Philosophy Now Forum

Gee wrote:Arising_uk;

Thank you for responding. I am sorry to be so late answering your post. I had some unexpected, but very welcome, company. Often I will take my time and think about a response, but won't usually be this slow.

Take as much time as you like.

Sure, it could be. But I am a philosopher by nature, so I would rather learn what and where it is, rather than what and where it could be.

To my ears you've already decided its an 'it' that can be apart from being a body with senses in an external world? My take is that 'it' is the being of such a being.

You did not really answer my question. Do you think that consciousness is within the body?

No, I think it is the being of certain types of body.

This is an important question for me, because I have noted that a lot of people think that consciousness is within the body, but I have seen no evidence of this. I understand that we "feel" like consciousness comes from our bodies, but that is a subjective observation and therefore not evidence or proof of anything.

Depends, it may not be proof to others but to oneself?

I have come to the conclusion that this is the result of a religious belief. "God" drops a "soul" (consciousness) into a body, therefore consciousness is within the body until death when "God" retrieves the "soul" (consciousness). If there is other evidence, I would really like to hear about it.

For myself it lies in never having met a disembodied consciousness and seeing dead bodies.

Which senses are you talking about? The five, sight, hearing, tactile, taste, and smell, or are you also including emotion?

There are more senses than the big five but essentially yes, these representations are what I'm talking about, although I'd have emotion, if you mean 'feeling', as tactile or kinesthetic.

I'm sorry. I lost you. Two of what with a language?

Two bodies with a language and senses in an external world.

So you think that something that can die is conscious prior to death?

Only if it was conscious in the first place, yes.

Ginkgo wrote:

Gee wrote:Arising_uk;

After considering your following quotes, I have the impression that you think that consciousness is within the human body. Is this so?

If my assessment is correct, would you please explain how you could possibly know this?

Arising_uk wrote:I agree but not with any idea that consciousness is 'out-there' in any other sense than being bodies with senses in an external world.

Arising_uk wrote:Seems fine to me, apart from the idea that something is being 'smeared'. I have it all as being bodies with senses in an external world with complexity of the interacting systems, i.e. the CNS, endocrine, et al being the deciding factors.

G

Hi G,

I hope you don't mind me contributing at this point.

One way of looking at the problem is to look at what science and philosophy says. The science tells us that consciousness resides within the brain. From the scientific perspective there are no ifs or buts about this. This of course does not mean that science is correct.

Philosophy tells us that consciousness resides within the brain. Philosophy can also tells us that consciousness resides wholly outside the brain. This is probably unlikely. Another philosophical approach tells us that consciousness resides both within and outside the brain. In other words, consciousness is an interaction between the quantum environment at the micro level and the physical brain at the macro level. I tend to favor this philosophical interpretation, but at the moment there is no scientific way of demonstrating this.

Non-science camp followers oft mistake the opinions of some generalized glut of unimaginative scientists, as if they represented science. Not so.

Science does not know the seat of consciousness. Some nits will dispute this statement. They are invited to take a neurophysiology class, or even better, study the experiments on consciousness and the human brain performed by Wilder Penfield in the late 1940s. For those uninterested in serious research, see if Wikipedia shows a map of the brain that denotes the segments responsible for consciousness.

Some of us know that comments such as, "consciousness is an interaction between the quantum environment at the micro level and the physical brain at the macro level" are meaningless drivel, the kind of pretentious bullshit parroted by smallish minds who wish to be perceived as knowledgeable philosophers who subscribe to some pop-science magazine. Better that you offer your personal comments and legitimate understandings about knowledge that you actually own.

So quit that shit. Be yourself. If your self is a natural bullshit artist, then keep on practicing your art and become a liberal politician.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Gee,

I don't accept the notion that truths can be opposing, and erred if I implied otherwise. People typically treat their beliefs as truth, and muddle them with evidence, which is allegedly science's truth base. I treat opposing "truths" as an indicator that at least one is incorrect.

You are being such a scientist! If I can remember that you are a scientist, then you can remember that I am a philosopher. Please note that science is not noted as a source of wisdom. Wisdom is simply a more advanced truth. Truth can be found in lies; lies can be found in truth; and truths can be opposing. If you don't believe me, then just go and sit in a divorce court for a day or so. Stick to your facts and leave truth to the experts -- philosophy.

Greylorn Ell wrote:I have no problem with connectivity notions between people and nature, and within nature. Long ago I did my own version of the Baxter experiments. One of our lab's EEs hooked my chrysanthemum plant to a sensitive measuring device and found that it reacted when I called into the office to check on it, and when a pissed-off lab director walked in on a group of people verbally threatening a plant. Pheromones might explain the plant's reaction to our Director, but don't explain its reaction to a phone call. Likewise they do not explain the original Baxter experiments.

I've learned a few mysterious healing techniques, Reiki, Biomagnetic Touch Healing, and others. They all work, and when combined with telepathy on a hypnotized subject, work extraordinarily well. I've not found pheromones a sufficiently complex form of communication to explain the effectiveness of such tools.

I've telepathed to dogs, and humans. I can feel when someone is focused upon me from out of sight, and others can sense when I do the same. Upwind or downwind makes no difference, ruling out short-term chemical transference. I've noticed that trees planted close together will avoid one another and that this avoidance extends to other tree species; but they ignore my house made from dead trees. Pheromones can explain the behavior of trees or the attractions between humans, but not my connections with critters or people.

We will discuss pheromones via the PM system, as I have some thoughts that you may want to consider.

Greylorn Ell wrote:You wrote, "could people be spiritually aware of this subconsciously?" I'd suggest two levels of awareness, one at the "spiritual" or beon/soul level, yet another at the subconscious or brain level, probably the hypothalamus.

Regarding your divisions, I attribute religion and emotion to the subconscious (cortical brain), but not genuine "spirituality," at least not in the sense that I understand it.

Freud broke the mind into three levels or categories, then Blanco broke the sub/unconscious mind into more levels. There are some Eastern religions/philosophies that have also broken down the sub/unconscious into more levels, so I see no reason to limit my thinking to two levels.

I see emotion as the root cause of spirituality, so it works through the sub/unconscious aspect of mind. I see religion as trying to interpret emotion and spirituality.

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:Well, the only real tool that I have to work with is my mind, as consciousness is intangible and elusive. Since the rational mind can rationalize whatever we choose, and history shows us that our minds are very good at making shit up, I have to remember that my best tool is also the greatest liar on the face of this planet. So yes, I must be careful if I want truth.

Well said! Yet I invite you to take more risks. Nothing will freeze the imagination like the fear of making a mistake.

Probably true, but consider; using imagination to formulate a theory in philosophy would be like a scientist fudging his/her test results to prove a theory. Not gonna happen. I need a reason to include or exclude any information.

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:This understanding that emotion is honest is the basis for psychoanalysis and the Freudian slip. Emotion also dominates in the unconscious mind, is an important part of religion, spirituality, the paranormal, morality, and even instincts. So one could say that emotion keeps us alive and groups us together. I have recently begun to suspect that it also forms the parameters of mind.

