Nonsense. Yes or no, m8? People can and frequently, all too frequently too irrational and are doing things directly against their own best interest, hence the "consciousness" issue is... what exactly?!?
Indeed, as some very clever people found: one can't get anything out of a properly conducted experiment, other than what they put in...
Why do you want to hear an answer? Important is your own. The 'consciousness' issue is unawareness. Most people are not awake and due to unawareness they repeat their old mental patterns almost like a robot. To those belog most scientists and western Philosophers too. If they were really 'conscious' they would take an influence on human evolution of mind and a change would be noticeable already. In fact such conscious people are the unpopular 'nobodies'. Doing their own little things for the benefits of all (nature). The good thing is they get more and more. The German word for it Bewusstsein is self descriptive. An aware being. The individual consciousness is an image of it. It relies on an idea of an individual identification. This idea is flawed and hence most people are doing things 'against the nature' but conform to their interest. Neither science nor western philosophy (at least as I know about) has a 'concept' of a timeless and hence infinite and eternal 'subject' which is not different to one's true nature. A being that has the burden of a temporary life cannot develop over a certain amount. The objections about sense of life will always be an issue. There is always a slight fear of loss in the background which is paralyzing. To try to avoid the unavoidable and feeding illusions are the issues and lead to unaware repeating of old patterns.
Hmmm - aware, conscious, alive but brain-dead, aroused but no erection... dunno, it all smells fishy to me...
Schrödinger (my best translation from his original German statements): And exactly that 'New Physics' has done. Not only the S/O dualism, particle and wave, with Einstein's 'help' time and space, energy and matter, yes even space and matter. I personally called the including and transcending 'instance' consciousness as whole. Niels Bohr said that it works like that the opposite of a wrong statement is a right statement, but the opposite of a deep truth is also a deep truth. The Reality has no wrong or right dualisms. The outcome of a properly conducted experiment depends on the experimenter. Better said on the quality of observations. On the state of awareness while doing it. It's not a matter of 'the experiment' it is a matter of perception. Novum comes from the Now. If there is no awareness of the Now then one only gets back what one has put in. Yeah well..fishy. It's OK. The freedom of personal interpretations; depends on many factors as mentioned correctly. Just a pure rational consideration: If there would be 'knowledge' which would be able to change humans to a natural living, real living, how would it have to be? Intellectually on a high level (famous Philosophers, scientists whatever) so that only a very few people could realize it? Or rather fishy at first sight to most of us? Since it are IMHO a few 'unremarkable' people who are doing own changes it depends not on intellectual skills, but on self-awareness. This does not exclude people with self-awareness AND intellectually high skills, though. It seems intellectual skills alone are not suitable to 'teach' proper self awareness. What can do that are 'the moments'...better said this moment, because only this moment is.
Actually, as Kant figured it out, phenomena we encounter (facts) may not be in dispute but the way we order/interlink them (our thinking behind it all) is the real difference. And here we have to speak of the Subject, of course...
Heheehehee!!!! Me interested in that? The "science" of... what?!? (Good start as a sit-down comedian, m8! ) =========================================================== ON THE OFF CHANCE YOU ARE SERIOUS WITH THIS LARF... Well, you obviously aren't (yet) an agnostic. I would even venture so far as to claim you have not even met a true agnostic yet, let alone... Had you done that, the impact would have been such you wouldn't have been able to post this...
