Consciousness; a radically new theory. ephemeral? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, July 10, 2015, 19:46 (3423 days ago) @ romansh

Romansh: Firstly, it seems to follow me around. If I go for a jog it follows me. Can consciousness be immaterial, an ephemeral entity? I would argue not.So people suggest a transmitter-receiver metaphor. Is the same consciousness being transmitted in space and time? Perhaps. But for the moment let us assume it is not. I can move from one location to another, my awareness/consciousness does not seem to change. Just sitting here the minutes it takes me to write this, I have moved tens of thousands of kilometres in space without changing my consciousness, at least not noticeably so. 
 
Your approach seems to avoid the fact that the presence of a consciousness is dependent upon a functional brain, which brain, per force, has to stick with you as you travel. And as I travel I don't seem ever to change nor do I expect my brain to do so. I expect I will be the same on the Moon or Mars, and no astronaut has complained.-> Romansh: Does this mean consciousness is consistent through space? Not necessarily. Other people's consciousness seems to be different, at least to some. But the converse is not true either.-I don't follow your reasoning. I do not see consciousness changing with travel. But I agreed with you, the content of everyone's consciousness is different, although I expect the 'entity' of consciousness comes from the same mechanism in everyone, whatever that mechanism is.-> Romansh: This then brings us to receiver. All our supposed receivers are built differently so we pick up different aspects of the transmissions. So we don't know if the transmissions vary but likely their reception does. So we start thinking about the construction of our receiver. Well it is continually be assembled in our toddlerhood, to the point it is considered fully conscious. Then after that the receiver is tinkered with by the experiences we have, the foods we eat and drinks we imbibe. Repeated experiences seems to strengthen certain aspects of receiver.-It is certainly true that the brain is plastic, self-modifying, but it appears to be in a helpful way improving our mental abilities. Consciousness is much more than mental abilities and your paragraph above is really a discussion of personality development, and each of us is very different in that development, and again this is just an aspect of our personal consciousness, but does not address the whole concept of how does consciousness arise from the brain.-> Romansh: Now, a slightly more scientific inquiry, is the transmission and consequent reception described by cause and effect and thermodynamics in general? Well I certainly don't know, but my reception of the transmission is not aware of evidence of this kind. -To me the appearance of my consciousness to me is seamless. I would not expect to note its reception. It simply IS.-> Romansh: I am sadly lacking any such evidence of this transmission. I will not use the word therefore, but for the moment I will move ahead on the assumption that this ephemeral consciousness is an unnecessary assumption.-And I think consciousness is totally immaterial, but somehow based on a functional material brain. The two are inseparable but somehow separate.