This is a superb analysis, so I've replaced your original pedestal with a higher one. You've done a better job analyzing emotion than I ever could. Permission to use your words?

The above barely scratches the surface of what I have been learning about emotion -- and I don't know that much. Consider that emotion can enhance, create out of nothing, modify, and even discard our memories, without us even knowing that it is happening.

I wrote a post in the Psychology section of the Science forum asking about the formation of mind, as the following had occurred to me:

1. Emotion can separate a mind from a body and cause death, such as in shock victims.
2. Emotion can divide mind into minds, as in multiple personality disorders.
3. Emotion can bind minds together in bonds of family, love, tragedy, etc., and these can be life-long bonds.
4. Emotion can bind minds together temporarily, as in riot mentalities.

There were a couple more that I don't remember, but it is clear that emotion has a lot of influence on mind and thought. Except physical damage to a brain, I don't think there is any other thing that so clearly influences mind, so what are the chances that emotion is necessary in formulating mind? So far I have gotten no valid answer to that post. No one seems to know.

But we do know that chemistry in the brain affects emotion, just as emotion causes changes in the chemistry in the brain, so it could be possible that our brain chemistry actually defines and causes the individual cohesive mind. Schizophrenia is a mental illness, among others, that is caused by a chemical imbalance, and one can not say that schizophrenics have a cohesive mind.

Emotion has tremendous power over our thoughts, but in and of itself, it can not be known. Try this experiment: Think of a strong emotion -- love, hate, or fear. Then try to build that emotion until you can actually feel it, then hold that feeling for one minute on the clock. Did you succeed? Good. Now try to do it again, but this time, you can not summon any thoughts, images, or ideas that caused you to feel the emotion in the first place. You must do it with a blank mind. As far as I know it can not be done.

This is one of the reasons that I think emotion is a sense, because trying to feel emotion without thought is like trying to experience vision without light.

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:I talked to a woman, who has seen auras all of her life with two exceptions. When she was a teen, she took Mescalin (not sure of the spelling) and did not see auras for two years. In the third trimester of pregnancy, she never sees auras. Both conditions produce chemical changes.

I learned of two people, who were given massive doses of steroids and morphine for serious medical issues. In both cases the people stopped taking the morphine because they saw angels and demons under the influence of these drugs. Seeing angels and demons is a rather common occurrence with morphine, and I suspect that it is more common when administered with steroids.

Fascinating information! Thank you. I once spent a long day on morphine, without spooks. However, my mind seems to be able to block intrusions of that sort.

But were you given massive doses of steroids with the morphine?

I have a question for you. The woman that I talked to about auras told me that she will often put on sunglasses when in a crowd to dispel the disorienting effect of seeing so many auras. When I questioned her, she explained that she only sees auras in real life, not in pictures or on TV, and she can not see them through glass or water. After questioning her, she stated that she can see a person's aura through the rain if the person moves. You studied physics, so what would be stopped by glass and water, but could bounce around through rain to be seen?

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Since drugs can only affect the brain, the brain must be the source of emotions. Soul, spirit, or beon is therefore not the source of emotions.

Yes, kind of. I said, or tried to say, that beon and brain are thoroughly integrated. However, it is important to note that I treat beon and brain as mechanisms, whereas "mind" is merely a function of those two mechanisms working in concert.

I see "beon" or consciousness and brain as being things and emotion as being the mechanism that connects them, and probably causes mind. Where brain would be like a magnet, "beon" would be like the iron, and emotion would be the force/draw/activation.

Greylorn Ell wrote:However, I concluded that with respect to their ideas about the beginnings of all things, every one was dreadfully mistaken. I focused upon correcting their woeful errors about the beginnings, did so IMO, and found some interesting fallout.

I started from the opposite direction. I have this basic theory that if one studies something carefully without bias, opinion, assumption, imagination, etc., that the thing will expose it's true nature. So I studied life, things that were close to me, and was embarrassed when I finally realized that Earth could not have it's own set of rules. If it works that way here, then it has to work that way everywhere. So I had to expand my thinking. (chuckle chuckle) I have not gotten to the big "beginning" yet, but doubt that there was a beginning.

Greylorn Ell wrote:You've been distracted by bogus theories, the wolves nipping at the heels of conceptual discovery. You correctly noted that the various theories incorporated some valid knowledge about consciousness, ignoring others. The "ignoring" part was your clue that the theory was BS. A valid theory incorporates all facts, and predicts others yet undiscovered. Another conclusion would have been that the current theories about consciousness are complex, and wrong. The actual phenomenon of consciousness might be simple.

I don't think that it is simple.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Critical thinking requires that you discard all invalid theories, especially all theories that ignore evidence. Then derive an independent theory that incorporates ALL evidence.

Critical thinking just means that I must examine everything.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Beon Theory describes consciousness as a simple and inevitable natural phenomenon that preceded the structuring of the universe, and had nothing to do with creating the components used in the structure.
Greylorn

I agree with the inevitable natural phenomenon part, and if it preceded the structuring of the universe, then something was here before. I don't study what it is as much as I study how it works. So far, I think that everything, matter, non-matter, life, and non-life work the same way; it is all a self-balancing chaos motivated by want in perpetual motion. That is how I think it works.

G

I don't care if anyone wants to copy my words. Just if they want to misquote me.

There are more sense than the big five but essentially yes, these representations are what I'm talking about, although I'd have emotion, if you mean 'feeling', as tactile or kinesthetic.

Hunger, propreaception: knowing where your body is without being able to see it there are actually about 14 senses if you want to be conservative about it, although some scientists count as many as 30 or more.

Did you know the human digestive system has almost as many neuronal connections via the vagus nerves etc than the human brain itself. You are indeed what you eat. Also that the vastly complex digestion brain communication is akin to another brain in itself in the way it functions. This is obviously because what we eat plays such an immeasurable roll in how we develop as a species as it does in all animals that its regulation although mostly sub conscious is vital. There is such a complex interplay to the point where your brain stomach system actually tells people what it most needs. This is most evident in pregnant women who have odd cravings for things like coal and other not usually eaten materials. I suppose at the end of the day coal is just dead plants and animals though...

Gut instincts: The secrets of your second brain

When it comes to your moods, decisions and behaviour, the brain in your head is not the only one doing the thinking

IT'S been a tough morning. You were late for work, missed a crucial meeting and now your boss is mad at you. Come lunchtime you walk straight past the salad bar and head for the stodge. You can't help yourself - at times of stress the brain encourages us to seek out comfort foods. That much is well known. What you probably don't know, though, is that the real culprit may not be the brain in your skull but your other brain.

Yes, that's right, your other brain. Your body contains a separate nervous system that is so complex it has been dubbed the second brain. It comprises an estimated 500 million neurons - about five times as many as in the brain of a rat - and is around 9 metres long, stretching from your oesophagus to your anus. It is this brain that could be responsible for your craving under stress for crisps, chocolate and cookies.

