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29th December 2017, 05:15 PM | #81 |
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Really? I know I'm conscious because of science? I kind of took that for granted. Most of the important things I know are through self-discovery. Those truths are heard-earned. What flavor quarks make up a proton? Kind of trivial.
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29th December 2017, 05:17 PM | #82 |
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29th December 2017, 05:34 PM | #83 |
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Now you're changing subjects. You said we only know about 5 percent of the universe or galaxy and my reply was the ONLY reason we know as much as we do is through science. My remark had nothing to do with consciousness, but about humanity's acquired knowledge and it's source.
You think if you contemplate your belly button long enough that the answer of how consciousness develops will somehow pop into your mind? Get serious. Sam Harris or maybe it was Lawrence Krause was discussing this on a YouTube video I recently watched. He basically dismissed that even if Einstein, Bohr and Feynman gathered in a room and meditated, they would not be productive. |
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29th December 2017, 05:48 PM | #84 |
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29th December 2017, 05:53 PM | #85 |
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29th December 2017, 08:22 PM | #86 |
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29th December 2017, 08:42 PM | #87 |
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It's not faith. Faith is the answer people give when they don't have a good reason. Because if you had a good reason you wouldn't need faith.
It's an understanding of reality. Science is the only method to date that has any success and woo has successfully answered nothing. Sure, it's possible that science may not be able to come up with the answer, but there is virtually no chance that woo will answer this question or any question. It may not be a guarantee, but it's pretty damn close. I'll hitch my wagon every time to the one method we know has the best chance at success to the other method which has never ever been successful. |
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30th December 2017, 01:02 AM | #88 |
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Does materialism also fail to explain the origin of life? Because that strikes me as a more basic question: Create some primordial ooze, add sunlight and presto! Life! And if you believe in inanimate material suddenly becoming alive,you're practically going from materialist to dualist to theist right there.
So: Is the origin of life question also unsolvable, in the way that you believe the origin of consciousness is unsolvable? I don't find materialism to be all that satisfying, philosophically. Do you believe that before there was conscious meat, there was unconscious meat; is it only in the higher animals that you see any necessity for a dualistic world view? What about during the dinosaur era, did the so-called problem of consciousness exist? I like the idea of there being a body and soul, but I can't say when a body becomes ensouled. Materialism is all-of-a-piece; there is no metaphysical threshold (that I know of) that needs to be bridged. It leads to a more coherent picture, IMO. I ran around with a consciousness crowd for a while, the dualistic, non-emergent, anti-AI wing. They were a mix of serious theorists and New Age types, but not many doing hard-core neuroscience. |
30th December 2017, 02:47 AM | #89 |
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30th December 2017, 04:22 AM | #90 |
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In other context, I was just reminded of Clarke's First Law, and I think it applies here:
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, they are almost certainly right. When they state that something is impossible, they are very probably wrong."I realize that none of us probably is a distinguished but elderly scientist, but the second half of the law I think applies to non-distinguished, non-elderly non-scientists as well. |
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30th December 2017, 05:07 AM | #91 |
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Other people (mostly cranks) are starting to go this route: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science...ous-ncna772956[/quote] |
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30th December 2017, 06:44 AM | #92 |
Now. Do it now.
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30th December 2017, 07:02 AM | #93 |
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There is no absurdity. Its just your personal unsupported belief that consciousness can't arise from organisation in matter.
"I don't want to believe that" isn't an argument. And you throw around this challenge to science to define consciousness for you, as if that somehow strengthens your position. If you don't even have a working definition, how can you claim that consciousness is outside the scope of scientific understanding? |
30th December 2017, 07:43 AM | #94 |
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30th December 2017, 08:35 AM | #95 |
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Neuroscience is a subject of interest to me, and I subscribe to a couple of neuroscience blogs on Tumblr. They are both quite active.
I also just read the Robert Ornstein book, “The Evolution of Consciousness” which explores the subject in some detail. While contemporary neuroscience, like contemporary cosmology and astrophysics, can’t tell us everything about how our little “3-pound universes” work, we are gaining more and more knowledge of these things on an ongoing basis. It’s been said that we’ve learned more about brain function in the last 10 years than we have in all of previous history. In all of that, I’ve never seen even the slightest indication that anything other than the electrochemical activity of “The most complex stuff in the universe” is necessary to explain consciousness. To all evidence it’s tied inextricably to the activity of the brain, which is easily demonstrated by the profound effects on consciousness that occur when one tampers with or damages the brain. Damage this area...That bit of function is lost. Stimulate that area, a memory may be reliably elicited. Introduce psychoactive chemicals, and predictable effects occur. Alter the brain’s internal chemical balances even slightly, and profound effects may occur. Just drop the blood-sugar level a few points and the person becomes incoherent, confused, and eventually unconscious. The overall solution to the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness may be as knotty as is the nature of the Dark Matter.... But it’s in the area of neuroscience that it will be sussed out, not spiritual mumbo-jumbo. |
30th December 2017, 10:03 AM | #96 |
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Thank you for this post. I've never really thought this was an unsolvable mystery.
