Einsteins Time Re: SV: [Sadhu Sanga] Consciousness
I've no idea how my email address got attached to this conversation and
[ ] rather certain that my comments will be unwelcome, but, arrogant
pedant that I am, you shall have them.
That Dawkins does not understand consciousness comes as no surprise.
Any conversation with Hammeroff is, a priori, non-informative. Consciousness obeys the laws of chaos (randomness does no occur in nature), as do quantum fields, but consciousness has nothing to do with the perturbation of quantum fields in any part of the nervous system. It was a nice try, but a silly one.
Consciousness has no contents. It is about something (intensionality) but it has no contents, nothing that can be observed, measured, recorded or analysed. Therefore, there is no "granularity" of consciousness: qualia do not exist. The hard problem is an illusion. Mysterianism is not so much a lack of knowledge as it is a lack of imagination and insight. As Adam Zeman put it: If your theory admits to the existence of zombies, your theory needs fixed. You have to say that with a Scottish accent.
Consciousness (the feeling of what happens, the remembered present) is the experience of perceptual contents. Do not mistake this definition with "the contents of perceptual experience". They sound alike, but the word order changes the meaning completely. Perceptual contents are the neural representation of stimuli, internal or external. Neural representations can be observed (if one's instruments are good enough), measured, recorded and analysed. The experience of the representation cannot, it is subjective, entirely subjective. Experience has no contents. Spirituality is a state of experience but it is not the "contents" of experience. (Which is one reason why the DL has declared that if neuroscience disproves his beliefs, he will search for new beliefs, brave fellow.)
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Consciousness is the synchronous oscillation of massively interconnected, multidimensional, recursive circuits, networks and systems throughout the global workspace. What enters awareness probably oscillates at about 40 hz. Oscillation at partial and harmonic frequencies probably effect how the perceptual apparatus represents transduced stimuli, how other perceptual contents enter consciousness and awareness and how contents are retained to enter awareness later, when the stimulus is remote. The theory has no empirical support, though parts of it have been validated. It's not new, and certainly not with me. Theorists and investigators I like include Crick and Koch, Rudolfo Llinas, Wolf Singer, Henry Markram and many others. Certainly not Chalmers, Jackson, Nagel, McGinn, Hammeroff and Penrose, etc.
Sorry, I warn most people that they shouldn't "get me started".
I promise I'll send no more.
PM
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With respect I think consciousness is the easiest thing of all to explain. It is the representation of sensory data on the cortex of the brain that acts as a sophisticated television screen that we can smell taste and touch as well as see and hear. The knotty question is whether that sensory data actually comes from a real physical external world as it appears to do, or whether the source of that data is within us as per the Hindu tradition. My vote is for the latter.
Kind regards
Brad
Dear Soren & Witt
I think most scientists would agree with the propositions of Seth Lloyd in his book Programming the Universe that the universe is a gigantic quantum computer (although why in this age of miniaturization a quantum computer needs to be the size of the universe to generate the universe is another question). If Seth Lloyd is right then everything in this universe is ultimately computer generated.
As for consciousness the fact is that we are relying on consciousness in order to ask the question What is consciousness? And the fact that after all the advancements in computer science we can fundamentally disagree on such a basic question as to whether consciousness is computer generated or not means that ultimately we will never be able to completely answer that question. It is the same for physicists seeking the theory of everything. They are entities within the universe seeking to know everything about the universe. They are ultimately bound by the program that set them up in the first place.This is the way Seth Lloyd explains it: "Gadd showed that the capacity for self-reference leads automatically to paradoxes in logic; the British mathematician Alan Turing showed that self-reference leads to uncomputability in computers?
When a computer processes data the data contains instructions to the computer as to its source. Virtual drives are set up on computers that give the computer false information as to the source of the data and the computer is none the wiser. This is what I meant when I said that computers are tricked every day as to the source of the data they are processing. Sensory data contains instructions that it is coming from a physical external world, but it ain't necessarily so.
