Consciousness: freaky shit or nbd

poll? huh? oh, yeah, this thread was a poll

wouldn't you think the limits animals have w/r/t language also limits the quality of their consciousness?

Maybe. But i would not say 'limits' because there are differences in sensory reception that in some animals perhaps produce an even more vivid awareness of the world than human have. If language is a way of sending and receiving signals to/from the outside world, it seems that a lack of human-sounding spoken language is more than made up for in other signals. Also most of their signals presumably deal with life & death, fight or flight, the natural environment, etc. rather than abstract arbitrary modern human noise so really who is the one with the lower quality of consciousness?

Not freaky at all, I love consciousness. What a gift. Damn.

― windjammer voyage (blank), Monday, July 16, 2012 10:40 AM (2 days ago)

This.

And, I wanna hug the late great's depressed dog.

why is dog bummed? is this chronic?

With all this demolition work at hand, why do the vast majority of physicists hold on to any kind of physicalist explanations? First, because the mathematics works. Second, because the alternative isn't taught in grad school. The alternative is to include consciousness in the mix. If the observer makes the difference between a wave and a particle, and if the universe displays itself to us as matter (which is all particles), then perhaps the observer is needed to make the universe appear as we see it. This possibility is logical and by no means outlandish. It occurred to some quantum pioneers (although not Einstein) almost a century ago, because in some ways consciousness is inescapable.

The universe does need molasses, or even glue, as forces holding protons together are sometimes called. There are huge complexities and mysteries that we are skipping over, yet the existence of the universe isn't a technical question open only to specialists with advanced scientific degrees. "Why are we here?" is a universal question, and to answer it, you must ask "Why are we conscious? Where did mind come from?" After all, if the observer plays such a key role in turning waves into particles, you can't get very far if you don't know what the observer is actually doing.

In the alternative explanation, the entire universe is imbued with consciousness. Just as there are force fields, invisible but all-pervasive, a consciousness field can exist to uphold the activity we call "mind." The universe evolves, regulates itself, takes creative leaps, and exhibits exquisite mathematical rigor and beauty. The hallmarks of intelligence are there, waiting for the next paradigm shift. At the moment, the word "intelligence" brings up the red herring of intelligent design, which no one except religious fundamentalists wants to be associated with. "Consciousness" gives us a less-tainted word, and there is a growing community of theorists seriously thinking about a conscious universe.

If it exists, then you and I are embedded in the consciousness field. It is the source of our own consciousness. Which means that we are not alone. As one physicist said, "The universe knew that we were coming." An infinite consciousness that spans all of creation sounds like a new definition of God. If so, then we are part of God's mind, and that includes science. The whole argument leads to a wild conclusion by most people's standards: It is God who is discovering the God particle. Infinite consciousness has created individual consciousness to go out into creation and look around. As it does, individual consciousness -- meaning you and I -- has been given free will and choice. We don't have to see our link to the infinite consciousness field. We can take our time discovering who we are and where we come from. But the day seems very near when it will seem quite real and quite natural to say that the conscious universe saw us coming.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/god-particle_b_1674717.html

i actually prefer to think of consciousness as a kind of blindness as much as awareness. attributing "consciousness" to God is just....hubris? at the very best it's a facile humanism.

fuckin deepak...

This thread needs Hegel to lay a smackdown on it, and explain that consciousness is both weird shit and no big deal, and the two are not opposed to each other.

he's in decent company at least. Gregory Bateson proposed a similar form of immanentism or holism:

The individual mind is immanent, but not only in the body. It is immanent also in pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a larger Mind, of which the individual is only a subsystem. This larger Mind is comparable to God and is perhaps what some people mean by ‘God,’ but it is still immanent in the total inter-connected social system and planetary ecology. Freudian psychology expanded the concept of mind inward to include the whole communication system within the body—the automatic, the habitual and the vast range of unconscious processes. What I am saying expands mind outward. And both of these changes reduce the scope of the conscious self. A certain humility becomes appropriate, tempered by the dignity or joy of being part of something bigger. A part - if you will - of God.

the problem or flaw with this point of view is that its claiming an observational position where the "whole" becomes visible at the same time it is disavowing it (we are "part" of that whole).

xpost haha at which point yeah Hegel becomes somewhat relevant (though i refuse to get into a debate about the dialectic...)

how is that a problem (xp)? the point of observation is conceptual and so can easily shift. or am i missing something

Bateson's view of the "Larger Mind" that he claims he is part of is (imo, of course) a metaphysical gesture because he's making claims about something as a whole that he only (necessarily) has partial views of. it's the same problem with his gesture towards "meta-communicational" discourses because those discourses are, by his own definition, subject to the same double binds he obverses in lower discourses--it's a horizontal move, not a vertical one, in other words.

so basically im saying he can't jump outside of the universe and see it from another position.

(cf Richard Rorty about our inability to jump out of our own heads or even our cultures!)

(though i refuse to get into a debate about the dialectic...)

That would be rather self-defeating, wouldn't it?

[not responding]

so basically im saying he can't jump outside of the universe and see it from another position.

...(cf Richard Rorty about our inability to jump out of our own heads or even our cultures!)

― ryan, Wednesday, July 18, 2012 10:55 AM (8 minutes ago)

this is probably a tangent, but one of the nice things about consciousness is that we are not strictly limited to our own point of view. i mean we are, of course, but also not. my consciousness is an island, and i am limited to and by it, but it is an island that contains all of reality. my consciousness models reality, and within that modeled reality is a model of my own consciousness which contains all of reality, which contains etc. so at some level, i can see "the whole system". of course, it's just a model, limited by its extrapolative nature, but that doesn't make it useless.

how do you know you consciousness is actually your own and not an illusion?

or a douglas adams fish-type thing you mean? wokka wokka? yeah, sure, that would be hilarious.

i actually agree contend, and i see that paradox as generative. "How can the world be in my head, and my head in the world?" that's kind of the frission of difference that make discussions like this one possible (and so maddeningly difficult). Not for nothing does Peirce model his semiotics on the map paradox. (ie, the map so perfect it includes itself, which then includes a map of the map, etc).

