How many GODS do you have?

[Arik]

Wake up people. Arik is a troll. And now he's being followed by another troll Absolute_Agent.

Coincidence???

In the past the masses though that the planet earth was flat.
From the ground it look flat so anyone that challenge that view was taken for a nut.
Today when people see a person that just die they think that it is all over and anyone who challenge that view is also taken for a nut.

The time goes on but idiots never change.
They keep on coming back again and again with similar dogmas and anyone who challenge their view is a troll or a nut but again after sometime the truth become clear and the previous trolls become heroes while the previous smart people become trolls. 

[Arik]

Since you're not actually banned yet and there is still the possibility that you might read this, I'll respond even though I expect no reply.
When you specifically described biological evolution, yes, it's fucking physical.

The so called biological evolution is but a physical change that allow a specie to survive.
That's all Haku so rather that say real evolution it would better to say a biological change that allow physical survival in a particular environment.

Real evolution is a total different story.
That involve a real progress that allow an entity to improve his-her consciousness.
Evolution is a word that imply progress a progress that stay with you as you climb the ladder of human emancipation and that can only be an evolution of the consciousness.
A change in the body can not do that that is why there is no real evolution in biological changes although biological changes can help to build a body that can better house a more developed consciousness so the body is there to serve the consciousness not the other way around.

See, when you describe things and assert things that we know aren't true with the absolute certainty as you have done, nobody's going to believe you.

Are you kidding me?

None of you has been able to bring an inch of evidence to support the atheists claims that I present in my 10 points and you have the audacity to say that is me that assert things without evidence?

You didn't even think to fact-check the strength of bone and concrete to make sure you weren't talking out your ass when you asserted that bone was softer therefore it would break against concrete. Meanwhile, actual mechanical engineers, who know a thing or two about how things break, have done biomechanical studies on the physics of breaking blocks, and have calculated that it's not actually out of the realm of possibility for the human body with no woo involved.

If you think that that is the case then why don't you brake 10 concrete slabs in one go with your head like those people in the video.
Are you ready Haku?

As to your insipid car analogy, it fails because the driver has a verifiable physical reality beyond the car. When the driver steps out of the car, you can see him, hear him, smell him, touch him and taste him... though very few will let you get that far. Not so with consciousness. Not only does when consciousness "detach," there's no verifiable object that leaves, when it comes back, there is no reliable indication that it actually went anywhere. Again, NDE OOB experiences happen under very uncontrolled conditions (and it would be unethical to induce one purposefully) and as such cannot be taken except with a huge grain of salt. We also have a huge literature concerning false memories. Humans just aren't reliable observers.

And remember, you described consciousness as an abstract entity; it's silly to think that reasoning that applies to physical entities like human drivers will carry over to abstract entities.

Without a verifiable separate existence, consciousness and the brain has a closer match to the hologram driver and the Decepticon Barricade than they do with an ordinary human driver and car.

Fail again Haku.

Right now you are reading and writing posts in this forum.

Your hands type what your consciousness-mind tell them to write.
Your mind can not be seen, touch, smell and so on yet it is there.
Who else order your finger to type a post?
Obviously the consciousness is an abstract entity otherwise you would be able to see, smell, taste and so on.

The way to get back into our good graces is to stop asserting and start supporting. We do not agree to your assertions about the nature of consciousness. You have been told multiple times that your assertions are not shared, and all argumentation using disputed assertions are DOA. You need to start supporting those assertions. When you're told a line of evidence isn't good enough, you need to find better evidence, not repeat the same evidence over and over again as if repetition makes it true. Even saying that you're sorry for being a butthead will go a long way to mending fences.

But you'll do what you'll do.

I just show you that the consciousness is an abstract entity.
You can not touch, taste, smell and so on but it exist so my assertions are fully supported.

Now, Mr. Absolute...
Yeah. Like Sal said, to me the illusion of consciousness is not that it's not there in reality, but rather that it appears to be a thing when it is not. Consciousness is a process, and displays all of the signs of being a process. Change and assimilation of new information and experiences is what defines a person being conscious. Administering drugs and sustaining injuries that changes how the brain works changes how the consciousness behaves and what its capabilities are. When the brain ceases to function, consciousness disappears and does not return until brain function is restored. From this and other evidence, we conclude that consciousness is what the brain does. But of course, it's absurd to consider a process without something that the process is operating on. Hence, reality is real.

