My thoughts on conscious

[Charlatan]

When we are born, we react with our new world, by reacting to new stimuli. This new stimuli makes our mind seek survival and comfort. In seeking survival we look around ourselves and see the world. Then one day we look inside of ourselves and discover the sense of self, which is called conscious. Is conscious evolutionary? I think it is, because our mind becomes consciou because of looking for something to do with self exploration - which comes from becoming familar with the world we are in. We look inside ourselves to find what ails us when we are seeking the things we need. A monkey cannot do the same because of evolution, the reactions required to arrive at self are reactions to more complex thoughts, which come from a more evolved mind. We end up with self because we look for cause, as a monkey could do, but when we loo for cause we don't look outside, we look in. Looking in makes our reactions go from "where am I", to "I am here", to "why am I here?" Why always starts off as looking for cause in food, or other essential things, then moves on to why the things we need aren't there - or are. Asking why is a way of learning what goes where, then why is self there, then what were you looking for? All thoughts are reactions, so your mind is reacting to needs, and through a rigorous path of whys, arrives by the questions of self, trying to identify all the things in the equation. Maybe a monkey knows it is there, but doesn't recognise that because it has a lazy mind, not sharp and able to compress thoughts, arriving with identity. We have identity because our mind reacts to the thoughts regarding "I", and has the capacity to do so.

So I think conscious is just a reaction based bunch of thoughts, owing to evolution our brain - the hard ware - can identify self, and then react to the self with wanting to know why is self whatever. After that it goes on to thinking why is self not like the others, why is self like self - all from reactions to other thoughts.

[Jack]

A monkey cannot do the same because of evolution, the reactions required to arrive at self are reactions to more complex thoughts, which come from a more evolved mind.

You might want to check out Consciousness, Function, and Representation by Ned Joel Block, in which he examines the results of tests involving monkeys and mirrors. Since we're simply differently evolved apes, it makes sense that consciousness may not be limited to humans.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Isherwood You might want to check out Consciousness, Function, and Representation by Ned Joel Block, in which he examines the results of tests involving monkeys and mirrors. Since we're simply differently evolved apes, it makes sense that consciousness may not be limited to humans.

Yes, we're not all that hairless.
And you can tell that certain dogs create inner worlds to make up for lack of love and compassion.

Grandpa h.

[robby 1957]

The only way to understand yourself is to see yourself from God's perspective .. to know what God says about himself and what he says about us . . . we are not animals .. animals no dont have a spirit .. animals are body and soul .. humans are body soul and spirit . . . take care . . . . Robby

[freefallife]

Quote by: robby 1957 The only way to understand yourself is to see yourself from God's perspective .. to know what God says about himself and what he says about us . . . we are not animals .. animals no dont have a spirit .. animals are body and soul .. humans are body soul and spirit . . . take care . . . . Robby

I see that you are new here, but we've had this debate before. The homo sapian is indeed an animal..a mammal, to be more descriptive. Put it this way, every living thing in existance is placed into one of three kingdoms:

1) Plant
2) Animal
3) Fungi

As I am almost sure you are not a fungus or rooted in soil, that leaves us with only one reamining option. You, my friend, are an animal.

Isher is completely correct also in that we are not the only animals to exhibit self-realization.

[Kakumei]

Quote by: freefallife I see that you are new here, but we've had this debate before. The homo sapian is indeed an animal..a mammal, to be more descriptive. Put it this way, every living thing in existance is placed into one of three kingdoms: 1) Plant 2) Animal 3) Fungi As I am almost sure you are not a fungus or rooted in soil, that leaves us with only one reamining option. You, my friend, are an animal. Isher is completely correct also in that we are not the only animals to exhibit self-realization.

That may be, but the fact of the matter is that our self realization is very deep. It is interconnected with our conciouness and other factors that define us, and yet we are unknown to these factors. Does a monkey intentionally comit sucide? Does it understand the concept of drawing? Does it make martal arts to find a balance between mind and body? Im not aware of such events happening to any animal, other than us, of course. Humans apparently only use 10% of there brain or are only capable of using it as such. There is so much more out there...

[Charlatan]

So with enough time all animals will evolve a conscious, and start to wonder about things, maybe even philosophising to some point, so I reckon that there is no God creation thing, as in in making two humans first, as we evolved from this ozone surrounded planet into our present form. I guess that Genesis is a incorrect testament therefore, as God never walked with us, and God never spoke to us, because if God were to appear to people practising deep thoughts, they would likely be scared of this manifestation. How did God speak to us? He must have had vocal chords to be heard, or a conscious of His own, so that is another thought in the evolution of God, as nothing can communicate without going through evolution. How did he speak in the language of the times? He must have been watching and one day decided to come to us and claim He made us, when it is clear we evolved from fish, so how does the natural forces of law and nature manifest itself all of a sudden? He must have been born like Jesus was, and then grew with the people who hailed Him as God, maybe he was born on a stormy night, and they just thought He was special, so hailed Him as God.

But it says that they were naked, how could this be? Even neadrathals had clothing, so they were never naked in my opinion, it is a lie.

