In your poll all of the three options “yes”, “no”, “maybe” can be selected. So what kind of result do you expect? How are you going to evaluate it?
This is a poll in progress, the method of evaluation is also progressive: it may or may not have method, the result could end up tentative and implicative.
with love,
sanjay
Probably, the Neanderthals were not our direct ancestors but another subspecies (homo sapiens neandethalensis) of the species homo sapiens or even another species (homo neandethalensis) of the genus homo. So, probably, the Neanderthals have the same ancestors as we have but are not our direct ancestors.
There may be a primordial consciousness, but that does not necessarily mean that it grows and develops.
A germ might evolve to have more consciousness. Consciousness itself doesn’t evolve any more than a square evolves.
The point of life is NOT to “grow and evolve”. That is just one of those many propaganda ideas used upon you. You want to know why cockroaches have existed for so long? They don’t listen to propaganda about how they have to evolve and change into what they are not.
with love,
sanjay
And, this is precisely the answer what other thread asked -
Why do bad things happen when God exists?
with love,
sanjay
zinnat
So consciousness doesn’t learn, ergo there is no requirement for dharma and karma?
I don’t get how awareness isn’t linked to perception and in turn both to consciousness. A learned creature is more aware and will survive longer than another unlearned one, and the awareness is enhanced by the informed perception.
An experience contains knowledge of the thing being experienced, otherwise it cannot know what that something is, ergo cannot experience ~ be conscious of it!
How can we be conscious and aware of intellect and knowledge without them being represented >exactly< and on a 1 – 1 basis?
You really think mankind wont be developing robots with different levels of consciousness? …because when we understand how it works in the brain we will be able to build it – and varying amounts of it! It will be no different to TV’s and computers, there will be upgrades [and possibly for humans too].
Arminius
I know all that stuff, I was just using it to take a road back in evolution, but you are right and I shouldn’t have gone on that tangent.
I refer you to the above [in blue].
James
I refer you to the above [in blue].
Evolution is exactly that though. All life grows and develops, its just that sometimes a model works at a given level [e.g. cockroaches], and so the world is made up of ‘slots’ in which given species will fill. However, running along side that you have the overall path whereby humans have surpassed all others and could destroy any others if they wished to.
_
That requirement is still very much there.
Because of having a default character of feeling and only feeling, the consciousness cannot help but to feel all the time. It cannot avoid any feeling, irrespective of whether it brings pleasure or pain. It is innocent, not intelligent, something like a small clild who can feel the pain and pleasure but neither can deduce why he is feeling so nor can do anything about to change it.
It is the mind which is supposed to bring the consciousness into pleasurable circumstances. But, mind has to learn how to do that. That is precisely the reason why all this labyrinth is created.
I above explained the reasons why consciousness has nothing to do with the perception. I think that the one of the main reason why this misunderstanding is because of the language.
The apparent similarity between the terms of conscious and consciousness gives the impression that both are related, but they are not, at least in the way as it is perceived generally. Many other mythologies and languages use entirely different terms for these phenomena.
In Hinduism, Chetana/Shruti is used for consciousness while Buddhi for mind, and Ruh and Nafs is Sufism/Islam respectively.
To understand the issue better, we can use an analogy of a man and a set of 3d glasses. If the object/picture is in 3d, a spectator cannot see it without 3d glasses, even though he has the capability of seeing. The same is with the mind and consciousness. Consciousness is open to the terms of pleasure and pain only. It cannot do anything beyond that, thus it needs some another entity to translate all observations into its only known terms, and that is mind.
Consciousness is not interested in awareness or perception, or, being an unchangeable entity, it can neither learn or evolve, in the first place. These things are beyond its capabilities. Yes, its associate mind can certainly learn and evolve with time and experience. And, as the result, consciousness also becomes able to feel the new things, though again only in the terms of pleasure and pain only.
As I explained above, consciousness can experience/understand only in the terms of feelings, not deduction. It needs someone to translate everything in its understandable terms. Only then, and only in that way, it can be conscious of anything.
Because, beside consciousness, we also have one such an entity in the form of the mind, which can also learn, evolve and analyze things.
I do not merely think that but rather know for sure for some valid and reliable reasons that it is not going to happen ever. Consciousness is not what science is assuming it to be. Forget about it, the science cannot even create mind similar to organisms, which can learn and evolve completely on its own. Both of mind and consciousnes are not the manifeststions of the organic brain, as it is perceived generally.
Science/humans can only create a pseudo mind, which can recognise and implement input information only, nothing else. But, that is neither mind nor consciousness. Merely complexity cannot create either of these. If that was not true, being able to have the access to all the knowledge of the mankind at a single place, the servers of Google and Wikipedia would have become conscious on their own long ago.
