I want a car with unbreakable components - I should never have to worry about a flat tire, changing oil or batteries, and it certainly shouldn't ever be possible for me to get into an accident.  When they build cars like this, ill be back.

I'm not sure you got the point of my reply.  If I came in to your auto shop and I mentioned to you what I stated above, you'd think I'm nuts.  It's the nature of components to wear and break down over time, and a car wouldn't really be a car if it were impossible to crash it.  Likewise, some of your demands are infeasible if not impossible altogether, and furthermore, most of your complaints already have implimented solutions, but you didnt care to familiarize yourself with them. But, you don't know this is the case because, as you admitted, you don't get "tech" stuff.  However, then you go about blaming BTC for its shortcomings when really you should be focusing on your own ignorance.  

If you don't recognize how your ignorance is influencing your opinion, then you'll likely never use BTC again.  If I don't do the same, ill never drive a car again.

On a side note, i'd encourage you to think about some of your ideas  about how you would like Bitcoin to look, and then try to think about why some of them are just bad ideas altogether that, if implemented, I'd bet you'd hate.

1.) There are a number of ways of linking your ID to an address.  But, while remaining decentralized, how do you propose stopping people from linking fabricated identities to an address?

2, 3, 4.) While remaining decentralized, how do you propose stopping people from creating multiple accounts and giving themselves fabricated feedback?  Or, how would you stop me from givin you infinitely negative feedback without just cause?

5.) We already do have clients that are virtually hack proof assuming you use them correctly.  I think you mean 'computers' that are hack proof.  The problem you seem to have is that you keep blaming "tech" stuff you admittedly don't understand.  The result is that you're identifying problems that are inaccurately defined, or that may not even be a problem at all.  Besides, what part of 'beta' project don't you understand?  Bitcoin isn't even an alpha release yet!  This should be a resoundingly clear indicator of its current (key word) risk.

6.) We have a system for implementing changes. It's called open-source code and miner voting power.

Only happened to me like 781329487 times when initially trying to optimize my 7970s for scrypt. 

You're fine 

She's very talented.  I'm looking to buy a home within the next year and I'm looking for some artwork to decorate with...

I'll keep this in mind.

Had to quote this.

Edit:  Have you heard of something called 'risk assessment'?

No, they don't set the price whatsoever.  Blockchain.info isn't even an exchange, and if you click "markets" on Blockchain.info you will see that they simply track Bitstamp's API to reflect the current price.  Saying SR "use(s) blockchain.info pricing" is inaccurate, because whose pricing does blockchain.info follow? 

The SR isn't the market either.  SR is about as much of an exchange as this forum is, and I can tell you first hand that the market is way bigger than either SR or this forum.

As far as stating that there is some "flaw" with Bitcoin as a result of its "gap" between its self and the conventional banking system, I think you're just letting your recent, bad, personal experience influence your reasoning at this point.  Bitcoin was specifically designed to BE radically different from the conventional banking system, i.e. the gap is entirely intentional.  You do get this, right?  There is a differential gap between Bitcoin and the banking system because Bitcoin was intended to be, well, different.  There are also many "feedback mechanisms" already built into Bitcoin, and as a currency its been used for years to transact out in the open (I've done it many times, and on this very forum).  There are many people who use Bitcoin without transferring in and out of fiat, such as miners who directly use their earnings to purchase goods and services. 

First of all, I'm sorry for what happened.  That sucks, and it was not your fault you had bitcoins stolen from you.  But, there are three parties involved here, and each has their own responsibilities.  The thief is responsible for the theft, blockchain.info is responsible for its website, and you are responsible for management of your funds and whom you entrust them to.

Second, how long did you say you were using bitcoins for?  Why did you use them?  It seems you value(d) them, hence this thread.  So, it's confusing to me why you never learned about Bitcoin, a part of which involves learning how to manage your funds.  Your self-disclosed lack of knowledge indicates to me that you relied on blockchain.info because you didn't even trust yourself to know what you were doing.

Third, blockchain.info is not the "standard bearer" of Bitcoin.  What were you even trying to say in suggesting that?

