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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 12:54am PT
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Chief,
Good question, but I don't know if it is a "who" or a "what". Not sure it matters. What matters is what you do with it.
Peace
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Aug 30, 2011 - 01:24am PT
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are you a slave to your mind, or can you witness it?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2011 - 01:49am PT
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Largo writes regarding 4 observations:
1) ANYONE CONSCIOUS AND PROPERLY FORMED COULD NOT FAIL TO RECOGNIZE THAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY ALIVE AND AWARE OF BEING ALIVE;
2) THAT THEIR AWARENESS FIELD CAN STRETCH TO THE EDGES OF IMAGINATION AND NEVER STOP;
3) THAT THEY NATURALLY ARE AWARE OF TAXES AND LOVE AND BULLFROGS AND THOUGHTS (QUAL),
4) THAT THE FIRST PERSON SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF BEING CONSCIOUS IS NOT A STATIC THING BUT RATHER IT UNFOLDS AND ACCRUES AND EXTENDS THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (QUALIA).
is that a correct restatement of what you wrote?
--
That would look like this, Ed:
1) IF I AM CONSCIOUS AND SOBEER THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL THING I TAKE FOR GRANTED IS THAT I AM ACTUALLY ALIVE AND AWARE OF BEING ALIVE;
2) THAT in terms of my experience, or what I sense and believe is self evident is that my aWARENESS FIELD STRETCHes TO THE EDGES OF my IMAGINATION AND NEVER STOPs. I don't get any experience that my awareness has an edge beyond which my mind cannot travel. I might no understand everythng but my awareness will not perforce exclude things (yes, the brains unconsciously selects shite) no matter how far out.
3) THAT I am naturally aware of content or things (QUAL) moving through my awareness, including thoughts about this thread (more qual).
4) THAT THE FIRST PERSON SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF BEING CONSCIOUS does not strike me as A STATIC THING, BUT RATHER, experientially, it seems to UNFOLD AND ACCRUE AND EXTEND THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (QUALIA).
Now that's what I sense in my subjective experience. I think the challenge for you, Ed, in this regard, is to forego for the moment trying to quantify or define how this all works and leave off with my experience and drop into your direct subjective experience and try and describe what you find there. Trying to do so in the most simple terms is a task, for the mind revolts dealing with raw experience straight up.
and fortmental, just note how your mind did just what I said it would - you defaulted out of experience and into a memorized explanation of how you believe mind works. That's not the exercise here - you probably do that all day long. Just for the moment, just once, try not to jump out into secondary or tertiary exposition and stay with your subjective experience and report back what you find. You are obviously honed in on this and I'm curious WHAT you see going on, NOT how or why it works. That's another discussion.
JL
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allapah
climber
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Aug 30, 2011 - 02:27am PT
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electromagnetic energy body (generated by neural network) resonating in harmony to the "quantum foam" of the universe (expounded upon in physics)- are we not still missing important discoveries regarding this interface between energy body and quantum foam that will someday soon put the missing piece into the explanation of consciousness?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2011 - 03:08am PT
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[ Note: the fourth button from the left above the ST text editor with the double quote symbol on it is the quote function; please try giving it a whirl when quoting others' posts... ]
For awhile today I sat and watched hummingbirds and honeybees in the backyard which is planted to encourage both.
We planted 'Fuchsia dependens' for the hummingbirds and it's quite clear they have to have an acute sense of both a flower's and their own location in three dimensional space and a precise sense of time in order to feed on the fushsias' narrow bell-shaped flowers. Ditto for the bees which have to not only navigate and select flowers by visual clues - they also have to communicate that knowledge to other bees for the hive to be successful.
Largo: 2) ...I don't get any experience that my awareness has an edge beyond which my mind cannot travel. I might no understand everythng but my awareness will not perforce exclude things (yes, the brains unconsciously selects shite) no matter how far out..
Both the birds and bees are clearly conscious and self-aware with respect to location and time and both the hummingbirds and bees share the ability to see in the UV range. This latter ability to experience 'color' in the UV range may be a "subjective experience" for each individual bee or bird, but the ability of numerous individuals of both species to feed on the same plants speaks heavily to a strong 'shared' (objective) experience of external 'references' in the process.
One way or another, that ability to self-locate within an external (objective) frame of reference requires recursive framing and therein lies the biological roots of [an emergent] consciousness without edges or boundaries.
Largo: 4) THAT THE FIRST PERSON SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF BEING CONSCIOUS does not strike me as A STATIC THING, BUT RATHER, experientially, it seems to UNFOLD AND ACCRUE AND EXTEND THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (QUALIA).
