Universal consciousness?

[RedMaterialist]

Is consciousness, the thinking mind (Engel's phrase,) a universal reality, in the sense that physical reality such as light, gravity, atoms, sub-atomic particles, etc. are universal, i.e. the speed of light is constant everywhere in the universe?

If the thinking mind is the highest, most complex development of matter, then shouldn't the material development of consciousness be replicated (although at different stages) universally? In other words shouldn't there be universal laws of consciousness just as there as there are universal laws of light, gravity, force, special relativity, etc?

If not, wouldn't that mean consciousness is something peculiar to the human species on earth?

[Бай Ганьо]

Before we try to answer such questions without falling into mere speculations, it may be necessary first to get a better understanding of how our own brain works, and then to discover intelligent and conscious extraterrestrial beings outside our solar system who would be willing to serve as guinea pigs.

[Rafiq]

Consciousness is the highest development of matter as far as we, human beings immersed in real social totalities are concerned. Any other such grand claims of the universe are meaningless.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I would say that we already have a fairly good idea of how our brains work. Part of the claims that we don't understand the mechanisms of the human brain come, not so much from scientific humility, but from the incompatibility of modern neurology with folk psychology, immortalised in philosophical drivel as "qualia" and the "hard problem of consciousness".

The point is that the human brain is an extremely complex material system. Is it the most complex system we know of? I don't know; I would say that neutron stars surpass brains in terms of complexity, but my knowledge about brains is that of an interested layman, whereas neutron stars often tax my poor complex brain. In any case, nothing says that there are brains on distant worlds, let alone brains similar to ours. To claim so would be to imbue material nature with a teleological striving toward complexity (and moreover complexity just like the complexity of human brains), and that won't do.

[RedMaterialist]

Before we try to answer such questions without falling into mere speculations, it may be necessary first to get a better understanding of how our own brain works, and then to discover intelligent and conscious extraterrestrial beings outside our solar system who would be willing to serve as guinea pigs.

True enough, but didn't we determine gravity was a universal force before we went to another solar system? We can measure brain waves, but it seems we're not much more beyond Locke and Descartes in understanding the mind. Of course, Marx was a giant step forward, but then Marxism has been suppressed almost out of existence.

The bourgeois revolutions were necessary to advance physical science, maybe the socialist revolution will be needed to advance the social sciences such as psychology.

Especially if the "mind" and "consciousness" are social constructs.

As you say, speculations.

[RedMaterialist]

Consciousness is the highest development of matter as far as we, human beings immersed in real social totalities are concerned. Any other such grand claims of the universe are meaningless.

But doesn't that say that consciousness is the highest development of human matter? We know that biological chemistry exists all over the universe; iron, carbon, oxygen, etc. are all deposited on planets through stellar explosions. We're all, as they say, stardust.

Is there something unique about earth that makes only a human mind possible? Is social life possible only on earth?

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE=Xhar-Xhar Binks;2860940
The point is that the human brain is an extremely complex material system. Is it the most complex system we know of? .[/QUOTE]

I think the point is that the "mind" is the highest development of matter. At least that is what I read all the time (maybe it's from Engels.)

In other words, is there another development of matter higher than the mind?

[Rafiq]

not so much from scientific humility, but from the incompatibility of modern neurology with folk psychology

They are not incompatible, they are simply separate categories. Neurology is not a substitute for psychology, neurology allows us to understand how the brain functions yes - but the notion that the mind, or consciousness is reducible to the functioning of the brain is partially responsible for the influx of mysticsim and superstition about the subject in our present epoch.

That is to say, neuroscience does not provide us answers otherwise wrought from psychology. We do not understand the entirety of the " mechanisms of the human brain" in relation to the actual expression of consciouenss for the simple reason that consciousness is irreducible to such mechanisms. You cannot proclaim to be a Marxist and say otherwise. The brain is the organ which facilitates processes of the mind, it does not determine them - if this were true, then a universal consciousness would exist trans-historically. This is not the case.

