The Source of Consciousness

[Gee]

Were you aware that a brain can convert analogue consciousness (experience) into digital consciousness (thought) and also convert digital into analogue? This is not theory; neurologists are aware of this, so unless reality is digital (a theory), thought comes from the brain and only from the brain. This is WHY people associate consciousness with the brain.

Never heard neurologists claim this before, can you link evidence for this? I'm fairly sure that thought is just another form of experience, just more "digital-like".

You probably haven't heard it, and I have had some trouble trying to find a situation where it is explicitly stated. You are correct in that the brain is analogue so when I find a neurologist who is comparing analogue v digital, they always end up referencing AI.

They state that the brain is analogue and then talk about thinking, which is also analogue, but when they talk about thought, which is digital, they refer to artificial intelligence. One would think that we do not actually have thoughts in our brains/minds. So we are all thoughtless!

Consider that IF thought were just another form of experience, then that would make AI capable of experience, as no one disputes that AI processes thought. It would make AI conscious. I am not very good at Googling information, so in case I never find a neurologist with an explicit example, please consider the following:

You are walking along a path when the ground starts to shake so hard that it knocks you off your feet. As you get up, you begin to wonder what happened, and realize that you have experienced an earthquake. This is how experience causes thinking, which produces thought that you turn into language so you can check on the people around you to see if they are OK.

This can also work in reverse. Your friend tells you that when you go to work, the neighbor across the street comes over and spends the day with your spouse. You think about this for a while, and after a few weeks, you shoot your neighbor in a jealous rage. Here thought causes thinking which causes experience. It happens. We can take experience (analogue) and turn it into thought (digital/ or discreet data) and vice versa.

But this only happens in the brain, as thoughts on their own do nothing. You can take the greatest thoughts known to man, write them on a piece of paper, and put them in a drawer. Check them daily, weekly, or yearly, and you will find that they do nothing, except maybe the paper breaks down after enough time. Why? Because thought is a product of thinking, thought is not consciousness; it has no power on its own.

This is how I divide consciousness in my studies, into analogue and digital. So I have no problem thinking that the One introduced early in this thread, the Universe, and even a rock, are different representations of consciousness in different levels of the evolution of consciousness.

Gee

[Terrapin Station]

Were you aware that a brain can convert analogue consciousness (experience) into digital consciousness (thought) and also convert digital into analogue? This is not theory; neurologists are aware of this, so unless reality is digital (a theory), thought comes from the brain and only from the brain. This is WHY people associate consciousness with the brain.

Never heard neurologists claim this before, can you link evidence for this? I'm fairly sure that thought is just another form of experience, just more "digital-like".

You probably haven't heard it, and I have had some trouble trying to find a situation where it is explicitly stated. You are correct in that the brain is analogue so when I find a neurologist who is comparing analogue v digital, they always end up referencing AI.

They state that the brain is analogue and then talk about thinking, which is also analogue, but when they talk about thought, which is digital, they refer to artificial intelligence. One would think that we do not actually have thoughts in our brains/minds. So we are all thoughtless!

Consider that IF thought were just another form of experience, then that would make AI capable of experience, as no one disputes that AI processes thought. It would make AI conscious. I am not very good at Googling information, so in case I never find a neurologist with an explicit example, please consider the following:

You are walking along a path when the ground starts to shake so hard that it knocks you off your feet. As you get up, you begin to wonder what happened, and realize that you have experienced an earthquake. This is how experience causes thinking, which produces thought that you turn into language so you can check on the people around you to see if they are OK.

This can also work in reverse. Your friend tells you that when you go to work, the neighbor across the street comes over and spends the day with your spouse. You think about this for a while, and after a few weeks, you shoot your neighbor in a jealous rage. Here thought causes thinking which causes experience. It happens. We can take experience (analogue) and turn it into thought (digital/ or discreet data) and vice versa.

