Pure Consciousness?

[Ginkgo]

Pure consciousness literally means awareness. Awareness is a ground condition that ‘supports’ consciousness. The nature of awareness is effulgence and it is in a not-knowing state before the appearance of object. Consciousness, on the other hand, is appearance of objects in the mind. When awareness touches on objects, consciousness would arise simultaneously. Therefore, when one mention on pure consciousness, one would speak on the state of awareness that it effulgence and in a not-knowing state before the appearance of object.

Chowkit74;

You get it!!!! You are the first person that I have talked to that actually understands the difference between awareness and what we generally refer to as consciousness.

I think that awareness works like a sense, the same as our other senses work, but we don't understand how it is sensed in the matter of awareness. We know that hearing works through our ears, but if there were no sounds, we could not hear. Vision works through our eyes, but if there were no light or objects to look at, we could not see. Awareness works the same in that, if there is nothing to be aware of, then we are conscious of nothing -- there is no consciousness.

This is the reason why I think that matter is important in the acquiring of consciousness. Prior to matter, there would be no point to focus from in order to focus on an object in order to be conscious of it. So I don't think that actual consciousness can exist prior to matter, but possibly knowledge could exist prior to matter. Not sure.

G

Gee, you mention Descartes in the previous post so let's try out your idea with a thought experiment.

Imagine a brain in a vat kept alive by preserving liquid. This brain is connected to a sophisticated computer. The computer supplies electrical impulses to the brain in order to simulate the observation of a range of objects. Even though I might be a brain in a vat, I believe I am sitting in a room at my computer desk typing away.

If I were Descartes I would probably question this very fact, but in true Cartesian fashion I would also be comforted by the knowledge that at least I exist somewhere. There is something of me somewhere that is doing all of this thinking. Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of being Descartes, so for all intended purpose I believe I am sitting at my desk.

The computer that simulates my perception and awareness of objects is suddenly switched off. I am in the position of not receiving any sense data, so I find myself in complete darkness. Regardless, I am still confident that I exist because, despite the complete lack of sensory data I can still wonder where I am and what has happened to me.

[Blaggard]

The empirical evidence already does justify the existence of minds that are no longer attached to their previously inhabited bodies.

Such as?

The laws of thermo dynamics are only valid for small closed enviroments, not for large scale equations, where the laws are invalid.

What you mean like the large closed system we call the universe, er no you are in fact mistaken, for example you couldn't apply the laws of thermodynamics to Earth without taking account of the fact there is a constant input of energy but you could of course develop the laws of entropy with regards to the whole universe which is a closed system, so no it's not a law based on small systems exclusively, in fact if you take account of a systems total energy you can use it in almost any way you like. That said though usually we apply it to small lab based closed systems for eases sake, but that doesn't mean we can't say that according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics the universe is heading towards a state of maximal entropy.

[HexHammer]

The empirical evidence already does justify the existence of minds that are no longer attached to their previously inhabited bodies.

Such as?

The laws of thermo dynamics are only valid for small closed enviroments, not for large scale equations, where the laws are invalid.

What you mean like the large closed system we call the universe, er no you are in fact mistaken, for example you couldn't apply the laws of thermodynamics to Earth without taking account of the fact there is a constant input of energy but you could of course develop the laws of entropy with regards to the whole universe which is a closed system, so no it's not a law based on small systems exclusively, in fact if you take account of a systems total energy you can use it in almost any way you like. That said though usually we apply it to small lab based closed systems for eases sake, but that doesn't mean we can't say that according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics the universe is heading towards a state of maximal entropy.

And what happens with low pressure boiling?

[Blaggard]

And what happens with low pressure boiling?

Brownian motion is fully explicable thermodynamically by statistical mechanics and entropy laws, Eisntein wrote a paper on it, I'll dig it out if you are interested.

