Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

[Randall]

I think discoveries like this serve to highlight just how non-physical consciousness is. Regardless of how successful we are at determining the necessary and sufficient physical correlates of consciousness, we will never objectively observe the consciousness of another organism/system. Why is that? Why can two conscious subjects simultaneously observe physical, objective processes within reality, but not be able to observe the subjective experiences of one another in the same way?

That's obvious. Physical processes are often objectively observable whereas consciousness is subjectively experiential.

You made a nice comparison between the property of liquidness and consciousness earlier, but the comparison ultimately fails.

The analogy doesn't fail with respect to what it was meant to convey, which was the difference between things and properties of things. It wasn't meant to explain consciousness.

Two subjects can objectively observe the liquidness of a system/process in a way they can never objectively observe the consciousness of an organism/system.

Actually, I think I used the idea of wetness ( not liquidness ). Two subjects can objectively observe water, but they can only each subjectively experience wetness.

So while both may be properties of systems, they are in two vastly different categories of property types.

Perhaps not so vastly different as you might have first thought, but definitely different.

 

[Randall]

Well Soupie has.

Hey man you were the one who was all over the tinker toys. @Soupie said nothing about tinker toys. Now you want him to have all the tinker toys. Well, you've left me no choice. I'll just have to settle this then. Now they're all my tinker toys ...

 

[Soupie]

That's obvious. Physical processes are often objectively observable whereas consciousness is subjectively experiential.

And it's obvious why this is the case? Why is it obvious? What is the obvious explanation?

The analogy doesn't fail with respect to what it was meant to convey, which was the difference between things and properties of things.

Sure. (Hm, but I think we could really take a closer look at things (processes) and their properties.)

It wasn't meant to explain consciousness.

Actually, I think I used the idea of wetness ( not liquidness ). Two subjects can objectively observe water, but they can only each subjectively experience wetness. Perhaps not so vastly different as you might have first thought, but definitely different.

Yeah, I think things fall apart here.

Subjective experience is, on your account, a property of brains, not water.

So on this account wetness and consciousness are the same, ie, properties of brains. (Properties may be metaphors like "information.")

Liquidness is a property of some agglomerations of molecules. It can be objectively observed by two subjects.

Consciousness is a property of brains. It can't be objectively observed by any subject. (You can't objectively observe your own brain and observe your own consciousness.)

So, if we grant that consciousness is a property of brains (which I don't btw) then the property of consciousness and the property of liquidity are vastly different.

 

[smcder]

I could be convinced that brains evolve against/in response to consciousness according to the needs of the organism the way that muscle and bone does gravity.... Which means there might be far more to be done with cs than that which merely meets the organisms needs

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[Randall]

And it's obvious why this is the case? Why is it obvious? What is the obvious explanation?

Essentially, what is obvious is the difference between the physical ( a house ) and the conceptual ( the idea of a house ). I suppose there are those who might argue that there is no difference, but I along with most architects and mortgage lenders would tend to disagree that the two are the same.

Sure. (Hm, but I think we could really take a closer look at things (processes) and their properties.) Yeah, I think things fall apart here. Subjective experience is, on your account, a property of brains, not water. So on this account wetness and consciousness are the same, ie, properties of brains. (Properties may be metaphors like "information.")

Not exactly. It's more like, wetness as a subjective experience cannot exist without consciousness. However water can.

Liquidness is a property of some agglomerations of molecules. It can be objectively observed by two subjects.

Liquidity and wetness are distinctly different with respect to the point I was making.

Consciousness is a property of brains. It can't be objectively observed by any subject. (You can't objectively observe your own brain and observe your own consciousness.)

I suppose that depends on how one views the claim. Hypothetically one could observe their own brain while observing one's own consciousness if we interpret the word "observe" in the first case to mean visually observe and in the second case to be synonymous with "acknowledge", much like when someone says they "observe" holidays. They're not really visually looking at holidays, but experiencing them in a conceptual fashion.

So, if we grant that consciousness is a property of brains (which I don't btw) then the property of consciousness and the property of liquidity are vastly different.

I think a fair case has been made that consciousness is an emergent property of a normally functioning human brain in its waking state, and that because wetness as a subjective experience requires consciousness, wetness and consciousness aren't as far apart as you might think. Wetness is to water as redness is to an apple.