Embedded in the wall of the gut, the enteric nervous system (ENS) has long been known to control digestion. Now it seems it also plays an important role in our physical and mental well-being. It can work both independently of and in conjunction with the brain in your head and, although you are not conscious of your gut "thinking", the ENS helps you sense environmental threats, and then influences your response. "A lot of the information that the gut sends to the brain affects well-being, and doesn't even come to consciousness," says Michael Gershon at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York.

If you look inside the human body, you can't fail to notice the brain and its offshoots of nerve cells running along the spinal cord. The ENS, a widely distributed network of neurons spread throughout two layers of gut tissue, is far less obvious (see diagram), which is why it wasn't discovered until the mid-19th century. It is part of the autonomic nervous system, the network of peripheral nerves that control visceral functions. It is also the original nervous system, emerging in the first vertebrates over 500 million years ago and becoming more complex as vertebrates evolved - possibly even giving rise to the brain itself.

Digestion is a complicated business, so it makes sense to have a dedicated network of nerves to oversee it. As well as controlling the mechanical mixing of food in the stomach and coordinating muscle contractions to move it through the gut, the ENS also maintains the biochemical environment within different sections of the gut, keeping them at the correct pH and chemical composition needed for digestive enzymes to do their job.

But there is another reason the ENS needs so many neurons: eating is fraught with danger. Like the skin, the gut must stop potentially dangerous invaders, such as bacteria and viruses, from getting inside the body. If a pathogen should cross the gut lining, immune cells in the gut wall secrete inflammatory substances including histamine, which are detected by neurons in the ENS. The gut brain then either triggers diarrhoea or alerts the brain in the head, which may decide to initiate vomiting, or both.

You needn't be a gastroenterologist to be aware of these gut reactions - or indeed the more subtle feelings in your stomach that accompany emotions such as excitement, fear and stress. For hundreds of years, people have believed that the gut interacts with the brain to influence health and disease. Yet this connection has only been studied over the last century. Two pioneers in this field were American physician Byron Robinson, who in 1907 published The Abdominal and Pelvic Brain, and his contemporary, British physiologist Johannis Langley, who coined the term "enteric nervous system". Around this time, it also became clear that the ENS can act autonomously, with the discovery that if the main connection with the brain - the vagus nerve - is severed the ENS remains capable of coordinating digestion. Despite these discoveries, interest in the gut brain fell until the 1990s when the field of neurogastroenterology was born.

We now know that the ENS is not just capable of autonomy but also influences the brain. In fact, about 90 per cent of the signals passing along the vagus nerve come not from above, but from the ENS (American Journal of Physiology - Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, vol 283, p G1217).

[]...
Mental illnesses of the gut

A growing realisation that the nervous system in our gut is not just responsible for digestion (see main story) is partly fuelled by discoveries that this "second brain" is implicated in a wide variety of brain disorders. In Parkinson's disease, for example, the problems with movement and muscle control are caused by a loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain. However, Heiko Braak at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, has found that the protein clumps that do the damage, called Lewy bodies, also show up in dopamine-producing neurons in the gut. In fact, judging by the distribution of Lewy bodies in people who died of Parkinson's, Braak thinks it actually starts in the gut, as the result of an environmental trigger such as a virus, and then spreads to the brain via the vagus nerve.

Likewise, the characteristic plaques or tangles found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's are present in neurons in their guts too. And people with autism are prone to gastrointestinal problems, which are thought to be caused by the same genetic mutation that affects neurons in the brain.

Although we are only just beginning to understand the interactions between the two brains, already the gut offers a window into the pathology of the brain, says Pankaj Pasricha at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. "We can theoretically use gut biopsies to make early diagnoses, as well as to monitor response to treatments."

Cells in the second brain could even be used as a treatment themselves. One experimental intervention for neurodegenerative diseases involves transplanting neural stem cells into the brain to replenish lost neurons. Harvesting these cells from the brain or spinal cord is not easy, but now neural stem cells have been found in the gut of human adults (Cell Tissue Research, vol 344, p 217). These could, in theory, be harvested using a simple endoscopic gut biopsy, providing a ready source of neural stem cells. Indeed, Pasricha's team is now planning to use them to treat diseases including Parkinson's.
...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... yQrdVdZQoM

Sadly I can't print the whole thing as it is subscription only but you get the idea.

Non-science camp followers oft mistake the opinions of some generalized glut of unimaginative scientists, as if they represented science. Not so.

Science does not know the seat of consciousness. Some nits will dispute this statement. They are invited to take a neurophysiology class, or even better, study the experiments on consciousness and the human brain performed by Wilder Penfield in the late 1940s. For those uninterested in serious research, see if Wikipedia shows a map of the brain that denotes the segments responsible for consciousness.

Some of us know that comments such as, "consciousness is an interaction between the quantum environment at the micro level and the physical brain at the macro level" are meaningless drivel, the kind of pretentious bullshit parroted by smallish minds who wish to be perceived as knowledgeable philosophers who subscribe to some pop-science magazine. Better that you offer your personal comments and legitimate understandings about knowledge that you actually own.

So quit that shit. Be yourself. If your self is a natural bullshit artist, then keep on practicing your art and become a liberal politician.

You really are clueless grey, you have no more idea about how science works than you do about evolution. Reading a few books is no substitute for a graduate education.

You're just flailing at people you have never met, science that you don't even remotely understand, and at imaginary demons who would poo poo your work who aren't able to react to your mass drive to call all scientists idiots, and probably I wouldn't be at all surprised, not see you as any remote threat to any current theory, because you are completely not in the same country let alone the same ball park as the people who do actually study this to a level where they feel capable of doing something empirical.

You're just arm waving based on gaps in your own knowledge, it's your time though if you want to waste it chasing shadows, go ahead, just don't expect anyone who is not yourself to find what you say even remotely convincing.

You just clearly have no idea and it comes across in the way you tackle criticism, anyone who destroys your poorly assembled thought experiments is immediately ignored and never talked to again, which basically means you pick and chose what arguments to acknowledge and as always its always the usual suspects.

You have ignored so many good arguments that nay say your specious biological waffle that it is a wonder you haven't got the entire threads posting list under ignore by now, actually I think you have because I haven't seen you reply to almost any very valid criticism at all.

And you have the nerve to criticise science and Scientists who are at least open to peer review, although your peers appear to be anyone who has read some works by geneticists and thinks he is remotely then qualified to establish a counter evolutionary theory, which is just about anyone. Which is ironic as you wont talk to just about anyone, and you certainly wont talk to people who are at least qualified to offer you information.

This is the sort of nonsense that held human thought back for thousands of years.

"Mah, mah, mah!!!!"

I'm not listening.

