How do YOU define consciousness?

[Randall]

Since we are on the subject of Bell's Theorem: Can someone explain why "spooky action at a distance" supposedly cannot be used as a form of communication at a distance? The explanation may lie somewhere in the deep recesses of my sodden brain. But I either do not recall it. Or more likely--I just plain did not understand it.

Experimental situations allow scientists to deduce which particles are entangled because they can make precise measurements based on sending and detecting both of them. However from the point of view of a lone receiver, say on Mars, because it has no way to detect and compare both particles, there is no way for the remote receiver to distinguish a paired particle from random noise.

Additionally, the practicality of such communication is still limited by the speed of light because in order for the remote receiver to detect the signal, it first has to travel the same distance to the receiver as it normally would. So the sender is just as far ahead to send a normal radio signal. At best, if some of the experiments we've seen where light is stored locally by being bounced around inside a latticework, the sender might be able to temporarily store one half of the paired signal and monitor it in such a way that when the other half was received at a distance, the corresponding change could be detected, amounting to a "message received" type of information. But that is still not really the same as real time two way communication. At least that's the way I understand it.

 

[boomerang]

Experimental situations allow scientists to deduce which particles are entangled because they can make precise measurements based on sending and detecting both of them. However from the point of view of a lone receiver, say on Mars, because it has no way to detect and compare both particles, there is no way for the remote receiver to distinguish a paired particle from random noise.

Additionally, the practicality of such communication is still limited by the speed of light because in order for the remote receiver to detect the signal, it first has to travel the same distance to the receiver as it normally would. So the sender is just as far ahead to send a normal radio signal. At best, if some of the experiments we've seen where light is bounced around inside a latticework, the sender might be able to temporarily store one half of the paired signal and monitor it in such a way that when the other half was received at a distance, the corresponding change could be detected, amounting to a "message received" type of information. But that is still not really the same as real time two way communication. At least that's the way I understand it.

ufology, Thanks for the info and explanation. Looks like no Subspace Communications as per Star Trek quite yet.

 

[Randall]

ufology, Thanks for the info and explanation. Looks like no Subspace Communications as per Star Trek quite yet.

What's interesting about quantum entanglement is that it implies that there is a sort of "subspace". In Simulism, this would be on the level of the computational engine responsible for generating this construct we call our Universe. Because everything we perceive is simultaneously ( or nearly so ) connected to the machine, it's also by logical extension simultaneously connected to each other. Therefore if a way could be found to directly exploit the program rather than being restricted to its basic built in rules, hypothetically instantaneous communication, transportation, manifestation of material, and other really useful strategies could be developed.

 

[boomerang]

What's interesting about quantum entanglement is that it implies that there is a sort of "subspace". In Simulism, this would be on the level of the computational engine responsible for generating this construct we call our Universe. Because everything we perceive is simultaneously ( or nearly so ) connected to the machine, it's also by logical extension simultaneously connected to each other. Therefore if a way could be found to directly exploit the program rather than being restricted to its basic built in rules, hypothetically instantaneous communication, transportation, manifestation of material, and other really useful strategies could be developed.

Very interesting ! Quantum entanglement would seem to imply that dimension is a function of some higher order of information processing. Perhaps it is only the modeling of reality taking place in our meat computer trapped in dimension that makes it seem the other way around.

 

[Randall]

Very interesting ! Quantum entanglement would seem to imply that dimension is a function of some higher order of information processing. Perhaps it is only the modeling of reality taking place in our meat computer trapped in dimension that makes it seem the other way around.

That's the basic idea. Reality ( including us ) is generated by the program, and we're intelligent independent agents inside, or to use a video game analogy, the AI characters. The big difference is that we have self-awareness and can question the nature of the realm itself, including asking whether or not there was any creator ( or player ). It is this possibility that led to my switch from thinking that a universe creator ( God ) was not possible, to thinking that it is possible after all. This is my third switch back to that opinion. If Simulism is true, then all manner of things, including miracles, resurrection, continuity of consciousness, and all kinds of paranormal stuff is possible. However we have to be careful not to go jumping off the end of the pier over it. Even if it is true, there are a lot of questions that remain, and plenty of reasons not to automatically assume that whatever flavor of deity we want to be in charge, is the one that is. For all we know the system could be on autopilot.

