the christian soul...

[lightgigantic]

Sarkus

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
I think grover established how it was detectable - but it is not detectable by empirical standards - for instance when you say hello to someone, which part of the body do you say it to (the nose, the eye brow, the bellybutton?)
”
You say it to the entirety - much as when you see a football match you watch the entirety - not the grass, not the posts, not the players individually.

how about when you use the phone?

“
Originally Posted by LG
with a football match you can break it down to its constituent parts and reassemble them to form a "football match" - if you could do the same in regards to consciousness your argument wouldn't be flawed
”
Ah yes - your God of the Gaps.
"We can't do it yet - so it must be God".

Pathetic argument on your part.

Its not clear how we moved on to god???

You were saying consciousness is like a football game because it can be broken down into constituent parts and I challenged that you cannot actually do that with consciousness

- this has nothing to do with god

“
Originally Posted by LG
...perhaps I am not getting your point, but isn't the property of height something like centimetres,and isn't the property of temperature degrees celcius?
”
LOL!
No.
Centimetres, Celcius etc are merely the units of measurement of the property.
They, themselves, are not properties.

But good try.

and doesn't the units of measurement indicate the property?
like for instance if I tell you it is minus 40 degrees at the beach doesn't it suggest that the property of the beach is "coldness"

 

[lightgigantic]

When you post nothing but the conclusion as the argument, and rely on the strength of the person's authority - that is the classic APPEAL TO AUTHORITY.

Look at it.
Understand it.
Learn from it.

so you disagree with the body of evidence these researchers have behind them that points to the difficulty of seeing what we are seeing with?

or do you mean that we should just chuck it all out the window and play cat and mouse for a couple of hundred posts until you give up the game of alluding to some body of empirical work that establishes the material constituent parts of consciousness?

if you were to look at their work you too could understand it and learn from it

 

[Sarkus]

how about when you use the phone?

I am still speaking to the entirety. I might not be able to visually see them - but that is who I am speaking to - their entirety. How that entirety chooses to manifest itself through technological medium is irrelevant.

Its not clear how we moved on to god???

"God of the Gaps" is a metaphor - not a literalism - which alludes to the fact that you seem to paste over the current lack of understanding of the brain / biology etc with the "soul" / "consciousness" or whatever else you want to call it.

This "consciousness is an immaterial thing blah blah blah" is your "God of the Gaps" with respect to biology / life.

and doesn't the units of measurement indicate the property?
like for instance if I tell you it is minus 40 degrees at the beach doesn't it suggest that the property of the beach is "coldness"

Are you being serious with this question or do you truly fail to see how ridiculous you are being?

When you say "it is -40 degrees" you are actually saying "The temperature is -40 degrees".

The fact that we omit the actual property, and that the property is implied by the unit of measurement, is just a matter of simplifying the language without distorting the meaning!
It does not mean that the "-40 degrees" is the property, but a measurement of the property!

And as for the the property of the beach is "coldness"?? The coldness is an interpretation of the property. The property is the temperature - the interpretation is "that means cold".

If I said I had built something that was 30cm tall - would you say that was tall or short, or about right?
You couldn't say - for if I was building a house to live in it would be short. If I had built a mug for my coffee that would be tall.

 

[lightgigantic]

I am still speaking to the entirety. I might not be able to visually see them - but that is who I am speaking to - their entirety. How that entirety chooses to manifest itself through technological medium is irrelevant.

not really, because you can't perceive their entirety

"God of the Gaps" is a metaphor - not a literalism - which alludes to the fact that you seem to paste over the current lack of understanding of the brain / biology etc with the "soul" / "consciousness" or whatever else you want to call it.

therefore I challenged you to establish what are the constituent parts of consciousness that can be reassembled to produce consciousness

This "consciousness is an immaterial thing blah blah blah" is your "God of the Gaps" with respect to biology / life.

to which you side tracked by talking about god/ the soul or something and are quickly moving into new horizons of properties/qualities, but it snot clear why
.
Its a straight forward request - you allude to their being a means to reduce consciousness to its base elements - i am asking to say exactly what those elements are and also show how consciousness can be established by reassembling those elements

 

[Sarkus]

Its a straight forward request - you allude to their being a means to reduce consciousness to its base elements - i am asking to say exactly what those elements are and also show how consciousness can be established by reassembling those elements

WE DO NOT YET UNDERSTAND THE WORKINGS OF LIFE, OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND A GAZILLION OTHER THINGS, AND ARE CURRENTLY UNABLE TO DO WHAT YOU ASK.

My conclusion: This is just science - and we will continue to strive toward an understanding. And we might just never be able fully understand. Until that time we will go with current theories until such time as they are proven inaccurate or wrong, and then we will work with the new information and create new theories.

