saying something is more complex is different to saying it is of greater worth.
— Banno

Curious then that murder charges apply only to the killing of humans. Although that may be an inadvertent illustration of the consequences of a flattened ontology. — Wayfarer

If it was because of complexity, I suspect there would be a chart on which all living things are placed in order if complexity, with different punishments for killing members of different levels.

I think, rather, what makes us unique is the reason the charge of murder applies uniquely to us.

Yes. The question of the significance of the difference(s) is likely the trickiest one of all.
— Ludwig V
How would that be judged?
— Patterner
Good question. One way is to assess the ethical implications of the differences we find. Another would be to examine and explore why people get so strongly committed. It would be at least helpful to know why people think it matters. But the difficult bit is that how one sees animals is very much a function of the relationships one has with them, so there isn't a purely objective basis for the judgement. There isn't a matter of fact that makes the difference - it's a question of how one chooses to interact with them. — Ludwig V

I think we're having different conversations. I'm talking about whether or not we have abilities that language-less species do not have, and, if so, whether or not language is responsibile for those abilities.

I think you are talking about how we use those abilities.

Which is to say that Cypher thinks that The Matrix is more real than the real world, no? If your measurement is experience, and Cypher thinks The Matrix provides the superior experience, then Cypher thinks The Matrix is more real. — Leontiskos

I disagree. I don't think Cypher thinks The Matrix is more real. I think he prefers it. I prefer chocolate cake to peas, but they are both real. I prefer chocolate cake to being slapped, but they are both real. Cypher prefers the pleasures that can be experienced in The Matrix to the misery of the constant struggle to survive and constantly being hunted in the physical world. The system you are in and the origin of the impulses that reach your brain are not as important as the experiences you have.

The experiences are equally real. To you.

By just as real, I mean that, although the impulses reaching the brain do not originate in physical objects, the experiences of them are just as real. Cypher certainly agrees with me. He knows there is no physical steak at the other end of the impulses hitting his brain. But the origin of the impulses isn't important. What's important is the experience. As you say, he actually prefers, and chooses, the experiences he gets from the impulses that simulate physical things to the experiences he gets from impulses originating in physical things.

99% of the Architect's test subjects also agree that the experience of the impulses is more important than their origin.

Picard lived decades of life inn a simulated environment in 23 minutes, and his experiences remained very important to him when he was out of the simulation.

Captain Pike chose the telepathically simulated life offered to him on Talos IV over the life his physical circumstances offered.

How many people play online games like Second Life and Sims, and would play them all the time if they could? How many people would pay such games if they were extreme VR, knowing they are entering a Matrix?

In all of these cases, the person faces options, makes choices, has values, has joy, has regrets, and everything else.

When I dream of something that's happened before while the dream is real it makes sense to me to say that it's less real than the event I experienced. And the memory of the event could likewise be thought of as less real. — Moliere

I don't know if there is a True, or Prime, reality. If there is, I don't know if the event is in that category. But if we take it as the starting point, then would the dream or memory of the event be True-1? Actually, the dream of the event wouldn't exist if there wasn't a memory of it. So the memory is True-1, and the dream is -2.

And would my memory of the dream of the event be True-3?

If I tell you of my dream about an event, is your thought of the event True-4? Or only True-2, because your thougt is more about the event itself, rather than about my memory or dream of the event? And your thought about my dream is another True-2?

I suspect my scale is not valid. I suspect things are equally real, although in different categories. A table and thought of a table might be equally real, but one physical and the other mental. I don't see the logic of saying mental things are not real, since mental things, like meaning and intention, are the reason humans have shaped the world to the degree we have. Difficult for me to think the Empire State Building, Mona Lisa, Bach's unaccompanied violin music, War and Peace, and the internet exist because of things that are not real.

The fact that they refuse a rewrite and Cypher desires it just shows that the experience of the one who takes a blue pill is different from the experience of the one who takes the red pill (even within the Matrix). And yet you seem to say that there is no difference. — Leontiskos

I really don't understand what you're saying. I'm saying those inside the Matrix are having real experiences, are facing real choices, and are making real decisions. Just because it's not the setting our species evolved in, and naturally lives in, doesn't mean they don't act in accordance with their values, fears, and desires, or that their choices don't have consequences.

