Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

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tsihcrana
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Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

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.

This would exclude organisms with entirely instinctive biochemical/bio-mechanical reactions.

There's a strong tendency to suppose some great mystery lurks at the heart of consciousness, but (and I could easily be mistaken) it seems pretty easily explained to me: all you need are two or more brain regions set up in a pitcher-catcher arrangement:

1. A primary experience is processed in, and therefore arises in, region A;
2. The experience in region A is output to region B;
3. Region B has a secondary experience of the primary experience sent from region B;
4. Therefore consciousness.

For instance: optical information enters the eyes and is processed into a mental image. The image represents a primary, first-hand, experience (vision is, of course, much more complex than this, but for the sake of simplicity...). That image, or some recognized/perceived part thereof, is output to other regions of the brain that then produce some secondary reaction to the primary experience of vision. The type of region receiving the image dictates what kind of conscious experience ensuing. Say the image is sent to the limbic center and an emotional reaction ensues - this would represent having a secondary emotional experience of the primary experience of sight, and that is the essence of consciousness - awareness of one's own experience.

That emotional experience may then be sent to, say, the prefrontal cortex for some kind of thought-related experience, and again consciousness has arisen because one is having the experience of having an experience. The reason consciousness seems so mysterious and gives neuroscientists so much trouble discovering its 'seat' in the brain is because there is no static 'type' of conscious experience, and no static region it inhabits in the brain. Instead our consciousness shifts about. We may be at one moment emotionally conscious of our thoughts and in the next thoughtfully conscious of our emotions... The 'seat' of consciousness shifts to whatever experience is most qualitatively/quantitatively salient, and there needn't be one seat occupied at any one time.

There is no measurement without (at least) two points of reference, and for this reason we need to be able to 'see' one internal experience from the perspective of another to have some concept of our own existence - enabling us to measure/quantify/qualify experience and delineate its boundaries. Without a secondary vantage point from which to have the experience of having other experiences we would not be able to conceive of our own existence because we would be unified with primary experience - we'd be an eye trying to look at itself.

Again, I fully accept the possibility I'm wrong, but to me it seems consciousness is simply the recipient aspect of a mental pitcher-catcher relationship.
stevie
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by stevie »

tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am The answer to the title question depends mostly on how one defines consciousness,
Not only that but it depends also on whether the definiendum called "consciousness" is conceived as being an independent reality.
mankind ... must act and reason and believe; though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections, which may be raised against them [Hume]
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OneGeist
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by OneGeist »

we'd be an eye trying to look at itself

This is the experience many have had across many generations. With many different forms of inducing So called out of body experiences. There is no scientific way to see if consciousness is in any way separate from neurons. I assume not any time soon. However I do think there is a collective conscious. There have been case studies that showed some interesting conclusions, but nothing you could call proof. I don't think it's something that can be debated really. Not from my point of view. Especially since I was an atheist for 20-25 years. 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.
"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 »

tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am some great mystery lurks at the heart of consciousness,
We can dissolve more of the mysteries of consciousness…

Consciousness is a brain process. It cannot float around in space by itself. Every so-called ‘thing’ is a process, an event, some of which may continue for a long time, like a tree or the sun.

The content in consciousness correlates to what the brain has already analyzed and produced in the subconscious, this neural ‘voting’ being quick, but not instant, taking about 300-500 milliseconds. The content reflects the brain’s mapping, which map is the territory since the noumena are left behind. Consciousness makes no reference to brain states, which is called ‘referral.’

Neuroscience informs us of the ‘projection’ of neural states with no perceiving of neural firings/states, else we wouldn’t know about the ‘basement’ first storey, being unaware of it in our already written conscious second story.

So, consciousness is not live, but a kind of tape-delayed broadcast, ever showing the just past. Thus consciousness does not cause anything right then and there, for it arrives too late in the process. This rather tricks us into thinking that consciousness is in control, as directly causal.

The consciousness brain process is ever ongoing; other interested brain areas will respond with their products, and so it goes, even into long ruminations.

