Thread: where is consciousness?

IT\'S OVER HERE!!!!!!

I think most people would be inclined to say that it's somewhere right behind their eyes. For me, it's sort of a small area between, behind, and a little above my eyes. I'd be interested to know if this is just because I (and most people) am so visually-centered when it comes to perceiving my surroundings, or if blind people feel that their seat of consciousness is roughly in the same position as well. If so, then it's probably a function of the frontal lobe, which is as I understand where our sense of self really is generated from.

In terms of biological evolution, the illusion that you're a small man behind a huge table of buttons and levers located inside your head, is very relevant for being in touch with the outside world. It's facilitated by the fact that nose, mouth, eyes and ears are located around the brain. The latter we consider as generating consciousness. But really, it's just an illusion that consciousness can be localized somewhere in space. Your consciousness is just the location at which you recognize all the information procession. Of course you feel at home inside your head; because the most important information is coming from eyes and ears. But that doesn't mean that your consciousness is 'located' anywhere, it's just receiving the information in a specific way. This forum is about lucid dreaming, so I thought you guys would not be as naive as to say that your self is somewhere you know where it is. What about perception of body, perception of touch, feelings and so on... Your consciousness is at best located everywhere and nowhere, but certainly not behind your eyes.

Originally posted by Tavasion
does anyone know where your actual consciousness is. if I gave u a pen, and told u to mark on your body where your consciousness is, could u do it? is it even in our bodies?

Your consciousness doesn't really exist in space and time, it's what percieves space and time. Our consciousness may as well reside in a rock, or in the sun. To attempt to place that which presents you the outside world within the outside world is absurd.

Originally Posted by Belisarius

Your consciousness doesn't really exist in space and time, it's what percieves space and time. Our consciousness may as well reside in a rock, or in the sun. To attempt to place that which presents you the outside world within the outside world is absurd.
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I don't think you can even go as far as to say that our consciousness is only a perception. Once it is put into thought, it then exists, no?
Everything is all theoretical at this point.
Sure consciousness by itself is something we are not able to say resides here nor there. Putting it into context to something makes it arrive at a certain place.
It seems to be like a thought, fleeting. Just a large streaming ongoing process of thoughts.

Consciousness just is. It's the product of our psyche, which is only in a very small part the product of the brain. You cannot choose a location for it, because it has none, it's maybe all and nothing at the same time...
You are not your consciousness and it is not you, even if you know what you are through it. Phylosophicaly the term takes further moral implications, but psychologicaly it is the thing that makes you percieve yourself as being you and not anotherone, I think. Take a look on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness .
Wish you well!

you're not the only one who questioned this and had a desire to challenge others to answer the question as to where consciousness is. I personally meditated on this question plenty myself, trying to see if I could pinpoint a physical location where my consciousness lies. And every time I think I get close to it, I end up feeling like I'm nowhere near it, and my attention is just left flustered and confused. And no matter I think I try to figure it out, I really sense I never will, and don't really bother with that question much anymore.

I wouldn't go around trying to find my consciousness until I can define what it is. That's my opinon.

Maybe if we found it we could define what it is!

Originally Posted by Yatahaze

This forum is about lucid dreaming, so I thought you guys would not be as naive as to say that your self is somewhere you know where it is.
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Haha. Amazing. Even in the middle of an impressively adequate answer; one that actually had me taken back like "wow, this guy actually serves some purpose without using every waking moment to try to establish some sort of superiority over people he disagrees with. I'm actually surprised by that," you manage to pull an insult out of your ass just to polish off your post.
But then again, assuming that a forum with 7000+ members wouldn't have people that aren't that familiar with consciousness, regardless of the forum's concept, is about just as naive, no?

At least you're consistent.

this is like asking what your mind is and how it works

By consciousness, I assume you guys mean the Observer? Well, truth is Science has never found the observer. All the mechanics necessary to give the Observer all the information it needs have been found, and all the mechanics through which actions are transmitted have been found, and the "involuntary" self has been found, but not the Observer.

