(April 1, 2016 at 5:23 am)robvalue Wrote: That sounds like a good distinction.

The thing that puzzles me is... how consciousness "makes" the experience. I know it's probably a poorly formed question. But the experience... Where is it? How? Why?

That's exactly one of the directions that neuroscience is currently investigating. The only answer we have at the moment is "Well, it's definitely 'in' the brain..." and that's no real answer at all. Like with most scientific subjects, the answer to the question 'how' is also likely to give us the answer to the 'why' or even be the 'why'.

Quote:An illusion, of sorts. But I've come to the conclusion that things are as real to any particular observer as they appear to be. So it's real to me, in some sense. It's all that I know is real! Even if it's not what it seems to be, which I know already it isn't.

We know it's as real as any other sensory experience. How 'real' is smell? It's a sensory representation of the quantity and composition of particular types of airborne chemical combinations. Likewise our 'consciousness' might be a sensory representation of our gestalt neurological processes. The best we can do at the moment it chalk it down to 'qualia' and support the scientists in their investigations into some proper answers.

Quote:Do others experience? It seems obvious that they must do... but again, how... where...? Like me? My brain just can't comprehend it. I know consciousness is the experience... it just doesn't quite feel satisfying.

Since humans share similar physiologies, and so many other sensory experiences are shared, we can reasonably assume that all humans have a Gaussian distribution of experiences of 'self'. Studies in to conditions like autism and the various types of psychopathies and sociopathies have given us real insight in to how different expressions of self have real-world impacts so we can demonstrate there are different subjective interpretations. We don't know much about the neurology to associate with those different ranges of qualia, that I know of; maybe there are others on the board who know what's going on at the cutting edge.

Quote:I can be pretty good at being scientific and detached on most subjects. This one tests me the most.

I feel you bro. I think I'm lucky that I have a very definite and well formed sense of self, I know that I am and who I am but knowing that that's probably just my brain making things up as I go along leaves me with a certain cognitive dissonance. So maybe I'm unlucky.

Ignoramus: That is a definition that implies that you a second from now is not you (since they are not in an identical space time). And when it comes to defining you, your location is less important than your continuity

Ben Davis: Are you saying a copy could not be identical in form or are you insisting on an continuous existence?

Robvalue: Me, I’d say consciousness is mostly about pleasure and pain. Up, up, down, up, down.

Up, up, down, up? I think you're getting mixed up with a Mortal Kombat fatality

Don't forget to hit HP or else you won't rip his guts out.

Reincarnation: 0
Critical thinking: 1. Flawless Victory!

Well, like which is more conscious? something with intelligence but no emotions or vice versa?

That OP...

(April 1, 2016 at 6:16 pm)chasbanner Wrote: Ben Davis: Are you saying a copy could not be identical in form...

I'm saying that even if a copy could be identical, undetectable by others as a copy, it would still not be 'you' and both you & the copy would have individual, several, subjective consciousnesses, each of which would cease at brain death.

Quote:...or are you insisting on an continuous existence?

Reincarnation, by definition, is a continuous existence of the individual, subjective consciousness. It's a form of 'eternal afterlife' that seems utterly impossible given what neurology can tell us about subjective experience of consciousness and its cessation.

Ben Davis:

Why?
Why is having a separate consciousness so important to defining oneself?
A copy's identity is mostly potential. If you split up and had different experience you *would* indeed become more different.

 If you did not separate and develop as separate beings with different experiences and instead could somehow share all knowledge over time it would be difficult to distinguish you apart. One could answer a question asked by the other.

In and of it's self having separate consciousnesses doesn't *do* anything.

And as i said it's "reincarnation" in quotes.

I want to be reincarnated as Spider-Man. I feel I've earned it.

(April 4, 2016 at 8:31 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote: I want to be reincarnated as Spider-Man. I feel I've earned it.

You have indeed. But statistically, it's unlikely. Spider-Man himself tells us that everybody only gets one reincarnation.

http://youtu.be/K6GrDqSRi9g