Consciousness

[LNC]

I really don't want to mess with this. You wouldn't understand anyway.

 

"origin of intelligence" = evolution.

 

See? What did I tell you?

 

I have been trying to tell him this for pages.

 

He keeps saying we have not answered questions we HAVE answered because he is predisposed to only accept certain (read metaphysical) answers as "really" answering the question.

 

Hey, if you would like to answer the four questions with by saying evolution, I'm fine with that as long as you explain how evolution answers these questions. Simply saying "evolution" doesn't magically answer every question that is posed. That would be an "evolution of the gaps" argument on your part. So, if you would like to posit evolution as the answer, simply explain how it answers these questions.

 

LNC

[Antlerman]

 

It is so clearcut, so simple, and easy to understand.

 

Question to any Ex-Christian: Is the connection between the developement of intelligence and evolution too complicated?

 

One cell ......................................... Human

----------------------Evolution of intelligence----

 

Just as any organ evolves, it is clear the nervous system has evolved over the past several billion years. Res ipsi loquitur.

 

If one studies evolution, one learns these things.

So you're saying now that consciousness has evolved from one cell all the way up to human? Then is it fair to say you are saying that that one cell has 'consiousness' in a rudimentary form? Or did consciousness only become what it is in humans, in their brain, in the neo-cortex? Prior to that it was what? Non-existent, or something earlier? Would you consider basic awareness, sensory perception and response a form of consciouness? Or is it isolated to full-blown thought processes like humans?

 

The problem with the discussion I can easily see is that "consciousness" is being very anthrocentrically defined.

[Shyone]

 

It is so clearcut, so simple, and easy to understand.

 

Question to any Ex-Christian: Is the connection between the developement of intelligence and evolution too complicated?

 

One cell ......................................... Human

----------------------Evolution of intelligence----

 

Just as any organ evolves, it is clear the nervous system has evolved over the past several billion years. Res ipsi loquitur.

 

If one studies evolution, one learns these things.

So you're saying now that consciousness has evolved from one cell all the way up to human? Then is it fair to say you are saying that that one cell has 'consiousness' in a rudimentary form? Or did consciousness only become what it is in humans, in their brain, in the neo-cortex? Prior to that it was what? Non-existent, or something earlier? Would you consider basic awareness, sensory perception and response a form of consciouness? Or is it isolated to full-blown thought processes like humans?

 

The problem with the discussion I can easily see is that "consciousness" is being very anthrocentrically defined.

I don't have to define it as long as we can agree it is related to life.

 

If rocks are conscious in your opinion, then I will respond like a rock.

 

I am only saying that evolution explains the developement of consciousness regardless of how it is defined or when it happened. Do you want to say it's humans? fine, evolution. Neocortex? evolution. awareness, evolution, sensory perception, evolution. Thought process like humans, evolution.

 

It doesn't matter if awareness was something that appeared in the Pleistocene age or the Cambrian period. It appeared after the beginning and before the end.

[Antlerman]

 

It is so clearcut, so simple, and easy to understand.

 

Question to any Ex-Christian: Is the connection between the developement of intelligence and evolution too complicated?

 

One cell ......................................... Human

----------------------Evolution of intelligence----

 

Just as any organ evolves, it is clear the nervous system has evolved over the past several billion years. Res ipsi loquitur.

 

If one studies evolution, one learns these things.

So you're saying now that consciousness has evolved from one cell all the way up to human? Then is it fair to say you are saying that that one cell has 'consiousness' in a rudimentary form? Or did consciousness only become what it is in humans, in their brain, in the neo-cortex? Prior to that it was what? Non-existent, or something earlier? Would you consider basic awareness, sensory perception and response a form of consciouness? Or is it isolated to full-blown thought processes like humans?

 

The problem with the discussion I can easily see is that "consciousness" is being very anthrocentrically defined.

I don't have to define it as long as we can agree it is related to life.

 

If rocks are conscious in your opinion, then I will respond like a rock.

 

I am only saying that evolution explains the developement of consciousness regardless of how it is defined or when it happened. Do you want to say it's humans? fine, evolution. Neocortex? evolution. awareness, evolution, sensory perception, evolution. Thought process like humans, evolution.

 

It doesn't matter if awareness was something that appeared in the Pleistocene age or the Cambrian period. It appeared after the beginning and before the end.

This is good. I will get back to you on it.

[Shyone]

 

This is good. I will get back to you on it.

Thanks. I think that "pinpointing" the precise time or species that one thing or another happened is interesting, but ultimately unrelated to the mechanism for how it happened. The mechanism hasn't changed in 3.5 billion years. The nervous system, and all that it does, has changed as a direct result of the mechanism.

