Philosophy Now Forum

So the question I'm asking is what is fundamentally different about two peoples self awareness. It may seem like there are obvious answers to this question, but I'm not referring to things such as experience, personality, appearance or spatial position, because these things are all qualities that can be shared. 

What I'm trying to determine can be seen more clearly when we consider a baby in the womb, when it is fully developed but yet to be born, it is aware but relatively unconditioned by experience, and most of its experiences are sensations that are shared by all unborn babies, warmth, heartbeat and the common sounds of life around it. So at this stage, if it were possible to become each baby in turn, would there be an experienced difference in being each entity, or would it feel identical in each. I believe it must be the latter, which suggests that being conscious in an entity that has little or no individual distinctness, is in fact the same experience, and that the sensation of being a distinct individual is an illusion created only by a matter of perspective.

I believe it is this type of reasoning that is behind the Buddhist philosophy of a collective consciousness, or the oneness of everything. There is, and can only be, one way to be conscious, and what we experience as a personal self is all a matter of perspective, so it's just like a body with many windows, and the acknowledging agent within looks out on reality through many perspectives simultaneously, and thus building a truer understanding of reality as a whole.    

So I believe there is a single state that is what we call conscious awareness, and that any example of its realisation is essentially the identification of a single agent, and what creates the illusion of individual existence is only the development of distinct perspectives. 

There is also the question of communication between distinct entity's. If something is classed as individual, it is by virtue of either substance or quality. So if we try distinguishing an object in reference to its parts firstly it proves to be impossible in reality, and secondly if it were possible, that object would have no means by which it could communicate its presence, or react to its environment. It also isn't applicable to consciousness as this is not a quantity of substance, but a quality which seems only to apply to an event, rather than the substance taking part in an event, so the actual substance, or body, is not what we call consciousness, it's actually the event that can be classed as conscious. So if we allow that consciousness is a quality that is applicable to an event, then it would seem sensible to say that wherever that class of event occurs, the quality is indistinguishable in each.

Emotions are replications of awarness ,they put a feeling to to what is being experienced by a particular observer in an event. the same basic consciouseness gives all feeling to all events that have been or ever will be.its just i think different brains appreciate it ,consciouseness that is to different degrees..

James Markham wrote:So the question I'm asking is what is fundamentally different about two peoples self awareness. It may seem like there are obvious answers to this question, but I'm not referring to things such as experience, personality, appearance or spatial position, because these things are all qualities that can be shared. 

What I'm trying to determine can be seen more clearly when we consider a baby in the womb, when it is fully developed but yet to be born, it is aware but relatively unconditioned by experience, and most of its experiences are sensations that are shared by all unborn babies, warmth, heartbeat and the common sounds of life around it. So at this stage, if it were possible to become each baby in turn, would there be an experienced difference in being each entity, or would it feel identical in each. I believe it must be the latter, which suggests that being conscious in an entity that has little or no individual distinctness, is in fact the same experience, and that the sensation of being a distinct individual is an illusion created only by a matter of perspective.

Hi James

I think your two perspectives of consciousness represent a watershed in philosophy of mind in the Western traditional at least. Firstly, there is the role experience plays in the philosophy of mind. We all have experiences, but it is generally considered that all experiences are not the same. In other words, experience has a unique subjective character when it comes to each individual. This boils down to the claim that experience is actually the thing that creates individual distinctness. This is sometimes know as qualia.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Opposed to this view is the functionalist approach to philosophy of mind. Your preference for the latter in your post seems to put you on the road to some type of functionalist approach. I don't know much about Eastern philosophy, so I don't know how a functionalist approach would coalesce with Buddhism.

consciousness is same.
--------------------------------
I understand consciousness as self-awareness of mental state created by
conditioned neurons.
The conditioning differs with individuals.So we expect differences in
experiences including qualia .These differing experiences are fully
represented in brain activity .
Mental state just reads the differing brain activities .
Consciousness which is simple reading of brain activity is same everywhere .
What differs is brain activity

[quote="James Markham"]So the question I'm asking is what is fundamentally different about two peoples self awareness. It may seem like there are obvious answers to this question, but I'm not referring to things such as experience, personality, appearance or spatial position, because these things are all qualities that can be shared. 

