I've been trying lately to consider my 'self' as my subconscious.

I figure that way *I* can get some async processing going on.

Lots of things which are made up of simple, non-magical things produce complex, magical results. Bee hives and ant hills exhibit emergent behavior. As does DNA. Why shouldn't your brain, too? Your retina performs second-level derivative calculation to do edge detection (the simplest of the many calculations that are performed at the retina itself) -- and that happens before the data hit your optic nerve, let alone your brain.

Also: your brain has 100,000,000,000 neurons. Each of these neurons has some large (on the order of thousands) number of dendrites. Each branch point in a dendrite can act as a self-modifying logic gate (current passing through can modify the width of the dendrite, changing the speed at which it transmits information). And of course each of these dendrites eventually hits another neuron. There's no central "bus" in a brain which limits its parallel processing ability, either; there is massive parallelism and feedback and so on. Reverse-engineering it is a bitch.

So while there's no reason to think there's any extra force at work, it is a fantastically complicated system. The magic is immanent.

Which is to say: there's no free will, but neither is there predictability :)

The reason your brain acts before you recognize the action is because there are Little People inside operating everything. When you aunt Mildred stands before you armed, a Little People Private informs the Little People Commander that aunt Mildred is there and she is a threat to local security. Therefore, the Little People Commander makes decisive action and orders the Little People in your feet to get busy. Only after is the authorization allowed for "you" to receive the info.

Aaron -

"When you aunt Mildred stands before you armed, a Little People Private informs the Little People Commander that aunt Mildred is there and she is a threat to local security."

OK - that's beautiful :)

You win.

I don't know what the contest was, but you win.

Oh, just got get a copy of "What the Bleep do we know?" from amazon. URL: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006UEVQ8 . It'll blow your damn mind :)

any local retailers of that nic?

riki

It's on at the Rialto at present. Not sure if it's in Wellington - but is in AK (NZ).

There's a lot of interesting stuff in that movie - but I can't help mentioning my concerns with some of what they're saying.

The idea of explaining consciousness in terms of quantum-mechanics has been around since the 70’s – and I think it’s fair to say that it hasn’t had the kind of pay-back that it has always promised promises (starting with books like the "Tao of Physics" but certainly not ending there). It “sounds” really compelling – but…

There isn’t a whole lot of evidence to suggest that quantum effects (ie. an electron appears in space and time only when consiosness observes it etc) scale up to our dimension at all. In fact, you could argue that newtonian mechanics is the average effect of all those werid little quantum effects up at our scale of size. It sounds good – but it starts sounding more like religion than science. There are a bunch of “unexamined assumptions” in there.

I don’t think what I've said diminishes the grand mystery consioucness – nor does it “rationally” negate a lot of the very sound descriptions of consioncess that are frankly very strange when you get into them – I’m just not convinced that quantum-mechanics is an adequate explanation for what’s going on. (you could argue that quantum-mechanics examines the very very small - to study consiosness is to study the very very large).

That said, there are a whole bunch of other things that the movie touches on – stuff that I couldn’t comment on either way – but it sure is interesting. Worth watching for sure.

What you don't have to forget is that the Conscious 'singular' Self (as-in a singular 'youness' in your mind) is a probabbly a very young (side) effect of the human brain. In fact by some theorist it is only 3000 thousand year old (see "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes for more information. It is olso noted that some that some questiond this but the more we know about the brain the more accepted this theory becomes) and that therefore this whole aspect of consciousness is very much still in a "alpha" development stage and as you know: "never use alpha software to run on your production system" so simmilairlly you don't want to run that consciousness stuff run your entire body.

Regarding Aunt Mildred: don't underestimate the primairy function of your brain: survival by optimization. Your brian is always finding shortcuts; in case of Aunt Mildred, you will find you will only flee before you are aware of her if there are some "context" conditions set, like you must be in enviroment where you can reasonably expect for your aunt M to be present, it must be an enviroment that you 'know' either because you know it or have had a chance to become familliar with it, finnally aunt M. must be in the habbit of kissing you of any of these context related things fails to be present the cascade of shortcuts of your brain will fail to trigger, you wont move and get kissed.

URL's:
Regarding: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind
the book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618057072/102-1890685-0994526
(a link to the rebuttle to this book can be found on in the wikipedia article or google simply google for it)

An other book you might like:
"The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory" by David J. Chalmers
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195117891/102-1890685-0994526

Finally if all else fails, stuff some cookies up your nose the Little People will thank you for it.

