This argument would be built on the quality of the guests, the host, and the production quality. Right?

@@bpatrickhoburg for me its the topics

Unfortunately the answers are rarely as good as the questions.

@@mangoldmThat’s why consciousness is called the “hard” problem.

Yes' gets to the heart of the argument...great channel😊

yes, impressive. like a machine..

As a software engineer, I don't believe consciousness can be achieved with any combination of bits changing state as that is all that AI really is. I believe consciousness lives at a much deeper quantum level (or lower) and involves fields (not bits) and the brain is "tuning" into this.

Sure, but that has no bearing at all on the question of whether systems very different to us could nevertheless also be conscious. It just means it would be harder to tell, which is basically what he said.

Roger Penrose believes that consciousness is quantum and it may take another form of physics altogether to actually describe it.

"consciousness is just our awareness" Yes but that's because the two words have identical meaning.

@@peaceonearth351 Julian Jaynes believed that humanity became conscious only after cultural evolution invented the concept of the self. This makes sense in light of the fact that it is my self who is conscious.

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL Consciousness/awareness exists whether you define it or not. It's a requirement for emotional experience in both humans and animals. Are you saying humans were unconscious automatons prior to developing a certain level of culture? That's absurd. I suspect you're thinking of self awareness for which consciousness is a requirement. Many people consider the self to be an illusion.

@@ianwaltham1854 "Humans evolved from animals." Humans *are* animals, mammals, apes. "Are you saying humans were unconscious automatons" The human species was instinct driven just as are all the other species that ever were and are today (some pets perhaps excepted). With the discovery of agriculture and the rise of civilization came the bicameral mind with a 'god' maintained in the right side of the brain and a 'man' in the left. After seven millennia of civilization and two millennia after writing was invented humanity spent a thousand years transitioning from the bicameral mode to conscious. This transition is quite well documented in the old testament of the bible where a voice coming from a burning bush gives a hint as to what the bicameral mind was like. It may seem absurd to you because you, like most, have a long held preconception and have yet to familiarized yourself with the bicameral theory. Those who suggest the self is an illusion mean only that the self is not a material entity. I agree, the self is not material. The self is an abstract entity as are thoughts, patterns, processes and the meaning of this sentence. But all of these supervene on matter without which only nothing.

>"its like asking does mass-energy make space curvature. no they are 2 different continuums " I think they'e not, the fact that they interact means it seems most likely they are different manifestations of a common underlying phenomenon. So i believe there is a commonality of kind between all phenomena that care causally contiguous with each other. Which is to say, all actual phenomena. What distinction do you draw between affecting and interacting?

@@simonhibbs887 affecting meaning causing effects in the other continuum. interacting meaning becoming or taking from the other continuums. space curvature affects mass but does not interact with it. likewise awareness affects mass but does not interact with it. we can stop pretending as though there are no answers in principle for the connections between physicality and a real functioning consciousness.

@@backwardthoughts1022 >"space curvature affects mass but does not interact with it." They change each other. Mass tells space how to curve, and space tells mass how to move. They're definitely causally connected anyway.

@@backwardthoughts1022 I don't see how this affect/interact distinction makes any difference to the causality of consciousness. Substance dualism posits that the consciousness substance causally influences the physical world. Effect, interaction, what difference does that make? The claim is still that it is causally contiguous with the physical.

@@simonhibbs887 space curvature and time arent physical. they are other than the physical ie. other than mass-energy. by definition they can never interact since they are distinct separable continuums, yet affect each other utterly and completely. just like the continuum of space curvature dictates the functions of mass-energy devoid of any interaction with it, likewise the continuum of awareness dictates the functions of mass-energy devoid of any interaction with it does this mean coarser levels of human awareness are not conditioned by the human body, no. does it mean human awareness are equivalent to the human body, no. in any case the point is space curvature which is a pure abstraction and hardly physical nevertheless controls utterly the physical, so we can discard the naivety which wonders how something so completely dissimilar to mass-energy could possibly control mass-energy

Reflection was one of the first things that was solved in AI already in the middle of past century. So indeed, reflection does not seem to equal to consciousness. Weird that it is so little well known.

