Questioning Consciousness

[coffin_dodger]

Consciousness is the bridge between past and future.

past <-> present <-> future

[slimmouse]

I think that one of the wonders of creation, however it occurred , is that it will never ever stop producing conscious entities with a completely unique experience, which only the
individual can ultimately come to terms with.

[chump]

via Sofia:

https://youtu.be/SJ2n0wlioGg
MEET SOPHIA. HANSON ROBOTIC LIKE HUMAN

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https://youtu.be/68JLWyPxt7g
... I think it's quite possible that the 1960s represented the last burst of the human being before it was extinguished, and that this is the beginning of the rest of the future. And from now on, there'll simply be all these robots walking around -- feeling nothing, thinking nothing -- and there'll be nobody left, almost, to remind them that there once was a species called a human being, with feelings and thoughts, and that history and memory are right now being erased ... And soon, nobody will really remember that life existed on the planet.

https://youtu.be/Oc15dAe_o-4
Uploaded on Dec 18, 2007

Chopin Nocturne #20 in C sharp minor

[chump]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 49926.html
Tay Tweets: Microsoft AI chatbot designed to learn from Twitter turns into Nazi-loving Trump supporter

... Microsoft created a chatbox that tweeted The company made the Twitter account as a way of demonstrating its artificial intelligence prowess. But it quickly started sending out offensive tweets.

“bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have now,” it wrote in one tweet. “donald trump is the only hope we've got.”

Another tweet praised Hitler and claimed that the account hated the Jews.

Those widely-publicised and offensive tweets appear to have led the account to be shut down, while Microsoft looks to improve the account to make it less likely to engage in racism.

The offensive tweets appear to be a result of the way that the account is made. When Microsoft launched “Tay Tweets”, it said that the account would get more clever the more it was used: “The more you chat with Tay the smarter she gets”...

[Sounder]

Nordic left this in the quote only thread.

Another quietly terrifying quote from Jung:
"There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of the creative fire."

One the face of it, this shows that creative fire is inherently socially disruptive, yet seemingly the only way we have for reordering our layers and layering of abstractions.

As anyone that has read on RI for more than the last day or so, my opinion is that ‘artists’ are assigned the task of trying to stuff an artificially created gap between the ‘spiritual’ and the ‘material’. Yet or because the dominant narrative (social pressure) requires that we maintain our current split-model of reality, most artists will die trying to fill a gap that cannot and is not intended to be filled.

The cost of creative fire would come down radically if society adopted a continuum model in preference to our current split-model of reality.

Tesla played that situation better than most, still got burned I suppose, but then again, people like that don’t really care about trivialities anyway.

Tesla’s teacher insisted that making current AC was not possible. Tesla thought otherwise and while out walking one evening it came in a flash. Plans for a motor that he finally built ten years later, without blueprints, and it worked on the first try. He did not seem to care a whit for mathematics or Einstein, but man could he hoe his row.

[jakell]

I've read this thread through looking for any mentions of Stuart Hammerof's ideas, and haven't seen any.
The language he uses is pretty technical and his stuff has a steep learning curve which gives the impression that he is coming from a purely scientific and material direction. Once that curve levels out though it can be seen that he is addressing the metaphysical too

His approach seems an answer to a few posters here:

...If the brain is more like an amplifier than a computer say, then consciousness might not so much ‘arise’ from the brain, as much as the brain being part of an interface system that provides access to externally generated signals (vibrations)...

...How would "consciousness as radio" work? What are the underlying principles, where does the signal come from, and how does it propagate? How does our brain pick it up? And what happens if you tune it to the wrong frequency?...

Admittedly, he does seem to be kicking the can down the road a bit, the radio receiver/transmitter is a medium that, in itself, would require some technical knowledge. The real question is usually about what is on either end of this.

What is on the 'transmitting' end, according to Hameroff. is what he calls the 'Fundamental Level of the Universe' and which can only be accessed down at the very smallest level, the quantum level. He also posits that there are Platonic values embedded in this that can only be accessed at the quantum level, this seems to be more Roger Penrose's side of things and I haven't studied him yet.
In order to access the quantum level, large structures such as neurons are inadequate and we have to go much much smaller, to stuctures within cells called microtubules, and beyond, via this he argues that the individual neuron itself is incredibly complex (a 'brain' in itself) and not the simple on/off switch that is so beloved of those who favour the computer model of the human mind.

I've kept this woefully barebones (for now) to keep it readable, but in short, it is when we access this quantum level that we experience consciousness of something that is already there, qualia that we don't have an analogue for at the macro level and therefore have trouble understanding.


