John Mikes wrote: > > benjayk wrote: > > *"Sorry, I can't follow you... You do not accept the concept of > consciousness > **and then want an origin for it?"* > > I see you did not follow me... I asked for some identification to that > mystical noumenon we are talking about exactly* to make it acceptable for > discussion*. T H E N - I F it turns out to BE acceptable, we may well > contemplate an origination for it - if???... > Better followable now? > Sorry for not having been clearer. Ah, OK. As I see it, (what I mean when I say) consciousness is simply self-evident, obvious - you might even say it's obviousness itself. There can be no remotely exact definition of it, as it is too simple (it can't be cut into analyzable pieces) and complex (it has many different facets) for that. It is that in which definitions arise. Just as one sentence in a book cannot capture the whole book, no definition can capture consciousness. To define consciousness and talk about it's properties means labeling and representing it. It's not wrong, but we should clear that it's ultimately undefinable and not even understandable.
If you ask me what consciousness is, then I can just invite you too look at what already is obvious. In order to become more aware of how obvious it really is, it might be useful to not conceptualize it, and not jump to the conclusion "It's trivial that I am conscious.". If we always search for consciousness as something concretely graspable (by the mind) we will miss the obvious fact that we simply are conscious and that the mind can't really grasp it. You might say that if we don't know what exactly we are talking about it makes no sense to talk about it. But I don't think that's necessarily true. When we first learn about something, we don't know what exactly we talk about and then learn more about it through asking questions, or contemplating. John Mikes wrote: > > BTW I never said that I do not accept the term consciousness - if it is > identified in a way that makes sens (to me). I even worked on it (>1992) > to > apply the word to something *more general* than e.g. awareness or similar > 'human' peculiarities. When I say consciousness I just mean ability to experience (in the broadest sense). benjayk -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Mathematical-closure-of-consciousness-and-computation-tp31771136p32218486.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