 

My focus on mechanism is related to the question from LNC I was addressing: "Can you explain the origin of intelligence?"

 

I think he was hoping for a particular era, species, or something, but I don't think it's important beyond: It happened.

 

If he asks how did it happen, the slightly longer answer would be "as a result of the development of organisms and, in particular, nervous sytems through natural selection." If YOU (or whoever is asking the questions) define intelligence, I'll tell you where in evolution it fits, all the way from organisms that move to sensory organs to guide them, to directed behavior, to cooperative behavior to civilization.

 

Interesting fodder for discussion, but ultimately unimportant.

[agnosticator]

<SNIP>Would you consider basic awareness, sensory perception and response a form of consciouness? Or is it isolated to full-blown thought processes like humans?

 

The problem with the discussion I can easily see is that "consciousness" is being very anthrocentrically defined.

 

In a broader definition than what LNC is considering (i.e.,humans), I would definitely say yes to your first question. Humans aren't the only beings that are conscious. They may be at a "lower level" or not as developed as humans. Since all beings are related, they will share some form of awareness like ours. I wish I had the time to search and post about animal consciousness research. You bring up a good point that I agree should have been included in the discussion. But I don't think LNC would agree.

[agnosticator]

Whether or not scientific methods give reliable knowledge of things is not completely relevant. The fact is that scientific findings are regularly adjusted and modified as we gain new methods and information, so its findings are probabilistic at best. So, to say that we can somehow rely on science to explain consciousness based purely on physicalism at some point in the future is problematic on many levels. First, it is a faith statement, and not itself a statement of knowledge.

 

 

Most of what we do know about the brain/body connection to consciousness is the result of the scientific method.

 

 

Second, I believe that it would be self-defeating in that it would mean that all intentionality (including intentionality about ourselves) would be derived and therefore untrustworthy. Third, I don't see how we could then ever achieve the status of knowledge (justified true belief) as it requires intrinsic intentionality, which is not possible given physicalism as far as I can see. That is the reason that I specifically laid out the first four questions as I believe that they are the ones that have to be adequately answered in order to explain consciousness and intentionality given naturalism or any other viewpoint for that matter.

 

Physicalism is not where I am coming from, so to speak. Naturalism is where I hang my hat.

 

I don't know enough about all the philosophical positions on the subject of intentionality to discuss it. So I won't go where I am not knowledgeable.

 

 

 

What do you mean by "direct causal connection"? Do you mean that all conscious states can be reduced to physical states? If that is what you mean, then I don't think you have the evidence for that degree of causal connection. If you mean that physical state may affect mental states, then I would agree. If you take a different position from eliminativism, then maybe you could explain your position in more detail.

 

 

I mean that physical(brain) states DO affect mental states.

 

I think you are referring to what Aristotle referred to as the material cause (that of which something is made), which is different from discussing what that entities efficient cause is (that which caused the thing to exist) or its formal cause (that from where its form came) or its final cause (the purpose for which it was brought into existence). Maybe you could focus on the efficient cause for life.

 

 

See post #296 for one theory (global workspace), for the three conditions that cause consciousness.

[chefranden]

I really don't want to mess with this. You wouldn't understand anyway.

 

"origin of intelligence" = evolution.

 

See? What did I tell you?

 

I have been trying to tell him this for pages.

 

He keeps saying we have not answered questions we HAVE answered because he is predisposed to only accept certain (read metaphysical) answers as "really" answering the question.

 

Hey, if you would like to answer the four questions with by saying evolution, I'm fine with that as long as you explain how evolution answers these questions. Simply saying "evolution" doesn't magically answer every question that is posed. That would be an "evolution of the gaps" argument on your part. So, if you would like to posit evolution as the answer, simply explain how it answers these questions.

 

LNC

 

Interesting, simply saying evolution does not answer the question but simply saying God does? The former is magical, but the later is not. I wonder how that works.

 

 

I wonder if LNC was given a precise history of every step of evolution with records of every living element all the way back through all the various atoms and molecules labeled precisely and their pedigrees listed dating to the big bang if he could accept evolution as the source of things as he knows them.

 

I suggest that he couldn't. He would still have to invoke a god. I would suggest that he doesn't have the godless modification (mutation) to his brain. He's incapable of seeing what evolution means in the same manner as a color blind man cannot see certain colors. You are in effect trying to explain color to a man born blind.

 

I don't mean any disrespect to LNC. He can't help his genetics any more than he can help being a sinner. In any case he is not the anomaly. The majority of humans are like him. Only a small percentage of people seem able to follow the logic of evolution to its logical ends. It remains to be seen if the modification leading to the ability to be an atheist will die out, take over, or remain at a certain percent of the whole like homosexuality does.

[Shyone]

You are in effect trying to explain color to a man born blind.

