There is No such thing as Death

[Gee]

In 2006, for about half an hour, I had the odd and rather unpleasant experience of having two conscious selves in my head at the same time instead of the usual one. The most likely explanation, given the surrounding circumstances, is that each hemisphere of my brain was generating its own conscious self. This strongly suggests to me that consciousness is created by the brain, so that when the brain dies, consciousness must cease. It would take a lot to persuade me, in the light of this experience, that reincarnation or any other kind of survival after death is possible.

I am sorry for your unpleasant experience, but glad that you decided to share it. We tend to think of ourselves as having one body, one mind, one brain, one soul, and understand these things as having a wholeness and singularity that is not necessarily valid -- as you discovered. We see our "self" as singular, so when people talk about a person with a multiple personality disorder, they ask, "But which one is the 'self'?" As you discovered, both halves can be your "self", and yes that would be disturbing. I certainly don't envy you the experience, but it does bring new meaning to the phrase, "I was beside myself".

I agree that the brain generates consciousness, but what it generates is the rational aspect of mind -- the part of mind that does the thinking, planning, and structuring of our day and our lives. It is what we work with, but is it the self? Not really. The self is difficult to understand and rooted in the unconscious. Probably, the easiest way to understand this is to say that the brain is like a mirror that reflects some of the unconscious, and it reflects the "self". When I look in a mirror, I see myself; when my brain looks in the unconscious, it sees myself, but both are really reflections. Whatever happened to your brain, it caused a fracture, so that you experienced two selves, which was fortunately temporary.

When the body dies, the brain dies -- I think it takes six minutes -- then the rational aspect of mind starts to break down, much like the body starts to break down. How long does it take the body to break down? Hours? Days? Weeks? Years? It depends upon the circumstances of death, and how long the rational mind or self continues also depends upon bonding and the circumstance surrounding the death. This is why I say that death is a process, not an event. Think of a fire. You can put it out, and even though it is dead, it can hold heat for quite a while depending on how it was put out. So you can think of the body as holding some of the unconscious aspect of its self for quite some time. This is where ghost stories, NDE's, and reincarnation comes from. If you think about it, you will realize that NDE experiences and ghost stories happen very close to the time of death. Reincarnation is much the same in that it is temporary.

Most children, who remember past lives, forget the memories by seven or eight years old because this is the time that they fully develop a rational aspect of mind for themselves. They forget the prior lives, although I have been told that some memories can be brought back through hypnosis. If anyone wants to really understand this, I would recommend studying the unconscious, especially Jung's collective unconscious, and seriously study emotion -- not how it feels, but how it works. Bonding is an important aspect of reincarnation and bonding works through the unconscious and emotion.

If you study Dr. Stevenson's work, you will find that the aspects of consciousness that reincarnate are the ones that are part of the unconscious mind -- not the whole rational mind. The things that they remember are related to self, bonding, characteristics of their personality, preferences, people that they loved, home, work, or all the things that would relate to the unconscious. They often have some memories, but these are related to the above, not what they paid in taxes last year. There is no wholeness like one would expect in a rational aspect of mind. There is only the old memories and the new experiences to create a new person.

Gee

[UniversalAlien]

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
― Howard Phillips Lovecraft, The Nameless City

[Pattern-chaser]

And to say this existent state was unconsciousness and then somewhere along the way became conscious is ridiculous

Is it?

Did consciousness just spring, fully-formed, then, from ... where, exactly?

Julian Jaynes may not have all the details correct, but his basic theme seems convincing to me.

[Pattern-chaser]

I agree that the brain generates consciousness, but what it generates is the rational aspect of mind -- the part of mind that does the thinking, planning, and structuring of our day and our lives. It is what we work with, but is it the self? Not really. The self is difficult to understand and rooted in the unconscious. Probably, the easiest way to understand this is to say that the brain is like a mirror that reflects some of the unconscious, and it reflects the "self". When I look in a mirror, I see myself; when my brain looks in the unconscious, it sees myself, but both are really reflections. Whatever happened to your brain, it caused a fracture, so that you experienced two selves, which was fortunately temporary.

