Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Wayne92587]

Consciousness is not what you think, imagine it to be.

Consciousness is the State or Condition of the Mind.

Consciousness is the State or Condition of the Universe.

God Consciousness is the State of Condition of the Great Void, existence prior to the beginning of the Evolutionary Process, before the beginning moment of creation of the Reality of First Cause.

The Creation of the Reality of First Cause being an affect born of God Consciousness, the Subjective Mind of God.

[Felix]

Greta: That's fine, but the same could be said today about consciousness being merely the potential for something more impressive again that lay in wait within consciousness.

Or "progressing" (reverting) back to it's essential nature, which is a direct and more total mode of knowing. This is the Vedantic conception: The Supreme Being feigns ignorance to participate in the adventure of consciousness (i.e., the journey back to Self awareness). The adventure is objectively real to the adventurer (sentient being).

Tamminen: Consciousness is an essential "property" of this totality, but the early stages of the universe were also necessary in the same way as the existence of the fetus is necessary for the existence of the conscious human being.

From the reverse perspective, matter is required for the play of consciousness, it's the stuff of which the player's movie set is made. A set, protagonists, and storyline are needed to make a movie, in this case the Story of Universe 4d (the one we inhabit), which is a group improvisation. Poor improvisors will be fired without severance pay, i.e., face extinction.

[Tamminen]

From the reverse perspective, matter is required for the play of consciousness

A good point. We cannot escape existence, so what else can we do than play! Interestingly, this seems to be what also Sartre thought in Being and Nothingness. Ludere necesse est, vivere non est necesse.

[Halc]

I was asking about the difference between a human organism "in its early development" and a human later on, that a universe without the latter is logically impossible.
I was not asking about the differences between universes with and without conscious beings.

Sorry, I did not notice there was a straight question.
...
So a human organism is a totality with conscious and non-conscious phases, but its consciousness defines the world around it, ...

I kind of got tired of asking, but notice the introduction of the concept of 'phases'. This has now been followed by this:

Halc:

I was asking about the difference between a human organism "in its early development" and a human later on

James:

But in that before time there was something that got changed into the thing with subjective consciousness. Do you have any idea as to the nature of that change? Would you call it a physical change?

This is a very interesting question. When I wake up from a dreamless sleep, something changes, also in my brain I suppose.

OK, I truncated a lot of it, but phases apparently refer to sleep/awake cycles. Consciousness definition being used here is 'not asleep' as opposed to the more usual vague definition of 'has immaterial mind'. Perhaps if we all go to sleep at once the universe might disappear. When asleep, we have no presence. That it is logically impossible for 'awake' not to exist has not been spelled out, just asserted.

[Sy Borg]

That's fine, but the same could be said today about consciousness being merely the potential for something more impressive again that lay in wait within consciousness.

I like that, but what else could this more impressive be than a clearer and deeper consciousness, perhaps eventually reaching some sort of transparency of being.

Then again, how could the reflexive and mindless organisms living before brains emerged have imagined consciousness?

They couldn't anticipate the bundling together of their nerve cells into lines that lead to a central processor, which would then ignore almost all of that data brought to it and instead assemble the few chosen subjects together into what we refer to as cohesive worldview.

We are not blind to our limitations, though. Our mental opacity - the problem of other minds - is famous, as our our attempts to overcome this and extend our comprehension via communication. The issue here is locality - whatever we do we reflect local perceptions. The next step hen is the linking of numerous human brains to central processors that, like our brain, would filter out what it deems to be trivia and cohere what it deems the most important into a cohesive meta-consciousness.

It's already here in part, but at present looks to be at the "nerve net" stage (animals with nerve nets have no central brain but sense freely with less connection than brained animals - for such an animal, losing a limb might not worry the other limbs whereas we brained animals would be devastated). So the next step in consciousness should be the capacity to think through multiple minds in disparate places, overcoming both locality and, to some extent, subjectivity.

The key term here is "to some extent"; subjectivity remains as long as not everything and everyone is connected, so there will be more room for improvement again. However, trying to imagine that kind of dynamic - beyond consciousness - is probably akin to my dog trying to understand calculus.

As I have said, I have a holistic view of the universe, meaning that the universe is a spatio-temporal totality. Physical time can be thought of as a dimension, as opposed to subjective time. Consciousness is an essential "property" of this totality, but the early stages of the universe were also necessary in the same way as the existence of the fetus is necessary for the existence of the conscious human being. The world has also its becoming, which means becoming conscious in the form of individual conscious beings.

