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Old 12-24-2010, 09:16 AM
 
Location: Richardson, TX
8,734 posts, read 13,787,377 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nezlie View Post
I haven't read all the posts on this thread, but I think a problem here rests with Mickiel's idea of what consciousness is. He says that consciousness is the " Spirit in man", placed there by God." That sounds more like a description of what in religious terms is called a soul. It is not what we understand consciousness to be in terms of psychology.

Here's a concise description of what consciousness refers to:

That definition applies not only to humans but to other animals as well.

Three words that are often confused are consciousness, spirit and conscience.
Indeed.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
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Old 12-24-2010, 09:35 AM
 
Location: Warren, Michigan
5,298 posts, read 4,582,860 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxcar Overkill View Post
Consciousness is a product of the brain. Without a brain you don't have consciousness.

The facets and qualities of our consciousness are completely controlled by our brain, and defects in the brain will result in defects in the consciousness.

The concept of a God does nothing to explain consciousness. It is neither necessary or sufficient to produce consciousness. It is an irrelevant variable.

Well I certainly disagree with this. Consciousness is a product of God, a Spirit placed in every human, and it is not located in the brain. It has no specific location in the body, it is a Spirit. Consciousness has no location in the brain other than what we imagine it to have. There is no " Space in our heads" for consciousness to reside, nothing is in our heads other than physiological tissue. The habit of thinking Consciousness is in your head is so ingrained, its difficult to think otherwise.

Did you know that you can extend your Consciousness outside of the room your in now? You can extend your Consciousness outside of your body, then look back at your own body.

But I don't want to confuse anyone, lets not make a mistake, when I am Conscious, I am always and defintely " Using" certain parts of my Brain inside my head. But so am I when riding a bicycle, and the bicycle riding does not go inside my head.

In reality, Consciousness has no location whatsoever, except as we imagine it.

Peace.
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Old 12-24-2010, 09:43 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
Reputation: 5927
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mickiel View Post
Consciousness is just not important in animals, thats why God gave them none. I hold absolutely no intrest in arguing it, it means nothing to me. Animal pacifist can lift up animals all they want, but you cannot put in them what is not there. I started this post to discuss the lack of consciousness in Primordial man, yet others seem to want to talk about evolution and consciousness in animals. Its as if it is an obsession, something that has happened to the mind of man. What this is, people have their own agenda in debate, topics that swell within their minds, beliefs that dominate their hearts, concepts that masquerade themselves in conversations as friendly, then violently take over the conversation.

Such a thing cannot be done to me, as you will see for yourselves.
The overblown rhetoric apart, the fact of the matter is that the evidence for consciousness in animals cannot be dismissed or ignored and we will not let you pretend that it isn't relevant to the debate.

Whatever your intentions were in starting the thread, any ideas are open to challenge and you will find that we will not let you pick and choose which theories, ideas or bits of data will be admitted to the discussion so as to suit the particular argument you want to make.

I agree that that human thought is rather far beyond those of other animals (Elephants painting New Year greetings is just a circus trick and surely not intended to prove that they can communicate in writing). That said, since we can see the development and increase in metal capacity and problem -solving from molluscs to relatively smart animals, why is it so hard to imagine that, in one or more races of primates, the combination of increased consciousness and bipedalism was a combination that gave an otherwise threatened primate species more growth facility than anything since the cockroach?

Quote:
But I understand having overbearing feelings about what you believe, Atheist have that about evolution, I have it about creation. You have this thing about animals having consciousness, I do not. You have this thing about learning- one is only learning if they see and agree with Atheist views, that will NEVER happen to my learning, never. I will never be condensed like that. That would be like putting a striaght jacket on my mind.
The last thing we want is to do that. I won't post the well worn video on closed - mindedness yet again but the fact is that we welcome questions about everything. Even about evolution. Many ideas about the development of life have been modified or revised and our Creationist friends have done this at least - put the theory under as intense a scrutiny as it is ever likely to get.

Yet the fact is that the Creationist arguments, at best, only propose a rival possible scenario and at worst are false or poor science. We only ask that you look at the evidence with an open mind and do try to not apply this strait -jacket on the terms, parameters and assumptions you wish to be the parameters of the discussion. That is a sure recipe for a closed mind.

Quote:
If my reasoning is correct, Primordal man could have actually existed, a race of men who spoke, judged, reasoned, solved problems, indeed did a lot of things that we do, and some things animals can do, but they were not conscious at all.

So I want to go into how that can be possible.

Peace.
I think that might be reasonable. It would neccessarily incorporate a debate on whether it can be said that early man "who spoke, judged, reasoned, solved problems, indeed did a lot of things that we do," could possibly be described as 'not conscious'.

As has been hinted earlier, that would suggest a meaning for 'conscious' that is a particular one of your own and rather uncommon. We may have to consider asking whether you are willing to abide by the accepted logical rules and will accept the validity of the corpus of verified scientific information, without which any discussion cannot be a rational one or one with any valid evidential basis at all.