Fourth, blaming bitcoins themselves is just a logic fail.  You might as well just blame the Internet as a whole because it had about as much to do with this heist as bitcoins did.  Or, blame computers.  You could commit to never using a computer ever again until the "tech guys" figure out how to make a computer that is invincible to all cyber attacks.

With regards to the phrase "inactive" DNA, although I do recall hearing something in the past few years about the involvement of "inactive" DNA in certain biological processes, I used the phrase as a reference to over-confident assertions put forward by the scientific community on an all-too-frequent basis. While the same can be said for many theists, evidence is generally interpreted poorly at first until new evidence suggests some refinement is in order.  For a long time what was evident/apparent about 'inactive' DNA was that these components seemed, well inactive, and so it was assumed they were unimportant.  Now, new evidence points to their involvement in certain biological processes.  But, all this means is that the evidence has given us more knowledge than we had before.  But, the problem is that we have no way of knowing if this means we've obtained knowledge at the level of 99% full understanding or even 1% understanding.  If you base your understanding solely upon the abstraction of evidence, then you really can't even ever say that you know a lot about anything!

Regarding the copy machine and digital copy analogies, I chose the copy machine because "generation to generation" was referencing sexual reproduction rather than the generation of cells.  The analogy relates to what I was saying about modern evolutionary theory and its failure to cohesively model speciation upon genetic processes and link it to adaptation.  The point I was trying to make is that DNA itself, as commonly shared by all life, has a basic structure and rules for operation that unite us all.  For some reason, modern evolutionary theory focuses almost entirely on differentiation, and inherently so because it 1) attempts to account for the evolutionary progression of varying species and 2) does this by seeing how the genome varies between species, between successive generations of the same species, and like your digital copy analogy between successive generations of cells.  As a result, it doesn't even attempt to consider, for example, that perhaps the definition of 'species' sucks as it is inadequate to include every living creature, and that this could lead to an alternate and equal-if-not-more-valid interpretation that we are all the same 'species,' united by DNA.  And, that through interactions (guided by conscious or sub/unconscious intention) we both are subjected to, and cause, changes to our genomes.

Yes, I am exactly suggesting that the genome can be altered through intention, for example, through thought that is intended.  Don't make the mistake of stopping the buck too soon with personal causation.  Remember, everything is interdependent, and DNA vs. environment is a false dichotomy.

Let's say Bob works a stressful job.  To ease his stress after work, he likes to let off a bit of steam.  Bob is a professional beach bum, and he loves making an ass of himself by doing handstands in a speedo in front of all the sunbathing ladies.  He does this so often, in fact, that after 10 years he has developed melanoma on his butt-cheeks.  Melanoma is, of course, cancerous, or the mutation of cells in the body that then replicate and spread.  Now, would Bob's genome have been altered in that particular way if not for his intention?  

Now imagine other people who get stressed and the things they do:  smoking, drinking, using other drugs, engaging in unsafe and promiscuous sex, etc., all of which can lead to things like cancer or STI's which in turn impact a person's genome.  And all of these things are the result of intention in some way or another.  Then, you can extend further and look at how the intentions of one person can affect the genome of another (e.g. 2nd hand smoke, Chernobyl, etc.).

I also think that "positive" changes to the genome can be encouraged through "positive" intentions.



If you say that during yoga you were "lost in your thoughts" then I assure you that you were not in a "complete state of meditation," though you were meditating.  In a complete state of meditation there is no thought.  There is no "I" as you know it.  You don't even feel as though you're "in" your head at all, and actually the way you phrased it (i.e. "existing inside my head") seems incongruent with the points you're making.  What is the "you" existing inside your head?  And if you think you're the same as your head/brain, why did you phrase it that way?  I don't believe you were being cautious enough to purposefully choose head so that you could say you are your brain and thus "in" your head.

With regards to 0's and 1's, I simply mean that our understanding of anything and communicated through mental abstraction is understood purely through binary logic.  Every concept or thing in reality is differentiated according to what it is not - we know 'x' is 'x' because its not 'all - x'.

Example:  This (not-this) sentence (not-sentence) is (not-is) understood (not-understood) due (not-due) to (not-to) binary (not-binary) logic (not-logic).

