So what IS consciousness?

Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9GRkfOCivs

there are several other more official articles and pages that talk about the same study, but there is a brief over-view of neural stimulation affecting physical behavior.

does that mean that our conscious behavior is dictated by the firing of chemicals and signals within our brain, and nothing other than sheer complexity keeps it from reading out? or is there more to it then that?

Consciousness is knowing you are conscious, and knowing why. Animals are surely very aware of themselves and others, they couldn't hunt otherwise but I very much doubt they are self aware, and aware that other animals are self aware.

This topic is pushing towards the fringes of known and unknown science, and of course it pulls very heavily on the coat sleeve of philosophy and religion. I fully expect this thread to get messy very quickly.

Wade in folks, if you are conscious enough.

Consciousness is knowing youre conscious?

i think, therefore i think?

i think animals are self aware, much like we are, but they are neither thriving, nor intelligent enough for it to be a major factor in they're actions.

If you two want to discuss this, then there is a definitions gap you have to bridge.
What is consciousness... is it the same as thought or self awareness, or is consciousness a spiritual attribute?
Is being conscious directly related to having a "soul", is it just a bunch of electrical signals firing in the brain, reacting to the senses and perceiving the world... Can an animal who lives and reacts to the world around it, who "thinks" and responds by instict, be as conscious as humans? They can be conscious of the world around them, but can they be conscious of their emotions, patterns, and themes? I'm not convinced that "consciousness" is the word you're looking for here.
As you can see, I have only questions in this area, no solutions.

Consciousness is the thing we know about so directly. Descartes states that we can doubt any existence: you, this laptop, my hand. But what I cannot doubt, is my own existence. I think, I am conscious (in true translation) therefore, I am. If this is all an illusion, then the illusion is consciousness. Out of the complexity of billions of neurons and billions of connections, maybe consciousness emerges. We cannot specifically know yet, but we do have an idea that it may have emerged from the brain.

Evolutional psychology, tries to answer the question by stating that thanks to our survival defense mechanism in the past (by learning and adapting from our environment), consciousness just then emerges. It is by an evolutionary process that we then could focus on specific data that is transmitted in our brain (focusing on how the wind blows, telling us that a stampede is coming, or whatever). This then developed and progressed until to this point on. We now have an idea that we can explain things.

But this theory fails to explain the proponents of consciousness (which is a far more complicating topic), because it is also possible that we may have evolved thru our higher level reflexes and the functions of our intelligence. And yet we have some kind of subjective/personal inner experience that only us have access to. This is where qualia is introduced...

--

As for the discussion, we are coming from the assumption that...

"What is consciousness... is it the same as thought or self awareness, or is consciousness a spiritual attribute?"

^ The former.

"Is being conscious directly related to having a "soul", is it just a bunch of electrical signals firing in the brain, reacting to the senses and perceiving the world..."

^ the latter.

"Can an animal who lives and reacts to the world around it, who "thinks" and responds by instict, be as conscious as humans? They can be conscious of the world around them, but can they be conscious of their emotions, patterns, and themes?"

^ Regardless of any answer here, I'm not sure this would be relevant to where I expect this discussion would be because numerous journal articles are being written on that specific topic, and I doubt we would be capable of even coming into sense of discussing it here.

But there is an interesting theory that may support my claim that animals fails to have complete consciousness as humans do. If you'd want to have my opinion, I can sum it up in one post. But I don't wish to cover it thoroughly after that if its okay. :)

Thanks for the question, I think TS must revise/clarify that in his initial post. But I'll try my best not to entertain out of topic discussions...

Clarification as been called for so here we go.

in my opinion our consciousness is just an extremely complex firing of neural signals dictated by chemicals and other external and internal stimuli. this implies that any number of administered factors can be enacted upon the body and the brain to make a human respond in a particular fashion, for instance, powerful magnet placed here, left eyebrow twitches.

or perhaps more over i stab you with a needle here and you have this seemingly unrelated emotional response.

or even i show you a needle with a blue fluid in it, and you feel a certain way to it.

all of these things require cognition, an awareness to external factors, a consciousness to external factors, and in order to formulate a response we need an internal consciousness and they are generally thought of as one in the same or at least extremely inter-related (the relationship between body and mind)

if some one behind me touches my back i can understand that they touched my back through empirical senses, and i can respond because obviously i can communicate with myself.

so what is that? is the entire cognitive world an illusion of consciousness in which the only thing to be certain of is myself? is my awareness only a small window of perceivable events? do i see and experience the world through my soul?