Well, for about tenth time I'd say that might be because it's not about a collection of nouns, but an explosion of verbs - i.e. the firing of a hierarchy of networks which are constantly self-/re-organizing moment to moment and always striving for an equilibrium which is only achieved in death. Did you read this abstract?
The neural substrates of conscious color perception demonstrated using fMRI
I'm quessing qualia associated with the perception of an orange butterfly don't exist as 'things' in your consciousness, but rather only as a electrochemical 'brain storm' which rises with the perception. That is qualia, as the concept you keep pushing, is an act [of processing] not a result of processing.
P.S. This phrase is extraordinary if not breathtaking in its irony...
Largo: ...IF I AM CONSCIOUS AND SOBER...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 03:25am PT
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maybe you should expand on this:
Trying to do so in the most simple terms is a task, for the mind revolts dealing with raw experience straight up.
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 09:44am PT
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It seems to me that awareness is pretty centralized "here". My imagination might extend pretty far depending on what I am reading right now but the sense of "I" seems to be tied up with this meat unit.
Even the meat unit concept is pretty slippery. Our cells don't even stay around for long. They have been replaced many times. We are more like a place in a river, pick your favorite spot on the Merced in the Valley. The spot seems the same year after year, the ripples and shapes of the water's surface change with water level but the place seems to have a continuous identity. The water itself however is changing every second. Just like us.
It seems like there is something constant in "I" though.
FC
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:01am PT
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the mind is the attic of the physical being;
it is the basement of our consciousness.
our physical and spiritual foundation is
the pond(er) scum on the wonderpool.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:29am PT
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----------------
It seems like there is something constant in "I" though.
FC
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Now that is an interesting observation. One I tend to share at first impression. While the world around me seems to change a lot.
Then as I think about it I realize that I too am not always the same. At least my actions are not. Some days for example i am stoked to jump on a route, Other days i may feel a bit lazy another day a bit unusually fearful. Each of these states affects my words thoughts observations and deeds.
Yet these observations are always contrasting a remembered "I" to the actual "I" experiencing the now.
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The feeling of a constant "I" persists. Perhaps the it is the experiencing of NOW that never changes.
Is the I experiencing Now the constant we sense??
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:37am PT
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I actually don't trust the apparent constancy of the I. It sure seems obvious and true but there is something fishy about it.
I think the whole thing about heaven, rebirth, etc. is our reaction to the incomprehensible notion that we vanish entirely when we die. That is a hard thought to swallow.
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:45am PT
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I guess as you lose friends and as you get older and you begin to lose your youthful physical prowess this question becomes more interesting.
I'm not sure we will answer it here but it seems worthwhile to do your own personal exploration. If you find that the answer is unreachable then at least you found that.
The Buddhists don't exactly say you can answer this but they do say you can "wake up" somehow and I think at that point the question drops away.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:48am PT
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There certainly seem to be limitations to the constancy in a way.
I go to sleep and at times upon waking recognize a significant change from the last moment I remember. I don't remember before age 3 for example. Yet that is memory based. None of these gaps seem to be experienced.
For example If we die and there is no afterlife or reincarnation or whatever, then i don't see how we could know it. We wouldn't seem to be able to experience "nothing". Based on memory gaps i appear to have been through "nothing" many times in my life, but it has no significant effect on the basic "I experiencing" later or before.
Thus it seems the persistence of the feeling of a constant "I".
This basic impression of constancy is interesting to consider. Not so much as to matters of life after or before this lifetime (bleh a whole nother set of issues i am beginning to find boring in my inability to get anywhere substantial with)
just in and of itself.
Thanks for bringing it up :)
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 30, 2011 - 11:13am PT
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I guess another way of putting this is that the only experience I actually HAVE is of always being aware.
I can suppose and extrapolate "unawareness". In the same way I can deduce that El-Capitan persists and exists when I am not there.
However in either case I can not experience it so it does not "exist" for me at those times.
What is this impression of "constancy" in "I"?
An interesting observation.
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MH2
climber
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Aug 30, 2011 - 01:12pm PT
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Tell me your view and I will respect it. Assume your view applies to me and I will reject it.
My view is that if I lose contact with the rock I will fall. I assume my view applies to you as well but I would love to be shown wrong.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Aug 30, 2011 - 02:19pm PT
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For some here, it is a rather hard thought to swallow that the one's soul/spirit is infinite and on a journey that never ends.
Chief... I asked you in another thread, but you failed to answer, so I'll ask again...