Yes. The question of the significance of the difference(s) is likely the trickiest one of all. — Ludwig V

How would that be judged?

But Cypher is the only one who agrees with you. — Leontiskos

No. Nearly 99% off all test subjects accepted the program as long as they were given a choice. Even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level.

He wants to be rewritten to forget about the real world (and also his betrayal). — Leontiskos

He and I diverge at that point.

One must choose before they know the difference between the Matrix and the real world, and that is why Cypher needs his rewrite. — Leontiskos

The others don't need a rewrite. They go back and forth, themselves in either setting. And their decisions are real in either setting.

If you were a sadist in the Matrix, you wouldn't be a saint when you unplugged, or vice versa.
— Patterner

Maybe. The Matrix is a simulation, so it really depends on how accurate the simulation is. — Leontiskos

That's likely. I suspect human consciousness/mind is the way it is because of the environment inn which it came to be. Consciousness/mind that came to be in an entirely different environment would be entirely different. And I doubt consciousness/mind of one environment could go back-and-forth between entirely different environments, and remain the same. It possibly could not go back-and-forth at all.



Cypher, presumably, thought there was no possibility of surviving other than the path he chose. But he could not live with the guilt of that choice, so wanted to be rewritten. That's incomprehensible to me. Being rewritten, giving up your consciousness/mind/self, is as good as death. The last moments before being rewritten couldn't feel any different than the last moments before the blade of the guillotine hits. In my opinion, better to go out fighting. The last moments of consciousness would be of defiance, pride, and the love of your friends, rather than cowardice, guilt, and self-inflicted isolation.

Maybe these two things are not incompatible.

I don't contest the point that there are beliefs that we could not develop without language. — Ludwig V

And the behaviours that do not involve language demonstrate/express/manifest my belief just as effectively as the linguistic behaviours. — Ludwig V

Maybe we can't develop all beliefs without language. But, once developed, they can be expressed without language.

However, I think the fact that we can't develop all beliefs without language addresses this:

philosophers think that linguistic behaviour is, in some way that escapes me, something different from behaviour. I can't think why. — Ludwig V

Humans have a lot of beliefs that no other species has, and we wouldn't without language. That seems like a significant difference to me.

You're on the way... — Leontiskos

But I wouldn't want to be rewritten. Trinity, Neo, Morpheus, and all the rest were themselves whether in the Matrix or out.

I'm not sure I know how you mean it, or in how many ways. But I think living in the Matrix would be just as real as living in the real world. You are presented with any number of choices every day, ands you choose. Regardless of what system you exist within, you have your sense of right and wrong, likes and dislikes, desires and fears. If you were a sadist in the Matrix, you wouldn't be a saint when you unplugged, or vice versa.

I don’t see that your understanding contradicts mine. — T Clark

No. Just different focus.

The first verse of the Tao Te Ching, one of the founding texts, says "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name." My understanding of the meaning of those lines is that things don't really become "real" until we name, conceptualize, them. — T Clark

My understanding of those lines is that, the moment you try to speak of or name the Tao, you have automatically failed. Because words are limited, and limiting, while the Tao is infinite. Any attempt to use words to describe the Tao is an attempt to limit it. Which is impossible, so you cannot be talking about the Tao.

However, I never intended to claim that there are always non-linguistic ways to express any belief expressed in language. Perhaps I should have been clearer. — Ludwig V

I can't say if I disagree, or don't really understand.

Descartes' followers may have been expressing their belief in Cartesian dualism in a very strict sense. (I'm not sure "strict" is the right word, but it's the best I can do at the moment.) But they would not have come to that belief without language. Language was necessary for the belief to exist before the belief could be expressed with non-linguistic behavior.

And nobody observing their behavior would have known the belief they were expressing if someone had not used language to explain it to them.

I would be hard pressed to express any of the thoughts in this post, to say nothing of the thoughts expressed in the 39 pages of the thread, as well as the other however many threads at TPF, without language. I would be interested in hearing how all of these thoughts might possibly come to exist without language. But even without an explanation of that, now that they do exist, What language-less behavior can express them?