if it is an illusion, derived within my own subconscious mind then wouldnt it be impossible for anyone to know anything i didnt already know or couldnt teach myself (in the sense that they are constructs that ive created)? or if this is more of a... matrix scenario where our sensory input is being fed in ways other than how we perceive them to be, then does it even matter?

am i really interacting with what could be called a real physical world? perhaps in my reference frame, but what about the reference frame of every single human being? is my blue the same as yours? or is everyone's individual consciousness as distinctive as a fingerprint, and we only learn to see things on a general standardized level?

am i granted the power of conscience and cognition by some power beyond me? not necessarily a deity or a god, but some hitherto unseen force? a special spiritual eyeglass so to speak that bridges our spiritual selves, and this mortal shell in the physical world, (in less spiritual terms, is the soul the bridge between body and mind?) if not, it seems difficult that hell could exist, without a body or a soul which can accept physical input and relay it to our spiritual or mental self, its not possible for anything to actually physically torment us as is classically depicted.

i dont mean to argue against religion, and its best we dont go there, but its one point to sort of... at least internally glimpse at that eats away at me.

hopefully that is refined?

"in my opinion our consciousness is just an extremely complex firing of neural signals dictated by chemicals and other external and internal stimuli. this implies that any number of administered factors can be enacted upon the body and the brain to make a human respond in a particular fashion"

^ I seem to find this a little loose way of defining consciousness, because nothing here explains what you discussed shortly after this paragraph: namely you were discussing about QUALIA (the subjective qualities of our conscious experience) - which I also find interesting to discuss.

I have a question that may be of value to you, how then do you distinguish intelligence from consciousness in relation to your definition. You may not wish to discuss to too extensively if you think it may disrupt the flow of our discussion...

Intelligence is a measure of taking in external and internal stimuli, and responding in a way that you believe will benefit you for whatever reason. those with the best responses are the most likely to succeed. intelligence is a factor of fitness in darwinism

consciousness is merely the capability to perceive, and the capability to respond in my opinion.

I do agree that intelligence is a factor in evolutionary theory, as it helps increase our chances of survival as well.

Now there are two main views concerning the nature of intelligence, and you may be familar with them:

1. Functional view - states that intelligence can be defined functionally, meaning that as long as the activities within a system (ex. computation) manages to accomplish a given task, then it is intelligent. As of the TURING MACHINE. (note: Searle's Chinese Room)

Simon and Kaplan: "...when they choose courses of action that are relevant to achieving their goals... reply coherently and appropriately to questions... solve problems of lesser or greater difficulty... create or design something useful or beautiful.."

2. Conscious View: Intelligence requires understanding, which requires awareness, which is then conscious phenomenon.

My question is, concerning the nature of intelligence, do you fall under the first view or the second view?

It's important to note where you stand on either because it itself has a lot of practical consequences. Like the reason why I believe that animals, to answer the question above, have limited consciousness is because consciousness is divided primarily into two states: Intentional states or cognitive states, and phenomenal or affective. And they do not have the former, they cannot have a belief (such as 'I believe the man will rob the store) through inferred computation. To use Schank's 3 ways of understanding: animals may be capable of making sense of things, and show behaviors of empathy, but they cannot cognitively understand things. Their behaviors may show otherwise sometimes, but it is merely a result of brain and/or muscle reflexes.

Also, Baar's global workspace theory of consciousness: basically the theory states that we have a central processor in our neural system that mediates communication between the host (us) and other conscious or nonconsciouss processors.

Think of this workspace as the book of all our ideas, when a new idea is presented to us, we can analyze this new idea in comparison with our "book of ideas", and with this come up with a synthesis as a response of cognitive/intellectual progress. For animals, since they do not have intentional states of consciousness, they have no access (and may not even have one) to this workspace. When you've trained your dog, like Pavlov did, to hear the ringing of a bell whenever its feeding time, so they run towards you. This is not because they understand that bell ringing equals satisfaction of food, this is merely because of habit. Has more to do with muslce familarity than cognitive understanding.

Weird, I was JUST studying this in my biological psychology class yesterday...

Great topic. Consciousness is a tricky subject. We think we know what it is, then there's a test confirming that your brain knows what you're going to do before YOU know what you're going to do. Huh? Yeah. Tricky tricky.

Yes. Which further cements the idea that our own free will is only ever an illusion. Thanks, Science. You're becoming like God more and more each day.

Silvershoes: "We think we know what it is, then there's a test confirming that your brain knows what you're going to do before YOU know what you're going to do. Huh? Yeah. Tricky tricky."