What I'm trying to determine can be seen more clearly when we consider a baby in the womb, when it is fully developed but yet to be born, it is aware but relatively unconditioned by experience, and most of its experiences are sensations that are shared by all unborn babies, warmth, heartbeat and the common sounds of life around it. So at this stage, if it were possible to become each baby in turn, would there be an experienced difference in being each entity, or would it feel identical in each. I believe it must be the latter, which suggests that being conscious in an entity that has little or no individual distinctness, is in fact the same experience, and that the sensation of being a distinct individual is an illusion created only by a matter of perspective.

Nature vrs Nurture ,
each baby is a unique individual ,
the mothers emotions have an effect and influence the emotional make-up of the baby ,
if she smokes that effects the physical development ,
and if she has a poor diet , that also effects the development of the child ,
the children of junkies have to withdraw as their first taste of life,
so what is it you are trying to allude to here ,???
maybe that you think we all tune in to the same channel ,
that there is this station called consciousness ,
and each baby comes with this station automatically tunned in,,???
WRONG ,
consciousness is an individual experience , like reality ,
your consciousness is generated from your set of memories ,
it's like morality , people think we are born with it ,
bull ,
morality is a man made concept , a word we put on behaviour we consider good/moral ,
so in answer to your question , NO
we have different IQ's , physical,emotional,experiences ,
and there is no station called consciousness.

The quality or possession of consciousness is the same in all living things, from jellyfish to embryo. But its manifestation, development, experience and application are different in various species and through the life cycle. While there may be broad similarity across a given class of consciousness - e.g. adolescent orioles of central North America - each individual will both show and experience a different variant.

How could a brain manufacture consciouseness.with imformation at the speed of light entering the brain only a nonlocal element could handle that much imformation and co ordinate matters .even if the brain worked at the speed of light it would mean the brains function would become nonrelative as in moveing.as light does not gain momentum from its relative source.

Godfree wrote:

James Markham wrote:So the question I'm asking is what is fundamentally different about two peoples self awareness. It may seem like there are obvious answers to this question, but I'm not referring to things such as experience, personality, appearance or spatial position, because these things are all qualities that can be shared. 

What I'm trying to determine can be seen more clearly when we consider a baby in the womb, when it is fully developed but yet to be born, it is aware but relatively unconditioned by experience, and most of its experiences are sensations that are shared by all unborn babies, warmth, heartbeat and the common sounds of life around it. So at this stage, if it were possible to become each baby in turn, would there be an experienced difference in being each entity, or would it feel identical in each. I believe it must be the latter, which suggests that being conscious in an entity that has little or no individual distinctness, is in fact the same experience, and that the sensation of being a distinct individual is an illusion created only by a matter of perspective.

Nature vrs Nurture ,
each baby is a unique individual ,
the mothers emotions have an effect and influence the emotional make-up of the baby ,
if she smokes that effects the physical development ,
and if she has a poor diet , that also effects the development of the child ,
the children of junkies have to withdraw as their first taste of life,
so what is it you are trying to allude to here ,???
maybe that you think we all tune in to the same channel ,
that there is this station called consciousness ,
and each baby comes with this station automatically tunned in,,???
WRONG ,
consciousness is an individual experience , like reality ,
your consciousness is generated from your set of memories ,
it's like morality , people think we are born with it ,
bull ,
morality is a man made concept , a word we put on behaviour we consider good/moral ,
so in answer to your question , NO
we have different IQ's , physical,emotional,experiences ,
and there is no station called consciousness.

I think you've hit on the phrase I've been trying to articulate, "is there a station called consciousness". Maybe awareness could be a better word to use, but that would imply awareness of something. What I'm trying to get at is not what we're aware of being or feeling, but that feeling of what it's like to be aware of anything. I don't see in what way this can be different in anyone, let alone there being 7 billion ways and counting.

