A question to the thinkers

[ZenG]

DerHoggz......if you're comparing the workings of a human brain to sticking things in holes in a child's toy...........and wondering why the square objects won't fit in the round holes..

..........it's going to be awhile before we can discuss anything.....

If you can only put one thing in one hole at a time ......I get it. But I mean, hell, I play my bass with all 8 fingers working at once.....

 

[nukes_da_bass]

DerHoggz......if you're comparing the workings of a human brain to sticking things in holes in a child's toy...........and wondering why the square objects won't fit in the round holes..

..........it's going to be awhile before we can discuss anything.....

If you can only put one thing in one hole at a time ......I get it. But I mean, hell, I play my bass with all 8 fingers working at once.....

Don't rule out your thumb.

 

[chuck norriss]

beef tongue is popular here[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[chuck norriss]

done right and it's good

 

[bassinplace]

Tongue is delicious! (sorry, I'm derailing, but damn it's delicious)

 

[DerHoggz]

DerHoggz......if you're comparing the workings of a human brain to sticking things in holes in a child's toy...........and wondering why the square objects won't fit in the round holes..

..........it's going to be awhile before we can discuss anything.....

If you can only put one thing in one hole at a time ......I get it. But I mean, hell, I play my bass with all 8 fingers working at once.....

And you're acting like comparing the brain to a lump of metal that converts dead dinosaurs into explosions into linear motion into rotational motion is somehow more valid. It's going to be a while before we can discuss anything.

I use two hands and two feet when I drive. I use three fingers to hold pens. I blow my nose one nostril at a time. I upshift the cassette on my bike with my right ring finger, and downshift with the index and ring. None of that has any bearing on brain function.

You type a lot, but you don't say much.

 

[chuck norriss]

 

[bassinplace]

I blow my nose one nostril at a time.

You haven't lived!

 

[nukes_da_bass]

DerHoggz......if you're comparing the workings of a human brain to sticking things in holes in a child's toy...........and wondering why the square objects won't fit in the round holes..

..........it's going to be awhile before we can discuss anything.....

If you can only put one thing in one hole at a time ......I get it. But I mean, hell, I play my bass with all 8 fingers working at once.....

How dare you antagonize my blind date why you I aughta...





Sorry wrong thread.

 

[chuck norriss]

You haven't lived!

 

[LiquidMidnight]

I plead Kant on this one.

 

[ZenG]

Everything you do physically is a result of a command from the brain whether conscious of it or not.

We all know that brain activity can be lessened or increased....

In fact there are so many people seeking "higher levels " of consciousness.

Some achieve it with the use of drugs or have epiphanies or spiritual awakenings or moments of great fear or near death experiences.....

The point being that neural activity can be increased or decreased......

Whether the overstimulation of neural pathways on a prolonged basis is good for humans is another question.

It has been demonstrated that one can burn one's brain out literally by constant overstimulation from certain drugs.

So plugging along normally from day to day in the belief that one is operating at "100%" could be untrue.

The brain can be pushed to higher levels of excitation through certain stimuli (and not necessarily chemical).

(And efficiency doesn't always equal more power....if you are a constant long distance runner your legs will be pretty efficient. But you will sacrifice power....because in order for the legs to be efficient at long distance running the muscles need to be much smaller than a person who is squatting heavy weights. Which is why many bodybuilders avoid cardio like the plague.)

 

[BawanaRik]

Is consciousness reality? Or is reality consciousness?
What do you all think?

I think my consciousness is all the reality I have. You all could be part of my imagination for all I know.

This "world" could well be a vivid dream that I'm having after one too many crashes.

The last 40 "years" could have 2 seconds .

Then again maybe not.

 

[BawanaRik]

BTW, did you see Lucy? Kind of along the same lines

 

[DerHoggz]

Everything you do physically is a result of a command from the brain whether conscious of it or not.

We all know that brain activity can be lessened or increased....

In fact there are so many people seeking "higher levels " of consciousness.

Some achieve it with the use of drugs or have epiphanies or spiritual awakenings or moments of great fear or near death experiences.....

The point being that neural activity can be increased or decreased......

Whether the overstimulation of neural pathways on a prolonged basis is good for humans is another question.

It has been demonstrated that one can burn one's brain out literally by constant overstimulation from certain drugs.

