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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 3:12:21 PM   
jlf1961


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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

For all I know you are all just an illusion, and the only thing I can know for sure is that I exist...

Oh the zen of it.



Actually, you cannot be sure that you are real, you could be a major part of someone else's fantasy or dream, therefore you only think you exist as part of that framework, once that dream is gone, you cease to exist.

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 3:16:36 PM   
LillyBoPeep


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Status: offline 		we are only "sure" we exist because we are so tied to our thoughts and our ability to think. but you could argue that a character in a novel "thinks," too, when the author of the novel writes "he thought."
we could be part of someone else's dream, where the dream author imagines "julia wrote a thread one day..."


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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 3:22:16 PM   
mnottertail


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Status: offline 		Je pense, d'onc Je suis.

Descartes.

< Message edited by mnottertail -- 6/21/2011 3:23:19 PM >

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 3:25:20 PM   
juliaoceania


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Status: offline 		Damn I love these sorts of conversations....

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 3:46:51 PM   
jlf1961


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From: Somewhere Texas
Status: offline 		Julia, you could also be part of some elaborate computer simulation (rent the movie "thirteenth floor") in which you are an alter ego of some individual that downloads their consciousness into the simulation and in effect becomes you, or their version of you. At other times you act as an Artificially Intelligent computer simulation until you are accessed by your user, then you act under their control and are effectively unaware of what you are doing.

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Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?

You cannot control who comes into your life, but you can control which airlock you throw them out of.

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 4:01:50 PM   
juliaoceania


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Status: offline 		Well.... I think that is highly unlikely, but don't stop using your imagination... or should I say, borrowing from other people's imaginations....

I remember when I was thinking of taking calculus and we were looking at tangent lines, and how to solve for them, and I asked the math professor about exponents, because we had talked about graphing earlier, etc.... I said, what happens in the 5th dimension and the 6th dimension... etc etc etc..

He said, that was a problem for quantum physics... and he said that "we just don't know"...

It has made me excited about the prospects of what lies beyond the dimensions we have mapped,and what those dimensions will be mapping out. Perhaps human consciousness lies somewhere in a place that has not been mapped.

Materialists think that even human consciousness has a material basis. And when we look at the brain, it is an organic structure that is map-able... but the thoughts that are generated, the ideas created and transmitted... are the concepts that are generated by the mind material and manifest?



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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 4:10:20 PM   
IceDemeter


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Status: offline 		Do the current theories in physics not include energy as being material? Would thoughts and concepts not be energies, and thus, material?

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 4:19:08 PM   
juliaoceania


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quote:

ORIGINAL: IceDemeter

Do the current theories in physics not include energy as being material? Would thoughts and concepts not be energies, and thus, material?




String theory has some interesting ideas about the substance that everything is made of might indeed be immaterial.... We are talking about things that are smaller than the subatomic world, even smaller than quarks...


quote:


wikipedia

String theory mainly posits that the electrons and quarks within an atom are not 0-dimensional objects, but rather 1-dimensional oscillating lines ("strings"). The earliest string model, the bosonic string, incorporated only bosons, although this view developed to the superstring theory, which posits that a connection (a "supersymmetry") exists between bosons and fermions. String theories also require the existence of several extra, unobservable dimensions to the universe, in addition to the four known spacetime dimensions.



More information on physics, string theory, etc
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/imagining-other-dimensions.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/theory-of-everything.html




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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 4:25:03 PM   
popularDemand


Posts: 228
Status: offline 		Human consciousness is not a 'meaningful' thing... it just is.
It only has meaning to us, as that is how percieve/justify and relate.
Without it, there is nothing, therefore we are nothing.

and we can't be having that, now can we?


















...or can we?

pD

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 4:39:20 PM   
hardcybermaster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub



It is hard to wrap our brains around the concept but if their were no consciousness anywhere in the universe there would be nothing to perceive the material world and it would simply not exist.

Personal opinion of course but it seems logical to me anyway.

Butch

I have heard this one before and it still makes no sense,without beings capable of perception everything ceases to exist? If we can assume for a second that we are actually here and real you are saying that if everything living dies ie. there are no conscious beings then the earth no longer exists?On a larger scale the universe is not there anymore? So we get to a situation where there is only 1 conscious being left in the universe and when it/he/she dies the whole thing just disappears?
I think it overplays our importance in the grand scheme of things a little...

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 4:57:06 PM   
tweakabelle


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Status: offline 		Meaning is something you find in a dictionary.

I wish I had thought that up. Alas I didn't - it was Wittgenstein.

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 5:06:51 PM   
juliaoceania


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Status: offline 		I suppose I think of meaning a great deal, because I talk about it with colleagues all of the time... so we have a bunch of data, we organize it in different ways, we even sometimes synthesize it, in short... we are data collectors and our brain must filter out a lot of noisy to create meaning behind it all. I think of what I do, as a qualitative researcher, is filtering out a bunch of noisy to create meaning.... and I suppose I think of "hard scientists" as doing the same thing.... they just do not readily admit it.

