These are all valid questions, and it is the kind of questions that theists have to face; these are questions that can't be ignored with a wave of the scientific hand, once you begin to understand the philosophy of you being a unique, conscious being.

What does it mean to be alive, in your eyes... what is life? Is it something that is defined by DNA structure, or is it even more simple than that...? Presonally, I believe it could be argued that everything is to some 'degree', alive.

Good questions. I don't believe anything is meaningless. At the molecular level, things are still easily predictable by physicists.

At the structural (sub-atomic) level is where things get a little wierd, unpredictable, plain confusing to the physicist who are used to observing 'regularities'. This is the level where the smallest, observed building blocks of atoms called quarks seem to have a 'mind of their own'; where physicist came up with the term, "quantum wierdness." They even have a saying, "if you don't understand 'quantum wierdness', you don't understand quantum physics." Quantum physicists are now facing some strange discoveries which is leading them to change the way they view matter, physics, and reality all together.

Here is a good article that talks about it in some detail, it is written by David L. Anderson, Ph.D.
President of the Time Travel Research Center.

If you find the article interesting, the web-site and its database will astound you!

[This message has been edited by Filip Sandor (edited April 15, 2001).]

Ok, I'm just presenting a plausible explanation for consciousness without invoking a dualistic nature of the mind. The soul is the information, not the matter it's encoded upon. Like turtonm said, it's entirely possible to generate conciousness on a machine of our devising, thus demonstrating that the Church-Turing thesis applies to consciousness. (Church-Turing thesis says that all formal systems are equivalent). There are other models, but this is probably the most detailed you'll find. There's a lot of writing about this model, I've just presented my spin on a standard AI.

What is consciousness?

Simple, basic reactions occur. They grow more and more complex, eventually to cellular life. A living being is made and reacts in such a way so it can nourish itself and survive. It develops. By chance, alterations, creating new reactions are added to the genetic code. The best ones survive and move on. The naturally evolved reactions become so complex that each reaction changes the way we have reactions. Thus, consciousness is an extremely complex set of reactions. Due to our current inability to record data of such complexity, we can only develop methods to compensate and modify said reactions through scientific observation, and without computational formula since we are not aware of the root reactions which sum up the final set of reactions.

Jonathan

I mentioned this in a previous post. This would imply that atoms (composing consciousness) are also the possessors of consciousness (the conscious perceivers).

I like your the first thought... that the Soul is the information. I do happen to believe there is some truth to that, but I can't even begin to explain how it works. I believe that at the core of it all, lies an Unltimate Consciousness, which embodies all things, including itself and has ALL the 'Information' and Power to do what it is doing, 'composing' what we call reality... this something is what many people, lightly conceive of... as GOD.

It's pretty hard. It's not easy to think in terms of these mixed levels. I don't know that I can, not to any great degree. I'm playing around with this concept in code right now, I'll let you know when/if I release the source, if you so desire. Not that it'll be conscious, but it will be capable of learning and self-representation.

That's nice. I don't see the complexity, self-representation, or mixed levels of context in the universe. Either way, as I said before, a level cannot contain more information than the level above it, and a lower level cannot know the higher level without being inconsistent (actually, the higher level can be represented, but if it's represented well enough to be useful, it breaks the lower level). I have nothing against a belief in a transcendental god, I just don't think it can be rationally defined without being inconsistent.

Filip Sandor:
see How can the camera take a picture of itself? for discussion about the perceiver.
As I've said, we don't initially perceive ourselves as one being. But we always have had a sensation of immediacy (even though we can't remember it before we learned high-level language).
As I said in that thread, at this early stage (I haven't studied much neuroscience) the hippocampus could be the perceiver since it is one of the only (or the only) things that accesses the working memory. Working memory is what you are conscious of at any given moment, where the things with higher priorities, such as new pains, are more obvious.



[This message has been edited by JohnClay (edited April 16, 2001).]

I don't know why my idea of a Universal Consciousness sets off your 'atoms', it really shouldn't, in my opinion.

Then you are not looking.

Tell that to a quantum physicist, who observes the 'lowest' observable level, and sees something that he can not put any meaningful order to. Yet, the quantum 'chaos' he observes gives rise to the very ordered atom.

Give me some leniancy please, as I said before, I don't think we have to get into the complexities of just how it all works, it is enough of a challenge to see how it doesn't work.

