varying levels of consciousness

[botchi246]

Re: varying levels of consciousness

Those are some long posts!!!!! OMG!!! My take on consciousness: (btw, I did not read any of the other posts. This is pure unaltered botchism.)

I define consciousness as having two parts. The observable and the sub.
Lets get an example going.
Example: Pie

When a person wants some pie, you can see in their face the effect the pie has on them. Such can be noted through facial expression and body language. Body language includes excessive grabbing motions and the ultimate suffocation of pie intake obstructing the trachea. This is the observable conscious. Clearly, this poor person has fallen victim to the nature of pie, which is to completely take over one's senses. The observable conscious is just that. A clearly defined 'want' is the essence of this conscious. Hence, the want of pie.

Now, the subconscious is completely different. This I like to call the 'need'. The same person used in example 1 sees this potentially amazing tasting pie. The observable conscious may take over. See result of pie intake. But, something happens in the brain before this want takes over. This is the subconscious trying to define the 'need'. Do I really need this pie? What are the long term effects? Will it taste good? These are the foremost questions that go through the mind without hesitation and without thought. Unfortunately in this case, the 'want' has exceeded the 'need' and the poor person has died by suffocation.

I know this may seem like an elementary and immature way to look at consciousness and most likely has nothing to do with the aforementioned posts above. It may not seem very logical, but that is in the eye of the beholder. It is hard to define consciousness and its implications and this was the only way that I could express myself through a subject I know very well. Pie.

[devonin]

Re: varying levels of consciousness

I give marks for the attempt to be amusing with the pie analogy, but for one, as soon as you say "I didn't read the other posts" if the next thought across your mind is not "So I'm going to go to that before posting" then you are doing something wrong in this forum.

By posting a reaction solely to the thread title you can either miss the point of the thread entirely, be posting something that has already been said etc. Either way, it is disrespectful of those who took the time to actually follow the discussion as it has developed before adding their own thoughts.

As a result, your post seems to do nothing more than simply define what the conscious and unconscious minds are, and, in my opinion, did so incorrectly.

How is the -conscious- mind somehow that which results in you stuffing pie into your face? That sounds more like you're trying to describe an -unconscious- compulsion to eat, which has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The conscious mind is the one that is actually taking time to deliberate and ponder before action happens, so at best you've inverted your definitions.

"Do I really need this pie" is -exactly- what conscious thought is.

[dsliscoo]

Re: varying levels of consciousness

Well, here is my first post in this forum.. There is alot i want to respond to here, but I am going to try to keep this post simple and short so we will see how that goes. I apologize that my thoughts aren't going to be as organized as your thoughts appear to be.. but here I go anyway

I will start with my view..

In regards to the purpose of this thread, I think your trying to define consciousness?(looking down at that first post)
the conscience comes from(and is affected by) two different factors. The first one being external factors, things like your environment, physical restrictions, and possibly genetics(though not to the level some people think..)
The other being internal factors. What you percieve, how you choose to look at it, etc.

Looking at the environment you are born in to. First, being born as a human, you have literally been born to the supreme species on the planet. You can do almost anything you want, though other humans offer consequences. Your conscience really isnt with you these first few days or weeks it is developed.
I am guessing this will be my prime view. Consciousness is developed for a variety of reasons and modernly it may just be used to define yourself against the clusterduck of the world around you.
(This part has made me go on a wide variety of roads in my mind.)
Your parents teach you words. Ways to define the things you feel, want, and crave. Later these are used in communication, another thing to let others know what YOU feel, want, and crave.
Now just this simple part, lets pretend for a moment that you weren't taught words. You are still human, but this is before written definable words.. your the first. Hunger isnt hunger, its a nervous impulse in your body. Your father knows your hungry because he knows what the feeling is. He is the one who hunts and kills the turkey you eat. Your mother also knows the feeling in the late night, she knows you want the blanket, because it makes you comfortable.
can you imagine this? now it is true other ways of communication can be used and have been developed, but words, this is the start of actual conscienceness. The ability to define yourself to the world around you conscience. (looking at Hellen Keller, she had a very undeveloped one until her teacher had figured a way to show her.)
Going through school you learn more words and ideas. You start being able to define very complex emotions inside you. This learning is the most responsible part for the conscience development.
One more example.. The first post, living life in a box. If for whatever reason you survived for thirty years inside a room by yourself, when you were to come out of the world on a busy street. You would see all the people moving they have direction and you would probably be able to feel that, you would feel isolated in that you have no direction. but noone ever told you that isolation is even real.. You would just feel out of place and more then likely want to return back to the box. Where you belong.(and now you have a direction to go haha)

This brings up one more quick thing. Say you did sense that everybody on this busy street did have direction, and you did sense it. This is empathy. This characteristic is in eery person I believe to. Words make empathy a little bit harder to listen to though. Empathy instinct and even intuition disappear because it is not neded anymore. To me, intuition may be the only true thing that a person can not change.

