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Perhaps my response to Arq will make it clearer, mordant.
Currently it is just assumed that the energy manifesting as our intellect or consciousness is fleeting (even wrongly believed to be illusory) and just disappears. But we know that energy does not work like that . . . so what does happen to it?
I just love the way this is 'loaded'. 'Fleeting' while strictly correct on the geological scale, craftily implies that we are somehow dismissing the reality of consciousness itself. This is reinforced by the outright accusation of it being seen as 'illusory'.
Mystic, I believe that we have already discussed and agreed that everything we perceive is illusory, in one sense (we perceive in the way the mind is wired to show it it to us), but in another sense, it is real in that the effects are reliably predictable apart from what humans may think about it.
You are a philosopher. You know the importance of semantics, you know that it is important to get the meanings of terms clear in order to be sure the argument isn't skewed. That you are apparently using this skewing to make your case, discredits it. And this is what has bedevilled your case all along.
The argument ignores the nub of our case - that there is no reason to disbelieve that the energy of consciousness dissipates after death just as the particles (and they are 'energy', too) of the body dissipate. They do not cease to exist. but they do not function together to provide a functioning entity.
That you ignore this possible line strongly indicates that you know it is inconveniently valid.
Perhaps my response to Arq will make it clearer, mordant.
Currently it is just assumed that the energy manifesting as our intellect or consciousness is fleeting (even wrongly believed to be illusory) and just disappears. But we know that energy does not work like that . . . so what does happen to it?
The conservation of energy does not demand that it maintain a particular organizational scheme. Right now there is energy coursing through billions of switches and memory cells in my computer. If I could bypass the auto-save and literally cut off the power instantly, that particular energy configuration would effectively vanish. There is no need to wonder what might happen to it. It's gone.
Who we are, consciousnesses, self awareness, memories, etc. all exist in the organ commonly known as the brain. Our brain is very much like RAM in a computer, it needs a constant supply of energy to maintain it's contents. In your computer that energy is electricity, in your brain, that energy is provided by a constant flow of oxygen and nutrients carried in the blood. Remove the energy from either, and the information goes away.
I just love the way this is 'loaded'. 'Fleeting' while strictly correct on the geological scale, craftily implies that we are somehow dismissing the reality of consciousness itself. This is reinforced by the outright accusation of it being seen as 'illusory'.
Mystic, I believe that we have already discussed and agreed that everything we perceive is illusory, in one sense (we perceive in the way the mind is wired to show it it to us), but in another sense, it is real in that the effects are reliably predictable apart from what humans may think about it.
You are a philosopher. You know the importance of semantics, you know that it is important to get the meanings of terms clear in order to be sure the argument isn't skewed. That you are apparently using this skewing to make your case, discredits it. And this is what has bedevilled your case all along.
This is not my idea. It has been called illusory by some of the top minds in early neuroscience and believed by many here.
Quote:
The argument ignores the nub of our case - that there is no reason to disbelieve that the energy of consciousness dissipates after death just as the particles (and they are 'energy', too) of the body dissipate. They do not cease to exist. but they do not function together to provide a functioning entity.
That you ignore this possible line strongly indicates that you know it is inconveniently valid.
Actually we do have reason to disbelieve. The dissipation occurs for measurable forms of energy by measurable processes. The only unmeasurable energy forms we know about are dark energy and dark matter. The dark matter is involved in keeping the "lakes of fire" (Suns) that are galaxies together. The dark energy is continuously expanding our universe. I suspect that one or the other is likely to be the fate of our unmeasurable energy as intellect.
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Originally Posted by mordant
The conservation of energy does not demand that it maintain a particular organizational scheme. Right now there is energy coursing through billions of switches and memory cells in my computer. If I could bypass the auto-save and literally cut off the power instantly, that particular energy configuration would effectively vanish. There is no need to wonder what might happen to it. It's gone.
That is true of the measurable energy . . . but we have nothing to indicate the same is true of the unmeasurable energy . . . given what we know of the roles of the only two forms of it we are aware of.
That is true of the measurable energy . . . but we have nothing to indicate the same is true of the unmeasurable energy . . . given what we know of the roles of the only two forms of it we are aware of.
Inherently, we know nothing about what we can't measure. "We have nothing to indicate" either way. Therefore we should assume nothing.
You really, really want there to be a force acting to hold the coherence of individual consciousness apart from the body housing it. Why not simply admit to this desire? I wouldn't fault you for it. But I do fault you for the bum's rush toward dark energy as some sort of "aha moment" rather than a mere possibility.