I think the findings of Kant here (and I agree with them) are reasoned by the fact that we relate them to our personal idea of human being and the fact that we need to objectify them to get a 'thing' that can be matter of thoughts at all. We can only think about related objects, when personally determined they lose the 'freedom' to mean something else. From there a dispute is not far away. Anyway firstly are phenomena as they are. And that is actually the real meaning of 'natural'. Humankind has moved to an imbalance at perception. There is Sein (Being) and Werden (becoming). Our focus is at becoming. We are identified with objects and gain our self-awareness from them while ignoring Sein. Sein is far more important than Werden. Only from a natural awareness that is reasoned in being there is a natural 'becoming'. We perceive our-self as a separated object on earth. Separated from the other beings and separated from nature. Many of us have the feeling there is still something missing until a 'real' satisfying life can start. I have to do this and that and after I have done that it can start. But that will never happen. We are taking objects as a replacement for 'being'. The more I have got the more I am. Reincarnation has a meaning in Tibetan history. The way they find the new Dalai Lama is impressively documented in the movie Kundun. I think we have to differentiate reincarnation and the interconnection of reincarnated entities which appear as memories (memories as details of life of a previous existence) from an incarnated being. (And used as evidence). For me personally reincarnation is not different to the process of becoming. This process happens every Now. When you are sleeping and you start to dream you 'become' your dream identity. When you are in deep-sleep you rest 'there' from where you become again and finally when you wake up you become again your 'awake' identity. ONLY at a retrospective you can say 'you' have lain in your bed and have slept. The moment when you have dreamed your 'wake' identity has not existed for yourself. It has not become! When I talk this way people are mostly laughing. But when thinking about there is no argument against it. When you die you 'take' your identity and the world outside with you. From the perceptive of an other observer your appearance vanishes from 'their' world. You return to there where you came from. And from there new 'appearances' become. When you die your past relative awake identity does not become anymore. From the perspective of an observer outside there has been somebody who has died. There are 2 possibilities now. Either 'you' become again or you 'remain' there 'forever'. There is no world which is independently existent without an 'subject'. Such worlds are always objects of thoughts, but never a present perception. If there is interconnection which appears as memories from different incarnations I do not know. But the interconnection is reasoned in the including and transcending consciousness as whole. There is no time and no space and no matter yet since all those have to become first, too. At meditation one can clearly perceive the process of becoming from the perspective of the not yet determined relations. A description of this process always ends in a distorted retrospective, though. Shot in my foot again.
Sure you have! Yen, seriously: you do not understand neither the meaning nor the systemic place of werden, sorry... Read Hegel and change your mind. Literally. EDIT: In fact, the opposite of what you said is the truth, when it comes to "Being" and "becoming".
There fixed it for you A philosopher taking about facts is like a politician talking the truth! We both know it won't happen.
@Yen: Many spiritual belief systems teach about the possibility of reincarnation. It is the basis of Christianity ("Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.") The Kabbalah teaches us that we must strive to leave Malkut (The world, or the Kingdom) behind. Other belief systems teach us that we must rid ourselves of the need (desire) for all worldly desires and all worldly possessions. And most do not speak of reincarnation as a good thing. It is something to be avoided, as it implies karmic debt, or issues that are not closed. Is it many paths leading to a universal truth? Or, is that how we want it to be? An interesting thought exercise.
Christ will not return as something re-incarnated, except for and only of.... himself. He left, he is to return as he left. Biblically speaking they say he left on the Mount of Olives and will return on that same place
@Joe C: Do any of us return as something 'Reincarnated'? Are we even aware of such a fact? And should we be aware of it? Is it something that we should strive to know? I don't claim to know G_D's plan; I only live it each day... As far as 'Biblically' speaking goes, Things are not what they seem. https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/jesus-vs-yeshua/ Not to mention the reasons why He came, the principal one of which was to admonish the Oral Torah. (Written Torah= Original 5 books of Moses; Oral Torah= things added by Rabbis.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Torah Please understand that I don't want this to grow into a religious debate. I do feel that spiritual belief systems have a place in this conversation, as they do tend to affect how others see (and ultimately misinterpret) reality.
Jo, when Hegel spoke in public lectures, there wasn't ever enough space for all to attend, so people were hanging from windows, quite literally, everybody who was somebody, they all wanted a piece of the man's wisdom - whilst the gov of the day sent old Schelling to try to "destroy the seeds of revolution"... Soooooo... you may wanna inform yourself properly first, and then think things through before you write... MJ, quite so, not a B/W issue in sight, in this debate... especially with the issues you rightly bring to the fore!!!
What about Heidegger? I actually addressed Seinsvegessenheit (oblivion of being) which is AFAIK a matter at Heidegger...Sein is only when living out life. AFAIK Heidegger tried to approach Sein from where we always are already. Sein per se so to say. Well I used Sein and Werden as a native German speaker, this is my qualification so to say, lol...to give a personal experience and consideration the best 'name'. I guess 99.99% of the readers do not know Hegel's systemic place of both and when consulting other Philosoper's works during history one is even more confused about both meanings. Yes I know. Many spiritual belief systems teach about the possibility of reincarnation. But the most methodical approach is found at Tibetan culture. I don’t know but is there another culture where people try to find the reincarnated person of a spiritual head? The process is asking the one by using fake and original items of the deceased head...also asking about details of life. Universal truth as a concept of 'one' that includes and transcends any dualisms..would even mean any path leads to it. One could not even say 'is leading' since there is no time yet. Also it has no location and no second that could be different. You would still have 'missed' it if there is a dualism left.