 

Thanks Chef. It explains a lot. I would say, however, that colorblindness is the gene you're looking for, and explaning colors is very difficult to a man born colorblind.

 

LNC can see the shapes, the outline, but the concept of evolution is not fathomable to him as a means of understanding life, and, as you said, he certainly can not understand the implications.

[Antlerman]

Only a small percentage of people seem able to follow the logic of evolution to its logical ends.

So you're saying science demands a philosophical conclusion? That it's not just science, but the rock of a faith?

 

It remains to be seen if the modification leading to the ability to be an atheist will die out, take over, or remain at a certain percent of the whole like homosexuality does.

Funny, I always placed things like atheism in the belief category, not genetics. Has nothing to do with with IQ or the like.

[chefranden]

Only a small percentage of people seem able to follow the logic of evolution to its logical ends.

So you're saying science demands a philosophical conclusion? That it's not just science, but the rock of a faith?

 

No, I don't think that science (a method of finding out) demands anything. Evolution, a process of change, discovered by science doesn't demand anything either. Humans tend to demand things though, and one of those things humans like to demand is philosophical conclusions.

 

If one wishes to come to philosophical conclusions, it seems wise to me to use science as data to inform those conclusions. And if that data supports something other than my own impressions of how things are and or the thoughts of shamans, priests, prophets, and preachers, I should consider the later to be more delusional than the former. It does, after all, appear to me as if the sun circles the earth. And in fact I've never seen it do other wise except in illustrations. But knowledge from science contrary to my experience leads me to believe that the sun doesn't circle the earth. I doesn't seem logical to me to know about evolution, cognitive science, and cellular biology and come to the conclusion that consciousness (soul, spirit, or whatever) is something extra material.

 

You could make arguments like "love isn't material". I would agree to the extent that it appears that love is not material, like it appears the Sun circles the earth. But given the knowledge of hormones, nerves, and such it is not probable that love is extra material. I can't experience love that way, but I can't experience the earth circling the sun either. In the same manner I cannot experience "I" as anything but a ghost in this particular machine, but given what I know of various sciences it doesn't seem probable that I am something other than what my body is doing.

 

I understand the feeling that I am and even wish to be something other than this decaying corpse in which I seem to reside. However, in all probability I am not.

[chefranden]

It remains to be seen if the modification leading to the ability to be an atheist will die out, take over, or remain at a certain percent of the whole like homosexuality does.

Funny, I always placed things like atheism in the belief category, not genetics. Has nothing to do with with IQ or the like.

 

Ya I used to do put it there too, but then I read this book: Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives

[Antlerman]

Only a small percentage of people seem able to follow the logic of evolution to its logical ends.

So you're saying science demands a philosophical conclusion? That it's not just science, but the rock of a faith?

 

No, I don't think that science (a method of finding out) demands anything. Evolution, a process of change, discovered by science doesn't demand anything either. Humans tend to demand things though, and one of those things humans like to demand is philosophical conclusions.

You're saying that "only a small percentage of people seem able to follow the logic of evolution to its logical ends". I see that as you saying that your conclusion is a forgone conclusion that the logic of it demands, if only people will allow themselves to see it. I don't conclude the same as you, while accepting evolution as it is presented. Nor do a lot of people. It does not demand your conclusion. It is what you see as the logical end. Others, see other "indications".

 

If one wishes to come to philosophical conclusions, it seems wise to me to use science as data to inform those conclusions.

Absolutely. As well as other fields of study. The study of the natural world is not the study of "All That Is". It's the study of nature. So most obviously, it will reveal the mechanics of nature. I have no problems with that.

 

And if that data supports something other than my own impressions of how things are and or the thoughts of shamans, priests, prophets, and preachers, I should consider the later to be more delusional than the former.

Should you? Just out of hand like that? Because they are studying, what exactly? The humanities??

 

There's plenty I don't agree with on a literal, face-value, "plain-meaning", level with with the religious, but I see a lot, a whole lot more existential depth to it than just a True/False evaluation of the surface face of it. I think people, even the practitioners of it in this culture, only see it on the surface and make their arguments about True/False. So there the discussion lays, "It's crap! No, your views are crap!" That's not truly peeling back the layers to see what is, on either side of the popular argument, IMO.

 

It does, after all, appear to me as if the sun circles the earth. And in fact I've never seen it do other wise except in illustrations. But knowledge from science contrary to my experience leads me to believe that the sun doesn't circle the earth. I doesn't seem logical to me to know about evolution, cognitive science, and cellular biology and come to the conclusion that consciousness (soul, spirit, or whatever) is something extra material.