All behaviors, but different kinds, with different possible consequences, and possibly different intentions (although we don't always think/intend before any type of behavior).
— Patterner
Quite so. And the behaviours that do not involve language demonstrate/express/manifest my belief just as effectively as the linguistic behaviours. The difference is that expressing beliefs in language is more detailed, more detailed, more specific, that non-linguistic behaviours. — Ludwig V

Do you not think there are things languages can express that behaviours that do not involve language cannot express?

philosophers think that linguistic behaviour is, in some way that escapes me, something different from behaviour. — Ludwig V

I don't know what anyone has in mind. The first thing that zones to mind for new is that it's a different type of behavior. For example, day someone punched me. I might:
1. Punch them in return.
2. Cry.
3. Ask them why they punched me; why they think punching is a good solution to any problem; or whatever.

All behaviors, but different kinds, with different possible consequences, and possibly different intentions (although we don't always think/intend before any type of behavior).

There is most certainly thought, belief, and meaningful experience of language less creatures. The question is what could it possibly consist of? — creativesoul

If we don't know what it could possibly consist of, how do we know it exists? If we know it exists, doesn't whatever is proof of its existence give us clues about what it consists of?

Yes, that seems to be the question. From an early age I always saw death as its own reward. Assuming death means non-existance. I have heard no convincing reason to think otherwise. — Tom Storm

There couldn't be any such reason. It's how you feel about it. Subjective. Nobody can convince me to prefer Mozart over Bach. Or strawberry ice cream to chocolate.

Most of us have an inbuilt (most would say evolved) desire to keep living. — Tom Storm

I doubt it evolved. That would mean the desire once wasn't part of living things. Things that don't act to keep living don't live long enough to reproduce.

I have rarely been a 'suck the marrow out of life' style of person and am somewhat suspicious of those who are. Overcompensating? — Tom Storm

There are obviously people who pretend everything we can name. But there are also people who are naturally like that. Again, it's how they feel. I assume it has a lot to do with bio-chemistry.

But I do find the notion that life has no real purpose intermittently exciting as it affords us creative opportunities to make our own. — Tom Storm

What more could we want?!

Acave in the wilderness? — Tom Storm

Anything is possible. But you'll probably have to put some effort into that one.

What does existential self-awareness actually consist of? Does a recognition of mortality accompany it? — Tom Storm

I wonder. i'm thinking some degree of intelligence is necessary for both of these things. But I wonder if the two things come with different degrees of intelligence. Can an individual be existentially self-aware, yet never consider the idea of personal death? Children learn about it at some point. But do they learn it without conversations about it, ultimately revealing the fact to them? Is it possible for entire species to be intelligent enough to be existentially self-aware without any member ever coming up with the concept of mortality? Are chimps self-aware, yet blissfully ignorant of mortality? Will evolution one day grant them a little more intelligence, and drop this metaphorical piano on their head? What about dogs? Mice?

Or do both ideas come to a species at the same time, one impossible without the other?

When I first came to this realisation as a child my primary reaction was, why did I have to be born? In reversing the usual cliché about such matters, I often thought to myself that it might be bad luck to be born - to have to go through the laborious process of learning, growing, belonging (to a culture you dislike), experiencing loss, decline and ultimately death. It's not easy to identify an inherent benefit attached to any of this. But there's a lot of noise called philosophy and religion which seeks to help us to manage our situation. — Tom Storm

This seems like a mental or emotional health issue. There are people who aren't concerned with dying, but apparently because they simply never think about it.

For others, the knowledge of their own mortality drives them to artistic creativity. Expressing what they feel. I remember an episode of Highlander where a brilliant composer found out she was immortal. As a result, she lost her brilliance. She hadn't been composing specifically with her mortality in mind. The idea is that mortality is a part of everything we do, and when she lost her mortality, and it was no longer part of her life's expression, her music was laughing. Wolverine said much the same thing to the Beyonder in an X-Men comic.

Some make something that will make others think of them after they are gone. I'm sure some art is created for this reason. But also things like buildings, which can be artistic, but might not always be what the builder is intending. Just a big physical thing to remember me by.

Other people do not ever deal well with the knowledge of their own mortality. Some deal with it very badly.

What I wonder is, is it possible for a species to gain existential self-awareness, and the awareness of their own mortality, but NOT be able to deal with it emotionally? I don't think I would expect the ... maturity? ... to ALSO be part of the package. It seems to be asking a lot for awareness of self, awareness of mortality, and the ability to deal with it, to all arrive together.

