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WBraun
climber
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Sep 12, 2011 - 01:30am PT
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"Consciousness is a fundamental property of matter, ..."
No
Consciousness is a fundamental property of the individual soul, and the supersoul.
It's the fundamental property of every living entity not just humans and animals.
It's very simple .... life comes from life.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:18am PT
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TWP -
 the "Big Bang" is a singularity in time, at that moment, all of space existed
the last 10 years have seen a complete change in our view of the material composition of the universe, the majority of the universe, at this time, is something called "Dark Energy," at about 74%, the next largest fraction is "Dark Matter" at 22%, the remaining 4% is the stuff we are made out of... we have candidates for "Dark Matter," "Dark Energy" is something that we have no real utilitarian ideas about.
Evolution is not something which is guided by "improvement," every living thing is the result of the survival of it's ancestors, and all of those individuals are evolutionary equal. To say that the evolution of mind is a particularly superior adaptation one would have to see it's adoption by many other species. We continue to live in a world dominated by single cell life, and are utterly dependent on that life. Perhaps if you expand your notions to include the Gaia Hypothesis you might make an argument for organized "intelligence" but none is needed.
Claiming that consciousness is a "fundamental property of matter" would require a definition of consciousness. No such definition has yet to be accepted on this particular thread.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:22am PT
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here's a STForum puzzler for this thread, for this day...
Identify the author of this copy:
"Wisconsin jumped out to an early lead and never looked back in a 51-17 win over UNLV on Thursday at Camp Randall Stadium.
The Badgers scored 20 points in the first quarter on a Russell Wilson touchdown pass, a Montee Ball touchdown run and a James White touchdown run.
Wisconsin’s offense dominated the Rebels’ defense. The Badgers racked up 499 total yards in the game including 258 yards passing and 251 yards on the ground.
Ball ran for 63 yards and three touchdowns for the Badgers. He also caught two passes for 67 yards and a touchdown.
Wilson completed 10-of-13 passes for 255 for Wisconsin. He threw two touchdowns and no interceptions.
Caleb Herring threw for 146 yards on 18-of-27 passing. Herring tossed two touchdowns and no interceptions.
UNLV had 292 total yards. In addition to Herring’s efforts through the air, the running game also contributed 146 yards for the Rebels.
THIRD QUARTER
Wisconsin appears to be in the driver’s seat en route to a win, as it leads 51-10 after the third quarter.
Wisconsin added to its lead when Russell Wilson found Jacob Pedersen for an eight-yard touchdown to make the score 44-3. The Badgers started the drive at UNLV’s 28-yard line thanks to a Jared Abbrederis punt return.
A one-yard touchdown run by Montee Ball capped off a two-play, 42-yard drive and extended Wisconsin’s lead to 51-3. The drive took 42 seconds. The key play on the drive was a 41-yard pass from Wilson to Bradie Ewing. A punt return gave the Badgers good starting field position at UNLV’s 42-yard line.
A 69-yard drive that ended when Caleb Herring found Phillip Payne from six yards out helped UNLV narrow the deficit to 51-10. The Rebels threw just three passes on the drive.
UNLV will start the fourth quarter with the ball at the 41-yard line.
HALFTIME
Wisconsin looks to be in control of the game as it leads 34-3 at the end of the second quarter.
Wisconsin expanded its lead to 27-0 when Montee Ball ran for a one-yard touchdown to finish a four-play, 65-yard drive. The key play on the drive was a 63-yard pass from Russell Wilson to Ball.
UNLV closed the gap to 27-3 when Nolan Kohorst finished off the 12-play, 64-yard drive with a 37-yard field goal.
Russell Wilson ran for a 46-yard touchdown to extend Wisconsin’s lead to 34-3. The Badgers scored in 31 seconds.
Wisconsin extended its lead to 34-3 when Kyle French kicked a 29-yard field goal to cap a two-play 47-yard drive. The Badgers scored with no time remaining in the quarter.
The Rebels will get the ball to start the second half.
FIRST QUARTER
Montee Ball ran seven times for 66 yards and one touchdown and caught a four-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter and Wisconsin leads UNLV 20-0.
Wisconsin opened the scoring when Russell Wilson threw a four-yard touchdown pass to Montee Ball to cap off a seven-play, 65-yard drive.
A 22-yard touchdown run by Montee Ball helped the Badgers extend their lead to 13-6. All 56 yards on the drive came on the ground.