I see a connection here on your part that isn't necessarily justified. I don't think those who see that there is a legitimate 'inner reality' are so tricked by 'illusions' of perception. I hear in here something almost along the lines of saying that all the material world is an illusion of the mind. It's just in the opposite direction.

 

You could make arguments like "love isn't material". I would agree to the extent that it appears that love is not material, like it appears the Sun circles the earth.

Culture. That is not material, nor is it an optical illusion. It is a reality that is not material, yet interacts with and affects the material world, and us with it. It is not comprised of physical anythings. That it emerges from within our collective minds does not mean it is nothing more than physical brain products. It is a fully functional system that transcends the physical. It is its own thing. I don't subscribe to atomism, where all can be viewed as nothing more than its component parts.

 

But given the knowledge of hormones, nerves, and such it is not probable that love is extra material.

Given the nature of atoms and molecules and such, it is not probable that you are real. "You", so called, are just buzzing electrons, and all the rest is an illusion. Mind is an illusion.

 

I can't experience love that way, but I can't experience the earth circling the sun either. In the same manner I cannot experience "I" as anything but a ghost in this particular machine, but given what I know of various sciences it doesn't seem probable that I am something other than what my body is doing.

Which of course are all geared to study the mechanics of the physical world. With little surprise, that's what they see.

 

I think the greatest error is in misrepresting what those who see things in non-reductionist ways to be saying we are a bunch of non-corporeal, disembodied spirits looking for host machines to crawl into and be sentient beings. That is mythological. But regardless of how "we" emerge, "we" are in fact here, and "we" are not bodies, but "us" - in a non-physical reality. And that "us" in non-physical reality, are affected by, and effect the physical world.

 

Where I take this from that does addresses "where" consciousness comes from. But I'll leave it there.

 

I understand the feeling that I am and even wish to be something other than this decaying corpse in which I seem to reside. However, in all probability I am not.

I don't think it comes from some motive of emotional discomfort with the idea of being "just material". To me, this is the logical conclusion of evolution - that we are more than just physical. Can I say that the reductionist chooses to see the world as matter only because of their discomfort with the extraordinarily fluid nature of being, not liking having "objective" answers on which to say "This is Truth"? Sauce for my goose, is sauce for your gander.

 

 

P.S. I haven't gotten around to responding to LNC as it will take some effort on my part. I'll get to it.

[NotBlinded]

A monk, asking for instruction, said to Bodhidharma: "I have no peace of mind. Please pacify my mind."

"Bring your mind here before me," replied Bodhidharma, "and I will pacify it!"

"But when I seek my own mind," said the monk, "I cannot find it."

"There!" snapped Bodhidharma, "I have pacified your mind!"

 

When I seek my own "I", I cannot find it.

Chef, I'm going to use your post here and pull your next one up to talk a little.

 

Without giving it much thought people classify self as an object of some sort: Here am I in the same manner as here is a stone. When some thought is given to it "I" is a bit more illusive than that. If asked who you are the answer is a story or a description -- or better a descriptive story. If I asked you to hand your "I" to me so that I can examine it for what ever reason, you could not do it.

I agree with this. This "I" or ego is an illusion. Very Buddhistic thoughts here.

 

When I examine my own "I" I find that usually, that is for a rather large period of the day, I am not here. That is most of the time I do not reference my self. For example in typing this most of what is in consciousness is not "I". Most of what is in consciousness is this thought and how to get it on the screen so that it makes some sense. I only seem to get "I" out when I need it for self reference as in I'll go to the store or, I don't feel good.

Here is where questions about consciousness enters my thoughts. I have seen, if not mistaken, some people equate consciousness with sense of "I". Self-awareness, or the ability to process thoughts, is claimed to be needed in order to be conscious. If this "I" is an illusion, then what is being said of consciousness?

 

On one hand the "I" is an abstraction, a symbol that stands for something else: a story, a set of tastes, a bundle of hope, a thing that is thirsty, a set of fears, some sort of talent, a pile of failings, a certain degree of wttiness, some other degree of absentmindedness, and so on and so forth. On the other hand the "I" is an object denoting a certain set of trillions of cells acting in concert to be a human. But "I" doesn't seem to be a thing in and of itself.

This symbolic representation of oneself, this illusion, IS what most people would claim they are. Thoughts about reality or ourselves, or any thoughts whatsoever are linear, symbolic representations of reality.

 

From a physical point of view it seems obvious that "I" is a recursive reference of a set of cells doing certain processes. The self reference is designed to accomplish an number of tasks related to the whole of the cell collective, but one thing it is not designed for is to know directly what it is made of. On a very much more complicated level the "I" is designed to "know" things like a thermostat "knows" the temperature. That is it is not necessary for the thermostat to know what it is made of or how it knows that the temperature is what it is supposed to be in order to know that the temperature is what is suppose to be.

