What is the Relationship Between Causality, Time and Consciousness?

[snt]

What is your take on this quote from him:

[t]o think the infinite, the transcendent, the Stranger, is hence not to think an object. But to think what does not have the lineaments of an object is in reality to do more or better than think. (TI: 49)

Thank you for the quote. I am currently reading his books and this quote is insightful through the notion of betterment, which indicates that his work is about morality and that his work - from my perspective - would be on the right path.

For example, Levinas commentator Giuseppe Lissa provides the following description of Levinas’ project Otherwise than Being (his latest work).

She says:

By investigating the depths of consciousness, by comparing its passivity to the process of ageing, Levinas investigates a "reality unknowable, but perhaps interpretable by a thinking that no longer claims to be an exercise in knowledge … because this thinking is engaged in the search for a meaning that precedes all knowledge."

Thus: Levina's work concerns a 'good' that precedes human nature and by awareness of that fact, morality can be set on a path to everlasting moral enhancement for the purpose of 'ought' intellectual progress to secure the future of humanity.

I think he is trying to go beyond the "object" in order to rationalize/conceive of a Kantian nuemenal realm of Being?

No, his philosophy concerns the consideration of a 'good' beyond Being which implies that it must precede one's own (humanly) nature as well as that of the cosmos.

In the film Absent God (1:06:22) he says the following:

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness."

So far (as a new reader of his work) I believe that his perspective on morality might be correct. The vision Ethics as First Philosophy would also indicate that his philosophy is on the right path.

[JackDaydream]

I do see what you mean about moving your arm. If someone wishes to lift it that is bound up with the power of conscious intention whether it is to wave to someone or lift an item from a shelf. Part of the issue, may be about degrees of subconscious intent as well. For example, in the few instances where I had accidents, leading to physical injuries, my reflection on these were they were often related to a need for a break from the things which I was doing, such as when I had to stay at home mostly after fracturing my collar bone through falling on a pile of wooden planks. But, it also seemed that it was about future plans or intent in the picture. I got a letter for a job interview and didn't go to it because I didn't feel able to go with the fracture. If I had gone for the interview and had been successful it would have altered my course of life in the future entirely.

So, it is like the various aspects of the course of life are plotted in some way. I am not sure that this follows the arrow of time completely. It sometimes appears as if aspects which are going to be apparent in the future are in some kind of plan which is outside time itself. Of course, it is hard to know for sure and there is a danger of magical thinking, as if there is some underlying destiny. Of course, people can try to choose against certain pathways. However; in my own sense of experience I often find that I keep trying to go in one direction and meet the same obstacles.

Some people, even in Western society have a sense of karma, which is about the law of cause and effect, or the principle, 'As you sow, so shall you reap'. This understanding of causation is based upon a picture of causality which is not separate from the physical basis but does also take into account deeper aspects of consciousness in the process of events which take place in life.

Jack!

I think you're so-called existential/humanistic story speaks volumes to human causation and one's own metaphysical will to be (intentionality).

I have similar anecdotal evidence regarding the phenomenon of consciousness. With respect to one's Will and feelings to be (in this case to feel connected), years ago I experimented with the tenets of law of attraction. I tested the theory by purposely putting a big smile on my face and walked around all day with a smile. I ended up attracting strangers who wanted to get to know me and help me in the various stores I was in ... . Of course as you alluded, this also ties with old testament antiquity/the wisdom books relative to basic pragmatic Christian philosophy (which also borrowed from early Greek philosophy in the OT...).

Empirically, this proves that if our Will is to have good intentions (or bad), it becomes the cause (or a causational force) of subsequent conscious correlation.
That somewhat pragmatic-humanistic phenom speaks to the further reaches of human nature.

The law of attraction is a universal principle that states you will attract into your life whatever you focus on. Whatever you give your energy and attention to is what will come back to you.

When you focus on the abundance of good things in your life, you will automatically attract more positive things into your life. But if you center yourself on negative thoughts and only focus on what you lack in life, then you will ultimately attract negativity into your life... .
Simply put, it’s because like attracts like. If you are feeling excited, enthusiastic, passionate, happy, joyful, appreciative, or abundant, then you are sending out positive energy to the universe.

