What is the nature of Consciousness?

First lets start with this; This was a challenge, I asked Darren(Shredderbeam) to give me a pretty hard topic. This is probably very incomplete, but its the best i could do :noworry:

This can be debated and argued for eons on end, and keep in mind this is just my viewpoint, probably a very incomplete one at that. Consciousness is a fictional aspect of the human mind that has been so over used in just about everything that is has almost become a real aspect of every day life. Where did this idea come from? Some may say human nature, and before calling you a complete buffoon I'll ask where human nature came from, this is where the fictionality of a supreme being comes into play, because it cannot be explained, lets keep away from that in this thread please. Consciousness came from the idea, just like anything else in this life, that idea being that there is a wrong and a right. These ideas came from a lot of things, such as traditions, backgrounds, and upbringings, and done over a very long time span became brainwashed into the human mind.

These traditions, backgrounds, and upbringings have now become almost standards in our society. Lets take a look at one thing that is affected by consciousness in our every day lives, anger, you, if you're a "normal" member of society, will try to bottle up your anger, even if someone disrespects you, because that is how consciousness makes you behave, because that is the set standard on life and you wouldn't break it if you're "normal", and if you do break it, you'll have a guilt trip and feel as if you've done something very wrong, regretting it for a while, now ask yourself this question, Why? Is it because really because of human nature? No. If it was human nature then cavemen and other civilizations etc would have not been violent. The true nature of consciousness is an infinite vortex of improvement along with society, basically it keeps on adding on things and changing as time passes, and right and wrongs change as traditions, backgrounds and upbringings change.

Discuss please.

 

Consciousness is what keeps society even somewhat civilized; it creates rules and is an almost fail-proof way to enforce them, using guilt, fear and other emotions that we feel after we do something that we may think is wrong. People thrive on influence; if a child is brought up in a violent household, then they will become a violent person with a corrupted consciousness (corrupted as in crooked compared to the consciousness of an "average" person) as opposed to someone brought up in a caring household who will naturally have the consciousness of a saint due to the influences that they grew up with.

Also on a side note, your sig's if statement makes no sense, it's like a mix of Java/C++/C# and VB :S

 

Thanks for the responce, and that is true, everything is played off emotions and "right" and "wrong", and upbringing, as stated in the thread. Thanks for expanding on it.

My sig was thrown together as a joke its not ment to be a statement, just looks cooler that way , but its closest to Java then anything. But i corrected it just for you, except the names would have to have If(PlayerName.Contains("namehere") || next one etc etc, but my sig can't have any more letters in it, so i shortened it down. D:

 

Conciousness isn't fictional. It's been a proven state of the brain along with subconcious and unconcious. These states alter the way the brain recieves information and the level of perception we have to each sense within.

Human nature is a biological predisposition for us to act in certain ways due to genetic modifications. Seligman proposed something called the Preparedness Theory in which human beings have a tendancy to act in certain ways due to human nature in relation to genetic constructs made over time.

An example of this would be that it is human nature to fear animals that could kill us but not things such as cars, even though car accidents kill more people each year. Seligman proposed that this is because cars haven't been around for long enough for it to have placed a biological/genetic predisposition within the human brain and is therefore not part of human nature. Whilst animals that can kill us have been plaguing us as long as we've been around.

That definately is not the concept of conciousness, but instead, the concept of personal like and dislikes. For something to be deemed as 'right' or 'wrong' it has to be placed in so many situations. You can take an Hedonist outlook and simply state that all things that are right are that benefit the person themselves, negative hedonists looking at absense of pain (things that are wrong) and positive looking at overcoming those with simple pleasures (things that are right).

Now due to tradition and backgrounds you're mainly thinking of a govern style of life. Read up on the Lockean Provisio to state how all these backgrounds, upbringings came to be. It's quite interesting.

Anger is actually affected by a persons personality trait and the conciousness only percieves the stimuli that makes one angry. Now those who bottle up their anger are actually 'overcontrolled' by the term of the Ego Resilence scale. These people actually refrain from confrontation and control this anger impulse even in situations where it is deemed appropriate and therefore have no manipulation of their anger.

This is simply a defence mechanism called Projection, a form of psychoanalytical theory.

True, society continously adds and manipulates the way things are acceptable and not acceptable but never to a state of human preparedness.

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Your arguement was very distorted and I'm yet to see what you're trying to say. I think you're spending too much time making your arguement look intelligent that you forgot what you were trying to say.

Please, tell me.

 

I would agree - in the words of my former English teacher, clarity should not be lost in witticisms.

 

I have a feeling I'd like your English teacher.

 

Well, as I said in the post this was a challange from Darren. I was half in the irc at the time, so excuse some of the arguments used in this post, I'll bump it up to standards when I'm home.