Non-materialist views of consciousness

I already know what the materialist views of consciousness are, so please don't post with that view. I am interested in non-materialist or hybrid views of consciousness. What is consciousness? Where does it come from? Does it survive death? Is the universe conscious? What counts as consciousness? Are altered states of consciousness "real" in any sense? What is the value of meditative consciousness?

Consciousness for me lies in the mind and the mind lies in the spirit of a human being. It transcends all boundaries, my consciousness is one and yours is the same as mine, we all share one consciousness, the consciousness of Universe. It is an optical illusion, there exist no consciousness, it's just the word for when the mind chooses to see things in its own way and then accept it as real. Nothing is real, no one exist. I am actually speaking to myself by replying to you. Everything is nothingness and an optical illusion I created for myself or you created for Buddha. That's my metaphysical view.

Orbit said:

What is consciousness?

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I view consciousness as the fundamental constituent of everything (Brahman). As it is fundamental, it can't really be understood well in terms of things derived from the fundamental. The best explanation is that Brahman is sat-chit-ananda (pure being-bliss-awareness) but it is not something we can fully grasp intellectually.

Orbit said:

Where does it come from?

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I don't know the answer to that question. But the question might not make sense for something that transcends our concept of a timeframe.

Orbit said:

Does it survive death?

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Here, you are asking about our limited individual consciousness. There is ultimately only One consciousness. The best analogy of individual consciousness is a ray of the universal consciousness shining through a finite form giving it finite abilities. When the form breaks, the ray is unaffected. In the human case we are made of physical/astral/mental/causal bodies. When the outer chain link dies (the physical) the ray becomes focused through the astral body.

Orbit said:

Is the universe conscious?

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Yes, there is only consciousness. Perhaps we can look at the temporary realms as congealed thoughts of the divine.

Orbit said:

Are altered states of consciousness "real" in any sense?

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They're real in that someone is experiencing them. Some might be caused by events in the physical brain and some might be genuine experiences with higher planes.

Orbit said:

What is the value of meditative consciousness?

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By quieting the lower levels of consciousness in meditation, more of the higher levels can be reached giving peace, calmness and sometimes insight from the higher levels of consciousness.

Zulk-Dharma said:

Consciousness for me lies in the mind and the mind lies in the spirit of a human being. It transcends all boundaries, my consciousness is one and yours is the same as mine, we all share one consciousness, the consciousness of Universe. It is an optical illusion, there exist no consciousness, it's just the word for when the mind chooses to see things in its own way and then accept it as real. Nothing is real, no one exist. I am actually speaking to myself by replying to you. Everything is nothingness and an optical illusion I created for myself or you created for Buddha. That's my metaphysical view.

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Do you then believe in life after death in the way the term is used in normal colloquial western speech?

George-ananda said:

Do you then believe in life after death in the way the term is used in normal colloquial western speech?

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I believe in afterlife, but not in the way there exist a literal pit of fire for bad people and a literal Heaven for good people. I believe Paradise is the Universe, it's when you're sleeping and dreaming, your body will rot, but your spirit still transcends through the realms, it's an internal dream of virtue of everything you ever wished for, you get it in your dream, it's a lucid dream, everything feels real and you will never wake up from your dream because it's the best dream and the feeling of sleepiness and wanting to sleep more never perishes, it will forever be there making you feel the best- that's Paradise.

Hell is the same, except it's a dream of nightmares after nightmares, you feel physical pain even though you don't have a body, because materialism is an optical illusion set up by the psychical mind.

What is consciousness?

Besides a poorly-defined, nebulous word that I've grown to dislike about as much as the word "spiritual?" Awareness. And that is the word I prefer to use instead of "consciousness."

Where does it come from?

It's an intrinsic property of individual objects. It doesn't really "come from" anywhere, per se. It just is.

Does it survive death?

Long story short, it's complicated. In the sense you probably mean, no.

Is the universe conscious?

In a sense. Presuming you define the universe as all that is, it has omniscience, or is all-aware.

What counts as consciousness?

Awareness, which happens whenever there is being, whenever there is presence. Different natures produce different kinds of awareness. It is quite important to not regard all types of awareness as equivalent. They are not.

Are altered states of consciousness "real" in any sense?

I'm not really sure what you mean by this question. But considering I always answer the question "is that real" with "yes," I suppose that's your response.

What is the value of meditative consciousness?

It creates a different sense of awareness than normal. I actually define meditation as a state of focused attention or awareness. You will be aware of things in a different way, and therefore learn and experience things in a different way. There is, I think, value in having diverse experiences.

To be transparent here, I tend to stay out of conversations about "consciousness" not just because the term annoys me, but because the topic itself annoys me. I haven't really pinpointed why, exactly. It may be because I'm an animist. It may also be because I'm ecocentric, not anthropocentric, and that conversations about "consciousness" are usually hedged in such a way as to put humans on a special little pedestal. I don't know. I've preferred to keep it simple, mostly by not giving a damn. Forced myself out of my comfort zone by responding to this thread.

