truth and fact, seeing them as the same thing, and forgetting that truth is essentially subjective. Shame, in my opinion, is extremely subjective. It is caused by a denial or betrayal of the truth of who we are in the eyes of the self, or of family, or of friends and associates. It is extremely intimate and is felt when we betray someone who is very close to the truth of who we are, or who we are expected to be. The closest feeling, in an objective sense, might be embarrassment. When we are embarrassed, we are shamed in an objective way, so that others are privy to our shame. Embarrassment is to be avoided, so what does this mean? Do we avoid anything that might be shameful, or do we just not get caught? I think this might be the problem, the dismissal of subjective truths causes truth to be judged objectively, so it does not exist unless it is witnessed. So being shameless does not really matter because it is not known objectively; and therefore, does not really exist. Just like humility does not actually exist, nor does integrity. I have seen many internal subjective truths being set aside over my lifetime. It is amazing that these internal subjective truths can not be heard, seen, or felt, but when they are not there, we notice. When they are there, we also notice. Gee

JohnDoeLS; Were you paying attention at all? Why do you think the leader has to "be the logical one"? All I said was that the leader had the hots for another man's wife. What is logical about that? Having the "hots" is not logical, it is emotional. If everyone had a "hive mind" they would not be going into space. Or are you thinking that this is like "The Borg" from Star Trek? I don't want to shock you with this information, but Star Trek is fiction. You know, not real? Therefore not true. Logic does not give us truth. It fails miserably. Example: A six year old boy likes to play in the road; his mother does not agree. She thinks that the road is dangerous. This intelligent little boy watches the road all day and sees no danger. He thinks about it and realizes that he has never seen any danger on the road in his whole life. He knows his mother is protective, so logic and observation and experimentation all tell him that the road is not really dangerous. There is nothing wrong with his logic, so how did he reach the wrong conclusion? Not enough information! The problem with logic is that it only works when all of the relevant information is known. This is why science likes logic so much, because science works with knowns. In philosophy, logic has often been referred to as a "school room" tool, because it is used to check the consistency and accuracy of theories. Why does it work within these theories? Because a theory is supposed to be the answer, so it is supposed to have all of the information, so logic can check these theoretical knowns. Logic can not give you truth, but it can find lies. If you do not want to believe me, then go to any website that teaches logic in philosophy. It will tell you in the introduction that logic does not give us truth. If you want to work philosophy, you need to throw out all of your imaginings and assumptions, and stick with truth. Gee

JohnDoeLS; Well, I have a better idea of what you are looking for. You want a standard that measures the truth of moral behavior. People have been looking for this standard for centuries, and longer. Since I spent a few years working in law, I am not sure that you are going to find your answer in logic. At least not in the way you are looking for it. I think it would help if you considered what morality is; it is laws and rules guided by emotion. This is why morality is usually regulated by religions, because religion is the Discipline that studies emotion. An example: You are on a ship with nine other people, ten in all, sent off to explore and colonize a planet far, far away. This will be a very long trip. There is an accident and supplies are lost; there is now only enough to support nine people for the duration of this trip. What do you do? If you can't turn back, the rational and logical thing to do would be to determine which person is most expendable, and find a nice way to dispose of him/her, ensuring the survival of the others. Morality would disagree: It is better for each person to sacrifice and eat less, take shorter breaths, and do whatever is necessary so that, although weaker, everyone might survive. Most people would agree with the former solution stating that it is the only rational thing to do. At least nine of the explorers would have the opportunity to reach a new home. But is this true? After disposing of the one member, you will awaken all of the paranoia, fears, jealousies, and insecurities in the other members. Like this: "The leader of this group is attracted to that member's mate. This is the real reason he was chosen for disposal." "That member was of a different race than most of the members. So am I. Will I be next?" "He was never very popular. Neither am I. What can I do to ensure that I am not the next casualty?" If you consider that the members will have months to think about their fears, and bounce them off each other, it is entirely possible that emotion will sabotage the entire trip, and no one will make it to the new planet. So either choice could create disaster and sabotage the trip. I wrote the above to show that logic is nice, it is a useful tool, but emotion is real -- it is very, very real -- and should never be ignored. So why and how does emotion guide laws and turn them into morality? I have never asked this question before, so I will give it my best shot in helping you find a standard. If we look to the physical body, we find that we are full of hormones, and these hormones work with emotion to activate our survival instincts. Survival instincts protect the "self". I suspect that this is the source and justification of morality. Laws and regulations continue this principle and help to protect the "self". But "self" has layers, lots and lots of layers like the rings that are made around a drop that falls into water, each of these rings representing a layer of "self". So defending your person is the first layer of "self" and is acceptable as self-defense; the second layer of "self" is usually accepted as your spouse (the two are now one) and your issue, which is also regulated under survival instincts, and is also considered under self-defense. The other many layers of "self" could be considered as anything that you put the word, my, in front of, like my home, my property, my community, my country. But other people have "selves" as well, so there are boundaries. If you killed someone and took their property, then you would be violating their "self" twice and it would be immoral. Then one must consider that each layer of "self" becomes less distinct as it is further from the "self" core. So if someone burned down your garage, which would be a violation of you, that does not mean that you can murder their child, which would be a closer violation of their "self". I think that the above would cover most moral aspects of Family Law, Criminal Law, and Probate or Testamentary Law. It is up to the Courts and Legislature to decide which layer of "self" matches up with which layer of "self" in disputes. I am not sure that this standard is correct, but it looks pretty good to me. Of course, I will appreciate the opinions of others. Yes. Emotion. Gee

No. Truth is supposed to be true. No. I have no idea of what you mean. No. Truth is not always factual; facts are not always true. I did not know that truth was established in 600 BC. Please explain. Why do you say THE truth? Are you talking about some absolute truth? The only absolute truth that I can think of, relevant to philosophy, would be universals, but you don't appear to be talking about universals. Truth is a measure of what is thought to be real. imo Truth, facts, and "right and wrong" are three very different subjects. One must have a care when attempting to mix them. Now you are talking about a moral issue. If you want to study truth or facts, then the philosophy forum is the correct venue. But if you want to study a moral issue, and are only using truth and facts to support your argument, then this is an ethics or religious issue. What is it you want to know? Gee

Evgenia; A very good point. I had not considered games in this context, but have read many articles that explain play in other species. An example might be an article that showed a group of kittens stalking each other, pouncing on each other, and attempting to catch something. This specific article explained that this is instinctive behavior as they are practicing to become predators. If this is instinctive behavior, then what is the instinct that causes this behavior? One would think that their DNA would cause them to be excited by the sounds and movements of prey and to be attracted to the taste of prey, so why do they have to practice? If being a predator is innate, then do all predators practice? Does a spider? Does a Venus flytrap? I am not sure. On the other hand, I had a little trouble finding a cat that was a mouser. I needed a cat to keep the mice out of my old house and found that many of them were not mousers. My veterinarian explained that the mother cat has to introduce the kittens to prey and show them that it is food, or they do not become mousers. So if they were raised in an apartment or a cage, they won't mouse hunt. They will play with the mice, like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but will not eat it. So if being a predator is innate, except when it isn't, then what is this play? We know that games are play, and we know that play is for the purpose of learning, or practicing, which is the same thing. Is it possible that some of the behaviors we think are instinct, are really just learning? Is learning innate in species? I think that it is possible, and it could nicely explain evolution. Tar; I don't think that anything could frighten me more than the idea of the conscious mind mastering the Id. I know that there is this fad, where we think that we are smarter than nature, but doubt the veracity of that idea. People see "thought vs emotion" and "thought vs instincts" as something that the rational mind should win, but I see that as mostly a short-cut to extinction. So don't scare me by even thinking statements like that again. Yes, I know you said "not", but it still scared me. Ten oz; I gave your other thread a cursory look and may study it when I am finished playing here, but can not post in two threads at the same time. I am just too slow and barely manage to not offend people, with my late responses, when I only work in one thread. For the record, you should know that both threads are about the conscious and unconscious mind, whether you intended it or not. Remember when I stated earlier that brain and mind are not the same thing? Well, having thought and thinking are also not the same thing. A DVD can have lots of thought in it, but it does not think, we can not even be aware of the thoughts in a DVD unless we have a player. It is not ridiculous to think that ants have thoughts, it is an assumption to think that ants have thoughts. How does one prove it? You can say that ants "problem solve", but as I pointed out earlier, so can a new bean sprout. Are you willing to state that beans have thoughts? You can say that they have "distinct behaviors", but we know that we can modify their behavior with pheromones, and we know that we can change behavior with hormones, so that does not prove thinking. Neurologists are not stupid, they are scientists, so