How did consciousness manifest?

[valich]

We seem to be diving off into the realm of science fiction and pure wild speculation here. I think the theory that our neurons developed to the extent that their computational analyses started to turn inward was on the right track. We should look at the consciousness ability in other animals to study a progression in species.

No, genes do not have a memory. Memory comes from the computational abilities of neurons to form ingrained solidified connected channels. That's why repitition leads to greater memory of what you need to know: say if you're studying for a test or something. When you repeat what you need to know over and over again, you're using the same neuron channels again and again and developing a solidified pathway. Got it? Now develop on that fact from there to get at consciousness. See what I mean? It's the connected neuron activity that develops greater and greater channels and an inward encumbrance, so to speak, of the existing channels that begin to encompass the surrounding activity to make a coherent sense out of it all. That's consciousness.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

ToR, can we start this discussion all over again? I think you ask wonderful quesitons, that can lead to brilliant conversations, but they just get derailed so quickly for some reason.

People are not interested in the basics. They think they can start learning to swim by diving into the deep end.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

You cannot understand anything in science without knowing the basis. Otherwise you are just acting like a monkey on a typewriter. Maybe you get lucky once in a zillion years and produce 'on the origin of species'.

You do not understand the basic principles of evolution as you have demonstrated over and over (and has been pointed out over and over) despite having done 'a course' and 'read' books on it.

What would be the most logical action be? Try to understand the basics?

Apparently not.

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

You cannot understand anything in science without knowing the basis. Otherwise you are just acting like a monkey on a typewriter. Maybe you get lucky once in a zillion years and produce 'on the origin of species'.

You do not understand the basic principles of evolution as you have demonstrated over and over (and has been pointed out over and over) despite having done 'a course' and 'read' books on it.

What would be the most logical action be? Try to understand the basics?

Apparently not.

Why don't you take a course on communication, social skills, how about reading the book 'how to win friends and influence people' you are an unhelpful small minded bitter individual. I have NEVER seen you demonstrate your alleged knowledge, you just allege to having it BUT never actually contribute anything to demonstrate that fact. Thus I do not value your opinion and thus you are full of shit.


You cease to exist as far as I am concerned, talk to yourself.

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

No, genes do not have a memory. .

maybe you misunderstood the type of memory I refferred to, I don't mean conscious memory but the memory of our evolution on a genetic level.


from web
"Through evolution, our genes carry important information to be remembered for survival. Our instincts are also part of memory, a memory passed on to us at birth. This genetic information is passed down through our DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). "

 

[spuriousmonkey]

I have NEVER seen you demonstrate your alleged knowledge, you just allege to having it BUT never actually contribute anything to demonstrate that fact. Thus I do not value your opinion and thus you are full of shit.

The mysterious ways in which your god works. You see the hand of god in everything, but you cannot see knowledge being entered in this forum by little me.

Oh bless you god of gods. You have performed another miracle!

 

[spuriousmonkey]

However, if the demonstration was there she would be in question?!

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Since the demonstration can never be shown (subjective truth) must we assume that neither she or I exist?

 

[spuriousmonkey]

What a bunch of rats bollocks then (meta-science).

 

[TimeTraveler]

Valich
No, genes do not have a memory. Memory comes from the computational abilities of neurons to form ingrained solidified connected channels. That's why repitition leads to greater memory of what you need to know: say if you're studying for a test or something. When you repeat what you need to know over and over again, you're using the same neuron channels again and again and developing a solidified pathway. Got it? Now develop on that fact from there to get at consciousness. See what I mean? It's the connected neuron activity that develops greater and greater channels and an inward encumbrance, so to speak, of the existing channels that begin to encompass the surrounding activity to make a coherent sense out of it all. That's consciousness.