In the words of Christopher Langan - "Are you seeing me?...The answer is 'yes' or 'no' and if you can't choose, you can't perceive me; you don't know whether I'm here or not...Binary logic is something you depend on.  Without it, you can't even have so much as a single perception."

Now, keep in mind that while the act of pure perception may be taking place, you can never assert that a specific thing exists without binary logic because you need binary logic to distinguish that thing from everything else.  Pure perception operates at higher syntactic level where subject and object are ambiguous, and this is demonstrated by our ability to abstract reality and find the same ambiguity.  However, we can only abstract this ambiguity through ratio (again, the root word of rationale), and this means we have to first look at one concept and then another.  We can never do it simultaneously in the way that pure perception allows.'

So, I don't believe I'm ascribing too much importance to myself, but rather I think you're not ascribing enough importance to yourself.  We as perceivers help to enable reality inasmuch as we define the elements contained therein.  Without perceivers, there is no way to assert a reality.  In fact, there is absolutely no meaning.  Perceivers create meaning.  If you have trouble with the word 'meaning' because it sounds too personal, try to think about it within the context of the communication of even the most basic information.  Even if there is information, without any sort of communication of that information, there is absolutely zero meaning and thus you can't say a damn thing about reality at all.  There is no talking about, "What would the Universe be like without perceivers?" As soon as you try to give an answer to this question, you're wrong.  Now, knowing that I'm taking the position of "I help to enable meaningful existence for myself and others," do you now understand why I ascribe importance to myself?





Mental in a physical sense...you know, I'm just having a hard time understanding how you define what is mental and how you define what is physical.  And, to me, it just sounds as if you're making a wrongful implication that our raw experience and feelings are interchangeable with the indirectly observed evidence that you find when you look inside the brain from the outside.  That's like saying that "feeling warm" is the same thing kinetic energy, or that "feeling pain" is the same thing as "there's a hole in an appendage."  If that was the case, we wouldn't have laws.  And, if we're so unimportant because "experience" is the same as "neural signal', then why do we give a fuck about violence and laws and such?


I mean that subjects both 1) perceive an input of information and 2) process information.  Imagine, for example, a computer feedback loop in which local proxies receive input from a host, process information, and send output back to the host.  Then, also imagine that each proxy is also a host, and that the original host is also a proxy.  So, the host also receives input from each proxy, and each proxy also sends output to a host.  In this way, the entire system continually re-configures and refines itself according to an overarching syntax that governs individual processes.

In other words:
Input   --> Perceiver --> Output
Output --> Perceiver --> Input

The structure and composition of the Universe is subject to both our perception and definition of it, otherwise we can't ever assert anything about it's structure and composition.  Without a subject to perceive, 'definition' cannot be asserted.  Without definition, a perceiver cannot identify.


When referencing yourself as a subject as "the most fundamental anchor that you use as a relational base from which to navigate through reality," I mean that the mere processes of identifying yourself as distinct from the rest of reality is the root of all your conceptual understanding of anything, ever.  Imagine, for example, that you're trying to track down the scammer responsible for a major Bitcoin heist.  You look to the block chain to find the transactions corresponding to the stolen funds, but as we know, there are no identities attached to the transactions themselves, and so we basically have information that is utterly meaningless in helping us find the crook.  Al we have is one lone point of nothingness, one measly public address to which the stolen funds were initially send.  But, as time goes by, the coins get passed around and around and suddenly, one day, 0.05 BTC that's linked to the crime shows up at a Bitcoin exchange.  BAM.  Anchor #1.  We now have our all important root from where we can branch out and trying to connect and make sense of all the other transactions.

As I explained previously, subjects, as both hosts and proxies, both receive and process information  Thus, reality itself as perceived is both affected and caused by the results of perception.  There is no "out there" independent of whats "in here."  If we see something going on outside of us, it's because that something is the result of something going on inside of us, and vice versa.




I'm talking about language in a more fundamental way than spoken language.  Math is a language.  Physics is a language.  An apple is a language.  English is a language.  Every identifiable thing is a language because, by definition, all 'things' that can be considered "content" are governed by laws and made intelligible by grammar.