So plugging along normally from day to day in the belief that one is operating at "100%" could be untrue.

The brain can be pushed to higher levels of excitation through certain stimuli (and not necessarily chemical).

(And efficiency doesn't always equal more power....if you are a constant long distance runner your legs will be pretty efficient. But you will sacrifice power....because in order for the legs to be efficient at long distance running the muscles need to be much smaller than a person who is squatting heavy weights. Which is why many bodybuilders avoid cardio like the plague.)

You make far too many unsubstantiated positive statements.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

Ok. Someone needs to: Step. Away. From the bong.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Is consciousness reality? Or is reality consciousness?
What do you all think?

I had a go at this the other day. But, then put it down and walked away. It's a lovely question because it requires a little thinking. So thanks to the OP. You 'e got a lively thread here.

I went back to my scribblings after a while and re-drafted it. Just for fun. This is all I got.


Re-imagine these questions. Ask yourself, does consciousness affect reality? And does reality affect consciousness? If the answer to the first question is yes, as seems to be the case, then, together, reality and consciousness pose an interesting paradox. Here, we're not looking at reality as a mathematical, or a scientific 'fact.' We're looking at our own realities - the personal construct that amounts to us - just as real sometimes, in practical terms, as any scientific reality.

If the answer to the second question is also yes, and it seems evident that it is, then that might help to determine the scope of our paradox. What if consciousness and reality were two aspects of the same thing? What then is that thing, and what are its primary determinants if this thing is more than what is encapsulated by reality and consciousness?

Do we need to imagine the thing in order for it to become the thing, or is it always the thing, regardless of our participation? And then, if that can't be properly determined, which seems to be the case, is it possible for that thing to even be an aspect of our conscious reality? Again, the answer seems to be yes, because we can make it real.

Is it possible then, that we do rely quite heavily on our conscious selves, in reality, in order to determine what it is that greets us as we descend from our dreams, towards a new day? Again, the answer seems to be yes.

It seems evident that we can readily create our own realities, and that we can do so as a conscious act. But this brings us back to the naming of the thing that coincides with what's real. Could it be that perhaps, for that thing, the most fitting name might be belief?

 

[chuck norriss]

Eh?

 

[ZenG]

I haven't seen "Lucy" yet ...so I can't comment on that.

But I'm guessing the wave of the future (and it's probably been done or being done somewhere) is "simultaneous access" as it were, to brain compartments.

The way the brain works normally, it's hard to pull up, say, 3 different memory events or other abstract functions at the same time.....although such things as taste , feel, touch etc. can be concurrent.

Basically we view everything through one screen, which is our limited "consciousness".

We only have one window running at a time....

With the use of certain devices we could have more than one "window" running at one time so to speak.


Reality is basically whatever your consciousness determines and interprets it to be.

You can shape your own consciousness by adhering to certain beliefs about life as well.

Many of us train ourselves to operate at a certain level of existence and will filter out any anything that causes fear of the unknown or challenges our conscious comfort-level.

Have to ask yourself:- can you actually handle a higher consciousness that is totally unfamiliar to you?

Can you handle multi-faceted trains of thought?

Can you handle recalling odors,sensations, memories that will be as real as anything in current perceived reality?

We love control.

If we have no control then we fear it.

 

[hbarcat]

Takes a lot of injury, usually death to get reality to go away. An injured brain still has a lot of reality - pain, sight, sound,etc. Granted it might not be a ponderable reality. Even simple organisms have a limited reality. Research shows you can "scare" plants into producing stress chemicals by playing them the sound of caterpillars chewing.

Agreed. I was thinking more in terms of injuries that change consciousness or wipe out parts of it, rather than killing somebody outright.

On occasions of severe trauma when surgeons need to stop a patient's heart for any length of time, they can chill the entire body down to less than 55 F for several hours. This stops all electrical activity in the brain. Once the body is re-warmed, it takes the brain awhile (often several days) to return to normal and the patient is in a coma (usually controlled by drugs) during this time. The brain is active and functioning, but the patient is not yet conscious.

From personal experience, I can attest that the brain in a coma is still somewhat aware of its existence in its surroundings and of the passage of time, while a brain cooled down to stop all electrical activity is virtually dead. The difference is very real.