In turn, that positive energy will attract people, resources, and opportunities that resonate on the same energetic wavelength.

On the other hand, if you are feeling bored, anxious, stressed out, angry, resentful, or sad, you are sending out negative energy. That negative energy will repel positivity and attract pessimistic people and events into your life.

You have probably noticed the law of attraction in your own life. For example, a person who complains all the time typically attracts friends or followers who also have a bad attitude. Or happy and energetic people will attract other motivated go-getters into their circle.

Within philosophy it seems that the law of attraction is not given much credibility because it doesn't fit into the scientific mechanistic model of Westeŕn materialism. It is often seen as magical thinking or folk wisdom. However, I have read a number of books on it, including the writings of Esther and Jeremy Hicks, and on an experiential level it does seem to work and I know many people who find this too.

I grew up with an anxious mother, who would often be thinking of all the possible things which could go wrong in so many scenarios. So, my thinking was based on that angle but I have definitely found that the more I worry about things going wrong they really do. Also, I definitely find that if I get into a negative mood I often seem to attract misfortune, lose things or go out and get on the wrong transport and get lost. It can be like being dragged into a black hole or whirlpool.

So, on the basis of the law of attraction I do try to watch my thoughts and moods, to try to avoid going into a black hole. I don't find it easy and I know that if I am out there are some people I know who seem to lead me down negative trails of thinking. It seems that I am more likely to meet them when I am not great. But, if I am starting to have a 'black hole day', if possible it is better to go home and rest. Even the choice of music on such a day can be important. It may not work to play really 'up' music when one is feeling 'down'. But, even so it may be important to get some kind of balance. I may have spent too much time listening to the Doors at times and got into a really strange state.

It may be hard to put on a smile at times but it does seem that mood is like a vibrational frequency of energy. It seems to make sense on a scientific level as a form of magnetism. Even animals seem to be able to sense moods and intention in some rudimentary ways. It may also be relevant for the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies which may be about expectations and frames of mind within group and social dynamics.

Jack!

Two things you touched on resonated with me:

1. The conscious phenomena of music

2. Lower life forms sensing emotion.

This notion of law of attraction takes many forms including the universal language of music. Speaking for myself as a performer, I have felt on many occasions a collective consciousness in the form of metaphysical energy. Almost like the feeling one receives from the phenomenon of love. While the philosophy of music has limited takers (ironically enough Schopenhauer is the only one I know that dared to parse the subject matter, Kant-maybe), the cause and effect that music has on consciousness is yet another mystery in life.

But with respect to the law of attraction you can see this at work when you see a particular audience supporting death metal versus hip hop versus classic rock versus jazz versus classical and so on... .

2. With respect to animals perceiving emotion from human's there's no doubt that an animal will sense happiness, sadness, anger, etc. from human beings just by way of observation and the senses.... .

Much of this is to say that the metaphysics of consciousness captures the phenomena of all emotion, the Will, intentionality and human sentience.

The hardest part of trying to incorporate the law of attraction is trying to think about what one wishes for rather than what one doesn't want. I struggle with this and may inadvertently lead myself to bad experiences because I think too much about what I fear happening. This may be about spending too much time thinking. In some ways, reading can be a way of overcoming the problem of spending too much time ruminating.

The choices of music have always been a central aspect of my life, almost as much as reading. I don't play any instruments but when I was a teenager I used to wish to work in a record shop and I am always exploring new music. The genres do seem to have such a dramatic relationship with mood and I do juggle many different ones.

For a couple of years,I used to go to many live metal music events. I still have some metal music in my collection but I am a bit careful about what I listen to. One of the darkest albums which I listened to was one by Metallica called, 'Hardwired to Self-Destruct' and it was too much. Some metal can be more about transmuting the negative into the positive or that is how I approached it. This is in connection with the way in which repressed anger can lead to depression. But, I have my metal moments still but try to get a balanced mixture.

Emotions and music are so complicated though. I know people who say that artists like Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed are music to commit suicide to but I don't feel that way about this kind of music at all. Some of it is subjective and it is hard to know if there is any objective consciousness behind music. I remember someone I knew who was a great fan of the band Hawkwind and used to think that the music led to certain objective heightened states of consciousness. This person also saw the album 'The Division Bell' by Pink Floyd as being a deep meditation on the mind and body problem.

