Origin of Consiousness

[JustThinking]

The idea of consiousness is, itself, the very essence of what philosophy is about. A child knows when some one is consious or unconsious, but consiousness itself cannot be measured nor traced due to its philosophical nature. As such, we are unable to define consiousness in concrete terms. This leaves the realm of consiouness solely to be defined by the ideas of philosophers.

 

The first, and very basic, question asked by anyone who is sufficiently self aware is "Why am I here?". This one question is a question that has spanned the entire evolution of man since the moment he was aware of himself. Just as man has evolved, so too has his reasoning and explaination of this seemingly simple question. Throughout our history, the answers to this question have lead to some of the most rediculous superstions to the most organized and largest religions of this era. It is possible, the technological revolution of the late 20th and early 21st century have opened a window to a new prospective. This new prospective should reshape the foundation that was previously set in place by superstion and religion. If religion is wrong, then what is it, exactly, that we are doing here?

 

Let us first consider what religion tells us. Most religions have a simple setup of some omnipotent consciousness managing all of the indavidual consiousnesses. This is an appealing idea becuase we all like to see ourselves as unique indaviduals. The human ego nearly demands it. But what if we were to turn that model literally on its head? To fully understand how that could be possible, we must assume that consiousness is a universal law as fundamental as nature itself. Lets go back to when the universe was nothing and assume that all that exists is an energy feild whith the very basic characteristics of consciouness. That being, an energy feild that is capable of being self aware, but is not aware of it yet and is suspended in nothingness.

 

If we were to put a human consiouness in this situation, it would eventually start to chatter with itself. So if we assume that consiousness is a fundamental law of the universe, then it follows that this void consiouness would also start to communicate with itself in some form. This could be seen as the birth of creativity when rationality collided with irrationality. In essence, it would be the first instance of what we call our internal voice. All consciousness has the desire to verify itself. It is that thing we call ego that drives us to verify that we exist. Assuming that our void consciouness came to the same desire after being able to converse ideas with itself, it can only follow that our void consiousness would try to further its complexity in order to achieve this goal. When this happens in humans, we call it split personallity disorder. If this were to happen to our void consiouness, it would now have another entity to bounce ideas off of so that it could further increase the complexity of its ideas. This may be simillar to an energetic version of celular division without the genetic complexities.

 

As we know, all matter is mostly empty space with very small energy fields moving at very high speed creating what we sense as matter. This is to say, that all matter is merely eneregy in a highly organized state. If we are to assume that our void consiousness is capable of infinate complexity, given a long enough period of time, then it is not out of the realm of possibility that all off existance is merely a collection of subdivisions of that original energy field that held the idea of seeing itself. If we are to extend this same principal of purpose to the humanbeing, then the vastness of the universe becomes much less humbling. In fact, given this same purpose, this could be the most empowering prospective on humanity to date. Given this model, it would mean that humanity, with its self aware consciouness, is the most complex expression of this void consciousnes.

 

Radio telescopes of recent years has given even more compelling evidence to these thoughts. As we map galactic clusters, it is hard for anyone to ignore the simularity of the structure to the synapse of the brain. Possibly, it is that our brains have a striking reseamblance to galactic clusters and not the other way around. Which leads me to another theory that our consciousness is not exclusivly a local phenomenon to the brain. If you were to think of the brain as a structure much like a computer, then it is only a host for data and not the data itself. Birth would be an epicly fast download to the brain and death would be an equaly fast upload back to the universal consciouness. The reason for this would be further complexity. If our brains are mirrors of the basic structure of the universe to host consciousness, then our consciousness itself is nothing but a subdivision of the void consciousness having a unique experience and reporting that experience back to the void consciousness. This would be with the purpose to further understanding and further complexity. If complexities are to continue, I am sure that the end goal is to have a being that is capable of experienceing and understanding every aspect that is the universe. To have a being that is the universes. The only question that remains is once that point is reached, do we start over agian or do we enter a new era of even further complexity. The likes of which we cannot even imagine.

 

These are my thoughts based on my own reasoning with the information I have available to me. They may be right. They may be wrong. But what is important is to convey the possibility because sometime all an idea needs in a new prospective. (pun intended)

[Vexen]

Yeah, consciousness and the nature of reality are strange things.