 

A collective of cells can know things without knowing how it knows. One of the things that a collective of cells can know is itself. This knowledge of self is as a collective whole and not as individual parts. This knowledge of "I" is a zoomed out version of what is really going one like viewing a photo on a screen. You can zoom in on the photo and see that it is a collection of pixels arranged in a certain pattern or you can view it as the whole scene. The self is roughly analogous to this except that there is no zoom function built into it. I cannot see exactly what I am -- like my eye cannot see itself. That is I am not designed with the capacity to see what my "I" is.

 

But I can use a mirror so that my eye can see it's reflection. That is I can use a tool to circumvent a design limitation. Like this humans are beginning to develop a tool, cognitive science to circumvent the design limitations and zoom in on what is going on in there.

It seems to me that you have just described "I" as a tool of consciousness. I believe you have also described consciousness in a much greater sense. You next post illustrates this.

 

Another thing about consciousness is that it is only the tip of the iceberg. It seems like a mighty colossus, but no matter how grand consciousness appears to itself most of what happens in the brain is out of sight. The brain does many different processes and one of these processes is self or self awareness. Some of the bits that produce a self in a particular brain can be damaged and consequently the self that is generated in that brain isn't what we are used to. Some times the self isn't there at all even if the body keeps chugging along.

This is, to me, what consciousness is. It isn't that tool of concentrated awareness that is claimed to be consciousness. That is only the tip of the iceberg as you say. When I ponder about what consciousness it, this is what I'm referring to. This greater whatever-it-is that has the ability to process millions of variables without thinking about it. Although science uses statistics to handle multiple variables, they are only able to give an estimate and can never accurately describe reality since there are many, many unknown variables.

 

Reality isn't linear, it happens all at once and there is "something" that can and does proceed along without thinking. And I believe that "something" is who we really are.

 

If we become totally unaware of ourselves and our mind becomes empty, are we unconscious or are we greatly conscious and ready for awareness to happen?

 

"Despite its marvelous achievements in many domains, the thinking process falls short of being able to penetrate its own veil to reach direct knowledge of the Self. This is already clear to psychotherapists, who have long known that merely "cerebral" investigation does not illuminate the "unconscious". But our strategies for self knowledge seem always to get in their own way, and somehow we have to creep up on the quarry without making a sound!" Alan Watts, Veil of Thoughts Seminar

 

Another indication that self is something the brain does is that the self has to develop as the brain grows. It is does not spring from the womb fully formed like Stewie. We tend to feel that the self is a continuous whole, but if you examine it i.e. examine the story, the self is quite episodic. Rather than being a single novel the self is a collection of short stories. If you follow the story back as far as you can you will find that the story/self doesn't go back to the beginning. I can remember one and only one story from my 3rd year, and after that there is nothing until age 5 save maybe some vague jumble of Christmas impressions and the Lone Ranger. It was then that I made the decision to grow up to be a horse. Some say I succeeded in that quest.

 

We feel as if the conscious is in charge of the system because the conscious is only conscious of what the brain assigns to it. It is not conscious of the rest of what the brain is doing. For example, there are some studies that indicate that the the conscious bit is the last to know what is going on in making a decision by as much as half a second.

Indeed:

 

You see, the problem is this. We identify in our exerience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us. We have a certain number of actions that we define as voluntary, and we feel in control of those. And then over against that, there is all those things that are involuntary. But the dividing line between these two is very inarbitrary. Because for example, when you move your hand, you feel that you decide whether to open it or to close it. But then ask yourself how do you decide? When you decide to open your hand, do you first decide to decide? You don't, do you? You just decide, and how do you do that? And if you don't know how to do it, is it voluntary or involuntary? Let's consider breathing. You can feel that you breath deliberately; you don't control your breath. But when you don't think about it, it goes on. Is it voluntary or involuntary?

 

So, we come to have a very arbitrary definition of self. That much of my activity which I feel I do. And that then doesn't include breathing most of the time; it doesn't include the heartbeats; it doesn't include the activity of the glands; it doesn't include digestion; it doesn't include how you shape your bones; circulate your blood. Do you or do you not do these things? Now if you get with yourself and you find out you are all of yourself, a very strange thing happens. You find out that your body knows that you are one with the universe. In other words, the so-called involuntary circulation of your blood is one continuous process with the stars shining. If you find out it's YOU who circulates your blood, you will at the same moment find out that you are shining the sun. Because your physical organism is one continous process with everything else that's going on. Just as the waves are continuous with the ocean. Your body is continuous with the total energy system of the cosmos, and it's all you. Only you're playing the game that you're only this bit of it. But as I tried to explain, there are in physical reality no such thing as separate events.

