Gringo

<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Cpub/cpubsh/William_Beeman-AN0281_F00/sassigadd12.html" target="_blank">http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Cpub/cpubsh/William_Beeman-AN0281_F00/sassigadd12.html</a>

This book review / article doesn't exactly answer the question, but it voices similar opinions as to those mentioned in this thread. This book review argues that the author uses research on brain damaged paitients to describe consciousness. He admits in the end that it doesn't answer the question of what the perceiver actually is, but doesn't admit that we'll never know.

If we ever figure this question out, which won't be in our lifetimes , then we'll have a better idea about what happens to that awareness after we die. For example, does it eventually pop up somewhere else in another sentient being to ask these questions all over again, or in a resurrected body to face judgment, or does the light go out completely forever. If it is a particular unit of matter and / or energy that comes together to make us the sentient creatures we are, then in octillions of years later when and if this unit finds itself in the blastocyst cell of a new organism, will it be getting ready to take the new ride of its life. If so, all of this would be like getting knocked out for surgery- it would seem instantaneous. I know this sounds like a bunch of ranting and I haven't answered the question, but isn't how the implications effect "us" the only reason for pondering it in the first place?

Keenanvin

I may be a bit late, and I apologize in advance if someone already stated this, <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> for I just skimmed through the previous posts).


Sigmund Freud took the idea of the mind and broke it up into three main areas:

1) The Unconscious
2) The Conscious
3) The Preconscious

The Unconscious is the region of the mind that contains thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories.
The Preconscious is the area where we store thoughts temporarily, from which we can retrieve them at will into conscious.
Our conscious awareness is where our personality is.

The personality is based on the Ego, Id and Superego. The Ego is what is represented by our consciousness. The Ego balances the Superego and the ID. The ID is the Pleasure seeking section. The Superego tells us how we should Ideally behave.



I hope this has opened a few doors, it may be a step away from philosophy and a bit towards psychology gut those two go nicely hand in hand.
_Keenan_

Laurentius

AVE

Excellent discussion.

From a dualistic point of view, the conscious perceiver is the mind. Mind will be a property of the matter to the same extent as matter is a property of mind. There is not any scientifically identifiable place where consciousness resides, so the whole nervous system is held responsible for bearing this quality. The complex self that makes the conscious perceiver is partly material (due to the physical processes taking places all and deep around our brains and its assistants) and partly ideal (due to our voluntary thoughts that make use of these processes in order to set up their own order).

NialScorva

Ack, you had to dredge this thread up. Wow, I posted some rather naive and wrong things earlier. I'm all paranoid now. Will I think the same thing about what I'm posting now in 6 months?