^ interesting. :)

It complement's Fodor's "Mentalese" (or language-of-thought) theory. - where the idea was initially brought up by Simon and Newell's "Physical system system". Well, what the former is saying is that the functional organization of the brain has its own internal system.

Think of its as codes such as 0 and 1. So if a person tells me to run, this english word "run" is received by my brain and passes through a translation system, maybe it says "0101", and "walk" means, "010". - As you may notice, there may be a finite number of symbols yet the communication it derives could be infinite.

So english, indian, chinese, french, scottish... whatever, isn't really our pure language. Each one of us has this mentalese that is innate in us, attached with the neural function of the brain. And when we are young, where our brain is actually functioning like a sponge, inhaling all knowledge it can. We learn and adapt our own "natural/social/local" knowledge.

There's a study that kids around 2-3 can be thought several languages simultaneously without being confused! That is because it directly translates itself to the child's interal language (mentalese). Unlike us.

Now imagine, and those of you who doesn't have english as their 1st language may find this interesting, that you are Chinese who was raised learning mandarin, but is then brought up into an american culture through his/her puberty, so you can speak both chinese and english fluently. Now suppose english is now your comfortable language and you want to learn french.

You can very well predict the difficulty in this. This is the process of translation in your neural system: at first when a person says "Je taime", you translate it to english "I love you", and then to chinese "whatever that word is", and then finally to your own internal language. - very long process indeed.

As far as functional view and conscious view like you asked me before, i think its a bit of both and cant really be clearly cut between one or the other. rather i think they might actually be two different ways of looking at the same thing. for instance if i respond in a given way because my neural signals fired in a specific way, then its purely computational. on the other hand, humans are considered the bench mark of consciousness on a fundamental level, so if we are not conscious then nothing is.

"mentalese" is a very interesting idea, i hadnt thought of it like that before but it does make a lot of sense. it might explain why no one ever talks in my dreams, why everything is just cognitively understood.

Well to say our views werent twisted would be to say that we werent biased, however bias is simply one more factor that is pretty standard in humans, and therefore biased variation isnt abnormal.

accuracy and truth are only relevant in an individual reference frame, your absolute truth may not be the same as mine.

and actually im surprised no one has come into the room and started yelling about how we are a product of gods will or that such is such because such and we are non suchers or whatever.

im very happy with how intellectually fullfilling this is so far.

Double post.

Nice to bring the dream idea, never crossed my mind to think about.

"rather i think they might actually be two different ways of looking at the same thing. for instance if i respond in a given way because my neural signals fired in a specific way, then its purely computational."

^
Oh, I forgot to explain that the conscious view has the parts of the functional view as well, but it adds the requirement of consciouss as an essential aspect of intelligence. :) You may fall in the latter I guess?

For further elabortion. The Functional view of intelligence may accept that machines which are capable of simulating deeply (by appearance, responsive behavior, intellect, etc) human beings are intelligenct creatures that may be the same as ourselves as well, and vice versa. However, the conscious view may accept that these machines have intelligence in a sense, but not the same intelligence as humans because they are not conscious. (well, this claim is being debated as we converse) For these ultra-intelligent machines to be indistinguishable with us humans, Schank would say that they need the 3rd way of understanding, which is complete empathy.

And I do believe such could still be instantiated. (As with the movie, Blade Runner, or even A.I). But then people like Chalmers, would then require qualia, intentionality, etc.

Dave: "What if our perception of it all is decidedly twisted or tailored to meet our expectations or environment? "

^ I think such would be a concern of idealism, non-idealism and realism. Al though I enjoy the skepticism against science and induction as well. Who knows, maybe numerical patterns we conceive aren't really exact... this the paradox of immortality. Or what I'd like to call the vampire paradox. haha. You can never utter the phrase "I am immortal". For even if you are 1million years old, and have proof of it, there's a possibility induction has brought you wrong. You may have a lifespan of 2million years. Still not immortality. We can never prove it. Same with the bottomless pit idea. "Josh, we've been falling in this pit for 30years, it must be bottomless..." And after a few more years, "splat."

