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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/7/2008 4:22:02 PM | | The thing with the mind is that is based on memories and past experiences that are stored in chronological order from birth to present. Any machine can do that. A lot of what a person does is based on their past and how they are in a way "programmed" to respond to events int heir lives.. but the difference between a machine and a person is that a person is a being who can think and make decisions for themselves. A person can in a way "seperate" from their mind, through yoga, meditation, etc and experience those things around them in a present, moment to moment, without being affected by their past. In this way a person can live in the present and take charge of their lives, while a machine is just a bunch of chronological memories and programs. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/7/2008 5:53:17 PM | Wait a minute
An illusion of what? that's kind of like a hall of mirrors... do we have a definition of consciousness...? | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/8/2008 7:01:25 AM |
Wait a minute
An illusion of what? that's kind of like a hall of mirrors... do we have a definition of consciousness...?
There are currently many attempts to define it but none that have achieved any absolute authority, nor, I suspect, will they ever achieve it. But the illusion notion is a variant of Bishop Berekely's solipsism. I have my own variation on a famous attempt to answer this vexing question:
"I think, therefore I am." Descartes
"I think, therefore I am Descartes." Alyosha | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/8/2008 9:39:09 AM |
but the difference between a machine and a person is that a person is a being who can think and make decisions for themselves.
I have no doubt we will develop the nano-technology needed to create another entity that can "think" and "make decisions" for themselves. We can already do this on a primitive scale. Keep in mind our bodies are designed and built using DNA nano-technology developed by nature. Humanity may or may not use the same technology. I suspect we will develop something superior.
A person can in a way "seperate" from their mind, through yoga, meditation, etc and experience those things around them in a present, moment to moment, without being affected by their past.
This is faith. Keep in mind the brain is a very powerful organ. I have no doubt in certain situations a person can use their brain to make it appear as if they are separated from their bodies if they truly believe in that faith. I mean people see "Jesus" and say God talks to them all the time and they swear by it. The evidence is there that this is all an "illusion" of the brain. No one has ever scientifically proven anything supernatural that is based on faith. There is no logical explanation at this time other than that this is an illusion of the brain despite what any individual is absolutely convinced of.
In this way a person can live in the present and take charge of their lives, while a machine is just a bunch of chronological memories and programs.
Even if it were possible for the brain to do as you said, there is no reason to suspect that we couldn't create another entity that couldn't do the same. If nature can do it, humanity can do it better. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/8/2008 4:20:29 PM | Here is a true story - it happened today. I was driving along in my crappy old car. The cloth headliner was hanging down, a bit. I thought: Perhaps a couple of STAPLES will hold that up.
Ten seconds after thinking this, I passed an intersecting road. The name of the road was STAPLES Road.
After work, I sat at my computer. Before turning it on, I thought to myself: That STAPLES thing was an odd coincidence. I reached for my mouse, still thinking about STAPLES. The mouse is sitting on a STAPLES brand mouse pad. It is red with the word STAPLES printing in large white letters across its width. I'd forgotten I'd even had the thing. Now I noticed it.
So, as I turn on the computer, I'm thinking: Is consciousness just an illusion? Is it an imagined world I've created in my mind? As I create this world, do I sometimes get stuck on something, like the word Staples, so it keeps showing up? I click on POF, then the forums, then, as usual, the science forums. And what thread do I see at the top of the page? Well, this one: Is Consciousness an illusion. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/8/2008 4:28:22 PM | A lot of what a person does is based on their past and how they are in a way "programmed" to respond to events int heir lives.. but the difference between a machine and a person is that a person is a being who can think and make decisions for themselves.
