My Theory of Consciousness

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Part 1

Hello ILP, long time no see. I like the new look!

I’ve been frequenting these forums less and less over the years. Frankly, I’m finding it more and more pointless. And to top that off, I’ve recently joined a Jewish forum–that’s right, a Jewish forum–over at The Hebrew Cafe, immersing myself in Exodus and getting a top notch education on it (inspired to do so by Jordan Peterson’s series Exodus on Daily Wire. So on the rare occasions when I do want to post online, it’s gonna be The Hebrew Cafe, not ILP.

I know how devastatingly crushed you all must feel about this news, but take heart–today’s post has absolutely nothing to do with the above. It has to do, in fact, with something very personal about me, something philosophical, something I don’t know why I haven’t done a long time ago (when I did frequent ILP more often)–I’m going to start a post on my central philosophy of consciousness–what it is, how it relates to matter, and how it relates to reality. I wrote a three volume book on it and published it on Amazon–making fuck all at the moment (or ever)–but there for anybody to buy and read if they please. But rather than coax you to buy my book, I’m going to present my theory right here, on ILP, in as concise and thorough a way as I can, to the best of my abilities, and hopefully to the best of everyone’s abilities to understand what I’m trying to convey.

This is not something I’ve ever done on ILP–EVER–oh, I’ve talked about it, brought it up, answered questions about it, fell back on it to give answers, interpreted things through its lens–but never devoted a whole thread to the full explication of it, starting at step one, and hopefully over several posts, and most likely several years, touching all steps along the way and eventually covering the entire theory. (I’d be interested to see what ends up being longer–my 3 volume book or the sheer size this thread becomes–keeping in mind, a lot of it might be devoted to answering questions, discussions with fellow ILP members, debating fellow ILP members, getting sidetracked by an interesting discussion with an ILP member and therefore not even contributing to the purpose of the thread… at least for a (hopefully) short while… so it might get looooong. Which is okay with me–I don’t mind long threads that may take years to complete (or die)–but I honestly feel I’m more likely to get bored with this one and eventually one day just stop posting before it ever reaches completion.

Nonetheless, that day is not today! Today I present to you my theory of conscious…

My theory of consciousness is, at core, a new theory of substance. I start by rejecting Descartes’ theory that there are only two substances in existence–mind and matter–and I also reject Berkley’s theory of substance–that everything is one substance–namely, mind–and matter can be seen as just sense perceptions (all sustained by God). I reject Berkley insofar as his concept of “mind” is the Cartesian concept, but more on that later. What I do, in the first chapter of my book, is try to open the reader to the idea that, in order to solve the consciousness problem, we are going to have to come up with a new way to understand–even define–substance. So here I’m rejecting all my contenders–Descartes’s Dualism, Berkley’s Idealism, and also physicalist’s physicalism (the latter being a huge lot). Chapter 1 is mostly devoted to the latter as I had the most to say about it, and I could easily merge it with a thread I started here at ILP (Revisiting the Zombie Argument) in which I argued against physicalists of all kinds and gained some very valuable insights, which of course went into my book (with everyone’s consent, of course). At the end, however, I reached the conclusion that even physicalism doesn’t work, and we’re still wanting for an adequate theory of substance that might help us resolve the problems–philosophically or otherwise–of conscious.

My theory of consciousness is just that: a theory of substance, a new one, that I flesh out as follows. I start by assuming dualism (even though it is to be rejected in the end) to see how we can redefine the substances involved–the goal being to show, in the end, that mind is the true substance and matter only an instance or state of the former–but with an important emphasis on the fact that this will be the “mind” after redefinition into this new kind of substance. This will give it an advantage over matter that allows itself to be the basis from which matter, if it exists at all at this point, arises, rather than visa-versa as common wisdom would have it.

And how do I redefine substance in just this way? Starting with the mind part of Cartesianism, I note three things that all my subjective experiences have in common:

They are all at once…

1. qualitative
2. real
3. meaningful

There is no experience I can have that doesn’t have some aspect of all 3. Given that these 3 descriptions of mind (or subjective experience) seem to apply to all my experiences, I now propose that they apply to all experiences in general–wherever an experience may arise, it will be characterized by a combination of these 3–it will feel like some quality, it will feel real, and it will mean something–so I want to define experience in this way: an experience is some combination of these 3 things.

Now, obviously, this idea–that the universe is made of this substance–of qualities, being, and meaning–needs to be unpacked. But that’s what I don’t have time for! I will nonetheless attempt to expand on each of these 3 ingredients for mind in one paragraph each.

On quality, I want to encourage the reader to imagine qualities as limitless. How so? Don’t ever assume that some qualities could be off limits, or that some qualities–even inconceivable ones–can’t exist–qualities are truly limitless. To really drive this home, imagine color–a perfect example of qualities if ever there was one–the different qualities of colors (their hues) fall on a spectrum (or rainbow if you like); you have red on the one end and purple on the other–in-between you have orange, yellow, green, and blue–but is it possible to have colors before red? Beyond purple? Bees are known to see into the ultraviolet–do they experience colors beyond purple?–What on Earth would that be like?–Can there be colors beyond even the bee’s range of experience?–well, the idea behind qualities having no limits is to say ‘yes’–there can. In fact, you might as well imagine the color spectrum as infinite in both direction, with trillions, and quadrillions, and quintillions of different and unique colors. In fact, that’s not all. The colors are still limited to spreading their divergence along only one dimension. A spectrum infinite in both directions is, more or less, a dimension. And we all know dimensions can be orthogonal to each other (perpendicular). So if the quality of color is limited to just that one dimension–limited to always being a certain hue of color–we must think “actually, it’s not”–there is at least one orthogonal dimension to it, a perpendicular spectrum. Colors, in other words, cannot only vary by hue (along the one dimension), but by a totally different quality–say, brightness, how much it glows–maybe this is what the orthogonal dimension represents. At any point within this 2 dimensional space, a quality can have any hue of color and this color can be any brightness. But why stop there? We now have to say, these bright and dark colors are limited to only these two dimensions–to being color and to having some brightness–what other quality could they have? I know! Saturation! So we simply add a third dimension–saturation–but you see where this goes, right? Why not a fourth dimension? Why not a fifth? Is there a limit to the number of dimensions a quality could have? And the answer is no–there is no limit–not only can any quality transform to different qualities along a single dimension, but along infinite dimensions. In fact, at a certain point, we run out of qualities we can imagine, and have to start purporting unimaginable qualities. ← THAT… is what I want you guys to understand when I use the the word “limitless” ← And that’s a very important concept to wrap your heads around when it comes to what I mean by “qualities”.

On “real” (or being), there isn’t a lot more to say over and above what most idealists will tell you, but I will introduce my own twist on it. Berkley’s argument esse es percepi (to be is to be perceived) boils down to this: we don’t know reality except by way of our experiences. Therefore, any reference to reality is really a reference to experience–that is, for us, reality is experience and experience is reality. We tend to think of reality as outside the mind because we think of reality as “out there” and the mind as “in here”. But isn’t “out there” just another quality of experience? Isn’t depth perception–near and far–a consequence of depth perceiving neurons in the brain producing the experience of 3D space and injecting it into the 2D visual field given to our brains by the retina? Therefore, even an object being “over there” is a quality inherent in an experience within us. But the reality of experience extends beyond 3D space–it gets abstract–such as “truths” being the quality of beliefs, or “good” and “bad” being the qualities inherent in emotions and moral values. Every experience has it’s own unique way of feeling real, or independent of one’s self, and this reality is projected from the experience onto a real world. Reality isn’t just conveyed by experience but embedded in experience, defining it at its core just like quality and meaning. Reality–being–in other words–is to be found in our experiences, not outside, and not only constitutes this new definition of substance (along with quality and meaning) but accounts for how it can be substance–that is, how it can sustain itself as substance independently of anything more fundamental. (This, incidentally, is the grounds on which I reject both Cartesianism and Berkley’s idealism–Descartes doubts the reality of experiences, and on that basis argues a separation between perception and reality, mind and matter–and Berkley, while arguing that mind is the ultimate reality, is merely borrowing Descarte’s concept of mind while rejecting his concept of matter–but if I’m rejecting Cartesian mind, I must also reject Berkley’s idealism–a reality of pure mind void of reality, thus requiring God to sustain it.)