Yes, we assume we are discrete individuals, but biologically we are each a community of creatures. And mentally too, as you observe, we are different things to different people; we adopt different masks according to our current situation. Physically, mentally, emotionally, politically, sexually, artistically and philosophically, we are much more composite and diverse than we care to admit. I wonder why that is? [That we seem not to want to admit these things to ourselves.]

[UniversalAlien]

And to say this existent state was unconsciousness and then somewhere along the way became conscious is ridiculous

Is it?

Did consciousness just spring, fully-formed, then, from ... where, exactly?

Julian Jaynes may not have all the details correct, but his basic theme seems convincing to me.

Remember my basic thesis in this post is interpreting Planck's statement:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

to mean 'consciousness' is a fundamental prime of all that exists - In a sense it is more than any concept of God or gods,
which, if existing, come from this primal factor of existence.

'Julian Jaynes’s Theory of Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind' is indeed interesting but is, in my opinion, an after thought
- something that happens later. Consciousness in my interpretation of Planck, is 'a priori' - the first principle of existence itself.
Or as Planck said " We cannot get behind consciousness."

[Pattern-chaser]

And to say this existent state was unconsciousness and then somewhere along the way became conscious is ridiculous

Is it?

Did consciousness just spring, fully-formed, then, from ... where, exactly?

Julian Jaynes may not have all the details correct, but his basic theme seems convincing to me.

Remember my basic thesis in this post is interpreting Planck's statement:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

to mean 'consciousness' is a fundamental prime of all that exists - In a sense it is more than any concept of God or gods,
which, if existing, come from this primal factor of existence.

'Julian Jaynes’s Theory of Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind' is indeed interesting but is, in my opinion, an after thought
- something that happens later. Consciousness in my interpretation of Planck, is 'a priori' - the first principle of existence itself.
Or as Planck said " We cannot get behind consciousness."

So you would say that humans never developed consciousness, or became conscious, but that we have always been - must always have been - conscious?

[UniversalAlien]

So you would say that humans never developed consciousness, or became conscious, but that we have always been - must always have been - conscious?

Simple answer is that consciousness is prime BUT the manifestations vary, and are always varying - Remember consciousness
is 'the' backing principle of all that exists - Man did not create or become conscious, he simply became a manifestation of it.

In this consciousness backed state of existence where Quantum Mechanics and Relativity have both been proven to be correct
- And yet contradict each other; One could imagine that both the Atheist and Theist view of the universe are also correct


“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
― Max Planck

[Good_Egg]

In “Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality?”, recently posted by Scientific American, Kastrup contends that quantum mechanics—as well as cognitive science, which suggests that minds construct rather than passively mirroring reality--undermines the assumption that the physical world exists independently of our observations. He calls for a new paradigm that makes mind “the essence—cognitively but also physically—of what we perceive when we look at the world around ourselves.”

I am not exactly sure of what you mean here, but am comfortable with the idea that mind may construct as well as mirror reality. I see the unconscious aspect of mind as more constructive of reality and the rational mind as more mirroring reality. imo

Talk of the mind "constructing reality" is somewhat loose.

My understanding is that the mind receives sense-data and builds from it a mental model of how reality is. New data that doesn't fit the model can be ignored or interpreted into something different that fits better. And the conscious mind has access only to the model, not to the raw data.

So what guides all your decisions and responses is a mind-constructed model, not any form of error-free observation of independent reality.

But nevertheless, that independent reality exists; it is the source of the sense data from which all our models are built.

If you think you see a table, it's a good chance that's because what's really there is a table. But if you're subconsciously primed to expect a table, it's possible that you'll see a table when what's there is an altar.

[GE Morton]

In “Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality?”, recently posted by Scientific American, Kastrup contends that quantum mechanics—as well as cognitive science, which suggests that minds construct rather than passively mirroring reality--undermines the assumption that the physical world exists independently of our observations. He calls for a new paradigm that makes mind “the essence—cognitively but also physically—of what we perceive when we look at the world around ourselves.”

