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

[UniversalAlien]

So far so good - Still the living soul of Max Planck has not spoken directly to us.

Until then let us continue With AlienView's Hypothesis, supposedly at least loosely based on some of Planck's assertions.

Just found this from the well known data base for articles on medicine PubMed.gov:

[Evidence that suggest the reality of reincarnation]
[Article in Spanish]
Ernesto Bonilla
PMID: 26299061
Abstract
Worldwide, children can be found who reported that they have memories of a previous life. More than 2,500 cases have been studied and their specifications have been published and preserved in the archives of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia (United States). Many of those children come from countries where the majority of the inhabitants believe in reincarnation, but others come from countries with different cultures and religions that reject it. In many cases, the revelations of the children have been verified and have corresponded to a particular individual, already dead. A good number of these children have marks and birth defects corresponding to wounds on the body of his previous personality. Many have behaviors related to their claims to their former life: phobias, philias, and attachments. Others seem to recognize people and places of his supposed previous life, and some of their assertions have been made under controlled conditions. The hypothesis of reincarnation is controversial. We can never say that it does not occur, or will obtain conclusive evidence that it happens. The cases that have been described so far, isolated or combined, do not provide irrefutable proof of reincarnation, but they supply evidence that suggest its reality.

Similar articles
The explanatory value of the idea of reincarnation.
Stevenson I.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 1977 May;164(5):305-26. doi: 10.1097/00005053-197705000-00002.
PMID: 864444
Children's reports of past-life memories: a review.
Tucker JB.
Explore (NY). 2008 Jul-Aug;4(4):244-8. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2008.04.001.
PMID: 18602617 Review.
The Case of James Leininger: An American Case of the Reincarnation Type.
Tucker JB.
Explore (NY). 2016 May-Jun;12(3):200-7. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2016.02.003. Epub 2016 Mar 2.
PMID: 27079216
Personality and abilities of children claiming previous-life memories.
Haraldsson E.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 1995 Jul;183(7):445-51. doi: 10.1097/00005053-199507000-00004.
PMID: 7623016
Transplants, cellular memory, and reincarnation.
Dossey L.
Explore (NY). 2008 Sep-Oct;4(5):285-93. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2008.07.001.
PMID: 18775395 Review. No abstract available.
See all similar articles

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26299061/


The validity and proof of reincarnation would indicate that death is not always {if ever} final - And that the consciousness of some people can return {If someone's past life can be recalled in a new physical body, is this not a transcendence of death } - Or would you rather accept a 'conscious field', part of Planck's be all implications on the nature of consciousness as a
fundamental prime - Is it possible that death is only an illusion and that life is in fact forever

[JackDaydream]

So far so good - Still the living soul of Max Planck has not spoken directly to us.

Until then let us continue With AlienView's Hypothesis, supposedly at least loosely based on some of Planck's assertions.

Just found this from the well known data base for articles on medicine PubMed.gov:

[Evidence that suggest the reality of reincarnation]
[Article in Spanish]
Ernesto Bonilla
PMID: 26299061
Abstract
Worldwide, children can be found who reported that they have memories of a previous life. More than 2,500 cases have been studied and their specifications have been published and preserved in the archives of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia (United States). Many of those children come from countries where the majority of the inhabitants believe in reincarnation, but others come from countries with different cultures and religions that reject it. In many cases, the revelations of the children have been verified and have corresponded to a particular individual, already dead. A good number of these children have marks and birth defects corresponding to wounds on the body of his previous personality. Many have behaviors related to their claims to their former life: phobias, philias, and attachments. Others seem to recognize people and places of his supposed previous life, and some of their assertions have been made under controlled conditions. The hypothesis of reincarnation is controversial. We can never say that it does not occur, or will obtain conclusive evidence that it happens. The cases that have been described so far, isolated or combined, do not provide irrefutable proof of reincarnation, but they supply evidence that suggest its reality.