On meaning, I want show how it ties to the flow of mind. Take rational thinking for example. You’re given two premises: 1) If someone is a Jetson, they’re a cartoon. 2) George is a Jetson. What do you conclude? Obviously, George must be a cartoon. Right? But would you know what to conclude if you didn’t know what the premises meant (say if they were given to you in a foreign language)? No, you have to grasp their meaning if you want to know what they mean together. It is meaning itself that drives the mind to think, to draw conclusions, to deduce, to figure things out, to put the pieces together and reason through it–and I propose that this is true of all meaning in all experience. Whatever an experience means, that meaning will beget further meaning in further experiences. This is flow. Meaning is what drives the mind to keep flowing, to keep changing and metamorphizing, to keep moving forward. Meaning is energy. It is the force that drives everything and everybody. But unlike physical cause and effect, mind operates on semantic principles–that is, meaning is semantics, and therefore each experience which flows into another doesn’t cause the subsequent experience, but like the logic of the George Jetson example, entails the subsequent experience. Therefore, I use the term “entailment” to denote flow or the way experiences morph or change quality, and this term is meant to be interpreted broadly, applying to more than just logical entailment, but generally to the way one experience “means” the next.

In fact, you can tie this 3rd aspect of experience (meaning) into the 2nd (being). The meaning of any experience is what reality is telling you in that moment. Think, for example of looking at the sky. Typically, we see that it is blue–not just looks blue, but is blue. ← This is the “being” inside the perception of blue. And as it turns out, it tells us something about reality–that in reality, the sky is blue. ← That’s how the experience doubles as meaning. It is information–information that is at once contained in the experience and exposed or conveyed by it (incidentally, this is also a good example of flow–if this is what’s conveyed by the experience–that the sky is blue–then it also necessitates the truth that the sky is blue–which projects from abstract thought, of course, which in turn is what the perception flows into).

Anyway, how does matter fit into this? Well, I don’t so much attempt to redefine matter to more closely resemble this new substance, at least not at this point in the book, but rather suggest that now that we’ve defined mind in this way (an instance of quality, being, and meaning), it can actually be shown how matter simply reduces to mind (this is your typical Berkelian idea, or Morpheus telling Neo that reality is just electric impulses entering your brain), but also the more daunting challenge of reducing matter in the noumenal context (see Kant) to mind.

I nonetheless focus my attention on the matter side of dualism, and while I do propose that the matter we see, feel, touch, taste and smell are all to be reduced to our sensations of them (in fact, being one with them thanks to description 2) above–that of being/realness–for they affirm their own existence even as a sensation), I leave the more daunting question of how to do this for the Kantian noumenal forms for the next chapter–here I note only that this new substance–this mind composed of quality, being, and meaning–seems perfectly in sync with, perfectly parallels, the physical operations of the brain–often right down to the neuron. And so at this point, at least, we must concede the relation between mind and brain remains correlative, not causative. So in effect, we have two “realities”–that which is made up of our subjective experience, and that which lies beyond our subjective experiences–and in the book, I call these (respectively) “subjective realities” and “Reality” (with a capital R).

I do nonetheless point the following out–that if we look at this, not from the flow of experience as they pass through the mind paralleling brain activity, but one’s whole consciousness as it relates to one’s overall behavior–we find an interesting pattern in the correlation. We notice that everything the mind intends to do (or feels driven to do), the behavior obliges. And if we look at how the flow of mind leads to the intentions, we usually find reasons and justification–why the person should behave in the way he does–or emotional compulsions that seem to drive that same behavior. In fact, when it comes to emotional compulsions, they are experiences no less than thought or rational thinking–they too are a beautiful combination of qualities, being, and meaning–meaning in particular makes them–makes their “forcefulness”–more like reasons whose justifications seem so compellingly strong–why you should engage in said behavior–that you just can’t deny it. In brief, whereas the brain with all it’s neurons and neuro-chemical activity may account for the cause of the person’s behavior, the mind–his reasons, his justifications, his desires, and his intentions–account for the reasons for his behavior. In other words, the paradox of mind and matter, though still far from resolved, seems much less like a paradox and more like complements–that is, mind and matter compliment each other–matter providing cause in the universe, mind providing reason and purpose.

So while we can’t necessarily deduce what a particular brain part experiences when undergoing neuro-chemical processes just by examining it scientifically and with thorough scrutiny, we can say this: in whatever way it contributes to the organism’s overall behavior, the brain part comes with an experience that, because of its quality, its being, and its meaning, amounts to a reason/justification (among many from other brain parts) for the behavior.

Here’s how I summarized it in my book:

The theory of mind and matter consists of two parts:

1. An experience is
   i) any instance of qualitivity
   ii) that exudes realness, resulting in projection
   iii) and conveys a meaning that defines its essential quality, resulting in flow.
2. Experience, as defined in 1), correlates with neurological activity by providing the reasons for the resulting behavior, thus complementing the causal nature of the physical process.

^ I called this the Basic Theory. The Advanced Theory would take on the problem of reducing mind (as defined here) to matter in the noumenal (Kantian) sense–that is, matter as it actually exists outside us. The argument involves answering these two questions: 1) why should mind count as the substrate upon which matter rests, and 2) how can matter rest on a substrate such as mind?

…and I will get in to that in part 2 of this OP.

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Part 2

So why should mind count as the substrate of all matter (indeed, all existence)? My approach starts with the Kantian concepts of contingency vs. necessity. Kant argues that the outer physical world is characterized by contingency–that is, it is presented to us as contingent–it is just there–a brute fact–without any explanation for why or how. Now, that doesn’t mean it can’t be explained or that there isn’t some underlying necessity to matter or outer reality that isn’t immediately given. But the mode by which it is presented to us leaves these out and prompts us to ask “why?”–and this “why?” compels us to seek out the answers. And we often find them–usually through science–but here’s the problem: science is a physicalist’s tool. It yields answers to our “why” questions, making the contingent appear necessary, but only by introducing yet more physical substrata through a reductive process. The reductive process of science is that process by which physical phenomena are explained in terms of smaller physical components. Objects (like rocks) are made of atoms, and the atoms explain the rock–they show how the rock as it appears to us necessarily emerges when a collection of such atoms bond together in the manner that they do. But this doesn’t remove the contingency so much as it passes it along to the atoms; because the atoms are still physical, still elements given to us in the outer world, they are still contingent. We are now asking “why the atoms?” And the reductive process is repeated. We explain the atoms in terms of subatomic particles. But the subatomic particles are still physical, and therefore still contingent, and so we’re still asking “why?” The next iteration of the reductive process brings us to quantum fluctuations, and then we ask “why the quantum fluctuations?” The fact of the matter is, this process–physical reductivism–so long as it always yields something physical–will never give us an ultimate “final” substrata that explains not only everything above it but even itself (such that the infinite regress of “whys” finally ends), to something that is necessary not just to explain all above it but in and of itself. If what we want is to find something that explains everything, existence itself, physical reductivism won’t cut it.

This is not to say we can’t eventually find our way to the bedrock layer of reality using the tools of science and reductivism–indeed, some say we already have–in quantum mechanics–everything is just a quantum wave–but what is that? So long as we’re limited to thinking of “quantum waves” as physical, it doesn’t satisfy. We’re still asking why. Why the quantum waves? Quantum waves just turn out to the be the fundamental layer of everything–without an obvious reason why–they just are. It’s not that you can’t find such a fundamental layer using the methods of science and reductivism–it’s just that it will still be contingent (and thus unsatisfying). One starts contemplating what the quantum wave really is–in and of itself–despite one’s limited ability to understand it given how contingent it turned out to be. The Kantian idea of the noumenal forms begins to emerge, and we start trying to imagine the quantum-wave-in-itself. This, of course, counts as a desperate attempt to reestablish some necessity–what the quantum wave really is, the quantum-wave-in-itself, is something we can’t even imagine, but it contains the key to necessity. It must be the real basis of the universe, not these quantum waves. And, well, you’d be right.

