The Final Answer to the Brain / Consciousness Mystery

Share thoughts and ideas regarding what can be done to meet contemporary humanity's need for rites of initiation and passage.

Moderators: Clemsy, Martin_Weyers, Cindy B.

What general solution will answer the mystery of the relationship between the material processes of the human brain and the phenomenon we all know as human consciousness?

a.) There is no mystery
1
7%
b.) The classical scientific solution
0
No votes
c.) The exotic scientific solution
6
40%
d.) There is no solution
3
20%
e.) Other
5
33%
 
Total votes: 15

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

noman wrote: ...Then the third speaker was an unknown young philosopher named David Chalmers, who got up there with hair down to his waist, in a T-shirt and jeans, and gave the best talk I’d ever heard on the topic of consciousness...
David Chalmers, among other philosophers involved in modern consciousness studies, does have a lot to offer. For any interested, he has an excellent web site: http://consc.net/chalmers/ Be sure to check out the internet Resources section as well.

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

jonsjourney
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Post by jonsjourney »

And with the continued discoveries in neuroscience, things are still buzzing as far as I can tell. You’ll have a jolly good time. -noman
Yes, I am really looking forward to it.

I think I told you previously that I have a book called The Mind's I, which is a series of exercises on some of the perspectives regarding consciousness. Having been published in 1981, the more contemporary folks who are working on this question are not included, but the exercises still serve to guide how we may try to think about the consciousness "problem".

The appearance of complete subjectivity in the human experience of consciousness gives the impression that it is an "unsolvable" problem. But I think that part of the solution lies in our ability to use language at the level of complexity that we do. I understand that dolphins, ants, plants, and cellular life all communicate, but it may be that our human ability to not only communicate, but share our thoughts may give us the necessary leg up on this question.

Another cool thing is that we live in the modern world of mass communication that is more free and open than at any other time in history. Scientists, philosophers, and forum participants can share their thoughts in a free way and help to inspire new ways of approaching the question. In the past, the deep thinker existed in a kind of consciousness vacuum that may only ever reach a larger audience in the form of books, scholarly articles or conferences. Now, we can watch the videos from TED http://www.ted.com/ talks anytime we want, which may cause that tiny spark that leads to a firestorm of progress on a scientific problem. Cooler still...it may be an "average Joe or Josephine", like any of us, that may find the piece that leads to precipitous progress.

Thanks, noman, for the above quote and info on that book...I am going to add it to my list of books to buy right now!
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

noman
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Post by noman »

If (a), (b), or (c) turn out to be the eventual winner of this race – if there is no mystery left – it points the way to a chilling realization for the future of humankind. If there is no mystery left, we will most likely figure out a way to create ‘human consciousness’. Now I’m not talking about ‘artificial’ intelligence. Nothing artificial about it. And I’m not talking about those emotionless robots or borgs in Sci-fi that take over the world and enslave humankind (or make us into D-cell batteries). I’m talking about mechanisms like us – that can reason and feel, ask questions and philosophize, exercise free will (if such a thing exists), have a sense of self and a sense of community, live virtually forever and explore all the mysteries of the universe. Of course modifications will be made to prevent these next-generation conscious beings from being self-destructive like we are. And their life spans would be open-ended. But besides that, they would be much like us. There’s no reason to believe, in such a scenario, that we humans will be mistreated. It’s just that our significance will be minimized. We might be reduced to something like animals in a wild animal park – but with televisions - and Prozac. :shock:

Just a little Pollyanna thought for the weekend. 8)

- NoMan

boringguy
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Post by boringguy »

Hi noman,
Of course modifications will be made to prevent these next-generation conscious beings from being self-destructive like we are.

An assumption of value noman? :wink:
Your consciousness shining through? 8)

Maybe it is just an arrogant human assumption to believe that we are an end step rather than a first step, and that evolutions path must continually be biological. :idea:

And IMHO, that would still be pretty far from lifting the rock.
We might be reduced to something like animals in a wild animal park – but with televisions - and Prozac.