Valich, according to your logic, robots have consciousness too right? We have neural network AI, we have genetic algorithms, we have machines with more power than our brains and greater memory. Tell me why these machines are not self aware. If it's simply mechanical engineering, we should be able to build consciousness. If it's all physical, the robot should be self aware, and if it's not then something is wrong with the logic of your theory that consciousness is completely based in the physical. I don't think so because, your consciousness itself is altered by your ability to see, hear, feel, your senses are what creates your concept of self awareness and what I'm saying is the brain is simply a reciever which recieves signals. The CPU in a computer can recieve signals but until I see a computer say "I think therefore I am", I'm not convinced it's consciously self aware. What we are doing with computer is, we are putting OUR consciousness and OUR self awareness into these new machines, which are not really very different from our bodies, perhaps not yet as sophisticated. If it hard to believe that if we can do this with machines, that the entire universe could have been built in this way? If we can do it now as humans, how do you know we did not create ourselves if we can currently upgrade and create new bodies at will? You seem like you want to worship the body and not the mind or the soul. Is your body your God?



It's not that I do not understand the theory of evolution, or science, it's simply that I think science only explains things which our eyes see, our hands touch, and our ears hear, and because of these limitations, science itself is based on perception and the level of consciousness of the scientist. (if you have a lower consciousness)A blind scientist could not study photons, and a deaf scientist cannot study sound, but if the math and the philosophy are both there saying that these higher dimensions exist, can you simply ignore it?

(if you have a higher consciousness)
The math says there are more than 4 dimensions. If there are higher dimensions, it would explain consciousness. I'm not a math expert, and I'm sure you'll be able to say that string theory is not proven, and that it's all math speculation, so ultimately you'll believe it when you see it.

Personally I'm with Einstien, who said "God does not play dice".
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html

 

[swivel]

Personally I'm with Einstien, who said "God does not play dice".
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html

That is always taken out of context. Einstein was being poetical regarding his doubt that quantum mechanics explained the true nature of the universe. Einstein was not, contrary to some legends, a superstitious or religious man.


When you say that "Math says there are more than 4 dimensions", you lose me. There is no such thing as a single system of "Math". That is a very loaded word. Sure, there are some mathematicians that believe in extra dimensions, and there are some equations that handle them, but I could equally say that, "Math says there is only 3 dimensions", and I would correct. Especially if I was referring to Euclid's "Elements".

Right now, higher dimensions are as much conjecture as any diety, so appealing to them for your genesis of "consciousness" gives you no more explanatory power as any other superstition. You can't just try and adopt the language of science for your faith, and hope that you are making it more "real" somehow. You have to pick an epistemological and ontological system, and abide by its rules. Semantics doesn't allow you to "borrow" the surety of the scientific method, and inject it into the intellectual laziness of the superstitous method.

With all respect.

 

[TimeTraveler]

That is always taken out of context. Einstein was being poetical regarding his doubt that quantum mechanics explained the true nature of the universe. Einstein was not, contrary to some legends, a superstitious or religious man.


When you say that "Math says there are more than 4 dimensions", you lose me. There is no such thing as a single system of "Math". That is a very loaded word. Sure, there are some mathematicians that believe in extra dimensions, and there are some equations that handle them, but I could equally say that, "Math says there is only 3 dimensions", and I would correct. Especially if I was referring to Euclid's "Elements".

Right now, higher dimensions are as much conjecture as any diety, so appealing to them for your genesis of "consciousness" gives you no more explanatory power as any other superstition. You can't just try and adopt the language of science for your faith, and hope that you are making it more "real" somehow. You have to pick an epistemological and ontological system, and abide by its rules. Semantics doesn't allow you to "borrow" the surety of the scientific method, and inject it into the intellectual laziness of the superstitous method.

With all respect.

That is always taken out of context. Einstein was being poetical regarding his doubt that quantum mechanics explained the true nature of the universe. Einstein was not, contrary to some legends, a superstitious or religious man.

Ok here are some quotes directly from Einstien, this forum can be the judge.

