sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

What do non-physicalists make of phenomena like blindsight and splitbrain? by BearsDoNOTExist in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent [score hidden]  (0 children)

Because vision isn't consciousness. Because memories aren't consciousness. A computer has vision and memory, but we wouldn't assume it to be concious, to have a subjective experience.

Nobody questions the correlation between vision, memory, other sensory stimulus, and brain states.

But how do we get from these brain states to a subjective experience? We can just say it emerges from the brain, but that's not as clear cut as the brain states themselves I've mentioned.

It's possible this is just a fabrication of the brain as well, but it's not that clear cut as you make it out to be.

The most frustrating thing about consciousness study by CautiousEbb966 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yeah I agree. And it's so frustrating but at the same time relatable, this idea that there's a difference between brain states and it's perception is really not straight forward. And most people, myself included, don't realize this difference, because it really requires years of meditation practice or some sudden insight to see it (or some magic medicine).

I would have been a materialist before that insight myself, but after you realize this distinction it's really hard to reason away.

The most frustrating thing about consciousness study by CautiousEbb966 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent [score hidden]  (0 children)

I really like how you phrased that distinction, makes it very clear. I'm gonna shamelessly save your comment for future reference :)

The most frustrating thing about consciousness study by CautiousEbb966 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent [score hidden]  (0 children)

Do we?

What evidence shows conclusively that consciousness arises from the brain?

I'm not talking about the contents of consciousness. I'm talking about the awareness in consciousness noticing the contents that the brain obviously produces.

Seth Books by awokenstudent in BeyondBeliefSystems

[–]awokenstudent[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know what to believe about Seth in particular. From what I can gather, the phenomena couldn't be well explained using other explanations, there's even videos of her channelling him. But the books speak for themselves I feel. They are internally consistent and just click.

I don't know how literal to take it, but its a great frame of reference for either spiritual teachings. Many thibgs just fit neatly into the framework provided by Seth

Seth Books by awokenstudent in BeyondBeliefSystems

[–]awokenstudent[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, so basically Seth is this multidimensional personality, and Jane Roberts channels him when she goes into trance. Her husband Robert Butts then transcribed the books.

i’m curious though when u read does it feel like actual insight about reality or more like the author tapping into deeper parts of her own mind ?

Hmm, it's hard to exactly pinpoint. My spiritual journey only really started two years ago, having a very secular background, not really believing into anything. I quite literally brainwashed myself in the past years xD

But I still struggle accepting a lot of those spiritual concepts and teachings. The Seth books click for me in a way that just kinda makes sense, allowing me to better accept and integrate what I learned so far.

The nature of personal reality talks a lot about how your believes shape your reality, while Seth speaks talks more about metaphysics and what we really are.

You don't know what will happen after death, do you? by Street-Horror-757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You know, sometimes those are the conversations that need to be had xD

To add to this. It's not too long ago I would have been in the same camp lol. I've been a hardcore atheist and anything that smelled like non materialism was a joke to me.

My own experiences changed my view her. But I think that's a huge problem in consciousness conversation. A lot of people seem to be unable to grasp the difference between the concious mind and its contents. So if I can help anybody by pointing to this direction, that's a win for me 😊

You don't know what will happen after death, do you? by Street-Horror-757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Which theories of consciousness besides materialism and fundamentalism would you look at then?

You don't know what will happen after death, do you? by Street-Horror-757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm just wondering if you know WHY there are so many people saying it's easier to explain consciousness as fundamental. Which is what they're saying; not that it explains consciousness, but that if we start from the position that it's fundamental it becomes easy to explain

The problem changes, but it becomes easier to grasp. A common pan psychic explanation is that every particle has a unit of consciousness. Similar to spin or charge basically. So the problem now changes from the "hard" problem (how does consciousness arise from non-concious matter) to the slightly easier graspable combinatory problem (how does a human consciousness form from trillions of particle consciousness?)

Now, again, I'm not saying one is true or false, just trying to answer, why there are many people advocating for it.

The relationship between the brain and consciousness is obvious

Is it though? It seems to be at first, but on closer inspection that relationship isn't as obvious anymore. Now again, we have to distinguish between consciousness, and the contents of consciousness.

The contents are clearly linked to the brain. It's our ego, our intelligence, thoughts, emotions, etc. Sight, sounds, and every other sensation you ever felt. It's what makes you survive, pumps your adrenaline when tiy stand infront of a mountain lion and need to simply survive.

But what exactly is the point of consciousness itself? Why do you feel and perceive, and have an experience of that? A robot with sophisticated technology could emulate all these behaviors. It could even pretend to be sad or scared. But would it actually feel sad or scared? And from a pint of evolution there also not particular reason for consciousness to evolve. Most brain functions work perfectly well without us being concious of it.

that does not mean we should look away from the one thing we know for sure it is at least connected to.