On consciousness we react to everything from when we are born, actually from when we are in the womb. Are we conscious then, thinking about the world we are in? Exploring the womb we would find boundaries, and from these boundaries we would draw conclusions as if this happens, so this happens. So the first time we experience anything is the moment we become conscious of that, so what leads to deep thoughts? I think that deep thoughts are arrived at by reacting to wonder, and wonder comes from reactions to having nothing knowledge - or reactions - to the problem at large. The problem sparks off survival instinct, they all do, so how do we arrive at the problem being what you are? This leads to exploring self, and exploring self comes before philosophy, so I guess it comes down to first physical exploration, then realising that we have a reaction to each exploration, and then we wonder what is in our minds because of the phsysical exploration. We think why we feel this, then we speculate as to what else we could feel, so where does speculation come from? After all speculation is required to arrive at conscious, a sense of self, so specualtion comes from our mind taping all our past experiences to the new one, and seeing if it fits. If it doesn't fit, we look for past knowledge on what else could, because we cannot have a thought that doesn't come from experience.

That is where animals go slow, because their language doesn't evolve, they never will. With language we can make up sentences for fun, by ourselves, that don't fit any problems. We can think of things that are beyond us because we speculate at unknown things. So conscious is the exploration ability of the unknown. If someone asks you who you are, then you can answer by the name others call you, then think of who you are, because of our brains reactions to fear. I guess it is fear that makes us explore ourselves, as fear of the unknown - after realsing there is an unknown - makes us look for answers. We look for answers because we are scared, even though we don't feel fear. The more we know the more we are afraid of, so when our brain realises that we are needing something, we react with wanting to know what it is.

So how do we end up with knowing ourselves? We are scared of not knowing oursleves, even though we don't feel fear, our instinct makes us explore, so as we have evolved, so has our instinct, until we arrived at a point where our instinct said to us tht we needed to know oursleves to know what we wanted. What do i want is a conscious thought, so in having everything we needed, we started to think of what else could we need in future, then why we needed it. We think why because we have eveything we need, at some point, and then start to think of the excess, what to do with it, and then asked why we had excess - when we were still evolving. This was a lazy question as hard work was required to store foods, so avoiding food storage was thought of as good, so then we thought of why we needed to store foods? For the winter of course, but we arrived at why because we were trying to avoid something, so we asked others to do it, and they asked why the others wouldn't do it, and the others said it was tiring. They thought why because they were lazy, and I bet that was the first why in evolution.

But what goes into the question why? Instinct requires that things be done, and then the effort involved says that it is not what they want, but instead of not doing it and dying, they thought it was cold, we need to store foods, then that it was a great effort, then they realised why they do things. So does the realiasation com ebefore why? I am full because I have eaten, why am I eating and the other is not, they must be full, why are they full, because they have eaten.

So conscious comes from seeking comfort and survival, then once we have the word 'why', we seek to attach it to other things.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: Kakumei That may be, but the fact of the matter is that our self realization is very deep.

Nah. We're not so different from animals.

Bonobos have laughter.
Otters use tools.
Elephants have traditions.
Dolphins have sex for fun.
Whales have a crude language.

About the only thing that sets us apart is our ability to employ language and our ability to employ & understand metaphor. A chimp may be able to craft a tool, but he's unlikely to see this tool as something else... like a symbol of advancement and progress. Also, the chimp can't explain how to fabricate the tool verbally to other chimps.

Humans apparently only use 10% of there brain or are only capable of using it as such.

Wow... I didn't think there was anyone out there who still believed that. The fact is we use our entire brain, but we don't use all of it at the same time. Every ounce of your graymatter is accomodated for. Honestly... when was the last time you hear a doctor say, "It's okay. He was shot in the 90% of his brain he's not using, so he's going to be just fine."

Back to the debate.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: robby 1957 animals no dont have a spirit .. animals are body and soul .. humans are body soul and spirit . . .

Prove it.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Zhavric Prove it.

I don't think it can be proven. "Spirits" are just an idea, and how do you know for sure which ideas animals have?

Grandpa h.

[Jack]

animals no dont have a spirit

Neither do humans. What exactly is a "spirit"? Where is it, what functions does it perform, how can its presence be detected? The same goes for the "soul". Both are simply conjectures without an ounce of medical evidence to support the idea they exist. The fact that we're animals, on the other hand, is supported by biology according to common taxonomy. It's simply a matter of classification based on physical characteristics.