Conscious is Compositional; It is structured with many phenomenological distinctions. It is Intrinsic, as one’s own, as independent. It is Informational, as particular and specific. It is Integrated/Whole, as Unified and no longer Reducible. It is Exclusive, as having Definite content, no more and no less.

It is Subjectively felt. In addition to the ‘referral’ already mentioned, there is Mental Unity, as Experienced as a unified field, whereas its sources are all over the brain. There are Qualia, as the felt qualities of sensory consciousness. It has Continuity, as the seamless stitching of the ongoing changing contents.

Mental causation?—How can consciousness itself right then and there—an intangible, unobservable, and fully subjective entity—cause material neurons to direct behaviors that change the world? Subconscious brain analysis, taking 300-500 milliseconds to complete, is all done and finished in its result before consciousness gets hold of the product.

Consciousness has Uses/Advantages over such as reflexes or all purpose schemes, for it grants Flexibility of Reaction, as we’re better able to react to conscious content, in our further subconscious decisions beyond just the automatic reflex-like responses triggered by non conscious content. There’s Focus, as Selective Attention allows the brain to focus its activity on what’s important, so that our subconscious decisions can attend to that foremost.

It grants Evaluations, the Feelings make one aware of what is good or bad, from both emotions and logic. It grants Survival Value, as Complex decisions are possible. We gain Behavioral Flexibility, as unlimited associated learning combines multiple cues into a single perception. There’s Discrimination, making small perceptual differences possible, such as between good and poisonous food.

For Diversification of Species, such as in the Cambrian explosion and a kind of evolutionary arms race in finding new ways to avoid detection, spurring predators to become more sophisticated. Beauty appears, such as plants evolving colorful flowers to attract pollination. For Actionizing, as the pondering of the consequences of scenarios before committing to action.

There is reality ‘out there’, for sure;
We have senses to take it in, as pure.
The brain paints a useful face upon it,
Such as colors for wave frequencies, etc.

Consciousness is ever a brain process,
One which can be halted, never-the-less,
By anesthesia, poison/drugs,
A blow to the head, a faint, or by sleep.

Change the brain and consciousness changes too.
Take drugs and the emotions change, anew.
Damage the brain and the mind’s damaged too.
Consciousness emerges only from the brain!

In identifying consciousness,
We often confuse what is floating in
The stream of consciousness with the water itself;
Thus, we note not the sea in which we ‘see’.

The brain interprets reality, and puts
A face on the waves of sound, light, color, touch,
And a sense on molecules’ smell and taste.
Consciousness is the brain’s perception of itself.

Consciousness mediates thoughts versus outcomes,
And is distributed all over the body,
From the nerve spindles to the spine to the brain—
A way to actionize without moving.

Physics describes well the extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As the intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive—

As the distinctions toward survival,
Though causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

The posterior cortex holds correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;

Thusly, it presents a unified Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
A process fundamental in nature,
Or it’s the brain’s own symbolic language.

The Whole can also be well spoken of
To communicate with others, as well as
Globally informing other brain states,
For nonconscious states know not what’s been formed.
tsihcrana
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

OneGeist wrote: September 26th, 2021, 2:09 am we'd be an eye trying to look at itself

This is the experience many have had across many generations. With many different forms of inducing So called out of body experiences. There is no scientific way to see if consciousness is in any way separate from neurons. I assume not any time soon. However I do think there is a collective conscious. There have been case studies that showed some interesting conclusions, but nothing you could call proof. I don't think it's something that can be debated really. Not from my point of view. Especially since I was an atheist for 20-25 years. 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.
I've experienced that oneness also, and like you it rocked my long-held atheist stance, but in the end I don't think you require any conception of a higher power to accept the proposition there is only one thing, and we are all aspects of it (if that's what you meant). Atheism doesn't seem inconsistent with oneness, so I'm undecided on that one at the moment.