OK I really don't read much (just blogs I guess) but I do know this (gee that sounds a little Gumpish) there is no such thing as:
1) Santa
2) The Tooth Fairy
3) Aunt Mildred
4) Anyone claiming now (or some really long time ago) to be related to or in communication with God.
5) God

Not so sure 'bout them little people though. Sounds like a pretty strong case to me.

<<I believe that awareness is just an interesting phenomenon of the physical brain. No weird energy fields, auras, or gods for me.


I hear where you’re coming from on this. I think ya gotta be really careful, there’s a lot of BS being spouted out there in this regards.

That said though – I think you’re playing with the “where is consciousness located” question. Rory – I wonder what you think about this: Is it possible to entertain that consciosness might not be exlusively located in the physical brain (meat) without letting ghosts, gouls, gods and what not into the argument?

It’s dicey ground…but its interesting to consider. What do you think?

Re:
I personally take the “we’re just meat” side of things. I believe that awareness is just an interesting phenomenon of the physical brain. No weird energy fields, auras, or gods for me.


Then what on earth motivated you to write this post? I'm guessing that while you peronally "take" a certain side of this subject, you're not entirely convinced of its validity.

I agree that your take is supported by more tangible evidence that any alternative, but does that necessarily make it accurate?

KC -

"In fact by some theorist it is only 3000 thousand year old"

Hm... I don't know if I'd agree with that.

Makes me think of Mesopotamia - you'd have a difficult time explaining the artwork, cultures, languages, etc., some dating back quite a bit further than 3,000 years.

Still, though, with that in mind it would be interesting to read the arguments against - thanks for providing the links.

Phil -

"Is it possible to entertain that consciosness might not be exlusively located in the physical brain (meat) without letting ghosts, gouls, gods and what not into the argument?"

"Possible to entertain"?

Yes.

But would I believe it?

No.

I'm very meat-oriented.

I'd also need some kind of reason to believe that there was something more than the meat, and I don't have that, although I'd be interested to hear how other people might arrive at non-meat solutions.

CG: NHGFAM -

"Then what on earth motivated you to write this post?"

Curiosity...

Interest...

Wondered what other people thought...

"I'm guessing that while you peronally 'take' a certain side of this subject, you're not entirely convinced of its validity."

To the contrary, I'm totally convinced.

I don't understand *how* it works, but until I have reason to think otherwise, I'm down with the meat explanation.

However, I'm curious about why other people might believe otherwise, and what the alternative explanations might be.

"I agree that your take is supported by more tangible evidence that any alternative, but does that necessarily make it accurate?"

Well, since "accurate" means "free from error," I'd have to admit that, no, it doesn't make it accurate. I have no idea how we could test whether or not mind is limited to the meat, so I couldn't possible tell you what's right and what isn't, and therefore what's accurate.

I'd also argue that the same goes for every other explanation as well.

I'm not very interested in what's correct, anyway. This conversation just seemed to me like a nice way to spend Sunday.

Ah – this is very interesting Rory. Been thinking a little more from your remarks.

I think everyone’s comments are narrowing down to the tricky part of looking at conscionsness – namely “how do you measure it.” That’s really tricky – and I think that the “meat” side of the argument in useful – because for one – it’s really measuable. It’s also undeniable – we have brains – we exhibit consious behaviour – take out the brain – no more consious behaviour. Pretty causitive chain right there.

But I think it’s only half of the picture – that is the “exterior” side. The outside of things – the stuff you can measure (meat, neurons, dopamin). The other half of the picture is the “interiors.” The insides of things – the subjective experience. You can’t measure this – that’s why objective science doesn’t include it within its realm (by design). What you can do is “feel” the interiors though. You can “feel” happiness when the southern California sun shines down on you. [when I say you can’t measure it – you can measure the corresponding reactions in the brain – nerons firing and so forth – but the subjective experience is essentially a felt one].

Acutally, to say science doesn’t cover it mises the point a little too. Because there are things, like mathematics, that exist in this interior conscious space. The square root of 2 isn’t running around “out there” in the physical world – you can’t pick it up. But it is consistent, and it can be validated by a community of mathematicians who all either confirm or deny the math proof. You can also use it to design things in the physical world that work – further validation of its existence – but the square-root-of-two just ain’t running around for your physical senses to see.

This also applies to other domains like art, and emotional life and so forth. It registers as neuronal activity, and chemical reactions in the brain – but you can’t fully explain Hamlet, or a mind blowing orgasm, or the sensation of music in terms of chemical reactions (at most I think you can only explain half the story that way – if that).