I assume these things begin with one individual. Thinking of basic evolution. An individual is born with a new trait, passes it on to offspring, and it spreads throughout the population. So, if awareness of both self and mortality are a package deal, I don't think it would have been passed on if the individual reacted very negatively. If the individual hated it, and suffered depression because of it, it wouldn't have been selected for, and wouldn't have been passed on for its own sake. So either the ability to deal with it came with it as a three-part package, or there were other still MORE things that came with the package, maybe not as obviously related to it, but which were great advantages, and overshadowed the (pretty serious) negative.

Yes, I'm in a good place lately. :grin:

I read this awhile back. Good book. Thought it just sort of begged the question when it came to "what constitutes computation/information?" by assuming that any folks arguing for the independent existence of information must be assuming some sort of Cartesian homunculus. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not all of us. :grin:

I just posted much of this in one thread or other in the last couple weeks.

Information is sometimes naturally-occurring. Like DNA. DNA is instructions for making amino acids and proteins. The codons and strings of codons mean amino acids and proteins. Meaning, as it turns out, does not always need an interpreter to be information.

An important aspect of naturally-occurring information is - it is active. At least when it is in its naturally occurring medium and environment. The information compels its own processing. If it didn't, it wouldn't be information. If we ran across DNA just scattered around, and the strings of bases did not correspond to anything outside of themselves, they would not be information. We would just see pretty molecules. Like elaborate crystals. But DNA causes it's own expression.

Compare this with the other type of information. Information we have created. Books, for example. Books are filled with information. But only when viewed by us, and only because we created the system. This information would not exist if we had not created the system, and it would not be interpreted if we vanished. (Unless some other sufficient intelligence happened alng and found it.)

Information created by us is static. The information in a book doesn't do anything. A book about architecture doesn't cause a building to be built. Even if we read the book, and have that information in our head, a building might never new built. It's not active information.

We could have books with all the details of a living thing's DNA, and it would never build a single amino acid. The information is not in it's naturally-occurring medium and environment. It isn't active information in book form. No information in books is active. It's not an active medium. No books are conscious or living.

Then why can't you open the brain and point out where the mind is? I also said that it is possible that the mind is what the entire brain does, not just some internal part of it. What do you mean by "internal" and "external" in this respect? Do you mean the same thing as your birthday present being internal to the box with the wrapping paper and bow? If so, then why can't we open the brain to see the mind like we can open the box and see your present? It seems to me that using terms like "internal", "external", "subjective" and "objective" is evidence of your dualistic thinking making it more difficult to solve the problem. — Harry Hindu

I agree that the mind is what the entire brain does. Thinking and feeling are actions. Like other actions, you can't freeze it. If we had a room with transparent walls, and time was frozen inside the room, we could look in and see a statue, furniture, or whatever other objects. However, we could not look in the room and see things like motion, metabolism, and growth. Those things cannot exist if time is not passing.

Nor can consciousness.

We can open the box and see things like motion, metabolism, and growth, provided any of those processes are taking place. They are physical processes, and, therefore, observable.

Consciousness is not. We can't observe it, no matter what we look at.

Let's imagine extremely intelligent beings of a very different nature stumbled upon our planet. Let's say their very different nature, and/or the science their nature allows them to develop, gives them the ability to examine us in every conceivable detail. Being the smarties they are, they come to notice how various parts of us react to various things In the environment. They notice activity in one part of us, the part we called the optic nerve, and come to see that that activity takes place because photons hit the retina, and set off chains of events. They follow the activity up to our brains, and observe all that takes place there as a result. They come to recognize the patterns of activity. They understand that the photons come in patterns; that those patterns become patterns of activity within us; that we react in various ways because of those patterns; that those patterns are stored in our brains; that new occurrences of those patterns trigger the stored patterns in our brains, and that often causes us to react to the patterns in different ways than the ways we reacted the first time we encountered the patterns.

They would realize information is being processed. Information of different aspects of the environment, detected by different parts of us, all being processed in the particular area that we call our brain.