"How can the world be in my head, and my head in the world?"

love this. a couple years ago, i read a short novel by victor pelevin called the helmet of horror. it's about exactly that paradox. funny, too.

sounds right up my alley! gonna check it out.

any recommendation comes with an asterisk. it's basically a field in which long-winded symbolic characters exchange theories (and far too concerned with the novelties of the internet besides), but i had fun with the ideas involved.

is that the minotaur chat book? i looked for the audiobook version because i suspected voice actors speaking chat texts would be hilarious.

yup. the chat conceit generates some cringeworthy moments, but allows the characters to pontificate constantly, which seems to be the point.

did we solve the mystery of the depressed dog yet? i think that will be easier or at least a precursor to solving the mystery of consciousness

i just mean when he's left home alone, he's not like that all day every day

although when i first rescued him off the street he *was* like that for about a week

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4099/4928943154_6e2aaf1036.jpg

what was his life like before? 1 week sounds like a really fast recovery time.

his life before seems to have been two to four weeks of running loose on the street in east LA, eating garbage and fighting rats

before that, no idea

i *think* he might have escaped or been let go from a puppy farm, he is apparently quite purebred but carries enough breed defects (localized alopecia in his case) to disqualify him as a show dog

at first i was like nbd but i just saw a picture of a 12 hour old kitten and now i'm freaking out

does the dog get happy about anything?

yeah yeah he's not a depressed dog!

i just meant that when he's depressed he's much more single minded about it than a person, ditto hungry or itchy

he can lick himself for an hour if he's feeling like it, i get bored after 20 mins or so

oh, well that just sounds like he's living in the moment.

i think that is exactly right as far as the big difference between humans and animals, not so much language as grammar, i am not sure if animals have as strong a sense of past and future as we do

living in the moment entails a lack of consciousness though, at least a lack of some transphysical governor that has the wherewithal to override base impulses.

There's no such thing as a transphysical governor.

unless you're a substance dualist in 2012

oh i don't know, my senile grandfather lives in the moment, breaking into songs and jokes in french whenever the base impulse seizes him. i know he's confused but he's definitely conscious.

Songs are kind of interesting in that people with severe impairment can seem to come alive for the duration of performing a song.

also, weirdly, surgery. (there's this surgeon with severe tremors who is able to control them during the concentration of surgery, but as soon as it over, the tremors come back with a vengeance)

he's alive all the time, just also in the moment, like a toddler

maybe alive's not the best word for it. continuity maybe?

I have a theory. Actually it's more than a theory, it's a growing conviction. Everything points to this, in my view. It's overwhelmingly likely.

All the phenomena we perceive through our senses are mere illusions. Reality is elsewhere. Through meditation, I have become familiar with this "elsewhere". It's a room containing a moth and a turtle. The turtle just sits in the middle of the room thinking about a difficult chess problem. The moth flutters around laying eggs. These hatch into caterpillars, which then make processions up and down the turtle's back. The caterpillars perform a miniature version of Joseph Haydn's opera The World on the Moon, composed in 1777. The turtle just ignores them, thinking about its intractable chess problem.

By intensifying my meditations, I have learned that in an early version of reality the turtle was thinking about Tetris, while the caterpillars were singing hits by The Brotherhood of Man. So I think we can safely say that reality is getting better. However, the room is not without its dangers. If the turtle ever solves the chess problem, the entire universe will vanish in a puff of smoke.

Luckily it's a very, very difficult problem. White only has a chance if black can be forced into zugzwang. I should probably shut up; the turtle can hear everything we're saying.

bingo

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I havent read this yet but it's entitled "Are We Living in the Matrix?" and looks pretty cool.

http://w3.cultdeadcow.com/cms/2012/07/living-in-the-matrix.html

Bostrom's simulation argument is a winner.

Counting this as a win for the anti-reductionists. Disappointing lack of actual fascinating new theories posted on thread though.

Hugh Pickens writes "Humans have pondered their mortality for millennia. Now the University of California at Riverside reports that it has received a $5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation that will fund research on aspects of immortality, including near-death experiences and the impact of belief in an afterlife on human behavior. 'People have been thinking about immortality throughout history. We have a deep human need to figure out what happens to us after death,' says John Martin Fischer, the principal investigator of The Immortality Project. 'No one has taken a comprehensive and sustained look at immortality that brings together the science, theology and philosophy.' Fischer says he going to investigate two different kinds of immortality. One is the possibility of living forever without dying. The main questions there are whether it's technologically plausible or feasible for us, either by biological enhancement such as those described by Ray Kurzweil, or by some combination of biological enhancement and uploading our minds onto computers in the future. Second would be to investigate the full range of questions about Judeo, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other Asian religions' conceptions of the afterlife to see if they're theologically and philosophically consistent. 'We'll look at near death experiences both in western cultures and throughout the world and really look at what they're all about and ask the question — do they indicate something about an afterlife or are they kind of just illusions that we're hardwired into?'"

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/08/04/230241/university-receives-5-million-grant-to-study-immortality?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

i'm only halfway thru this, but it's directly relevant to the thread topic. so far it's one of the most brilliant things i've ever read, but be warned it's long and by no means easy. basic argument is that subjective experience constitutes a "transjunctive" or "reflective" operation as opposed to "conjunctive" or "disjunctive."

Gotthard Gunther, "Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunctional Operations"

http://vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/gg_cyb_ontology.pdf