A 25 Year Journey Into Mind, Seeing, And Light

[spartan max2]

2 hours ago, SteveKlinko said:

But Alzheimer's and Dementia are Physical Problems in the Brain. I don't think we need to understand Consciousness to eventually cure those diseases.

Your thread is ultimately just another way of asking if consciousness is a physical manifestation of a biological brain or if it is a metaphysical thing like a soul.

I was just saying that our brain science is too young to conclusively answer that. 

I personally lean towards it being biological, but that's me.

Edited September 14, 2021 by spartan max2

[jmccr8]

4 hours ago, SteveKlinko said:

Of course all those other things are Conscious Experiences too. But the problem is, how is it that we Experience those things.

Hi Steve

Having a body is the only way I have those experiences

[onlookerofmayhem]

8 hours ago, lightly said:

No.   Ok, I'll rephrase my question....are neurons Conscious ?

Not individually. 

Conciousness seems to be an emergent property.

[psyche101]

On 9/10/2021 at 11:46 PM, SteveKlinko said:

If you are talking about the OP and not the Illusion above then all I can say is I tried. You might be one of those that actually do not have Conscious Experiences like other people do. You might exist more at the Neural Level. You probably don't understand  the Conscious Experience of Redness, or the Salty Taste, or the Smell of Bleach, or the Touch of a Rough Surface. 

Talking weird doesn't help. 

So you make crap up. Is that it?

Edited September 15, 2021 by psyche101

[SteveKlinko]

21 hours ago, spartan max2 said:

Your thread is ultimately just another way of asking if consciousness is a physical manifestation of a biological brain or if it is a metaphysical thing like a soul.

I was just saying that our brain science is too young to conclusively answer that. 

I personally lean towards it being biological, but that's me.

Yes, everything is still on the table when it comes to Consciousness. Maybe your speculation will ultimately be true, but maybe my speculation will be true in the end.  

[SteveKlinko]

19 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Steve

Having a body is the only way I have those experiences

That may be true, but the funny thing is that Conscious Experiences seem to be something other than body. This is because nobody can Explain how something like Redness is the result of Neural Activity. You should start with what reality seems to be (separate Physical and Conscious), and if the facts eventually show how Experiences are produced by Neurons then that is fine. 

[SteveKlinko]

2 hours ago, psyche101 said:

Talking weird doesn't help. 

So you make crap up. Is that it?

I wrote that crap in response to your reply:

Photons bounce of an object, enter the eye, where the brain deciphers that information into a understandable description. The action is similar to a camera.whsts this great mystery you are alluding to? Of course there is neural activity, that's what brain function is

If you think that all there is, is Photons and Neurons, then I can only assume your Mind does not have the further processing stage where the Visual Experience is generated. I don't know what your Experience is, but it seems like you must be more at the Neural Activity level, since you do not seem to even know that there is a processing stage (Conscious Experience) beyond the Neural Level. 

 

[XenoFish]

3 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

I wrote that crap in response to your reply:

Photons bounce of an object, enter the eye, where the brain deciphers that information into a understandable description. The action is similar to a camera.whsts this great mystery you are alluding to? Of course there is neural activity, that's what brain function is

If you think that all there is, is Photons and Neurons, then I can only assume your Mind does not have the further processing stage where the Visual Experience is generated. I don't know what your Experience is, but it seems like you must be more at the Neural Activity level, since you do not seem to even know that there is a processing stage (Conscious Experience) beyond the Neural Level. 

 

Considering no one can explain consciousness fully. You have no right to judge a person's level of awareness. 

[SteveKlinko]

27 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Considering no one can explain consciousness fully. You have no right to judge a person's level of awareness. 

This is not a level of awareness issue. Awareness could be high, it's just different than mine in character. I'm simply saying that from the responses it would seem that there is a lack of the further stage of Conscious Experience. This is not good or bad, it's just different. I have found that many people seem to lack the actual Experience of something like Redness (not Color Blindness). I came to that conclusion because of their very words when talking about Conscious Experiences. Maybe having the extra Conscious Experience stage is more of a hindrance. 

[XenoFish]

3 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

This is not a level of awareness issue. Awareness could be high, it's just different than mine in character. I'm simply saying that from the responses it would seem that there is a lack of the further stage of Conscious Experience. This is not good or bad, it's just different. I have found that many people seem to lack the actual Experience of something like Redness (not Color Blindness). I came to that conclusion because of their very words when talking about Conscious Experiences. Maybe having the extra Conscious Experience stage is more of a hindrance. 

You don't know that. You have no idea what anyone except yourself experiences. You're looking at others through your belief filters. Then judging them based on very limited knowledge. 

[SteveKlinko]

35 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

You don't know that. You have no idea what anyone except yourself experiences. You're looking at others through your belief filters. Then judging them based on very limited knowledge. 

I am looking at others by what they say, and then through whatever filters I might have. (Everybody has filters.) There are a lot of people on these Forums that flat out deny Conscious Experience like Redness even exists. To me this is evidence that they might not actually ever have Experienced something like Redness, even though they can Detect Redness in some inexplicable way. In any case, they may be lying about their Experiences to protect their Physicalist/Materialist beliefs. This would be worse than not having Experiences, because they are lying to themselves and spreading misinformation on these Forums. 

