Is this a theodicy for Joe Biden?
Or for a kingdom of ends who don’t know they are … ends?
Do you mean to say that memories are always concerved so long as the long of conservation of energy holds? So my memory of getting a shiny new green bike when I turned 7 will still be there, floating around in the ether as it were, after I die and my brain decays, so long as the energy that maintained that memory is conserved?
Have you not seen Rick and Morty?
Now, this I agree with. Experience never ceases. However, that does not mean that “you” never cease.
I have a question… does it even make sense to suppose that one’s energy, after death, could somehow eventually reemerge as another living conscious individual? I mean, what connects one life to another when the energy that constitutes one life is dispersed and melded back into the energy of the universe? When a rain drop falls in the ocean, how could you identify another drop from the ocean as that same rain drop? It’s from the same water, sure, but once the rain drop merged back into the ocean, all connection between it and possible future drops from the ocean ceases to be.
Can’t it be both? Can’t the ocean be a mulitplicity of drops (or H2O molecules if you prefer) and also be one body of water?
What does this mean? Are we talking about the eternity of ideas? Like the idea that all circles are round or that 2 + 2 = 4? They are “eternal” in the sense that they will always be true? They are “timeless”? Are we saying that the idea of Ec. is “timeless”?
This seems a bit disingenuous. The most honest thing one can say is I don’t know. Neither you, nor Artimus, nor myself, nor anyone here knows what happens after we die. It may be lights out, it may not. We don’t know.
Woaw, where’d this come from?
The conscious mind certainly has a grasp of time–for that’s essentially what the conscious mind is–the grasping of things–and we certainly have a concept of time. But that doesn’t mean the unconscious doesn’t. It all depends on what you mean by the unconscious. What if the unconscious is a consciousness unto itself? Another mind sharing the same brain as the conscious mind, but somehow disconnected from it? It would have it’s own concepts, it would grasp its own things, time possibly being one of these.
We set our alarms, not because we have no grasp of time in dreams, but because while dreaming we aren’t aware that we’re really sleeping in bed and have to get up for work. Even if we were acutely aware in our dreams that it was 6am on a work day, we would just think “well, better get ready for work” and proceed to do so in our dream, not “well, better wake up so I can get to work.” (And even if we did, have you ever tried waking yourself up from a dream?)
That’s a very interesting question. All I can surmise is that it might be like falling into a dream at night and then waking the next morning. I’m reminded of some reports of people who’ve experienced OBEs and they often have to correct those who assume the experience must have been hazy and blurry, like a dream or a drug induced trip, by saying that the experience was like a higher, more clear, more vivid awareness of reality than they ever experienced in ordinary mundane life. Same with those who report having become enlightened (in the Buddhist sense). I truly believe that ordinary waking consciousness must be some kind of “fragmented” consciousness that causes us to live in a haze.
PZR wrote:
Except when I wake up, I remember what I dreamed, sort of, the actions that happened in a timeframe, what time I went to sleep, what time I woke up. Sometimes, in my dream I see clocks.So was Jung just an idiot or what?
Yeah, probably.
If you’re staring at that clock in your dream, and you watch 10 seconds go by, do 10 seconds go by in the real world? Or is time dilated in our dreams? Do 10 seconds of dream time equal (maybe) 10 minutes of reality time? In the former case, the unconscious (if that is indeed the part of the mind we’re in when dreaming) does measure the passage of time quite accurately. In the latter case, it differs from that of the conscious mind. In the latter case, who’s to say which reading of time’s passage is correct? (Indeed, Einstein would tell us it’s all relative.) And an even deeper question is: can we pin an exact moment in our dreams with an exact moment in reality? Could we say, for example, that the instant you looked at the clock in your dream, that instant maps exactly to the instant in reality when (say) it was 2am?
I don’t think Jung was necessarily wrong or an idiot. I just think we’re lacking the context of his quote. I doubt Artimas is interpreting it the way was intended.
Then why do Buddhists say that the true underlying essence of reality is nothingness? ← That’s not a challenge, it’s an honest question. It eats at me that I don’t understand this. I’m told that “nothingness” is a bad English translation. “Emptiness” is better… as in when you’re looking at an empty sky. Not a cloud in site (not even a data cloud). For all intents and purposes, you see nothing, you see emptiness… except that you do see blue. That is something, is it not? Or does it lack the definition required to be something by virtue of having nothing to contrast with. In the words of Eddie Murphy, “If every day is a sunny day, then what’s a sunny day?”
This is the perfect segue to introduce another point I’d like to make about my theory of consciousness: the imagination.
So if all experiences must project as something real (or true, or independent, etc.) then what does that say about the imagination? Some less insightful idealists have concluded that even imaginary objects like pink polka dotted hippopotamuses wearing white tootoos (is it hippopotami?) must be real in some sense. I say nonsense. Pink polka dotted hippopotamuses wearing white tootoos are just as imaginary as common sense tells us they are. What they project as is the imagination itself. We are all acutely aware that we have imaginations. Where does this come from? How do we know this? Because this is what we see when we experience the imagination. It is where we get the classic idea of the “mind” from. Man is born with the innate ability to recognize his own mind by virtue of recognizing his own imagination. The imagination must be experienced as “unreal” because of what purpose it evolved to serve. It evolved to serve the purpose of functioning as a sort of “inner laboratory,” a place where we could run experiments, thought experiments, in order to test the legitimacy, coherence, and robustness of ideas. The primative man who invented the spear to hunt prey had to imagine the spear in his head before he invented it. He had to imagine a sharp pointy stone strapped to a straight long stick by rope, and launching it through the air to strike an animal. He had to imagine how that would kill the animal and provide him and his clan food for the next few days. Once he was convinced it worked in his imagination, he got to work making it for real. Now, this couldn’t be experienced as real; otherwise, when he killed his prey in his imagination, he would have thought he had actually done it, and then looked around wondering where his prey went. And if an image of a tiger slipped into his imagination, he would have freaked and climbed up the nearest tree. This is why the imagination has to project as a simulation only, as the realm of the unreal. It is there for the purpose of running experiments in a free and safe inner environment. But it certainly projects as a real imagination, a realm of the mind that man actually has. ← That’s its true form of projection.
So I’d agree with Artimas that no one experience projects any more powerfully or effectively than another; no one experience is “more real” than another, but there can be experiences that project as the “unreal”, or the realm thereof, which gives us a sense of certain things being “less real” than others.
[quote=“PZR”]Artimas, I don’t have to perceive the Sun after it set to know it’s there, or to bathe in its light.
Don’t you think being so quick to equate “perceive” with “exist” might be one of those shoddy thinking habits that might have got you to the mess of a spider’s web your thinking has become?[/quote]
Well, if you’re charging Artimas with shoddy thinking, then you’d have to charge George Berkeley, who coined the phrase “esse es percipi”, as well. And maybe you do. But to address your point about the sun… it comes back to my theory of concepts (remember that?). It is really the concept of the sun which projects and manifests as the sun for us, not the visual perception (which I hope you never have to experience as it would severely damage your eyes). The visual perception (of anything) only supplies us with a things properties. It requires concepts to make those properties (a predefined set of them) into objects. Our concept of the sun survives even after it has set and even when we are not perceiving it.