​@@RolandPihlakas Not equal to it sure, but it may well be an essential feature of it.

>"1) Why has natural selection not brought about non-biological consciousness?" That's a fun question. I think it's that because evolution builds systems up from minimal initial systems up through increasing levels of complexity, with each stage having to be completely viable, it leads to very different kinds of solutions than we get from top down design. There would be no way for the iPhone in my pocket, or my car, to come about entirely through a process of natural selection. Someone had to design them and build them, but in that process the product is completely useless until the very last step when it's switched on as a complete system. >"2) If humans are about to finally create non-biological consciousness, is this actually natural selection expressing itself?" Of course, this criticism could be levelled at my account for question 1. On the one hand my car didn't evolve from ancestral car grandparents through a process of reproduction and mutation. On the other hand humans evolved and we built the car to help meet our evolutionary imperatives. This question endlessly fascinates me. Random changes in behaviour, filtered through a fitness function, leads to intentional goal seeking behaviour, and eventually intelligence. It's wonderful, and actually quite astounding that we can figure it out at all.

1) That’s a cool question. It’s maybe an optimisation story. In assembly theory there are shortest paths to making any complex object, these paths tend to be followed. I’ve heard some people talk about molecular intelligence and cellular agency. So in biology you maybe have intelligence from the ground up, you’re not just doing things by chance as with geochemistry/non biological materials. Chance isn’t very efficient 2) I don’t know if evolution/selection can be said to have an expression or a goal. It’s just a mechanism for adapting. If you’re asking can consciousness be digital? I don’t think anybody has any idea. An object’s history and causal contingency (what needed to happen for it to exist) could matter to consciousness. Or it might not. What is the difference between life and a simulation of it? The question is too difficult. I give up.

@@Sam-we7zj IMHO the channel could do a whole series of interviews on the relationship between simulations and the simulated. It’s a much misunderstood topic. For example there’s an important distinction between simulation and emulation. In emulation only the apparent behaviour we are interested in is replicated, how the emulator achieves that might have no relation to the processes occurring in the system it’s emulating. An emulator is like a pantomime horse with two people inside it, the internal mechanisms have nothing to do with how a horse body works. A model of a horse with a wooden skeleton, strings for sinew and rubber muscles would be a simulation of horse body knematics. Simulations only simulate at a given level of analysis though. The model horse is a better simulation than the pantomime horse, but it doesn’t simulate circulation, metabolism, etc. So we only simulate at a given level, below that level there’s still emulation going on, but if what we care about is skeletal dynamics the model is fine. What is important is that the information in the model corresponds as closely as possible to the information we care about in the subject. So the question is, what is it that brains do that is relevant to human cognition. Is DNA relevant? How about RNA transcription? Blood oxygen exchange? All those happen in every cell in the body, so it doesn’t seem like,y they are important. We can build artificial kidneys that perform the function of a kidney but don’t have DNA and such in them, and they still do the job just fine. So it seems like these are just implementation details. The function can be achieved in different ways. If what is important to cognition is information processing, then does it matter what the system performing that activity is made of?

@@simonhibbs887 its interesting that DNA and RNA have properties of both hardware and software. Maybe in biology there is no separation between information and substrate/hardware. Maybe information is always physical, constrained by atoms, and not an abstract thing. Then it would matter to information what it is made of. What is a rabbit hole with simulations is that the level of analysis you mention is arbitrary. Imagine Laplace's demon predicting what you will do next. For that demon you will look like a clockwork automaton because of the demon's level of analysis. Its feels as though the answer to the questions what is the difference between life and a simulation of it is in the eye of the beholder.