 

[Polterwurst]

Being a proponent of the paranormal, I probably should seize on quantum entanglement as the explanation for all kinds of spooky action. But I agree that without real proof, demonstrated in repeatable experiments and including at least higher organisms like rats or mice, the theories of Dr Hammeroff and others are nothing but speculation.

At the same time, it looks like the anti-quantum-skeptic argument that while spooky action at a distance may apply to subatomic particles, it has not much to do with higher systems and nothing at all with biological ones has been disproven.

Uncovering quantum secret in photosynthesis

In a book by Prof. Anton Zeilinger I have read about other experiments being done, but I didn't find anything substantial. So, the jury is still out I guess.

It's unfortunate that many of the wild theories out there have no problem at all to use quantum entanglement. The big bang theory says that all matter and energy was once concentrated in one singularity without space and time, so everything must be entangled somehow, right? Well, nice theory again, but how are you going to prove that?

To be perfectly honest, there are plenty of other things I should be getting done. What I need is to be banned for about 2 months so I can catch up.

LOL Man, don't I know that. I should have been off to work for about 5 minutes now but here I am typing this. It's addictive somehow.

 

[Muadib]

At the same time, it looks like the anti-quantum-skeptic argument that while spooky action at a distance may apply to subatomic particles, it has not much to do with higher systems and nothing at all with biological ones has been disproven.

Actually, it's part of the principal of quantum decoherence, which in part states that once you get enough quantum objects (subatomic particles) together, they start to behave in ways that are predicted by classical physics and no longer display the properties of quantum objects, which is why I said earlier in this thread that a human being is not a quantum object.

In quantum mechanics, quantum decoherence is the loss of coherence or ordering of the phase angles between the components of a system in a quantum superposition. One consequence of this dephasing is classical or probabilistically additive behavior. Quantum decoherence gives the appearance of wave function collapse (the reduction of the physical possibilities into a single possibility as seen by an observer) and justifies the framework and intuition of classical physics as an acceptable approximation: decoherence is the mechanism by which the classical limit emerges out of a quantum starting point and it determines the location of the quantum-classical boundary. Decoherence occurs when a system interacts with its environment in a thermodynamically irreversible way. This prevents different elements in the quantum superposition of the system+environment's wavefunction from interfering with each other. Decoherence has been a subject of active research since the 1980s.[1]

I admit that I didn't have time to read your link, so I don't know if this is addressed or not. If it is, allow me to apologize for wasting your time. I'll check that link out tomorrow, thanks for posting it.

 

[Polterwurst]

I admit that I didn't have time to read your link, so I don't know if this is addressed or not.

Erm...uhhhh... I would tell you if only I knew what language that paragraph was written in.
The word "coherence" is mentioned in the article, too, though, maybe that's ... something.

 

[TalkingMeatSuit]

Great thread! Wish I woulda seen it sooner. Certainly not surprised that it stirred the ol' debate between those who want to believe and those who ballyhoo anything can't be measured with a pair of calipers.

I kind of feel like consciousness is a distinct animated energy form of some sort, the self-aware electricity that runs our light bulbs / bodies. I do believe in a persistence of consciousness from my own experiences along with the view that we are energy, and energy cannot be destroyed.

If you lose a limb, your main body is still "you". You can lose or replace just about any part of the body and still live, still be "you". Heart, kidneys, limbs, even portions of your brain can get blown out and you'll still be "alive". So what physical piece of your body is "you"? I don't think you can live without a brain stem, so does that mean that you are simply a brain stem with a big mostly-water meatbag of organs and skin attached to it? Probably not.

Rather, I ask myself, who/what is the thing that is observing all this from behind my eyeballs? What is the voice talking in my head when I read a book? Who is it that is listening to that voice?

Speaking of observing, the Mars rover was pretty badass IMO, but giving a nuts and bolts object the ability to collect data about it's surroundings doesn't make it alive. Having a massive amount of knowledge / info doesn't make you alive either (unless google's servers are hiding out while they plan Skynet). Even if Ray Kurzweil somehow succeeded and converted all the data from his brain into 1's and 0's and stored it on a hard drive, it would still just be a hard drive filled with 1's and 0's.