Enter mind. Mind fits the bill nicely, and we can see this by looking at meaning. Meaning is the source of necessity. As Kant rightly noted, reason and logic, the natural by-products of necessity, come from thought. I add that it is the meaning within thought from which this stems. Take the concept of a square for example. We all know what a square is. We all know what the term “square” means. This is why it is senseless to ask “Why do squares have four sides of equal length?” Well, that’s a stupid question. It’s because that’s just what a square is. It’s what “square” means. The meaning of “square” (the concept, the thought) necessitates that it has four sides of equal length. It can’t be otherwise. Take, for another example, the argument “If someone is a Jetson, they’re a cartoon. George is a Jetson. Therefore, George must be a cartoon.” ← Is there any point in questioning this? Isn’t it obvious that if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true? And isn’t this because we comprehend the meaning in the premises? Because we understand what “If someone is a Jetson, they’re a cartoon” and “George is a Jetson” mean? Those premises being true means that George is a cartoon. In my book, I go to great lengths to elaborate on this concept, the purpose of which is to show that experience, as the apprehension of meaning, halts not only the physical reductive process but any reductive process by halting any “why” questions in their track. The apprehension of meaning reveals necessity, not contingency, which means we are not left wanting for further explanations, for something that necessitates the contingency, for we have all the explanation we need from the start. And given that experience is also the apprehension of being, this necessity doesn’t just exist in mere thought, mere experience–as though experiences were just ephemeral ghosts–but in real substantive existence, in reality. Thus, experience, mind, and consciousness, are the perfect element to slip into the bottom layer in any reductive hierarchy that aims to point us to something on which all existence may rest.

(A brief point about questioning what would otherwise be deemed logically necessary lines of thought: of course, it is possible to question why squares have four sides of equal length–for example, some may ask this in the context of questioning logic itself–as in, sure, the meaning of “square” logically entails that it has four sides of equal length, but how does logic hold? What is logic? What is it’s nature? Why is it an essential part of reality as we know it? Questions like these require what I call “objectification”–the process by which experiences (or anything) are conceptually captured in mental models and made into abstract “things” (objects); for example, the way Plato conceptualized the classification of things into categories as “forms”–as in the “cat-ness” of all cats–making such abstractions, or more specifically the recognition of specific instances of things (like a cat) as belonging to an entire category (of “Cats”), into objects–abstract objects, immaterial objects, it is duly noted, but objects of a sort nonetheless; or the idea of the human soul rising from the body upon death–as if it were a vapor, or a ghost occupying a finite volume in space–when in actuality it is something way more abstract and immaterial (consciousness, mind, self, or the like); or when new-age hippy spiritualists describe consciousness as a kind of “energy”–like an aura that glows around the brain or the body. What this process does is it takes an experience, which can be a concept or an idea, and reshapes it into a form such that it can be treated as an object for contemplation (again, possibly abstract or immaterial). What this does is it removes the original quality and meaning of the experience and replaces it with that of an object–which, as we just noted, is contingent, not necessary–and therefore brings back the “why” questions. In the example above–where the nature of logic itself is being questioned–logic is being objectified, like it’s a phenomenon of nature, whose intrinsic workings are to be investigated (because they’re unrevealed); but logic, in its raw natural form, is just the manner by which thoughts necessarily entail other thoughts–everything’s revealed–not an object by any stretch of the imagination–and when experienced in its raw natural form, is not felt as contingent at all; in other words, of course experiences can always be questioned–why else have philosophers struggled with the mind/matter problem for centuries?–but only because in the very act of questioning them, we are also objectifying them (forming them into a concept that bears the likeness of an object). But the point I’m making here–that in the experience we find necessity–holds for the experience when felt in its raw natural form–that is, in the very midst of experiencing it–in the “moment” so to speak; this is why the most intuitive/natural position, when bringing a square to mind, is to see it as self-evident that it has four sides of equal length, and it requires some complicated intellectual gymnastics for one to become genuinely confused about how this is).

But now we need to move to 2)–the question of how to rest this reductive hierarchy (in this case physicalism) on experience. Well, Berkley already brings us half way to an answer. At the very least, we can say that physical existence can be reduced to sense perceptions, and less directly, to cognitive concepts (concepts of things we can’t see directly, like atoms and black holes). But in order to avoid arriving at solipsism, and a solipsism bankrupt of its ability to even explain where these sense perceptions come from at that, I strive to tackle the more daunting problem of how things beyond our perception can be reduced to mind (reality may be embedded in experience, in our “subjective realities”, and Berkley’s esse es percepe may be true, but that doesn’t mean all reality is embedded in my experience–we can be idealists and still believe in an outer world, with other minds, so long as that outer world inheres in a mind (or minds) of some sort). The key to tackling this more daunting problem can be solved by, once again, appealing to Kant. If the reality of the world (my subjective world) inheres in my experience of the world, then any “outer world”, if we’re still insisting that one exists beyond my experiences, must exist just like Kant’s noumena–a world of things as they are in themselves, a world beyond that of phenomena, things as they appear to us. Kant tells us that such a world cannot be anything like what we imagine, for anything we imagine necessarily draws from our experiences with phenomena. Whatever features or properties of the things we can image, they must be things like soft, cold, heavy, far away, bright, loud, sweet, painful, smelly, wet, colorful, curvy, small–and all manner of descriptions that come from the world of phenomena. But if the world of noumena is the world of things apart from these phenomenal qualities, then it is the world of things that are not these–not anything we have words for–the unimaginable. Now carry this over to experience according to my definition above–in particular, the element of quality and the elaboration I gave it. In that elaboration, I focused on the limitlessness of qualities–on how any quality you can imagine is possible, and any quality you can’t imagine is possible–such that any quality you may require for any behavior you may want to explain (given the roll that mind plays in the mind/matter correlation–namely, that mind counts as the reason for behavior, as opposed to the brain which counts as the cause) is available. That’s a lot of qualities to choose from, the vast majority of them being unimaginable. And given that experience is also being, these qualities are also real things, not just subjective perceptions. In other words, there is a vast world of real things bearing unimaginable qualities projecting from experiences. But how is this any different from Kant’s world of unimaginable noumena? Could we not say that noumena are real things of unimaginable qualities? If so, then we have a way of reducing the physical (or whatever is there in the “outer world”) to the mental. These noumena of unimaginable qualities are none other than the projections of unimaginable experiences. They are one and the same.

This works because these experiences possess being, and are therefore real. They are also rooted in necessity, so they require nothing more fundamental in a reductive hierarchy. They also possess meaning, which gives rise to the flow of mind, manifesting in the physical world as the laws of nature, driven by necessary entailment, explaining all change, all metamorphosis, even into the forms we can imagine. Think of it this way–whereas our physical models of the world would have objects outside us reflecting or emitting light which enters our eyes, hits our retina, gets transduced to electric signals that travel down the optic nerve and enters the visual cortex at the back of the brain, and suddenly we see the objects–these objects (or their noumenal forms) can be thought of as experiences of unimaginable qualities, experiences whose meaning gives rise to entailment or flow, and this flow parallels the physical process from object to light to retina to optic nerve to brain, not moving through space per se but changing its quality and metamorphizing (in a “metaphysical” realm, so to speak), until it takes the form (or entails) the experience of vision, of which we are consciously aware (this, incidentally, shows how we can still use physicalist language to describe the dynamics of a mental universe–so long as our perceptions and concepts of the physical world can still be said to correspond to the experiences that parallel them–or are them–it still makes sense to talk in terms of physical things–only that physical things, while still real, serve as representations of a larger mental world (think Plato’s Cave–matter is a shadow on the wall)).

