Consciousness - who are we?

[Dean Mullen]

who are we? I think physics should try answer these questions much more deeply, it would seem quantum physics maybe the field to look into, although I am theorizing that maybe the true us is not produced by the brain but by something else we just haven't discovered, whatever this something else maybe I believe it maybe the experiencer, it has one ability, to experience and at birth some force created by an alive biology attracts this something else and then that something else aka the true us or experiencer experiences all the brain does.

 

The brain/body work together to perform five major actions:

 

1. Observe/Sense the external world

2. Inherit the information and allow it travel to the brain to be experienced via electrical signals

3. Remember these experiences

4. Imagine

5. Think

 

Yet I believe this as I call it something else is connected via some sort of electrical connection in which allows the something else to be connected to the brain and truly experience it, and if you think about it there isn't really anything problematic with such a proposal.

 

this experiencer is the true us, the true being whom experiences the world, while the brain is just a computer which has evolved an invisible force to attract these something els that we cannot see to the brain itself at creation point thanks to evolution. I admit it is quite complex to understand and hard to believe but it isn't to crazy as it is possible theoretically. I believe this means our body & brain are just computers and we experience all it does, and yet the consequence of such a realization is that we don't think or do anything we just watch the brain & body do everything so ironically this concludes if it is correct we have no free will, we just watch the brain & body process information of the outside world and please do not criticize this theory simply because you do not like the idea we have no free will.

[michel123456]

Interesting: I will not criticize this theory simply because I do not like the idea we have no free will is the contrary of I will criticize this theory simply because I like the idea we have free will.

That is all I found interesting.

[TonyMcC]

The nearest I can get to your feeling that there is more to us than the body plus brain is the idea of mind. As far as I know, exactly where the mind is located and exactly how it functions are unknown. However (IMO) the mind is part of the human system that helps give us free will.

[Blahah]

I don't care at all whether we have free will. The illusion of free will is functionally equivalent to having free will.

 

However, you haven't given any logical sequence which leads to the conclusion that we have no free will. Your suggestion is no more likely than an infinite number of other possible explanations for consciousness. Do you have any scientific basis for your 'theory'?

 

The closest we currently have to a scientific basis for an understanding of consciousness is that it is an emergent phenomenon of the complexity of interactions in the brain. It might be illusory, it might not, we have no evidence either way. Guessing about it really has nothing to do wth physics that I can see.

 

edit: and there is no evidence for a mind/brain duality either. Progress in neurobiology brings us closer to the conclusion that the Cartesian duality is false, out of date.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Blahah

[michel123456]

(...)

 

Interesting: what is that for an airplane with reverse wings shape? A glider?

Edited February 13, 2011 by michel123456

[TonyMcC]

Interesting: what is that for an airplane with reverse wings shape? A glider?

 

Yes its a Blanik 2 seat glider that I did some of my training in during the 1960's

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LET_L-13_Blan%C3%ADk

Edited February 22, 2011 by TonyMcC

[Dean Mullen]

I don't care at all whether we have free will. The illusion of free will is functionally equivalent to having free will.

 

However, you haven't given any logical sequence which leads to the conclusion that we have no free will. Your suggestion is no more likely than an infinite number of other possible explanations for consciousness. Do you have any scientific basis for your 'theory'?

 

The closest we currently have to a scientific basis for an understanding of consciousness is that it is an emergent phenomenon of the complexity of interactions in the brain. It might be illusory, it might not, we have no evidence either way. Guessing about it really has nothing to do wth physics that I can see.

 

edit: and there is no evidence for a mind/brain duality either. Progress in neurobiology brings us closer to the conclusion that the Cartesian duality is false, out of date.

 

Well it's just an idea but I thought it's better to tell the world your ideas then keep them in because simple ideas can change the world if the right people whom develop evidence for it while reading it may read it eventually, but I am still working on my theory and trying to workout how it could be possible, I theorize that some form of energetic experiencer is connected to the brain via electrical signals in the brain but the idea is still in its early stages, but I will tell you once/if I find strong evidence for it.