Here the first equality follows from the first part of Einstein's theory, the third equality follows from the definition of Boltzmann's constant as kB = R / N, and the fourth equality follows from Stokes' formula for the mobility. By measuring the mean squared displacement over a time interval along with the universal gas constant R, the temperature T, the viscosity η, and the particle radius r, Avogadro's number N can be determined.

The type of dynamical equilibrium proposed by Einstein was not new. It had been pointed out previously by J. J. Thomson[9] in his series of lectures at Yale University in May 1903 that the dynamic equilibrium between the velocity generated by a concentration gradient given by Fick's law and the velocity due to the variation of the partial pressure caused when ions are set in motion "gives us a method of determining Avogadro's Constant which is independent of any hypothesis as to the shape or size of molecules, or of the way in which they act upon each other".[9]

An identical expression to Einstein's formula for the diffusion coefficient was also found by Walther Nernst in 1888[10] in which he expressed the diffusion coefficient as the ratio of the osmotic pressure to the ratio of the frictional force and the velocity to which it gives rise. The former was equated to the law of van 't Hoff while the latter was given by Stokes's law. He writes k'=p_0/k for the diffusion coefficient k′, where p_0 is the osmotic pressure and k is the ratio of the frictional force to the molecular viscosity which he assumes is given by Stokes's formula for the viscosity. Introducing the ideal gas law per unit volume for the osmotic pressure, the formula becomes identical to that of Einstein's.[11] The use of Stokes's law in Nernst's case, as well as in Einstein and Smoluchowski, is not strictly applicable since it does not apply to the case where the radius of the sphere is small in comparison with the mean free path.[12]

At first the predictions of Einstein's formula were seemingly refuted by a series of experiments by Svedberg in 1906 and 1907, which gave displacements of the particles as 4 to 6 times the predicted value, and by Henri in 1908 who found displacements 3 times greater than Einstein's formula predicted.[13] But Einstein's predictions were finally confirmed in a series of experiments carried out by Chaudesaigues in 1908 and Perrin in 1909. The confirmation of Einstein's theory constituted empirical progress for the kinetic theory of heat. In essence, Einstein showed that the motion can be predicted directly from the kinetic model of thermal equilibrium. The importance of the theory lay in the fact that it confirmed the kinetic theory's account of the second law of thermodynamics as being an essentially statistical law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion

It doesn't have to be a closed system either necessarily although having an external heat source will of course increase the complexity.

[HexHammer]

My good Blagg

What you have presented isn't excatly something that erradicates my claim, but at the same time I'm not terrible strong in this, thermodynamic 2nd law, in it's full view, to let your depressed soul after my allerged excessive trolling in the past days, I'll just let you have the victory for now.

[Blaggard]

My good Blagg

What you have presented isn't excatly something that erradicates my claim, but at the same time I'm not terrible strong in this, thermodynamic 2nd law, in it's full view, to let your depressed soul after my allerged excessive trolling in the past days, I'll just let you have the victory for now.

You started that sillyness. I only accused you of trolling because you accused me of trolling, but let's put that aside, it's childishness best forgotten.

At least you admit your fault, that shows in my book you are someone worth listening to at least...

I am no expert either, far from it, but some things I know pretty well.


This is going to sound trite, but I think yours is the victory, you learnt something. Yeah I know I hate that platitude crap too, but it's true none the less. Now I think I have to go wash my hands, that sort of banal statement sullies my fingers.

[Greylorn Ell]

I was considering information that is not received from the senses, such as instinctual knowledge. I have only found one person, who has made a good study of the sub/unconscious mind, and that is Ignacio Matte Blanco. He was a psychiatrist, who actually worked with or under Anna Freud, and a one page article on his work can be found it Wiki. It is very interesting, and I especially liked the part where he explains that the unconscious mind has absolutely no knowledge of time. The unconscious mind sees past, present, and future as the same thing. It made me wonder if it has any understanding of space.