[XenoFish]

12 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

I am looking at others by what they say, and then through whatever filters I might have. (Everybody has filters.) There are a lot of people on these Forums that flat out deny Conscious Experience like Redness even exists. To me this is evidence that they might not actually ever have Experienced something like Redness, even though they can Detect Redness in some inexplicable way. In any case, they may be lying about their Experiences to protect their Physicalist/Materialist beliefs. This would be worse than not having Experiences, because they are lying to themselves and spreading misinformation on these Forums. 

Perhaps you have never experienced redness nor full conscious awareness, while being under the false assumption that you have. Maybe the reality tunnel you're viewing others is constructed on false premises.

[Horta]

On 9/11/2021 at 10:32 PM, SteveKlinko said:

The Brain generates the best Guess as to what is going on in the External world, and the Self (Conscious Mind) has to accept that the best Guess might not always be perfect.

You should spend some time in the bigfoot/ufo forums. Great, succinct explanation. lol

Quote

But it is at least a very very good Guess most of the time.

Possibly, but how can we ever know that?

Edited September 15, 2021 by Horta

[SteveKlinko]

11 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Perhaps you have never experienced redness nor full conscious awareness, while being under the false assumption that you have. Maybe the reality tunnel you're viewing others is constructed on false premises.

Could be, but there has to be some working assumptions to begin with. If you want to start with, Nothing Is Real and It's all an Illusion, then that is a legitimate starting point. There isn't much more you can do with that. Those starting assumptions  result in basically giving up on the problem and reaching conclusions that there is no Hard Problem. It isn't my position.

[XenoFish]

Just now, SteveKlinko said:

Could be, but there has to be some working assumptions to begin with. If you want to start with, Nothing Is Real and It's all an Illusion, then that is a legitimate starting point. There isn't much more you can do with that. Those starting assumptions  result in basically giving up on the problem and reaching conclusions that there is no Hard Problem. It isn't my position.

The alternative is that what is real is real and our "consciousness" is the result of a biochemical boltzmann brain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

[SteveKlinko]

6 minutes ago, Horta said:

You should spend some time in the paranormal/bigfoot/ufo forums. Great, succinct explanation. lol

Possibly, but how can we ever know that?

We can never know for sure but after a few years of using our Experiences we find out that the different modalities are all fairly Correlated and the Experiential presentation of our Reality seems to be correct. Works for me anyway.

[SteveKlinko]

3 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

The alternative is that what is real is real and our "consciousness" is the result of a biochemical boltzmann brain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

With Consciousness all speculations are possibilities. 

[SHaYap]

29 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

With Consciousness all speculations are possibilities. 

With Consciousness all speculations are improbabilities, hence, "conjecture"

~

[SteveKlinko]

2 hours ago, third_eye said:

With Consciousness all speculations are improbabilities, hence, "conjecture"

~

You have a very pessimistic point of view.

[SHaYap]

6 hours ago, SteveKlinko said:

You have a very pessimistic point of view.

On the contrary and by every measure, my optimism leaps and abounds unconditionally with every post you spew... 

~

[XenoFish]

On 9/15/2021 at 1:16 PM, SteveKlinko said:

You have a very pessimistic point of view.

You've picked the wrong forum member.

[SteveKlinko]

16 hours ago, XenoFish said:

You've picked the wrong forum member.

This indicates to me that the productivity on this thread has just about run out.

[XenoFish]

5 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

This indicates to me that the productivity on this thread has just about run out.

It wasn't productive to begin with.

[jmccr8]

On 9/15/2021 at 5:59 AM, SteveKlinko said:

That may be true, but the funny thing is that Conscious Experiences seem to be something other than body. This is because nobody can Explain how something like Redness is the result of Neural Activity. You should start with what reality seems to be (separate Physical and Conscious), and if the facts eventually show how Experiences are produced by Neurons then that is fine. 

Hi Steve

Without a body there is nothing to experience either physically or in the brain because the brain is part of the body, if there is another quality of man that exists then it is dependent on the body to function so the body is the primary source of experience

[SteveKlinko]

14 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Steve

Without a body there is nothing to experience either physically or in the brain because the brain is part of the body, if there is another quality of man that exists then it is dependent on the body to function so the body is the primary source of experience

Body may seem to be the source of Experiences, but those Experiences cannot Logically be understood to come from the body. All we know is that there is Neural Activity and then there is Experience. There is Zero Explanation for this from Science. Let me emphasize the Zero. These Experiences seem to be separate from anything we can say about Neural Activity. That just is the reality right now. Science needs to show how the Experience comes from the Neural Activity. I try to keep that conceptual wedge inserted between Neural Activity and Conscious Experience simply to force some out of the box thought. Without the realization of the separation between Neural Activity and Conscious Experience, people have become lazy with respect to Consciousness to the point of insanely denying that there even is a Hard Problem of Consciousness.