Wisconsin added to its lead after James White pounded in a one-yard touchdown run to finish off an eight-play, 80-yard drive.
UNLV will start the second quarter with the ball on its 40-yard line."
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:32am PT
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Even the KGB believed enough in ESP to devote considerable resources to its
exploitation. I have experienced it and it was demonstrably not subjective.
I'm not talking about Yuri Geller nonsense, either. Now, a computer can often
beat me at chess but it can't read my mind. Ha, that just reminded me of
the Soviet Chess machine's efforts to influence matches telepathically.
Of course, they had a very susceptible target in Bobby Fischer.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:49am PT
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In the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism they define the mind Thus:
=
Universal consciousness becomes the mind by contracting in accordance with the object perceived.
=
The brain is just like a TV set, tuning in waves of Mind into our earth suit. Sure if you pull the plug, the show goes off but the waves are still there.
PEace
Karl
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 12, 2011 - 01:46pm PT
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If thread had a mind
would thread not recall
those things that were said
so early this fall?
Godel's little jewel
cropped up once before
but who cares a whit
let's hear it once more!
Einstein's terse comment
turned into a cult
where we try once again
for another result!
If I had a body
I'd pick up and go
this turmoil is nonsense
a circular show!
I've gone 'round the bend
dad, heed my sad plea:
search for delete
and press the damn key!
Love, Thread
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 12, 2011 - 01:49pm PT
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That's the best and potentially most productive post of the entire thread.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Sep 12, 2011 - 02:42pm PT
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Reply to Ed H. who wrote,
"To say that the evolution of mind is a particularly superior adaptation one would have to see it's adoption by many other species."
I wrote in my original post on this thread, "Are the 'mind' and 'consciousness' displayed by animals and humans …" (Emphasis added).
Ergo, I do believe and did state that other species have "mind." This "mind" and its quality of consciousness has evolved. And yes, I believe this is "a particularly superior adaptation."
In my book, any species with a "brain" has a foundation for evolution into a form possessing a "mind." The sophistication of that brain and mind varies. Describing the dividing line between "brain with mind" and "brain not-yet-having-mind" should be attempted by someone with intimate knowledge of the biology of this subject - and that's not me! Roughly speaking, I think all mammals have "brain with mind" of a highly advanced character.
I am aware of advancement in "Big Bang" theory to include Dark Matter, etc. To my knowledge, none of that advancement contradicts what I am saying. Are you saying it does?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 12, 2011 - 03:09pm PT
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Describing the dividing line between "brain with mind" and "brain not-yet-having-mind" ...
It should be noted that neither brains nor minds are necessary for living organisms to exhibit 'behavior', though brains do appear to be necessary for consciousness.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 12, 2011 - 03:37pm PT
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Links to the Penrose/Hameroff theory for consciousness and to Gamma waves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_wave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orch-OR
Earlier I had speculated that bits of information probably can cross between closely neighboring fibers. The following excerpt from the first link goes into brain wide synchonization as the mechanism associated with a “precept” entering the conscious state.
“The proposed answer lies in a wave that originating in the thalamus, sweeps the brain from front to back, 40 times per second, drawing different neuronal circuits into synch with the precept, and thereby bringing the precept into the attentional foreground. If the thalamus is damaged even a little bit, this wave stops, conscious awarenesses do not form, and the patient slips into profound coma.[4]”
The second link discusses microstructure within the cell, something I had noted earlier, and then offers spatial reasons why these might support quantum tunneling and even
even
a Bose Einstein Condensate!
We might actually have such a condensate on this thread, as has been suggested by master Gill. No matter what we type, it all seems to condense into one place.
If it were not for the fact I once listened to a cogent APS paper arguing human sensory organs are quantum limited, I would say “Quantum” is now becoming little more than a sound byte.
But I seem to be forced more and more toward the edge of my imagination…………
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 12, 2011 - 09:44pm PT
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TWP - imprinted on the Cosmic Microwave Background are the fluctuations of what was going on "before" the Big Bang... so maybe there is a way of knowing what happened before...
as for consciousness, you haven't defined it either... perhaps all animals with a brain possess it to some degree, perhaps some organizations of animals without much of a brain (e.g. ants) may have a collective organization akin to it...
...or maybe even more than that.
But certainly if you look around you and the great extinction happening, you might be right to say that our minds allow us a certain mastery over all other life on the planet... not that our fate as a species is to populate the planet forever....
