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/lit/ - Literature

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3345299 No.3345299 [Reply] [Original]

What is consciousness? Which of these is the right option or is it something else entirely?

>> No.3345309

consciousness is a word

>> No.3345316

Emergent dualism, obviously.

>> No.3345327
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3345327

>>3345299
Your answers lie in a...


BOOK!

>> No.3345334

Oh look, let's make a thread about something that isn't clear to us yet, and make /lit/ flip shit.

That pic is utter fucking garbage, as it misses the most important of them all - (subjective / objective / absolute) Idealism.

Imo, it is either Idealism or "an algorithmic mechanism that has been developed through the evolution of brain", sincerely loved and gobbled by STEM-babies and degenerate partisans of transhumanism and singularity

As for my ontological stance, it is the former.

>> No.3345351

>>3345299
>"""the right option"""

>> No.3345367

Epophenomenalism seems like the most attractive theory.

>> No.3345393

Cognitivism, plainly.

>> No.3345399

consciousness is the ability to form thoughts. it does not exist after your body is dead, since your means of throught production are gone.

>> No.3345405

>>3345399

> It doesn't not exist after your body is dead

[citation needed]

>> No.3345409
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3345409

>>3345367
>>3345393
>>3345399

>> No.3345431

>Make up your own mind!
>...from these ideas other people have already thought of

That said, Functionalism.

>> No.3345445
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3345445

>>3345431
>behaviourism
>2013

>> No.3345446

>>3345405
>implying consciousness exist after death

[citation needed]

>> No.3345462

>>3345446
>Implying you've been dead before

>> No.3345461

The picture seems to confuse consciousness with self-consciousness in some of the brains and completely misses idealism.

That said, consciousness is a form of information processing with it's physical basis being dynamical self-organizing bottom up information flow in the brains (ie neuronal ossilations) of animals shaped by billions of years of evolution; a blind cruel uncaring process

>> No.3345464

>>3345461
>That said, consciousness is a form of information processing with it's physical basis being dynamical self-organizing bottom up information flow in the brains (ie neuronal ossilations) of animals shaped by billions of years of evolution; a blind cruel uncaring process
No it isn't.

>> No.3345501

>>3345462
same goes for you, can you prove consciousness exist without a brain being present.

>> No.3345507

>>3345501
He's either a relativist and he'll assert that all his theories are equal to yours. Or he's a generalized agnostic, and he'll say that because you can't dispute his nonsense with 100% certainty, the you are required to treat it as a valid theory.

>> No.3345638

Consciousness is not in the brain, folks. Get over that idea.

That is ideological. That is the idea of the homunculus, the idea that your brain has a body and not that you are your brain and you are your body. A brain without a body is not a brain. Consciousness is not the same as "thinking". It's incredible how one sided you guys think, from STEM stuff to philosophy, everyone sticks to the brain.

The brain takes signals, send signals and that's how it goes. Your heart does the same with blood, your lungs with oxygen. The reason why the heart is the symbol for emotion, while most people just say that emotion happends in the brain is because of this disparity in a definition of it. The emotion is only an emotion when it's felt. Without the brain, it doesn't happen, sure. But the awareness of it doesn't come from the cause, it comes from the effects, in this case, when you notice your racing heart is when you understand "I'm feeling stuff!". It is in the response to the brain that is emotion, not only what it is sent, you see? This constant back and forth translation is the emotion, not the signal in the brain without nothing to respond.

Other societies believe the heart is more important in making decisions than the brain. They "listen" to themselves differently.

I'm only saying this on emotion because it is a similar way of thinking that is leading you folks into believing consciousness is in the brain. All those different approaches...but each with a severed head.

cont

>> No.3345641

>>3345638


Your consciousness is not "how" you think, or "how" you feel(which is in the brain) but "what" as well. Some would include a "why" there too.

The "what" really depends on how you take the situation. Your heart racing is the emotion itself, the got to work because of your brain. Your body is the "what" of consciousness as well, you take it as if it was you. If you cut yourself, you retreat, you protect it. But if you lost an arm in an accident, you'd be different, but you would still be you, don't you? And what happends if one keeps cutting until there is only a brain? The brain is no more alive, it's as dead as amputated arm, even if you twitch both with an electric charge, that's beside the point.

Your identity is flexible, limbs can go numb, your brain goes on and off in different areas all the time, you don't breathe if your lungs are constantly filled with air (you must exhale as well). In you don't exist as an individual without others, so that is also part of the whole thing.

A lot of those things in that "chart" are simply misguided. The buddhism one is translated to modern speech, but what is the meaning of the word "mind" there? And one simply assumes it is talking about the brain, because that's how it is incovenient to dismiss words like soul, for example.