Would you mind pointing me toward some of the collective consciousness stuff you mention - genuinely interested.
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OneGeist
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by OneGeist »

tsihcrana wrote: September 26th, 2021, 8:26 am
OneGeist wrote: September 26th, 2021, 2:09 am we'd be an eye trying to look at itself

This is the experience many have had across many generations. With many different forms of inducing So called out of body experiences. There is no scientific way to see if consciousness is in any way separate from neurons. I assume not any time soon. However I do think there is a collective conscious. There have been case studies that showed some interesting conclusions, but nothing you could call proof. I don't think it's something that can be debated really. Not from my point of view. Especially since I was an atheist for 20-25 years. 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.
I've experienced that oneness also, and like you it rocked my long-held atheist stance, but in the end I don't think you require any conception of a higher power to accept the proposition there is only one thing, and we are all aspects of it (if that's what you meant). Atheism doesn't seem inconsistent with oneness, so I'm undecided on that one at the moment.

Would you mind pointing me toward some of the collective consciousness stuff you mention - genuinely interested.
You are absolutely correct, by definition I still consider myself an atheist. Because I do not believe in a deity. It would take a long minute to describe my feelings on the subject. However the most simplistic way to for me to describe it is I believe everything has been recycled in the expansion cycles of the universe. The matter that makes up any one thing has been a part of all other things. "We" or "God" manifested creation like a dream because nothingness can not exist. The universe is just how we entertain ourselves. Wanting something unknown to us we created the universe in such a way to surprise ourselves. Like the stock market you can input enough known numbers and equations into a system. That even the system itself can not predict the pattern. Even though there are variables guiding everything. There are too many to account for all.

About the last bit. Do you mean literature, meditation practices, or alkaloids. I could give only suggestions for all of the above.
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged". Noam Chomsky
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am There's a strong tendency to suppose some great mystery lurks at the heart of consciousness, but (and I could easily be mistaken) it seems pretty easily explained to me: all you need are two or more brain regions set up in a pitcher-catcher arrangement:

1. A primary experience is processed in, and therefore arises in, region A;
2. The experience in region A is output to region B;
3. Region B has a secondary experience of the primary experience sent from region B;
4. Therefore consciousness.
I wonder if it is safe to assume, as you do above, that a "brain region" - not even an entire brain - is capable of experience?
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

OneGeist wrote: September 26th, 2021, 2:09 am There is no scientific way to see if consciousness is in any way separate from neurons. I assume not any time soon. However I do think there is a collective conscious. There have been case studies that showed some interesting conclusions, but nothing you could call proof. I don't think it's something that can be debated really. Not from my point of view.
I think it is definitely something that can be debated, and investigated, but not by science, which does not include the appropriate tools. But we can consider such matters by serious and considered thought, as we did for all those millennia before we invented science. I think the shorthand term for this kind of investigation is "philosophy". Such matters as we are discussing here are often categorised as 'metaphysics', a discipline wholly outside the bailiwick of science.
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

tsihcrana wrote: September 26th, 2021, 8:26 am Would you mind pointing me toward some of the collective consciousness stuff you mention - genuinely interested.
While you're looking, look also for "collective unconscious" too, and Carl Jung. Link

If your interest is really broad, you might like to look at Morphic resonance and Rupert Sheldrake too? But that's a bit too far out for most people...?
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tsihcrana
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

OneGeist wrote: September 26th, 2021, 9:09 am
tsihcrana wrote: September 26th, 2021, 8:26 am
OneGeist wrote: September 26th, 2021, 2:09 am we'd be an eye trying to look at itself

This is the experience many have had across many generations. With many different forms of inducing So called out of body experiences. There is no scientific way to see if consciousness is in any way separate from neurons. I assume not any time soon. However I do think there is a collective conscious. There have been case studies that showed some interesting conclusions, but nothing you could call proof. I don't think it's something that can be debated really. Not from my point of view. Especially since I was an atheist for 20-25 years. 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.
I've experienced that oneness also, and like you it rocked my long-held atheist stance, but in the end I don't think you require any conception of a higher power to accept the proposition there is only one thing, and we are all aspects of it (if that's what you meant). Atheism doesn't seem inconsistent with oneness, so I'm undecided on that one at the moment.