I put the Advance Theory thus:

1. An experience is
   i) any instance of qualitivity
   ii) that exudes realness, resulting in projection
   iii) and conveys a meaning that defines its essential quality, resulting in flow.
2. Physical systems, including the brain, are sensory representations of experiences (as defined in 1) that exist beyond human perception and that entail those representations.

The roll that mind plays in this can still be “reasons for behavior”–the experiences represented by the apprehension of one or another physical process could still be said the be the “reasons” or “justifications” for that physical process, and they could still be thought of as the physical system’s mind; the only trick to this is that we can’t think of the system’s mind as “in” the system, for we have placed the minds of the physical systems within our subjective realities outside our subjective realities (though flowing into our subjective realities and becoming the physical systems so experienced). This is okay–no one ever said mind had to be “inside” the organism, or in some physical body–that’s just a very anthropomorphic way of thinking about it–but since mind as such is (usually) far more abstract than the physical body it purportedly belongs to, it doesn’t really have a place–it kind of “lingers” in our midst; in fact, we, in a sense, are arguing that it is the mind that “causes” the body. Indeed, this is the case when looking at a human brain (never mind how you got into the operating room). It is the same physical process–light reflects off the brain, enters your eyes, goes to your occipital lobe, and enables your vision of the poor shmow’s brain–but in this case, the brain you see doesn’t represent some wholly bizarre, alien, non-human experience–it represents another person’s mind; the brain is a material representation of the human mind. It is how the human mind is expressed when put into the language of matter. More to the point, this human mind is just as much outside your subjective universe as all other non-human experiences. So a man’s mind is not in his head–it lies beyond the universe (in fact, constituting its own universe).

In other words, the entire universe is conscious–it is a sea of ever changing, ever flowing, qualities of experience, each contributing unique real things, via projection, to an infinitely qualitatively diverse reality, each conscious of what it is, each apprehending the real thing it projects, each feeling its own essential quality and apprehending its own meaning. The divide between inner and outer, between self and world, is, in other words, an illusion. There is no real divide. These qualitatively diverse experiences flow and morph, some of which flow and morph into our sense experiences, and thereafter continue to flow and morph within the human mind, and eventually beyond by way of our behavior and the effects we have on the world. It is one unbreaking continuous process.

The only question that remains is why we feel like individuals? If we are all one mind, why don’t we feel every experience in reality? To answer this, I make a distinction between what I call experiential awareness and epistemic awareness. Experiential awareness is just awareness of the things you experience only by virtue of the fact that they are experienced. In other words, feeling things. Epistemic awareness, on the other hand, is awareness of the things you experience by virtue of knowing about them. Knowing and feeling, in other words, are not always the same. Knowing is it’s own experience, corresponding to a very specific part of the brain (the frontal lobe if we’re defining it in cognitive terms), which can be separated from other experiences corresponding to other parts of the brain. To feel pain in the finger, in other words, is possible only because signals from the finger travel to the somatosensory cortex in the brain (where tactile sensation occurs)–once there, we are experientially aware of the pain (we feel it)–but the signals are further processed and sent to the cognitive centers (in the frontal lobe) which enables us to think “Ah, I’m feeling pain in my finger” and to believe it. This ability to acknowledge our pain (to think it and believe what we think) constitutes epistemic awareness. If you were to sever the connection between the somatosensory cortex and the frontal lobe, you would expect the signals to still reach the somatosensory cortex, and therefore still enable experiential awareness of the pain (to still feel it) but no longer allow for epistemic awareness of the pain (to know it). You would essentially be in pain without knowing it–in pain unconsciously. I draw the conclusion that our relation to the experiences of the universe outside our minds is like this–they are felt but we don’t know about them–we are all one being experiencing everything but we just don’t know it. We can’t know it. Physically speaking, it isn’t always possible for events in the universe to trigger activity in the frontal cortex enabling our epistemic awareness of them. So they are experienced unconsciously. But insofar as we are all one universe, one being, we are feeling them.

A more “down to Earth” way of saying this is that even though we may all be one with the universe, epistemic awareness creates the illusion of ego. That is to say, epistemic awareness enables knowledge of only certain experiences (those whose brain parts are able to send signals to the cognitive centers where we acknowledge our experiences). This creates an artificial division between those experiences we can acknowledge and those we can’t–a specific set of experiences of which experiences in general are either members (inside) or not (outside). We learn to call the latter the “mind” or the “self”. If we can acknowledge the experience, we say it is “our” experience (meaning “inner”) and if not, it is not “our” experience (meaning outer, if there is an experience at all). This gives rise to a language of ego, of self–experiences that are “ours” or that belong to the “other”. So another way to explain the previous paragraph–an explanation which may resonate with people more–is to say we don’t feel experiences that are not “ours” not because we are truly separate from the outer universe but because there is a “we”, a “self”, to whom some experiences belong and some don’t, and these “outer” experiences don’t belong to “us”. For those who feel this connects better with their more familiar experiences of themselves and their relation to the world, it is a useful way to think about it, but know that this division between self and other is artificial and an illusion created by epistemic awareness of only a limited number of experiences.

So that’s it, my theory in a nutshell–wrapped up in a neat little bow–a three volume book crammed into one ILP post. Any question? Comments? Objections? I’m all ears.

[gib]

Please everybody, one at a time! Don’t all post at once!

I plan to continue this thread by elaborating on Parts 1 and 2 of my OP. As I said, I wrote a 3 volume book on my theory so the OP is obviously a very abridged version of it. It needs much unpacking.

In volume 1, I basically introduce my theory in much the same way I did here (but not so concisely) and elaborate on the “Paradox of Individuality” as I call it (essentially the problem of how we all feel like individuals when we are in fact all one mind), which I also briefly went into here.

Volume 2 gets into some meta commentary about the theory and irons out all the wrinkles, essentially addressing all the pseudo-paradoxes one is bound to get wrapped up in when following my theory to its logical conclusions (I call them “pseudo”-paradoxes because they only appear to be paradoxes but in fact have logical solutions). I’m sure it wouldn’t take long for the reader to arrive at a few–for example, if we all live at the center of our own subjective realities, and these subjective realities are real, then contradictory statements about reality could be made and both would have to be true (a theist would say God exists while an atheist would say He doesn’t, and both statements would be true in each person’s subjective reality); for another example, what can be said about unconscious mental content? If we’re saying an experience must be felt in order to project and be real, then unconscious experiences would seem to lack this ability. But then aren’t we back to a Cartesian (or conventional) model of mind–a mind that consists of (unconscious) experiences devoid of reality? Questions like these and others are what I tackle in Volume 2.

Volume 3 takes a look at various aspects of science and nature through the lens of the theory, touching on questions of space and time, fundamental particles, quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, and even God. It also addresses the question of determinism and free will. Finally, it considers some practical applications of the theory and introduces a vision of the future of mankind if these applications were developped as fervantly as our physical sciences and technology.

But for this follow up post, I think I’ll just focus on one of the pseudo-paradoxes I listed above–that of contradictory statements both being true in different subjective realities.

To resolve this pseudo-paradox, we must be relativists. To argue a case for relativism, I must convince the reader that any statement we make (any belief we hold) can only be true in relation to the reality we experience. That is to say, when we say something like “Father will be home by 6pm,” we mean to say “Father will be home by 6pm in reality,” and by “reality” we mean that which we identify as reality by virtue of our experiences (our subjective realities). But what else could our statements be true relative to? Well, take for example the statement “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father.” ← Is this statement true or false? Intuitively (to someone living in Western culture), it seems true. We all know Star Wars and we all know the big reveal at the end of Empire Strikes Back–namely that (spoiler alert!) Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. But how can this be? How can the statement be true when the world of Star Wars isn’t even real? It’s because the world of Star Wars is, for us, a “reality”. We are able to imagine it as a different world in which certain things are true which are not only untrue in the real world but may not even apply (I’m inclined to say that it is neither true nor false in the real world that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father because that would require at least that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker exist just so they can either have such a relation or not). So if a statement such as “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father” can be true in relation to the world of Star Wars, surely we can say that “God is real” is true in relation to the subjective reality of a theist but false in relation to the subjective reality of an atheist.