No you aren't are you you're a relic of the past, who considers all people who don't automatically agree with you as not worth talking to. I wonder sometimes if the age of enlightenment actually happened in some parts of the world. You know where science was formalised, philosophy laid down the institutional methodology and so on. Because I don't see any sign of anything more than post modern denial of empiricism, and ignorant denial of anyone and everything that has basically made your theory look like what it is. An unprovable mess of ideas, that is not recognised simply not because it does not have legs. It's the person who has written it does not have eyes or ears apparently.

There are none so blind as those who will not see...

I hope you and your disciples will be very happy together in Narnia though, through the wardrobe and out into magic lands.

So quit that shit. Be yourself. If your self is a natural bullshit artist, then keep on practicing your art and become a liberal politician.

Pot meet kettle, kettle I presume you have met pot?

You've spent a few days watching psychology lectures on you tube and reading biased novels and think you have come to some interesting conclusions on the mind, well personally I couldn't give a happenny jiz for your internet assembled philosophy, and neither if they have any sense should anyone else. Go to school get a degree in a relevant subject, then come back when you remotely have a chance of understanding the field to a level where you can propound your own theories is my advice. Nothing sets a book on more firm grounding than being acknowledge as an expert on a subject. But then all the experts are of course idiots...

Sigh... stroll on Damocles...

I talked to a woman, who has seen auras all of her life with two exceptions. When she was a teen, she took Mescalin (not sure of the spelling) and did not see auras for two years. In the third trimester of pregnancy, she never sees auras. Both conditions produce chemical changes.

I learned of two people, who were given massive doses of steroids and morphine for serious medical issues. In both cases the people stopped taking the morphine because they saw angels and demons under the influence of these drugs. Seeing angels and demons is a rather common occurrence with morphine, and I suspect that it is more common when administered with steroids.

opiates can cause halucinations or cause them to stop happening in people who are already halucinating? Have you informed the medical world?!

Yes opioids are well known to make people hallucinate, hell there's a shed load of rather imaginative halucinatory poetry that owes its existence to its use. Did you know that Dia-morphine a purer form of the opium paste. is more commonly known as heroin and it can make you hallucinate?! Amazing! Well I never... hold the presses boys...

See no offence but this sort of anecdotal stuff is about as useful as that time my uncle Derek told me he could balance as spoon on his nose end on, could he could he f...

And that time my mate claims this fella predicted exactly what would happen to him the next day, to the letter. I mean interesting but who the hell knows why he got it right, could be this fella goes round telling peoples fortunes and that was the first time in a thousand he actually got it right. Likewise saying someone sees ghosts, is not information that is likely to be taken seriously by science. Someone who has ghosts on camera, and hundreds of them, maybe, someone who can actually show a series of trained proffessionals ghosts maybe. Any two bit hussler can claim your shakras are misaligned and that they can see your aura or that your grandma says she is very happy and that you should give the nice man your gold watch.

But the point is are they suffering from halucinations or are they really seeing so called auras?

I presume you have heard of science?

This sort of lazy conformation bias is the kind of junk that gives any genuine researchers into the paranormal the right hump. And I should know because I have actually met actual in the field experts who investigate paranormal phenomena. As I have also met actual biologists and physicists, and this sort of lazy I have a mate who had a mate who said he could bend spoons by breaking wind on them is exactly what it describes: hot air. Some scientific method is not too much to ask is it?

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:


I don't accept the notion that truths can be opposing, and erred if I implied otherwise. People typically treat their beliefs as truth, and muddle them with evidence, which is allegedly science's truth base. I treat opposing "truths" as an indicator that at least one is incorrect.

You are being such a scientist! If I can remember that you are a scientist, then you can remember that I am a philosopher. Please note that science is not noted as a source of wisdom. Wisdom is simply a more advanced truth. Truth can be found in lies; lies can be found in truth; and truths can be opposing. If you don't believe me, then just go and sit in a divorce court for a day or so. Stick to your facts and leave truth to the experts -- philosophy.

That strikes me as rather ironic, the last time Grey probably did something scientific is when he dropped out of his physics degree because he disagreed with probability mechanics in quantum theory. That was probably a bad idea, but it is very much the act of a scientist, who as I said are a heard of cats.

Sadly though since then he seems to have wandered away from science into mysticism and woo woo, but hey we can't all do science, after all those morons are really dumb. Studying to a PhD level and spending their life justifying science using experiment and logical modelling based on scrupulous peer review. Who the funk do they think they are, retards!

I can certainly see why grey is disenfranchised with physics, but his reasons for being so anti Scientist or science method are much more perplexing, and probably only really become understandable if you know his whole history... I presume a Scientist touched him once under the bridge or something, or some other traumatic experience with the erudite scared the crap out of him, although clearly not all of it.

Suffice to say I don't think grey has any intention of putting his money where his mouth is let alone doing science, because actual science is obviously for idiots, and Grey is far too important to get embroiled in the hoi polois' mental masturbation or experimental shenanigans.

Ginkgo wrote: Hi G,

I hope you don't mind me contributing at this point.

Of course not. I always appreciate your comments.

Ginkgo wrote:One way of looking at the problem is to look at what science and philosophy says. The science tells us that consciousness resides within the brain.

Do they? Could you possibly show me the evidence that "consciousness resides within the brain"? And no, I am not talking about neurology's ability to find thoughts in the brain as that is the same as finding "thoughts" in a computer. I am looking for evidence of consciousness in the brain.

Ginkgo wrote:Philosophy tells us that consciousness resides within the brain.

Philosophy has a lot of theories that say a lot of things, but I am looking for evidence. I don't believe that there is any evidence that consciousness resides within the brain. But I do think that there is evidence that consciousness exists outside of the body. You show me yours, and I'll show you mine.

Ginkgo wrote:. . . at the moment there is no scientific way of demonstrating this.

I think you are wrong here. People are just not looking in the right places.

G

Arising_uk wrote:To my ears you've already decided its an 'it' that can be apart from being a body with senses in an external world? My take is that 'it' is the being of such a being.

I can't be sure if you mean that I think consciousness has senses in an external world, or if I think that consciousness is apart from the body, the body having senses in an external world. ???

Your take seems to be non-local. Is this true?

Arising_uk wrote:

Gee stated: You did not really answer my question. Do you think that consciousness is within the body?

No, I think it is the being of certain types of body.

But where is the "being of certain types of body"? And what defines which types of body?

You seem to be being very careful to state nothing. This is a ploy used by many people in forums when they do not have an answer. Instead of saying "I don't know.", they instead change it around to, "What do you know?"

The question, "Do you think that consciousness is within the body?" is pretty straight forward. Just answer yes or no.

Arising_uk wrote:

Gee stated: I have come to the conclusion that this is the result of a religious belief. "God" drops a "soul" (consciousness) into a body, therefore consciousness is within the body until death when "God" retrieves the "soul" (consciousness). If there is other evidence, I would really like to hear about it.

For myself it lies in never having met a disembodied consciousness and seeing dead bodies.