​@@simonhibbs887 its interesting that RNA and DNA have the properties of both hardware and software. Maybe in biology there is no bright line between hardware and software. Maybe information is not abstract but always physical, constrained by atoms. Then it would matter to information what it is made of. Simulations are a rabbit hole. The level of analysis you mention seems arbitrary. Imagine Laplace's demon predicting what you are going to do next. To that demon you will look like a clockwork automaton because of the demon's level of analysis. It seems like the answer to the question what is the difference between life and a simulation of it is in the eye of the beholder.

No reason that we can't move our consciousness onto a computer. Once we can do that, yeah we might be able to work on being able to boot up a consciousness from scratch. I don't think that is AI at that point, something else.

@@bradmodd7856 Can you imagine the experience of being a computer? No, you can’t. That’s the central problem when talking about transplanting human consciousness into silicon. People lose their minds and tumble into depression when losing just their limbs or other substantial parts of their body, how can you even begin to comprehend the mindfuck that is a human becoming a desktop computer?

Everything is pizza That's what you sound like

@@God7OD have you read Goff and Chalmers? there are some genuine arguments to be made in favor of panpsychism, you sound quite dismissive.

Without first defining consciousness unambiguously, it would be unscientific to assert any opinion on its presence or absence.

Those are two different claims. The first one says it is ubiquitous. The latter doesn't follow from the former.

​@@jade.sx9Chalmers isn't a panpsychist, is he? I think Goff is an interesting and solid philosopher, but I find panpsychism quite implausible for some reason. The intuition screams hard against it. Some kind of panprotopsychism seems like a better candidate.

The physicalism response is that biological systems have evolved behaviours that are equivalent to programming in all relevant respects. Organisms are chemical systems that behave as they do as a result of physical processes that in principle seem comprehensible to us.

Doesn't it depend on what we define consciousness to be? How do you define it? Seems like the most used definition is simply "what it's like to be" Is there proof that consciousness arises from immateriality? It doesn't appear to be the case at all. It seems like the evidence right now shows that all consciousness exists within only physical objects, which have brains. Where are all of the immaterial objects, by the way? As far as I'm aware they only exist in your consciousness, which in turn appears to only work inside of physical things. Is there any type of reasoning I can perform to convince myself thst it is probable thst consciousness arises from immaterial objects or do I have to ignore my conscious experience and believe it does?

Even a physicalist should come to the obvious conclusion that transistors cannot equate neurons and cells.

It is not my experience that consciousness arises from matter. Your premise that consciousness arises or not from matter, is simply wrong!

​@@lefthookouchmcarm4520 It doesn't make sense to ask "where" immaterial objects are. It only makes sense to say that they are "in" consciousness if you're using "in" metaphorically. (Even then, there are lots of people who would argue that immaterial objects can-or even must-be mind-independent.)

@@lefthookouchmcarm4520 Can you provide some references of what that evidence is ?

