The Common Watcher

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I see the mind thinking as no more than the eye seeing or the heart beating; it has a function for the organism that if in giving a greater chance of survival lives on because of this advantage in the success of that life.

Everything you see in the room around you now is made up of the atoms described in the periodic table, a relatively small amount of atoms combined to give complex physicality to the metals plastics wood and glass and so on. The body of flesh and bone and blood is also chemically made up of the same atoms in this table of atoms. The atoms in the table are no different from one another also but merely have greater or lesser numbers of electrons.

If I stand back from this picture now armed with this knowledge that everything is just a collection of atoms and the atoms themselves only differ because of the amounts of electrons I see how in all our complexity we are just a collection of a common stuff.

So a mind is born lives for a time then dies, it is just a collection of atoms, but if one atom is no different than any other, then one mind is made of the stuff all minds are made of. The mind starts like a movie at birth and plays out its individual evolutionary tale till it dies, but if the stuff all minds are made of is all the same the individual watchers are also all the same.

I can see that every life is like a individual movie and that every movie has a watcher, a watcher that is the same as every other watcher.

This would mean there is only one watcher of all minds but this is not saying that there is a single mind just in one place somewhere but rather that there is a single mind in every one of us being watched by the same watcher.

When you are born it is just another mind to watch and when you die it is just one less mind being watched by you.

2

So when you say the mind, are you referring to self-consciousness? In the sense that what we see and feel is created by our mind?

3

What we see and feel is already there, the senses of our mind that evolution have provided see and feel what is there to see and feel, i don’t see how a mind would create anything to see or feel except in a delusional mind.

4

The mind of a plant is just a set of instructions, not requiring a brain to make complex decisions, evolution chose those instructions and they survived because they hungered for more life, turning the leaf toward the sun and the root toward water and nutrients.

Our human brain is just an advanced version, a combination of common atoms constructing DNA instructions, but in humans with the ability of abstract thought.

I was not born an identity with a name, but just born a human and learnt my name and developed my personality. It is not that hard for me to see that I was born as every life and learnt what that life, with its DNA instructions, allowed me to know and learn.

For human to human relationships, if this were true, means a peace for humanity never know before, it would mean we would believe that doing to others is actually doing to yourself.

In this time people are trying to create wealth and happiness for themselves and so they should, but this is done with the thought of them and their families foremost and others can fall by the wayside without care in this endeavor. If what I say is true then it is on a much more personal level than ever imagined and those who get hurt in another’s unnecessary quest for wealth and happiness is nothing less than self abuse.

5

If the mind itself were really just a collection of atoms, that would solve a lot of mysteries for a lot of people. Science could measure the mind, and reach conclusions that have been wanting. We could work out just how the brain and the mind interact. But none of this has obtained. Why? If the mind is made up of atoms, then science ought to have detected them. Perhaps you don’t mean this so literally?

6

The mind is the process of the brain just as sight is a process of the eye, the physical thing producing the phenomenon. The brain has the phenomenon of thought, a complex form of a set of instructions bound in some ways but not in others in decision in their DNA makeup.

If you think of the first set of instructions that would eventually develop into a brain they would be a simple on or off that somehow was advantageous to the specific organism. I believe in evolution and see how this decision to be either on or off is the prelude to the decision of whether I have cereal or toast for breakfast for example.

I don’t understand what it is that you want to measure, or precisely what mysteries you want to solve. Thought comes from the brain, sight comes from the eye, and they are made from DNA which is made from atoms put together through evolutionary processes. The interaction between mind and the brain is decisions now not just between on or off but between thousands of choices all with their own consequences.

An atom can become another atom by losing or gaining electrons but it can also share electrons and create other substances like water for instance H20. So one atom is every other atom just add, subtract or share electrons.