But this only happens in the brain, as thoughts on their own do nothing. You can take the greatest thoughts known to man, write them on a piece of paper, and put them in a drawer. Check them daily, weekly, or yearly, and you will find that they do nothing, except maybe the paper breaks down after enough time. Why? Because thought is a product of thinking, thought is not consciousness; it has no power on its own.

This is how I divide consciousness in my studies, into analogue and digital. So I have no problem thinking that the One introduced early in this thread, the Universe, and even a rock, are different representations of consciousness in different levels of the evolution of consciousness.

Gee

What definition of "digital" would we be using so that thought could be "digital"?

[Atla]

Were you aware that a brain can convert analogue consciousness (experience) into digital consciousness (thought) and also convert digital into analogue? This is not theory; neurologists are aware of this, so unless reality is digital (a theory), thought comes from the brain and only from the brain. This is WHY people associate consciousness with the brain.

Never heard neurologists claim this before, can you link evidence for this? I'm fairly sure that thought is just another form of experience, just more "digital-like".

You probably haven't heard it, and I have had some trouble trying to find a situation where it is explicitly stated. You are correct in that the brain is analogue so when I find a neurologist who is comparing analogue v digital, they always end up referencing AI.

They state that the brain is analogue and then talk about thinking, which is also analogue, but when they talk about thought, which is digital, they refer to artificial intelligence. One would think that we do not actually have thoughts in our brains/minds. So we are all thoughtless!

Consider that IF thought were just another form of experience, then that would make AI capable of experience, as no one disputes that AI processes thought. It would make AI conscious. I am not very good at Googling information, so in case I never find a neurologist with an explicit example, please consider the following:

You are walking along a path when the ground starts to shake so hard that it knocks you off your feet. As you get up, you begin to wonder what happened, and realize that you have experienced an earthquake. This is how experience causes thinking, which produces thought that you turn into language so you can check on the people around you to see if they are OK.

This can also work in reverse. Your friend tells you that when you go to work, the neighbor across the street comes over and spends the day with your spouse. You think about this for a while, and after a few weeks, you shoot your neighbor in a jealous rage. Here thought causes thinking which causes experience. It happens. We can take experience (analogue) and turn it into thought (digital/ or discreet data) and vice versa.

But this only happens in the brain, as thoughts on their own do nothing. You can take the greatest thoughts known to man, write them on a piece of paper, and put them in a drawer. Check them daily, weekly, or yearly, and you will find that they do nothing, except maybe the paper breaks down after enough time. Why? Because thought is a product of thinking, thought is not consciousness; it has no power on its own.

This is how I divide consciousness in my studies, into analogue and digital. So I have no problem thinking that the One introduced early in this thread, the Universe, and even a rock, are different representations of consciousness in different levels of the evolution of consciousness.

Gee

So there is no evidence, just neurologists's misunderstanding of what digital and analogue mean in computer science. And their speculations about what AI could be like, if we actually had any AI.

Experiences are experiences, if we really want, we can call the more discrete-like experiences "digital", and the more continuous-like experiences "analogue". But there is no hard-line, hard-division between them whatsoever, they are parts of the same thing. For example I'd say my thoughts are usually more analogue than digital, probably because I'm heavily right-hemisphere dominant.

[Gee]

(A) a way to definitively establish that there are no biologically-sourced changes or events in S's brain for a time period from Tx to Ty,
(B) S reporting specific/detailed and confirmable events, E, that occurred during the same time period Tx to Ty--where this can't rely on any sort of interpretation of vague things S says, and where
(C) we can unquestioningly establish that S has not been fed or subtly suggested or in any other way had post-Ty access to the detailed/specific information about E.

So it would require a carefully controlled experimental setting where the above criteria are clearly met.

(A) assumes that consciousness has a biological source in the brain and no other source.
(A) assumes that the time period from Tx to Ty is valid and relevant.
(B) assumes that S will experience "specific/detailed and confirmable events", which is very unlikely.
(B) assumes that the time period in real time Tx to Ty would be the same as the experienced time period -- again, unlikely.
(C) assumes collusion or outright lies.

