@ughaibu,
I must, and can only, offer my apologies (since I cannot materialize any 'cash-back' schemes, or hand out any candy bars...hee, hee, hee) for being away as long as I have been, from this thread. Not only was it this great pressure to do other things first, but the circumstances of the very thread itself. I must additionally ask that I may be forgiven for even not being able to post much more than once a week, or so, here, even from now--
for however long length of time.
As the thread starter, and within the generally acceptable '
rule-of-thumb-like' rights which such endues, I'd like to make a couple of matter-of-fact-like points here (this is, in one sense, a '
recap' of sorts):
[indent]It would be in error, in my opinion, to see this thread as a discussion about, or on science as an academic field, philosophy as an academic field, or theology, even, as an academic field, even though scientific method is the exercise which leads towards the conclusion presented, and elements of philosophy have bearing, even, on that. Along such lines, therefore, comparative analysis would be out of place, as well.
It is improper, as demanded by the very nature of this thread, as set out in the opening posts of mine (esp. but not only), to make claims or assertions void of efforts to validate them, to some degree, with something more than mere opinion--
be that of the particular poster, or a third party. However, we should allow some wiggling room on that for things which pretty much are held to be '
known-to-be-true/untrue' things by the far greater number of educated peoples--
esp. within a field where points are made towards our topic at hand. (And it would be of no value to consider the requirement of education to be demeaning, or only represented by a diploma of a certain level, as well.)
For the purpose of this thread, and the presentation, discussion, and argumentation within it, the far more acceptable scope of definition for our English word consciousness has been given (and this can be verified with the common English dictionary, even). Therefore, positions/understandings, and/or arguments which discard this definition, are also out of place here. (For example, to assert that consciousness does not require the intrinsic state of '
on-line' reportable knowledge of a physical matter acknowledged by the brain, is to be offering a range of definition which is beyond the normal English definition scope adopted for the purpose of this thread, and is effectively discarding the limits of definition.)
Additionally, whatever term the pre-Buddhist Vedanta schools (simply an example from among a number of 'schools' of old) had had, the English speaker's later merely pinning the English '
consciousness' onto that term, may be a pragmatics (linguistics) error. Then, in line with all the above (as had come up earlier), the theory (because it's surety is higher than mere hypothesis) that consciousness is due to brain, is the best and most consistently demonstrated position.
For the purpose of this thread, regardless of it's perhaps making the talk a little more boring for some, there is no real room, nor need, to take inquiry to impractical (in the pragmatic sense) levels of analysis. The thread's title, when considered carefully, should make that clear enough. To go beyond that seeps out into all things, so as to lead to no conclusion at all--
total illusion.[/indent]
I will eventually have to use some detail, from time to time, to demonstrate how brain works at the level I'm presenting, but will refrain as often as possible from doing so. I will try to address some misinformed views (such as, that a module of consciousness, like the module for words and numbers, must be found within the brain to be able to say that consciousness is due to brain--
otherwise it is not), as well as some offered points which had come up in ancient days (relative to the time I've been a member on this forum). Again, please forgive the time it takes to do so, and my lack of being able to be on line daily.
KJ
