Truly, What Is Consciousness?

[Fooloso4]

Tamminen:

My point is that the ceasing of my world for good and with it the ceasing of logic and time for me is more serious to the world and our reality than most of us think.

Have you shown any of this to be the case?

Wittgenstein was only a starting point for my thoughts, and I appreciate your expertise on his vews and corrections to my interpretations.

One thing I was trying to clear up is where your thoughts diverge from his. It has been a long time since I looked at the Tractatus. It is a challenging, frustrating, and fun text. I appreciate the opportunity to revisit it.

… it seems that he thinks consciousness (if that is the right word in this case) is independent from the world.

I don’t think so. That my consciousness is not within the world does not mean it is independent of the world, it means it is not within the limits of the world. It is not a logical relationship. It is like the relationship between my world and ethics. My consciousness is of the world.

…. so that there would be times at which I exist and other times at which I do not exist. This leads to solipsism.

I do not see why my not having existed or no longer existing leads to solipsism. Are you using I in an ambiguous way? As both the experiencing subject and as a particular experiencing subject?

All experiences are my experiences …

Again, you seem to be playing on the ambiguity of the term. All experience is mine in the sense of the experiencer, but unless you are doubting the existence of other minds then it does not follow that I am the only experiencer. It does not follow that you are not also an experiencer.

However, there are others with their own experiences. This leads to transmigration.

What is transmigrating? The soul? The experience? If I am in pain and you are in pain are you claiming that pain transmigrates or that we are somehow one universal subject?

[Tamminen]

Have you shown any of this to be the case?

No, it is kind of an insight, and the concept of transcendental subject transmigrating through all the points of view to the world we call individuals makes the situation normal again. Only this way the world does not vanish away when I die.

I don’t think so. That my consciousness is not within the world does not mean it is independent of the world, it means it is not within the limits of the world. It is not a logical relationship. It is like the relationship between my world and ethics. My consciousness is of the world.

I have my point of view to the world, and you have your point of view to the world. So there seems to be two metaphysical subjects. But you said we cannot say so. In that case, is it not an abstraction? I think there must be a concrete relation between our points of view. If the relation is only that factual relation, a fact of the world, which we all know, then there must be several points of view. In fact I accept the concept of the metaphysical I, but we need to establish a concrete relation between those several points of view, and that is why I have introduced the concept of transcendental subject, which is the unifying principle between them, but it needs the transmigration part to complete the concrete picture, because I think Wittgenstein's view lacks concreteness and is very difficult to understand.

I do not see why my not having existed or no longer existing leads to solipsism. Are you using I in an ambiguous way? As both the experiencing subject and as a particular experiencing subject?

If my existence does not depend on time, there must be only one subject, and I have called it the transcendental subject.

Again, you seem to be playing on the ambiguity of the term. All experience is mine in the sense of the experiencer, but unless you are doubting the existence of other minds then it does not follow that I am the only experiencer. It does not follow that you are not also an experiencer.

See above.

...we are somehow one universal subject?

This is the whole point. I think we must modify the old eastern thought of the transmigration of souls so that there is only one transcendental subject that adopts all the ways of being in the world we call individual subjects. How this is possible, and how it takes place concretely, we probably cannot know, but it is a hypothesis that answers many difficult existential questions, which many religions have failed to answer, for example, what does it mean to die.

[Fooloso4]

Tamminen:

Fooloso4 wrote:...we are somehow one universal subject?

This is the whole point.

Okay, got it. Thanks.

[The_architect]

It is the power of thinking that allows for self-awareness. But it is possible to have the power of thinking but not be self-aware such as being drunk, high or psychotic. In the latter instances, the thinking and the self-awareness are not communicating to each other: the person is in a kind of blackout. Think of that scenario when you try to define consciousness. When thinking and self-awareness are connected it is a sensation of existence, whether in physical or spirit form. In this reality the sensation stems, in part, from our five senses and the mindfulness they bring to us (I call the Everything reality). In spirit form, the sensation stems from the lack of our five senses but a self-awareness all the same (I call the Nothing reality).