they need proof in order to state that something is so. They need to test something repeatedly before they will concede that it is so, and all of the tests that I have seen so far deal with some type of pheromone which directs behavior in ants. There is nothing that indicates a rational aspect of mind, which is what is required for self-directed thinking. As I noted about the raven, planning involves an understanding of time, so the tests that proved that ravens could and would plan, indicated a rational mind -- but I am not sure neurology will accept my thinking on this. (chuckle) I read an article that stated that all mammals and some birds have the same consciousness as humans. This article made the claim based on structures within the brain and was signed by 20 or more scientists. I have no idea of where I could find it now, but can assure you that mainstream science did not accept it with open arms crying, "Hosanna". As I stated before, this is a vast and complex subject. I suspect that all life has a "self" because that is what survival instincts are trying to preserve. I suspect that all life that has senses, hearing, vision, etc., also has a brain for this information to feed into, so there is the possibility that this life is self aware, as it can distinguish itself from it's surroundings through it's senses. But all of this can be accomplished while working with an unconscious reactive mind. Taking this idea to the next level of a rational self-directed mind is a little difficult to prove. Emotional memory is not reliable. It is important to make the distinction. Do you think that your wife's memory is more reliable than yours? Does she think so? If so, I would like to disabuse you of that idea. We do not KNOW emotion; we can not know it. We experience it, but do not have any knowledge of it to put into our memory banks. There are no pictures, no thoughts to remember. But we do experience it, so what we do is associate it with some memory or thought, and that is what we put in our memory. When you think of love, you may think of a specific person, of being hugged, of Mom's apple pie, or a thousand other things that remind you of love. The same is true for hate, fear, danger and every other emotion. So I would guess, that at some point in your life, a black van with a chrome pin stripe looked dangerous to you, so when the accident happened, your mind took the image of the "dangerous" vehicle and posted it in the memory of a potentially "dangerous" accident. Years ago, I worked with the mentally handicapped and was required to write out an incident report before leaving my shift if anything happened. When I asked what the hurry was, it was explained that an incident can be traumatic, so going home and coming in the next day for my shift was long enough for my mind to corrupt the memory of the incident. Psychology understands this phenomenon, and this is a lot of the reason for debriefing, to get the information before it is corrupted. Your wife's memory was valid because she took the pictures. She documented the incident before she had a chance to corrupt it. This is usually an easy problem to resolve. Just document the incident in as much detail as you can, and it will prevent you from corrupting the memory. You can take pictures, write out a report, or even just tell it to yourself as a story to document it. It is more difficult to resolve when the incident does not actually happen. If you go to YouTube and look up "emotional memory" you may be able to find a video where a man explains his reactions to President Kennedy's assassination. It is very enlightening. It is all a type of consciousness. Instinct and emotion process through the unconscious and we are not aware of it or directing it. Thought processes through the rational conscious mind and we are very aware of it. We are just talking about the different ways that the aspects of mind process and use information. Gee

Manticore; Thank you for sharing the above link; it was fascinating. I was not very impressed with the idea of the raven's problem solving, as I think that all life will problem solve to the extent that it is able. Before someone calls me on that last statement, consider: Plants have the ability to grow and change their natural shape when it suits their purposes, so a seedling that is not given quite enough light will grow tall and spindly trying to reach more light. Sometimes the new plant will get so tall that it will fall over and die, but the attempt is to problem solve the lack of sunshine. Trees that live on the side of a river where the ground has eroded, will grow their roots and branches in the direction of solid ground in order to try to maintain their hold and their balance. This is problem solving. What fascinated me was the idea that they plan. In order to plan, one has to take into account cause and effect, but also must set this cause and effect into time. This is a strong indication of a rational mind. In order to be rational, one must order their thoughts and actions in a linear representation that considers time. Example: Walking to the store a mile away on a 90 degree day to buy ice cream for a birthday party is not very rational, as it would melt before you got home -- take the car. Cause and effect, but especially time, is attributed to the conscious rational mind. The unconscious mind does not give two hoots about time and does not even acknowledge it. For a long time it was assumed that there was no logic in the unconscious mind, but Dr. Blanco found a sort of logic. The unconscious mind "thinks" in terms of relationships, bonds, and "same and difference", so in the unconscious mind, if Ruth is Mary's mother, then Mary is Ruth's mother. Of course, that is impossible; time would not allow it, but the unconscious mind sees only the relationship, "mother". I strongly suspect that raven's have rational aspects of mind -- fascinating. Ten oz; I have been having a good time going over the thread again. I gave it four stars and gave a lot of people "up" votes, while I was rereading all of the posts up to page six. I have a few more responses that I would like to make, and I owe you a few posts, but had to pull your above post out for recognition. My cat, Billy Sitch, would like me to thank you for the above post. Although cats have long known that humans suffer from illusory superiority, it is a relief for her to find out that we are now aware of it. She doesn't have to pretend anymore. So, thank you. (chuckle chuckle) Gee