But a few problems rear their ugly heads. For one, the world of Star Wars isn’t an actual “reality”. Likewise, subjective realities are not actual “realities”–not according to my theory–according to my theory, there’s only one ultimate reality and that’s the entire universe of all experiences, some of which constitute subjective realities, but as such they only count as parts of reality, as collections of real things in reality, not as “reality” proper. For another thing, if God is real in one subjective reality but not another, then what are we to say about God’s existence absolutely? That is, in relation to the universe of all experiences? Wouldn’t we have to say that if God exists in any subjective reality at all, then God exists period? And therefore, ultimately, the theist is correct and the atheist incorrect?

Let’s address the first problem. We have to be meticulous when it comes to terms like “reality”–we can’t just use the word willy-nilly, as in calling an imaginary world “reality”–typically, reality denotes the one ultimate realm of existence that everybody believes is out there and we reside in. Even if that which we take to be reality turns out to be only a subjective reality, the word “reality” is meant to denote that subjective reality and only that subjective reality (and if we become aware that it is only a subjective reality, our reality changes and we then call whatever lies beyond our subjective reality “reality”… and then that becomes our subjective reality (this, incidentally, is what I call the infinite regress problem–yet another pseudo-paradox–which requires a separate treatment)). Well, we have to understand that whatever the term “reality” denotes for one person or another, it too projects from the mind just as much as any thing in reality. We have a concept of reality. That concept projects onto the real things we experience and becomes the essence of the entire set of all real things (where even the abstract and the things we can’t sense are considered “real things” insofar as we experiences them cognitively). That is to say, it projects as the set of all real things. Reality, as such, is a set. (I will have to, at some point in this thread, get into how I think of concepts and the way they project as “essences”–briefly, our concept of something like a cat, say, projects as the essence of the cat, giving it an identity, making it into a “thing”, and raising it above just the sum of its parts/properties.) The concept of reality is one of the first to develop in an infant’s mind. I hesitate to say it is the first concept to form, but I maintain all abstractions depend on the concept of reality being formed first. The infant looks around at his or her world, taking in the myriad of experiences it unergoes and processing the many things around him/her–and it doesn’t take long before the infant’s brain brings all these things together and recognizes “the world”–all these things the infant experiences, all these objects and events around him or her, are the world. Once this concept is firmly established, any thoughts he/she has on the things he/she experiences, any utterances he/she manages to make about them, are meant to apply to “the world”–to this particular world, the one he/she finds him- or herself in and to which all things and events that happen belong, and that remains the same world no matter where he/she goes and no matter what happens to him/her. It is one, ultimate, singular, and constant reality. It is to that reality that all his or her statements and beliefs will, from here on in, refer, and be true relative to.

Now, this doesn’t quite resolve the problem fully. We still can’t say for sure that this infant’s world constitutes “reality” as the term utlimately is meant to be understood. We still have to say, after all, that even though this world is reality to the infant, we who believe it is just one subjective reality among the plethora of others in the universe of experiences, cannot apply that term the same way. We must apply the term to what we believe to be ultimate reality, to the universe of experiences. But here we see what is going on. Each individual has a concept of reality, which they project not only onto the world of things they experience, but to their abstract and philosophical musings about what each thinks is real. That is to say, while the concept of reality must project onto something, and only one thing, what that something turns out to be from one individual to another will vary. And so what reality turns out to be will also vary–or is relative–relative to the percipient whose concept thereof is projecting–and if there is any constancy or ultimacy about reality, it is just that it must be projected onto something, and only one thing, consistently. So while the infant can say that his or her world is reality relative to him or her, we are not bound to the same ascription. Because our world consists of something totally different–to the myriad of experiences constituting the whole of the universe–we must say that our world is reality relative to us. And if we commit to relativism, we don’t have to address the question of: what is the absolute reality relative to no one? because, as relativists, we dispense with such an idea–that is, reality to us is only relativistic and can only be put in terms of whom it is reality relative to. And so the statement that the infant’s world is reality relative to the infant is perfectly compatible with the statement that our world is reality relative to us, and there are no other (absolute) statements.

To bring in an analogy, consider the statement about how fast my car goes: it goes 100 miles… That’s right, 100 miles… period. But 100 miles per what? Per hour? Per minute? Per day? Without this crucial piece of information, the statement is meaningless. Speed is by definition a ratio of distance to time, and by omitting the time, one is not conveying any information about speed. What I’m proposing with my brand of relativism is that the same is true for statements and beliefs–they are meaningless when expressed without what I call a “reality qualifier”–i.e. a clause appended to the statement that specifies to which reality the statement is true or false. Of course, in normal parlance, I don’t expect everyone to make explicit this reality qualifier for every statement they make, nor do I think the statements ordinary folks (or objectivists) make are meaningless. I simply assume an implicit reality qualifier. So when Joe says “My stomach hurts,” I interpret him to mean “My stomach hurts in my reality.” Or when someone says “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father,” I interpret her to mean “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father in the world of Star Wars”. I assume there is always some implicit reality qualifier attached to any statement (since obviously the one uttering the statement means for it to be taken as true of reality).

Einstein understood this when he put together his theory of relativity. He understood that when someone says “the car is moving,” they mean “the car is moving relative to the reference frame of the Earth”–that is, relative to a reference frame which is considered, for all intents and purposes, to be still. But there are multiple reference frames. Relative to the reference frame of the car, for example, it is the Earth which is moving backwards. This doesn’t mean one can have a contradictory set of affairs–the car moving and not moving at the same time–but that since all motion is relative to a particular reference frame, the car can be moving relative to the reference frame of the Earth while at the same time remaining still relative to its own reference frame. And by similar reasoning, this does not mean that motion is not real but that motion is inherently relative. Likewise, the proposition that all statements and beliefs are relative to one or another person’s reality no more means there can exist contradictions between statements both being true at the same time than it does for statements about motion relative to different reference frames. And it no more means truth doesn’t exist than it does that motion doesn’t exist. Just as there can be multiple reference frames, there can be multiple subjective realities all projecting simultaneously as “reality”.

In fact, I go even further in my book and make room for talk about “multiple realities”. Even though each of us is limited to saying there is only one ultimately true reality, we can talk about multiple “designs” for a reality. Star Wars can be considered a “design” for a reality. This works because in all fields where designs come into play–engineering, architecture, software development, etc.–there can be multiple designs even though there may be only one end product. Look up the blue prints of a building in your local vissinity and you are likely to find multiple drafts, multiple designs, multiple attempts and returns to the drawing board. Now consider this–if all reality is based on experience and all experience is fundamentally meaning, then we are dealing with semantics (this was a principle I mentioned above–that the dynamics of experiences are semantic, not mechanical–thus entailment rather than cause). Experiences always tell us something, they communicate. This is precisely the function of a design–its purpose is to communicate the structure of the thing it represents–a building, a machine, a software program, etc.–conveying what it looks like, what it consists of, how it’s structured. It is information. So one’s subjective reality, being based on experience and meaning, is also communicating something–it is communicate the structure of a reality, what it looks like, what it is. It is also being, and so it also projects as the reality it describes, but this doesn’t take away from its role as a reality design–it just means that the material out of which this design is built happens to also be the material out of which the thing it represents is built–like coming up with a design for a build out of brick and mortar (who says it has to be on paper?). So while each person may have to settle on only one such design as the one to represent his or her reality, we are free to talk about multiple co-existing reality designs, some of which are written in the language of experience (of being) and thus project as the very reality of which they are designs.

