I'd like to begin by making a few observations about space and time that give us, what I think to be, pretty fascinating conclusions:
Firstly, the things that we see around us are in fact things that happened in the past. This is because the photons (light particles) that entered your eye and gave you the image of what you see had to travel from the object to your eyes, meaning that time passed (however small it was -- doesn't matter) as the photons were on their journey. This means that the world we percieve around us isn't "the present", because when "the present" occurred, it was impossible for you to visually experience it as the photons hadn't begun their journey yet.
Secondly, if we keep the above in mind, we can then come to the conclusion that "the present" doesn't actually exist, physically speaking. If we imagine a cube of length x floating in front of us, we could say we define the space within it as "the present", but if we place ourselves at the very centre of it and look out towards the walls of this cube, we can conclude (from the above) that the walls of the cube aren't in "the present". For our cube to truly represent "the present", we must then make it smaller so that we are excluding anything that is in fact in the past from our perspective in the centre. The logical conclusion here will be that our cube will in fact shrink to the point that x -> 0 which means that we end up with a singularity -- a point in space which doesn't occupy any volume, therefore "the present" doesn't occur anywhere in space i.e. it doesn't occur at all.
Now, from here, this is where we bring in ideas about consciousness. If we think of our consciousness as being the same thing as the brain, then because the brain has a volume, it implies that we are in fact in the past from ourselves at any given time. The sorts of questions I personally have about this conclusion are: is this even possible?! Can I exist in the past from myself relative to a certain point in my brain from the other part of my brain? If the answer to these questions is "no" and therefore our consciousness can only be in one place at any given time, then I propose that the consciousness must therefore be like our notion of "the present" i.e. the volume where our consciousness is located -> 0 i.e. it exists at a singularity i.e. it isn't located anywhere in physical space. I know I exist though, which means I must have consciousness, so therefore it must be an independent entity from the brain.
Is it reasonable to assume that the brain is the consciousness' "vessel" that it utilises to exist in this universe/space-time/reality? Is it then also reasonable to assume that our consciousness doesn't end when our tool for peeking into this universe/space-time/reality stops functioning?
Firstly, the things that we see around us are in fact things that happened in the past. This is because the photons (light particles) that entered your eye and gave you the image of what you see had to travel from the object to your eyes, meaning that time passed (however small it was -- doesn't matter) as the photons were on their journey. This means that the world we percieve around us isn't "the present", because when "the present" occurred, it was impossible for you to visually experience it as the photons hadn't begun their journey yet.
Secondly, if we keep the above in mind, we can then come to the conclusion that "the present" doesn't actually exist, physically speaking. If we imagine a cube of length x floating in front of us, we could say we define the space within it as "the present", but if we place ourselves at the very centre of it and look out towards the walls of this cube, we can conclude (from the above) that the walls of the cube aren't in "the present". For our cube to truly represent "the present", we must then make it smaller so that we are excluding anything that is in fact in the past from our perspective in the centre. The logical conclusion here will be that our cube will in fact shrink to the point that x -> 0 which means that we end up with a singularity -- a point in space which doesn't occupy any volume, therefore "the present" doesn't occur anywhere in space i.e. it doesn't occur at all.
Now, from here, this is where we bring in ideas about consciousness. If we think of our consciousness as being the same thing as the brain, then because the brain has a volume, it implies that we are in fact in the past from ourselves at any given time. The sorts of questions I personally have about this conclusion are: is this even possible?! Can I exist in the past from myself relative to a certain point in my brain from the other part of my brain? If the answer to these questions is "no" and therefore our consciousness can only be in one place at any given time, then I propose that the consciousness must therefore be like our notion of "the present" i.e. the volume where our consciousness is located -> 0 i.e. it exists at a singularity i.e. it isn't located anywhere in physical space. I know I exist though, which means I must have consciousness, so therefore it must be an independent entity from the brain.
Is it reasonable to assume that the brain is the consciousness' "vessel" that it utilises to exist in this universe/space-time/reality? Is it then also reasonable to assume that our consciousness doesn't end when our tool for peeking into this universe/space-time/reality stops functioning?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