What is consciousness?

Self awareness.

Where does it come from?
I believe that it originates with the Absolute (which I call Tao, and others call Brahman, God, Oversoul etc) and manifests in the brain from that divine source.

Does it survive death?
I honestly don't think that it does in any individual sense. I believe that it essentially returns to its source, presumably to animate something else. I would like to think that we might maintain memories or individuality in some way, but I have no clue.

Is the universe conscious?
Yes, I believe so.

What counts as consciousness?
Self awareness.

Are altered states of consciousness "real" in any sense?
Yes, I believe them to provide glimpses into the subconscious, and also that these states can serve as gateways to divine insight.

What is the value of meditative consciousness?
I believe that meditative consciousness is valuable because it takes us out of the illusion of the separate self.
It allows us to touch the rest of our Being (the universe) without little-to-no interference on the part of the ego.

@seekingtruth, it just my words. I fully agree, it sort of is a monist world-view where everyone are of the same entity, which is better described as "thing, everything is one thing," or at least relates to it, that entity is Brahman/Dao/Allah, (etc.).

seekingtruth said:

Does it survive death?
I honestly don't think that it does in any individual sense. I believe that it essentially returns to its source, presumably to animate something else.

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This would 'essentially' be the same for the individual as atheist-materialism.

What is consciousness?
Living thought energy. I think therefore I am.

George-ananda said:

This would 'essentially' be the same for the individual as atheist-materialism.

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You make a good point, and I can definitely see why you would say that. Looking back on what I said there, I want to clarify something...

We both view separation as ultimately an illusion, correct? What I meant to suggest by my comment about returning to the source, was spiritually returning to the Divine (or more accurately, to attain total awareness, for I believe that we are the divine). Thus, as the One, we see everything clearly...from this vantage I believe that experiences we have had do matter, and they do carry on in some way. When I said that I didn't think consciousness survived death in an individual sense, what I meant was the survival of the individual soul. When I said "presumably to animate something else" I was assuming some form of reincarnation.

I certainly do not dismiss the soul (which I consider to be consciousness), but I tend to think of it as a small portion of the greater Soul (consciousness). Like...a tide pool seems to be separate from the ocean for a time. It has it's inner workings and a whole identity of it's own. Then, the Ocean reclaims it for a time again before pouring Itself into another vessel.

seekingtruth said:

You make a good point, and I can definitely see why you would say that. Looking back on what I said there, I want to clarify something...

We both view separation as ultimately an illusion, correct? What I meant to suggest by my comment about returning to the source, was spiritually returning to the Divine (or more accurately, to attain total awareness, for I believe that we are the divine). Thus, as the One, we see everything clearly...from this vantage I believe that experiences we have had do matter, and they do carry on in some way. When I said that I didn't think consciousness survived death in an individual sense, what I meant was the survival of the individual soul. When I said "presumably to animate something else" I was assuming some form of reincarnation.

I certainly do not dismiss the soul (which I consider to be consciousness), but I tend to think of it as a small portion of the greater Soul (consciousness). Like...a tide pool seems to be separate from the ocean for a time. It has it's inner workings and a whole identity of it's own. Then, the Ocean reclaims it for a time again before pouring Itself into another vessel.

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Good clarification. You, I think, were more looking at things from the ultimate perspective. I was looking at the more 'common man' question of life after death. I was taking your comments to mean that individuality dies at death of the physical body (maybe that is what you mean) which would 'essentially' be the same for the individual as what atheist-materialists believe.

My view is the average John Doe has consciousness through a soul directing mental/astral/physical bodies (creating an individual). When the physical body dies consciousness continues for some years through the astral body on the astral plane. In fact at first you are not even aware you are 'dead' as reported in NDEs. It might be I'm describing the same process as you but I'm looking at it in smaller steps.

I think you are right, and that we were talking about the same process.
I have tendency to look to the ultimate conclusion of things, and sometimes I forget to elaborate, as if I tend to forget that people can't read my mind.

Well, I was more saying that the illusion of separate (disconnected) being ends, but you are right in that this in itself doesn't address NDEs and other experiences people have had.
When I am trying to say is that ultimately, we are all One. Because of this, individuality does not ever cease to exist, but it actually never existed in a truly separate sense.

I do believe in the survival of at least some form of individuality, but not in the sense of eternal, and truly disconnected individuality (as believed in many traditions).
I also hold it very possible that individuals could still manifest from the One after death.

I have honestly not sat down and contemplated life after death in any length for some time, and I have done so much less so since officially leaving Christianity about a year and a half ago. I have mainly been focusing on living a good life, honoring the divine in all things. It is good to discuss this, and it is leading me to think and meditate on these ideas a bit more. And I always appreciate the insight of someone with more life experience than I have.

Orbit said:

What is consciousness?