Kind regards
Brad
Dear Brad
As a biologist I will deny that we are a computers in the Turing understanding of it. I know we try to imitate living neural networks in the dead computers we have now. It gives a few steps forward but does not really solve the deed problem. You need to define a much more general model for computation that can cover what our machine do as well as living organisms including those without a brain do and how socio-communicative function. As a scientist and philosopher I have to say that we have not agreed on what we are or what the world is constructed from. No doubt the concepts of matter, energy, force and information are depicting true aspects of reality, but when I in neurobiology and psychology was looking for experience and qualia in the nervous system, I — and nobody else - did not find any. There is some insufficiencies on our metaphysical framework. This is why i am interested in the debate with other cultural metaphysics of which Advaita Vedanta is one of the more interesting and I think can be brought into harmony with a new physical understanding build on quantum physics and non-equilibrium thermodynamics systems science and cybernetics and last but no least Peircean semiotics.
Best wishes
Søren Brier
Professor in the semiotics of information, cognition and communication science, department of International Business Communication, Copenhagen Business School,
Home page: www.cbs.dk/staff/sbibc. Transdisciplinary framework:
Editor in chief of Cybernetics & Human Knowing
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(note: free access to all articles until July 19th, 2016)
Fra: (mail
PS vegne of Brad Bartholomew
Sendt: 20. juli 2016 20:09
Til:
Emne: Re: SV: (Sadhu Sanga) Consciousness
Dear Soren
Well you know it is undeniable in my opinion that consciousness is computer generated. It is also undeniable that we are a computer generated entity that is trying to figure out what it is. Ergo we come up against that fundamental principle in computer science that we can't think outside the program. Once you accept the fact that consciousness comes from sensory data then all bets are off as to the actual source of that data. Computers are tricked every day as to the source of the data they are processing. Kind regards
Brad
Asfor consciousness the fact is that we are relying on consciousness in order to ask the question What is consciousness? And the fact that after all the advancements in computer science we can fundamentally disagree on such a bask question as to whether consciousness is computer generated or not means that ultimately we will never be able to completely answer that question.
No. That's like saying, because "we" are all confused now, "we" will all be confused in the future. What kind of scientist would accept a proposition like that?
Consciousness (Free Will) is a non-local universal phenomenon not a local or biological (brain) phenomenon. Hence, no local (space-time limited) treatise of consciousness can explain consciousness. It is like trying to explain the elephant by its tail or to explain blue skies via a cloud. It is also like churning water to produce butter.
A computer only generates numbers (bits) not consciousness. A computer has no self, free will or awareness of its own.
Regards
Avtar
A very interesting and simulating discussion thread regarding consciousness. Perhaps we will all "know" the "answer" the day we take our final breath and transcend from this physical human form to our pure energy form. Perhaps then in that moment we will truly understand this answer. Until then, we continue to explore and engage.
Best,
Deb
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FYI
Re Stephen Hawking and other atheists
Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Wellbeing
What do you mean by "enters awareness"?
What do you do with a depressed state? Mood is depressed, the content is irrelevant. And what does intension have to do with a depressed state?
AL MD
Hi Deepak:
Enjoyed your video on Stephen Hawking and other atheists' positions. You have eloquently described the current limitations of the mainstream science to describe the "Ontological Primitive Reality" or existence.
As you mention, current scientific theories include EM strong and weak nuclear forces and gravity. However, so far science has been unable to develop and integrate the missing physics of anti-gravity or spontaneous expansion of the universe as evidenced by Hubble. Einstein tried to fudge the anti-gravity via a fudge factor — "Cosmological Constant" that he later called his biggest blunder. The recent Supernova observations have pointed to an accelerated expansion (beyond the linear Hubble expansion) in the far-field universe leading to the
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speculation of Dark (unknown) Energy signifying a strong anti-gravity force in the universe.
What is astonishing that when the physics of the well-known spontaneous decay of particles is integrated into general relativity, it leads to a physical mechanistic theory of anti-gravity that predicts the empirical observations of the universe, explains the dark energy and accelerated expansion of the universe. It also resolves the key paradoxes of QM eliminating the Big Bang singularity and associated incredible phenomena such as the superluminous inflation, multiple universes, and eventual death of a purposeless universe.
