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Goodbye Jesus

Awareness Broken Down


Joshpantera

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I'll try and answer any questions on this lecture. It has ramifications for christianity and monotheistic thinking about god which get very interesting in terms of making non-sense about their ideas of spiritual hierarchy, sophistication and dominance in the world.  

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The above is the original lecture on the Primacy of Consciousness that may be useful to view. The illustrations in this older video make it much easier to understand where Peter Russell's going with it.

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On 2/7/2017 at 9:12 PM, Joshpantera said:

 

The above is the original lecture on the Primacy of Consciousness that may be useful to view. The illustrations in this older video make it much easier to understand where Peter Russell's going with it.

 

Well I watched both videos this weekend, first this longer one, then the shorter, newer one.  At least I understood what he is saying, pretty much.  I do agree with the concept of the Primacy of Consciousness, insofar as it really is the only thing I can be certain of.  I can't be certain that you exist, or for that matter that my wife exists, even though I can see and touch her; we really could be living inside the Matrix.  I also get it that other living things have consciousness, even if at very different levels from what humans experience, although I don't think that most people would consider a bacterium's experience of heat and light to be 'consciousness'. Then he seems to make a big leap to making the statement 'Consciousness is in Everything'.  What does this mean?  Surely not that rocks have consciousness?

 

Although I understand that matter is mostly empty space, I'm not sure that makes it less real than consciousness.  If I run my car into a tree, all the empty space in those atoms doesn't matter a damn.  I suspect I'm missing his point here, somehow.  I guess in a sense I do understand that what we perceive of the world is not necessarily what is really out there.  I mean, there are animals who can see and hear frequencies that we cannot, so we are partly blind and deaf compared to them, just as we can see colors that many animals cannot.  

 

In the second video I watched, he introduced the concept of non-duality.  I know you mentioned this recently, josh, but I thought that by duality you meant the coexistence of good and evil.  Peter Russell is arguing against the separateness of consciousness and matter.  To me they do seem separate: the kitchen counter I'm sitting at right now has matter but surely no consciousness, even if I myself am both consciousness and matter.

 

You're probably shaking your head sadly at my inability to grasp much of this.  Maybe I'm missing the point hugely.  There's no doubt the philosophical side of my mind is very much underdeveloped.  Maybe that's what comes from spending 30 years as an Engineer, or maybe it's what led me to that profession in the first place. 

 

Anyway, I'll be interested to hear what you think of my efforts to make some sense of this.  Be patient with me, Jedi master....

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Consciousness all the way down is the part that didn't seem to click when you watched the video.

 

As far as his explanation he's pointing out that there is awareness taking place as we scale down the size charts. It's more primitive than human awareness as we go down. The animals are not as developed in awareness as we are, but they're aware of things. This is a totally different way of looking at things. But it's one that had occurred to me prior to seeing this video from Russell, so I found myself in agreement right away having already thought about it.

 

It's not that consciousness at human levels exists in innate matter, it's that awareness seems to be taking place at primitive levels from the sub atomic right on through to intelligent life. In particles, this would be the most primitive form of awareness. This is addressed to the question of how consciousness seems to miraculously appear out of nowhere. If awareness exists throughout the whole, at varying levels of awareness from primitive in innate matter to sophisticated in life forms with a nervous system, then the consciousness doesn't spontaneously emerge out of nowhere at some point during the evolution of life. It's been there all along and simply comes into greater focus with the evolution of nervous systems. 

 

Alternative example:

 

I ran into this possibility while reading on wave structure of matter physics. It's a wave based model of the electron where it's understood not as a literal point particle, but rather a spherical standing wave vibrating in the wave medium of space. Where space has the properties of a continuous wave medium. So the empty space, not exactly empty - just a continuous wave medium in which spherical standing waves create the appearance of particles of matter. Perhaps that may shed light on why there's any solidity to begin with when the majority of volume in every atom of matter is space. 

 

The Wave Structure of Matter in Space

 

This model then supplies a means of two way communication between surrounding wave centers / particles of matter. The distance and location of surrounding wave centers / particles can be known by the angle of the approaching wave front coming at the standing wave center, of this electron in the diagram. And information in the form of waves would then be taking place throughout the whole material existence. You have in-waves going into the wave center and in turn you have out-waves going back out of the wave center. Energy and information in the form of waves trading between all existing particles through the medium of space. 