Does the unconscious dream only in images? Or do those images, by virtue of being experiences, project just as much as conscious experiences? And if so, would that not make the dream world a real world unto itself, even if a separate one from the waking world?
Technically, it could. A dog could dream of clocks merely because he’s seen them. He probably wouldn’t know what they signify, but if it’s just an image, then surely they can appear in his dreams. Though I think you’re point is that we (humans) would be able to read time in our dreams if we saw a clock.
I think you’ve got him spot on here. He’s not failing to understand what you’re saying, he’s just making fun of you.
Who is this sage wise beyond his words? 
For a group of people who want the best ideas, that’s an extremely poor strategy.
felix dakat
I said I thought that developers would have to stumble on how to make AIs consciousness because I don’t know how it could be achieved. However, the AI simulation of conscious intelligence is getting better. So it’s getting harder to tell the difference. I don’t think it is just a problem of complexity. The language models they are using to simulate must be highly complex already. But, it seems to me that consciousness, as the substratum of all that appears must be absolutely simple. So, consciousness is not producible. It’s participated in. They would have to build machines that participate in existing consciousness as it is. I haven’t heard of anyone working on that kind of model.
Felix, I vaguely remember replying to this, or something like it; correct me if I’m wrong. But I believe AI, whatever form it takes, is already conscious. Everything is… from the get go. I agree that developers haven’t invented consciousness in AI system, but they have molded it into a form that closely mimics human consciousness… with one caveat: AI is simply mimicking humans. It is not comprehending. It’s similar to John Searle’s Chinese room argument in that AI systems are really, really, really good at taking input and knowing almost precisely the right output. But just as with Searle’s Chinese room argument, it hasn’t the foggiest clue what the input means, nor for that matter what the output means. It just knows that when it gets this input, it should give that output. Like I said, I think it is conscious from the get go, but conscious of something very different from what humans are conscious of given the same inputs.
I don’t think so… though some people purportedly experience forms of depersonalization or dissociation like this, but I’m merely after the definition of ‘I’, what we mean when we say “I am [blah]”. I think our identification of ourselves with our bodies is pretty immediate but I also think there are other criteria (ex. the body has to be alive, seemingly conscious, etc.). I’d also note that this isn’t necessarily the case right from birth. The brain probably has to develop a bit before a baby can recognize itself in the mirror, or even form a concept of ‘self’, but once developped, I think it’s pretty much set in stone that we identify ourselves with the body (in a state of consciousness or being alive).
Don’t sweat it. I’m merely being facetious about the hijacking thing. Hijack all you want. The great thing about the internet is that you don’t have to wait your turn to inject your two cents into the conversation.
It doesn’t.
Why is PZR’s finger covered in shit?
At best, this might be indirect citing or implicit citing, but I think the literal definition of citing involves actually copying/pasting quotes from the person.
^ That too. PZR wasn’t trying to bring in anything Kant said but to bring in an example of his styling of writing/arguing. ← That’s not a citation.
Artimas, don’t do that. Dictionary definitions aren’t a good way to bolster your point, primarily because we determine what goes in the dictionary, not the other way around. The dictionary is not an authority on the meaning of our words. We determine the meaning of our words through ordinary social and organic processes, and then those who, for some sick reason, LOVE to write dictionaries reflect those meanings in a book. The word dictionary comes from “dictation”–those who write dictionaries are taking dictation from their society, not the other way around.
Ichthus77 wrote
A smile is a variation of the threat yawn, actually, because it bares teeth, and makes one appear to think the whole thing is under control. It signals strength & confidence. Not only to predators, but to those around who may get worried if things are not under control.A tool of con men.
So anyone who smiles is a con man?
Well, I think that does it. An additional 150 posts is a sufficient chunk of replies for now. 150! Better than my last round of 100. Only another (what?) 200 to go? Is this thread still growing? Or do I have a chance of catching up?
Stay tuned. We shall see. 
^duplicate post
Not everyone.
I said that for a reason.
That I have since forgotten.
It IS a duplicate post and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
You can edit one to read “duplicate post”
Aha! Of course! Just as everything in your dream is you. Everything in the Big Dream is the universally conscious Self.
But, is AI self conscious? Is it conscious of being conscious? Meta-conscious? Apparently not.
I’m not aware of evidence that any AI functions as a autonomous self-conscious entity.
This reminds me of Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious”. The thing is the collective unconscious is conscious. If we had a handle on that fact synchronicity wouldn’t be surprising. It’s all synchronous, the ego just isn’t always aware of it.
So, if AI is conscious, where is the disconnect between its intelligence and itself as consciousness? Having conceived the possibility of self consciousness AI what would be the first step toward producing it?
Oh God, now I really do forbid you to hijack my thread.
It doesn’t have to. Citing an author means citing what he (or she) said.
Artimas, if I told you “Go look up Kant’s hair style,” am I citing Kant?
So if I say “Kant visited his mother,” I’m citing Kant?
But you said you’ve got something against Russians, not the Russian political regime. Russians are people. Regimes are not.
No, this is precisely the part you’re getting wrong. PZR is not referring you to Kant’s ideas… at all… he’s referring you to Kant’s style of writing and argumentation to show you how to be more rigorous, thorough, and mindful in your thinking. Kant was nothing if not rigorous, thorough, and mindful in his thinking. In other words, you can read all of Kant (good luck) and not agree with a single one of his ideas, and PZR may still have proven his point–that that’s what rigor looks like.
felix dakat:
How do you know that?..
…quote shorten to stay under 32000 character limit…
…The I AM points to consciousness— the non-dual reality— that we all ultimately are.
Sorry to cut your quote short like that, felex, but I had to do something to stay under the 32000 character limit of each post. Anyway…
I hesitate to agree with this fully because I think the self, this “we”, is an artifact exclusively of our limitations. In effect, the self is limited because it is these limitations. Remove the limitations, and you have no more self. So the idea that “we” could be free, or that “we” are this one absolute consciousness doesn’t make sense to me. This is not to say that one cannot make such a transition, but then when one does, one ceases to be and all that’s left is the universe (and everyone else who hasn’t made the transition). Again, it’s like the rain drop that falls back into the ocean. Once reunited with its source, it ceases to be.
You’re right that there is an illusion. We are not separated/disconnected from the rest of the world, nor from the consciousness of the world, as it seems we are, but this illusion makes possible the creation of the self, and in this vein, I believe the self is real. Think of it like a fortress we build to keep out imaginary dragons. The dragons may not be real, but the fortress certainly is. And once we find out the dragons aren’t real, we are free to take down the fortress.