What is even more wondrous that such an integrated model of the physics of spontaneity provides a scientific (physical and mathematical) basis for the Zero point state of the "Ontological Primitive Reality" described as the unmanifested (fully dilated mass/energy), Eternity (fully dilated time), Omnipresence (fully dilated space) at the speed of light. (This is synchronous with the experiences of the spiritual masters and sages during deep meditation or Samadhi or Enlightenment (fully dilated Ego)).
What is significant and noteworthy here is that in spite of the fact that such a Zero-point state is immeasurable (unmanifested) and experimentally unverifiable, but it is humanly experience-able, repeatable, and it does follow the same sets of universal laws that predict the empirically observed universe resolving its current paradoxes. It also leads to a scientifically describable universal consciousness or existence synonymous with the "Ontological Primal Reality".
Mainstream science needs to recognize and integrate the missing physics of spontaneity as a possible panacea to curing the current paralysis of science as well as solving the mystery of the observed universe and the experienced consciousness. Such an integrated approach would not only bridge science and spirituality, but also provide purpose and meaning to the universe and life in it.
Best Regards
Avtar Singh, Sc.D.
Alumni, MIT
Author of "The Hidden Factor - An Approach for Resolving Paradoxes of Science,
Cosmology, and Universal Reality"
Thank you Avatar
What you say makes total sense to me
Warm regards
Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Wellbeing
Dear Deepak
Well I absolutely agree with you as well. The fact is that without a human brain to observe it then the universe would be a mass of electromagnetic waves and would be as invisible as a cell phone network. Ask not whence comes the universe but ask whence comes the human brain. However I don't agree with you that we can never know reality. The only issue is whether the universe is a physical reality or a virtual reality. Given the fact that the universe is a construct of the human brain then it must be a virtual reality as per the Hindu tradition. There's no doubt there's something real happening out there, and its just a matter of locating the data. Kind regards
Brad
Brad
The human brain is also electromagnetic waves and has no privileged position over a galaxy or a piece of rock or a grain of sand or a thought.
If you substitute the word consciousness for brain I'm with you. All perpetual objects including brain and Galaxy are modified forms of consciousness
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Seventy-one years ago, the ethical train wreck that now engulf society began when "powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction" destroyed Hiroshima on 6 AUG 1945. Two months later, nations and national academies of sciences were united under the UN on 24 OCT 1945 to "forever" divide humanity between:
A few who would rule the world with "secret knowledge", and
The ignorant masses that would forever serve as their slaves.
Thanks to the AGW scandal, the "secret knowledge" dividing humanity now crumbles like the walls of Jerico:
Dear Dr. Deepak Chopra Ji
Namaskar.
You have correctly mentioned that ttimadBhagavad-gita explains about the soul (atman) that "water cannot wet it, fire cannot bum it, weapons cannot shatter it. It is ancient unborn and deathless". Soul is unaffected by these material elements, because, soul is superior energy (marginal energy: tatastha-aakti) of Supreme Absolute and matter (water, fire and material weapons) is inferior energy (external energy: bahiraAga eaka) of Supreme Absolute.
bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ
khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca
ahańkāra itiyaṁ me
bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā
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(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gīta: 7.4)
Translation: Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and ego are the eight divisions of My illusory potency in this world.
apareyam itas tv anyāṁ
prakṛtim viddhi me parām
jīva-bhātām mahā-bāho
yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat
(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gīta: 7.5)
Translation: 0 mighty hero, Arjuna, this external, worldly nature is inferior. But know that superior to this nature is My marginal potency, comprised of the individual souls. Worldly existence is adopted by the souls for enjoyment through fruitive actions. {The divine world emanates from My internal potency and the mundane world from My external potency. The potency of the living beings is known as marginal as they are constitutionally situated midway between these planes. They may choose to reside either in the mundane plane or the divine.}
Vedic system advises that one should learn Srimad Bhagavad-gita and the Vedic wisdom under a qualified teacher (Sri Guru) and then only one can realize it as it is. Srimad Bhagavad-gita does not support impersonalist view. Please let us know what you have to say about the several verses in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that clearly highlights the personalist view. For example:
ajo 'pi sann avyayātmā
bhūtānām īśvaro 'pi san
prakṛtiṁ svām adhiṣṭhāya
sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā
(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gīta: 4.6)
Translation: Although My eternal form is transcendental to birth and death, and I am the Lord of all beings, I appear within the world in My divine nature, by My sweet will, extending My internal potency.
avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannaṁ
manyante mām abuddhayaḥ
paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto
mamāvyayam anuttamam
(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gīta: 7.24)
Translation: My eternal superexcellent nature—My form, qualities, activities and pastimes are all transcendental, but unwise persons cannot know the truth, and they think, "The formless Brahman took birth in Vasudeva's cell as an ordinary human being."
śrī-bhagavān uvāca
mayy āveśya mano ye māṁ
nitya-yuktā upāsate
śraddhayā parayopetās
te me yukta-tamā matāḥ
(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gīta: 12.2)
Translation: The Supreme Lord said: In My opinion, those who with faith in the divine are absorbed in thought of Me, Syamasundara, and worship Me constantly with exclusive devotion, are the superior knowers of yoga.
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Śrīmad Bhagavad-gita clearly highlights the personalist view. The verse 2.12 from Śrīmad Bhagavad-gita completely refutes the idea of singularity of consciousness, where Bhagavān Sri Krishna says to Arjuna: "na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ na tvaṁ neme janādhipāh na caiva na bhaviṣyāmah sarve vayam atah param - Never was there a time when you, I or all these kings did not exist, just as we exist in the present, so have we existed in the past, so shall we continue to exist in the future." Therefore, according to the Vedāntic view, the plurality of individuals is an eternal fact, and it is confirmed in other Vedic sources (Katha Upanisad 2.2.13 says: nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām - We are eternal, we are many, and Supreme Absolute is also eternal, but He is one) and by authentic teachers like Sripad Ramanuja Acharya and other Vaiṣṇava Acāryas.
We will be happy to know your views on these conclusions of Srimad Bhagayad-gita.
Sincerely,
Bhakti Niskama Shanta,
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute
+91-(9748906907)
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Dear Deepak
I beg to differ on this. The universe is a random mass of EM waves that the human brain interprets. The brain itself is not a random mass of EM waves; it is an electronic computing machine that must run according to a program that generates consciousness. You say that consciousness is the ultimate reality and I say it is the program that codes for consciousness which is the ultimate reality so you see we are not that far apart. In fact henceforth I shall call this program Cosmic Consciousness and we can be in complete agreement.
Kind regards
Brad
The brain is perceived in the same way as a rock No experience happens in the brain - only electrochemical activity Experience occurs in formless consciousness including the experience of a brain in a cadaver, in surgery or a CTScan
Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Wellbeing
Dear Deepak
By "formless consciousness" are we to understand that you have rejected the explanation for consciousness given in the Upanishads which unambiguously attributes consciousness to the operations of the Inner Self.
Kind regards
Brad
The inner self which is pure consciousness has no form.
Having no form it is beyond birth and death (non local)
Upanishads (Gita) "Water cannot wet it, fire cannot burn it, weapons cannot shatter it. It is ancient unborn and deathless"
That which has form is in time, a transient pattern of behavior of the formless and subject to birth and death.
Tagore "In this playhouse of infinite forms I caught sight of the formless and so my life was blessed.
Only the formless is real!
;I;
Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Wellbeing
A little Classical Samkhya, one of the six Hindu Darsanas, might be helpful here in bringing spiritual and scientific knowledge into a better understanding of one another. For those who do not know it it is an enumeration of the manifest and unmanifest cosmology. I've attached a basic chart of the enumeration of Samkhya for anyone who cares to reference it.
In Samkhya, consciousness is called Purusa and is unmanifest, which makes it unique and theoretically separate from manifest nature or Prakriti.