And it’s that “interior” space where I think the game gets mysterious. Do ya see what I’m saying – I think the meat part is part of the picture. But not all of it. As for the rest – man, who knows….but there are theories (personally I like to stay with ones that have a ton of evidence and/or provide a way of actually personally validating them – New Age mumbo jumbo generally gives me the creeps).

Thanks for the converstaion Rory – VERY interesting (particularly from the minds of programmers, who live so much is this interor space). Cheers – P.

I like the brain/TV set analogy. IMHO the brain itself is not the source of our thoughts, it's a very complicated antenna or even a filter to the impressions (data) which we receive (I am sure that our receiving spectrum is very limited). I know this sounds like new age mumbo jumbo, but I think sometimes you have to shift paradigm and throw over board all of your "constants" and presumptions. Some years ago I was the same "only-meat"-type person as Rory, but I experimented (no drugs!) on some matters with interesting results. BTW: Has somebody read the last chapter of Douglas Adams' "Dilbert Future"?

Rory -

"Makes me think of Mesopotamia - you'd have a difficult time explaining the artwork, cultures, languages, etc., some dating back quite a bit further than 3,000 years."

This is actually a very good point and one that I personally thought of when I first heard of the whole "Bicameral Mind" thing. (Althought I thought about Greek and Egyptian civs since I was playing these civs in the computergame civilizations) But I have a rebuttle ;-)

First I would like to point out that language is not necesairlly an expersion of self / consciousness, it is social orderning tool (at its creation) (much in the same way ants use sent (pheromones) and bees "dance" to indicate "the way" to food) co-opted over time to be also a expression of Consciousness and self. Language is therefore more a indication of intelligence and our social evolution and not sentience or sapience.

Secondlly That been said culture and art are indeed expresion of something more than "base" instincts and requires more than simply intelligence. So what is needed? Is civilization and art all we need to disprove the bicameral mind theory?
Well no... If you look at child development you can see that they create "art" (it's art to the child, and the parent to anybody else it's basically lines on a pice of paper) however the child has no Consciousness, self awarenss like adults have. The notion of "self" or what we currentlly understand as consciousness. This indicates to me that art and by extention something as culture is not necessairly only possible whit our level of consciousness and that the existence of ancient civilizations (and there achievements) is therefore not a necesairlly an indication the bicameral mind theory is inpossible. Thought it will (for the time being) always be contentios arguments: after all nobody can see what happens in the mind of an other (or in that of one self) (and tose damn litlle people simply wont talk even with cookies stuffed in my nose)

Finally (Note: I tend to do some "minimum" research before I post something online thats why I'm generally lurker, I'm lazy, but the following is a bit of exception, I have tried but failed to find the relevant article partly so any thing in this paragrave is "word of mouth" and should be considerd whit a very sceptical mind since the only referce I have it is in my mind, and let's be honest, sombody whit cookies in his nose is not the most fieble of sources) if you look at animals you see that animals (mostly mammals) whit a big brain (relative to body size/mass) do exhibit some aspects consciousness now the danger whit this (initially) was that most humans (even researchers) are prone to antromophise (see "human" features where there is non (error in our own social / psychological "patern recognizion" schortcuts to escape Aunt Mildred) but clinical studies show that brain activity caused by conscious thought produce an signature that can be detected when scanned (I think it is C.T. scaner but I'm not sure it could probabbalby not be a scanning thing at all but a cranial sensor array thingy who knows how they do it) this signature is present whit children as well but less strong, In fact the signature get's higher and highter in intenssety as the child develops more and more mature consciousness now whit most animals the signature is very low (as low or sometimes even lower than with new born babies) but some animals that display some concious behavior (clasic example recognizon of one self in mirror wich is not only an exersize of intelligence but als consciousness in knowing that its an enityt and not simply "floating" in the world) get higher signatures. This leads to the conclusion that consciousness is not nesssairy an discreet somthing where you either have an aspect of conciousness or don't have it, but more an analog process that "flows" and can grow. Maybe there are milestones like the basic recoginizion of "self" and the furhter breakdown of bicameral mind, the brains is wonderfully obscure.


Some URL's:

Language Development:
No links but I liked the following books:
"The Origin of Language : Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" by Merritt Ruhlen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471159638/102-1890685-0994526
"The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language" by John McWhorter
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006052085X/102-1890685-0994526
"The Unfolding of Language : An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention" by Guy Deutscher
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805079076/102-1890685-0994526
(Note: I haven't finished this one yet but what I've read I like)

Child Development:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toddler (the gist of it)
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/ (some more in depth info)

Who needs paranormal stuff, the normal stuff is fantastic enough.