I am not exactly sure of what you mean here, but am comfortable with the idea that mind may construct as well as mirror reality. I see the unconscious aspect of mind as more constructive of reality and the rational mind as more mirroring reality. imo

Talk of the mind "constructing reality" is somewhat loose.

My understanding is that the mind receives sense-data and builds from it a mental model of how reality is. New data that doesn't fit the model can be ignored or interpreted into something different that fits better. And the conscious mind has access only to the model, not to the raw data.

So what guides all your decisions and responses is a mind-constructed model, not any form of error-free observation of independent reality.

But nevertheless, that independent reality exists; it is the source of the sense data from which all our models are built.

If you think you see a table, it's a good chance that's because what's really there is a table. But if you're subconsciously primed to expect a table, it's possible that you'll see a table when what's there is an altar.

That is the gist of the Kantian view.

Good post.

[Gee]

In “Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality?”, recently posted by Scientific American, Kastrup contends that quantum mechanics—as well as cognitive science, which suggests that minds construct rather than passively mirroring reality--undermines the assumption that the physical world exists independently of our observations. He calls for a new paradigm that makes mind “the essence—cognitively but also physically—of what we perceive when we look at the world around ourselves.”

I am not exactly sure of what you mean here, but am comfortable with the idea that mind may construct as well as mirror reality. I see the unconscious aspect of mind as more constructive of reality and the rational mind as more mirroring reality. imo

Talk of the mind "constructing reality" is somewhat loose.

My understanding is that the mind receives sense-data and builds from it a mental model of how reality is. New data that doesn't fit the model can be ignored or interpreted into something different that fits better. And the conscious mind has access only to the model, not to the raw data.

So what guides all your decisions and responses is a mind-constructed model, not any form of error-free observation of independent reality.

But nevertheless, that independent reality exists; it is the source of the sense data from which all our models are built.

If you think you see a table, it's a good chance that's because what's really there is a table. But if you're subconsciously primed to expect a table, it's possible that you'll see a table when what's there is an altar.

What you are describing is very agreeable to my way of thinking. I would not dispute it, but it is a description which regards only the rational aspect of mind. Many people look at the human rational aspect of mind, produced by the brain, as the whole of consciousness -- it is not. People see 'thought' as consciousness, but it is only part of consciousness. If 'thought' were consciousness, then computers, robots, and maybe books would be conscious -- they are not.

So people generally agree with your Kantian assessment or they go the other way and believe that we generate reality with either solipsism or some kind of idealism, which I find to be nonsense, as 'thought' does not have that kind of power. If you think that this is what I meant by "constructive of reality", you are mistaken. It is not at all what I meant.

I do not study consciousness the way most people do. I decided that in order to study it, I would have to know what I am studying, so I broke it down into components that I believe make up consciousness in life. There is thought, knowledge, and memory, which are internal aspects of consciousness and reflected in the rational aspect of mind. There is also awareness, feeling, and emotion, which are external and shared aspects of consciousness and work in the unconscious aspect of mind. All life possesses knowledge and memory (DNA), and feeling, and awareness (survival instincts) -- I am pretty sure that an actual brain is required in order to possess thought and to acknowledge emotion.

When I said that I agreed with Planck, I agreed that matter requires force and motion in order to exist. The only part of consciousness that delivers force and motion is emotion. Emotion is the part of consciousness that is causal and could possibly play a role in the universe. I am fairly certain that emotion plays a role in evolution. Let's be honest here, although science seems to insist that emotion is nothing, we have known for thousands of years that emotion is the mover and shaker in life. It is causal. It is a force, so yes it probably is constructive and destructive.

Gee

[Pattern-chaser]

So you would say that humans never developed consciousness, or became conscious, but that we have always been - must always have been - conscious?

Simple answer is that consciousness is prime BUT the manifestations vary, and are always varying - Remember consciousness
is 'the' backing principle of all that exists - Man did not create or become conscious, he simply became a manifestation of it.