I understand the "Magic of Reality", that yes, all the things we sense and "feel" are fueled by highly evolved low voltage biochemical processes within our brains and bodies. Despite this though, the strictly nuts and bolts answer fails to satisfy me. I'm not saying that Jesus created us 6,000 years ago and that evolution is a lie, nor do I have patience for people who keep their minds in such tiny boxes.

If you took all the pieces of a wind-up pocket watch, stuck them in a box, then shook that box and shocked it with electricity - how long would it take before you could open the box and there would be an assembled, ticking timepiece sitting in it? I think that living microscopic life (not amino acids in a petri dish) is far more complex than a pocketwatch. I loathe religion, but don't understand why the concept that some force spawned conscious beings at some point is so taboo.

Another opinion, since I'm giving them out for free today, is that we aren't evolved enough to fully understand it all yet. Maybe there are other stars with a few billion year head start on us, whose life has an intelligence evolved incomprehensibly beyond ours, that have better answers. Hell, all the quantum physics guys love talking about how there's actually 10 dimensions. I can barely understand all the weird crap that goes on in the 3 that I'm stuck in.

Damn I'm rambling a bunch of crap today.

 

[Randall]

I kind of feel like consciousness is a distinct animated energy form of some sort, the self-aware electricity that runs our light bulbs / bodies. I do believe in a persistence of consciousness from my own experiences along with the view that we are energy, and energy cannot be destroyed.

In the light bulb analogy the electricity is basically still electricity, or in the case of our bodies, electrochemical. Switching consciousness to the role of electricity just doesn't work out. However seeing consciousness as analogous to light does.

If you lose a limb, your main body is still "you". You can lose or replace just about any part of the body and still live, still be "you". Heart, kidneys, limbs, even portions of your brain can get blown out and you'll still be "alive". So what physical piece of your body is "you"? I don't think you can live without a brain stem, so does that mean that you are simply a brain stem with a big mostly-water meatbag of organs and skin attached to it? Probably not.

Actually, if you lose an arm you're no longer the exactly the same you that you were before. You're who you were, less one arm, and the more of you that is taken away the less of you there is, until after it's all gone, so are you. It's a harsh but inescapable truth.

Rather, I ask myself, who/what is the thing that is observing all this from behind my eyeballs? What is the voice talking in my head when I read a book? Who is it that is listening to that voice?

That's exactly the issue. What it is that you speak of above, is what the rest of you has given rise to by functioning the way it does. Using the light bulb analogy we might say that the light can reflect back upon the bulb that produced it resulting in a sort of feedback loop of illumination.

Speaking of observing, the Mars rover was pretty badass IMO, but giving a nuts and bolts object the ability to collect data about it's surroundings doesn't make it alive. Having a massive amount of knowledge / info doesn't make you alive either (unless google's servers are hiding out while they plan Skynet). Even if Ray Kurzweil somehow succeeded and converted all the data from his brain into 1's and 0's and stored it on a hard drive, it would still just be a hard drive filled with 1's and 0's.

It's a little more complex than that. Memory storage is only part of the model. The other main parts are sensory input and processing power. Our brains are basically just really powerful neuroprocessors with built-in operating protocols attached to memory and sensory systems.

I understand the "Magic of Reality", that yes, all the things we sense and "feel" are fueled by highly evolved low voltage biochemical processes within our brains and bodies. Despite this though, the strictly nuts and bolts answer fails to satisfy me. I'm not saying that Jesus created us 6,000 years ago and that evolution is a lie, nor do I have patience for people who keep their minds in such tiny boxes.

If you took all the pieces of a wind-up pocket watch, stuck them in a box, then shook that box and shocked it with electricity - how long would it take before you could open the box and there would be an assembled, ticking timepiece sitting in it? I think that living microscopic life (not amino acids in a petri dish) is far more complex than a pocketwatch. I loathe religion, but don't understand why the concept that some force spawned conscious beings at some point is so taboo.

Another opinion, since I'm giving them out for free today, is that we aren't evolved enough to fully understand it all yet. Maybe there are other stars with a few billion year head start on us, whose life has an intelligence evolved incomprehensibly beyond ours, that have better answers. Hell, all the quantum physics guys love talking about how there's actually 10 dimensions. I can barely understand all the weird crap that goes on in the 3 that I'm stuck in.

Damn I'm rambling a bunch of crap today.

A good ramble indeed. It started off my day very well ... thank you !