🐟 06. CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: Consciousness means “that which knows” or “the state of being aware”, from the Latin prefix “con” (with), the stem “scire” (to know) and the suffix “osus” (characterized by). There is BOTH a localized knowing and a Universal Awareness, as explicated in the following paragraphs. Higher species of animal life have sufficient cognitive ability to KNOW themselves and their environment, at least to a measurable degree. Just where consciousness objectively begins in the animal kingdom is a matter of contention but, judging purely by ethological means, it probably starts with vertebrates (at least the higher-order birds and fishes). Those metazoans which are evolutionarily lower than vertebrates do not possess much, if any, semblance of intellect, necessary for true knowledge, but operate purely by reflexive instincts. For instance, an insect or amphibian does not consciously decide to seek food but does so according to its base instincts, directed by its idiosyncratic genetic code. Even when a cockroach flees from danger, it is not experiencing the same kind of thoughts or feelings a human or other mammal would experience. The brain is merely a conduit or TRANSDUCER of Universal Consciousness (i.e. Brahman), explaining why the more intelligent the animal, the more it can understand its own existence (or at least be aware of more of its environment - just see how amazingly-complex dolphin and whale behaviour can be, compared with other aquatic species), and the reason why it is asserted that a truly enlightened human must possess a far higher level of intelligence than the average person. The processing unit of a supercomputer must be far larger, more complex and more powerful than the processor in a pocket calculator. Therefore, it seems logical to conclude that the scale of discrete (localized) consciousness is dependent on the animal's brain capacity. See Chapter 17 to understand the distinction between enlightenment and mere awakening. Three STATES of awareness are experienced by humans and possibly all other species of mammals: the waking state (“jāgrata”, in Sanskrit), dreaming (“svapna”, in Sanskrit), and deep-sleep (“suṣupti”, in Sanskrit). Beyond these three temporal states is the fourth “state” (“turīya” or “caturīya”, in Sanskrit). That is the unconditioned, eternal “state”, which underlies the other three. The waking state is the LEAST real (that is to say the least permanent, or to put it another way, the farthest from the Necessary Ground of Existence, as explained towards the end of this chapter). The dream state is closer to our eternal nature, whilst dreamless deep-sleep is much more analogous to The Universal Self (“brahman”), as it is imbued with peace. Rather than being an absence of awareness, deep-sleep is an awareness of absence (that is, the absence of phenomenal, sensual experiences). So, in actual fact, the fourth state is not a state, but the Unconditioned Ground of Being, or to put it simply, YOU, the real self/Self, or Existence-Awareness-Peace (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit). Perhaps the main purpose of dreams is so that we can understand that the waking-state is practically indistinguishable to the dream-state, and thereby come to see the ILLUSION of this ephemeral world. Both our waking-state experiences and our dream-state experiences occur solely within the mental faculties (refer to Chapter 04 for an elucidation of this phenomenon). If somebody in one of your dreams were to ask your dream-state character if the dream was real, you (playing the part of that character) would most likely say, “yes, of course this is real!” Similarly, if someone were to ask your waking-state character if this world is real, you would almost undoubtedly respond in kind. An apt analogy for Universal Consciousness is the manner in which electricity powers a variety of appliances and gadgets, according to the use and COMPLEXITY of the said device. Electricity powers a washing machine in a very simple manner, to drive a large spindle for laundering clothes. However, the very same electrical power may be used to operate a computer to manifest an astonishing range of outputs, such as playing audiovisual tracks, communication tasks, and performing extremely advanced mathematical computations, depending on the computer's software and hardware. The more advanced/complex the device, the more complex its manifestation of the same electricity. Using the aforementioned computer analogy: the brain is COMPARATIVELY equivalent to the computer hardware, deoxyribonucleic acid akin to the operating system working in conjunction with the memory, the intellect is equivalent to the processing unit, individuated consciousness is analogous to the software programme, whilst Universal Awareness is likened to the electricity which enlivens the entire computer system. A person who is comatosed has lost any semblance of local consciousness, yet is being kept alive by the presence of Universal Consciousness. The fact that many persons report out-of-body experiences, where consciousness departs from the gross body, may be evidence for the above. So, then, following-on from the assertion made in the third paragraph, one could complain: “That's not fair - why can only a genius be enlightened?” (as defined in Chapter 17). The answer is: first of all, as stated above, every species of animal has its own level of intelligence on a wide-ranging scale. Therefore, a pig or a dog could (if possible) ask: “That's unfair - why can only a human being be enlightened?” Secondly, it is INDEED a fact that life is unfair, because there is no “tit for tat” law of action and reaction, even if many supposedly-great religious preceptors have stated so. They said so because they were preaching to wicked miscreants who refused to quit their evil ways, and needed to be chastized in a forceful manner. It is not possible to speak gentle words to a rabid dog to prevent it from biting you. There is evidence of Consciousness being a universal field, in SAVANT SYNDROME, a condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrate certain abilities far in excess of the norm, such as superhuman rapid mathematical calculation, mind-reading, blind-seeing, or astounding musical aptitude. Such behaviour suggests that there is a universal field (possibly in holographic form) from which one can access information. Even simple artistic inspiration could be attributed to this phenomenon. The great British singer-songwriter, Sir James Paul McCartney, one day woke with the complete tune of the song, “Yesterday”, in his mind, after hearing it in a dream. American composer, Paul Simon, had a similar experience when the chorus of his sublime masterpiece, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, simply popped into his head. Cont...