This is not my idea. It has been called illusory by some of the top minds in early neuroscience and believed by many here.Actually we do have reason to disbelieve. The dissipation occurs for measurable forms of energy by measurable processes. The only unmeasurable energy forms we know about are dark energy and dark matter. The dark matter is involved in keeping the "lakes of fire" (Suns) that are galaxies together. The dark energy is continuously expanding our universe. I suspect that one or the other is likely to be the fate of our unmeasurable energy as intellect.
That is true of the measurable energy . . . but we have nothing to indicate the same is true of the unmeasurable energy . . . given what we know of the roles of the only two forms of it we are aware of.
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Originally Posted by mordant
Inherently, we know nothing about what we can't measure. "We have nothing to indicate" either way. Therefore we should assume nothing.
This argument is a little like the ones that ask for a specific verse in scripture that says expressly what is claimed . . . when what is claimed is an amalgam of many verses combined with reason and inference. If we see only its unmeasurability . . . you would be correct. But we see more. The universe is literally expanding from something unmeasurable called dark energy. Our consciousness is unmeasurable energy going somewhere in the universe (whether you think it is dissipating or being transformed in some other way). It is not a huge leap . . . at least not an unsupportable one . . . to connect the two. Our consciousness as we experience it is not primary. It is a delayed broadcast of what has been produced using the "tape recordings" (memory traces) in the brain. In my analogy of it as the "fire of consciousness" as our Self . . . the "flames" have to have "gone" somewhere within the universe to reside that is not in the matter that comprises our body and brain.
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You really, really want there to be a force acting to hold the coherence of individual consciousness apart from the body housing it. Why not simply admit to this desire? I wouldn't fault you for it. But I do fault you for the bum's rush toward dark energy as some sort of "aha moment" rather than a mere possibility.
It is not a "want" problem, mordant. It is a "know" problem based on my personal experiences . . . which no one else need credit.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 01-17-2014 at 04:13 PM..
Well, Mystic, don't think of it as personal. If you are explaining your ideas, we are explaining our doubts. And I think we have drifted off -topic quite a lot, so I shall leave the debate to others.
Time to stop this ceaseless stalking and focusing on dark energy and dark matter and address the current KNOWN science . . . either put up or shut up.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
The only unmeasurable energy forms we know about are dark energy and dark matter. The dark matter is involved in keeping the "lakes of fire" (Suns) that are galaxies together. The dark energy is continuously expanding our universe. I suspect that one or the other is likely to be the fate of our unmeasurable energy as intellect.
Which quote of yours should we take seriously? Should we focus on that 'dark stuff' or not?
our intellect or consciousness is fleeting (even wrongly believed to be illusory) and just disappears. But we know that energy does not work like that . . . so what does happen to it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
No need for debate, Arq. The difference is that before birth there was no consciousness produced. It IS produced during life and its cumulative energy has to be accounted for within the universe. It currently is not.
What do you even mean "what happens to it"? There was a post I read around here the week I was first invited to join the forum I think - or soon after at least - where someone was wondering where the flame of a match "goes" when the match is extinguished.
That person clearly knew little or nothing about physics. The flame does not "go" anywhere. It simply stops being produced ny the reactions in the fuel-medium that is producing it. It was not some seperate entity that arrived on the head of the match and then wandered off some time later.
That person - and those like that person - are assuming somehow the flame is seperate. You are making the same assumption-assertion with consciousness. You are pointing at the flame (consciousness) and demanding to know where it "goes" when the reaction(s) producing it stop.
Your basis for making that assumption is the one people are seeking when they point out you never back up your claims in any way. It does not appear to be a small assumption in your position(s) on the forum. It appears to be _the_ assumption.
You seem to want us to just accept that consciousnes is some kind of new - as yet never measured or discovered except by you - energy that sits on top of the brain rather than is a result of it. There is simply nothing I can see to think that way except that your feeling one day that there was a consciousness external to your own left you wanting it to be true. Quite strongly.
Do you have any evidence for the existence of such an energy or are we to make do with metaphor and unusable analogy here? Given all the evidence we do have linking consciousness to the brain - have we any basis whatsoever to assume consciousness to be anything other than something produced by the brain the same way a match produces a flame?
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'Fleeting' while strictly correct on the geological scale, craftily implies that we are somehow dismissing the reality of consciousness itself. This is reinforced by the outright accusation of it being seen as 'illusory'. 
