This concept seems utterly ridiculous to me.

In a recent article in the NY Times:

Michael Graziano, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, suggested to the audience that consciousness is a kind of con game the brain plays with itself. The brain is a computer that evolved to simulate the outside world. Among its internal models is a simulation of itself — a crude approximation of its own neurological processes.

The result is an illusion. Instead of neurons and synapses, we sense a ghostly presence — a self — inside the head. But it’s all just data processing.

“The machine mistakenly thinks it has magic inside it,” Dr. Graziano said. And it calls the magic consciousness.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/sc...ness.html?_r=2

It seems that again atheist scientists are coming to ridiculous conclusions, when they base their views with suppositions steeped in philosophical naturalism.

Apparently Daniel Dennett is another atheist thinker that pushes the idea that consciousness is an illusion.

I think these guys are nutcases, but then again, maybe I only think that I'm thinking, and it's all an illusion? Or maybe I think that I think that I'm thinking?

This is not a new concept. It's been posited many many times in the past.

Just out of curiosity, are you religious?

Um, where did I say it was a new concept? You have a bad habit
of reading things into my posts that I don't say.

I am a theist, if that answers your question.

Wow, you are wound up super tight. Lol

I was referring more to the author than you.

Chill, lol.

No evidence means no evidence.

To be a machine is a fascinating want for an organism to have.

Interesting, that human experience is essentially compartmentalized upon considering the assertion of "no evidence".

Plenty of notions and experiences concerning consciousness exist. Or no, because look at the lights on the brain scan?

Another way of approaching this conclusion is to observe that the laws of physics describe the interactions of matter and energy, and of course that applies to our brains as well.

Since there is no physical law that concludes "and then the particle chooses what it wants to do next and does that," it is hard to conceive of a form of consciousness that is what it seems to be (i.e. a little person inside our head that decides what we are going to do next).

I'm not sure the free-will deniers are correct though. We know that the behavior of unimaginably small particles and ultra high energy objects in space do not always translate into the human scale in an intuitive or obvious way. I am just not sure "consciousness is an illusion" is a meaningful statement, and nothing I've read on the topic, including appeals to "everything is just physics," has convinced me.

That's not to say they are wrong. I just don't know.

Then ordinary tables are an illusion too, because they are really a just collection of tiny particles. We should ignore desks. Our brain is just fooling us again. LOL

Or maybe it is just doctrinaire materialism going cuckoo.

The idea that potassium, sodium and all the mavens of inorganic nature would care about consciousness, morality or some such ideas is a critical and organic madness.

Potassium doesn't care !!! Hip, hip hooray!! Potassium sucks ....

So what does care?

Of course the Human Being; in a rush but can go into the soul/spiritual reality and its(human) place in a cosmic spirituality where moral tone is the medium of exchange. Morality is all about "care" and other such matters (earth language) and there is no morality within the mineral kingdom.

The contradiction to this is when looked at from the perspective of the "Fall" the entire universe is immersed within morality (including the minerals) for nature as seen through our senses and that to which the scientific exegesis points is "fallen" as is Man.

Another contradiction is that since Man has "fallen" into a less than adequate cosmic comprehension he works his way through the impediments of our earthly surroundings and returns, refurbished and spiritual and changes as the harbinger of "Love", again the work of Man. The Earth will in the future metamorphose into the "Planet of Love", brought about by the Human Soul.

Who cares ?? Of course you do, but not your minerals as seen through present eyes; only by coming to comprehension of spiritual realities in specifics will the human being grow for there is no growth in our mineral or scientific perspective as now practiced.

Sorry, I continue off but I hope to do better.

Yeah, I'm asking for the more detail. Just "Human Being" is the same answer as given by the materialists--where you differ is in your understanding of what a human being is. I.e. what is the soul/spiritual reality?

It does appear psychology has embraced mindfulness.
Some of which was previously called consciousness just years ago. It also appears mindfulness has evidence. So, there is that.

Mindfulness and consciousness are not the same things.

Neither are eggs and chickens. Which is a tad funny as 'consciousness explorers' of past predicted science would invent something like mindfulness once they got improved methods and more time of observation.

Okay.

You are correct.

The age-old mind/body problem isn't going away by pretending there is no mind, just as the free-will/determinism problem isn't going away by pretending there is no free-will. People remain, and will remain interested in these non-falsifiable questions, for we are uncomfortable not-knowing, and we are especially uncomfortable not knowing the answers to questions so close to home; to our subjective experience.