 

[Michael Allen]

I don't see how it's possible to eliminate all forms of dualism, including the basic concept behind Cartesian Dualism. Can you explain why you think it's wrong? Or is that just your opinion? If you're going to answer this. Please let's take it in small steps rather than posting huge walls of text or hours of videos. Basically, my view is that when one holds a particular image within their mind, no matter how closely one looks at a brain scan or the brain matter itself, all the way down to the atomic level if necessary, they will never be able to see that image. Yet the image exists, and therefore is separate from the material that gives rise to it. For dualism to be wrong, you have to reconcile this issue. How do you do that without violating logic and dismissing all the scientific evidence that the brain is responsible for producing such imagery?

I think its wrong because what you consider to be the "mental" or the "inside perspective" is an "illusion married to a futility." You wouldn't even have a "mental picture" or "image" without the world of reference that you dwell in. This is no real issue of causation unless you consider "mental" some kind of substance that is separate from "matter." Unfortunately both "mental" and "matter" are terms based on a failed metaphysics of "presence" which does not look at the background practices and non-cognitive modes of "existing." When you say "existence," what precisely are you referring to? Are you speaking of your feeling that something exists? --Or are you talking about the "objective" presence of a thing standing before you? And how on earth are you going to ask questions about a substance (self-sufficient supposedly) such as "mind" without the inter-worldly and physical dependencies for which your very mental substance stands? No, I think the "mental" and "physical" are modes of on unified existentiality. This unified existentiality includes mythic modalities such as "mental" and "physical" but these modalities are not the basis of being.

Its really hard to explain this in layman's terms--the best Zen koans probably do better justice to tearing down 1000s of years of our own cognitive superstition, but even that's saying too much.

"Get up and walk across the room....Now...where are your footsteps?"

"Without saying anything, show me WHO you are."

"Without referring to your skills, beliefs, occupation(s), or giving some story about where you came from (including stories about your ancestry), tell me who you are."

Don't consider this an attack on the "mental" -- I am not trying to say that you don't have feeling or think--I am just saying that there's no separate self-sufficient substance that is completely different from that which you have come to know as "objective" substance. My thinking is that they are aspects of the same being.

 

[Michael Allen]

Basically, my view is that when one holds a particular image within their mind, no matter how closely one looks at a brain scan or the brain matter itself, all the way down to the atomic level if necessary, they will never be able to see that image

This is certainly an interesting problem, but easily solved by letting everything in the universe the ability to think.

In fact, you could restate this by saying "you are the universe of matter seeing itself"

Or you could reformulate everything terms of the universe of "objects" encountering "us" (or we are the objects that encounter itself through other objects)

Another phrase: "Dasein (that being which makes its own being an issue to itself) is the world existingly" (Heidegger)

Another formulation (Late Sartre): "Man is mediated by things as much as things are mediated by man" (poor Sartre, still stuck in Cartesian metaphysics--still better than Being and Nothingness)

Alan Watts: "We are the universe playing hide and seek with itself"

 

[Michael Allen]

I am not even satisfied with my own answers to ufology's questions. So I am going to try again, because I think this subject has many pitfalls, traps and mines.

Lets make this really simple

(1) Everything that is "we" is already (unconsciously if you will--though I hate that word) determined before we even ask the question "who are we"
(2) This asking of the question "who are we?" stands in its own puddle of obscurities because we are already in a situation to ask.
(3) Thus we need to understand the question--or at least formulate a new question out of the ashes of the first, because we will be forever wandering blindly in the dark if we take "ourselves" as the unquestioned starting point of the investigation of our selves
(4) Thus we need to understand the "are" or the "is" of the question before asking
(5) This "is" and the "are" are either taken for granted ("everyone knows the definition of IS! C'mon--give me a break") or we say its "indefinable" and thus end the question with a thought-terminating cliche or slogan.
(6) Or we say that "is" and "are" is self-evident (but aren't we asking about the that of our selves--self-evidence in the eye of the beholding self? Something's not right because we are now asking)
(7) Or we will say that "is" and "are" are "meaningless" and therefore we can yet again end our inquiry with some kind of disquieting certitude.
(8) Something you probably forgot: this entire time I have assumed our common understanding of "I" and "we"
(9) Then we have to turn the question against itself ("why the why?") and claim some kind of sophistical glory.

