We cannot be created since consciousness is irreducible and primary

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Bahman said:
In simple word, nothing can cause consciousness otherwise we cannot make conscious decision. Moreover, you cannot simply say that the conclusion of an argument is wrong unless you show that one of the premises is wrong.
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I have no idea what you mean by this.
 
tonyrey said:
Our primary datum and sole certainty is the fact that we are thinking. Without a mind we wouldn’t even know the brain exists! We infer there is a material world from our mental perceptions.
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True enough but then we don’t usually base things on whether or not they are absolutely certain, we can only compare our observations with those of others and see if they coincide.
The Scientific Method does a good job of mitigating human bias as much as is possible.

If you prefer I could say, “everything that we know points us to believe that human consciousness requires a brain”.
But that’s a bit of a mouthful. 😃
 
Okay, let’s prove a premise wrong - the first premise of the first post:
“Consciousness is the ability to experience and affect other mental states” (Premise Bahman came up with on his own)
  1. The Predicate is “Ability” meaning Consciousness is an ability, yet there may be many abilities of which consciousness is one individual subject having this predicate.
  2. “Ability” is a power possessed by some agent
  3. Some Agent has abilities, one of which may be consciousness, therefore consciousness is not the subject of the Agent, but is the predicate of an agent, and therefore is only as eternal as the agent. If the agent is no more, the ability is no more.
  4. if the predicate (consciousness) is no more then consciousness is not eternal
Your first statement disproves the possibility for either proof of yours to advance, by the fact that it is predicated as an ability of some more primary being, and therefore is not a being but a power of some other being.
 
Winterwolf00 said:
I have no idea what you mean by this.
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Very simple suppose that X cause consciousness C and then you do Y. The question is how C can affect the state of affair in this case, namely to able us to make conscious decision, if it is caused by X? This means that we have no control on C if it is caused by other thing. What is the use of C since it seems that it is an useless intermediate being.
 
John_Martin said:
After death, there is knowing, and will, but no body to actualize what is known.
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At this time bodies of the saints remain buried in the earth. However, when we pray to the saints, our prayers are actualized by the intercessory power of the saint and so the saint has actualized what is known to him by the prayer of the believer on earth.
 
John_Martin said:
Okay, let’s prove a premise wrong - the first premise of the first post:
“Consciousness is the ability to experience and affect other mental states” (Premise Bahman came up with on his own)
  1. The Predicate is “Ability” meaning Consciousness is an ability, yet there may be many abilities of which consciousness is one individual subject having this predicate.
  2. “Ability” is a power possessed by some agent
  3. Some Agent has abilities, one of which may be consciousness, therefore consciousness is not the subject of the Agent, but is the predicate of an agent, and therefore is only as eternal as the agent. If the agent is no more, the ability is no more.
  4. if the predicate (consciousness) is no more then consciousness is not eternal
Your first statement disproves the possibility for either proof of yours to advance, by the fact that it is predicated as an ability of some more primary being, and therefore is not a being but a power of some other being.
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You don’t need an agent to have consciousness. Moreover, you have to define agent.
 
Bahman said:
Very simple suppose that X cause consciousness C and then you do Y. The question is how C can affect the state of affair in this case, namely to able us to make conscious decision, if it is caused by X? This means that we have no control on C if it is caused by other thing. What is the use of C since it seems that it is an useless intermediate being.
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You don’t seem to realize there are types of causes, such as God being the first cause (therefore also the final end), who causes things that intelligible move in the way he caused them to be, including us as rational beings acting contingently, and we then act to cause things “efficiently”, meaning we act as direct causes of what we consciously want to cause.

So God X, principally causes our Soul/Body composite being C (yet in concert with the efficient and direct cause of our parents having sex to directly cause the Body we have), and we (being now caused by God and our Parents) act out our contingent being to choose to help a needy person Y. We are the direct cause of the needy person having food and clothes. (C causing Y), and God is the Principal or First Cause of the person having food and clothes (X causing Y) because he is the first cause and final end (the needy person comes to believe in this God and comes to know he has life in Him as his final end of union with this God.)
 
Bahman said:
You don’t need an agent to have consciousness. Moreover, you have to define agent.
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So, you are then saying “Ability is the consciousness” means the same as “Consciousness is the Ability”

So why are you then saying Consciousness is primary?

Why not just say Ability is primary.

“Agent” is a common English word that we all know who write here.

I think you are above your head in trying to deal with this question and are just repeating yourself to try and prove a point by making people tired of hearing the same thing over and over with no real reasoning of the thoughts. Your “consciousness” is failing you.
 
John_Martin said:
You don’t seem to realize there are types of causes, such as God being the first cause (therefore also the final end), who causes things that intelligible move in the way he caused them to be, including us as rational beings acting contingently, and we then act to cause things “efficiently”, meaning we act as direct causes of what we consciously want to cause.

So God X, principally causes our Soul/Body composite being C (yet in concert with the efficient and direct cause of our parents having sex to directly cause the Body we have), and we (being now caused by God and our Parents) act out our contingent being to choose to help a needy person Y. We are the direct cause of the needy person having food and clothes. (C causing Y), and God is the Principal or First Cause of the person having food and clothes (X causing Y) because he is the first cause and final end (the needy person comes to believe in this God and comes to know he has life in Him as his final end of union with this God.)
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First, we were talking about whether brain or anything else including soul could cause/create consciousness. My answer was no, since otherwise we cannot make conscious decision. Lets consider a system being in state of S and S causes another state lets say S’ and consciousness C at the same time. There is no place for C to play any role if S directly cause S’, in another word S’ is completely determined by S hence we are dealing with ephiphenomalism. Now suppose that S causes C and then C causes S’. By definition C is uniquely defined from S and C’ uniquely causes S’ hence we have no freedom to perform any action. This is opposite to free/conscious decision making that we all aware that it cannot be true unless you argue that free decision is an illusion. Hence nothing can cause consciousness since otherwise we cannot possibly make free/conscious decision.

