Consciousness question

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Well...among others, you are guessing. The trick is, the only one who is not aware of this is you.

LOL! Poor dude, he is pretending to "educate" us, talking about nonsense.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Why should I have to be upset at him just because I don't agree with him?

The point, dear Iacchus, is that not even you understand if you agree or not with anybody. You are completely confused.

WAAAKEEE UUUP!!!!!!!!

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

It's a little bit more involved than this. In order to understand it, you have to understand what causes things to vibrate at the atomic/subatomic level. Do I claim to fully understand it? No, I don't.

So, you state with authority that "X" and then you say that its more complicated, that you really dont understand "X" at all...

Do you see now how silly this is for everyone of us????

WAKE UP! IACCHUS!

 

[Mercutio]

Unless of course if consciousness is "broadcast" from some source other than the brain.

For which idea there is absolutely no support whatsoever, and against which idea there is tremendous evidence.

If you are going to continue to posit this, the burden of proof is on you to either A) demonstrate the existence of these "consciousness signals", overturning centuries of work in psychology, biology, and physics, or B) demonstrate how some non-physical consciousness can influence a physical brain and body, overturning centuries of work in physics, biology, and psychology.

By far, the simpler course is C) educate yourself, overcome your ignorance of the phenomenon, and realize that you have been quite simply wrong about your idea. This course, by the way, also is subject to evidence...and this course actually does have quite a bit of evidence to support the idea that your perception of things is distorted by well-understood biases. These biases are, themselves, a fascinating area of study.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

But that does not stop you from making claims. You do not understand it, and you admit that you do not, but you actively avoid finding out more about it. This is no way to gain understanding.

Your actions (avoiding information that is relevant) belies your words (your claims that you are interested in these topics). You are spending more energy defending your ignorance than you would expend curing it.

That has to hurt!

Now, Iacchus, who is suffering here??? Who is this Iacchus character??

You have been unable to even try to answer that very simple question!

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

The problem is, you talk about electrical impulses being converted to data. I do not know what this means, and I don't believe I said anything in my post similar to this.

Electrical impulses are used to store and process data. They don't "become" data in the way you suggest.

Dark Jaguar! Dont even try to understand his nonsense! This is Iacchus, he will utter any combination of words that sounds (to him) like deep and intelligent. Its kind of his "job" in the forum.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

These biases are, themselves, a fascinating area of study.

Cant agree more. I also have learn that, usually, the path to brake those bias is not via reason, but emotion. Strange phenomena.

 

[Mercutio]

Dark Jaguar! Dont even try to understand his nonsense! This is Iacchus, he will utter any combination of words that sounds (to him) like deep and intelligent. Its kind of his "job" in the forum.

SShhhh!!! BDZ, don't discourage DJ! His/her posts may well be lost on Iacchus, but I am taking notes on them...people ask this sort of question in my classes all the time, and DJ's posts are very helpful to me.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm basically trying to politely deal with this as best I can to see where it ends up going that route. I decided to start out by offering an analogy of the soul in the form of computer data stored in RAM to see if he could acknowledge that when a computer is shut off, the information in RAM ceases to exist even though the computer's parts are still altogether there.

Unfortunatly, I think I was thrown off track, as I'm now in a position of explaining the nature of computer memory in the interest of making my analogy clear to him. However, he keeps bringing up all these other unrelated things like data broadcasting as though that somehow has any bearing on my original point. That point being simply that information, and indeed any current state of matter, can simply "vanish", even if the matter and energy involved don't.

Iacchus, to make it clear, we can discuss things like data broadcasting when they actually become relevant. There's no point in making an analogy of the soul as a broadcast from some "higher antenna array" at all really, because the idea of a soul existing outside the body is pretty self explanatory. An analogy in this case serves no purpose because it doesn't explain something and it doesn't really provide any evidence.

My analogy is just to illustrate that things can exist in a way that does affect matter, such as data, and they don't have to be some permanent thing. Data itself can be created and destroyed easily because what is and is not data all depends on something that can interpret that data. Matter and energy can only be used to represent data, but aren't actually data. The combined reactions of a lot of matter and energy can create a dynamic data system, but the fact remains that that data system only exists so long as that matter and energy is there to sustain it. Remove those, and the data doesn't leak away with the matter and energy, it ceases to be. It is ex-data.

