The indestructibility of Consciousness

[Loki]

A friend of mine insists that consciousness arises via complex algorithms generated by the mechanistic electro-chemical processes of brain activity. He thinks that when the brain dies, consciousness dies.

This is logically impossible.

And if you're committed to reason, meaning the laws of thought, then you'd have to agree that what has size cannot have non-size at the same time and in the same respect. Taking the computer screen in front of you as an example, follow this line of thinking:

I. There is a cause of the computer screen in front of you.

II. Light waves come from the screen to your eyes.

III. Neural impulses form in your optic nerve, but they are not the things being seen, nor are they conceived to be the shape of the computer screen.

IV. The next step is the computer screen that you see. The screen you see is not a physical computer screen inside your brain, nor is it identical with the cause of the screen outside your brain. It is a seperate image, as you can see by closing your eyes and picturing it mentally. Since the image is not physically inside your brain, nor physically outside your brain, it must be non-physical. But the mental image does not percieve itself.

V. The non-physical self/soul/spirit is the perciever of the computer screen.

Now, step four (and five) is what you take issue with. But the mental image I'm percieving has no size. The perciever itself has no size. Chemicals, electricity, the brain, or whatever you think consciousness is, has size.

So, in essence, you're saying:

size (chemicals/brain) = non-size (consciousness)

That's against the laws of thought, and if you break those, you can no longer make any distinction about anything.

[Blair]

Your (and your friends) understanding of causality is primitive.

When the brain of a deluded person dies, that persons consciousness dies, because it's foundation was built upon a mirage.

An enlightened mind resonates entirely with reality, so there can be no death, beginning or end to it. The illusion (of life and animus) is entirely stripped away, there is only what was, is and shall be.

[Animus]

Of course consciousness has size, it is the sum of all appearances in consciousness.

Does it go on hiatus while you are asleep and not in REM?

Are you sure you don't simply want consciousness to be eternal?

There is one way to find out for sure... are you strong enough in your belief to test it?

If you want to know about consciousness as it relates to the brain the best place to start is a book by Christoph Koch called "The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach".

Supposing consciousness involved some supranatural substance that did exist for eternity it would have no content and thus would not exist anyway.

Without your temporal lobes you have no sense of faces, animals, objects, there is no distinguishing between things, if you had no pareital lobes you'd lose a sense of spatiality and temporality and without your limbic system you'd have no sense of conscience, without your anterior cingulate cortex you'd have no will and without your vestibular you'd have no sense of balance. Without a brain you'd have nothing, not even you. If consciousness still exists without a brain it is pointless.

[Loki]

An interesting analogy I was playing with today involved a computer, software and a remote server. When we see software running on the computer, we might assume that the computer is generating the software we see, and if we destroyed the computer with a hammer, the software would be destroyed to.

But the software actually exists on a remote server. So even though the computer is destroyed, the software lives on in the remote server, and can be uploaded to another computer.

So our consciousness may not actually be created by our brain, but instead is simply hosted by our brain. When our brain dies, our consciousness continues because it is saved on a remote server.

[marcothay]

Yes!!!!
Actually computers, software and servers exist only because a consciousness
create them.
And i consider the brain somewhat alike as those.

[Nick]

Loki, you need to understand that no thing is static, they are always changing, always dying and being reborn. Sometimes these changes are subtle, sometimes they are a complete 180. Change also applies to consciousness. Each moment we gain new memories and lose old ones, we are never quite the same from moment to moment. In other words, our conscoiusness is constantly and seamlessly being created and destroyed, just like everything else.

[Ignius]

For me, there seems to remain something constant behind the change - identity?

[Loki]

Loki, you need to understand that no thing is static, they are always changing, always dying and being reborn. Sometimes these changes are subtle, sometimes they are a complete 180. Change also applies to consciousness. Each moment we gain new memories and lose old ones, we are never quite the same from moment to moment. In other words, our conscoiusness is constantly and seamlessly being created and destroyed, just like everything else.

I understand all of that. But it's possible for a single person to preserve his most cherished memories indefinitely.

[marcothay]

Nick Treklis wrote: ...our conscoiusness is constantly and seamlessly being created and destroyed, just like everything else.