Either way we are going to tear the question apart or ignore it before we even get around to understanding what we mean when we ask "what is being."

One way to answer is to give our "we" or "I" some fundamental basis on some kind of certitude ("I think therefore I am")
The problem of course is that the person making the statement knows cogito, but passes over sum (am-ness) like some kind of mental fart from the bowls of the cogito. Again, physicalizing the cogito is a perfect example of a grave misunderstanding of the question of being.

Now where's this stuff that makes up our minds laying about anyway? I can't find it. Certainly not as an objective presense or thing.

Student: "Master, my mind is troubled, I cannot pacify my mind"
Master: "Bring out your mind here! I will pacify it"
Student: "But master, when I look for my mind, I cannot find it"
Master: "There, its pacified."

 

[Randall]

I am not even satisfied with my own answers to ufology's questions. So I am going to try again, because I think this subject has many pitfalls, traps and mines. Lets make this really simple ...

Not that you haven't done some serious reflection on the issue, but your posts still don't do anything to eliminate dualism. Let's revisit a concrete example: When we imagine a red Ferrari, both our physical brain and the non-material image of the red Ferrari still persist. No matter how close we peer into the brain and all it's neurons, we'll never see a tiny little image of a red Ferrari in there. Yet it the image exists nonetheless. There is still no avoiding this duality between the material mind and the thought it produces. Explaining it by arbitrarily giving everything in the universe the ability to think doesn't solve anything even if it were true ( which obviously it's not ). On top of this, we can extend the physical side of reality all the way out to the driveway ( assuming we have one ), where perhaps a real red Ferrari might also be parked. Have you guessed that I've got a thing for red Ferraris? Unfortunately owning one still exists only within the realm of my imagination.

 

[Michael Allen]

When we imagine a red Ferrari, both our physical brain and the non-material image of the red Ferrari still persist. No matter how close we peer into the brain and all it's neurons, we'll never see a tiny little image of a red Ferrari in there. Yet it the image exists nonetheless.

Its almost like a bad joke--let me couch it in a spontaneous koan:

"Now, is this notion of duality which is self-evident merely a construct of your own thinking it so? Or is it self-evident to the rocks at your feet"

"Which mind do you wish for me to use to answer your question: the physical mind, or the mental mind?"

Well I see your point, but I feel that you are probably confusing the image of the red Ferrari (which is nice btw) with the actual mind that see's it. Can you say that the mind is its contents? Would it make sense to say the same about a cup of water? That the cup that holds the water is the same as the water? Our physical brain and the "non-material" image both are concepts that seem to be held inside this cup which remains hidden, unspoken, or forgotten. Can we say that we've answered the question regarding the "what" of a thinking being by referencing the map of externality or the coupling that exists between the bundles of neurons and the world.
Is the fire on the stick the stick or the flame--or both, or neither?

Imagination itself can't exist without the world of objective presence, however it is imagination that lays the foundation for the intelligibility of the same. This two-way coupling between our brain and the world is the world existingly. There no subject or object in mind, since mind likes to fit itself in the same ontological framework (like a bad SQL insert into a record that has more dimensions that itself!) . I am not disparaging the notion of the mode we call "mental" -- what I am saying is that it is not a substance--but a process that is inherently already there in the very becoming and being of the universe.

That means there's no "soul" separate from your own objective "becoming" and that your thinking is precisely the working out of the intricacies of the universe (much of which we do not understand--we don't even understand our own questions regarding the same) as a whole. There is no mind, no material--just existence. And it is this existence that we constantly question while at the same time taking its basis--existentiality or the foundation of existing--for granted.

One more koan...
You said:
Explaining it by arbitrarily giving everything in the universe the ability to think doesn't solve anything

Well you just gave me the explanation--here's a part of the universe telling me that giving the universe the ability to think doesn't solve anything. God of Fire comes for fire!

Ok another example (edit--adding quotes because it seemed rude when I read this later):

"Are you awake? Did you need to think to answer the question? Was that "you" awake before you answered it or after? Are you awake now?"

"In the morning when you wake up, what woke you--was that which woke you up also awake? How can something that is fundamentally not awake, wake up the sleeping?"