By the same token a machine can be built with receptors and sensors that learn to react to events and situations. Computer programms already do so with anti virus software. Once they recognize a virus they deal with it, so in a way it made a decision to eliminate the threat. Yes it was programmed to do so but aren't we programmed to deal with life in the same way? Through experience and teachings? If no-one taught us how to deal with conflict then we would not know what to do in such a situtaion. The same applies with everything in our lives. If we lack the knowledge we cannot process it, just as a machine cannot do what it hasn't been programmed to do. Seems to me that it's the same processes going on whether it be a machine or the human brain. Without teaching/ programming neither can successfully complete a process.
while a machine is just a bunch of chronological memories and programs.
We already have the means to connect technology to the brain with artificial limbs for amputees which are very advanced even to the point of seeming real with incredible dexterity. Technology has advanced so much that attached to the nerve endings of amputated limbs the artificial limb acts just like the real thing. The person can feel it's movement and control it via the brain. Seems to me we are well on the way to building a machine that may well have a conciousness. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/10/2008 3:51:46 PM |
Here is a true story - it happened today. I was driving along in my crappy old car. The cloth headliner was hanging down, a bit. I thought: Perhaps a couple of STAPLES will hold that up.
Ten seconds after thinking this, I passed an intersecting road. The name of the road was STAPLES Road.
After work, I sat at my computer. Before turning it on, I thought to myself: That STAPLES thing was an odd coincidence. I reached for my mouse, still thinking about STAPLES. The mouse is sitting on a STAPLES brand mouse pad. It is red with the word STAPLES printing in large white letters across its width. I'd forgotten I'd even had the thing. Now I noticed it.
So, as I turn on the computer, I'm thinking: Is consciousness just an illusion? Is it an imagined world I've created in my mind? As I create this world, do I sometimes get stuck on something, like the word Staples, so it keeps showing up? I click on POF, then the forums, then, as usual, the science forums. And what thread do I see at the top of the page? Well, this one: Is Consciousness an illusion.
Pick another word tomorrow. See if the same thing happens. It won't. You know why? Because what happened with the word staples was just a coincidence. Think about how many different things you think about throughout the day. The odds of the scenario of events you described above is very small on a day to day basis.. but when you spread it out to a month.. a year.. or a lifetime, the odds of it happening multiple times is quite high.. especially if you look for it.
Attributing such coincidences as the above to the supernatural is part of human nature due to our dependance on our emotions to survive. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/10/2008 6:17:27 PM |
Because what happened with the word staples was just a coincidence.
I agree. However, seeing the thread title come up, as I was thinking the same exact thing, gave me a start.
When you look for it, you notice it. I remember reading the comic page one day and noticing seven out of twenty comics strips were about golf. I wondered what the odds were that on that day, seven of twenty strips writers would decide to do a comic about golf. Lot's of variables, there. Is it summer or winter? Do these particular writers play golf; so were more likely thinking about the game than someone who does not play? Was there a golf tournament on tv recently; so again, golf might be on a lot of people's minds.
Then again, perhaps, I thought, is my reality just a creation of my own mind and sometimes I just run out of new ideas and have to repeat the old ones. I'm not serious, of course. It's amusing to think about. That's about it. Coincidences happen all the time - if they didn't, then I'd have to reconsider my perception of reality; which is: everything is real. It's the simplest explanation. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/11/2008 3:08:10 PM |
As I create this world, do I sometimes get stuck on something, like the word Staples, so it keeps showing up?
As with everything in life, we ignore what we see constantly until our attention is drawn to it for a reason. Take for example a make of car. We see hundreds of cars every day and ignore the make of them. But when I saw a particular car I really liked the look of I suddenly became aware of how many of them were actually around without me having noticed before. It's just a matter of perception and awareness of our surroundings. We tend to be more conscious of things that our mind has focused on than the things we let pass us by.
Is consciousness an illusion? I don't think so. I think it's a matter of having an open mind to our surroundings and being more observant about what goes on around us. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/11/2008 7:26:53 PM | | Im not really much into philosphy, but I always thought "Cogito ergo sum" was it. I mean, we got to start somewhere. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/13/2008 8:13:07 PM |
There are currently many attempts to define it but none that have achieved any absolute authority, nor, I suspect, will they ever achieve it. But the illusion notion is a variant of Bishop Berekely's solipsism. I have my own variation on a famous attempt to answer this vexing question:
"I think, therefore I am." Descartes
"I think, therefore I am Descartes." Alyosha
So, to take that one step further
"I think of Descartes, therefore I am Alyosha".