Similar articles
The explanatory value of the idea of reincarnation.
Stevenson I.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 1977 May;164(5):305-26. doi: 10.1097/00005053-197705000-00002.
PMID: 864444
Children's reports of past-life memories: a review.
Tucker JB.
Explore (NY). 2008 Jul-Aug;4(4):244-8. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2008.04.001.
PMID: 18602617 Review.
The Case of James Leininger: An American Case of the Reincarnation Type.
Tucker JB.
Explore (NY). 2016 May-Jun;12(3):200-7. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2016.02.003. Epub 2016 Mar 2.
PMID: 27079216
Personality and abilities of children claiming previous-life memories.
Haraldsson E.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 1995 Jul;183(7):445-51. doi: 10.1097/00005053-199507000-00004.
PMID: 7623016
Transplants, cellular memory, and reincarnation.
Dossey L.
Explore (NY). 2008 Sep-Oct;4(5):285-93. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2008.07.001.
PMID: 18775395 Review. No abstract available.
See all similar articles

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26299061/


The validity and proof of reincarnation would indicate that death is not always {if ever} final - And that the consciousness of some people can return {If someone's past life can be recalled in a new physical body, is this not a transcendence of death } - Or would you rather accept a 'conscious field', part of Planck's be all implications on the nature of consciousness as a
fundamental prime - Is it possible that death is only an illusion and that life is in fact forever

The question is to what extent the articles are proof of life after death or connections between memories. I am not sure that it is possible to know for sure. As a child I did wonder if I was a reincarnation of my grandfather, who died 6 weeks before I was born. I don't know if this was fantasy or other family members seeing similarities between him and me. In thinking about evidence, the specifics of the evidence need to be examined clearly rather than simply citing references without further analysis.

It is a bit like the issue of NDEs and how they are interpreted. I keep an open mind about these especially as I have not had one. This week, on my thread about consciousness someone disclosed an NDE and it was the first time that anyone ever shared one with me. I am afraid I can't link you to the post on my phone, so if you wish to read it you need to go into the thread.

As far as ideas about life after death are concerned it may be hard to come up with clear evidence for or against it until death. The current materialist argument is that death is the end whereas people of religious persuasions often choose to believe it exists as a definite reality. So much may come to choice about what one wishes to believe and, often, this choice is made on the basis of an overall world picture. Planck comes up with a view of consciousness but does not really present a religious perspective, even though this thread is in the section on the philosophy of religion. The religious perspectives often occur in the context of narratives and stories.

I had a thread on the question of immortality in the metaphysics and epistemology section about a month ago and, It went on for quite a few pages but my own conclusion was that ideas about life after death are symbolic but it is hard to know the literal answer. The idea of rebirth reflects the cyclical nature of existence. Plancks' argument about consciousness, which is only a speculation, if nothing else challenges the materialist idea that consciousness can simply be reduced to the brain, but that is as far as it goes, and it is a matter of personal interpretation beyond this.

[AverageBozo]

Again 'consciousness is fundamental' - No beginning, no end, but rather a fundamental state of conscious existence that is
the be all of all that exists - The past, present, and future is backed by an ever existing state of consciousness

Consciousness has a beginning. It doesn’t exist before birth, because if it existed and transferred into another body, everyone would be aware of their pre-natal state. There is no example for you to provide of anyone who has ever reported their pre-natal experience.

Now assuming, just for the sake of argument, that Planck is correct - Is death even possible

Assuming that Plank is right is to assume that your argument is right. That is not how arguments are judged true.

How can any form of life actually die, discounting the actual physical body which we know will eventually pass on
- But the ever existent conscious state that the physical body came from will always exist and the conscious essence that the
body came from is ever present.

Discounting the actual physical body is to assume a definition of death that excludes physical death. If death excludes the physical body then indeed there’s no such thing as death. But using a contrived definition to support a claim does not make the claim true in other than contrived circumstances.

So we Humans, or any life form for that matter, can not die completely - It simply returns to the primal and forever state of
consciousness

When a human dies, all bodily parts cease to function. Free-floating consciousness implies reincarnation. Without true justified examples of reincarnation, consciousness of the ilk you describe falls flat.

That said - Can we postulate the existence of a real afterlife where our ego specific conscious mind can maintain itself
and voluntarily choose to return and be reborn

Let me say again that reincarnation has not been established.

And finally do you know of anyone, including yourself, who believes, and even better still has evidence of living before

As I alluded to above, no one has reported such.

[AverageBozo]

Software needs hardware. The idea that the software mysteriously goes somewhere else when the hardware it's running on is dismantled seems like a misunderstanding of the nature of software.

OK, and by this logic one can also clearly see the possibility that software can migrate (or be migrated) to another platform if its original one disappears.

Yes. But I don’t think software is a good analogy for consciousness. Software is code. Code is a set of instructions represented by characters in a computer language. These characters are physical once they are translated into circuits that are either on or off, open or closed.

[AverageBozo]

Shame on Max Planck!

The OP is quoting Planck out of context, and thus misinterpreting his statement above.

So what's the correct context/meaning?

