VERY SERIOUS QUESTION
I hate to burst a bubble here, but has anyone proven that consciousness exists? I.E. the only means of verification of an objective world? While you're yapping about whether God exists or not, you're not even thinking about whether your subjective experience has any objective existence itself. When I think of optical illusion images that trick the brain into perceiving something that isn't there, or basically confuse the brain to see something that it wouldn't see otherwise, does it make you wonder if consciousness is like the total sum of all the human body's processes wrapped around itself to create a false mirror of activity and what you're really doing is operating in an "objective" universe that isn't really there because your brain tricks you into thinking things are happening.
Let me put it like this, you're conscious, but you can only operate within your physical limitations. Atoms do the same thing pretty much. There is nothing to suggest a self-aware entity except that it makes you survive to think so. If the name of the game is survival, consciousness seems like a pretty good reason to stay alive because if you knew for sure that it was a non-objective false notion that arises from deceptive forces acting on the brain, you wouldn't have much of an obligation to survive. Just like we experience emotions that are only real to us, consciousness could just be the very convincing illusion that we sense at all. If it requires a physical body to be conscious, then the physical body is either interfacing with non-local consciousness that is kind of like a universal phenomenon that cancels itself out since it's omnipresent, or it's local phenomena that exists solely on the basis of our ignorance of all-encompassing factors.
The universe is homogenous and isotropically symmetrical. Throw in the law of conservation of energy that says energy cannot be created or destroyed. I can go on but these are two good examples of how the universe communicates its nature for anyone cares to notice, it doesn't exist and neither do you. If there was ever an argument for God, it would be that if you can fool yourself into thinking you exist, then the concept of non-existence and existence is merely a matter of opinion in the first place and both statements about God are equally valid insofar as an opinion is consequencial over facts. If nothing exists, then facts don't exist either so it's all stupid to argue anything at all. Facts can only be relationships drawn about apparent phenomena in a non-existent self-contained nothing. Opinions are just stupid stances we take on shit that doesn't matter because nothing exists.
If you look into the past, your memories, and think about how you always thought what was happening was "RIGHT NOW" doesn't it strike you as funny that you can say you were full of shit to think that because you're not conscious of "RIGHT NOW" in the context of a past occcurence where it was absolutely true? This is what I mean by consciousness being a sort of illusion. You're always convinced you are, but when you're remembering something that happened where you thought you were conscious, you can explain to yourself that you only remember that it was happening at the time and then you recognize you are conscious in that moment so you're distracted from realizing that if every moment is now, no matter when you experience something, and that conscious arises as a momentary contrast to the reality that as soon as the moment has passed, it will never happen again. In other words, infinite time can pass but that moment will not happen again. It may look and feel the same if it were to happen again, but it will not be the same moment. Whatever quality is that precise to be able to account for this distinction, that's consciousness.
It doesn't mean anything exists, it just means that consciousness manifests as a necessary distinction to express the reality of nothingness. Haha, just kidding, I'm just making shit up off the top of my head.
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What happened to your original response to this post in which you told yourself to shut up?
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Yeah, I saw that "Shut up" response which was erased in a minute, too.
WARNING
Before anyone wastes their time reading the original post, read the last sentence.
Sapient, that was my fault.
His response post was empty (to me) so I thought it was just an accidental post by kalx. When I removed it, noor's post was gone, too. I'm sorry about that, everyone!
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I deleted it because I was quoting the OP that i edited after I quoted.
You can't be fooled if you don't exist to be fooled, so I exist either way. Which is good enough for me.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
How does that work?
Moderators have extra button functions. Things like move, delete, etc. I can certainly see how this could happen. It happened to me once or twice when I was moderating at another forum. Someone deletes their post just as the moderator goes to delete the same post. That confuses the system for a fraction of a second, and moves the moderator on to the next post in line, since the user only has power to moderate their own posts. Uncommon, but unavoidable.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Well I think you'll find noone in the RRS is a computer genius who wrote all the code this site runs on. It's a fairly common forum style. They spend more time on the debate than on what the debate takes place on. I suspect if it grows that the site will need a complete makeover one day. I'd imagine it's not high on the priority list right now though.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
LMAO. 894 posts and Vastet denigrates the site.
Sorry. That was too funny.
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I would say 894 posts gives me the right to.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I know kalx was only messing around, but if any of you guys are actually interested on this subject, it's very interesting to read Descartes.
In his book "Discourse on Method", he comes to the conclusion that no one can prove anything with 100% of certainty. The only thing you can be sure of is that you are thinking right now; that you are conscious. That's when he came up with "I think, therefore I am". It's quite amusing to read how he came to that conclusion (which by the way still applies and, on a personal note, is disturbingly true). 'Later!
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