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-24-2010 at 09:54 AM..
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Old 12-24-2010, 09:43 AM
 
Location: Richardson, TX
8,734 posts, read 13,787,377 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mickiel View Post
Well I certainly disagree with this. Consciousness is a product of God, a Spirit placed in every human, and it is not located in the brain. It has no specific location in the body, it is a Spirit. Consciousness has no location in the brain other than what we imagine it to have. There is no " Space in our heads" for consciousness to reside, nothing is in our heads other than physiological tissue. The habit of thinking Consciousness is in your head is so ingrained, its difficult to think otherwise.

Did you know that you can extend your Consciousness outside of the room your in now? You can extend your Consciousness outside of your body, then look back at your own body.

But I don't want to confuse anyone, lets not make a mistake, when I am Conscious, I am always and defintely " Using" certain parts of my Brain inside my head. But so am I when riding a bicycle, and the bicycle riding does not go inside my head.

In reality, Consciousness has no location whatsoever, except as we imagine it.

Peace.
Since consciousness is a product of the brain, you must mean a different word, because words do have meanings. Why not just leave it at spirit or even soul. That is what you used above. That is what you have been describing. Is English your first language?
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Old 12-24-2010, 09:49 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PanTerra View Post
Since consciousness is a product of the brain, you must mean a different word, because words do have meanings. Why not just leave it at spirit or even soul. That is what you used above. That is what you have been describing. Is English your first language?
I'm sure it is. The English is fine. I am sure you are right. Mick is using the term 'Consciousness' to refer to a God - implanted spirit which does not impart intelligence or learning, so much, but a god - given morality.

How close am I, Micki?
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Old 12-24-2010, 09:50 AM
 
Location: Warren, Michigan
5,298 posts, read 4,582,860 times
Reputation: 192
Quote:
Originally Posted by PanTerra View Post
Since consciousness is a product of the brain, you must mean a different word, because words do have meanings. Why not just leave it at spirit or even soul. That is what you used above. That is what you have been describing. Is English your first language?

Consciousness is NOT a product of the Brain, it is a product of God. Why not just leave it at that?

Peace.
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Old 12-24-2010, 09:56 AM
 
Location: Warren, Michigan
5,298 posts, read 4,582,860 times
Reputation: 192
Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA View Post
I'm sure it is. The English is fine. I am sure you are right. Mick is using the term 'Consciousness' to refer to a God - implanted spirit which does not impart intelligence or learning, so much, but a god - given morality.

How close am I, Micki?

Well close, but incomplette. It does impart intelligence, which can lead to learning. It imparts emotions, comprehension, discernment, talents and abilitys, but it does NOT impart morality. The Spirit in man, or Consciousness, is in every human. But the " Spirit of God", now thats different, it will impart morality. Humans are not born with morality, we are not born with any sense of God, nor are we born with a working knowledge of right and wrong. I think we are born " Nuetral" in a sense, and then we go from there.

Peace.
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Old 12-24-2010, 10:12 AM
 
Location: Florida
23,164 posts, read 26,118,923 times
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....... conscience.....I do believe this is the word you want.
It fits with your statement about what it keeps you from doing....stealing, etc
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Old 12-24-2010, 10:17 AM
 
Location: OKC
5,421 posts, read 6,491,140 times
Reputation: 1775
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mickiel View Post
Well I certainly disagree with this. Consciousness is a product of God, a Spirit placed in every human, and it is not located in the brain. It has no specific location in the body, it is a Spirit. Consciousness has no location in the brain other than what we imagine it to have. There is no " Space in our heads" for consciousness to reside, nothing is in our heads other than physiological tissue. The habit of thinking Consciousness is in your head is so ingrained, its difficult to think otherwise.

Did you know that you can extend your Consciousness outside of the room your in now? You can extend your Consciousness outside of your body, then look back at your own body.

But I don't want to confuse anyone, lets not make a mistake, when I am Conscious, I am always and defintely " Using" certain parts of my Brain inside my head. But so am I when riding a bicycle, and the bicycle riding does not go inside my head.

In reality, Consciousness has no location whatsoever, except as we imagine it.

Peace.
You have a 16th century understanding of the way the mind works, in that your understanding of the nature of consciousness is completely uninformed by the modern findings in the field of neurology.


While the exact relationship between the brain and the mind is still being studied, there is strong reason to believe that the mind is completely a product of the brain.

The strongest evidence is probably how the mind is effected when the physical properties of the brain are altered, (either through physical brain damage or the use of drugs.)
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Old 12-24-2010, 10:37 AM
 
6,034 posts, read 10,664,043 times
Reputation: 3989
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mickiel View Post
Well I certainly disagree with this. Consciousness is a product of God, a Spirit placed in every human, and it is not located in the brain. It has no specific location in the body, it is a Spirit. Consciousness has no location in the brain other than what we imagine it to have.
GREAT! So, take this .45 Magnum, shoot yourself in the head, and prove to us that your consciousness does not reside in your brain.
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