I'm all just saying there is a clear misconception on what consciousness is and people keep pressing on the definition that it is "the camera filming stuff inside your head". That's narrow as fuck

>> No.3345778

>>3345641
It's said that a decapitated head can still live for 10-20 seconds, by your logic it's probably not conscious anymore? What about people with artificial hearts, hearts given by other people etc? Or completely paralyzed people, who can't use their bodies? Are these people not conscious?

>> No.3345809

Not /lit/, fuck off.

>> No.3345811

Insufficient evidence, see:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Estimations_of_Human_Brain_Emulation_Required_Performance.svg
for rough estimates on when we'll know enough to make better guesses.

>> No.3345818

>>3345778

i imagine completely paralyzed people still feel the absence of feeling.

>> No.3345829

>>3345818
So you're seriously saying... that people who have heart replacements... have had consciousness replacements... and you see nothing wrong with this?

>> No.3345832

>>3345778
My whole argument is against the notion that "analysis"...
>the separating of any material or abstract entity into its constituent elements
...help us understanding "consciousness"...
>the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
...and that there is a clear "ideology"...
>the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.
...going on beneath the surface of the problem that is limiting the notions of consciousness to just a handful of options like in OP's pic, most of them just mistranslated or reduced from the original ideas as well. To go looking for a "right one" is even more bizarre, or that "one day we will understand consciousness, give it 50 years" goes even further into being so certain over these strange ideas.

It's not "my logic", it was an example that follows most people's logic to try and make my point in a way that you would understand. My point is to drop that logic as if it was obvious, and so to notice that there are other ones around the block.

The scenarios you pose are exactly the complicated stuff that the strictly analytic and individualistic thinking comes to a knot. I was trying to show just how absurd this way of thinking is. So I'm not saying consciousness is in the heart or in the body, but that other cultures believed so to be and now you are focusing on the brain just like them.

I say think different.

>> No.3345836

>>3345829
He is not me, who gave the long post.

>> No.3345869

>>3345638
>>3345641
A sane one, for once. It's as if the dogmatic and linear thinking STEM-babies and /lit/ have skipped the Ancient Greeks, Eastern/Oriental philosophies, Berkeley, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Bergson, McTaggart and the British Idealism, Husserl and Heidegger altogether; have never, ever properly meditated and empirically explored the reality of consciousness itself via OBE, to see, that it's not as simple as "an algorithm consisting of chemical reactions in yo brain nigga". Then again, I'm not surprised and who's there to blame, as the average simpleton is unable to (due to the overload of instincts and plain consumption and regurgitation of information by habitual, though helpless, methods of thinking mostly) dive into spontaneous activities of introspection and fails miserably when it comes to self-reliance on intuition (the heart thing you mentioned) in daily life, which is crucial not only for your overall human well-being, but also, if you want to come to similar conclusions on the origin(s) of consciousness

>>3345811
lol, kill yourself

>> No.3345972

>>3345869
>idealism
>real
choose one. sorry we don't entertain thoughts of non-existing existing.

in b4
>we don't know if, there is something out there, it may exist

if it can be proven it exists it exists. Also OBE's have never been proven in a scientific setting.

>> No.3345976

THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

>> No.3345991

>>3345972
You are out context here, entirely. This is not a scientific subject.

>> No.3345993

>>3345832
We're focusing on the brain because that's what makes sense. When Phineas Gage had a fucking rod driven through his skull, his personality changed accordingly. When doctors add voltages to certain parts of the brain, personality changes accordingly. When you cut the corpus callosum, you get two distinct personalities. This doesn't happen when you switch out a persons heart, or stab their leg. As >>3345811
and >>3345976
pointed out, there isn't enough evidence to make a conclusion as to where consciousness arises, but if you honestly think it's anywhere other than the brain, you're fucking retarded.

>> No.3346000
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3346000

>>3345972
do you know how i know you're 16 and have no idea what you're burping - at all?

>> No.3346008

>>3345991
if it is not scientific, it means it is a discussion of personal taste, like criticizing art and food, but the human body and how it functions with the world is universal and concrete, that is not to say new knowledge and evidence might change our understanding of the world around us.

>> No.3346016

>>3345976
>>3345993
2 more STEM-babies detected

anyway, thread hidden; the influx of /sci/ degenerates is unbearable

>> No.3346024

>>3345993
> if you honestly think it's anywhere other than the brain, you're fucking retarded.
>durr logic and reason
shouldn't you be stroking your neckbeard while singing your praises to Lord Dawkins over at /r/atheism?

>> No.3346027

>>3346016
>calling people STEM babies
>not debating on the merits of ideas
great, i guess all my beliefs are wrong. why did i not see the light before?

>> No.3346051

>>3346027
>being a STEM babby
>being on /lit/
why? the only thing you've read in your entire life are textbooks.