It must be so different if you make and perform music, in thinking about where the music may other people to journey in mental states. I thought about this when I have seen the sound healer musician, Tim Wheater, perform at mind, body and spirit events. Actually, for meditation, especially in the night with headphones I often listen to psychedelic dance music. However, one dance artist I really liked, Avicci, committed suicide. I don't know much about him but he made one track called 'Levels', which I always saw as being about cosmic consciousness, just like one by Josh Wink called, 'Higher States of Consciousness'. Part of the problem may be the law of opposites here, as Jung spoke of the principle described by Heraclitus of enantiodromia, in which the extremes of the binaries reverse.

I did try listening to music on hallucinogenics and the distortions and altered sense of subjective sense of time seemed important here. Music is within the scope of time, with a fixed duration of a song, but the effects go beyond the 'now' and it is likely that music affects people so much on a subliminal level.

[The Beast]

A hypothesis of a generated magnetic field by a ritualistic attitude is congruent with a two-state system. This can be achieved by cell quorum sensing in the method invoked by the ritual. It could be of the form of two state formalism such as time and space. It is in the interpretation where the hypothesis may have new elements never described before. That is moving back and forth in time while in a plane of reality. The input into the personal space may be one of imagery, dream state, or revelation.

Ritual: A wish is a witch or a human wishing in the future for something.
The discretization of the hidden (non-local) variable may take form as a dialectic speech, a fractal landscape, or an unknown instrumentation. The phenomenology is explained. There is a violation of the Bell inequality. It is possible that in the PPS is a method similar to a Bloch sphere extracting bits of data. How this data is presented to the PS (personal) could or not be possible. However, it may be stored and be accessed by emotion.

[JackDaydream]

We can take the next step in this analysis and say there is no such thing as Time without specifying Absolute or Relative. A disappointing thing about the Non Existence of Time is that there is no possibility of Time Travel because there is nothing to go Back in and nothing to go Forward in.

...

Time is always the result of Relationships between different Physical Processes. Without Physical Processes, Time does not even make any sense.

An interesting perspective, however I find it questionable. The consideration that time measurement arises from rhythms observed in nature is by no means an argument to consider that time itself is not existing.

When science addresses time, it does so within a context that is only applicable to rhythms observed in nature since it has no other ground for measurement than relations. That does not imply however that time itself is limited by such a limited view.

Relations in physical reality are not limited to itself by the mere notion that relation per se demands an explanation. That implies that the same is necessarily applicable to the concept time.

Time travel may well be possible. The OP provides a reference that science has already shown that consciousness can exert a physical effect in both the future and past. When considering the idea of time travel, there are more options available than the consideration of a physical being to travel in time. Conscious mind may be able to travel in time and exert effects for which there is already some evidence.

Anything can ultimately be the Truth. But Science cannot measure any kind of Absolute Time, it is always, and repeat Always, relative activity of Physical Processes. Science does not even recognize there is some Absolute Time in the Universe. A Physical Process is something that has a beginning and has an end. It is the Physical Process that makes us think there is some Time Thing in the Universe. But there is only the Measurement of the Activity of the Physical Process with respect to another Physical Process (Atomic Clock) that gives us the Illusion of an Actual Time Thing. The Physical Process would have to exist at all its points of Activity simultaneously for someone to go back and observe a prior point of the Activity. I was careful not to use the word Time here because the playing out of the Process is something different than a Time concept. A Conscious Mind might be able to Connect to a Physical Process, besides a Brain, and Experience the Process Directly. But a Physical Process only Exists in the ever present Now. There is always only Now. There is no Before to Connect to, unless the Now and Before exist simultaneously. You see where these ramblings about Time are going? They are going nowhere because Time is not a Thing in the Universe.

Your post captures the way in which time is an abstract expression to speak of a dimension of experience. It only exists or is known by what becomes apparent in physical effects, as realised by consciousness. It is sometimes referred to as the fourth dimension. As Eckhart Tolle suggests there is only ever direct awareness of the 'now' as the essential reference point, which arises in relation to a recognised experience or conceptions of the past and the future.

