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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
Registered: 02/01/05
Posts: 4,033
Loc: mountains and lakes
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continuinity of consciousness
#4158053 - 05/10/05 03:10 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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trendal made me think about something...
he sad, when I die there I am not anywhere waiting to be revived.
So it made me think... when I lose consciousness, do I die beyond return? Perhapse this morning I woke up thinking I am Oldwoodspecter that lived yesterday because I have his memory, but I am not him, he died yesterday and lost consciousness. So I will die tonight and will never be aware of anything nevermore, and tomorow my brain will reboot and create another entity/consciousness that will only THINK he is me, but will only share my memory, I will never again experience anything
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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LunarEclipse
Enlil's Official Story
Registered: 10/31/04
Posts: 21,407
Loc: Building 7
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"continuinity"
That's a 50 point Scrabble word if unchallenged...
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
Registered: 02/01/05
Posts: 4,033
Loc: mountains and lakes
Last seen: 17 years, 5 months
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Re: continuinity of consciousness [Re: LunarEclipse]
#4158098 - 05/10/05 03:19 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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sorry about that, I was typing in a hurry, I'm full of energy
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: continuinity of consciousness [Re: LunarEclipse]
#4158106 - 05/10/05 03:21 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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The problem with consciousness is that we as humans try to think of things in an absolute, objective sense, when really all we have is our perception. If you go to sleep tonight, and you are killed by aliens, who then replace every molecule of your body with copies of those molecules in the exact same order, and put this reincarnated copy of you back in your bed to wake up, that person's perception will be the same as the person who went to sleep the night before. To him, consciousness will seem unbroken, but to the dead guy, consciousness has ended.
Consciousness is just perception, and like identity it is the mind of the beholder. There are no objective answers to the mind and consciousness, because these are experienced entirely in a subjective manner.
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
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Re: continuinity of consciousness [Re: Ravus]
#4158127 - 05/10/05 03:27 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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When I talk about this, I mean from the point of view of the original guy, if to him it seems unbroken then it is ONE consciousness
but forget about death and aliens and recreation...
I'm talking about every day you go to sleep and you still have the same brain.
So from my subjective point of view (I who am writting this post now), will I wake up tomorow or not? I know my body will wake up fully conscious, but what if I am just a flash of consciousness that started when I woke up this morning, and I only think I am the guy from the last day, but I just continued where he left of.
I guess you could say that my brain works while in sleep so I still am lurking somewhere in the corner.
But what If I have clynical death and someone revives me in the same body/brain, do I really wake up, or does my body create a new entity that only THINKS it is me?
If that is true, then any revived person was not really revived at all because from his subjective point of view he really died and never experienced anything again
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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newjon
Stranger
Registered: 02/12/05
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i posted an idea realting to this in the time travel thread, but to save you digging it out (it's gone in a different direction) I'll re-cap: assume, for a minute, an optimistic scenario; that when you wake up after the next time you sleep, your consciousness is the same as the one you have now. How do you know that, when you fell asleep, probably you'd have to reach a certain "level" of sleep as in deep sleep, i dunno, anyway, how do you know that once your body is asleep, your consciousness doesn't simply leap forward in time to when your body begins to wake up? I mentioned as well, this guy, i'll have to go dig his name up, a scientist studying the human brain and the human mind. He's doing experiments whose outcomes *suggest* there IS a separate "part" of what makes us human, that is linked to the brain, but goes beyond the physical limits of it. Call it an aura, a spirit, a soul, whatever. He himself is convinced it is there and his work is looking promising. He's already got one book out (maybe more, i'm uncertain). He doesn't mention anything to do with time in those, this is more kind of wishful thinknig on my part. But it also ties in with another thought i had recently. I think i'm far from the first to suggest it. What if your conscious has a form somewhat similar to light - and during deep sleep, it simply speeds up to its usual speed. maybe when your body ebgins to wake up, it slows down again so you experience time as slow as we do. Perhaps to slow down, it somehow becomes split up...as you can tell, it's all just a "what if" loosely connected to some promising-looking current research. But wouldn't that be cool if it's anywhere close to true? if our "souls" are some specialised form of light. i mean, light is basically a form of pure energy anyway, right?
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
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Posts: 4,033
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Re: continuinity of consciousness [Re: newjon]
#4158552 - 05/10/05 05:23 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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I guess we will never know If I am going to wake up or not. If I don't I'll never know I existed in the first place because I will be erased and non-existant, and the next being that awakes tomorow will think that the "experiment" did work and that I did wake up, and will come to the forum saying that he did survive the night thinking he is me.
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...
Registered: 01/30/03
Posts: 9,954
Loc: You can't spell fungus wi...
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A Zen koan that I've always been fond of:
Where were you before you were born?
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.
Then ask yourself:
Who's to say that the same thing doesn't happen when we die?
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
Registered: 02/01/05
Posts: 4,033
Loc: mountains and lakes
Last seen: 17 years, 5 months
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well..
