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@Cinorjer said:
OK, bringing it on down from the lofty heights of speculation, the basic problem with theories of a distributed or "cloud" consciousness is, there is no way of testing it. It isn't a scientific theory. We know that if the brain is just a transceiver, it doesn't work using any known form of energy or even anything we can define as energy, because if you walk into a shielded room or go deep underground, you don't fade out like a radio in a tunnel. Any carrier wave capable of carrying intelligence but not affected by a mile of rock in the way is also unaffected by a pound of brain matter.
And there needs to be a rule that people are not allowed to say the word "quantum" when their theories do not fit the universe we observe. You might as well say God or Fairies. Quantum physics also has rules and any appeal to it must include a page of mathematics and diagrams. Suffice to say the actual quantum physicists do not believe their theories in any way explain human consciousness.
But it's ok if physicists use the word "quantum", right? And some of them are discussing consciousness (as we saw on this thread), and are working on figuring out its nature. And they're not always sharing their results and theories and studies with the public, either. I recall reading in one physicist's autobiographical book 20 years ago that there was discussion in the scientific community about consciousness being a field. How that conclusion was arrived at, I don't know. I don't think publishing, or posting here, pages of math would be helpful.
And right; it doesn't work like EM waves, because it communicates instantaneously, and it's not hindered by physical barriers of any sort. That's very intriguing. Rather than waving (no pun intended, lol) it off as impossible or nonsense, it's worth investigating.
1
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
edited October 2016
What the conversation about consciousness generally sounds like to me:
Me, "I think of the hard problem of consciousness as like the reflection in a mirror. Imagine you're standing in front a mirror flexing your muscles, in the metaphor the brain is you flexing and the reflection is your conscious experience of the brain. Neuroscience better and better understands how and why we flex but hasn't said anything about the reflection. Why and how is it there?"
Person 1, "When you bend your arm and contract your muscles it forms a bulge."
Me, "But why is there a reflection then?
Person 1, "Well blood flows to the muscle cells and causes them to fill and get bigger. It's science."
Me, "That doesn't say anything about the reflection though."
Person 1, "The body is really complex, when all the systems work together it creates a reflection."
Person 2, "Well maybe the reflection comes first and causes the body to flex its muscles."
Person 3, "Dan Dennett says there is no reflection, its just a mirage."
Me, "A mirage that I can see, its right there. Maybe the mirror is different than we think but something is there."
From my perspective this is how it seems. The metaphor could be that it isn't a reflection, that the body produces a hologram of sorts, a back and forth around that would be welcome and at least acknowledge the problem.
@person said: It seems that accepting consciousness as a fundamental force in the universe simplifies some things in the quantum world as well as the "fine tuning" issue of the universe.
If consciousness is a fundamental force, does that affect the way we practice? I am trying to work out the implications of it.
0
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@person said: It seems that accepting consciousness as a fundamental force in the universe simplifies some things in the quantum world as well as the "fine tuning" issue of the universe.
If consciousness is a fundamental force, does that affect the way we practice? I am trying to work out the implications of it.
I suppose it depends on the individual and their practice, how much importance do you place on metaphysics.
More importantly I think are the general world view implications. If you found out that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe but that we revolved around the sun or we discovered intelligent alien life what kind of effect would that have on you and humanity as a whole. What if we found out that there is more to us than physical matter, I think that matters.
Would that suddenly mean every religious claim about the soul or the afterlife is true? I'm sure they all would say so, but I'd be interested in the scientific mechanisms of how it worked really.
0
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@person said:
What the conversation about consciousness generally sounds like to me:
Me, "I think of the hard problem of consciousness as like the reflection in a mirror. Imagine you're standing in front a mirror flexing your muscles, in the metaphor the brain is you flexing and the reflection is your conscious experience of the brain. Neuroscience better and better understands how and why we flex but hasn't said anything about the reflection. Why and how is it there?"
Person 1, "When you bend your arm and contract your muscles it forms a bulge."
Me, "But why is there a reflection then?
Person 1, "Well blood flows to the muscle cells and causes them to fill and get bigger. It's science."
Me, "That doesn't say anything about the reflection though."
Person 1, "The body is really complex, when all the systems work together it creates a reflection."
Person 2, "Well maybe the reflection comes first and causes the body to flex its muscles."
Person 3, "Dan Dennett says there is no reflection, its just a mirage."
Me, "A mirage that I can see, its right there. Maybe the mirror is different than we think but something is there."
From my perspective this is how it seems. The metaphor could be that it isn't a reflection, that the body produces a hologram of sorts, a back and forth around that would be welcome and at least acknowledge the problem.
