Another Consciousness meltdown, this time a la Paar and Schips...

nobody and nothing said:There are still so many unanswered questions left hanging—so I figured maybe some kind of cross-disciplinary approach involving physics, biology, or even psychology might actually offer an answer...

but what about the actual answers?

Did you happen to find them within philosophy?

Or perhaps you just stopped looking altogether—is that why philosophy feels more like a way to prepare for whatever future might come our way?

It’s kind of a moot point, honestly, since you already agreed that consciousness is ETERNAL.

😕 But wait, do you actually think the brain is eternal too? [/B]

Personally, I’ve always been more drawn to the word "soul" than "consciousness." I feel like when I talk about a soul, I can say it’s hurting, or that it's rich, or even that it's destitute.
To me, a "rich" soul isn't just about being happy all the time; sometimes it's about carrying enough grief and pain to reach the absolute limit of what a person can endure.😉

Otton said:I find myself preferring the word SOUL over consciousness, simply because I can say my soul feels pain, or that it is wealthy or impoverished.
The richness of a soul isn't always defined by happiness; sometimes, it’s measured by sorrow and pain, right up to the very edge of what a person can endure.😉

😕 😕 😕

Jonathan Brown6 He knows what you meant, but instead of clarifying the ambiguity, he just pulls your mistake out of context to point it out.

hiddenviper9:
Jonathan Brown6,
What logical basis do you have for thinking I should explain myself to some random person on a forum?

Look, my way of debating is to simply point out—if someone uses a wrong term in their argument—exactly where they went wrong, without actually giving them the answer.
Now, if that person actually wants to fully grasp what they wrote, they need to think about where they used the wrong term. If they're smart, they'll find the error themselves.
If they can't find it, they can ask—which is how they show they at least tried.
In that case, if they ask me, I'll provide the explanation—provided it doesn't take up too much "time and space."
That’s why I asked: Nancy Fowler61, when you write a sentence, do you actually read it back and really think about what you're saying?

Nancy Fowler61,
Let’s rephrase that, but this time as a complete thought.
Can a body that has never received any stimulus or lacks senses be conscious? It can't, because consciousness relies on experience, memory, and knowledge, all of which we gather through our senses and store in the brain. The brain is physical. It's hard to imagine a person being conscious without a brain.

Let's clear this up:
1. Can a body that has never received any stimulus...

No! Because a body DOESN'T receive a stimulus—rather, something acts upon it so that a STIMULUS appears within the body.

And a Stimulus MUST appear in EVERY body—because every single body in any star system is under the constant "impact" of photons, which inevitably act to create many stimuli in EVERY living and dead body.

2. Can a body that has never received any stimulus (???) /lacks senses... be conscious?
(??? = my note)

Regarding this explanation: senses—or more accurately, sensory organs—MUST be "built into" the body of every living human (and not just humans).
However, if those sensory organs are under certain blockages—created within the autonomic nervous system—those blockages prevent the energy impulses of Consciousness from acting to produce the stimuli that would normally hit the sensory organs.

3. Can a body that has never received any stimulus (???)/lacks senses/ be conscious?

To answer this, we first have to know what Consciousness is.
But can anyone even answer what Consciousness is, when to this day, no one has ever provided a COMPLETE definition of it?
To even attempt a definition of Consciousness, one must understand the Value of the ontological sphere.
And if we want to reach the Value of the ontological sphere, we have to know which Values comprise the infinite nature, and what specific Values actually make the infinite nature... infinite, etc.

So, Jonathan Brown6, did you actually understand any of that?
And do you honestly think it's possible to explain what "haunts" people since their very birth in just "five sentences"?

Regardless, I know quite a lot about consciousness.
But before I finish the book I'm (occasionally) working on, I won't be sharing my knowledge of consciousness in places like internet forums.

Finally, Nancy Fowler61, I notice that your view on deafness, blindness, paralysis, or lacking a nose and tongue doesn't apply to consciousness itself, but rather to Cognition (which is the highest mental activity of consciousness, unique to humans).
Because the totally impaired body you described isn't totally "cut off" from consciousness—it's just been "denied" the Cognition required to live, to think, and to move—to act psycho-physically.

As for the rest of the complete thought, figure it out yourself.

(538)

William Gonzalez3 said:but what about the actual answers?

did you actually find them through philosophy?

or did you just stop looking, making philosophy more like a way to prep for whatever the future throws at you?

