You'll note that I said you'd first have to define consciousness. Consciousness is taken to mean many things. But you are running on the assumption that there is a qualitative difference between consciousness and non-consciousness and I suggest you first attempt to demonstrate that qualitative difference. Everything in the Universe reacts to other things in some manner. The human mind does so as well. Of course, you're now declaring it impossible but as we all know so well from the non-existence of God arguments, you'd be a bit presumptuous to state that you've proven this. Stop dissembling and get back to the matter at hand. Please try to explain a little more clearly... perhaps I'm just being thick but it seems as if you just indicated that life and consciousness were the same thing. Funny, I'm not the one that keeps trying to drive the conversation down alternative paths in an attempt to force an unsupportable statement. It seems to me that you're the one trying to direct this conversation. Believe me, I'll only allow that to continue as long as you're asking relevant and valid questions or for as long as I find you entertaining. ~Raithere
So you ask what is consciousness??. I would say consciousness is attributed to life and death, it's a state of existance which possess proportions and specific designs, with free will being one of it's proportions, self reaproachment another proportion, memory and self recordation as another proportion, ect. We are not in reach of all the proportion of our conscious. At that time, consciousness is a degree of freedom from the prespective of science, i.e., not to be defined, but is manifest through the existance of human, animal, and other entities as they display the quality of consciousness. I would say death is also a state of consiosness but with different proportions, where elements like free will, being, ect that are accecible during life are not accessible. Other elements such as memory, self reaproachment, ect may be dominating at that phase. Sleep is another state where the consious proportions are also misplaced, where free will in unaccecible while other areas may be accessible. Sleep is important because it gives balance to the conscious so that not one proportion is used more than the other. I think Raithere that you might be getting my drift, and I thank you for your patience. I think you realize that there is always a tension between the theoretical aspect of the state of science and the practical aspect of it's application "being the creation". Science is defined as the study of, so it's not the creation of. Creation is an application of science and not science. To talk about creation, you must know the tools of putting the sciences together, and not merely the sciene which is useless by itself and specially if viewed as independant disciplines. Engineering is an applies science, so is medecine, and others. Physics and math are pure sciences. Now, it should also be understood that a created thing, may be able to create things that are less complicated in nature than it, but will not be able to create anything more complicate than itself. The created is also subject to constraints set up by it's surroundings. To bridge the gap my friend in just understanding your own creation and nothing else, don't expect to use today's science, because you admit that a gap exist and thus the science to bridge the gap must not exist. If I can just get you to admit to that point, I'll go to sleep so happy tonight. Atheistic viewes without a model to build on the viewes are more like extrapolating data to support the belief. Extrapolation is the most, I repeat most inaccurate way to model something. Atheistic viewes don't have all the answers, but it has a model and logic in codes and constants that will forever need to be studied within the capability of humans and their theories of how they percieve the reality to operate. Now as far as dispersing the conversation, it's not by mine or your's desire, it's the only natural and logical progressive step to any discussion. Maybe too strong and uncomfortable to some people, but I'm quite comfortable with it.... I'll digress on that note, I'll take a break and give all time to digest. I'll be back..
Remeber All. Science is only a tool to study of surrounding phenomena by humans. 1- Future science does not exist, 2- Creations exist whether science exist or not.