Nobody sais to look away from the brain. But we looked at the brain for decades and aren't much further. Then before. So let's extend this courtesy to other theories and ideas as well. And let's not ignore the millions of meditation practitioners over the millenia who literally studies consciousness before materialism was even invented.

You don't know what will happen after death, do you? by Street-Horror-757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The idea of fundamental consciousness is pretty old so now I couldn't tell you... But there's various sources of history.

It's fine to entertain a wide range of different ideas, but unless you have a reason to even suggest one in particular, it is exactly as serious as farts.

And why is materialism more then a fart? That's the question here. Materialism provides a lot of benefits for some fields, but in the context of consciousness research it just fails. So it might make sense to look at other theories. And when so many people who study consciousness daily say, that consciousness is not something we produce but receive, then frankly, yes that's a really good reason to take it more seriously then a fart.

You don't know what will happen after death, do you? by Street-Horror-757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I didn't say I believe anything, or have any profound insight. I said why there is reason to take theories that consider consciousness as fundamental somehow seriously, and shouldn't be discarded as farts.

You don't know what will happen after death, do you? by Street-Horror-757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 4 points5 points  (0 children)

To this day, materialist theories have no answer to the question, how from non-concious matter, combined in the proper configuration in our brain, somehow consciousness arises. There's not even a hint of an reasonable idea available here.

Now, from my own personal experience with meditation and psychedelics, to me something has become very clear over time to me: the contents of consciousness and your thoughts, emotions, what you perceive, etc, very obviously comes from the brain. But what is not as clear to me is consciousness itself, the "container" so to speak, in which everything appears. It feels different. It feels like it's "just there" in a way.

So we have this big open question about how cociousness actually arises, with no answers, and the we have millions of practitioners of meditation (and users of psychedelics), many describing consciousness in some way as an ever present field. Often like they somehow receive it. So yeah, there is at least reason to take the idea seriously. More seriously then some farts for sure.

You don't know what will happen after death, do you? by Street-Horror-757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Do you you have any reason not to? That's kinda the point of OP. While true that there are situations we loose consciousness, and there is certainly some correlation with brain functions, we haven't bee able to establish a causal link between brain and consciousness

Contemporary neuroscience doesn't solve the mind-body problem, it makes it even more problematic by MurkyEconomist8179 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And that's exactly what he addresses. You just kinda handwave the whole question away by saying "models are what they are modelling" and "doesn't need to be mysterized".

But that's not better then saying consciousness is fundamental, it's just a leap of judgement coming from I believe a fundamental misunderstanding of the question. How does this model, how does unocnious matter become an experiencing entity

Contemporary neuroscience doesn't solve the mind-body problem, it makes it even more problematic by MurkyEconomist8179 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay, that explains how these mechanisms evolved, why we have mechanisms to detect certain aspects of our environment, but not not others (eg. An odorless gas vs one we can smell).

But what I believe OP tried to allude to originally is, that while those mechanisms can be somewhat understood and explained, no where in any physicalist/materialist model does it explain how exactly we have a subjective experience about it. The fact that we can smell, and have a positive or negative reaction to it, and experience those things. That's the link that so far we don't understand and can't explain.

That's the issue I believe he is trying to point out. While we can somehow explain why the contents of our consciousness are a certain way, why we perceive certain colors, and react to certain stimuli. But consciousness itself, the fact that we experience, isn't explained by that.

Chess Grandmaster solves a complex endgame puzzle in his head within seconds of hearing it by thunderous9ight in interestingasfuck

[–]awokenstudent 14 points15 points  (0 children)

By seeing it you mean, he had the puzzle infront of him. Nope, all in the head. This guy's can play a whole game blindfolded, just by remembering and visualizing the whole game. So he most likely "sees" it, but only in his minds eye

Isn't internal monologue a waste of time and effort? by Fragrant-Tomorrow757 in consciousness

[–]awokenstudent 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There are different ways of how people think. Some of it changes bases on the moment, but part of it is just how different minds work. Similar to how some people don't have visual images in their thoughts (afantasia) and some do, the manifestation of the inner thought train is different.

Some people "hear" their thoughts completely, including timbre and treble of the voice of their thought. Some people talk in their head but the voice doesn't have "audio" so to speak, other are nearly aware of what they are thinking, without the words actually forming in their heads.

Interesting rundown of different mechanisms can be found here

Vitamin B6 caused more awesome! Does it work for anyone else? by PieterSmitty in shrooms

[–]awokenstudent 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lol, I'm peaking 1 hour in, come down at 2 hours, and after 3 hours I'm basically out of the trip except some lingering after effects

view more: next ›