"Met a disembodied consciousness"? You may have to forgive me for this assessment, but it looks like you are talking about a mind or soul without a body. So it looks like you see consciousness as being personified and whole like ghosts or souls or angels and demons. This is the religious idea that I was talking about above. This idea has nothing to do with evidence for or against, and nothing to do with where consciousness is -- in the brain or outside of it.

Consider when a baby is born. There are only so many ways that the new baby can acquire consciousness. Either it was already in the egg and sperm, and it merged into a new consciousness, which would mean that seeds are conscious. Or a "soul" was dropped in by "God" or reincarnated at some point just before or during birth. "God" is the religious explanation, and reincarnation causes problems because we have to figure out where all of these "souls" waiting to be reincarnated come from.

Or consciousness grew with the new life. I like this one, but this implies that consciousness was not "whole" and had no "persona" prior to having developed it. Prior to six months, babies are not even aware that they are physically separated from their Moms. At two years they develop an "I" mentality and join the ranks of the "terrible twos" by challenging Mom because they have just figured out that there can be a difference of opinion. Somewhere around five, they learn that other people have different perspectives, then around seven, they finish developing the rational aspect of mind.

So if one does not accept the ideas of conscious seeds, souls, and/or reincarnation, then there is no choice except to understand that consciousness grows. It is not a whole persona when we are born, so what does it grow out of?

Arising_uk wrote:

Gee stated: I'm sorry. I lost you. Two of what with a language?

Two bodies with a language and senses in an external world.

So if one of the bodies dies, does the other lose consciousness?

Arising_uk wrote:

Gee stated: So you think that something that can die is conscious prior to death?

Only if it was conscious in the first place, yes.

How do you know if it was conscious in the first place? Where is the line that defines what is conscious? I put that line at "life". Where do you put it?

G

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:Gee,

I don't accept the notion that truths can be opposing, and erred if I implied otherwise. People typically treat their beliefs as truth, and muddle them with evidence, which is allegedly science's truth base. I treat opposing "truths" as an indicator that at least one is incorrect.

You are being such a scientist! If I can remember that you are a scientist, then you can remember that I am a philosopher. Please note that science is not noted as a source of wisdom. Wisdom is simply a more advanced truth. Truth can be found in lies; lies can be found in truth; and truths can be opposing. If you don't believe me, then just go and sit in a divorce court for a day or so. Stick to your facts and leave truth to the experts -- philosophy.

Best not to think of me as a scientist. Although I studied physics and EE and later picked up some astronomy and biochemistry, I have no advanced degree in any fields. My career was in writing machine-language computer code to control exotic instruments that could not have been operated by hand, to find the physical data that credentialed scientists could work with. This work required logic, plus understanding and contributing to the experiment's design. which requires knowing the science that the experiment was designed to perform. My primary skill is simply logic, at which I am well practiced but still get wrong now and then. I find that while logic applies to all areas of human inquiry, it is welcome in few of them-- particularly unwelcome in philosophy.

Your comments about divorce court are well taken. Been there, but only to get the paperwork stamped. I told my wives the truth, and they retained their integrity. Listening and participating in courtroom exercises was instructive, but tedious. The lies were so obvious, but the backside deals generated some nasty blindside hits.

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:You wrote, "could people be spiritually aware of this subconsciously?" I'd suggest two levels of awareness, one at the "spiritual" or beon/soul level, yet another at the subconscious or brain level, probably the hypothalamus.

Regarding your divisions, I attribute religion and emotion to the subconscious (cortical brain), but not genuine "spirituality," at least not in the sense that I understand it.

I see emotion as the root cause of spirituality, so it works through the sub/unconscious aspect of mind. I see religion as trying to interpret emotion and spirituality.

Freud broke the mind into three levels or categories, then Blanco broke the sub/unconscious mind into more levels. There are some Eastern religions/philosophies that have also broken down the sub/unconscious into more levels, so I see no reason to limit my thinking to two levels.

Freud and Blanco and the rest are dividing the mind into hypothetical functions. I merely ask, where are the mechanisms that implement these functions?

Perhaps I should ask, do you believe in the existence of functions without mechanisms? And do you understand this question? I ask because it's an engineer's question that philosophers categorically ignore.

You are very generous in your view of religion. I see it as a way to control ignorant people and make money by encouraging and perpetuating their ignorance.

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:Well, the only real tool that I have to work with is my mind, as consciousness is intangible and elusive. Since the rational mind can rationalize whatever we choose, and history shows us that our minds are very good at making shit up, I have to remember that my best tool is also the greatest liar on the face of this planet. So yes, I must be careful if I want truth.

Well said! Yet I invite you to take more risks. Nothing will freeze the imagination like the fear of making a mistake.

Probably true, but consider; using imagination to formulate a theory in philosophy would be like a scientist fudging his/her test results to prove a theory. Not gonna happen. I need a reason to include or exclude any information.

This statement reflects a life with no experience in science. Low-level scientists fudge experiments when a minor but successful experiment furthers their career, if they can get away with it. Typically these are trivial experiments performed by grad students trying to justify a thesis or Ph.Ds trying to move up the academic hierarchy, so long as the experiments produce insignificant papers that no one will ever bother to verify. No doubt you also believe that Detroit's and Chicago's mayors were honest public servants looking out for the welfare of their cities and citizens.

At first I thought that you misunderstood my comments, but I see that you think entirely differently than I do. That's a good thing. So a forewarning, Beon Theory is 80% philosophy, 20% physics. The entire philosophy component was formulated from imagination. The physics component grounds the philosophical component in the real, physical world.

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:This understanding that emotion is honest is the basis for psychoanalysis and the Freudian slip. Emotion also dominates in the unconscious mind, is an important part of religion, spirituality, the paranormal, morality, and even instincts. So one could say that emotion keeps us alive and groups us together. I have recently begun to suspect that it also forms the parameters of mind.

This is a superb analysis, so I've replaced your original pedestal with a higher one. You've done a better job analyzing emotion than I ever could. Permission to use your words?

The above barely scratches the surface of what I have been learning about emotion -- and I don't know that much. Consider that emotion can enhance, create out of nothing, modify, and even discard our memories, without us even knowing that it is happening.

I wrote a post in the Psychology section of the Science forum asking about the formation of mind, as the following had occurred to me:

1. Emotion can separate a mind from a body and cause death, such as in shock victims.
2. Emotion can divide mind into minds, as in multiple personality disorders.
3. Emotion can bind minds together in bonds of family, love, tragedy, etc., and these can be life-long bonds.
4. Emotion can bind minds together temporarily, as in riot mentalities.

There were a couple more that I don't remember, but it is clear that emotion has a lot of influence on mind and thought. Except physical damage to a brain, I don't think there is any other thing that so clearly influences mind, so what are the chances that emotion is necessary in formulating mind? So far I have gotten no valid answer to that post. No one seems to know.

But we do know that chemistry in the brain affects emotion, just as emotion causes changes in the chemistry in the brain, so it could be possible that our brain chemistry actually defines and causes the individual cohesive mind. Schizophrenia is a mental illness, among others, that is caused by a chemical imbalance, and one can not say that schizophrenics have a cohesive mind.