I also get very confused by this duality vs non-duality, multiplicity vs singularity talk. The fault is obviously mine for not being as wise as the founders of the Advaita Vedanta tradition, but if you ask me, everything we see and experience is as real as the sources from which it comes. Everything is real in my philosophy. But consciousness comes in many layers, represented by the hierarchy of physical reduction in science. What I mean by this is that just as physical reductionism would allow there to be larger structures built on top of, or constituted by, smaller structures–like galaxies being structured on stars, planets, gas, rocks, ice and other debris–so too is there a similar hierarchy of mind. So my theory would say of the galaxy that it is a physical representation of some experience the universe is having, and that experience can be broken down into the experiences represented by the stars, planets, gas, rocks, ice and other debris that make up the galaxy. Break it down even further, you could say that our experience–the experience of being human and living a human life–is one of the ingredients, the “atoms”, of the galaxy’s experience. I think of it like a pixel on a screen. A particular pixel might be giving off yellow light, but when you look closely at it, you see that it is broken down into a ratio of red, green, and blue light–in whatever proportion is necessary to give off yellow light–so on one level, you could say the pixel is yellow, and on another, you could say it is a combination of red, green, and blue. They are both true at different levels. There’s no falsity, no illusion. Which is why I have issues with the idea that the apparent multiplicity of the world is an illusion. No, that’s just what the world looks like from our level in it. Sure, there may be one singular overarching ultimate experience had by the universe overall, and that experience may break down into a variegated array of different qualities of experience at lower levels, but they maintain an equivalence to each other–like saying 1 is equivalent to .25 + .25 + .25 + .25–such that both are different ways of expressing the same information (I could bring in the aspect of meaning which I said was one of the three aspects of all experience in order to say that the singular form of universal consciousness and the multiplicitous form carry the same meaning but expressed in different terms). The reason we experience the world at the level of the multiplicity is because that’s where our epistemic awareness seems to reside (remember that term?). We are epistemically aware of all our conscious experiences–our visual experiences, our auditory experiences, our pains, our pleasures, our thoughts, our emotions, etc.–and so it maps onto, forms a connection with, these experiences, which happen to reside at this particular level of multiplicity in our universe. And at the end of the day, it’s all being, all real… so I like to say that the multiplicity of the universe is just as real as the singularity it is at a higher level. The higher level singularity may be simpler–and this is not trivial, for it indicates that we probably ought to think of it as more fundamental or primary–but not more real or more true.
Well, that’s definitely odd. Do you consider your face not even a part of you, or just less you than your hands?
Ecmandu:
I know hamas is the current trend right now.
What’s with hamas entering the conversation!?!?
Fuck. I walk down my own neighborhood seeing “free Palestine”. Put up by Jews.
Noam Chomsky is correct by saying sanctions should be put upon the Jews from the UN.
I’ll add to Noam Chomsky.
The Jews are the most xenophobic population in earth. And I’ll tell you a little secret about the cosmos and karma …. That’s why Hitler rose , as a mirror for the Jews.
I personally don’t care. I have bigger problems on my mind than Jews who believe they are the chosen people …. They’re going to kill the species.
I have cosmic on my mind.
I’ll say this again. The Jews should have been sent to Greenland
But that’s not the promise land.
Hi Bob,
I’d be interested to hear how you think this works, the mechanics of it. You seem to agree that there is an underlying universal consciousness behind the veneer of matter, and that matter is somehow produced by it. I agree. But I have a theory to explain how it all works (see the OP). My theory is that consciousness is a system of experiences characterized by subjective qualities (or feels). We see this easily in the human mind. The human mind consists of visual perceptions, auditory perceptions, tactile, taste, and touch, and even more abstract experiences like thought, memory, emotions, etc. The key point to note is that each one is characterized by its own unique quality. Our visual experiences are qualitatively different (and unique!) compared to our audio experiences, which are qualitatively different (and unique!) from thoughts and emotions. Even within our visual experiences, there’s color perception, depth perception, motion detection, object recognition, facial recognition, facial attraction, and so on. And despite the range of the qualitative diversity in the human mind, I propose that this represents only a fraction of the range of qualitative diversity that is possible for consciousness in general to experience. And I also propose that experience doesn’t start and end with the human brain. I propose that it is always there with every physical action whatsoever–including things like your car engine, your computer, chemical reactions, galaxies, hurricanes, forest fires, ocean waves, super novas–each one of these is experiencing something, some subjective quality, that matches up with the physical signature of the physical system, and changes with the corresponding physical changes. In fact, this change accounts for the flow of mind that we’re all familiar with–the way our thoughts flow, for example, or the way beholding a major event visually can flow into hard emotion; I propose that this process, this flow, applies just as much to the physical processes that lead to the stimulation of our sensory organs. For example, when light reflects off an object and enters our eyes, this is a physical process no less than galaxies and ocean waves, and so it comes with a certain quality of subjective experience that changes with changes in the light ray. These changes take a dramatic shift once they stimulate the retina in the eye, travel as an electric signal down the optic nerve, and finally stimulates a pattern of neural firings in the occipital lobe. These physical changes come along with experiential changes, changes in the quality of experience, until it becomes a visual experience of some object or some event.
What this essentially means is that the physical world we experience is the result of mind doing what it does. It is a result of the qualities in universal consciousness (the consciousness associated with every physical activity and phenomenon in the universe) flowing and just becoming the physical world as we experience it. But then one asks: what about the physical world that these qualities of experience are associated with? The physical systems and activities that aren’t so much the end product of this flow and coming in the form of a sensory experience of the world, but are the underlying physical substrata that all qualities of experience are attached to (like the occipital lobe being attached to visual experiences). Well, if all we know about the reality of the physical world is what we experience in our sensory perceptions, then why posit the existence of physical systems beyond sensory perception? Could it be enough that these qualities of experiences flow by themselves and just become our experiences of the physical world? I go to great lengths in my book to explain that this is indeed the case. Not only is the universe conscious, but consciousness (I argue in my book) is self-sufficient to sustain its own existence and by necessity must flow. Essentially, the mapping between physical systems and qualitative experiences gets replaced by a representative relationship. The physical systems we end up experiencing represent the experiences that lead to them, the experiences being had by the universe just prior to flowing into our minds in the form of physical systems.
^ That’s my theory of consciousness in a nutshell (Look at that! Even more succinct than the OP!). But what is your view? How do you think universal consciousness relates to matter?
Speaking in Ichy’s defense, I wouldn’t say this is speculation at all. Maybe you don’t follow politics or social movements much, but what she is talking about is a real thing–many on the far left get all up in arms if a white person does something, or says something, or dresses in a certain way that normally would come from other cultures or other races, and are accused of “appropriating” (stealing from) that culture or race. Ichy may have been one of them at one point, or empathized with one of them at one point, understanding that usually, in most case, such “appropriation” is really “appreciation” of other cultures and other races, and the failure to have your appreciation reciprocated can be hurtful. From that point of view, it’s a perfect analogy for something Ichy might feel, and though I don’t see where the speculation comes in, it doesn’t even matter. The point was to understand what the analogy stands for, the ways her exchanges with you makes her feel. ← That’s real as far as I can tell.