If it were any way otherwise, then it is fairly easy to accept scientific racism and all sorts of superstitious cack. If consciousness is reducible to neurological processes, then the first axiom that must be accepted is that each individual is born with different neurological "capabilities" - brains are not identical across individuals on a physiological level. Therefore, not only are cateogires of consciousness like "intelligence" reducible to processes in the brain, but also a plethora of other moral categories (i.e. "predisposition to violence", etc.). Last but not least, the actual logical conclusion of this notion is scientific racism - being that there are physiological differences between different geographic populations, the logical conclusion is that those physiological differences reflect at the level of the brain.

If consciousness is reducible to the brain, then it is quite simple: Consciousness as it exists in 2015 is merely the logical expression of innate facilities of the brain. This will explain "cultural" differences, sexual ones, class differences, and so on. A thoroughly ahistorical notion. If you are to accept that the dimension of consciousness is outside of physiology, the totality of social relations, then you are back to square one with "folk psychology".

There is amply no middle ground. You either accept psychoanalysis, or at least its premise, or you are a reactionary. End of story.

It's also cute that you claim, somehow, magically, neurology has transcended all the old philosophical controversies of consciouness. Funny, then, that virtually EVERY cognitivist discourse attempts to trace its origins squarely in philosophic camps that emerged centuries ago. Let me put it simply: Observing how the brain functions is not going to tell you anything about the causal basis of this functioning, or the actual social context that which it is immersed in. If you think that you can understand consciousness without a thorough understanding of the latter two, I don't know what to tell you. It won't tell you shit, literally. If you are only capable of understanding anatomy and the movement of the limbs, that really won't tell you shit about the specifialities, on a social level, of why they are being moved. The end result is that a giant gap is opened up with these arrogant cognitivists - and they (or pop science journalism) fill this gap precisely with the most juvenile nonsense where "folk psychology" used to be.

If I cut off my limbs, there's something going on in my brain, there are different regions being activated and so on. "Scientists find that cutting off limbs may in fact be innate". IT's not going to tell you anything about the processes of CONSCIOUSNESS which led me to cut off my limbs. THIS is reserved for "folk psychology". The "cognitive revolution" has excited scientists because it discounted any and all notions of a "soul" and whatever you want. They have used this as a newfound source of confidence to justify the most superstitious 'cognitive determinism' and juvenile essentialism.

[Rafiq]

But doesn't that say that consciousness is the highest development of human matter? We know that biological chemistry exists all over the universe; iron, carbon, oxygen, etc. are all deposited on planets through stellar explosions. We're all, as they say, stardust.


What is "human matter"? There is no such thing as human matter. The entirety of our understanding of matter, of chemistry, these are all extrapolations of human consciousness - these are all understandings of natural processes ONLY insofar as they relate to us. Thus, even if we discovered "intelligent beings" (a meaningless phrase, so to speak), there is no dimension that which we would be able to understand them outside of human consciousnesses.

There is no "meaning" outside of human consciousness and human observation. To assume otherwise is to think that there is a god regularly observing the universe in order to sustain it. Let me be more precise: Sure, if there were no humans, everything would go on as it is without us. But to even say that things would go on without us is a category of consciousness. That is not to say nothing exists outside of consciousness in and of itself (i.e. without humans existing, again, the universe would still exist), but that there is nothing outside of consciousness insofar as observation is SOLELY a category of consciousness.

To say otherwise is the worst kind of nonsense. Think about it - from what perspective do you speak of "human matter". As opposed to what kind of matter? Do you speak from an extra-conscious position? An extra-human one? And how? Marx and Engels correctly pointed out that truth is a matter of practice, the practical prerogatives between human beings and the world around them, insofar as such matters SOLELY relate to human practice (which can include, as Lenin points out, observation) - all such other questions are purely scholastic ones, false questions used to obfuscate a practical understanding of the relationship between the human mind and the world around it.