I am increasingly post modern in my approach to the world, I suppose.

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 5:24:13 PM   
Fellow


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Status: offline 		It seems to me there consciousness and morphogenesis are two very important things in biology that are not understood (in terms of the mechanisms). Understanding these two things would give science a big jump upwards. I think one of the factors suppressing the progress is naive materialism that shackles thinking progress, especially in academia. String theory (right or wrong) promises some progress. It  somewhat validates the theories of morphogenetic field and thinking process being quantum level phenomenon that may be located outside of the brain. Evolution is one area that attaches here as well.

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 5:45:31 PM   
kdsub


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Status: offline 		Yep ya heard it last week and we talked about it...Not our importance at all...It is a big universe and I hardly think we ...meaning life on this planet… are the only life in the universe. But if all consciousness everywhere in the universe did not exist then how could a physical universe exist with nothing to observe it or quantify it?

Most think there was a physical universe first... A universe spontaneously created from nothing…Then over time and cosmic accidents parts of the physical universe became aware and consciousness was born.

Why?

Why not consciousness first and the material universe created by this consciousness… I believe that would make more sense from the unknowable. Then…when life by cosmic accident was created it allowed a marriage of both.

There is no proof either way and to claim absolute knowledge through theory is being arrogant and not scientific at all.

Butch

< Message edited by kdsub -- 6/21/2011 5:50:48 PM >

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 5:46:44 PM   
juliaoceania


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Status: offline 		I was looking for information on Nova, they have a new Nova physics 4 part special that includes the multiverse... omg the geek in me is about to cream her panties over it... it is based on the work from String Theorist and physicist Brian Green.... wooo hooooo

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 5:50:56 PM   
juliaoceania


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quote:

There is no proof either way and to claim absolute knowledge through theory is being arrogant and not scientific at all.


Looking at the material universe as being the only universe is like thinking the earth revolves around the sun. It seems pretty plausible if you are paying attention to the movement of the sun that this would be the case, but when you look deeper it doesn't make sense. We cannot measure certain things yet, it does not mean we will never be able to, and that they do not exist because we have such limited knowledge to do so.

I think we are at the cusp of knowing things that are as important as gravity, and that the earth is round.

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 6:02:49 PM   
kdsub


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Status: offline 		juliaoceania I am foregoing anything scientific and speaking strictly in terms of philosophy. This is because we will never know the absolute truth of what was before the beginning. We will only be able to theorize and each step back through theory can only eventually come to the point of the unknowable… the creation of the universe from nothing. We will never understand this completely.

If there was ever a time with nothing… no time…no space…who is to say which came first… the material universe or consciousness? And if anything is possible from nothingness at the moment of creation then everything is possible…Including a God or eternal consciousness.

Butch


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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 6:08:31 PM   
tweakabelle


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Fellow

It seems to me there consciousness and morphogenesis are two very important things in biology that are not understood (in terms of the mechanisms). Understanding these two things would give science a big jump upwards. I think one of the factors suppressing the progress is naive materialism that shackles thinking progress, especially in academia. String theory (right or wrong) promises some progress. It  somewhat validates the theories of morphogenetic field and thinking process being quantum level phenomenon that may be located outside of the brain. Evolution is one area that attaches here as well.


Please explain to me the (possible) connection between consciousness and biology. I have no idea why any one might choose to link the two. Or even how unlocking the physiological mechanisms of consciousness will throw light on its more significant aspects such as its articulation or how it's experienced by the subject.

It might save time if I pose that question a la Wittgenstein:

Can meaning exist outside language?

< Message edited by tweakabelle -- 6/21/2011 6:15:09 PM >

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 6:08:55 PM   
juliaoceania


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

juliaoceania I am foregoing anything scientific and speaking strictly in terms of philosophy. This is because we will never know the absolute truth of what was before the beginning. We will only be able to theorize and each step back through theory can only eventually come to the point of the unknowable… the creation of the universe from nothing. We will never understand this completely.

If there was ever a time with nothing… no time…no space…who is to say which came first… the material universe or consciousness? And if anything is possible from nothingness at the moment of creation then everything is possible…Including a God or eternal consciousness.

Butch



It may seem at this point that we will never know, but there is no way that you could know that. It might not be known in my lifetime, but I have no way of predicting how the future will come about.




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Once you label me, you negate me ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Reality has a well known Liberal Bias ~ Stephen Colbert

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

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RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? - 6/21/2011 6:16:17 PM   
kdsub


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quote:

It may seem at this point that we will never know, but there is no way that you could know that. It might not be known in my lifetime, but I have no way of predicting how the future will come about.


I think it is safe to say no entity will ever know with certainty...and in our brief existence as a race even less of a chance. There can be no certain knowledge of all from nothing...ever...because there can only be infinite possibilities. If there was nothing then every though we can have …no matter how wild will have the same chance of truth.

But as I seem to be saying a lot lately it is just my opinion.

Butch


_____________________________

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I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing

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