[steevey]

I'm assuming we are all human beings, but who are composed of matter.

[36grit]

We all tune our televisions, radios, and computers to our favorite stations. We then communicate our perceptions of these shows to our freinds and workmates. The mind is very similar. We are a collection, or some would say, "a family" of thoughts. We receive and transmit our ideas and thoughts like a radio. Our mind is a host unto the thoughts and perceptions we decide to keep or explore. Our body is a home for these things. We become a "genre" of thought through the psychological rythems and echoes of our mind.

[webplodder]

Yet I believe this as I call it something else is connected via some sort of electrical connection in which allows the something else to be connected to the brain and truly experience it, and if you think about it there isn't really anything problematic with such a proposal.

 

this experiencer is the true us, the true being whom experiences the world, while the brain is just a computer which has evolved an invisible force to attract these something els that we cannot see to the brain itself at creation point thanks to evolution. I admit it is quite complex to understand and hard to believe but it isn't to crazy as it is possible theoretically. I believe this means our body & brain are just computers and we experience all it does, and yet the consequence of such a realization is that we don't think or do anything we just watch the brain & body do everything so ironically this concludes if it is correct we have no free will, we just watch the brain & body process information of the outside world and please do not criticize this theory simply because you do not like the idea we have no free will.

 

 

Well, it has not been conclusively shown that consciousness is an emergent property of brain function, although many people believe this to be the case.

 

The brain cannot simply be a computer because many of the ideas that have been generated by the brain cannot be found in any pre-existing algorithm contained in the neural networks. Just look at mathematics. If you start with a few mathematical rules you take to be universal truths you soon run into trouble because there will be cases where, although such rules 'work' in practice, can never 'proved' mathematically based on their own axioms; they are self-referential and require consciousness to step outside of them to see their limitations. Take the statement: 'I am a liar.' Now, if this is true it is false because I can't be lying, but if it is true then is also false because I'm claiming to be a liar, yet not lying. This is an example of a self-referential statement. It can only refer to itself and clearly gets nowhere because it cannot prove one thing or another. It takes someone to 'look outside' of such self-referential statements and see the greater picture and it is consciousness that accomplishes this. So what is consciousness?

[Mr Skeptic]

There cannot be consciousness without unconsciousness (see the Halting Problem).

[webplodder]

There cannot be consciousness without unconsciousness (see the Halting Problem).

 

 

The Halting Problem seems to be an example of not being able to predict the consequences of future actions. However you have to posses consciousness to realize this fact.

 

Aren't consciousness and unconsciousness mutually exclusive?

Edited February 22, 2011 by webplodder

[Mr Skeptic]

The Halting Problem seems to be an example of not being able to predict the consequences of future actions. However you have to posses consciousness to realize this fact.

 

You cannot perfectly know yourself, else you would be a counterexample to the Halting Problem (assuming you know enough programming). The consciousness therefore is built from and on top of the unconscious. Studies show that the unconscious can make choices for you and this can be measured before you become conscious of your choice.

 

Aren't consciousness and unconsciousness mutually exclusive?

 

No. Without the unconscious there is no consciousness. You are unconscious of almost everything, be it vision, sounds, smells, the internals of your body, how it is that you think, etc. These are all dealt with, and have to be dealt with unconsciously. The few things that you unconscious deems important are sent to your consciousness for more detailed processing.

[36grit]

Personaly, I send a different person to handle the different situations as they arise in life. Me and my subconcious are pretty good freinds. I think all those who think deeply about things spend time in an almost subcious state.

[Genecks]

I am a spaceship going through the galaxy. I am the sun. I am the moon. I am the heir of nothing in particular.

And yet I am a banana. It is so obvious that I am a banana.

 

Why, just yesterday as I was looking through a paper about cluster IV neurons in drosophilia that possess a novel light receptor throughout the body, I was eating a banana. And my ancestors ate banana.

 

So, consciously, I am a banana.

 

 

Seriously?

