Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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OneGeist
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by OneGeist »

PoeticUniverse wrote: September 26th, 2021, 4:06 pm
OneGeist wrote: September 26th, 2021, 2:09 am Only in the last 4 or 5 I was introduced to meditation and other practices. Where I experienced something close to this. That made me start looking at things from a new perspective.
MEDITATION, but…
Firstly a lot of this is narrow minded and bias opinion. Assuming all those who meditate do so with the same intention and experiences. All meditation does, that I will stand behind as a universal truth. Unless you are just not wanting it to work. Is allow more oxygen to the brain inducing a calming state and allowing more clear train of thought. While focusing on breath alone you can block out the problems of the external world for a moment to approach any question one has with a better chance of seeing the problem more clearly. Everyone from Harvard Medical to women's Magazine have written articles and papers that agree meditation promotes healthier body and mind.

The neurological tests with experienced practitioners proves nothing except more brain activity. Showing neurons firing through out the entire brain, i.e higher sense of awareness. Nothing in science even claims to know where conscious comes from. For you to do so is just a fallacy and says a lot about how open you are to ideas not aligning with those you have always been partial to. Nothing in science is fact, in 100 years it will all be proven wrong and good scientists will agree with this. It's obvious from looking into beliefs of the past, all beliefs are only assumptions.

Can you explain to me why photons do not materialize into particles until we attempt to observe them in some way. How do they understand we are trying to observe them if we are not entangled in some way. Not only that the defy time in a way in which now it has always been a particle. Yet only if we try to observe it. Therefor when it was "born" it knew we were going to observe it in the future. You explain that if we are not one with that particle.

Also it would be nice to know who I am debating with. So you should give where you copied and pasted your argument from. I prefer to use my own words and opinions but to each is own.
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged". Noam Chomsky
PoeticUniverse
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by PoeticUniverse »

OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 12:31 am Firstly a lot of this is narrow minded and bias opinion. Assuming all those who meditate do so with the same intention and experiences. All meditation does, that I will stand behind as a universal truth. Unless you are just not wanting it to work. Is allow more oxygen to the brain inducing a calming state and allowing more clear train of thought. While focusing on breath alone you can block out the problems of the external world for a moment to approach any question one has with a better chance of seeing the problem more clearly. Everyone from Harvard Medical to women's Magazine have written articles and papers that agree meditation promotes healthier body and mind.
Meditation works for me!

I’ve reached many mediative states in which the boundary of my self disappeared, when all my thoughts were gone, with only pure awareness left, and I was it, rather than even noting it or feeling it, for that is still reaching out, and meditation is really a taking in. After the self was gone, a further boundary of where I left off and the rest of the universe began was gone as well. It’s a state that seems to refresh the mind and body. If thoughts run too fast at first, for the above meditation, perhaps due to some involuntary physiological reactions from life, even for someone who is patient, than it is best to first just let any and all thoughts pass by, as in a parade, without latching on to them in any way. This is called no-mind, as meditation “is not what you think”.

The above takes some amount of will, but we are stuck with that, plus the will will get removed anyway. OK, we are drifting toward no thought, no feeling, no sensation, no interpretations, no mind/brain or whatever it is that grants experience, for we are heading for no experience being present at all. We are not, yet, even trying to size up the nature of this meditation, for that would involve that which we are trying to get rid of her. Consciousness has no separate mind/brain system of its own, so there is no worry that it could intrude.

We could also be in the state as when we have just woken up from sleep, doesn’t matter, same thing. We probably have our eyes closed, or what may appear to be eyes, doesn’t matter, for a sight of a thing has been known to produce an experience. Or we are in the dark. All experience is fading, even the persistent intrusive stuff; we are getting close to having no experience; however there is slight problem, our breathing that we focused on to draw attention away from anything else, but, no problem for that is also gone now.

We are getting really close; another very slight problem: That thing, whatever it is, that reported our body’s (whatever that is) outer boundary, wherever that is, has now changed to report that there is no outer boundary between us and whatever is, whatever that may be at heart. So, we’re not really off track, because we are even now achieving a quieting of what stirs up experience, however, the darn things keeps reporting no boundary; well, we will attempt to ignore even that, but will consider it later when we retrieve it from our memory, or from wherever, when we later consider the nature of this whole experience of experiencing nothing.