Mind/thought is just choosing either on or off, or in a human mind choosing between the thousands of different choices and their consequences. Lets look at breakfast for instance, I chose corn flakes but thought of bacon and eggs but it was just to much trouble, I chose the ceramic bowl over the plastic one and the desert spoon over the tea spoon, full cream over skim and I decided last week to cut down on sugar… An ant may decide to go through or around an obstacal but an ants decision process is highly controled by its genes. The mind of an ant is far more complex than on or off, but many decisions are already made.

7

Of course, the eye seeing and the heart beating could similarly be seen as ‘processes’ of the brain. If you remove my brain, my heart stops beating, I can’t see.
Similarly, can I ‘see’ without my mind? What is sight? Sight is not just an eye pointing towards something, it is the information gleamed being processed in the mind. So, without a mind, do I really see, or does my eye just point?

8

The eye is the camera, the heart is the pump, the brain does not see light or pump blood, but these organs do. The brain decides what is advantageous to the organism in question. To pump the blood faster or slower, or to avoid an obstacle for instance. The brain is the mind in so far as it is every set of genetic built instructions deciding what course to take, a plant telling it to turn its leaves toward light, this is the plants mind but things get more complicated in organisms that move around and decisions need to be processed a lot quicker such as in a brain.

The point here is a human brain is an organically created set of instructions allowing for decisions. The genetic code is made of atoms which at the quantum level exist as one another. So the mind is made of this one thing, it exists as one thing because there is only one thing that all matter in the universe is made from.

Thought experiment-
Say you gave birth in the same manner as a bacterium, after you split in two which one is you? After you split there are two separate beings both claiming to be you, they would both be right but they would still be as separate as you or me. We each have our own individual, decision making brain, but can claim the same person/mind is the watcher.

9

What I believe you’re suggesting, -i-, is that we are deterministic, even though there may be a non-deterministic observer. The particles all exist in their set of instructions, and the observer may exist in another reality which is not quite so rigid. There’s little in science that could say you’re wrong. BUT Nassim Haramein’s Grand Unified Theory suggests that cells are the event horizon of our universe. That is to say- they oscillate at a peak as compared to any other object in the universe, or they can allow for peak potential, energy, information, etc. If biologists identify cells as the “building blocks of life” and particle physicists identify them as the event horizon of the universe (the things that “see” the most of the universe) maybe, just maybe, this theory can become evidence that our choices are non-deterministic. That our brain cells conceive choices from a greater concsiousness, capable of making changes that simple particles interaction wouldn’t allow.

It has already been proven that particles can become “entangled” as in they’re aware of one another’s behaviour when the distance between them seems irrelevant and the mechanism entangling them is unknown.

Bear in mind that science is cluttered with scientists whom are later proven wrong, and that there are a lot of quacks out there. But I find myself believing that how we interact on the planet has a more cosmic effect than we may like to be held responsable for. If theorists such as Nassim were wrong, and we truly are a rather meaningless speck on the planet, then there is little cost for us to have wrongly chosen a moral stance. (We didn’t behave as nihilists, even though we were trapped in a deterministic universe anyway, which dictated us to behave that way. So it doesn’t matter). But if we choose to assume that we don’t have such a responsability and treat life as our simple plaything . . . it’ll hurt much more to be proven wrong.

10

It would appear that we are looking for an external link, the thing that reaches out through space like a radio wave. What I am suggesting is there is no external link at all, but that the link is internal to every particle, there because particles are one another at the most basic level. One particle existing as every particle, so that regardless of separation what is done to one particle is done to all. Individual particles like an individual’s brain, but with a common watcher. Gravity existing because the natural state of all particles is to be one.

Here is some information on the graviton from the net-

Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity

At present, one of the deepest problems in theoretical physics is harmonizing the theory of general relativity, which describes gravitation, and applies to large-scale structures (stars, planets, galaxies), with quantum mechanics, which describes the other three fundamental forces acting on the atomic scale. This problem must be put in the proper context, however. In particular, contrary to the popular but erroneous claim that quantum mechanics and general relativity are fundamentally incompatible, one can in fact demonstrate that the structure of general relativity essentially follows inevitably from the quantum mechanics of interacting theoretical spin-2 massless particles (called gravitons). While there is no concrete proof of the existence of gravitons, all quantized theories of matter necessitate their existence. Supporting this theory is the observation that all other fundamental forces have one or more messenger particle, except gravity, leading researchers to believe that at least one most likely does exist, which they have named, the graviton.

