What Is Consciousness?

Discussion in 'Philosophy' started by MarleyGreen, Jul 17, 2014.

  1. Hello my friends,
     
    The one question I always ask myself when I get high and I'm in solitude is, what is consciousness? Everyone has there own interpretation for it but what is it?

     
  2. sup, Conciousness is way more complicated than any of us know.  I've done extensive research on the subject.  My best understanding of it is that in this physical world he have a very limited view and our conciousness is being cut down like a reducing valve.  It has been reduced down and is limited to our brain and awareness of the physical world, mental world, dream world, Some of us are lucky to have out of body conciousness(not me yet, working on it tho).
     
    Some areas for you to study:
     
    Dr. Eben Alexander. 
    A neurosurgeon who believed conciousness was created by the brain.  All his life he was raised as a scientists and became a neurosurgeon.  He dismissed any claims of patients having extra-ordinary experiences and claimed they were brain based hallucinations.  He learned later that there is no way this could be the case as he himself would find from his OWN experience.
    He contracted sever bacterial meningitis which took over his brain and body.  His neocortex was shut down and had no activity throughout the duration of his coma for a week.  Though during that time he was able to experience another reality.  Beautiful beyond description, free of pain, Multi-leveled and multi-dimentional, Vast, Some parts with earthly resemblances, but mostly new and exciting.
    He's written a book his experience called "proof of heaven", and despite the someone christian sounding title the book has NO religious affiliated words or views expressed within it.  I've read it and its amazing, got it off walmart shelves even..
     
    Daniel Tammet
    The world record holder for the longest pronounciation of the mathematical symbol pi.  With one reading of the number he was able to recite the number from memory for nearly 12 hours.  He is also a mathematical savant who can do math equations to further decimal places in his head than most calculators can show.  This ability began when he was only 4 years old after he had an epileptic seizure.
    The odd question is .. How does something that causes damage to the brain tissue end up changing it in a new way that causes extra-ordinary super human abilities?  He is not the only person to be affected this way.  Other cases include a child who was struck in the head with a baseball and became unconcious.  Later he awakened and with the ability to draw anything from memory perfectly.  His ability increased by an event most of us would believed to cause damage to the brain's ability.  How is this possible?
     
    The afterlife of Billy Fingers
    A woman begins communicating with her brother after his death and learns about the other side and about death through him.
    I haven't read this book, but the youtube videos are great.
     
    More on my belief
    We are here to experience something new and different.  It is something that only this world can offer.  To experience pain, Ignorance, and separation of universal love.  The knowledge of good and evil is what we have partaken(research David Serada meets Jesus).  With the knowledge of good and evil we chosen to separate ourselves conciously from universal love and light, David mentions it is actualy creating a shield that prevents universal love from reaching us.  Here we experience things such as: Not knowing or ignorance, pain and suffering, fear, limited concious experience, time, love based on conditions or conditional love.  Here love is conditional, you must be Good, attractive to the opposite sex, be liked by your peers based on what they want to see you as, or have parents who are gracious enough to love you even when you do stupid things out of ignorance and they know not to judge.  Here we are all judgemental and the knowledge of good and evil has created these adverse conditions.  It is said that we have signed up to be here.  To learn and understand things from an entirely new perspective, giving us a new perspective on us as individuals, The only lesson we have when we depart are lessons we learn about our selves and our soul, It's the only thing you can take with you when you leave.  In the other realm we have much broader concious awareness, we experience no pain, and we are immersed in the universal unconditional love of creation. (i myself cannot say i've experienced this, but there are many who can say they have)
     
  3. You are life seeing itself within itself, but KNOWING it's (you) is seeing itself (which is a mere shift in perception) is when you actually begin to see your 'true' freedom in this life....your true self of what you really are.  And this freedom is in conscious awareness, which is all there is, which is you & me & everyone.  Don't overlook this, it's with you each and every moment of your existence since birth.  Your body has changed appearances, however there is something in you that hasn't changed, something you can feel and know.  That familiar 'self' you proclaim to be inside that's unchanging and has always been YOU. 
     
    Existence/consciousness is almost a tangible thing, only to say that it's not tangible at all, it seems to be just out of our ability to solidify it as something to be 'had' so to speak.  It's a surreal paradox that the mind can't fully grasp ....yet. 
     
    If you want to try to see this, then continue below:
     
    Sit and think deeply about your waking existence thats right in front of you (look outside, away from tv or screens).  Think about how your waking existence could be a tangible thing instead of some mundane everyday regularity thats constantly being taken for granted right in front of your face.  Really look... and realize, and KNOW what you are.  It's not as hard as these so called spiritual teachers make it sound.  It's right there in front of you, your seeing with your senses each and every day. 
     
    We aren't seeing things how they are, we're actually seeing things how WE are, the waves our eyes see and our ears hear are only the waves our eyes and ears present.  Our eyes only present to us the most mundane levels of existence in the physical in order for us to carry on the existence of the body/physical.  This is the nature of life living itself through you...as you. 
     