 

I picked up on that and started asking the physicists (Milo Wolff and Geoff Haselhurst) about whether this could be considered the beginning form of awareness, in innate matter. And the answer was hesitantly yes. This means that particles would have a type of primitive awareness of distance and location via the wave energy interaction taking place all the time, pretty much everywhere. But of course the particles are not thinking, it's not consciousness as we think of and experience it. They made sure to clarify that. But I didn't think it was like human consciousness, I just thought that it's entirely possible that the most primitive forms of awareness start at the bottom and gain in speed and sophistication through time and evolution of matter into the elements and eventually life and intelligent life. It was an entirely different approach to thinking about evolution. And as Russell said, the awareness inherent in particles, matter, elements, and life seems to get more focused through the evolution of a nervous system. And that gets more refined in certain animals like the Great Apes, to which we belong. We're full of awareness through and through, down to the sub atomic aspect of our existence according to this way of thinking. 

 

I'm going to leave it there for now and see if these two examples clarify your understanding of what Russell means by consciousness is in everything and everything is in consciousness. He's using consciousness interchangeably with awareness.  

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I'm beginning to think the theory that our reality is a highly advanced computer program has some merit. As I recall some Japanese physicists said the universe has to be a hologram for the math to work. I'm not a math guy so I have no clue if their theory has any merit, but it's kind of fun to think it might be true. I think that might make the incalculable distance & size of the universe an optical illusion, but I'm not a science guy so I really don't have a clue. 

 

Maybe God is really just an I.T. guy pretending to be God millions of years in our future. Damn, I hope nobody hits the reset button by accident. 

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There's no telling. Not perceiving ultimate reality directly leaves the door open for a lot of possibility. But these deep cosmological speculations all seem to end in space as infinite and eternal, whether considered as a wave medium or otherwise. There's really no alternative. And that being the case it comes down to where Peter Russell and I are willing to speculate about awareness being ingrained into pretty much everything.

 

The direction I'm headed here is to go ahead and apply this type of speculation to the process of evolution. I think that we're all missing something between the secular science verses creationist and ID camps.  When you find ID creationists pleading for an intelligent designer it can seem odd that the inner world works so, for lack of a better term, consciously. But it's errant. It's not well designed from the outset. And the secular scientists will bring that up. But as I watch the back and forth I've noticed that the inner workings of living creatures does look like a little city, with all variety of interaction and possibly primitive levels of awareness. All of this awareness together making for what we understand as our own consciousness. 

 

This also tends to shed light on all other speculation - paranormal (disembodied consciousness), religious experience (holy spirit, etc.), metaphysical ideas (Karma, Law of Attraction, etc.) just to point out a few that seem directly related and impacted by the notion of a universe with inherent awareness taking place throughout like a web of energy and information exchange. I've experimented with these metaphysical concepts just to see for myself what I make of it all. I've been doing that for years now. And during that time I've come to feel that there's something to it, maybe not as dramatic as some new ager's would have it, but still something there. And conceptualizing existence as a massive realm of energy and information exchange on varying levels from primitive to advanced tends to shed light on these possibilities.

 

 

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My understanding is that "all is consciousness" has been a part of Hindu philosophy for a very long time.

 

Whether there is any great difference between saying that awareness exists throughout everything and saying that everything is a manifestation of a greater consciousness (which is how I would understand, perhaps incorrectly, the Hindu position) is a question upon which I have yet to reach a conclusion.

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My take on Hindu ideas is that they tend to come from mystics observing reality and then coming up with these metaphysical law ideas. The cyclic modeling seems to be the result of observing the cycles in nature. The tide comes in, and goes out. Rain season, dry season. The annual year. The precession of the equinoxes. This all leads to metaphysical ideas like reincarnation, karma, law of attraction, the yuga cycles of vast time. And the observation of dreaming bringing forward the idea of a greater dreamer creating our world as we create worlds in our minds as we dream.

 

Just about everything from Hinduism can seem like maybe there's something to it. And I think that's because they've based their ideas on experience of the natural world and then use that to project metaphysical ideas and mythologizing. Maybe our token Hindu will chime in on this. lol

 

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22 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

Consciousness all the way down is the part that didn't seem to click when you watched the video...

....

 

I'm going to leave it there for now and see if these two examples clarify your understanding of what Russell means by consciousness is in everything and everything is in consciousness. He's using consciousness interchangeably with awareness.  