Your conclusion: God of the Gaps. "If we don't yet know, and if we can't do it now - it must be immaterial and be beyond what is posible with the material world alone." (or words to that effect).

 

[grover]

Sarkus-
You said: "Consciousness is not an "immaterial thing" but a (emergent) property of the complexity of our brains.

Immaterial / Material are properties of "things".
But properties do not themselves have properties.

If you think they do, please tell me the temperature of height, or the width of strength."

You are saying here that consciousness is like other properties like height. The thing is is that other properties can be measured. Consciousness cannot be measured, so it is you not me, that seems to have some sort of fundamental misunderstandong of the nature of the phenomenon we are talking about.

WE DO NOT YET UNDERSTAND THE WORKINGS OF LIFE, OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND A GAZILLION OTHER THINGS, AND ARE CURRENTLY UNABLE TO DO WHAT YOU ASK.

My conclusion: This is just science - and we will continue to strive toward an understanding. And we might just never be able fully understand. Until that time we will go with current theories until such time as they are proven inaccurate or wrong, and then we will work with the new information and create new theories.

Your conclusion: God of the Gaps. "If we don't yet know, and if we can't do it now - it must be immaterial and be beyond what is posible with the material world alone." (or words to that effect).

Your real conclusion: You say we will go with the "current theories." That's the whole thing: there are no current scientific theories on consciousness, because a theory used in the scientific method of the word means that tests have been performed that prove a hypothesis to be true. NO tests have been performed, not a single one. So it is really you that has the "god of the gaps" problem because you are in essence stating consciousness must be physical because Scientific materialist dogma states that only material exists.

My real conclusion: Consciousness is immaterial, we know this because it is directly observable by each individual that his or her consciousness is immaterial. By the way, if science someday proves that consciousness is physical I will believe it, but currently there is no science backing up the claim, no tests have been done or can currently be done, and no one currently has an idea even how to go about doing any tests. Observation is however a legitmate means of knowledge and by my observation consciousness is immaterial.

 

[Sarkus]

You are saying here that consciousness is like other properties like height. The thing is is that other properties can be measured. Consciousness cannot be measured,....

That is just you applying your understanding of the term exclusive to "measurable property".
Property = characteristic.

And even if I use your understanding, if consciousness can not be measured - then how do we know it is there?
The fact that, unlike your other properties, it is purely binary in nature, means that we do not have, nor need, units. It is either present, or it is not.
Or are you expecting there to be scales of consciouness?

Your real conclusion: You say we will go with the "current theories." That's the whole thing: there are no current scientific theories on consciousness, because a theory used in the scientific method of the word means that tests have been performed that prove a hypothesis to be true. NO tests have been performed, not a single one.

Excuse me????

The same test is performed every time you die, or every time someone has damage to their brain.

Remove brain - no consciousness.
Damage brain - damage consciousness.

No tests?? Good one.

So it is really you that has the "god of the gaps" problem because you are in essence stating consciousness must be physical because Scientific materialist dogma states that only material exists.

Where to start on this...
1. I am not saying consciousness is physical - I am saying it is a property of the physical. Have you ever seen a property that is physical? Please provide me with a lump of height. Please. Go on. To that extent, consciousness is not material - because a property does not, itself, have properties.

2. Scientific dogma? Please provide evidence of something that is non-material that actually exists. Until you can, I will happily go with everything being explainable by the physical.

My real conclusion: Consciousness is immaterial...

The same way that height is immaterial. Not the thing that has the height - but "height" itself.

...we know this because it is directly observable by each individual that his or her consciousness is immaterial.

You are not observing consciousness but the multitude of interactions within the brain and, more importantly, the outward manifestations of those interactions, that we group together and assign the property of CONSCIOUSNESS.

If you can directly observe something then, by definition, IT IS NOT IMMATERIAL - but entirely physical and thus measurable and MATERIAL.

So in this same sentence you are claiming the direct observance (material) of the immaterial. You do realise the absurdity of what you are saying, I hope?

By the way, if science someday proves that consciousness is physical I will believe it

Consciousness is a PROPERTY! It is no more material than it is immaterial because those words are meaningless with respect to consciousness.

...but currently there is no science backing up the claim, no tests have been done or can currently be done, and no one currently has an idea even how to go about doing any tests.

Remove brain = removal of consciousness.
To me that is a reasonable test.
It is entirely repeatable with the same results each time, I'll wager.
And Occam's Razor would dictate that the simplest and most reasonable explanation is that consciousness is nothing more than a property of the complex nature of interactions within the brain.

But please, prove me wrong.
Please provide me with ONE piece of evidence to support an alternative.

