Million Dollar Idea Thread

#81

The part about what I think consciousness actually is is just fun speculation by my part, not to be taken as an objective argument, just an interesting suggestion.

I think you can absolutely rule out consciousness as an external entity. It goes back to how I said consciousness isn’t special. It can’t be external without being “supernatural” (I use supernatural not to label the unexplained, but the made up). For consciousness to be an external entity such as the supernatural soul it would require that there is more to the human brain, in fact any brain, than the particular arrangement of molecules. I challenge any such “special” interpretation because it is completely unfounded and wouldn’t make sense in the context of evolution; consciousness under evolution must emerge as the further development of the brain. How could such a development be aided by the materialization of an outside entity appended to the brain? There was a point in our development where we did not have consciousness, and then there was a point where we did (obviously the line is probably much blurrier than that, one could simply pick a point on either side of the grey to make this claim). The only difference between those two points is mutation and natural selection.

This thread got derailed from the very start, it was meant to be about stupid inventions, not stupid ideas. Lets just enjoy where it goes.

#82

I know. That was a joke.

#83

How does one know that the soul does not exist as a separate entity?

#84

Because it’s a claim as unfounded as “unicorns exist” that only came about because people want to feel special and want to think they’re not going to die. Also because consciousness is a very difficult/impossible thing to understand/describe, and inventing an external entity makes for an at least superficially simple to understand answer to the question.

It doesn’t make sense because of my post above about how it’d be non-nonsensical for such an entity to emerge separate from the body as the product of evolution.

#85

You can’t prove a negative the argument is pointless. He asked you how you know it doesn’t. And you don’t, all you know is what you believe you know. Which is what you stated in your post. But you do not know the unknowns which could prove what you think you know to be untrue.

Besides this point. Even your belief in scientific knowledge accepts that its incomplete and is constantly learning, hypothesizing and trying to figure out what makes up the mind. Neurological science is still not mastered even by professionals. Scientific progress isn’t made by keeping a closed mind and telling people they’re wrong. Its made by keeping an open mind and examining the universe for the best solution given what we think we know at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition

#86

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot
I showed that the idea of an external soul is unfounded, thus putting it on level with the celestial teapot or unicorns.

I can’t prove a negative, but I can bring strong evidence against a claim, which I believe I’ve successfully done. Also this could hardly be called science, this is philosophy.

The former of your two links is largely rejected, according to your very link, by modern scientists/philosophers. The latter highlights that it simply aims to use quantum mechanical thought as a model, and doesn’t actually involve quantum mechanics, thus it in no way affects the thought experiment.

Here’s another thought experiment, or more of simply a question. If you made an android whose electronic brain could operate entirely on the same level as a human brain in every way, would it be somehow lacking? Missing a “soul” or something similar?

I would say absolutely not. What is so special about the organic assembly of our brain that sets it aside from the factory assembly of a theoretical android’s brain? The fun part is in a world of these androids they’d likely tell themselves they had an external entity defining their consciousness just as we do.

#87

I always figured a soul was merely a conscience, the ability to feel emotion and act upon it rationally (or irrationally be it the case) and reason. If we were to create it to be completely identical to humans, would it not be safe to assume it does possess a soul, if a soul were nothing but a working conscience?

#88

My point wasn’t against yours. I don’t have an investment in the ideas presented. My point was your argument is pointless because you can’t prove a negative. Well I tend to agree that the burden of proof is on the claim maker it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t prove it wrong just that its a lacking concept no matter where you think you should place the burden of proof you CANNOT PROVE A NEGATIVE. Arguing with someone who’s argument amounts to you don’t know that it doesn’t exist is pointless. This person doesn’t accept your logic behind burden of proof. You are arguing with a wall. Reason and logical are a human inventions and exist in human consciousness. You may not understand this but not everyone follows the same train of thought and when you have a conflict of rational as simple as who the burden of proof lies on further arguments will go nowhere.

I didn’t even look at the links I gave you to be completely honest. I recall reading something about a quantum mechanics brain having impacts on the way some people “out of body experiences” and thought it’d be suitable. The point was that ideas you seem to think are meta-physical can some times be viewed in a scientific light and possibility through which can be explored and may potentially hold answers it may not. Most hypothesis end up to be considered wrong.