I have always quite enjoyed your expressed worldviews, although I've always been dubious about the certainty expressed at times.

The only objection I have is the idea of consciousness being essential. If it is essential, then so are gravity, quarks, electrons, atoms, molecules, clouds, stars, planets, moons, asteroids and having enough space for all of that crap to do its thing. Like those other parts of reality, consciousness is simply one more emergent property and its potentials don't equal necessity any more than being born guarantees living to adulthood.

Our solar system, for instance, could easily have not harboured consciousness, just as so many seemingly do not (at present!). However, the scale of the galaxy and universe makes clear that emergence of mentality is more inevitable than essential.

[RJG]

And is't it obvious that without us, our consciousness, there can be nothing?

Sorry, it is not obvious to me. If you become unconscious, what happens to me? Do I suddenly stop existing?

My answer to this specific question is: you exist for yourself and others. But if there is no me, no you, or anyone else experiencing anything, has never been or will never be, then there is no way of positing being of any kind, except as an internally inconsistent abstraction.

Isn't this a relativistic viewpoint? In other words, from the relative perspective of the subject, if he experiences 'nothing', then for all intents and purposes, nothing exists (for him!). But logically speaking, things can still exist, even if they can't be 'known/experienced', ...right? ...this is still a logical possibility, ...true?

This is the "provocative" part of my reasoning. And the syllogism is therefore not the one you gave, but if there are no conscious beings in the universe seen as a spatiotemporal totality then there is nothing, which is absurd and self-contradictory therefore there are necessarily conscious beings in the universe seen as a spatiotemporal totality

To translate/interpret your words above into a proper syllogism, then we get this:

• P1. If there are no 'conscious beings', then nothing exists. [If no A, then no B]
  P2. Nothing existing is self-contradictory; impossible. [no B is impossible]
  C. Therefore, 'conscious beings' exist. [Therefore A exists]

Is this correctly interpreted? If so, then my comments are:

1. P1 is not logically true. The existence of objects are not contingent upon the perceivings,or the existence, of conscious beings. Trees can still exist and fall in the woods even if no one sees/hears them. Speculating otherwise is only just 'speculation'.
2. Upon closer inspection, this syllogism is both 'unsound' and 'invalid'. It is unsound because P1 is false, and invalid because the conclusion does not logically follow. (to better see the invalidity, replace "conscious beings" with "unicorns").
3. The conclusion does not need supporting premises; it is self-evident. I am a conscious being, therefore conscious beings exist.
4. I'm not sure what is meant by "totality" within "spatiotemporal totality".

[Wayne92587]

Imagination is the essential property of Consciousness.

[Wayne92587]

Wonder!!

[Tamminen]

OK, I truncated a lot of it, but phases apparently refer to sleep/awake cycles. Consciousness definition being used here is 'not asleep' as opposed to the more usual vague definition of 'has immaterial mind'. Perhaps if we all go to sleep at once the universe might disappear. When asleep, we have no presence. That it is logically impossible for 'awake' not to exist has not been spelled out, just asserted.

In my thinking consciousness is a synonym for subjective experiencing, or presence, as I have said. It has nothing to do with the "immaterial mind", whatever that could mean. And if we see the universe as a spatiotemporal "thing" as I have described it a bit metaphorically, then it exists for any one subject that has ever existed in the universe, but not in any other sense of existing. Isn't this quite close to what you have said about the subjective viewpoint? And this is not a conclusion that can be achieved with a strict and formal logical reasoning, it is more like a phenomenological intuition of the absurdity of positing existence of a world with which we cannot logically have any kind of relationship.

Then again, how could the reflexive and mindless organisms living before brains emerged have imagined consciousness?

There is no imagining, the subject is already there "objectively", only not yet conscious.

Your speculation about the conscious network is interesting, but my thoughts are more conservative and stand within the individual subject and its individual consciousness, communicated with others in the usual way.

The only objection I have is the idea of consciousness being essential. If it is essential, then so are gravity, quarks, electrons, atoms, molecules, clouds, stars, planets, moons, asteroids and having enough space for all of that crap to do its thing. Like those other parts of reality, consciousness is simply one more emergent property and its potentials don't equal necessity any more than being born guarantees living to adulthood.
Our solar system, for instance, could easily have not harboured consciousness, just as so many seemingly do not (at present!). However, the scale of the galaxy and universe makes clear that emergence of mentality is more inevitable than essential.