All my statements have to be evaluated on the basis that consciousness is a process and not an entity. No argument based on consciousness's being an entity will work unless and until you disabuse me of that notion.

That is a very very silly point Haku.

It is quite natural that when...................Administering drugs and sustaining injuries that changes how the brain works changes how the consciousness behaves...............why not Haku considering that the consciousness during this life reside inside the brain.

Wouldn't you get hurt when you have and accident in your car and wouldn't your consciousness be affected by it?

   

[josephpalazzo]

In the past the masses though that the planet earth was flat.
From the ground it look flat so anyone that challenge that view was taken for a nut.
Today when people see a person that just die they think that it is all over and anyone who challenge that view is also taken for a nut.

The time goes on but idiots never change.
They keep on coming back again and again with similar dogmas and anyone who challenge their view is a troll or a nut but again after sometime the truth become clear and the previous trolls become heroes while the previous smart people become trolls. 

In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

[Blackleaf]

In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

Or as Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can't believe everything you read on the internet, but vampires are real."

[Sal1981]

Very well. Evaluating your argument that consciousness is a process, not an entity, I find it manifestly contradictory.  For the very nature of consciousness is to be an entity.  For instance, I am one entity, and you are one entity (not any other entity).  We are manifestly defined by our consciousness, since if it were not the case, how would we otherwise recognize each other as individual entities, having names, attributes and individual sovereignty, capable of interacting through the electronic medium independent of any perceptive interchange between our material biological manifestations?

That's just naming conventions, or are you so steeped into idealism  that you think that the concept of numbers exist apart from reality? And I reject the notion  that we are defined by our consciousness, because for me consciousness is merely the name-tag of the function of the brain we give it that we, individually, experience as our own novel self.

Furthermore, while you acknowledge that consciousness is real, you claim it is not a "thing", presumably meaning a material object, by virtue of the fact that it is a process.  Somewhat like the software on a computer had no material frame but consists of a particular organization of codes and procedures that operate the physical machine.  Although the software resides on the computer it is not the computer; although the software is transmuted by physical media such as CD's, flash drives and disks, it is not those physical media in which it is transported.  Yet, without software a computer would be a mere pile of metal and plastic, the media mere chunks of dead meaningless matter.  The immaterial software makes them what they are; it defines them.

Your analogy of the brain to a computer is more apt than you realize. The software, with an user interface, is part of the machine just as much as the RAM, the SSD, the CPU, etc., particularly, it's a virtual machine that the representation of  the ones and zeros on the SSD represent and which the CPU is able to generate much like how our novel configuration of the individual brain of the neurons in it and how they're connected. So no, the software isn't "immaterial", it's part and parcel of the computer - it's just transcribed from physical ones and zeros (on a SSD) to a virtual machine.

[aitm]

In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

Hello Joe, what a wonderful surprise to see your nick again. I hope all is well with you.

[Absolute_Agent]

That's just naming conventions, or are you so steeped into idealism  that you think that the concept of numbers exist apart from reality? And I reject the notion  that we are defined by our consciousness, because for me consciousness is merely the name-tag of the function of the brain we give it that we, individually, experience as our own novel self.

Your analogy of the brain to a computer is more apt than you realize. The software, with an user interface, is part of the machine just as much as the RAM, the SSD, the CPU, etc., particularly, it's a virtual machine that the representation of  the ones and zeros on the SSD represent and which the CPU is able to generate much like how our novel configuration of the individual brain of the neurons in it and how they're connected. So no, the software isn't "immaterial", it's part and parcel of the computer - it's just transcribed from physical ones and zeros (on a SSD) to a virtual machine.

The software itself is not a material thing, but rather an entirely immaterial pattern.  Otherwise it could not migrate between machines and media.  It cannot be contained or defined by a single or any number of computers, even a billion computers.  The physical manifestation of such software, what is transcribed into electronic signals, is merely a material record of something that does not exist in material reality.  And despite not existing in material reality, it is assuredly a thing, an entity--having a beginning and end, and defined characteristics.

Similarly consciousness, while not existing as material, undoubtedly comprises an entity.  For instance, my consciousness in this forum is named "Absolute Agent".  I am my own self and not another: for instance I am not Baruch.  Therefore since I can be identified as something apart from other things, and have identity--ergo, I am am entity.