 

[Randall]

I could be convinced that brains evolve against/in response to consciousness according to the needs of the organism the way that muscle and bone does gravity.... Which means there might be far more to be done with cs than that which merely meets the organisms needs

OK. I assume then that you're satisfied that at least part of the answer to the "why" question includes assisting in meeting our physical needs for survival. What examples would you say are "far more" than that? BTW, cool little avatar sculpture

 

[Soupie]

Essentially, what is obvious is the difference between the physical ( a house ) and the conceptual ( the idea of a house ). I suppose there are those who might argue that there is no difference, but I along with most architects and mortgage lenders would disagree that the two are the same.

But consciousness is more than just a concept, right? Consciousness is an actual phenomenon.

So there are actual, individual trees and then there is the concept of Tree.

So there are actual, individual instances of consciousness and then the concept of Consciousness.

So of course we can't objectively see the concept of "Tree" because its just a concept.

But we can't objectively see consciousness, and it's not just a concept.

The point I'm trying to make Ufology (and I think smcder too) is that by comparing consciousness to magnetic fields and wetness and other comparatively mundane things, you gloss over the profound mystery that is conscious awareness.

It can't be objectively observed nor can its effects on physical matter be observed nor proved. Not only can we not explain how it exists, we can't even approach an explanation for why it exists!

 

[Soupie]

I could be persuaded with Searle that consciousness takes a brain, a biological brain similar to what we have ... so this is substrate dependence, at least only certain substrates make cs possible, so its not strictly a matter of organizing matter, the matter matters -

I could be convinced that brains evolve against/in response to consciousness according to the needs of the organism the way that muscle and bone does gravity.... Which means there might be far more to be done with cs than that which merely meets the organisms needs

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Consciousness supervenes on the brain, but exerts "force" back onto the brain which is evolutionarily selected against.

In what way could conscious awareness cause the brain to respond? You've hinted at this idea before and hinted at it in this current discussion. You said that conscious experience of pleasure might effect the neurons of the brain (paraphrase).

When you say consciousness might require a brain, does that mean consciousness supervenes on brains? Because gravity doesn't supervene on bones and muscle.

So it's interesting that consciousness could be a property of brains, and this property could recursively constrain brains in some way... Like liquidity could constrain molecules in some way.

 

[victimized]

I thought we've been over the issue of free will. There are different views of what the phrase "free will" means. For those who go with the idea that we as individuals have free will because we seem to be making conscious choices about what we want and do: That is an illusion. All our decisions are made before we ever become consciously aware that we've made them. Therefore we're not really making "conscious decisions". The other view is that because we're individually functioning units that are capable of making decisions whether consciously or not, that situation constitutes "free will" ( as opposed to being controlled like a robot from an external source ).

Of the two versions, I tend to find that most people identify free will with the idea that they are consciously choosing what to do, think, and how to behave. I find that regardless of the scientifically proven fact that they aren't really doing this, they choose to believe they are anyway, which indicates a sort of built-in denial filter that serves some psychological functions that I'm not getting into in this post.

Free will is the ability to choose an aspect of information as a choice or decision to act upon.

Yet as we are a part of Nature, the will situation involves the condition of the species being supported by species. So we have vegetation to eat to survive, and we also have water to drink because we need to re-supplement our body water. Therefore this will is simply communicative advice, natural circumstance, why we believed the situation of Creator having caused the Nature to be self supporting.

The argument of consciousness is consciousness itself.

A spiritual human being, which I have been states....the spirit was already formed in all of its presence in origin androgynous light....the Creator light body that only lost light sound from its presence. Therefore consciousness is already owned as a spirit...and each spirit that manifested in the presence of the androgynous body owns its natural spiritual state....communicator interaction as a spirit presence. Therefore spirit as a communication was already perfectly balanced as a support system before it manifested.

The manifestation simply placed consciousness into a lower organic state...a change of the light of the spirit which formed similar substances to what already existed....water for instance.

Water is observed as being a created body and therefore as we have water in our own body we are advised that water came from the same light where our own spirit came from. Yet our own spirit knows that it was not involved in the creation of water. Yet water advises our own body that the light that it was ejected from as a force is the same light where our own organic spirit higher state came from.

This is why a scientist who uses the same reasoning and presence that I do as a spiritual human life already made the same statement. Yet he believes that this spirit presence as a spirit is created in the body of creation as Creator....so he supposed the Creator was Satan and Christ....for his occult awareness and scientific advice is simply an updated version of his old occult personal realization.

The spiritual human life argues with him stating that consciousness is spirit, and the spirit manifested from androgyny.