Maybe another quote by Max Planck will help to clarify what he means to say:



Pinterest
matrix of the mind - max planck | Max planck quotes, Science quotes, Physics

Assuming the existence of something does not make it exist.

[AverageBozo]

So far so good - Still the living soul of Max Planck has not spoken directly to us.

Until then let us continue With AlienView's Hypothesis, supposedly at least loosely based on some of Planck's assertions.

Just found this from the well known data base for articles on medicine PubMed.gov:

[Evidence that suggest the reality of reincarnation]
[Article in Spanish]
Ernesto Bonilla
PMID: 26299061

…The cases that have been described so far, isolated or combined, do not provide irrefutable proof of reincarnation, but they supply evidence that suggest its reality.

The validity and proof of reincarnation would indicate that death is not always {if ever} final - And that the consciousness of some people can return {If someone's past life can be recalled in a new physical body, is this not a transcendence of death } - Or would you rather accept a 'conscious field', part of Planck's be all implications on the nature of consciousness as a
fundamental prime - Is it possible that death is only an illusion and that life is in fact forever

[Gee]

So far so good - Still the living soul of Max Planck has not spoken directly to us.

Until then let us continue With AlienView's Hypothesis, supposedly at least loosely based on some of Planck's assertions.

Just found this from the well known data base for articles on medicine PubMed.gov:

[Evidence that suggest the reality of reincarnation]
[Article in Spanish]
Ernesto Bonilla
PMID: 26299061
Abstract
Worldwide, children can be found who reported that they have memories of a previous life. More than 2,500 cases have been studied and their specifications have been published and preserved in the archives of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia (United States). Many of those children come from countries where the majority of the inhabitants believe in reincarnation, but others come from countries with different cultures and religions that reject it.

The above refers to Dr. Ian Stevenson's studies at the University of Virginia. He did some very interesting work as he is the first person, and maybe the only person, to apply any scientific methodology to the study of reincarnation. I think that the most surprising information came with his discovery of a relationship between reincarnation and birthmarks. We have no idea what causes some types of birthmarks, but Stevenson found a child that had birthmarks on his torso and told his previous name, city, and family, and how he had died in an accident. Stevenson's team found the record of that person and found the medical records that showed cause of death. The medical report showed the tears on the torso of the dead man were a mirrored image of birthmarks on the torso of the reincarnated boy. After that Stevenson discovered more birthmarks that seemed to mirror death marks.

Most people see this as coincidence or maybe deceit because there is no way that thought and the conscious brain could have caused something like this in death. And they would be right. Thought could not cause a birthmark like that and the brain could not cause a birthmark like that. But then thought and the brain are not consciousness, thought is a product of consciousness -- the rational aspect of mind is a product of the brain and the unconscious.

Can the unconscious cause birthmarks? I think so. But until people get over the thought and the brain are consciousness nonsense, no one will study this seriously.

Is it possible that death is only an illusion and that life is in fact forever

No. It is not possible. Death, like birth, is a process and part of a continuum -- not an illusion. Death is not the end, just like birth is not the beginning -- they are both just changes. But the products of consciousness will die, so the body will die and break down, the brain will die and break down, and the rational aspect of mind will die and break down.

Gee

[Tegularius]

A comforting myth while one is alive. It's not consciousness itself which is fundamental but the processes which allow it to happen.

[UniversalAlien]

What do I know Let me allow someone more used to current philosophical thinking take the stage:

"A Super-Simple, Non-Quantum Theory of Eternal Consciousness"

A sleepy philosopher inspires thoughts on how consciousness could endure forever
By John Horgan on May 1, 2018

Which is more fundamental, mind or matter? You would think, in our ultra-materialistic era, that debate would be settled. But a surprising number of philosophers and scientists still resist the idea that mind is a mere afterthought of matter. One is Bernardo Kastrup, a computer engineer and author of several books, including Why Materialism Is Baloney.

In “Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality?”, recently posted by Scientific American, Kastrup contends that quantum mechanics—as well as cognitive science, which suggests that minds construct rather than passively mirroring reality--undermines the assumption that the physical world exists independently of our observations. He calls for a new paradigm that makes mind “the essence—cognitively but also physically—of what we perceive when we look at the world around ourselves.”

