Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
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Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
Anyway, consider the following in regard to self-awareness. The prevailing question here: what consequences follow if I was disconnected to my sensory organs, memory, experiences, emotions, beliefs so all I have is my ability to think. Would anything happen? There'd be no reason for anything to happen, no feelings of boredom to motivate action, no desires, etc.
The vapor of air that is considered the mind, if left undisturbed would not be able to make any coherence to itself or for itself, what tools would it have to do so? The tools that allow this unit of ambiguity to reflect to itself for the sake of knowing itself as anything is the correspondence of external and internal functions for the sake of awareness, or to "be". It cannot be “something”, because if unattached to its body or sensory organs it can't be anything known to itself, it cannot “be”, there is nothing identifiable to warrant a response to be apparent to itself.
It is a response to something that triggers awareness. The source for response is the world, and the tools utilized to tap into it the rational, perceptual, and emotional centers of force. The origin of this awareness can be represented via various systems of interpretation (science, religion) but these do not explain what it is relative to itself. I will say what the mind is aware of is not itself, but rather itself only when corresponding to the world. It is not self-aware, but more precisely "self-world aware", how is awareness of self alone possible if it could not logically be anything that isn’t represented as nothing in comparison?
By this logic the self is represented with nothing, and the world something. But just because there is nothing doesn't mean it's nature holds the same aspects of nothingness. So we have this connection of nothing to something, will the nothing become anything that isn’t nothing by joining with the something? If I add nothing to something, I end up with the same something. Therefore, because the world is the something to which I refer, does the world that I perceive become the self by this logic? Am I the world? Or my personal world? Or is it that that is the ultimate end for life, aligning my nature with the world which is, for the sake of my own "to be"?
However simple addition is uncertain in its capability to apply to this case without considering possibility unknown aspects of the connection left unrepresented, to add nothing to something, which leaves me with the something. At the least trying to connect references to what being is, to clear the ambiguity of how it relates to nature, is just to say I learn about it. That applies to anything.
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
- JamesOfSeattle
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
As a functionalist, I understand the self to be a functional agent. Such an agent produces outputs in response to inputs. What you suggest is taking away all the inputs. In such a case, the agent is still extant, just not doing anything. So most of what you say is correct except that doing nothing is not the same as being nothing.
Jan Sand,
I suggest you do what you’re doing: provide your perspective.
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
- Sy Borg
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
If the light did not appear, how long could one mentally survive? When you are in a subjective nothingness you have nothing but memories. Over time there will mostly be memories of recalling memories, becoming ever more diluted until ultimately the edifice must logically collapse through lack of new information/stimuli. Just as a digestive system will eat itself without food, the mind metaphorically would seemingly do the same thing.
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
Mystical experiences have happened since the dawn of man, experiences wherein some sort of light goes off in someone's mind and they feel this same experience, this oneness and ultimate harmoniousness with all of existence. This is essentially what the Zen Buddhists are all about, the religion of nothing and everything.
Of course many people have false ideas of Buddhism only having heard several quotes or mistranslations by a Buddha or Bodhisattva, such as "empty the mind" or "life is suffering", but many of these people also are not aware that these were not his final words, but merely openings of a dialogue!
If curious on your relation to the world around you, I've found most satisfying answers personally searching Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhism and studying Alan Watts, a philosopher who popularized Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Lots of beauty to be found there
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
I don't think I know if I identify with any interpretation via theory, mythology or lie but at the moment it makes sense that everything is external and I am a reflection of the external regardless of what mediation internally takes place.
The being in question defined by the agent mediating outputs which are caused by the inputs? Do you think it is the actual that is or the center of force or agent which is in potential? If the latter was the case I can't see any distinguishing between people, which may not be bad, but potential for the actual doesn't seem holistic for being if the world mediates the agent in question. I don't mean to say I don't have free will, but the method for coming into being is a method that will always be on the way to being until, for the sake of progress, advancement, knowledge etc. the manifold capacities of being are no longer put in opposition to each other. If it is the case that the self is a culmination of output, or at least that which can be detected seems to only depend on what the world provides, then inputs would be epiphenomenal to self, not the identity for self but a coming into being that flows regardless of an agent which can only alter if conditions are volitionally chosen to change the inputs, which will change the outputs, which changes a capacity of coming into being.
@Jan Sand
Everything's on topic when it's Metaphysics! You sound like you have an unsated curiosity, maybe try psychedelics once or twice (I don't recommend more than that) or regular at a rock climbing gym, both are good existential activities. Also you may like George Gurdjieff.
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
- Sy Borg
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
But did we read the manual? No! Instead we kept making mistakes due to lack of experience. Inexcusable! We should have known hundreds of years ago that burning fossil fuels would one day change the climate. Worse again, we are failing to do the equivalent of captaining the Titanic to perform a U-turn on a twenty cent piece! Bad humans!
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
- Sy Borg
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
Then again, without opposable thumbs we would have been held in check. However, our arboreal ancestors brought these potent digits down from the trees and they were useful enough to stay in the gene pool.
The damn mess you keep referring to was all inevitable IMO, just a matter of time. I have tried to imagine alternative paths but the problem is life's inherent opportunism. Like water on a cracked path, life explores every possibility (naturally enough, given that life is mostly water anyway) and that includes the exploration of legal and moral loopholes. Every single one.
Now consider the "noble savage" before all this. People living beautiful lives in relative harmony with nature (aside from human sacrifice and devising some of humanity's the most terrifying torture methods). Otherwise life was perfect, well, aside from all the damn parasites - bacteria, viruses, intestinal worms. Oh, and lack of shelter in harsh weather. Not to mention infant mortality. And sleeping on hard ground infested with insects, spiders and snakes. Of course there were some problems with predators too, although probably less than the issues of invading tribes who'd rape the women and kill the young.
Even if indigenous communities were as idyllic as can sometimes be presented, they were always vulnerable to any visiting, more technologically inclined, races. Opportunism again. If there is a niche, an opportunity, it will be found. It's generally just a matter of time. Life itself is a wicked problem with no clear solution, yet somehow biology has explored and blundered its way from microbes to space-faring hominids. You could say that life is problematically effective :)
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
- Sy Borg
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
Exactly. Move forward, not back.Jan Sand wrote: ↑March 4th, 2018, 5:36 am Beware of the noble savage. See https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/
I see Utopia to only be possible in the digital realm. Biology hurts; it's that simple. Now if we can be digitised - and that brings us back to the topic at hand - that will change everything. Billions of human minds consuming digital rather than physical resources. Sense of self as a digital entity would be an interesting thing.
- WiseGodCeeTruth
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Re: Interaction of Awareness, Self, and World
The Divine Mind in it's first nation (imagi-nation - which is infinite) gave birth to all through the Word; rising over the sublimation of Triple Darkness, a single light in the dark. The mind (the single monad, the Divine intelligence) is capable of manifestation through a single thought (the Word). So, we, although we are living in physicality, are able to manifest with our minds - consciously or otherwise.
My answer to your question is: it has all the tools within itself already, it only needs to recognize itself as a thinker. Once it realizes that, it knows itself (Rene Descartes - "I think, therefore I am") as it is an omniscient force. When the mind 'wakes up', the mind recognizes itself instantly ("Samadhi"); it is still active in it's sleep, though passively-active, but in another dimension (say another Universe, another creation). Think, like a dream.
~The mind realizes itself in nothingness. That great dragon we call the mind.
The real question is: must the inquiry regarding self-awareness gain stead, or is the answer already there for any whom are willing to place faith, and practice, [in] absolute Truth?
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
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