So the question of "arbitrarily assigning consciousness to the universe" here needs further elucidation and consideration. What I have said earlier is only as arbitrary as the thinking, speaking and writing "piece of the universe" writing these words is right now. What is arbitrary is the fact that we have consciousness, but 99.99999999...% of the processes which keep us going (heartbeat, cellular mitosis, sometimes breathing, sleeping, being hungry, driving to work half-asleep, growing fingernails, hair, skin, fixing and repairing wounds both internally and externally, firing individual neurons, etc...etc...etc) is all out of our immediate mental picture of the universe. All of these processes are a transparent (almost non-existent unless a breakdown occurs) layer that make you a thinking physical entity in the universe. This--I think--is the most devastating critique of dualism.

 

[Randall]

Its almost like a bad joke--let me couch it in a spontaneous koan:

"Now, is this notion of duality which is self-evident merely a construct of your own thinking it so? Or is it self-evident to the rocks at your feet"

"Which mind do you wish for me to use to answer your question: the physical mind, or the mental mind?"

There is no "physical mind" there is however a physical reality versus a mental reality, and it's the mental reality we call the mind.

Well I see your point, but I feel that you are probably confusing the image of the red Ferrari (which is nice btw) with the actual mind that see's it. Can you say that the mind is its contents? Would it make sense to say the same about a cup of water? That the cup that holds the water is the same as the water? Our physical brain and the "non-material" image both are concepts that seem to be held inside this cup which remains hidden, unspoken, or forgotten. Can we say that we've answered the question regarding the "what" of a thinking being by referencing the map of externality or the coupling that exists between the bundles of neurons and the world.
Is the fire on the stick the stick or the flame--or both, or neither?

I'm not confusing the issues as you've suggested. With respect to dualism as physical versus mental realities, the illustration is perfectly valid. However now you've kicked the conversation up a notch by adding in the issue of self awareness. Self awareness is what allows us to ask questions like ( to paraphrase ): "Is the image of the red Ferrari (which is nice btw) the same as the actual mind that see's it"? The answer is that the image alone is only part of the sum total of our mind, which also relies on real time analysis, which is another process that is facilitated by our functioning brains.

So while one part of the brain generates the image, there are other parts that do analysis. This requires a continuous loop of recall, analysis, rendering, and storage. Different parts of the brain are responsible for these processes, and they have been identified and studied for quite some time. Sometimes these processes take place in entirely different hemispheres, which is kind of like a like a dual core processor, leading to this odd sense of examining our imaginary Ferrari as though we're a separate observer. Quite literally, in a sense, we are, and yet we're also integrated, which makes each of us individuals.

Imagination itself can't exist without the world of objective presence, however it is imagination that lays the foundation for the intelligibility of the same. This two-way coupling between our brain and the world is the world existingly. There no subject or object in mind, since mind likes to fit itself in the same ontological framework (like a bad SQL insert into a record that has more dimensions that itself!) . I am not disparaging the notion of the mode we call "mental" -- what I am saying is that it is not a substance--but a process that is inherently already there in the very becoming and being of the universe.

I agree that our mental image of the red Ferrari is not made of an material substance, and I also agree that it's the product of a process. But I'd replace, "that is inherently already there in the very becoming and being of the universe." with: "that is the result of a normally functioning brain/body system".

That means there's no "soul" separate from your own objective "becoming" and that your thinking is precisely the working out of the intricacies of the universe (much of which we do not understand--we don't even understand our own questions regarding the same) as a whole. There is no mind, no material--just existence. And it is this existence that we constantly question while at the same time taking its basis--existentiality or the foundation of existing--for granted.

I think you've leapt outside the context of our discussion when you say, "There is no mind, no material--just existence." While, there seems to be little doubt that in the cosmic scheme of things we can look at the totality of existence as one unified state of being, that's way outside the bounds of the discussion on the duality of individual minds.

One more koan...
You said:
Explaining it by arbitrarily giving everything in the universe the ability to think doesn't solve anything

Well you just gave me the explanation--here's a part of the universe telling me that giving the universe the ability to think doesn't solve anything. God of Fire comes for fire!

Merging contexts to produce an absurd outcome is creative, but not accurate. Simply because we exist in the universe along with a rocks doesn't mean we're the same as rocks. It's entirely faulty reasoning.

Ok another example (edit--adding quotes because it seemed rude when I read this later):

"Are you awake? Did you need to think to answer the question? Was that "you" awake before you answered it or after? Are you awake now?"