 

So then. Remember also when I tried to work towards a definition of omnipotence. Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it's just doing it. You don't have to translate it into language. Supposing that when you got up in the morning, you had to switch your brain on. And you had to think and do as a deliberate process waking up all the circuits that you need for active life during hte day. Why, you'd never get done! Because you have to do all those things at once. That's why the Buddhists and Hindus represent their gods as many-armed. How could you use so many arms at once? How could a centipede control a hundred legs at once? Because it doesn't think about it. In the same way, you are unconsciously performing all the various activities of your organism. Only unconsciously isn't a good word, because it sounds sort of dead. Superconsciously would be better. Give it a plus rather than a minus.

 

Because what consciousness is is a rather specialized form of awareness. When you look around the room, you are conscious of as much as you can notice, and you see an enormous number of things which you do not notice. For example, I look at a girl here and somebody asks me later 'What was she wearing?' I may not know, although I've seen, because I didn't attend. But I was aware. You see? And perhaps if I could under hypnosis be asked this question, where I would get my conscious attention out of the way by being in the hypnotic state, I could recall what dress she was wearing.

 

So then, just in the same way as you don't know--you don't focus your attention--on how you make your thyroid gland function, so in the same way, you don't have any attention focused on how you shine the sun. So then, let me connect this with the problem of birth and death, which puzzles people enormously of course. Because, in order to understand what the self is, you have to remember that it doesn't need to remember anything,just as you don't need to know how you work your thyroid gland.

 

So then, when you die, you're not going to have to put up with everlasting non-existance, because that's not an experience. A lot of people are afraid that when they die, they're going to be locked up in a dark room forever, and sort of undergo that. But one of the interesting things in the world is--this is a yoga, this is a realization--try and imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up. Think about that. Children think about it. It's one of the great wonders of life. What will it be like to go to sleep and never wake up? And if you think long enough about that, something will happen to you. You will find out, among other things, it will pose the next question to you. What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born. You see, you can't have an experience of nothing; nature abhorres a vacuum. So after you're dead, the only thing that can happen is the same experience, or the same sort of experience as when you were born. In other words, we all know very well that after other people die, other people are born. And they're all you, only you can only experience it one at a time. Everybody is I, you all know you're you, and wheresoever all being exist throughout all galaxies, it doesn't make any difference. You are all of them. And when they come into being, that's you coming into being.

 

You know that very well, only you don't have to remember the past in the same way you don't have to think about how you work your thyroid gland, or whatever else it is in your organism. You don't have to know how to shine the sun. You just do it, like you breath. Doesn't it really astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing, and that you're doing all this and you never had any education in how to do it? Never learned, but you're this miracle? The point of it is, from a strictly physical, scientific standpoint, this organism is a continuous energy with everything else that's going on. And if I am my foot, I am the sun. Only we've got this little partial view. We've got the idea that 'No, I'm something IN this body.' The ego. That's a joke. The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention. It's like the radar on a ship. The radar on a ship is a troubleshooter. Is there anything in the way? And conscious attention is a designed function of the brain to scan the environment, like a radar does, and note for any troublemaking changes. But if you identify yourself with your troubleshooter, then naturally you define yourself as being in a perpetual state of anxiety. And the moment we cease to identify with the ego and become aware that we are the whole organism, we realize first thing how harmonious it all is. Because your organism is a miracle of harmony. All these things functioning together. Even those creatures that are fighting each other in the blood stream and eating each other up. If they weren't doing that, you wouldn't be healthy.

 

So what is discord at one level of your being is harmony at another level. And you begin to realize that, and you begin to be aware too, that the discords of your life and the discords of people's lives, which are a discord at one level, at a higher level of the universe are healthy and harmonious. And you suddenly realize that everything you are and do is at that level as magnificent and as free of any blemish as the patterns in waves. The markings in marble. The way a cat moves. And that this world is really OK. Can't be anything else, because otherwise it couldn't exist. And I don't mean this in a kind of Pollyanna Christian Science sense. I don't know what it is or why it is about Christian Science, but it's prissy. It's got kind of a funny feeling to it; came from New England.

 

But the reality underneath physical existence, or which really is physical existence--because in my philosophy there is no difference between the physical and the spiritual. These are absolutely out-of-date catagories. It's all process; it isn't 'stuff' on the one hand and 'form' on the other. It's just pattern-- life is pattern. It is a dance of energy. And so I will never invoke spooky knowledge. That is, that I've had a private revelation or that I have sensory vibrations going on a plane which you don't have. Everything is standing right out in the open, it's just a question of how you look at it. So you do discover when you realize this, the most extraordinary thing that I never cease to be flabbergasted at whenever it happens to me. Some people will use a symbolism of the relationship of God to the universe, wherein God is a brilliant light, only somehow veiled, hiding underneath all these forms as you look around you. So far so good. But the truth is funnier than that. It is that you are looking right at the brilliant light now that the experience you are having that you call ordinary everyday consciousness--pretending you're not it--that experience is exactly the same thing as 'it.' There's no difference at all. And when you find that out, you laugh yourself silly. That's the great discovery.