The point I'm making is that Language as an algebraic structure (syntax + content + grammar) is absolutely fundamental to any and all conceptual knowledge.    To understand what this means and why thinking about reality as inherently linguistic is probably a good starting point requires only a little digging.  Syntax, or laws, govern systems and distribute to the contents contained therein.  If content were not governed by the laws of a system, then it would not be included in that system to begin with.  Thus, if we attempt to understand, for example, the syntax of the broadest system or set, then we'd have the broadest scope of understanding.

Keep in mind that concepts are evidence too, and because philosophy studies language at a more fundamental level (whereas math and physics study language at a more superficial level), it provides a broader scope of understanding than either math or physics.  Because it is broader in scope, philosophy helps us to see what math and physics are lacking in their capacities to yield absolute understanding.  Because math and physics are more finite in scope, they allow us to gain more conditional understanding.

By taking the broadest perspective possible (i.e start with an understanding of language and rebuild everything else on top of it), we can avoid the problem that you're alluding to.  I forget the writer, but I recall an article about "concept extension," the phenomenon you're referring to.

Concept extension is when you take a concept of a specific discipline or context and start applying it where it has no business being applied.  The article provided the example of an engaged couple, with various explanations for their reasons for getting married.  A behavioral psychologist might say the couple got engaged due to a series of stimuli and responses.  Or, perhaps, they just fucking wanted to.  The context of language supersedes all others, and to talk from any lesser context provides an opportunity to step out of bounds.  However, I'm sure I do it anyway as it's a natural tendency.  It's really hard to talk about various syntactic levels while simultaneously giving the impression that you're only standing on one of them.


I don't base on inference.  I treat inference like I treat a road sign - I go wherever it points, but sometimes the weather sucks, or my contacts are foggy, or the roads are bad and it doesn't always lead me where I want it to.  


I base upon the understanding of how systems in general operate, and specifically upon how systems are linguistic as they too have syntax/laws, grammar, and content contained therein.  If I roll a tire down a hill, I know that the tire, the hill, and my body are all contained within a larger system, and that within that larger system is embedded a syntax that supersedes the syntax of the tire, the hill, and my body.  I'd rather learn about this syntax because I think it can indicate more than a simple explanation that it's all probabilistic.  When I hear the word "chance," my mind sort of does this weird little routine where it farts and then explodes for a brief second.  Also bear in mind that chance basically posits an "if/or" scenario, or a hypothetical, which cannot logically be treated as sound inference.  It's a logical fallacy by definition.  Even the language is weird.  To say "it was caused by chance" or "caused by probability" is indicating something about chance and probability, namely that it's causal!  

Imagine that I code a perfect random number generator.  I run the program and you look at the processes and code and you say, "Yep, each number is purely random and due to chance."  And I say, "Why do you say that?  The program I ran caused the random process."  From your vantage point of describing processes at a lower syntactic level, you might claim this is purely semantic and doesn't indicate anything.  From a higher vantage point, causality takes precedence because without the cause there would be no random number generator process to analyze to formulate any assertions about its nature at all.


That's not my argument at all.  In a previous post I provided an example of how we can gain understanding about higher syntactic levels, and I explained that we need to quite literally imagine as though we are at a higher vantage point and then thrust our elusive concept of study beneath us, just as if we represent a 4-dimensional tesseract on a 2-dimensional plane to learn about 4-dimensional reality.  This is allowed due to the holosymmetrical nature of language which can be evidenced simply by musing over semantics.


First of all, the interpretations of the evidence for the length of the Universe's existence are wrought with so many problems it's ridiculous.  First, I've yet to see any calculation take into account the extreme changes in Universal temperature and the distribution of gravity over time which radically affects time itself.  You cant simply look to the end of the Universe or look to the rate of expansion to determine when it began.  First, to even talk like that means you again need to wander off into a discussion about a reality independent of perceivers which, for me, is hard to entertain.  Second, suppose that you could travel to the 'edge' of the universe, as you would assume the maximum traveled distance would correspond to the beginning of the Universe.  Ok, but let's say you could even transport there instantly, right now.  The problem is that you're still in the present, so where do you look now?  Are you just in a tiny, mini little Universe or can you now see another 14-whatever-billion lightyears away?  If you could transport there right now, could you again look around you and try to use measurements to calculate the present age?  What about in an environment where gravity and temperature are so immense that time itself is drastically warped?  If the Universe is expanding, what the fuck is it expanding into?  And, if whatever it's expanding into is real enough so as to allow something to expand into it, why the hell isn't it in the Universe to begin with?  How do you know that it's not another case of a "flat world" and when you reach the end of the Universe you come back around the other side?  If time is relative, then what the hell is so important about 14,000,000 years anyway and why does that imply the 'beginning' of anything?