 

My thoughts on consciousness are limited. But consciousness does fall into the realm of science. Altered brain function does influence the way we experience consciousness. So, it does seem that consciousness can be described scientifically.

[JustThinking]

Yeah, consciousness and the nature of reality are strange things.

 

My thoughts on consciousness are limited. But consciousness does fall into the realm of science. Altered brain function does influence the way we experience consciousness. So, it does seem that consciousness can be described scientifically.

The effects on consciousness can be described, but the nature is a totally different beast.

[tar]

JustThinking,

 

Well, what if our consciousness developed. That is, that it did not exist priorly as a void consciousness, but was earlier a quite empty headed void.

 

A very simple minded place could become very complex with only the distinctions of different places, within it.

 

My thinking (no pun intended,) is that each entity in the universe, is such, merely by being distinct, in some manner, from everything else.

 

As human beings, we exist at a particular place, a quite unique place, that is occupied by only one human. One instance of each of us, distinct from the rest of the universe in exactly the way a human being is a separate entity than the shirt on her back, or the room she is sitting in, or than the person on the road outside the building. Different, as the Earth is from Saturn, or the Sun is from Alpha Centuri, or the Milkyway is, from Andromeda.

 

A void consciousness would not be able to make any distinctions. Everything would be the same. No time. No space. No here, no there. No before, now, and later.

 

Only by being a separate entity would one have the ability to be conscious of other entities, and to count oneself as one.

 

So if there was a void entity, a consciousness that included the whole shebang, that consciousness would have been, for all intents and purposes, without any intent or purpose. No movement or change would be possible. A singularity...

 

Hum...as is suspected to be the kind of thing the universe is from. Then, in an instant time and space came into existence. Then Suns, and elements were forged. Then planets and water and air and primodial gloop. Then life, form and structure, grabbed from a universe otherwise heading toward entropy.

 

What makes you think we ever had the internet before?

 

Could be a first.

 

Regards, TAR

Vixen,

 

 

Consciousness and the nature of the world one is conscious of are neither strange.

 

Conscious is the only thing we are, and nature is the only thing we are conscious of.

 

I would say both are quite regular, possible and required. Sort of the opposite of strange. Quite familiar and lovable, actually.

 

Regards, TAR

[Vexen]

Vixen,

 

 

Consciousness and the nature of the world one is conscious of are neither strange.

 

Conscious is the only thing we are, and nature is the only thing we are conscious of.

 

I would say both are quite regular, possible and required. Sort of the opposite of strange. Quite familiar and lovable, actually.

 

Regards, TAR

I respectfully disagree. Have you ever read modern physics? When I first started reading about quantum mechanics and special relativity I was "blown-away" by the fact that the quantum and high speeds do not reflect reality I thought I knew.

 

We all woke up 13.8 billion years after the big bang. The universe will continue to expand indefinitely. All of us exist for a brief interlude between the start of nothing and the infinite.This seems strange when I consider my daily life.

[JustThinking]

JustThinking,

 

Well, what if our consciousness developed. That is, that it did not exist priorly as a void consciousness, but was earlier a quite empty headed void.

 

A very simple minded place could become very complex with only the distinctions of different places, within it.

 

My thinking (no pun intended,) is that each entity in the universe, is such, merely by being distinct, in some manner, from everything else.

 

As human beings, we exist at a particular place, a quite unique place, that is occupied by only one human. One instance of each of us, distinct from the rest of the universe in exactly the way a human being is a separate entity than the shirt on her back, or the room she is sitting in, or than the person on the road outside the building. Different, as the Earth is from Saturn, or the Sun is from Alpha Centuri, or the Milkyway is, from Andromeda.

 

A void consciousness would not be able to make any distinctions. Everything would be the same. No time. No space. No here, no there. No before, now, and later.

 

Only by being a separate entity would one have the ability to be conscious of other entities, and to count oneself as one.

 

So if there was a void entity, a consciousness that included the whole shebang, that consciousness would have been, for all intents and purposes, without any intent or purpose. No movement or change would be possible. A singularity...