Gee

I read the Wiki article, which lacks clarity and is not well-edited. From it, I conclude that Blanco failed to distinguish the subconscious from the conscious mind. The effect is that he muddles mental functionality in his attempts to fit it into his five categories, merely expanding upon Freud's errors.

Perhaps his book would reflect his work more coherently than this Wiki article.

[Greylorn Ell]

Consciousness is our thoughts, logic, reason, and memory; but it is also our emotions, feelings, dreams, imagination, creativity, knowledge, awareness, and instincts. If these are not also part of our consciousness, then just what are they?

Gee

Here are some alternative ideas for your consideration.

You have bundled every mental experience except sensory perception into your concept of consciousness, as do most thinkers on the subject. This is correct if the human brain is the sole source of consciousness, but not correct if Descartes is remotely correct in identifying soul as mind, or if my Beon Theory, which proposes that consciousness depends upon a physical and non-material entity separate from, but connected to a normal brain, is valid.

According to Beon Theory, imaginative thought, conceptual understanding, and conceptual memory are properties of a non-created entity (beon) that has the potential to acquire self-awareness. The brain can learn logic, and does most of what passes for the category of reasoning most commonly employed by humans, rationalization. The brain retains detailed knowledge, such as the words and grammars of languages, navigation skills, and all memories relating to experience, but the human brain is naturally no more conscious than the brains of any critter. Instinct is entirely a brain-level property, but it is sometimes confused with retained conceptual memory at the beon level. Emotions are almost entirely a function of the brain, but are also easily confused as a property of consciousness because beon often learns to emulate this brain function so as to go along for the ride.

Beon theory is only remotely Cartesian, and makes a point of assigning specific mechanisms to particular cognitive functions. You will find it much easier to understand consciousness from its unique perspective.

The notion of "pure mind" cannot apply to a human being, because our mind is a composite entity, beon integrated with brain. Any beon that is not physically attached to a brain and has learned to sustain consciousness can be regarded as a pure mind, despite its limitations.

Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

Back to the topic.

Following is, hopefully, a link to a Microbiology site. I got this site information from Wiki, and it deals with endospores. For those who don't know, endospore is bacteria that has put itself into a hibernating dormant state. Endospore are impervious to most things that would kill any other life form, and when in this state, it can continue for millions of years. It is dormant in this state and does not eat, or reproduce, or do anything--it could almost appear to be a fossil.

[Endospores http://www.microbiologytext ... &art_id=69

What I found most fascinating about this, is not that it can hibernate this way, but how it comes back to life. Apparently, after centuries or even millions of years, when it finds itself in a situation that is conducive to life, it simply turns back into bacteria, eats, reproduces, and continues. So how does it know that it is in a situation that is conducive to life? What causes it to turn back on? Wiki did not say, so are we saying that this endospore is aware?

Most people do not believe that bacteria are aware, so this is why I brought this up. I will grant that bacteria may well not have thought, memory, or emotion, but if they are aware, do they have feeling? Do they sense that the environment is suitable?


Any ideas?

Gee

Gee,

The endospore is analogous to a plant seed, or a fungal spore. It is a biological machine that is engineered with built-in sensors that activate different behaviors as a function of environmental circumstances.

Years ago I wrote some computer code to control a telescope that could execute an observing program all on its own without human interference, for several successive days. During daylight hours it would do nothing, although the computer that controlled it was constantly running. It would sense nightfall, whereupon its computer would open the roof and begin the observing program. If the night was cloudy, the telescope would hunker down, periodically checking to see if the sky had opened up. It would automatically shut down at daybreak, or in case of rain.

Like an endospore or plant seed, it had built-in sensory devices capable of monitoring the environment and performing its function only when appropriate. There was nothing remarkable about this; just logic, math, physics and technology.