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Sep 12, 2011 - 10:38pm PT
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as for consciousness, you haven't defined it either... perhaps all animals with a brain possess it to some degree, perhaps some organizations of animals without much of a brain (e.g. ants) may have a collective organization akin to it...
...or maybe even more than that.
But certainly if you look around you and the great extinction happening, you might be right to say that our minds allow us a certain mastery over all other life on the planet... not that our fate as a species is to populate the planet forever.... I gotta say, I love Ed - more often than not he comes up with better explanations of why I believe the way I do than I do myself.
I come away from this thread with a stronger belief in my world stance - that anything that smacks of the supernatural or mystical or universal mind or something is unnecessary and wrong-headed thinking.
Of all of the things that exasperate me the most on this subject is the inference that the "merely mechanistic" is somehow less interesting and/or profound than the spiritual or religious or metaphysical ideas conjured up by us humans. Seems to me, it is clearly the other way around. The more we learn about about the natural world, the more it proves to be infinitely more interesting and profound than any of the spiritual or philosophical constructs that we humans have ever come up with.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:08pm PT
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Even a blade of grass has consciousness ......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Sep 12, 2011 - 11:22pm PT
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ee, you're pretty good with words yourself, tfpu.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 13, 2011 - 01:48am PT
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Largo's tried to divorce himself from this thread, but he cannot, and he also feels he can't kill it... so here is a cross post of sorts:
It is certain that the combinations which present themselves to the mind in a kind of sudden illumination after a somewhat prolonged period of unconscious work are generally useful and fruitful combinations... all the combinations are formed as a result of the automatic action of the subliminal ego, but those only which are interesting find their way into the field of consciousness... A few only are harmonious, and consequently at once useful and beautiful, and they will be capable of affecting the geometrician's special sensibility I have been speaking of; which, once aroused, will direct our attention upon them, and will thus give them the opportunity of becoming conscious... In the subliminal ego, on the contrary, there reigns what I would call liberty, if one could give this name to the mere absence of discipline and to disorder born of chance."
-Henri Poincaré Science and Method 1914
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 13, 2011 - 02:49am PT
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ah Donald... maybe if you had produced such wonderful mathematics and science we'd give you a pass for your adolescent conceits too...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 13, 2011 - 03:02am PT
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I don't get a pass...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2011 - 11:02pm PT
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You can keep attempting to separate content (qual) from mind (experience / processing), but from my perspective it is an artificial distinction whose only utility is to your argument. I would posit there is no distinction between experience and content at all - it's all experience.
You've lost your way. Seeing the basics is hard, but doable.
Your "experience" is the overall Gestalt, the whole Mo Fo, all the parts included, and that includes the ever slippery 1st person subjective shizat of HAVING experience in real time - qualia, a word I'm coming to hate.
Differentiating "experience" as such is a totally different thing than saying (as I mentioned), quite falsely, that "running" is something different from and beyond the movements of a moving body through time and space. This is the logic you're using to frame your "experience and content are the same," and the now tired "meat brain does consciousness."
"Experience" is different than content because self awareness is not content, but the net through which content passes, and which, though ungraspable, is always with us so long as we are "sane."
I think you're not getting the basic concept that awareness has no inherent content, and that the "watcher" is entirely "empty," to use Zen phraseology. Something that has no qualities or content can hardly be said to exist - and that's the paradox right there. Our most basic "I" has no content beyond boundless compassion - that's why "God" often gets dragged into these discussions.
In fact, you're half right - the duality between experience and what you experience can be overcome during boundary experiences or out on the sharp end, but it's equally true to say that all content is impermanent, that we are NOT our feelings and thoughts, and the "emptiness" or no-mind is our true nature.
Go figure . . .
JL
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MH2
climber
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Sep 13, 2011 - 11:10pm PT
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Your "experience" is the overall Gestalt, the who Mo Fo, all the parts included, and that includes the ever slippery 1st person subjective shizat of HAVING experience in real time
"Experience" is different than content because self awareness is not content, but the net through which content passes, and which, though ungraspable, is always with us so long as we are "sane."
I think you're not getting the basic concept that awareness has no inherent content, and that the "watcher" is entirely "empty," to use Zen phraseology. Something that has no qualities or content can hardly be said to exist - and that's the paradox right there.
Trolling with koan?
"It consists of a story, dialogue, question, or statement, the meaning of which cannot be understood by rational thinking but may be accessible through intuition."
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