ChatterBank0 min ago
What Is Consciousness?
184 Answers
A sort of carry over from my "question for naomi" thread.
Have been reading the tale end of that debate (with a lot of interest) between naomi and others regarding energy and whether it can survive death. It seems to me that at times there might be some conflict as to what we mean by 'energy'. If we replace the word energy with consciousness then the debate makes a bit more sense....to me anyhow. The question then becomes can consciousness survive (in whatever shape or form). It then begs the question,
what exactly is consciousness?
From everything ive read, it appears to be one of the big questions, as science , as yet, has no idea exactly what consciousness is or how it arises.
Just curious, how do we define consciousness and what is it?
Thanks
Have been reading the tale end of that debate (with a lot of interest) between naomi and others regarding energy and whether it can survive death. It seems to me that at times there might be some conflict as to what we mean by 'energy'. If we replace the word energy with consciousness then the debate makes a bit more sense....to me anyhow. The question then becomes can consciousness survive (in whatever shape or form). It then begs the question,
what exactly is consciousness?
From everything ive read, it appears to be one of the big questions, as science , as yet, has no idea exactly what consciousness is or how it arises.
Just curious, how do we define consciousness and what is it?
Thanks
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"We know this much about it: it is beyond the reach of all extant scientific detection equipment."
I'm not sure this is necessarily right. By most measures it should now be accepted that scientific equipment is far more advanced than human senses. It can hear, see, smell, things that humans senses just cannot. So if the claim is that such objects as ghosts are real and visible to something as "basic" as a human eye, then they would also be real and visible to current scientific equipment. As a very simple example, standard cameras should be enough, and those aren't all that advanced anyway. I'm not convinced that current scientific equipment isn't up to the job; and anyway the statement presupposes that the effects in question actually exist, which is currently still up for debate and is far more of an important question than how these things work.
"...scientists are good at analysing things but are weak on the creativity side e.g. they struggle to turn a discovery into a practical, profitable, invention."
Even this is somewhat unfair. Some individual scientists may lack creativity, but as a whole they are about as creative as anyone. In some ways, even more so (and in others, not so much). Struggling to make money says far more about business-savvy, or lack of it, than it does about creativity. Artists and musicians are also creative, but have their own limits in other ways. This doesn't detract from their creativity; an occasional lack of inventive prowess doesn't detract from the creativity of scientists either.
"...we can only guess at what this form of energy might be."
This is true, but I don't think it makes the guess and anything that follows it worthless. I've provided a couple of examples below. I'm afraid that this post is becoming a "lecture" -- sorry about that, but I have a lot to say.
In a very real sense, we still don't know what gravity actually is. Certainly Isaac Newton didn't. But this didn't stop him from making useful predictions about its effects. Predictions that were accurate enough to still be useful almost 400 years later, and even with Einstein's introduction of General Relativity, it still turns out to be un-necessary detail for most purposes. In short, there is no need to know how things work to be able to check if they actually do work, if they are real.
It is thus possible in principle to design a test that could determine the existence, or not, of any phenomena of this sort of nature. The "can't prove a negative" caveat will still hold, but you could put high confidence bounds on its not being real.
At a different level, one of theory, it still holds that you needn't know the full details to be able to make a theoretical prediction. For consciousness the word "energy" has been thrown around a lot. I think it's largely been accepted that this is for want of a better word, but, even though consciousness wouldn't itself actually be energy, it's almost certain that there would be some type of energy associated with it. This would be in essentially the same way that electricity isn't energy itself, but there is an "electrical energy" associated with it.
Sticking with the electricity example, we can use this idea of electrical energy being associated with electricity to make the following claims: electrical circuits become hot (because electrical energy can turn into heat energy); electrical circuits can drive motion (kinetic energy); electrical circuits can give off light (same again). These statements are all true -- hence lightbulbs, electric radiators, motors etc. -- but more importantly they can be made without knowing how this works.
The same claims can be made about "consciousness energy". If it's a real and new thing then regardless of how it works, the energy it carries will be capable of becoming heat instead. And without anything to sustain it -- the brain and body -- we should fully expect that this is exactly what will happen.
I'm not sure this is necessarily right. By most measures it should now be accepted that scientific equipment is far more advanced than human senses. It can hear, see, smell, things that humans senses just cannot. So if the claim is that such objects as ghosts are real and visible to something as "basic" as a human eye, then they would also be real and visible to current scientific equipment. As a very simple example, standard cameras should be enough, and those aren't all that advanced anyway. I'm not convinced that current scientific equipment isn't up to the job; and anyway the statement presupposes that the effects in question actually exist, which is currently still up for debate and is far more of an important question than how these things work.
"...scientists are good at analysing things but are weak on the creativity side e.g. they struggle to turn a discovery into a practical, profitable, invention."
Even this is somewhat unfair. Some individual scientists may lack creativity, but as a whole they are about as creative as anyone. In some ways, even more so (and in others, not so much). Struggling to make money says far more about business-savvy, or lack of it, than it does about creativity. Artists and musicians are also creative, but have their own limits in other ways. This doesn't detract from their creativity; an occasional lack of inventive prowess doesn't detract from the creativity of scientists either.
"...we can only guess at what this form of energy might be."
This is true, but I don't think it makes the guess and anything that follows it worthless. I've provided a couple of examples below. I'm afraid that this post is becoming a "lecture" -- sorry about that, but I have a lot to say.