Would you mind pointing me toward some of the collective consciousness stuff you mention - genuinely interested.
You are absolutely correct, by definition I still consider myself an atheist. Because I do not believe in a deity. It would take a long minute to describe my feelings on the subject. However the most simplistic way to for me to describe it is I believe everything has been recycled in the expansion cycles of the universe. The matter that makes up any one thing has been a part of all other things. "We" or "God" manifested creation like a dream because nothingness can not exist. The universe is just how we entertain ourselves. Wanting something unknown to us we created the universe in such a way to surprise ourselves. Like the stock market you can input enough known numbers and equations into a system. That even the system itself can not predict the pattern. Even though there are variables guiding everything. There are too many to account for all.
I appreciate your perspective, so please don't take this as me trying to convince you otherwise, but I don't see any need for the universe to entertain itself or have some experience of itself. I agree that all the particles that make up 'me' are immortal wanderers that have contributed to a vast number of other patterns and will contribute to an infinitude more, but I think that's the beginning and end of it. There's nothing special about consciousness or human experience. We're just physics doing its thing with matter. It's not easy to describe what I mean, so I'll resort to an analogy.

If you wanted to remake this universe (or an AI for that matter) on a computer all you'd need are three things:

1. Sufficient computational power;
2. Sufficient time;
3. A simple program whose entire basis is: try every combination of 1s and 0s its memory can accommodate until it happens to simulate the universe.

The program would, by pure doggedness 'and accident', eventually simulate the universe* (and probably create several AIs on the way). In that simulation would be 'beings' who think they are real, alive, and conscious, but who are ultimately just code adhering to the rules of the program. They're not special or unique or serve any purpose to the computer running the simulation. The simulation doesn't care about their plight or take anything from their existence. It just runs the code.

We're just the same: created by eons of chance/change and ruled by the genetic 'code' that haphazardly arose from those changes, unaware of our mechanical nature and liable to ascribe meaning to things because that's what our 'code' has us do. When genetics arose that said "oh, what's the point of existence?" and killed itself those genes obviously didn't endure. We are the descendants of genetics that thought life was meaningful only because the alternative (thinking life is meaningless) isn't long-term viable. Mutations that led to life that didn't want to live led also to early demise for those organisms, so a 'desire to live' set of genes will always populate the gene-pool. Life is no more meaningful than that. All that we care about we care about because it aides survival, and all that we fear we fear only because it threatens survival.

The universe is populated with these immortal particles that obey laws. Those laws lead to change, and by accretion those changes lead to complexity. The universe says "change everything" and let what what is stable, or what is complex (in the right way), endure. We are what endures, and nothing more.

*The issue with this argument is that of verification: how will the computer know it has simulated the universe unless you define the variables it has to find? And if you do this you would have already painstakingly developed a model of the universe so the computer would know it got there by comparison with the model. So (and I didn't want to add this in above and muddle the flow) you would have to let each simulation run to fruition and find some way of testing each. There'd be so many iterations the task would be practically impossible, so even though the program would eventually stumble on a simulation no one would know, not even the 'people' inside it.

"About the last bit. Do you mean literature, meditation practices, or alkaloids. I could give only suggestions for all of the above."

You mentioned studies concerning collective consciousness. Those are what I'm talking about. Only if you have time. No biggie. Cheers.
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

Pattern-chaser wrote: September 26th, 2021, 10:12 am
tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am There's a strong tendency to suppose some great mystery lurks at the heart of consciousness, but (and I could easily be mistaken) it seems pretty easily explained to me: all you need are two or more brain regions set up in a pitcher-catcher arrangement:

1. A primary experience is processed in, and therefore arises in, region A;
2. The experience in region A is output to region B;
3. Region B has a secondary experience of the primary experience sent from region B;
4. Therefore consciousness.
I wonder if it is safe to assume, as you do above, that a "brain region" - not even an entire brain - is capable of experience?
I can't say outright, but there are many medical cases where there is severe damage to substantial areas of the brain and yet the person can carry on conscious experience, so it would be correct to say that the entirety of the brain is not necessary for conscious experience. Whether a conscious experience may be had by a singe region is another matter.
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by tsihcrana »

I'm going to reply within the quote for convenience (my responses in blue):
PoeticUniverse wrote: September 26th, 2021, 2:32 am
tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am some great mystery lurks at the heart of consciousness,
We can dissolve more of the mysteries of consciousness…

Consciousness is a brain process. Totally agree. The mind is a function of the brain just as 'to throw' is a function of the arm. It cannot float around in space by itself. Every so-called ‘thing’ is a process, an event, some of which may continue for a long time, like a tree or the sun.

The content in consciousness correlates to what the brain has already analyzed and produced in the subconscious, this neural ‘voting’ being quick, but not instant, taking about 300-500 milliseconds. The content reflects the brain’s mapping, which map is the territory since the noumena are left behind. Consciousness makes no reference to brain states, which is called ‘referral.’

Neuroscience informs us of the ‘projection’ of neural states with no perceiving of neural firings/states, else we wouldn’t know about the ‘basement’ first storey, being unaware of it in our already written conscious second story.

So, consciousness is not live, but a kind of tape-delayed broadcast, ever showing the just past. Thus consciousness does not cause anything right then and there, for it arrives too late in the process. This rather tricks us into thinking that consciousness is in control, as directly causal. Yeah, I remember reading a study wherein the subjects' 'decisions' were evident to the experimenters prior to when the participants claimed to be consciously aware of it. We're pretty much passengers taking the ride, for better or worse.

The consciousness brain process is ever ongoing; other interested brain areas will respond with their products, and so it goes, even into long ruminations.

Conscious is Compositional; It is structured with many phenomenological distinctions. It is Intrinsic, as one’s own, as independent. It is Informational, as particular and specific. It is Integrated/Whole, as Unified and no longer Reducible. It is Exclusive, as having Definite content, no more and no less.

It is Subjectively felt. In addition to the ‘referral’ already mentioned, there is Mental Unity, as Experienced as a unified field, whereas its sources are all over the brain. That mental unity is a fragile thing. Interference with the claustrum, for instance, can completely derail one's sense of subjective mental unity while, pseudo-paradoxically, delivering one into a somewhat objective unity with all existence. By 'subjective mental unity' I mean one's sense of their own separate existence, so while you lose the unity of your sense of self you enter into the default position where there is no distinction between yourself and the universe itself, which leaves you in a state of 'oneness' with everything.

At the risk of derailing the thread topic, psychedelics... actually, that's a bit of a rabbit hole so I'll leave it be.
There are Qualia, as the felt qualities of sensory consciousness. It has Continuity, as the seamless stitching of the ongoing changing contents.

Mental causation?—How can consciousness itself right then and there—an intangible, unobservable, and fully subjective entity—cause material neurons to direct behaviors that change the world? Subconscious brain analysis, taking 300-500 milliseconds to complete, is all done and finished in its result before consciousness gets hold of the product. Exactly. The notion of free will demands that, by the power of our thoughts, we are able to alter whether a chemical reaction will ensue, whether an excited neuron will eject a monoamine, whether a dendrite is proximal to ejected neurochemicals... The notion of free will demands that we can move and manipulate matter with our thoughts. That's impossible. Chemistry and physics don't don't answer to my fancy. I answer to theirs.

