Dualism (Identity)

by dhw, Thursday, March 12, 2015, 23:06 (3543 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Thursday, March 12, 2015, 23:19

dhw: But a receiver receives; it doesn't produce. The production comes from elsewhere. What you are saying makes the brain passive, and a passive “consciousness” would put humans in precisely the situation you want to impose on bacteria: namely, that they receive instructions and do not initiate them.

DAVID: But what if what the brain receives is the ability to develop a consciousness as pattern of quantum energy in the brain to produce consciousness, which is certainly more than the sum of neurons firing. You look at this too simplistically. Bacteria do not receive information. It is onboard in their DNA. I've made that quote clear.-This is the usual muddling use of “information”. I presume what you mean here is that God doesn't give bacteria the information necessary for them to be conscious. You have made your opinion about bacteria clear, but you graciously acknowledge that there's a 50% chance you are wrong. See below for your “pattern of quantum energy”, but please reread the following first:-dhw; So what is the universal consciousness transmitting to your receiver brain? Clearly not thought, if you are thinking your own thoughts. If you mean the universal consciousness has given you the means to think your own thoughts, but that means is not the brain (which is only a receiver), what is it? A blank blob of God's consciousness for you to shape as you will (because you think your own thoughts)? What then is “you”, if your God has given “you” a blob to shape?.... in the hope that eventually something might make sense.-DAVID: Read my 'possible' explanation above. Something gives us consciousness, and I believe the receiver idea may have validity. Receiving it gives us the ability to develop our own individual consciousness.-I have read it. And instead of a “blank blob of God's consciousness for you to shape as you will”, you have much more grandly called it “a pattern of quantum energy in the brain to produce consciousness”. Your last sentence tells us that receiving consciousness gives us the ability to develop our own individual consciousness. Well, yes, but the brain constantly producing consciousness instead of receiving it would give us the same ability. And what is this “us” that develops the blob, or pattern of quantum energy? If by “pattern” you mean an already formed identity, then it's God who determines how we develop. Or if there is no pattern, what DOES determine the way the blob is used? I agree that something gives us consciousness, but how do you know it's NOT the sum of neurons firing? You even suggested it was, when you wrote that “the extreme complexity of our brain [...] results in a much more complex form of consciousness.” Or has someone actually discovered a complex pattern of quantum energy in the human brain (and a less complex one in a chimp's brain)? As for your belief that the receiver idea may have validity, that merely tells us you think dualism may be true. Sorry, I can't find an explanation here. But as always I am struggling as much as you. I can't make sense of consciousness. Hence this discussion. -dhw: As for using part of the UC until you pass on, this sounds as if you lose your particular blob when you die - which is the exact opposite of the NDE. Could you perhaps be a little more explicit? 
DAVID: I've been explicit above. When we die our consciousness joins the UI as in NDE's.-What does “join the UI” mean? NDE patients retain their identity, and often join people they know, who are also recognizable as individuals. They don't all report union with any sort of God.