    When you look under a microscope you'll begin to see the illusory nature of our 'thought up' solidified existence.  Believing only in what our limited 5 senses present to us is ignorance.  Learning to go beyond the senses (shift in perception) is enlightenment.  
     
    "All appears in awareness, ordinary awareness now, which is the ground of all
    that is, including this present experience. Simple awareness is the common
    factor to all experience. Just see that you are simply present. Nothing else is
    ever happening. See that all arises and falls in present awareness. People
    pass, clouds are going by, conversations are going on, thoughts appear. All
    unfolds in present awareness.
     
    Within awareness, you are appearing to yourself as everything. People,
    thoughts, worlds, universes, life, death – all take place in you. Identification
    as an ordinary human individual takes place in you. You are the source and
    appearance of all.
     
    All experience appears in you. There is only the present appearance of
    everything in and as awareness. Any ‘enlightenment' experience is merely
    another modification of experience in awareness. You need not attempt any
    transcendence or annihilation of individuality, ego, or anything else. All of that
    appears in ordinary awareness. This experience now, however ordinary or
    extraordinary, is the content of awareness. Nothing whatsoever needs to
    change, there is nothing to get or realize. You are Consciousness, aware and
    appearing as everything.
     
    There is awareness right now – whatever the content. Awareness and
    content. Ocean and waves. The ebb and flow of life. This is it now. You are it."
     
    -Nathan Gill
     
  4. consciousness is the ability to recognize your surroundings and manipulate them accordingly. on a more abstract level its the state of being, transcending physical attributes. 
     
  5. what is consciousness?
     
    a bummer.
     
  6. a byproduct of the senses feeding information to the brain
     
  7. Well said. Consciousness, as we commonly think of it, is an illusion. In reality it is simply the byproduct of higher level cognition and sensory input.
     
  8. #8 WavyClouds, Jul 27, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 28, 2014
    Consciousness , awareness of the mind and the world around itself. I believe in multiple consciousnesses or ways in which you could get to perceive differently from what you you are limited to everyday in the 5 senses. It's surprising that something we all experience is difficult to hold in our hand. The Hard question or the one people have been trying to explain is how a physical mechanism can Give rise to consciousness, or merely anything at all. Main debates are Dualism and Physicalism: Physicalism States that everything is only physical , The mental or the mind is just a certain arrangement of atoms that perform a certain function nothing more than how a computer runs itself. If our brains are NOTHING but biological implantation's, it's easy for people to believe that a chip could run the same software or be wired the same as how our brains are. People hold this view Why; The simplicity of it , instead of having to come up with 'Different' Concepts of Why or What's or going on when we're conscious at this moment. Dualism Is the theory that consciousness falls outside the physical barrier, that Mental phenomenas are in some respects; non physical, Or the mind and The body are not identical.
    René Descartes(1641) Clearly identified the mind with self awareness , and stated it was a non physical substance and distinguished this form of the brain as the 'seat of intelligence' hence he was first to formulate the mind-body problem as it exists today. There are other types of plausible explanations for what makes You, You , and how were in this moment , at this second, But tbh I felt like this was too long and deep to begin with and the rest of gc wouldn't bother, I'm still open minded though to new perspectives that might come up in the future, nothing's certain at this time
     
  9. #9 freethinker, Aug 3, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 3, 2014
    One of the most intelligent men alive today Dr. Searle and many others have tried to explain the 'hard problem of consciousness', yet you brush it off as some 'byproduct' of ourselves in a dismissive manor without proper investigation (self-inquiry)....  not trying to get down on you man, but thats just ignorance on your part to dismiss is so vaguely..
     
    Your not seeing past the surface level of what it is to be consciously aware because your mind can't grasp what you actually are logically or tangibly.  Ever ponder the question 'why' consciousness even exists in the first place?  Why does nature even need us to have a consciously aware experience through us human beings at ALL??  Do you believe we're entitled to all of this?   How could a drop of water in an ocean explain the entire ocean with it's limited experience of only the drop (reality) that it experiences?
     
    Ask yourself 'why' consciousness is, not 'what' it is....  I can explain what colors are scientifically, but 'why' colors in the first place for us to interpret and enjoy in arranged patterns that the sun (original big bang energy) decided to shine on and show to us?  Ever try to describe the color red without comparing it to another object that man has labeled with his limiting senses and labels?  ...it's impossible, try it some time.  When we start to ponder questions like this, we just might change our minds about what consciousness actually is. 
     
    We are nature, so go outside and observe nature.  Lets observe ourselves outside and watch how everything interacts.  Mosquito's start flying around at sunset, and birds sit in the trees and pick them off one by one from the branches... only a few mosquitoes make it out alive.  This is one way in which nature is trying to advance and better itself (there are infinite examples).  Matter engulfing other matter to form more advanced matter through what we would call natural selection or survival of the fittest.....whatever labels us humans decide to give it, it's nature trying to better itself in infinite ways of advancements (labels are limiting by their very nature of only OUR perspective of objects).  The real question is, 'why' does nature desire to do this trial and error/advancement/love/attachments/ect..?  Remember...we are nature.  Think about this deeply...  Why is nature granting us and experiencing THROUGH us the conscious awareness that we're all experiencing?  Why not something else?  ...you see where I'm going with this?  We must think outside the box so to speak.. 
     