Again, I don’t think her point was to bring identity politics into the discussion–I’m sure she can get along with different races, sexes, ethnicities, etc., as much as you can–but to point out a recurring pattern she notices in her discussions with you.
Yeah, because no drop from the ocean can be tied back to a drop that returned to the ocean.
Given the examples you’ve used, I’d say you’re referring to the state of unconsciousness, not “the” unconscious (which is thought to be an extension of the conscious mind in which thoughts and emotions are still active and processed).
What is a “node” of the universe?
…a chic geek:
That’s called ‘basic chemical reactions’, which occur within the organisms, on a cellular level.
.
Still sound like a mental processing, to you?
It’s all basic chemical reactions. The brain is one gigantic basic chemical reaction repeating itself in order to sustain itself (well, maybe not basic, but…). The point is that subjective qualitative experiences (feels) come along with physical events like chemical reactions. Who’s to say what physical events come with “feeling” and what don’t.
I’m not sure this argument holds much water. Why does energy need to “know” to react to or divide into elements? Normally, people would say it’s just following physical laws, that it has no choice but to do so because of the laws of nature.
That’s quite the accomplishment considering the universe is only 13.7 billion years old (or so they say).
So it’s obvious you see consciousness and unconsciousness as two different aspects inherent in physical existence (with perhaps subconsciousness in between them). Your view seems to be that, at least where our line of evolution is concerned, unconsciousness slowly became replaced by consciousness. Is that accurate? So then what is consciousness according to your view? How does an otherwise unconscious bucket of particles, atoms, and molecules interacting with each other to form larger macroscopic structures that may carry out their own macroscopic actions and interactions acquire consciousness? What is it about the particles, atoms, and molecules and their interactions that gives rise to conscious first-person experience?
That just means you don’t remember the train of thought that lead to the idea.
I don’t think consciousness being generated by the brain implies that we have full control over it, enough to turn it off as you say. The world is governed by the laws of nature (which translate to the logic of flow in my theory). So too is our brain. So too is our mind. The feeling we have of control over our minds (our thoughts, our intentions, our emotions to a certain degree) comes from being part of this process. We are the cogs in the wheel. One cog controls us, it turns us, but we in turn control (turn) other cogs. It’s a paradoxical set of affairs, one in which we control and are controlled at the same time–free and determined at once–the causes that precede us control us, determine our state and what we will do, and we in turn become the cause of what comes next, our thoughts, our words, our actions. The idea of free will comes from recognizing our role in the causal chain of events but without experiencing the cause. That is, for example, when I grab my glass of water and take a drink, all I am aware of is that I decided to grab my glass of water and take a drink. I am not aware of the chemical processes in my brain that caused me to do that, or the thought processes or emotional process if there were indeed any–and so it seems like there is no cause. But this is fallacious–a lack of experience of a cause does not entail a lack of cause of experience.
Having said that, there are some things for which this is true, and other things for which it does not apply. I can control my thoughts and my actions, for example, but I cannot control my sensations. If I stub my toe and it hurts, I cannot change that. So there are some aspects of consciousness that I can control and there are others that I can’t.
Do you have a theory about the age of the universe that I don’t know about?
I call this the laws of nature. Calling it a “program” or a “function” implies an intended purpose. Are you saying that the way things unfold (which I assume you also understand to be governed by the laws of nature) has an intended purpose that universal consciousness (if we can call it that) has in mind?
Earlier, you gave examples of a table or a chair as instances of unconsciousness to explain why the unconscious has no concept of time. People can easily agree with this since unconscious inanimate objects like tables and chairs have no consciousness–nothing there, a blank, a great empty void–so how could there be any concept of time? But here you seem to be saying that unconsciousness is equal to “consciousness on its most tiny and least complex level” from which “ideas” can appear to us. ← This sounds like you’re saying ideas “ferment” in the unconscious, or “incubate”, that there is still some mental processing–indeed, mental processing going on in universal consciousness (if that is indeed what “consciousness on its most tiny and least complex level” is). This completely obliterates the idea that the unconscious has no concept of time on the basis that you can’t have a concept of time if you’re an inanimate unconscious (dead) object like a table or a chair. It may have no concept of time for a different reason but not because there’s nothing there.
I fully agree with this (if you can believe it).
…a chic geek:
Perhaps such erroneous ideas are reflective of our mental state…?
Vestiges, of primitive innate/inherited notions that our ancestors utilised, and which now come to haunt us through our subconscious mind… perhaps. Different Peoples, inheriting different innate knowledge.
This is an area of my theory that I haven’t adequately fleshed out. What is the relation between the self and free will in situations like this? I like to think that thoughts always come from us–that we are the ones doing the thinking, and that we are therefore responsible for our thoughts–but there are situations like this where thoughts we don’t want–that we don’t choose–enter our minds–and sometimes quite forcefully like we lack the will power to suppress them. In cases like this, it is almost like two wills, both belonging to us, pitted against each other. Does this mean it splits the self into two? One self thinking the bad thoughts, the other trying to suppress them? I think calling it “two” selves is a bit extreme because it’s usually the bad thoughts that lead to the thoughts about suppressing them, thereby making the flow of thought appear seamless as usual, and thus so too with the two selves. But there is definitely a conflict of forces in the mind (for lack of a better word) and which one we identify with seems to vacillate as we struggle to commit to one or the other.
Artimas:
I’d say they come from the very same chaos that existed in and on this string that we are attached to that sometimes will resurface to the conscious mind. Because they are in fact, chaotic thoughts and a chaotic thought can’t only exist by itself without some chaotic reaction, function or aspect already pre-existing in reality.
We are engrained with the very programming that are these layers of consciousness that makes up the entire universe, this includes chaotic and orderly.
Ah, so what is the relation between chaos and order in your view? Is the universal mind (universal unconsciousness if you will) purely chaotic in terms of what thoughts bubble up from there? Or would you say that chaos is a consequence of the order of the universe, on occasion, interrupting the order that the human brain is trying to establish? I would assume you wouldn’t say that universal unconsciousness is purely chaotic since that would contradict your analogies to “programs” and “functions” which you said operate at the level of this universal unconscious consciousness. So is there any pure chaos that isn’t a result of one order interrupting another?
…a chick geek:
Perhaps it is because of everything coming from that one source, that everything is in harmony and operates as such.
We too, are a series, of walking/talking chemical reactions… albeit on a grand scale. And oh how we abuse and misuse the privilege, of being so grand.
I envisioned/expected more than this/than 2024 has to offer… such a waste of potential and possibilities.
Why? What did you expect out of 2024 (which is not even half over, BTW).
None whatsoever??? Are you sure?! Never had a spontaneous unexplained thought enter your mind… ever?
If the world is fully deterministic, then it should be possible in principle to take the present state of the universe and retroactively predict every prior state. That’s not just data but memory too. But if the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics is real, then there are gaps in the data and we can’t predict with certainty (retroactively or looking forward) any past (or future) states (though we can with less than certainty).
