Dglgmut

Actually, the only reason I thought that was because Ba'al was arguing that... And he's an objectivist isn't he?

Xray: I could have said, "Everything in reality is just a chain of events." I still think it's accurate.

Actually, I'd say all of our desires come from the ego. Our instincts don't really fall under the category of desire as far as I'm concerned... They produce no emotion if they aren't fulfilled. All life has instincts, not all life has the capacity for emotion. Even our super ego is based in self-preservation. We identify with others and develop a sense of justice. We get this idea of fairness logically: Identical things should have identical rights. When we identify with something, and we perceive it as worse off than us, we feel bad, because we feel it may as well be ourselves. It's from the same place as any selfish desire. Right and wrong is just a sense of logic: If there's no reason for things to be this way, they shouldn't! But... Why do we care about ourselves?

Actually, I'm not doing that. It seems it's an objectivist belief that we are all brains. This is not the case. What Ayn Rand did point out is the primacy of rationality and reason as the basis of the Objectivist philosophy. From this premise follows e. g. the objectivist rejection of any faith in a god as the source of ethical and moral principles. This is not correct, epistemological girl. The basis of Objectivism is reality and reason, you forgot the metaphysics, as usual. Rand certainly wouldn't have made such a sloppy statement as "rationality and reason." --Brant You had better check your sources first. Ayn Rand: "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/rationality.html Any belief is based on rationality, if people could see their assumptions, they wouldn't believe in anything but the present moment. If we are not brains, then we are aware of our minds, NOT the physical universe. And if that's the case, then how can you argue for an objective reality or free will? We are aware of the electrical signals inside our brains, that provide us information. We have no choice but to receive this information, and our reaction is dependent what information we receive. Really, it's just a chain of events. The question is, why would questioning our own existence be part of that chain of events?

My brain is no more "me" than my arm is. Both are parts of my body. After death, the decomposition process dissolves and transforms the living entity that I was. One can amputate an arm and still retain a sense of self. The same is not true for amputating one's head. That's correct, but imo Dglmut's error lies in claiming that "your brain is you", thus equating with the person the part of the body that makes consciousness possible. Actually, I'm not doing that. It seems it's an objectivist belief that we are all brains. We have bodies, but brains are not a possession of ours, but truly us. This is not my belief; I'm arguing against this idea. I'd like to come to a logical conclusion, building off of the idea that we are aware of something. I'd also like to figure out whether it is possible for something to exist without being subject to awareness. Is there any point to the question, "What am I aware of?"

I can't help using the dog as an example again here. Ours for example 'protests' if not served her preferred treats. So, going by your premise, the dog is also capable of "identifying"? Absolutely. Our brains are not that different from animals'. When you break it down, there are only three types of information you need from your brain: sensory information, memory, imagination (or conceptualization or whatever else you'd choose to call it). Imagination is obviously the most recent development in mental ability. As someone on this forum told me, Rand claimed the most fundamental part of consciousness was awareness of ones own existence, which is evident in anything we label as conscious. To be aware of your existence, you have to be aware of something you'd call "me". An animal would identify with its physical form, and for an animal to think, "I am hungry," will lead to emotion if it doesn't get food. And animals clearly get emotional from time to time... However, we take this further than animals in that we identify with the emotion. We are hungry, we don't get food... We become angry. We identify with the anger, and not only do we feel it, but now we protect it as it were ourselves. This prolongs the emotional experience, and explains why animals display emotion far less often than humans.

But a dog's mind for example doesn't operate that way. And the physiological impulse that drives the dog to ingest food is exactly the same that drives us. Therefore, when we grab a sandwich because we're hungry, we don't use this kind of reasoning either. The explanation is perfectly rational: these survival processes operate by instinct. The action could happen purely by instinct, however, the emotional reaction, for example, if we didn't get the food we wanted, would come from the identification. Instinctual craving is not the same as desire, I don't think. When we identify with the source of the craving, then we have emotion. The only thing we can rightfully identify with are our experiences. (Socrates said the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing? He knew what it was like to be Socrates.) To Selene: I just used a situation in which I thought a psychological technique like that might be used. I'm not saying that I know anything about it, I'm just saying it makes sense if that's what it is about. And I agree with the Bhuddist proverb, or whatever. That's only to say that everything has a cause. Except cause itself...