Ten oz; Thank you for your patience and for the "up" vote. Up votes are hard to come by for a philosopher in this forum, although down votes seem to be generously dispensed, even when other members do not have a clue as to the topic. (chuckle) A clear definition for instinct? I am not sure, but have my own ideas. A remote operator for action? Feeling/emotion is the operator, and I don't think there is any dispute in this regard. We have to remember that instincts are behaviors, so the definition becomes whatever someone decides causes the behavior. I read in Wiki, under Instincts, that an eye blink is reflex, but a dog shaking it's wet fur is instinctive. Why? The thinking here is that the eye blinks in response to something in it, but the shaking of fur is something that is genetically part of being a dog. How do they know? Maybe wet fur tickles a dog's skin. I did not read the whole article, but think that there is too much that is yet unknown for us to be sure of the causes and effects regarding behavior. And I do not study behavioral psychology. Consider: You are standing on the side of a deep narrow canyon and are about to step onto a bridge. At your first step you feel the bridge start to give way and immediately jump back to solid ground. This was done before thought (You would have died if you had taken the time to think about it.) so most people would call this instinctive. Some might argue that even though you had no personal experience with bridges and canyons, you have seen movies and pictures, so this is not entirely without experience, so not instinctive. Others might argue that the fear of falling and dying complies with survival instincts and is innate. But is this true? Is fear of falling innate? I don't see how. My Mother-in-law told me that her grandchildren were training her to pick things up. She was sitting in a chair beside my one-year-old daughter, who was in a high chair. My daughter took a piece of food, held it over the side of the tray, and dropped it on the floor. She would then watch it fall, and grin and laugh while her Grandma picked it up -- then do it all again. I have seen many one-year-olds do this, and I don't think it is Grandma training, I think they are studying gravity. At a time when they are learning to walk and falling off of assorted furniture, sofas, beds, etc., they are also studying what happens when they let go of something in the air. It looks like magic to them as it flies down. Later, they will learn that bubbles, balloons, and kites have their own "magic" and do not go down -- they will be delighted all over again. So they have to learn about falling, it does not appear to be innate, yet stepping back to save your life most definitely appears to be a survival instinct. How does a chameleon change it's colors? Most agree that this is innate knowledge and instinctive as a survival instinct. But how did it know to change its colors when it first evolved to have this ability? There has to be learning somewhere. DNA is essentially just a map, it is not the thing that is mapped. Chemistry in a bottle does not know anything. It is only when these things are in life that things are known and learning happens, so I think that when we are talking about instincts, we have to be talking about consciousness also. So my opinions are: I read somewhere, and can't find it now, that the Ancients thought there were only a few things that were innate with regard to consciousness. One was "more and less", another was "same and difference", and there was one or two more that I don't remember. This "innate" knowledge was linked to logic and could also be applied to math. It was the foundation for all learning, so it was the beginning of knowledge Regarding instincts, I believe that like knowledge, instincts grow, develop and change as species evolve. So what is the foundation? The initial concept that all instincts are based upon? That would be the law of a god or of the universe that states that all must continue. You could say that the first Commandment is, THOU SHALT CONTINUE. All life is aware that it must continue, whether through the maintenance of it's own body or through it's progeny, it must continue. This is universal to all life and is the source of survival instincts. What many people do not consider is that it is ALL life. That means every cell in your body, every cell in every body, is working to ensure it's own survival, the survival of whatever system it is in, and the survival of the whole person. Just like every life form that maintains itself, is also working to protect it's specie, and to do it's part in whatever ecosystem that it lives in. All life is interconnected through this one commandment and instincts. That depends on how many you want to count. I suspect that a person could count them forever. Consider that when we say the word "drives", what we are talking about is motivations, so what we need are motivators. The motivators are feeling, awareness, and emotion. We have some in common and we have some that are personal. Babe Ruth probably did not have a compulsive need (drive) to fully understand consciousness, and I am sure that I never had a compulsive need (drive) to hit a ball with a bat. Consider an expressway at rush hour. Many are going to or from work, and that is their motivation, but others can have a hundred different reasons for being on the road at that hour. So the drivers can have many motivations for the drives. Gee