(and yes I'm not a native English speaker thus there will be many mistakes)

You know, normally I read everything that's been written and think a bit before responding to anything, but it's Memorial Day, and my blood supply is too busy assisting my digestive system with disposing of a ham and cheese sandwich and a snifter of some transcendent single malt whiskey, so damn the torpedos, full speed ahead, and other such war metaphors that convey the idea that I'm about to say what I've thought all along without so much as considering anything that's been written thus far in the comments section of this post.

Clearly there are forces greater than ourselves. Some are visible; some are not. These greater forces act upon us at times, and there is nothing we can do against them. In those times, they are driving the bus.

Additionally, there is a reflexive aspect to living organisms which is capable of responding to stimuli without intervention of the conscious mind. Sometimes this reflexive subconcious drives the bus.

Nevertheless, most of the time we (hopefully) are thoughtful people who weigh decisions before making them. For this reason (among others) I think it's clear that we do have "free will" i.e. most of the time, we drive our own bus.

The no-free-will stance has a number of attendant problems, the most obvious of which is the responsibility problem: if we don't have free will, we have no responsibility for our actions. So remember that the next time someone does something obviously wrong to you. :)

Also, there is a God.

Q.E.D.


--Stuart :)

Damn you blogosphere! I just wasted 2 hours of my life renting and watching that stupid "What the bleep" movie. It had absolutely nothing new to offer. What a bunch of disconnected crap. Sure there were some valid facts presented, but they weren't related. At least not in the way the narrator put them together. The only thing that tied them all together was the insane ramblings of a woman who claimed to be channeling an ancient mystic. What a load! I'd rather watch that free video from the church of the Latter Day Saints or read the Watchtower to get my Quantum theory info.

Obscure trivia: that "what the bleep" movie was produced by the Ramtha cult, whose fortress you pass on your way into Yelm if you're driving from Olympia to Mt. Rainier. It's true.

KC -

"First I would like to point out that language is not necesairlly an expersion of self / consciousness, it is social orderning tool (at its creation) (much in the same way ants use sent (pheromones) and bees "dance" to indicate "the way" to food) co-opted over time to be also a expression of Consciousness and self. Language is therefore more a indication of intelligence and our social evolution and not sentience or sapience."

I would have to disagree with this, although it's not because I have any good reason to :)

I did a lot of thinking about this in college when I was taking some language classes. I got into quite a few arguments that went kind of like this:

Person: Humans aren't the only animal that has language.

Me: What other animals have it?

Person: Wales. They sing to communicate.

Me: Are they born with the ability, or do they learn it?

Person: I think they're born with it.

Me: Then it's just like my stomach growling to let me know it's hungry. It's communication, but it isn't language. Language is acquired.

Person: No.

Me: Yes.

Person: You're an asshole.

Me: Yes.

Another personal criterion I have for judging the languagabilitiness (I made that word up) of an animal is whether it can understand the *concept* of language.

In other words, you can teach a chimp to sign for an "apple", but can you teach it to sign "language"? I'm not so sure that you could. That would require that the chimp be aware of what it's doing rather than responding to some stimulus in a Pavlovian way. It would require a *conceptual* understanding of what it's doing.

I believe that there are many types of communication that exist on a more primal level, but that language requires awareness.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. This is just crap that was dreamt up during drunken dorm brawls. I never attempted to validate these assumptions against any credible source.

"If you look at child development you can see that they create "art" (it's art to the child, and the parent to anybody else it's basically lines on a pice of paper) however the child has no Consciousness, self awarenss like adults"

I doubt that a child's consciousness should be exactly like an adult's - they have about twice as many neurons, and important bits of their brains haven't formed yet.

However...

I don't want to speak for anybody else, but I was most definitely self aware when I was a kid. Not a baby, mind you, but once I hit, maybe, two years of age, I "got it". I knew that my parents were my parents, that my sister was my sister, and that I was a squishy, fleshy thing living in the Goose Hollow apartment buildings in downtown Portland, Oregon.

And things just went downhill from there as awareness continued to expose my precious little brain to all the neat, and utterly horrible, things on this planet.

Also, think about the "art" that kids produce. Think about all the drawings of humans - of their families - of their siblings, pets, grandparents, etc. - doesn't that show some kind of awareness?

If kids didn't have this awareness, then I'd expect them:

A) Not to be especially interested in crayons, except as primitive and inefficient weapons

2) To *mostly* draw things that don't fit into their lives in a significant way - a brick, some pebble, or a piece of barkdust that's nearby - choosing to draw mom, dad, or the dog shows some judgement and understanding. Awareness, you might say.