So, what were humans before we "became a manifestation of" consciousness? Or was there no time when this was so (i.e. when we were not conscious)?

[UniversalAlien]

So you would say that humans never developed consciousness, or became conscious, but that we have always been - must always have been - conscious?

Simple answer is that consciousness is prime BUT the manifestations vary, and are always varying - Remember consciousness
is 'the' backing principle of all that exists - Man did not create or become conscious, he simply became a manifestation of it.

So, what were humans before we "became a manifestation of" consciousness? Or was there no time when this was so (i.e. when we were not conscious)?

To answer that would be pure speculation - No way of knowing what was before there was anything, before existence {or consciousness}.

But it is only logical to believe that consciousness/existence was forever as non-existence is impossible
- existence could not have occurred if non-existence had ever been.

Was the conscious scenario leading to Humans by design or inevitable

[Gee]

I agree that the brain generates consciousness, but what it generates is the rational aspect of mind -- the part of mind that does the thinking, planning, and structuring of our day and our lives. It is what we work with, but is it the self? Not really. The self is difficult to understand and rooted in the unconscious. Probably, the easiest way to understand this is to say that the brain is like a mirror that reflects some of the unconscious, and it reflects the "self". When I look in a mirror, I see myself; when my brain looks in the unconscious, it sees myself, but both are really reflections. Whatever happened to your brain, it caused a fracture, so that you experienced two selves, which was fortunately temporary.

Yes, we assume we are discrete individuals, but biologically we are each a community of creatures. And mentally too, as you observe, we are different things to different people; we adopt different masks according to our current situation. Physically, mentally, emotionally, politically, sexually, artistically and philosophically, we are much more composite and diverse than we care to admit. I wonder why that is? [That we seem not to want to admit these things to ourselves.]

I don't know why that is, but I do know that you ask the damnedest questions. Composite is a good description of what we are both physically and mentally, and yet we see ourselves as discrete individuals. I think this is because we see a 'self', both physically and mentally, and this self is our identity. But self is not really singular; any time we put the word "my" in front of some other word, we extend the concept of self, as in my child, my family, my home, my career, etc.

One has to wonder, if an earthworm can tell the difference between its self and the earth that it travels through. It has no brain to reflect the self and give it a rational aspect of mind, so would it consider everything that it is aware of as part of itself? Would the cool earth feel like an extension of the self? The same with a tree. Would a tree consider the earth that its roots gain nourishment from as part of itself? Would it consider the warm sun as part of itself? It would have no brain to limit its perspective, so it would have no reflection that would limit the parameters of self causing it to see a discrete self. Maybe that is the answer; we think of ourselves as discrete individuals because that is what our brains show us.

Gee

[Pattern-chaser]

So, what were humans before we "became a manifestation of" consciousness? Or was there no time when this was so (i.e. when we were not conscious)?

To answer that would be pure speculation - No way of knowing what was before there was anything, before existence {or consciousness}.

But it is only logical to believe that consciousness/existence was forever as non-existence is impossible
- existence could not have occurred if non-existence had ever been.

Was the conscious scenario leading to Humans by design or inevitable

No, I was asking you whether there was a time - not a 'time before time', or anything tricky like that - when humans existed, but were not conscious?

[UniversalAlien]

So, what were humans before we "became a manifestation of" consciousness? Or was there no time when this was so (i.e. when we were not conscious)?

To answer that would be pure speculation - No way of knowing what was before there was anything, before existence {or consciousness}.

But it is only logical to believe that consciousness/existence was forever as non-existence is impossible
- existence could not have occurred if non-existence had ever been.

Was the conscious scenario leading to Humans by design or inevitable

No, I was asking you whether there was a time - not a 'time before time', or anything tricky like that - when humans existed, but were not conscious?

By my definition and interpretation of Planck that could not be {consciousness = existence]. If something exists it must be conscious,
at least in a sense - But degrees and type forms of consciousness are still variable. Like in the philosophy of Panpsychism, everything that exists is part of an existent state where all is conscious - Still the consciousness of a rock is quite different from the consciousness of say a biological life form such as Man.