OK, no more cares about a body/self/environment boundary; the thought has gone the way of all others, for we are not attending to it. This is called detachment; we are at a great distance; the stage has been cleared; we soon hope that the stage itself will disappear and that we will be left with pure consciousness untainted by any experience.

But wait, one more tiny experience keeps seeping in, but we will get rid of it or ignore it. We have been feeling spaceless, weightless, all spread out, like one with everything, and so forth, even doing away with what I just said, for that is a feeling. We are now working on the disappearance of self, whatever that experience is, although the self had to pop in now and then, but only for the purpose of maintenance of our desired state.

Overall, the state is going well. We are not inventing, theorizing, looking at angles or any of that; in fact, experiences are few and far between now. We are mostly taking in and hardly putting anything out. We are floating, but we halt all thinking of comparisons of it to being in outer space or anything like that.

The one experience still seeping is that of the self. This is not quite the same as the ‘It is’ undoubted truth of consciousness, but a sense of a separate self of “I am”, which we will soon remove. Then there surely won’t be anything left that can even involuntarily try to decide or claim anything.

So, whatever it is that is behind the generation of experience is getting thoroughly quieted, for the self itself is now fading. It feels different, but we soon banish that experience as well. The self is gone; there is only the witnessing of nothing by consciousness. Timelessness and selflessness have arrived. Later on, we wouldn’t even know if a million years had passed, but practically, some noise will happen or we will wake up if we fall asleep or we will have to pee.

We are still in the state of the awareness of consciousness witnessing nothing, not even itself, for consciousness is not an object. There is still a subject, consciousness, but it is not a subject of anything now. It is still the background, but there is no foreground.

It just is as it is, no more and no less. So, now our meditation is over, and some useless doubtable conjecturing can begin, which is always fun, but before that let’s say how we feel now, be it true or fake. We seem to feel peaceful, rested, more like restored, and even achieve the detached state quicker, through much practice; we even apply it while moving through everyday life as we run into stress, quickly detaching and letting what others might call annoyances or bad behaviors sail right on by us, disturbing us but a tiny tiny bit from any involuntary reactions that may try to surface, but we know what to do with those and soon they squashed in the bud.

Life becomes more glorious than was ever thought possible. Calmness spreads; creativity has more opening; we don’t just react, but use the space before responding to attain a better response, a space that isn’t even there for the impulsive.

Then, next time a “false” crisis arises, one will know how to instantly quiet your mind. Soon life becomes euphoric as one reaches the higher modes of being, true paradise being simply an attainable state of mind.

One will become fully present for the moment, enjoying life completely, as regrets of the past and fears of the future fade away into meaninglessness. One is fully alive; one is in the zone, in the now, where one cannot miss, where everything you touch turns to gold, the world looking like one big wish. One has reached the Treasure House, instead of stumbling outside in the dark over trifles.
OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 12:31 am The neurological tests with experienced practitioners proves nothing except more brain activity. Showing neurons firing through out the entire brain, i.e higher sense of awareness. Nothing in science even claims to know where conscious comes from. For you to do so is just a fallacy and says a lot about how open you are to ideas not aligning with those you have always been partial to. Nothing in science is fact, in 100 years it will all be proven wrong and good scientists will agree with this. It's obvious from looking into beliefs of the past, all beliefs are only assumptions.
Time Magazine came out with an article in which Buddhist monks were measured in meditation, and certain brain areas to do with identification of the self and the body’s boundaries began to show much lower activity, and of course this was likely an expected neurological effect (the pure awareness) of removing all one’s thoughts.

Thoughts, and sensations at the state-of-being level
Will not reveal the shielded essence beneath.

When one has sensations and feelings of other realms,
Such as in meditation, visions,
And imaginations of imagined ultimate realms…
One has not even left the state of being itself.

There is a subconscious state beneath,
Of electronics and chemicals,
The neural states of correspondences
To the state of being,
And, for what it’s worth (a jumble of nerve impulses),
This state is not even reached;
However, science informs us about it.
OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 12:31 am Can you explain to me why photons do not materialize into particles until we attempt to observe them in some way. How do they understand we are trying to observe them if we are not entangled in some way. Not only that the defy time in a way in which now it has always been a particle. Yet only if we try to observe it. Therefor when it was "born" it knew we were going to observe it in the future. You explain that if we are not one with that particle.
'Particles' are quantum fields at heart and so that is the reason why they are spread out and that one 'particle' will go through both slits in the famous experiment (since it is a field quantum). As lumps in the fields, 'particles' can also act as a particles. The observation is not just from us, but from any interaction. The answer to where one will find it is a probability percentage, yet the percentages are unitary in that they add up to one hundred percent; so, there is a statistical basis covering all the bases.

