Conciousness: YouTube Corner

Hi,

I've created this topic for the purpose of posting videos that discuss the nature, purpose and reason of Conciousness. Now despite the title they don't have to be YouTube videos as long as they are relevant for discussing conciousness.

As soon as my first 7 days past I will get the ball rolling and post some videos on Peter Russell who is what I would describe as "a man of science" but he is not a materialist and he believes that unconsciousness matter cannot produce conciousness but more likely it is the other way round. I find a lot of what he says does make sense and he does not at any point get carried away with his own beliefs. In my opinion he stays fairly grounded. It may also be useful to know that Peter Russell studied under Stephen Hawkins at Cambridge University.

Just watched the above video, so before I forget most of the details, I should comment.

It was very interesting and some of the stuff I agree with,.. however, I do not support absolutes. It appeared that there was no consideration for darkness. Whether we currently term darkness as dark energy or dark matter, the fact remains that darkness does exist and it exist before visible light. Its increase in this Universe is faster than the speed of light. It is instantly there once light is removed.

I wouldn't put too much faith in light. It's certainly an interesting phenonmenon but so are we. We unlike deterministic mechanisms can choose against probabilities. In example, we buy lottery tickets knowing full well that odds are against us winning. We follow hunches and intuitions. We jump before looking and forgive without reason, and we find beauty individually and decide on ethics that suit our emotions. We are anomalies as was pointed out in the video, but we are infinite and therefore not absolute as the very self that we constitude as us will forever change. IMO.

Well I think that people in general find it more comforting to believe in "the light" rather than "the darkness". People in general don't like the darkness. Personally I think they are very good band (a wasted joke if you've never heard of them .)

I think his best interview is with the present! guy on youtube. As soon as I can post link I'll put them up here. There's some obscure Sam Parnia stuff I could put here too but most of his stuff has probably already been discussed to death! lol.

Haha

Our brain interprets through light, so it's understandable that when light is removed, we freak. The brain is the human interpreter and by it we understand this particular human. What other means is there? That we find out later when we realize that we're not actually human.

If you type the link to the video,.. I'll put it on this thread for ya.

I love when people think outside their boxes.

From what I gathered from the video above, they seem to be trying to appease the religions by suggesting there is some sort of absolute state? If that were true, then this would be Newtonian deterministic, and we're all just puppets.

That's basically why I found "The Matrix" to be shallow, as it gave the suggestion that we're all part of a deterministic (fated) system. But that's false, because even as we go very small as in particle physics, we observe uncertainty. And it's not only about position and momentum,.. as when something can go in and out of existence, there exist true uncertainty or free will.

Two more recent videos from Peter Russell

I just finished watching the videos. Thank you, DUK! Very interesting,..however (hee hee), this will be a brief assessment; he was mistaken about the electro-magnetic force, It's certainly fundamental in that it can be created under particular circumstances, but you can't get such substances as let's say rubber to demonstrate the force, so it isn't actually everywhere. One could argue that it's in the electrons of the rubber and so forth, but it's not demonstratable to the extent of charges except through such reductionism.

Okay, now, on the subject of an absolute of any kind,.. I'd say that he has it sort of backwards in regard to consciousness. There's all sorts of consciousness derived by patterns. An insects consciousness or awareness is different from humans and thus it appears to be by patterns that consciousness is experienced. Right now, we can't imagine being a bug because we can't move into that pattern.

Free will however is a whole other ball park. Free will is true chaos! It's why we can't determine the position and momentum of particles by observations. We could have the most incredible quantum computer available that was able to determine most probable position or momentum, and we still must include the anomaly of uncertainty,.. and that uncertainty exist not only on the micro level, but the macro level as well.

I don't agree with Kursweils singularity concept because computers no matter how amazing will choose the most probable. We as humans operate by uncertainty and what that means is that we can make chosen mistakes. We can choose the most improbable as in we can bet on horse races or buy lottery tickets, or jump before looking. We take chances and we follow hunches.

Yes, we will most likely count on our amazing computers in the future, but they will never be human not even holonically as in the ghost in the machine, because they will have a long way to go before they can follow their hunches if ever, imo. They may in fact begin to show those qualities and hence we should not exploit such machines imo, but the chaos behind such displays will take a long time to assimilate and by then we will have moved into an evolution far removed from something so primitive.

I do wonder about free will sometimes although what you are saying makes perfect sense.

I am kinda on the fence on whether conciousness is produced by the brain or not, logic seems to want to shout at me and say that if it wasn't a product of the brain then why would we need brains (of course there are also many counter arguments to this). I am assuming your position is that conciousness is not produced directly by the brain?

I do wonder about free will sometimes although what you are saying makes perfect sense.

I am kinda on the fence on whether conciousness is produced by the brain or not, logic seems to want to shout at me and say that if it wasn't a product of the brain then why would we need brains (of course there are also many counter arguments to this). I am assuming your position is that conciousness is not produced directly by the brain?

On the contrary, I would say that conciousness is the information produced by the brain that we take with us.

interesting... but where do we take it? to the stream of unconscious as it were?

interesting... but where do we take it? to the stream of unconscious as it were?

