what is consciousness?? I`ve done quite lot of reading(I`m an engineer and didnt digest 100% of medical terms )

anyway, before we venture any further to science, religion, god, creationism, I still think we cant solve the main question... what is consciousness?

conscious as in you see and you are aware of it.. the meaning "aware" of an entity call yourself....

I think most people would ask why I am consicous? then come later question.... why I am here? what is the purpose for me?

and the five senses that merge into our mind would form a mental volation on our consciousness....

so, what is consciousness? what have you awakened of?

in my consciousness, lies the world i live in. this world is mine. they call it my life. when i die. it dies with me.

-b3ta

What follows is what consciousness is not. I seldom start defining something by what it is not. Hope this is fine.

Consciousness is the awareness of oneself and with its surrounding. It is also the executive control system of oneself.

I think, therefore I am - Descartes

He emphasis the dualism concept where there are two kind of substances, first the matter, concrete stuff (body, organ, brain), second the mind or soul (the non physical stuff).This concept often dubbed as 'the ghost in the machine', in our context, it is easier to refer it to "the soul in the body".

He has this idea that soul attaches itself to brains and control them. This concept theoretically means that when the body dies, the disembodied soul can float away to somewhere else. His philosophy understanding was impressive, however it was influenced much by the ancient belief of soul.

The national geography reveals this:

In the jungle, a group of wolfs will form a wolfs pack attack to a target deer. They are aware of their own existence, the other wolfs existence and the deer existence. They strategies and plan the attack in an army way, left, right, centre which will usually yields a better success rate.

The wolfs obviously have consciousness. Does this means that wolfs have soul?

- I am conscious
- There must be a soul whose control it
-> Hence I have soul

This is a false logic.

It this is true, that means all animals, virus, bacteria, plants, our computer, computer viruses have souls as all of them are conscious!

And science doesn't put "soul" in the consciousness equation. If science accepts the soul idea, the impacts:
Human activity/behavior can not be explained in the matter of concrete stuff (organ, brain activities). We need to push it back one level up to explain "the driver" i.e. the soul, how it works, what laws it obeys, so on and so forth.

- Doctor will need to say we would need to find a medicine to cure the soul, until then, it is uncurable. Btw, how to study soul scientifically? Whether it is allergy to panadol, nuts, drugs?
- Doctor will say, you headache is because the driver, the soul is sick
- Doctor will say, your memory loss is not due to the brain, it is your soul whose can not remember.
- Your hand can lift up a box is because the soul controls it. If your hand can not do that, the soul is sick. No need to study the extension or retraction of muscles?

My favorite, the soul controls the muscles. A dead frog's leg when charges with electricity will move (Discovered by a scientist in France in 17th century). Conclusion: Soul controls muscle, electricity controls muscle, hence soul = electricity. What logic is this???

In summary, consciousness is not equal to soul. Consciousness proves that soul exists is a fail hypothesis.

When I was a kid,
I always asked myself..
Why am I myself?
Why isn't myself him?
Why he is not me, but I'm myself?
Get it?

i thought if concious d eyeball can move when got light.. meaning there's reflexious... or not then d person is in coma/fainted

exactly...... I`ve been asking this questions from a kiddo till now

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Added on December 4, 2009, 10:04 pmexactly...... I`ve been asking this questions from a kiddo till now

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Added on December 4, 2009, 10:06 pmI think the more accepted tem for soul is humane charactor rather than light lookalike that flows in the air thingy

eg. a stone has no soul..


This post has been edited by Awakened_Angel: Dec 4 2009, 10:06 PM

Soul is just a label. But many assiociates it with spirit.

Consciousness has been analyzed in philosophy, sciences (my previous post), maths, religion, machine (computer).

Maths
The study of self-reference consciousness (why me, not you, why true, not false) has always encountered a touch of paradox, not only in philosophy, also in logic and maths.

Epeminides (Greek philosopher) encountered this:

A: This statement is false.

Is A true or false? If true, then the statement itself declare it is false; if false, the statement must be true. But A cannot be both true and false, so the question "Is A true, or false?" has no answer.

Religion
Suppose a man claimed to be a reincarnation of Napoleon. If he did not look like Napoleon the only criteria by which you could judge his claim would be that of "memory". What was Napoleon's favourite colour? How did he feel before the battle of Waterloo? You would expect him to relate some specific (and preferably verifiable) information about Napoleon before taking the claim seriously.