    With love bro... I'm not trying to get down on you.  We should respect our experiences and our ability to experience (consciousness) in the first place.  We did nothing to deserve this experience of what we call life, we just simply 'are'.. and there's a mystical element to all of this that we're not seeing due to the distractions and ignorance of our minds that constantly take us away from ourselves as a result of life long conditioning and manipulations.  
     
  10. Consciousness is aware of itself as an experience between itself and the environment in which it exists, it is a ‘self-awareness' having the capacity for understanding, but.. the understanding of, and organization of, information acquired through awareness, inwardly from or outwardly from the perspective that is conscious, that understanding and organization are elements of intelligence.. intelligence, like awareness, is an inherent attribute of consciousness, and the inherent attributes of awareness and intelligence may be dormant or active without negating the experience that informs consciousness of its existence..
     
  11. Well, freethinker, thank you for insulting me and telling me that I'm wrong. But you did say "with love" and called me "bro" so I guess it's all good.
     
    I am more than familiar with Searle and Dennett and all the other big players in the field of consciousness studies.  I've read all the literature and have studied under Dennett and other big names. I'm not throwing the idea that consciousness is an illusion out there lightly in some abstract sense.  I've spent years studying this and my conclusion is based on both empirical evidence and my own subjective experience.
     
    Now you're entitled to your opinion, and that's fine.  But just because you want consciousness to be more than what it is doesn't make it so.  Asking "why do we have consciousness" is one of those wishy-washy, metaphysical, philosophical questions that can't be answered like "Why are we here?" Who knows? I'm not saying that asking why is pointless, but in this case, you're never going to come up with an answer.  The question that interests me is how we have consciousness.  Specifically, how subjective experience arises from biochemical/electrical activity.
     
    Anyway, that's my two cents on consciousness.
     
  12. For an interesting peek behind the curtain at one important as aspect of consciousness, namely that of deliberate conscious decision making and choice, check out the excellent Wikipedia article, Neuroscience of free will - especially the Libet experiment. When we feel that we have made a selection between two alternatives, the decision had already been electrochemically weighed out and selected by our brains firing pathways and in measurable intervals of time before we feel or become consciously aware of what "we"(?) decided. Experiments have been devised to measure samples of some of those intervals. In some cases, research observers of specially designed  fMRI experiments could even tell with 100% accuracy which of two buttons a test subject would randomly decide to press BEFORE the subject was conscious of making the decision! We ultimately are what an amazingly complex but understandable system of molecular machinery is doing.
     
  13. I actually know all about this already. I'm a big fan of Sam Harris and he talks all about this in his latest book, Free Will. I'm inclined to agree with him that we don't actually have free will, as we commonly understand it.  But I really don't know for sure. I keep my finger on the pulse of what's going on in the field of neuroscience anxiously awaiting more tidbits of information to build my world view upon.
     
  14. Ramachandran suggests that we have a free won't where our prefrontal cortex is responsible for inhibit actions. When drinking alcohol there is less activity in the PFC and people tend to do more stupid things. There are also people who have frontal lobe injury tend to partake more risky behavior and would go bankrupt.  There's also something called environmental dependence syndrome where  an environmental cue will trigger the person to do a particular action. For example, the one I heard in my neuropsychology class, researchers had an interview with one such person and told him to wait in a room for while, then they strategically placed a picture frame, a nail and a hammer. The subject will then proceed to  try to hang the picture on the wall , despite given no instruction to, which likely reflect an inability to inhibit an action that's associated with the environmental cue.
     
  15.  
    What these type of experiments don't show is that causality can flow in two directions in the brain, not just bottom to top in terms of functional complexity. That is, not only are higher levels of cortical function such as consciousness causally influenced or "determined" by low level neural processing distributed through a variety of brain regions, but low level functioning is also causally influenced by higher organizational levels of activity. Information (causal modulation of neural firing patterns) flows both directions, bottom to top and top to bottom.
     
    The situation as related to consciousness is kind of a causal hallway of mirrors arrangement. But in the end, we are NOT stuck in endless feedback-feedforward loops flowing up and down the hierarchy of neural complexity. At some point, decision circuits arrive at a condition where enough is enough and the choice is made. The weird part is, that determination occurs before our consciousness gets painted with the choice. Every thought, every intention, is the integrative byproduct of a bewildering assortment of signaling between relevant connected signaling nuclei. 
     
    Stanford neuroscience professor William Newsome does a decent job of pointing out this bidirectional aspect of causality in this talk:
     
    [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzn2msnmPso[/media]
     
    Lastly, one should no longer discount the glia in all of this. Our minds may very well be what our brains are doing, but there's more to brain function than what the neurons are doing. As R Douglas Fields and many other are showing, the glial cells are much more involved in information processing than once believed. See - The Other Brain
     
    Here is a Ted Talk featuring a brief overview of Field's research into glial functionality:
     
    [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWYa-SzOwes[/media]
     

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