Would this "carefully controlled experimental setting" be anything like the Salem witch trials? They also had no idea of what they were "testing", but were happy to ASSUME many things that promoted their own beliefs. They also assumed collusion or outright lies from the persons tested.

It would be possible to set up the more controlled conditions in a medical setting where, should a supposed NDE occur, we can confirm that there wasn't a much more mundane explanation for it. The criteria I outlined are what is necessary for a more mundane explanation to be ruled out.

I am sure that you believe this, but I do not for some very specific reasons. First, we do not really know enough about consciousness, nor do we know enough about death, so the parameters of the "test" would be set by our guesses, biases, and misconceptions. Would this make a difference? Absolutely, as every strength has a weakness and the worst weakness of the scientific method is the possibility of confirmation bias. Scientists are aware of this problem, but creating a test for something where you don't even understand the subject matter is bound to simply reinforce biases and beliefs.

Way too flowery. You'd need specific, detailed objections to what I'm proposing, and then alternate, detailed suggestions and some justification for why they'd be preferable.

You would need to know where consciousness sources from.
You would need to know more about the unconscious because that is what you are dealing with when the conscious rational aspect of mind goes under.
You would need some understanding of psychology as time gets weird when dealing with the unconscious.
Speaking of time, you would need a valid time frame that completely envelops the process of death.
You would need to give up your biases and assumptions, and yes, this would also involve some study of various religions. Why? Because religions study death, so they know the most about it.
You might also want to consider it possible that the persons having NDE's are telling the truth.
Why would this be preferable? Because it would be nice to learn the truth about what is happening, or you could engage in more confirmation bias.

Gee

[Terrapin Station]

(A) assumes that consciousness has a biological source in the brain and no other source.

Just start with that. Sure, because you don't instead assume something extraordinary which has zero evidence for it.

[Terrapin Station]

That's the whole point, basically. If we're going to go for some wackadoodle conclusion, we'd better have very good evidence for it, contra what we have good reason, due to evidence, to assume to be the case.

[Gee]

What definition of "digital" would we be using so that thought could be "digital"?

Well, it certainly would not be electronics. I had a problem in the science forum with this word, and some of the people there advised me to use the term discrete data.

When I broke consciousness down into components, it became very obvious that some of them work differently than others, so I looked for a way to classify this difference. Awareness, feeling, and emotion are active, shared, and work between things/people. They are fluid, so I defined these as analogue. Knowledge, thought, and memory are private, internal, and much more static. They can be changed, but do not seem to change themselves; I defined these as digital. Of course, there are exceptions like with memory; if it is emotional memory, it can completely remanufacture itself.

There is a lot in theories, disciplines, and aspects of consciousness that works with this idea of the components of consciousness.

Gee

[Gee]

So there is no evidence, just neurologists's misunderstanding of what digital and analogue mean in computer science. And their speculations about what AI could be like, if we actually had any AI.

Lots of assumptions here. You seem to need to have information explicitly stated to you; I may not have provided proof, but I gave you examples as evidence.

Experiences are experiences, if we really want, we can call the more discrete-like experiences "digital", and the more continuous-like experiences "analogue". But there is no hard-line, hard-division between them whatsoever, they are parts of the same thing. For example I'd say my thoughts are usually more analogue than digital, probably because I'm heavily right-hemisphere dominant.

You are moving the goal posts here; I was not talking about experience -- you were.

The "hard-line, hard-division" between the components of consciousness is private and shared.

Gee

[Terrapin Station]

What definition of "digital" would we be using so that thought could be "digital"?

Well, it certainly would not be electronics. I had a problem in the science forum with this word, and some of the people there advised me to use the term discrete data.

When I broke consciousness down into components, it became very obvious that some of them work differently than others, so I looked for a way to classify this difference. Awareness, feeling, and emotion are active, shared, and work between things/people. They are fluid, so I defined these as analogue. Knowledge, thought, and memory are private, internal, and much more static. They can be changed, but do not seem to change themselves; I defined these as digital. Of course, there are exceptions like with memory; if it is emotional memory, it can completely remanufacture itself.