Emotion has tremendous power over our thoughts, but in and of itself, it can not be known. Try this experiment: Think of a strong emotion -- love, hate, or fear. Then try to build that emotion until you can actually feel it, then hold that feeling for one minute on the clock. Did you succeed? Good. Now try to do it again, but this time, you can not summon any thoughts, images, or ideas that caused you to feel the emotion in the first place. You must do it with a blank mind. As far as I know it can not be done.

This is one of the reasons that I think emotion is a sense, because trying to feel emotion without thought is like trying to experience vision without light.

You need to study a bit a physiology and learn what senses are. They are input mechanisms. They translate data from the external world into the brain of a critter or human. Eyes receive focused photons within a narrow wavelength band and send that information to the brain for processing into visual images. Ears convert subtle fluctuations in air pressure into signals that the brain can translate as sound. Etc.

To treat emotions as a sense is nonsense. There are no physiological receptors for emotions. Moreover, there is no consistency to them. Some event that brings tears to my eyes is unlikely to raise a drop from yours; vice versa. Molecules emitted from onions will bring tears to your eyes and mine, because we share the same kinds of chemical receptors.

Emotions are programs in the brain that process beliefs. For emotions, senses are ancillary.

Your proposed exercise is a good one. I've tried it before back in the days of Werner Erhard's est training and follow on programs. I could not muster emotion in the absence of cause, and failed their programs. Perhaps that is what actors do. However, I can use cause to power emotion with destructive consequences. Wasn't fun. I have found that if I'm working on/with someone whom I can like, at some level, the damned "love" emotion often comes up and significantly affects the outcome of the work. Like most feelings it is an unpredictable factor that I learned not to anticipate, and when it appears, to quickly get over it.

For general reference, I regard emotions as the brain's programs. They are functionally identical to some software that your computer contains, "firmware," which you do not know exists and have no idea how it functions to control your computer. The firmware exists below the level of any operations that you know how to perform, and is contained in a restricted segment of memory, (ROM--- an acronym for Read-Only Memory) that you can neither access nor change. Emotions are simply brain-level programs that determine how a brain performs, and preselects its choices, under certain circumstances.

Critter brains are entirely controlled by these programs. Entirely. Human brains are open to beon-level control, so are not entirely controlled by the brain's programs. In moments of crisis, beon's job is to let go of control and let the brain run its programs. Those programs work best if they are supplemented by physical training in crisis management, e.g: military, martial arts, police/fire suppression, and any practice that engages the brain/body/CNS in dynamic behavior.

Emotions are essential to the development of beon, because they produce the brain's motivational forces in the absence of any such control from beon itself, as is the case throughout most of childhood, and sadly for many, throughout the rest of life.

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:I talked to a woman, who has seen auras all of her life with two exceptions. When she was a teen, she took Mescalin (not sure of the spelling) and did not see auras for two years. In the third trimester of pregnancy, she never sees auras. Both conditions produce chemical changes.

I learned of two people, who were given massive doses of steroids and morphine for serious medical issues. In both cases the people stopped taking the morphine because they saw angels and demons under the influence of these drugs. Seeing angels and demons is a rather common occurrence with morphine, and I suspect that it is more common when administered with steroids.

Fascinating information! Thank you. I once spent a long day on morphine, without spooks. However, my mind seems to be able to block intrusions of that sort.

But were you given massive doses of steroids with the morphine?

I have a question for you. The woman that I talked to about auras told me that she will often put on sunglasses when in a crowd to dispel the disorienting effect of seeing so many auras. When I questioned her, she explained that she only sees auras in real life, not in pictures or on TV, and she can not see them through glass or water. After questioning her, she stated that she can see a person's aura through the rain if the person moves. You studied physics, so what would be stopped by glass and water, but could bounce around through rain to be seen?

I'd have mentioned steroids.

You've done an interesting bit of scientific research, garnering more pertinent info about auras than I've found in a couple of books by "expert" paranormal researchers. Given the data, I'd opt for near-UV, meaning, ultraviolet radiation at frequencies slightly higher than the normal visible range for humans. Those levels of UV are blocked by glass.

The other possibility is infrared, invisible radiation at the other end of the eye's sensitivity range, but IR easily penetrates glass and is filtered by water vapor. Moreover, IR detectors in the eye would need to be larger than the rods and cones embedded in the retina, and I think that enough of them to be useful would interfere with normal human vision. Snakes detect IR, but their visual acuity sucks.

Near UV would explain why the shades helped because they usually include UV filtration.

TV and other cameras use detectors that are insensitive to UV, so of course she would derive no information from those images.

The observation that she could see auras in the rain if people moved is the final clue. Water absorbs UV, but it also diffracts light at all wavelengths, UV included. Diffraction is simply a physics term that for this example amounts to "bending." Diffraction explains the multicolored light patterns dispersed by a prism, and rainbows.

"Predator" is a guy movie but perhaps you've seen it. If not, rent the DVD. The FX showing the alien's motion as he swung through the treetops was a diffracted image. The alien could not be seen unless he moved, and I'm guessing that your friend could only see the diffracted images of auras surrounding people in motion because static images would be filtered.

This analysis brings me back to Physics 301b from a half century ago. I recall being unsatisfied with the explanation for rainbows, but lacked the mathematical competence to analyze and express my complaint. Now, I see the problem's solution, thanks to you. Rainbows work only because the water molecules that diffract light are in continual motion!

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:Since drugs can only affect the brain, the brain must be the source of emotions. Soul, spirit, or beon is therefore not the source of emotions.

I said, or tried to say, that beon and brain are thoroughly integrated. However, it is important to note that I treat beon and brain as mechanisms, whereas "mind" is merely a function of those two mechanisms working in concert.

I see "beon" or consciousness and brain as being things and emotion as being the mechanism that connects them, and probably causes mind. Where brain would be like a magnet, "beon" would be like the iron, and emotion would be the force/draw/activation.

Wrong, because mechanisms are "things." Where is, or what is the mechanism for emotion? I claim that it is a set of interconnected programs within the normal human brain, and as proof of that claim, consider our experiences with Prozac.

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:However, I concluded that with respect to their ideas about the beginnings of all things, every one was dreadfully mistaken. I focused upon correcting their woeful errors about the beginnings, did so IMO, and found some interesting fallout.

I started from the opposite direction. I have this basic theory that if one studies something carefully without bias, opinion, assumption, imagination, etc., that the thing will expose it's true nature. So I studied life, things that were close to me, and was embarrassed when I finally realized that Earth could not have it's own set of rules. If it works that way here, then it has to work that way everywhere. So I had to expand my thinking. (chuckle chuckle) I have not gotten to the big "beginning" yet, but doubt that there was a beginning.

It will be interesting to see if our different approaches converge on a common conclusion. Unlikely, but would be cool.

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:Critical thinking requires that you discard all invalid theories, especially all theories that ignore evidence. Then derive an independent theory that incorporates ALL evidence.