Photons are special; they do not decay on their own; they are null to time and space, and so they do not age or 'experience' distance. They will be all that's left when all the mass has gone away at the end of the universe.

We. too, are quantum fields at heart and thus part and parcel of all that is—quantum fields.

So, again, there is already no separation in the universe. While 'particles' are the discrete quanta at certain unit levels, this doesn't mean that the universe is discontinuous, for the fields that they really are are partless and continuous, just as the fundamental arts demand.

Hope this brings you peace!
PoeticUniverse
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by PoeticUniverse »

tsihcrana wrote: September 26th, 2021, 10:33 am If you wanted to remake this universe (or an AI for that matter) on a computer
I was an information engineer computer programmer at IBM for 31 years creating software in support of the logic design. I've been retired for 20 years now.

The Programmer sets the if-then switches,
Like eight-way 3D Rubic Cube intercepts,
After having set the quarks and leptons,
And coding stars to generate atoms.

Then more precise tweaks, to dark energy,
To umpteen decimal places so rare,
And the forming of the DNA code
To blend life’s ingredients, stirring slow.

Darn, the n-body problem is so tough,
For unforeseen side-effects e’er arise,
Among branches of the would-be life-tree,
A zillion variables overlapping.

This was all still in a simulation
To test out the the coming universe.
Fixes were needed.

The Programmer sat up at his terminal,
Brought up his 1,000,000,000 line program,
And opened the patient for surgery,
Working swiftly from a red inked printout
Marked up during a long coffee hour.

He clamped off the bleeding capillaries,
Redid most of their interfaces,
And bloodlessly sealed them shut again,
Although these were only preparatory
And minor repairs in auxiliary areas.

Next, the main arteries had to be incised,
And therefore it was no longer possible
To open and unblock the incursions in sequence,
Since indirect ramifications and side concerns
Concerns quickly arose and wildly flared,
As fleeting thoughts, for one thing led to another,

Thereby requiring immediate attendance,
Lest, they, in the formless impressionism
Of the art of computer programming,
Fade to vague remembrance, and reappear later,
Always at an inopportune time, as defects known as bugs.

The phone rang while he was juggling
These evaporating images and so he had to ignore it;
But, no matter, for PhoneMail would record the call.

Twenty minutes later,
He had sutured the incisions and readied
A compile and regression test which would
Either attest to the quality of the operation

Or reveal its fatal errors and necessitate
The revitalization of the patient or, at worst,
Require a complete restoration to
Preoperative health from a backup file.

Then He fed it all into the Big Bang.



Not good enough!

Regular computer programming covering all eventualities can’t calculate the universe, as it’s too linear and too slow.

So,

The universe is a quantum computer,
Reckoning the future with its qu-bits;
The path that goes the furthest wins the prize,
It being the best of all possible worlds!



What great needle played, stitched, wound, and paved
The strands of the quantum fields’ types of waves
To weave the warp, weft, and woof of our ‘verse
Into being’s fabric of living braids?

The Bang’s source is a quantum computer
That reckoned all future with its qu-bits.
The path that went the furthest won the prize,
Earth being the best of all possible worlds!

The universe’s quantum computation
Finished just before the Big Bang start,
And then it played out in time perfectly,
As the longest path of complexity.

How else could the ‘shambles’ of Explosion
Result in life in our universe that’s
Only .02 percent of its way along?
The universal constants were self-taught.

Mass/energy has been shown to be
Equivalent to information, so,
The quantum universe did compute
Itself, pursuing paths that go onward.

It reached out to see what’s possible
And what’s not, like particles forming
In the quantum world, but, better than that—
It made the potential possible.

It ran scenarios of consequences,
Ever abandoning those paths that end,
Near at once, as quantum computers do,
Since it explored all ways in parallel.