In a very real sense, we still don't know what gravity actually is. Certainly Isaac Newton didn't. But this didn't stop him from making useful predictions about its effects. Predictions that were accurate enough to still be useful almost 400 years later, and even with Einstein's introduction of General Relativity, it still turns out to be un-necessary detail for most purposes. In short, there is no need to know how things work to be able to check if they actually do work, if they are real.
It is thus possible in principle to design a test that could determine the existence, or not, of any phenomena of this sort of nature. The "can't prove a negative" caveat will still hold, but you could put high confidence bounds on its not being real.
At a different level, one of theory, it still holds that you needn't know the full details to be able to make a theoretical prediction. For consciousness the word "energy" has been thrown around a lot. I think it's largely been accepted that this is for want of a better word, but, even though consciousness wouldn't itself actually be energy, it's almost certain that there would be some type of energy associated with it. This would be in essentially the same way that electricity isn't energy itself, but there is an "electrical energy" associated with it.
Sticking with the electricity example, we can use this idea of electrical energy being associated with electricity to make the following claims: electrical circuits become hot (because electrical energy can turn into heat energy); electrical circuits can drive motion (kinetic energy); electrical circuits can give off light (same again). These statements are all true -- hence lightbulbs, electric radiators, motors etc. -- but more importantly they can be made without knowing how this works.
The same claims can be made about "consciousness energy". If it's a real and new thing then regardless of how it works, the energy it carries will be capable of becoming heat instead. And without anything to sustain it -- the brain and body -- we should fully expect that this is exactly what will happen.
It's far closer to "if there were such a thing as consciousness energy, then we would expect it to dissipate as heat on, or very soon after, death." So if, not when.
This still comes with a few caveats: I'm not going to claim that this is the end of the matter. But I think that as long as the brain plays any part at all in consciousness, either as the creator of it or as just the support mechanism, then I'd expect the above statement to be true, and that consciousness would not last beyond death.
This still comes with a few caveats: I'm not going to claim that this is the end of the matter. But I think that as long as the brain plays any part at all in consciousness, either as the creator of it or as just the support mechanism, then I'd expect the above statement to be true, and that consciousness would not last beyond death.
/"...scientists are good at analysing things but are weak on the creativity side /
Says who Archimedes, Einstein, Newton? even a jobbing scientist is at least as creative as any other academic of similar rank/status.
Jim was the only Aber able to make the lateral mental connections to understand a (seemingly bad) joke that I posted a few days ago.
Says who Archimedes, Einstein, Newton? even a jobbing scientist is at least as creative as any other academic of similar rank/status.
Jim was the only Aber able to make the lateral mental connections to understand a (seemingly bad) joke that I posted a few days ago.
@jom
Perhaps I should clarify: yes there's loads of creativity involved in the problem solving side ('pure science'), it's the 'applied' side which they're not great at. Was it cathode rays or Hall effect or photoelectric effect where the discoverer just moved on to the next item of interest, instead of inventing valves, transistors, solar cells and so on?
fwiw, Archimedes was commissioned by the king, to find a way to assay the gold gifts people kept giving him, seeking favours, so he got paid.
Newton? He must gave made money from Principia but did he make any money out of discovering gravity? Did he invent anything based on it?
Einstein was still at the Patent Office while coming up with his theories. TTBOMK, he got paid for his proffessorship, a lot later. I can't name any inventions which he personally made money from.
p.s. Chances are I haven't seen this joke. Can you point me to it?
Perhaps I should clarify: yes there's loads of creativity involved in the problem solving side ('pure science'), it's the 'applied' side which they're not great at. Was it cathode rays or Hall effect or photoelectric effect where the discoverer just moved on to the next item of interest, instead of inventing valves, transistors, solar cells and so on?
fwiw, Archimedes was commissioned by the king, to find a way to assay the gold gifts people kept giving him, seeking favours, so he got paid.
Newton? He must gave made money from Principia but did he make any money out of discovering gravity? Did he invent anything based on it?
Einstein was still at the Patent Office while coming up with his theories. TTBOMK, he got paid for his proffessorship, a lot later. I can't name any inventions which he personally made money from.
p.s. Chances are I haven't seen this joke. Can you point me to it?
That doesn't have anything to do with creativity, though. Just because some scientists haven't fussed about exploiting the financial benefits of their discoveries doesn't mean that can't. More often than not it's because they don't particularly want to. Intellectual reward is reward enough for many.
Also, Newton was just a weirdo. But he was as creative a man as you will find in history.
Also, Newton was just a weirdo. But he was as creative a man as you will find in history.
Jomifl's meaning this joke, by the way:
http://
http://
Well, I read the thread, so there was no 'get it' moment.
I wouldn't have got it anyway because I was aware of the book -title- but wasn't aware that the story involved the "going into a bar" routine, so wouldn't have made the connection.
Note: I am already pedantic, I don't feel the need to read a book about it. Am open to persuasion if it mercilessly rips the micturations in an amusing way. ;-)
I wouldn't have got it anyway because I was aware of the book -title- but wasn't aware that the story involved the "going into a bar" routine, so wouldn't have made the connection.
Note: I am already pedantic, I don't feel the need to read a book about it. Am open to persuasion if it mercilessly rips the micturations in an amusing way. ;-)
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