The question of: "What does the universe REALLY look like, outside of how human consciousness bends it to the observational, physiological, etc. needs of humans" is a totally meaningless one, because it still operates within the confines of consciousness itself. The question of "what does the universe look like outside of consciousness" makes no sense, because for something to "look like" something pressuposes an alleged observation, i.e. "looking". Matter does not "look" at things, humans do. It is best to understand the universe as a void, human consciousness does not "distort" it, it shapes the presentation of this void in relation to our existence .


Is there something unique about earth that makes only a human mind possible? Is social life possible only on earth?

There is no reason to think so. That is besides the point, however - when we make the statement that consciousness is the highest organization of matter, we make no pretenses to science fiction. All we mean is that it is so in relation to we, the observers, we the humans. Which as far as Engels is concerned, is an axiom. Consciousness is the highest organization of matter not in the sense that matter takes on this metaphysical, linear "evolution" towards consciousness, but that matter is itself understood on conscious terms (for how could it not be?). Insofar as there are "other intelligent beings", this makes little sense. How is a mole rat "less intelligent" than a human? How is an ape "less intelligent" than a human? Intelligence is a practical category, and "other life forms" could only be relavnet insofar as they could have an active, inter-subjective place in our social totality. If they do not, they would be nothing more than animals, no matter "how complex".

An octopus might be "more complex" than a human. It really is all meaningless. How could there be "more intelligent" life forms, what would that even mean, and how would this be expressed? There are no "more intelligent" life forms, there are either life forms that can be social beings, and possess consciousness in a matter that entails the active transformation of the world around them, as it is with humans, or they are animals. There is nothing beyond this dichotomy.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think the point is that the "mind" is the highest development of matter. At least that is what I read all the time (maybe it's from Engels.)

In other words, is there another development of matter higher than the mind?

What does it mean for one material system to be "higher" than the other? "Complexity" we can understand and quantify - and as I said, human brains, taken in aggregate, would perhaps lose to neutron stars or other highly complex phenomena. But "higher" implies teleology - which might have passed in Engels's day but is to be avoided in the present, for obvious reasons.

[RedMaterialist]

If consciousness is reducible to the brain, then it is quite simple: Consciousness as it exists in 2015 is merely the logical expression of innate facilities of the brain. This will explain "cultural" differences, sexual ones, class differences, and so on. A thoroughly ahistorical notion. If you are to accept that the dimension of consciousness is outside of physiology, the totality of social relations, then you are back to square one with "folk psychology".

There is amply no middle ground. You either accept psychoanalysis, or at least its premise, or you are a reactionary. End of story.



How does this square with Marx's argument that consciousness is a product of life, that life is not a product of consciousness? i.e., materialism, production, the development of physical matter, the brain, etc. are what produce consciousness?

In line with your point on psychoanalysis, there are serious disorders of the brain, depression for one, which can be treated with drugs to change the chemical structure of the brain. The alleviation of these disorders makes it possible for people to develop their personalities more fully, become more fully human, participate in revolutionary activities instead of lie in bed all day, etc.

Isn't this a case of physical chemistry changing the social reality of consciousness?

[RedMaterialist]

What does it mean for one material system to be "higher" than the other? "Complexity" we can understand and quantify - and as I said, human brains, taken in aggregate, would perhaps lose to neutron stars or other highly complex phenomena. But "higher" implies teleology - which might have passed in Engels's day but is to be avoided in the present, for obvious reasons.

ok. instead of higher, then more socially complex.

[Бай Ганьо]

True enough, but didn't we determine gravity was a universal force before we went to another solar system?

That was a reasonable hypothesis since everything around us appeared to be affected by the same force. Apart from humans and some animals, what are the other beings or things showing signs of consciousness? If consciousness really were a universal force, like a physical law, we would see a whole variety of conscious things (probably having developed their own languages) ranging from conscious rocks and tennis rackets to conscious ozone layer and supernovas. Consciousness would be everywhere, in everything.