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[Blackleaf]

The software itself is not a material thing, but rather an entirely immaterial pattern.  Otherwise it could not migrate between machines and media.  It cannot be contained or defined by a single or any number of computers, even a billion computers.  The physical manifestation of such software, what is transcribed into electronic signals, is merely a material record of something that does not exist in material reality.  And despite not existing in material reality, it is assuredly a thing, an entity--having a beginning and end, and defined characteristics.

Similarly consciousness, while not existing as material, undoubtedly comprises an entity.  For instance, my consciousness in this forum is named "Absolute Agent".  I am my own self and not another: for instance I am not Baruch.  Therefore since I can be identified as something apart from other things, and have identity--ergo, I am am entity.

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I'm not you sure realize this, but you're arguing against your own point. If you believe in an immaterial soul that exists independently from the body, then software is not a good example. I have pictures saved on my phone. Where do those pictures go if I smash my phone into a million pieces? Nowhere, because the software depends on the hardware to exist. Even if my phone were connected to the cloud, and I was able to recover my pictures that way, those files still only exist because they were shared to a physical computer out there somewhere. So unless we develop the ability to interface with technology and we upload our consciousness to the internet, our consciousness will not continue to exist after our brains cease to function.

[Absolute_Agent]

I'm not you sure realize this, but you're arguing against your own point. If you believe in an immaterial soul that exists independently from the body, then software is not a good example. I have pictures saved on my phone. Where do those pictures go if I smash my phone into a million pieces? Nowhere, because the software depends on the hardware to exist. Even if my phone were connected to the cloud, and I was able to recover my pictures that way, those files still only exist because they were shared to a physical computer out there somewhere. So unless we develop the ability to interface with technology and we upload our consciousness to the internet, our consciousness will not continue to exist after our brains cease to function.

Saying the software cannot exist without the computer is like saying the gas in the car can't exist without a car to be contained in. Granted, when you crash a car, the gas may spill into the street and no longer be useful to human vehicular requirements.  But this does not negate it's existence.  How about this?  Where was the software before it's inventor wrote it down?  Was it not existent when it was forming in her mind to be transcribed into the relevant medium?

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[Hakurei Reimu]

Very well. Evaluating your argument that consciousness is a process, not an entity, I find it manifestly contradictory.  For the very nature of consciousness is to be an entity.

The "nature of consciousness" is very much the matter under dispute. You don't get to declare it as an entity by declaring it to be "its nature."

For instance, I am one entity, and you are one entity (not any other entity).

Yeah, we are manifestly distinct bodies, which are entities. Don't see how you get from here to "consciousness is an entity," though.

We are manifestly defined by our consciousness, since if it were not the case, how would we otherwise recognize each other as individual entities, having names, attributes and individual sovereignty, capable of interacting through the electronic medium independent of any perceptive interchange between our material biological manifestations?

Consciousness being a process does not preclude that they are proceding in a different way for each entity. I still don't see how this proves that consciousness is a thing. If you run a game, it will play out a different way from my instance of that game. The programs are exactly the same, but because they are in different states and responding to a different player, it will behave in a distinct way.

So, I still don't see how this proves that consciousness is a thing.

Furthermore, while you acknowledge that consciousness is real, you claim it is not a "thing", presumably meaning a material object, by virtue of the fact that it is a process.

Well, yeah. A process is defined by the action of particular things. The running of a car is in a distinct philosophical category from the car itself, yet it is defined by the car.

Somewhat like the software on a computer had no material frame but consists of a particular organization of codes and procedures that operate the physical machine.  Although the software resides on the computer it is not the computer; although the software is transmuted by physical media such as CD's, flash drives and disks, it is not those physical media in which it is transported.  Yet, without software a computer would be a mere pile of metal and plastic, the media mere chunks of dead meaningless matter.  The immaterial software makes them what they are; it defines them.

Nonsense. A piece of software defines the majority of the action of the computer. Even a computer that has no software on it will try to look for some instruction in its memory; indeed, the fact that the first thing a CPU does when it first turns on is to look for instructions in a particular part of its nonvolitile memory is the reason why bootstrap loaders work (aka, why computers boot up). If the computer without a program was truly the mere pile of metal and plastic you characterize it, then it couldn't do anything, even look for its bootstrap loader. The computer must be capable of doing at least one thing on its own in order for it to boot up: look for its bootstrap loader.

