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What is consciousness?

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Interesting. I'm next door to another most livable city, Vancouver, Canada. :) It's about 2 hours away from my island paradise. I can make an incredible vegetable curry!

I do a neat stir-fry vegetable dish - garlic, chilli, ginger and assorted vegies and rice but we're getting a LONG way off the topic of consciousness aren't we :)

I suppose it doesn't really matter where you live IF you have the "right" mind-set - there - we are BACK on topic! :)
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
I do a neat stir-fry vegetable dish - garlic, chilli, ginger and assorted vegies and rice but we're getting a LONG way off the topic of consciousness aren't we :)

I suppose it doesn't really matter where you live IF you have the "right" mind-set - there - we are BACK on topic! :)
I like you @Geoff-Allen you're cool :cool:
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
Yes. Yes. I know we all HAVE it but what IS it?

Where is your consciousness located?

Where exactly do our thoughts come from?

How can meditation alter your consciousness?

How does a lump of grey matter inside your skull produce the experience of being alive?

How is it possible to be aware that you are aware?

How is it possible to be aware that you are aware that you are aware?

As you may have guessed, I am in another of my reflective moods.

Any feed-back would be welcome - the more creative the better!

Enjoy your day!


The concept of physical hardware, merely constituting a vessel, for information that is accessed remotely from a shared cloud of knowledge.. was considered inherently supernatural not so long ago

It's a little trickier now, to try to explain how our consciousnesses could exist without such a thing. This principle is the one carrying the burden of proof today
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
All in the neurons. Just as our brain processes information between synapses to our bodies (like 0011s to a computer) so are the repetition of thoughts or already received information playbacking when we solve novel equations such as taking old material and thinking about it to form new. I took a neuropsych test about a month ago and it said I had problems processing information. So the verbal words that go in my head has to take neuronic time to process before storage. If it was something supernatural, then why would it involve my neurons and how can they pick up when one is thinking and when one is not.



The brain both hemispheres.


Recycled neuronic information received, process, and interpreted for output.



Breathing exercises can calm the nerves (for me prevent seizures, for example), help with oxygen to the brain and body, so that the information we take in an process, can be verbally and physically outputted in a healthy way.


Awareness of being alive usually happens with a clear and healthy brain. So, if one isn't suffering from depression or have stress, they are more aware of their surroundings and what's going on with their body and mind than those distracted by internal and/or external problems that may influence such awareness. A lot of it is subconscious and people feel they get a "insight or an aha!" moment when they can be aware clearly for that minute without distraction.


Reflection and insight meditation


Umm... reflection, insight meditation?

That one's confusing.

By your computer analogy, our brains require creative input from an external source to function, I'd agree with this- for both their design and function
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
The concept of physical hardware, merely constituting a vessel, for information that is accessed remotely from a shared cloud of knowledge.. was considered inherently supernatural not so long ago

It's a little trickier now, to try to explain how our consciousnesses could exist without such a thing. This principle is the one carrying the burden of proof today

Yes - it sure is a DEEP mystery! Sure makes life interesting!

Getting a little away from your post ...

We all - or most of us - experience an altered state-of-consciousness daily - dreams. They seem perfectly "real" until you wake up and realise it was "only" a dream.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
By your computer analogy, our brains require creative input from an external source to function, I'd agree with this- for both their design and function

Well, if by computers, yeah. Im not too familar with computers though. With humans, I can literally stress myself out with my thoughts and get myself sick because Im exciting the nerves in my body outside their normal rythem. Nothing external needed.

I guess for some people life needs an external cause. Id say life cause is internal unless there is another demension outside this life.
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
Yes - it sure is a DEEP mystery! Sure makes life interesting!

Getting a little away from your post ...

We all - or most of us - experience an altered state-of-consciousness daily - dreams. They seem perfectly "real" until you wake up and realise it was "only" a dream.

That's true though, the dream feels 100% real, yet when you wake up, you 'know' this waking state is more real.. what's really the fundamental difference?

We learn more about how information works, by using it, we begin to appreciate the vast amount and speed of sophisticated information handling needed to play a movie in our heads, one that seems apparently generated on demand ... it gets more and more difficult to write this off as spontaneous, random, unguided, with no creative input driving it
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
Well, if by computers, yeah. Im not too familar with computers though. With humans, I can literally stress myself out with my thoughts and get myself sick because Im exciting the nerves in my body outside their normal rythem. Nothing external needed.