Consciousness has Uses/Advantages over such as reflexes or all purpose schemes, for it grants Flexibility of Reaction, as we’re better able to react to conscious content, in our further subconscious decisions beyond just the automatic reflex-like responses triggered by non conscious content. There’s Focus, as Selective Attention allows the brain to focus its activity on what’s important, so that our subconscious decisions can attend to that foremost. As an aside to this, it's interesting to note what nor-adrenal hyper-stimulation does to the triaging of focal-resources. Normally our left brain is focusing reasonably tightly while the right brain is dealing with things at a wider scope. When you add nor-adrenaline into the mix these hemispheric biases are simultaneously amplified. You become more finely focused while also gaining greater peripheral awareness. The evolutionary advantage of this is best delineated with an example:

Say you're a primitive hunter-gatherer and are surrounded by a pride of lions. Lions will opportunistically try to attack where you aren't looking, so it is beneficial to cast your attention widely to catch lions approaching in your periphery. It simultaneously benefits you to narrowly focus on whatever lion is closest because the second closest is a moot point if the nearest one kills you first. So what you get is hyper-tight focus and hyper-wide attention. This might seem paradoxical, but the wide attention is almost subconscious.

As fear escalates the sense of self recedes - under intense focus the majority of conscious experience is occupied by the focal object. Since consciousness has a fairly static capacity (from moment to moment) filling it with one object means there is no 'room' for extracurricular activity. So the sense of self is supplanted by the focal object. We've probably all had the experience where fear peaks to a level where there is no 'me experiencing fear', but only a fear itself, and perfect unification with it.


It grants Evaluations, the Feelings make one aware of what is good or bad, from both emotions and logic. It grants Survival Value, as Complex decisions are possible. We gain Behavioral Flexibility, as unlimited associated learning combines multiple cues into a single perception. There’s Discrimination, making small perceptual differences possible, such as between good and poisonous food.

For Diversification of Species, such as in the Cambrian explosion and a kind of evolutionary arms race in finding new ways to avoid detection, spurring predators to become more sophisticated. Beauty appears, such as plants evolving colorful flowers to attract pollination. For Actionizing, as the pondering of the consequences of scenarios before committing to action.

There is reality ‘out there’, for sure;
We have senses to take it in, as pure.
The brain paints a useful face upon it,
Such as colors for wave frequencies, etc.

Consciousness is ever a brain process,
One which can be halted, never-the-less,
By anesthesia, poison/drugs,
A blow to the head, a faint, or by sleep.

Change the brain and consciousness changes too.
Take drugs and the emotions change, anew.
Damage the brain and the mind’s damaged too.
Consciousness emerges only from the brain!

In identifying consciousness,
We often confuse what is floating in
The stream of consciousness with the water itself;
Thus, we note not the sea in which we ‘see’.

The brain interprets reality, and puts
A face on the waves of sound, light, color, touch,
And a sense on molecules’ smell and taste.
Consciousness is the brain’s perception of itself.

Consciousness mediates thoughts versus outcomes,
And is distributed all over the body,
From the nerve spindles to the spine to the brain—
A way to actionize without moving.

Physics describes well the extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As the intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive—

As the distinctions toward survival,
Though causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

The posterior cortex holds correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;

Thusly, it presents a unified Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
A process fundamental in nature,
Or it’s the brain’s own symbolic language.

The Whole can also be well spoken of
To communicate with others, as well as
Globally informing other brain states,
For nonconscious states know not what’s been formed.
Nothing in there I disagree with. Nice poem by the way.
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by PoeticUniverse »

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.
Einstein’s intuition that “All is Field” proved correct, for the quantum fields are All, as fundamental; their excitations at stable quantum energy levels are the elementary ‘particles’. Thus, there is already no separation in the Cosmos; however, note that human sensation is a second story, as felt, being a product of the layer of the neurological beneath.

Meditation’s quietus erases
The notion of the self and the border
Between the body and what else there is;
One thought endures: there’s no separation.


MEDITATION, but…

People can’t usually ever see
Further than an order of magnitude
Beyond where they are rutted, but…
Some can intuit ultimate reality!

It says, in those ‘dreams’, Of ever waking,
It’s hard to convince you with dream-language,
As when, in wakeful reality,
To tell you of that which is beyond telling.

During meditation, one clears the mind,
And so, then, there’s no real self, just one quale—
A near nothing that has little need to be;
Is this what-it’s-like to be a pure soul?