A computer is mostly useless without a program because to run programs is the entirety of its purpose. The goal of an organism is to survive. That's a different goal and that's where the analogy breaks. It is equipped with reflexes and automatic procedure to accomplish its purpose, accomplished through purely mechanical means. In us, one of the thing the zygote does is to build a brain which has automatic means to boot up a consciousness.

That said, if consciousness should be compared with anything in computer science, it is not software that consciousness should be compared with, but rather the process execution. The only way you know someone is conscious/has consciousness is by observing what they do.

Which then is more real dear Hakurei? Are not all "things" defined by a particular process, without which they are meaningless, and in very truth, lose their "thing-ness", their ability to be identified and distinguished as such?

The two should not be conflated. Proper things, like the brain or a car, should not be conflated with the processes they are performing, like consciousness or internal combustion. Furthermore, you seem to have retreated from consciousness as a thing to that it is what defines the brain. I'm fine with that, but that still doesn't make consciousness an entity with a separate existence from the brain. Indeed, it makes consciousness inseparably contingent on the existence of a brain.

[Absolute_Agent]

The "nature of consciousness" is very much the matter under dispute. You don't get to declare it as an entity by declaring it to be "its nature."
Yeah, we are manifestly distinct bodies, which are entities. Don't see how you get from here to "consciousness is an entity," though.
Consciousness being a process does not preclude that they are proceding in a different way for each entity. I still don't see how this proves that consciousness is a thing. If you run a game, it will play out a different way from my instance of that game. The programs are exactly the same, but because they are in different states and responding to a different player, it will behave in a distinct way.

So, I still don't see how this proves that consciousness is a thing.
Well, yeah. A process is defined by the action of particular things. The running of a car is in a distinct philosophical category from the car itself, yet it is defined by the car.
Nonsense. A piece of software defines the majority of the action of the computer. Even a computer that has no software on it will try to look for some instruction in its memory; indeed, the fact that the first thing a CPU does when it first turns on is to look for instructions in a particular part of its nonvolitile memory is the reason why bootstrap loaders work (aka, why computers boot up). If the computer without a program was truly the mere pile of metal and plastic you characterize it, then it couldn't do anything, even look for its bootstrap loader. The computer must be capable of doing at least one thing on its own in order for it to boot up: look for its bootstrap loader.

A computer is mostly useless without a program because to run programs is the entirety of its purpose. The goal of an organism is to survive. That's a different goal and that's where the analogy breaks. It is equipped with reflexes and automatic procedure to accomplish its purpose, accomplished through purely mechanical means. In us, one of the thing the zygote does is to build a brain which has automatic means to boot up a consciousness.

That said, if consciousness should be compared with anything in computer science, it is not software that consciousness should be compared with, but rather the process execution. The only way you know someone is conscious/has consciousness is by observing what they do.
The two should not be conflated. Proper things, like the brain or a car, should not be conflated with the processes they are performing, like consciousness or internal combustion. Furthermore, you seem to have retreated from consciousness as a thing to that it is what defines the brain. I'm fine with that, but that still doesn't make consciousness an entity with a separate existence from the brain. Indeed, it makes consciousness inseparably contingent on the existence of a brain.

Consciousness defines the brain because the brain exists as a translator of consciousness.  If the brain stops translating consciousness it is no longer properly a brain.  It is just a assortment of matter and chemicals.

"Furthermore, you seem to have retreated from consciousness as a thing to that it is what defines the brain."

If as you confirm that by "thing" you mean a material object, then your saying consciousness is not a thing only equates to saying that consciousness is not material--which I likewise assert.  My disagreement, a minor one, is on your definition of a thing necessarily being material.  For instance, isn't logic a thing, and doesn't logic exist entirely in the realm of consciousness, having no material existence?

Granted, no one of us has successfully defined what consciousness is, yet in common parlance "entity" denotes a conscious being.

The root question is whether consciousness can exist without a material form.  I would say yes.  However, once consciousness leaves a material body it will naturally no longer be identified with a body and thus no longer be constrained by the illusion of material, individualized, existence.  This will soon be established fact in the scientific community.  Just as gas leaking from the gas tank is no longer "car-gas"-- but still gas nonetheless.  It could go into another car or may become a pollutant in a stream.  It's label is determined by its function; likewise form and function are not divorced  but intrinsic to one another.

Your explanation of consciousness is less adequate since there are many processes which are not conscious, like combustion. Therefore consciousness is not properly defined as merely a process--it's something much more.

