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Let's try this. Assume the neural states of the entire brain (represented as digital ones and zeros) is the physical state producing our consciousness. This means there are no other physical neural states left to do anything else. They are ALL employed in producing our consciousness.
total assumption by you. AGAIN. Why do they "all" have to be dedicated to that task? They clearly are not. Whole swaths of our brain are dedicated to input. Optic input. Aural Input. Sensory Input..
The idea that MAYBE there is an input that feeds back conscious thought INTO consciousness is precluded by you - by fiat. Literally. By Fiat. You have precluded it on no other basis than it does not fit with the reality you WANT to be true.
You preclude the idea of an iterative self referential consciousness on no other grounds than in does not gel with the "god" you want to exist.
Then you need to explain a little better. What you have written doesn't make any sense. What you are presenting is either a way to try and slide God in under the radar by trying ot construct a natural god, or a way to try to dissemble enough to allow theists to give you a pass. You are trying to insert an unecessary entitiy into the chain. If thereis a first cause, then call it god and be done with it. If there is no first casue, then why does it matter if some alien entity was formed through abiogenesis and then made us, or if our evolutionary process began with abiogenesis? Either way it occurred...
If you don't give us anything that can be followed in a logical progression, then don't be surprised if we make incorrect guesses as to what you are saying...
-NoCapo
NoCapo. Forget every thought of any philosophy, religion, or belief ever postulated on this planet, as if they never existed and start over with a brand new mind. If a child woke up alone on this planet with no concept of itself, that child could guess that it came from nothing, or was created by a supernatural being. We know the answer but the child does not. We know the child was born of a mother and father; the child does not know that it has parents. What I am doing is simply telling the children of this planet that they have parents. We did not come from nothing. We did not come from supernatural beings. We came from parents and life on this planet began from parent entities.
I am surprised that this concept is so confusing and difficult for people to grasp. This is a very simple idea but too many people let their previous experiences interfere with their ability to properly process this concept. It’s not about atheism and it’s not about theism; it’s about the truth and there is only one truth, and the truth is never what we expect it to be.
Let's try this. Assume the neural states of the entire brain (represented as digital ones and zeros) is the physical state producing our consciousness. This means there are no other physical neural states left to do anything else. They are ALL employed in producing our consciousness. Now without altering the originating configuration of ones and zeros . . . HOW would you ALSO then represent within the same physical neural states the observing self-referential state that has to be simultaneously represented? How could the same physical states represent the self-referential state without altering the originating physical states it is observing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
Two implicit assumptions there:
1) The brain uses 100% of its capacity to represent you or me and has no spare resources at all.
2) Self awareness is "bolted on" or added over and above a pre-existing and presumably un self-aware consciousness, rather than developing as, and being integral to, the self.
Neither strikes me as likely or warranted. It seems far more likely to be correct to assume that self awareness is part of the "neural states of the entire brain", the same as any other observed capability of the brain.
This is your error . . . you see these as separate issues. They are not. Of course the entire body and brain complex of neuronal states embodies our consciousness. But that IS the problem.There is no physical locus within that complex for the composite consciousness we experience as our awareness to reside EXCEPT in the resonant neural field that accompanies the state. Our consciousness manifests as an energy field. It cannot reside within the MATTER of our body/brain complex . . . any more than flames can continue to reside in the combustible matter that produces them!
We did not come from nothing. We did not come from supernatural beings. We came from parents and life on this planet began from parent entities.
I am surprised that this concept is so confusing and difficult for people to grasp. This is a very simple idea .
.EL.
If this is what you were trying to say in your op, you're totally correct ... it is simple ( although in no way new) but your op made it unnecessarily confusing/complicated.
However, the very first reply to you correctly pointed out that your grasp of what is meant by an atheist's talk about "from nothing" isn't correct and, in this case, doesn't even apply.
Surely you've heard of the KISS principle?
We are not the most intelligent beings in the universe: as proven by some of these comments..
Rather odd notion of "proof" you advance here.
The posts on this forum may establish degrees of intelligence among those contributing, but that of course establishes nothing with regard to possible alternative forms of intelligence elsewhere in the universe. You apparently believe that it does.
You assert and claim "proved" in the absence of any evidence. In that you have invested time in this thread chastising others for what you see as their intellectual shortcomings, should you not first try and sharpen your own skills so that you avoid these sorts of blunders?
Speaking from the atheist perspective we couldnt care less about the old message whatever it was what makes you think a new message is going to be given any more interest.We are atheists =we dont care about your religious preoccupations .
NoCapo. Forget every thought of any philosophy, religion, or belief ever postulated on this planet, as if they never existed and start over with a brand new mind. If a child woke up alone on this planet with no concept of itself, that child could guess that it came from nothing, or was created by a supernatural being. We know the answer but the child does not. We know the child was born of a mother and father; the child does not know that it has parents. What I am doing is simply telling the children of this planet that they have parents. We did not come from nothing. We did not come from supernatural beings. We came from parents and life on this planet began from parent entities.
I am surprised that this concept is so confusing and difficult for people to grasp. This is a very simple idea but too many people let their previous experiences interfere with their ability to properly process this concept. It’s not about atheism and it’s not about theism; it’s about the truth and there is only one truth, and the truth is never what we expect it to be.
.EL.
What I am hearing is that, if we were without any knowledge of our origins, we could have no idea that we had parents. The idea is that we are ignorant of our creator as a newborn child is of its parents.
This will not wash. It is a very well -worn false analogy that appears in various forms from 'nobody believed in powered flight - but it was true!' to the rather ludicrous invisible dragon in the garage or invisible elephant in the basement.
The falsity of the analogy is that we already know the facts of parentage or powered flight, but we do not know the 'fact' of invisible dragons or elephants and until they are demonstrated convincingly, factually and and repeatably, the dragons elephants and the 'truth' you too easily claim to be talking about is unproven, undemonstrated and without merit.
You will (I hope) see that philosophy, religion and belief does not come into this, but what can be show convincingly to be fact is the only reliable truth that we have. All else is in the realms of speculation, faith -belief and hypothesis.
any more than flames can continue to reside in the combustible matter that produces them!
Flames are simply a pattern caused by the energy released during the processed of combustion. They are nto "Seperate to" the event in any way like you pretend consciousness is. So why can our consciousness and expreession of it not also simply be a pattern released from the process?
You desperately - ever so desperately - want them to be seperate. Aside from your desire for it to be so however I have not seen one featherweight of evidence from you to suggest it is so.
Our consciousness manifests as an energy field. It cannot reside within the MATTER of our body/brain complex . . . any more than flames can continue to reside in the combustible matter that produces them!
I guess you see consciousness as an energy emanation from the brain?
Although flames obey rules of fluid dynamics and gaseous dispersion, they are not organized to observe the combustion from whence they came, or to do anything other than dissipate heat and combustion byproducts. They are less organized than the system they emerge from, in fact. So I don't see what good your analogy does you.
If the comparatively crude AIs we are currently producing can encapsulate all their functions including rudimentary self-awareness, I see no reason for the far more evolved and adapted intelligence that comprise each of us, to be less, rather than more, elegant. Or for us to have to multiply explanations in developing a theory of how it might work.
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