Observation is however a legitmate means of knowledge and by my observation consciousness is immaterial.

But your conclusions are fallacious for the simple fact that you fail to realise that immaterial things CAN NOT BE OBSERVED - or they would not be immaterial.

Everything you think you observe is PHYSICAL in nature.
You observe a person, standing before you. He has the characteristic / property of consciousness, but your observations are purely of the physical.

Otherwise, please tell me how this immaterial interacts with your senses.

IT DOESN'T.

Your brain picks up on the purely physical elements that you observe, processes the inputs and assigns to the totality of your observation the characteristic of CONSCIOUSNESS. But at no point to you directly observe Consciousness.

 

[grover]

-If you can't directly observe your consciousness then you must not be conscious. Are you fucking with me?
-Death and consciousnss. That's exactly what we are talking about, many people claim to be conscious after death.
-Proof of something not physical that exists: Magnetism, electricity, energy, consciousness.
-Why do you keep comparing height and consciousness?
-You claim consciousness is measurable? What units do we use to measure it?
-But bottom line, this whole conversation is pointless if you can't acknowledge the simple fact that consciousness is directly observable. And by occams razor-it appears to be immaterial and therefore is as opposed to you making ASSUMPTIONS about vague "complex" interactions within the brain. That's my exact question - what are the precise ineractions within the brain that give rise to consciousness? Everything you are saying is mere assumption.
-You claim consciousness is binary. Yet you also claim that it is the result of complex interactions within the brain. So from an evolutionary perspective brains become more and more complex but consciousness is an either or phenomenon? Please explain wy at some point in complexity consciousness arises and what the mechanism is. You're saying that an unconscious being at one point gave birth to a conscious being? This would have to be the case since according to you it is an either or phenomenon that is the paradoxical "emergent phenomenon" of "complex" interactions.

 

[superluminal]

The smell of semantic vomit here is overwhelming.

LG, Consciousness can be broken down into components, just like a football game:

- General Awareness
- Self awareness
- Conscious processes
- Subconscious processes
- Memory
- Imagination
- etc.

I'm sure I've missed a few. The point is that consciousness as the sum of these is an emergent phenomena (look it up) composed of the interactions of all of these components.

Just as the emergent phenomena of a football game is emergent from:

- Quaterbacks
- Line backs
- Yard lines
- footballs
- penalties
- etc.

So, as usual, your arguments are mere vapor and consciousness remains an expression of purely physically interacting processes.

 

[nds1]

Animals are conscious, right?

 

[superluminal]

-Death and consciousnss. That's exactly what we are talking about, many people claim to be conscious after death.

The brain goes through a series of neural shutdown modes as oxygen deprivation progresses. Odd or atavistic network modes begin to appear. This also happens when the power is gradually removed from electronic neural network devices. Pretty telling if you ask me.

-Proof of something not physical that exists: Magnetism, electricity, energy, consciousness.

Let's be clear here:
Magnetism is a force mediated by massless force carriers. Ok.
Electricity is the flow of very material electrons, so you're wrong here.
Energy is a measure of the capability of systems to do work. Ok.
Consciousness is an experiential phenomena attributed to humans and some other species. Ok.

-Why do you keep comparing height and consciousness?

Height is a measure of some thing. It's an attribute, not a thing itself.
Consciousness is a measure of some thing. It's an attribute, not a thing itself.

It's not an exact analogy, of course, but it seems reasonable to use it illuminate the attribute nature of consciousness.

-You claim consciousness is measurable? What units do we use to measure it?

- Alpha waves
- Beta waves

-But bottom line, this whole conversation is pointless if you can't acknowledge the simple fact that consciousness is directly observable.

All you can directly observe is the outward manifestation of consciousness as an attribute consistion of

- purposeful activity
- environmental interaction
- etc.

This is why researchers still debate the state of self-awareness of non-human animals. You can't directly observe it. Some computer programs easily fool people int thinking they are conscious entities when they are clearly not. Or are they? If consciousness was self evident to observers, why this problem determining if one has it or not?

And by occams razor-it appears to be immaterial and therefore is as opposed to you making ASSUMPTIONS about vague "complex" interactions within the brain. That's my exact question - what are the precise ineractions within the brain that give rise to consciousness? Everything you are saying is mere assumption.

Wrong. There are levels of detail in every branch of science that we still don't understand. That does not mean that all of the leveles of understanding above that are "mere assumption". We understand and use gravitational theory very well, yet the fundamental nature of gravity is still unknown. Gravity is not an "assumption".