As I have underlined, it is understood there must be a link, it is just that I have looked in a different direction to the external link.

11

All minds are composed of atoms.
All atoms are the same.
All minds are composed of the same thing. (Or more controversially, all minds are the same)

All minds have the same watcher.

This seems to be your argument in the OP.

P1 - Very disputed, but I would agree as an emergentist. I’m sure your conclusion will be attacked on this premise, though. Seems most (maybe not here, but in general) are dualists.

P2 - Sort of.

Does this not make them different? Further, two identical atoms occupy different spatial locations, verifying them as different objects.

P3 - This premise/conclusion logically follows, but a few things stick out as problems to me.

Different compositions of atoms yield vastly different things. Could we say that becuase metals and the mind have a common structural unit, they are the same? All minds have different composition. It is unlikely that two minds share the same number and configuration of atoms.

C - To me, this came out of left field. On first thought, why are all ‘watchers’ the same just because they share a similar composition?

Are apples and oranges the same?

Where can you see this? I believe that I am no watcher, but a pondering, decision-making agent. I have doubts at times, and this ability may be illusion, but I don’t believe it.Even if I were just a watcher of my own existence, I must maintain that I am a self-contained, unique watcher.

Who is this same watcher? God? From a physicalist?

B

12

An atom consists of a dense nucleus of positively-charged protons and electrically-neutral neutrons, surrounded by a much larger electron cloud consisting of negatively-charged electrons. The parts of an atom don’t differ at all, the number and combination of the parts is what makes up the elements.

No.

Electrons can be said to be mass less, so they could occupy the same spatial space.

Individual combinations of atoms make up all diversity in the universe, but they are all combinations of a common fundamental particle that can be said to be mass less and occupy the same space. If evolution produces a mind from this fundamental particle then mind is just another thing this fundamental particle can become. If the perspective is to look at mind first, then mind is everything including metals. If the perspective is to look at metals first, then metal is everything including mind.

Combinations are not the same so there are individuals, the question is does mind come from the combination (the individual brain) or the fundamental (the common watcher). If there is only the one fundamental particle making up everything then it would stand there is only one watcher.

13

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14

I know. But, just because the parts don’t differ doesn’t mean that all atoms are the same.
Atom is a word with a definition (described above). Anything that falls within the defition can be considered an atom, but it does not mean that anything that falls within the defintion is the same.

Sure, they can be said to be have no mass, but that would be wrong. Just because we cannot determine where the mass is, doesn’t mean that it doesnt have mass. An electron weighs around 9.109534 x 10^{-31} kg.

Once again, sure, if you through down the false premise that electrons have no mass.

Are you now trying to say that atoms have no mass? That all atoms occupy the same space? Or are you saying that the common fundamental particle is an electron that has no mass?

Agreed.

I don’t understand this. Could you expand/clarify?

To me, it seems that the mind comes from the combination of the fundamental. I also would not call the fundamental “the common watcher”. Defining it as such goes to say that the fundamental has the property of being able to watch.

Do you mean that if there is only one fundamental particle making up everythning then it would stand that there is only one fundamental particle making up everything?

B

15

Are you sure, and if these parts turn out to be just a single fundamental. Once there was a time we could not believe that a human could be made of just one thing as in atoms. Well just this alone suggests the parts of the atom itself may be able to be broken down to just one thing.

Again are you sure, electrons do have mass but electrons can turn into photons and back again without loss of any electrons in the filament of a light bulb.

The mind exists in the individual organism, if there are no organisms making decisions between conflicting genetic instructions, then there is no mind. In the example “metals are everything” means you could pick anything in the universe and in perspective say it is everything and be right.