Ecmandu:
Consciousness itself is just infinity trying to be itself, but it can’t be itself. This creates self recursion which is consciousness. If anything is exactly the same, existence can’t exist. So we all have unique consciousness.
I agree that “if anything is exactly the same, existence can’t exist.” ← This encapsulates my view that everything must change if it is to exist at all (I don’t know if this means nothing can be exactly the same as something else, but it certainly can’t be the same thing for any extended period of time). But I see how this ties into your point–if the consequence of infinity trying to be itself consistently failing is that “infinity plus one” emerges, then infinity trying to be itself is what creates change and allows existence to persist in time.
Infinity will never go away and it never counts itself.
The thing I always tell people is that if you’re not planning your forever, your life was wasted.
Existence can’t count itself. I’m currently building a new dimension for all beings to opt into. It’s a self contained universe. I can only do that job because existence keeps expanding.
Well, not that I understand, but how does one sign up for this opt-in self-contained universe? Is it some variation of your zombie universe?
Fair point, but this sort of presupposes that we can imagine the infinite. The problem Ecmandu highlights (and also Quetzalcoatl, remember him?) is that as soon as you think you’ve imagined it, the “infinity plus 1” problem rears its ugly head. Which ought to give us pause because it means we haven’t imagined it properly. This doesn’t invalidate your point, but it does raise the question: what can we say about a universe that is truly infinite? Can we say that it already is itself?
Good luck!
I’m not even gonna…
I don’t have the familiarity with Ecmandu or the insight to see into his soul as you do, but I don’t think his self-contained universe implies no “other”, just that the “other” would be his own invention (and so he can predict what it will do). And I won’t even ask about how this relates to the trinity. But I will ask what self=other means to you as you bring that up a lot. So… what does self=other mean to you?
Well, I think that’s another 100. I’m at about 350 and this thread, as of now, consists of 448 posts. So just another 100 to go. And fingers crossed that it doesn’t explode again before I’m through.
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I will write more in depth soon and try to answer any and all questions but here is a basic diagram/idea of what I believe the timeline of consciousness is. The arrows between the independent stages of such are connected to or embedded in the next, yet also independent and leading to such next state.
In my view humans have an unconscious and subconscious BECAUSE we are directly descended from those states that reacted within themselves to lead to such and it is embedded in human consciousness (complex psyche and organism). Same thing with animals being embedded with the unconscious while operating at the level that is subconscious. If an animal or unconscious state can tell time, point me to the dog of which created a clock to tell it. Time is a CONSCIOUS construct to measure change.
gib, no, you do not have control of your mind just like I do not have control of mine, you can direct thought processes but you cannot turn your mind off nor its imagery. Unwanted imagery and thoughts happen ALL the time. We are embedded with everything, the quantity of reactions that had happened or are still ongoing in the universe embedded into us, cannot be turned off. Redirection is not complete control.
Ok gib, so how did the “laws” of nature come to be? Inherent value systems already exist for things of value to react within themselves on a scale that is ever lasting and evolving complexity. The laws are part of the evolution of complexity, it does not diminish my point because there are laws of nature, call it what you will. The universe and all that is, is conscious and on varying states or layers of consciousness, which is why I drew out the timeline, to give an idea of it. When consciousness comes into play (human consciousness) it does not make the unconscious facets disappear, more so, the unconscious is layered in with the subconscious into the conscious. All are connected, yet independent values happening all at once.
The complexity of an experience/reaction I feel, is what is the main contributing factor to how consciousness grows and evolves.
The subconscious and unconscious facets in and of reality do not have or grasp the concept of time. Change can happen, without being aware of time as the measurement of such change.
Sorry, my handwriting is kind of shit but you get the idea, or so I hope. The bubble with humans and advanced life, is the consciousness stage. The arrow leading out into nothingness or the “unknown” is the potential next stage after consciousness.
I merely used programs/functions as an example, perhaps they are not the right words. I am torn between intent of manifestation and randomness for how everything spawned. Perhaps “values” embedded is a better way to explain such states of the unconscious. Without any sort of value a reaction could not happen for a continuity of complexity to take place.
I do not follow the hogwash of scientists saying how old the universe is at 13.7 billion. This place is eternal and humans know nothing of its age and existence. An eternal infinite cannot be measured by billions, or even trillions as I stated. The universe is a self correcting container and or mechanism, if it blew up right now, it would be back in however long it needed to take for it to be. There’s a reason the ouroboros is a snake eating itself. Because the show goes on, forever. For all we know, the universe could have already imploded before this one and restarted itself from scratch, which to us would only SHOW 13.7 b years with no proof of the time before. Things operate out of trial and error.
Chaos is the trial and or error aspect to the state of success which success is order. They are not independent of each other, both must exist for the other to. Contrast is everything. The very chaotic and or orderly thing that happened before us is directly embedded into us via the timeline of psyche’s evolution.
Similar to how growth requires one to stare in the face of pain.
Also, an idea can arrive in the mind without any train of thought related to it.
This idea I called, natural selection of natural selection, because Darwin only dealt with bio-life, but all things are living, on varying states of conscious existence. Unconscious > subconscious > consciousness
gib, you are right, PZR didn’t cite. I was just being salty because I felt he was attacking me, so apologies to PZR, he’s an alright dude after we’ve discussed some on other threads/topics.
Every self is an other to every other self, every other is a self like self. You can switch out self with us, and you can switch out other with them. That reality should be acknowledged in our thoughts, values, and behaviors.
Yes because it cannot be arrived at. Beings subject to time are part of it existing its essence, or revealing itself.
When I say “Self” with a capital S, I’m not talking about the ego, the separate self. I’m referring to consciousness in which everything appears. The word “we” refers to the ego assuming that some such entity appears to you as well.
We usually use visual terms to refer awareness. Awareness is like an invisible eye that “sees” through the eye. So we refer to “point of view”.
The limitations you refer to are objects appearing in consciousness as well. The body is usually present when awake, but it disappears when we are lost in thought. When dreaming the waking body is absent. In deep sleep both mind and body are absent.
When I play guitar with a band I get so involved in what I’m doing that I forget myself. This is the phenomenon referred to as “flow”. It’s the opposite of meta consciousness which is being aware of being aware.
In meditation there is an experience where all objects disappear and theres just pure consciousness. Its different than deep sleep because you’re conscious of being conscious and nothing else. It is because of that experience that the idea of absolute consciousness makes sense to me.
Even the phenomena of there being an inside and outside of you are fictions. Where do thoughts occur to you? People usually imagine they occur in the head behind the eyes. But, this is a learned convention which you can change. Thoughts have no spatial dimension or location in space whatsoever. They don’t really occur anywhere.
And surely I don’t need to explain that all sensory phenomena are relative. Science teaches us this. Now we have virtual reality technology that shows us how easily are senses are deceived.
So, we can say without hesitation that the ordinary experience is not real. What is real is you, the one to whom all this is appearing.
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Felix, you have any feedback on my response to gib? What I wrote above with the diagram, am I explaining well? is it a feasible theory and or do you see any holes in it?