The claim of creating mind/consciousness is not less bizarre/unachievable than creating an universe. And, given the present pace of the science, it is not long before humans would realize this reality too. In the globalised world of today, it is merely a matter of one clear incident/evidence anywhere, which is bound to happen.
With love,
Sanjay
I have to disagree with you on that one.
And I am pretty certain that you are using the word “consciousness” for something different than what English speaking people use the word to represent. You seem to be speaking of the culmination of subconscious processes as a single, non-material entity.
And that is certainly not true. It is about like saying that Man will never create a machine that can move on its own and perhaps even fly, as was once believed … most especially by middle eastern and eastern peoples.
Zinnat
It didn’t say >why<, and you merely expressed the following sentiment;
Whereas instead of that I think all of the senses are observational… Ever heard the expression ‘pain is subjective’? It literally is, and that must mean that the subjective observer can become detached from even the harshest of feelings, that of pain. Simple life-forms don’t have emotions, they simply perceive the world with what organic instruments they have. Do you think bacteria can feel? With no nervous system? So no, feeling is a property of more complex systems and is not inherent in all life-forms.
Secondly; even if there is some manner of rudimentary ‘feeling’ [which has no physical analytic counterpart?] through the basic electromagnetism all life has, that doesn’t tell us why an informed perception + observation doesn’t also have an effect. There can be both ‘feeling’ – whatever we actually mean by that, which is affecting, and perceiving as well as that.
With the ‘only feeling’ scenario, we would be suggesting that information is not affecting the consciousness, the same as sensation is. I don’t see how the experiencer can know something, without that something making an imprint upon its fabric – so to speak, in a similar way to feeling/sensation does.
Archaic terms. What’s wrong with just saying what is meant i.e. without vacuous and superfluous terms? e.g. ‘mind’; should include everything concerned with the collection of things composing it, consciousness and subconsciousness, perception, sensation, info etc. if we mean something else we should state what that is, otherwise the terms have no value. In other words, unless any mysticism is justified by saying what it is in the world, we have to ask; ‘what is it’?
That doesn’t make any sense, the conscious experience/r contains all experienced thought. There is no other mind of any sort, but instead the subconscious is doing all the processing i.e. and not another ‘mind’. From now on when you say ‘mind’ I will consider that to be referring to the subconsciousness and the brain as an instrument.
The servers of Google and Wikipedia don’t have the faculties and function required to produce consciousness. If you gave them those functions then they would naturally become conscious, just the same as if you give radios visuals, then you get TVs. I take your point that complexity alone doesn’t create consciousness, but I feel sure that the right kind of complexity would! Then once man has instruments which produces consciousness, goes what, they will produce superior versions as the technology improves.
_
with love,
sanjay
with love,
sanjay
I think that you are confused about the way language works. It is not that there is consciousness and people are trying to properly define it. That is backwards from how language works. Things are not defined. Words and concepts are defined.
People note a trait or property and give it a name. They might not know how or why it works, but they already know WHAT it is because it is whatever they gave the name to. Most of the time, they do not clearly explain what it was that they gave the name to (aka “define it”) and thus many people back track to try to figure out what was intended when the name was first applied. So people might argue about definitions. But they are arguing about the definition of the WORD or the CONCEPT. They are NOT arguing about a definition of a THING.
The word “conscious” is formed from the English prefix “con-”, meaning “with”, and a diminutive of the root “science”, meaning “knowing” or “awareness”. “To be conscious” means “to be with-knowing/awareness”. So when anyone says “consciousness”, they are referring to the ability to be aware, ability to recognize, or to know of something. They are NOT talking about a THING that might in itself be responsible for such awareness. It is like referring to a color rather than what is displaying that color. What is causing consciousness is entirely another issue from what consciousness is. You are speaking of whatever it is that causes consciousness, not the ability that consciousness is.
In Hindi, I am sure there is a word for whatever causes a person to be able to be aware of things, causing his consciousness. In the modern West, we accept whatever that is to be what we call “the nervous system”, “brain”, or even “mind”. The West might not have that right. Perhaps there is something different causing a person’s consciousness or awareness. But don’t conflate the cause of the ability or property of awareness, whatever you believe that to be, with the awareness itself. Consciousness MEANS “the ability to remotely recognize” or “the ability to be aware”. It is an ability or property, not a thing or substance (such as brain or akasha).
And just because something hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean that it can’t happen, either. Such statements are irrelevant.
Try not to conflate “machines” with “mechanisms”. The Abramic religions have social/spiritual mechanisms to cause things to happen. Those mechanisms have names. Only the seriously ignorant think of those mechanisms as “machines”. Gabriel is the social mechanism for broadcasting (aka “trumpeting”) the will of God (by definition). That mechanism spans the globe (aka “flies wherever around the world”). Gabriel is a communication network mechanism/strategy/“angel”.
