A theory of consciousness

Hmm... I find it hard to respond to what you say Brightmoon. What you write is very much in opposition to basic scientific premises, basic experience and the history of technology. Let me offer this hypothetical question:

Imagine we live on a planet with two sentient species. Their evolutionary paths diverged hundreds of millions of years ago, their appearance and behaviour is quite dissimilar; yet they both appear to be conscious and engage in discussion, science, culture etc. as much as any human can be observed to do so.

Species A decides to study the minds of captured species B individuals. They do EEGs, MRIs, X-Ray CAT, dissection, genetic and embryological research, they build a computational representation of this mind - mimicking it on a neuronal level - and this program behaves just like a regular being of species B.

Is this possible?

(If you are going to say no because species A cannot "escape" their own conscious condition, then I am going to respond with the long list of technological advances that they could make - the x-ray machine and the like - that were developed using the exact same processes, by the very same world their minds had created. So if you say no, I would like a very good reason!)

Hermes:

I haven't read the complete model you are proposing for consciousness. However I've read portions of it, as well as many of your responses and remarks in this thread. I have a few questions for you, as I am very interested in this topic myself.

1.) What is your background and general age? Are you a trained philosopher, student, or other background?

2.) It seems to me that you are attempting to correlate the evolution of the brain/nervous system with the phenomena of consciousness. Are you suggesting that consciousness is a product of the advanced evolution of our brains?

Apart from the complexities that the brain holds in its analytical mode its intuitive rational its a ability to think on completely new views of awareness...it still has no idea on its own awareness and how it consciously is..The is is an enigma, it can not comprehend the very thing it comprehends with..It only comes to personal belief in the end that no one can deny or confirm..We can not even produce the simplest living organism so making a human with his brain..fantasy.

Is ther not, however, a manifest circularity in such an undertaking? If we must first define an entity in its Being, and if we want to formulate the question of Being only on this basis, what is this but going in a circle? In working out our question have we not 'presupposed' something which only the answer can bring? Formal objections such as the argument about 'circular reasoning', which can easily be cited at any time in the study of first principles, are always sterile when one is considering concrete ways of investigting. When it comes to understanding the matter at hand, they carry no weight and keep us from penetrating the field of study.

But factically there is no circle at all in formulating our question as we have described. One can determine the nature of entities in their Being without necessarily having the explicit concept of the meaning of Being at one's disposal.

......

In the question of the meaning of Being there is no 'circular reasoning' but rather a remarkable 'relatedness backward or forward' which what we are asking about (Being) bears to the inquiry itself as a mode of Being of an entity.

Hmm... I find it hard to respond to what you say Brightmoon. What you write is very much in opposition to basic scientific premises, basic experience and the history of technology. Let me offer this hypothetical question:

Imagine we live on a planet with two sentient species. Their evolutionary paths diverged hundreds of millions of years ago, their appearance and behaviour is quite dissimilar; yet they both appear to be conscious and engage in discussion, science, culture etc. as much as any human can be observed to do so.

Species A decides to study the minds of captured species B individuals. They do EEGs, MRIs, X-Ray CAT, dissection, genetic and embryological research, they build a computational representation of this mind - mimicking it on a neuronal level - and this program behaves just like a regular being of species B.

Is this possible?

(If you are going to say no because species A cannot "escape" their own conscious condition, then I am going to respond with the long list of technological advances that they could make - the x-ray machine and the like - that were developed using the exact same processes, by the very same world their minds had created. So if you say no, I would like a very good reason!)

Consciousness contains everything, because everything consists of that of which we are aware. Only what we cannot think of, what we are unaware of, exists outside consciousness, and obviously, we can't know anything about that!

At best, science can, and probably will, explain how consciousness evolved, what kind fo mechanism appears to create it, but it cannot, by definition, answer the question; 'what is consciousness?'

(1) When one speaks of the 'the world' one is speaking about the world of which one is aware; obviously, one could not think about something that one does not know about. The world known by an individual consists only of things of which one is aware.

(2) Consciousness, as I use the word, means, everything of which one is aware, the world that is experienced, perceived, thought about, etc. Consciousness is synymous with the world.

(3) As consciousness is all, everything, the world, etc., there is nothing outside of consciousness with which in could be compared. As comparision is the essence of definition or knowledge (nothing can be understood per se), it follows that consciousness cannot be known.

(4) That said, aspects of consciousness, certain parts of its, can be understood. Consider the metaphor of a circle. Forget that there is anything outside the circle; imagine that the circle is everything. How can you define it? It is not possible unless you divide the circle itself into parts, in terms of which in can be defined. For example; the circle is 6 wedges, or an infiite number of rays, etc.

