Definition of GOD

[watcher]

Yes. I do believe I own my consciousness. If it isn't mine, who's is it? Your property analogy doesn't work because we can observe collective nature, but there is no collective consciousness to point to. If there were, why wouldn't I be able to read your mind? While consciousness may be a common universal product, evidence being our own, it is expressed individually.

 

because consciousness is simple and indivisible. can we measure it, weight it? can we break it apart to see its parts or ultimate constituents the same way we do to matter. is it not possible that contentiousness has fractal nature? or even has quantum properties so that it is localized?

 

Without sensory input, you would not experience anything outside your head. Your senses take in information that your brain processes and stores electrochemically. Our level of consciousness is limited by our senses. For example, we cannot detect infrared energy on our own, we've had to develop tools to expand our conscious awareness of the natural world beyond the capabilities of our senses. How much would our consciousness be raised if we had sonar like a bat, or could smell as well as a deer or could see as well as a hawk.

 

i always wonder what cognizes the data input assembled inside our brain.

so all the things you perceived are images created inside your brain. and you should have no idea what actually these things are except for the "image representation" the brain produced.

 

if your belief is true, again you must explain why the laptop in front of you is perceived outside your head when its image along with the sense of touch is all happening and assembled inside your brain?

 

If consciousness is a stream that we tap into with our brains, our death would still result in our loss of consciousness because we could no longer tap into that stream. But I have seen no evidence to support the notion of an inherent universal consciousness that exists independent of the consciousness produced by living organisms.

 

how would you go about this evidence when consciousness is understood as a subjective experience? i mean the subjective experience is what doing the measurements and analysis. so how can consciousness study itself?

 

perhaps you have. perhaps it is also the reason why you have already a peaceful resolution of the temporal aspect of your existence?

[watcher]

Note that in spite of their disagreement about the ontology of conscious experiences, modern

dualists and reductionists broadly agree about how conscious experiences relate to the brain and

physical world. In visual perception, for example, they would agree that physical input stimuli

innervate the optic nerve and visual system, forming preconscious representations of that input in

the brain. If that input is attended to, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness

are met, a conscious experience will result along with its neural correlates in the brain. This

agreement about potentially observable neural causes and correlates makes it clear that the dualist

versus reductionist dispute is more conceptual than empirical. It has more to do with pretheoretical

assumptions about the nature of consciousness (whether it is entirely material, or whether

consciousness resides in some separate, spiritual realm) than with anything observable about the

brain. Consequently, one cannot easily resolve this dispute with neuroscience. The empirical

discovery of neural causes and correlates won’t settle a dispute about whether experiences are

nothing more than their causes and/or correlates.

[watcher]

another interesting question to resolve on theories of consciousness is how can a non-material stuff like consciousness can be contained in a physical skull? if what the popular belief is that consciousness in an epiphenomenon of matter.

 

a more logical model of consciousness is that in order to make sense why we experience something external is because consciousness is immanent and never separated from matter.

it can be likened to a tv signal and the brain would be the tv set. now just because the tv was shut off and stop receiving the signal and producing the image doesn't mean the signal is gone.

[C1ay]

What will you be after your physical death?

 

Dead! Nothing more, nothing less. Your point?

[modest]

Note that in spite of their disagreement about the ontology of conscious experiences, modern dualists and reductionists broadly agree about how conscious experiences relate to the brain and physical world. In visual perception, for example, they would agree that physical input stimuli innervate the optic nerve and visual system, forming preconscious representations of that input in the brain. If that input is attended to, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness are met, a conscious experience will result along with its neural correlates in the brain. This agreement about potentially observable neural causes and correlates makes it clear that the dualist versus reductionist dispute is more conceptual than empirical. It has more to do with pretheoretical assumptions about the nature of consciousness (whether it is entirely material, or whether consciousness resides in some separate, spiritual realm) than with anything observable about the brain. Consequently, one cannot easily resolve this dispute with neuroscience. The empirical discovery of neural causes and correlates won’t settle a dispute about whether experiences are nothing more than their causes and/or correlates.

 

It's helpful, Watcher, if you put quote tags or quotes around copied material and indicate in some way that it is not your writing, normally by putting a link to the source. Did you get this from Reflexive Monism?

 

~modest

[watcher]

modest here's the source of the above quote ...

Reflexive Monism

Max Velmans, Goldsmiths, University of London; email [email protected];

http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/psychology/staff/velmans.html

Journal of Consciousness Studies (2008 – in press)

[Turtle]

I noticed a member here that professes a well defined/understood belief in God, has put in their signature "I think, therefore I am". Well that is from Descarte and comes from only a bit of his Meditations and is actually a prelude to what he called a "proof" of God. Part of this proof is of course a definition and I am surprised that no one in any of these threads of this topic ever seems to invoke Descarte's proof.

 

To be clear, I hold it is no such thing a "proof" and I don't believe there is a God. I mention it because if the great Descarte, inventor of analytical geometry is flawed in reason and argument of such a pursuit then why would I think lessor arguments by current 'provers' have any merit? Delusion only I suppose.

 

On the other hand if I were a believer I would be harping on Descarte's proof from dawn to dusk and saying see, a great intelligent man has already proved it. I think this doesn't happen because folks who might be simply so inclined haven't a clue about Descarte or his Meditations or his proof of God.

 

Well, here's a study guide of sorts and if it's not enough then by all means seek out & read Descartes Meditations and get it from the horse's mouth as it were. ;) Descartes' Proof for the Existence of God

[Hawkins]

from nothingness you are born and from nothingness you will die out.

isn't it the most observable fact we can have?

the question is actually based on our "belief" and "desire" that we ought to live forever.

that our existence must continue beyond our physical survival.

 

Prove it scientifically or it is out of your faith to believe so.

 

Simple as that.

 

What surprises me here is how those proclaimed to be scientific but living int their own dreams.

[pamela]

What I find surprizing is your comment,Hawkins. Without our dreams and hopes and aspirations, where would we be today? It is our dreams that drive us to find the answers to the unknown, whether that be in science or other. A scientist's vision is the catalyst that propels him to find the answers that lie beneath the surface of our knowledge.

[watcher]

Prove it scientifically or it is out of your faith to believe so.

 

the burden of proof lies to those that claim there is something beyond this present life.

 

Simple as that.

 

What surprises me here is how those proclaimed to be scientific but living int their own dreams.

 

in what way the scientific appraoch to life living in their dreams?

i think it's the other way around.

[watcher]

Yes. I do believe I own my consciousness. If it isn't mine, who's is it? Your property analogy doesn't work because we can observe collective nature, but there is no collective consciousness to point to. If there were, why wouldn't I be able to read your mind? While consciousness may be a common universal product, evidence being our own, it is expressed individually.

 

yes the experience of an invidual conscious person is so self evident and self-verifiable that it is almost impossible someone to consider the idea that consciousness is actually collective in nature. since it is our consciousness that tells us what is real and therefore what to believe.

 

but it is also proven in the past that our consciousness can also trick us. the same way ancient people were trick to think that the earth was flat, still and the center of the universe. it is possible imo that the conscious experience of an individual person who thinks he owns consciousness can be also a misperception.