Only thus could the exacting events
So improbable and deep in their depth
Have come forth in the Universe’s progress,
In its precisely tuned Macrocosm.


Or just:

The ‘God’ idea has fallen from its throne;
Forever quantum fields’ excitations’
Elementary quanta roll on those fields
That are everywhere and remain themselves.



Of the Forced Defaults for Existence
With no Beginning or End


Since Existence has to be, of not ‘nil’,
‘Supernatural Magic’ isn’t required;
So, there’s only the natural as the base;
One degree of freedom is the forced default.

Motion is a must, or naught would happen;
It can’t have parts, so it’s continuous;
Since no end, it must remain as itself.
There can’t be anything else but it.

It is everywhere, with no gaps of ‘zilch’,
Waving, since that’s ubiquitous in nature;
Transmuting into the elementary
Particles as stable rungs of quanta.

Only quantum fields fit the criteria,
Particles as spigots failed to flow,
Newton’s Space and Time faded away from
Einstein’s relativity special and general.

Quantum field points just going up and down
Form the field waves by dragging others with;
These sums of harmonic oscillations
Force the fixed quanta energy levels.

The universe is one complex quantum field,
For the 25 quantum fields interact,
This containing the whole of physics.
There’s no ‘God’s’ eye view; anything happens.
tsihcrana
Posts: 42
Joined: September 25th, 2021, 10:06 am

Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

Count Lucanor wrote: September 27th, 2021, 12:23 am
tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am The answer to the title question depends mostly on how one defines consciousness, and there are probably half as many definitions as there are people contemplating it. For the purpose of this argument I'm going to define it simply as:

Some awareness that one is having an experience.
The problem with this is that "awareness" is synonymous of "consciousness", so your definition is tautological, it is not providing new information that would help us define what it is. Unfortunately, every word you use to describe it will have the concept of consciousness already built into it. Take the concept of "experience", for example, to understand it you must already have assimilated the idea of consciousness.
I don't really consider 'awareness' synonymous with 'consciousness' (but that may just be my predilection). Ants are 'aware' or their surroundings, but I don't think it would be as correct to say they are 'conscious', at least not in the way we consider humans to be. Awareness can be purely sensory, and though it can be conscious it does not necessarily need to be - I am, for instance, conscious of the words I'm typing right now, but my subconscious is aware of a whole lot else in my visual periphery that I'm entirely unconscious of. Consciousness is a subset of awareness, but not synonymous with it.

But, ultimately you're right, and I should have chosen my words more carefully. You're also right in that it's hard to define consciousness without reference to some conscious experience or other. I began attempting it regardless and quickly gave up when I realized I'm not a masochist.
tsihcrana
Posts: 42
Joined: September 25th, 2021, 10:06 am

Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 12:31 am Firstly a lot of this is narrow minded and bias opinion. Assuming all those who meditate do so with the same intention and experiences. All meditation does, that I will stand behind as a universal truth. Unless you are just not wanting it to work. Is allow more oxygen to the brain inducing a calming state and allowing more clear train of thought. While focusing on breath alone you can block out the problems of the external world for a moment to approach any question one has with a better chance of seeing the problem more clearly. Everyone from Harvard Medical to women's Magazine have written articles and papers that agree meditation promotes healthier body and mind.

The neurological tests with experienced practitioners proves nothing except more brain activity. Showing neurons firing through out the entire brain, i.e higher sense of awareness. Nothing in science even claims to know where conscious comes from. For you to do so is just a fallacy and says a lot about how open you are to ideas not aligning with those you have always been partial to. Nothing in science is fact, in 100 years it will all be proven wrong and good scientists will agree with this. It's obvious from looking into beliefs of the past, all beliefs are only assumptions.
I agree that nothing in science is fact. I'd go so far as to say there is no such thing as truth, except I'd have to correct that sentence to avoid the inherent paradox:

'There is no truth except this sentence'.

To me meditation serves one very useful function (and a lot of lesser ones): It can free you from the prison of your past.

Suppose there is an 'arena of consciousness' that has a semi-flexible but mostly static capacity. At any given moment this arena may be filled with external input, memories, imaginings, emotions, thoughts... and any combination thereof. When we experience the outside world it enters into the arena of consciousness. Certain already-experienced aspects of that data will be recognized, and this will pull associated memories into the arena of consciousness, meaning the space is now occupied by not only sensory input but also aspects of your historical self.