 

The examples you gave did help, especially the example of interaction between electrons.  So I think I get the concept of "consciousness all the way down".  But it's a long way from the consciousness of a human to the 'consciousness' of a pair of electrons.  Does it even make sense to use the same word?  I can see that there is something in common between me and a jellyfish, or even a plant, but I'm not there with the inanimate objects.

 

How would a typical scientist disagree with this idea of 'consciousness is in everything and everything is in consciousness', or are the scientists and the pantheists (if that's what Russell is) just using different words to describe the same things?

 

I dont know if I'll ever be able to wrap my western mind around these concepts that seem to be based in eastern philosophies.  Maybe it will prove to lead me nowhere and I'll just remain as a contented unspiritual atheist. Or maybe it would enrich my life.  I'm interested in learning though.  

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1 hour ago, ThereAndBackAgain said:

The examples you gave did help, especially the example of interaction between electrons.  So I think I get the concept of "consciousness all the way down".  But it's a long way from the consciousness of a human to the 'consciousness' of a pair of electrons.  Does it even make sense to use the same word?  I can see that there is something in common between me and a jellyfish, or even a plant, but I'm not there with the inanimate objects.

 

If you understand the example of primitive awareness taking place with interaction between electrons, then you understand what's happening within inanimate objects. The focus is on the building blocks of matter. It's a lesser form of awareness taking place within inanimate objects than is taking place in animate objects. The idea is that awareness doesn't emerge spontaneously when life emerges. Rather it's always been there before life emerges. And life is the result of already existing primitive forms of awareness transitioning into living things and the awareness comes into greater focus. That focus gets greater and greater until we finally come to something like ourselves with a tremendous capacity to experience. But all the while our experience involves the myriad of awareness going on at every level down to the atoms and the sub atomic. There's a tremendous amount of awareness going on right now in each of us, looking at it from this perspective. 

 

And what of inanimate objects? 

 

How inanimate are they really? Deep down, everything is animate. There's a buzz of energy taking place at specific vibrations in something as simple as a stone. Anything atomic is vibrating. And what's vibrating is also experiencing this primitive level awareness. I hope this philosophical speak helps because I've spent years thinking on these ex-christian spiritual subjects. And I've wanted to explain them in clear terms in ways that are easily understood. 

 

I do agree with you on the usage of the term consciousness. That's why I titled the thread as awareness broken down. I think that because Peter Russell is involved in meditation and eastern practices he panders to terms like consciousness when what he's really talking about is awareness at varying levels and not so much consciousness in the way we think of it. I agree that my electron illustration isn't rightfully described as consciousness, as would the physicists who work with that diagram.

 

So it seems that Russell's claim should be changed to: Awareness is in everything, Everything is in awareness. 

 

And the big catch phrase: You are consciousness, period. 

 

Should read: You are awareness, period. 

 

What can't be doubted,

 

is that we are,

 

aware. 

 

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On 3/13/2017 at 9:45 PM, ThereAndBackAgain said:

I dont know if I'll ever be able to wrap my western mind around these concepts that seem to be based in eastern philosophies.  Maybe it will prove to lead me nowhere and I'll just remain as a contented unspiritual atheist. Or maybe it would enrich my life.  I'm interested in learning though.  

 

One thing I need to point out is that all of this stuff about consciousness and awareness is really an aside to ex-christian spirituality. It doesn't make or break it, it's just an avenue that brings greater depth to pantheistic ideas. In fact, what I'm talking about here is panpsychism or monist idealist pantheism. 

 

Regular modern pantheism doesn't assert anything about consciousness being primary. It's just an atheistic spiritual attitude towards life and existence based on naturalism and wholeness thinking. It doesn't subscribe to afterlife beliefs, it doesn't subscribe to the notion of revealed scriptures. It's really just nature loving people who feel that what religion means by "God" can only be in reference to the whole, the natural universe and existence itself.

 

The possibility of awareness all the way down and spread throughout the whole gives regular modern or scientific pantheism an added depth, that's all.  

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Hey guys, I'd be very careful about strictly adhering to ideas. Unfortunately, when talking about matter and how matter is described, we often use analogies like waves and vibrations to develop an intuitive sense of things. However, when you really drill down into things, intuition really breaks down. 