If some one is consciously aware, but has positively no conscious output at all whatsoever, and we dont deem them to be conscious, we deem them to be dead. much like a 3 dimensional object doesnt exist because it lacks the 4 dimension, time in which to exist.

keep in mind no output at all means no measurable brain waves, no signs of life, no breathing, no heart beat, no nothing.

i think at that juncture its important to distinguish between the subconscious (how we know which muscles to tense in order to walk) as well as the conscious (what we think we want for breakfast tomorrow morning).
--------------------------------------

on another note entirely lets move this out of an individual frame of reference, you, although having no measurable conscious output (that is to say only subconscious output) may be functioning in a completely healthy cognitively functioning way. you are capable of complex though, and reaction.

to the rest of the world however, there is no way to know whether or not you are fully functioning, or only subconsciously functioning, because you are not displaying any meaningful output.

if you know something to be true, and 96 million other people know the opposite to be true, then its a clear cut assumption that the 96 million is correct, even if they are not.

in this way the output of cognitive, conscious output is important in judging whether or not something is conscious.

Thought, and reaction. not though, and reaction sorry

(double post again, sorry)

Subconscious states may still preserve consciousness. We distinguish mental states into 2:
1. Occurent: mental states that one is conscious of (me typing now)
2. Dispositional: mental states that one is currently conscious of but which one can be conscious of at a later time (you breathing before having sighted that you are)

Now these subconscious/dispositional states may not be conscious at the moment but the CAN, have the potential, to be conscious. So they still fit into consciousness.

What we must distinguish here is the subconscious from nonconscious mental states. The nonconscious states can never become conscious states.

An example of a nonconscious brain state would be: the secretion of the neurotransmitter noreprenephrin into the synaptic cleft. While an example of a subconscious would be: my belief, when I am asleep, that I am in vacation. Such, has the potential to be conscious.

Where does some one in a coma fit? or do we not know because its hard to tell whether or not they are dreaming.

Or young children, or people with mental illness, even dolphins or chimps... nice question. If I remember correctly, scientists beleive that the reliable measure for such is introspective reports.

Now we may say that comatose patients (and the examples given above) are unable to produce introspective reports, but to be charitable, I believe such scientists find a way to "read" such reports neurologically, or in other inductive pattern that they may use.

So if we want to elicit a consciouss response from someone, we must observe how the neural activity in the brain performs. If, for example, you (who has consciousness) is elicited a response of fear, and the scan of your nueral activity is "abcd". Then if we elicit a fear response on a child, the result of the neural scan must also be "abcd".

But the problem here is that consciousness isn't just neural activity. In simple words, YOUR subjective experience of FEAR, is absolutely different from anyone else's, and this may then SHOW in the neural scan.

I bet science will try and find a way to dichotomize the "normal" neural responses, with the "abnormal" (non-conscious) responses through a maximized tests of trial and error.

(I don't remember the source, but I believe there is already an mri test scan that can tell whether a person has a brain of a psychopath or not) - one that lacks the neural system in the brain that carries the emotion of empathy)

Such tests may easily be fallible, in my opinion. Though I haven't really read much on the subject.

It's very important though because it may provide changes to Ethics, and other fields. (Ex. Euthanasia) - if a comatose patient is proven conscious, then this proof must be supported by a way of "communicating" with the conscious person. And imagine that, have you seen Source Code? :)

But if communication with a conscious person who is not providing meaningful conscious output (not moving, not talking) that is observable to others, and has some extremely calm internal composition so as not to react much to external stimuli, maybe even physically numb due to whatever, point being does it matter if they are conscious is not possible, then doesnt that consciousness have no meaningful value?

if someone is perceived by the rest of humanity to be not conscious, then does it matter if he/she is anyway? (assuming that perception does not change in the mass)

I see two matters concerning your first question...

first, are you asking if, assuming, we can communicate with a conscious person who cannot provide objective conscious behaviors (like a coma patient) is would be of meaningful value?
^ If yes, then absolutely. Stephen Hawking is a close example. But we are centuries away from reaching such "possibility".

second, outside your full question, if you may also be asking about the value of conscioussness, are you at the same page as I am attributing qualia into consciousness? If yes, then I answer in the positive again. Ever intentional state, such as the belief that it may rain hard tomoro, attaches with it a subjective quality that is only accessible and understandable for the person who carries such consciousness. And this different qualia interconnects with my other mental states and makes a difference with them. - something animals, even strong AI's do not have.

A fact that I have a certain 1st hand emotional feel towards rain, may change my attitude towards the belief that it would rain hard tomorrow. Unlike, if you tell that to an intelligent robot (who doesn't have these phenomenal states), he/she/it may just bring an umbrella to work, as for me, I might feel a little sentimental and write poetry in my head as the rain pours.

Searle defends this, he says that if you think there is no qualitative feelings attached to intentional states like beliefs, into thinking 2 + 2 = 4, then try thinking it in German.