Emotions (subjectively speaking) seem to amplify any experience they are involved in and swell them into the arena of consciousness, thereby forcing out competing experiences. If your memories are heavily associated with emotions your emotional memories (your 'self') will swell into the arena of consciousness and your conscious experience of that moment will be heavily reliant on your past. Emotions motivate action, so if your past is heavily associated with emotion, and everyday experience recalls those memories to participate in the present, your past will to some extent or other influence your present.

By meditating and 'letting emotions go'* you allow your mind to dissolve emotional associations and somewhat escape the prison of your past. When your memories are associatively triggered they will come forward without emotional attachment and therefore will not swell into consciousness as profoundly as they otherwise would, thereby leaving more conscious capacity to experience the present moment. What's more, now your emotions are freed up from your past they can attend instead to the present moment, and therefore the present moment itself is what swells into conscious salience.

*For a long while, when younger, I was conscious of my nose, my eyelashes, and hints of my face within the window of my visual field. Not really anymore, and this is because the brain learns to ignore what is constantly there but not paid attention to. It says "in my experience you've proven to be neither a threat nor something desirous, so I can safely ignore you" . By practicing to let your emotions come and go without consciously attending to them you are training your consciousness to 'ignore' them.
tsihcrana
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Joined: September 25th, 2021, 10:06 am

Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

PoeticUniverse wrote: September 27th, 2021, 1:34 am So, again, there is already no separation in the universe. While 'particles' are the discrete quanta at certain unit levels, this doesn't mean that the universe is discontinuous, for the fields that they really are are partless and continuous, just as the fundamental arts demand.
I agree, and just to elaborate, consider whether a particle without gravity is still a particle. I don't see how the answer could be 'yes', but if it's 'no' then gravity is an inseparable aspect of the particle. If an atom cannot be defined without its attendant gravity, and gravitational fields extend beyond the boundaries of the particle's mass and interact with other particles and their fields, then each particle is overlapping and there really is no separation.
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OneGeist
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Favorite Philosopher: Hegel Chomsky Marx

Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by OneGeist »

PoeticUniverse wrote: September 27th, 2021, 1:34 am Hope this brings you peace!
It does make me feel happier than the last one. I will admit. However these are all mere opinions with no proof in science. Scientists do not even claim them as fact. Which is my only quarrel with the way you present your argument. It also impresses me that some of the most difficult questions in science that puzzle our best physicist, you seem to have a certainty to your understanding of. When I myself have none, only ideas. Knowing that truly I know nothing to any degree of certainty. Paraphrasing Socrates.      

As you say if there is no separation in the universe how are we not one with all that is. If there is no separation, how could there be separation between consciousness, i.e. a collective conscious. If you believe in the big bang (I have my doubts) then everything was compressed in to a single super atom. As I am sure your aware all atoms that were at once one and split become entangled. Therefore everything is entangled with everything else. Working in a symbiotic state. As if it had one mind. We are starting to see evidence of this. I read an article a few days ago in which they believe they have discovered entire galaxies entangled with galaxies millions of light years apart. I believe in the true definition of conscious where everything that interacts with it's environment is conscious. Meaning planets, stars, galaxies and anything else that plays an active role in a system is as conscious as we are. They may not self reflect as we do, but that's a hindrance not an asset. Honestly I agree with everything you stated in the last part. I use some of those points myself in defense of a singular mind and body that is our universe.

Those same studies also show that the experienced practitioners of meditation showed more neural activity than previously thought possible. Showing both intrinsic and extrinsic parts of the brain fully active at the same time. Synchronizing different parts of the brain for extended periods, that prior had never been seen interacting with each other. As well as neuroplasticity or building new pathways for neurons in the brain. All this leads one to believe they might have a better cognitive understanding of their surroundings.

How do you explain the phenomenon of collective consciousness?   What Hindu culture calls Brahman or world mind. There has been so much literature written on this along with personal accounts and even experimental research. Has really started to change the way science looks at this. Well known theories that touch on this are the holographic theory, internal personnel theory, Jung's collective unconscious theory, and quantum entanglement just to name a few more popular ones. 

There are significant arguments being made that the universal consciousness is the missing element or field in the unified field theory. Which I assume you know is the unification or attempted unification of string, relativity, and quantum field theory. 