@MagsJ or do you see any holes in what I wrote, Mags? just curious what I need to work on if anything with that idea/theory I am trying to express here.
It reminds me of The Origins and History of Consciousness a 1949 book by the psychologist and philosopher Erich Neumann in which the author attempts to outline the archetypal stages in the development of consciousness. Jordan Peterson’s psychology owes a lot to that book IMO.
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I have never read it… I kind of came to these conclusions on my own, with some studying on psychology, psychedelics and of course Carl Jung contributed as well, and Darwins work of natural selection, I call it natural selection of natural selection because the evolution happened/happens pre-bio-life. I guess it is just what makes the most sense to me.
Do you see any potential flaws in my thinking that I could work on or adjust?
The project is fraught with difficulty from the get go. Hegel speculated about the evolution of consciousness. Consciousness implies a witness of a phenomenon. Who witnessed this evolution?
The collective unconscious is a paradoxical concept. Why? Because the collective unconscious is conscious! The individual ego is the unconscious one, but only relatively so. That is our ignorance.
So, the so called collective unconscious is the witness of the evolution of consciousness. The mind’s intuition of this fact results in the archetypal images of gods and goddesses. Even the most rational mind that rejects these figures as bullshit while awake is overtaken by them while dreaming.
But, where is the evidence for this? We have evidence from psychology, mythological evidence, and archeological evidence. evolutionary biology. What do we know about evolving consciousness across species? The record is all there within us. I would add meditation to the list of sources.
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Yes, the unconscious is a layer of consciousness itself, just a lower down varied form of it. Consciousness itself is a continually evolving phenomenon, the archetypes and being embedded with the very chaos and order the universe was built or manifested on.
If existence is preparing a place for us, it would be part of existence, no?
Ecmandu:
There’s also a fifth job…. Which is to be the controller.
That job is to dominate people no matter what they do or say.[/quote]
I’d like to have a word with the controller.
He’s presenting an alternate theory (not very well, mind you).
In order to learn, one must ask questions… which I did… which you haven’t answered. Otherwise, what you are teaching me is coming across as nonsense.
If I’m not teaching you, it isn’t from a lack of trying.
First order of business is to understand what you’re saying. I ask my questions in this vein. Is there another question whose answer would better clarify what you’re saying?
But doesn’t change appear in order as well? Isn’t order just a predictable pattern of events? And don’t events imply change?
Is it? I would associate calm with simplicity if anything. And complexity sort of entails reducibility, doesn’t it?
Bob:
Contingency is what happens, but it is a representation of something that we can’t manipulate.
We are an expression of the infinite within a finite body, and consciousness extends throughout all we see, but our brains filter this consciousness in our restrictive sheath, allowing us to feel distinct for survival purposes. We have a split brain that allows us to concentrate on the food we are after and stay vigilant at the same time, and we have the ability to temporarily suspend the inhibitive functions of the brain to gain an even wider perspective and imagination to envision what we can’t see.
Artimas:
But I think what Felix is stating is that there is no real infinite because all things are ultimately a one thing, giving off the illusion of being different from each other or multiplicity. (Correct me if I am wrong Felix)
I can agree to this partially but just because it gives off a sort of an “illusory” image, does not make it any less real than the absolute of which we cannot see and this is the paradox, especially since we operate directly on this level of infinite/finite and not the absolute level.
The illusion is like this: we are on an island and we see nothing but sea all around us. We assume therefore that where the land meets the sea, the land ends–as if the island is floating on the water. But it’s not the island which is the illusion, it’s its separation from the ocean floor which continues under the water unseen which is the illusion (or rather, gives rise to the illusion). The island is like the human mind, and the ocean floor is like the rest of consciousness permeating the universe. We don’t see it beyond our minds because we lack epistemic awareness of the experiences therein. We have no knowledge of it. We know about our thoughts, our emotions, our sensations, but we don’t know about (say) the experience had by a flower blooming alone in some far-away field. The sea represents a lack of epistemic awareness, a lack of knowledge of experiences outside the human mind. We are in the dark with respect to these experiences. This creates the illusion that we are isolated, disconnected from the rest of universal consciousness–indeed, that there is no universal consciousness. But just as the island itself isn’t an illusion, neither is the self or its mind.
In regards to the singularity vs. multiplicity of the universe, this is a different distinction all together. This is a distinction between what the universe is as a whole and the many components it can be broken down into. There are no illusions here either, there are simply different ways of expressing the same thing–just as one can describe the universe as “one whole universe” or “billions and billions of galaxies”. ← It’s not like one is real and the other illusory; they are simply different ways of describing the same thing–like 1 being expressible as .25 + .25 + .25 + .25–one expression being simple, the other more complex–but both accurate at the same time. The reason we find ourselves at the particular level of complexity we find ourselves at is because that’s where our epistemic awareness resides. Think of it this way: if the universe as a whole can be represented by 1 then there is an infinite number of alternate ways to express the universe; you could express it as .5 + .5, .1 + .9, even 200 - 300 + 101. Out of all the different ways to express the universe, there happens to be one in which one of the ingredients, one of the terms in the equation, is epistemic awareness–experiences of knowing certain things–knowing about certain thoughts, certain emotions, certain sensations, etc. And where this epistemic awareness resides, so too will the experiences known–that is, so too will the thoughts, emotions, sensations–essentially the whole human mind. It’s like the anthropic principle–if you ask, “why are we here?” the answer is that out of all the possible phenomena that can occur in the universe, one of them is the evolution of human beings on an average sized planet orbiting an average star on the outskirts of an average galaxy who are capable of asking, “why are we here?” ← So long as these human beings exist somewhere in the fray, they will find themselves there, in existence, asking why they exist. Because the multiplicitous expression of the universe is no less accurate, no less real, than the singular expression, epistemic awareness indeed exists in the fray… and here we are.
I see it a bit differently. I agree that consciousness is like a container and the mind (or it’s experiences) are like the content. But it’s not like content in a box (in the sense that you could empty out the box but still be left with the box), but more like the content in a bowl of soup. Dump out all the contents of the soup and you also dump out the soup.
Let’s pause for a sec and stop using terms like “consciousness”, “mind”, “self”, “God”, etc. as these obviously mean different things to different people. We’re making the assumption that what one person means by “mind” (for example) is the same as what others mean by it. Let’s instead try to describe the phenomena these words refer to.
I’ll start. For me, all there is is experience. Experience is, in my theory, the fundamental “substance” of existence. By “experience”, I mean the “feeling” of something–a sensation, an emotion, a thought, etc… Qualia! (And if you really want my formal definition, see the OP.) A mind is a collection or system of such experiences. Consciousness is a word for describing the same thing except with an emphasis on the fact that experiences project (take the form of something real) while at the same time are still grounded in feeling–that is to say, to experience X is to feel X as a real thing, which is to say to be aware of X, to be conscious of its existence (esse es percepi). God, to me, is the entire set of all experiences in a timeless context (all experiences through all time), which, if you follow my theory, corresponds to every physical event in the universe. God, in other words, is the consciousness (or mind, or experience) that comes along with the physical universe and everything within it (and includes everything physical insofar as they count as experiences in their own right–i.e. as sensory perceptions in the human subjective world).