Well if the correct perspective is to say that the fundamental is everything then when this fundamental forms into a combination that is self aware, as in a human brain, it is still the fundamental that “owns” -for want of a better word- the self in self aware.

Simply put, if the fundamental is everything, then it is the mind and the mind is the watcher.

When i think, i refer to my mind as i, all the reasoning of my brain is in reference to my i, the i is the reference, the fundamental, the watcher.
Reference is the most important thing in the universe but in the universe who is to say that their reference is superior to any other reference.
The purpose of the watcher is not to think for the individual, but rather to give individual thought a reference, an i. The watcher is at the same time in one place and everywhere. i.e it is one reference and it is every reference.

16

Nope. Not sure. But… different atoms seem to have different properties. I agree that we will likely be able to break down the atom (as we already have), but I don’t know if we can find the fundemental particle, if it exists. I don’t know that we understand the physics behind this, even. Does it get broken down into the infinitely small? I don’t really know. I was just objecting to the statement that all atoms are the same. The last sentence suggests that you are not really sure, either.

Again, not sure. I think, however, that photons also have mass. Why? Because a black hole can suck in light. And a black hole couldn’t suck in something that didn’t have mass. I can’t really say that the relationship you described shows that an electron can turn into something without mass and then back into something with mass.

I don’t know that I can agree that the fundamental is everything. At least not yet. What is this fundamental? How is it ‘everything’? Given that it even exists, I think that there would be distinct fundamental particles, even if they have the same properties. This theory does not make sense to me because it is so beyond my perception. I could just be unaware of this watcher, though.

I’m not saying anything of the sort. I’m just saying that I have a distinct, self-contained reference. Or so I think.

17

I’m not sure, if i was i could provide proof, this is simply putting foward a case and saying why i think it may be possible.

Thats right, but now hydrogen for instance is still more fundamentaly made of quarks and leptons, not atoms of hydrogen. Which means helium for instance is also made of quarks and leptons, the same thing hydrogen is made of.

There are six different types of quark, usually known as flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. The up and down varieties survive in profusion, and are distinguished by (among other things) their electric charge.
Quarks are the only fundamental particles that interact through all four of the fundamental forces.
It has yet to be discovered if at all that this will lead to a single fundamental but it certianly is heading in that direction.

Electrons can become massless photons, massless quarks and leptons can become the mass of protons and neutrons, so why shouldn’t these particles that both possess the ability to be mass and massless be pulled into black holes. Maybe in their massless state they arn’t or maybe it is just that they are all converted to mass before being drawn in.

As for infinitely small i don’t think you get smaller than massless. But the fundamental form of the massless may be more to the point.

I could suggest a merge of the four fundamental forces into one fundamental force that is the building block for the massless particles, which are the building blocks for mass particles, which are the building blocks for all matter.

I never thought for a second i was providing proof.

I was not saying you think the reference that is you is superior, just that no reference is superior to any other.

18

I agree. People are dumb like pack animals. They operate on complusion and subconcious determinism, as mentioned by evolutionary theory.

I think girls are shallower, even though they have a bigger braing gap and can multitask like crazy and think about stuff.

Guys are narrowminded, but whatever one or two things they concentrate on, they do it hardcore and intense like, slower and careful.

19

An ant acts a certain way because of the genetic code instructing it to do so. All ants in a colony obey this instruction because that is what has made them a success in life, they know this, and it is genetic knowledge. 90% or more of their behavior is controlled by this subconscious knowledge. Following genetically coded knowledge is called acting instinctively.

Humans can control their environment a lot better than insects so we use our conscious free thinking mind to adjust more of our behavior, but this is in no way complete and we still behave subconsciously at certain levels. We call this subconscious thought acting instinctively, which is just a genetic code we obey just like the ant.

When it is asked what is mind then in essence it is just the fundamental particles that have combined in an organism to give subconscious instructions to all individuals. Conscious mind is the individual free thinking their behavior.

20

so has the mind stopped evolving? [-X