I think that also material things are essential for the existence of what is fundamentally essential: the subject and its consciousness of the world, or presence. It is not necessary that an individual fetus develops to a conscious human being, but given that there are human beings, some of them must become conscious. And if there were no human beings, there must be some other conscious beings somewhere, and in that case we would be those beings. And, as I said, if there were no conscious beings anywhere, any time in the universe, there would be no universe in any meaninful sense of being or existing. And when I speak about necessity, the necessity of the being of consciousness if more like logical necessity, and the necessity of the way the world is constructed as the instrument for the being of consciousness is connected with the question of whether the laws of physics are logically necessary or not.

Isn't this a relativistic viewpoint? In other words, from the relative perspective of the subject, if he experiences 'nothing', then for all intents and purposes, nothing exists (for him!). But logically speaking, things can still exist, even if they can't be 'known/experienced', ...right? ...this is still a logical possibility, ...true?

Kind of true, yes, but as I said, how can we posit even the possibility of the being of something we have no relationship with? We have a relationship with unicorns in the sense that there is a place for them in the logical space and in our world, but for a world without subjects we have no logical space. Therefore it is an absurdity, and only if an absurdity is possible, the world without inhabitants is possible.

The existence of objects are not contingent upon the perceivings,or the existence, of conscious beings. Trees can still exist and fall in the woods even if no one sees/hears them. Speculating otherwise is only just 'speculation'.

No one has witnessed the big bang, but its being or non-being is still in relation to our being there, existing. Saying that the big bang just happened to create an uninhabited or inhabited world seems natural, but is in fact an unjustified and internally inconsistent abstraction. We tend to forget our own existence and its essential nature in the structure of reality.

[Sy Borg]

Then again, how could the reflexive and mindless organisms living before brains emerged have imagined consciousness?

There is no imagining, the subject is already there "objectively", only not yet conscious.

Your speculation about the conscious network is interesting, but my thoughts are more conservative and stand within the individual subject and its individual consciousness, communicated with others in the usual way.

Your thoughts are not more conservative than mine :D

The idea of institutional consciousness is not so speculative since the process is already in train. What is the difference between the consciousness of a tadpole and that of a human - the number of connections. What's happening now? More connections. Does this lead to new emergent phenomena? Yes, they are currently called "institutions". An ant colony is an emergent phenomenon that has a mind that can have as many neurons as a human's (albeit more loosely connected) - one that strategises, experiments, organises and controls. The ants themselves don't have a mind. Nor did early aggregations of ants in the past - the mind of an ant colony emerged through numbers and integration. A threshold was reached.

Thus, human colonies are becoming "mega minds", not just a simply ant colony mind. It is happening before our eyes and we cannot see it, just as a fish might ignore water. Look at skyscrapers and the space program. Humans cannot do such things. We make houses and cars. Further, not just any group of humans can create such modern wonders, only institutions that contain synergies far beyond the combined capabilities of their constituents.

It will be fascinating/horrible to see how independent institutional mentalities emerge with increased automated decision-making based on quantities and a tempo of data far beyond anything people can manage. You can already see the effect in small scale on the stock exchange - and how the stock exchange works for the betterment of the masses rather than itself (not).

And when I speak about necessity, the necessity of the being of consciousness if more like logical necessity, and the necessity of the way the world is constructed as the instrument for the being of consciousness is connected with the question of whether the laws of physics are logically necessary or not.

Thanks for that clarification. So the emergence of consciousness was inevitable given the configuration of physical reality from the start. Certainly when once considers the odds and the scale of the universe/reality, and given our example, consciousness seems to have been inevitable.

Of course, if we didn't have our own example to draw on for this fundamentally post hoc conclusion ...

[Tamminen]

Thanks for that clarification. So the emergence of consciousness was inevitable given the configuration of physical reality from the start. Certainly when once considers the odds and the scale of the universe/reality, and given our example, consciousness seems to have been inevitable.

Of course, if we didn't have our own example to draw on for this fundamentally post hoc conclusion ...

Consciousness did not emerge from anything. Something emerged from the necessity of the being of consciousness, namely the complexity of our universe, to make consciousness concretely existing in the concrete world, because there cannot be consciousness in itself, floating around in emptiness. So God did not create the world, the subject did for its own project of being, whatever that project is. Consciousness is the manifestation of this project. If we think of it carefully, what else is there but us?

to better see the invalidity, replace "conscious beings" with "unicorns"

This does not work because the non-being of unicorns does not mean that nothing exists, as we know. As to the truth of the first premise, see below.

