Where are you? What is the thing that we define as YOU? Is it the physical form that experiences the world? Are you merely the electrical activity in the neurons of your brain, or are you something more?
In this blog post I will be tackling the nature of consciousness and individuality through numerous thought experiments, each designed to determine something about the nature of what consciousness and individuality really are.
WHAT are You?
When we think of ourselves, or other people, what is it that we are considering to be "that person". Is it the collection of physical traits which make up their bodies? Is it the collection of their likes, dislikes and beliefs? Is it the thought processes which govern their behaviour and reasoning? What is it that makes you, YOU?
If your personality was transplanted into another body, or your brain into another head, would you still be you? Would you still be YOU if your personality were somehow placed into an artificial brain? If the answer to these questions is, yes, then we can argue that it is the personality which defines individuality and not the medium in which the personality is contained.
Further to this, if somebody else's personality was transplanted into your own body, would they become you? If the answer to this is, yes, then individuality is defined by the vessel in which the personality is contained. Considering that we often accept that the disembodied voice on the end of the phone, or the lines of text popping up on a screen are a person, I think we can safely assume that most would agree that the personality - rather than the vessel - is the defining characteristic of an individual.
WHERE are You?
Where is your personality? Is it produced by the ebb and flow of electrical impulses flowing through the wet-computer that is your brain? Is it some kind of disembodied concept similar to the idea of a Soul? Is your consciousness, your sense of self, even local to your body? To tackle this question from a purely scientific standpoint, we must consider what we know about the way that we experience the world through our senses. This is sometimes known as the "Brain in a Box" thought experiment and when taken to its logical conclusion, has profound implications.
Everything we experience of the physical world is simply electrical impulses interpreted by your brain. If we were to place your brain in a box, keep it alive and feed it with all the sensory information of a given setting - it would be impossible for you to tell that you were not experiencing the physical world.
But let us take it one step further and really throw a spanner in the works! Under a local anaesthetic it is possible to have the top of your skull removed while conscious where you could, in theory, look at and even touch your own brain. This has the profound implication that; since anything we experience with our senses could be simulated, we cannot prove the existence of our own brains!
Consider An Android...
Science is showing more and more that we are living in a procedurally-generated universe, put simply; matter is defined by our perceptions of it. This is known in the World of Science as Holographic Universe Theory, but similar ideas have been put forward by science and spiritualism in concepts such as Vortex Mathematics, Sacred Geometry and the Schwartzchild Proton Unified Field Theory. But back to consciousness...
If we cannot prove the existence of our own bodies or indeed ANY matter outside of our own perceptions and experience of it, where is the personality? As uncomfortable as we may be with the concept, the thought experiment above shows that matter cannot be the source of consciousness, it must be the product. So where is the entity which uses the brain to think and the body to perceive? Where does your mind reside if not within the brain?
Consider an android; one of such immense complexity and so far in advance of our own technology that to us it would be indistinguishable from a biological human. This android is controlled remotely and the signal received by the android is undetectable to us, hyperspace communication, quantum entanglement, whatever mechanism you like.
If this android was damaged in such a way that it would be unable to properly receive, process or express the information in the signal - it would be easy to conclude, from our limited perspective, that it's personality had been changed or damaged. In reality, the signal would be clear and the Mind intact - the information would still exist. The personality, the Perceiver, would continue to endure.
The Two Possibilities
If you've made it this far I congratulate you, it's been a mind-bending journey, but here we are at the conclusion of all those experiments! Where does all this leave us? We cannot prove that anything but our own subjective experience of reality exists at all.Yet there is correlation between individual experiences, on a massive scale, which can lead us to one of two possible conclusions.
1. You are the only thing that exists in the Universe, everything and everyone else is an illusion, dream or simulation in which you are the only true participant.
2. There is some sort of Universal Overseer, a Unified Mind or Consciousness Field which ensures that all our experiences of Reality are consistent.