People are seldom conscious of the consciousness of machines (or other people for that matter). If a machine had consciousness (and I can assure you that many do), most people, by far, would not be aware of it even if engaged with the machine. People are not terribly good at recognizing consciousness when they encounter it.
I am not confused about how a language works but indicating that any any entity and its quality are two different things. If there is an effect, there must be something that would have caused it, and that is where i am disagreeing.
I do not get it, James. Explain it further.
Things and concepts are defined, not words. A word is a reference point/marker for anything. It is a construct of human mind only, not exist it reality. On the other hand, things and concepts use to have their separate existence besides names and definitions.
Agreed, but people do the same with things too. And, that is how we come up with words.
Agreed. Knowing the working or other details are not necessary in giving names. But, in such cases, one must be able to recognize and discern that from others.
Sweetness is sweetness only because it can be recognized clearly by discerning from bitterness or savoriness.
Agreed, perhaps that is what i am doing.
I understand your point. Yes, i may be a bit out of line here but as i mentioned previously, west/English does not have any proper name for that thing towards what i am indicating. That is why i am compelled to discern the quality (feeling) from the entity (consciousness), in order to name both differently.
Agreed. I understand what they mean by consciousness.
But, i am taking up the issue what causes consciousness, or enables anything to become conscious.
James, what i am trying to plead here is that let us discern mere the ability to detect or recognize from becoming conscious.
I take your point.
Agreed. It cannot be settled unless any concluding evidence comes from either side.
No, James. I understand the difference between the two very clearly. I am not talking about mechanisms only but machines also. In Hinduism, Puspak Viman was a pure machine, not any supernatural mechanism. Though, it is not clear in Islam how Gabriel was travelling up and down.
with love,
sanjay
Although you have agreed many times, I suspect that you are still not getting my point. Consciousness is not an “entity”. It is a property that an entity might have. To “dicern the quality from the entity” is like discerning the color red from the object red. There is no “object red”. There are objects that have the property of redNESS. And there are objects/entities that have the property of consciousNESS. That suffix “-ness” in English almost always refers to a property, not an entity.
I suspected that from the way you were speaking of consciousness, as if it was an entity. You probably should use the Hindu word for whatever it is that causes the property of consciousness because in the West, that is assumed to be the nervous system, thus the West doesn’t have a word for what you are talking about. “Consciousness” is NOT that word, but rather is the resultant property of whatever it is that that you are talking about.
Again, that is like saying, “Let us discern mere red from the color red” or “Let us discern the difference between mere two and the quantity two.” It is a nonsense proposal.
I don’t know the word/name “Puspak Viman”, but in the case of “Gabriel” the word was coined before the category and very idea of machines was known to Man. The closest thing to a machine was merely tools, carts, or physical puzzles, such as locking mechanisms. Automated mechanical devices such as clocks did not have a category name because there simply wasn’t enough of their variety to warrant a general category name.
And being a little familiar with the Eastern mentality, I can pretty much bet that a guru/wise man type person mentioned their name for Gabriel and it was taken to mean something much more physically concrete because that is how gurus talk and that is how the Abramic religions were founded ("Abraham was giving up on his son when he was inspired by an idea - Abraham, Isaac, and the angel). In another thread, an author of a book was explaining the universe by proclaiming that there are “forces” of order and chaos competing with each other and thus causing the universe to be what it is. That is a very ancient Eastern type of mindset - presuming the property of force (or or intellect) to a mere state of being or situation. To Westerners, that is metaphor and/or poetry (eg. “Fate whispers to the wolf”). But very many in the East and Middle East of the population presume the words to be literal, thus situations such as fate, in the minds of the population, are thought to be forces causing destiny.
That is why there are literalists or “fundamentalists” around the world. They originally conflated properties, situations, and thoughts with living beings in their speech (“anthropomorphizing”) or forces (metaphor) and thus caused the masses to believe that they were talking about actual living beings or forces. Again, it is merely a language issue although one that many influential people wish to use to their advantage. Islamics intentionally spread the rumor that their ancient texts are referring to modern ideas, such as UFOs (or machines). Whether intentional or not, it is a deception upon the populous. The world is filled with such deceivers because it provides for obfuscation, manipulation, and justfication - tools for social engineering and management (aka “religion”).
The flying humans idea is very old in the west too, older than in the middle east, and probably also older than in the east. And the first thought about flying humans is probably as old as the human species.
Yes. That’s right. It is a typical and meanwhile old occidental wisdom.
Do you mean the “consciousness in blue”? 
So you are aying that “[color=##4080FF]the awareness is enhanced by the informed perception” and therefore claiming that the consciousness grows and develops?