Honestly, mostly I just realized I was asking some of my questions all wrong. I did stumble onto some answers here and there, sure. But man, it just opened up a whole new flood of questions. 🙂 Biggest takeaway though? I learned that the questions are just as cool as the answers themselves.

mistyfox812 said:Mostly, I’ve realized that some of my questions were just phrased poorly...

Like, for example?

Was it the uncertainty regarding what happens to the soul after death?
Does a soul even exist?

Is the soul a material thing or not?
And what exactly constitutes something immaterial?
Does such a thing actually exist?

If so, how? And where?
Is everything truly measurable?
How would one go about measuring infinity?
Is infinity even a number—or is it more of a state of being?
If something infinite exists, how can finite things exist alongside it?
Is knowledge necessarily tied to concepts and language—or can we know something without having any way to name it (for instance, that unnamed thing, or that round object, or simply that thing I saw yesterday)?
Would a person without language still possess consciousness?
Do infants fail to form memories because they lack words—meaning they have neither consciousness nor a way to retain information—or is there some other reason entirely?

Or was it something else altogether that was weighing on you?

William Gonzalez3 said:Or was it some other kind of torture?

Back then, I was obsessed with stuff like the relationship between living and non-living things... like, is the order in nature actually objective or just something subjective we make up? Is time itself real or just a perception? And what even is information? Like, if information is tucked away inside matter—like in our DNA—is that info physical or something else entirely? Could there actually be a "Theory of Everything," and if so, would physics be it? Or could physics *be* the Theory of Everything? Plus, how much does language matter? Does all knowledge have to be verbal, or can you have this non-verbal kind of knowing? Man, I can't even remember all the rabbit holes I fell down back then...

Then I started reading Nietzsche and it just absolutely wrecked me... Same with Lao Tzu. It totally broke me. I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but every single time I picked up those books, I’d just... feel something happening to me. 🙂

It’s all about interpretation, and that’s exactly what I was trying to get at, mistyfox812.
If everything boils down to interpretation, then everything depends on our own consciousness.
As a physicist—yeah, yeah, I'm a junior in an engineering program—Newtonian mechanics isn't any clearer to me than quantum stuff is. It's all built on a bunch of assumptions that only make sense to you because you've been feeding those ideas to your brain your whole life.
It isn't hard to imagine a new generation of physicists who look at Newtonian mechanics and find it just as absurd as we do when we look at Aristotle's laws of motion today.

hiddenviper9 said:Hey, Jonathan Brown6, did any of this actually make sense to you?
And honestly, do you think it’s even feasible to explain the stuff that keeps people up at night—you know, that whole existential crisis about where we came from—in just "five sentences"?

Do you really think it's even possible to explain it all?

I mean, maybe you could give an answer in a single sentence, provided it’s the truth.

Jonathan Brown6 Do you really think it’s even possible to explain?

Anything is possible because "impossible" doesn't actually exist.
(Think about it this way: "Incredible" is just a matter of perspective, but "impossible" isn't a thing.)

If it's true, you can give an answer in a single sentence.

Actually, if it's true, you could even do it with just one word. 🙂

even if you only have a single image

hiddenviper9 said:To keep it brief—long story short—my material consciousness is essentially "plugged in" to a Cosmic INTERNET, though it’s certainly not by my own choice or design.
That’s why I often point out that much of what I share isn't actually coming from my own material mind, but rather information I've intercepted from the High Sphere.

(178) [/B]

Well, go ahead and drop the name of that ISP, and maybe I'll finally get to surf those cosmic fields too. 😁

Honestly, though, it scares me how addicted I'd become. It's hard enough staying detached from this "earthly" reality as it is; I don't think I could handle being hooked on something else, too. 🙄 😉

I have a question regarding consciousness and Descartes.

He famously said, "I think, therefore I am." Now, please feel free to correct me if I’ve missed the mark—calling all you trained philosophers out here—but this is how I’ve interpreted it: what separates humans from other living creatures is our ability to think. But animals think too, right? A dog can learn things, which means it possesses the capacity for thought. The real distinction between a human and a dog is that while a dog isn't aware that it's thinking, a human is. So, shouldn't it actually be, "I am aware, therefore I am"? Isn't "I think, therefore I am" a bit incomplete?

What does this have to do with consciousness? Well, according to the Cartesian definition, the difference between animals and humans would be that animals think "automatically"—driven by nature without being conscious of the process—whereas humans don't just think automatically; we think volitionally because we are CONSCIOUS of the fact that we are thinking.

