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> the only real consequences of deciding that we are part of a greater conscious system are going to be philosophical I think the question of consciousness is
by md224 10y ago
> the only real consequences of deciding that we are part of a greater conscious system are going to be philosophical
I think the question of consciousness is critical in at least one domain: the question of whether or not consciousness survives beyond the death of the physical body (and, relatedly, whether it precedes the birth of the body). If we bracket away religious doctrine and just focus on the facts of the matter, this debate hinges on how consciousness relates to the physical body it inhabits. Is it created by the body, or does it merely use the body as a conduit?
My boy William James gave a great lecture† in 1897 where he claimed that scientific understanding had not yet ruled out immortality, since it was unknown whether this relationship between mind and body was productive (body creates mind) or transmissive (body filters mind). I could be wrong, but I think this is still an open question, and it very much depends on understanding the true nature of consciousness. That's why the Hard Problem is so awesome.
† https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/jimmortal.html https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/jimmortal.html (published in 1898)
- ThrustVectoring 10y agoIt's quite definitively created by the body. It's very difficult to explain certain phenomena otherwise. Like, certain people will get a right-hemisphere stroke that not only removes their ability to use their left arm, but also causes them to deny that they aren't able to use their left arm. And this is temporarily suppressed by squirting cold water into the left ear. We're getting more and more detail in the nuts-and-bolts models of how the brain constructs experiences and consciousness. IMO it's a just a matter of time before there are no mysteries left, and every high level description of human experience can be broken down into smaller details recursively until what's left is low-level descriptions of neurons.
- aninhumer 10y agoWhile I too believe consciousness is material, those observations don't prove it, they just demonstrate that consciousness can be influenced by the material world.
- ThrustVectoring 10y agoAnd while I too believe that fire is material, our observations don't prove it, they just demonstrate that how phlogiston gets released by combustion can be influenced by the material world.
- EGreg 10y agoThe difference is that you can easily replicate fire and understand how it works. You can tell if something is on fire or not. It's been explained in terms of very simple components. Go ahead and explain qualia as experienced in first person.
- rubberstamp 10y agoIf I clone myself and my clone goes through the exact experiences and interactions I go through, I think both I and my clone will have exact same consciousness. Cloning because thats the only way to ensure my exact replica of DNA sequence in someone else. If a person that is born naturally and subjected to all the same experiences and interactions, that may not result in exact same consciousness as both bodies may have different tolerance to something(for example some allergy) and hence may not experience the same thing and so their consciousness would probably diverge there. So no soul. But still my natural offspring will start of from seed energy, half of which is from my body and other half from my partner. Its possible that only natural born twins will only have the exact same consciousness if subjected to exact same experiences. This is because we may accumulate information in our DNA over our life time. So a clone will be starting of with that information as opposed to comparatively clean slate I started off with. Or may be the accumulated info will only be written to sperm cells or ovum. Information is either passed down this way or its just a totally random mutation(or DNA shuffling) that produces new feature adaptations that causes evolution.