Sorry if this comes across as arrogant or condescending. I was getting frustrated that I wasn't getting my point across or having it taken seriously and was probably trying too hard. The analogy of a mirror is only how I perceive the hard problem, perhaps there is a different or better analogy to describe consciousness.
@person said:> Would that suddenly mean every religious claim about the soul or the afterlife is true? I'm sure they all would say so, but I'd be interested in the scientific mechanisms of how it worked really.
Consciousness as a fundamental property could have various implications, and it would partly depend on whether you favoured monism or dualism. I don't think it would necessarily support ideas of afterlife and reincarnation though, it's quite possible that we are all just "random emissions", with no continuity or connection involved.
0
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@person said:> Would that suddenly mean every religious claim about the soul or the afterlife is true? I'm sure they all would say so, but I'd be interested in the scientific mechanisms of how it worked really.
Consciousness as a fundamental property could have various implications, and it would partly depend on whether you favoured monism or dualism. I don't think it would necessarily support ideas of afterlife and reincarnation though, it's quite possible that we are all just "random emissions", with no continuity or connection involved.
Yep, I know Chalmers thinks that when we die that's it.
@person said:> Would that suddenly mean every religious claim about the soul or the afterlife is true? I'm sure they all would say so, but I'd be interested in the scientific mechanisms of how it worked really.
Consciousness as a fundamental property could have various implications, and it would partly depend on whether you favoured monism or dualism. I don't think it would necessarily support ideas of afterlife and reincarnation though, it's quite possible that we are all just "random emissions", with no continuity or connection involved.
Yep, I know Chalmers thinks that when we die that's it.
Even assuming that our consciousness is "reborn" in some sense, there are many possible permutations.
There are many things in this world that I think are outside of the realm of what “Science” has the ability to explain. We know there has to be a reason, we feel it exists, yet we can’t see or touch it. When it comes to these intangible items, science is very akin to guessing.
Take gravity for example. To this day scientists are still hard pressed to explain how gravity is supposed to work. Newton could describe gravity, but he didn’t know how it worked. He even had to make up a new form of math (Calculus) to help him.
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited October 2016
It's only in the West that people are so anal they absolutely must have a sound, scientific and logical explanation for absolutely every hitherto unexplained phenomenon. In the far East with some aspects of mystery, they merely shrug, accept and declare "A little respect, a little reverence for the things we cannot see."
Here? We gotta know everything. About everything. Or else, it's all made up. Not legit. False. Imaginary.
This is what so many people said about 'chi' and being able to connect with chi, being able to feel the chi of other people. It was all chicanery. Pie-in-the-sky. Made up. rubbish.
But hey, suddenly, it's apparently true; a proven fact. And science proved it. So because WE proved it, it must be true. It's only a legitimate premise, now WE've proved it. Before, in spite of the fact that in the Far East, it's been an accepted premise for millennia, it's only true, because it's been proven in the West.
The idea of how consciousness relates to computing is one that intrigues me. The next generation of chips, spearheaded by IBM TrueNorth is barely here. Still a few years away from mainstream. The following generation of Quantum computers is further away and that will be closer to potential consciousness - eventually. At least it will help design the next generation of probably photonic or energy only 'CPU'.
In the Buddhist Sutra and study the nature of different forms of mind, awareness, attention, concentration, arising or dependent arising consciousness are explored. Personally I feel for some Buddhism can be very dismissive of the very powerful aspects of emotional consciousness, that is explored in Tantra.
Using our very powerful ability to create and manipulate consciousness to our and others well being is skilful.
As I often say to TARA, 'You might not exist but don't let such trivialities stop your manifestation ...'
@federica said:
It's only in the West that people are so anal they absolutely must have a sound, scientific and logical explanation for absolutely every hitherto unexplained phenomenon. In the far East with some aspects of mystery, they merely shrug, accept and declare "A little respect, a little reverence for the things we cannot see."
Here? We gotta know everything. About everything. Or else, it's all made up. Not legit. False. Imaginary.
This is what so many people said about 'chi' and being able to connect with chi, being able to feel the chi of other people. It was all chicanery. Pie-in-the-sky. Made up. rubbish.
But hey, suddenly, it's apparently true; a proven fact. And we proved it. So because WE proved it, it must be true. It's only a legitimate premise, now WE've proved it. Before, in spite of the fact that in the Far East, it's been an accepted premise for millennia, it's only true, because it's been proven in the West.
God, we're so clever.