This is one of the more accessible interviews I've seen him do. Some of the short sections in the middle are broken down into 'questions' that aren't actually answered, this is more a fault of the editor though. Overall though it's a fairly good overview:

[Sounder]

Thanks for the Hameroff vid jakell. There are a few new and useful items for me to consider here. I like his comment that to see the I as being epiphenomenal and illusory is not a very complimentary thing to say about ourselves.

Good stuff, thanks

(TBH, I have never related much to the Quantum as having great explanatory power, but I suppose we can only start from where we are at.)

[DrEvil]

I have never related much to the Quantum as having great explanatory power

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

[jakell]

I have never related much to the Quantum as having great explanatory power

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

I'm having a look a Roger Penrose's stuff because I think the origin of these quantum theories may lie there. Haven't got far yet though.

My impressions are that it is not the uncertainty of the quantum world that is the issue, but that this uncertainty 'collapses' to definite states after a certain point is reached. In the above vid Stuart mentions that Penrose connects this with underlying Platonic values, but also that the waveform collapses** when we 'look' at things, and there we have the connection with consciousness. (most people are familiar with Schrodinger's cat by now I think)

The trouble with quantum stuff (as with a lot of borderline science) is that an incredible amount of pseudoscientific woo can be produced, and with the advent of the internet, it seems folks are becoming very practised at this and leaving more rigorous thinkers on the starting blocks. Electric Universe stuff comes to mind
Just wanted to get this observation in early on so we don't get carried away with too many 'maybes'.

** jargon alert!

[chump]

"As above, so below"






Ohh!! Decades ago, at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, I was struck by a silent animation similiar to this, and thought it was pretty cool at the time:


https://youtu.be/HiN6Ag5-DrU




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Remembering the light wave/particle paradox -behaving like both, depending on being observed or not, I'm pretty sure the observer is integral to our "universe".

viewtopic.php?p=571109#p571109

Is possible that Outer space = Inner space? Considering Cosmic and Psyche... Astrology...[/i] Synchronicity, et cetera and so forth... Are Freemasons and Kabbahlists the mathematicians and mystics who understand and manipulate our manifestation of +/- binary elements intelligently elaborating our electro-magnetic conception of the universe - inextricably woven within our mind?

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John Keel, Operation Trojan Horse, p.169 of 287:

Our world exists in three dimensions: height, width and breadth. We can move in many directions within these dimensions : up, down, sideways, forward, and backward. We measure space in relation to our own size, by inches, feet, yards, miles, light years. If we were 25 feet tall and our planet were the size of Jupiter (many times larger than Earth), we would undoubtably have adjusted our measurements of space accordingly. Our inch might be equal to an Earth foot, our mile might be equal to ten earth miles.

Space does not exist except when we make it exist. To us, the distance between atoms in matter is so minute that it can only be calculated with hypothethical measurements. Yet, if we lived on an atom and our size was relative to it's size, the distance to the next atom would seem awesome and beyond reach. The ant lives in a world of giants where even a blade of grass is a gigantic structure and a tree is whole universe. If ants had measurements, their inch might be the size of the point of a pin, and their mile would be less than a foot.

How dare we try to reduce the universe to our own terms? We can't even see or sense a large part of the world around us. Man is not the final, perfect end product of evolution.

He is the beginning...

There is another man-made measurement called time. Unlike the other three dimensions, time has us trapped. We can move in only one direction through it - forward. This forward otion is governed by physical laws. We cannot leap ahead fifteen years any more than we can slide back to 1848. We are trapped in this moment of time. This instant.

The only way we can bridge time is to create something that will endure beyond the immediate moment. We construct buildings, pyramids, works of art, and even laws that become material and lasting things. Our moments become seconds, minutes, days, hours, years. Our lives revolve around clocks and calenders. Time becomes very real to us, and it is inconceivable that we could live without it.

Yet time doesn't really exist at all.

This moment exists to us. The same moment is being shared by other planets or other stars. Or is it?

The light from a distant star may take 30 years to cross space and reach us. We can see a nova (exploding star) 1,000 years after it has actually burst and vanished. With strong telescopes, we can peer into the past. We could see that event 1,000 years after it happened. Perhaps we couls see a planet near that star, see a whole population panic and go mad as their sun started to expand and pour heat and radiation onto them. Perhaps long after our own planet is a dead cinder some dispassionate astronomer in some remote part of the universe will collect the light from this moment and watch us grovelling about this year.