I'm convinced that life and consciousness is all about the right recipe. Put the proper ingredients together under the right conditions and life will materialise every time. And given enough time and the right conditions simple life will eventually evolve into more complex life and that life will develop consciousness. That we don't know today precisely what those conditions exactly are is not a failure of science. Things take time and require resources and the right technology and some times that technology hasn't been invented as of yet. Man is in his technological infancy. I think about the massive amount of knowledge we have acquired in just the last few years and I am awestruck. But we didn't get here with mumbo jumbo. There is no evidence of a universal consciousness or spirit. And more importantly, why would anyone think there is? |
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30th December 2017, 10:49 AM | #97 |
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30th December 2017, 01:49 PM | #98 |
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30th December 2017, 01:56 PM | #99 |
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30th December 2017, 02:12 PM | #100 |
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30th December 2017, 02:12 PM | #101 |
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"The Conservatives want to keep wogs out and march boldly back to the 1950s when Britain still had an Empire and blacks, women, poofs and Irish knew their place." The Don That's what we've sunk to here. |
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30th December 2017, 02:47 PM | #102 |
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I think, therefore, I am
This is all I need to know about conciousness |
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30th December 2017, 02:48 PM | #103 |
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30th December 2017, 03:06 PM | #104 |
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Well, it could be, for those who are obsessed with knowing why consciousness exists (usually the same people who accept the existence of invisible sky deities without any evidence or proof).
For mine, conciousness is something I experience. It exists, and I don't much care why. If it didn't exist, well we would not be having this discussion. |
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30th December 2017, 04:19 PM | #105 |
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30th December 2017, 04:21 PM | #106 |
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30th December 2017, 04:39 PM | #107 |
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You sure smell like one.
And I thought you don’t fail until you give up. I don’t see materialist-based science giving up any time soon. Only if The Universe turns out to be an omnipresent brain. Keep looking, I’m sure you will eventually find the god you desperately seek (if you haven't already). Cosmic consciousness - A god by any other name . . . |
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30th December 2017, 05:47 PM | #108 |
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Of COURSE IT HAS. Can you identify a single item anywhere that you KNOW to have a conscious that doesn't have a living organism associated with it? Therefore the material is necessary for consciousness.
By that logic, you can postulate that fairies, Big Foot and cow farts are the source of consciousness. There IS ABSOLUTELY no reason to believe that these things are true anymore than the horse manure you are putting stock in. So what? So you disagree? You can believe in all kinds of things. That doesn't make them true. |
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30th December 2017, 07:01 PM | #109 |
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30th December 2017, 08:00 PM | #110 |
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A perfect analogy
Fud seems to believe because we don't have a detailed answer for what causes consciousness and despite every clue pointing toward a material association that we look for an answer in the universe instead.
This is like proposing that since you can't find your keys, you should look half way around the world in places you have never been as opposed to continuing your search in the places you frequent. Granted you may be frustrated since you haven't found them, but that doesn't justify going off on a wild goose chase. |
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30th December 2017, 08:45 PM | #111 |
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30th December 2017, 09:30 PM | #112 |
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30th December 2017, 09:55 PM | #113 |
I would save the receptionist.
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30th December 2017, 09:56 PM | #114 |
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Because we experience our own personalities, and the personalities of our loved ones, so powerfully that it's hard to believe that all of this dies with brain death. You sit with someone dying; at some point they're "gone," and maybe we instinctively believe they've gone somewhere?
I never saw the "big problem" nature of consciousness. I wasn't sure there was anything to explain. I did not know of any reason that an organism would not become self-aware, maybe as an evolutionary strategy. |
31st December 2017, 01:15 AM | #115 |
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I'm not sure consciousness is such a big deal anyway. It obviously seems important to us, but most animals manage perfectly well without it. The more we find out about how the brain works the less of a big deal it becomes, seeming to be little more than a thin veneer on the unconscious workings of the brain with far less of a role to play in decision making, for example, than we'd previously assumed.
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31st December 2017, 01:58 AM | #116 |
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So, Fudbucker, all you have to discount materialism is your personal incredulity.
Could you perhaps explain why you think science will never be able to research consciousness? Your previous 'explanation' that science isn't equipped for it isn't an explanation, just a rephrasing of your claim. And could you point us to a system with a better track record for finding answers about the way things work? |
31st December 2017, 03:00 AM | #117 |
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31st December 2017, 03:30 AM | #118 |
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31st December 2017, 03:35 AM | #119 |
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31st December 2017, 04:07 AM | #120 |
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