At what point do we gain consciousness?

OMARS_COMING_

Think about it. As a foetus you would have to at some point gain consciousness. There was a time where a nanosecond before you didn't have it, it would have been like a light switch.


I think the American goverment know the answer to this but they wont let it out lol

Biggins

O great, another possible abortion thread in all but name?
If not, it I suspect, will head that way.

Reoil

Think of it along the lines of - "At what point does the pizza become cooked?".

Nodin

OMARS_COMING_ wrote: »

At what point do we gain consciousness?

...about 10 hours after the last drink.

blatantrereg

I have a funny feeling this will turn into a right to life thread.

summerskin

Tuesday

MagicSean

At what size is it a legth of rope instead of a piece of string?

FatherLen

well when i wake up every morning, i wouldn't consider myself to be "conscious" for another ten to fifteen minutes.

Stercus Accidit

Reoil wrote: »

Think of it along the lines of - "At what point does the pizza become cooked?".

Good analogy.

Nodin

MagicSean wrote: »

At what size is it a legth of rope instead of a piece of string?

That would be an ecumenical matter.

Hande hoche!

fifty seven years.

figarofigaro

Biggins wrote: »

O great, another possible abortion thread in all but name?
If not, it I suspect, will head that way.

Maybe you wouldn't get so fed up seeing the same topics discussed on After Hours if you had a life outside of Boards.

Biggins

FatherLen wrote: »

well when i wake up every morning, i wouldn't consider myself to be "conscious" for another ten to fifteen minutes.

I read once that there is a tribe in Africa that upon waking, can be up and running literally, in 15 to 20 seconds.
Honestly.
It, from what I can remember of what I read, had something to do with their ability to go on long treks while hunting, catch some sleep during the quiet periods - but should something come along, they could be ready near instantly had they been asleep.
They apparently trained their bodies to do this.

If I find anything online about this ability, I will post a link at some stage.

figarofigaro wrote: »

Maybe you wouldn't get so fed up seeing the same topics discussed on After Hours if you had a life outside of Boards.

LOL
Trust me, when you have four young energetic, non sleeping devil of kids, your lucky to have a life!
(But I have no regrets about their presence in my life)

foxyboxer

I'd say the point at which you become self aware.

Human infants are still developing after birth.

Consider other mammals, for example a horse, where the foal is walking around after a few hours whereas it takes an infant well over a year.

nozzferrahhtoo

OMARS_COMING_ wrote: »

As a foetus you would have to at some point gain consciousness. There was a time where a nanosecond before you didn't have it, it would have been like a light switch.

Probably not, it could just as likely be a very slow process with incremental "levels" of consciousness involved. It quite likely also continues after birth in that incremental fashion. Establishing a moment where consciousness suddenly turns on is almost undoable. If it were then it would likely end much of the abortion debate instantly for example.

One can certainly identify times when it is absent however. Easier to do. For example this is an interesting excerpt from a paper I once read on fetal development:

"intermittent electroencephalographic bursts in both cerebral hemispheres are first seen at 20 weeks gestation; they become sustained at 22 weeks and bilaterally synchronous at 26 to 27 weeks.

So certainly there is little reason to expect anything like consciousness before 27 weeks.

Pace2008

Biggins wrote: »

I read once that there is a tribe in Africa that upon waking, can be up and running literally, in 15 to 20 seconds.
Honestly.
It, from what I can remember of what I read, had something to do with their ability to go on long treks while hunting, catch some sleep during the quiet periods - but should something come along, they could be ready near instantly had they been asleep.
They apparently trained their bodies to do this.

If I find anything online about this ability, I will post a link at some stage.

That wouldn't really make any sense from an evolutionary point of view. You can't pass on traits that you acquire in life; that would be a view called Lamarckian evolution which has long since been discredited. What would happen is that individuals who have a natural mutation that allows them to wake up fully alert would be more likely to survive in that particular environment would be more likely to survive and pass on their genes, leading to a higher prevalence of this ability in the tribe.

Unless you mean they're conditioned to do it from a young age.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Probably not, it could just as likely be a very slow process with incremental "levels" of consciousness involved. It quite likely also continues after birth in that incremental fashion. Establishing a moment where consciousness suddenly turns on is almost undoable. If it were then it would likely end much of the abortion debate instantly for example.

I don't think it would change anything. You and I might consider consciousness, or the neurological structures that form the framework for consciousness, as the part of a human that is valuable but pro-lifers claim it is what they consider potential for human life that should be preserved. I don't think anyone would claim a zygote has anything that resembles consciousness but many people would consider its termination as murder.

Biggins

Pace2008 wrote: »

...Unless you mean they're conditioned to do it from a young age.

Aye, that.
Its been few years since I read the article and I didn't really take much notice of the finer details at the time. I was just browsing thru a mag at the time, but I grasped that they had taught themselves to do this ability.
Thought it was (if true), an amazing feat.

Duggy747

I'm still waiting to gain my consciousness.

Fùckers at the revenue office are taking an age to process it through for me. :mad:

nozzferrahhtoo

Pace2008 wrote: »

I don't think it would change anything.

I do not think it would change everything, but I think it would change a lot as consciousness does end up being a big part of such debates. However as one of the posters said in an early post on the thread, there is no use dragging this into another abortion discussion. I only referred to the abortion as a side example to show that if it were as simple as identifying a single on/off point in development that our discourse on many subjects, including abortion, would likely be massively altered by that.

The main point I would focus on from my post in this thread is that I doubt the OP has it right thinking of consciousness as a flick of a light switch. It would appear to be more of an incremental based development and what I have read on the subject would suggest the development by no means finishes before birth either.

OMARS_COMING_

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I do not think it would change everything, but I think it would change a lot as consciousness does end up being a big part of such debates. However as one of the posters said in an early post on the thread, there is no use dragging this into another abortion discussion. I only referred to the abortion as a side example to show that if it were as simple as identifying a single on/off point in development that our discourse on many subjects, including abortion, would likely be massively altered by that.

The main point I would focus on from my post in this thread is that I doubt the OP has it right thinking of consciousness as a flick of a light switch. It would appear to be more of an incremental based development and what I have read on the subject would suggest the development by no means finishes before birth either.

Well yeah,im not trying to say its like a switch being turned on,but im just thinking that when we die it comes to an end presumably so where does it start,i think its a question the scientists should try to figure out thats what there paid for right?

Corcaigh84

Biggins wrote: »

(But I have no regrets about their presence in my life)

I know you're dead serious but the way I read it I bust myself laughing for some reason

nozzferrahhtoo

OMARS_COMING_ wrote: »

i think its a question the scientists should try to figure out thats what there paid for right?

It is a question they are indeed working on. Human Consciousness is one of the bigger areas of unanswered questions our species has at the moment but that does not mean it is not being worked on. Massive amounts of work are being done on it. If you are bored some time you could do much worse than listen to one of the 1 or 2 hour talks by VS Ramachandran on You Tube to show the kinds of work that are being done on the human brain, consciousness and subjective human experience.

sbsquarepants

OMARS_COMING_ wrote: »

Think about it. As a foetus you would have to at some point gain consciousness. There was a time where a nanosecond before you didn't have it, it would have been like a light switch.


I think the American goverment know the answer to this but they wont let it out lol

I've just been reading your other thread about swamping back a bottle of vodka, it would be a few hours after that before you'd gain consciousness i reckon!