 

Hum...as is suspected to be the kind of thing the universe is from. Then, in an instant time and space came into existence. Then Suns, and elements were forged. Then planets and water and air and primodial gloop. Then life, form and structure, grabbed from a universe otherwise heading toward entropy.

 

What makes you think we ever had the internet before?

 

Could be a first.

 

Regards, TAR

Vixen,

 

 

Consciousness and the nature of the world one is conscious of are neither strange.

 

Conscious is the only thing we are, and nature is the only thing we are conscious of.

 

I would say both are quite regular, possible and required. Sort of the opposite of strange. Quite familiar and lovable, actually.

 

Regards, TAR

I would agree in the absence of conciousness being a natural law of the univers and instead being something that evolved with biological life forms. The problem is that there is much evidence that conscious decisions affect what we call matter and also the other way around i.e. the Observer Effect.

Edited December 21, 2014 by JustThinking

[Delta1212]

I would agree in the absence of conciousness being a natural law of the univers and instead being something that evolved with biological life forms. The problem is that there is much evidence that conscious decisions affect what we call matter and also the other way around i.e. the Observer Effect.

The observer effect has nothing to do with consciousness. A tennis ball "observes" the position of a brick wall when it bounces off. An observation in physics is more or less synonymous with an interaction and doesn't require the involvement of any kid if intelligence.

[tar]

Vixen,

 

But is the "strange" world of quantum physics anything different from what quantum physicists expect out of reality?

 

Is an ever expanding universe anything different from what a cosmologist expects out of reality?

 

We did not know about germs, as we know about them after Pastuer, but we still knew not to eat dead things that we did not see killed.

 

Consciousness has to be the way we do it. We are not conscious of any consciounesses that do not exhibit an awareness of their surroundings. We, to be conscious, must be aware of our surroundings. The external world must be internalized and modeled and remembered and thought about and acted upon, to make a conscious being. Therefore the external world has to already exist, prior an entity conscious of it.

 

Where I think you are wrong, in calling our consciousness strange, and the nature of the universe strange, is the simple fact that we have no other way of knowing the universe, than the way we do, and we have no other universe but this one, to know.

 

I respectfully disagree with your disagreement.

 

Regards, TAR

[Acme]

... To fully understand how that could be possible, we must assume that consiousness is a universal law as fundamental as nature itself. ...

You know what they say about assumptions. There is simply no evidence that consciousness is an imperative. Colloquially, sometimes shit happens. For some understanding into what consciousness is -that is how it operates- look into Doug Hofstadter's books and the concepts of strange loops and tangled hierarchies. Note that Hofstadter coined the term 'tangled hierarchy' and others writing on it in relation to consciousness have coopted the term to their own purpose.

[Vexen]

Vixen,

 

But is the "strange" world of quantum physics anything different from what quantum physicists expect out of reality?

 

Is an ever expanding universe anything different from what a cosmologist expects out of reality?

 

We did not know about germs, as we know about them after Pastuer, but we still knew not to eat dead things that we did not see killed.

 

Consciousness has to be the way we do it. We are not conscious of any consciounesses that do not exhibit an awareness of their surroundings. We, to be conscious, must be aware of our surroundings. The external world must be internalized and modeled and remembered and thought about and acted upon, to make a conscious being. Therefore the external world has to already exist, prior an entity conscious of it.

 

Where I think you are wrong, in calling our consciousness strange, and the nature of the universe strange, is the simple fact that we have no other way of knowing the universe, than the way we do, and we have no other universe but this one, to know.

 

I respectfully disagree with your disagreement.

 

Regards, TAR

I do understand what you mean. This reality is the only one we know. We probably disagree with the grammar of my answer. Maybe I should have said fascinating instead of strange.

 

But, I'm talking about the point when you just take it all in. Don't you ever say to yourself, "what the hell is going on"? Why wasn't I a unicorn or something? Reality seems more like fiction the more I understand it.

 

 

 

I don't find it strange that an apple falls to the ground and that an object is in one place at a time because I've known these principles all my life. When I found out that fundamental particles disobeyed the principles I knew, I found it strange.