If there is life after death.that life after death has to be consciouse of being.that consciousness after death of existance cannot have size .or it would die.so the spirit which is consciousness has no size and would there for be nonlocal and be nonmoving.that being so it has to be nonmoving in the present alive state of the observer.the only way thats possible is if the event is illusion.which it has to be relative to the unmoving spirit.matter cannot realy move spirit.spirit being relativly more permerment.in other words the observers consciousness or consciense is god.

jackles wrote:If there is life after death.that life after death has to be consciouse of being.that consciousness after death of existance cannot have size .or it would die.so the spirit which is consciousness has no size and would there for be nonlocal and be nonmoving.that being so it has to be nonmoving in the present alive state of the observer.the only way thats possible is if the event is illusion.which it has to be relative to the unmoving spirit.matter cannot realy move spirit.spirit being relativly more permerment.in other words the observers consciousness or consciense is god.

The problem I have with pantheism, is that god is supposed to be good, but clearly not everything in reality can be classed under that heading. So I think the most sensible alternative is to assume the spirt is divided into positive feeling, negative feeling and neutral feeling.

God would be identity without defenition of good and evil.evil being identity .or evil being the false identity away from god which would be false pride.the true identiy of all observers is the self that never happen.the self that is happening is false.

jackles wrote:God would be identity without defenition of good and evil.evil being identity .or evil being the false identity away from god which would be false pride.the true identiy of all observers is the self that never happen.the self that is happening is false.

I have toyed with this idea, that god is a precondition, or the prerequisite that conditioned consciousness comes from, but it becomes very hard to imagine why anything would need to follow from such a basis. So instead I tend to believe that the basis from which consciousness, or awareness comes, is akin to the phenomena we know as total unconsciousness. We experience it's existence periodically, but we can no more say its a thing, than we can rightly call it a state, it's a potential. I think it's from this potential that all conscious emotional perspective arises, and it's emotional orientation is determined by introspective contemplatation. So all that we see as positive, negative and innocent emotion is a the complex development of this phenomena, and god is at the extreme positive end of this emotional spectrum.

Yes consciouness as in being self consciouse is not the deal.consciousness as in the realisation that all consciousness is the same thing is .emotions are replications of awareness the individual awareness reaches the understanding that it awarness is the true identity of its self and not the event identity.as in the parable of the good samariton.the parables of jesus are omni presently aware to all possible events.

Nature vrs Nurture ,
each baby is a unique individual ,
the mothers emotions have an effect and influence the emotional make-up of the baby ,
if she smokes that effects the physical development ,
and if she has a poor diet , that also effects the development of the child ,
the children of junkies have to withdraw as their first taste of life,
so what is it you are trying to allude to here ,???
maybe that you think we all tune in to the same channel ,
that there is this station called consciousness ,
and each baby comes with this station automatically tunned in,,???
WRONG ,
consciousness is an individual experience , like reality ,
your consciousness is generated from your set of memories ,
it's like morality , people think we are born with it ,
bull ,
morality is a man made concept , a word we put on behaviour we consider good/moral ,
so in answer to your question , NO
we have different IQ's , physical,emotional,experiences ,
and there is no station called consciousness.[/quote][/quote]

I think you've hit on the phrase I've been trying to articulate, "is there a station called consciousness". Maybe awareness could be a better word to use, but that would imply awareness of something. What I'm trying to get at is not what we're aware of being or feeling, but that feeling of what it's like to be aware of anything. I don't see in what way this can be different in anyone, let alone there being 7 billion ways and counting.[/quote]

there is no computations being made by external forces ,, you create your consciousness ,
and yes there are 7 billion and counting , all different all unique individuals ,
think of it like a computer , but the parts are always sourced from slightly different sources ,

no computer would be an exact copy , because the parts come from different places and perform differently ,
the configuration would vary the number of mega bits etc
that is human, a computer that stores and retains information ,
so to again make it easy to work out what your trying to say ,
LIFE AFTER DEATH WOULD JUST BE GOING TO THAT PLACE CALLED CONSCIOUSNESS ,
but ,, that place doesn't exist
life after death is a fantasy ,
not real , there is no spirit world no angels devils gods or spooks ,
it's all bullshit ,,!!!!!!!!!

Yep thats correct after death you go to consciousness.(but you dont go anywhere) the consciousness which is a never happen state.but its the same consciousness as when your in life.consciousness dosnt have a life.consciousness dosnt think.thinking takes place in consciousness.we lose the event on death but we remain in consciousness.it consciouness being nonlocal to the experienced event (life).the experience of life happened in a consciousness which did not happen.nonlocality dosnt happen.