The analagys given require embodiment. Counciousness needs to be embodied. The Savants are something I am very interested in. You have my attention there.

Uhm...no its not? It's not trivial at all?

@@Robinson8491 Again, 10,000 years ago, flying was not trivial, but now it is. Just leave to science... not to emotions.

Flying is not same as a fly Flies can still not be produced by science. The question is about sensory perception and not about engineering

@@austinamadasun5860 your misuse of the word "science" and what you suppose all behind it is utterly offensive to me, sorry

@@austinamadasun5860 It is a word game.... If not like a fly, which is very different than a bird, then what is the name for machines? The point is, biology attempts, with its own biological means, to control or mimic the physics of the phenomenon. If consciousness demands to be biological, then what is the name when a machine is aware of its environment?

Hi SandipChital, The feelings of many thinkers is that consciousness is indeed special and not reducible to fundamental physics as we currently know them. The following article quote does pose a justifiable question. “In theory, everything that exists in the physical Universe is dependent only on the same fundamental entities and interactions that we find by splitting matter apart down to the smallest possible scales. Living creatures can be divided into cells; cells themselves are composed of organelles; organelles can be broken down into molecules; molecules are made up of atoms; atoms are comprised of electrons and atomic nuclei; electrons cannot be broken down further, but nuclei themselves consist of quarks and gluons. We should, therefore, be able to take these fundamental constituents of matter - quarks, gluons, and electrons - and assemble them in various ways to explain everything that we encounter in everyday life. But with just these simple building blocks and the four fundamental interactions, is that really possible?”. The honest pursuit of truth continues, and we commit to following the data where it leads. 👍

@@steve_____K307 I personally think it is possible to deduce that consciousness a set of phenomenon that is caused by brain state (focus), structure (memory and interconnectedness of neurons) and dynamics of incoming sensory input. I simply base it on the fact that injured brain (affecting structure), brain under drugs (affecting chemistry), in case of f=general anesthesia - once again that effects chemistry, effect of strong magnetic fields near brain causing changes to perception. Sure we do not know the exact mechanism for each type of phenomenon we call conscious. But many we do. I will comment more in a bit. Second thing, which I have said many times in comments on various CTT videos and on my blog somedeepthinking is this - When people are discussing the heady topics like consciousness and self experience, the fact that their brain is in a normal working state is hiding in plain sight. SO they do not even pay attention to that aspect. Try having conversation about consciousness and self experience etc while you are under general anesthesia. Or ask a person about their consciousness while they are under general anesthesia. Most likely they will not respond. Why is that? That is because, IMO, the mechanisms which detect the internal state of consciousness and self experience themselves are part of the brain and have to be working normally. It is as simple as that. Of course the work of fully explaining it is ahead of us. Sure. It is like in old days we used to think that sickness was caused by wrath or curse of a deity or god(s), (stage 1) then germ theory was developed and we knew that infecting germs and viruses cause sickness. But we did not know how exactly (stage 2). But only in recent decades , based on biochemistry, and molecular biology we can actually describes how the proteins in viruses, bind with the molecules in the cells and block their normal function (stage 3). IMO we are at stage 2 with respect to understanding of consciousness. But I agree with you... The honest pursuit of truth continues, and we commit to following the data where it leads.

@@SandipChitale But you continue to point out that interfering with the physical brain (general anesthesia in your latest post) will cause disruption to the functioning of the overall system. Of course, nobody disputes that. But your speculation that this then proves that “consciousness” is therefore “physical” does not follow. Right? Recall that if we instead speculate that the physical brain and consciousness are separate entities dependent on each other for a fully functioning system, then it wouldn’t be a surprise that messing with the physical brain would show up as disrupted Mind function. Similarly (but not exact) to how messing with computer h/w will disrupt the expression of the s/w algorithms associated with it. The h/w and s/w are separate entities each dependent on one another, and yet neither creating the other. Sure, reaching into your computer and cutting a few circuit traces might indeed disrupt the expression of the s/w algorithms but in no way proves that the s/w “is” the h/w. Likewise, the effects of general anesthesia on the human system in no way proves that consciousness "is" the physical brain. Thanks for the chat.