Physics, once more direct, seems now but an
Immaterial science of math-shadows,
While mysticism, once but a foggy notion,
Now’s the direct observation of the Light.

Meditation shifts intention away
From controlling and acquiring,
Toward acceptance and observation:
You take-in instead of acting upon.

Enlightenment’s not grasped or possessed—
Acquisitive aim locks the secret out—
The form of consciousness that one starts with;
This is why “the secret protects itself”.

The ‘spiritual’ refers to profound connection,
Though not through visions or ecstatic emotion,
But with the experience of connectedness that
Underlies reality, and nothing more.

Meditation relieves the survival self,
Shifting attention from acting to allowing,
From emotional identification to observation,
From instrumental thinking to receptive experience.

Meditation, renunciation, and service
Are not really mysterious, just different
From the usual object-oriented approach.
Mysticism is modern and ancient, not esoteric.

In serving the task, one forgets the self,
And accesses life’s connected aspects
That go beyond one’s self-centered consciousness—
The survival of mankind being at sake.

Awareness is the ultimate being,
Fundamentally connected with ‘soul’,
And cannot be known in terms of worldly
Objects—it’s like, well… you have to be there!

The connectedness of everything to everything,
A rudimentary perception in and of itself,
Experiential in its ultimate physical disposition,
Facilitates our consciousness of exterior through interior.

!

Not exactly, but still good as mostly.

In meditation, the resulting quietus
Of the brain’s self-boundary & ID center
Via focus on mantras, hymns, or prayers
Is but a neurological effect, nothing more.

(Tested via electrodes in Buddhist monk meditators)

Thus one does not become one with the Cosmos
In the mystical way that one wishes it to be.
PoeticUniverse
Posts: 638
Joined: April 4th, 2015, 7:25 pm

Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by PoeticUniverse »

tsihcrana wrote: September 25th, 2021, 10:55 am we'd be an eye trying to look at itself.
I saw my eye in a mirror at an eye exam, or at least it was a representation of it in my brain. I didn’t want to tell the eye doctor that all we ever ‘see’ are the insides of our heads, for she might get shocked at my eye being inside her head and wondering where else it was.


Who you are is your repertoire—your brain;
What you are now is the mind’s ‘eye’ of it,
Which ‘I’ e’er but obtains from who you are.
Aye, aye: the brain generates what ‘I’ witness.

Subconscious trains of thought vie for attention,
Dueling choirs competing for first place
Toward actions in the will’s ‘I’—to produce
Future, for this is the main task of thought.


Darkness fell as they entered the Ninja training ground, and Graybeard was going to sleep well.

“Eye test time, Growbeard” said the ninth degree Grand Master.

“Shuteye time,” protested Graybeard.

“Please read line bottom of chart”.

“Printed by Acuvision 2005.”

“You have good eye.”

“Two, two eyes; do you think I lost one as a pirate?”

“No, sorry Grayman. Please close ears; what see?”

“I see you are going to end up in the ICU!”

“Now-now, Greatbeard. We teach you mind’s eye.”

“OK, I’ll see you I to eye.”

“Be friend; we teach you seeing in dark.”

“I already have x-ray vision, and, hey, why is your underwear so ragged? What if you have to go to the hospital, like real soon!”

“You fine sight full of boloney, but good eye too.”

“Two eyes.”

“I give you four eyes.”

“I don’t need glasses.”

“What if TOE scientist woman blind since birth named Mary regain sight? Know she what color banana is?”

“Well, I thought not, and since I know her, I tried to trick her and showed her a blue banana…”

“She say not banana.”

“How do you know that?”

“While blind she knew EVERYTHING about banana!”

“Well, I’ll be darned. Teach me more.”

“See you woman on moon?”

“See you later.”
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Count Lucanor
Posts: 2318
Joined: May 6th, 2017, 5:08 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Umberto Eco
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Re: Is consciousness really the mystery it seems?

Post by Count Lucanor »

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.
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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