And then there is the “self”. I have a rather convoluted definition of the self, but from my book it goes “The self is the point of view from which the world is experienced insofar as this point of view is identified with a body whose presence elicits the impression of consciousness.” In simpler terms, the self is the person you see in the mirror insofar as it strikes you as being alive. It is not the entire perceptual world, even when such perceptions are considered only as the experiences in the perceiver’s mind. You are not your entire mind, in other words. How is this the case? Because the “mind” as the layman understands it is an artificial mental construction; we have these mental models of our thoughts, our emotions, our sensations, etc. and we conceptualize these as quintessentially “mental”. It is these mental models which my theory of experience qua substance aims to replace. The mental models aren’t quite accurate. They are natural, of course, probably genetically hardwired, and perhaps the default way we think of our own minds, but the true form of our thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc. is their projected form–the form they take as real things in the world. Thoughts are really truths, facts, the essences of things (concepts), events from the past (memory), future events (anticipation), and so on. Emotions are the value of things, of situations, of people, their character, the goodness or badness of a state of affairs or a person. Sensations are objects, events, properties, their states, change, etc. ← None of these things are typically considered “mental” or a part of the self–in fact, they are usually considered independent from the self. The perceptual world is really the world around me, the world I find myself at the center of; it contrasts with me, it stands as all that is not me, as the “other”. This is what our minds really are, so I consider the self as that which is at the center of our minds, not one with our (whole) minds.
But that’s just me. I’m sure you all have your own definitions for terms like “consciousness”, “mind”, “self” but let’s lay out our definitions instead of assuming that everyone should just intuitively understand what we’re talking about.
Yes to the first part. Huh? to the second.
There are certainly parts of our brain that are not conscious, not associated that is with the conscious experiences we know we have. The cerebellum, for example, is said to be responsible for coordinating voluntary movement such that we behave effectively within our environment. A chief example would be the way Michael Jordan plays basket ball. His cerebellum is what allows him to make slam dunks. But there isn’t really an experience to go along with the brain activity of the cerebellum, at least none that we’re conscious off. For all intents and purposes, it processes information “unconsciously”. This is like the unconsciousness of the examples you brought up, the table or chair. They are unconscious simply because there is no conscious experience associated with them (or so we believe). So, yes, the unconsciousness of the inanimate matter of the universe is also in our brains.
But this is not to be confused with what psychoanalysts refer to when they talk about the “unconscious”. This is the Freudian unconscious, the dark parts of our minds where we quarantine thoughts and feelings we don’t want to experience–we “turn them off” so to speak, bar them from consciousness–but this is more like consciousness splitting parts of itself off–sort of into a separate consciousness, disconnected from the original, but in its own right still conscious–conscious only of the unwanted thought or feeling. ← This is not an example of the unconsciousness of the universe, like that seen with the cerebellum.
As for the subconscious, I only vaguely understand what you mean by that term, but based on this: “As a conscious branch we can look back and view all states of consciousness in a way that the subconscious or unconscious facets can’t,” it sounds as if you’re saying the subconscious is just consciousness that can’t self-reflect. ← That to me is just consciousness. It is consciousness without epistemic awareness of its own states/content, but if it is at least conscious of something (the world, maybe?), it’s consciousness. I see consciousness as any collection or system of subjective experiences whatsoever, and if one or more of those subjective experiences happens to be epistemic awareness of its own states, then great! It’s self-reflective! It “knows” about itself. But in any case, yes, this too can be found in the human brain (a great deal of it as a matter of fact) and is a part of nature. But then what bridges the gap between universal unconsciousness and subconsciousness? ← This is the hard problem of consciousness.
Of course, I would say, according to my theory, that there is no such thing as universal unconsciousness, that everything is conscious of something or other, having one or another kind of experience, and that human consciousness evolved to have epistemic awareness on top of just general experiential awareness.
I’ll leave your statement about chaos and order for another time.
Artimas:
Consciousness now as we have it evolves on its own because we have the choice due to the consciousness to learn and grow, I am talking about the precursor to consciousness in reality for consciousness to spawn in the first place.
Consciousness is a staircase without humans existing, which is how we grew into being conscious in the first place, there is a set of precursors to us getting to this state of where we are now
I am stating that if consciousness formed solely in the brain then there would be a lot of issues with the model due to the fact that there would have been no evolutionary state, which an evolutionary state presents itself by observing nature with the very conscious being we got from that state of evolving.
I view everything as living just on different levels of conscious being and I define those different layers. We do have an unconscious and a subconscious, how would those come into play if they do not exist as facets in reality already?
Sure, but that’s like saying how could trees evolve unless “tree-ness” exists as a facet of reality already? Do you mean, as in, reality would have to possess the potential to evolve trees? I’m also still unclear on what exactly you mean by “unconscious”, “subconscious”, and “conscious”. Am I right that the subconscious to you is just consciousness without the ability to self-reflect? And I’m especially confused by your treatment of the unconscious as the same thing tables and chairs have yet it is still, in some way, conscious. Are you thinking of the unconscious as the processing of information (which you could say the universe is always doing) but without any feeling of that information? Like information processing is just an unconscious natural phenomenon like wind or rain?
Sure, but this speaks more to our epistemic awareness of ourselves and our inner states. We can have inner states that we don’t know about (and indeed get expressed to others via our behavior). But if those things are there within us, sneaking out into our behavior unbeknownst to us, then they are felt. Maybe not by us (because we cut them off from us) but they continue to be felt.
This part has always confused me. What do people mean when they say they are other people? Does it mean other people are images in my dream state (or objects in my perceptual world since we’re only talking about dreams metaphorically), and thus are a part of my mind? A part of me? Because, at least in the waking state, there has to be more to other people than just their images in my perceptual field. They have minds of their own, points of view of their own, which constitute their own perceptual worlds, and thus their own realities outside mine. This is where we come dangerously close to solipsism. How does one avoid falling into solipsism here? And if they do, what do they think of other people existing as mere images in the individual’s consciousness, which itself is more than just an image and in fact contains all images? ← That would make me pretty special!
Meno4:
How many turtles must take to underscore a dream within, then to prove that such need for grounding them could prove they really exist?
Countless. Just guessing, absurdly countless.
Indeed! This is the infamous infinite regress of the question of existence. What causes existence? Another turtle? A creator God? Will that finally hammer the last nail in the philosophical coffin? Of course not! Because the same question rears its ugly head in response to the answer, and the next iteration ensues. So what is that turtle based on? Who created that God? What’s needed with questions like this is an answer that not only explains its consequences but itself… a self-explaining explanation. I believe consciousness, when defined in terms of my theory, fits the bill.
felix dakat:
But, is AI self conscious? Is it conscious of being conscious? Meta-conscious? Apparently not.