On Twitter, physicist Sean Carroll slammed Kastrup’s “bad article on quantum mechanics,” and science journalist Michael Moyer called it “voodoo.” That’s a bit harsh. Kastrup’s interpretation of quantum mechanics reminds me of that of the great physicist John Wheeler. Decades ago, Wheeler pointed out deep resonances between quantum mechanics and information theory. An electron behaves like a particle or a wave depending on how we interrogate it. Information theory, similarly, posits that all messages can be reduced to “binary units,” or bits, which are answers to yes or no questions.

Wheeler proposed that physics be recast in terms of information theory, an idea that he encapsulated in the phrase “it from bit.” He postulated in 1989 that “every it--every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself--derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely--even if in some contexts indirectly--from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits.” We live in a “participatory universe,” Wheeler suggested, which emerges from the interplay of consciousness and physical reality, the subjective and objective realms.

Scientists and philosophers have proposed lots of other hypotheses that challenge strict materialism. They include “orchestrated objective reduction,” a quantum theory of consciousness invented by physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff; integrated information theory, which implies that consciousness suffuses the cosmos and is touted by neuroscientist Christof Koch; the reality-as-simulation hypothesis, entertained by Neil deGrasse Tyson; and the anthropic principle, which Sean Carroll espouses.......

But I have thought of a way in which consciousness might be eternal, sort of, even if materialism is true. The idea came to me in the fall of 2015 when I was attending a workshop on integrated information theory at New York University. Toward the end of the meeting, I noticed that philosopher David Chalmers, an organizer, was nodding off.The man who called consciousness “the hard problem” was having a hard time remaining conscious! [See Response from Chalmers below.]........

Response from Chalmers: After I emailed this column to David Chalmers, he replied: “As it happens, Kelvin McQueen and I recently developed a theory of quantum consciousness that we had to reject on the grounds that the theory made it impossible to wake up from a nap! The idea was that states of consciousness can never enter quantum superpositions. It's as if they are constantly being measured, so they always collapse onto definite states. But now the Quantum Zeno Effect tells us any state that is constantly being measured can never change. If one starts in a state of unconsciousness, then the moment any glimmer of consciousness might be about to emerge, the system will collapse back to a state of unconsciousness. So after a nap, one can never regain consciousness!”

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cr ... ciousness/


Again we see how to cook-up theories in philosophy 'Philosophy salad supreme' - Try to make explanations of consciousness and
existence as complicated as possible and pretend this will give them more validity - Why not just say consciousness is both prime and infinite

Why - Because you are Human and humans, especially of today, tend to resist simple answers.

And I ask you if the existent state of existence did not always exist - Where did it come from

And to say this existent state was unconsciousness and then somewhere along the way became conscious is ridiculous

[Pattern-chaser]

But I don’t think software is a good analogy for consciousness. Software is code. Code is a set of instructions represented by characters in a computer language. These characters are physical once they are translated into circuits that are either on or off, open or closed.

Don't get too involved as to exactly what software is. It's a route into madness and nonsense. [I say this as a retired software designer with ~40 years experience.] Let's just agree that software is not a good analogy for consciousness, as you say.

[CIN]

In 2006, for about half an hour, I had the odd and rather unpleasant experience of having two conscious selves in my head at the same time instead of the usual one. The most likely explanation, given the surrounding circumstances, is that each hemisphere of my brain was generating its own conscious self. This strongly suggests to me that consciousness is created by the brain, so that when the brain dies, consciousness must cease. It would take a lot to persuade me, in the light of this experience, that reincarnation or any other kind of survival after death is possible.

[UniversalAlien]

"Ian Stevenson’s Case for the Afterlife: Are We ‘Skeptics’ Really Just Cynics?"

Stevenson, who died in 2007, was a psychiatrist by training—and a prominent one at that. In 1957, at the still academically tender age of 38, he’d been named Chair of psychiatry at the University of Virginia. After arriving in Charlottesville, however, his hobbyhorse in the paranormal began turning into a full-grown steed. As you can imagine, investigating apparitions and reincarnation is not something the college administrators were expecting of the head of their mental health program. But in 1968, Chester Carlson, the wealthy inventor of the Xerox copying process who’d been introduced to Stevenson’s interests in reincarnation by his spiritualist wife, dropped dead of a heart attack in a Manhattan movie theatre, leaving a million dollars to UVA on the condition it be used to fund Stevenson’s paranormal investigations. That money enabled Stevenson to devote himself full-time to studying the minds of the dead, and over the next four decades, Stevenson’s discoveries as a parapsychologist served to sway more than a few skeptics and to lead his blushing acolytes to compare him to the likes of Darwin and Galileo.