Well... being created and destroyed by what or who?
A creation need to have a cause and to destroy "something" still need a cause to do that!
Even if the appearance looks like following this pattern: Origin > Existence > Destruction,
an higher truth may be found if you look deeper,

Creation (origin) > Creation,Creation,Creation...(perxistence) > counter-Creation (destruction)

That is also an useful concept, because can explain the cycle of MOVEMENT (Start>Change>Stop)

But it actually resolve what we mean by Born > Survival > Death!

In any case you should realize that a "cause" has to be there for all three of them being experienced !

I don't see any other cause than Consciousness itself.

[Nick]

It is by created and destroyed by nature. Saying that it is being created and destroyed is the same as saying that it is always in flux. Like I said, consciousness changes from moment to moment, with new memories being added and old ones being lost. One reason we feel like it doesn't change is because it does maintain memories of the past creating the illusion that it is something which is constant and therefore unchanging, but this is just an illusion. People also like to ascribe all kinds of mystical, super natural, and meta-physical attributes to it in order to set it apart from the perceived simplicity of things which are unconscious.

As for the causes of consciousness, they are all around us. Name one thing and you have yourself a perfect example. The fact that we can differentiate between our consciousness and anything else in the entire universe means it is a finite and therefore caused entity. It is caused to exist by everything it is not.

[Nick]

I understand all of that. But it's possible for a single person to preserve his most cherished memories indefinitely.

Can you go into a little more depth about what you mean here?

[marcothay]

Nick wrote:It is by created and destroyed by nature.

oh yehaa! "nature"... that was I missed all a long. LOL

To forget doesn't mean destroying by the way.

[Nick]

If something isn't exactly the way it once was, can't it be said that it was destroyed? If so, then consciousness is being destroyed and re-created in every moment. You do agree that it is always changing right?

[Loki]

I understand all of that. But it's possible for a single person to preserve his most cherished memories indefinitely.

Can you go into a little more depth about what you mean here?

I just mean the memories we have of our past relationships should be preserved. Not only the memories, but the relationships we have with each other should continue past death. Mind you, the views we have of each other would change over time, but these new views we attain would have a meaning that is derived by reflecting on old views.

[Philosophaster]

Your argument has a hidden premise: that if something is non-physical, it must also be indestructible. Even if we grant the premise that consciousness is not physical, that in itself does not show that it cannot be destroyed, unless you can also prove that non-physical things are indestructible.

[marcothay]

Your argument has a hidden premise: that if something is non-physical, it must also be indestructible. Even if we grant the premise that consciousness is not physical, that in itself does not show that it cannot be destroyed, unless you can also prove that non-physical things are indestructible.

Physical things can't be fully destroyed by nature but only transformed.
Energy in this physical universe is always conserved.
Mass (objects) is just condensed energy, you can apparently destroy the object ( like burning it), but all you can do is just destroying his form, not the energy on what it was made of!

Consciousness, which it is not a physical entity, can't be destroyed by physical means.
Nature can "destroy" (transform) your body, but it can't destroy your consciousness.

A death body doesn't necessarily means a death consciousness!

Actually only a non-physical entity could "destroy" a non-physical entity.
Past experiences are not destroyed, but only FORGOTTEN
Definition of "forgotten": Idon't WISH to remember.
Definition of "remembering": ability to confront and look at...

[Philosophaster]

^ All I see are a bunch of assertions without any evidence. You haven't even addressed the logical point I was making...

[JohnEDPMalin]

To the Group:

I must confess that Philosophaster has the upper hand here. He should call himself 'doctor philosophicae', not a lover of sophistries or philosophaster. It is pleasant to parade my academic learning of ancient classical Greek.

The question of an indestructibleness of individual consciousness is, of course, nonsense. It is not even a good thought experiment.

Let us give some good examples for Loki and Animus to ponder:

Two zombies have sex without a brain or consciousness in their skulls. One said to the other, "that sexual act was really tasteful." The other zombie said, "Don't you mean it was loud?" Then the first zombie said to the second zombie, "No! I mean it was blue."

Besides synaethesia, what is going on here?

Another example, "Our early hunter-gatherers heard color when they explored their immediate site, environment & world." What is wrong with this picture?

