defining conciousness

It is unlikely that there is any other phrase that irritates me quite as much as "that's only a theory", as if theory meant conjecture. If you want a word for the process of making a scientific conjecture, the word is hypothesis. "A scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory")
Have you flown in an airplane?? Well it is only theoretical that it is possible.
Used a cell phone? The satellites which enable cell phones are put in place on the basis of theory.
Finally there seems to be some confusion between "personal, or subjective reality" and objective reality, one of the main characteristics of personal reality is this amazing image of the world each of us walks around in. Where is this amazingly accurate, well defined, sharply focused image? Nowhere, the last place in the head there is a picture is on the back of the eyeball, it is upside down, backwards, out of focus, shaking apprx. 39 times a second, and is behind an entire forest of nerve fibers that all come together and exit the eyeball as the optic nerve bundle The signal carried by this bundle has an unusual trip on the way to the occipital cortex, along the way it undergoes an apprx. 8 to 1 reduction, is split in half and joined up with the signal from the other eye, and those signals rejoin upon arrival at the occiptal cortex. there are all kinds of oddities built into this system, oddities with one purpose, to deceive us, like Mach bands for instance, for an example of this "deception" and many others follow this link...
http://www.yorku.ca/eye/funthing.htm
Now only after all this deception is this nowhere "image" available for conscious inspection, it should be clear at this point that any individual opinion about that nonimage could not qualify as "trustable knowledge", but if there was a common method which could be used to make observations of that image, and it was followed rigorously by a many individuals, and by it agreeable observations were made, well then we just might have something qualifiable as knowledge. there is such a method it is the scientifc method, and it's terms are strictly defined. Information acquired in any other manner is basically opinion, and as they say opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and they usually stink.
"Oh what a world of unseen visions and heard silences this insubstantial country to the mind" eh? what's that? mind? my mind? I/me/mind? why what the hell is that?
the question of consciousness it is, oh why my my, the topic of this thread, though it seems to have wandered a bit away.
the "I" of mind. what????
sine cera

 

i am far from suggesting we shouldn't read... and yes i too have learned a lot from books and am constantly learning new things...
but as lith said just a few posts ago... the observable constructs of reductionalist science break down when it comes to sub atomic quantum theory...


and forgive me if i'm wrong but isn't everything based upon sub atmoic principles in a sense.... and so it seems that science as we know it is due for a massive shake up..
if this isn't encouragement to think out side of the scientific box, i don't know what is...

it shouldn't be just "those with bigger brains" that are encouraged to do so, while the rest of us hang around waiting to be told whats right to think.


also.. i havent heard the hardline scientifc explaniation for why thingy felt his cat die from miles away... without the coincidence cop out.

 

Coincidence is a reality though. Perhaps a spot of indigestion.

My old man will swear blind his friend visited him in ghostly form the moment he died. I'd give him a smile of tolerance.

Just because you convince yourself of something doesn't make it real.

 

so are you suggesting that ghosts dont exist... even tho there are thousands of reported cases?

 

I agree, science is being shaken up by quantum theory. It's an incredibly exciting new area full of breathtaking possibilities and really requires you to "think outside the box" and embrace new ideas

I still don't really understand what your objection to "men in white coats" is. I mean, if you're happier believing in things which probably aren't true and can be shown to be probably not true, then you can do that and not listen to the moves forward in understanding which are demonstrably more likely than stuff like ghosts and auras. But that's not a very open minded attitude to take really is it? But here we're probably going round in circles

 

yes we probably are... but...

its not an objection to men in white coats... its an objection to building reality interpretations purely on what they tell you...
as quatum physics comes into play and opens up the void of understanding. we should not be made to feel affraid to make assumptions on that which is not yet understood... obviously there are some assuptions that are ridiculous.. and there are other which are not.. and in a free speech forum we should be debating these possibilities to help us further understand ourselves and our universe... rather than hiding behind a wall of what can and cant be proven

 

I think this is the post you meant, smartie?

Without knowing far more information it's really impossible to make any definitive judgement about what was going on here. I'd just be speculating, but since you asked.

Firstly why assume this sequence of events is correct? It doesn't sound very realistic, does it? The mind plays tricks on us all the time. Mine does. I have these kinds of thoughts that something was meant to happen, or something was telling me something. It's a natural part of how we think as I explained very early on. I try to look behind these naturally occurring thoughts and think about what was likely. I try to look beyond what seems to be so and not to accept first appearances.

He probably thought about his cat quite often while away. Perhaps he was worried about whether it was being looked after properly. Perhaps he was going to phone home about something else on that day anyway, and when he did he learnt the sad news. When something like that happens your mind plays even more tricks than it normally does - you start to go over little things in your mind, your clarity about the sequence of events gets muddled up. It turns into cause and effect because that's how our mind naturally looks for order.

But really, these kinds of unexplained circumstances happen all the time, in varying degrees, to everyone. To assume that it's paranormal is just really weak thinking and frankly a cop-out - it's that which doesn't actually explain anything. As dap says, coincidence is real, it happens all the time. Random events occurring without connection to each other is the natural state of affairs. Some of these events will overlap in what appears to us to be a meaningful way. This is so likely to happen that you should be worried if it never happened. It's not a psychologically appealing explanation but it's by far the most likely.

 

Isn't it rather a good idea to try to determine which assumptions are ridiculous and which are likely? That people other than me have had better ideas and been able to demonstrate truth and likelihood better than me is surely recognising my own limitations ... isn't humility in the face of that which you don't understand rather a good idea, too?

