What is consciousness?

[David T]

Ok we can start over. Richard Feynman absolutely refused to step down this path of questioning. If I reframe your question into a clearer statement then maybe you can understand why the question is problematic.

If I say, " as a cretain why is it that 100% of all cretains, are incapable of formulating a a question."

Where exactly is the problem? If I state" you are asking a question!" and the response back "that's a non answer!" how does one go about answering the questioner? If you could enlighten me on how i am suppose to point to the obvious paradox in the original question, then you will realize as to the obvious paradox in the original question and realize it's a parAdox dressed up as if it's meaningful. Which btw is rather normal. I could apply it to construction if you like!!! About the builder who asked " how did the paint determine the locality of the excavation?!! Or the color blue makes for strong trees because we use strong lumber to build blue rooms. "
Makes sense in a certain kind of way but only in a certain kind of way.

 

[godnotgod]

Then what is the right question?

Who, or what, is it that is conscious; that is asking the question? This forces insight into the source of the investigation.

 

[Sonofason]

What is objective what is subjective?

Who, or what, is it that is conscious; that is asking the question? This forces insight into the source of the investigation.

Okay that is indeed a good question...so where do we go to find the answer?

 

[David T]

Okay that is indeed a good question...so where do we go to find the answer?

That indeed is a much much more difficult question!!! When we were the ancients we wrote a story on how difficult the topic is and you may of heard it. The story goes that this topic is so difficult that even the creator (And the creator is understood differently than in modern times closer to the force of star wars than a Disney gepetto) the creator of the logos could manifest into a man, gather close followers, they could watch him raise people from the dead, walk on water, turn water to wine, feed 10,000 with a single loaf of bread and not understAnd a single word of what he was talking about. He would have to then do a little show and tell, and even then his closest followers would be clueless, hidden away baffled by his death, and only one person would understAnd him, and it was her who walked into the room and said "the tomb is empty, he has risen". And the ancients went further, zero amount of reading will get you to understAnd any more than us who walked with him in person.

Good story ehhh!!!! That's exactly how difficult the topic you originally asked is. I can say that same text outrageously says that consciousness is 14 billion years old."in the beginning was the logos the logos was god, the logos is god, he was with god in the beginning." I am absolutely not a Christian as defined in culture today. Closer to john Muir I am all about mother nature. Nature is objective we are subject subjective absolutely to that especially both science and religion.

 

[David T]

Oops typo creator or the logos not creator of the logos that is wildly different.

 

[godnotgod]

What you say may very well be true, that "there is a dormant consciousness at the base of the spine, which, when awakened, shoots up the spinal chord as a very powerful pure white light, illuminating the brain and bringing it to full potential". But I have no knowledge of this being reality, or something that truly exists. Since I don't know, I certainly would not discard the idea. In my life, I have often experienced what I believe to be what the Bible describes as "being filled with the Holy Spirit". In my search for others who also believe they have experienced the Holy Spirit, I have come across this kundalini concept; and according to some of the descriptions by some of the people who claim to at least have some knowledge of this experience, I am left with the impression that the kundalini experience is very similar to experiencing the Holy Spirit. Yet, there is something about the descriptions of the kundalini experience that leaves me with the impression that they may not be the same thing. So I am left without the ability to actually connect them together. If I could do that, it would seem to imply that God's grace may not be just for self proclaimed "Christians", but also anyone who thinks rightly. I'll stop there for now because if one is thinking rightly, he would be incapable of doing wrongly. This is likely the reason that the experience that I often have of the Holy Spirit is so fleeting; because life so often and quickly distracts us from thinking rightly throughout every moment of our lives.

I am not even certain that one could experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit in every moment of his life. It would be incredibly difficult if not impossible to sustain. It would be like trying to bask in the sunlight when your duties obligate you to do something else, to be somewhere else; and that is not even mentioning those moments when we are distracted by temptations and practices that are less than honorable and praiseworthy.

Very good observations.