The entire telescope system involved more than just the instrument itself-- motors, gears, position sensors, and shelter; plus a computer, clocks, and power system. Because it could detect the state of its environment, it can be said to have had senses, and the computer that processed information from those senses provided its "feelings." The system behaved exactly like an extended electromechanical organism. Its awareness of its environment did not extend to awareness of self, or of the external mind (myself) who programmed its behavioral strategies.

This exemplifies a set of distinctions that many thinkers ignore, thereby confusing an organism's awareness of its circumstances with awareness of self, i.e. consciousness.

Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

...I use water as a metaphor to understand consciousness and awareness because I think that it shares properties with water. Or they work in a similar way.

So let's say that you dug a ditch one foot deep and one foot wide and ten feet long. The next day you go and look at the ditch and it is full of water. (Much like the endospore seems to be full of awareness.) So who or what directed the water? Did you do it by digging the ditch? Did God do it? Was there an intelligent designer? No. Water is in the ditch because of the properties of water. It may have rained in, it may have flooded in, it may have tapped an underground stream, or it may have drained in from a higher pool of water. I think that "awareness" in our reality works very much this way and is influenced by natural phenomenon. We just need to understand it's properties.

Gee

Gee,

I would apply your analogy to consciousness by proposing that the human brain is the ditch into which consciousness can flow.

Greylorn

[Ginkgo]

I was considering information that is not received from the senses, such as instinctual knowledge. I have only found one person, who has made a good study of the sub/unconscious mind, and that is Ignacio Matte Blanco. He was a psychiatrist, who actually worked with or under Anna Freud, and a one page article on his work can be found it Wiki. It is very interesting, and I especially liked the part where he explains that the unconscious mind has absolutely no knowledge of time. The unconscious mind sees past, present, and future as the same thing. It made me wonder if it has any understanding of space.

Gee

I read the Wiki article, which lacks clarity and is not well-edited. From it, I conclude that Blanco failed to distinguish the subconscious from the conscious mind. The effect is that he muddles mental functionality in his attempts to fit it into his five categories, merely expanding upon Freud's errors.

Perhaps his book would reflect his work more coherently than this Wiki article.

Stewart Hameroff explains Blanco's contribution to consciousness studies as being useful in terms of a quantum explanation for sub/unconsciousness

'The unconscious utilizes multiple co-existing possibilities, inseparability and timeless, very much like quantum information. Matte Blanco summarized the unconsciousness as, "where paradox reigns and opposites merge to sameness", also an apt description of the quantum world.'

Following on from this,Penrose argues that quantum superposition breaks off its own unique piece of space time curvature at the Planck scale. Its a bit like the many worlds theory without the need for many worlds. So at this level space/time is not continuous.

The interesting bit came about when Penrose and Hameroff got together and formulated what has come to be known as (ORCH-OR)

[Greylorn Ell]

I read the Wiki article, which lacks clarity and is not well-edited. From it, I conclude that Blanco failed to distinguish the subconscious from the conscious mind. The effect is that he muddles mental functionality in his attempts to fit it into his five categories, merely expanding upon Freud's errors.

Perhaps his book would reflect his work more coherently than this Wiki article.

Stewart Hameroff explains Blanco's contribution to consciousness studies as being useful in terms of a quantum explanation for sub/unconsciousness

'The unconscious utilizes multiple co-existing possibilities, inseparability and timeless, very much like quantum information. Matte Blanco summarized the unconsciousness as, "where paradox reigns and opposites merge to sameness", also an apt description of the quantum world.'

Following on from this,Penrose argues that quantum superposition breaks off its own unique piece of space time curvature at the Planck scale. Its a bit like the many worlds theory without the need for many worlds. So at this level space/time is not continuous.

The interesting bit came about when Penrose and Hameroff got together and formulated what has come to be known as (ORCH-OR)

Perhaps you've perused the compendium of ideas (Consciousness and the Universe) that featured Hammerhoff and Penrose's ideas, among many others? For the purpose of further discussion, if any, I'd like to receive your assurance that you have actually examined their theories and are not simply mentioning them because P & H have acquired authority-figure status.

