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So if Science is confused....
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
...is it any wonder WE are....? 
http://www.iflscience.com/brain/leading-theory-about-how-consciousness-works-may-be-wrong
And here's me thinking all this time "they probably know what they're doing. Maybe. Possibly.
To coin a phrase....
"They dunno....!"
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Well when you look at quantum physics, consciousness, dreams, the universe etc...
As humans we have developed the evolutionary tool of our intellect, we use this to navigate and try to understand our environment.
There's more than just the intellect/thoughts that can understand. Yet we are addicted to using thins(mostly)
You don't need the thought "it's raining" to know it's raining.
You don't need scientific instruments to try and understand consciousness.
You ARE conscious!
It always amazes me, since the beginning of man, what we have known. I LOL!
("oddball paradigm" no less)
Am I the only one here who wonders if all our hosting bacteria think it's so cute how their biosphere believes in their maintenance self conscious programs.
@silver
Sorry for the short hand. Food for thought.
We each have numerically more bacterial and viral cells within us than "human" cells, although much smaller. Six lbs. worth for the average human.
While we think of ourselves as autonomous beings, determining each moment of our actions, there is an every increasing body of science that points towards the possibility that we are simply evolutionary biospheres in service to bacteria and viral life to explore where environmental conditions would other wise limit them.
A body of science that most humans find insulting.
What we call our consciousness, might be little more than their maintenance program for cruise liners to preserve themselves while sending out our strongest new models to explore each niche of life for possible expansion and survival.
This theory unfortunately explains far more of why the world is the way it is than simply having clothed monkeys with the brains of lemmings at the top of the food chain.
Awesome, in that I understand a lot better what you meant.
I can see why some people might be turned off by that view. It seems to give the virus and bacteria too much credit.
The science sounds facinating, though. Full of insight into interdependence and emptiness.
An interesting, though dark take on life @silver.
While our physical bodies are indeed a composite and alliance of countless individual life forms, including host and guest bacteria, etc., the idea that our consciousness is no more than an operating program for the bacteria, etc., does seem to go to the extreme of human or advanced life form as glorified automaton. Taken to it's ultimate conclusion, it would lead to the summation that there is no purpose of life other than to sustain microorganisms who, whom or which control the whole operation.
Dark indeed.
Not only did I find this insulting when I first heard it many years ago. I found it ridiculous.
Now I welcome our gutsy overlords ...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-health-may-depend-on-creatures-in-the-gut/
It is true that our organic bodies need microorganisms to survive and they need us. It is called symbiosis. However, our consciousness is a product of our being, not of our symbiotic partners.
We are a product of our environment to a great degree and we interact with that environment, internal and external from day 1 to day last of our incarnate forms.
However, the interactions do not form conciseness, nor does conciseness derive from those interactions.
The article, provided by @lobster, while it does say or strongly indicate that we are bound with certain microorganisms, which can or may influence our state of mind and physical well being, it does not say our conciseness is the result of microorganisms 'directing traffic' as it were.
I must cut it short here, time constraints..
Peace to all
^^^ When you say 'conciseness' your microcomputer/phone is creating a different consciousness.
I would like to hear some more of your symbiosis position. Personally I feel my body, physical drives, gut, brain and at the moment my knee, all have a mind of their own. Do you feel that too or can you find a part of self above this insane intensity? Bravo if so.
I find it interesting that when scientists try study consciousness, they often fail to examine their own minds and their own consciousness. Instead, they just put someones brain under a scanner thing and try to figure it out like that. That makes no sense to me!
Perhaps science is so confused because they think all this can be figured out by looking at paper printouts of some electronic device.
Until we can examine the non-physical in an imperial way, consciousness will remain a mystery.
I love the whole germ biome conversation (here as well as it going on elsewhere). Rather than take an extreme view of us existing just to host them, it seems to me to make more sense (along TNH's line of linking) that it's just another example about how we truly do work together, from the very smallest to the biggest and the "smarted" of us. We cannot exist without each other on so many levels. It's quite fascinating to study how life/nature all works together to produce something so intricate and delicate.
We keep a saltwater aquarium, and the balance required to keep everything alive and working together is pretty amazing. It's so fascinating to me that it does it perfectly well on it's own and that it takes everything for the whole of the oceans to work together.
We are just so limited in our understanding. Science can be a great thing, I don't deny that. Heck, one of my children wouldn't be alive if it weren't for science (he is a diabetic). But it is still quite limited because we can only see human perspective and looking at the planet as a whole and how it functions our perspective falls pretty short.
What you have listed are aspects of that conciseness. Put another way, it is not that conciseness rises above all that sometimes insanity, but that each is a partial manifestation of the conciseness.
Again, I have to pull up short here.
I do like @karasti's post - Simple and on point.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/543246/to-study-the-brain-a-doctor-puts-himself-under-the-knife/
We are scientists, resistance is futile.
Personally I feel this pioneer work is foundational. Allowing increasing interfacing, augmentation, replacement for damage and disease and eventually a fully artificial brain. Will it be conscious or human? By that time the answer will be yes.
For now we can still talk about our fuzzy uniqueness, mind without brain and soul ...
Early days.
People are still concerned about having private thoughts ...
To misquote and update Timothy Leary for the always connected future:
Drop in, Tune in, Turn On.
I haven't read the actual publication in Cortex, but I strongly suspect it presents less confusion and revolution than this lay (and likely sensationalized) description. The article discusses markers of consciousness as constituents, but this does not match the experiment. If the experiment did proceed as related, then it doesn't assess markets of conscious and unconscious states at all, because the subjects are conscious. It only measures regional vs global processing of fleeting stimuli, but measures during consciousness. I suspect that this is not an experimental error; more likely it is sensationalized reporting.
"This is because that is," as runs the old Buddhist adagio.
We are all interconnected.
Let's not forget the Butterfly effect.
Mitochondria are originally bacteria and chloroplasts are originally cyanobacteria.
And after all, "We are all made of stars" (Moby).
http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-ames-reproduces-the-building-blocks-of-life-in-laboratory
Science! Consciousness! Yay!
http://www.journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-532(jos).pdf