Is there not, however, a manifest circularity in such an undertaking? If we must first define an entity in its Being, and if we want to formulate the question of Being only on this basis, what is this but going in a circle? In working out our question have we not 'presupposed' something which only the answer can bring? Formal objections such as the argument about 'circular reasoning', which can easily be cited at any time in the study of first principles, are always sterile when one is considering concrete ways of investigting. When it comes to understanding the matter at hand, they carry no weight and keep us from penetrating the field of study.

But factically there is no circle at all in formulating our question as we have described. One can determine the nature of entities in their Being without necessarily having the explicit concept of the meaning of Being at one's disposal. Otherwise there could have been no ontological knowledge heretofore. One would hardly deny factically there has been such knowledge. Of course 'Being' has been presupposed in all ontology up till now, but not as a concept at one's disposal - not as the sort of thing we are seeking. This 'presupposing' of Being has rather the character of taking a look at it beforehand, so that in the light of it the entities presented to us get provisionally Articulated in their Being. This guiding activity of taking a look at Being arises from the average understanding of Being in which we always operate and which in the end belongs to the essential constitution of Dasein itself. Such 'presupposing' has nothing to do with laying down an axiom from which a series of propositions is deductively derived. It is quite impossible for there to be any 'circular argument' in formulating the question about the meaning of Being; for in answering this question, the issue is not one of grounding something by such a derivation; it is rather one of laying bare the grounds for it and exhibiting them.

In the question of the meaning of Being there is no 'circular reasoning' but rather a remarkable 'relatedness backward or forward' which what we are asking about (Being) bears to the inquiry itself as a mode of Being of an entity.

So, it is possible to replicate consciousness, but not to understand 'what' it is. There is a difference between the two. Science cannot reconcile the cartesian duality inherent in assuming that a qualitive thing (experience, life) arises from a quantitive thing (the brain). This is because that quantitive explanation is really an idea, existing in the mind of the scientist. So we see that reconciling the apparent duality by saying everything is quantiative ultimately does not work. The oppposite is my explanation, that everything (at least everything that we can ever know anything about) is qualitative, including the ideas of physics, math, etc., which exist in the mind.

Helpful?

Kant calls it 'a scandal of philosophy and of human reason in general' that there is still no cogent proof for the 'Dasein of Things outside us' which will do away with any scepticism.

To have faith in the Reality of the 'external world', whether rightly or wrongly; to "prove" this Reality for it, whether adequately or inadequately; to presuppose it, whether explicitly or not - attempts such as these which have not mastered their own basis with full transparency, presuppose a subject which is proximally worldless or unsure of its world, and which must, at bottom, first assure itself of a world.

The "scandal of philosophy" is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such profs are expected and attempted again and again.

Consciousness consists of qualities. Science knows that a brain generates consciousness by empirical observation of a sort, but it cannot explain how a quantitative system produces a qualitative experience. This is evidence of its essential contradiction.

If, on the other hand, consciousness is understood as the entire world of which we are aware, with ideas included, it is possible to explain everything coherently; the idea that is our understanding of the brain is a part of consciousness, like any other idea.

I disagree with this strongly, what is wrong with the model I put forward as an algorithmic model of qualitataive experience (in terms of *computational logic*)?

This would accord with what Heidegger argued, would it not?

We may just be talking around one another. You have your model, which I haven't even tried to criticize because, frankly I don't fully understand it, and I have mine, which you have attempted to criticize by offering yours in its place and then asking, "what's wrong with mine?" You see our dilemma?

Here is the contentious issue as I understand it. I hold that science is incomplete as a unified theory of the world, which is inclusive of both objective and subjective reality, because it attempts to derive both from the former: i.e. with materiality as the basis of all.

This problem is evident in the insurmountable obstacle that science faces in trying to explain how a quantitative phenomenon (the brain) can give rise to qualitative phenomena (experience, life as lived). The first principles of science are that everything has cause and is an effect. It is not possible to explain, within that domain of thought, how tangible objects can cause intangible sensations.

In place of that idea, I propose the opposite; that everything arises from consciousness: i.e. from the subjective. I hold that the 'objective world' is in fact an idea-system, like any other within consciousness, by which we organize the world for our own biological ends. I don't deny the existance of a real external world (one that exists independently of our awareness of it), but neither can I affirm it; there is simply no proof either way, nor could there ever be.

I hope to be in agreement with so great a name. However, if you mean that I should then adopt his whole view, which apparently contradicts my own, you will have to explain how that view follows from the point I made, which is essentially that the world consists of consciousness.

This creates perception, because now the Entity of Self has both a Subject and an Object component, so when it observes something as a Subject it is also made aware of what it is doing as an Object. The combination of Subject and Object of the Self, this duality, produces the phenomenon of perception.

Just to clarify you are saying:

Perception itself arises from a daul nature between the Subject and Object of the self.

So in essence the ego, or Self, exists well in advance before perception itself exists?