Are you familiar with the GCP and their findings? How random electronic waves become more synchronized during large communal activity. Such as large holiday celebrations or great tragedies like 9/11. Another shows through transcendental meditation dropping crime rates and another number of statistically significant effects on major cities. Then again replicated during war time in the middle east and got nearly the exact same results. Deaths dropping a noticeable portion. There is a very interesting paper written about this, the journal of social behavior and personality. The evidence suggests that shifts in collective consciousness may influence other people’s awareness, behavior, and perhaps even aspects of physical reality itself. Stanley Krippner, who happens to be Alan Watts professor of psychology, has written many interesting papers and journals on the subject as well.

There are so many accounts I could go on and on. The group meditations of the African bushmen, the dream culture of Australia's Aborigines. If you are a versed practitioner of mindful meditation then have you not experienced through continuous submergence and emergence the breakdown of all reality into waves and  the unbound awareness of self.  So fleeting yet so powerful. The seer and that which is seen. Many have experienced the ability to actively travel on this plane and beyond. These experiences are in no way unique for those who have dedicated their lives to the practices. Many alkaloids have been known to induce the same states. A short cut I have heard it referred to as.
What about NDEs or near death experiences. Where people who have flatlined and are brought back have vivid visual memories of the happenings in the room during their clinical death. Described often as floating above not within the room.  There are hundreds if not thousands of accounts all relatively similar.

The evidence is staggering when you really start to pay attention. 

Thank you. I appreciate the intelligent feedback and conversation. 
 
   Aham Brahm Asmi....
 
  I am that   Thou are that    All that is is that
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged". Noam Chomsky
PoeticUniverse
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by PoeticUniverse »

OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 7:15 am
As you say if there is no separation in the universe how are we not one with all that is. If there is no separation, how could there be separation between consciousness, i.e. a collective conscious. If you believe in the big bang (I have my doubts) then everything was compressed in to a single super atom. As I am sure your aware all atoms that were at once one and split become entangled. Therefore everything is entangled with everything else. Working in a symbiotic state. As if it had one mind. We are starting to see evidence of this. I read an article a few days ago in which they believe they have discovered entire galaxies entangled with galaxies millions of light years apart. I believe in the true definition of conscious where everything that interacts with it's environment is conscious. Meaning planets, stars, galaxies and anything else that plays an active role in a system is as conscious as we are. They may not self reflect as we do, but that's a hindrance not an asset. Honestly I agree with everything you stated in the last part. I use some of those points myself in defense of a singular mind and body that is our universe.
Yes, we are one with the Eternal Existence (as quantum fields), which is not necessarily a 'Mind'. Also, quantum non locality suggests that everything is quantum entangled with everything else. So, all is connected. It's still rudimentary compared to a full blown mind that took billions of years to develop in us.
OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 7:15 amThose same studies also show that the experienced practitioners of meditation showed more neural activity than previously thought possible. Showing both intrinsic and extrinsic parts of the brain fully active at the same time. Synchronizing different parts of the brain for extended periods, that prior had never been seen interacting with each other. As well as neuroplasticity or building new pathways for neurons in the brain. All this leads one to believe they might have a better cognitive understanding of their surroundings.
Yes, this growing of more connections is a great benefit.
OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 7:15 amHow do you explain the phenomenon of collective consciousness?   What Hindu culture calls Brahman or world mind. There has been so much literature written on this along with personal accounts and even experimental research. Has really started to change the way science looks at this. Well known theories that touch on this are the holographic theory, internal personnel theory, Jung's collective unconscious theory, and quantum entanglement just to name a few more popular ones.
Jung's collective unconscious is now better understood as instincts. This is still not yet Brahman. It can also be memes, as what gets learned by all.
OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 7:15 amThere are significant arguments being made that the universal consciousness is the missing element or field in the unified field theory. Which I assume you know is the unification or attempted unification of string, relativity, and quantum field theory. 
How can such a great complexity of a System of Mind be First and fundamental? Not even a a tiny proton can be Fundamental, for it has parts that would have to be more Fundamental.
OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 7:15 amWhat about NDEs or near death experiences. Where people who have flatlined and are brought back have vivid visual memories of the happenings in the room during their clinical death. Described often as floating above not within the room.  There are hundreds if not thousands of accounts all relatively similar.
NDE tunnels of light and such can be explained by neurology, and OBE’s by a condition called sleep paralysis. They can also be induced, resulting in full blown episodes. Neither, then, are proof of a beyond, but of an altered brain state.

