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Thread: What is consciousness

  1. #151
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    Nicely done, Aragorn. One of my favorite Yoda quotes is, "Difficult to see, the future is. Always changing." As always, physical time travel sounds like a bad idea to me. I'll stick with the ability to observe and prepare through dreams and other such ways.

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  3. #152
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    I am listening to a 46 hour discourse on the sattipathana sutta Joseph Goldstein did over the period of years.
    Anyway today he was talking and read the following quote.

    Consider a world without consciousness. The darkness is a bubbling cauldron of energy and vibrating matter, locked in the incessant dance of thermal agitation. Through shared electrons or the strange attraction of unlike charges, quivering molecules, not free to roam, absorb and emit their characteristic quantal packages
    of energy with the surrounding fog. Free gas molecules, almost oblivious to gravity but buffeted in all directions by their neighbors, form swirling turbulent flows or march in zones of compression and expansion, according to the dictates of oscillating substrates. A massive solar flux and cosmic radiation from events long past crisscross space with their radiant energy and silently mix with the thermal glow of living creatures, whose hungry metabolic systems pour their infrared waste into the chaotic milieu.
    But within the warmth of their sticky protein bodies, the dim glow of consciousness is emerging to impose its own brand of organization on this turbulent mix of energy /matter. The active filter of consciousness illuminates the darkness, discards all irrelevant radiation, and in a grand transmutation converts and amplifies the relevant.
    Dead molecules erupt into flavors of bitterness or sweetness, electromagnetic frequencies burst with color, hapless air pressure waves become the laughter of children, and the impact of a passing molecule fills a conscious mind with the aroma of roses on a warm summer afternoon.
    "Why We Feel" By Victor S. Johnston
    It really struck a chord in me, I feel like i'm unable to clearly articulate what I sense is consciousness. Looking at definitions, explanations and such. This quote sums up my understanding almost perfectly. Whether that illuminating quality is present always and points at the experience or whether it is dependent on and arises with it is less of a concern to me than pointing out the illuminating quality it has.

    I realize this quote is staying within the realm of 3d experience and senses. I have no doubt that same illumination can arise in otherworldly and other-dimensional experiences.

    With Love
    E.
    Have a great day today

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    Thought I'd just jump on board this ''What is Consciousness'' thread in favour of not wanting to repeat same over.

    So I'm wondering if consciousness is all there is. Then no one is conscious. Only consciousness is conscious. So this must mean that consciousness is actually unconscious. Therefore, any living thing cannot have a mechanism where which it can create a model of the world around it, like a brain, therefore brains are not conscious and are not the source of consciousness?

    Any thoughts?

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  7. #154
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    What a shock if consciousness would be created into a machine (computer like machine) in 50 years or earlier.

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    Quote Originally posted by scibuster View Post
    What a shock if consciousness would be created into a machine (computer like machine) in 50 years or earlier.
    I'm not so sure that would be possible. Many people fear artificial intelligence — and depending on what that artificial intelligence is used for and what power is entrusted to it, that fear may be justified — but what most people overlook is that artificial intelligence is not consciousness. It is merely a very cleverly devised computer algorithm which modifies its own code and thus "learns" how to make favorable decisions.

    On the other hand, what I do think is possible, is that an artificial body could be created into which real consciousness — i.e. the primary creator consciousness of The Source Of All™ — could seed a soul, and that as such, a being could have been (co-)created which is conscious and which may have real emotions, but whose body is in fact artificial. And just as an anecdotal tidbit, I have included that scenario — or at least, one similar enough to that — in the preparation work for a science-fiction novel I had intended to write.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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  11. #156
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    Quote Originally posted by scibuster View Post
    What a shock if consciousness would be created into a machine (computer like machine) in 50 years or earlier.
    Can a machine know it's maker? I guess Art is natural, that which appears out of nothing, or from the imagination, same place, whereas the nature of 'I' is not natural like a machine perhaps?

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  13. #157
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    Quote Originally posted by curious soul View Post
    Can a machine know it's maker? I guess Art is natural, that which appears out of nothing, or from the imagination, same place, whereas the nature of 'I' is not natural like a machine perhaps?
    I'm afraid I don't really understand what you're saying here-above. The "I", the Self, is a Yin/Yang polarity, and therefore it is natural. A machine would only be able to approximate the concept of Self, but would not have the consciousness or even the mind to realize what that really means.

    Artificial intelligence only performs statistical calculations. It does not actually know or experience. I've posted a thread not too long ago about how an artificial intelligence experiment by Microsoft went ludicrously wrong. You can read that article by clicking here.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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  15. #158
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    I'm afraid I don't really understand what you're saying here-above. The "I", the Self, is a Yin/Yang polarity, and therefore it is natural. A machine would only be able to approximate the concept of Self, but would not have the consciousness or even the mind to realize what that really means.

    Artificial intelligence only performs statistical calculations. It does not actually know or experience. I've posted a thread not too long ago about how an artificial intelligence experiment by Microsoft went ludicrously wrong. You can read that article by clicking here.
    Yeah, I meant the association with the personal 'I' as in I am this body, that's what I meant by unnatural. The body in my understanding would be the machine, but the Self or I with or without an object, object being a subjective thought, this I is natural, so yes I understand you, and thanks for making me think clearer.

    I'm thinking thoughts are like a form of Art when manifest.
    Like the thought of a tree, is consciousness in art form...appearing to itself as a tree, like an image of it's imagination.

    And thanks for the AI link, will check that out for sure.
    Last edited by curious soul, 6th April 2016 at 14:38.