A memory is not proof of existence and lack of memory is not proof of non-existence
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...
Registered: 01/30/03
Posts: 9,954
Loc: You can't spell fungus wi...
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Proof? We're not going to get any proof here, my man.
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
Registered: 02/01/05
Posts: 4,033
Loc: mountains and lakes
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What?
You are the one who tried to say that before birth we didn't exist just because we don't remember anything
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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kaiowas
lest we baguette
Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
Loc: oz
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OldWoodSpecter...what do you feel is your essence? what about you never changes?
What is it that experiences in dream and in 'reality'?
you bring back dreams and remember them, can even store them as memory. what is it that stores this information?
-------------------- Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
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Posts: 4,033
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Re: continuinity of consciousness [Re: kaiowas]
#4158779 - 05/10/05 06:20 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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The memory is stored in brain patterns, but I for all I know I've existed only 12 hours and will die in the next two
and my essence...well perhapse I don't have an essence, maybe I'm am a bunch of elements that give the illusion of continuity and wholeness so maybe there is no me, at least not that me that I thought it existed. Maybe "me" is a lie that gets passed in every next moment to the new person and new consciousness that replaces the old one.
I'm starting to doubt Decartes for the first time
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
Edited by OldWoodSpecter (05/10/05 06:24 PM)
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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...
Registered: 01/30/03
Posts: 9,954
Loc: You can't spell fungus wi...
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I presented a Koan, in the form of a question. Then I presented another question. Simple as that. Nothing more, nothing less.
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Quote:
SkorpivoMusterion said: A Zen koan that I've always been fond of:
Where were you before you were born?
.
.
.
Then ask yourself:
Who's to say that the same thing doesn't happen when we die?
Somehow, I don't like the idea of going back up into my mom's uterus.
--------------------
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
Registered: 02/01/05
Posts: 4,033
Loc: mountains and lakes
Last seen: 17 years, 5 months
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Re: continuinity of consciousness [Re: Silversoul]
#4158901 - 05/10/05 06:52 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Somehow I get the feeling that it would not be wierd to people on this forum
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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eMotionALLmotion
DivineeMotive....
Registered: 02/28/05
Posts: 759
Loc: The Symphony of Lights......
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Re: continuinity of consciousness [Re: Silversoul]
#4158981 - 05/10/05 07:14 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Paradigm said: Somehow, I don't like the idea of going back up into my mom's uterus.
. The mother part might serve to be quite a challenge, but splitting back into the father part.....?
-------------------- Uni-VersALL MasterPeace eMotive Divinity NowThere Infinity eMelody
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OldWoodSpecter
waiting
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We have delt with incest on this forum, some members might not have the problem with going back to the uterus, at least not in the direction of uterus
I would mind though, the idea creeps me out
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
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This is Abhidhamma [or Abhidharma - Pali or Sanskrit] Buddhist psychology. If you really want to pursue these thoughts of yours, order Lama Anagarika Govinda's book The Psychological Attitude of Early Buddhist Philosophy, Samual Weiser, 1974. Like electronic reality reduced to byts, bytes, and pixels, physical reality can be reduced to 'mind-moments.' Even Tom Wolfe in 'The Electic Kool-Ais Acid Test' pointed out the mercurial nature of the NOW - taking 1/30th of a second to register in consciousness so that grasping the eternal present requires superconcentration to break this barrier of time-lag.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Nomad
Mad Robot
Registered: 04/30/02
Posts: 422
Last seen: 16 years, 3 months
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This is Abhidhamma [or Abhidharma - Pali or Sanskrit] Buddhist psychology. If you really want to pursue these thoughts of yours, order Lama Anagarika Govinda's book The Psychological Attitude of Early Buddhist Philosophy, Samual Weiser, 1974. Like electronic reality reduced to byts, bytes, and pixels, physical reality can be reduced to 'mind-moments.' Even Tom Wolfe in 'The Electic Kool-Ais Acid Test' pointed out the mercurial nature of the NOW - taking 1/30th of a second to register in consciousness so that grasping the eternal present requires superconcentration to break this barrier of time-lag.
There's also Ernst Poeppel, a german scientist who has apparently discovered that the mind works in 30 millisecond frames. He claims that this is the time needed for the brain to discern two successive optical or acustical signals, and also the period of brainwave oscillation when acustical information is processed. I have yet to look deeper into this, but he comes to the conclusion that the mind processes information simultaneously within such a 30 milliseconds frame, thus there is no past or future there. If that is true, we now know the exact temporal length of one citta. Cheers to science.
Anyway, the Abhidhamma was teached by the Buddha to beings in heaven, and only later retrieved (or channeled down) by meditating monks. So maybe it is supposed to aid practice in the heavens, not down here on earth. If one has a life expectancy of several million years, one may just sit down and analyze consciousness, breaking it down into parts according to the Abhidhamma scheme, and end up with complete understanding of the mind, and consequently a very clean release from samsara.
If only I had a million years.
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