A bit of a tangent here but.....
A friend was telling me the other day of reading a story on the net somewhere about a student from africa, going to college here in the states, being asked what he thought about our politics. The student told a story about the wild pigs at home. They were great to eat but very difficult and dangerous to hunt, so here is what you do. First you put corn out on the ground and the pigs willl come to eat. After a time you build a fence in a straight line next to where you put the corn. The pigs will be leery at first, but soon return to the corn undaunted. In a simular fashion the second, third, and even the forth side with a gate are added. Then one day you simply close the gate while they are eating the corn. They run around quite upset at the loss of freedom at first, but before too long become quite accustom to 'free' corn and water, and life within the pen.

Yes,
Just a little Pollyanna thought for the weekend.


bg
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Last edited by boringguy on Sat Oct 17, 2009 6:39 pm, edited 3 times in total.

richard silliker
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Post by richard silliker »

noman
If (a), (b), or (c) turn out to be the eventual winner of this race – if there is no mystery left – it points the way to a chilling realization for the future of humankind. If there is no mystery left, we will most likely figure out a way to create ‘human consciousness’. Now I’m not talking about ‘artificial’ intelligence. Nothing artificial about it. And I’m not talking about those emotionless robots or borgs in Sci-fi that take over the world and enslave humankind (or make us into D-cell batteries). I’m talking about mechanisms like us – that can reason and feel, ask questions and philosophize, exercise free will (if such a thing exists), have a sense of self and a sense of community, live virtually forever and explore all the mysteries of the universe. Of course modifications will be made to prevent these next-generation conscious beings from being self-destructive like we are. And their life spans would be open-ended. But besides that, they would be much like us. There’s no reason to believe, in such a scenario, that we humans will be mistreated. It’s just that our significance will be minimized. We might be reduced to something like animals in a wild animal park – but with televisions - and Prozac.
You got it noman.
The new machine will be intelligence but "live" in an inorganic container. We will provide it with the values, experiences, needed for it to reflect on its subsequent ambivalences. Some of these machines will be slow and some will be fast in that their life span will be less then the time it takes a bullet to leave the barrel of a gun. They will be able to recognize flow in humans and the resulting outcomes; as such will cull the psychopaths from our midst.

RS
Last edited by richard silliker on Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"We sacrifice the whole truth of any given experience for the value to which we are constrained".

noman
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Post by noman »

bg - I didn't mean that all human beings are destructive or that humankind is necessarily programmed for destruction. I just meant that the capacity for suicide - and war - are not something we would want to pass on to the next-generation of higher consciousnesses. Just a little modification here and there. We humans would not be prisoners like pigs in a pen. We would be honored and 'kicked up-stairs' so-to-speak, as the passionate relics of carbon based evolution that gave birth to a race of beings with much higher consciousness and much higher values than ourselves.

On the other hand, if human consciousness remains mysterious, then every human life will retain the seed of destiny, and the myths and hero-quests of all ages will be as relevant in the future as they have been since the dawn of human consciousness.

i think... :roll:

- NoMan

Andreas
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Post by Andreas »

I was watching POM again (never get tired of this). I particularly watched the part where Campbell tells the story of Indra and Brahma. Anyways Campbell says at the end of the story "Each person can have its own depth experience and some conviction of being in touch with his own Sat Chit Ananda, his own being through consciousness and through bliss."

For me that story holds the essence of what it is to be human you think you are aware till you discover something new. Its the same with science and art, everyday you make new discoveries or something you understood in a certain way you now understand it in another like its discussed again in POM. Thats one more reason for me why to think that the question what is consciousness is never gonna be answered.

hmm oh wait i didnt vote for that. Can i take back my vote ? :lol:

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

I don't think we're in a confortable position
to consider the problem objectively. This doesn't
seem any different than the situation Dr. Heisenberg
found himself when working on electrons; the observer
cannot be detached from the experiment and cannot
obtain scientifically valid results. So 'exotic scientific'
solution seems to me more appropriate. Thanks.

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