But honestly, every single day I see massive crowds of people who aren't even the slightest bit CONSCIOUS of the fact that they are thinking. They are essentially slaves to "automatic" thought processes, with the added twist that this automation isn't just imposed by nature, but by society itself. They lack any awareness of their own existence outside the mental framework forced upon them by the world around them. For example, if you want a specific reaction from a dog, you perform a specific action to trigger it. You know exactly what to do: if you want it to chase a stick, you throw the stick. It’s the same with people; if you want to elicit a certain response, you know exactly which lever to pull. If you want people to buy a specific perfume, you know precisely what kind of marketing message to craft so it represents something a target demographic craves. Or, more simply, if you want to make someone angry, you know exactly which words will set them off. Maybe I'm not explaining this perfectly, but I think you get my drift. People strike me as being just as much slaves to their conditioning as animals are, completely unaware of their own feelings or where those feelings originate. They become like dogs—you just have to throw the right stick, and they'll run for it. And picking the right stick isn't actually that hard.

That’s why I think "I am aware, therefore I am" might be a better way to put it. The original version feels like it describes conditioned behavior that's just as much like animal instinct as anything else, only in the human case, the conditioning comes from society.

This probably drifts into the realm of spirituality, too, since philosophers in the West love to keep spirituality walled off from philosophy—and I won't pretend that doesn't bother me.

I read something in a book by an Indian master that might explain my take on consciousness better than I can:
"An experience must 'belong'. Somebody must come and declare it its own. without an experiencer The experience is not real. It is the experiencer that imparts reality to experience (This seems basically like Schrödingerian physics to me, and similar to what Arthur Grant4 was saying about the issue of interpretation)." I interpret this to mean that the fundamental difference between humans and animals is whether or not we are conscious of our "self." If we aren't aware of that self, if we aren't aware that we are experiencing things, then we aren't much more than animals. In other words, it's not "I think, therefore I am," it's "I am aware that I am thinking, therefore I am."

Anyway, I've tangled myself up in all this, so please, untangle me. I'm bracing myself for a wave of hardcore philosophical logic that will dismantle everything I've written in five minutes flat, just like the author of this thread did. 😁

You’re totally hitting the nail on the head with how you're reading Descartes. I was actually just arguing on a different thread that cogito basically means self-awareness... and honestly, it's not even just my own weird take on it. There are legit philosophers out there who have translated cogito ergo sum as I am aware, therefore I am. The tricky part is that cogito is actually a verb. Descartes uses it to kickstart some kind of action, not just to sit there and soak things up... but we don't really have a verb to go with "awareness" or the adjective "aware"... maybe something like I am awareness-ing, therefore I am. 😁 😁

Regarding those people who are basically just reacting to random triggers without even thinking—yeah, I'm with you. The less conscious someone is, the less "real" they actually are as a person.

mistyfox812 said:Regarding those who act purely on instinctual stimuli without much awareness, I’d have to agree with you—those who lack consciousness are, in a sense, less "truly" present as people. [/B]

Actually, I find myself disagreeing with you there (though God knows I would love to be in agreement)😁
And I must admit, I feel a tiny bit of intellectual friction here... because I am finding myself opposing a philosopher.
Since philosophy is such a fascinating field to me—even if it remains largely uncharted territory—and since it seems to know me quite intimately (which, if I'm being honest, feels a bit unfair)😳 I think I’ll pose a small question to you, nn...
Tell me, can a person become "less" of a human being, especially if their state of consciousness is suddenly disrupted by something like a traumatic injury? In such a moment, does their inherent value diminish?
After all, aren't they still just as much a person to everyone around them, even if their ability to perceive or react is limited or gone? They are still a true human being... a "someone."
Then again, who can say how long or in what way that final spark of life continues to burn?
And when it eventually fades, the person wouldn't exist at all... yet before that, aren't they still a true human being, even if they lose all self-knowledge?

So, tell me, do you tend to favor women over philosophy... or philosophy over women?🙂
I didn't mean to push, but two questions slipped out! I suppose I could call these "women's topics," but please, feel free to label them whatever you like. (Ah, the beauty of freedom!)

Yeah... while I was chatting with Lala, I was trying to figure out how to flip this last sentence into the first person, but it just felt clunky. Still, if I’d gone with
''...that I am a less authentic human being the less aware I am.''
would it have been too slow?

Look, I'm not really one for those "trolley problem" ethical dilemmas, but still... imagine you're stuck in a spot where you have to choose who lives, and you can only save one of two people... and one is in a coma with doctors saying there's zero chance of recovery... while the other is fully conscious and present...