So, yeah...

In a nutshell, I believe that consciousness arose a Long Ass Time Ago, and not 3,000 years ago, although the discussion is certainly interesting :)

Stuart -

First of all, hi :) 's been a while...

"The no-free-will stance has a number of attendant problems, the most obvious of which is the responsibility problem: if we don't have free will, we have no responsibility for our actions."

I would argue that:

A) We *believe* that we have Free Will, which is every bit as good as the Real Thing. Appearances can be deceiving.

B) The "responsibility problem" is a problem for philosophers - not for nature. Nature just doesn't care. It's *part* of the "responsibility problem" in that it just keeps on keeping on, regardless of what happens.

"Also, there is a God."

No! LALALALALALALAL!

I can't hear you!

LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA!

Charles -

"I just wasted 2 hours of my life renting and watching that stupid "What the bleep" movie."

Yeah... I just watched most of it, and I'm not only disappointed, but rather suspicious.

There's a guy in there (the partially balding, middle-aged guy who speaks in a real self-helpy way) who mentioned something about being "reactive" and "regressing to an earlier point in life," which is straight out of Dianetics.

I caught the whiff of Scientology and hit "Stop".

Also, the actors give me the heebie-jeebies.

While I think it's cool that they chose a deaf woman for the lead part, I wish that they could have found some marginally less creepy people for all the other roles.

Like her roommate [shudder].

Moishe -

"Obscure trivia: that "what the bleep" movie was produced by the Ramtha cult"

OK... That explains a lot.

Totally off - topic:

Why we can accept that nobody knows what or how consciousness & co works but we can all agree that if Aunt Mildred and God every hook up they will send the soul aura beams via the areails hiden in our brains to the Litle People giving them permission to order us to stuff cookies on our noses.

I heard that the Ramtha cult made a movie about that.

"I personally take the “we’re just meat” side of things. I believe that awareness is just an interesting phenomenon of the physical brain. No weird energy fields, auras, or gods for me."

I don't want to start a religious debate or anything but I just thought i'd share a different point of view in regard to the connection between consciousness and God.

I don't think the statement "we're just meat" is mutually exclusive with the statement "It's something more (God)". Personally i believe both. For me, God made my meat. He/She/It doesn't think for me and certainly doesn't go filling my consciousness with visions or messages. My brain gets the same inputs as the next person's. Vision, sound, touch, etc..

I can understand why some people see the mystery of the brain, fail to understand how it works, and just put it down to some other force such as God. For a lot of people who don't think so deeply about these things that is sufficient because it's easier. I think this is also where some churches have problems. It's easy to cater for those who don't ask the hard questions because in that situation it "seems" like the church has all the answers, even if the answer is sometimes "God works in mysterious ways". This has meant that churches have a public perception of having all the answers. The problem comes when someone like me comes along and, like an annoying little child, keeps asking "Why?". As much as churches try to come up with answers there will always be more questions for those willing to ask them. That's why i think churches need to admit more often that they don't have all the answers.

On average the world is becoming a much more educated and intelligent place all the time. The more educated and intellegent we are the more questions we ask and the less impact fire and brimstone sermons have. In countries where education is limited and most children get only 1 or perhaps 2 years of schooling it seems to me that they are much more easily convinced to fight a war, holy or not, just because they've been told it's the right thing to do.

Anyway, i got a bit sidetracked. As for how God and my consciousness relate I see it like this. It's not a case of something more being part of my consciousness, but of my consciousness (and everyone else's) being part of something more.

That got way longer than i'd planned so i'll stop now.

Rory - I agree with your sentiments about the languaging ability of humans vs. animals. The ability to conceptualise does appear to be unique to human consciousness. I think its

interesting - because the stages of consious-development evolve further than just conceptual - moving into rule formation and more, these unfold over time.

Here's the developmental sequence from atoms up to (an advanced/mature) human:

prehension (atom)
irritability (cell)
sensation (neuronal organisms)
perception (neral chord)
impulse (reptilian brain)
emotion (limbix system)
------- (end for most animals)
symbols (neocortex/triune brain - dolphins, horses, humans)
concepts (complex neocortex - humans)
conop (concrete operational: humans 7 - 11 years old)
formop (formal-operational: 11 years onwards)
vision-logic (estimated < 3% US population)

[Source - SES: K Wilber, pub 2000] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber

This post really has elicited some interesting opinions. Cheers!

Interestingly enough, I was having a conversation with a stripper this weekend (at her job), about why I didn't like to get drunk. I was trying to convey that it was because the lack of consciousness and the fear I have of being in that situation.

