Agreed. Looking at this comment that I wrote a while back though, another thing springs to my mind. I said spiders are less conscious, but actually they are more conscious than I am of what is going on at their level. They are probably conscious of a whole lot of things that I am unaware of.

Yes and there is an offensive aspect of that. Some humans are more conscious than others. But also somebody could be very aware but not have such overwhelming feelings, while somebody far less aware, may have very deep feelings. I'm sure an animal could feel extremely deep sorrow and maybe moreso than some humans feel.

@RoyManter: I think that the materialist model of consciousness conflicts with too much of what we can observe. In cases of severe hydrocephalus as well as the more impressive cases of terminal lucidity, there are people who have a sliver of a fraction of the brain mass of a normal person, and yet display seemingly no cognitive deficits. Additionally, to this day neuroscience has found no neural correlate for consciousness.

consciousness is a universal force.....our bodies are the receivers.....

I agree. Physics has gotten to the point where it is vindicating things said by Plato and Pythagoras and other ancients: The reality of the universe is not matter or energy or space -- those are illusions, shadows cast by the actual reality which is information. Above information are the things studied by math and geometry. Above those, the things pertaining to thought, and mind, and virtue.

Materialism has always been an irrational response given the experience of consciousness. It is magical thinking.

@RoyMenter: This model already exists, and is summed up well by Cyril Burt: “The brain is not an organ that generates consciousness, but rather an instrument evolved to limit the processes of consciousness and of conscious attention so as to restrict them to those aspects of the material environment which at any moment are crucial for the terrestrial success of the individual”

Another thing you might want to do is read through more of the comments because I already stated last year (10 months ago) that animals can sometimes be far more conscious of certain things than humans. You see, we aren't all perfect, we all make mistakes, even The Truth Contest, but the best way to approach people is to be a little more tactful so that a better and more constructive result can be achieved.

You are so right! Where did you learn this? It is cutting-edge knowledge. Very few people seem to be able to accept it.

The brain is not the producer of consciousness at all, it is merely correlated with consciousness. Materialism is on the way out.

I'd like to inform Science & Psychokinesis Fact. I see through the objects:walls,stons,beam,hands,other. I have created images:portraits,animal's faces on Clouds & Varnish from long distance and to give intentional shape, the area in the clouds must be established before the test.

Well you can only grant animals "rights" to a certian degree. They have to be killed for food, or protection (to prevent a spider from biting you). But I agree that they shouldn't be killed if you don't absolutely have to, for survival. Not that survival is "Fair" by any means, but it is what it is.

Interesting set of experiments.

Thanks very much!

Many Thanks

Actually I take that back. I wasn't totally wrong, I was partially wrong. I think it was wrong of you just to come out and say I was wrong. I just briefly read through The Present. I've been saying that we will be born again the moment we die because we can't experience the passing of time when we are unconscious for several years now so it was nice to see someone has the same idea as myself! :-)

how did you manage to post a 59 min. video???

@Elphadyre maybe we've got to ask them?

There are many aspects of the paper that have not been proven and are just a guess. Here are a couple that I found within a minute: 1. If we are born with advantages then in the next life we are born with disadvantages. There is no proof of this. 2. We are immortal. There is no proof of this. All this could be wrong. I believe it is more constructive and friendly to approach people in a more tactful manner than just saying they are wrong. That's my opinion. Good luck with your learning.

We had a drink before this lecture..Dr. Francis is a bit tipsy here! :P

But now you're just stuck explaining "information" in the view of consciousness. Even if information is all there is, that information tells us about matter and matter and energy can be said to "exist" based on that information. In reality, no matter how you care to characterize it, consciousness still needs to be explained.

How very endearing you are. How can you prove that if you are born with advantages then in the next life you are born with disadvantages? I doubt that's how the universe works, even if it is balanced. The amount of bad lives may be balanced with good lives, but that doesn't mean that a good life is immediately followed by a bad life. The universe makes no distinction between a good and bad life and that is exactly why they will be balanced, but not in a uniform pattern of good/bad/good/bad.

how about teens, pre-teens, toddlers, babies, infants, newly born, 9month fetus, 2nd trimester fetus, 1st trimester fetus....?

annnnnnd yet everyone think's we're crazy lol, but the vibes are growing every day

@AnduinX why?