It depends on the ethos of the "you" that is telling the "someone" what "they" are. Additionally, it depends on the internal integrity of the "you" and how process directed the "you" is. Essentially, one of the superior aspects of Dan's teaching is that the "they" that controls the information flow to the "you" controls the decision that the "you" makes. Which brings in the Skinnerian hypothesis which is that "if," [yes...the big IF], the scientist, or the observer, could "know" all of the factors that preceded the "event," or "choice," they would have total predictability as to the outcome. Put another way, as an inscription on a Buddhist temple translated stated..."coincidence, when traced back far enough, becomes inevitable." I learned early on that in any organization, if you could control the information flow to the decision maker, you controlled the decision. Adam The information flow that we receive comes from many different places, though, and is incredibly complex. Here's an example of what I was talking about: "You want to put the gun down, because you're a good and reasonable person." It's just an attempt to change the person's self-identity. With consciousness, I think we HAVE to identify with something, or else we couldn't possibly have a point of view. Whatever we identify with determines how we react to any given situation. But what determines what we identify with? Our environment plays a great deal, for sure... We see the sameness between us and other humans and emulate them... But if we have to do it deliberately, it can't be us. It's impossible to choose what you are, because in order to choose you have to be something.

That video was interesting... It shows how we use relativity to determine what we "want". It also shows how our brains can be tricked in decision making, the same way as our eyes when we look at an optical illusion. It seems choices are our way of guessing at what we are. Xray: This sort of explains that Rand quote you didn't like so much. Hunger is hungry... If you identify with hunger, you will choose food. We use logic: I am hungry, therefor I want food. For the starving man who resists the impulse to take food from a customer at a restaurant, he identifies with hunger, but he more strongly identifies with himself as a decent person, or something along those lines. (Or he could identify himself with a vulnerable thing that needs to be looked after, and resists the temptation in order to avoid future consequences.) That's actually a psychological trick, isn't it? When you tell someone what they are in order for them to make the decision you want.

Would you say a hungry dog "creates" desire for food? No, but I thought the census here was that we have free-will. Does a starving man create desire to resist taking food from a table at a restaurant patio? The ego is our most dominant source of desire, but we don't create the ego.

My brain is no more "me" than my arm is. Both are parts of my body. After death, the decomposition process dissolves and transforms the living entity that I was. One can amputate an arm and still retain a sense of self. The same is not true for amputating one's head. Ba'al Chatzaf Cells could be removed from your brain and you would still retain that sense, though. If you are a collective, losing any part of you should change you...

How do we know what we want, especially if we can't define wanting? How can we choose what we want? Is not desire the fuel for choices? We experience desire, but do we create it?

Calvin: FYI: In building this new generation of chip, IBM combined principles of nanoscience, neuroscience and supercomputing. It has been awarded $21m (£12.7m) of new funding by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA****) for the next phase of the project, which it terms "Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Read more: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2102735/ibm-unveils-chips-mimic-human-brain#ixzz1VQ5IvVMI **** DARPA is very "black budget" type of R & D. That's crazy. I guess the question is whether there is a difference between a physical object creating consciousness or being conscious.

Without desire, we couldn't make choices... However, we are forced to make choices .: we are forced to desire. Our choices rely on our imagination: How could we even move a body part without first imagining we could do so? Once we have these imagined options, what makes us more drawn to one situation over another?

We are made of stuhr-stuff --- Carl Sagan. ruveyn Once again, though, how can one thing be made up of smaller things? You believe that we are a collective? I certainly feel that I am singular. Can any physical thing become conscious? Why don't you consider your computer to be conscious? Are our brains not preprogrammed in a similar fashion? Why is your brain "you" while your arm is not? When your brain is not conscious, is it still you? Is it still you when it decomposes after death?