Foo diddle do.

Although somebody tried this vein already with "what the bleep..." [mediocre if you ask me, but okay intro into otherworld Quantum]

But there's an older tome by Gary Zukav <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0736656790/qid=1117556424/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/002-4515421-2694417?v=glance&s=books&n=507846">Dancing Wu Li Masters</a>

For me it started with the "Cave" analogy. Where in a man is tied to a post, and behind him people, animals and other what not continuously pass. Behind the people that are passing there are great fires. All the man can see are the shadows of passers by, never the "actual" passers.

Okay wtf does that have to do with Consciousness? For me its the sub-atomic fuzz, that is bound to a post, and our consciousness its is the fuzz's attempt to peer back on itself, to find the actual nature of its own existance. We are the conduit through which time/matter breaks its bonds and looks unflinchingly back upon itself. Conciousness is the tool, the eye, the focal point through which there and there passes back upon itself to completion.

Consciousness for me exits at the sub-atomic fuzz level, and "our" minds are simply a collective effort made by that which is everywhere.

_J

Nicholas: That has to be one of the funniest things i've read all day. =)

How geek-like is that?

1) Spend Large amounts of money to get a lapdance from a hot girl
2) Spend your three songs discussing the metaphysical and social implications of alcohol.

What's even funnier is that I can see myself doing the same thing...

'Free Will' is a useful abstraction.

Meat is interesting stuff, especially when you think about all the things that it's made from... and connected to...

That's it. I'm taking a virtual reality trip to the centre of the universe!

<<our consciousness is [an] attempt to peer back on itself>> -- Jmayeur

I think that's a fair and useful description of consciousness as a process. I think one way of looking at evolution is a steady and consistent march of the universe from less-consious to every-increasing-levels of consciousness. When the universe evolved “nerual-chords” it began to see itself – every so dimly. As the process continued, and ever more complex products of evolution emerged – the universe could see it self with greater and greater fidelity. Evolving an organism with a “complex neocortex” is a pretty clever trick for the universe to look back on itself with (my ‘complex neocortex’ is sitting here right now looking, thinking and writing about the universe – pretty universe-self-reflective). What’s even more trippy – some 200 years ago (a heartbeat in evoluationary time) for the first time, evolution evolved beings that became aware of the evolutionary process itself (enter Darwin and friends).

That’s getting pretty transparent. What’s more, I don’t think there is any reason to believe the evolutionary process should stop where it is just because it’s evolved humans that can do fancy things like form democracies and play with computers (despite how much our egos may protest).

In regards to the question of whether there’s a “higher force” or a “god” or so forth. I don’t think you need to get all wafty and spiritual to conclude that (1) the evolutionary process exists (the fossil record’s not a bad data-set for that), and (2) that is a higher force than me [I didn’t design or create my own brain – that was a genetic hand-me down from the Kosmos. I did eat some food, upon its suggestion, that allowed it to grow however]

Any thoughts on this angle?

"a steady and consistent march of the universe from less-consious to every-increasing-levels of consciousness."

Hi Phil. I see where you're coming from here and i tend to agree, although i do wonder if there is an upper limit to how far conciousness can evolve. Are we limited to a certain level of conciousness by our brain capacity? Do/will/have our brains evolved to accomodate higher levels of conciousness? If a baby from 2000 or 3000 years ago was brought to the present would they be able to acheive the same level of conciousness in their life as the average human now? I guess we'll have to invent a time machine and try it.


"(1) the evolutionary process exists ...
and (2) that is a higher force than me"

Well put Phil. I think that's what i was going to say before i got sidetracked. I guess the only thing i would add is that the evolutionary process is only one example of something that i put into the category of being a higher force. In my case i call it God, but that's just a point of view.

Hey Nate,

I enjoy your thoughtful insights – I’ve just re-read your comments, and I see what you’re saying. Here’s my reactions to what you say. Firstly:

“is there an upper limit to how far conciousness can evolve. Are we limited to a certain level of conciousness by our brain capacity”

I would imagine that brain physiology would have a head-limit. What’s truly astounding is how much we can do with our current brain hardware. Its weird to think that evolution gave us a lot of the incredible capacities that we exhibit – when there is no purely “survival” need for it. Monkeys have very similar brains to us – and they live quite happily and sustainable without the need to build socieites, develop technology and so forth. Why evolution made the leap to a complex triune brain is one of the great mysteries – and I don’t think are really any evolutionary theories out there that cut it.

“If a baby from 2000 or 3000 years ago was brought to the present would they be able to acheive the same level of conciousness in their life as the average human now?”