Slight digression from the topic of Consciousness, for a moment, to follow up on Fede's comment. Back in the 90's, an MD published a book, "The Body Electric", in which he discusses, among other things, the existence of meridians in the body. IIRC, he likened them to the electric power lines we see all over the countryside, boosting the electrical energy on its way from the source to populated areas. He also studied a Polish healer practicing in the Washington, DC, area, and discovered he was generating huge power surges when he was in the middle of working on clients with his laying on of hands. This was in a video about the healer. The MD, Dr. Becker, said that this phenomenon of a human suddenly generating a blast of wattage is unknown to science, and yet, his machines recorded it.
Unusual phenomena such as this aside, it dismays me when people regard even the basic facts of physiology--the body's electrical functions--as "pseudo-science". If your body weren't electrical, your heart wouldn't be able to function (not to mention: your brain), and life would be impossible. Just saying. Our science education is so poor, that people often can't tell the difference between "woo woo" and real science, and end up dismissing known and long-ago proven scientific principles.
Here's the Becker book, in case anyone's interested. He also published a follow-up to it.
@federica said:
It's only in the West that people are so anal they absolutely must have a sound, scientific and logical explanation for absolutely every hitherto unexplained phenomenon. In the far East with some aspects of mystery, they merely shrug, accept and declare "A little respect, a little reverence for the things we cannot see."
Here? We gotta know everything. About everything. Or else, it's all made up. Not legit. False. Imaginary.
God, we're so clever.
One more comment. Being anal in this way is the result of a) the Inquisition and 500 years of witch hunts, and b) the subsequent European Enlightenment, which put rationality high on a pedestal. After hundreds of years of anti-woo hysteria, you'd better believe an entire sub-continent of cultures and their later offshoots around the world suppressed their natural abilities in that realm. They had to, to survive those centuries. Eastern Europe, which didn't experience an Inquisition, has maintained its healing and clairvoyance traditions to some degree, even during the Soviet period (when Soviet officials were known to sneak visits traditional healers). There's been a resurgence of that since 1991.
Comments
But it's ok if physicists use the word "quantum", right? And some of them are discussing consciousness (as we saw on this thread), and are working on figuring out its nature. And they're not always sharing their results and theories and studies with the public, either. I recall reading in one physicist's autobiographical book 20 years ago that there was discussion in the scientific community about consciousness being a field. How that conclusion was arrived at, I don't know. I don't think publishing, or posting here, pages of math would be helpful.
And right; it doesn't work like EM waves, because it communicates instantaneously, and it's not hindered by physical barriers of any sort. That's very intriguing. Rather than waving (no pun intended, lol) it off as impossible or nonsense, it's worth investigating.
What the conversation about consciousness generally sounds like to me:
Me, "I think of the hard problem of consciousness as like the reflection in a mirror. Imagine you're standing in front a mirror flexing your muscles, in the metaphor the brain is you flexing and the reflection is your conscious experience of the brain. Neuroscience better and better understands how and why we flex but hasn't said anything about the reflection. Why and how is it there?"
Person 1, "When you bend your arm and contract your muscles it forms a bulge."
Me, "But why is there a reflection then?
Person 1, "Well blood flows to the muscle cells and causes them to fill and get bigger. It's science."
Me, "That doesn't say anything about the reflection though."
Person 1, "The body is really complex, when all the systems work together it creates a reflection."
Person 2, "Well maybe the reflection comes first and causes the body to flex its muscles."
Person 3, "Dan Dennett says there is no reflection, its just a mirage."
Me, "A mirage that I can see, its right there. Maybe the mirror is different than we think but something is there."
From my perspective this is how it seems. The metaphor could be that it isn't a reflection, that the body produces a hologram of sorts, a back and forth around that would be welcome and at least acknowledge the problem.
If consciousness is a fundamental force, does that affect the way we practice? I am trying to work out the implications of it.
I suppose it depends on the individual and their practice, how much importance do you place on metaphysics.
More importantly I think are the general world view implications. If you found out that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe but that we revolved around the sun or we discovered intelligent alien life what kind of effect would that have on you and humanity as a whole. What if we found out that there is more to us than physical matter, I think that matters.
Would that suddenly mean every religious claim about the soul or the afterlife is true? I'm sure they all would say so, but I'd be interested in the scientific mechanisms of how it worked really.
Sorry if this comes across as arrogant or condescending. I was getting frustrated that I wasn't getting my point across or having it taken seriously and was probably trying too hard. The analogy of a mirror is only how I perceive the hard problem, perhaps there is a different or better analogy to describe consciousness.