Except that I wouldn't be the Alyosha that was existing now, but the Alyosha that had existed in the past while thinking of himself as Descartes. Since that Alyosha would no longer exist, it could be safely said of him as it is of all other people that no longer exist; to wit, that Alyosha incarnation is now dead. So if the Alyosha I become when I now think of Descartes is dead, would that make me a victom of E-Possesion?
Ghosts in my Thought-Box! Ghosts in my Thought-Box!
Now then, can an Illusion be called consciousness? A man is walking to work where his boss has just recorded his pink slip. In that man's mind he still has a job. But as far as the world is concerned he is on record of being an unemployed bum.
Could he then still get a date off the internet?
The fact that consciousness can question itself proves it's existence, much like freedom being owed to any being which can formulate the existence of it. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/21/2008 5:14:10 PM |
Then again, perhaps, I thought, is my reality just a creation of my own mind and sometimes I just run out of new ideas and have to repeat the old ones. I'm not serious, of course. It's amusing to think about. That's about it. Coincidences happen all the time - if they didn't, then I'd have to reconsider my perception of reality; which is: everything is real. It's the simplest explanation.
Reality being a creation of one's own mind might be true in the absolute sense.. but not in an individual sense. I mean the only proven way a person's mind can control reality is by physically interacting with it directly. But whether reality itself is dependant on it's ability to perceive itself through life is a whole different question. Would the universe even exist if it were not possible for life to evolve in it?? How can it if there is nothing to perceive and define it's existance?
On an individual basis though, it doesn't make sense that we create our own reality by our thoughts. This ability would have had to have evolved and I see no evidence of how it could have evolved. I'm not saying it didn't.. I just don't see the evidence. You have to have "faith" to assume it's existance. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/22/2008 5:06:12 AM | I think this is an interesting issue in the Philosophy of Mind. I see the key question here as the problem relating to 'subjective' states of conciousness. John Searle and others have argued that properties we associate with the mind or mental states can't be entirely reduced to some mechanical model of how the mind works, i.e. the mind is basically the chemical and computational activity of the brain. Searle's objection was particularly that mental acts can't be reduced to a computational model, because it leaves out something called 'intentionality.' Intentionality means we have mental states like emotions, memories, etc that seem to be essential features of our concious awareness. Searle argues quite well and vigorously that these can't be reduced to computational processes, as computation is basically just manipulating symbols which have no meaning, but if a concious state is intentional, then it has a meaning.
I guess the question then is can a mechanical model of conciousness totally account for the states we actually experience in conciousness. It seems hard to correlate our experience of love for example, with the firing of nerve fibres (though other philosophers look at the example of pain). Yet it also seems hard to deny that the mind is dependent on some way on the brain. Brain dead people don't seem to have conciousness.
Since technically speaking we do have a machine which shows the activity of the brain in connection with thoughts (an MRI scanner) this question is actually pertinent now. I think the same problem highlighted by Searle remains; while an MRI scanner might be able to tell the person running the scanner what chemical reactions are going on in the person's brain, the person whose brain is being scanned would not 'describe' their concious experiences in terms such as 'Brain cell A is signalling brain cells B and C.' What they do report are subjective states of conciousness with meaning, i.e. I am angry, sad, hungry, thirsty, etc. One would need to establish that those states of subjective intentional awareness are directly correlated with those brain states and they can be reduced to those brain states in a coherent way.