I think your final question is a deep and important concern of pragmatism and ethics, yet is hard to answer because we suspend judgement. The rest of humanity believes the person unconscious? Then sorry. Hard to imagine such possibility however. Technology should be able to observe the neural behavior of such person. People try talking to coma patients and expect some sudden response from the neural system but nothing occurs. Assuming that even without the movement of neurons, that the person is conscious... then its either we've had a wrong idea about what we so far know about consciousness, or even this conscious person does not know he/she is conscious, which is impossible. :)

Its the flaw of language phenomenon. say there is a village of 100.

1 person call him frank, knows a ball is blue

99 people believe the same ball is red

it doesnt matter what color the ball actually is, as red will be accepted as correct because that is the consensus, and taught to the future generations. correctness, in this case, due a flaw in the absoluteness of the meaning of language.

apply the same concept to consciousness.

"Late that night, Chief Bromden sees McMurphy being escorted back to his bed, and initially believes that he has returned so they can escape together which he is now ready to do since McMurphy has made him feel "as big as a mountain". However, when he looks closely at McMurphy's unresponsive face, he is horrified to see lobotomy scars on his forehead. Unwilling to allow McMurphy to live in such a state or be seen this way by the other patients the Chief smothers McMurphy with his pillow. He then carries out McMurphy's escape plan by lifting the hydrotherapy console off the floor and hurling the massive fixture through a grated window, climbing through and running off into the distance."

I would kind of like to see some opinions on conscience which I believe is often confused with conscious
Just to go a bit deeper than color perception, would you not percieve how a higher power might use rebirth as a means of improvement on peace of mind?

Well... i suppose we can talk about conscience and moral correctness as it relates to ones consciousness, but it wasn't the overall subject.

perhaps a measure of true consciousness can only be achieved by accurately gauging that persons empathy? an act that would be impossible to truly verify, as we have only an individuals empirical output to assure us of how empathetic he is. then again if a person is evil, but always acts empathetic to fool everyone, then does his evil nature really matter when he never acts it?

i do want to go deeper than color perception, but i find it is difficult to introduce a concept if i do it in complicated terms.

frankly i dont think a higher power would really choose rebirth as a mode purely for the intellectual comfort of his creations. recycling, simply, just makes sense, its how the world works. when you die you decompose and become plant and worm food which is food for higher creatures and so on and so on. early people who are exposed to this cyclical nature of life would probably naturally assume that consciousness has a cyclical nature as well, i believe that is exactly what the concept of gaia is, your life force returns to gaia when you die, and is re used in the creation of new life.

i think an all powerful diety ( if there is one) is concerned with factors other than peace of mind, a concept which has really only grown more important since the 1940s. more effective solutions might be the destruction of disease, eliminating corruption, making sure everyone has enough food to eat such that they dont starve, or perhaps giving us a much smaller cognitive capacity, such that we dont know we dont have peace of mind.

"Ant societies have division of labour, communication between individuals, and an ability to solve complex problems.[8] These parallels with human societies have long been an inspiration and subject of study "
By all means I believe they should carry on the electroshock experiments . It looks quite a bit less unpleasant than it did in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Many may be surprised how long meditation has been around, though I would agree communication has made us more aware.

I fail to see what youre getting at...

communication does make us more aware of the people around us, but not completely, totally, and all encompasingly. there will always be misunderstandings and so on.

Http://youtu.be/DCUmINGae44

In theory misunderstandings can lead the disease which some believe is beyond the scope of old fashion spirituality. The above clip is not showing the true colors of a compasionate doctor trying to cure socities ills with electricity but the path of least resistance. I truly have no problem with electrotherapy but I cannot think of any pathology that could not lend itself to abuse

I think that the idea of potential manipulation is generally accepted, and electro shock therapy may or may not be one of those modes. i can only speak generally about specific subjects of neural stimulation because i do not fully understand them myself.

If someone asked you which came first cognition, consiousness or design how would you answer?

'The 1990 edition, revised by biologist Patrick Milburn, incorporates the latest ideas in biology, physics, and theology. It takes a fresh look at a world whose secrets are essential to understanding the nature of our own reality and cites recent scientific surprises about our world. Starting from the premise that consciousness is a fact of nature, since it is a universal experience, the book hypothesizes that intelligence is primal and that the cosmos is grounded in, and pervaded by Intelligence. This hypothesis comes from experience as true as the beauty of the sunrise over the sea and is supported by science. "

TS: regarding the "flaw of language phenomenon"... I believe that is true, and that is exactly the point of qualia arguments, what you may SEE as blue (feel as pain, feel as a tickle, etc), may not actually be the same "blue" (pain, tickle) that I am seeing (feeling), though we name it all the same. Why we need consciousness is a very interesting question.