@@steve_____K307 I feel like we discussed the software and hardware topic on some other video, I may be wrong but if needed I can refer you to that discussion. In the end software is really hardware. I am a computer professional so I know something about this. You may as well know. I have seen consiousness-less brains. I have not seen brain-less consciousness.

@@SandipChitale Yes, we have had this sort of discussion before, and once again, I don't think there is more I can add to what's already been stated. I am going to attribute your last response to muscle induced keystrokes, themselves just natural brain chemistry deterministically “doing what chemistry does”; e.g. future physical states always strictly dictated by former states. By the way, I’m actually glad that a 3 pound clump of meat is not merely doing what a 3 pound clump of meat does. There is good reason for folks to believe something profoundly significant is going on. And yes, if it should turn out that our subsequent discoveries reveal something well beyond our current understanding of physics and chemistry - then so be it. As we both agree -- follow the data where it leads. Take care. Cheers.

Your “logic” is UNDERWHELMING, Sir. 🙄 consciousness/Consciousness: “that which knows”, or “the state of being aware”, from the Latin prefix “con” (with), the stem “scire” (to know) and the suffix “osus” (characterized by). To put it succinctly, consciousness is the SUBJECTIVE component in any subject-object relational dynamic. The concept of consciousness is best understood in comparison with the notion of sentience. Cf. “sentience”. As far as biologists can ascertain, the simplest organisms (single-celled microbes) possess an exceedingly-primitive form of sentience, since their life-cycle revolves around adjusting to their environment, metabolizing, and reproducing via binary fission, all of which indicates a sensory perception of their environment (e.g. temperature, acidity, energy sources and the presence of oxygen, nitrogen, minerals, and water). More complex organisms, such as plants, have acquired a far greater degree of sentience, since they can react to the light of the sun, to insects crawling on their leaves (in the case of carnivorous plants), excrete certain chemicals and/or emit ultrasonic waves when being cut. At this point it is imperative to consult the entry “sentience” in the Glossary of this Holy Scripture. According to this premise, the simplest forms of animal life possess sentience, but no noticeable semblance of true consciousness. As a general rule, those animals that have at least three or four senses, combined with a simple brain, possess a mind but lack an intellect. Higher animals (notably mammals) have varying levels of intelligence but only humans have a false-ego (sense of self). Thus, human consciousness is constituted of the three components: the mind, the intellect, and the pseudo-ego (refer to Ch. 05). There is a rather strong correlation between brain complexity and level of consciousness, explaining why humans alone are capable of self-awareness. In this case, “self-awareness” is not to be confused with “self-recognition”, which is a related but quite distinct phenomenon, found also in several species of non-human animals, in which an animal is able to recognize itself in a mirror or some other reflective surface. “Self-awareness” refers to the experience where a human over the age of approximately three years, is conscious of the fact that he or she knows (that is, aware) that he or she is aware. Obviously, in the case of a child, he or she may need to be prompted in order to first be acquainted with this understanding. For example an adult could ask the child: “Do you know that you have a toy car?” “Yes!” “And do you KNOW that you know you have a toy car?” “Umm...I think so...yes!”. In contemporary spiritual circles (as well as in several places within this book), the capitalized form of the word usually, if not always, refers to Universal Consciousness, that is, an Awareness of awareness (otherwise known as The Ground of All Being, et altri).

@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda 🙄you still don't have any idea what's going on, do you? Nothing new here.

@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda Do you have any simple advice for the average man on the street who wants a positive experience when the body dies?