So, tell me, at what point does does the human get it's soul:
And, can you tell if the zygote below is human, fish, or worm...
Now... To use your words in another perspective to give food for thought:
For some here, it is a rather hard thought to swallow that life after death is the same as life before birth.
Or... More relevant to this thread:
For some here, it is a rather hard thought to swallow that mind/consciousness/awareness after death is the same as mind/consciousness/awareness before birth.
Think about it. =]
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 30, 2011 - 04:28pm PT
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i dont care much for what most people seem to be doing with their dna, either.
heh
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Aug 30, 2011 - 05:07pm PT
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One problem with arguments like these is self-referencing. The mind attempts to analyze the process with which it analyzes. Hence, word games that rarely clarify anything. In mathematics, if I recall my course in naďve set theory from fifty years ago, paradoxes arise because of self-referencing or similar processes. For example, the Russell Paradox (from Wikipedia):
"Let us call a set "abnormal" if it is a member of itself, and "normal" otherwise. For example, take the set of all squares. That set is not itself a square, and therefore is not a member of the set of all squares. So it is "normal". On the other hand, if we take the complementary set that contains all non-squares, that set is itself not a square and so should be one of its own members. It is "abnormal". . . Now we consider the set of all normal sets, R. Attempting to determine whether R is normal or abnormal is impossible: If R were a normal set, it would be contained in the set of normal sets (itself), and therefore be abnormal; and if it were abnormal, it would not be contained in the set of normal sets (itself), and therefore be normal. This leads to the conclusion that R is neither normal nor abnormal: Russell's paradox."
More appropriate perhaps is the Godel Incompleteness Theorem:
"A set of axioms is complete if, for any statement in the axioms' language, either that statement or its negation is provable from the axioms. A set of axioms is (simply) consistent if there is no statement such that both the statement and its negation are provable from the axioms. In the standard system of first-order logic, an inconsistent set of axioms will prove every statement in its language . . . For each consistent formal theory T having the required small amount of number theory, the corresponding Gödel sentence G asserts: “G cannot be proved within the theory T”. This interpretation of G leads to the following informal analysis. If G were provable under the axioms and rules of inference of T, then T would have a theorem, G, which effectively contradicts itself, and thus the theory T would be inconsistent. This means that if the theory T is consistent then G cannot be proved within it, and so the theory T is incomplete. Moreover, the claim G makes about its own unprovability is correct. In this sense G is not only unprovable but true, and provability-within-the-theory-T is not the same as truth."
The Axiom of Choice is easily stated and understood by non-mathematicians:
"Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of bins, each containing at least one object, it is possible to make a selection of exactly one object from each bin."
And yet, assuming this axiom makes the following oddity possible:
"The Banach–Tarski paradox states that a solid ball in 3-dimensional space can be split into a finite number of non-overlapping pieces, which can then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball."
Admittedly, this is somewhat removed from the study of the mind, but it shows the extreme importance of language and axioms and where the two intersect. A study of the mind that actually goes anywhere beyond electrical and chemical impulses might require an alteration in the premises and the paradigm from which we argue . . . a task for which formal philosophy might be insufficient.
Has formal philosophy ever dramatically altered a person’s world view, other than providing merely intellectual alternatives? I suspect that Kant’s daily routines were much the same after he arrived at his ground-breaking ideas than before. On the other hand, the father of modern set theory, Georg Cantor, suffered severe depression in the later years of his life, no doubt partly because of the anxieties triggered by his unorthodox deliberations and commentary they provoked. But was this a fundamental change in his world-view?
"Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria."
Be careful what you wish for, JL !
Certain eastern religions putatively change one’s world view, but are these changes appropriate for a discussion of the mind?
Questions phrased within one paradigm possibly answerable in another.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2011 - 05:17pm PT
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Strangely, your attempt to understand consciousness through "the experience" is like trying to understand gravity by repeatedly dropping a rock on your head.
I think this pretty well illustrates the fact that ever for educated amongst us, dropping out of evaluating mind into experience is a non-starter. Of course the above is not drawn from any real world experience but is just another fatuous evaluation from afar - of that we may be sure.
Oddly, for people like this, they have to get up on an unprotected slab or something in order to finally get out of their evaluating minds and get absorbed in a real, first person experience.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 07:23pm PT
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"Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria."
maybe sly like a fox! excused from teaching!!
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LithiumMetalman
Trad climber
cesspool central
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Aug 30, 2011 - 08:15pm PT
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The mind is the greatest illusion ever created by man.
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