English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello was talking about one of his songs
in an interview.
An ode to a very old lady suffering from dementia, and in the lyric he
wonders if she [(or maybe her consciousness)] goes to heaven bit-by-bit as
the illness progresses over a few years.
..................
A favourite site of mine:
One way cartesianism by Dr Roger Carpenter
http://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/people/rhsc/consc.html
Tony
"Matt Jones" <jonesmat at physiology.wisc.edu> wrote in message
news:b86268d4.0206051202.47193f3 at posting.google.com...
> "tony.jeffs" <tonyjeffs2 at REMOVEaol.com> wrote in message
news:<j6QK8.2499$376.152104 at newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net>...
> > Well I just wrote a long reply and pushed the wrong button, so start
> > again...
> >
> > Yes Continuum of consciousness sounds plausible.
> >
> > A constant level of consciousness in the universe in the universe sounds
> > less plausible, though;
> > If I go to sleep, I think my contribution to the sum total of
consciousness
> > ceases to be.
> > If not, where does it go?
> >
> > Tony
> >
> >
>>> I guess these "where does it go" questions have to do with
> "conservation", right? Like, if consciousness is a universal
> primitive, then it must be conserved, like mass/energy or angular
> momentum? Yep, I see what that's a problem for the universal primitive
> idea, at least as long as one insists
>> To me consciousness seems more likely to be describable as a sort of
> "information", for which there are many very precise definitions, or
> "complexity", for which there are none as far as I know.
>> Information, as defined by Shannon, is like entropy (actually it's
> literally the difference between two entropies). It doesn't need to be
> conserved, but it can't ever get past a certain upper bound (the
> bigger of the two entropies), and in general it keeps getting smaller
> as it's transferred from place to place (whereas entropy keeps getting
> bigger).
>> This doesn't really describe consciousness, or provide an answer to
> where your consciousness goes when you're asleep (or dead). The first
> part is easy, I think. When you're asleep, your consciousness doesn't
> go anywhere. It just turns inward (at least during dreams).
>> When you're dead....
>> oh I don't know.
>> Heaven?
>>>> Matt