There is a lot in theories, disciplines, and aspects of consciousness that works with this idea of the components of consciousness.

Gee

It seems very odd to me to characterize thoughts as not active, not fluid, not dynamic/changeable, as well as to say that awareness, feelings and emotions are shared in some way that thoughts are not.

[Gee]

The lengthy Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Stevenson is worth reading: http://skepdic.com/stevenson.html

I am going to try to catch up on some of these responses I owe you. I read the entry on Stevenson, but did not find any new information. The entry is definitely slanted toward skepticism, which translates to bias in my view. If I were going to adopt a belief system, it would not be skepticism as that is too self serving a belief to work well in studies of consciousness -- too easy to corrupt.

I admire Stevenson for trying to apply scientific methods to this study, as I don't think anyone else has attempted it. Usually people are trying to validate their beliefs, or trying to invalidate beliefs -- his work was rather refreshing. Unfortunately, I think that his being trained as a scientist worked against him, as he seemed to understand consciousness from science's point of view -- internal. There were questions that I don't think he asked, associations that I don't think he recognized, and I would have loved to have had access to his data for further study.

Science thinks that consciousness sources from the body/brain -- internal. Religion thinks that consciousness sources from "God" -- external. They can't both be right as that is not possible -- or is it? Can a single thing have two different sources? Is consciousness a single thing? That is the question that people do not ask, and I can't understand why they think it is a singular thing. It is not.

You might want to review some of the ideas about Stevenson that do not come from a skeptic's point of view -- just for a more rounded view -- and for fairness.

Gee

[Terrapin Station]

I am going to try to catch up on some of these responses I owe you. I read the entry on Stevenson, but did not find any new information. The entry is definitely slanted toward skepticism, which translates to bias in my view.

Sure. I don't see that as a problem, by the way. I don't believe that a lack of bias is even a theoretical possibility.

If I were going to adopt a belief system, it would not be skepticism as that is too self serving a belief to work well in studies of consciousness -- too easy to corrupt.

I don't know what you have in mind there, exactly, but in general I'm a skeptic. I'm very skeptical of a lot of scientific claims, too, by the way.

Science thinks that consciousness sources from the body/brain -- internal.

Sure, and I agree. I don't think that there's any other suggestion that's even remotely plausible/that has the slightest bit of evidence going for it.

Religion thinks that consciousness sources from "God" -- external.

Sure. I'm not someone who thinks that religious claims deserve serious consideration at all. They're just too ridiculous, there's absolutely zero reason to believe them, no evidence at all for any of them, etc.

[Atla]

So there is no evidence, just neurologists's misunderstanding of what digital and analogue mean in computer science. And their speculations about what AI could be like, if we actually had any AI.

Lots of assumptions here. You seem to need to have information explicitly stated to you; I may not have provided proof, but I gave you examples as evidence.

Experiences are experiences, if we really want, we can call the more discrete-like experiences "digital", and the more continuous-like experiences "analogue". But there is no hard-line, hard-division between them whatsoever, they are parts of the same thing. For example I'd say my thoughts are usually more analogue than digital, probably because I'm heavily right-hemisphere dominant.

You are moving the goal posts here; I was not talking about experience -- you were.

The "hard-line, hard-division" between the components of consciousness is private and shared.

Gee

Humans have never created a single AI, but you gave examples of evidence using AI? And I'm the one making assumptions? w/e

[Gee]

(A) assumes that consciousness has a biological source in the brain and no other source.

Just start with that. Sure, because you don't instead assume something extraordinary which has zero evidence for it.

If you are going to use ASSUMPTION to set the parameters of your "test", it will be an invalid test. Is it really that simple? Yes.

All life is sentient -- at least -- sentience is a level of consciousness. All life does not have a brain. Figure it out.

There is tons of evidence. You just have to look for it and search beyond the brain.

