I don't follow. Imagining something takes eons when measured in picoseconds (it's relative), and our brains and imagination isn't actually all that fast. We can't even process visual information faster than at a few images a second, and it takes a while to reconstruct something like a house in our imagination (at least compared to how fast computers can do it now). So, I'm not sure what you mean by more immediate, in leu of it being slowed by the electrical and chemical limits of our wetware (brains).



Yes, but that concept isn't a creation, is a concept. Like "cat" is a word that identifies a furry, sharp concept, not an actual creation of a feline. The only thing "cat" creates is some pixels on your screen, just as the only thing imagining a house creates is just some electrical "pixels" in your brain.


I don't know if it's relevant, but for me, no. There was a period between my birth and the time my long-term memory developed (about 1 to 2 years of age) during which I don't remember any concept of "me." For others, yes, there is a clear distinction between the total lack of chemical processes before my conception, and a bundle of chemical processes that can be defined as me after conception. I have no idea what you mean by the "pre-existing idea" though. I don't know who would be holding and thinking that idea. It wasn't me or my parents.



Sorry, I didn't mean to focus on the possessive "my" car. I was just using my car as an example. It's a car, and it's its own car. It is self containing as a single entity, that came to be after being assembled from various parts, but was not imagined, or existed as any sort of idea, until it was assembled. Just as I was and is before and after I was "assembled." As for the brain not you idea, that may prove rather difficult for those who believe as you do when we get to the point of being able to upload our consciousness into machines. Modern psychology says that "we" are not only our physical brains, but the rest of our bodies as well, limbs and all, and uploading ourselves into a disembodied system, or even a system with a radically different body (different proportions, senses, etc) could be such a radical change to our psyche that we would rapidly become seemingly totally different people/personalities, or even go mad. Those who believe their brains are not them may end up boldly and carelessly going straight into total insanity.

I think you may be misunderstanding what quantum means. It doesn't mean that quantum level exists when we observe it, and doesn't exist when we don't. It always exists. The principle of it being dependent on our observation only says that HOW we end up observing it determines how it may present itself. Simplest example is lightmbeing wave v.s particle. On quantum level, if we observe light and test it to see if it is a wave, we will observe it as a wave, and if we try to observe it as a particle, we will see it as a particle. However, that light will continue to exist regardless of whether we observe it. On a macro scale, this is like observing the temperature of a glass of water with a big thermometer. If we insert the thermometer into the glass to get a temperature reading, we won't be getting the actual temperature, but the temperature affected by our observation, which is the combination of the temperature of the water and the added temperature of the thermometer. The final temperature is not independent of our observation, but there would still be a temperature even if we didn't observe it.
Didn't they cover this stuff in your school? (It was in one of my high school classes)

So, with regards to our consciousness and brains, this doesn't even really apply, since they are both contained in the same system. You are not the thermometer (consciousness) observing the water (brain), you are the water itself. Or you could say you are a glass of water with a thermometer already in it.

We are the thermometer looking through the glass of water.

So Y = god = consciousness = love

Consciousness and love are not relevant to your world?  They are to others, so they exist.

And yes, there are infinite things to fill that variable.

Ultimately this proof rests on whether human beings can truly understand what God is and that its concept cannot be derived simply as an extension or ultimate regression of something which exists in fact. In which case, God doesn't really exist in your mind, only some superficial idea you are generically referring to as God. But obviously, humans can't completely conceive of God, or maybe they can...

Ineffable

I thought about this, and, you may be right in some sense, but I prefer to think of it as "I don't want to jump to any conclusions until I'm sure."

Thanks for the discussion though. Made me really thing about my stance and place in the universe (plus forced me to do some research)

What about the very simple test of: brain on = you're conscious, brain off = you're uncoonscious, brain on = you're conscious again. Such as what we do when we unduce coma or people go into coma due to brain trauma, or when people go braindead for a while and then come back from it? If I was to see a light being on, flipped a switch and saw it go off, then flipped the switch and see it come on again, the conclusion I would make is that the switch controls the light, not that the light exists outside of the realm of the switch, and simply goes away somewhere else when I flip the switch. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Do you have any of that?

You are confusing consciousness and perception. You are still conscious while other people state that you are unconscious.

Your consciousness can exist without interacting with others in the material world.

Altering consciousness is altering the world.

If we were simply the brain we would have no need for consciousness as we would simply be robots programmed to react to things.  This is not the case, we are live beings, we are consciousness, we have free will, we're not the brain.  If you have ever had an outer body experience, you would realize this.

Tell me, how does the brain create a consciousness?  Because from my understanding it can neither be created or destroyed.

Isn't this what you are doing, though? Things happen, and you react to them, based on your best assessment of the situation. And if you don't have any assessment of a situation, you just pick a random choice, hope it's good, and go with it. At least that's how I do it. How do you do it?


Free will just means we have a choice on how we react to our surroundings. That's all. It doesn't matter if you're practicing free will within your body, or outside of your body. You're still experiencing something, and racting to things. Unless you don't react to things? Or maybe you react to things not based on your best assessment of the situation (aka based on what you have learned in the past), but instead react based on some outside source of information that comes from outside of this world? (that would explain why you have made so many awful choices...)


Energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Let's consider your side of this. If you have a thought, you have taken one state of how things are, and changed it into another state, whether that's changes in electrochemistry, changes in cosmic consciousness, changes in some ether, or whatever. Doesn't matter. Change, of any kind, requires some amount of energy. Again, doesn't it doesn't matter what the energy is, or where it comes from, just that it requires energy. Pretty much by definition, since nothing can move or readjust without using up some energy. You claim that consciousness can not be destroyed, but that would suggest that it would have to go on thinking about things and changing from one state to another indefinitely, using up energy in the process. That means it would have to use up an infinite amount of energy. But the two things we absolutely know for a fact are 1) energy in our universe is not infinite (entropy will eventually cause all energy in the universe to collapse to zero), and 2) you can't make a perpetual motion device that creates energy out of nothing. Having a consciousness that can never be destroyed, and is thus always using up energy to think, is basically the same thing as having a perpetual motion device that is creating energy, which, as you have also said, can not be created or destroyed.

So, the answer is, consciousness is created by taking some energy source (food, water, electricity, cosmic carma, whatever), and converting it into changes of the state of mind. Biologists, psychologists, and scientists in general would say that the body converts food and water into electrochemical components, sends them to your brain via your veins and arteries, and your brain then uses that energy to run and process things, changing your perception, states of mind, and thoughts, which gives you consciousness. And if your brain ever runs out of energy (you die, or are brain starved from choking), your brain can't convert energy into consciousness any more, and your brain simply shuts off, like your computer would if you were to pull the plug.

People who are not biologists, psychologists, or scientists, say other things.