While I appreciate Hammerhoff's introduction of a new perspective, especially his attention to the function of glial cells (I had previously come to consider them to be important on my own), his theory does not explain all the facts that are applicable to the question of consciousness. To begin with, it fails to address the "hard problem." (My theory does.)

Moreover, I have some fundamental issues with QM. While the quantization of energy transfers is experimentally obvious and philosophically predictable, I do not believe that the use of calculus-based mathematical forms can provide an accurate model for all quantum events. In fact, I see the "uncertainty" so commonly associated with QM models as a function of ordinary measurement errors plus the faulty mathematics used to describe some QM phenomena,

After several readings I could only conclude that Hammerhoff's use of QM is a crude hand-waving sort of explanation at best. And while I admire Penrose's fine imagination, I think that he would be better off attaching his cart to a faster horse.

The facts to which I alluded earlier are the persistent appearance of paranormal phenomena, many of which I have personally experienced. Conventional science wants this subject to go away, and dismisses the validity of most, if not all, examples of ESP. It must do so if it is to maintain its cherished position that intelligence is caused by components of the universe, rather than the other way around as I and many others propose.

About one in 30 individuals have experienced some form of out-of-body (OOB) event. Most are reluctant to discuss such experiences for fear of ridicule, but some notable individuals with no particular reason to lie have detailed such experiences, which are often life-changing for them. (e.g: Ernest Hemmingway).

There also exists excellent evidence showing that deceased individuals are occasionally able to transmit information to living individuals. There are examples which do a good job of specifically identifying the transmitter of information. I've taught two people to receive information from spooks, one of whom became quite successful at the art of getting "ghosts" to move on. It will be easy to dismiss my personal paranormal experiences, but I am certain that those trying to learn the mechanisms of consciousness are not qualified to do so without evaluating quality paranormal data.

A scientifically valid explanation for anything must incorporate ALL the data pertaining to the issue being explained. The Penrose-Hammerhoff model fails to meet this essential criterion. Every model described in the aforementioned book fails. My model meets this criterion while avoiding the flaws inherent in Descartes' theory of mind.

[Gee]

Gee, you mention Descartes in the previous post so let's try out your idea with a thought experiment.

Imagine a brain in a vat kept alive by preserving liquid. This brain is connected to a sophisticated computer. The computer supplies electrical impulses to the brain in order to simulate the observation of a range of objects. Even though I might be a brain in a vat, I believe I am sitting in a room at my computer desk typing away.

If I were Descartes I would probably question this very fact, but in true Cartesian fashion I would also be comforted by the knowledge that at least I exist somewhere. There is something of me somewhere that is doing all of this thinking. Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of being Descartes, so for all intended purpose I believe I am sitting at my desk.

The computer that simulates my perception and awareness of objects is suddenly switched off. I am in the position of not receiving any sense data, so I find myself in complete darkness. Regardless, I am still confident that I exist because, despite the complete lack of sensory data I can still wonder where I am and what has happened to me.

Hi Ginko;

It has been a while, and I have missed you. As to your thought experiment, I have some issues with it. Your first paragraph starts out with a kind of "Matrix" idea, then you go into the Descartes idea that "I think therefore I am", and conclude that if the simulation was turned off, you would still be.

When people think of the "Matrix", they often compare it to a solipsistic idea, but they forget that material reality still exists in the movie -- it is just that the robots are in charge of it. So if the simulation computer were turned off, I think that either:

a. You would escape like Keanu Reeves did, (but a brain can't really escape) or;
b. You would die, because the computer would no longer be giving you life support, or;
c. You would be in a deep coma.

There is a tremendous amount of debate as to whether a person still exists in different stages of coma, so I can not conclude whether or not you could think, or wonder, or be. The brain is a processor, so it processes thought -- this is thinking. If the brain had no thought, as some neurologists have concluded in some cases of coma, then is thinking possible? Does a soul think, or is it simply aware?