Which processes tell them we are conscious? We might be close to a burning building. Chain of Events A is how we see the fire. CoE B is how we hear it. CoE C is how we feel it. D is how we smell it.

Do they see a CoE for our subjective experience of the fire? Perhaps activity that always accompanies all chains, regardless of the source of the input, whether only one sense is active (such as seeing a photo of a fire or smelling smoke from a great distance), as well as when combinations of chains are active simultaneously? How would they know we are conscious? Or what activity do they see that is always present, the effect of which they cannot understand?

What I am saying is that effects carry information about their causes, whether the cause starts in the world or in the mind (the mind is part of the world, so I don't see why it makes sense to talk about the mind being a different thing (immaterial vs material) than the world). — Harry Hindu

The mind is not a different thing than the world. Rather, the world is not material-only. Although I prefer to think of it as material having both physical and non-physical properties. The non-physical properties being consciousness, and that which allows consciousness to emerge when the material is in certain arrangements. But better to say physical and experiential properties.

Yes, some people do say there is no difference. But if that were true, the species homo sapiens could not be defined. The issue is what the significance of the differences is. The objection is to the idea of human exceptionalism; I mean the attitude that thinks that animals have no moral claim on us and can be treated in the same way(s) that we treat any other physical resource. — Ludwig V

My opinion is that people will find a way to justify doing what they want to do. The differences between humans and any other species don't suggest it's morally acceptable to treat other species badly, and I would be more than somewhat surprised to find out anyone who did not think it was acceptable before learning about the differences thought it was acceptable after.

Why is the idea that we are animals seemingly unpopular among philosophers? — NOS4A2

I didn't know people denied this. Certainly not here at TPF. Most here take it further, and say there is no difference between us and the other species.

I have often posted that I am entirely lacking in knowledge of most things discussed here. So I don't know when someone is saying things that are easy, commonly discussed things, and I just don't know the lingo. I can't get out of your first paragraph.

I think the difficulty here is with your assumption that understanding must be of something. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know how there can be understanding if there is nothing to understand

Consider understanding to be the relationships which create the whole from the parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's exactly my point.

As such, it is an unobserved part of the whole, which is determined through retrospect and logical analysis. — Metaphysician Undercover

I assume, by 'unobserved', you mean with eyes, or whichever sense.

Context is of the essence here, because a so-called "fact" which is learned as a fact at one time, will be at a later time, integral to an understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Entirely likely. But it is, as you just said, s fact that is learned, And if it 'will be integral to an understanding at a later time,' then it is not when learned. It is just a fact.

I don't think it makes sense to say that we know single facts. Knowing requires understanding. So there is always some type of understanding which underlies any instance of knowing. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's true. But I don't always learn any amount of any type of understanding underlying anything each time I learn a new fact. I know what metal is. I know what a penny is. I know who Lincoln was. I know about the calendar. Learning that a particular penny in my pocket was minted in 2003 does not give me any new understanding of anything.

That's how I see it, also. I don't think it makes sense to say we understand single facts. I can know many facts, but not understand how they are related. This spherical thing is a baseball. This long, thin, tapering thing is a bat. That mound of dirt is called the pitcher's mound. That's three facts that have no obvious connection. Many more facts can be added without any obvious connections.

But I understand the game of baseball.

Well, do not place too high of a standard on "higher level of understanding" then. If you learn something new everyday, then aren't you reaching a higher level of understanding every day? — Metaphysician Undercover

Not necessarily. I might learn a brand of shirts, X, is manufactured in country 1. Next day I learn brand Y is manufactured in country 2. Next day I learn Z is country 3. Is my understanding increasing?

If I learn how brand X is manufactured, maybe I've reached a higher level. If I learn how Y is manufactured, and it's a different method than X, maybe I've reached a higher level. If I learn the different manufacturing methods are due to historical, cultural, or geographic differences, I'm in all kinds of levels!

What an excellent name!!!

It took thousands of years for us to develop the idea that there is something wrong with slavery and racism, and it seems absurd to think that all those people were morally deficient in some way. — Ludwig V

Sadly, they were. There are still many people like that. Slavery and genocide are still with us.

So your experience of hitting your thumb with a hammer is the same as my experience of seeing you hit your thumb with a hammer?

But I don't know that this mannequin is not you. When seeing it, I believe it's you.