Critical thinking just means that I must examine everything.

This comment prompted me to Wiki the topic. You might find it expanding your viewpoint, or not.

Gee wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:Beon Theory describes consciousness as a simple and inevitable natural phenomenon that preceded the structuring of the universe, and had nothing to do with creating the components used in the structure.
Greylorn

I agree with the inevitable natural phenomenon part, and if it preceded the structuring of the universe, then something was here before. I don't study what it is as much as I study how it works. So far, I think that everything, matter, non-matter, life, and non-life work the same way; it is all a self-balancing chaos motivated by want in perpetual motion. That is how I think it works.
G

Your inference is correct. There was something here before. I'd love to see how your mind works on physics, and w/o the emotional clutter that you keep dragging to this conversational table, like a stray dog you found that you think, because it was whining outside your door, deserves to be fed.
G

Greylorn Ell wrote:
Non-science camp followers oft mistake the opinions of some generalized glut of unimaginative scientists, as if they represented science. Not so.

Science does not know the seat of consciousness. Some nits will dispute this statement. They are invited to take a neurophysiology class, or even better, study the experiments on consciousness and the human brain performed by Wilder Penfield in the late 1940s. For those uninterested in serious research, see if Wikipedia shows a map of the brain that denotes the segments responsible for consciousness.

Yes, I know this. I have said on a number of occasions, and in a number of different posts that from a scientific point of view there is no neural core of consciousness.

I am not familiar with the Penfield study.

Greylorn wrote:
Some of us know that comments such as, "consciousness is an interaction between the quantum environment at the micro level and the physical brain at the macro level" are meaningless drivel, the kind of pretentious bullshit parroted by smallish minds who wish to be perceived as knowledgeable philosophers who subscribe to some pop-science magazine. Better that you offer your personal comments and legitimate understandings about knowledge that you actually own.

So quit that shit. Be yourself. If your self is a natural bullshit artist, then keep on practicing your art and become a liberal politician.

Firstly, I am sorry you have a dislike for liberals but that has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Perhaps you could vent your anger at liberals in the political forum and save your ad hominems for that particular media. Ad hominems are irrelevant to scientific and philosophical arguments.

Secondly,you quoted me out of context. This is another fallacy. My reference to consciousness was clearly stated as a philosophical reference-- not a scientific reference. At NO stage have I ever said that quantum consciousness was a scientific argument.

Anyway,thanks for pointing these two things out. So now you have what I own. Does this make you happy now?

Gee wrote:

Ginkgo wrote: Hi G,

I hope you don't mind me contributing at this point.

Of course not. I always appreciate your comments.

Ginkgo wrote:One way of looking at the problem is to look at what science and philosophy says. The science tells us that consciousness resides within the brain.

Do they? Could you possibly show me the evidence that "consciousness resides within the brain"? And no, I am not talking about neurology's ability to find thoughts in the brain as that is the same as finding "thoughts" in a computer. I am looking for evidence of consciousness in the brain.

Ginkgo wrote:Philosophy tells us that consciousness resides within the brain.

Philosophy has a lot of theories that say a lot of things, but I am looking for evidence. I don't believe that there is any evidence that consciousness resides within the brain. But I do think that there is evidence that consciousness exists outside of the body. You show me yours, and I'll show you mine.

Ginkgo wrote:. . . at the moment there is no scientific way of demonstrating this.

I think you are wrong here. People are just not looking in the right places.

G

Thank you for your first comment I appreciate that.

If you are looking for "evidence" for consciousness then we are pretty much stuck with a scientific explanation. From a scientific point of view consciousness is no different to any other physical system that works within the body.Just as the workings of the lungs or the digestive system can be explained in physical terms, so can consciousness. The only sticking point is "emergence", but physicalists tend to be confident with this explanation. From the physicalist point of view consciousness contains no mysteries. Evidence from the scientific point of view is synonymous with demonstrable.

I happen to disagree with this particular scientific perspective when it comes to consciousness, but we have to acknowledge that this is the only evidence available that we can check for reliability. Unfortunately, the rest can only be speculation by adopting logical arguments. Logical arguments are not evidence by themselves.

I also think that consciousness resides outside of the brain ( partly anyway) but there is no evidence that anyone can draw on to support this claim.


I am not trying to discourage you, but collecting various philosophical and theological explanations for consciousness will never gel into "evidence". More often than not these explanations will conflict with science.

If I didn't say this then I would be less than honest.

On a positive note, it may well be the case that we are not looking hard enough, but at the moment science cannot deliver this explanation. Perhaps in the future.

At first I thought that you misunderstood my comments, but I see that you think entirely differently than I do. That's a good thing. So a forewarning, Beon Theory is 80% philosophy, 20% physics. The physics component grounds the philosophical component in the real, physical world.

No what it is is 100% unverifiable word wank.

It's not even wrong.

The physics component grounds the philosophical component in the real, physical world.

This is just basically saying pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. We're not in Kansas any more toto.

The entire philosophy component was formulated from imagination.

Yes fantasy is a substitute for reality to those who cannot perform actual science.

You need to study a bit a physiology and learn what senses are. They are input mechanisms. They translate data from the external world into the brain of a critter or human. Eyes receive focused photons within a narrow wavelength band and send that information to the brain for processing into visual images. Ears convert subtle fluctuations in air pressure into signals that the brain can translate as sound. Etc.

Stop advising people to study you pompous ass, you haven't done it so telling others they should is just hypocrisy.

Fack me messiahs they are so self absorbed.

The observation that she could see auras in the rain if people moved is the final clue. Water absorbs UV, but it also diffracts light at all wavelengths, UV included. Diffraction is simply a physics term that for this example amounts to "bending." Diffraction explains the multicolored light patterns dispersed by a prism, and rainbows.

More meaningless anecdotal guff that does nothing at all but show how ignorant you are of methods of proof.

So does her having synaesthesia or just hallucinating. In the rain sky monkeys can fire lazers out of their ass which causes bananas to fart rainbows. You're just waffling and self reinforcing by confirmation bias. This sort of cognitive dissonance is not healthy.

I bet you don't even understand why light is diffracted in a medium let alone enough to wax lyrical on some specious religion and why all science is wrong because me lord almighty says so, and they will crucify me for it.

Gee wrote:I can't be sure if you mean that I think consciousness has senses in an external world, or if I think that consciousness is apart from the body, the body having senses in an external world. ???

Your take seems to be non-local. Is this true?

No, we appear to be at cross-purposes. Its that you use words like 'within' and 'where' I hear this as you making consciousness a separate thing that can be apart from the being of a body. So in your terms I have consciousness as being 'local' in that it is the being of a body with senses in an external world.

But where is the "being of certain types of body"? And what defines which types of body?

This is what I mean, its not 'where is the being ...' but that it is 'the being of ...'. Nature or the external environment appears to be the definer.