Second, lets add God to this system. Remember that we only had three things, S, S’ and C. The state of S exist by definition. The question is what causes S’. Either it is C or God since both God and C cannot possibly cause S’. We don’t need God if C causes S’ and free decision making is an illusion if God causes S’. So there is no way to add God to this situation unless you accept that God is consciousness which I am sure that you don’t agree with it.
 
John_Martin said:
So, you are then saying “Ability is the consciousness” means the same as “Consciousness is the Ability”
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No, because the ability is not a complete word since we have to define ability to do what. That is why I define consciousness as the ability to experience and freely affect mental states. And yes, if the ability was a clear word for our purposes then we could say that consciousness is the ability and ability is the consciousness.
John_Martin said:
So why are you then saying Consciousness is primary?

Why not just say Ability is primary.
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We can agree that ability is primary too since definition of consciousness just narrow the range of things that in reality one is able to do.
John_Martin said:
“Agent” is a common English word that we all know who write here.

I think you are above your head in trying to deal with this question and are just repeating yourself to try and prove a point by making people tired of hearing the same thing over and over with no real reasoning of the thoughts. Your “consciousness” is failing you.
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So I think we can agree that agent is a conscious thing meaning that s/he/it can experience and freely affect mental states.

I think the problem arises from the fact that I want to define and argue about something which it doesn’t have a right definition yet.
 
Bahman said:
Very simple suppose that X cause consciousness C and then you do Y. The question is how C can affect the state of affair in this case, namely to able us to make conscious decision, if it is caused by X? This means that we have no control on C if it is caused by other thing. What is the use of C since it seems that it is an useless intermediate being.
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I still don’t understand what you are trying to say.
We know from experience that the brain is basically US.
It holds our memories, personalities, fears, loves, EVERYTHING that is US.

And there have been occasions, (not hypotheticals this has actually happened), that if the brain or part of the brain is damaged then you can lose memories, skills, or even have your personality altered.

Everything that we know about the brain and human physiology in general tells us that the brain IS our consciousness.
 
Winterwolf00 said:
I still don’t understand what you are trying to say.
We know from experience that the brain is basically US.
It holds our memories, personalities, fears, loves, EVERYTHING that is US.

And there have been occasions, (not hypotheticals this has actually happened), that if the brain or part of the brain is damaged then you can lose memories, skills, or even have your personality altered.

Everything that we know about the brain and human physiology in general tells us that the brain IS our consciousness.
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Body including brain is a utility of consciousness. Your view which is basically materialism leads to epiphenomalism. The proof is very simple. Suppose that you have a body which is made of matter. Any change in state of matter governs with a system of laws so called laws of nature. This means that consciousness cannot possibly intervene in any changes since the law of nature are sufficient hence consciousness is useless and the free will is an illusion.
 
Bahman said:
Body including brain is a utility of consciousness. Your view which is basically materialism leads to epiphenomalism. The proof is very simple. Suppose that you have a body which is made of matter. Any change in state of matter governs with a system of laws so called laws of nature. This means that consciousness cannot possibly intervene in any changes since the law of nature are sufficient hence consciousness is useless and the free will is an illusion.
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Well now you’ve changed the discussion completely from consciousness to free will.
 
Bahman said:
This was already argued in post #92.
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I don’t quite understand your logic though.
This means that consciousness cannot possibly intervene in any changes since the law of nature are sufficient hence consciousness is useless and the free will is an illusion.
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There seems to be some gaps in your reasoning.
  1. Why can’t consciousness intervene?
  2. Why do the laws of nature make consciousness useless?
 
Winterwolf00 said:
I don’t quite understand your logic though.

There seems to be some gaps in your reasoning.
  1. Why can’t consciousness intervene?
  2. Why do the laws of nature make consciousness useless?
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There is no gap in my reasoning if you read the sentence before the conclusion, the one you quoted.

In simple word, the laws of nature are sufficient to explain any change in state of a system hence there is no room left for consciousness to intervene.
 
Winterwolf00 said:
Our primary datum and sole certainty is the fact that we are thinking. Without a mind we wouldn’t even know the brain exists! We infer
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Only if we are materialists who believe everything is composed of molecules. Then our sole certainty is replaced by an unverifiable hypothesis. How do you explain consciousness, free will, meaning, purpose, truth, goodness, freedom, beauty and love with the exalted “Scientific Method”?

Life becomes extremely bleak for the wolf in winter! 😉
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tonyrey said:
Only if we are materialists who believe everything is composed of molecules. Then our sole certainty is replaced by an unverifiable hypothesis. How do you explain consciousness, free will, meaning, purpose, truth, goodness, freedom, beauty and love with the exalted “Scientific Method”?

Life becomes extremely bleak for the wolf in winter! 😉
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Hardly. These are all things that arrived from human creativity and reason.
I don’t know where you get the idea that the Scientific Method is somehow mutually exclusive with any of those things.

And no nothing is bleak for me. I’ll tell YOU my beliefs thank you.
 
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