It doesn't matter, though. The question at the end of the road is, do you think what it's like for me to experience seeing you is the same as what it's like for you to be you?

What about my hypothetical mannequin of you. Is my experience of seeing it like what you are like?

I believe that seeing is the experience, and what the experience is like is what the cat is like.
— jkop

What is the cat like when it is not being seen?
— Patterner

More or less like it is when it is seen (disregarding Schrödinger's cat). :smile: — jkop

Let's use you as an example. If I see you, would you say my experience of you is like what you are like?

They could make a mannequin to look exactly like you, and so lifelike that it would fool me if I see it from even several feet away, but do not try to interact with it. I would agree that my experience of the mannequin is like what the mannequin is like.

They could make a drone to look exactly like you, which you would control, so it would behave exactly as you behave. I would agree that my experience of the drone is like what the drone is like.

But you? Surely, what it is like for me to experience you is not what you are like. I think I am missing every important quality/aspect of what you are like when I experience you.



Well done, re Schrödinger's cat. :grin:

Right. Chalmers assumes that an experience is accompanied by a property of what it's like to have the experience. That's property-dualism.

As if seeing the cat consists of two experiences, one of the cat, and another of what it's like. — jkop

Photons bounce off of something > hit a photon detecting device > the device responds by sending a signal to an information processing and storage unit.

That is not an experience. That is just physical events that take place due to the properties of particles and laws of physics. We have robots that fit that description. We don't wonder what the robot experiences/what it's like to be the robot, any more than we wonder what a pool table experiences/what it's like to be a pool table.

Photons bounce off of something > hit my retina > my retina responds by sending a signal to my brain > I see red.

Seeing red is my experiences of the same thing that happens to and within the robot. The same physical events that happen to me happen to the robot, but the robot doesn't have an experience of the events.

I believe that seeing is the experience, and what the experience is like is what the cat is like. — jkop

What is the cat like when it is not being seen?

So, similarly, I'm guessing that consciousness will turn out to be a property of living organisms exclusively. Why? Because whatever it is that makes an entity alive is going to be turn out to be what makes it consciousness. — J

Correct. And that "whatever" is DNA. DNA is an information system. It has meaning. It is about something that it is not. DNA is two complimentary strands of nucleotides running along sugar phosphate backbones, and joined by hydrogen bonds. DNA means chains of amino acids and proteins, which, once constructed, build living organisms.

What is vitality important is that DNA is what I call active information. As opposed to static information. A book is an example of static information. A book is filled with information, but does nothing. A book about architecture does not construct buildings. It doesn't even draw blueprints. Further, I can read the book, and learn about architecture, yet I might never construct a building, or even draw blueprints. I need not act on information. The information can just sit in the book, and in my head, and nothing ever has to come of it.

DNA is active information because it must be acted upon. The laws of physics require certain things to happen under certain circumstances. When the stem of an apple hanging on a tree weakens below a certain point, the laws of physics are such that the apple falls. Likewise, the laws of physics are such that the enzyme helicase unzips DNA by breaking the hydrogen bonds that bind the base pairs. Then there's mRNA, tRNA, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase, on and on. No part of this is optional. The laws of physics require that the information in DNA be acted upon, and that that which DNA means comes into being in physical form.

DNA is in all life, and it's why there is life.

DNA is also why there is consciousness. Information. Does any theory of consciousness not consider information to be essential? DNA isn't only the information system that began life. In every cell of every living thing, information is constantly being processed, as protein is constantly being produced. And a lot of what those proteins are being used for is to build more information processing systems. Our senses are constantly changing input into information. Inside of us, homeostasis is accomplished thanks to the constant flow of information from every part of the body. Information about germs and viruses so they can be fought off. Information about injuries so they can be repaired. An incalculable amount of information constantly being processed inside us, all because of DNA.

This is something which is barely said in the history of Western philosophy, — Wayfarer

I haven't researched it. But I have heard of one exception. in his introduction to his translation of The Bhagavad Gita, Eknath Easwaran speaks of Ruysbroeck.

I have described the discovery of Atman and Brahman – God immanent and God transcendent – as separate, but there is no real distinction. In the climax of meditation, the sages discovered unity: the same indivisible reality without and within. It was advaita, “not two.” The Chandogya Upanishad says epigrammatically, Tat tvam asi: “Thou art That.” Atman is Brahman: the Self in each person is not different from the Godhead.

