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Hi
Judith,
Certainly we have
no proof that consciousness does not have that unique ability to persist when
separated from the context of its material substrate. But that, in itself, does
not logically lend any credence to the notion that it does have that
ability.
There is nothing
in what we do know about the qualities of consciousness that provide
any kind of evidence, or even suggestion, that consciousness can persist as
mentioned above. What precendents are you referring to? To my knowledge,
any complex systems which persist in different environments do so by
continuing their organization within their original material
substrate (basis); the organization of the system does not persist apart
from that.
To me, there is
also the basic question of whether "consciousness" is, in fact, anything more
than the behaviors associated with some system type(s). If so, then it
would not make sense for behaviors to persist apart from the underlying causal
system which generates them.
I leave it as an
open possibility that consciousness might be able to persist beyond bodily
embodiment. I simply see no evidence to support or even suggest it is the
case.
Regards,
Tim
Yes, but Tim, do we have proof that "the particular complex
system we call consciousness" DOESN'T have a unique ability "to persist when
separated from the context of its material substrate", as you put it? In many
ways, it behaves differently than other matter-based complex systems do,
so far as we are able to tell. There's a lot of room in there for
scientifically rigorous discovery that has nothing to do with mysticism.
If you proceed from what we do know about human consciousness:
that it is unique in reality as far as we can discern, then why is it such a
leap to consider the possibility that it can retain its cohesion or achieve
some sort of metamorphosis that allows it to maintain its cohesion once
detached from the matter that gave rise to it? There are precedents for
complex systems that maintain cohesion after
disconnecting from the context which created the systems in the first place.
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 6:03
PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Death and
experience
My question
is: out of all the myriad complex systems in nature, on what
basis should we suspect that the particular complex system we call
"consciousness" has any unique ability to persist when separated from the
context of its material substrate?
As much as I
would dearly wish it to be so, I see no reason besides such wishes that
we have to suppose that consciousness occupies this unique status.
Perhaps,
though, this is where we make the transition from scientific knowledge to
another form of knowledge: mysticism, which RR discussed in
the manuscript "The Limits of the Limits of Science".
Regards,
Tim
I just noticed that I neglected to include the note at the
end of the last post, on death and consciousness...
What I had intended to discuss was related to the fact that
one of my father's favorite things to do was point out what "nobody knows"
in many our various discussions. All my life, he did that; talking in
great depth about what some of the beliefs are and the controversies, but
pointing out not only what isn't known but how it effects other things we
THINK we know. There is often a domino effect similar to what he
discovered when he retraced the steps leading to the current reductionist
approach in mainstream science, only to discover that some of those steps
were poorly thought out.
Many of our discussions involved human physiology.
My father talked about the fact that human bodies are
able to perceive the proximity of other human bodies in ways not
related to our conscious perceptions. He cited as one proof of this the
well-documented fact that adult women living together will entrain their
menstrual cycles. "Nobody knows how that happens," he said. He further
said he had never heard of anyone trying to study the
phenomenon, not even in Obstetrics or Gynecology. I asked why, and he said
he presumed that nobody thought it important enough to study. However, he
pointed out that the mechanism at work behind it could be very
important, indeed. How does one human body "read" another? How does it
detect something as subtle as an internal model (an anticipatory
model, incidentally) that controls timing of a menstrual cycle--
or perhaps even just the timing of the menstrual cycle itself? Even more
fantastic, how and why does one body make changes in its own cycle
to begin to achieve simultaneity?! How many steps are there to achiving
a synchronous cycle? (I can attest to the fact that it really
does happen, from personal experience throughout my life.) Another aspect
to the phenomenon is that one woman's cycle seems to be "chosen" as the
dominant one, and her's doesn't deviate. Instead, all the others will
alter to match hers. So, how is this subtle but crucial complex
information being communicated, back and forth???? It is not connected to
volition. It is a completely independent mechanism from the conscious
mind! If medical science can answer these questions, it will be a
breakthrough on all kinds of other things that have so far eluded
researchers.
The reason I think this pertains to the question about
consciousness and whether the organization of that particular complex
system can persist after the death of a human being's body is
because the above example is a glimpse at the kinds of
things that we don't know about something so familiar as our own
bodies and minds. I can certainly be accused of watching too much Star
Trek in my life, but the fact that the example mentioned is not even being
studied raises huge credibility issues for me with regards to how medical
science approaches learning about human physiology. It doesn't sound all
that farfetched that there may be life forms that live off ambient energy
the way plants use sunlight to make sugar. If consciousness is a stable
complex system that only requires energy to maintain its cohesion, then
the metamorphosis from using visceral sources to ambient sources
isn't out of the realm of possibility to me.
If it IS possible, then what sort of existence would that be
like? My only certainty on that subject is that it would be very different
from what life, as we experience it, is like. So much of our knowledge of
the universe is bounded by what our human perceptions are capable of
perceiving-- and how our senses perceive it.
Judith
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