So,m I'd like to tell you all what my Uncle told me. The idea that your brain and your mind are the same thing is an illusion. In truth, your mind is your entire body. The way I see it, our Observer is the waves, the energies that fluxuate through our body.

Maybe if we found it we could define what it is! [/b]

But how could you find it if you didn't know what you were looking for in the first place?

Originally Posted by Kaniaz

But how could you find it if you didn't know what you were looking for in the first place?
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its simmilar to emotions but far more complex

Originally Posted by Kaniaz

But how could you find it if you didn't know what you were looking for in the first place?
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We do. Consciousness.

Similar to looking for black wholes, dark matter or quirks and strings of a string theory. We can define many of the elements to begin a search.
Our understanding of our consciousness as of now would probably be a similar parallel to the efficiency to the search method of the Forum.

I'd like to see a definition of consciousness, then. I don't think anyone's wrong (how could you be, it's philosphy&#33 - but I think that 'consciousness' as we know it is way too 'fuzzy' to pin it down to anything. A definition like "the capability to make choices based on free will" is hard because you then have to define free will, and make sure that exists too. And even so, how do you measure someone's capability to make informed choices? What constitues an "informed choice"?

You could remove part of a brain and find the person still lives and breathes but they don't think. But, what's 'thinking' defined as anyway? Any old firing of neurons? Subconscious? Conscious?

All the questions just multiply. But that's what makes these topics so fun.

Energy is consciousness, and everything is energy. Everything that is is conscious, some things are more conscious than others. You can draw the line whereever you want for "what is and isn't conscious".

Yes, we need to define "conciousness". Is it simply the part that is aware of everything else? The section that seperates us from, say, an ant. If so then an analysis of the differences of an example of something with "conciousness" and one without could bring you closer to an idea of whatever-we-have-identified-"conciousness"-as is.
But as is is a concious entity making this decision and defenition, how can they pinpoint what it actually truely is. Can they ever? How will they know if they've got it right or not? My sister said something once that may be relevant: "if the human mind were simple enough to be understood, we'd not smart enough to understand it". Not saying that the brain is "conciousness", its an analagy.

There is no need for this thread to be bogged down by all these "deep" philosophical wonderings. The question at hand is a simple one:

Originally Posted by Tavasion

does anyone know where your actual consciousness is. if I gave u a pen, and told u to mark on your body where your consciousness is, could u do it?[/b]

And the answer, of course, is No, you cannot.

The underlying question at hand here is whether "consciousness" is an abstract concept or if it has a concrete existence. I assert that it is an abstract quality. If anyone disputes this, please enlighten us by telling us where exactly the "consciousness" is located, and what evidence you have for believing that it exists at that particular point in space and time. We're all ears.

According to existentialism, you can't define consciousness.

Well the only part of you capable of thought is your brain. So my best guess would be its there. When I think I guess it feels like its comeing from my head.

Conscious by definition:
1. The state or condition of being conscious.
2. A sense of one's personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group: Love of freedom runs deep in the national consciousness.
3.
1. Special awareness or sensitivity: class consciousness; race consciousness.
2. Alertness to or concern for a particular issue or situation: a movement aimed at raising the general public's consciousness of social injustice.
4. In psychoanalysis, the conscious.

Yeah, thats true. If concoisness is the sense of knowing you are real, then it cannot be physically located. It is, as most people are saying, an abstract. Like love, or happiness. Like these, it has no physical place.
What those of us who are trying to pinpoint it are actually looking for, is the site of its connection to the real world/ourselves.

I thought our consciousness is made up of our senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and thought. When I'm typing, my consciousness is located at my fingers, when I hear the pc fan, at my ears etc. So it's not a 'thing' that can be consistently located from one moment to the next. It seems like we can be conscious of two or more senses simultaneously but I don't think so. Try to be conscious of touching the table and listening to music/pc fan at the same time. I think our consciousness oscillates between the senses so fast it creates the illusion of unbroken consciousness, because if we (really) concentrate on just one sense we aren't conscious of the other(s). If you catch my drift.