I just decided to change my question up there to make it more clear what we consider the nature of the soul, of conciousness, to be. Simply, it is a consequence of an ongoing process in the brain, not an extra thing but a mere symptom.

If I flip a coin and it comes up heads, it is currently a "heads up facing coin", however it's "heads up" status is not an actual thing in and of itself. It is merely a consequence of the coin's current position. Nothing was added to it, it merely is "heads up". If you pick up that coin, it no longer is "heads up" but that heads up status didn't "die" and go on to heaven. It ceases to be entirely. THIS is how we percieve the phenomenon of conciousness. It certainly is far more wondrous than a coin flip or data in RAM, but it merely is what happens when you do certain things to matter, and when those actions stop, the soul is gone.

You need not accept that this is the nature of conciousness, but if you want to continue this argument, you must at least understand the argument we are making for what it is rather than what you think it is. The key is we don't see the soul as a thing at all, so when you make arguments like "so where does that concious thing GO?", it makes no sense to us because it is merely the current state of the brain and it doesnt' need to "go" anywhere. You have to argue from an understanding of our viewpoint, as we try to argue from an understanding of what seems to be yours.

 

[Iacchus]

Yes, this is true of RAM.

However, you are still misunderstanding. The data is the actual RAM's current state. The actual net computer's current state. Before that, there is no "data". If the computer is "off", the data no longer exists. It isn't transferred "into" the computer. It springs into being, and can cease just as easily.

Not without an energy source. With energy the whole thing boots up, and with energy the entire process is mantained. In fact the whole scenario (this includes reality in general) is nothing more than a structured form of energy. So, when you turn the on switch on, all you are really doing is "channeling" more energy into a system which, at one time (before its construction) was comprised of the same thing. Are you familiar with how a lava tube works? How it is formed out of a previous molten state of lava, and continues to allow molten lava to flow through it? This is essentially the same principle behind the energy which flows into the computer, albeit a bit more simplified. Not any worse than the candle illustration given above anyway.

Hence it would seem that reality as we know it (materialistically), is comprised of the conversion of energy into matter ... which, is none other than the slowing down of the "electronic state" (I believe) within energy to where it accrues mass. So in that sense, it really is all about energy. In which case I think it's fair to say that energy is the animating principle behind everything that we observe. So, where does that leave us with information? Obviously it must be generated in the relationship between energy and matter, but how? Is it energy that determines the nature of the data, or matter? If, in fact energy is the basis for matter, shouldn't it also be the basis for the data?

 

[Iacchus]

I just decided to change my question up there to make it more clear what we consider the nature of the soul, of conciousness, to be. Simply, it is a consequence of an ongoing process in the brain, not an extra thing but a mere symptom.

No.

 

[Tricky]

Outstanding work, DJ! Rest assured, it was not wasted, except perhaps on Iacchus.

 

[Mercutio]

Outstanding work, DJ! Rest assured, it was not wasted, except perhaps on Iacchus.

Seconded, strongly! Damn, that was good.

I do see it already has flown over Iacchus's head, though...




Little known fact: When Tricky and I agree, take it to the bank.

When Darat and I agree, be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, energy is the principal thing behind the "animated" nature of the universe. You have that right. Without energy, data also could not exist in any usable form.

However, one could make the same argument of spacetime. Without space time, energy could not exist. I've even heard a rather dubious claim that energy is just highly compressed spacetime, but that is neither here nor there.

The main issue is that you have missed my point entirely. If we are to think of data as needing to take some physical form, which is very much a correct statement, then if you are to think of the electricity as the creator of the data, then hey, the pen is the creator of the data in a book. However, the data did not even exist before the book was written (at least not the copy in the book).

The data in the computer did not exist until it was turned on. That is the point. It is irrelevent that energy is required. For that computer to work, matter is required too, as is spacetime for it to exist in. Energy is not really more "fundamental" than any other aspect of physics. In fact, sorry to disappoint you, but energy, in the end, IS just a part of material reality and nothing "higher" than that, at least as far as we've been able to affirm.

You seem hung up on the idea that the energy created the data. This is irrelevent because it only played a very vital part. I must make it absolutely clear that the data was not even a PART of the electricity in any shape or form before it entered the computer. The data was not "hidden inside" the electricity and released when it entered the machine. Computers would be designed completely differently if that was the case.