Now what I really think this topic is seeking out is this second part. THe internal factors. How you change yourself and this is what I find is most interesting.
Your will power, what you percieve and how you choose to percieve it, and your will to survive. These are the other factors that have shaped conscienceness today.

For my beliefs on this all I can say is that I think every person is capable of anything. I really am not sure where to go with this post from here I feel that I left something out, but i am pretty sure I defined conscienceness in my mind. f anyone has any questions with my post just let me know.

One more thing.. Animal conscienceness. It is like ours, they are just undeveloped.



As I said earlier there is alot I wanted to respond to in this topic.

Uhm im not sure how to quote on here but here it goes.

Do you think it's possible to create an 'artificial' consciousness?

I definitely do. If you can give the computer a goal. then give it an environement to complete the goal . Then give the environment a way to communicate with the computer. or the ability for the computer to sense the invironement. now the goal to give the computer would probably be to keep surviving. it has to want to continue or it wont. With this you might be able to approach a bacterias form of consciouscness.

That doesn't necessarily mean consciousness is an 'illusion' though. It just means the feeling of control we have over this consciousness is an illusion and a byproduct of the brain as well.

well.. Im just going to say I think we have complete control over our own conscience. I may just be a special case but I can change my perceptions any time I want to. to elaborate, I can look at a red pen and honestly convince myself its a blue pen. Does it make it blue to anyone else? hell no. So I dont do it The only thing that controls my conscience aside from myself is my desire to communicate with people.

Take evolution for example. Evolution has no purpose, plan or reasoning behind it

Evolution has only reasoning behind it. what can survive will survive. IF this werent the truth of evolution then there would be no reasoning behind it.

And as for the whole Pie thing.. well I will just say thats freaking hilarious

[Reach]

Re: varying levels of consciousness

This discussion has defintiely gone places I didn't think about. I never equated a lack of a soul to necessarily imply no free will. Possibly because I think free will can be constructed. Yes, our brains have control over our consciousness. However, the conciousness that is created, I believe, has control over our brains too. Just as Reach sited that drugs and physical changes to our brain affects our consciousness, so does a conversation with someone cause us to change our thoughts. This is irrespective of the existence of a soul, but not of consciousness.

The fact that I feel I have control over what I do is what gives me free will. That given enough technology and time all of my actions would be predicted and known does not change the fact that I think about what I do make decisions based on my thoughts, or that I'm aware when my actions are based on habit or impulse. Also, whatever technology we would make, if the technology is as it is today, it may predict what we do, but it would not feel the emotions involved in our actions, and as a consequence, not be able to understand them.

I have a few questions.

Can you explain how created consciousness has control over our brain? I'm going to assume you're implying a form of Cartesian Dualism, or Mind-Body differentiation (Something neuroscience rejects entirely). If not, I'm curious.

My argument would be that, if consciousness stems from the information created by the summation of reactions in your brain based on the rules of the physical world, then by necessity, your conscious mind would have to be a *physical* entity separate from your brain in order to have any governing properties over your brain. How is this so?

In other words, I would argue perception is isomorphic to the physical world like language is isomorphic to perception; it's a representation of what is real based on what's happening in your brain. If those happenings are bound by physical laws of the universe, then how could consciousness possibly exert control over the brain, given it is...by definition here, your brain.

And 2) Can you explain what you mean by "The fact that I feel I have control over what I do is what gives me free will." I don't see how this holds up. It might give you free will in a mental sense, but physically whether or not you believe you have free will is going to have no effect on whether or not you *actually* do (Given feelings are just a product of the brain as well).


I would say Free Will and Absolute Determinism are actually indistinguishable through perception alone, which is why it is inherently human to assume we have free will, but our knowledge of the universe and neuroscience suggests otherwise.

Im just going to say I think we have complete control over our own conscience. I may just be a special case but I can change my perceptions any time I want to. to elaborate, I can look at a red pen and honestly convince myself its a blue pen. Does it make it blue to anyone else? hell no. So I dont do it The only thing that controls my conscience aside from myself is my desire to communicate with people.

Have you considered the possibility that this is just your retrospective interpretation of something that was already set into motion irrespective of you? If you took a test to look at your brain waves when you report being able to change the red pen into a blue men, the brain waves associated with this change would come before your so called will to make that change.

Can you explain this phenomenon without giving up your free will?

Evolution has only reasoning behind it. what can survive will survive. IF this werent the truth of evolution then there would be no reasoning behind it.

When I say no reasoning behind it, I mean the system itself (Evolution) makes no choices. Rather, the outcome of the system is determined by the actions of those within the system itself (e.g. whether or not the kangaroo is able to reproduce). As such, evolution is unbiased and without direction - it only takes what it is given.

[dsliscoo]

Re: varying levels of consciousness

Have you considered the possibility that this is just your retrospective interpretation of something that was already set into motion irrespective of you? If you took a test to look at your brain waves when you report being able to change the red pen into a blue men, the brain waves associated with this change would come before your so called will to make that change.

Can you explain this phenomenon without giving up your free will?

Well, I wil use a ittle more complicated example..

