Are you serious?

You need scientific evidence that a tree is conscious!!!!!

I think that want I can be sure of, is that YOU are not conscious. A tree is probablye more conscious then you

hey, I happen to like superstition. it shows us how far we've come from believing the world is flat.

gosh I dont even know what you want from this discussion.

what superstition? You think that a tree is not conscious? Really? Maybe we just dont have the same definition of consciousness. but its quite worrying.

and then I know you will not answer anything that I say. keep on laughing to other people. Life is a big joke!

you're worried?
because I can differentiate between animate and inanimate? wow. maybe I should see a shrink.

*questions everything he's ever been taught and experienced*

how can a tree demonstrate that it is aware of a car about to crash into it?
obviously it can't just get out of the way, so does it make a sound? does it show fear?

Explain how a human being is conscious.

define: emotions; instint. action/voluntary reaction

Are these really the only definitions for consciousness?

men, I'm sending you as much love to you as I can. I still think that you are a valuable member here for multiple reasons. I understand your point of vue, I once thought like you. All I really want is to help you and clearly, you seem to want to be the smart ass here.

I love you anyways men, I'm only worried that you dont, and it would be sad.

those are the most obvious.

so how would you suggest a tree, or a mailbox, is conscious?

love you too, but don't worry because I don't believe strongly in those paradigms.

You are acting like the smartass, the O' so Wise Man that has the answers, and sees that poor benzyme here has lost his soul, lost his love, is unhappy, doesn't love himself, hates the world and has serious issues because he remains rational, skeptical and scientific concerning questions about how the universe works. Drop it, cus he doesn't need any help.

Who, Me? I haven't thought about it and don't know what to think about it completely, but:
Firstly mailbox and tree are completely different things(one is alive). Secondly, if something is alive doesn't it mean it almost has to have some kind of consciousness? Even if it's only code in it's structure that tells it to breathe(and grow etc basics). Maybe one way to look at it is that if it breathes, it is conscious?

Yes, but it has also been shown before that LSD for instance has barely any action at all on the left hemisphere of the brain..and that most of it's action is in right hemisphere alone-which is associated with creativity, music, empathy, love etc..

I dont buuy the idea that when you take psilocybin or LSD the brain is less active then when in normal every day consciousness..and as far as I understand this christian there is no proof for that statement anyway..yes it has been observed that certain area of the brain were less active..but that does not mean that other area are not more active then before..I am not saying the data that people have compiled is not valid-it is..but there is much we do not understand at this point about psychedelics and how they effect the nervous system.

I was not only referring to psychedelics either..you can stimulate the brain to produce expereinces of entities etc with magnetic fields as well.

According to my personal belief system, the spirit world actively conceals itself from humans and reveals itself only when it sees fit to do so.

For the sake of illustration, let us say the spirit world is similar to a pill-bug or rolly polly, or maybe an armadillo In that it has the ability to sort of shell up and hide itself whenever it wants to. Depending on the observer. Of course the spirit world is not hiding in it's shell because it is afraid of us, it has other, loftier reasons for hiding out.

What I am suggesting is that the universe transforms itself according to the actions of each individual observer. If the observer plays the game of observation correctly the rolly polly comes out of it's shell and the ultimate sentient nature of the universe is revealed to the observer...

The spirit reveals itself and proves itself to a person in such a way that leaves no doubt of it's realness. By the same token it does it in just such a way that the person could never prove the realness to another. This way everyone has to experience the spirit world first hand and no one can ever just know that it exists without experiencing it themselves..

I believe in angels, demons, plant spirits and ghosts exist the way that I believe I need air to survive. I am the type of person that only believes in what can be seen, it's just that I happen to subscribe to the theory that perception is a pliable function.

I personally think that words like belief and faith are just there for people who have not had a satisfactory mystical experience themselves.

Personally I don't see how anyone could ever claim to know for 100% sure that their perceptions do not deceive them in some way....to be convinced of the absoluteness of ones perceptual ability as far as either hyperspace or day to day sober reality goes, is surely some form of delusion IMHO

also, there is a lot of really discusting ego talk going on in this thread. You know who you are. Take a look in the mirror maybe before you bring it here. It ruins it for everyone else.

damn, this is too much for me.

I answer from what I'm learning in my life.

Is it hard to believe that other people may have understood something that you didnt? Is that is all about?

One year ago, indeed, I didnt knew that being a loving person allow me to go even deeper in who I am, to become alive, ect. Someone would have told me, dude just love, I would have said its not true. If you had ask me three year ago that life is meaningful, and that life is not useless, I would have disagree. I have LEARN that life is meaningful, that there is a meaning, but I had to learn it.

ok, so how could you determine if coral is conscious?

to me, the definition of conscious is awareness of self and others.

Citta and benzyme (and burnt) really gave me a headache when they claimed that they in fact HAD had these deep spiritual experiences, they just drew entirely different conclusions from them than the rest of us (deranged space hippies). I simply could not imagine - and still cannot - how can one come to any other conclusion when even the mental apparatus which one uses to draw those f*cking conclusions is explained away by a meta-level which apparently uses said apparatus to manifest itself.

I have this secret hope that one day they will follow in the footsteps of bancopuma and find out what we mean by truly spiritual - or in gibran2's words: reality-confirming - experiences.

I originally had difficulty with this too so I understand how incredulous it seems, but I keep bringing it back to how this is entirely subjective. We don't need to prove our subjective experiences and try to convince others who draw a different interpretation. Anyone who asks for proof is missing the point that proof is not needed to validate a subjective thing.

Entering into dialogue about it in a mature manner is great, however when things start going south and ego starts creeping in and it becomes about defending one position over another, this just leads to headaches and gets us nowhere.

Haha, hope that headache of yours ain't that bad!

We're scientists cellux, we're trained to question and be critical, we're trained to require or go look for evidence beyond our mere personal experiences, no matter how profound they are. They just don't cut it, and we just don't readily believe something just because we want to.

Let me draw an analogy to dreams; when you dream at night most of the times you have no idea that you are dreaming. This dream is evidently real, you think it's real. The people in it, the places, the events - they are all really happening. But when you wake up you suddenly realize that it was just a dream, and thus the content of the experience wasn't so real after all. I can only talk for myself, but I have had insane hallucinogenic trips before, and I took them at face value for several years. But then slowly I started questioning them. Slowly I learned more science, I started educating myself in science, and I became more critical. I read other plausible explanations. This is akin to you dreaming and taking it at face value, whereas upon waking up you probably start having doubts as to the reality of the content of that dream. Well, I started "waking" up from my mystical worldview and started having doubts after a few years.

We're just more skeptical than a lot of folks here I guess, and realize personal experiences are not cut to draw definite conclusions concerning deep questions about how reality works. As Richard Feynman once said "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool". This applies equally well to "reality-confirming" experiences, so we're just taking one step back to look at it from a distance so as to not fool ourselves into unfounded and unjustified beliefs on the basis of personal experiences (that can be the greatest of tricksters).