You seem to be being very careful to state nothing. This is a ploy used by many people in forums when they do not have an answer. Instead of saying "I don't know.", they instead change it around to, "What do you know?"

It may sound like it but i am stating what I think I know, it just appears not a satisfactory answer to the question you seem to want, i.e. a definitive location or answer or thing that we can point to an call consciousness.

The question, "Do you think that consciousness is within the body?" is pretty straight forward. Just answer yes or no.

In your terms, yes but I qualify it in that it is the being of a body, specifically one with a combination of 'sensory' sub systems but essentially one with a CNS.

"Met a disembodied consciousness"? You may have to forgive me for this assessment, but it looks like you are talking about a mind or soul without a body. So it looks like you see consciousness as being personified and whole like ghosts or souls or angels and demons. This is the religious idea that I was talking about above. This idea has nothing to do with evidence for or against, and nothing to do with where consciousness is -- in the brain or outside of it.

My mistake as I thought this your position in some sense so I was pointing-out that I do not think it the case. I also don't think 'brain' is an accurate term as its the CNS.

Consider when a baby is born. There are only so many ways that the new baby can acquire consciousness. Either it was already in the egg and sperm, and it merged into a new consciousness, which would mean that seeds are conscious. Or a "soul" was dropped in by "God" or reincarnated at some point just before or during birth. "God" is the religious explanation, and reincarnation causes problems because we have to figure out where all of these "souls" waiting to be reincarnated come from.

I consider all this nonsense, clear enough?

Or consciousness grew with the new life. I like this one, but this implies that consciousness was not "whole" and had no "persona" prior to having developed it. Prior to six months, babies are not even aware that they are physically separated from their Moms. At two years they develop an "I" mentality and join the ranks of the "terrible twos" by challenging Mom because they have just figured out that there can be a difference of opinion. Somewhere around five, they learn that other people have different perspectives, then around seven, they finish developing the rational aspect of mind.

So if one does not accept the ideas of conscious seeds, souls, and/or reincarnation, then there is no choice except to understand that consciousness grows. It is not a whole persona when we are born, so what does it grow out of?

As you say, it grows with the development of a body and its senses but I have some reservations about the lack of how language functions in this scenario.

So if one of the bodies dies, does the other lose consciousness?

Obviously not but interestingly enough if one is deprived or isolated from others one can lose much of what we'd call consciousness and especially language and the inner voice that some think of as the 'self'

How do you know if it was conscious in the first place? Where is the line that defines what is conscious? I put that line at "life". Where do you put it?

I put it with the other demanding such a recognition in a way that I cannot ignore.

Greylorn Ell wrote:
This statement reflects a life with no experience in science. Low-level scientists fudge experiments when a minor but successful experiment furthers their career, if they can get away with it. Typically these are trivial experiments performed by grad students trying to justify a thesis or Ph.Ds trying to move up the academic hierarchy, so long as the experiments produce insignificant papers that no one will ever bother to verify. No doubt you also believe that Detroit's and Chicago's mayors were honest public servants looking out for the welfare of their cities and citizens.

At first I thought that you misunderstood my comments, but I see that you think entirely differently than I do. That's a good thing. So a forewarning, Beon Theory is 80% philosophy, 20% physics. The entire philosophy component was formulated from imagination. The physics component grounds the philosophical component in the real, physical world.

Greylorn,

You have the audacity to criticize me personally and academically when I dabble in a mixture of philosophy and science. Apparently it is ok for you, but not for me.

Perhaps in the future you can stick with the 20% and I'll do the 80%.




Thanks for bringing my attention to that post Blags.

Or consciousness grew with the new life. I like this one, but this implies that consciousness was not "whole" and had no "persona" prior to having developed it. Prior to six months, babies are not even aware that they are physically separated from their Moms. At two years they develop an "I" mentality and join the ranks of the "terrible twos" by challenging Mom because they have just figured out that there can be a difference of opinion. Somewhere around five, they learn that other people have different perspectives, then around seven, they finish developing the rational aspect of mind.

So if one does not accept the ideas of conscious seeds, souls, and/or reincarnation, then there is no choice except to understand that consciousness grows. It is not a whole persona when we are born, so what does it grow out of?

This is an irreducible complexity argument straight out of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement.

There is no point explaining how simple molecules came to aggregate and formed RNA or how RNA self replicated and eventually formed DNA or how any of the individual steps that could eventuate a life form happened, because such a model would be wasted on a religious person. So let's just say God did it by magic and leave it at that.

As to why God made such a horrible mess of the whole process of evolution which is massively inefficient well I leave that to the theologians to bicker over.

99.99999% of all species on earth are extinct. Way to go God, you're batting a thousand.

At the end of the day religion is a matter of faith, and there is no point trying to mix science with religion, you end up with some thing that can never be proven like Grey's religion.

Ginkgo wrote:

Greylorn Ell wrote:
This statement reflects a life with no experience in science. Low-level scientists fudge experiments when a minor but successful experiment furthers their career, if they can get away with it. Typically these are trivial experiments performed by grad students trying to justify a thesis or Ph.Ds trying to move up the academic hierarchy, so long as the experiments produce insignificant papers that no one will ever bother to verify. No doubt you also believe that Detroit's and Chicago's mayors were honest public servants looking out for the welfare of their cities and citizens.

At first I thought that you misunderstood my comments, but I see that you think entirely differently than I do. That's a good thing. So a forewarning, Beon Theory is 80% philosophy, 20% physics. The entire philosophy component was formulated from imagination. The physics component grounds the philosophical component in the real, physical world.

Greylorn,

You have the audacity to criticize me personally and academically when I dabble in a mixture of philosophy and science. Apparently it is ok for you, but not for me.

Perhaps in the future you can stick with the 20% and I'll do the 80%.

Quite.

Thanks for bringing my attention to that post Blags.

Keeping grey from disappearing up his own ass is a pleasure never a chore.

Best not to think of me as a scientist.

Oh trust me there is no danger of anyone thinking you are a Scientist let alone anything you have said is science. It's all basically a faith based belief system you have scrabbled together after becoming disenfranchised with organised religion, but unlike most people who go through faith to agnosticism to atheism you turned around and replaced organised religion with something else and dressed it up with your own personal biases. Which is fine but I personally dislike proselytising and advertising on discussion forums, I think that is not what forums are for, and you should invest time on banner ads or other advertising methods, rather than spamming every thread remotely about consciousness and or religion with your own personal Jesus.

Besides which there are plenty of more fertile areas you could spend time preaching in, why you chose a forum full of mostly atheists to preach to seems to me a little Irish???

You have every right to believe whatever you like based on whatever revelation or epiphany you like or your imagination or whatever, but I don't think it's too much to ask not to have it shoved down our throats when the thread is barely related to your book. It's just not cricket.

Hell just start a thread about your particular Intelligent design theory, and wax lyrical there, that's completely what philosophy is about, making every thread remotely related to your strange hybrid religion is not fair to other forum goers, and in my opinion you should limit your marketing thing to a thread of its own at the very least.