[JackDaydream]

The essay Intentionality and Sensation by French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas may be of interest.

A phenomenon between intentionality and sensation. Levinas and Husserl
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40883394
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... nd_Husserl
https://www.scribd.com/doc/224260714/Le ... -Sensation

"Yet Levinas does exploit a difficulty that beset Husserl’s early phenomenology of time-consciousness, one that would argue in favor of Levinas’ 1974 conception of “diachrony”, or the interruption that he equates with transcendence-in-immanence. This was the paradox of sensation in relation to intentionality that Husserl identified in Appendix 12 of his lectures on internal time consciousness (Hua 10: 130–133).[34]

In his 1965 essay, “Intentionality and Sensation” (DEH: 135–150), Levinas focused on the gap (i.e., diachrony) between bodily sensation entering intentionality and sensation as pre-conscious bodily processes. He recalled the paradox that the sensuous origins of intentionality lay outside intentionality’s field or reach, in the body, even as the ongoing alterations of sensation forge our feeling of ongoing temporal progression. To be explicitly experienced, sensation thus had to intentionalize. Yet much of its prior, bodily existence eludes our consciousness.

Levinas compared this dual, conscious-preconscious status of sensibility to his idea of a pre-intentional “receptivity of an ‘other’ penetrating into the ‘same’, [in sum, to our intersubjective] life and not [to] ‘thought’” (DEH: 144). As already broached by Husserl, this sensuous “other” will support Levinas’ 1974 arguments for the affective interruptions of the even flow of time-consciousness, and his claim that intersubjective affects overflow the framework of all representational consciousness."

The mentioned other that is to precede consciousness and the experience of time is referred to as 'alterity' (Otherwise than Being or infinity).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

Thanks for your inclusion of Levinas's approach as well as mention of Husserl. I am planning to read more from the perspective of phenomenology because it is an important interface between mind and body, in the integral duality of this in consciousness. The emotional aspects of the mind and body relationship are an essential feedback loop in the formation of conscious and subconscious aspects of intention.

[The Beast]

A hypothesis of a generated magnetic field by a ritualistic attitude is congruent with a two-state system. This can be achieved by cell quorum sensing in the method invoked by the ritual. It could be of the form of two state formalism such as time and space. It is in the interpretation where the hypothesis may have new elements never described before. That is moving back and forth in time while in a plane of reality. The input into the personal space may be one of imagery, dream state, or revelation.

Ritual: A wish is a witch or a human wishing in the future for something.
The discretization of the hidden (non-local) variable may take form as a dialectic speech, a fractal landscape, or an unknown instrumentation. The phenomenology is explained. There is a violation of the Bell inequality. It is possible that in the PPS is a method similar to a Bloch sphere extracting bits of data. How this data is presented to the PS (personal) could or not be possible. However, it may be stored and be accessed by emotion.

The hypothetical process correlates with a historical, archeological desire to know. It takes the bizarre form of the Vegvisir much like the Vizier or the wiser wizard controlling the flow of information by the method of classification. Anyway, it all comes to the power yielding designs. The question of the numinous comes up again for those seeking it. I am almost convinced of the metaphysical love.

[JackDaydream]

A hypothesis of a generated magnetic field by a ritualistic attitude is congruent with a two-state system. This can be achieved by cell quorum sensing in the method invoked by the ritual. It could be of the form of two state formalism such as time and space. It is in the interpretation where the hypothesis may have new elements never described before. That is moving back and forth in time while in a plane of reality. The input into the personal space may be one of imagery, dream state, or revelation.

Ritual: A wish is a witch or a human wishing in the future for something.
The discretization of the hidden (non-local) variable may take form as a dialectic speech, a fractal landscape, or an unknown instrumentation. The phenomenology is explained. There is a violation of the Bell inequality. It is possible that in the PPS is a method similar to a Bloch sphere extracting bits of data. How this data is presented to the PS (personal) could or not be possible. However, it may be stored and be accessed by emotion.