But it doesn't follow that the features of consciousnes, namely this "qualitative feel" that we experience completely useless, in my opinion. It is what makes us different from other intelligent machines/creatures. A certain difference in our phenomenal state can inflict a difference in our intentional states.

Bob: "People in a coma have many times stated that they were consciously aware of something, whether a voice, a touch or whatever......."

^ Al though this fact may give a rational ground on the belief that coma patients are conscious, it still lies under critical study, and in my part, some skepticism.

Sometimes these "conscious awareness" that they stay (and note, just after retrieving consciousness again) may actually be illusions coherently made up by the mind. Just as when one experiences a very long dream from a 5-minute nap. The dream is actually just mental snapshots that were visually "skipped" in the mind. Imagine watching a 2minute video montage of your whole christmas vacation. In those two minutes, you experience (again) the whole vacation.

Al though I stil suspend judgement. It is all still possible that consciousness suddenly re-emerges for a coma patient, without our knowledge. But it seems unlikely (based on studies)

Z poetrymnd: "If someone asked you which came first cognition, consiousness or design how would you answer"

^ The question of emergence is still a highly alive topic today. Al though Darwinian psychology would say that cognition started (when our intellect was progressing; think the cavemen trying to survive), and that consciousness just emerges as part of our evolutionary process and just further developed. It is plausible since consciousness helps us regarding natural selection (knowing how/when to focus on such thing, and to empathize that throwing rocks at lions would piss them off, because I feel the same and pissed off lions tend to attack, etc).

But just that point, these reactions, or basically how evolution explains how we react, what we see, etc, can be explained in terms of algorithms in the brain, mechanisms. Consciousness isn't necessarily needed in that.

Evolutionary theory could have worked with just higher-level reflexes but no inner experience (consciousness). Like a complicated computer/machine... maybe one day they can actually do what we do, but why do we need consciousness is the very interesting question.

(Note on Qualia and Consciousness: Frank Jackson's Mary the color scientist)

So i firstly have a question, and you will have to take it my words at face value.

i once slept over at a friends house and had a very interesting dream that sounded very familiar. firstly i wasnt in it at all, and what was going on wasnt something i really understood, but i could definitely dream it happening.

upon awaking i realized that all of the dialogue for my dream had come from a KnD episode on cartoon network, and my brain had been converting it into some type of... suboconscious visual input, what i was... 'seeing' or 'watching' as much as one watches a dream anyway. experienced? i dunno.

i believe that was a lucid dream, my first lucid dream actually, what the hell is happening there?
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the topic at hand.

i think that qualia has both meaningful value and non meaningful value, and this gets into the mystical being argument.

so <insert nonexistant creature here that has never before been imagined [ignore the ensuing paradox and call it joey]> actually does exist, however joey will never act in such a way that we can empirically detect him. he will never speak or interact directly with us, nor interact with anything that will ever throughout all of time interact with us. parallel universe maybe.

the fact that joey exists in the universe doesnt matter, because we will never experience him empirically. he has no meaningful value in our definition of existence, and therefore, to us, he does not exist... to us.

i think the same idea can be tagged on qualia. the internal conscious functioning of a person who does not and cannot outwardly display the existence of that qualia, does not have a qualia that has value in my reference frame.

im understanding qualia correctly at this point, right?

On a third note ive just stumbled upon this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqCKRYL9PAo

To me Consciousness is Life. Simple as That!
My Designer has given me a Consciousness(LIFE).
To percieve(Cognition of All) His
Creations, My thoughts therefore
a likeness of all ( I AM ) Percieve?
My perception is of ( I AM)
Do you have this Cognitive Skill
or has a fallen Angel taken your Heart?
Science Will------

So matrix scenario you think? some controlling thing is feeding us congition ans an illusion to elicit particular responses, in this case 'his creations'.

anyway as i said before, id really rather leave religion out of this thread if it can be helped.

Hawking is my favorite Theorist, I wish I could comprehend his mind. All Us Reality, All Us Illusion!
If the Breath Stops, we all Cease to Exist.

Well its all relative. to me, if i died, you would all cease to exist because its not possible for me to perceive you. however in the perspective of everyone else alive, life goes on.

Imagine the millions of universes that die every day this way.