Can you please show us the evidence for consciousness in death? Please don't include NDE because, as we well know, the brain can remain viable for several minutes (or longer depending on the conditions) after clinical death. These people were clinically dead, not brain dead. Since I am proposing that it is the brain that is the seat of consciousness you'll need to address that. If consciousness is a state of existence then shouldn't it be definable through the rules/laws of existence? Why seek elsewhere? Are you saying that there are aspects of consciousness that cannot be defined? If so, please let us know how or what you mean and how it is you know that this is so. Is it a particular quality of experience that you are referring to? Of course you have evidence of this; right? I'm not quite sure I follow what you mean by "self rapprochement". What is it that needs to be reconciled or brought back together? (Wonderful word btw, I had to look it up to find exactly what it meant.... thanks!) Actually, free will is accessible during sleep, naturally for some and for others through training. I agree. Often there is quite a wide gap both in time and in knowledge. Well, I disagree that knowledge alone is a useless thing. There is quite a lot of knowledge that never gets put directly into action. Knowledge can affect other knowledge and, of course, thought without ever becoming or even having a practical application. I find the categorization to be somewhat problematic but yes, in a general sense I can agree with that. I disagree. Complexity itself is somewhat difficult to measure because it tends to be a qualitative judgment rather than a quantitative measurement and thus is very prone to subjective discernment. Still, there is quite a lot of evidence that a relatively simple set of rules and/or conditions can generate very complex structures. In fact, mathematically a very small set of operations can generate infinite sequences and infinitely complex structures. Take fractals for example. This seems to be the case but is, thus far, unproven. Sorry to trouble your sleep (although it's the next day) but I'm not sure what gap it is you're describing. Are you speaking of the gap between theory and application? If so, I don't see how that is relevant. Are you saying that there is a gap between the whole of reality and that which science "knows"? If so, I would point out that we're all in the same boat and no one can claim to know everything. See, this is what bothers me. There are no "atheistic" views other than the one it expresses definitively. Science is not about proving or disproving God... it is about discerning what is true and building accurate models of the world. If God becomes necessary to describe some aspect of the Universe then God would become part of science. As it stands we have not needed God or the supernatural to define or model anything. No, it's not. I agree that there are often problems and unforeseen occurrences but often extrapolation is often extremely accurate. The major difficulty is making sure you have defined the equations and your data correctly. And you can suggest an alternative? Within reason, I agree. ~Raithere
regarding all these type issues: I don't understand why we aren't all presenting theories to each other, rather than asserting that we have a particular insight on truth. Maybe you do, maybe you don't... but how might one expect another to think anything of his truth? I cannot expect of you to know my truth. It's mine by definition and without a mind meld or some shit, it's gonna stay mine regardless of how clearly I feel that I've communicated it to you. There's simply no way at this time to "realize" someone elses reality. I can appreciate your perspective, but I think it's impossible as of yet that I might SEE it. regarding all these type issues: Everything is theory. (this is exactly one of the reasons that christianity and the likes really pisses me off.. to most of them that I've encountered.. it's not a theory.. it's fact, and that's dumb - see above)
Raithere, I don't know what happened, I typed a whole responce to you and poured my heart out and it didn't get sent. I don't know if I can pour my heart again, let's try. First, I'm feeling pretty weird about continuing our discussion, but something in me that I can't explain is compelling me to continue. It's a good feeling, and I trust my instinct, so I'll follow it. I possess fear but I hate it at the same time...I must fight my fear. Back in Egypt they tell me that fear is the protector of humans...I hate to accept that. As Wesmorris suggested let us get back to the topic. Please note all information is straight out of my butt, so you're welcome to comment, although I have a feeling that you can recognize the quality of the information in question. You asked me to discuss consciousness. This is my answer, and I'll try to pretend that you don't know the answer, so I might use my pride to give the most information. I must start from the very beginning when explaining the concept of consciousness. When I was first born, I was told that I cried like every baby when my diaper needed changing, when I was hungry, thirsty, ect. They also tell me that I was quite cute and made everyone smile. I have no memory of such events...where was my memory? I don't think I had fear....my son is a baby I tried to scare him in an experiment with a halloween costume, but he laughed instead...my daughter on the other hand ran away like a little mouse and still remember the experience and hate me for it.....It seemed though that I possessed a lot of features when I was a baby that would have been attributed to consciousness, like feelings. I also had instinctal features such as the animals have like sucking...mommy tells me I was quite good at that..... Sorry Wesmorris, back to the discussion. Then as I grew up, I started accessing my memory, it was not very clear in the beggining but it was available to some degree. I was like innocent you know, no shame to some degree, crazy little brat...also to some degree, that was another feature of my conscious that I was developing and that I started sensing all of a sudden...still to a degree... where was those proportions and degrees of my conscious....they disapear and reappear all of a sudden...welcomed and unwelcomed... Then here I'm now, with brisk memory, able to love, hate, honor, dishonor, humilate to others, apologize to others, and the rest of the nine yard...But I can't suck as well as I did when I was a baby...my fear seems to increase as I grow older too.....It's like that degree of my consious that is balancing the rest of the damn thing. I presume, and here I have to extrapolate, that when I grow older, my memory might diminish, my confidance will diminish, I might need to use a diaper...who knows..Again proportions of my conscious are coming alive and others going to the back burner.. So after this long boring disgusting story, why the hell would I exclude the possibility that my conscious disappear after death and that my conscious did not exist before birth...??? Ps...to all viewers except Raithere.....All information on this post is highly confidential and comes straight out of the Quran...If you dare use it againest me in a any court of law, I'll kick your butt no stop until you squeal like the pig you are....Now, if you dare ask me to explain the Quran to you....I'll kick your pride until you start sucking your own thumb and admit that you're .....useless.