And the 'problem' I'm guessing you have with religion is generally the same gripe I have with it.  It involves messed up logic, a lack of personal integrity, worthless idolatry, and dear god the dogma and politics.  
 

[/quote]

Ever had a lucid dream?  I have.  I do not distinguish between that experience and my everyday reality.  I was in a completely different 'location' in my lucid dream, and so was my body.  It would be foolish to think otherwise.  I was in my room, I laid on my bed, and then I was in California, and then I was back in my bed.  f you doubt your experience, then you can't trust anything and you might as well kill yourself because nothing can ever make any sense.  Faith is important, and it relates more to knowledge than you lend it credit.  

My belief about why things like the deterioration, or conversely, rejuvenation, affect the subject so much is very much like the Buddhist perspective on the matter, and it equates to what I believe is the intended meaning of the Biblical concept of "Original Sin."  I believe people are conditioned by desire, and that desire itself is the root of all suffering.  By definition, desire implies dissatisfaction, for if you desire something it means you want 'y' when all that is presently happening is 'x.' If you want something you don't have, this is a problem.

My evidence for my hypothesis that consciousness is not caused by the brain comes from my memory of meditative states.  My awareness was infinitely more pure than in a non-meditative state, and there was no "me" that was distinct from anything else.  There just was.  Before  "There is me" or "there is a tree" or "there is an apple"  there is only "there is."  "Is" is a property of being - being cannot not be.  As a property, it is syntactic and therefore distributive to content.  Following "there is" is a conditional 'blank', and you can fill that blank with anything.  "There is _______."  Go ahead, fill in the blank.  During meditation, that blank no longer exists and only identity remains.  Identity, without a brain, without a body...in fact, without any conditional ANYthing.



**P.S.  Pardon my aggressive style of debating.  I truly enjoy and respect your point of view.

I sure hope you have evidence when you resort to slander and defamation.  Keep it up and I bet one day you'll find yourself in court staring down the barrel of a civil suit.

Thanks!  It was at a pool, but I still feel lucky

I actually found 2 blocks with the SAME erupter.

JJBTCSeller, I'd be careful about making slanderous statements without any proof.  Just sayin'...

By the way, all this thread does is ensure that I will never conduct business with you.

I don't think you did yourself any favors with this post.

Litecoin.  Your 7950 is virtually useless for btc mining, and even if you pay nothing for electricity it's still much more profitable to mine litecoins.  You could try some of the other scrypt coins, but in my opinion speculation is the only thing helping to sustain the value of other alt currencies.  At least litecoin has some underlying infrastructure in place to add to the speculation, albeit nowhere near the level that Bitcoin has.

That's the n***** that stole my TV!

The bolded section doesn't make sense to me.  Do you have any idea what statistical probability is?  Probabilities are the result of mathematical laws embedded into Universal syntax, and this suggests the opposite of chaos.  Furthermore, we can't infer from an observation of apparent chaos that it is indeed chaos (due to the problem of induction).  Even if we asserted chaos to exist, it would by definition require an absolute lack of syntax, and therefore it could not even function as a system.  Continuing with this thought, if we then assert that systems arose out of an absolute lack of a system, we run into a mistake to the one Descartes made.  If chaos were real enough to have an effect on the Real Universe, then chaos would be included in the Real Universe, and therefore it would share some fundamental, structural syntactic property with it.  Looking at the contra-positive, if chaos is real, then the unreal is not chaos.  This would prove problematic for your predictive view of the Real Universe.