If you enter "kundalini and the holy spirit" into Google search, you will find many references associating the two. However, you will notice that Christians generally condemn kundalini (and yoga itself) as some kind of evil spirit, while Eastern wisdom see them as the same experience. Christian condemnation of other doctrines and practices is typical, however, and the choice is up to you. But your comment that grace may not be just for Christians is the key here. The Buddha stated that "all sentient beings have Buddha nature", meaning the capability to attain Enlightenment and grace. Yeshua himself told us that 'the kingdom of God is within you', meaning that all are recipients of the gifts of the Incarnation. But as for kundalini, for you to know that it is the Holy Spirit, you would have to go practice it yourself. All I can tell you is that if you decide to do so, do not attempt it on your own; get a good instructor, as the experience is very powerful and can be dangerous.

Eastern thought refers to living fully and continually in the spirit as being 'in the fifth room', (understood as Cosmic Consciousness) and it has been estimated that only about 5% of humanity is doing so. Christians especially would have a difficult if not impossible time of doing so as their doctrine always sees two realities: that of the supernatural having dominance over the natural world, whereas Eastern experience is that the 'two' are actually one and the same. This oneness is termed 'divine union' or 'yoga', and sees The Ordinary as none other than The Miraculous itself. This merging of the seemingly two realities is the practitioner (jiva) becoming Brahman in Hinduism, and Nirvana in Buddhism, where the seeker dissolves into pure Buddha nature. The only place you might find this divine union in Christianity is in mystical Christianity, but not in orthodox Christianity. So a realized individual can go about his day in the ordinary sense, while living completely in the spirit, as he now sees no conflict between the two. The unrealized always see conflict, and are always trying to establish a preference of one over the other, thereby perpetuating conflict, without realizing that the source of the conflict is within himself. St. Paul's dillemma over the spirit and the flesh is classic. I forget the Biblical passage.

 

[godnotgod]

What is objective what is subjective?

Why do you make the distinction? Do you realize you are setting up a subject/object split in asking the question, where no such split actually exists in reality?

 

[Sonofason]

Very good observations.

If you enter "kundalini and the holy spirit" into Google search, you will find many references associating the two. However, you will notice that Christians generally condemn kundalini (and yoga itself) as some kind of evil spirit, while Eastern wisdom see them as the same experience. Christian condemnation of other doctrines and practices is typical, however, and the choice is up to you. But your comment that grace may not be just for Christians is the key here. The Buddha stated that "all sentient beings have Buddha nature", meaning the capability to attain Enlightenment and grace. Yeshua himself told us that 'the kingdom of God is within you', meaning that all are recipients of the gifts of the Incarnation. But as for kundalini, for you to know that it is the Holy Spirit, you would have to go practice it yourself. All I can tell you is that if you decide to do so, do not attempt it on your own; get a good instructor, as the experience is very powerful and can be dangerous.

Eastern thought refers to living fully and continually in the spirit as being 'in the fifth room', (understood as Cosmic Consciousness) and it has been estimated that only about 5% of humanity is doing so. Christians especially would have a difficult if not impossible time of doing so as their doctrine always sees two realities: that of the supernatural having dominance over the natural world, whereas Eastern experience is that the 'two' are actually one and the same. This oneness is termed 'divine union' or 'yoga', and sees The Ordinary as none other than The Miraculous itself. This merging of the seemingly two realities is the practitioner (jiva) becoming Brahman in Hinduism, and Nirvana in Buddhism, where the seeker dissolves into pure Buddha nature. The only place you might find this divine union in Christianity is in mystical Christianity, but not in orthodox Christianity. So a realized individual can go about his day in the ordinary sense, while living completely in the spirit, as he now sees no conflict between the two. The unrealized always see conflict, and are always trying to establish a preference of one over the other, thereby perpetuating conflict, without realizing that the source of the conflict is himself.

I appreciate what you are saying. And this is why I made it a point to say that if you are living rightly in according to the principles of the one true God, and the experience that you experience is the kundilini experience, then it must be a valid experience, and is likely the Holy Spirit, which of course is the title I have learned to place upon the experience. But I am not a Bhudist, so I do not call it kundilini.