The data is not ACTUALLY the energy or the matter or the spacetime it occupies, it is the PROCESS ITSELF. The data is created and exists when the computer is on and no longer exists at all when the computer turns off. Again, when that energy leaves the computer, it does not carry any information with it (at least a properly RF shielded computer won't leak data this way).

 

[Iacchus]

Iacchus, to make it clear, we can discuss things like data broadcasting when they actually become relevant. There's no point in making an analogy of the soul as a broadcast from some "higher antenna array" at all really, because the idea of a soul existing outside the body is pretty self explanatory. An analogy in this case serves no purpose because it doesn't explain something and it doesn't really provide any evidence.

Yes, it is all about the relationship between energy, matter and data. Data is being "broadcast" by means of this all the time. It is called EMF.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Have to agree with Mercutio and Tricky, thats a good argument, and well presented, to show something that exists and can cease to exists like human consciousness.

If only Iacchus could stop pretending he "knows" and "understands" what you are talking about. But well, its not a perfect world.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

No.

An interesting response to the very crux of what we consider the soul to be. However, is it the case that you do at least now understand what our position is? If so, your response is "no".

Okay, in resposne to that "no", I ask for evidence. Where is the evidence that this is not an accurate description of conciousness?

Edit: Yes, data is constantly being broadcase using EMF. What this has to do with the discussion is beyond me.

 

[Mercutio]

An interesting response to the very crux of what we consider the soul to be. However, is it the case that you do at least now understand what our position is? If so, your response is "no".

Okay, in resposne to that "no", I ask for evidence. Where is the evidence that this is not an accurate description of conciousness?

I believe his response that begins "yes" will answer your question about whether he understands...

...good luck asking for evidence.

 

[Iacchus]

Yes, energy is the principal thing behind the "animated" nature of the universe. You have that right. Without energy, data also could not exist in any usable form.

So how is data generated then? Principally in the form of EMF, correct?

However, one could make the same argument of spacetime. Without space time, energy could not exist. I've even heard a rather dubious claim that energy is just highly compressed spacetime, but that is neither here nor there.

Are you suggesting that energy didn't exist before the creation of space time? Then what is it that I hear that it can't be created or destroyed?

Sorry, I don't mean to be abrupt, but I have to get ready to go to work again.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

So how is data generated then? Principly in the form of EMF, correct?

No. EMF can transmit data, however it isn't actually the EMF that IS the data, but rather the patterns the EMF is sent in. This can vary. For example, the way standard color broadcasts transmit the color data of an image is by modulating the phase variance (and yes, they say that in Star Trek all the time, but this time it isn't just gibber gabber). Think of "phase" of a wavelength as where it actually is in that wave at a certain moment in time. Is it at the crest, or at the trough? Another wave next to it may be at it's crest when the first is at it's trough. They are "out of phase" by 180 degrees in this case. I'm not sure I am expressing this clearly or not. By changing the "phase" of a wavelength, and having a mechanism that can measure how many "degrees" the wavelength's phase has been changed (the variance of the phase's modulation), one can potentially transmit color data across the visible spectrum of light. A TV is programmed to "decrypt" this data into specific colors based on what phase the light waves are currently in. Another method of transmission I previously covered is simply turning the signal on and off. You can use this method with visible light to do morse code for example. Do it very very fast and you can transmit a LOT of data. However, the data isn't actually the light itself. It is as much in the areas where there is NO light as in the areas with light.

To make it clear, data can be defined as much by what isn't there as by what is. That doesn't mean there is actually "something" existing between the gaps of a transmission of that sort. It just means that something can interpret that lack of light as a bit of data. So no, EMF is not data in the sense that you think.

Are you suggesting that energy didn't exist before the creation of space time? Then what is that I hear that it can't be created or destroyed?

Not really. That was just a rather dubious (doubtful) claim I read a while ago. It was whoever wrote that that was suggesting it. If that is the case though, the energy wasn't created so much as it was transformed from spacetime itself, meaning you'd have this horrid grammatical beast called "spacetimeenergymatter" to write in various papers. Personally I didn't find any compelling reason to believe it but I'm not a physicist so I'll just hold the default position of doubt about it until some other time.

Edit: Oh, Mercutio, if you want more information on computer memory, I have a link for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gates

This is a pretty accurate description of logic gates in general. Follow the various links there to shoot off to a whole web of info on the subject. I love wikipedia.