At first, the materialists only see the human being as mineral this being evident . In science its about particles; in medicine its parts and pieces of the nervous system or cardiac vascularity. to the point; one can be a theoretical materialist and debate the issue but the more egregious is the fact that we actually "live within" the materialist ethos which is a real severity.

Likewise a man may call himself extremely religious and believe in the spiritual world but his daily actions are quite to the contrary, perforce. Its a great enchantment which is why I state that "potassium doesn't care" just as Dawkins stated in a thread that the world doesn't have a moral tone and he's right but for the wrong reasons; he epitomizes the mineralomentality and only thinks mineral and therefore he's right but obtusively wrong!!!

And so, from my perspective the materialist may use the word "human being" but he's again incorrect because of the narrowness of his perspective.

You ask for something to the question of spirit and soul in order to clarify and I'll do that; I have discussed and delineated the four bodies of man, on this forum, which are called the physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego . The last three are supersensible and so I'll have to return for it will take some time and hopefully I might be able to bring to understanding the human being vis a vis the four bodies.

Just accept the words for now and try to not bring any preconceived notions before I start . Thanx.

Although I haven't thought of a rigorous proof of the following it seems to me that when a being "thinks" (as opposed to "says") that consciousness is an illusion (or that its not an illusion for that matter) it has instantaneously disproved itself. Similar to someone telling someone else that he is a solipsist. Unconscious beings don't think about consciousness.

I had the exact same thoughts...

I'm not quite sure about "unconsciousness beings ..." but consciousness isn't difficult to comprehend.

On the earth we have our senses (ears, eyes, taste, smell...) ad through these senses we have "earth consciousness" . There 's nothing tricky here for wherever the human being meets resistance he obtains a consciousness of self. The modem of pain brings this to clarity for we are certainly conscious of self during a painful process.

But the above doesn't answer all there is about the human being for in sleep he is "unconscious" which means that the senses are absent in activity. If a scientist were to study the human being the question of sleep stands tall and evades him.

Some may relate to this: having an LSD trip that went wrong is an example of an entry into another realm of consciousness to which the human being is a stranger. He can't get his bearings for on earth if you sit on a chair you wouldn't expect the chair to disappear. If you come to the corner of a hallway you know that around the corner is more of the same. Entering into another realm of consciousness calls for a strengthening of character in which one can be alert when all of his senses are shut down. the new realm had its own geography and the purpose of the mystery centers was this very act of strengthening of the student in order for him to enter into higher realms without untoward effects.

"He who toys with the gods they drive mad".

There are higher realms of consciousness and so ,gotta do it :

Angels
Archangels
Archae
Exusai
Dynamis
Kyriotetes
Thrones
Cherubim
Sepharim
Father, Son, Holy Spirit

All higher realms of consciousness from below
upward. In sleep the spirit/soul nature of Man
enters into these higher realms but hasn't as
yet earned the "sense abilities" in order to
be clear properly within these realms.

Consciousness is sensed by the faculties of the brain is an avenue which leads from this consideration. Which , quite figuratively makes using a brain scanner to look for consciousness like looking through a telescope at a microscope to see a germ, only you are the microscope and the germ.

This is Descartes' cogito ergo sum, more or less.

That said, I think this slightly misunderstands what materialists usually mean when they say consciousness is "illusory". They aren't denying the phenomenal experience of consciousness per se, they mean that the phenomenal experience is superfluous to a scientific explanation of consciousness, that the phenomenal experience arises from the very complex physical processes happening in the brain rather than being something ontologically irreducible or special.

The NY Times article mentions Chalmers. His original essay on the "hard" problem of consciousness is worth reading, as is Dennett's earlier essay denying the uniqueness of phenomenal conscious states. I feel like together they give a pretty good overview of the controversy.

In the next 50 years, they will be able to build a machine that will be able to participate in this conversation. That will be a machine that has significantly more computing power than our own brain and programming that is sufficient to understand philosophy and human interaction. In 100 years, they will build a machine that will be able to complete this level of programming on its own. These machines will be able to "think" and "reason" at a level above human capability soon enough. At that point, we will struggle to determine the definition of conscious thought.

Our ancestors believed in a universe that literally revolved around the human race. Through scientific discoveries (particularly in the last 500 years), we have come to the realization that we are a speck of a speck of a speck in the universe as a whole. This hold on consciousness is just a hold-over from the time where we thought that we were special. This is just one of the many things that we will look back aghast at our own ignorance once we have achieved a minimal level of civilization and scientific aptitude in the future.