GENIUS FORUMS

Unfortunately, a really good piece of writing has been lost.

Perhaps I'll attempt it again.

Here I present my theory of which came first consciousness or thought. It seems clear that consciousness was created at the precise moment of pregnancy conception and thought develops through the level of consciousness during embryonic to fetus to infant and continues developing through adult to old age.

During abortion the embryo or fetus is capable of feeling pain, this indicates consciousness. A consciousness which feels pain, perhaps humans have more than one consciousness when the five senses are brought to mind. Smell, taste, touch, hear, and see.
Certainly when consciouness of smell kicks in it is well known.

To be continued

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why not ;-)


-brainiac-
mensa-maniac - Unfortunately, a really good piece of writing has been lost.

-tomas-
Good for you this is your 1st post... I'll let it slide - this time only!




-brainiac-
Perhaps I'll attempt it again.

-tomas-
You do that. Attempt.


ps- Well?




Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971


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What do you think?

Consciousness is a subject I invite to discuss, the logic of argumentation is to find an indisputable answer.

How do you define consciousness, and how does it differ from thought?

I think the answer lies in how you are defining each term.

Jinx!

Synchronicity.

I define consciousness as being thought itself but undeveloped. So essentially when consciousness is born upon pregnancy conception, it is infant within itself inside the womb and developes to the feeling of pain, after even a fraction of brain development. Is the feeling of pain the thought or consciousness of the pain?

The feeling of pain is the consciousness of the pain, thought is not developed yet in the infant consciousness, not before brain development. Consciousness cannot think as to why the pain occured or where it came from, it can do nothing but be aware the pain exists. It is a non-thinking awareness growing to development of thought.

Considering that infant consciousness is conscious of itself residing inside of another consciousness, is it a separate entity, or does it derive its thought patterns through its mother consciousness, at the precise moment of brain consciousness?

So are you defining consciousness as being an awareness of existance...
And Feelings being a reaction to the awareness?

Just clarifing.

Perishable, yes exactly!

Consciousness is definately an awareness of existence, you hit the nail right on the head!

Let me tell you of my first experience with my own awareness.

It was in my mothers womb that I first became aware of my existence. A divine voice spoke telling me it was my time to leave my haven. I was totally reluctant to leave, and instead almost killed my mother by moving upward inside of her, instead of listening to the voice of knowledge instructing me to follow.

Birth records would prove my difficult birth.

My consciousness intuitively told me that outside the womb was evil.

Consciousness is awareness, thought is developed from consciousness.

I become conscious that John just entered the room, from that consciousness, John becomes the target of thought. Just the acknowledgment that John entered the room, creates a thought, even a mere thought like, oh, it's just John, nevertheless it is a developed thought derived from the consciousness first.

Consciousness and thought are not really separate. Consciousness necessitates thought - you can never be conscious and thoughtless.

They co-arise.

"A knower realizes an object known
Without an object known, there is no knower."
- Nagarjuna, Essay on the Mind of Enlightenment.

In terms of the scientific investigation of consciousness there are several schools of thought. For example I just read a book by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary, two Canadian neuroscientists, called The Spiritual Brain. In it they attempt to negate materialism and propose a "non-material" mind, and embraces duality. Then there is people like Patricia and Paul Churchland who claim that all common-sense about the mind is false, we have no selves, no beliefs, etc.. They prefer to describe things in a materialist framework. Thomas Metzinger is a good "neurophilosopher", The Ego Tunnel is a good read. He basically suggests that our experience is a tunnel through an infinite reality that is centered on a false self. He says:

"The Ego Tunnel is just the opposite of a God's-eye view of the world. It has a Now, a Here-and a Me, being there now." - Thomas Metzinger (The Ego Tunnel, Pp 38)

But perhaps the most intriguing theory is Tononi's Integrated Information Theory which basically describes mathmatically the causal integration of any system independent of its form. But by that same definition a light switch is conscious. However the light-switch is only aware of two possible states and it does not possess a self-model of any kind, so there is no "one" to be the subject of the consciousness and thus it is effectively not conscious. Such level of causal integration required for our kind of consciousness is only really found in the thalamocortical portion of the mammalian brain. The content of which, however is determined in other parts of the brain.

New age claptrap.

There is only one God, the one you are denying by being in this form.

Animus wrote:Thomas Metzinger is a good "neurophilosopher", The Ego Tunnel is a good read.

Just read that book. Metzinger is an awesome dude. Everyone interested in consciousness should watch this lecture of his:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mthDxnFXs9k

Consciousness is myself and the God supreme who comprises me. We are all God consciousness at different levels of consciousness.

I wrote three logical explanations of my beliefs in regards to consciousness and lost all three, so you may understand my stance on starting all over again a fourth time.

Luckily, I found the reason as to why I lost my posts. It's vitally important to log out once finished with posting. If you don't you'll still be logged in the next time you visit and your posts will be lost. If this happens, log in again, then log out again, then log in again.

Since consciousness is a priority to discuss, I shall attempt again to enlighten you with my perspectives--in the near future!

Is. wrote:

Animus wrote:Thomas Metzinger is a good "neurophilosopher", The Ego Tunnel is a good read.