A computer without the boot function (a process) could not properly be called a computer.  Thus my analogy holds in demonstrating that you cannot reasonably divorce "things" from processes--one is inherent to the other. Therefore, even if consciousness is only seen as a process, then it is still a thing and still an entity.

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[Hakurei Reimu]

Our friend Haku fool himself thinking that he (she?) got some strong argument in order to knockdown my points but he doesn't.

Dearheart, a knockdown doll gets knocked down all the time. Just because you get right back up for more punishment doesn't mean you're not getting knocked down.

I give you just one example.
He kept on saying that the brain during an NDE is still able to put together that experience on the ground that the brain cells are not dead yet and therefore is some sort of hallucination rather than a real experience with God.
The reality is that once the heart stop sending blood-oxygen into the brain the brain cells die within 3 minutes and in very rare case within ten minutes.

So, in 3-10 minutes after getting blood flow cut off, the brain just up and dies, all together? In perfect synch, like some kind of Palestinian Suicide Squad? Nonsense. Even in these cases, there are differences in the conditions of the individual cells that means that some brain cells will last longer than others. The damage starts setting in at three minutes, and by ten minutes, the damage is usually so severe that consciousness never returns. If you're revived after four minutes, you'll be mostly okay, with some long-term effects. If you're revived after twelve minutes, you'll be a vegetable.

We know this because we have patients who run the spectrum. There is a clear progression of deterioration.

The other thing is in these episodes, you pretend that the healthcare providers are sitting around on their thumbs. Not so. They're doing stuff like CPR and other means to try to keep the heart pumping. That keeps the blood moving, even in a reduced capacity, and as such, while the brain doesn't get enough oxygen to continue functioning, it does get enough oxygen to survive much longer than it would were there no blood flow at all.

The other thing is that, being uncontrolled experiments as they are, you don't know where the information in NDEs are coming from. Again, we only get accounts of these NDEs after patients are brought back from the brink and spend some time convalescing.

Now considering that most of the NDEs last over ten minutes is quite impossible for the brain to put together an NDE that is why it is the consciousness that is able to experience that NDE.

NDEs are not experienced as they happen. They are reconstructed after full blood flow is restored, and the brain is getting enough oxygen to start returning to full function. That and the fact that healthcare providers are administering healthcare to the patient to keep some form of blood flow going to the brain easily explains how NDEs can last more than ten minutes. Also, recollected time is kind of fluid.

Now our friend Haku find more and more excuses and that I consider dishonesty so to me what Haku do is not a challenge but a folly to prevent defeat.

You wish, Arik Idle. It is in the nature of idiots to think they're ahead when they are actually far behind. When you can't even describe the biology of brain death and health care in the case of cardiac arrest accurately, you're not in any position to say what happens in those cases.

-

The so called biological evolution is but a physical change that allow a specie to survive.
That's all Haku so rather that say real evolution it would better to say a biological change that allow physical survival in a particular environment.

Real evolution is a total different story.

Things described as "evolution" in the sciences describe quite particular things and I would thank you for not appropriating vocabulary you don't know how to apply correctly.

That involve a real progress that allow an entity to improve his-her consciousness.

We usually call this "developement" and "learning."

Evolution is a word that imply progress a progress that stay with you as you climb the ladder of human emancipation and that can only be an evolution of the consciousness.

Only when non-science idiots like you use it. Etymologically, it means "to roll out" and as such is used to describe a progression of stages or states, like the stages in the life cycle of a star, or a population. There is no implication of progression up a ladder of betterment. Part of the evolution of a star, for instance, is its inevitable death. The process of an organ or limb withering into a vestigial is a part of biological evolution, so this notion that evolution involves betterment is a myth perpetuated by those people who don't study the relevant fields.

A change in the body can not do that that is why there is no real evolution in biological changes although biological changes can help to build a body that can better house a more developed consciousness so the body is there to serve the consciousness not the other way around.

No, you're just using the word "evolution" in a way not recognized by science. You don't get to say what is "real" evolution. Only scientists get to do that.

Are you kidding me?

None of you has been able to bring an inch of evidence to support the atheists claims that I present in my 10 points and you have the audacity to say that is me that assert things without evidence?

You are the only one here who has not brought evidence. I already outlined the problems with your NDE canard, the most glaring of which is the completely uncontrolled manner of any scenario in which it shows up, and the only piece of information that has ever been introduced in a controlled way fails to show up in ANY NDE. This, analogies, and bald-faced assertions without support are the only things you have brought to the table. None of these things are evidence.