I study the Bible always. I meditate on what I read often. And on many occasions I do experience the Holy Spirit. I must say that I know of very few Christians, while I have talked to many Christians, that have experienced the Holy Spirit as I do. And I know of no Christian that has experienced the Holy Spirit with the intensity that I have. And sadly, I know many self professed Christians that have never experienced the Holy Spirit at all. A quick discussion about the Holy Spirit with any Christian reveals to me the ones that are true Christians from the ones that are not. I recall that I was once immersed in the Spirit for about 1 hour. Usually it only lasts for a few seconds, never for more than a few minutes at a time. But shortly after this experience of one hour, I was in my bed about to drift off to sleep, when something vastly different happened to me, but something that I do believe is related. But the power involved in this particular moment lifted me out of my bed and threw me on the floor. I have yet to this day been able to explain that experience. It was as though I had been subjected to 220 volts of electricity.

 

[David T]

Why do you make the distinction? Do you realize you are setting up a subject/object split in asking the question, where no such split actually exists in reality?

There is a split only in context to big- little.

 

[David T]

There is a split only in context to big- little.

Dang i dont know how to edit here yet. The distinctions exist not literal individuations so I get what you are alluding to. Sort of like talking about life and death as literal separates. But if we dont allow for our limitions small in context to large then invariably we can get a rather inflated sense of ourselves. I exist the cosmos exists. If I do not exist the cosmos exists, if the cosmos does not exist I do not exist. I could say the same thing about air so there is a dependency relationship we tend to forget about and pretty soon everything becomes dependent on our thinking and language and math and science tv religion sports entertainment etc. It can rapidly no longer be even connected to breathing and then we need classes to practice breathing or yoga. When we build buildings dependencies are important. In these dialogs dependencies tend to disappear very rapidly and are replaced by our ideas. It's an old issue that even heraclitus addresses 2600 years ago in context to pythagorianism so I am not saying anything new here. It's also alluded to in the tao" what you say the Tao is is not the tao". . I am a guy with what would be called a disabled daughter. She is not about ideas she is about breathing and blowing bubbles. She's fine it's us "smart" folk that can get confused.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Yes, but if Max Planck is correct, that:

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter."

then it is not any particular atom that is itself conscious, but it is the consciousness behind the atom that is aware of the activities of the atom.

You could have at least given the full quote Wikipedia supplies, even if you didn't wish to place it in context or deal with the original German:

• Als Physiker, der sein ganzes Leben der nüchternen Wissenschaft, der Erforschung der Materie widmete, bin ich sicher von dem Verdacht frei, für einen Schwarmgeist gehalten zu werden. Und so sage ich nach meinen Erforschungen des Atoms dieses: Es gibt keine Materie an sich. Alle Materie entsteht und besteht nur durch eine Kraft, welche die Atomteilchen in Schwingung bringt und sie zum winzigsten Sonnensystem des Alls zusammenhält. Da es im ganzen Weltall aber weder eine intelligente Kraft noch eine ewige Kraft gibt—es ist der Menschheit nicht gelungen, das heißersehnte Perpetuum mobile zu erfinden—so müssen wir hinter dieser Kraft einen bewußten intelligenten Geist annehmen. Dieser Geist ist der Urgrund aller Materie.

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This response contains a lot of wordiness, but is quite deficient as an explanation why you answered yes.

1) Atoms are human concepts that rely for their very existence upon physical demarcations yielded by physical theories and empirical findings. In other words, we can say something about atoms because we can construct tools that allow us to register results from tests that allowed us to distinguish parts of what we call molecules from what we mistakenly called atoms.
2) Atom comes from the Greek and Latin for "uncuttable" or indivisible. Atoms were called atoms because we thought they were the building blocks of everything physical. We were wrong. Not only do their exist physical systems that are not composed of atoms, but atoms are composed of parts.
3) Both atoms and their "parts" do not have well-defined properties independent of our conscious observation/measurement of them. In other words, in order to determine that hydrogen atoms compose part of water molecules, we not only have to choose to categorize levels of reductionism, but also ascribe to systems that cannot in principle or practice exist properties that we do to allow us to predict the outcomes of experiments.
In short, to say that hydrogen atoms know that they are components of water molecules would mean that systems that don't exist without our conscious experience of them via measurement/observation have no reality apart from their role in our physical theories but do have some sort of awareness (despite nonexistence).

