I happen to subscribe to determinism at the moment, finding no sufficient counterargument (although I am open to debate). I have, in the process of accepting determinism, given up the idea of some "absolute value" to life. What I can't figure into this, though, is consciousness. Living things, thought, feeling, emotion, and all that good stuff all works their way into determinism via evolution and the big bang and scientific gobbledygook.

Within determinism everything that we know works out. The universe goes on, nothing ever having any meaning, yet happening anyway. Why? Because it can. Time and space should have no significance, just an endless void containing all possible universes, all happening at once. Yet, here I am, observing time and space, giving it significance. Somehow, there is something greater than cogs in and eternal machine at work.

In perfect accord with determinism, I could be sitting here at my computer typing this, thinking exactly what I'm thinking, exactly as I am now. Yet somehow, I am more than just doing. I am observing. I am somehow seeing myself. If I somehow cloned myself and watched me do exactly what I'm doing now, I would see no consciousness. Only bio-mechanical machinery.

The problem with consciousness is that it is not an observable phenomenon. It's not something I can even describe. How could I? A non conscious body could have all the same self-preponderating capabilities as I do. Consciousness is also only something that exists in the present. If I could look back through time at myself, I still wouldn't see consciousness. Just more deterministic machinery.

So, the bottom line is that consciousness is not something that can be seen or described. I have no proof whatsoever of its existence. Yet I feel (whatever that means), in some way, that it exists. So, what I'm searching for now is some model of how consciousness fits into the universe, assuming it does at all.

So, can anyone help me out?

It's not something easily describable or that can be pointed out because of one big misconception on the biological level: consciousness is not a thing, consciousness is a process. It is actually just a label for many, many processes in the brain. There are many books out there on the explanation of consciousness, I would recommend Fedelman. Though remember, neuroscience is still in its infancy.



Also, this should probably be in humanities.

Sounds like an idea that preaches to Take it.

this should probably be in humanities.

I agree.

Consciousness evolving from no consciousness does not compute.
So I come to that conclusion that either:


Consciousness does not exist
Consciousness is All that exists

I like to think the universe is alive, rather than some cold machine. So I go with number two.

Now if everything in the universe is really just a piece of consciousness interconnected with Consciousness as a whole, your piece of consciousness that just wants to do whatever it thinks it wants to do, is contributing it's unique patterns into the all embracing liquid consciousness causing along with all the other pieces the cycles in the process of creation.

So if you think about the universe as holographic, where every component reflects, and includes the universe as whole, then there are no random mutations, or random actions. Everything that goes on on Earth is a reflection of the rest of the universe, as the age-old Hermetic saying goes: 'As above, So below'

Personally, I think it's all going somewhere. Does that mean it is meaningless? I don't think so.

I happen to subscribe to determinism at the moment, finding no sufficient counterargument (although I am open to debate).

Randomness at the quantum level, unless you think we just don't understand quantum mechanics fully yet. Although that doesn't necessarily preclude determinism on a conscious, human level, but it's a pretty important distinction.

My personal philosophy on life is that life, and everything arising from it, is nothing but a function of matter. KikoSanchez kinda touched on this a little, but I think I might ramble on for a while about it.

If ever, anywhere in the universe, something occurs that allows matter to imperfectly replicate, it will refine itself in all sorts of strange and wonderful ways, all the better to replicate faster. It's completely and utterly logically irrefutable. Evolution without all the self-importance. and a step deeper. And it can account for consciousness.

Anything that is able to respond to its environment to safeguard its own existence has a replicative advantage, and anything that self-replicates will respond to its environment. No consciousness or sentience involved; at its most primitive, it's just selection on the chemical level. Being warm will speed up replication as warmth speeds up chemical and physical processes, so replicating matter will be selected on the basis of its proximity to warmth. If an imperfect replication leads to replicating matter being able to make better use of resources hastening its proliferation (sorry for the mouthful of a sentences), it will again be selected for, by definition. It's a cumulative process; as the selected matter becomes more complex, so do the selective advantages imparted by the changes from replication to replication. If ever the matter is able to respond such that it can move towards warmth (or whatever else), the same applies.

And consciousness, at its most fundamental level, is just responding to the external environment. It's had a few billion years to develop, but the only difference between our consciousness and a bacterium maximising its replicative potential by seeking out higher concentrations of nutrients is that we have billions of times as many responsive processes. And all these processes increase our replicative potential; it's even evident within the last hundred years of human history, such is our effectiveness. Look at the incredible expansion of the human population in that time.

Looking at life this way accounts not just for consciousness, but for all the constructs of consciousness. Education, for example, is merely an emergent mechanism that increases the efficiency of our response to the external environment (i.e. consciousness), and thus gives rise to other mechanisms increasing our replicative potential as matter, such as medicine. Medicine (as a random example) is just chemical processes which increase the replicative success of matter, emergent from the reaction of that matter to the environment. It's no different from unconscious reaction of insensate replicating matter to its environment, just scaled upwards in complexity as a result of the refinement of the process over time (as a self-refining process, this is again by definition). Are you following?

The upshot is, consciousness is just a result of the endless refinement of the replication of matter. It's just a combination of physical processes that have the inevitable result of improving the replicative potential of matter. We attach such importance and meaning to it because it's in the nature of consciousness to do so (and a rather peculiar development to think about), but there's no actual significance there that's any deeper than in hydrogen fusion in stars, or the slow formation of diamond or oil, or anything else. How could there be? Significance is a subjective construct of consciousness. Concepts such as awareness or consciousness are completely meaningless, except of course in the meaning we consciously attach to them. Which means that the only meaning these concepts have are completely circular and self-dependent, and thus the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

And you thought determinism was fatalistic.

It is rather interesting, though, that such complex refinement can give rise to sustained, replicating behaviour that's actually detrimental to the replicative potential of that matter, like evolution in reverse. Drug use, thrill-seeking, things like that, they're all emergent from processes that do increase replicative potential (I'm getting sick of typing that phrase), but they've done a turnaround. Although really, they're just an example of selection; such behaviours will eventually be selected out as inevitably as day turns to night.

So, yeah, in summary, that's my opinion of how the concept of consciousness fits into the universe.

Consciousness is what you are using to try to come up with the words to describe what you are using to come up with the words.

Even if you succeed how will you know your consciousness is like anyone else's? Everybody can walk and talk but not everybody could come up with the theory of relativity so there must be variations in consciousness.

DT

observer = observed

you'll love this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3295448672203577230&q=john+searle&ei=xPuESNSTGoL2-gGA4YCWDA

the speaker of John Searle, a philo professor at UC Berkeley. Amazing speach on consciousness.

Furthermore, I recommend reading "a Universe of Consciousness" by Gerald Edelman.