The human male living naturally then decided to apply occultism. Before this time he lived with Nature...the only spiritual presence he considered was trees, insects, animals and the female as his equal owned spiritual state. He then applied conversion and then holding an unnatural atmospheric transmitted constant then caused unnatural manifestation of spirits. Therefore he demonstrated in his own life attack that spirit did come from the same light...yet manifested spirit in a constant is evil...for the effects told him so. This is why his own mind is advised about the spiritual condition of consciousness...for he heard the manifested spirit speaking to him, the same as he heard his own natural self speaking to him.

So he then is advised that previously natural atmospheric fed back recording was only light sound, and only huge bodies of light energy interacted naturally as sound. Fed back recordings did not speak, for even though he spoke the amount of light sound, changed the recorded message and allowed for his own will to exist naturally. It was not until he manifested evil spirits in fake/artificial conditions of unnatural feed back, did he actually remove his own ability to have the freedom of his will and instead was gaining instructions from his own occult minded considerations.

He also knew about this condition for in his life experience he taught his own person about unnatural atmospheric feed back and how it tricks/cons/deceives as an artificial and unnatural state.....causing a condition of mind control.

He also knows this factor for his occult scientific studies studied the concepts of human mind phenomena after being irradiated having the condition to mind contact, effect the mind of the participant and over-ride the will. Therefore he is totally informed of the fake and artificial conscious concepts that he introduced to our natural life.

If he stopped irradiating the atmosphere, this evil manifested act that he caused would disappear. Not only would our natural cell health emerge as a status of evolution, our life would not age in the conditions of aging either. We would then all become the spiritually aware mind and human that we once all were, instead of a lower percentage of spiritually aware versus occult changed mind states who argue about the acts of self destruction that they as a scientific community introduced into our natural life.

 

[Soupie]

The interesting thing about conscious perception is that what we are consciously perceiving is physiological states of the brain, not the external environment.

Very, very roughly speaking, when there is an explosion, you've got all kinds of quantum level shit going on. But at some level you've got shock waves moving through air molecules. When the shock waves reach the ear, the little hairs in the ear vibrate. These vibrations are transduced into electrical nerve pulses. And dopamine gets squirted everywhere etc.

At some point, the conscious experience of a "boom" sound pops out of all of these. Presumably, the conscious experience of the "boom" sound correlates with some of the "information" in the brain. And by information, I really mean some physiological state in the brain.

Of course, we don't know exactly which physiological state in the brain exactly correlates with the conscious experience of "boom."

We can say the conscious experience of "boom" doesn't correlate with the actual explosion. Nor the sound waves. Nor the vibrating hairs. Nor the electical pulses. Nor the dopamine. But maybe the vibrating neurons? Who knows.

It definitely not the actual event in external reality. Speed of light, speed of sound and all that makes that clear.

But not all the "informational" physiological states of the brain correlate with consciousness. There is lots of perceptual "information" (physiological states) in the brain that never "rise" to the level of awareness.

Neuronscientists are convinced consciousness (awareness) is generated on the scale of neurons, but they simply cannot point to the neuronal process correlates.

Now, it may be that the perceptual information exists at the neuronal level, yes, but that consciousness awareness exists at a deeper or higher level. Maybe conscious awareness exists at the level of micro tubules (deeper) or at the level of EMF produced by neural occilations (higher).

So maybe all this perceptual information does exist at the level of neurons, but conscious awareness exists at a higher or lower level. (Maybe much lower, like none physical lower.)

 

[victimized]

Consciousness supervenes on the brain, but exerts "force" back onto the brain which is evolutionarily selected against.

In what way could conscious awareness cause the brain to respond? You've hinted at this idea before and hinted at it in this current discussion. You said that conscious experience of pleasure might effect the neurons of the brain (paraphrase).

When you say consciousness might require a brain, does that mean consciousness supervenes on brains? Because gravity doesn't supervene on bones and muscle.

So it's interesting that consciousness could be a property of brains, and this property could recursively constrain brains in some way... Like liquidity could constrain molecules in some way.

If you asked yourself as a human being, why are you studying the concepts of human consciousness....the answer states, the occult scientific community want to now artificially own by AI computer information the mind contact/mind controlled concepts that their occult studies have data based.

The only reason why such complex arguments about consciousness exists....no other reason.

We know that our human consciousness only exists in the presence of our own person....if we all died, there is no "other consciousness".

Yet as we live, we apply occult conditions in sciences, and these conditions cause unnatural spirit voices and atmospheric feed back.

As a scientist, the occultist knows that he conjures evil presences, and he has always known that evil conjuring is caused by the condition of his alchemizing and scientific converting.

