Continuum, Consciousness, Being

by onacruse 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  hillary_step

  Craig,

  So what is "consciousness"? It also exists (and we are individually proof of that fact). Can our personal "consciousness" cease to exist?

  A complex subject, and one we can get nowhere near examining in detail here, but the problem that seems to me to exist with "consciousness" and its possible existence beyond our deaths is that consciousness, unlike matter, depends on experience.

  Perhaps the term "consciousness", which the Koine Greek describes as "inside knowledge", could be defined as "experience *of* experience*. It relies on sensation and experience to exist, without sensation, there is no consciousness. It seems to be that if a person accepts that definition of consciousness, it cannot exist without sensation, thus when sensation ceases, so does consciousness.

  I read a very interesting book a couple of years ago, which in some ways attempts at least to deal with such questions. It was written by Lelsie DeWart and is entitled, "Evolution and Consciousness - The Role Of Speech In The Origin and development of Human Nature". Drop me you address by PM and I will send it to you.

  Best regards - HS
• 

  jgnat

  Hillary-step, I do believe that language is intimately tied to our self-awareness. Human beings raised with little or no language (Helen Keller as a toddler is a good example of this) have far less complex brains, and have no ability to plan. They cannot converse with themselves or debate alternative courses of action before execution. As adults, these peoples can follow instructions, but cannot modify them.
• 

  Fleur

  i want to believe that somehow, after i die, there is a part of my experiences that could become part of some jedi-kinda Force that encompasses all life in the universe.

  but the skeptic in me says that once i'm gone, i'm gone, and the only way i will live on will be in the memory of those who knew me (if they choose to remember me).

  i can think of that for myself with no problem. for those i love, its harder. i like to think of them still existing somewhere forever. still, somehow, i can't quite sell it to myself.

  guess since i left christianity behind, i have left the concept of 'heaven' behind too, more than i realized.

  fascinating topic.

  hugs,

  fleur
• 

  gumby

  So what is "consciousness"? It also exists (and we are individually proof of that fact).

  When the brain ceases to function at death....it stops working obviously. Cells die and the synapses cease to connect to one another for contiousness to continue.

  We're I to believe in a continual concious existence.....it would be from a spiritual level that life exists after death from the one who started life itself......if there is such a thing........but I do not know. I hope it does. I'm not comfortable in the thought I may oneday never exist again.

  Gumby
• 

  Farkel

  : I'm not comfortable in the thought I may oneday never exist again.

  You had no problem with non-existence before you existed, did you? How COULD you? You didn't exist! Therefore, you should have no problem with non-existence AFTER you cease to exist. How COULD you?

  Of course, you might worry about it now, because you DO exist, but there's not a darn thing you or I or anyone else can do about what happens to us after we cease to exist. Bodily-speaking, that is. Best thing to do is not worry about something you are powerless to influence.

  Farkel
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  jst2laws

  Here goes Craig, Consciousness is exclusive to individual experience. A baby for many months does not seem to be aware of itself, simply a reluctant, confused, non-participating observer of the world until they realize the appendages occasionally flitting in front of their eyes are actually attached to a vessel they inhabit, and soon they learn they have a measure of control. By age two they think they can control the world with just a scream. From then on consciousness of our own existence has become our own obsession. We spend the rest of our life trying to resolve this obsession, and the seeming lack of control we thought we had. Perhaps your question is an extension of that quandary. As for myself, we are only a part of a river, a momentary whorl pool spun off from a tree branch dipping in the water we call parents. We are as permanent and as important to the world as the little whorl pool. When the whorl pool disperses we become part of the great and wonderful thing we started as, the river. But are we conscious of our own existence after merging again with the river? If, hypothetically we could be yet conscious of our past existence, I suspect we would say to ourselves, what a ride. What a frigin allusion it was to think we were special for a moment. What was all that obsession with ourselves all about anyway? Jst2laws
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  toreador

  Interesting comparison Steve, but I thought you were still a christian, thereby believing in an afterlife? I have thoughts every stinking day wondering if "this life is all there is (tm)" but nobody on this earth knows for sure, or do they?
• 

  Farkel

  : Interesting comparison Steve, but I thought you were still a christian, thereby believing in an afterlife?

  I've talked at length with Steve about this subject, but I will not answer for him.

  I will say, this: it is fine and dandy to believe in an afterlife. It is dangerous and non-productive to live one's life based upon being convinced there is one. The only reality we have in our short lives in this three dimensional world is our lives. What happens after that, well, who knows? It's a waste of time to be concerned about it.

  Farkel
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  jst2laws

  Toreador,

  Interesting comparison Steve, but I thought you were still a christian, thereby believing in an afterlife? I have thoughts every stinking day wondering if "this life is all there is (tm)" but nobody on this earth knows for sure, or do they?

  Well, , NO, not a traditional Christian. I am a Christian only Jesus would recognize. If you read ONLY the gospel, (maybe even a few that the Catholic Church discarded) a new perspective may emerge. I'm also into Quantum Physics which actually laid the foundation for this new spiritual paradigm. I hope not to disturb others by this, but I think it a sin to refuse to grow with new information.

  Steve

  Farkel,
• 

  onacruse

  Whoa! LOL

  I spent today helping with a kitchen remodel (a succinctly non-philosophical exercise of grunts and bloody fingers ), and I revisit this thread, only to find myself inundated.

  Many intriguing thoughts...if I may, lemme start with:

  Alan, Your candle-flame analogy raises a question: Can it truly be said that, when burned out, the candle-flame is "gone"? My perception is that the candle-flame was simply a temporal effect of specific elevated thermodynamic processes, the consequences of which continue on unabated in the energy flow-and-ebb of the material universe (local Brownian motion, for example). That we (within the extremely limited sensory apparatus of our physical organism) simply "cease to see" the flame, per se, means only that that particular manifestation of the 'essentialness' of the flame has disappeared from our awareness.