[Ten oz]

@ the OP, I recently started a thread about consciousness as well. Mine was centered around the biology of it. It didn't generate any interest however. It appears the philosophical angle is more interesting to members. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/86989-consciousness/

 

The Why am I here question is an interesting one. I do not agree it is the question anyone (I assume you meant anything) with sufficient self awareness asks. I don't believe asking questions goes hand in hand with consciousness. All life is conscious in that all life reacts to its surroundings displaying a modicum of awareness of an external enviroment. Yet we don't assume many life forms other than humans ask "why am I here". Certianly all the various mamals in the tree of human evolution were conscious. So when did the question first get asked? And if only a small minority of only the highest of intelligent animals are even capable of such a question how do you define "sufficiently self aware"? I would argue that humans uniquely self aware to the point of a God complex. We are so aware of ourselves that our existence in and of itself drives a belief in something even greater still. Why am I here is a narcissistic question. Perhaps self importance is a trade mark of a certian level of intelligence?

 

This is not an attack. I am commenting on all humans not merely your question. As a human I too am a big fat narcissist compared to other life forms.

[tar]

Vixen,

 

Perhaps I am half and half on "strange" stuff. Like a joke you don't get, is funny when you do get it, compared to finding it "strange" that the 20 dollars you thought was in your wallet is not there and you can not account for where it might have gone.

 

I have an anti strange philosophy in the sense that the universe must already fit together exactly, and it would not be "strange" to find that it did indeed fit together exactly and everything made perfect sense, in more than one way...after all is considered.

 

Like Pastuer's germs. Oh, that makes sense. Not what I was expecting. Not what I knew earlier to be the case, but it all fits together and makes sense, once you "get it".

 

But the relationship of these different ways to take the word strange to the thread topic is whether or not its reasonable to assume that the world itself changes, once you "get it". And conversely, does the fact that the world does fit together flawlessly require that someone "got it" ahead of time and designed the thing in that flawless manner.

 

It is alright, I think, to take the universe as a third person, that you can get to know. It is, by my way of thinking (pun intented,) the way consciousness actually comes about. The internalization of the outside world into the synapses and folds of a human brain, HAS TO, result in the model of the place, thusly configured in the brain, bearing some certain familiar relationship or analog pattern to the thing which is internalized. That is, the organization of the brain reflects the organisation of the external world first. It is second hand for the human to affect the outside world through thought or action. The patterns we maintain and create in the world are significant proof of earlier and other consciousnesses having existed, and existing in the world, but such proof of earlier and other consciousness does not extend to the galaxies, nor to the quarks. We may be related to, and reliant upon the galaxies and the quarks, but this, in a familiar way, not a strange way.

 

The impulse and feeling that one has when considering the world itself as your mother, as in Gai, or as your father as in Zeus, or as your brother as in Jesus, or as your creator and judge as in Allah, is not completely wrong in a bunch of ways. Of primary consideration in respect to this thread is that fact that your consciousness came about as the result of the place, and did not pop up in contradiction to the place, nor was it "gifted" to you by an outside party that was not already fully associated with the place and therefore NOT an outside party.

 

Considering the universe "strange", as in being an outside party, is not something I believe to be correct. We are already in and of the place. Anything we are capable of is because the place is capable of it, but that does not mean, as is suggested by the OP, that the place was conscious, as a void, nor does it mean that the universe is strange if it does something differently than the way we have before characterized its patterns and activities and structures and laws. We might just have an insight, or get a joke every once in a while.

 

A baby on the other side of the world would be a strange face to me. Even today. I could possibly never see it. But the face is anything but strange to his/her mom.

 

Regards, TAR

Vixen, again,

 

I just thought of something. I relates to consciousness and the model of the world we have in our brains, and the the consequential "strangeness" of your model and the world, not matching.

 

Story: I was taking my Dad on a ferry ride around Manhattan to go to the new Yankee Stadium for a game. As we drove to the ferry port on the Jersey side I was describing to him the large ferry boat that was moored to the land and used as a station. I had crystal clear memory of the place, as I had used it several times to get to NYC and had been there on shore looking at it for hours waiting for my wife to come across the gang plank on 9-11. I fully expected to see the place as I was describing it to my dad...until we got to where we would have seen it, and the parking lots, and things were different. The ferry that used to act as the dock was gone, and a new terminal was built a little further North on the shore. Strange.