I know some philosophers (Dennett, the Churchlands, D.M. Armstrong) have strongly argued that there are plausible ideas on how this can happen and take intentionality into account. Searle I think believes the mind is basically brain activity but he believes that the computational model is not good enough to explain this. Penrose and David Chalmers I think have argued that conciousness can't be reduced to some mechanical or computational theory, at least not yet. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/23/2008 7:49:07 PM | | Would somebody explain how perception fits into all of this?...awareness?...cosmic consciousness?...are we asking whether our idea of the world subjectively is an illusion?...are we talking about different planes of consciousness?...is it possible that there are other planes of consciousness that exist alongside our human lives?...that some of us do get glimpses of?...and are they real?...or,illusions?..chemically induced naturally?...without drugs?...what about out of body experiences?...are they an illusion?...or just another form of consciousness?... | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/26/2008 5:42:36 AM | I guess if we are trying to talk about a general philosophy of conciousness we have many different alternatives. I think phenomenology is a very rich account of human conciousness which talks in a lot of detail about things like awareness, our sense of temporality, our observations of moving objects through space, and so on. Descartes argued that we are actually a thinking essence which can exist without the brain or the body (though our sensations of pain need a body to experience them).
Do we encounter other forms of conciousness? This is known as the problem of other minds. We encounter them all the time in other embodied human beings, and maybe also certain animals as well. If intelligent aliens exist they would also be a form of conciousness. God, in many theistic systems and also in Hinduism, is also a self-thinking mind whose thought brings the cosmos into existence.
As for planes of conciousness, I think the richness of Asian and Eastern philosophy shows us how the human mind can achieve different modes of concious awareness, including some which seem to have a non-dual (no subject-object division between the knower and the known, or between us and the Universe). I've experienced some interesting states of calm and peace and serenity during Buddhist meditation.
I suppose as to what states of conciousness are illusions and which ones correspond to reality is a good question. Phillip K****apparently said reality is what remains even when you wish it isn't so. Descartes talks very carefully about what he thinks illusions are in his Meditations on First Philosophy, as do the Asian religions. True states of conciousness which appear to mark experience of everything as a whole (as you see in Plotinus, Eckhart, Zen or other forms of contemplative philosophy) seem to involve a lot of clarity and insight beyond the ordinary level of awareness. But similar profound insights also occur in the great systems of great philosophers like Spinoza, Kant, Plato, and so on, in science, and also in mathematics. I think human cognition is finite so it can't encompass reality as it is in its totality, so there is always more to explore and know. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/26/2008 7:16:05 PM | True states of conciousness which appear to mark experience of everything as a whole (as you see in Plotinus, Eckhart, Zen or other forms of contemplative philosophy) seem to involve a lot of clarity and insight beyond the ordinary level of awareness.
I can personally relate to that sentence...where can I find more information?....seeing everything as a whole???....what is that called?..cosmic consciousness?...can you refer me to this experience?.. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/26/2008 8:32:34 PM | | There are quite a lot of books out there you could read on this subject. I'd recommend Karl Jasper's 'Great Philosophers' Series and look at the entry on Plotinus, who was probably the greatest Western thinker who experienced these states of conciousness in the time between Aristotle and Augustine. Dogen's Shobogenzo, the version translated by Thomas Clearly with useful notes, along with Alan Watt's 'The Empty Cloud' are excellent introductions to how Eastern meditation works. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/28/2008 8:57:06 AM | | You should read the book "practicing radical honesty", you will find afew answers to your question there... I can give you a short summary. The mind is made up of the reactive mind and the reflective. The reactive mind comes up with reasoning behind decisions you make, things you think and do and what you believe in. The reflective mind uses past experience to explain why you do or believe in these things. So everything you do is not your decision consciously, its already been made for you by the reactive/reflective m ind. So you are actually not making any of your daily decisions and you may think you are doing something but you actually arent, its already decided for you. The only way to live "consciously" or in the present is to use your five senses, be active in the world around you, notice things around you. Also, its important to think of the future and make goals related to that. So, in part, your mind and thoughts are chemical relations, but you can live consciously through the senses and noticing. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/29/2008 7:08:12 PM | Forget your one-state answers and their shallow answers. It is the mystery of consciousness that it dissapears when you try to look at it. But much like feeling the invisible wind, you are here able to question the state of it.