I am a conscious being, therefore conscious beings exist.

It was a question of conscious beings necessarily existing in the universe.

I'm not sure what is meant by "totality" within "spatiotemporal totality".

My holistic view of the universe means, for instance, that the essential features of it, especially the being of consciousness, explain its origin and development. I do not think that this conflicts with science, only deepens our understanding of what lies behind scientific facts.

Another attempt to clarify my point: I have written in some of my posts: "If I did not exist, there would be nothing", which at first sight seems not only paradoxical but false. When someone dies, the world does not cease to exist. But the situation between me and another is not symmetrical. When someone dies, I still exist, and many others still exist, and we can say the famous phrase "I am". Even if ants were the only conscious subjects in the world, there would still be a sense in saying "I am" in the case of an individual ant, although it could not express it as clearly as Descartes. Descartes doubted the existence of the world, and he could doubt it because he was certain that the "I am" was true. But if there is no "I am" that can be said of any subject, there is no doubting, no certainty, no perspective to the world. The whole world vanishes away, which is absurd, and this is the reason why there neccessarily must be subjects in the universe if it makes any sense to speak of the existence of the universe. An uninhabited universe is an abstraction beyond being and non-being.

[Tamminen]

Imagine that you are the only conscious being in the universe. You see that the universe is objectively there although you do not see all of it. Then you die, for good. Where is the universe now? What now? There is no now or here. There is nothing and there has never been anything, because there is no time. It is exactly the same as if you had never existed, and the universe had never existed. Therefore such a universe cannot exist. All existence presupposes a "here and now", a presence, to exist. And this presence is the "I am", a subject's conscious being in the world that gets its existence from that presence, giving the subject its concrete existence in turn. The subject-object relationship cannot be broken without destroying all being.

[Halc]

In my thinking consciousness is a synonym for subjective experiencing, or presence, as I have said.

Yes, and I've said that I've given up trying to figure out what you mean by 'presence' beyond 'being awake', or why existence is logically absurd without it.

[.quote] then it exists for any one subject that has ever existed in the universe, but not in any other sense of existing. Isn't this quite close to what you have said about the subjective viewpoint?[/quote]Saying it exists FOR some subject is a relativistic stance, which is not what you've been saying all along, but yes, it is quite close to my view, even if consciousness has absolutely nothing to do with that relationship.

And this is not a conclusion that can be achieved with a strict and formal logical reasoning, it is more like a phenomenological intuition of the absurdity of positing existence of a world with which we cannot logically have any kind of relationship.

You were the one saying it was a logical absurdity that a universe could exist without this 'presence' property. Now you're saying it isn't really a conclusion reached via logic.

Isn't this a relativistic viewpoint? In other words, from the relative perspective of the subject, if he experiences 'nothing', then for all intents and purposes, nothing exists (for him!). But logically speaking, things can still exist, even if they can't be 'known/experienced', ...right? ...this is still a logical possibility, ...true?

Kind of true, yes, but as I said, how can we posit even the possibility of the being of something we have no relationship with?

Here we go with the relativist view again, consistent with the new wording above. I think you are a relativist and just don't know how to express it. To answer your question, maybe there is something else with its own 'presence' that makes its utterly disjoint place exist, despite the complete lack of relationship with us here. That's how you could post that possibility. I would posit it even with less effort since I don't require 'presence' to have that relationship.
The solar light along my walkway turns on when it gets dark enough, which could not function if the light did not exist in relationship with the non-conscious solar light. Non-conscious things can nevertheless be able to detect other things even if you refuse to attach the name 'awareness' to that relationship.
[/quote]No one has witnessed the big bang,[/quote]Can't let this go, but I beg to differ. You can still see the thing, not at the instant it happened, but the brilliant 'fireball' (is isn't really fire) just afterwards. The bang itself is obscured by matter in a form that is opaque.

[Halc]

Alas, I posted without fixing two quote errors. Have to remember to preview on this edit-phobic site.

[Halc]

An uninhabited universe is an abstraction beyond being and non-being.

No, an uninhabited universe is an uninhabited universe. An abstraction is a mental construct, and an uninhabited universe is not such a thing.