[Anatoli]

If a man is rich but had experience reading the materialist conception of history, chances are he and the alienated worker would be observant enough to perceive alienation among the workers. But if the worker is bombarded with American novels just like how soldiers in Third World countries experience watching British spy novels, chances are he will either dismiss the materialist conception of history. I was that soldier.

But when I was alone in New York, dependent on medication because of mental illness, refused employment and cannot drive a car, I realized that I was the alienated worker that Marx was talking about in his books. I went to 23rd Street, New York and immediately signed up as a member of the Communist Party of USA. Without disability pay which was obtained through pressure and resistance of CPUSA, I should have been homeless in the streets of New York.

[Rafiq]

How does this square with Marx's argument that consciousness is a product of life, that life is not a product of consciousness? i.e., materialism, production, the development of physical matter, the brain, etc. are what produce consciousness?

Marx and Engels violently rejected the "materialism" of the French vulgarists which was basically precisely the kind of essentialism which claims that consciousness derives from the brain. They had more in common with Hegelian absolute idealism than vulgar materialism. Of course, consciousness does derive from life, but "life" extends far beyond the physical organization of the human body, which remains constant throughout history. "life", however, changes, and it is precisely the social dimension which accounts for the realm of life, not the physical organization of the human body.

Many people have mistook materialism for the worst kind of superstition. The point of materialism is not this superstitious "oh, we humans are so puny before the might of material forces". Marxism, Communism is precisely consciousness and an attempt at the mastery of those material forces. It is not this perverse Eastern spiritualist wisdom.


there are serious disorders of the brain, depression for one, which can be treated with drugs to change the chemical structure of the brain. The alleviation of these disorders makes it possible for people to develop their personalities more fully, become more fully human, participate in revolutionary activities instead of lie in bed all day, etc.

Well let me be clear: Consciousness is FACILITATED through the physical capacities of the brain, but it is not determined by them. The source of your depression will never be solved by taking drugs - for the simple reason that regular doses would be required. One cannot "treat" depression with drugs as far as the actual source of it goes, one can simply alter the chemicals associated with it to temporarily alleviate its effects.

It is for this reason that antidepressent drugs - for the most part - really don't work, what they allow is for people to 'function' in modern society, but how does that distinguish them from any opiate? Antidepressent drugs, especially, are widely known for their ineffectiveness and the vast array of complications associated with them. They simply don't work, and that is why there is a huge explosion in superstitious, mystical nonsense about "expanding your consciousness", and whatever as a remedy for depression. I see this firsthand with the youth of my generation. In the cases where it does work, there have been numerous studies which deal with the impact of placebo, and the list goes on.

But to play the devil's advocate, it is entirely possible that by manipulating neurological processes, you could potentially simulate consciousness by artificially supplementing the symbolic order somehow. Again, this would likely entail the creation of computer-simulated AI, which in themselves would have to constitute subjects.


Isn't this a case of physical chemistry changing the social reality of consciousness?

No, the social reality remains unaltered. One doesn't need the example of any anti-depressant, take any psycho-active drug and the point would still stand - that the brain's chemistry can be altered, which could lead to different experiences does not mean that the social reality of the consciousness is altered. Getting high off a psychedelic in 2015, is going to be 100% different than from doing so thousands of years ago. At the level of trivialities (seeing colors, etc.) it will be similar, but at the level of the high itself, the "revelation" and "meaning" you derive from it, it would be entirely different.

[Rafiq]

True enough, but didn't we determine gravity was a universal force before we went to another solar system?

But think about it, the question here is an error of ontology. Gravity merely refers to processes of measurement. We don't even have to extend beyond the solar system.