Considering our DNA as homo sapien sapiens has not changed significantly for the last 50,000 years – I would say that yes – a baby transported from 3000 years ago would have the “potential” to develop consciousness just as much as someone born today. The biggest determining factor is culture. It is sometimes said that a culture acts like a magnet – in that it tends to pull an individual up to the “average” level of consciousness (things like education, your parents, the economic structure of the society, the technological modes of production and so forth). But once you’re at the “average” level, the magnet of culture tends to keep you there – and there is very little support to continue growth. If you do, you run the risk of a sharp rebuttel from your peer group (at best “you’re talking craaaazy man,” at worst you’ll be strung up on a cross or burnt – plenty of historical evidence for those little horrors!). If you’re living in the US (I’m not, I’m in NZ) you will basically have had a free trip up to “Rational” and/or “post-modern” levels of development. The culture gave you that for free.

But all that being said – I also think that the upper limit of consiousness development is a receeding goal post. Evidence suggests that there will always be higher levels to be attained. For instance, 3000 years ago – if you got up to rational you were a freaking evolutaionary genious – and post-modernism had not yet emerged. You were the leading tip of human development. The rest of the culture would have been at a “magic” (epochal technical term, not the “hokus pokus” variety) or enthnocentric level of development or lower. If you lived 500-600 years ago, and you were at “rational” you were part of the avant garde that was the european-enlightenment. Everyone else (the average that is) was operating out of a “mythic-membership” stage of development.

But you do see historical examples of individuals who were incredibly advanced in comparison to to their contemporaries. Theys guys and gals tend to show up in religious contexts (these are the historical documents that stuck around). Ignoring whether a god exists or not – I’m talking about the actual historical characters – people like Jesus, or the Buddha, or Lao Tzu, or Rumi, or St Thersa and so forth. I reckon that if these people had been given a leg up (by culture) they would have continued to develop to far higher levels than they are on record as having achieved.

Where I think a lot of people come unstuck with these characters (myself included, but from your comments probably not you [Nate]) is the mythological rhetoric which there accounts of reality are written in. Personally I think that’s unavoidable. The modern “rational” landscape is a mere few hundred years old. These people were reporting their understanding with (1) the lingual and conceptual toolset they had available, and (2) to an audience that was best served with mythical analogies. You can’t talk about things in “evolutaionary” terms, when evolutaion hasn’t been discovered. To the modern and post-modern ear, this rhetoric is not only unappealing, it is inappropriate, in many cases less than adequate, and it can come across as down right threatening (fear of regression). That’s not to say that I think everything that shows up in historical texts is true – far from it – but I do think that many deep truths (interpreted “metaphorically”, not literally) point to some pretty high levels of development in their authors (unfortunately, it’s not these interpretations that you get from churchy religion).

I’m a big one for evidence. I don’t like to base my thinking on wafty, unsubstantiated concepts. That’s rational. But at the same time, whilst the rational world-view is true, it is true but partial. It can only explain so much. I might make a lose reference to Godel’s incompleteness therom – but there are other more compelling arguments to support this view which I won’t go on about in length. Here’s a little taste of the argument: To use an analogy, if you have something like a microscope [analogous to a “rational/logical” mental toolkit] that you can use to very clearly sample analyze and slice up reality – then that is fine, and it’s a very very useful tool. But the “rational” thing to understand when you’re doing that is that you are examining reality through a microscope, and as a consequence are only getting a part of the picture. You may be seeing part of the picture with greater clarity because of the tool – but at the same time the tool is also obscuring the picture. What’s more, it is also essential to remember that reality is not the microscope – but rather the microscope is the device with which you use to examine reality – that’s sorta how the argument goes….).

In regards to evidence for higher levels of consciousness – then you need to be really really careful, but you can do it, and you can do it “scientifically” using the 3-strands that are necessary for evaluating any truth claim. These are:

1) Instrumental Injunction (“if you want to know this, do this”)
2) Illumination (Data)
3) Confirmation (with a community of the adequate)

For instance, scientifically, if you want to know that there are moons around Jupiter, then look in the telescope. Or mathematically, if you want to undertand the pythagorean theorum, study geometry. If you take up the injuction, then you’ll have an “illumination” or put another way “the data will reveal itself.” Then, and this is the essential part, after you’ve had the illumination, you gotta check it out with other people who are equally qualified and they can either confirm or deny whether your findings are true (that’s the scientific method).