>> No.3346062

>>3346008
>if it is not scientific, it means it is a discussion of personal taste
False assumption. It's not like that at all.

And if it was scientific, you'd have a definition to follow, even if you were trying to disprove it.

This is /lit/, bro. It's about literature, philosophy, not science. Which is not the same as refuting science or discussing "personal taste".

As I said, you are out of context.

>> No.3346078

Don't know 'bout chall, but the Buddhism one sounds beautiful

>> No.3346087

>>3346062
materialism is philosphy, and that is what i am advocating. philosophy doesn't have to be idealistic of metaphysical to be philosophy.

>> No.3346104

>>3345993
>you're fucking retarded
Grow up, for that. I'm tired of these discussions on that.

>We're focusing on the brain because that's what makes sense
This "makes sense" is common sense. It's the common sense that blinds you from all other possibilities of it to make sense.

If you reduce it to the comfort zone of the context in which you want to talk about it, then there is no reason to discuss it, you already made up your mind. That is, "consciousness is obviously in the brain" because you are already defining it as a brain function and as you define it as such, you take personality as evidence of consciousness and thus you use that to reinforce that it is in the brain. The logic is fine, but your assumptions are biased, that's the whole point of what I'm saying. Being unaware that all of the possibilities raised in the discussion are just found safely within a very strict way of dealing with it is harmful to the discussion itself. That is, you are defining it as you like and just going for it with no reason other than that's the way you learnt to define things.

I'll say it again that the point is not "where" consciousness is. There is no "where". I'm not arguing for the heart or for the leg in detriment of the brain, that would just substitute onde ideology for another.

This is not a subject of scientific analysis, but of philosophic debate. There won't be any evidence ever if you go for it like that, that is already expected.

>> No.3346110

>>3346104
>discussions on that level
fixd

>> No.3346116

>>3346062
Philosophy is just as off topic as science on a literature board.

>> No.3346150

>>3346087
Please, discuss from a materialistic point then. That doesn't excuse you from being ignorant about all else. The fact that you think the only other thing besides science is personal taste exposes a bizarre notion of philosophy. You're not discussing materialism philosophy, you are materialistic and you want to discuss it within that.

>>3346116
Not 100% agreed, but true nevertheless. Except science has its board, philosophy not, and yet there are some anons that assume people here should take a /sci/ perspective everytime. They are the odd ones. if one came with a reptilian conspiracy explanation from /x/ or a nigger-jew excuse from /pol/, they would be just as right and as wrong as /sci/ to be here.

>> No.3346167

>>3346104
Again, it's not "common sense", it's that it makes sense. At all. There is no feasible explanation for why the aforementioned examples occur other than consciousness originating from the brain. You could just as easily say that there is some other explanation as to why things fall other than gravity, and it would be just as stupid. When there is no means of purely rational analysis, there has to be some degree of empiricism.

>> No.3346173

>>3346150
the material is all that exists, there is nothing that is non-material, consciousness is a material phenomenon.
i would be glad to hear something from the idealist perspective.

>> No.3346198

>>3345299
None are demonstrably superior to the other by the rules of how science is played.

But if you can't use humanities introspection to demonstrate row three column four then you don't not think about thinking about thinking enough.

>> No.3346252

>>3346173
Cool bro, you're welcome to the library, you'll be able to hear of all sorts of perspectives.

>> No.3346301

>>3346167
It's not about "examples", not about "where it is originated from". It's none of that at all. That's why I said it is common sense, it is the sense that you are used to give to things, which is fine, really, but it's besides the point here.

I'm just saying there are other ways to view that you are ignoring. Not discussing it, not going into it, but ignoring. It's not about facts, about what is seen, but about how you see it, about perspective, about how you are taking the meaning of the words that are used here. And if you go on like that you'll get to no conclusion at all.

There is no need to antagonize what you don't know. This "there is no other explanation" or "it would be just as stupid to think otherwise" is uncalled for, not only for anyone into philosophy, but for anyone into science as well. Don't block yourself from the new like that before hearing about it.

And one last time: I'm not here to talk about that, specially to someone he is condescending and thinks too highly of its own opinion, I was just here because I was bothered that no one would bring this issue up. There is no explanation to the position people have taken to define consciousness as a process "we don't understand at all... but it's in the brain!". To associate it with the brain goes circular. Consciousness is thinking, thinking is brain, brain is consciousness,etc,etc. But nothing was said about it.

This is a philosophic subject, science was the one that stole the term.

Out of thread

>> No.3346354

>>3346173
This guy is interesting if you're looking for some idealist readin' material:
http://www.bernardokastrup.com/

>> No.3346717

>>3345327
I wanted to ask you... what are you doing with your life? Are you in uni with any plans for the future?

>> No.3347290

>>3345327
no they lie in my own mind

i am the creator

fuck you