1. The meaning of life

I was impressed by the earnestness of your struggle to find a purpose for the life of the individual and of mankind as a whole. In my opinion there can be no reasonable answer if the question is put this way.

f we speak of the purpose and goal of an action we mean simply the question: which kind of desire should we fulfill by the action or its consequences or which undesired consequences should be prevented? We can, of course, also speak in a clear way of the goal of an action from the standpoint of a community to which the individual belongs. In such cases the goal of the action has also to do at least indirectly with fulfillment of desires of the individuals which constitute a society.

If you ask for the purpose or goal of society as a whole or of an individual taken as a whole the question loses its meaning. This is, of course, even more so if you ask the purpose or meaning of nature in general. For in those cases it seems quite arbitrary if not unreasonable to assume somebody whose desires are connected with the happenings.

Nevertheless we all feel that it is indeed very reasonable and important to ask ourselves how we should try to conduct our lives. The answer is, in my opinion: satisfaction of the desires and needs of all, as far as this can be achieved, and achievement of harmony and beauty in the human relationships. This presupposes a good deal of conscious thought and of self-education.

It is undeniable that the enlightened Greeks and the old Oriental sages had achieved a higher level in this all-important field than what is alive in our schools and universities.

2. Consciousness

I believe the mind is immortal in the same sense as the body for it is difficult to doubt that the capacity to build living bodies and consciousness is connected with matter. But I see no justification to extend personality beyond the span of life of the individual. (Goldman sees a change in tone between this quotation and the preceding one; but I find each quotation consistent with the other. - ed.)

3. God

I want to know how God created the this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.

http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/

Einstien may not have been religious, but he certainly was no athiest. If he was an athiest by his own words, he came to the same conclusions about the universe as spiritualists. Einstien just decided to focus on physics, he did seem to have a lot of knowledge and theories on many other topics which we should at least consider. It just proves you can be a great scientist while also being open minded enough to believe in God or the likelyhood of a God existing.

The purpose of science, can either be for the sake of science, or for the better of mankind. The purpose of science is either to improve quality of life, or to improve quality of science. The science of relationships, cause and effect, interaction, and perception are some of the most important sciences we have.

These elements are what put our science into a perspective so scientists and people actually know where they are going and what they are doing. Just building science for the sake of science, with no context, perspective, or consciousness of what you are building, is why almost every scientific discovery is turned into a weapon. We build, but we build for the sake of building. Those who built the internet may have indeed been spiritual scientists, who believed in the idea of a noosphere, and the internet was the global test of the hive consciousness. It seems to have worked, as all of our lives have improved because of this invention. Peer to peer networking, open source, the whole transhumanist set of ideas actually do fuel a lot of the most innovative leaps in science we have had, simply because when you view the world from a unique perspective, the science you invent is also from that unique perspective.

 

[swivel]

More Quotes from Einstein (so people can judge fairly)

If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. It has not done so up to now.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God.

The following is one of the best things ever said about superstition by anyone:

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer become his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task...

Please note, in the following, that it is "IN THIS SENSE ALONE" that he is deeply religious. He is describing the awe that comes from contemplating the vastness of the universe, the marvel of mathematical ideas, and the oddness of quantum theory:

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

I think your opinion of Einstein's superstition crumbles with any of these, but especially this one:

You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religiosity of the naive man. For the latter, God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands, so to speak, in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe.
But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation... There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection... It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.

I appreciate you trying to gain some validity for your superstitions by thowing out the name of the most famous, but certainly not the brightest, brain in human history. But you are only doing so with selective reading, and therefore are misrepresenting the opinions of a man far too dead to defend himself. I plead with you to never do this again, it is a grave insult to the honor of a wonderful (if not as smart as commonly believed) man.


http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/ <- the definitive collection

 

[TimeTraveler]

Nothing you have posted about Einstien proves that Einstien and I disagree on the nature of consciousness. So Einstien does not agree with the theology version of God in one paragraph yet he praises the Greeks and Oriental sages in the next. The point is that he knows that without philosophy, there can be no science. That is the main point I was trying to make.