This solution makes the second problem easy. The second problem–again, that of how something existing in, or being true of, one subjective reality but not another must be said to exist, or be true of, ultimate reality outside all subjective realities (thus making any subjective reality in which it exists or is true “right”)–can be resolved by bringing in this very concept of reality designs. If we are saying that God exists in the theist’s subjective reality but not the atheist’s, then we are saying God is an element in the theist’s reality design; that is to say, the reality in which God purportedly exists is specifically the design for reality as projected from the theist’s concept of reality, for it is that reality design that he intends to reference when he makes statements about God’s existence, not the reality design which we reserve for my theory of consciousness, the reality of the universe of experiences. And while we might say that God exists as an object in this universe of experiences (insofar as He projects as an object from the theist’s subjective reality), that is perfectly fine; it is really statements about God’s existence (or lack thereof) which are problematic, as statements are typically meant to be taken as true or false in an absolute sense. When the theist says “God is real,” he does not intend for that statement to be taken relativistically–that is, as true for him but maybe not for another–he means for it to be taken as true for everyone; in other words, if the statement (the belief) is to project as a truth (as it must since the believer believes it), then it just is true–even in the universe of all experiences. But if the statement could be said to apply only to the reality that is the theist’s design–and this must be the rule for everyone and all statements–we can say that its truth is relative while at the same time (because it is a design) honoring the theist’s intention of meaning it absolutely. That is to say, when the theist says “God is real, absolutely,” what he really means is “God is real relative to the one and only absolute reality I believe in,” which of course we recognize to be just his subjective reality (yes, I’m proposing that absolution is a special case of relativism, at least in this context).

In short, statements (or beliefs) are always true or false relative to a specific reality design, and the theist’s design is not only different from the atheist’s but from ours (i.e. the universe of all experiences). The theist’s God is real within the universe of all experiences only insofar as it is part of the theist’s design, but the theist’s design does not represent the universe of all experiences any more than an architectural design necessarily represents the building it is found in (and therefore the elements within it need not count as real objects in the building).

I might also note that if our subjective realities are “designs”, they are designs that are partly given (via the senses) and partly invented. The sensory world certainly gives us experiences–no question about it, no choice about it–and so that part of the design comes fully furnished–ready for us to take a seat in, so to speak–but it doesn’t give us everything–and that seems to be part and parcel of the experience–it has this “incompleteness” built into it–as in, whatever we’re given by the sensory world, we find we can, and for all intents and purposes do, project a 3D “beyond”–or a “behind”–a world that continues on beyond the sensory world–but we don’t know what lies therein–it’s mysterious–it’s unknown–the second half of reality, the second half of the design–this half is ours to do what we want with–to fill it with whatever content our imaginations and intellect can conjure up. This is the realm of thought, of cognition–and the entire human intellectual enterprise is to fill this void with our best knowledge and theories about existence to date. We’re given half the design–it’s up to us to fill the rest–but in the end, it is one whole design, and it is all real.

Finally, what about my subjective reality? Isn’t the universe of experiences just another subjective reality? And therefore, am I really referring to anything beyond my own consciousness? And if I try in vain to reach beyond my subjective reality, saying “Ah, but beyond my model of a universe of pure mind, there is the real universe of pure mind”, am I not just extending my subjective reality? Isn’t this “beyond” just again another mental model well within the confines of my subjective reality? This again is the infinite regress problem and perhaps I will get into it in the next post. Or perhaps not. For now, let me just address these questions by saying there is nothing wrong with applying my relativism to my own theory. In fact, given what I’ve said in this post, I must. I must admit that when I utter statements like “The universe consists of nothing more than a sea of experiences as defined in the OP,” there is an implicit reality qualifier attached to it such that what I’m really saying is “The universe consists of nothing more than a sea of experiences as defined in the OP… according to my theory,” … which is trivially true. Just because this universe of experiences consumes everyone else’s subjective realities (and thus everyone else’s theories, perceptions, and understandings of reality) does not mean that my subjective reality (my design) actually consists of everyone else’s experiences. I only have shoddy mental models of everyone else’s experiences, everyone else’s subjective realities; their actual realities and experiences can only exist in their minds, not mine, and so each one of our subjective realities remains separate islands strewn about in whatever reality turns out to be. It’s as if I have a design for reality that consists partly of little symbols representing other people’s designs, but these symbols hardly count as those actual designs (as much as they might represent those designs) and it certainly doesn’t mean that the actual designs, wherever they are, find themselves in a greater design which is mine. No one’s design resides in another’s, even though we all can (and do) have representations (symbols) of those designs in our own.

[Ecmandu]

It’s a wall of text but I don’t blame you.

Consciousness is hard to broach.

All you need to know about consciousness is that when infinity tries to be itself, it can’t count itself. Thus self recursion is born.

It’s always been that way.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

@Ecmandu

All you need to know about consciousness is that when infinity tries to be itself, it can’t count itself. Thus self recursion is born.

It’s always been that way.

Can you say that on video while playing a song you dedicated to me?

[felix_dakat]

@gib

My theory of consciousness is just that: a theory of substance, a new one, that I flesh out as follows. I start by assuming dualism (even though it is to be rejected in the end) to see how we can redefine the substances involved–the goal being to show, in the end, that mind is the true substance and matter only an instance or state of the former–but with an important emphasis on the fact that this will be the “mind” after redefinition into this new kind of substance. This will give it an advantage over matter that allows itself to be the basis from which matter, if it exists at all at this point, arises, rather than visa-versa as common wisdom would have it.

Gibb I appreciate how much thought you’ve devoted to this very worthy project. However, to me it seems you’re conflating mind and consciousness. The mind is often used as a metaphor i.e. the container of our thoughts. But this itself is just an image in consciousness. The mind is better defined as the objects that appear in consciousness. Consciousness is the fundamental substance of all.

[gib]

@Ecmandu

It’s a wall of text but I don’t blame you.

Yeah… yeah it is.

@Ecmandu

All you need to know about consciousness is that when infinity tries to be itself, it can’t count itself. Thus self recursion is born.

Are you saying consciousness is infinity? When it tries to be aware of itself, it only creates a model of itself within itself (and this model would also contain a model of itself within itself, etc.)?

@felix dakat

Gibb I appreciate how much thought you’ve devoted to this very worthy project. However, to me it seems you’re conflating mind and consciousness. The mind is often used as a metaphor i.e. the container of our thoughts. But this itself is just an image in consciousness. The mind is better defined as the objects that appear in consciousness. Consciousness is the fundamental substance of all.

I use the terms “consciousness” and “mind” interchangeably. But even if we go with your definition, it works. We would just say that consciousness is the fundamental substance, like you said, and mind is the different forms consciousness takes when in manifests as its instances.

[felix_dakat]

Right. The mind I associate with mental objects like thoughts, concepts, imaginations as distinct from physical objects like tables, chairs, mountains, animals, people. Both mental and physical objects appear in consciousness.

Now the word ‘I’ appears in consciousness. It refers to the subject to whom all objects mental and physical appear. But, the conscious ‘I’ itself never appears.

The knower of all is unknown. It knows the body but is not the body. It knows the mind but is not the mind.

Such is “my individual consciousness”. But, to put it that way is to make a mistake. Consciousness is not something I possess. For, who is “I”? My body isn’t conscious. I am conscious of it. My mind isn’t conscious. I am conscious of it. I am consciousness.

[PZR]

What about “pre-conscious”?

[Ecmandu]

There are many things that happen with infinity.

Everyone needs to be different in order for existence to exist. If everyone is the same…. No existence. This is not made by god. It’s natural law.

Infinity exists. If it didn’t exist, existence would be finite and, again, couldn’t exist.

Existence requires motion. Infinity equals motion…. It can never count itself and thus motion and consciousness exist. But they weren’t born. That’s a logical mistake people make about life.

I could spend a long time talking about this…

But suffice to say…. No being you meet was ever born and will never die. They just need to all be different in order for existence to exist.

As a caveat…. I don’t like existence as it sits. I don’t want to change everyone or anyone, I just want to get away from all of you.

[gib]

felix,

Right. The mind I associate with mental objects like thoughts, concepts, imaginations as distinct from physical objects like tables, chairs, mountains, animals, people. Both mental and physical objects appear in consciousness.

Exactly! Consciousness, or the forms it takes, spans well beyond what we would ever call “mental” and includes things like “objects”, “chairs”, “books”, etc. Consciousness is a substance that can be anything–even abstract things like truths or moral values–these are just the projection of thoughts and emotions–it can even be an “I”–in fact, in my book, I make the point that the projected form of the experience is its true form–the “unprojected” form (i.e. the mental entity we think it is) doesn’t even exist.