Ten oz; I apologize for taking so long to respond, but there was a lot to consider in your post. I have been off-line for more than a year, partly because of an attack from MS (Multiple Sclerosis) which makes me a little stupider, and partly because my computer crashed and burned taking all of my files, notes, and references with it. I will try to give you good information as much as I am able, and hopefully not have to delve into the vast and complex idiosyncrasies of ideas regarding consciousness -- as that could take us well off topic. First I should state that unconscious and subconscious are generally the same thing. The people, who study psychic phenomenon usually use the word "subconscious", which offends the medical community which prefers the word "unconscious". Both terms reference thoughts and ideas that are below the conscious level. Psychology uses the term "preconscious" which references thoughts and ideas that are not conscious, but can be summoned. Like when you can't think of something that you know and it takes a while to "pull it up" into your consciousness. I suspect that this is what is meant by "subconscious", an idea or thought that is not known consciously, but can be summoned. If you go to Wiki and look up "Id, Ego and Superego", about half way down there is a picture of an iceberg depicting the breakdown of aspects of consciousness. It would be more accurate to say that the "emotional process" is something that vs intentionality. This is how we divide the conscious from the unconscious. The ideas and thoughts in the conscious aspect of mind are directed by us; we do our thinking, planning, decision making, and even day dreaming in the conscious mind. We are aware of these thoughts and ideas, we are directing these thoughts and ideas -- this is intentionality. The unconscious mind is not directed by us. We have no awareness or idea of what it is doing until it does it. Science tells us that it is directing our breathing and our heart pumping, but we have no awareness of that dictate, only awareness of the action. All of our bodily functions are directed automatically through the unconscious aspect of mind. Our survival instincts are also directed by the unconscious, so we are only aware of them when we see a reaction or behavior. So the question becomes, if we are not directing the unconscious aspect of mind, then who or what is? As far as we can tell, two things direct the unconscious -- chemistry and emotion. The unconscious reacts to chemicals, hormones, pheromones, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals that I don't know about. It also reacts to stimuli from our environment in the form of emotion, whether it be fear of something dangerous, or a beautiful sunset, the stimuli will cause chemical reactions within us and influence our behavior. Since emotion can cause the production of chemicals, and chemicals can cause emotion, this is where the idea that the reactions of emotions guide the unconscious aspect of mind. As far as I know the above is an accurate, if simplified, explanation. Actually, this is not true. To be perfectly honest, your complaint that we do not have "empirical definitions" for the divisions of mind seemed rather odd, as we do not have an "empirical definition" for the mind itself. The concept of "mind" is still very much a theory and studied by philosophy; we don't even understand the parameters of mind. Finding the divisions of the mind was a tremendous boon to our knowledge of mind. Neurology has done some wonderful work and learned a great deal about thoughts and emotions as they relate to the brain, but this is not mind. It is not the wholeness of mind. A metaphor might make this easier to understand: Consider that each thing neurology has learned about thought and emotion in the brain is like a drop of water, but we do not yet know if that water is in a cup or a bucket or in the ocean. Although there is evidence that the conscious aspect of mind is connected to the brain and private within the body of each individual, there is also evidence that the unconscious aspect of mind is shared -- specifically, between the life forms of a specie. You might want to look up Jung's Oneness theory. (I believe there is a quick explanation in Wiki.) I know that science tells us that the mind is just a product of the brain, but let us try to be honest here. If that were true, then all species with brains, would also have some kind of mind -- we are talking ants and spiders here. Until mainstream science is willing to admit that, I am going to look at this idea as more hogwash. The concept smacks of religion: people have souls (minds), other species do not. True. It should be noted that this unreliability refers to emotional memory. We can remember that 2 + 2 = 4 all of our lives, but emotional memory changes. This is well documented, and it is preferred to have the memory stated and documented within days of the event. But it is also true that people can "blank out" in emotional situations, sort of like a temporary shock, so I do not find either of these arguments conclusive. True. I will agree that education and training can impact the response in fight or flight situations. But how does it impact the response? It impacts it by reducing the fear. This idea does not say anything about the relationship between emotion and instinct, only about the relationship between education and emotion. I will address number 3 tomorrow. I am getting tired. Gee