The hypothetical process correlates with a historical, archeological desire to know. It takes the bizarre form of the Vegvisir much like the Vizier or the wiser wizard controlling the flow of information by the method of classification. Anyway, it all comes to the power yielding designs. The question of the numinous comes up again for those seeking it. I am almost convinced of the metaphysical love.

Numinousity is a complex area in philosophy because the limitations of time and space on the physical level may be seen as the limits. I have been reading the author, Huston Smith, in his book, 'The Forgotten Truth', and he suggests that the material dimensions of these categories may be related to levels beyond the material aspects. Such a philosophy is open to question because the empirical investigation of the non physical is difficult, because it goes beyond the empirical. That may be where intuition and a priori, or reason, enter into the picture of the quest for knowledge.

[JackDaydream]

I am aware that the thread has drifted away from the article by Robert Solomon, so I wish to bring it back on course by referring further to the ideas which it suggests. I wish to quote one excerpt which seems important.
Solomon suggests,
'Events at the quantum level deal with particles so tiny, and events of such rapidity, that the digital nature of reality begins to emerge. Feasibly, the narrative rule also applies to the everyday world of large-scale events, and phenomena. But how would we ever know? In physical reality it would be difficult to determine exactly what constitutes the immediately preceding event to any occurrence.

'One way or another, virtually all normal events are observable, remembered, or otherwise checkable. Not to mention the huge number of ways an event can be witnessed and/or recorded. The volume of normal everyday data is so vast, and everyday objects so relatively massive, and the number of witnesses so potentially overwhelming, that evidence of the deep underlying nature of reality is hidden.'

My understanding of what he is saying in the context of the article is that the way in which causality becomes imminent is not through bypassing the physical aspects of life. However, the actual components of this are hard to fathom because so much is dependent on this microscopic components of causality at a quantum level.

At the outset of the article, Solomon quotes Einstein, who said, 'There is something essential about the "now" which is outside the realm of science'. Trying to piece together the various aspects of Solomon's arguments, it seems that he is stating that there are limitations of the way in which science can account for the complexity of the nature of causality. The hidden aspect may be at the level of mind and matter, as consciousness. It is not that the two components are separate but the way in which the physical generates mind is at the quantum nature of the physical world and, it may be that there are complex feedback loops between consciousness and the way in which causation in the actual physical basis of reality.
Any thoughts?

[The Beast]

I agree with consciousness being a bimodal process of different reality planes. One being the actual plane of experience and the other a hypothetical plane or metaphysical. If I consider the duality of wave/particle in a photonic stream I might also consider the duality of particle/wave in a higher energy tier with particle velocities proportional to their energies. Therefore, the metaphysical reality of consciousness.

[JackDaydream]

I agree with consciousness being a bimodal process of different reality planes. One being the actual plane of experience and the other a hypothetical plane or metaphysical. If I consider the duality of wave/particle in a photonic stream I might also consider the duality of particle/wave in a higher energy tier with particle velocities proportional to their energies. Therefore, the metaphysical reality of consciousness.

The mind/body relationship is essential to any understanding of consciousness, especially the source of it being the critical issue. One way of seeing it has been the physicist, David Bohm's idea of the implicate order, as the non physical component, with the explicate order as the world of appearances. It is a form or idealism and Plato even speaks of a mythical fall into matter which may be captured in the myth of Atlantis because it describes human beings as having a less gross physical body.

One writer who I find helpful is Huston Smith, in 'The Forgotten Truth', rather than seeing just a distinct separation between mind and body, speaks of dimensions, which include space and time, including the space-time relationship. What is important is that Huston Smith does describe metaphysical dimensions beyond the physical ones. I have always seen a parallel between Jung's ideas of archetypes and Plato's Forms, but he suggests that the Forms are higher, although he says that awareness of archetypes may be the way in which human beings recognize the existence of the Forms..

The underlying question may be whether one starts from the bottom in explaining really from the physical or start from the top of metaphysics. Prior to modern sciences the start seemed to be at the top, whereas it has reversed with physicalism. I wonder if it can even be separated in the form of idealism vs materialism. Perhaps, quantum mechanics displaces this either/or in some ways because it may be at the quantum level the two are so interconnected and this would correspond with the idea of consciousness as being imminent
rather than separate from nature.