Just read that book. Metzinger is an awesome dude. Everyone interested in consciousness should watch this lecture of his:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mthDxnFXs9k

I just finished reading it too actually. Very interesting though, I read it in 2 days. I also picked up "Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates The Self" by Todd E. Feinberg. It was ok, but there are some things in the final chapters which don't seem to follow. Most of the book is clinical cases of altered selves which is very interesting.

A little dissecting of Metzinger's "new culture of consciousness":

If we soon gain better and better control over our human consciousness

Nobody is ever in control. The illusion of a control is a function within consciousness, not outside it.

we need also to think about what in fact a good state of consciousness is ...

Consciousness is already the good state. And thinking about it is one of the fruits falling from it.

and how we wish to live in future.

Evolutionary spoken the master function of consciousness is to determine our future behavior: reaction and adaption to a largest subset of possible change. As if one could not be busy with it!

Perhaps the best way to achieve this lies in a flexible basic attitude, in an approach that maximizes as far as possible the autonomy and freedom of the individual.

And each individual is already a collection of individual desires which are all trying to maximize autonomy and "freedom". It's not a pretty sight and much of our mind is busy herding all these cats. But herding is not just about maximizing the autonomy and freedom of each herd member; it's not the solution.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:A little dissecting of Metzinger's "new culture of consciousness":

If we soon gain better and better control over our human consciousness

Nobody is ever in control. The illusion of a control is a function within consciousness, not outside it.

However, the consciousness cannot be separated from its content. I think the self represents neural activity. Sure it doesn't exist as a unitary entity, it exists as a composite subjective experience. The one may not be the ultimate driver, but it does represent certain mental activity.

we need also to think about what in fact a good state of consciousness is ...

Consciousness is already the good state. And thinking about it is one of the fruits falling from it.[/quote]

I think Metzinger is talking about pleasure/pain. Metzinger himself argues against hedonism and asceticism.

I know there is no one in control, but experimental evidence suggests that beliefs have effects, such as the placebo/nocebo effect. Simply believing that one is in control can cause the brain to function better towards its own ends and is often healthier.

I recently read the following comment from some dude (Xunzi - Hsun Tzu) who died in 215BC.

"The likes and dislikes, happiness and anger, sadness and joy of the Xing (human nature) are called "emotions". When the emotions are aroused and the mind chooses among them, this is called "thought".

I tend to agree, so therefore thought arises slightly after consciousness.

One can be conscious without any noticable ideas/views/needs/desires coming into play, but as soon as an emtion is stirred it will be entwined with thoughts.

Most here don't consider "thinking" to be an emotion. It is though, because the mere calculatory aspects of the mind, could enduce nothing at all if what was produced were not associated with the emotions and the ego. Some emotions are so commonly utilised that we do not even recognise them as emotions. It is a little bit similar to the tolerance addicts develop to drugs, however in thinkings case we become accustomed to it within a short time after birth.

Have you been irritated when trying to think of something or work through a puzzle, or happy when you are writing something that just flows straight from the mind? These are the emotions of thought, which are different in people due to the ego program. One person will enjoy doing crosswords, another will not.

Consciousness (the body/mind) takes in data, the mind sorts and categorises this data, and runs it via learnt ego programs, and the ego then selects the emotions to utilise for the particular experience.

C'mon, Jimbo! No-one that old with no knowledge of science could know stuff like that!! Ya fuckin' mystic!!

Animus wrote:... experimental evidence suggests that beliefs have effects, such as the placebo/nocebo effect. Simply believing that one is in control can cause the brain to function better towards its own ends and is often healthier.

Surely a mirage doesn't go away just after knowing it's a mirage. As if one has the power to simply stop believing, when that belief itself keeps arising as function. The thing is more about clinging.

Jamesh wrote:I recently read the following comment from some dude (Xunzi - Hsun Tzu) who died in 215BC.

"The likes and dislikes, happiness and anger, sadness and joy of the Xing (human nature) are called "emotions". When the emotions are aroused and the mind chooses among them, this is called "thought".

Thought is here the label for direction, for rationalizing or higher judgment.

Emotions seem to be used by Xing as a broad label for feelings, impulses, instincts as well as more social emotion like anger, pride, shame.

Most here don't consider "thinking" to be an emotion. It is though, because the mere calculatory aspects of the mind, could enduce nothing at all if what was produced were not associated with the emotions and the ego.

One could just as well call an emotion a particular type of thought, a not very well defined one and often contradictory. It depends on the perspective taken. A better distinction between emotions, feelings and deeper lying impulses would be useful here though.

I can't believe that the opening post went straight to biological brain. You probably need to go way back in time to a time just before water started flowing. Then conciousness found itself, and eventually considered how it could get from A to B. But it could go back way further than that, as photons show signs of intelligence during the two slit experiment. As the charge up the low levels of energy, avoiding high levels of energy to create the wave pattern. In fact the whole universe seems to have some form of intelligence.

Back in time is simply memory log with ab logics (parachute):

Time is a holographic model where a black box leads one to a holodeck. With this high tech wizardry one learns that time is a non-linear system of self deterministic place setter coordinates.