This reminds me of Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious”. The thing is the collective unconscious is conscious. If we had a handle on that fact synchronicity wouldn’t be surprising. It’s all synchronous, the ego just isn’t always aware of it.
So, if AI is conscious, where is the disconnect between its intelligence and itself as consciousness? Having conceived the possibility of self consciousness AI what would be the first step toward producing it?
I think the first step would be to take a break from designing AI to serve human purposes. So long as that’s all we’re working towards, there will never be a need to make AI self-aware. It wouldn’t be enough for the AI system to compute that there is an object in its environment it could call “me” for that needn’t be anything more unique than other beings in its environment. It would somehow have to link this particular object to its particular experiences. So for example, if it’s programmed to respond Y when it gets X, then X will sometimes be an object in its environment (or stimulus, or state, or change, or disturbance, or something it can identify and label X). That makes X one of its experiences. If it could then compute that this object in its environment called “me” is the one who has this experience of X, then you might have the rudimentary underpinnings of self-awareness (I think it would still require a lot more, but this would be a start).
This makes sense, but does that mean I am you and you are me? We can say, for sure, that I am the same kind of thing you are (a self) but an extra step is needed to say you are me and I am you.
Well, I think for sure we can say that if the universe is infinite, it is not bound by any contours–like a box which has a front, a back, sides, a top, and a bottom. As soon as we start thinking of the universe as a whole (with contours), we begin to see what could lie beyond it… but then in what sense is it infinite? In essence, we can’t imagine an infinite entity, not as a thing (though we can understand what it means for something to be infinite), so we cannot image an infinite entity as “whole” or as “complete”. Yet we feel compelled to say the universe must be whole/complete because, well, here it is. I think you’re right that the universe is not arrived at (not in a continual process of completing itself) but I think the state it does exist in is incomprehensible and this puts into question whether we can say of it the ordinary things we say of finite things.
felix dakat:
When I say “Self” with a capital S, I’m not talking about the ego, the separate self. I’m referring to consciousness in which everything appears. The word “we” refers to the ego assuming that some such entity appears to you as well.
We usually use visual terms to refer awareness. Awareness is like an invisible eye that “sees” through the eye. So we refer to “point of view”.
The limitations you refer to are objects appearing in consciousness as well. The body is usually present when awake, but it disappears when we are lost in thought. When dreaming the waking body is absent. In deep sleep both mind and body are absent.
BTW, the limitations I was talking about are the limited number of things we can be epistemically aware of; epistemic awareness is a precursor to the “I”. True, this too is just another image in consciousness (the idea thereof) but in that sense, everything is an image in consciousness, including the idea that we aren’t limited.
When I play guitar with a band I get so involved in what I’m doing that I forget myself. This is the phenomenon referred to as “flow”. It’s the opposite of meta consciousness which is being aware of being aware.
In meditation there is an experience where all objects disappear and theres just pure consciousness. Its different than deep sleep because you’re conscious of being conscious and nothing else. It is because of that experience that the idea of absolute consciousness makes sense to me.
Do you think this state of consciousness being aware of consciousness (and nothing else) is equivalent to universal consciousness? The consciousness of everything, the whole universe? I imagine that whatever the universe is conscious of, it’s incomprehensible to human beings. I don’t think it’s something that can “fit” in the human mind.
felix dakat:
Even the phenomena of there being an inside and outside of you are fictions. Where do thoughts occur to you? People usually imagine they occur in the head behind the eyes. But, this is a learned convention which you can change. Thoughts have no spatial dimension or location in space whatsoever. They don’t really occur anywhere.
And surely I don’t need to explain that all sensory phenomena are relative. Science teaches us this. Now we have virtual reality technology that shows us how easily are senses are deceived.
So, we can say without hesitation that the ordinary experience is not real. What is real is you, the one to whom all this is appearing.
Well, that’s gonna be difficult for a guy like me to accept given my theory of consciousness. Experience carries the seeds of reality within it (according to my theory) and this accounts for projection, the revelation of being through experience. In other words, though I agree that it’s all mental, I don’t think that makes it unreal. ← That’s part and parcel of my redefining of “substance”. Maybe we’ll agree to disagree on this point.
Artimas, I’ll reply to your post next.
Artimas:
I will write more in depth soon and try to answer any and all questions but here is a basic diagram/idea of what I believe the timeline of consciousness is. The arrows between the independent stages of such are connected to or embedded in the next, yet also independent and leading to such next state.
In my view humans have an unconscious and subconscious BECAUSE we are directly descended from those states that reacted within themselves to lead to such and it is embedded in human consciousness (complex psyche and organism).
gib, no, you do not have control of your mind just like I do not have control of mine,
Ok gib, so how did the “laws” of nature come to be? Inherent value systems already exist for things of value to react within themselves on a scale that is ever lasting and evolving complexity. The laws are part of the evolution of complexity, it does not diminish my point because there are laws of nature, call it what you will. The universe and all that is, is conscious and on varying states or layers of consciousness, which is why I drew out the timeline, to give an idea of it. When consciousness comes into play (human consciousness) it does not make the unconscious facets disappear, more so, the unconscious is layered in with the subconscious into the conscious. All are connected, yet independent values happening all at once.
The complexity of an experience/reaction I feel, is what is the main contributing factor to how consciousness grows and evolves.
The subconscious and unconscious facets in and of reality do not have or grasp the concept of time. Change can happen, without being aware of time as the measurement of such change.
Sorry, my handwriting is kind of shit but you get the idea, or so I hope. The bubble with humans and advanced life, is the consciousness stage. The arrow leading out into nothingness or the “unknown” is the potential next stage after consciousness.
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I merely used programs/functions as an example, perhaps they are not the right words. I am torn between intent of manifestation and randomness for how everything spawned. Perhaps “values” embedded is a better way to explain such states of the unconscious. Without any sort of value a reaction could not happen for a continuity of complexity to take place.
I do not follow the hogwash of scientists saying how old the universe is at 13.7 billion.
Chaos is the trial and or error aspect to the state of success which success is order. They are not independent of each other, both must exist for the other to. Contrast is everything. The very chaotic and or orderly thing that happened before us is directly embedded into us via the timeline of psyche’s evolution.
Similar to how growth requires one to stare in the face of pain.
Also, an idea can arrive in the mind without any train of thought related to it.
This idea I called, natural selection of natural selection, because Darwin only dealt with bio-life, but all things are living, on varying states of conscious existence. Unconscious > subconscious > consciousness
gib, you are right, PZR didn’t cite. I was just being salty because I felt he was attacking me, so apologies to PZR, he’s an alright dude after we’ve discussed some on other threads/topics.
Glad to hear you two have made up and that you’re clear on what a citation is.
I appreciate all of you.
But you need to be more intelligent.
Walls of text may make you think you really care about people and put a lot of thought into something.
But it’s a sign of lack of intelligence.
I read everything you write on these boards.
Most of it is babble.
I’m not trying to seem dominant here.
I’m just telling you that you don’t need to put that much effort in