Nor is it different from person to person. The Self is one, the same in every creature. This is not some peculiar tenet of the Hindu scriptures; it is the testimony of everyone who has undergone these experiments in the depths of consciousness and followed them through to the end. Here is Ruysbroeck, a great mystic of medieval Europe; every word is most carefully chosen:

The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life. — Easwaran

Later philosophers explained maya in surprisingly contemporary terms. The mind, they said, observes the so-called outside world and sees its own structure. It reports that the world consists of a multiplicity of separate objects in a framework of time, space, and causality because these are the conditions of perception. In a word, the mind looks at unity and sees diversity; it looks at what is timeless and reports transience. And in fact the percepts of its experience are diverse and transient; on this level of experience, separateness is real. Our mistake is in taking this for ultimate reality, like the dreamer thinking that nothing is real except his dream.

Nowhere has this “mysterious Eastern notion” been formulated more succinctly than in the epigram of Ruysbroeck: “We behold what we are, and we are what we behold.” When we look at unity through the instruments of the mind, we see diversity; when the mind is transcended, we enter a higher mode of knowing – turiya, the fourth state of consciousness – in which duality disappears. This does not mean, however, that the phenomenal world is an illusion or unreal. The illusion is the sense of separateness. — Easwaran

However, although I believe there are benefits to viewing things that way, I don't have reason to think it's how things are. As I said, I think consciousness can examine itself. The problem is the western world is so adamant that things can only be examined using specific methods. But if the nature of something is not amenable to those methods...

I see no obvious reason why consciousness cannot perceive itself as an object.
— ucarr

Grab your right hand with your right hand and report back. — Wayfarer

I think consciousness is sufficiently different from physical things that we cannot know that it has this same "limitation." Consciousness may be the only thing that can study consciousness. If consciousness is feeling and thinking, then that which feels and thinks can feel and think about itself. Maybe?

I am not able to simultaneously focus on what I am looking at and the idea that I am looking at it. Could just be me but I doubt it. — Janus

You are talking about not being able to think two things simultaneously? But you can see an object, and clearly think about the idea that you are looking at that object. You can even speak the words. And if, while you are thinking clearly about the idea that you are looking at it, someone blocks your field of vision, you will realize that you are no longer looking at it, even though you were not focusing on looking at it. It didn't stop you from looking at it.

It doesn't make conceptual sense to me to say that consciousness is made of particles. — Janus

Agreed. Neither is flight. Or vision.

What possible evidence could we have that consciousness cannot arise from the physical? That seems like a mere prejudice to me. All the evidence seems to point to the opposite consclusion — Janus

This is what it all comes down to. Not evidence that it can't. Just no evidence that it can. The fact that the physical properties and forces are all we can find with our science is not evidence that they are solely responsible for consciousness. And it doesn't mean they are all there is. I don't see the logic of saying a bunch of particles bouncing around, if there is nothing but the physical properties and forces, no matter how they are bouncing around, can become aware that they are a bunch of particles bouncing around. That can, and does, explain flight and vision. We can see, starting from the physical properties and forces,how these processes come about. And we can follow any aspect of flight and vision back down to the properties and forces.

Not so for consciousness. Where is it? What is the physical activity in the brain that doesn't produce a physical process, like vision or memory, but, rather, produces consciousness? We don't see physical activity that is not producing some physical process. Nothing accompanies the physical activity that doesn't seem to be doing anything, which we could speculate is consciousness itself.

If some physical activity produces vision, why is there also subjective experience of vision? If the activity that produces vision is tied up with activity that triggers stored patterns of past sensory input, why is there also subjective experience of memory?

Nobody can find anything physical to explain these things, even though some pretty smart neurologists can see remarkable detail about what's going on in our brains. Brian Greene says no physical properties even hints at consciousness.

Personally I love the idea of living forever. But only in a healthy body with all normal faculties and capacities intact. I'm 71. — Janus

Yeah, young and healthy would be a requirement. At 60, I got hearing aids for the first time today. So already too late for that. in any event, wanting to live forever is not why I don't think consciousness is solely physical.