We have learned to measure time by observing the special characteristics of our environment. Our days and nights are measured by the length of time it takes the earth to rotate on its axis. Our years are the number of days it takes to make one complete corcuit around the sun. Our lives are scaled by the number of years our delicate organisms can survive. If the earth did not rotate, there wouold be no days. If it did not circuit the sun, there would be no years. If we were larger or smaller and lived on Ganymide, one of Jupiter's moons, our whole measurement of time would be different...

Stretching Time

Much has been written about the fact that astronauts whizzing through space at 25,000 mph return to earth a fraction of a second younger than the rest of us, because as Einstein discovered, the faster a particle moves through space, the slower it moves through time. Time becomes a hypothethical field. Trapped here on earth, we all move through that field at the same rate. Science fiction writers have always made a big deal out of this, and there are endless tales of astronauts dashing off to other planets and, upon returning to earth, finding that hundreds of years hace actually passed, even though they are only a months or years older.

Physicists following Einstein's concepts assert that nothing can exceed the speed of light without becoming infinite mass and being reduced to energy. However, if we want to blow our minds altogether, we can speculate that an energy particle might hit such a high frequency and move so fast that it doesn't move at all. Energies beyond the cosmic rays on our spectrum scale would have such a very high frequency that they would appear to be motionless. A small group of American physicists are now actually trying to build the equipment necessary to test this possibility.

These super-high frequencies would be far outside our time field, yet they could exist all around us, and we have no way of detecting or defining them. We could only guess at their existence, just as men guessed for hundreds of years about atomic structure before we developed the technology needed to confirm the theories.

To repeat this another way: If an astronaut can move more slowly through the time field by accelerating through three dimensional space, then it might be possible for a super-high frequency particle moving at super-high speeds tp escape or be uninfluenced by our time field altogether.

What I'm trying to do here is reduce the complex Einstein theory to the simplest of terms.

Now then, how can all this be applied to the UFO phenomenon?

Throughout this book I have tried to explain that UFOs seem to be transmogrifations: seemingly material apparitions that might actually be composed of energies from the high reaches of the electromagnetic spectrum. If this is so, then one additional factor is necessary: order or intelligence.

The UFO phenomenon does seem to be controlled. It does seem to follow intelligent patterns. If the objects themselves are manifestations of higher energies, then something has to manipulate those energies somehow and reduce them to visible frequencies. Not only do they enter the visible frequencies, but take forms that seem physical and real to us, and they carry out actions which seem intelligent.

Thus we arrive at the source. The source has to be a form of intelligent energy operating at the very highest point of the frequency spectrum. If such an energy exists at all, it might permeate the universe and maintain equal control over each component part. Because of its high frequency, so high that the energy particles are virtually standing still, the source has no need to replenish itself in any way that would be acceptable to out environmental sciences. It couls actually create and destroy matterby manipulating the lower energies. It would be timeless, because it exist beyond all time fields. It would be infinite because it is not confined by three-dimensional space...

... If the energy form were infinite, timeless. and permeated the entire universe, it would have total knowledge and total awareness. It would not need eyes and ears and nerve endings for perception. Like Mount Everest, it would be there and be unaffected by whatever was happening lower on the energy spectrum.

It could surround you completely at this very moment and be totally aware of all the feeble impulses of low energy passing through your brain. If it so desired, it could control those pulses and thus control your thoughts.

Man has always been aware of this intelligent energy or force. He has always worshiped it.

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Which came first, the universe or math?


(Synchro-mystically speaking, Some are aware of more math than me... For instance:






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Our nightmare reality is defined by design, don't ya' think?

[Sounder]

Our nightmare reality is defined by design, don't ya' think?

While 'this' may appear as a nightmare reality, the sublime design may require the nightmare to motivate individuated expressions of source to get off their asses and evolve.

There is also much beauty to reality and if we worked with it, instead of attempting to make it conform to our petty modeling, we may learn to get in sync with Reality and thereby dispense with our habit of manufacturing suffering.

[chump]

Turn off the TV? Then, talk about what??

[backtoiam]

jakell wrote;

My impressions are that it is not the uncertainty of the quantum world that is the issue, but that this uncertainty 'collapses' to definite states after a certain point is reached.

[Sounder]

Turn off the TV? Then, talk about what??

Yes, love the silence.

Your 'talk about what' phrase made me smile because I wanted to say, in the last post, this is my wheelhouse, and if anyone cares to join in, this thread could go on for a long while.

However it seems that dis-functionality provides much more entertainment value than does functionality.

[backtoiam]

said Sounder

Turn off the TV? Then, talk about what??

Yes, love the silence.