Now the word ‘I’ appears in consciousness. It refers to the subject to whom all objects mental and physical appear. But, the conscious ‘I’ itself never appears.

No, it doesn’t. In fact, there’s a reason I didn’t include it among the 3 main ingredients to my definition of “experience” (which were, again, quality, being, and meaning). I don’t think the “I” appears as a basic universal ingredient of all experiences–which implies that most instances of consciousness out there, most “systems of subjective experiences”, don’t feel like an “I” at all, or sense an “I” anywhere, or even have the concept. Consciousness is just the thing being projected, the thing consciousness is aware of.

However, I think philosophers that subscribe to this idea–that there is no “I”–are a little too harsh on the ego. I don’t like to say the I doesn’t exist because, for one thing, to say it projects at all (which it must if it is an experience of some kind–even if just a concept), it must be a real thing (this follows directly from ingredient #2 (being) of my definition of “experience”)–for another, even if there is no central experience we can rightly attribute the word “I” to, it’s just a word, a label–it doesn’t have to be the “I”, it just has to refer to it–even if it refers to just the entire set of experiences in the human mind–that’s how labels work!–for a third thing, I don’t think the “I” exists as just a concept in the mind, I think the body (the person we see in the mirror) is intricately enmeshed in what the “I” is. How this turns out to be the case, I defer to my thoughts on concepts–what they are, and what they project as–let me know if you want to get into it.

The knower of all is unknown. Like, God? It knows the body but is not the body. It knows the mind but is not the mind.

You might have to expand on this concept, but I think I agree that knowledge and the thing known aren’t the same thing–knowledge is necessarily an experience of referring to something else–we know about other things; yet I don’t think this is a case of dualism–like knowledge is the only human experience I make an exception for–but it is a dualism between two different kinds of experiences–that is, as opposed to the projected and unprojected forms of a single experience. We know, for example, that it’s raining outside because we saw that it was raining. The knowledge (a cognitive experience) refers to a recent visual experience (they even map to different parts of the brain).

Such is “my individual consciousness”. But, to put it that way is to make a mistake. Consciousness is not something I possess. For, who is “I”? My body isn’t conscious. I am conscious of it. My mind isn’t conscious. I am conscious of it. I am consciousness.

Good point. I never quite thought of it in those terms, but you’re absolutely right. We have concepts that stand in for our states of consciousness–concepts of mind, thought, feelings, etc.–but such concepts are always subject to misrepresentation (particularly when it comes to consciousness, because concepts rely on objectification, and consciousness is anything but an object). Still, if you grant me my role for terms like this (mind, thought, feelings, etc.) as labels for other things, they’re still useful as such insofar as they enable us to at least be aware of that which they stand in for.

In any case, this complicated subject matter was explored in the last couple of paragraphs of my 2nd OP. I won’t go into it again, but suffice it to say, it agrees that, in the end, the “I” is based on an illusion (notice I don’t say it IS an illusion–the real illusion is our individuality and separateness, but out of that we construct an “I”).

PZR,

What about “pre-conscious”?

What about it, PZR? What is “pre-consciousness” to you?

Ecmandu,

Everyone needs to be different in order for existence to exist. If everyone is the same…. No existence. This is not made by god. It’s natural law.

I almost agree with this… existence, when broken down into its many parts, must consist of different things (even if that just means different in terms of their positions in time and space). Even a universe of only subjective experiences as I defined the term in my OP consists of an infinitude of different qualities all projecting as real things, each bearing a unique quality unto itself (this is why I urge the reader to think of qualities as limitless). In other words, if existence is ever to be expressed in terms of qualities, there must be an infinity of them.

Infinity exists. If it didn’t exist, existence would be finite and, again, couldn’t exist.

Again, I almost agree… but why do you think this is? Why do you think a finite existence can’t be existence?

Existence requires motion. Infinity equals motion…. It does? It can never count itself and thus motion and consciousness exist. But they weren’t born. That’s a logical mistake people make about life.

Again, it’s uncanny how much I can agree with this, but I’m not sure if for the same reasons. I think anything real must undergo change, and I think that’s built into the laws of reality because it falls out of the 3rd ingredient of experience (meaning). In my OP, I explained how this gives rise to the flow of mind, to one experience leading to (or meaning) another, and being situated in a physical space and time bound universe, this manifests to us energy, that which drives change in all things.

I too agree that experience never ends (and maybe never began), but I think we eventually do come to an end. By “we” I mean the types of beings we are when alive–human individuals–"I"s finding themselves trapped in physical bodies in a physical world. Consciousness continues on after death but we are no longer a “self”–the quality of our experiences undergoes such a dramatic change that the illusion of our individuality dissolves and we become seamlessly continuous with the rest of experience in the universe–like a drop of water returning to the ocean.

As a caveat…. I don’t like existence as it sits. I don’t want to change everyone or anyone, I just want to get away from all of you.

Well, I assume you want to at least converse with us on an internet forum like ILP, but I get your meaning. Still, is it existence you don’t like or your place within it?

[PZR]

I guess I left it vague just to see what you even make of it.

If I have to specify, I would ask: do you consider it at all as a thing that might precede consciousness? Not necessarily not consciousness, but not necessarily not not consciousness, and which exists.

@gib

I don’t think the “I” exists as just a concept in the mind, I think the body (the person we see in the mirror) is intricately enmeshed in what the “I” is. How this turns out to be the case, I defer to my thoughts on concepts–what they are, and what they project as–let me know if you want to get into it.

I would like to get into it lol.

As offering something to ask for something, I will suggest that I would consider the body and I are enmeshed extraconceptually, that is, that outside of being my body I cease.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

@Ecmandu

This is not made by god. It’s natural law.

Just like the moral law. Not made by God/Nature. Descriptive of. All made in the image of God/Nature have a beginning/origin in them, but you are right that God/Nature is all the beginnings (is the origin).

[gib]

I guess I left it vague just to see what you even make of it.

If I have to specify, I would ask: do you consider it at all as a thing that might precede consciousness? Not necessarily not consciousness, but not necessarily not not consciousness, and which exists.

I think Freud was the first to coin the term “pre-conscious” and he meant thoughts that were not yet conscious but were available to consciousness. So unlike repressed thoughts, which are kept out of conscious deliberately, preconscious thoughts are sort of “floating around” in the vicinity of consciousness and are available for the conscious mind to focus its attention on whenever it wants (although it may not).

Or if we simply analyze the word based on its parts (“pre” and “conscious”), it sounds like a concept for mental content on its way to becoming conscious–like a stage new information must pass through as it makes its way from outside into consciousness. Unconscious thought, therefore, would be mental content that has already been conscious but was cut off for some reason (repressed, denied, etc.). I suppose if pre-conscious thought gets stuck somewhere along the way to consciousness, it could be due to psychoanalytic defense mechanisms just as with unconscious thought. If new information coming in doesn’t sit comfortably with the ego, I see no reason the mind can’t pull out the same tools to prevent it from getting to consciousness.

In any case, I account for most cases of unconscious mental content and pre-conscious mental content in the same way. It’s a matter of being experientially aware but not epistemically aware. This is what I talked about at the end of part 2 of my OP. Experiential awareness is just feeling your experiences. Epistemic awareness is knowing about your experiences. It’s possible, I maintain, to feel your experiences without knowing it. With unconscious mental content, one actively suppresses epistemic awareness of one’s experiences. With pre-conscious mental content, the experience simply hasn’t had a chance yet of arriving at epistemic awareness (and may be blocked from doing so).

Then there’s a sort of semi-conscious state where one can be epistemically aware of the projected form of an experience but not the unprojected form. Take anger for example. If you’re angry at a person, that projects as a characteristic of the person. You say, “That guy’s a real asshole.” You can deny that you’re angry but admit that the person’s an asshole. You might say, “I’m not angry, but the guy’s a real asshole.” So you are allowing into consciousness (epistemic awareness) the projected form of the anger but not the unproject form. You deny that you’re angry but admit that the guy’s an asshole.

