What is Consciousness?

[Kyuuketsuki]

Just because we are not aware of the whole just means we are broken, nothing more or less.

Or that your imagination trumps your reason!

Kyu

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And I'd suggest that's complete and utter rubbish ... there is absolutely no evidence beyond healthy imagination that consciousness resides anywhere but the brain.

Actually there is. The first is precognition. The second is the apparent willful action of protozoa, especially paramecium, which have no brain or central nervous system whatsoever. The third is the fact that in order to say, turn a doorknob, if consciousness is generated by the brain, all the information needed to make your body turn the knob would have to be contained in one neuron in your brain, and then you'd still be left with explaining how that one neuron got its stimulus--but that's another discussion. Then there is the fact that humans have a concept of infinity.

I can't answer this so I have asked a question at a site that puts the questions to relevant scientists.

I will offer you the exact same challenge I offered Frodo ... predict something. Something beyond the normal ability of humans to make intelligent informed guesses and/or lucky guess. When you've done that and when objective observers have assessed it as being an accurate and correct prediction THEN come back and I will treat it seriously.

You don't have to treat my belief in my precognition anyway at all. Your opinion about it doesn't change the veracity of it one way or the other. That's the trouble with you atheists, you think the world owes you something.

No we don't, we just tend to be cynical about non-validatable claims.

That does it: I'm going back to a theistic stance. I'm going to stop calling God "Nature" and I'm going to stop saying humans exist to evolve the consciousness of nature when I really mean the human purpose is to be Christ.

Are you being facetious?

It's not so much that I believe in God the way Christians do, because I don't. And I certainly don't believe Christians are right about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, but atheists are just willful fools, it seems. They say, "Only what I can perceive with my senses is real." And avoid the larger issue of why something exists at all, or how it got there, because that's too hard to figure out. So, I'm now a theist.

No, actually we don't say that, we tend to say that there is evidence and that that is what we interpret, if there is no evidence then (unless there is real "fit", which is kind of evidence in itself) we assume it is untrue. No one is saying that there are things that might be real ads yet unexplained and it is entirely possible that precognition for example might be one of them. The problem lies in the fcat that so many claims are made and there is no way to distinguish between which are valid and which are not UNLESS you demand some kind of evidential support, some tie into reality and our senses (via technology).

Good because you haven't convinced me that your worldview is anything other than some kind of god-substitute.

You're right. And I can't hide it. Since 1993, I have tried to find a way around my theism, but I can't. I have tried to be a Christian, but I can't. I have tried to be agnostic, but my mind won't shut up and let me live in peace with agnosticism. Now, I've tried on some atheist clothes, but they don't fit at all. A conscious nature = God. There's no way I can pretend it doesn't.

Again I am unsure if you are being facetious or not.

Yea, yeah, yeah, you're so smart you have to tolerate the poor theists time and time again. Let me tell you something: you don't know half as much as you think you do. So, save your sighs for yourself.

I've never claimed to be smarter than you or anyone else, more of a realist perhaps, but certainly not smarter ... all I do (all most of us do) is treat non-validatable claims with scepticism.

If the universe itself were becoming conscious then my consciousness would be part of a greater whole ... it isn't, it is separate, distinct, apart; so no ... the universe shows absolutely no evidence of becoming aware.

Oh, really? Your consciousness is separate and distinct, is it? And yet earlier from your highhorse you yelled down to me that consciousness can only come from the mechanics of the brain. I guess you are God, then aren't you? I guess that's what you're trying to tell me. After all, if there is the universe, and then apart from that there is your consciousness, that would make you God, wouldn't it?

No, I am not saying my consciousness isn't a part of the universe, I am simply saying that there is no evidence that various consciousness are linked ... it's not even relevant that I couldn't possibly tell if that's true or not, the fact is there is o validatable evidence so all it becomes is philosophical psychobabble.

Kyu