Edited to add the following:
It occurred to me, you may be trying to say that you shouldn't automatically believe everything you read in books? If so, I would say this is a given. You should critically evaluate any and all sources of information. And you should just as strenuously critically evaluate your own perceptions and the assumptions which arise from them.

 

are you suggesting that you dont deem yourself inteligent enough to form acurate and well founded interpretations on reality, based on the information available...

whether it be right or wrong, from a dumbass or a genius; to prevent yourself from exploring the possibilities due to feelings of inadequacy surely cant be right.
and we should be encouraging this level of thinking rather than waiting for the next thrilling installment of "your reality and how to think" by professor whats'isface.

i agree that we should question our own perceptions... but when doing so we should not presume that anything outside of the box is wrong and therefor stupid... but as long as it lies within the realmns of feasability, it should be accepted as a reasonable possibility until dissproven.

 

That's not really what I'm suggesting, no

I really don't understand you. Yes, people should be encouraged to think. Who is suggesting people should not think? Who is suggesting they should unquestioningly accept - what exactly? Do you think scientific literature presents a single, simple, doctrinalised version of reality?

This is now going round in circles. A summary of the key points already covered which you're bringing up again here: "outside the box" thinking is extremely valuable; all progress has been made in this way. At the same time, there are methods to evaluate the reasonableness, logical consistency and likelihood of truth claims. If they fail experimental testing and don't fit observable phenomena, you abandon or refine them. But it is impossible to prove a negative so this idea of "accepting until disproven" is mistaken.

 

Conciousness cannot be defined as a sum only in relative terms to another body

 

Greetings from California!

To define it in a short and simple way: I believe that for one to possess consciousness, one must know that it exists.

Sincere Regards, Michaela

____________________________________________________

"They will never make a perfect heart until they make one
that can't be broken." ....... The Wizard, "The Wizard of Oz"

____________________________________________________

 

I'm scratcho,not thingy.You may dismiss what I mentioned about my cat as coincidence,however you also may then be dismissing innate abilities humans had thousands of years ago that surface from time to time to confound us.I suppose this is not exactly germane to the gist of this post,but you must admit that there is much more still to be learned than has been learned, regarding mysterious happenings and--well--all else.All sentient beings have consciousness to one degree or another.So fuck the other incident I was going to mention.

 

i would still like to hear the other incident.. if its all the same...
it may help us to understand... the more incidents we can collect to help inform our interpretation the better in my oppinion.

 

Hmmm
Please listen to or read a book by "Eckhart Tolle" people

 

Ok.I wrote about this on another post some time ago.It concerns a girl I met in Hawaii in '71.Her name is Margaret and she is one of the most amazing people I have ever known.She was able to take ALL my construction friends money every friday at our poker games.I mean ALL.You get a full house--she had a better one.Two pair?Tough luck--she'd have 3 of a kind.When we left Hawaii in '72 to visit her parents in Portland and Lincoln City,Oregon,we stopped in Lake Tahoe and played some cards there.It just so happened that there were some off-duty card dealers from other casinos playing with us.She took almost every hand and when she got up to go to the bathroom,one of said"damn,I hope that lady doesn't come back".She sold her first Batik for 200 bucks.Self taught,no less.I could go on,but my point is, that obviously she was and is a special person.------------.She had a dream that she and a friend (and someone else she could not identify)were in a cabin in the woods somewhere,when a being beckoned her to come with him(it?) and she said (in her dream)that no,she was not ready.Her went with the being and exited the cabin and saw a van,licence plate and all.--------Margaret's brother's wife was heavy into astrology and other esoteric happenings,so Margaret mentioned the dream to the sister in law and asked her what she thought it meant.

 

The sister in law said she didn't know.While Margaret and I were in Portland visiting her dad,we didn't watch tv ,read the paper or get news of anything.When our visit was over,we went back to Lincoln City.As we pulled into town,we saw her mom's car at a bar.So we stopped ,went in and started to say "hi--etc,---her mom stopped us and said"did you hear what happened to Beverly?"(her friend she was with in the dream).Sure enough,Beverly was killed in a cabin in the woods in Washington State along with another girl and a dog.Don't know if the killer was ever caught,but I'd like anyone to tell me that this was coincidance and not some odd ability that humans may have once had that somehow slips through to exceptional people at times.I'm a cynical fucker,but I know there's more than meets the human eye.Haven't a clue what though.

 

I meant that her friend went with the being and she exited the cabin.sorry--I should have checked closer.

 

Well I certainly don't mean to piss in your kitchen but it seems to me that if you dismiss the possibility of coincidence then you are approaching the issue with a rather large bias. I think we should be openminded enough to accept all possibilities, not just the ones we would prefer to be true. I certainly wouldn't dismiss the possibility of the kinds of abilities you imagine, and I would love to see these kinds of things demonstrated in a repeatable, verifiable way. Without any such verification and on the balance of evidence it just seems incredibly improbable - but not impossible. By contrast these kinds of coincidences are statistically quite likely.

In the cases you describe is seems likely that a certain degree of coincidence has been combined with a very common effect of after-the-fact embellishment. This can happen without you even being aware of it. Studies into people's recollection of events they have eyewitnessed have shown this to be something which happens all the time. Minds are very, very unreliable things for providing accurate records of experiences. With dreams and abstract thoughts this is doubly so.

 

so what do you think the probability of dreaming about someone random and then them being killed.. lest of all that the dream they were in could even be interpreted as such... and then what do you think the probability is for slight mutations that allow certain people to be able to interact with reality in a slightly different way...
i would say if you looked at it statistically the chances would probably be quite similar... but the amount of variables that would be necessary to make an assumption on the probablility of these is far beyond what i can be bothered to work out... so i guess we'll never know