 

In fact, the literal mathematical solutions for phenomena such as electrons in atoms are often in the form of functions that are complex and at their core, use imaginary numbers such as i (the square root of -1). What does this literally mean? Well, that's not easy to answer, but if we multiply these solutions by their complex conjugates, we get a real solution that when plotted, very accurately represents the probability density of said phenomena when integrated over a certain volume of space. 

 

These probability density plots plots can be thought of as having wave like characteristics and certainly, the fundamental equation of quantum mechanics is a sort of modified wave equation. 

 

Regarding atoms feeling solid: The statistical framework used to describe certain phenomena such as electrons (Fermi-Dirac statistics) point to a fundamental principle known as the Pauli Exclusion Principle that roughly states no two electrons can have the exact same quantum state. This is why only a certain number of electrons can be placed in specific energy levels within atoms. This can also create a kind of pressure when two electrons are brought too close to each other.

 

Some may say electrical charge interactions are responsible for matter having solid characteristics but often, placing atoms close to one and other, may very well make said atoms more willing to bond due to electrical interactions that cause unequal charge distribution. An example of this is something known as London dispersion forces. 

 

Perhaps another way to think about the atom is that it's an object or phenomenon that contains many different "force fields." Again, we must be careful about how literal we take this model. 

 

How does this relate to the topic of the thread? I think the best answer is that it's not known. There are still many fundamental problems yet to be solved that something as difficult as consciousness is likely a ways off. 

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On 3/16/2017 at 1:40 AM, RogueScholar said:

How does this relate to the topic of the thread? I think the best answer is that it's not known. There are still many fundamental problems yet to be solved that something as difficult as consciousness is likely a ways off. 

 

Thanks for coming in on this Rogue Scholar. Did you get a chance to watch the 2nd video at the top of the thread? 

 

You've pretty much said what Peter Russell said about atoms in the lecture of the second video. Russell is a physicist so I'd be interested in your take on where he's going with the consciousness lecture. 

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Here's Russell's website: http://www.peterrussell.com/SCG/panpsych.php

 

I'll post a few articles: 

 

Quote

Panpsychism

The underlying assumption of the current metaparadigm is that matter is insentient. The alternative is that the faculty of consciousness is a fundamental quality of nature. Consciousness does not arise from some particular arrangement of nerve cells or processes going on between them, or from any other physical features; it is always present.

In philosophical circles the idea that consciousness is in everything is called panpsychism, from the Greek pan, meaning all, and psyche, meaning mind. Its basic tenet is that the capacity for inner experience could not evolve or emerge out of entirely insentient, non-experiencing matter. Experience can only come from that which already has experience. Therefore the faculty of consciousness must be present all the way down the evolutionary tree.

Some single-celled organisms are sensitive to physical vibration, light, and heat. Who is to say they do not have a corresponding glimmer of awareness? I am not implying they perceive as we do, or that they have thoughts or feelings, only that they possess the faculty of consciousness; there is a faint trace of sentience. It may be a billionth of the richness and intensity of our own experience, but it is still there.

According to this view, there is nowhere we can draw a line between conscious and non-conscious entities; there is a trace of sentience, however slight, in viruses, molecules, atoms, and even elementary particles.

Some argue this implies that rocks perceive the world around them, perhaps have thoughts and feelings, and enjoy an inner mental life similar to human beings. This is clearly an absurd suggestion, and not one that was ever intended. If a bacterium’s experience is a billionth of the richness and intensity of human being’s, the degree of experience in the minerals of a rock might be a billion times dimmer still. They would possess none of the qualities of human consciousness–just the faintest possible glimmer of sentience.
 

 

 

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I have argued that the faculty of consciousness is present in all beings.(See Are All Creatures Conscious). Consciousness is not something that emerged with human beings, or with vertebrates, or at any particular stage of biological evolution. What emerged over the course of evolution was not the faculty of consciousness, but the various qualities and dimensions of conscious experience–the contents of consciousness.

The earliest living organisms, bacteria and algae, had no sensory organs and detected only the most general characteristics and changes in their environment. Their experience might be likened to an extremely dim, almost imperceptible hint of light on an otherwise dark screen–virtually nothing compared to the richness and detail of human experience.

With the evolution of multicellular organisms came the emergence of specific senses, enhancing the quality of consciousness. In order to process this information and distribute it to other parts of the organism, nervous systems evolved, integrating the different sensory modalities into a single picture of the world.