So now we are not only alienated from our own sub-conscious, but also from the world? A dim view. I don't know much about the subject, but do you know of "emergent properties"? I think it was Aristotle who wrote something like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That may help. Objectivists refer to the 'sub-conscious', btw - identifying, as L. Piekoff put it : - "There is nothing in the sub-conscious besides what you acquired by conscious means". iow, knowable (if not always known.) If that's not self-evident to you, it is to me. If you want to call it alienation... When you're born and you get your first dose of reality, would you not be introduced to something totally different from you? You must believe that we are creations, and therefor just as much a part of this world as everything else. And I've still yet to use the word sub-conscious, because I'm not talking about something that goes on in your head. And to Ba'al: None of those are explanations, though. It's also very possible that the "rules" of existence are only here to affect our awareness. Like the observer effect from the double-slit experiment.. What is nothing? If something has no physical form, can it exist? We're trying to explain the cause of something with that same thing... It doesn't really make sense. You can't use the information you have to figure out where that information came from... It's like watching a movie to try to learn who invented motion pictures...

Correct. Rand's sentence "Consciousness is conscious" (ITOE, p. 59) makes no sense either. It's like saying "Hunger is hungry". To clarify: I did not state it like that. We possess highly developed brains that enable us to have consciousness, but I don't equate our brains with what we are. This addresses the issue of categorizing. Again, I'd suggest approaching this from a biological basis. Categories are groupings by similarity, and the ability to categorize is essential for our survival. It is true that every entity can be divided into smaller entities, but in order to survive, ruminating about this while being faced with a dangerous animal in the jungle (instead of choosing either fight or flight), would have disastrous results. So what you call "stuff" is actually pretty organized into categories in the human brain, and not only there: For example, a lion perceiving both a rat and a gazelle has no problem identifying which category is more likely to yield a copious meal. The question is, where does unexplainable movement, let alone life, comes in? How do we interact with a world of which we are not a part? Logic can't really be used to understand these sorts of things... And to Ba'al: Yes, but what causes the physical cause? Another question: What is possession?

Objectivsts would definitely reject the idea of consciousness existing independently of a physical substrate. For without this substrate providing the physical basis, how is something like "consciousness" to develop at all? I think it is a good idea to work with "energy" as the basic cosmic principle, and proceed from there, examining in what way we humans (via the filter of our senses) perceive this energy as manifesting itself to us in different forms. In connection with the 'sensory scope' we humans move in, sometimes the term "mesoscopic" is used, to differentiate it from macro- and microscopic. What we perceive as natural entities in our direct surroundings (like trees, rivers, animals etc.) are forms of energetic systems that are important for our survival. I think the contradiction that bothers you can be eliminated by modifying the above a little: "Physical things can develop consciousness if certain conditions are met (they have to be living entities which have reached a certain stage in their biological development)." I see no contradiction there. For the fact that our brain stores and processes many different pieces of information does not preclude our choosing from the information that which we consider as important in a specific situation. Maybe it makes more sense here to shift the focus on "For what do we use our brains?". The primary use is to ensure our survival. In the course of Evolution, the human brain has developed into a highly complex instrument, but the basic cerebral program "survival" has remained the same. Thanks for going over everything. I don't doubt that we are not consciousness; we are simply conscious. A banana is yellow, though it is not yellowness. You say that we are brains, and we have consciousness. However, like I said in my last post, we are singular. In reality, there is likely no singular thing, as everything is made up of smaller things. So really, there are no "things," there is only "stuff." I am under the impression that our brains are not conscious, but provide us consciousness. It'd make sense to say we do not have a self the same way it make sense to say a box cannot be inside itself. You can't be something you have... and so you cannot have something you are. Something interesting to me: We create our thoughts, and yet we need our brains to recieve them.