I had several OBE’s. In the first one, I noted that the scene looked as real as real could be, but I did nothing further than to float around the bedroom, full of amazement. I figured that the dream model of reality is the same one that is employed when we are awake.

During the second OBE, I rearranged the items on my end table, even knocking one item off. All still felt totally real to the touch and all that and I was sure that I would see the evidence of the end table results later when I fully awoke, but when I really awoke I saw that nothing had ben moved.
I also found that I could awake from dreams anytime by clenching my whole body, and so during the third OBE I luckily found myself in a kind of halfway state in which my dream-arms were seen to be fiddling with the end table stuff while I could also see my real arms still lying beside me unmoving. Another time, I was able to keep some dream music playing after I awoke.

I guess the moral is that sometimes a virtual dream reality cannot be told apart from real. I was so sure that I was out of my body, but one must also remember that memory and imagination often image scenes from above (try it).

It is also the case that people of different religions see different religious figures during NDE’s, an indication that the phenomenon occurs within the mind, not without.

OBE’s are easily induced by drugs. The fact that there are receptor sites in the brain for such artificially produced chemicals means that there are naturally produced chemicasl in the brain that, under certain circumstances (the stress of an trauma or an accident, for example), can induce any or all of the experiences typically associated with an NDE or OBE. They are then nothing more than wild trips induced by the trauma of almost dying. Lack of oxygen also produces increased activity though disinhibition—mental modes that give rise to consciousness.

What about the experience of a tunnel in an NDE? Well, the visual cortex is on the back of the brain where information from the retina is processed. Lack of oxygen, plus drugs generated, can interfere with the normal rate of firing by nerve cells in this area. When this occurs ‘stripes’ of neuronal activity move across the visual cortex, which is interpreted by the brain as concentric rings or spirals. These spirals may be ‘seen’ as a tunnel. Our detailed focus in vision is only about the size of a deck of cards held at arms length and so this would be like a tunnel.



It is still that there are many levels of organization beneath our state of being that are opaque to the mind.
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John_Jacquard
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by John_Jacquard »

tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am .......
For the purpose of this argument I'm going to define it simply as:

Some awareness that one is having an experience.
....
I believe that is a problem right out of the gate .

Starting off with a word " consciousness " and then defining it with two other words " awareness " , " experience " which require even more definition than just having the single word you began with! Lol 😆

Hello , everyone i just joined the forum I'm excited to be here .
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Count Lucanor
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by Count Lucanor »

tsihcrana wrote: September 27th, 2021, 4:35 am
Count Lucanor wrote: September 27th, 2021, 12:23 am
tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am The answer to the title question depends mostly on how one defines consciousness, and there are probably half as many definitions as there are people contemplating it. For the purpose of this argument I'm going to define it simply as:

Some awareness that one is having an experience.
The problem with this is that "awareness" is synonymous of "consciousness", so your definition is tautological, it is not providing new information that would help us define what it is. Unfortunately, every word you use to describe it will have the concept of consciousness already built into it. Take the concept of "experience", for example, to understand it you must already have assimilated the idea of consciousness.
I don't really consider 'awareness' synonymous with 'consciousness' (but that may just be my predilection). Ants are 'aware' or their surroundings, but I don't think it would be as correct to say they are 'conscious', at least not in the way we consider humans to be. Awareness can be purely sensory, and though it can be conscious it does not necessarily need to be - I am, for instance, conscious of the words I'm typing right now, but my subconscious is aware of a whole lot else in my visual periphery that I'm entirely unconscious of. Consciousness is a subset of awareness, but not synonymous with it.