On the other hand, we have brought you hard-won knowledge from the only group of people who have ever brought evidence to bear on your questions. So, pot, stop calling the silverware black.

If you think that that is the case then why don't you brake 10 concrete slabs in one go with your head like those people in the video.
Are you ready Haku?

I already stated that you require physical conditioning to break the blocks, and physical conditioning in this area is something I very much lack. Have one of your spindly gurus break those blocks, and you'll be talking, because then you'd have proven that physical conditioning is unnecessary.

Seriously, how does my failing to break blocks with my mind power (without the relevant physical training) somehow prove that mind power is what breaks these bricks?

Fail again Haku.

Right now you are reading and writing posts in this forum.

Your hands type what your consciousness-mind tell them to write.
Your mind can not be seen, touch, smell and so on yet it is there.
Who else order your finger to type a post?
Obviously the consciousness is an abstract entity otherwise you would be able to see, smell, taste and so on.

Another bald-faced assertion. Look, the reason why I said that you can see, hear, smell, etc. the driver was to underline the point that the driver has physically verifiable properties. Well, your brain in action also has the same thing: hook up your brain to an EEG, or use a fMRI, and you can see the brain lighting up as I type these words. Particularly my motor cortex, my Broca's and Wernicke's areas, my prefrontal cortex, and my visual cortex. These are exactly the places where if disruption occurs I will lose my reasoning, vision, ability to move, or ability to process language. My consciousness is a physical process that can be measured and observed at work, but it is not separate from my brain.

We've seen people thinking with fMRI and EEGs, Mr. Idle. That is evidence, and it points towards consciousness as a physical process, not an abstract entity.

I just show you that the consciousness is an abstract entity.
You can not touch, taste, smell and so on but it exist so my assertions are fully supported.

No, you haven't. That list was not intended to be exhaustive. You can't see, hear, smell, touch or taste hydrogen gas either. Yet it is as physically real as your body is, particularly if it ignites and blows you the fuck up.

That is a very very silly point Haku.

It is quite natural that when...................Administering drugs and sustaining injuries that changes how the brain works changes how the consciousness behaves...............why not Haku considering that the consciousness during this life reside inside the brain.

Yet, apparently, when separated from the body as you contend with NDE OOB experiences, your consciousness functions just fine without any brain matter involved, regardless of its state of operation. It's able to eavesdrop on people, see people do their work, etc, in the absence of any physical substrate, yet when inside a body, damage and drugs disable these abilities utterly.

Do these abilities lie in the consciousness or in the brain, Mr. Idle? If they're in the consciousness, why does damaging the brain in the relevant region destroy the ability? If they're in the brain, why does the consciousness still have them when separated from the body? If they're in both, then why doesn't your consciousness act as backup? After all, all your consciousness needs to do is manipulate your motor cortex, and you're golden.

Wouldn't you get hurt when you have and accident in your car and wouldn't your consciousness be affected by it?

Injuries are not created equal. If you break your leg, you won't be able to walk on it, even in an OOB experience. That implies that the function of walking is bound to your legs. If you break your brain, you won't be able to think with it. That implies that the functions of cognition are bound to your brain.

For every faculty of the mind, we have a specific brain injury that impairs it, and the list of impairments is long indeed. This implies that these faculties are bound to the brain, and not a part of any abstract consciousness. So what does the consciousness do, Mr. Idle?

[Hakurei Reimu]

Consciousness defines the brain because the brain exists as a translator of consciousness.  If the brain stops translating consciousness it is no longer properly a brain.  It is just a assortment of matter and chemicals.

Bald-faced assertion. As if there is anything "just" about an assortment of matter and chemicals. Have you seen chemicals react? They can do some fucking amazing shit, even with a handful of them, never mind the hundreds of thousands of them in the cell alone.

"Furthermore, you seem to have retreated from consciousness as a thing to that it is what defines the brain."

If as you confirm that by "thing" you mean a material object, then your saying consciousness is not a thing only equates to saying that consciousness is not material--which I likewise assert.

No, I mean, "not a thing," meaning as opposed to the action of the brain which I contend consciousness's true nature. I acknowledge the category of abstract things, which means that thing and material object to me are not equivalent.

My disagreement, a minor one, is on your definition of a thing necessarily being material.  For instance, isn't logic a thing, and doesn't logic exist entirely in the realm of consciousness, having no material existence?

