Dualism (Identity)

by dhw, Friday, March 13, 2015, 19:49 (3542 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

dhw: 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....
DAVID: Not muddling. Life runs on information. You cannot escape that.-I was answering your comment that “bacteria do not receive information”. Now what are you saying? That bacteria are not alive? Of course bacteria receive information. But our subject is consciousness, and I was helpfully trying to clarify your muddling use of the word!-dhw: 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.-DAVID: I arrive at this quantum thought about the brain/consciousness, because of the evidence that the scientist's actions in 'second choice' experiments show that his/her consciousness can go back in time or forward in time to affect quantum particle properties. Secondly, cell functions are being shown more and more to have quantum level activity and certainly neurons can work that way.-I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that consciousness is independent of the neurons, and that the brain receives consciousness but does not produce it. -dhw: 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)?-DAVID: I presume that difference (human/chimp) will be shown in the future. I start with the belief that the inorganic universe cannot invent consciousness. It had to exist from the beginning as the universe was created.-I wouldn't presume that any such pattern will be discovered. Nor would I presume that the future will show us how divine consciousness has always existed (theism), or how life and consciousness evolved from inorganic materials (atheism). Both sides start with a belief, and proceed to draw logical conclusions from a premise that has no basis other than pure speculation.
 
dhw: 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.
DAVID: Agreed. Of course it is a struggle. We have no idea how it exists but we know it does.-And that is the honest truth. It's a privilege, though, to throw ideas at one another, and I am grateful for all these exchanges.-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-TONY: During NDE's and OBE's the body is not completely dead. It still provides energy and an 'anchor' of sorts, if you will. More importantly, if NDE's or OBE's are remembered then apparently the brains functions have not entirely ceased. Either that, or there is some form of buffer between the consciousness and the brain. This would act sort of like RAM in my computer analogy, storing data in the form of energy until it could be written more permanently to the hard disk (brain).-In your computer analogy, you specifically said that consciousness was the equivalent of an independent user, and you said that NDEs confirmed this analogy. It's clear from your entire post, however, that this is not the case, and consciousness does depend on the material self, so you are not a dualist. May I then assume you believe that your consciousness emerges from the brain and eventually dies with the brain, unlike David's, which is a quantum pattern of energy that the brain receives from God and that goes back to God when we die?