Consciousness as a fundamental property could have various implications, and it would partly depend on whether you favoured monism or dualism. I don't think it would necessarily support ideas of afterlife and reincarnation though, it's quite possible that we are all just "random emissions", with no continuity or connection involved.
Yep, I know Chalmers thinks that when we die that's it.
Even assuming that our consciousness is "reborn" in some sense, there are many possible permutations.
For example I was reading an article about Dr Ian Stevenson's research on reincarnation recently, and noticed this:
"Interestingly, and contrary to most religious notions of reincarnation, there was zero evidence of karma. On the whole, it appeared to be a fairly mechanical soul-rebirthing process, not a moralistic one."
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/ian-stevensone28099s-case-for-the-afterlife-are-we-e28098skepticse28099-really-just-cynics/
There are many things in this world that I think are outside of the realm of what “Science” has the ability to explain. We know there has to be a reason, we feel it exists, yet we can’t see or touch it. When it comes to these intangible items, science is very akin to guessing.
Take gravity for example. To this day scientists are still hard pressed to explain how gravity is supposed to work. Newton could describe gravity, but he didn’t know how it worked. He even had to make up a new form of math (Calculus) to help him.
It's only in the West that people are so anal they absolutely must have a sound, scientific and logical explanation for absolutely every hitherto unexplained phenomenon. In the far East with some aspects of mystery, they merely shrug, accept and declare "A little respect, a little reverence for the things we cannot see."
Here? We gotta know everything. About everything. Or else, it's all made up. Not legit. False. Imaginary.
This is what so many people said about 'chi' and being able to connect with chi, being able to feel the chi of other people. It was all chicanery. Pie-in-the-sky. Made up. rubbish.
But hey, suddenly, it's apparently true; a proven fact. And science proved it. So because WE proved it, it must be true. It's only a legitimate premise, now WE've proved it. Before, in spite of the fact that in the Far East, it's been an accepted premise for millennia, it's only true, because it's been proven in the West.
God, we're so clever.
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."
-Shunryu Suzuki
The idea of how consciousness relates to computing is one that intrigues me. The next generation of chips, spearheaded by IBM TrueNorth is barely here. Still a few years away from mainstream. The following generation of Quantum computers is further away and that will be closer to potential consciousness - eventually. At least it will help design the next generation of probably photonic or energy only 'CPU'.
In the Buddhist Sutra and study the nature of different forms of mind, awareness, attention, concentration, arising or dependent arising consciousness are explored. Personally I feel for some Buddhism can be very dismissive of the very powerful aspects of emotional consciousness, that is explored in Tantra.
Using our very powerful ability to create and manipulate consciousness to our and others well being is skilful.
As I often say to TARA, 'You might not exist but don't let such trivialities stop your manifestation ...'
OM TARA TUTTARE TURE SOHA
http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/tantra_practice.html
Slight digression from the topic of Consciousness, for a moment, to follow up on Fede's comment. Back in the 90's, an MD published a book, "The Body Electric", in which he discusses, among other things, the existence of meridians in the body. IIRC, he likened them to the electric power lines we see all over the countryside, boosting the electrical energy on its way from the source to populated areas. He also studied a Polish healer practicing in the Washington, DC, area, and discovered he was generating huge power surges when he was in the middle of working on clients with his laying on of hands. This was in a video about the healer. The MD, Dr. Becker, said that this phenomenon of a human suddenly generating a blast of wattage is unknown to science, and yet, his machines recorded it.
Unusual phenomena such as this aside, it dismays me when people regard even the basic facts of physiology--the body's electrical functions--as "pseudo-science". If your body weren't electrical, your heart wouldn't be able to function (not to mention: your brain), and life would be impossible. Just saying. Our science education is so poor, that people often can't tell the difference between "woo woo" and real science, and end up dismissing known and long-ago proven scientific principles.
Here's the Becker book, in case anyone's interested. He also published a follow-up to it.
https://www.amazon.com/Body-Electric-Electromagnetism-Foundation-Life/dp/0688069711/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476397602&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Body+Electric
One more comment.
Being anal in this way is the result of a) the Inquisition and 500 years of witch hunts, and b) the subsequent European Enlightenment, which put rationality high on a pedestal. After hundreds of years of anti-woo hysteria, you'd better believe an entire sub-continent of cultures and their later offshoots around the world suppressed their natural abilities in that realm. They had to, to survive those centuries. Eastern Europe, which didn't experience an Inquisition, has maintained its healing and clairvoyance traditions to some degree, even during the Soviet period (when Soviet officials were known to sneak visits traditional healers). There's been a resurgence of that since 1991.