What if both were true? The Universe as we experience it does appear to have a natural polarity to it, doesn't it?
Namaste.
Fanfare for The Conscious
In this blog post I will be tackling the nature of consciousness and individuality through numerous thought experiments, each designed to determine something about the nature of what consciousness and individuality really are.
WHAT are You?
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| source: sciforums |
If your personality was transplanted into another body, or your brain into another head, would you still be you? Would you still be YOU if your personality were somehow placed into an artificial brain? If the answer to these questions is, yes, then we can argue that it is the personality which defines individuality and not the medium in which the personality is contained.
Further to this, if somebody else's personality was transplanted into your own body, would they become you? If the answer to this is, yes, then individuality is defined by the vessel in which the personality is contained. Considering that we often accept that the disembodied voice on the end of the phone, or the lines of text popping up on a screen are a person, I think we can safely assume that most would agree that the personality - rather than the vessel - is the defining characteristic of an individual.
WHERE are You?
Where is your personality? Is it produced by the ebb and flow of electrical impulses flowing through the wet-computer that is your brain? Is it some kind of disembodied concept similar to the idea of a Soul? Is your consciousness, your sense of self, even local to your body? To tackle this question from a purely scientific standpoint, we must consider what we know about the way that we experience the world through our senses. This is sometimes known as the "Brain in a Box" thought experiment and when taken to its logical conclusion, has profound implications.
 |
| Source: wikipedia |
But let us take it one step further and really throw a spanner in the works! Under a local anaesthetic it is possible to have the top of your skull removed while conscious where you could, in theory, look at and even touch your own brain. This has the profound implication that; since anything we experience with our senses could be simulated, we cannot prove the existence of our own brains!
Consider An Android...
Science is showing more and more that we are living in a procedurally-generated universe, put simply; matter is defined by our perceptions of it. This is known in the World of Science as Holographic Universe Theory, but similar ideas have been put forward by science and spiritualism in concepts such as Vortex Mathematics, Sacred Geometry and the Schwartzchild Proton Unified Field Theory. But back to consciousness...
If we cannot prove the existence of our own bodies or indeed ANY matter outside of our own perceptions and experience of it, where is the personality? As uncomfortable as we may be with the concept, the thought experiment above shows that matter cannot be the source of consciousness, it must be the product. So where is the entity which uses the brain to think and the body to perceive? Where does your mind reside if not within the brain?Consider an android; one of such immense complexity and so far in advance of our own technology that to us it would be indistinguishable from a biological human. This android is controlled remotely and the signal received by the android is undetectable to us, hyperspace communication, quantum entanglement, whatever mechanism you like.
If this android was damaged in such a way that it would be unable to properly receive, process or express the information in the signal - it would be easy to conclude, from our limited perspective, that it's personality had been changed or damaged. In reality, the signal would be clear and the Mind intact - the information would still exist. The personality, the Perceiver, would continue to endure.
The Two Possibilities
If you've made it this far I congratulate you, it's been a mind-bending journey, but here we are at the conclusion of all those experiments! Where does all this leave us? We cannot prove that anything but our own subjective experience of reality exists at all.Yet there is correlation between individual experiences, on a massive scale, which can lead us to one of two possible conclusions.
2. There is some sort of Universal Overseer, a Unified Mind or Consciousness Field which ensures that all our experiences of Reality are consistent.
What if both were true? The Universe as we experience it does appear to have a natural polarity to it, doesn't it?
Namaste.
Fanfare for The Conscious
Very interesting - and well written. One thing that immediately sprang to my mind (consciousness :-) ) when reading was Near Death Experience - which informs these thought experiments to some degree. Also, some people are solipsists and say there is no objective reality - this can never be proved wrong (to them). Finally, I don't know if you will find this presentation I made to be of any interest - as it touches on some of the themes/ideas you cover here!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.checktheevidence.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336&Itemid=76