"In the morning when you wake up, what woke you--was that which woke you up also awake? How can something that is fundamentally not awake, wake up the sleeping?"

So the question of "arbitrarily assigning consciousness to the universe" here needs further elucidation and consideration. What I have said earlier is only as arbitrary as the thinking, speaking and writing "piece of the universe" writing these words is right now. What is arbitrary is the fact that we have consciousness, but 99.99999999...% of the processes which keep us going (heartbeat, cellular mitosis, sometimes breathing, sleeping, being hungry, driving to work half-asleep, growing fingernails, hair, skin, fixing and repairing wounds both internally and externally, firing individual neurons, etc...etc...etc) is all out of our immediate mental picture of the universe. All of these processes are a transparent (almost non-existent unless a breakdown occurs) layer that make you a thinking physical entity in the universe.

Don't worry about using quotes or whatever. You don't need to walk on eggshells. I don't assume anyone's intent is rude or aggressive unless it's made plain. Besides, I probably come across as smug and opinionated to some people, and they'd probably be right to some extent, which is why I look forward to being humbled by those with more insight and knowledge than I. BTW, it's a valid observation that our consciousness only makes up a small part of our sum total as beings in the universe. Nevertheless, we're still conscious beings within the universe that made us and therefore it's we and other self aware beings that make the universe conscious of itself.

This--I think--is the most devastating critique of dualism.

Again, it's a merging of contexts to create the illusion of unity. Our imaginary image of the red Ferrari and our brain matter are still as separate as they were before.

 

[boomerang]

No matter how close we peer into the brain and all it's neurons, we'll never see a tiny little image of a red Ferrari in there.

Just as you will never perceive an image of a Red Ferrari on a holographic plate, or by reading off the pixel coordinates of a Ferrari pic.

 

[Randall]

Just as you will never perceive an image of a Red Ferrari on a holographic plate, or by reading off the pixel coordinates of a Ferrari pic.

Actually, I think holographic plates contain visible images, but looking at the binary readout of a digital image is a fairly good analogy.

 

[Michael Allen]

I don't think I've really stepped out of the bounds of the mind body dualism by introducing the question regarding the "who-or-what" we are talking about when we use the term. To ask it differently: is the duality of the mind and body an artifact of the mind, or of the physical world?

Again, it's a merging of contexts to create the illusion of unity. Our imaginary image of the red Ferrari and our brain matter are still as separate as they were before.

Ok no argument there--but you don't need a mind to create this separation of perspectives of the same unified thing. Sure, the code of a computer is separate from the activities the computer does when the code is run; the CD with pits and marks is physically different than the blasts of sound emerging from the speakers; the writing on this screen is different than the acoustic blasts that come out of my computer when it "reads it aloud." All of these things are different, but that does not imply some fundamental ontological division of the world into "minds" and "bodies."

Are you quite sure that when you are aware of the "duality" of the world you aren't just seeing your own mind breaking things into parts in order to effect its own comprehension? In fact, the brain matter is actually all you see--well brain matter looking at itself looking outside at the world looking at something else. What if you are simply confusing first- and third- person perspectives? Does a mere change in perspective mark some kind of significant ontic difference between mind and matter? One might interject that you've just proven that some form of matter can "see" itself from the outside while its doing its "thinking."

Reset. Again, we assume the basis of the red Ferrari's (the totality of equipment, people, relations, work, planning, etc.) existence prior to pointing out the difference between the image in our "heads" and the thing sitting in the driveway (not my driveway). But this difference is already built into the framework of our own question. Far from being separate, we are already in a world of familiar things we call cars and other objects that are red. Had you never seen "red" or even a Ferrari (or even a car) -- your image would be very different.

Reset. Again, we can talk aloud to ourselves about the "image" of the car "in our heads" -- but this very thought is already itself a separation from the actual phenomenon. Looking outside ourselves and taking a physical stance doesn't mean that we've discovered a different world of things that are fundamentally different than the "mental images" of the same. Everything we've been working on up to this point has been a reworking of concepts and images.

Fundamentally, the imagined "dualism" of the world is a product of a portion of the world thinking about some other portion of the world--or even of that same thinking about itself.

