where does our conscious experience come from?

[charlou]

It's still interesting though. Do go on ...

[hiyymer]

I see ... you're shifting the discussion from consciousness and thinking, to simpler motor activity.

I interpreted your original question as the issue of what makes thoughts arise if it's not "I" doing it but the brain creating them. What is the "stimulus". I took a quick shot at it, as well as posting an article that I find revealing with regard to the source of having thoughts at all.

To me, whatever the answer it doesn't change the inescapability of the fact that our conscious thoughts are created by the brain. They can't possibly be coming from anywhere else, except perhaps the "woo" that we love to attribute to religious superstition.

[camoguard]

I agree with hiyymer's statement. Not being a biology type, I don't make any claims about knowing how the brain creates thoughts. I simply think that it does.

Did you get the impression somebody did not think thoughts came from the brain?

[Mr P]

you could also look up Douglas Hofstadters work regarding "strange loops".

Reading that now. Might take me a while to get through though.

Which one, Strange Loop or Godel, Escher and Bach?

[PsychoSerenity]

Strange Loop, but I'm not far through and I'm reading six other books at the moment as well.

[Mr P]

Strange Loop, but I'm not far through and I'm reading six other books at the moment as well.

Strange loop's good but GEB's better... read both, NOW!!!

[charlou]

Did you get the impression somebody did not think thoughts came from the brain?

Hi camoguard ... Who are you asking?

From hiyymer's comment that I quoted, I think he has this impression, somehow derived that from the comments of the posters in this thread.

[Hermit]

External stimuli, neurology, brain, language, motor skills.

Plus information feedback.

If something is in your conscious experience isn't it being created by your brain (all of it).

How could conscious experience exist without external stimuli? The external world is an indispensable ingredient in the formation of conscious experience. To say that conscious experience is created independently of it just doesn't make sense.

[charlou]

External stimuli, neurology, brain, language, motor skills.

Plus information feedback.

If something is in your conscious experience isn't it being created by your brain (all of it).

How could conscious experience exist without external stimuli? The external world is an indispensable ingredient in the formation of conscious experience. To say that conscious experience is created independently of it just doesn't make sense.

Yes, and acknowledging that is not the same as saying that thoughts don't arise in the brain.

[camoguard]

Did you get the impression somebody did not think thoughts came from the brain?

Hi camoguard ... Who are you asking?

From hiyymer's comment that I quoted, I think he has this impression, somehow derived that from the comments of the posters in this thread.

That was aimed at hiyymer. In the beginning, I thought he was the one that thought thoughts came from the spiritual dimension. Then he seemed to think some of us thought that. I figured I'd investigate for clarity.

[hiyymer]

External stimuli, neurology, brain, language, motor skills.

Plus information feedback.

If something is in your conscious experience isn't it being created by your brain (all of it).

How could conscious experience exist without external stimuli? The external world is an indispensable ingredient in the formation of conscious experience. To say that conscious experience is created independently of it just doesn't make sense.

Ho do external stimuli get processed by the sensory system. Is it the external stimuli that is creating the conscious representation of what's out there, or the brain?

[Hermit]

External stimuli, neurology, brain, language, motor skills.

Plus information feedback.

If something is in your conscious experience isn't it being created by your brain (all of it).

How could conscious experience exist without external stimuli? The external world is an indispensable ingredient in the formation of conscious experience. To say that conscious experience is created independently of it just doesn't make sense.

Ho do external stimuli get processed by the sensory system. Is it the external stimuli that is creating the conscious representation of what's out there, or the brain?

Yes, the brain does the processing. I have yet to hear anyone deny that. I'm asking you how a brain could possibly process anything without getting stimuli from the external world. It's the "all of it" part of "conscious experience being created in the brain" I have a problem with.

[Jason]

where does our conscious experience come from?

My Balls.

That's right. My Bollocks - both of them.


.. they're quite large I assure you. You'd be most impressed.

All conscious experience, and unconscious too - that is meant to encompass the 'dreamscape' or our 'subconscious', to use a Freudian term, originates from my two bits. Your primal urges, your feelings of inadequacy (oh you try to hide them), your lust ( for you women and gay men - straight men borrow their lusts from inspiration borne of my twin supreme, obloid, testosterone factories.), your paranoia, your confidence, your inexplicable, illogical, irrational, ineffable, emotional 'blips', your love, your compassion, your hate, your vehemence, your affection, your love.. all come from my two bits.

That's right - my bollocks are the source of all experience - conscious or otherwise.


I know this because I exist and you do not. The world is simply a figment of my own bollocks, you all included.

So, with this in mind, I mean no insult when I say - Bollocks to you all.

[hiyymer]

Yes, the brain does the processing. I have yet to hear anyone deny that. I'm asking you how a brain could possibly process anything without getting stimuli from the external world. It's the "all of it" part of "conscious experience being created in the brain" I have a problem with.

When you look at the beautiful sunset and it "moves" you, all that is going on inside your body. First of all there are no colors out there, only light with different patterns of absorption. What you experience is not what's out there, although we know inductively that there must be something out there being experienced; a pile of molecules. But every last thing you are consciously experiencing has to be put there by your brain; a pattern of neurons firing; an entirely inaccurate image of the actual reality causing it. Of course it is a representation of physical reality because the body has to exist in physical reality. But the image is all doctored up to serve the need of the organism to survive. How many tigers would we spot in the forest without the benefit of color differentiation.

[Hermit]

Yes, the brain does the processing. I have yet to hear anyone deny that. I'm asking you how a brain could possibly process anything without getting stimuli from the external world. It's the "all of it" part of "conscious experience being created in the brain" I have a problem with.

When you look at the beautiful sunset...

Yes. We look at the sunset out there. No sunset, no perception of it, no conscious experience being created in the brain. Without external stimuli there would be no conscious experience.

the image is all doctored up to serve the need of the organism to survive.

So, could we say that our conceptualisations are ultimately determined by the need of the organism to survive? And are they not therefore ultimately determined by the external stimuli of the world we live in?