what is "consciousness"?

Hey Chatty Kathy! You are entitled to your opinion but it doesn't mean you are required to have one. Go back in your cave. Sunlight is for those who can handle it.

You are so horribly self-conceited that I almost feel sorry for you. I don't know why you feel the need to be that way, maybe its just an attempt to conceal from yourself your own sense of inadequacy. Either way, because I have entertained your poo-flinging, this thread has consequently gone completely off topic. I just want to say now that I'm not going to respond to you any longer on this thread, unless what you have to say relates to the OP and or other posts relating to the OP.

I want to pick up the discussion, which I think, Dasein, is something you choose exclude yourself from anyway, so I guess you won't have anything to more to say?

But does it not at least seem reasonable to suppose that consciousness "happens" in the brain?

And that consciousness requires something like a brain in order for it to exist?

Just because we have to clear understanding of how this is so, does not mean that we never will, and it doesn't refute the reasonableness of the belief that consciousness does indeed happen in the brain.

Simply put, without the brain, there is no consciousness.

Yes thats my opinion, but Cyracuz seems to be suggesting something else, I think.

This from a guy who reads the same book over and over again 74 times and still doesn't get it... lol

Let me try to explain what I am suggesting. What most people mean when they say consciousness is human consciousness. We are so used to thinking of consciousness as an internal phenomenon of living, material beings, that it's hard to imagine any other possibility.

The way I see it, physicality is an attribute of consciousness. It is only within our consciousness this macrocosmic world we percieve has any relevance.
So I think of consciousness as the most basic phenomenon of reality. I am thinking in terms of "simple", non-material phenomenoa without continuous awareness, not much more than a kind of observer effect inherent in all quantum possibility. Another way to describe it would perhaps be first-order observaton. Self-awareness is second order observation, or observation of observation. As I see it, this phenomenon, which is what we humans experience, is a matter of consciousness becoming conscious, and what gives us continuity is the brain.
So I agree that human consciousness requires human brain. Squirrel consciousness requires squirrel brain. But all these are merely expressions of a fundamental consciousness from which all of reality arises.

Even some flora has "consciousness." They react to their environment, and are sensitive to it.

Yes. Fresco made me aware of second-order cybernetics.

I don't remember the name of the guy who said this, but he said something to the effect of all life being cognitive process.

What gives you the audacity to think you can even give a half-assed accurate description of anyone but yourself?

Do you not realize there isn't anyone out there but you? Or are you having problems accepting it?

The rest of the world has always been there and always will as your 'safety net' to allow you to use sayings such as 'self-conceited', or 'inadequate'. They come to your 'rescue' and show support as you sacrifice your 'self' as some sort of martyr by trying to act humble. Knock it off, it's not true and you know it.

'They' will always be there for support, and 'someone' will act like they need it. The only problem is you'll hate it.

Personally, I have not felt the 'need' to read Being and Time in quite sometime. I still hit 'rough patches' here and there but they never last. I now fully 'know' just what it's all about.

I look forward to these 'fleeings' you speak of, they allow me to chukle at myself knowing it's myself that I'm somehow 'scared' of. An understanding of Dasein comes from language which created this illusionary separate 'self' that is somehow supposed to act independantly of what happens of itself, this is also what creates the 'fleeing', a fear of a possible happening that the illusory 'self' will not be able to handle.

Most go through life as if they were this little 'agent' that acts independantly and is control of everything. Which is the biggest lie there is.

I remember seeing that you lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Is this correct? As I have been here myself for the past 3 weeks, I stole my Mom's car to come 'live' here and be with a girl I am madly in love with. I hang around the UNM campus most of the time, or play golf at the north course. I am actually at the Law Library right now.

I usually wear a black, red and white stripped shirt. Black sweat pants(when it's cold) and a black beanie hat. Also I am 6'4'', if you ever run into me, please say hi as I'd love to meet you.

So every expression of reality is dependent upon consciousness?

And when you say that "human consciousness requires human brain. Squirrel consciouness requires squirrel brain. But all these are merely expressions of a fundamental consciousness from which all of reality arises"-I assume your referring to the unified field theory?

I'm still not sure.

Conceptually, the brain is a product of consciouness. But the brain, not the concept "brain" but the thing that the concept refers to, is what causes consciousness.

What does your position mean for the possibility of knowledge? Are we not just moving through a web of concepts, and never really getting at "what is"?

But when you ask "What [actually] is?" in contrast to ontological conceptualizations (your "web of concepts") , are you not asking us to accept your reification of such concepts as concrete pointing to concrete objects? I agree that a brain is needed for minding to occur, but how do we transcend the nature of "brain" as idea?

I'm glad you two know what you are talking about, because I'm missing your concepts about brain and consciousness that seems to go beyond observation.

Ok, but the concept "brain" does indeed point to something that is concrete. This is in contrast to say the concept "God", and indeed even to the concept "consciousness", which themselves point to things that are difficult, if not impossible to conceptualise.

We can't go beyond our ideas of things, or our conceptualisations of things, but certain concepts, and the things that they refer to, are more "concrete", i.e. able to be conceptualised, than others.

Who is it that has identified these 'concepts' such as 'brain', 'consciousness', 'God', 'ideas'(a concept for the word concept lol).

Don't 'you' come before all of this? Otherwise, how could 'you' conceptualize them?

Yes. Everything is one thought thinking itself.



Not quite. It is a step further from unified field theory, beyond what physics can tell us and into the realm of philosophy. Consider that matter does not exist at the sub-atomic levels. In the quantum realm everything is probabilities in wave functions. That includes the brain. Think of the brain as a constant in the human equation, and perhaps you can see why it appears material. But at the sub atomic levels we are speaking of there is no physical matter, yet we know that the brain both exists and operates at this level.



There is no conclusive evidence for that. It just seems that way. But we cannot say that it is a fact. I'm not saying that the oposite is a fact, just that we cannot know.
It may be that we need brains to percieve continuity, which is essentially us standing in one moment and percieving the next.



Your thoughts are as real as anything you can touch with your hand. Knowledge has to do with mutual agreement between humans.
We are moving through a web of concepts, and we can only ever describe something unknown by putting familiar concepts together in new ways. And the ways of fitting the concepts together is often dictated by how they traditionally fit together.
That is why some ask for what's "outside" everything, because an attribute of "thing" is having properties that are clearly distinguishable from whatever it is not.

I think in terms of a conscious phenomenon. Waves of probability in the unified field, the universal oneness, that upon happening establish relationships between superpositions and definite states. In these relationships there is only information, and part of this information will act as observer and part as object.

Then there is the probability of these parts merging, happening as both object and observer, which is what we know as life. These phenomenon are part object and part information, and this allows for information to be stored in definite states that we percieve as physical, and then name brain.
Enough of these discontinued conscious "moments" stored as physical memory results in yet another phenomenon; conscious matter, or material consciousness.

It is hard to explain, and I feel I haven't made a good job at it here, but this way of understanding reality suits me. It makes me feel connected to the oneness, able to percieve in such a way that I see harmony and perfection when I look at the world. It does not contradict any science, and it is conscistent with mystical ideas found in almost every religion. This view, for me, unites all the aspects of reality into one experience: Love.

Subjective truth.

For sure. But so far I think it's this subjects clearest picture.