@@ianwaltham1854 death: the cessation of a life. Chapter 09 of this “A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity” summarizes what happens to the body at this time. The ONLY important fact that one needs to understand about death, is that it is an event that need not be contemplated at any time by a human being. The ONLY thing that we ought to do, is live each and every moment of our lives striving to adhere to dharma and, if we are able, promote genuine dharma in all facets of our lives. This constitutes a perfect life. See the glossary entry, “dharma”. Some religionists, especially Buddhists, devote their entire spiritual practice (or at least a significant portion of their practice) to developing their minds to such a degree, so that when they are on their death beds, they will die with an EQUANIMOUS state of consciousness. In the meantime, they aspire to receive as many peak experiences, such as ecstatic (and, necessarily, temporary) states of mind. This desire to feel blissful, is not very different to a drug addict seeking his or her next narcotic-induced mental “fix”. Obviously, the vast majority of humans, at least within the past thirty-to-fifty thousand years of our species, have generated and advanced a whole host of beliefs regarding the destiny of the human soul/spirit upon death. If one has any interest in these theories, there is no shortage of dogmatic religious literature available for one to study. This book has no interest in such nonsensical, unscientific, unverifiable and/or unfalsifiable beliefs, save to note that there SEEMS to be some evidence for the persistence of a deceased entity, including ghosts, visions, parapsychic phenomena, locutions, and psychic mediation. The vast majority of such phenomena, I would posit, are experienced purely within the discrete mind of individuals (see Chapters 06 and 07), and those that are experienced by more than a single person cannot convince an enlightened sage of the existence of a separate, individualized, discrete, enduring soul. See the entry “spirit/Spirit”, for the most meticulous understanding of the notion of “soul”, or “spirit”. A VERY common misunderstanding regarding death in relation to a self-realized or enlightened human being, is that many believe such a person either welcomes death or has absolutely no fear of death whatever. In my own case, I can attest that I am not eagerly awaiting death for two reasons: firstly, assuming that I die of old age, I am definitely not looking forward to the various medical complications that inevitably arise towards the end of life, and secondly, now that I have found true peace/happiness, I would like to continue living in such a state of being for many decades or even centuries to come (and of course, spread religion and dharma to as many other humans as possible). Regarding the alternative (that is, my demise via a sudden death scenario), that would be a far more unfortunate state of affairs, because at the time of writing, my teachings (encapsulated mainly in this Holy Scripture) have yet to make a significant impact on humanity and I require many years in order to do so. I have yet to even launch my own website! Regarding the fear of death, I would be not be completely truthful if I claimed that I have no fear at all of dying, partly for the above reasons and partly due to the fact that I am a natural animal, and like most animals, I have the innate desire to stay alive. If not, I would stop consuming food and water, and eat only if and when a fellow human happened to insert a piece of food into my mouth! As established in the body of this book, the human being (as well as all other species of living organisms) is a continuous process of motion, rather than a static object. The analogy of a whirlpool appearing in a stream of water was used in Chapter 09, already. Here is another anecdote: There was once a small wave (let’s call “him” “Ripples”) who lived a very enjoyable existence in the middle of a vast ocean. One day, Ripples spotted the shoreline of a continent, and he asked another wave (let’s call “her” “Suenami”) what it was. Suenami replied, “Well, that’s the place where waves go to die”, since, when a wave breaks against the rocky shore, it dissipates. As you can imagine, Ripples was visibly distressed upon hearing this news, and protested about this sad state of affairs. “Do not fret”, replied Suenami, “There is something called ‘water’. When we waves die upon the rocks, we simply return to that which we ALWAYS were - water!” Honestly, why is everybody so afraid of death? It is not as if any of us ASKED to be born in the first place, would you not agree? When we were encapsulated within the initial singularity (at the “Big Bang” beginning of the universe) we were not afraid of death, so why are we humans so fearful of the end of our lives? Of course, this is inconsequential to the fact that we are perpetually “dying” within our very lifetimes, for we are a slightly different being from moment to moment. Interestingly, the antithesis of “death” is “conception”, NOT “life”.

