I would imagine that consciousness does exist before birth and that is not just a state of nothing, but just of a different nature to the one we are familiar with. Even early childhood memories are blurry and remembered differently by some. I have discussed earliest memories with a lot of the and find that the degree that people memorize varies so much.

Perhaps part of the issue relates to how memory is formulated and the nature of mental images prior to language. I hope you don't think that I am drifting away from the topic you raised. The point I would make is that it all depends how sensory memory arises in consciousness prior to birth and, in some ways, it is like the issue of consciousness after death in reverse, although in the latter case there is a whole life history of language and mental representations. That is not to say that clinical death is not more absolute as an end, but, of course, dying is complex too, with the whole process of rigour mortis. Perhaps both rigour mortis and in utero experience are beyond nothingness.

I would imagine that consciousness does exist before birth and that is not just a state of nothing, but just of a different nature to the one we are familiar with. — Jack Cummins

:up: :up:

One of the most remarkable traits of consciousness is that it actively self-perpetuates, creating artefacts housing information, which information transcends the limits of its medium of storage and transmission. Even at a purely mechanical level DNA does this. If this transcendence of physical media is manifest to us after a few paltry million years of evolution, who is to say what are the limits of the evolution of consciousness in the context of billions of years? Perhaps billions of iterations of universe-lifetimes?

What's the difference between:

1. Not remembering anything? And 2. Remembering nothing? — TheMadFool

Have you fallen into the memory hole? A trap for the unwary not remembering that words can be tricky and even not mean at all what their usage implies they mean. "Memory," the word, is suggestive of things no longer present. But there is no such thing as the presence of anything no longer present. Remembering is altogether a current activity and the things "remembered" themselves only current creations.

Given, then, there is something called the past, it is convenient and reasonable to talk about remembering it in the sense of recalling it to present and even making some appeal to it as authority. But it is all a convenient fiction. Or, one might say that in memory itself by itself there is not only no truth - zero truth - but also not even the possibility of truth.

your question pertains to whether consciousness exists before birth. I don't see how you want to use memory as a basis for it. There are many things we don't remember, does that mean our consciousness wasn't available to us at the time? There were times we were completely in the moment but whose details we cannot recollect years later. I don't think that's consciousness to blame but memory itself. So when consciousness kicks in may have nothing to do with memory, as that is a function of the brain and its development in the womb. Just because the first memory was created in, say month 7, that doesn't mean that's exactly when consciousness entered the baby. The very fact that the baby turns or kicks, is proof of consciousness.