Which Came First: Consciousness or Matter?

a reply to: cooperton

Impossible question to answer because we don't know what came before the big bang, but if we were to put t = 0 as the Big Bang then the answer is matter.

originally posted by: InnerPeace2012
Both can neither be created no distroyed.

Peace

What are you talking about? We destroy matter all the time. What do you think a nuclear bomb is?

Everything come from nothing. Out of nothingness comes everything. Just is.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t


What are you talking about? We destroy matter all the time. What do you think a nuclear bomb is?

That's Nuclear fission or fusion. Matter isn't destroyed, the nuclei are reassembled in a highly exothermic reaction.

originally posted by: babybunnies
Consciousness can't exist without a brain.

Therefore, matter came first.

Matter can exist without a conscience, but not the other way around.

Although most science is conducted materialistically, there are a few researchers who are studying matter (The brain) as an effect rather than a cause:

www.youtube.com...

"Thoughts and perceptions could take place in an "area" separate form the brain... much like a cell phone. The signal, the message, is created somewhere else. But your cell phone is necessary for processing. If we were to measure the electrical activity in your cell phone. Or electrically excite certain parts of it, or remove certain parts of it. We could show that certain parts of the cell phone were involved in you hearing the message. But we couldn't prove that the message was originated in the cell phone. Just like we cannot prove that thoughts originate from our brain."

"The materialistic views on the world fails to explain how electrical impulses in the brain could create thoughts or feelings. Despite knowing we cant understand this... Most neurosciestists continue to maintain this 19th century materialistic view... They ignore the evidence that consciousness can very well function without a brain."
(He does research at UVA on consciousness beyond the brain)

a reply to: cooperton

consciousness

Energy the source of all existence gave birth to consciousness before it became matter.

And yes your link to the bible actually pretty much depict in a humanly way, how energy (God) gain consciousness and became into existence even when energy has always been around to give form (matter) to intelligence consciousness.

That's what we in our human minds call (creation)

i think life came together in a "happy medium" where matter and conciousness developed together.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: InnerPeace2012
Both can neither be created no distroyed.

Peace

What are you talking about? We destroy matter all the time. What do you think a nuclear bomb is?

Oops, I was wrong there with my definitions. Thanks, for picking that up.

From a Scientific point of view - Matter comes first
From a Philosophic point of view - Consciousness comes first

Peace

a reply to: Krazysh0t

We destroy matter all the time.

It's no more destroyed than when you cause ice to melt into water or steam. There is no such thing as "to destroy" as in "to not exist". Energy can only change form and cannot be created or destroyed.

Matter and Energy is like ice and water, the same water (energy), but more or less solid.

a reply to: arpgme

Exactly, energy can take form or just exist the same without any form and is on every living thing in earth and in the universe.

a reply to: cooperton

One contemporary mystic puts it like this:

Consciousness is a reflection on the surface of matter.

a reply to: Rextiberius

Consciousness is a reflection on the surface of matter.

[edit] Never mind I got what you meant.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

We destroy matter all the time.

Yep and it gets converted into energy or other form. Conservation of mass and energy remember?

www.scientificamerican.com...

Matter is plentiful, consciousness is vanishingly rare.

Consciousness is something that emerges from matter.

It's a mysterious energy that emerges from the accidental collocation of atoms.

a reply to: Deaf Alien

I'm stating that consciousness can't exist without a physical construct such as a functioning brain of some kind. That is to say I don't believe in a soul or any kind of non-physical substance. Human Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, without the brain we certainly would not be aware of anything and when we're dead we're DEAD.

originally posted by: Titen-Sxull
a reply to: Deaf Alien

Human Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain...

"Emergent property" in science = "we have no idea how, it just is".

The way I look at it, our body is an organic controller, controlled by a User: consciousness. OBE's are an example of this consciousness exiting the body. Check out Dr. Eben Alexander's experience... He had complete cortical shut-down, and experienced "super-consciousness". This would be impossible if the brain were responsible for consciousness, and rather, it supports the notion that consciousness (spirit) uses the body as an organic computer.

"But what controls consciousness"... I think consciousness is the Alpha Omega, all that is, always has been, and always will be. "Divine Mind". "I Am". The common ground for all humans, rich and poor.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Neither. Matter and consciousness are the most ill-defined terms in the english language, and in this sense, meaningless. To assert the primacy of either is assumptive at best, completely false at worst.

Talking of terminology in eglish language. You misathrope are one of the most literate ATS users i know of, so i ask you this...

Is there a word in the english language for the 'ability to (deliberately) forget'?

i have searched, but to no avail!

originally posted by: combatmaster

Is there a word in the english language for the 'ability to (deliberately) forget'?

Teenager?

What is matter, but consciousness given form.

This post is a figment of a consciousness also given form.

a reply to: cooperton

OBE's are an example of this consciousness exiting the body.

Yeah, sure, and while I'm asleep I live other lives where I am married to a super-model.

Out of Body Experiences are an example of lucid dreaming reinterpreted as reality. Or, in the case of near-death or altered brain state OBE reports a result of the brain chemistry of a screwed up, oxygen starved or dying brain.

"Emergent property" in science = "we have no idea how, it just is".

Yes and no. Consciousness has many aspects which are still not well understood but the one aspect we do understand is that consciousness emerges from a physical brain and without the brain the processes that cause consciousness do not function (dead people, for example, are not conscious).

Also I know of no discovery in neuroscience or any other science which suggests that consciousness drives the whole brain in the way a USER does. Last I checked research actually suggested the subconscious was the place where most decision making and actual thinking take place, the so-called "User" is often only made aware after the fact. This is why thoughts flow into our minds unbidden, inspiration strikes, trains of thought derail, gut feelings occur and instinct kicks in, because we are driven far more by the subconscious than we are by the evolutionarily recent phenomenon of Consciousness.

As for the miraculously converted Doctor this anecdote is nothing more than that, an anecdote, no more convincing to me than if Einstein said he saw the ghost of his dead Mother. Something tells me if that happened all the gullible fools of the world would go, "that guy knows a lot about physics, so I can trust him when it comes to this".

"But what controls consciousness"... I think consciousness is the Alpha Omega, all that is, always has been, and always will be. "Divine Mind". "I Am". The common ground for all humans, rich and poor.

There is absolutely no rational evidence based grounds on which to make such a claim. As a biological phenomenon Consciousness has only been observed in humans and, to a lesser extent, our close genetic relatives. So it sounds arrogantly self-important to assert that not only is this thing we have special but its a point of contact for some New Age sounding idea of God. You openly admit that science still hasn't settled on what consciousness is which makes this whole thing an argument from ignorance or, at the very least, some extremely dubious speculation.

a reply to: combatmaster

Is there a word in the english language for the 'ability to (deliberately) forget'?

I'm not sure if there is a single word.

Unlearn? Disremember? Purge? Thought suppression? Freud's "Motivated Forgetting" maybe?

What is the word in your language?