Stevenson’s magnum opus, published in 1997, was a 2,268-page, two-volume work called Reincarnation and Biology. Many of his subjects had unusual birthmarks and birth defects, such as finger deformities, underdeveloped ears, or being born without a lower leg. There were scar-like, hypopigmented birthmarks and port-wine stains, and some awfully strange-looking moles in areas where you almost never find moles, like on the soles of the feet. Reincarnation and Biology contained 225 case reports of children who remembered previous lives and who also had physical anomalies that matched those previous lives, details that could in some cases be confirmed by the dead person’s autopsy record and photos.

Interestingly, and contrary to most religious notions of reincarnation, there was zero evidence of karma. On the whole, it appeared to be a fairly mechanical soul-rebirthing process, not a moralistic one. What those mechanisms involve, exactly, is anyone’s guess—even Stevenson’s. But he didn’t see grandiose theorizing as part of his job. His job, rather, was simply to gather all the anomalous data, investigate them carefully, and rule out, using every possible method available to him, the rational explanations. And to many, he was successful at doing just that. Towards the end of her own storied life, the physicist Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf—whose groundbreaking theories on surface physics earned her the prestigious Heyn Medal from the German Society for Material Sciences, surmised that Stevenson’s work had established that “the statistical probability that reincarnation does in fact occur is so overwhelming … that cumulatively the evidence is not inferior to that for most if not all branches of science.” Stevenson himself was convinced that, once the precise mechanisms underlying his observations were known, it would bring about “a conceptual revolution that will make the Copernican revolution seem trivial in comparison.” It’s hard to argue with that, assuming it ever does happen.

“The mind is what the brain does,” I wrote in The Belief Instinct. “It’s more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn’t it be obvious that the mind is dead too?” Perhaps it’s not so obvious at all...........

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/be ... st-cynics/


Now I want you to consider one other possibility............Assuming my interpretation of Planck's concept of consciousness as a prime
that backs all that is, was, and will ever be, than all that happened in the past is a matter of 'conscious record', possibly recorded
by what is sometimes called the 'Akashic record'

Akashic record, in occultism, a compendium of pictorial records, or “memories,” of all events, actions, thoughts, and feelings that have occurred since the beginning of time.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Akashic-record

So past lives, all past lives, are a matter of record - and some children {and adults} are simply picking up on someone else's 'soul'

Still I ask are there 'adepts' who can consciously transcend death and bring themselves back to life at some time in the future

[Pattern-chaser]

...consciousness is created by the brain, so that when the brain dies, consciousness must cease.

Consciousness, of the sort that uses a biological brain to support it, must surely cease. But perhaps that point is that things can change? A caterpillar turning into a butterfly is an unexpected thing, but it happens. It might be that consciousness can continue, albeit changed, after its bio-platform collapses?

[CIN]

...consciousness is created by the brain, so that when the brain dies, consciousness must cease.

Consciousness, of the sort that uses a biological brain to support it, must surely cease. But perhaps that point is that things can change? A caterpillar turning into a butterfly is an unexpected thing, but it happens. It might be that consciousness can continue, albeit changed, after its bio-platform collapses?

I certainly don't think we can rule that out. I was merely saying that at the moment, based on such evidence as I have, I personally think it unlikely. But we still don't understand the link between the brain and consciousness - if the brain does create consciousness, what is it actually doing, and how does it do it? Materialists sneer at dualists, but they have nothing better to offer, because their explanations don't explain.

[Gee]

What do I know Let me allow someone more used to current philosophical thinking take the stage:

"A Super-Simple, Non-Quantum Theory of Eternal Consciousness"

A sleepy philosopher inspires thoughts on how consciousness could endure forever
By John Horgan on May 1, 2018

Which is more fundamental, mind or matter? You would think, in our ultra-materialistic era, that debate would be settled. But a surprising number of philosophers and scientists still resist the idea that mind is a mere afterthought of matter. One is Bernardo Kastrup, a computer engineer and author of several books, including Why Materialism Is Baloney.

The question, "Which is more fundamental, mind or matter?" is not a valid question, because although we may know what matter is, we do not know what mind is. We have learned about the divisions of mind, but we do not know what the parameters of mind are and assume that the parameters are the body. We say that mind is caused by the brain, but no one wants to agree that fleas, spiders, and mosquitos have minds -- we know they have brains. When people are in deep coma, we say that they are in a vegetative state -- so do plants have that (vegetative) kind of mind? Do ecosystems have a kind of mind? They are self-balancing just like our bodies are self-balancing, so there has to be communication there. To argue that mind is fundamental, one would need to know what mind is.