We can be "unconscious" in varied experiences and hence consciousness in not absolute. We can also experience moments when choice is determined and thus free will or chaos is rendered non-absolute.

Space isn't what we may assume it to be. We know that it can be bent, so it's a form of fabric (for lack of a better word), that can be manipulated.

This may interest you; when my daughter and I witnessed my neighbor at his own funeral, it was his upper torso and he was moving his head from right to left looking at everyone. When my mother had seen the many people in her hospital room, she said that she could only see their upper torsos. This triggered my interest, as in these manifestations may be coming from somewhere, that somewhere in which their lower torsos were being covered by.

What interest me most about these apparitions is that they have somehow captured the selves of the human being. That most of all should be of interest to those with interest in transhumanism, as the self is in constant change. If we were to try to transfer the human self, we have to capture it first.

Anyway, so when I say that we take this information with us, there's a lot more to this picture that we are just now at our initial understandings, imo. We currently maintain a very tiny piece of the infinite puzzle to which we are contributing. We are however significant as is all new information.

If these are visual representations of people then would you say we retain individuality when we die?

If these are visual representations of people then would you say we retain individuality when we die?

No, but we certainly can be individual when necessary, as we are doing now.

Now these two characters I find very interesting. Tom Campbell is a physicist and Anthony Peake is a scientific journalist.

Tom Campbell talks of what we experience as a virtual reality.
Anthony talks of the multiverse theory, daemon (higher self) and living your life over and over. Great interaction between the two a long vid though requires a bit of patience in parts.

Thanks DUK! I'll check it out... I was just about to post about a book that's out now (haven't read it yet).

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/7/seeking-facts-of-elusive-canon/?page=all

It looks interesting. Odd how these myths persist.

Cool, despite having a boss who is Muslim I know very little about Islam. It seems to me that the story of Mohammed is a re-telling (in some respects) to the story of Jesus and then the story of Jesus being a retelling of another etc.

I don't tend to ponder the existence of such "profits" any more purely because I don't feel that their existence would have too much impact on my life. If they did exist, there is then no evidence to back up the claims that they received divine communication and performed miracles etc. But there are SOME morals which are put across which should be noted. The same applies if they didn't exist, either way to me they are no different to a comic book superhero in the sense they have the "show off factor" lol.

Also I wouldn't personally want to try and disproves anyone's beliefs as I feel some people quite heavily rely on their belief system to get on with their daily lives. However I feel it is important to question your own beliefs and thoughts.

I'm uncomfortable with complacency. If we don't challenge dogma, than we may be subject to live in a world dictated by it.

I'll repost my comments about the above video here where it belongs

So far, the only rebuttal I can think of, is in regard to the Holographic Universe. If it's non-static, than I'm all ears, but when they suggest that "all" information is contained within each and every particle...I don't agree. They could perhaps make an polemic that the totality of potentials is contained within these infinite systems...but that doesn't constitude a totality of all as there is never an all of infinities.

I'll keep on listening.
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So far (the video)...I'm hearing an attempt at a deterministic system...no room for anomaly...or freewill.

Some in theoretical physics can't seem to even accept their own observations of randomness, so they appear to reqress toward deterministic theories such as that of what I'm so far hearing.

I don't suggest that any of us live in ignorance for second, but in my limited experience (being that I'm only 25! ) directly challenging a lot of peoples belief system normally just puts them on the defensive (with little logic or sense guiding there comeback).

I agree with you that it must me challenged I just dont think it should be challenged head on. There is a shift going on in the world all the time with dogmas dying out. Also Chloe from what I am aware of the US, religious people are pretty forceful in their beliefs in places. It is very different here, most people are fairly neutral in the UK. The only time im exposed to someone pushing their religion down my throat is when we have visits from Mormons or johovas .

Anyone that talks to me about their beliefs I will question why they believe in it etc.

Yup, the United States is far behind Europe in that regard. Here, I've been catergorized as a satanist and I don't believe in that guy either.

MY daughter is your age, and I had her when I was thirty.

I had to go to you tube to listen to the discussion (kept messing up here).

Get back to you after I listen to the whole thing.

Okay DUK...I listened to whole thing although I was interupted a few times.

It was very interesting.

Seems as though they steer toward an absolute source and then they ponder and figuratively say "well, no it can't be that way"...so, they move away from the notion and into the explanations of metaphors.

It's long and I'll have to find the time to listen to it again, because I may have missed on key elements.

Sounded like for the most part that I would agree with them in many of their assessments.

Thank you for the link. They also mentioned that they have sites and forums. I'll have to check that out as well.

I'm glad you found it interesting . There is another video where Tom Campbell is chatting to Dean Radin, which I will post up soon. What I like most about these guys is that they are highly open to skepticism, they in fact seem to embrace it at times.

I'm glad you found it interesting . There is another video where Tom Campbell is chatting to Dean Radin, which I will post up soon. What I like most about these guys is that they are highly open to skepticism, they in fact seem to embrace it at times.

I'm looking forward to your post.

I'd be skeptical in regard to anyone that was not open to skepticism.