[ExI] you asked for it -here it is

[Will Steinberg]

What is the absence of matter?  There are absences of matter all around us,
including ones in the brain, that consciousness seems to have no problem
'traveling' across.  Does consciousness exists as it goes between points,
or can it be frozen in time?  Is it located in points or between them, or
both?  Is it fundamentally relational and not the same kind of physical
property that can exist in a single state, like charge for example?  Qualia
seem very acute but it seems like the traditional view is that brain
consciousness is related to the movement of electricity, chemicals, and
proteins.  But it does seem like 'redness' being one evident thing should
mean it can be represented by one clear state.

This thought experiment (can consciousness be 'frozen'?) gives me a lot of
confusion.  Qualia are acute, but *comprehending* a quale requires time!
What the fuck is up with that?

Which leads me to ask, is there consciousness in the brain even when there
is no motion?  There are numerous reports of conscious experience even when
what we know as "neural activity" has stopped (i.e. near death
experience.)  An easy solution to this is to simply accept that it is not
only the electricity of the brain, but the entire molecular/atomic
composition which is integrated and experiencing consciousness somehow.  I
think this is much more parsimonious.  Why should only electrochemical
signaling cause consciousness?  You would certainly not be conscious if I
removed your glia, or astrocytes, or CSF.  Just because we understand them
less shouldn't mean they are any less consciousness-associated.

What about chemicals that participate in qualia in the brain and then go to
a different part of the body?  Or the blood that is in the brain during the
experience of a certain quale?  I don't understand how these can be
fundamentally separated from the experience.  They are absolutely necessary
for the experience.  Maybe they don't 'live' in the brain, but is that the
criterion?  The brain is fluid anyway.

And all space was originally one, and all matter/energy was originally
connected, so in the end I have a hard time separating my consciousness
from the rest of everything (Sagan's apple pie thing which I think a lot of
people don't understand or just take as some trite "wow the universe is
big" science deal.)

On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 6:56 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> https://dailygalaxy.com/2019/12/the-ultimate-mystery-consciousness-may-exist-in-the-absence-of-matter-2019-most-popular/
>
> The cosmos itself is conscious and more, including a theory by Deepak
> Chopra, who can be counted on to have some strange, unproveable idea about
> anything.
>
> bill w
> _______________________________________________
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> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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