Man, freedom. 🙂 It seems like when a person's awareness is narrowed—like when they're absolutely livid, or totally exhausted, or just wasted... they're less free. More awareness = more freedom.

Right, back to the "I" thing: we experience consciousness as our own. And personally, I know that when I'm more aware, I feel more alive, more real, better than when my mind is clouded. We don't get a direct look at anyone else's consciousness like we do our own; we can only guess. So, even if we buy into my idea that more awareness equals more value, trying to judge someone else's level of consciousness—and judging their worth based on that—is pretty sketchy business.

And then there's women and philosophy 🙂 🙂
🙂

someone said somewhere:

''…that the less authentically human I am, the less aware I become.''
would there even be an argument?

Ah, freedom. 🙂 It seems to me that when a person’s awareness is narrowed—say, when they are consumed by rage, or perhaps just incredibly exhausted or intoxicated—they lose a bit of their freedom. Greater awareness equals greater freedom.

Good morning.🙂
I actually had to sleep on my response.......because last night, I might have even been a little angry...my interlocutors regarding religion really got under my skin. I suppose I confirmed your theory through practice rather than just theory...😁
Thank you for such a thorough and sincere reply.
No, there wouldn't have been an argument. It wouldn't have happened like this. I knew you were thinking correctly and that you wrote it that way intentionally.
I was teasing you a little...and if we were looking for a reason to argue...I could have found one in any direction.😁
That question you posed to me...that ethical dilemma...I have to admit...it's difficult for me to give a clear answer.
There wouldn't be an issue if I were absolutely certain that a person in a coma has no hope left.
I think I would be afraid...I would probably choose the person who isn't in a coma, and like most people, I would be left wondering...did I truly do the right thing?...though I’d cling to the hope that I did (that would be my justification).
My fear is driven by personal experience...because my child survived a coma...admittedly a short one, but more than enough to drive a decision...and they told me, only a miracle could save him.
Wow, you really backed me into a corner with that question!
Into a dilemma...I mean.
👋

Lali, breezy 👍 (nn 👋)

Don't let those little mental detours trip you up ;D you actually caught onto that quite well. You can't really start ranking people based on their value, nor can you measure freedom by the state of one's consciousness; it’s much like the law of conservation of energy—wherever one door slams shut, another one inevitably swings open.

The thing is, it isn't just that animals possess consciousness—they have self-awareness, too. In fact, I don't think there’s a single living creature out there without a distinct character. Just try bruising the ego of a dog or breaking its trust; he won't be sitting there feeling "sad" because of you specifically... rather, anyone with a metabolism has their own unique style and quirks (which is what character is, fundamentally). People who operate under the delusion that cats exist solely to cuddle with us or entertain us—and then feel they have the "right" to swat them when they get cranky (look at another one of those fallacies—the idea of having a "right"—I mean, seriously, who granted us that authority?)—are simply stuck in an evolutionary rut. We humans have developed certain cognitive performances, like working memory (think of it like computer RAM) and an understanding of cause and effect—what we call "intelligent behavior," or using one tool to achieve a specific goal—and we've started wielding these tools to dominate the world. Though, if we're being honest, we're starting to realize that this dominance is essentially paving a highway toward our own destruction, and the destruction of the entire biosphere along with it. And frankly, the biosphere is exactly what should be our primary concern.

To circle back to my original point—it shouldn't be some Herculean task to grasp that animals are conscious beings; you might even try applying that logic to plants (though that's a bit trickier since there isn't a brain running the show). There is no doubt that even their existence can be classified as "behavior." Consciousness isn't some exclusive club reserved for humans; by now, that should be patently obvious.

You’ve put together such an intriguing post here.
I truly appreciate your perspective on consciousness... I don't have a single doubt about it myself. My faith in God is steadfast.🙂
I know he didn't just mention consciousness by accident; he chose those words very deliberately,😁 and he isn't wavering one bit on that point.
Honestly, if he were uncertain, I wouldn't have even bothered replying.
Instead, I'm engaging with him a little bit, just playing the part of the supportive woman.
He can be quite formidable when he starts leaning into that masculine, philosophical side of himself.👋
Sending my best wishes to you, to him, and of course to Lali.

55:45 said:So, it isn’t just that animals possess consciousness—they have self-awareness too. In fact, I truly believe there isn't a single living creature out there that lacks its own distinct character.

You tend to post some pretty wild, arbitrary ideas here in the Philosophy subforum.
Why don't you try actually defining what constitutes self-awareness versus character, and how they even connect?😕