This reminds me of the situation where one person asked what continents are made of; the second person responded, "Continents are made of dirt." Well, no one can dispute that, and the second person can produce buildings full of stacks of information and reports that validate that continents are made of dirt taken from all over the continent. It is the damned truth -- but is it the whole truth about continents?

So consciousness comes from the brain and continents are made of dirt, and we don't need to know any more than that.

Gee

[Gee]

That's the whole point, basically. If we're going to go for some wackadoodle conclusion, we'd better have very good evidence for it, contra what we have good reason, due to evidence, to assume to be the case.

Talk about your "wackadoodle conclusions", explain to me why the people, who fight the hardest to prove that consciousness comes from the human brain, are the very same people who have real attitudes against religion. But the idea that consciousness comes from humans is supported by Christianity -- as I explained to Consul earlier in this thread. That is wackadoodle.

I spent years in science forums discussing this issue, and although I agree that most people don't like the idea that consciousness exists outside the brain, science validates and verifies that it does. There is lots of evidence in different branches of science.

Gee

[Gee]

What definition of "digital" would we be using so that thought could be "digital"?

Well, it certainly would not be electronics. I had a problem in the science forum with this word, and some of the people there advised me to use the term discrete data.

When I broke consciousness down into components, it became very obvious that some of them work differently than others, so I looked for a way to classify this difference. Awareness, feeling, and emotion are active, shared, and work between things/people. They are fluid, so I defined these as analogue. Knowledge, thought, and memory are private, internal, and much more static. They can be changed, but do not seem to change themselves; I defined these as digital. Of course, there are exceptions like with memory; if it is emotional memory, it can completely remanufacture itself.

There is a lot in theories, disciplines, and aspects of consciousness that works with this idea of the components of consciousness.

Gee

It seems very odd to me to characterize thoughts as not active, not fluid, not dynamic/changeable, as well as to say that awareness, feelings and emotions are shared in some way that thoughts are not.

You are making this more difficult than necessary. Consider this: If you measure your living room for a new carpet, but the measure that you come up with is "fluid, dynamic/changeable", then by the time you go to the store, purchase the carpet, and come home to install it, it may not fit.

Thinking is fluid, but thoughts can't be. Numerals, measures, directions, names of objects, names of people, words that I am typing right now, all of these things must be stable and static to some degree or nothing would make any damned sense.

I am sure you have heard of "debriefing" (not as used in the military, but as used in psychology). This is used in cases of trauma or emotional upheaval where it is necessary to stabilize the emotional memory before it corrupts itself. For policemen, firemen, nurses and doctors, or anyone who deals with emotional traumas, it is preferred for an incident report to be made out within 24 hours of the incident. After that amount of time, it is very likely that your memory of the incident will actually change, but putting it into words (thoughts) right after the event will stabilize the memory. This should always be used in criminal investigations, but it is not always practical and feasible.

If a family member or good friend walks through the door, and you see him, can't you tell if he is in a good or bad mood? You can read his body language, facial expressions, and eyes and learn a great deal about how he is feeling. Can you tell if he paid his taxes? Or how much they were? No, because those would be thoughts, unless he is very happy or depressed about paying his taxes. Moods, feelings, and emotions are shared between people/things; you may feel them internally, but you show them externally. Awareness actually functions between you are what you are aware of.

Is this sharing limited to humans? No. Imagine a man, who is so frustrated and enraged, that he is beyond words, so he raises his fists in the air and shakes them at you. Just like a bear will do, or a gorilla, or my cat, or a tarantula, or an ant, or a horse with his front legs and even birds will flutter their wings to show anger and frustration. This is an almost universal communication that is used by and can be read by many species, and it is all about communicating emotion.

There is a lot more than this, but I am getting tired. So consider that there is good reason for my crazy divisions of consciousness. The different components simply do not work the same way and do not have the same source. Consciousness is complex, so unless we want to invoke magic, it is time to consider that consciousness itself needs to be studied. Not the brain, not "God", consciousness.

Gee