Take the moon, or Mars. The gravitational force would be different, and this would be measurable in terms of how we measure things on Earth. So Earth is the point of measurement, and we conform our standards to this. So our understanding of gravity as a concept won't change as a result of discovering new solar systems, for the simple reason that we are measuring forces in relation to us. Those forces will be different, but not at the level of ontology.

Likewise, consciousness would have to be different, because human consciousness - while irreducible to it - is only possible as a result of the distinct, physiological composition of the human. The distinct, physical nature of our solar system does not constitute a vacuum - the relationship between the planets on a gravitational level, is a relationship which is universal insofar as there are other planets and other suns. Planets and suns are not abstractions, like "intelligent life", they refer to objects whose material composition is observable in relation to ours. That we isolate solar systems (and not other formations in the universe) as prime focal points of existence, again is because of how they relate to our existence.

[RedMaterialist]

Well let me be clear: Consciousness is FACILITATED through the physical capacities of the brain, but it is not determined by them. .

If consciousness is facilitated by the brain, then where did consciousness come from? Was it "there" already waiting for the human brain to facilitate it?

Did consciousness exist before humans?

[Rafiq]

[QUOTE=RedMaterialist;2860981
Did consciousness exist before humans?[/QUOTE]

Consciousnesses is nothing more than the reflection of man's social relationships to his conditions of life. To his mode of life. Consciousness is the result of the necessity of language to this end. Consciousness is the totality of man's social relationships as expressed through the particular individual. Man is nothing more than the totality of his relations, for self-awareness itself is nothing more than the result of the awareness of others.

[RedMaterialist]

Consciousnesses is nothing more than the reflection of man's social relationships to his conditions of life. To his mode of life. Consciousness is the result of the necessity of language to this end. Consciousness is the totality of man's social relationships as expressed through the particular individual. Man is nothing more than the totality of his relations, for self-awareness itself is nothing more than the result of the awareness of others.

To try to rephrase: Consciousness is created through man's social relationship to his conditions of life. Language is part of this mode of life, as is man's brain, muscles, nerves, etc. So, social relationships, conditions of life, language, man's physical life, all create consciousness. Consciousness then acts to become the totality of man's social relationships of life.

So man through his social conditions of life created consciousness. But this consciousness then becomes the totality of man's social relationships.

1. when did man first develop consciousness?
2. has consciousness changed over time?

[Rafiq]

1. when did man first develop consciousness?

It is difficult to assess where the "fall from eden", so to speak, actually occurred for hominids. What we can say for certain is that man's consciousness existed since the emergence of homo sapiens sapiens, around 150,000 years ago.


2. has consciousness changed over time?

Consciousness has fundamentally changed, in every possible way, across different historic epochs and totalities. Consciousness differs insofar as there is difference in the social relations to production (i.e. the conditions of life).

One must stress that as it is with history, this does not refer to slow and gradual development. Cataclysmic ruptures, transformative events, etc. fundamentally re-create man's consciousness and change his relationship to his past. Think of a traumatic event which fundamentally forces you to re-evaluate your whole previous life. That is, sort of, how these things happen at a social and historical level.

[cyu]

When you play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Simulator most people would probably say the goat is more conscious than the people in the game. The NPCs can only obey their programming. However, the goat knows that it's not really a goat, but rather a conscious human.

Whether the NPCs in the simulation are conscious or not, if their artificial intelligence ever advances to the point at which they develop leftist ideology, it would be with the assumption that all other NPCs are equally conscious, and deserve to be respected in the same way.

[RedMaterialist]

It is difficult to assess where the "fall from eden", so to speak, actually occurred for hominids. What we can say for certain is that man's consciousness existed since the emergence of homo sapiens sapiens, around 150,000 years ago.



What do you think of this theory? Around 75,000 yrs ago humans were faced with the problem of how to keep enough humans alive in their tribes, clans, etc. to maintain a social structure, thus a problem of social relations of production.