[The Beast]

It may be that the quantification of the hypothesis might do with reality being a fractal. The discovery of possible infinite forms and the existence of these forms in the human body. One such quantification is the phenomenology of percolation in quantum mechanics using fractal geometries. I used to enjoy Greta’s musings on fractals.

[JackDaydream]

It may be that the quantification of the hypothesis might do with reality being a fractal. The discovery of possible infinite forms and the existence of these forms in the human body. One such quantification is the phenomenology of percolation in quantum mechanics using fractal geometries. I used to enjoy Greta’s musings on fractals.

I don't know much about fractals at all. Are they energy centres because I definitely think these exist, such as the form of the chakras, which I definitely believe exist and are bound up with the physical body, probably in connection with the limbic system. It is possible to become aware of them and the imbalances probably interconnected with health and disease, including the physical organs of the body.

[JackDaydream]

The importance of the role of thinking, at the level of intention is expressed in the following quote from Swami Vivekananda,
'We are what our thinking made us, so be mindful of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts remain, they travel far'.
The reason why I am adding this quote is because it captures the way in which thought can be the point of the intent prior to action at the seat of consciousness. It may be about images, as a form of potential visualisation and may be subconscious in many ways. This is the basis of neurolistic programming as a way of framing, including the way in which the past is pictured. It is about framing and scripts which are part of the narrative development of consciousness.

[The Beast]

The importance of the role of thinking, at the level of intention is expressed in the following quote from Swami Vivekananda,
'We are what our thinking made us, so be mindful of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts remain, they travel far'.
The reason why I am adding this quote is because it captures the way in which thought can be the point of the intent prior to action at the seat of consciousness. It may be about images, as a form of potential visualisation and may be subconscious in many ways. This is the basis of neurolistic programming as a way of framing, including the way in which the past is pictured. It is about framing and scripts which are part of the narrative development of consciousness.

The roles are expressed in a complex spectrum and determined to be the cognitive load. Besides the obvious, the horizon is wide open on fractals. I am not sure of the historical involvement of physicists in the field of neurobiology. In June 2019 Journal of Neuroscience research done by physicists explained the neuron signals and used terms like scale-free or fractalness in the analysis.
In the research of Stephen Wolfson (~2019) title ‘Fractal analysis of brain signals for autism spectrum disorder’ He introduced measurements in the fractal dimension of the EEG under cognitive load.
The research has evolved in the scope to include complex spectrums by using supercomputing in their analysis with varying exact/inexact quantifiers.
It will be off topic trying to include research into the nature/perception of shinny objects as a fractal spectrum as it correlates in a complex spectrum with addiction and mental states.

[The Beast]

The importance of the role of thinking, at the level of intention is expressed in the following quote from Swami Vivekananda,
'We are what our thinking made us, so be mindful of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts remain, they travel far'.
The reason why I am adding this quote is because it captures the way in which thought can be the point of the intent prior to action at the seat of consciousness. It may be about images, as a form of potential visualisation and may be subconscious in many ways. This is the basis of neurolistic programming as a way of framing, including the way in which the past is pictured. It is about framing and scripts which are part of the narrative development of consciousness.

The roles are expressed in a complex spectrum and determined to be the cognitive load. Besides the obvious, the horizon is wide open on fractals. I am not sure of the historical involvement of physicists in the field of neurobiology. In June 2019 Journal of Neuroscience research done by physicists explained the neuron signals and used terms like scale-free or fractalness in the analysis.
In the research of Stephen Wolfson (~2019) title ‘Fractal analysis of brain signals for autism spectrum disorder’ He introduced measurements in the fractal dimension of the EEG under cognitive load.
The research has evolved in the scope to include complex spectrums by using supercomputing in their analysis with varying exact/inexact quantifiers.
It will be off topic trying to include research into the nature/perception of shinny objects as a fractal spectrum as it correlates in a complex spectrum with addiction and mental states.

The cognitive process is posted on Jesuit Universities as well. Along the lines of thought; intentions, actions, character. The idea is taking care of the psyche and the paraphrasing correlates with the idea of the Ancient Egyptians as Ka, Ba and Akh.