 

In other words, when you really start to see things, and you look at an old paper cup, and you go into the nature of what it is to see what vision is, or what smell is, or what touch is, you realize that that vision of the paper cup is the brilliant light of the cosmos. Nothing could be brighter. Ten thousand suns couldn't be brighter. Only they're hidden in the sense that all the points of the infinite light are so tiny when you see them in the cup they don't blow your eyes out. See, the source of all light is in the eye. If there were no eyes in this world, the sun would not be light. So if I hit as hard as I can on a drum which has no skin, it makes no noise. So if a sun shines on a world with no eyes, it's like a hand beating on a skinless drum. No light. YOU evoke light out of the universe, in the same way you, by nature of having a soft skin, evoke hardness out of wood. Wood is only hard in relation to a soft skin. It's your eardrum that evokes noise out of the air. You, by being this organism, call into being this whole universe of light and color and hardness and heaviness and everything.

 

But in the mythology that we sold ourselves on at the end of the 19th century, when people discovered how big the universe was, and that we live on a little planet in a solar system on the edge of the galaxy, which is a minor galaxy, everybody thought, 'Uuuuugh, we're really unimportant after all. God isn't there and doesn't love us, and nature doesn't give a damn.' And we put ourselves down. But actually, it's this funny little microbe, tiny thing, crawling on this little planet that's way out somewhere, who has the ingenuity, by nature of this magnificent organic structure, to evoke the whole universe out of what otherwise would be mere quanta. There's jazz going on. But you see, this ingenious little organism is not merely some stranger in this. This little organism, on this little planet, is what the whole show is growing there, and so realizing it's own presence. Does it through you, and you're it.

Alan Watts, The Nature of Consciousness Terebess Asia Online

 

No ghost in the machine...only the machine, yet not a machine at all.

 

Like the empty sky it has no boundaries,

Yet it is right in this place, ever profound and clear.

When you seek to know it, you cannot see it.

You cannot take hold of it,

But you cannot lose it.

In not being able to get it, you get it.

When you are silent, it speaks;

When you speak, it is silent.

The great gate is wide open to bestow alms,

And no crowd is blocking the way.

- Cheng-tao Ke, translated by Alan Watts in The Way of Zen

[Shyone]

See, the source of all light is in the eye.

 

 

This reminds me of a theory of vision I heard about from ancient Greece. The theory was that light is actually a product of the eyes and that the act of seeing involved something leaving our eyes that then made the scenery visible.

 

The only hole in their theory was that they couldn't see when it was dark.

[NotBlinded]

See, the source of all light is in the eye.

 

 

This reminds me of a theory of vision I heard about from ancient Greece. The theory was that light is actually a product of the eyes and that the act of seeing involved something leaving our eyes that then made the scenery visible.

 

The only hole in their theory was that they couldn't see when it was dark.

I hadn't heard that.

 

It really goes to show though that it really isn't an either or, but a both to have anything work between the organism and the environment.

[Shyone]

See, the source of all light is in the eye.

 

 

This reminds me of a theory of vision I heard about from ancient Greece. The theory was that light is actually a product of the eyes and that the act of seeing involved something leaving our eyes that then made the scenery visible.

 

The only hole in their theory was that they couldn't see when it was dark.

I hadn't heard that.

 

It really goes to show though that it really isn't an either or, but a both to have anything work between the organism and the environment.

Actually, when I heard about this theory, I suspected that the person writing about it missed some essential element of the theory. He actually suggested that the greeks meant that light came from the eyes.

 

I think that the intention of the theorist/philosopher was a bit more complex - kind of like saying, "If no one is there to see something, then there is no vision. It is the eyes that make seeing possible." Well, that's my rough idea of what was really meant.

 

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise?

 

Does it matter?

[Skankboy]

Actually, when I heard about this theory, I suspected that the person writing about it missed some essential element of the theory. He actually suggested that the greeks meant that light came from the eyes.

 

I think that the intention of the theorist/philosopher was a bit more complex - kind of like saying, "If no one is there to see something, then there is no vision. It is the eyes that make seeing possible." Well, that's my rough idea of what was really meant.

 

I'm not so sure they didn't believe it in some form (that light came from the eyes). As I recall, one of the "evidences" they had was how a cat's eyes "shine" at night and they have much better vision at night. The theory was that our eyes didn't "shine" bright enough to see in the dark...