If our consciousness exists after we die, which includes the brain that creates thought, then it is a consciousness able to handle two different types of reality: Everything and Nothing. Consciousness, then, manifests itself to our brain in the physical world but exists in an alter-reality after we die that is simply self-awareness without physiological stimulus, the opposite of a physical existence. In other words, there is a sensation to Nothingness (being able to think of nothing).

[Belindi]

It is the power of thinking that allows for self-awareness. But it is possible to have the power of thinking but not be self-aware such as being drunk, high or psychotic. In the latter instances, the thinking and the self-awareness are not communicating to each other: the person is in a kind of blackout. Think of that scenario when you try to define consciousness. When thinking and self-awareness are connected it is a sensation of existence, whether in physical or spirit form. In this reality the sensation stems, in part, from our five senses and the mindfulness they bring to us (I call the Everything reality). In spirit form, the sensation stems from the lack of our five senses but a self-awareness all the same (I call the Nothing reality).

If our consciousness exists after we die, which includes the brain that creates thought, then it is a consciousness able to handle two different types of reality: Everything and Nothing. Consciousness, then, manifests itself to our brain in the physical world but exists in an alter-reality after we die that is simply self-awareness without physiological stimulus, the opposite of a physical existence. In other words, there is a sensation to Nothingness (being able to think of nothing).

Can you presume there exists an ontic self?
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dicti ... lish/ontic

[CylindricalParadox]

Consciousness supposedly runs through everything. It goes through everything and it is like electricity through all of the appliances in a house. It runs through everything through different 'escapes'. Sensation is often seen as some form of 'awareness' or a slight comprehension of the outside world. I beg to differ but still believe consciousness can be an object of supporting inanimate objects as having some form of reality to them, despite that not being the purpose of consciousness.

If you hit a rock, in my opinion, it will not be aware that it has been struck, as it has no appendages from a hub of neurological or even slightly intelligent behaviour. It is just a rock, although consciousness is an omnipresent thing so hypothetically, the atoms that respond could be reacting and therefore being aware to the extent of unintentional and instinctive reactivity. That would make consciousness reactivity, which is equal in all things. Mental reactivity is ineffective for stones and other things of similar description so it would only be appropriate that physical reactivity determines consciousness.

It can also be seen as awareness except it does not run through everything. Consciousness is limited to living things which, in being alive, has a conscious understanding that the world around in is in motion and is active aside from itself. This awareness of the world beyond its own self and body could be true consciousness. This would also give it life as it is able to perceive the world around it and respond accordingly so consciousness gives life and in doing so limits its own expanse to life.

What do you think consciousness is?

I've been thinking about consciousness for a very long time to try to understand exactly what it is. Most people would simply define it as an energy and i would also define it as an energy. Well then the next question would be, where does it come from? and here is the hard part to understand, it comes from no thing. Well then how does something come from nothing? well how do you explain the big bag, something that came from nothing. God's greatest secret.

I believe there's a very thin line between existing and not existing. If something is there then it exist and if doesn't exist it's nothing, it doesn't appear. Consciousness is that sensation of existing, knowing you are real being aware of being aware, well at least the enlighten mind. Since birth we believe reality is made of matter but matter is made of consciousness and consciousness has purposely hidden this from you in a clever way by your five senses.

The rock will not feel any pain if you hit it and its not that it isn't conscious of pain, it's that consciousness is appearing as a rock. There's an old saying, the chair cannot exist without the wood but the wood can exist without the chair. Contemplating on this will make you come to the realization that everything is consciousness (Energy coming out of nothing) It's consciousness appearing as a tree or a bird or a cloud even appearing as a human and having a human experience. Consciousness will always be a the subjective experience of existing.

[Belindi]

That is indeed the hard problem of consciousness just as you describe.

There is an anatomical difference between your knowing your eyes have blinked, and your knowing you thought a thought.