Logic isn't a physical thing, nor is it a process. In fact, it's not even a single distinct philosophical category that logic as an entirety belongs to. The logical statements in a logical discourse are abstract things, but are manipulated according to the rules of logic.

Consciousness is not a thing, but it is very much physical. You can see it at work in fMRIs. Arik thinks that consciousness is a thing, but not material in nature (immaterial). I think it is material in nature, but not a thing. "Thingness" is an orthogonal category to being material.

Granted, no one of us has successfully defined what consciousness is, yet in common parlance "entity" denotes a conscious being.

This is why you don't use common parlance in technical subjects. It uses precise definitions, and categorizes things differently from what common parlance does, because it has to represent the subject matter in a precise way and according to the best knowledge in the field.

The root question is whether consciousness can exist without a material form.  I would say yes.  However, once consciousness leaves a material body it will naturally no longer be identified with a body and thus no longer be constrained by the illusion of material, individualized, existence.  This will soon be established fact in the scientific community.  Just as gas leaking from the gas tank is no longer "car-gas"-- but still gas nonetheless.  It could go into another car or may become a pollutant in a stream.  It's label is determined by its function; likewise form and function are not divorced  but intrinsic to one another.

Meanwhile, the above description as it stands is completely indistinguishable from consciousness being a process of the brain and when the brain goes south, consciousness ceases and doesn't "go" anywhere â€" that when you die, you cease to exist utterly. Now, if you were to bring some evidence that consciousness survives death, then you would have something to talk about, but otherwise, Occam's razor cuts off the extraneous, unproved assertion.

Your explanation of consciousness is less adequate since there are many processes which are not conscious, like combustion. Therefore consciousness is not properly defined as merely a process--it's something much more.

And combustion is something much more than merely a process, too. That doesn't make it not a process.

At no point have I characterized conscousness as "merely" a process, or knowing it is a process is the end all and be all of it. It's simply a counter to one particular point about how it's catagorized. There is a lot more to consciousness than the bare fact that it is a process, but it's still a process, and a separate philosophical category from an entity.

A computer without the boot function (a process) could not properly be called a computer.  Thus my analogy holds in demonstrating that you cannot reasonably divorce "things" from processes--one is inherent to the other. Therefore, even if consciousness is only seen as a process, then it is still a thing and still an entity.

Non-sequitor. You can, in fact, reasonably divorce the concept of a process from its bound entity as categories, the same way that the running of a computer program can be divorced from the computer itself. In fact, you must be able to do this to have abstract entities in the first place.

[Baruch]

That's just naming conventions, or are you so steeped into idealism  that you think that the concept of numbers exist apart from reality? And I reject the notion  that we are defined by our consciousness, because for me consciousness is merely the name-tag of the function of the brain we give it that we, individually, experience as our own novel self.

Your analogy of the brain to a computer is more apt than you realize. The software, with an user interface, is part of the machine just as much as the RAM, the SSD, the CPU, etc., particularly, it's a virtual machine that the representation of  the ones and zeros on the SSD represent and which the CPU is able to generate much like how our novel configuration of the individual brain of the neurons in it and how they're connected. So no, the software isn't "immaterial", it's part and parcel of the computer - it's just transcribed from physical ones and zeros (on a SSD) to a virtual machine.

The electricity is part of the wire.  But the pattern of electricity has nothing to do with that, since if comes from a "will" not "random".  These people will invoke Pythagoras, Democritus and Plato ... then claim ... I don't do philosophy (because then it wouldn't be science) and that I am totally autonomous from history and present context ... my ideas aren't just a meme from 2500 years ago.

[Baruch]

Saying the software cannot exist without the computer is like saying the gas in the car can't exist without a car to be contained in. Granted, when you crash a car, the gas may spill into the street and no longer be useful to human vehicular requirements.  But this does not negate it's existence.  How about this?  Where was the software before it's inventor wrote it down?  Was it not existent when it was forming in her mind to be transcribed into the relevant medium?

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AI/Robot religion says, giant Japanese speaking robots, with or without people in them (it is immaterial which, to these people, because people are meat-ware) are real, because we saw it on the silver screen.  ;-)  These are smart people, but as monkeys we are all easily taken in by our own cleverness.  Scientism says that scientists are the high priests of this godless religion ;-))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh5G6RUgjiM

Scifi isn't mythology, isn't it?