In “Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality?”, recently posted by Scientific American, Kastrup contends that quantum mechanics—as well as cognitive science, which suggests that minds construct rather than passively mirroring reality--undermines the assumption that the physical world exists independently of our observations. He calls for a new paradigm that makes mind “the essence—cognitively but also physically—of what we perceive when we look at the world around ourselves.”

I am not exactly sure of what you mean here, but am comfortable with the idea that mind may construct as well as mirror reality. I see the unconscious aspect of mind as more constructive of reality and the rational mind as more mirroring reality. imo

On Twitter, physicist Sean Carroll slammed Kastrup’s “bad article on quantum mechanics,” and science journalist Michael Moyer called it “voodoo.” That’s a bit harsh. Kastrup’s interpretation of quantum mechanics reminds me of that of the great physicist John Wheeler. Decades ago, Wheeler pointed out deep resonances between quantum mechanics and information theory. An electron behaves like a particle or a wave depending on how we interrogate it. Information theory, similarly, posits that all messages can be reduced to “binary units,” or bits, which are answers to yes or no questions.

Wheeler proposed that physics be recast in terms of information theory, an idea that he encapsulated in the phrase “it from bit.” He postulated in 1989 that “every it--every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself--derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely--even if in some contexts indirectly--from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits.” We live in a “participatory universe,” Wheeler suggested, which emerges from the interplay of consciousness and physical reality, the subjective and objective realms.

I don't know anything about information theory, quantum mechanics, or physics, but I do know that the unconscious aspect of mind processes information in a similar way. It sorts things into "self" and "other", which is a lot like the "yes or no" idea. If for example you are walking in the city and see a young man running toward you, your unconscious aspect of mind will make hundreds of calculations regarding the man about his age, race, clothing, way of walking, associates, the part of town he is in, etc., which will label him like you "self" (friend) or unlike you "other" (foe), and this conclusion will happen in seconds. This is where bias and prejudice originate, but the unconscious is constantly calculating what is part of us and what is not. This self/other and bonding is a great deal of how some levels of the unconscious process information.

Scientists and philosophers have proposed lots of other hypotheses that challenge strict materialism. They include “orchestrated objective reduction,” a quantum theory of consciousness invented by physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff; integrated information theory, which implies that consciousness suffuses the cosmos and is touted by neuroscientist Christof Koch; the reality-as-simulation hypothesis, entertained by Neil deGrasse Tyson; and the anthropic principle, which Sean Carroll espouses.......

But I have thought of a way in which consciousness might be eternal, sort of, even if materialism is true. The idea came to me in the fall of 2015 when I was attending a workshop on integrated information theory at New York University. Toward the end of the meeting, I noticed that philosopher David Chalmers, an organizer, was nodding off.The man who called consciousness “the hard problem” was having a hard time remaining conscious! [See Response from Chalmers below.]........

Response from Chalmers: After I emailed this column to David Chalmers, he replied: “As it happens, Kelvin McQueen and I recently developed a theory of quantum consciousness that we had to reject on the grounds that the theory made it impossible to wake up from a nap! The idea was that states of consciousness can never enter quantum superpositions. It's as if they are constantly being measured, so they always collapse onto definite states. But now the Quantum Zeno Effect tells us any state that is constantly being measured can never change. If one starts in a state of unconsciousness, then the moment any glimmer of consciousness might be about to emerge, the system will collapse back to a state of unconsciousness. So after a nap, one can never regain consciousness!”

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cr ... ciousness/

This looks like we finally discovered how plants are conscious and stay in the same state of consciousness. Is that right? So we have more work to do.

Again we see how to cook-up theories in philosophy 'Philosophy salad supreme' - Try to make explanations of consciousness and
existence as complicated as possible and pretend this will give them more validity - Why not just say consciousness is both prime and infinite

Just apply Occam's Razor? Sure, we could do that, but we would end up with the "prime and infinite" as being "God". Then we would have the fun of deciding which "God" and whose "God", so it would be the restarting of "let the wars begin". Which part of this do you see as less complicated?

Why - Because you are Human and humans, especially of today, tend to resist simple answers.

And I ask you if the existent state of existence did not always exist - Where did it come from

And to say this existent state was unconsciousness and then somewhere along the way became conscious is ridiculous

Some state of consciousness did always exist, we know this because it is fundamental. Are you stating that the unconscious and consciousness can not both exist? Or are you stating that change is ridiculous or evolution is ridiculous?

Gee