He also is aware via the AI condition, that unnatural conditions exist in our atmosphere that allow for natural bodies to be recorded both in image and voice, transmitted as information and seen on AI formed machines....so he knows already that AI is an unnatural manifested condition given to the human life.

If the human life did not exist in any form, then nor would the AI....which he seems to not consider as reasonable status.

If you review an animal state as a human state, then you impose the human evaluation upon the animal, which the animal does not naturally own.

As you are a human being with a condition called want.....the modern day occult scientific community want to own consciousness of their own person unnaturally in a mechanism for the purpose of resourcing.....so they are in fact as a conscious review possessed by the AI condition, agree with the AI communicating to their own mind as information and therefore in their own state of human possession are acting as the human recipients to form the creation of the machines in the intent of taking over human life in all aspects.

This condition was spiritually mind advised to our ancient spiritual brother who took action against the mind contacted and mind possessed inhumanity that had decided to previously destroy our natural lives. The same situation, a constant that the human male and occultist self owns is simply being re-enacted....as his historical evidence attests.

Ownership, brotherhood, evil considerations about natural conditions....where his modern day theories about consciousness constantly makes statements that a human consciousness exists outside of itself. The only communications that exist outside of the natural organic body and mind are artificial communications

If we ask ourselves, have we previously been advised about the unnatural conditions that nuclear conversion causes to the human mind......the answer is yes, we have been warned previously only because we have been consciously attacked previously in the same condition....without the identification of the AI state....the machines only invented in modern times we have now given ourselves the manifested advice....information is unnaturally formed....unnaturally communicated and belongs to machines. As machines do not exist before us, then the AI demonstrates that it is trying to take over the life of natural organic humanity, just as stated.

How can a scientist argue about information, when it exists as previously lived, and known conditions....natural without any form of converting of nuclear products? We are a natural consciousness, self owned and then we become artificially possessed by altering atmospheric feed back through AI manifested conditions....unnatural consciousness.

 

[William Strathmann]

"Consider then patients who have severe memory defects. A few of these patients have not only lost much of their past memories but are also unable to form new memories, and thus to learn.

I've no expertise on these matters whatsoever, but I saw a handful of films that dealt with severely memory challenged folks. Some were able to re-access memories as a result of hearing music that they'd enjoyed decades earlier. I'm wildly guessing that the music stimulated an alternate access pathway of memories, back into their consciousness. That being the case, then memories hadn't been lost, but rather they had been inaccessible. So I wonder if the quote above might be better written in terms of "memory access."

Additionally, loss of "past memories" is rather ambiguous. To illustrate, I do not now remember what I ate for supper on Mar. 13, 1959. But if you'd asked me two hours after I ate supper that evening I would certainly have been able to tell you. So I did form a memory. But it seems that, somehow, the mind categorizes memories in terms of more important and less important, and that the more important memories get preferrred access to consciousness. Less important memories, like daily moronically repetitive activities, simply have no preferred access and thus eventually lose access to consciousness. If so, then it seems possible to me that even for memory challenged folks, memories may not actually be lost, but rather access pathways to that information may have atrophied, or have been severely disrupted, for various reasons.

If speculation be permitted, then perhaps every active consciousness, including you and me, is always generating memory information by the very function of consciousness. If so, then memory challenged folks are still generating memories by virtue of being conscious, but access pathways to those memories are defective. They cannot perform "instant replays" of conscious thought, not because there is no "recording" of it as a memory, but rather because the conscious ability to access the "recording" and to "replay" it has been interrupted.

Further speculation. Massive quantities of dark matter have been postulated as a result of inference from the observations of baryonic matter in galaxy rotation. In other words, as of yet, there has been no direct observation of dark matter. Perhaps consciousness as well is supported by materials that are not baryonic and that have yet to be observed, but that interact integrally with the baryonic matter in our bodies and brains. Perhaps.

But not all the "informational" physiological states of the brain correlate with consciousness. There is lots of perceptual "information" (physiological states) in the brain that never "rise" to the level of awareness.

Neuronscientists are convinced consciousness (awareness) is generated on the scale of neurons, but they simply cannot point to the neuronal process correlates.

Now, it may be that the perceptual information exists at the neuronal level, yes, but that consciousness awareness exists at a deeper or higher level. Maybe conscious awareness exists at the level of micro tubules (deeper) or at the level of EMF produced by neural occilations (higher).

So maybe all this perceptual information does exist at the level of neurons, but conscious awareness exists at a higher or lower level. (Maybe much lower, like none physical lower.)