You in this very thread have made “fun speculation” you have no proof for your thoughts or ideas. Yet you criticize others thoughts and ideas based on fuckall. Why is yours “fun speculation” and theirs “supernatural”. Your just playing with words. Spewing rhetoric. An argument the by product of a common disdain for anything labeled as fantasy when applied to the real world but turning around and spouting science-fiction which is frequently no more than fantasy but with sciency-sounding words and lazers.

That said I’m an occam’s razor kinda guy myself so I tend to think if we know the brain controls the body then the consciousness relating to that body would probably reside in that brain and in the electric signals we observe. But we do not KNOW this and occam’s razor is not always true.

#89

My argument hasn’t been about the burden of proof, you’ve brought that in here. People said that my claims could not be made because my assumption of a non-external consciousness is baseless. I then attempted to show that an external consciousness is not a realistic explanation. Once again, one can’t formally prove a negative, but it’s perfectly reasonable to provide evidence against a theory in order to reject the theory.

If a magician performed a trick and you proposed that he performed the trick in a certain way, regardless of the burden of proof I could point out a flaw in your explanation that informally disproves it.

I think you’re taking this argument a little more seriously than I am or the others involved.

I label one “supernatural” because it conflicts with our understanding of the situation (a separate entity emerging from the process of evolution). I label the other “fun speculation” because it, at least to me, sounds reasonable with no conflict, but really has no solid footing upon which to stand. I used that label to split the two parts of my discussion, one in which I am trying to be more strict and rational, and the other where I’m going out on a limb for the sake of interest and possibility. Someone could show me that my “fun speculation” is actually “supernatural” if they pointed out a flaw in my reasoning. However “supernatural” usually has an air of mysticism which my minimalist explanation certainly does not give off.

I have equal disdain for science fiction as I do for fantasy. What I’ve been spouting is thought experiments. For the sake of a thought experiment you can create whatever conditions you want to test a theory that may not be easily tested in reality. Simply because the conditions I set fall within the realm of sci-fi does not mean sci-fi is my concern. I simply use sci-fi conditions to attempt to shed light on real-world questions about consciousness.

#90

Now they’re “thought experiments”. Your not having thought experiments. You are arguing your views on consciousnesses. And going between playful thoughts to lacking evidence to support your claims seriousness, whichever suits the argument you are trying to make. A thought experiment doesn’t need proof. It doesn’t prove anything. Its just taking a scenario and asking what you think of it. If these have been thought experiments than your just injecting wrong and right into something that lacks conclusive answers. But this comes back to arguing with a wall, which what it seems like I am doing. So this’ll be my last post regarding this.

#91

The claims to some external factors in consciousness is no more unfounded than claims that it is purely mechanical.

Do you believe gravity is “supernatural hogwash”? We currently don’t know how it works, and it works from a distance. It’s an external force with no mechanical or physical properties which we can’t yet explain.

I’m not arguing that consciousness is external, simply that it could be.

#92

Personally I would say that even though your entire self is contained within the body, consciousness as a concept can still be considered external simply because the self is procedurally generated by compiling data gathered from outside.

#93

consciousness could be described as a recursive function between potential (inner processes) and reality (observations of the external)

also, it could be argued that any life has consciousness (as opposed to self-consciousness), since all life perceives impulses and processes those impulses in some way
that’s basically what consciousness is

#94

lol

#95

Why must you destroy my dreams with your facts… :frowning:

#96

You dream about shooting tranquilizer darts out of a shotgun at rioters?

#97

I understand that it’s an argument of it could, I’m just arguing that it can’t, or at least it’s incredibly unlikely.

Gravity is something repeatedly tested and confirmed. It’s ability to affect across a distance is acknowledged. That’s rather different than taking something that we have no evidence for external connection and saying it might have an external connection for no other reason than that we don’t understand it and us people are so desperate to feel special that we need to think our consciousness is something special. There’s a big difference in the situations. For consciousness to be external, it means that an arrangement of molecules inside the brain must have been specifically designed by evolution to create some external link capable of impeccably transferring information, all of which without leaving absolutely any evidence of the link or external entity (unless you count stuff like NDEs, which for obvious reasons shouldn’t count). Gravity is just a fundamental poorly understand fact of our reality. The latter seems a lot easier to stomach. An interesting sensation/trait emerging from matter developing thought and higher order thought is an astronomically more likely answer.

#98

Let’s re-rail it. [COLOR=‘Red’]Topic, everyone.

If you want to discuss matters of consciousness or otherwise, take it to another thread.

#99

A device that automatically blocks phonecalls from telemarketers.

#100

An add-on to said device that also blacklists specific residential or cell phone numbers.

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