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Science operates in the realm of Prakriti or manifest nature entirely. On a basic level science measures, proves, and qualifies. It cannot measure, prove, or qualify anything that is unmanifest. This measuring proving and qualifying are attributes of Ahamkara, or ego. Which is one step up the chain from Manas, or mind, known as the computer of the senses. Here it can only make connections and conjectures.
Science also deals in abstractions, which are based almost completely in this part of the mind called Ahamkara. These abstractions could be attributed to Buddhi, which in the chain of Samkhya, is sometimes called intellect or will. It is important here to note that will is not consciousness in the contemplative spiritual traditions of the East. Here a scientist or spiritual seeker may make a projection based on the knowledge gained in manas and qualified in ahamkara towards a revelation of pure consciousness (Puruasa). Mathematicians, physicists, and yogis work tirelessly here using known equations and practices, and sometimes they develop new ones creating new pathways, as they try to 'prove' or 'realize' these projections or explorations. A teacher who has gone beyond this stage is valuable beyond measure in helping others to overcome one's well worn pathways of thought and action towards a rewiring of the individual.
Another qualification that may be helpful to this conversation is the difference between Advaita Vedanta and Dvaita Vedanta. It is clear that there are those that understand this well in this conversation, and others that may not. Please forgive me if this is too elemetary. Advaita Vedanta believes that there is only one consciousness and that this consciousness, for lack of better language, 'underlies' the entire universe and is the same consciousness that dwells within all of us--a unity of consciousness. Dvaita Vedanta, on the other hand, believes in multiple souls and separates an individual consciousness from the ultimate consciousness which goes by many names.
Classical Samkhya as discussed above is Dvaitist. As is Classical Yoga and the Bhakti movements.
Advaita Vedanta also has a form of Samkhya similar to the Classical version discussed here. In this version Purusa and Prakriti are polarities within a whole rather than separate.
I hope this has been helpful to the Western scientists within this conversation. Or, those that may not have the philosophical background our Eastern sages, philosopher's and scientists grew up with. My intent is to offer up a clearer understanding of what is meant by consciousness in the Contemplative Traditions. I welcome any correction or further depth by those with deeper knowledge on this subject.
When I was a girl of four or five my father, who was an abstract mathematician, told me that 2+2 rarely equals 4. He told me that anyone who stated otherwise did not understand mathematics.
In my studies of Vedanta I was given the Kena Upanisad which speaks to seekers of knowledge:
'I do not think that I know it well. Nor do I thinkthat I do not know it.
He among us who knows it, knows it and he, too, does not know that he does not know it.
To whomever it is not known, to him it is known.
To whomever it is known, he does not know.
It is not understood by those who understand it.
It is understood by those who do not understand it.
When it is known through every state of cognition, it is rightly known.
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for (by such knowledge) one attains life eternal.
Through one's own self one gains power and through wisdom one gains immortality.
If here one knows it, then there is truth, and if here one knows it not, there is great loss.
Hence, seeing (the Real) in all beings, wise men become immortal on departing from this world.'
Kena Upanisad 2:2-5 (Radhakrishnan 1953)
And so the conversations unfolds as seekers of knowledge. Thank you for including me on this chain of inquiry. I am humbled and honored.
Kari Ross-Berry M.A.
Hello everyone
I am wondering if anyone can see the flaw in this logic.
Time is the speed the Earth rotates.
Humans have known time for a short while and the universe has been around for a long while.
Ergo the speed the Earth rotates can't bend the universe.
If someone can spot the flaw then Einstein was right. If there is no flaw in this logic then General Relativity is nonsense.
Kind regards
Brad
Time is an experience and the knowing from that experience based on the rotation of the Earth and its revolution around the sun.
Current theories of time based on cosmological concepts of time make assumptions about the universe in human terms i.e. When we say 13.8 billion years ago the universe began with a Big Bang we are speaking in terms of Earth time.
Hence those theories may be flawed and can be used only in terms of metaphor.
Therefore current models can only be understood as metaphors
We have humanized the universe
Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNAfor Optimum Health and Wellbeing