-You claim consciousness is binary. Yet you also claim that it is the result of complex interactions within the brain. So from an evolutionary perspective brains become more and more complex but consciousness is an either or phenomenon? Please explain wy at some point in complexity consciousness arises and what the mechanism is. You're saying that an unconscious being at one point gave birth to a conscious being? This would have to be the case since according to you it is an either or phenomenon that is the paradoxical "emergent phenomenon" of "complex" interactions.

I agree with you here. I am sure there are degrees of consciousness. We all experience degrees of consciousness. Many animals are conscious yet exhibit no self-awareness. Examples like this abound.

 

[superluminal]

Animals are conscious, right?

Yes.

 

[nds1]

Does being conscious imply having a soul?

 

[heliocentric]

The smell of semantic vomit here is overwhelming.

LG, Consciousness can be broken down into components, just like a football game:

- General Awareness
- Self awareness
- Conscious processes
- Subconscious processes
- Memory
- Imagination
- etc.

I'm sure I've missed a few. The point is that consciousness as the sum of these is an emergent phenomena (look it up) composed of the interactions of all of these components.

Which is simply what philosophy tells us about consciousness right now, however theres no real empiricalism to back any of it up, as with almost all philosophical ideas it is simply the most 'fashionable' rather than being the most 'tested and verified' as you would have in the scientific framework.
So you really might as well ventrue or entertain any version of consciousness you like.
As i see it, right now its impossible to tell if consciousness is a inherent component of matter or whether it emerges under specific conditions of matter.
Its a pretty hard job to prove much either way, finding consciousness is like trying to find the piece of hay in the haystack.

 

[heliocentric]

I agree with you here. I am sure there are degrees of consciousness. We all experience degrees of consciousness. Many animals are conscious yet exhibit no self-awareness. Examples like this abound.

Could you give me an example? i cant think of any living organism that cant demonstrate a knowledge of distinction of the self from the non-self.

 

[nds1]

If you put a mirror in front of some animals they will attack it as if it is a different animal. I used to own a fish that did this. However, my cat does not attack the mirror as far as I've seen. Interesting to note though that my cat thinks the mirror is a glass door to another room and becomes frustrated because he can't enter it. So you could say cats don't understand the concept of the mirror. I wonder how gorillas or dolphins respond to mirrors?

 

[heliocentric]

I think people assume the mirror test proves/disproves a sense of self, it doesnt it just shows which creatures have a complex sense of self.
Worth noting i think

 

[lightgigantic]

The smell of semantic vomit here is overwhelming.

funny - I attributed the aroma to something other than semantics

LG, Consciousness can be broken down into components, just like a football game:

- General Awareness
- Self awareness
- Conscious processes
- Subconscious processes
- Memory
- Imagination
- etc.

I'm sure I've missed a few. The point is that consciousness as the sum of these is an emergent phenomena (look it up) composed of the interactions of all of these components.

the next question is whether these components can be reduced to material compositions (how many electrons in self awareness)

Just as the emergent phenomena of a football game is emergent from:

- Quaterbacks
- Line backs
- Yard lines
- footballs
- penalties
- etc.

after all, for the analogy that consciousness is a material phenomena to be complete, we would expect that both catagories of constituent parts be materially definable - there is certainly no lacking from the football side of things

So, as usual, your arguments are mere vapor and consciousness remains an expression of purely physically interacting processes.

the moment you can define the exact physical nature of the constituent parts you thoughtfully provided for us, your claim will be true

 

[lightgigantic]

WE DO NOT YET UNDERSTAND THE WORKINGS OF LIFE, OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND A GAZILLION OTHER THINGS, AND ARE CURRENTLY UNABLE TO DO WHAT YOU ASK.

My conclusion: This is just science - and we will continue to strive toward an understanding. And we might just never be able fully understand. Until that time we will go with current theories until such time as they are proven inaccurate or wrong, and then we will work with the new information and create new theories.

Your conclusion: God of the Gaps. "If we don't yet know, and if we can't do it now - it must be immaterial and be beyond what is posible with the material world alone." (or words to that effect).

Its not clear why we need to discuss god at this point - I was just asking you for the evidence you have that consciousness is emergent from matter

 

[superluminal]

Could you give me an example? i cant think of any living organism that cant demonstrate a knowledge of distinction of the self from the non-self.

You may be confusing the physical distinction of "selfness" with the concept of "self-awareness". As far as I know, only humans, dolphins and chimps have been shown to have conscious self-awareness. The classic test is the mirror test in which paint or some substance is placed on the face/snout/whatever while the animal is sedated and then presented with a mirror.

We (and dolphins and chimps - I think) will immediately recognize that the substance is on ourselves and try to deal with it. All other animals seem to treat it as though it were a part of some other creature. They can't make the connection between the creature in the mirror and themselves.