this

the experience of each individual is subjective. hell its entirely possible that nothing exists outside of sensory experience. of course it would be impossible to prove or disprove such a point without having the ability to take a omniscient viewpoint.

re: sklansky's original question

im not sure there is even a set definition of concsciousness, or if its even been decided that consciousness is an actual entity or a human construct.

indeed the criteria for judging consciousness is not even clear and appears subjective.

for example, we'd say a rock isnt conscious. its not alive.

we might say that a bacterium isnt conscious. a bacterium does not have awareness of self. but how can we know this?

one could claim that a dolphin is conscious. it has an awareness of self. but again how can we know this? because it communicates? because it has mannerisms that humans interpret as "feelings" and that consciousness is a prerequisite for "feelings?"

david, what is your definition of consciousness? this needs to be settled first.

you do realize that there is an inherent contradiction in your statement, correct? if consciousness is not rigorously defined, then you couldnt tell if something is conscious by comparing it to other conscious things, because you would have no way of knowing if the latter was conscious in the first place.

if one had the ability to find a "conscious thing" then that implies that there was some criteria for consciousness, which implies that a comparison between that thing and a new object you want to test is unnecessary, and you should just be able to use the criteria you used the first time.

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archiv...s_of_white.php

This article can get you started on understanding what makes up an intelligent brain. This will help in understanding how one could eventually determine whether or not a brain can achieve consciousness.

Not necessarily. Not if ANY reasonable definition is such that we will never be able to tell whether something is conscious simply by knowing how it is put together and using criteria apart from comparing it to other conscious things.

David, you should give Christof Koch's "The Quest for Consciousness" a read -- very solid scientific perspective from one of the top researchers in the field.

Umm, what do you mean by "reality"?

Great thread, BTW, my thanks to whoever bumped it.

I've learned quite a lot since the time when I thought that way.

Haven't read almost any posts yet.

I have a problem with the mainstream view of consciousness that tries to explain it as a sum of its parts. It should not even pretend of completeness.

Our knowledge of the world is to describe things by their relationships to everything else and ultimately to the elements of our consciousness - colors, sounds, shapes, feelings. In this sense we know what a rock is by how it relates to the world. But we cannot relate the universe or its fundamental properties to the elements of our consciousness, they remain abstract concepts. Even our knowledge of the rock is not fundamental, but abstract.
Waves relate to colors and sounds, chemicals in the brain relate to feelings. But waves aren't colors and sounds, and chemicals are not feelings. So in fact we are denied fundamental knowledge of the world and it's quite possible that we will never have it. Even the assumption that we can actually see all of the universe is a terrible stretch. We might be aware of very little.

We can see how consciousness relates with the observed phenomena (not too well I might add) , but there does not seem to be a way to truly know what consciousness is on a fundamental level. It will be nice to link it to the observed phenomena on a quantum level though. It might turn out that every single elementary particle has consciousness. Or not. I'm more optimistic of science showing us if free will is possible or not though.

You don't get it. Evolution can only combine physical entities to do its bidding.Like arrange atoms in a good order. IT CAN NOT CREATE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING It can put an observer in place. It cannot create the phenomenon of the observer.

What people arguing with you are getting at is that there is no explanation for the phenomenon of the observer in the physical world and we might not actually be able to explain it, only to locate where it intersects observed phenomena. According to the holistic-materialistic POV you're defending, the observer phenomena is NOT needed by evolution and would not exist. It is obviously not related to evolution or biology, but to physics and the fundamental properties of the universe.

I myself believe in some form of panpsychism. Sklansky's suggestion of an additional dimension has also crossed my mind. It might not be possible to view 3+1 dimensions from the inside. It might be possible only if the observer is located in a 5th dimension himself.

I'd also like to give an example to illustrate my POV.

Imagine that the whole world is comprised of balls just randomly hitting each other with some simple physical laws governing their behavior. There are no observers. Noone sees whats happening. Just like billiard balls. Some structures will appear more often than others. Eventually a self-replicating structure might be created (this is literally what you all assume and I think its quite possible). The process of evolution begins. It is basically a mathematical process - it follows the rule of causality and thefundamental principles weve defined.

What some of you are suggesting is that those structures will eventually create the observer effect inside of every structure and also - the elements of consciousness - pain, pleasure, sounds, colors, shapes, feeling of time and change. This is not a subject of debate. This is impossible. Your argument makes no sense. An explanation of consciousness must go back to the physical laws, and quite possibly consciousness might have to be taken as a physical law and not a product of causality.

This gentlemen, is the inextricable consequences of materialistic thought. Where you and I live this milieu of a world dream rushes on barely noticed by Dawkins, Dennett nor Pope(the guy in Rome).

I have no idea what you just said.