Speaking to your thoughts on evolution, my point is that if I asserted that evolved states of consciousness lead to evolved physical states, there wouldn't be any evidence that you could show me that would disprove my assertion.  Moreover, not only could I utilize the same evidence that you would use to support your assertion to support mine, but I could provide additional evidence to support my assertion including the 1) dynamic interactions between mind and body coupled with 2) the real-time changes to the genome via interactions with the environment.  I could even expand the context and encourage you to take a broader look at DNA, most notably that DNA is commonly shared by every living creature, and secondarily that the vast majority of DNA in our genome is inactive.  What scientists have yet to figure out is that this inactive DNA is a series of genetic predispositions that, given the right catalysts, could be expressed -- all you would need is, for example, a frame shift mutation in a given cell that alters its genetic expression and resulting phenotypes.  Genes are passed generation to generation in a process similar to a copy machine.  When you take a copy of a document and scan it, and then scan a copy of a copy, and then a copy of a copy of a copy, etc., you will notice some superficial changes in the copies.  The underlying structure is basically identical, but the topographical characteristics vary.  My gripe with the theory of evolution is that it is rooted in a positivist worldview and doesn't even try to take into account the ways in which our intentions affect our bodies and subsequently our genomes; in other words, the buck stops too soon.  'Species' are thereby differentiated according to something as superficial as their sexual compatibility, and yet somehow a genetic mutation of a human that renders him infertile does not classify him as a different species.  This immediately raises an issue since 'species' is basically impossible to define without running into any exceptions.  It's not really a problem for Darwin, but it's a problem for modern evolutionary theory since it can't accurately model speciation upon genetic processes and then link it to adaptation in a cohesive way.


You'd be surprised.  There is a difference between knowing something and knowing 'about' something.  Knowing about something requires mental abstraction.  Thoughts operate at a lower level of syntax than reality itself - we think in 'yes or no' terms, and in fact every sentence, thought, concept, and idea can be broken down into, essentially, 0's and 1's.  This is what allows us to linearly process the world around us, most notably via thinking.  What you typically miss out on in your everyday awareness is all the parallel processing going on for you in the background.  Now, you probably don't notice it because a parallel process won't ever take the form of a thought. Sometime, you should learn meditation and see what happens when you totally shut up your thoughts and let all the underlying processes emerge in full view.  I promise you, you'll see reality as you've never seen it before.

When you think about something, you 'act' as though there is an absolute chasm between you and the thing, even though in reality this isn't the case.  In truth, subjects and objects are homogenized for they both work in tandem to comprise basic linguistic structure, and this can be experienced and known directly.  You can never get that through thinking.  God : reality :: man : thoughts.  Reality is god's constraint, thoughts are man's constraints.


What do you call the experience of a feeling if not mental?  Likert scales exist for a reason.  Furthermore, as I've stated previously, the physical world you study is the result of internal processes.  Einstein knew this very well considering he developed the theory of relativity.  The theory itself implies that things only move in relation to one another, and the most fundamental anchor that you use as a relational base from which to navigate through this reality is yourself as a subject.  Additionally, everything that is sensed is in the past.  For example, even when we observe something, it is in the past since it takes a given time for light to travel to us.  This means that the information you call 'input' is already processed information.


I'm not claiming any 'before' even though it might have sounded that way from the Bible passage.  I'm saying that without basic linguistic structure (syntax, content, and grammar) there would be neither existence nor non-existence.  There could be no system of any kind, no logical structure, no object, not even chaos.  Having a good understanding of linguistic structure is important especially because it helps you understand the limits of its descendant disciplines (e.g. mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).  And, since language itself is more fundamental than these disciplines, including mathematics, it can also highlight what is missing from these disciplines that prohibits us from using them to gain a comprehensive understanding of the Universe.  If we know what is missing, we can try to figure out how that can help us know more than the other disciplines alone can teach us.


What about an interpretation of zero probability and only impossibility?  If event 'x' happens and event 'y' does not happen, how do you know 'y' was possible?  To me, it seems 'y' was only impossible. Again, probability and chance is simply another way of saying "I don't know why this happened."  Perhaps there is some operation functioning at a higher syntactic level that guides processes such as radioactive decay in a causal way, but at our lower syntactic level of perception we perceive it as a 'chance' or even 'random' function?  This seems more likely to me given that time itself is relative, and thus all 'chance' events are relative to themselves...