But the same scientific evalutation can be applied to consciousness. If you want to know “xxx” then do this “consciousness enhancing technique” (a classic one is meditation). Do that for a while and “you will see” whether it’s true or not (the data will reveal itself). Then you gotta check it out with other who have performed the practice, because you could just be tripping out on your own little fantasy. If a big enough group of people agree with each other, then that’s as close to an accurate truth claim as we can hope to get (objective measuable science is no more accurate). Notice that this process says “you run the experiment and see if you agree” – which indicates authenticity – as opposited to “dogma” which always take the form “believe this because I told you so.”

Anyway, I just wanted to say that it’s from this “type” of evidence that I’m making claims about “levels of consiousness.” The lower ones are pretty unconrotersial because the data-set is so damn big (eg. everyone with a neocortex is working with symbols), the higher levels get more controversial because there are much smaller groups of people, and therefore much smaller amounts of data to work with.

======

“i would add is that the evolutionary process is only one example of something that i put into the category of being a higher force. In my case i call it God, but that's just a point of view.”

I agree. I like talking in terms or rational science (evolution) because that’s what I’m comfortable with (it’s how my culture set me up to think!). But I think you’re right, that in its purest form – words like “God” are labels people have used to describe what they intuit is going on. I like words like “evolution” and “consciousness” and so forth, but you also have “God” “Godhead” [Judeo Christian], “The Tao” [Chinese], “Brahman” [Indian], “Buddha Nature” [Buddhism], “Void”, “Suchness”, “is-ness” [Zen Buddhism], and the list goes on. All attempts at labelling what ultimately cannot be labelled. What’s fascinating is the “hows” and “whys” it can’t be labelled – and ignoring what the wafty new-agers might say – you can say a whole bunch of rational things about the subject, and describe with prevision “why” it can’t be described.

Ouch – real long comment – but I just got to writing.
Please note, a lot of my thinking here has been influenced by a scholar named Wilber. If you care at all about this stuff - you can get the real picture from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber

Two words - "On Intelligence"

Great book with some very interesting theories about how the brain may work.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805074562/qid=1117636087/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-8564235-9074244?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I like the little people the best!

Little people = Mitochondrians?

It's interesting to see how people who reject all mystical, supernatural, theoligical, religion based, and/or magical explanations do so using evidence that itself is inconclusive. For example, if the explanation is "we're just meat" then what is the meat made of? Who made the particals that compose the meat? How did the particles arrive and from where? In reality aren't all logical/scientific explanations derived from some sort of mystical theory or wizadry?

Many turn from spiritual knowledge because it reads more like a fairy tail than a truth. Because you can't draw a logical conclusion from it it becomes merely a tail. Doesn't every scientific or mathmatical explanation starts or ends in a tail? How much is infinity? How small is a null? What's at the end of a black hole? Why is it easier to accept the big bang than the man upstairs? How do you know the man upstairs isn't responsible for the big bang? Either concept is unexplanable and incomprehensible. I personally take a mixture of spirituality and science to reason things. It is because science itself only covers the how of any question. Spirtuality gives you the why. Sometimes it's more important to know how something comes to existence. Other times it is more important to know why something is. For example, studying a program you'll want to know how a defect or feature came to be. Studying yourself you'll be more interested in why you exhibit certain defects or features.

I, myself, am not religious. Instead I believe in God and I feel that religion is the protocol by which people relate to Him. As a result I never knock anybody who's follows a different religion. I don't knock any atheist either. I see them as people who just don't believe entirely. It's like watching a movie from the middle or only paying attention to the action scenes. There's nothing wrong with that approach but you're severly limited in your understanding of the movie. Sometimes you don't need to watch the whole movie (especially when the movie is Star Wars Episode III ;) ).

Cliff: who created God? Or did He just come into Being? Is He? If God just Is, what's so different from the Big Bang just Being? I'll tell you: dogma. The stuff humans come up with to gain power over the naive. To start wars with others that don't quite explain the Universe the same way. To set their minds at ease so they no longer have to think about this vast Universe they can't understand. So they no longer have to fear death. The Unknown. So they know that the people that harm them will be punished in Eternity. Or just so they have yet another tool to make people do what they want them to (if you (don't) do 'x' it's a sin and you'll be punished in Eternity for it). Throughout history religion has been one of the most destructive and disruptive forces known to mankind. And we came up with it all by ourselves. Ain't that just great...

Interesting. There was a guy (I forget his name) who wrote a book on his experiences working at Microsoft, and how his initial decision to go there was based on just "following his initial reaction" (not an actual quote - just paraphrasing).

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Why the Rodawgg is a godless freak

TechEd Day 2 (of my fantasy TechEd)