If the consciousness is not objective and cannot be weighed does that mean the consciousness doesn't exist?

Question

"The issue of "consciousness"—what it is, how to define it, how to quantify and measure it in humans and other animals, and ultimately, how to find the activity in the brain that corresponds to it—has received more attention in recent years. The topic is highly controversial, and currently, there's no consensus among neuroscientists even on such basic things as what the definition should be (for example, does consciousness involve self-awareness, the ability to imagine the future, both, or neither?), let alone whether the few studies that exist have successfully shown a neural correlate of consciousness. It's also important to note that many neuroscientists don't think the topic is a valid one for neuroscience, that is, that "consciousness" is not a quantifiable, clearly defined entity that scientists can measure, but instead is a poorly defined concept used in other fields and areas, such that "consciousness" doesn't necessarily correspond to a particular neural function."

source:
http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientist/highlight.pl?kw=&file=answers%2Fneuroscience%2Fans_003.html

Punch and wings your comments could be said about the existence of souls as well which is the point of this question

Hingy I read up on that experiment and there were no constants the results all differed

Answer 1

yes, it is quite similar to the soul, i agree - some may even say they are the same thing. everyone is sure they know what they mean and everyone apparently experiences *something* but no one can agree, certainly not rigorously enough to test it. quite possibly conciousness as it's currently understood just doesn't exist.

but there is a difference too - neuroscientists tend not to say that conciousness is immaterial or eternal before they even demonstrate that it exists or understand what it is.

Answer 2

The problem here is that you (and many people) use a single word ("consciousness") to refer to many different things. There are methods for investigating consciousness, and while our understanding of it is limited, it's far greater than it was fifty years ago. We also know a lot about what it *isn't*, in particular that it isn't the product of a ghost or soul.


To say that there have been few people tackling the problem is misleading. Off the top of my head, I can think of several people who have completely different approaches, including John Searle, Roger Penrose, Douglas Hofstadter, and Daniel Dennett. While they don't necessarily agree on much, they have made legitimate inroads into understanding it. See, just because neuroscientists aren't at the forefront yet doesn't mean that no one is doing anything. Philosophers and computer scientists have quite a bit to say based on their own investigations and on what the neuroscientists unearth.

Answer 3

see below for the problem of qualia, that's the essential issue at stake. I think the problem is not so much whether conciousness exists by the way, but if we can ever observe the conciousness of someone else. And it seems that we can't. So that means we can't ever actually know if other people have an inner experience as well, and even less can we tell what that experience is like. How do you experience red? Do you experience red in the same way I do?

edit: yeah, uhm, but I have no idea what you mean by soul if you don't mean conciousness.

Answer 4

It has been proven that when a person dies that person's weight decreases by about 4 oz. This was done by placing a consenting person on a table that was on a scale. This was done many years ago to prove the existence of a soul or the conscious.

Answer 5

It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It means, at this point, we cannot prove it exists. It's either an illusion or a reality, and we can't prove it either way. For now, it's just an unanswered question.

Answer 6

Neither here nor there. It simply means that the tools necessary to identify or measure it are not available or we are not aware of them.

Answer 7

Consciousness could be described in terms of holography.

http://soe.kean.edu/~afonarev/Physics/ExtraCredit_files/holographic-reviw-11.pdf

Answer 8

etThe fact that something can be weighted or not has no bearing on if it's real or not.
There are more test to prove that something exists then just weight.

Answer 9

Kind of like a two edged sword...how do you grasp it?

Answer 10

Please. I have a headache.