Suppose, however, that the man declared that he had "lost all memory" of his previous life, save only that he was Napoleon, what should you make of it? What would it mean for him to say "I was Napoleon'?

"Is he still him" with different look and with all memory lost?

Suppose that oneself consciousness is being transported to another body, would it be correct to say that you (the consciousness) had a new body, or that body had a new consciousness (you)? Could you regard yourself as the same person, with a different body? Perhaps you could.

But suppose the body were of the opposite sex, could you regard yourself as the same person?

Look into more deeper approach, where human could become an animal in next life depends on karma, the deed, the cause and effect of this life.

Suppose the consciousness is being transported to an animal, could you regard yourself as the same person?

Much of what makes you, your personality, capabilities and so forth, is tied to chemical and physical conditions of the new body (animal). And what if your memory were wiped out during the transfer? Does it then make any sense at all to regard the new animal as you?

These questions arise when one speculates about "duplication of the self" regardless of any forms.

The consciousness concept in Buddhism ideology is really hard to understand.

This post is too long, will discuss consciousness VS computer separately.

Like what you mentioned, either soul exists or never. However, this belief will influence one's consciousness and his/her attitude towards life forms.

If one believes soul of human and animal are similar, he/she will avoid killing and eating them. If one believes that human has it and animal doesn't, or animal has different soul, then he/she will have no issues with killing and eating them. All in all, an action derives from one's consciousness which influence by one's belief.

Allow me to continue from my previous post on consciousness in a computer.

A few line of programming syntax (line of codes) is considered a program. Taking a computer virus program as an example, when we look into "each" line, there are merely if, then, else and some actions. However when "combine" these individual lines together, it exhibits a new behavior called "consciousness". Obviously the idea of soul does not need to exist to explain this consciousness behavour.

Look at this example, if one day a PC where this "computer virus" resides catch with fire, burn down and destroyed, we "normally" would certainly say that that was the end of the "computer virus".

However, if we want that "computer virus" program to be run in a new PC, we "need not" salvage the original burned computer part or even need not to replicate the original machine. Any active mediums (PC, laptop, hand phone, music player, even write it down using pencil and paper) which gave the same syntax could in principle embody the "same virus".

The analogy used here:
PC - A body
Computer Virus - Consciousness (Note, we do not need soul as a hypothesis)
Active mediums (another body, animal)

This conclusion leaves open the question of whether the "computer virus" is re-run in another body at a later date, which is reincarnation idea in Buddhism?
Or
In a system which we do not perceive as part of the physical universe (in Heaven, deity centric religions)?

As far as the perception of time is concerned, we see that it is only during the running of the program "computer virus", that any meaning can be attached to the flow of time. The existence of the computer virus is essentially timeless.

We can argue that cognitive science tends to emphasize the similarities between "mind/consciousness" in human and machine, with mixed implications for religion. While leaves little room for the traditional idea of the soul, it leaves open the possibility of survival of the personality.

interesting... continue please

I think another word to replace consciousness is awareness... being aware of your existance of your senses.. five of them

in my opinion, consciousness is about awareness - n it really lies deep down in a person's mind n heart to b conscious

You are correct in term of consciousness from medical perspective. What we discuss here is in a broader term of consciousness.

Will try to write more


The brain surgery was to explain the potential changes to personality and behavior. I did not put the word "potential" in my post earlier. The main message was the soul idea does not fit well in this matters. Agree with your other comments.

Virus is not an error. It is a program that serves specific purposes, to reproduce, to strike when environment is suitable and to destroy the host functionality. I used it to explain that a "computer program" can be conscious. BTW, not all bacteria or virus are bad, e.g. lactobacillus.

We can replace the computer virus with computer chess program if you like a more positive outlook of consciousness. There are a lot of computer chess games out there that could "remember" human steps, then improve their moves in the subsequent games. This behavior and characteristic to certain extend is conscious as it could analyze and act accordingly.

No doubt about that.

I like your foot note on cause and effect. It is an universal truth that could be found in Buddhism and philosophy.

Allow me to quote the following from Immanuel Kant:

Act only on that maxim (action with motivation) which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law - Immanuel Kant

Before we sound the car's horn next to a school/hospital, ask if this is something that we would like other to do, if not, don't do it.