I would like to get into it lol.

Well, since you asked … There’s sometimes a confusion amongst idealists that even non-existent entities are real since we always have the concept of a non-existent thing (like a dragon) and concepts must project. This is sloppy thinking. Yes, concepts, like any state of consciousness, must project, but one must always ask: what does it project as? Unfortunately, the default answer always seems to be “a thing”. But every experience is characterized by its own unique quality and therefore the type of thing it projects as is different. Only sensory objects project as things. Concepts, on the other hand, project as essences.

What are essences? This idea goes all the way back to the Greeks, and it was Plato who stumbled across the concept when he noticed that we can identify things as belonging to whole classes of things without needing to know or see every single member of the class. For example, we recognize a cat as a cat (i.e. as belonging to the class of “cats”) even though this particular cat may look different or have different features from all other cats. And we haven’t seen all cats that exist. We may not have even seen this one before. Yet, we somehow know that this cat belongs to the same class as all other cats. Plato explained this by saying we have some kind of pre-sensory detection ability that sees the “essence” of the cat–that is, we see the “cat-ness” of the cat, and that “cat-ness” is the same for all cats. It’s this ability to perceive the cat’s essence, Plato says, that indicates to us that it is indeed a cat.

Plato went on to posit the existence of a realm of “forms”–a realm of abstract, immaterial things that counted as the essences of all things, the “forms” all things in the sensory world approximated–but this, I believe, was a mistake. Plato objectified essences, made them into “things” themselves, and therefore was mislead to conclude that they had to exist in the same way as physical objects–and since they weren’t really physical, they had to exist in a parallel realm of objects on the same ontological footing as physical objects but without actually being physical.

Rather, if one just focuses on what one is experiencing when one brings to mind a concept, one sees not that they project as objects per se but as the “is-ness” of things (as the “cat-ness” of a cat, the “chair-ness” of a chair, the “person-ness” of a person)–that is, essences are just what things are. In this way, they project more as definitions than as objects. To know what a thing X is (to know the X-ness of X) is to understand what the term “X” means. A concept is nothing more than an understanding of something, to know what that thing is; to say that one grasps the concept of something is to say he/she understand it. Or, putting it another way, one knows the definition of that something.

Now, definitions have a way of existing seemingly independently of the experiencer (or understander) without being objects in the physical world. Say, for example, that someone told you, “I know what a banana is… it’s a furry pink kitten.” Would you say, “Oh, I guess that’s what bananas are for you?” Or would you say, “Um… no, you got the definition wrong.” ← Most of the time, we say the latter. In other words, we have this way of thinking of definitions as holding independently of what anyone thinks, of having a kind of objective existence. One can be right or wrong about the definition about this or that term. This isn’t to say we can’t imagine that definitions are determined by each person’s own unique concept of a term–indeed, this is the position of many philosophers–but it isn’t the natural impression we get when we think of definitions.

Note, however, that definitions can hold even for things that don’t exist. One can say, “Dragons are furry pink kittens,” and just as with bananas, we would say, “No, that’s wrong.” So what a dragon is seems to have an objective independent existence apart from the existence of dragons themselves. They don’t exist in a “realm” per se but are just what things, existent or not, are.

But when it comes to concepts of things that do exist, we bring our concepts to bear upon our sensory experiences of them. So if I see my coffee mug on the kitchen table, my senses supply the sensory features of the mug, but it requires my understanding of what my mug is (my concept) to make it into a “thing”–to make it into “my mug”–otherwise, it’s nothing over and above a conglomeration of sensory features. Even just to recognize it as an object (as if I didn’t know what mugs were) requires at least the concept of an “object”. So we recognize the things around us by “injecting” or “infusing” them with an essence, with our concepts of what it is we’re looking at.

We can even infuse properties with their own essence. For example, if my coffee mug is blue, I can focus on the blue and identify it saying, “That is blue”–that is, I take my concept of blue and project it onto the color of the mug. Even the blue has its own essence. And we can do this for things that we don’t sense. I attribute essences even to the things I don’t see–like atoms and far away galaxies–simply by infusing my visual images with essences, and making true statements about them (like “atoms exist all around us”). And we can even attribute essences to abstract things–as in when we see a well rehearsed performance on stage and say, “That is harmony”. It’s all about identifying things–giving things an identity–making things more than the sum of their parts. The essence of my mug makes it more than the sum of the sensory feature–it has a “soul” so to speak–an invisible something that makes it my mug.

This is even true when it comes to human beings. I identify John or Julie as “John” or “Julie” because I have a concept of John and Julie–I know who they are–and when I see them, I project my concept of them onto them–that is, onto their bodies–and this is why I think there is a link between the self and the body. We do this even with ourselves. We all have a concept of “I” (as made clear in my discussion with felix) and this concept gets projected into myself when I look at myself in the mirror. So what am I? I am not merely an immaterial bodiless consciousness inside my head–that is just my essence–but I am a body, my essence being infused in it, making it into me.

As offering something to ask for something, I will suggest that I would consider the body and I are enmeshed extraconceptually, that is, that outside of being my body I cease.

Is that close what I said?

[PZR]

Well, to the extent that you seem to be saying that my body becomes me as a consequence of recognizing it and calling it me, I guess it is close but not the same.

I would put the body first, for example. That might sum up also my criticism of your elaboration on the conscious and the not conscious, though I did very much appreciate the distinctions between what doesn’t come in and what is forced out, an alien denied entry or a citizen exiled.

I also very much appreciate an idea you have touched on here and there that experiencialism wouldn’t imply singularity. One comes after, as an idea.

Thank you for putting in all this work. I am sure you are getting great profit from your Hebrew friends, as I know Hebrew lore has much to say about many of these ideas, the order in which they occur, etc.

I will give you a rhetorical note.

It is my opinion that you spend too much time preempting critiques and preanswering adversaries. There is nothing wrong with naming some known thinker of a field during a dissertation, like you did with Freud, but starting off with “I know so and so said, but,” already sets one as a reader a little off. We would advise a more positive approach (positive in the old philosophical sense, not the new age feely goody stuff). Present your case, boldly, says I.

In any case, thanks again.

[felix_dakat]

@gib

it.

The knower of all is unknown. Like, God? It knows the body but is not the body. It knows the mind but is not the mind.

You might have to expand on this concept, but I think I agree that knowledge and the thing known aren’t the same thing–knowledge is necessarily an experience of referring to something else–we know about other things

By “knower” I mean consciousness itself to whom all that is known is known. Outside of consciousness, nothing is known. The interdependence of consciousness and being points to their ultimate oneness.We imagine ourselves to be separate finite beings.

The objects of experience are projections of consciousness.They are vibrations of the organs of sense. They cannot be shown to exist in themselves. This has been demonstrated by science over and over. Science shows that human scale phenomena about which we can agree breakdown at the quantum level. We exist as separate beings only in a relative sense.

Ironically, consciousness which is immaterial in itself is the fundamental substance or material cause of the universe. That is what we are.

Since consciousness is the first cause of everything, I don’t see how it can ever be explained. Everything must be explained in terms of it. That’s the hard problem that material science bumped into in the 20th century that gave us Einsteins relativity, Heisenberg’s uncertainty and Godel’s incompleteness

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

I don’t know if this is entirely related or not, but either this morning or last night (it’s all a blur), I was thinking… How do you know something is wholly different if it is also wholly unknown, and vice versa?

Humans.

And now for something completely different:

[felix_dakat]

@Ichthus77

How do you know something is wholly different if it is also wholly unknown, and vice versa?

You don’t.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

Yeah so why do they say things about stuff they don’t know, like that you can’t even say anything about it, or whatever. They should always amend that with the word “yet”. And before they rule out what people do say about it, they should try knowing the thing first. And they should also ask themselves why they are ruling out what other people do say about something they (let’s call them the “disclaimers”) can’t even identify in any way. By default. And not just because it’s improbable.

[felix_dakat]

Who are “they”?