2(x+4)=6

Higher thinking isn't done solely by one part of your brain. Where these parts meet and communicate is your conscience. and versely(or is it inversely?) the conscience reflects back to the seperate parts in the brain. Thinking about this I am wondering if conscienceness is even that amazing or if it just comes around when you try to run while chewing gum and talking to your jogging partner..

My brain is what makes my conscience if thats what you mean, but your conscience does have control over your brain or any single part of it I should say. I would say there is limited communication between too many parts of the brain without conscience effort. An example might be, unless your smart enough to avoid drinking, alot of us have taken a little bit too much alchohol before. Blacking out would be what your brain is without conscience. (though not exactly, Neuro-transmission being inhibited and such..)

Since I know your not trying to say that the brain is some outside shady character that I shouldnt trust and is just committed to controlling me.. I think what you might be trying to get at is that, I have programming that I must follow like a coffee machine. There might or might not be a core programming in every person, but if there is, it is nonsensical and practically ineffective. Whatever that programming once was has been almost entirely annhilated by the experience of life on the brain itself.

The thing is that this same programming has worked up to this point. Humanity is a marvel and it all boils down to that base genetic code, but I am positive that is not what gives the variety of people we see today and in the past.

I have deviated, back to your question. I am sure that I have decided to do everything I have done regardless of an outside extremity controlling me.


Reach,
as a side question you mention alot of things about neuro science. do you have a degree in it or just google? because just to let you know, I am a googler lol.

[Cavernio]

Re: varying levels of consciousness

Reach:
I started out with trying to respond to each our your paragraphs, but I found that it all basically boils down to whether consciousness can affect the brain in a top-down manner. What I take your position to be is that, since consciousness can only develop from our brain, the brain is obviously the physical determinant of our thoughts. I've already agreed with this when I said something like even if we could determine everything that would happen, it doesn't mean, to me, that free-will doesn't exist.

This is a rather low-grade analogue, but it's all I can think of. If you, say, create a computer program A that is designed to, itself, make another computer B which is then designed to do C, you could say that program A made program C, but it's also right to say that program B made program C. Now what if the design of program C is to change what program A does. This then changes program B which then changes program C. At the very start, it is still clearly A that started everything. Let's pretend that program A is not actually a program, but hardware now, and very basic hardware at that, that B is some sort of basic software, and that C is highly advanced, intricate software. After hardware A has started, can you say that the hardware is still controlling everything, but that would be ignoring the fact that clearly software C is doing much more of the calculations and controls, and indeed that C has taken over the process. A is the body, B is the brain, C is the mind. Well, ok, with a mind/body thing, C actually affects B which then affects A, and A and B are both hardware. And I guess B would be doing calculation and C would be making sense of the calculations, but the gist is the same. If you can imagine how a computer program could exist that could change itself, and if you can see how C would actually be controlling things, then in my mind, you should be able to imagine how our mind can control ourselves.

I don't know if this would fall under dualism or not, but I know that to not have a dualism of mind/body to some extent seems absolutely ridiculous. Our mind, no matter how connected our brain and body, is a completely different creature than the rest of the physical world as we know it.

"Can you explain what you mean by "The fact that I feel I have control over what I do is what gives me free will." I don't see how this holds up. It might give you free will in a mental sense, but physically whether or not you believe you have free will is going to have no effect on whether or not you *actually* do (Given feelings are just a product of the brain as well)."

Maybe you think this is a wholly stupid statement, but if we have free will in a mental sense, that to me is actually free-will.


"Have you considered the possibility that this is just your retrospective interpretation of something that was already set into motion irrespective of you? If you took a test to look at your brain waves when you report being able to change the red pen into a blue men, the brain waves associated with this change would come before your so called will to make that change."

I know this is not a comment directed at me, but to get into nitty gritty things, there's absolutely no scientific certainty that any given thought happens only after the brain does something. There is no way to determine when a thought changes because 1) there's delays in relaying information to a person, 2) our instrumentation is very weak in determining both time and place of any activity in the brain, especially in conjuction with the fact 3) that we cannot know a person's thoughts even knowing all brain activity. (Although perhaps in the future, given enough studying, we may be able to do 3.) You are making an assumption.

[Cavernio]

Whatever that programming once was has been almost entirely annhilated by the experience of life on the brain itself.

This is one thing you said that I agree with dsl. I could even add it to my computer program analogy by saying that after so much stuff D has happened (D being the environment which generally affects only C, but which can affect A and B too), A is even less of the cause to what a person's thoughts are.

This is addressed at Reach again, and is more of something to ponder than any true evidence I have about my view of conciousness. Evolutionarily speaking, why would we even evolve consciousness if it had no control over us? There's no purpose to it beyond that that I can see.
You might say that consciousness is merely a by-product of the complexities of the brain, that it can't do what it does without having conciousness. Firstly, I just don't think that that's true. Computers are very complex and yet they're not conscious. Secondly, we DO have reflexes, movements which are indepedent from our consciousness. Parkinson's disease specifically interrupts conscious control of movement, but not reflexive movements.