I never said people had to accept my God as their kind of God, I never said that God was seperate from us, or that seperation is even real. Seperation might just be a 3rd dimensional limitation, and in the 4th dimension we might all be one being. The 4th dimesion acording to Einstien was time/change/movement. All that influence the 4th dimension, are one. That is what I'm saying, I'm saying we are the controllers and the universe is ours to control, because we exist in the 4th dimension, the 3rd dimension, the 2nd dimension and the 1s atomic dimension, and what we have discovered is that the atomic dimension isn't real, it's a holographic dimension, and in the holographic dimension we have discovered that not only is everything connected, but there is no such thing as distance or seperateness.

If there is nothing seperate on the atomic scale, and this would explain quantum entanglement and the functions of holographic memory, is it too much of a stretch to believe that the 3rd dimension (matter) may also be an illusion?
The formula is, Bekenstein bound

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound

I'm not trying to use pseudo-science either because holograms, you can go to a lab and see one. Quantum entanglement is real, and we can debate why it happens, but the only the facts are the facts. Unless you have a better theory than mine as to why everyone is connected and everything is one, how can you say what is real and what isnt?

Here is a Google Video on the holographic nature of the universe.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4232897377629019446

Basically matter is not real, it's just energy, there is no such thing as "seperation" or "distance".

http://www.joot.com/dave/writings/articles/entanglement/
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/holo/

I'm trying not to sound crazy, but please argue the science with me. Please show me with science that matter is "real".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4232897377629019446
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~noelh/Holographic_universe.htm

 

[swivel]

Unless you have a better theory than mine as to why everyone is connected and everything is one, how can you say what is real and what isnt?

I don't have a theory that everyone is connected, and everyone is one, because we aren't. You would first have to offer some sort of evidence that these things are true before I would need to conjure up an explanation for them.

Why in the world do you think we are all connected? And what would that mean, precisely?

Do you think we are something special, and apart from the rest of the animal kingdom?

You have me extremely curious about your beliefs, and how you came to them.


And there is such thing as separation and distance. Entanglement doesn't say there isn't. If you read that someone has entanglement, or Bell's Theorem figured out... they are pulling your leg. Nobody understands either one yet. But that doesn't give us license to make something up that slots neatly into our preconceived superstitions.

 

[TimeTraveler]

I'll explain,

All connected means that life is one organism broken up into different parts due to the nature of the material 3rd dimensional world. In death the energy lives on and passes multi-dimensionally, there is even dark matter which we don't know what it is, and anti-matter. We are even connected to that, just in a way which our perceptions is not capable of seeing. Yet we know the energy is real.

I say we are all connected because everything you do, influences everything else in the universe. Matter is liquid, like water. You are energy because matter is energy, when you do something you are simply changing the configuration of energy in the universe. (This is like making waves in a pond.) Everything you do, every thought you have, every second, you are influecing everything else in the universe. I say there is no seperation because at the core, if we assume the hypothesis is true and that matter is simply a hologram and just real in our brains, the universe is actually energy and forces which we simply do not have the capability to percieve with our physical bodies.

Quantum entanglement has proven that teleportation is possible. If you can teleport something, or do atomic teleportation of objects, this proves there is no such thing as distance.

http://travel.howstuffworks.com/teleportation.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3811785.stm
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~qoptics/teleport.html


Our math and science has shown us that just because we cannot percieve something, does not mean it is not real, and that just because we percieve something does not make it the underlying reality.

The science of perception is under developed, the video I posted from Google, discusses perception, and if you can ignore the obviously biased Islamist religious slant, the main portion makes sense. The brain itself is simply a reciever of information, when you look at something the light itself actually never enters your brain, it is just energy from the object. When you talk to someone and you hear their voice, it's their kinetic energy. We are simply energy beings, and we don't really have a good concept of what reality is because we focus on the material end of things.