Really, it's starting to sound more of a discussion of free-will vs. determinism in here. Which I personally think is rather silly, because even if we don't have free-will we should still act like we do or else it's all rather pointless, no? And if everything is already determined, than it doesn't matter if we act like we do or not, no?
The point I'm making, is that wether or not it's an illusion, it does exist and so long as you are able to only operate under the framework of that illusion, it might as well for all practices and purposes be "real".
Now what's interesting is that the reality created by everyones subconscious perception of their conscious actions is so inconsistant and personalized. Like when somebody says "Oh, I thought you grabbed that before we left" To excuse the fact that they damn well knew you hadn't, but because they didn't want to expend the effort they tell themselves "Oh, he's probably got it". This eventually morphs into "Oh, he's already got it." A subtle difference, but a critical one as it collapses the perception of reality from a potential existence to a definate existence which lasts until it is incontrovertibly overturned by "Where the f*ck is it?" Followed by the editing out of responsability by "I thought YOU had it!?!" Followed by the creation of a new reality where SOMEBODY forgot it, but it definately wasn't YOU, because why would you think the other person already had it if they hadn't TOLD you they were getting/had gotten it.
yep. So conscious fact is unreliable but it's the best we got. And remember, up until the critical moment the object had not been forgotten until it was remembered, which I think is a very apt analogy of whether or not consciousness exists. Which is to say, it was a needless overcomplication of a simple acceptance of it works, lets leave it at that.
The fact that I believe it to be irrelevant to the actual existence of consciousness, the discussion of it's existence has led to some occaisionally useful practices of psychology, such as the existence of the sub-conscious, or multiple consciousnesses. -es.
Does your subconsciousness exist? What about a meta-consciousness capable of multi-tier comprehension with full awareness of somatic controls? If a man is enlightened, is he still conscious? If a man is not enlightend, is he conscious or only passing in a dream? At what point does the subconsciousness pass into the conscious? | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/30/2008 8:54:23 AM | | If anyone is enlightened,they are not the same...any enlightening changes your perception does it not...and is your consciousness not dependant on your perception and vice versa?..maybe you should enlighten me on what you mean by a man being enlightened?..in which way?..meta consciousness...I gather that that has something to do with being "enlightened" about several tiers of consciousness,or levels,or even that anything other than our life here exists?...it all boils down to belief and faith does it not?...after the fact?....and talking about dreams...where do they fit into this?...figments of our imagination?...movie pictures?...do they present meta consciousness worlds?...I think not. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/30/2008 10:13:31 AM | | I think some things such as mental illnesses support the concept that consciousness is an illusion and just chemical reactions. The example I'm thinking of is an elderly lady my roomie cared for in the nursing home. I don't recall what she had, but every morning she woke up convinced that day was her wedding day. Every day she relived that same day over and over. She didn't have a concept that she was in a nursing home, that she wasn't in her 20's, that her husband had died years before, and that the fellow elderly people where not the wedding attendees she remembered. A change in the functioning of the brain completely changes reality for that person. If we all had some part of our brain working completely different, the world would be nothing like what it is now. | |
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NOX813
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Joined: 11/20/2006
Msg: 48 | |
| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 1/30/2008 11:21:36 AM | Try the sharp object test.
1. Get a person
2. Get a sharp object
3. Have them jab you with it
Your conclusion should come about quickly. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 2/4/2008 7:39:31 PM | | "Illusion" is relative to your point of view. The human brain is, however, a massively parallel neural network. Put simply, it's a type of computer. | |
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| Is consciousness an illusion?
Posted: 2/6/2008 2:38:56 PM | | Hummph. I would offer that consciousness as an illusion leads nicely to the brain as a quantum device. GAWD that's a can of worms. I'll read-up a little more first. | |
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