Rock := the idea of some other rock that thinks that other rocks cannot think

Again, you say rocks can't think. But rocks and thinking rocks (ourselves) seem to be encountering each other in the world. Ok so lets make this plain: people are made of "stuff"; rocks are made of "stuff" -- we are made of stuff that thinks about other stuff including its own stuff. Now that stuff sees other stuff that evidently is not part of another thinking stuff, and so it calls it "non-thinking stuff." The problem is that the "thinking stuff" doesn't know what 99.999999% of the non-thinking stuff in its own stuff is doing while saying this. But at the same time the thinking stuff says "of course my images of my own stuff is completely different than the stuff." While you are saying this, all the autonomic processes are working their magic to do your bidding. Same or different--you are speaking from stuff, about stuff...and making stuff up called "the mental."

 

[Michael Allen]

Adding some excerpts here from Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained as references for further discussion on this topic -- I may refer to them often in our continued discussions

3. THE ATTRACTIONS OF MIND STUFF
Let's see what happens when we take this undeniably tempting
route. First, I want you to perform a simple experiment. It involves
closing your eyes, imagining something, and then, once you have
formed your mental image and checked it out carefully, answering some
questions below. Do not read the questions until after you have followed
this instruction: when you close your eyes, imagine, in as much detail
as possible, a purple cow [don't read past this line].



[space here added]



Done? Now:
(1) Was your cow facing left or right or head on?
(2) Was she chewing her cud?
(3) Was her udder visible to you?
(4) Was she a relatively pale purple, or deep purple?

Just so we keep our definitions straight -- I couldn't help but noticing the inclusion of the world "idea" before the definition [bold not in original].

The idea of mind as distinct in this way from the brain, composed
not of ordinary matter but of some other, special kind of stuff, is dualism...
and it is deservedly in disrepute today. . .

The "how physical stuff causally interacts with mental stuff according to the laws of physics" problematic:

The conscious perception of the arrow occurs only after the brain has somehow transmitted its message to the mind, and the person's finger can point to the arrow only after the mind commands the body. How, precisely, does the information get transmitted from pineal gland to mind? Since we don't have the faintest idea (yet) what properties mind stuff has, we can't even guess (yet) how it might be affected by physical processes emanating somehow from the brain, so let's ignore those upbound signals for the time being, and concentrate on the return signals, the directives from mind to brain. These, ex hypothesi, are not physical; they are not light waves or sound waves or cosmic rays or streams of subatomic particles. No physical energy or mass is associated with them. How, then, do they get to make a difference to what happens in the brain cells they must affect, if the mind is to have any influence over the body? A fundamental principle of physics is that any change in the trajectory of any physical entity is an acceleration requiring the expenditure of energy, and where is this energy to come from? It is this principle of the conservation of energy that accounts for the physical impossibility of "perpetual motion machines," and the same principle is apparently violated by dualism. This confrontation between quite standard physics and dualism has been endlessly discussed since Descartes's own day, and is widely regarded as the inescapable and fatal flaw of dualism.

Just as one would expect, ingenious technical exemptions based on sophisticated readings of the relevant physics have been explored and expounded, but without attracting many conversions. Dualism's embarrassment here is really simpler than the citation of presumed laws of physics suggests. It is the same incoherence that children notice — but tolerate happily in fantasy — in such fare as Casper the Friendly Ghost (Figure 2.3, page 36). How can Casper both glide through walls
and grab a falling towel? How can mind stuff both elude all physical measurement and control the body? A ghost in the machine is of no help in our theories unless it is a ghost that can move things around — like a noisy poltergeist who can tip over a lamp or slam a door — but anything that can move a physical thing is itself a physical thing (although perhaps a strange and heretofore unstudied kind of physical thing).

The need for some kind of ontological enhancement of our current theories regarding the physical world (i.e. toward a better formulated physicalism)...

The ontology of a theory is the catalogue of things and types of things the theory deems to exist. The ontology of the physical sciences used to include "caloric" (the stuff heat was made of, in effect) and "the ether" (the stuff that pervaded space and was the medium of light vibrations in the same way air or water can be the medium of sound vibrations). These things are no longer taken seriously, while neutrinos and antimatter and black holes are now included in the standard scientific ontology. Perhaps some basic enlargement of the ontology of the physical sciences is called for in order to account for the phenomena of consciousness.