The clans kept disintegrating because of inbreeding. Through natural selection humans developed the incest taboo: first, no older generation/younger generation marriage (sex); then no brother/sister, then no cousin, first, second, etc. The result after tens of thousands of years was a more or less coherent clan able to reproduce itself successfully.

Freud attempted to show that the incest taboo was enforced by driving sexual energy for the prohibited relations into an "unconscious" part of the mind. The remaining part of the mind accessible to humans was consciousness or rather, self-consciousness. The repressed sexual energy was then redirected to art, invention, language, etc. and finally to civilization.

The sexual repression may have lost most of its energy but the ability of the mind to reform itself according to the social relations of the production of life may have survived as a kind of plasticity of mind.

Civilization and its discontents, that kind of thing.

[cyu]

The repressed sexual energy was then redirected to art, invention, language, etc. and finally to civilization.

I would say that the technological basis for meeting basic survival was accomplished thousands of years ago, and as a result after that, life became inherently boring. And you know what happens when people get bored - trolls show up promising a Golden Apple to the fairest woman, and then everyone fights a war over it, ending the boredom.

Boredom has also led to stuff like art, invention, "civilization" but the question that many are afraid to ask, is was any of this s**t worth it? Is that the purpose of life? I would say no. The purpose of civilization is not the latest video game, nor Tinder. There is no real purpose to anything - however, as far as technological advancement goes, whatever purpose humans attempt to impose on it, what improved technology allows, is the spread of ideas. The better the technology, the more it allows ideas to spread to new minds and new geographical areas. Technology is a self-propagating virus - technology itself is the ideas it spreads.

[Rafiq]

What do you think of this theory? Around 75,000 yrs ago humans were faced with the problem of how to keep enough humans alive in their tribes, clans, etc. to maintain a social structure, thus a problem of social relations of production.

The first problem is: Where does the estimate of 75,000 years come from? And why did this 'problem' take so long to manifest itself? In fact, the 'theory' is ridiculous. Humans were always organized into a social structure and a social-symbolic order at the onset of even becoming human. The real controversy is whether other hominids were the same - were they 'hard-wired' like animals, living in habitats, were they less eusocial as humans, were their infants screaming at the onset of birth like human infants, and so on. The notion that the core substance of what it means to be a human at the level of having social relations to production is only 75,000 years old is the highpoint of ridiculousness. There is no reason to think this. It's that simple.

So long as humans existed, they were the totality of their social relations. It's not simply that there is a dichotomy between nature and culture, and that man is nothing more than an animal divorced from his social context. There is a space in between - a death drive, an unending, unquenchable insistence on belonging to a process. You need to understand that hominids have existed for quite some time. Homo Habilis existed nearly 2 million years ago. Homo Sapiens Sapiens represented a definite break, a rupture, a 'fall' if you want - at the onset of our existence as a distinct species, we became just as human as we are today. No pseudo-Freudian primordial mythology is going to account for humans today.

What is more likely is that through processes of natural selection, through the course of the evolution of the hominid, incest became taboo, but after the emergence of Homo Sapiens, the burden of regulating sexuality was placed on the conscious will of the community. This would also explain the various origin myths most remaining hunter-gatherers have, which almost always include "big hairy" people and whatever. It is likely that at the onset of human existence, myths were created to sustain and enforce practices that were previously sustained by autonomous processes. Even if man was still living exactly like his hominid ancestors, the foundations of how he was doing this were very shaky and precarious: man had to enforce this on a social level.

Again, there is no way of knowing the specific origin of how incest became taboo across society. Humans may have had a lot of incest, only to later disallow it because it threatened the social fabric of the group. It might have been random to the point where human societies that practiced incest simply died off, while the ones which did not - for whatever arbitrary reason - did. We do not know. What we do know is that this is not an adequate explanation for the causal origin of the human species.


Civilization and its discontents, that kind of thing.

Civilization has existed for some thousands of years. Not tens of thousands. Certainly not hundreds of thousands. on a physiological level, humans are no different than they were 150,000 years ago.