 

I dunno. I guess saying that we're the "cloud" is a good way of defining consciousness in terms of networking schematics. We have servers all over the place that compute stuff together. The input comes from the world. And the output is what we consider to be ourselves. In a sense, we're the whole and the parts. The parts come together to be perceived as a whole, and you could assume there is some kind of neuronal inhibition that prevents the self from inquiring about the parts while the parts accumulate into the whole. As such, there is excitation to believe and consider the self as the whole rather than the parts at any particular point in time, excluding removing inhibitory systems in order to look at the said parts and notice that the self is the parts rather than the whole. But the whole introspection things sure creates a recursive paradox... As absolute recursion would lead to crash of system resources, there is a fail-safe mechanism to prevent absolute recursion (again, perhaps a form of inhibition to prevent complete recognition of self as parts).

 

And again, logically, you may even argue about what parts of the parts you are if you're the parts. And then someone might define himself as the whole of those parts... So, if you get into the identity theory of it all, you'll say that you're these parts rather than other parts...

 

Free will?

 

Well... that sounds like a really good deal. But I think I got a better one.

 

How about...

 

I want.. my phone call... I want it... I want it... I want my phone call...

Edited February 23, 2011 by Genecks

[webplodder]

You cannot perfectly know yourself, else you would be a counterexample to the Halting Problem (assuming you know enough programming). The consciousness therefore is built from and on top of the unconscious. Studies show that the unconscious can make choices for you and this can be measured before you become conscious of your choice.

 

 

Ok, I misunderstood you there. Yes, you are right, what we call 'consciousness' is just a very small part of what is going on. There's a huge amount of information stored way back in the unconsciousness that we are usually not directly aware of and at certain times comes into consciousness through some kind of stimulus. This could be an idea, memory, smell, sound, site, etc., etc. I like to compare the unconscious to a huge warehouse and the conscious mind to a kind of 'workshop' that utilises bits of information stored in the unconscious. Another good analogy I think is computers. The RAM of a PC, for example, can be compared to working consciousness and the hard disc, which stores most of the stuff, the unconscious.

 

 

And again, logically, you may even argue about what parts of the parts you are if you're the parts. And then someone might define himself as the whole of those parts... So, if you get into the identity theory of it all, you'll say that you're these parts rather than other parts...

 

 

 

What do think about the controversial idea that we may be partial quantum computers where our brain has some ability to access parallel processing that takes place with superimposed quantum particles? Problem with this idea is that no feasible site within the brain has yet been identified.

Edited February 23, 2011 by webplodder

[fumagalli]

Yet I believe this as I call it something else is connected via some sort of electrical connection in which allows the something else to be connected to the brain and truly experience it, and if you think about it there isn't really anything problematic with such a proposal

 

this experiencer is the true us, the true being whom experiences the world, while the brain is just a computer which has evolved an invisible force to attract these something els that we cannot see to the brain itself at creation point thanks to evolution. I admit it is quite complex to understand and hard to believe but it isn't to crazy as it is possible theoretically. I believe this means our body & brain are just computers and we experience all it does, and yet the consequence of such a realization is that we don't think or do anything we just watch the brain & body do everything so ironically this concludes if it is correct we have no free will, we just watch the brain & body process information of the outside world and please do not criticize this theory simply because you do not like the idea we have no free will.

 

 

 

Be careful, in your thought, of getting carried away by speculative analogy, which can induce you to look past the measurement and observation of the object of inquiry. In terms of subjectivity we are not aware of a good deal of what the brain does--we just don't "experience" consciously everything that happens to/in the brain. This doesn't necessarily mean that you are incorrect, but your argument is basically a modification of the homunculus argument of old. The "true us", as you put it in your argument, seems to have no qualities or attributes other than its ability, due to some connection, to receive signals. Why must the immaterial be invoked in order for "something" to receive signals (in your case, SELECTIVELY receiving signals only dealing with the senses, thought, imagination, memory, and emotion, while ignoring a good deal of other signals), when the brain already does that with the upshot of actually doing something with said signals and utilizing a broader band of signals?