I call that age-old question a "non-question."  It's interesting, but ultimately it's not even worth discussing, and quantum physicists would agree with me.  I don't know if I would use the word "us," but I would say I don't believe the Universe can exist without any observers anywhere.  I believe the Universe is born out of the mind of god, like a thought (tele-cognition?), and that the dynamic relationship between god and the Universe is essentially a process by which God seeks to know himself.  I do believe, however, that God (subject) and the universe (object) can homogenize and that there would no longer be a Universe per se.  Get a load of that...I think we're all here because God is a mental masturbator on a mission.


Logically, I would again point to the subject-object relationship in disagreement with your statement that your body and 'you' are the same.  But, I can also say that from my experiences with meditation, I know (i.e. I recall a direct experience) that consciousness does not need to be localized to the body, but rather it can expand into what you would consider "external" things.

I also disagree with the words you selected in saying that there is a part of your organism that "gives" you consciousness.

Oh my, I look forward to responding to this after work

Of course, it should be obvious that you're not going to find any science in a text that predates the scientific revolution by 1000+ years.  But, that doesn't mean people were dumb back then.  I'm sure people then had ways of learning that we would consider unorthodox today, but that doesn't make them invalid.

I think it's worth noting that there exist civilizations today whose cultures are still pre-scientific.  But, what's interesting is that these cultures are the go-to for many western scientists and researchers looking for new information.  Somewhere around 80-90% of all knowledge pertaining to the effects of pharmaceutical ingredients is based upon indigenous tribal knowledge.  And, if you speak with the tribal leaders (aka 'shamans') they will tell you that they acquired most of their botanical knowledge through communication with 'spirits', often after the consumption of hallucinogenic substances such as ayuhuasca and tobacco.

For a closer look at the unorthodox learning practices of these tribal cultures, I recommend "The Cosmic Serpant: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge" by Stanford anthropologist, Jeremy Narby.

Where typical atheists get off track:

1). They mistake evidence for fact and mistake models based upon evidence for fact.  The theory of evolution is a perfect example. We have a large set of evidence and people interpret this evidence to support evolution.  However, utilizing the exact same set of evidence we can formulate an equally valid, opposing theory, namely one in which evolved states of consciousness lead to evolves physical states rather than vice versa.

2).  They underestimate the soundness of logic.  Perception itself is inherently entwined with binary logic, for if it weren't, you'd never even be able to distinguish anything as different from everything else.  In fact, you could never even assert that you perceive anything at all.  

3).  They neglect experience as a means to knowing.  This is often ironic in that many atheists also claim things like 'truth is relative' or 'logic is abstract' and then utilize abstract interpretations of evidence to deny the existence of god.  

4).  They adhere to Cartesian dualism by which it is asserted that there is an unbridgable chasm between mental and physical reality.  This leads them to trying to argue against the existence of god as an entity that is somehow totally independent from reality, but at the same time has the capacity to intervene in reality.  I think the main reason for this is that they've heard god defined in this way by idiot Christians and other religious people who have poor reasoning ability.

5).  They emphasize the importance of math, but they fail to realize that the most basic algebraic structure is language.  In fact, every identifiable object or concept is, by definition, its own language.  "In the beginning was the word" is true as fuck.  Language (I.e. syntax + content + grammar) lays the foundation for all of reality, and it is far more important to have a solid grasp of syntactic operations than to know how to calculate specific math problems or formulate models.  You can't understand the universe without understanding language because the universe IS a language.  

6).  They use words like "supernatural" to refer to religious claims, but then they forget that 'chance' and 'probability' are just alternative words for unknown specific causation.  Furthermore, they experience cognitive dissonance in light of paradoxes which, contrary to popular belief, are self-resolving rather than impossible.

7).  They mistakenly study reality as if it is the input of our experience when it is actually the output of internally processed information.

8.)  They don't understand the relationship between subjects and objects in the universe, or at least they cease their understanding when objects are in close proximity to the subject.  For example, they will instantly assert they are different from a tree (an object) but not different than, say, their body (also an object).  This is a problem when they then assert that the death of the body equates to death of the subject.

I might post more later...

Well, right now we've been looking at 25-40% increases in difficulty every adjustment, and we've seen something like a 500% increase in difficulty over the past 3 months alone.