I thought Loki and Animus presented their fallacious ideas well. It is, ultimately, a sensitivity to language usage that admits admiration in one's fellowman to one's arguments. Keep your language crisp, sharp and focused.

If Loki and Animus had not done such a good job, then 'Doctor philosophicae' could not have made his neat, clean surgical cut in their argument presentation.

Respectfully,


John E.D.P. Malin

[sue hindmarsh]

John,

Could you explain how Loki and Animus' ideas were "fallacious"?

That may make clear why you believe Philo's point "cut" theirs.

[sue hindmarsh]

Loki wrote:

IV. The next step is the computer screen that you see. The screen you see is not a physical computer screen inside your brain, nor is it identical with the cause of the screen outside your brain. It is a separate image, as you can see by closing your eyes and picturing it mentally. Since the image is not physically inside your brain, nor physically outside your brain, it must be non-physical. But the mental image does not percieve itself.

Loki, you were very quick to conclude that the screen, the brain, and the image were all separate from one another - but you never described how all these separate things interact. So how do they?

The case of consciousness is truly bizarre! You describe it as being a free agent (existing after brain-death, and presumably before birth?), but why then is it hanging out looking at a computer screen, allowing itself to be hemmed in by a brain, employed storing your memories (just the ones you want to keep), when surely it could be out wandering the universe doing whatever it darn well wanted to? Is consciousness a masochist?

[David Quinn]

An interesting analogy I was playing with today involved a computer, software and a remote server. When we see software running on the computer, we might assume that the computer is generating the software we see, and if we destroyed the computer with a hammer, the software would be destroyed to.

But the software actually exists on a remote server. So even though the computer is destroyed, the software lives on in the remote server, and can be uploaded to another computer.

So our consciousness may not actually be created by our brain, but instead is simply hosted by our brain. When our brain dies, our consciousness continues because it is saved on a remote server.

And if the remote server isn't functioning or has a bug in it?

The perciever itself has no size. Chemicals, electricity, the brain, or whatever you think consciousness is, has size.

Actually, none of these things have size. All things are sizeless in an absolute sense. A thing only gains a veneer of size through comparison to other things.

-

[BMcGilly07]

Actually, none of these things have size. All things are sizeless in an absolute sense. A thing only gains a veneer of size through comparison to other things.
-

To flesh this truth out a bit: should you find your physical body floating completely alone in space with nothing else about, are you big or small?

[brokenhead]

Since the image is not physically inside your brain, nor physically outside your brain, it must be non-physical. But the mental image does not percieve itself.

How do you know the image is not pysically inside your brain somehow? Or outside, for that matter? I have long thought of the human brain as more of a transmitter and receiver, like a shortwave setup, than a storage unit like a hard drive.

You are asking where memories are stored. Since it seems that your entire experience of life can be summoned up by one means or another, it must be being recorded somehow, somewhere. Wherever that is, it must carry a massive amount of analog information. Perhaps "massive" is not the precise word there. Try an extreme amount of information.

[marcothay]

Since the image is not physically inside your brain, nor physically outside your brain, it must be non-physical. But the mental image does not percieve itself.

How do you know the image is not pysically inside your brain somehow? Or outside, for that matter? I have long thought of the human brain as more of a transmitter and receiver, like a shortwave setup, than a storage unit like a hard drive.

You are asking where memories are stored. Since it seems that your entire experience of life can be summoned up by one means or another, it must be being recorded somehow, somewhere. Wherever that is, it must carry a massive amount of analog information. Perhaps "massive" is not the precise word there. Try an extreme amount of information.

I'm sorry, but your comment looks like a little bit stupid!
What about if all memories are actually stored in your liver?
Do you really believe that an hypothetical brain transplant might change someone's personality or/and his memories?
What about children that remember their past life?
Where those memories are coming from? Since they got a new brain.

[David Quinn]

Actually, none of these things have size. All things are sizeless in an absolute sense. A thing only gains a veneer of size through comparison to other things.

To flesh this truth out a bit: should you find your physical body floating completely alone in space with nothing else about, are you big or small?

What about when you compare yourself to the vastness of space?

-