😁😁😁

lol

Hi JamarvLaRueTheMessiah2030. Wow, I tried hard to make sense out of your comment. Maybe I'll just start by asking you to clarify your reference to "God"; is it the particular God of Islam, or possibly Mormonism, or maybe Christianity, or some other world religion? They all have a different depiction of God and hence we conclude with 100% certainty that most are absolutely a deception invented by man. Did you narrow in on the singular "True" one of the bunch?

"Consciousness is 100% Electric," why do you say this? Most scientist and philosophers don't know what it is.

@@bryankrauss6334 so when I put a battery in the dustbin, I commit a murder ?

All Living Beings/Life-Unit's are biological Beings, all have Eternal Consciousness. So, Consciousness can't be 'generated from non-biological entities', Stuff is a product of Consciousness, but is not Conscious. So Stuff will always be Stuff, and Consciousness, will always be Consciousness. Well, it is actually possible knowing the simple basic Nature of Consciousness, as is a Set of Eternal Abilities, (Rainbow) that also making This Device, work so proberly. But it's a deeper study, to grab the full picture.

That's the discussion, it's why the first thing Andy says is to ask what kind of thing we think we are. Figuring out how to define or characterise things is what these discussions are largely about, because different people have different ideas about what a biological system is, what a person is, what consciousness is, what free will is.

We all know we're conscious. Its the only thing we know for sure. Whether or not that counts as science is irrelevant.

@@ianwaltham1854 *We all know we're conscious. Its the only thing we know for sure. Whether or not that counts as science is irrelevant* True, "we all know we're conscious". But what does that mean? How will you share that knowledge with others? That requires science. So, unless you wish to keep that "we all know we're conscious" only to yourself, science becomes relevant, nay, indispensable.

@@simonhibbs887 *it's why the first thing Andy says is to ask what kind of thing we think we are* True. But Andy beings to answer with the premise of physicalism and non-physicalist would disagree. Hence the need for a commonly acceptable definition of consciousness.

@@Jun_kid That's fair, and I think Andy does that to make the fact that he's working from the premise of physicalism clear. It depends what sort of definition we're after. Physicalists might define it in terms of a physical or information processing activity, and non-physicalists might define it as a non-physical activity, and we're back to square one. There are other options of course, we can define it in terms of external behaviours but then we hit the philosophical zombie problem. Another option is to define it in terms of the experiences we have, but that's entirely subjective and not testable. On the other hand external behaviour and internal experience are all the evidence we have to go on, and this is what we study in neuroscience, neurophysiology, etc. That's science though, not philosophy, but it can certainly inform our philosophical considerations.

Yes, but, _all_ living creatures navigate their environment and predict the future. It's just what life _does._ And while there is _something_ inherently special about human systems... there's also _nothing_ inherently special about human systems. As you note, the overwhelming majority of our physical processes go on without our being aware of them, they occur "in the dark". So why do we have _any_ subjective experiences at all? Why couldn't it _all_ happen with the lights out? And yes, it's possible that some basic forms of life _don't_ have conscious experiences, but it's more parsimonious to assume that they _do._ I mean, you either have to explain why it is that some animals look conscious, but aren't, or else you just assume that animals that _look_ conscious probably _are_ conscious.. and, you know... Occam's Razor does the rest! We'll have to disagree about the whole "free will" thing. I don't see how we could have it even in-principle, I don't know what it would even mean! In any case, one's opinion on the matter doesn't count a single damned bit towards how you live your day-to-day life, does it? Humans might be more conscious than other animals, and some animals may not be conscious at all. But assuming some spectrum of conscious experiences do exist across all animal species is neater, fits with evolution, and simply makes more common sense. Humans may well be conscious of our conscious experiences, but we still have no idea why we are conscious of our conscious experiences, or _how_ we are, or even _when_ we are! For all our bonus consciousness, it would seem that it's no help to us when it comes to explaining it!