@AnduinX yes, i have the same information

@AnduinX i totally agree

May be just minus out all the identified areas of the brain then we will find the consciousness area.

I agree.

@RoyMenter: The materialist model survives by classifying most of what it conflicts with as ‘mysteries to be solved before the model is proven correct’, and outright dismisses the anecdotal. This is a failure, I think. A better model of consciousness would be one that works with everything that we know, and conflicts with nothing.

The answer isn't safe... thats the point. Its only safe when its out of reach by only allowing the question to be important. ...I'm saying.. if you look towards the answer and not the question, you end up with alot more choices to make for yourself and ultimately become responsible for your own life. If you think thats more safe than idly pondering the question with no intent to answer it, you are sadly mistaken.

@AnduinX with only that information i can say that the moon is the size of the sun but we can only see the moon we all know, cause it INTERACT only with photons and such, but the oder part dont interact and therefore exist. With those condition it doesnt exist. I know that isnt the whole theory, but with those argument one can assume anything

I agree to a certain extent, but I don't agree with your examples. Dogs and spiders are both very complex life forms that would both likely have very similar conscious capabilities as us. Spiders perhaps less so because they have nerve bundles instead of brains, but dogs would be about equal. They only lack the powerful frontal limbic cortex which allows control of emotions.

I do believe there are degrees of consciousness. Eg. Humans are very conscious, dogs are less conscious, spiders less still. This goes on down to the first life forms. Consciousness then can be seen as the degree by which one is aware of their environment. The first life forms may have only been conscious of a single thing, eg. some may have been sensitive to a certain frequency of light, others to something else. These evolved and came together to make us. Consciousness was there all along.

The evidence is in the fact that your brain is where everything else that appears to be physical is, in CONSCIOUSNESS. A mental process.

Why d oyou say that? Because the question is safe? Probably. You'll never know I guess.. (and knowing is all of it)

To be honest I don't think you fully understand it yourself otherwise you wouldn't go onto people telling them they are wrong. If you understood the essence of that paper I think you would approach people in a different way. There are probably errors in the paper itself as a lot of it is based just on ideas that have no evidence to support them, but to say it is wrong would be unfair to the author and generally just not a very friendly approach to take. But thanks for your opinion anyway.

Well, you seem to have ordered this list by level of consciousness, starting from most conscious to least conscious, as the brain develops through childhood.

Yes, looking back on my original comment, after having had more time to think about it, I can see it is flawed. Many animals are probably far more conscious than us of certain things.

It's Doctor Goodfellow from Buck Rogers!!!

@jayelowell KZfaq partner program, look it up!

This is copied and pasted from The Present: "If you are born with advantages, you can have more good times than bad times in your life, but when you die, you are reborn with disadvantages, and have more bad times than good times and vice versa." This is saying that our lives are good/bad/good/bad. They might not have meant that but that is what it is saying, which is wrong, but there's no need to go and tell them they are wrong because that would not be the best approach.

NGE?

@faz182 define matter

This idea is old news, if all is equal in this existence as it has to be to exist in this reality. Thus all things have to experience nothing is void of what we feel or experience, to exist in this reality. Just because we say other wise is just our ego thinking we are the top of what ever we think we are. As I say I am no different that other thing as every thing is no different to me.

"That's an opinion, not an answer"? Really. Where is everything that you're aware of situated? In consciousness maybe? Maybe the whole thing is mental. THINK about it.

tha mooonkaaiii

@faz182 "it's just particles." Reductionism already failed. Tell me, what are particles? You can give me a scientific description, but you can't fundamentally answer the question because we don't know. We know, to a certain extent, what an electron does under different circumstances, but what is it? Materialism can't account for the material, it is not a complete picture of reality, not even close. Sorry, but you will be completely refuted by science itself within a few decades.

kangaroos scare me

Okay. That's your opinion. I think you are wrong. You have told me I am wrong but you patently ignore the fact that I showed you that there was a mistake in The Present by copying and pasting from the website, which makes them partially wrong, just like I was in my original comment. Your approach is all wrong. You are wrong. You don't understand the essence of The Present at all, for if you did you would not approach people the way you do. Again, you are wrong.

My granma is pregnant

He is so far off the mark. He's looking for consciousness in the brain when the brain itself is nothing more than an appearance in Consciousness. "The All is Mind; The Universe is Mental."

wrg

i like the subject but my this guy's so boring