But, ultimately you're right, and I should have chosen my words more carefully. You're also right in that it's hard to define consciousness without reference to some conscious experience or other. I began attempting it regardless and quickly gave up when I realized I'm not a masochist.
Perhaps the concept that you're really trying to grasp here is the faculty of abstraction, which is of course an attribute of consciousness, but not necessarily an essential one, depending on the definitions. It is disputed whether ants or other insects are sentient beings (which may imply a level of consciousness) or not. Sentience, as well as awareness, is often thought as synonymous of consciousness. No one denies, though, going up in the animal hierarchy, that mammals or birds are sentient beings, but are they conscious in the same sense as humans? Ant and dogs see a tree and they respond to that stimuli appropriately, but the question is if they can sense the tree 'as a tree', that is, subsumed within the abstract category 'tree'.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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OneGeist
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by OneGeist »

PoeticUniverse wrote: September 27th, 2021, 2:14 pm I guess the moral is
In my opinion physics has proved our perception creates matter from photon waves. The chance of a system working to near perfection like this without a conscious mind guiding it defies mathematics. Unless you believe in infinite universes and we happen to be in the only one that is as stable as we are. Only way it would be possible. It really sucks for you that you have been so close but couldn't grasp what almost every person that has gotten to that realm has. Maybe you are right and all the monks, gurus, tribes men and so on through out history are wrong. However considering I have also been there and met the infinite octopus or snake and was the snake dancing the infinite dance. Forgot this world existed. Was sad when I came back but understood that I have been all eyes in existence. I am going to side with the unlimited number of Gurus, Yogis, Dalai Lama and other Shamanist who have came to the shared common realization I experienced.. Not the one who hasn't. No offense. If you had opened yourself up and let go of ego and doubt. You would feel the same way. Once you have experienced there is no question. Prior I was pretty much a nihilist.
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged". Noam Chomsky
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Consul
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by Consul »

tsihcrana wrote: September 27th, 2021, 4:35 am I don't really consider 'awareness' synonymous with 'consciousness' (but that may just be my predilection). Ants are 'aware' or their surroundings, but I don't think it would be as correct to say they are 'conscious', at least not in the way we consider humans to be. Awareness can be purely sensory, and though it can be conscious it does not necessarily need to be - I am, for instance, conscious of the words I'm typing right now, but my subconscious is aware of a whole lot else in my visual periphery that I'm entirely unconscious of. Consciousness is a subset of awareness, but not synonymous with it.

But, ultimately you're right, and I should have chosen my words more carefully.
You did choose your words carefully, because awareness or transitive consciousness of something really isn't the same as and doesn't even entail experiential/phenomenal consciousness. Being aware or conscious of something in the sense of perceiving or (re)cognizing it is not the same as undergoing subjective appearances or impressions of it. Awareness or transitive consciousness qua perception or cognition can take place nonconsciously, i.e. without any subjective sensations.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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OneGeist
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by OneGeist »

OneGeist wrote: September 27th, 2021, 10:45 pm I guess the moral is
With how sure of your self you are. Once again no offense. I can tell you still hold on to a lot of ego. Yes it is hard to grasp when you can't stop trying to grasp it.
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged". Noam Chomsky
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Consul
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by Consul »

Count Lucanor wrote: September 27th, 2021, 10:07 pm Perhaps the concept that you're really trying to grasp here is the faculty of abstraction, which is of course an attribute of consciousness, but not necessarily an essential one, depending on the definitions. It is disputed whether ants or other insects are sentient beings (which may imply a level of consciousness) or not. Sentience, as well as awareness, is often thought as synonymous of consciousness. No one denies, though, going up in the animal hierarchy, that mammals or birds are sentient beings, but are they conscious in the same sense as humans? Ant and dogs see a tree and they respond to that stimuli appropriately, but the question is if they can sense the tree 'as a tree', that is, subsumed within the abstract category 'tree'.
There is such a thing as animal cognition. There are different kinds of animal minds with different sets of mental or intellectual capacities, but there is nothing exclusively human about conceptualized perception, i.e. sense-impressions of things combined with conceptual representations of them, such that a thing of kind K can be perceived and recognized as a K. The conceptual representations in question needn't belong to a natural language such as English.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
tsihcrana
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

John_Jacquard wrote: September 27th, 2021, 9:43 pm
tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am .......
For the purpose of this argument I'm going to define it simply as:

Some awareness that one is having an experience.
....
I believe that is a problem right out of the gate .

Starting off with a word " consciousness " and then defining it with two other words " awareness " , " experience " which require even more definition than just having the single word you began with! Lol 😆
Every word has a definition that employs other words that themselves require definition. You're inviting a problem of infinite regress if you follow the logic you imply above.
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