With respect to your understanding of consciousness, you still haven't shown what part of the brain is conscious; you have just shown me that it is a complex, physical network, nothing more.

Anyway, I'm not asking for you to give me a full blown explanation of consciousness and the 'conscious perceiver', I don't think it is something that anyone can just provide a simple explanation for. I just want you to realise that it is not so simple. Many atheists dismiss life as a 'complex network of atoms', but that does not answer anything we don't know... or what the conscious perceiver is.

In fact, all that can be derived from the theories here so far, is that a conscious perceiver does not exist (reread the posts if you disagree) and that consciousness is a physical state, of a "complex network of atoms".

Although I can't recall the content of that post, I did read it. The person who posted it got shot down within a couple posts because he does not use hard enough evidence to support his case; in return, he or his idea, is not taken seriously. In fact, as I recall, it was made into a cynical joke, putting the guy down for trying.

I'm gathering from what you say, John, that the hippocampus (part of the brain) is conscious, that it could actually be what experiences such things as joys, sorrows, hopes, and fears, amongst many thought forms and emotions.

Is that really all we are... a part of the brain...? Sad, but true you say.

I hold, in most cases, the same views on how the brain works as the people that have posted in this thread do, but I can not believe that I, the conscious perceiver, am a part of the brain. I can't believe that I am my entire brain as a whole either or that I am my brain and some parts of my body... whatever the different views may be, I just can't. I don't know how you guys can, without at least questioning that point.

Anyway, I feel this discussion is ending. Thanks for the responses, it's been interesting and enjoyed hearing some of the different views on the mysterious organ we call the brain, and consciousness.

I hope I have stirred some positive thinking with this thread, perhaps even curiosity.

P.S. If you guys want to talk about it some more, I'm open for the discussion. I want you to know, I am an extremely logical thinker (that's probably why this discussion may be that much more frusterating to some). If you can use hard logic to prove that we are not metaphysical beings, I will (painfully, if I have to) convert my beliefs.

Mind you, language can only take us so far before words reach their limits. Let's not wreck our brains over a tedious discussion, unless we really feel we are getting somewhere.

[This message has been edited by Filip Sandor (edited April 15, 2001).]

I have, talking to my brother who is doing quantum monte carlo simulations of doped silicon configurations trying to do something (I get lost at this point) with the chromatic properties for electro-optical chips.

Anyway, the complexity is not enough, there has to be a crossing of the levels of context. QM defines the atom's properties. The atom's properties define the molecule's properties. The molecules define chemical properties. But the definitions only go one way. In a mind, there are groups of nerves that form groups, which define larger groups, but the top level groups feed back into the sub groups, changing their definition, which feeds back up to the top, back to the bottom, and so on. The systems I'm refering to have to allow the top level to change the definition of the systems it runs within. The systems we know of that do this, biological and electronics, the levels that feed back are abstracted out of the physical properties that they are based on.

I don't see this. There are a lot of ways it *doesn't* work. I apologize if I'm pressing a bit hard, but you did ask, and it's not a simple question, by any means. The only simple answer I can give you is that there is no simple answer.

I've said several times. I don't think that there is one single part of the brain that is conscious. Nor do I think that the matter that it's constructed of is in any way required for it's operation, the structure, layering, and most importantly, the mixed layering is required. If this information(rules and symbols) could be represented, the underlying system could be anything, electronics, biological, mechanical.
Agreed. That's what I've been saying all along, we don't know. But we do have some ideas and possibilities.

No, I think the perceiver does exist. The question is what is it? I'm saying it's information encoding systems within systems, with the top most levels feeding back into themselves. That's the perceiver.

I see what you are saying; I influence my parents, and my parents influence me... it works both ways, just as it does in the 'atomic world'. As for properties being changed, that depends what sort of properties, ie. the Laws of don't change.

I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear, or course detail is needed to understand these things, but I guess I was looking for more of a deductive, philosophical answer. If we know what the conscious perceiver isn't we can be better informed of where to look to know what it is.

Well, if you want to know what I think the underlying ('mainframe') system of consciousness is, I could only say that it is God.

I am just trying to expose the Soul here; the conscious perceiver we refer to as your or me.

Great, love to hear that (for a while, I thought most of the people here did.)

I also believe the perceiver exists, it is apparently obvious. What I don't believe is that the physical actions taking place in the brain are the I aspect of the human being; the perceiver.