Humans apparently only use 10% of there brain

A fallacy.
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Ten Percent of our Brains

Where Did the 10% Myth Begin? ein The 10% statement may have been started with a misquote of Albert Einstein or the misinterpretation of the work of Pierre Flourens in the 1800s. It may have been William James who wrote in 1908: "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources" (from The Energies of Men, p. 12). Perhaps it was the work of Karl Lashley in the 1920s and 1930s that started it. Lashley removed large areas of the cerebral cortex in rats and found that these animals could still relearn specific tasks. We now know that destruction of even small areas of the human brain can have devastating effects on behavior. That is one reason why neurosurgeons must carefully map the brain before removing brain tissue during operations for epilepsy or brain tumors: they want to make sure that essential areas of the brain are not damaged. Why Does the Myth Continue? Somehow, somewhere, someone started this myth and the popular media keep on repeating this false statement (see the figures). Soon, everyone believes the statement regardless of the evidence. I have not been able to track down the exact source of this myth, and I have never seen any scientific data to support it. According to the believers of this myth, if we used more of our brain, then we could perform super memory feats and have other fantastic mental abilities - maybe we could even move objects with a single thought. Again, I do not know of any data that would support any of this. What Does it Mean to Use Only 10% of Your Brain? What data were used to come up with the number - 10%? Does this mean that you would be just fine if 90% of your brain was removed? If the average human brain weighs 1,400 grams (about 3 lb) and 90% of it was removed, that would leave 140 grams (about 0.3 lb) of brain tissue. That's about the size of a sheep's brain. It is well known that damage to a relatively small area of the brain, such as that caused by a stroke, may cause devastating disabilities. Certain neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's Disease, also affect only specific areas of the brain. The damage caused by these conditions is far less than damage to 90% of the brain. Perhaps when people use the 10% brain statement, they mean that only one out of every ten nerve cells is essential or used at any one time? How would such a measurement be made? Even if neurons are not firing action potentials, they may still be receiving signals from other neurons. Furthermore, from an evolutionary point of view, it is unlikely that larger brains would have developed if there was not an advantage. Certainly there are several pathways that serve similar functions. For example, there are several central pathways that are used for vision. This concept is called "redundancy" and is found throughout the nervous system. Multiple pathways for the same function may be a type of safety mechanism should one of the pathways fail. Still, functional brain imaging studies show that all parts of the brain function. Even during sleep, the brain is active. The brain is still being "used," it is just in a different active state.

Neuroscience For Kids - 10% of the Brain Myth

[Maryjane]

Kakumei:[QUOTE]Does it understand the concept of drawing?[/quote]

Bonobos have laughter.

Bonobo's do a LOT more than that!

TED | Talks | Susan Savage-Rumbaugh: Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man (video)

[Kakumei]

Quote by: Zhavric Wow... I didn't think there was anyone out there who still believed that. The fact is we use our entire brain, but we don't use all of it at the same time. Every ounce of your graymatter is accomodated for. Honestly... when was the last time you hear a doctor say, "It's okay. He was shot in the 90% of his brain he's not using, so he's going to be just fine." Back to the debate.

I didnt mean per se that we didnt use it in the fact that it doesnt work, we never mind, I guess it doesnt matter. Im saying that as a people or a race or as a specie, that have not reached our full capacity yet, whereas in many animals it seems that they have.

[vash the sane]

Quote by: Kakumei I didnt mean per se that we didnt use it in the fact that it doesnt work, we never mind, I guess it doesnt matter. Im saying that as a people or a race or as a specie, that have not reached our full capacity yet, whereas in many animals it seems that they have.

What do you mean our "full capacity?"

[freefallife]

Quote by: Kakumei I didnt mean per se that we didnt use it in the fact that it doesnt work, we never mind, I guess it doesnt matter. Im saying that as a people or a race or as a specie, that have not reached our full capacity yet, whereas in many animals it seems that they have.

And who ever said that animals have attained THEIR full capacity?? Given another million years, who knows what some animals might evolve into.

[Suburbanite]

Quote by: Charlatan When we are born, we react with our new world, by reacting to new stimuli. This new stimuli makes our mind seek survival and comfort. In seeking survival we look around ourselves and see the world. Then one day we look inside of ourselves and discover the sense of self, which is called conscious. Is conscious evolutionary? I think it is, because our mind becomes consciou because of looking for something to do with self exploration - which comes from becoming familar with the world we are in. We look inside ourselves to find what ails us when we are seeking the things we need. A monkey cannot do the same because of evolution, the reactions required to arrive at self are reactions to more complex thoughts, which come from a more evolved mind. We end up with self because we look for cause, as a monkey could do, but when we loo for cause we don't look outside, we look in. Looking in makes our reactions go from "where am I", to "I am here", to "why am I here?" Why always starts off as looking for cause in food, or other essential things, then moves on to why the things we need aren't there - or are. Asking why is a way of learning what goes where, then why is self there, then what were you looking for? All thoughts are reactions, so your mind is reacting to needs, and through a rigorous path of whys, arrives by the questions of self, trying to identify all the things in the equation. Maybe a monkey knows it is there, but doesn't recognise that because it has a lazy mind, not sharp and able to compress thoughts, arriving with identity. We have identity because our mind reacts to the thoughts regarding "I", and has the capacity to do so. So I think conscious is just a reaction based bunch of thoughts, owing to evolution our brain - the hard ware - can identify self, and then react to the self with wanting to know why is self whatever. After that it goes on to thinking why is self not like the others, why is self like self - all from reactions to other thoughts.

I like what you said right in the beginning. About us just being organisms that react to sound stimuli. I think thats pretty much it, the whole part you added about consciousness doesn't help to explain anything about us, it offers no insight into "human nature", and is only the religion-free way of saying the soul.
Introspection, the process of asking yourself questions, is NOT integral to our being (though I recommend it for everyone).