 

In subsequent days I considered the fact that the new terminal had just been built, and the large ferry removed in the last couple years. An observer on a planet circling our closest star looking at Port Imperial on that day my dad and I went to the game, would have seen the old ferry boat station. (figuring the image of the ferry boat being moved had not yet reached Proxima.) Strange again.

[ZVBXRPL]

What was the first thing to think? How did that happen? Is a rock aware that it is a rock? Is an atom aware that it is an atom? We are aware, as far as we know, that we are human beings, lifeforms and we are made of atoms. We can oberve rocks and call them rocks, we know they are also made of atoms. How did all this happen? It is a fascinating THOUGHT

We only know of lifeforms on Earth that are able to think and manipulate the environment around them etc. What if there are other lifeforms elsewhere in the Universe and they can think at a level beyond our comprehension?

Another thing that fascinates me is how did we go from being a random event in nature to being able to control our cells and atoms and brain. What if we don't? What if we just think we do?

How did brains of animal develop so complex, that they were able to think? A molecule? 2 molecules? 20 molecules? How much interaction between atoms and molecules is needed for the collection of atoms and molecules to stop being a victim or random chaos and be able to control it's own destiny? And WHY?

[Acme]

What was the first thing to think? How did that happen? Is a rock aware that it is a rock? Is an atom aware that it is an atom? We are aware, as far as we know, that we are human beings, lifeforms and we are made of atoms. We can oberve rocks and call them rocks, we know they are also made of atoms. How did all this happen? It is a fascinating THOUGHT

We only know of lifeforms on Earth that are able to think and manipulate the environment around them etc. What if there are other lifeforms elsewhere in the Universe and they can think at a level beyond our comprehension?

Another thing that fascinates me is how did we go from being a random event in nature to being able to control our cells and atoms and brain. What if we don't? What if we just think we do?

How did brains of animal develop so complex, that they were able to think? A molecule? 2 molecules? 20 molecules? How much interaction between atoms and molecules is needed for the collection of atoms and molecules to stop being a victim or random chaos and be able to control it's own destiny? And WHY?

Why indeed. It may be unanswerable.

 

Emergence

[Emphasis mine]

...

An emergent behavior or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales. In other words there is often a form of top-down feedback in systems with emergent properties.[16] The processes from which emergent properties result may occur in either the observed or observing system, and can commonly be identified by their patterns of accumulating change, most generally called 'growth'. Emergent behaviours can occur because of intricate causal relations across different scales and feedback, known as interconnectivity. The emergent property itself may be either very predictable or unpredictable and unprecedented, and represent a new level of the system's evolution. The complex behaviour or properties are not a property of any single such entity, nor can they easily be predicted or deduced from behaviour in the lower-level entities, and might in fact be irreducible to such behavior. The shape and behaviour of a flock of birds [3] or school of fish are good examples of emergent properties.

 

One reason why emergent behaviour is hard to predict is that the number of interactions between components of a system increases exponentially with the number of components, thus potentially allowing for many new and subtle types of behaviour to emerge.

 

On the other hand, merely having a large number of interactions is not enough by itself to guarantee emergent behaviour; many of the interactions may be negligible or irrelevant, or may cancel each other out. In some cases, a large number of interactions can in fact work against the emergence of interesting behaviour, by creating a lot of "noise" to drown out any emerging "signal"; the emergent behaviour may need to be temporarily isolated from other interactions before it reaches enough critical mass to be self-supporting. Thus it is not just the sheer number of connections between components which encourages emergence; it is also how these connections are organised. A hierarchical organisation is one example that can generate emergent behaviour (a bureaucracy may behave in a way quite different from that of the individual humans in that bureaucracy); but perhaps more interestingly, emergent behaviour can also arise from more decentralized organisational structures, such as a marketplace. In some cases, the system has to reach a combined threshold of diversity, organisation, and connectivity before emergent behaviour appears.

...