 

[godnotgod]

You could have at least given the full quote Wikipedia supplies, even if you didn't wish to place it in context or deal with the original German:

• Als Physiker, der sein ganzes Leben der nüchternen Wissenschaft, der Erforschung der Materie widmete, bin ich sicher von dem Verdacht frei, für einen Schwarmgeist gehalten zu werden. Und so sage ich nach meinen Erforschungen des Atoms dieses: Es gibt keine Materie an sich. Alle Materie entsteht und besteht nur durch eine Kraft, welche die Atomteilchen in Schwingung bringt und sie zum winzigsten Sonnensystem des Alls zusammenhält. Da es im ganzen Weltall aber weder eine intelligente Kraft noch eine ewige Kraft gibt—es ist der Menschheit nicht gelungen, das heißersehnte Perpetuum mobile zu erfinden—so müssen wir hinter dieser Kraft einen bewußten intelligenten Geist annehmen. Dieser Geist ist der Urgrund aller Materie.

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

The German is excess baggage, and I posted both for brevity, and applicability to the question at hand. The rest is unnecessary to the meaning I wanted to get across.

 

[godnotgod]

There is a split only in context to big- little.

Any 'split' exists only as a concept in the mind.

 

[godnotgod]

I must say that I know of very few Christians, while I have talked to many Christians, that have experienced the Holy Spirit as I do. And I know of no Christian that has experienced the Holy Spirit with the intensity that I have. .

I think you need to meet up with more mystic Christians, rather than mere Bible thumpers.

 

[godnotgod]

In short, to say that hydrogen atoms know that they are components of water molecules would mean that systems that don't exist without our conscious experience of them via measurement/observation have no reality apart from their role in our physical theories but do have some sort of awareness (despite nonexistence).

Isn't today's physics more about the field, rather than the particle?

 

[David T]

Any 'split' exists only as a concept in the mind.

Well that's an interesting topic godnotgod. It wasn't till 1877 that contemporary science was even aware of the existence of symbiosis in the biosphere. Even contemporary science and religion tend towards a literal animate-inanimate split. In contemporary ecological thinking the Gaia theory is met with either conceptual disdain scientifically, or as a threat religiously. Isn't contempory science and religion more "symbiotic" to each other that literally separate? And yes I agree the split happens in the mind and it happens in the youngest and newest most primaTive part of the brain. It becomes a little dictator so to speak. I spend most of my free time hiking out in wilder parts and away from civilization and nature, cosmos, god, all mean the same exact thing. Websters English dictionary did not cause nature. So it's in that linguist part of the cranium we get tangled up into linguistic definitions that takes on the strangeness of modernity. I think my neurology is best described as synaesthesia, or the blending of the senses I think it tends to be responsible for the art called old religious texts. Artists have painted symbiosis since at least the middle ages. Your view is completely consistent with st. francis of Assisi who articulated a clear statement on evolution 600 years before Darwin. He called it "family of God".

 

[Sonofason]

1) Atoms are human concepts that rely for their very existence upon physical demarcations yielded by physical theories and empirical findings. In other words, we can say something about atoms because we can construct tools that allow us to register results from tests that allowed us to distinguish parts of what we call molecules from what we mistakenly called atoms.
2) Atom comes from the Greek and Latin for "uncuttable" or indivisible. Atoms were called atoms because we thought they were the building blocks of everything physical. We were wrong. Not only do their exist physical systems that are not composed of atoms, but atoms are composed of parts.
3) Both atoms and their "parts" do not have well-defined properties independent of our conscious observation/measurement of them. In other words, in order to determine that hydrogen atoms compose part of water molecules, we not only have to choose to categorize levels of reductionism, but also ascribe to systems that cannot in principle or practice exist properties that we do to allow us to predict the outcomes of experiments.
In short, to say that hydrogen atoms know that they are components of water molecules would mean that systems that don't exist without our conscious experience of them via measurement/observation have no reality apart from their role in our physical theories but do have some sort of awareness (despite nonexistence).

Well, based on what you have said, I believe I stand correct.

 

[Sonofason]

I think you need to meet up with more mystic Christians, rather than mere Bible thumpers.

haha, maybe.

 

[godnotgod]

haha, maybe.

Unless you are already familiar with him, recommended to check out Thomas Merton, for one, anyway.