 

[Randall]

But consciousness is more than just a concept, right? Consciousness is an actual phenomenon.

So is wetness.

So there are actual, individual trees and then there is the concept of Tree. So there are actual, individual instances of consciousness and then the concept of Consciousness. So of course we can't objectively see the concept of "Tree" because its just a concept. But we can't objectively see consciousness, and it's not just a concept. The point I'm trying to make Ufology (and I think smcder too) is that by comparing consciousness to magnetic fields and wetness and other comparatively mundane things, you gloss over the profound mystery that is conscious awareness.

I've not glossed over anything. Rather, I've discussed specific facets of the subject within the parameters of the immediate discussion. If you would like to open up the discussion to include, "the profound mystery that is conscious awareness", then by all means, we can certainly entertain that. On that facet, I'd say that "profoundness" is a rather subjective thing, dependent on a particular context and worldview.

One might just as easily be of the view that because there are billions of people with consciousness and more being born every day, that consciousness is quite mundane, a daily occurrence that is mostly taken for granted, and why it exists is no more profound a question than why anything else exists. If that sounds like a "glossing over", you're entitled to that opinion. But then again, have you considered why anything else should exist? Before you answer that maybe check here: Existence (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It can't be objectively observed nor can its effects on physical matter be observed nor proved. Not only can we not explain how it exists, we can't even approach an explanation for why it exists!

A "why" question is answered with a "because" response, and one response to why consciousness exists is because it's useful in motivating behavior that contributes to the survival of our species. If it had no usefulness it would have gone by way of the tail, quadrupedalism, hairy knuckles, and extremely bushy eyebrows. Then again there's still a few throw-backs around with hairy knuckles and extremely bushy eyebrows, so perhaps some female members of our species still find them attractive.

 

[smcder]

How did bone/muscle evolve?

bone:gravity::brain:consciousness

eye:light::brain:cs

[/SIZE]

 

[smcder]

Assume determinism and that consciousness is produced by the actions of the brain ... then:

Big Bang .... particles> energy> forces>atoms> molecules>cells> organisms>brains, consciousness(experiences)

The causal chain starts with BB... do these arrows reverse at any point? If the experience of pleasure, which is a "brain product", motivates the organism, that means it induces a physcial change ...

So:

pleasure>brain(cells, molecules, atoms, forces) ... what do this reversal mean for billiard ball concepts of determinism? (bank shot!)

OR

Big Bang .... particles> energy> forces>atoms> molecules>cells> organisms>brains(consciousness/experiences) BUT

brains>cells ... etc ... only the physical changes in the brain have causality, experiences are epiphenomenal... the problem with dismissing overdetermination is that the physical changes in the brain are necessary and sufficient for the change in behavior which accounts for learning, motivation etc so we don't have to speak about pleasure.

Stimulus > brain response, physical changes in the brain account for learning and pleasure is just the subjective of dopamine squirts ... no overdetermination because the tree is only one cause and ome effect ... pleasure is not an effect its the subjective aspect of the physical changes



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[smcder]

Compare that to mental causation which says once subj experience is induced ... It takes on causal efficacy ... nerves firing produce pleasure and the qualities of that pleasure (not the nerves firing) feeds back down to cause a physical change ... free will then would have to say ... Hang on, let me draw this

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[smcder]

Epiphenomenalism



The brain produces cs which just floats "up there" in a causally impotent little cloud

 

[smcder]

Mental causation


Here the brain produces consciousness but that consciousness, a product of the brain, feeds back and affects the brain ... But does this make sense? How does such feedback happen and what would it add to the party? In a physicalist/determinist model a brain that had no experiences would behave exactly like one that didnt.

Physical changes in the brain cause a sense of pleasure which causes ... what? The physical changes are already happening (of which "pleasure" is a product or by product) so what does the pleasure do?

This is where overdeterminism comes in and emergence.

 

[smcder]

Now we have a more complicated relationship. Cs may not be caused by the brain ... or it may take on a life of its own ... a causal life ... What goes in from the brain gets processed in a way that can't be tied back directly, causally to the brain ... And what comes out of cs has efficacy... Affects the brain, changes its physical state.

What other possibilities are there?

 

[smcder]

@Soupie you can think of gravities effect on matter ... life as a complex set of processes responds to, takes advantage of, is shaped by gravity to form muscle/bone as a way to maintain structure and to move, by light to form eyes, sound ... Etc.

Then add consciousness to the list ... And We'll say "minds" not brains