You and I are connected, we can communicate with each other and influence each other, as we also influence the eco-system, evolution, and forces unseen that we may not even know exist yet. This is cause and effect, energy (you,me,and everything with the ability to have consciousness), was created during the big bang according to our current science, and the energy of the big bang created matter meaning in all likelyhood, energy existed before matter and is another dimension completely, either higher or lower, I don' t have enough knowledge to know, but I know that energy never dies, it just changes. Nothing you do ever goes away, every single action you ever did is stored in the universe forever because your energy flows through all matter in the universe, just as light does, and sound does. As far as we know there is no way ot destroy it, it simply can be transfered into different states, like heat, cold, or fast, slow, or different densities etc.

The brain runs on electricity, and this is a fact. The computer also runs on electricity and that is a fact. You get your energy from eating food, which gets its energy from the sun. You get your water, and food and thats your fuel for your brain, which then goes on trying to figure out how to get more water and food. The brain is so efficient that you have enough time to solve the universe, but it does not change the fact that energy is recycled, therefore time does not really exist except for material organisms. Matter seems to be constantly created as well by energy, so matter is recycled too. Consciousness is the center of it all.

I do not think humans are anything special, it's more of a situation of consciousness being the most special and only thing in the universe, the reality of the universe. Matter only exists because of perception but a blind person still can have consciousness even if they can't see, and it might be limited but it's there. All animals have consciousness, and the more self awareness and perception ability you have the higher your consciousness.

I have too many beliefs to go into details, but the majority are based on science, and you can call it pseudo-science, but science does not fill the void as to what we are and why we exist. Science from a lot of athiest treats us as if we are the void, just accidents of the universe, and are no different from the machine you are typing into on your desktop. I say we can fill the void.

If you want to discuss philosophy and metaphysics we should start another thread. I'm not trying to get into a religious or philosophy debate, I just wanted to show that there is no objective reality and that science is just an attempt to make sense of what we percieve to be real.

 

[swivel]

Yeah, we would need another thread. Perhaps you should start one called "Timetraveler's Philosophy".

We would have to go very slowly, though. You throw so many things out all at once, that I don't even know where to begin commenting or asking questions. And as soon as conversations turn into posts where each line is quoted and replied to, my brain turns off. I need to be able to digest an entire post, and reply in kind.

I hope to join you in that new thread, I think you and I could have some wonderful conversations. And when your understanding of reality comes up in future posts, you can always direct them over to that thread. But let's really try to stay concise. Let's start with a single one of your premises or ideas, and examine it to exhaustion, before moving on. I fear I could drown in the originality of your ideas.

 

[TimeTraveler]

Swivel, you create the thread, and I'll comment in it. I don't really want to, make a thread of myself, I'm not that self centered to do that. I made a thread on reality and perception, if you start a version of that thread in the philosophy section of this site, we can take the discussion there.

 

[swivel]

Swivel, you create the thread, and I'll comment in it. I don't really want to, make a thread of myself, I'm not that self centered to do that. I made a thread on reality and perception, if you start a version of that thread in the philosophy section of this site, we can take the discussion there.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1122620#post1122620

My first post is a bit wordy, but let's go back and forth with nice, concise answers, almost like a conversation. It should improve the readability, and help me understand how you came to your philosophical conclusions.

And I am in no hurry, I don't care if the conversation is played out as slowly as a game of mail-chess, so don't feel any pressure to keep the flow going, or to even participate at all. It is all for my own edification anyway.

 

[valich]

Precisely.

Consciousness is the very base of it all, so because you fail to understand it, the rest is crap.

--- Ron.

Do NOT even suggest that Spurious "fails to understand" the basics or the base, or whatever you are trying to say. Your post is misleading, unsubstantiated and argumentary.

Asside, I am saying that I agree with the first scientific analyses that I forwarded and posted (reread), that the encompassing neuron networks "turn inward." This seems to me to be a very reasonable and understandable basis of consciousness and I have not read any posts that suggest anything better.