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I was flummoxed by the thread right away because I don't know what the answer to this question is. I'm not sure that anyone really knows "what" consciousness is, or how to define it in an exact way. David Chalmers, in his very interesting 1997 book The Conscious Mind, which advances a "property dualism" account of the so-called hard problem of consciousness, begins like this:


From the standpoint of non-materialist, naturalistic philosophical accounts of consciousness (property dualism and panpsychism, most generally), the most important thing he said in that introduction, as far as the thesis that consciousness is non-physical, is the assertion that it can't be described in more primitive terms. That is: it doesn't reduce to something more fundamental, i.e something physical. That intuition (and it's purely an intuition, not the conclusion of an argument), that the phenomenal what-it-is-like-ness of awareness can't possible be reducible, is central to non-materialist accounts of consciousness. That intuition is what the "hard problem of consciousness" refers to.

Orbit said:

Where does it come from? Does it survive death? Is the universe conscious?

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Some of these questions might be difficult because they might conflate certain religious questions about the nature of "soul" or "spirit" with the philosophical question about materialism and consciousness.

For naturalists like Chalmers, in some sense consciousness is a fundamental part of nature. But the entire point of concocting ideas like property dualism or panpsychism is that those philosophers do not advocate for some sort of idealism, as in the idea that only consciousness is real. They think that the physical universe is real. They are realists in that idealist/realist philosophical paradigm. So consciousness "comes from" the same nature that electrons come from, even though there is something about conscious experience itself which doesn't reduce to descriptions of physical particles. From that naturalistic standpoint, individual consciousness of some entity does not survive death (or at least there is no particular reason to believe that it does under naturalism). Under panpsychism, which conceives of a sort-of reduction of human conscious experience into more primitive "proto-conscious" states that are associated with the physical universe, there is some sense in which the universe is "conscious", albeit it would not be a consciousness exactly like human consciousness.

Obviously from various religious standpoints, consciousness is associated with something like mind or psyche distinct from body such that consciousness survives death because it subsists in that non-physical soul or mind, but it's worth noting that "non-materialist accounts of consciousness" don't necessarily entail consciousness after death.

Orbit said:

What counts as consciousness?

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If it's difficult to identity exactly what consciousness is, than it would be harder to delineate what counts as consciousness. But broadly, according to the way Chalmers talks about it, and what I think is the most useful description, anything that has a subjective experience of awareness is conscious (that what-it-is-like-to-be-ness), insofar as we can determine that those experiences exist for a given entity. The problem is we do not experience that subjectivity of the other directly, we only infer it from what we can observe: behavior and language mostly. This brings up the interesting philosophical problem of p-zombies, from the standpoint of naturalistic non-materialist accounts of consciousness.

Orbit said:

Are altered states of consciousness "real" in any sense? What is the value of meditative consciousness?

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Altered states of consciousness are real in the sense that they are real states of consciousness, but their content may not have an external referent in the world. It's useful to distinguish between the reality of the awareness and the reality of the referents of the contents of a specific awareness.

From a purely naturalistic standpoint, meditative consciousness may be useful because it can help a person to feel more peaceful and happy, reduce stress, or etc. In other words there are reasons to think that meditation may be useful for people in a purely practical way detached from any particular metaphysics or religious ideology. From a religious standpoint, there are many mystical traditions which assert that the ultimate experience and fullfilment of human life is found via meditation or contemplation. That "God" in whatever sense is "hidden in the cave of the heart", i.e in interior experience as a cultivated practice that involves conscious awareness.

Orbit said:

I already know what the materialist views of consciousness are, so please don't post with that view. I am interested in non-materialist or hybrid views of consciousness. What is consciousness? Where does it come from? Does it survive death? Is the universe conscious? What counts as consciousness? Are altered states of consciousness "real" in any sense? What is the value of meditative consciousness?

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hey Orbit, thought I would chime in

What is consciousness?

It is the internal universe, our internal universe. It is everything that is meaningful to us, it constitutes our existence. Philosophically, I think the two main components of consciousness are subjective experience and intentionality.

Where does it come from?

I don't know, it just is. Just like the universe just is, we don't know where it came from either. Some things are beyond our understanding.

Does it survive death?

I think it does, although more so in the way the Buddhists believe. I think a shell of our former selves continues on, but our karma is what is carried forward. We must strive to improve our karma as much as possible within each life. There is some interesting work by Ian Stevenson and Jim B Tucker on reincarnation research

Is the universe conscious?

If our brain, as a system has consciousness then I cannot see why other systems cannot pose consciousness. In fact it would make sense that all systems have some degree of consciousness and that includes the universe.

What counts as consciousness?

I define anything as having an internal sense of subjectivity as having consciousness, and since I cannot even prove if other humans have that I have to accept that all systems have their own sense of subjectivity.

Are altered senses of consciousness real in any sense?

Yes I think they are, I think they are ways of our own mind to connect to the universal consciousness.

What is the value of meditative consciousness?

The value lies in attaining peace and enlightenment, it helps your brain settle down and it helps you feel much at peace. And all of us can use a little more peace in our lives .