As brains grew in complexity, new features were added to the image appearing in consciousness. With mammals the limbic system appeared, bringing feelings such as fear, arousal, and emotional bonding. With time, the mammalian brain grew yet more complex, developing a new structure around it, the cerebral cortex. With this came better memory, focused attention, greater intention, and imagination.

With human beings another new capacity emerged–speech. And with this, the evolution of consciousness took a huge leap forward.

We could use words to communicate experiences with each other. Our awareness of the world was no longer limited to what our senses told us; we could know of events occurring in other places and at other times. We could learn from each other’s experiences, and so begin to accumulate a collective body of knowledge about the world.

Most significantly, we began to use language internally. Hearing words in our minds without actually saying them, allowed us to talk to ourselves. An entirely new dimension had been added to our consciousness–verbal thought. We could form concepts, entertain ideas, appreciate patterns in events, apply reason, and begin to understand the universe in which we found ourselves.

Then came the most important leap of all. Not only could we reflect upon the nature of the world around us, we could also reflect upon thinking itself. We became self-aware–aware of our own awareness. This opened the door to a whole new arena of development. We could begin to explore the inner world of the mind and, ultimately, delve into the nature of consciousness itself.
 

 

 

I mentioned that years ago while following the back and forth between ID proponents and materialistic science I began to see the possibility of another option. The ID proponents arguments are always flawed, but the arguments are based on looking at what appears to be intelligence in the inner world of the human body, for instance. They then logic leap to conclude that that must prove that a supernatural god exists and is responsible for the intelligence.

 

If there's an intelligence in nature, why not assume that it's nature itself which is responsible? In fact, it doesn't make any sense to assert that the intelligence has to do with an outside force. This is more easily explained from the perspective of internal forces of nature, all of which experience awareness on various levels. And this is consistent with the arguments against intelligent design because the arguments consist of showing how bad certain designs are and how an intelligent designer could have easily designed them differently if in fact they were preconceived by such a designer. The human eyes is an example of the futility of ID efforts.

 

But according to the third option, that I see as complimentary to materialistic natural science, nature itself is the only designer at work here and it designs by process of trial and error. It's not perfect and it's not preconceived as you'd expect from some all knowing supernatural entity. But inherent awareness in the material world itself seems to be an aspect of the trial and error processes that take place. 

 

This brings a spiritual element to materialistic science, at least in the sense of naturalistic spiritual concepts such as pantheistic. 

 

 

 

 

 

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A semi serious question.

 

If:

  1. Consciousness is intrinsic to matter; and
  2. The level of organisation/encoded information within any discrete conglomeration of matter determines the level of sentience;

Is my computer, or even my phone, reasonably conscious...???

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On 4/21/2017 at 5:01 PM, Ellinas said:

A semi serious question.

 

If:

  1. Consciousness is intrinsic to matter; and
  2. The level of organisation/encoded information within any discrete conglomeration of matter determines the level of sentience;

Is my computer, or even my phone, reasonably conscious...???

 

According to awareness all the way down, the answer is yes. All of the material components contain atoms and sub atomic particles, as do rocks. If there's inherent awareness down to the sub atomic then everything is an aspect of awareness and it never magically pops up and appears. 

 

Going back to my earlier aside about the WSM physics, one thing that I took from that model was that the awareness doesn't seem to exist until the formation of a particle, which they view as a spherical standing wave vibrating in space as a wave medium. Once that section of space is shaped into a spherical aspect, it immediately can send and receive in and out waves from all the surrounding particles in space. Awareness seems to start there when formless space takes on a form. Prior to form there's nothing which can give and receive energy and information. 

 

So this goes a bit deeper than anything I've read from Russell so far. He round about sees awareness going down to the sub atomic just because the alternative is the magical appearance that no one can seem to pin point. If I keep to standard model point particle physics without the benefit of the WSM to show how two way communication can occur between particles in space, I think the idea of awareness originating with form still holds as the most logical place for it to start. The basic information of distance and location between particles seems to be the first signs of communication in the natural cosmos. Without a centered point, such as with point particles / standing waves, there's nowhere for energy and information to exchange to and from. I hope my writing is descriptive enough, I'll perhaps pull some diagrams of what I'm trying to say later. 