 

Either way... I think a major problem when talking about consciousness is we have no yard stick against which to judge. We only believe it exists because we believe we are conscious (without really defining what it is). Thus we have to say "how much like us are they". This belies the fact (in my opinion) that we don't really even know if we are conscious in the sense we usually use it.

[Shyone]

Actually, when I heard about this theory, I suspected that the person writing about it missed some essential element of the theory. He actually suggested that the greeks meant that light came from the eyes.

 

I think that the intention of the theorist/philosopher was a bit more complex - kind of like saying, "If no one is there to see something, then there is no vision. It is the eyes that make seeing possible." Well, that's my rough idea of what was really meant.

 

I'm not so sure they didn't believe it in some form (that light came from the eyes). As I recall, one of the "evidences" they had was how a cat's eyes "shine" at night and they have much better vision at night. The theory was that our eyes didn't "shine" bright enough to see in the dark...

 

Either way... I think a major problem when talking about consciousness is we have no yard stick against which to judge. We only believe it exists because we believe we are conscious (without really defining what it is). Thus we have to say "how much like us are they". This belies the fact (in my opinion) that we don't really even know if we are conscious in the sense we usually use it.

For me, I think you have hit on something important with this statement. I keep trying to think of what consciousness is in contrast to what animals or machines do. Sometimes it seems I've found the line that separates us, and then sometimes it gets blurry again.

 

We tend to view with biases, and we also judge by external features, but consciousness is an internal process. The time is approaching when we won't be able to tell if something ir conscious or not, because even though we "know" (through our biases) that something can't be conscious, we won't be able to look at what it does and tell that it is not.

[NotBlinded]

Actually, when I heard about this theory, I suspected that the person writing about it missed some essential element of the theory. He actually suggested that the greeks meant that light came from the eyes.

 

I think that the intention of the theorist/philosopher was a bit more complex - kind of like saying, "If no one is there to see something, then there is no vision. It is the eyes that make seeing possible." Well, that's my rough idea of what was really meant.

 

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise?

 

Does it matter?

If a tree falls there is no sound because sound is a combination of movement and reception of that movement. We can have the movement and we can have reception but apart they are nothing. It's the combination of both that makes sound.

 

I think it does matter in the way we view reality. Just my opinion of course.

[NotBlinded]

Either way... I think a major problem when talking about consciousness is we have no yard stick against which to judge. We only believe it exists because we believe we are conscious (without really defining what it is). Thus we have to say "how much like us are they". This belies the fact (in my opinion) that we don't really even know if we are conscious in the sense we usually use it.

Absolutely.

[Guest end3]

I had a different thought last night...for me. Was thinking that we as humans are a continual perpetuation of life from a long time back....I know, duh, but I am kind of with Yoyo on this that the complexity of humans is greater than the 6000 year time frame. Kidding...lol. But still, I can't imagine this amount of evolution fitting into even a few billion years. This would mean a meaningful change on the organism on a regular basis...just guessing. Has anyone done the math that would show the rate of stress needed to effect a change for example to "develop a mouth, or eyes, or woman"....and then calculated back to the estimated age of the earth?

 

 

Edit: I just looked a little. Some things have remained the same "stasis" for 300,000,000 years? And considering the earth 4.5 billion years, the rate of evolution adds up to what we see today? That is only a factor of 15.

[The-Captain]

Ever heard of punctuated equilibrium theory End?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

 

 

Mind you, evolution doesn't occur on a linear basis alone either. As with species and generational diversion it becomes exponential.

[Guest end3]

Ever heard of punctuated equilibrium theory End?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

 

 

Mind you, evolution doesn't occur on a linear basis alone either. As with species and generational diversion it becomes exponential.

 

Thanks, Doc, I know nothing about it and don't know why the magnitude should change between gradual and punctuated. It seems, like, either way, it is a streach in the alotted time frame.....just and intuitive guess. Thanks again.

[chefranden]

In a broader definition than what LNC is considering (i.e.,humans), I would definitely say yes to your first question. Humans aren't the only beings that are conscious. They may be at a "lower level" or not as developed as humans. Since all beings are related, they will share some form of awareness like ours. I wish I had the time to search and post about animal consciousness research. You bring up a good point that I agree should have been included in the discussion. But I don't think LNC would agree.

 

 

Douglas Hofstadter addresses this in I Am A Strange Loop. He sort of tongue in cheek developed a scale of consciousness or soulfulness based on units he called hunekers*. A mosquito would have something like a 1 huneker soul and an average adult human would have somewhere near a 100 huneker soul.

 

*named after James Huneker, a music critic who said, in the early 1900's, that “Small-souled men, no matter how agile their fingers,” should not attempt playing a certain piano piece by Chopin.