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    I just asked a question not much different from yours, curious soul, in the Sim Theory thread. http://jandeane81.com/threads/9014-S...-Matrix-(2016)

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    Quote Originally posted by scibuster View Post
    What a shock if consciousness would be created into a machine (computer like machine) in 50 years or earlier.
    already happened...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio
    All the above is all and only my opinion. It may contain some sharing of components of my current operating strategy and some foundational components of my current world view - all subject to change and not meant to be true for anyone else regardless of how I phrase it.

    It's just a ride

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGD...vgBsCHmlC13jOg

    https://www.facebook.com/samhunter57

    http://merlynagain.blogspot.com/

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    Consciousness is the "Right to know" according to
    The One God Above All - the Creator of the Second side of our sphere. The finest version of this is - to not know is to be unconscious, so, if you have been given the gift of being conscious, then is it not thought to be, that all are welcome to look and find answers to close to all knowing, and this is why you are here.

    To get to one answer, you need to begin in open Life. You are here in open Life so you are on the quest to find what Truth is, but not known Truth, which can easily be seen to be verifiable, but what cannot be verified is what cannot be easily seen, felt or heard as real in your own self perception - such as Who Am I? Is there a God or many Gods? Is what we see and hear a real truth in the media and in books e.g. if it was in a newspaper or in a book, or as common knowledge, then it must be the Truth, no longer are we all believers in this, so we must search for a verifiable belief in what is shed as Truth. However, some things, I see as written, say as a thread on TOT, my own b/s meter or as my husband calls his "red alerts", leads me to sometimes ash my Soul, sometimes my Higher Self, sometimes my minders from the Above, Is that True, it doesn't feel right to me, and if not, what is the Truth in this situation? I, as a being of Life, have the right to ask, who is the best person Above to answer this in the most clear way for my understanding of this Truth.

    Then, I, as a being who can hear the answers given to me, ask to whom am I speaking, I am told, then I receive the answer to the question I had just asked, and can continue to ask until I have an understanding as to the Truth about the statement I had read, which I questioned. It is the up to me to either accept this as a new Truth to my inner conscious Self, if I accept this, and my Soul sees this as something I now feel comfortable about then, it begins to add this new Truth to my Soul, over-writing if necessary, what I may have considered to be the Truth on that question before, in either this life or any other life. Then you have reached a new state on consciousness on that particular Truth, and that will be what you take on to the end of this life, or after this Life. However, if you read what was written as a Truth, and you do not consider it as a particular Truth, but just was skimmed over as having been read, and might be true or not, and came to no conclusion of your own, then that statement is knowledge seen, and can be stored by you to use as information later on, to be brought back and considered at will, and this is stored in the mind (not in the brain), where the mind is a separate part of the Soul, to be used by it when you are searching for some answer. The mind then functions like a computer, bringing back stored information, for you to use at will, it is then up to you to find your own means of coming to a conclusion or not. If you reach a conclusion then, this alone is stored as your consciousness, until added to or subtracted from at a later date, when the Soul will do this upon your conscious thought. So your mind is like a computer, which I suppose can be replicated by clever machinery, but your consciousness can not, it is entirely personal to each person, depending upon the amount of conscious beliefs you have put into your own Soul to use as your own. Thus your own conscious Truths can be altered over and over again, where as the real Truth is a constant. This real Truth can be set in stone, virtually when you finally reach the end of your days and are returned to your own Home place Above.

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  23. #162
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    What a great opine at explaning the unexplainable Cearna!!

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    Quote Originally posted by sandy View Post
    What a great opine at explaining the unexplainable Cearna!!
    Thanks, Sandy, got a tonne of these sitting in my own mind/soul, having asked for the unexplainable some time ago, and answered it several times on TOT to find no one reads or bothers to answer, so, I often just do the same, however, I know that some one like you is around just as often and does read it, so I keep going, but it gets hard when no one else bothers to respond - doesn't any one else ever feel their way into the topics on hand, as I know you do? Love to you as always Colleen

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    Quote Originally posted by Cearna View Post
    Thanks, Sandy, got a tonne of these sitting in my own mind/soul, having asked for the unexplainable some time ago, and answered it several times on TOT to find no one reads or bothers to answer, so, I often just do the same, however, I know that some one like you is around just as often and does read it, so I keep going, but it gets hard when no one else bothers to respond - doesn't any one else ever feel their way into the topics on hand, as I know you do? Love to you as always Colleen
    I too have begun noticing what appears to be a wave of apathy among our members, Cearna. There are members who connect to The One Truth and then only focus on one or two specific threads — usually the ones of a more "spectacular" and/or controversial nature, or threads that they have started themselves — and they either don't look at any of the rest of the material, or if they do, then they don't seem to be able to muster the will to read it, let alone move their mouse pointer over to the "Thanks" button and click it.

    Speaking as a member of The One Truth and not as an administrator now, I personally find that inappreciative of the effort any particular person has poured into putting a well-written post or thread together, and I also find that it is totally out of character for a demographic that supposedly wants a better world for us all, not to mention that some of them like profiling themselves as enlightened and/or intellectual. Well, granted, that is something you more often see people doing over at other forums — that was certainly one of the experiences I had with the people back over at Project Avalon when I was still a member there — but some of those people are or may also be registered here at The One Truth, or at Eye-Rise, Imaginative Worlds, The Mists Of Avalon, or whatever else is out there.

    I'm not sure on the how and the why, but concretely here at The One Truth, it seems to be coinciding with the lull mentioned by Aianawa in his thread here.

    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Quote Originally posted by Cearna View Post
    Consciousness is the "Right to know"
    Loved reading your essay Cearna thanks. It resonated with this one.

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