 

Space itself does not seem to experience awareness in the way that a point particle would. And I think this is where we part ways with eastern mysticism that doesn't really take empirical data into consideration. What I'm looking at here is not traditional eastern mysticism that suggests everything is consciousness. The more we zero in the more it looks like the material world contains awareness, but only the material world so to speak and not the blank voids of space. The eastern mystics can only take so much credit in this focus, they just provided an intuitive place to start questioning the extent of consciousness, which can then narrow down to something more substantial. In this more modern way of thinking, space only experiences in awareness in so much as it's role as a medium of exchange between particles, as in it's role of volume in each atom. The energy and information is sent through space from one central point of experience to another. But it's the centralized points existing in space that do the experiencing, so to speak. This is a closer range of adjustment on the magnifying glass of inquiry. 

 

Now scale up from the sub atomic world to the world of phones, computers and devices, and then see the unbroken chain of inherent awareness buzzing through the whole of reality. The whole issue of communication starts way down the scale. And indeed this provides an image of the universe that consists of vast energy and communication exchange across seemingly voids of space interconnecting everything as one totality. Our science and devices simply add to what's already there in terms of awareness and communication by this way of reasoning. And the prospects of AI seem interesting through this type of focus as well. 

 

 

 

 

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Reading through this topic I think what is being discussed is Quantum Theory.

 

At the most basic level of particle splitting scientists have encountered the duality of reality, that is the wave/particle nature of reality. It has been proven that if ' particles ' of light are fired towards a number of openings the particle goes through all of them until you go and check behind the openings. Then you find it only went through one. This means the particle acted like a wave before you checked as a wave would be the thing that could go through all the openings at once.

 

This then leads on to the consciousness thing. The particle is aware you have gone to check which opening it went through and reverts to a particle going through only one opening. 

 

It it also follows that you have influenced the particle into picking an opening. If you never checked it would remain a mystery. I'm paraphrasing here. Its confusing and complicated, duh really, but I read a great book called In Search Of Schrodingers Cat which set it all out in a really readable and comprehensible way. 

 

The question still remains whether science will explain everything. ?

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Reading through this topic I think what is being discussed is Quantum Theory.

 

At the most basic level of particle splitting scientists have encountered the duality of reality, that is the wave/particle nature of reality. It has been proven that if ' particles ' of light are fired towards a number of openings the particle goes through all of them until you go and check behind the openings. Then you find it only went through one. This means the particle acted like a wave before you checked as a wave would be the thing that could go through all the openings at once.

 

This then leads on to the consciousness thing. The particle is aware you have gone to check which opening it went through and reverts to a particle going through only one opening. 

 

It it also follows that you have influenced the particle into picking an opening. If you never checked it would remain a mystery. I'm paraphrasing here. Its confusing and complicated, duh really, but I read a great book called In Search Of Schrodingers Cat which set it all out in a really readable and comprehensible way. 

 

The question still remains whether science will explain everything. ?

@Ablemate the theory of everything always seems like an interesting prospect. The wave based model physicists pretty much have just that, although it's an alternative model. It goes to the tune of everything that exists, exists as part of a continuous space wave medium, infinite and eternal. Everything that exists breaks down to space in motion. The idea is that it's by default the simplest explanation, being that it only involves one thing to explain everything. From that one thing, space wave motion, arises consciousness and everything else. It's a pretty cool framework and it's largely pantheistic in philosophical and spiritual scope. 

 

In terms of the standard model as it is now, a theory of everything isn't so cut and dry. 

 

 

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I am uncertain whether science will ever explain everything - though arguably not as our viewpoints are limited to what can be seen from within the reality of which we are a part.

 

I am pretty sure that science has not explained everything yet, and am reasonably sure that discoveries will throw up at least a many questions as answers, so some way to go for the present, methinks.

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Ellinas You make a good point about from within the reality can science explain everything.

This could be linked to the Quantum theory of the observer having an effect on the results of the experiment s/he is conducting.

We cannot know everything as we are part of the experiment.

I also had another thought in response to this and a post on another thread.

perhaps I could start an experiment on the astral plane. 

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An astral experiment?  Intriguing.

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@TrueScotsman

 

I started this thread a while back to specifically tackle issues of consciousness and awareness from a different perspective than what is usually discussed. I think it's interesting, maybe you will as well. Just thought I'd bring the thread to your attention since you're interested in consciousness and meditation and have your own particular ideas about them. 

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