This is a question that regards the soul or "beon", and I don't know the answer.

G

[Gee]

The empirical evidence already does justify the existence of minds that are no longer attached to their previously inhabited bodies.

Blaggard and HexHammer;

I do not know diddly squat about thermodynamics or Laws of Physics, but I do have some information that supports Greylorn Ell's assertion that empirical evidence exists about minds that are no longer attached to their previously inhabited bodies.

Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia has researched this topic for more that 40 years, and has evidence supporting out-of-body experiences, what is commonly referred to as reincarnation, and near-death experiences. His research has been peer reviewed, and although his findings have been disputed, there have been no successful challenges to his evidence. His work does not prove these ideas because there can be no proof prior to a valid theory of consciousness; nonetheless, the evidence does exist. You can learn more at the U of V website -- there is a lot of information if you nose around, and a list of books that can be purchased, but under that list is a list of Articles that can be viewed on-line.

http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinic ... s-page#NDE

G

[Blaggard]

Another point of order Penrose and Hammeroffs work is considered fringe if not outright crackpottery by most of science and has widely been discredited. Which doesn't mean quantum mechanics does not play some role in consciousness, it means that they have found no viable experimental way of proving that it could. I got banned from a physics forum once for posting part of the paper, which was amusing. At the time I thought it might be a reasonable hypothesis but have since learnt more and find the conclusions also to be dubious.

I discussed NDEs and the research of a Cambridge scientist who could reproduce all of the experience using a horse tranquilizer, it seems to me there are many explanations for it but his theory was it evolved along side various religious beliefs until it became imprinted like instincts do, as of yet the idea that people have viewed things they could not have seen has never been scientifically studied and relies on anecdote making the claims somewhat dubious. As for OBEs well any South American Witch Dr can get you to experience those, or of course anyone who has tried LSD will know that it is entirely possible to achieve that state, however does that mean something is actually outside the body; that is hard to prove, it's more likely that the process of propreaception that tells you where your body is in relation to itself is upset by the drugs mechanism leaving you feeling as if you are not there for example.

It seems to me that the first job of the dualist is to prove that such experiences are not the result of either brain damage or some form of genetic memory over the idea that we have souls or beons or whatever else. Good evidence can be found for example as to why some people have spiritual visions even though they are atheists, some later convert to Christianity others are sure the type of epilepsy is just halucinatory. Clearly though research has shown that religious experience can be made to happen even in atheists. For example you can get some people to experience a sense of other wordliness, a sense of someone watching over you and a sense of euphoria just by stimulating certain areas of the brain, which would explain why some people seem more likely to be religious than others, this in turn being a major part of our culture since we first evolved and even before, it's not hard to see how some beliefs could become ingrained in us at the cellular level, just as the fight flight instinct must of been at some time. I am not convinced that anyone has distinguished any idea that says something is out of body or anything remotely like that, I think personally the fact that these things can be experienced by people who aren't near death, atheists suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy can have religious visions, and anyone can experience out of body experiences with the right dose of psychotropic drugs means that it seems more likely to me that these experiences are the result of brain function impairment and can just as easily be explained by that.

Dualists will not only have to find some empirical way of showing their own theories might be true, but they would have to distinguish themselves from the host of competing more materialist ones.

The empirical evidence already does justify the existence of minds that are no longer attached to their previously inhabited bodies.

I don't think it does, and I think extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Science isn't just using a measuring stick, it is distinguishing itself from all the other measuring sticks so that its solution is far more likely. Are ghosts halucinations, the mind being tricked or are they real, well that one is simple show me the photographs or video evidence and let me then test the supposed site myself. NDEs and OBEs are however much more difficult to study but studies have been done, and I find them inconclusive and vague in supporting any sort of dualist type claim, to say the least, although usually the experiments are done to show the opposite is true.