So, we are matter, which is energy. However, we are all singular things, and the energy that we are made of is all the same. It sounds like we're almost in agreement... We can certainly be the energy that creates this objective reality, but to say we have an awareness of self, then, is not to say we are our brains, but to say we are everything. Not only would that mean we have a very limited awareness of self, but that our awareness of self is subjective... We have information. That is absolutely true. Why not start from there?

Well, when you look at something with your eyes, the point in the middle is infinitely small... And so really, the whole image is in your peripherals. Certain things are just more clear than others. We take in tons of information without even trying. Even when we try to block things out, and focus on one thing, that one thing is really tons of information itself. Actually, and I think this might be an already well known idea, consciousness relies on receiving tons of information at once... What the hell would one piece of information be anyway? (and I'm talking within the present, or a single frame as that doctor called it) Xray, plants don't receive as much information as we do, or rather, the life of the plants does not receive as much information as we do... But if we lost all forms of memory, would you consider us to be conscious? We couldn't think... but we'd still be very much aware. It's just different doses of the same thing.

Everything we are made of is described in The Periodic Table of the Elements. Ba'al Chatzaf Was that true when the periodic table had fewer elements than it does now? Lol... It's like a magic potion. You put these elements together, and bam! Consciousness!

Who or What felt the pain? Ba'al Chatzaf I don't know why I argued against your first post... I never questioned our existence or our knowledge of our existence. It's not the fact that we exist that is a mystery, it's what we are. We only know we exist because we know, as you say, "what's out there." None of "what's out there," is us. We cannot be aware of ourselves, we can only be aware of our awareness. We are aware that we are aware of "what's out there." All the information we have about ourselves is that we have information about other stuff. Xray: I don't see a problem. I've considered that we are the product of chemical reactions in our brains, and that would explain our awareness... However, it would not explain how we use our brains. Tony: Everything you say can easily be explained by saying: You are mistaking your self with your brain. You use your brain, but you don't control the information your brain gives you.

What you're looking at is your mind. You build up a sum of knowledge about your body and your mind; at no point do you receive any information of your self. Any thought that comes into your head is, firstly, manipulated bits of memory, and secondly, an unexplainable action. How did you do it? Why did you do it? You can't answer either of those questions, because it happened on an unconscious level. Some people believe that willing is an experience created by the brain... I wouldn't go that far. I'd say it's what you are, but not any part of your physical form (and therefore cannot be explained).

You know pain exists... Is pain you? And Aristocrates: Nice point about religions that try to access self-consciousness... Sounds interesting. To me it seems as though we unconsciously create awareness in order to observe what else we've made/can create.

What are we? I'm not sure whether objectivists believe in souls or a form of consciousness that exists separate from a physical form, but I'll try to lay out the possibilities in an open-minded fashion. The debate is, typically, whether we are brains or non-physical entities (souls, spirits, consciousness or just some form of energy). We have two things to consider: the fact that we have information and the fact that we have ability. The fact that we have information, such as our senses, thoughts, and emotions, would sway us away from the idea of us being brains. If we are physical things, and we assume that physical things are not conscious, what exception is made for us? And if all physical matter is essentially made up of tiny particles, which tiny particle is us? The fact that we have ability--we can make choices, think and create physical actions--might suggest that we are physical beings. If all of our information comes from our brains, thoughts and feelings included, how are we able to make choices? What control could we possibly have? If there is no relationship between a brain and a metaphysical observer/controller, then why should there be awareness at all? Could the operations of these brains not carry on without us? From here I'll try to identify and solve the dilemmas of the metaphysical-self side of the argument: The question is, how can we do anything but observe? Where does this question come from? If the brain is not aware, but rather provides awareness to something else, why would it ever question its own existence? We are clearly involved in the observation and limited creation of our information. How, though, can we be aware of ourselves? If sensation provides no evidence of our selves, how do we know we exist? We are aware of our bodies, of our brains, but what exposure do we have to our "selves"? We have absolutely no information about our selves, and therefor cannot possibly have self-awareness. We do make choices. We do interact with the information we have. How can we do that without self-awareness? We MUST do it unconsciously. We must be able to function on an unconscious level. Is this wrong?