I guess for some people life needs an external cause. Id say life cause is internal unless there is another demension outside this life.

It's true, we can alter what is happening in our bodies by our thoughts, some obvious, some not so- but your own free will is the instigator yes?

I think life needs an external cause for the same reason this and the computer does; automated function does not equal automated design and creation, I think the opposite argument holds up far better:

You cannot ever truly create anything, without creativity, it's a paradox
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
We learn more about how information works, by using it, we begin to appreciate the vast amount and speed of sophisticated information handling needed to play a movie in our heads, one that seems apparently generated on demand ... it gets more and more difficult to write this off as spontaneous, random, unguided, with no creative input driving it

Yes - if most people knew the content of my dreams they would have me instantly committed! :)

Keep on dreaming!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
"Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, a veritable butterfly, enjoying itself to the full of its bent, and not knowing it was Chuang Chou. Suddenly I awoke, and came to myself, the veritable Chuang Chou. Now I do not know whether it was then I dreamt I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man."
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Just felt like posting this! It may just help to clue you in to people like me ...

From a great little book called "The Troubled Mind":

Since the beginnings of recorded history, man has been fascinated with the insane, with their deranged feeling, thinking, and behaviour. Insane people with fanciful delusions have at times attracted large numbers of adherents, who looked upon their psychotic leaders as prophets or as saviours of some sort. The alluring properties of the "prophet's" message may be more than just a beckoning of a way to escape from the boredom of everyday life. I suspect that many followers are riveted by a peculiarly intoxicating quality of psychotic ecstasy conveyed by the "mad" leader.

The psychiatric disease that converts man into an other-worldly creature - at once wiser than the wisest of the sane and yet so deeply troubled that he suffers more than a terminal cancer patient - is surely schizophrenia. Because of his bizarre loss of contact with everyday reality, the schizophrenic can appeal to us as a messiah bearing the message of the infinite. For our conception of the universe is bounded by the straitjacket of conventional thinking processes. A schizophrenic's self-perception is so fragmented that he seems to function at a different plane of consciousness from the rest of humanity. Some psychiatrists who have dealt extensively with schizophrenics even wonder whether the schizophrenic's "psychotic" perception of the world might not conform more to ultimate reality than does our sane vision.

Because of such doubts, Ronald Laing, a Scottish psychiatrist, questions whether schizophrenia should be viewed as a disease at all in the ordinary sense. He feels that the schizophrenic experience may be quite a natural one. In schizophrenia, individuals, for unclear reasons, have entered into an "inner world" that part of their psyche which is unconscious most of the time and which contains many of the primitive instinctual elements "discovered" by Freud. He views the schizophrenic episode as a potentially enriching experience, perhaps reminiscent of a psychedelic trip on LSD. "This journey is experienced as going further in, as going back through one's personal life and back and through and beyond into the experience of all mankind, of the primal man, of Adam and pehaps even further into the beings of animals, vegetables and minerals" If society would only allow them to embark on this journey unimpeded by social pressures, psychiatrists or tranquilizing drugs, they would emerge from it as better people.

' ... which we clasp rather tenuously. To learn how delicate are your claims on reality, all you need do is ingest a moderate dose of LSD. The most frightening and yet most uplifting experience that psychedelic drugs elicit is the merging of the self with the universe. After first being fascinated with the perceptual changes produced by the drug, you may begin to wonder about the boundaries of your own body and soul. You feel yourself shrink to a pinpoint or expand to fill the room. Soon you begin to wonder where you leave off and the rest of the world begins. The ultimate consequence of this sensation - which is almost impossible to describe in words - is a fusion of the self with the infinite, man with God, your body with the rest of the universe. This is the ultimate beatific experience of Eastern and Christian mystics, something they strive for during years of meditation, but ...'

'Only when Laing's utopian age of nonpsychiatry comes to pass will everyone presumably realise that schizophrenia need not be a disease but instead a uniquely enriching life experience, like sexual intercourse. He argues, "The laugh's on us. They [the ex-schizophrenics] will see that what we call 'schizophrenia' was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary people, the light began to break through the cracks in our all-too-closed minds ... perhaps we will learn to accord to the so-called schizophrenics who have come back to us, perhaps after years, no less respect than the often no less lost explorers of the renaissance.'

Unfortunately (or maybe not), our library seems to have misplaced this book. Either that or somebody has eaten it or just didn't feel like returning it to the library. Have'nt found all that much about it on the world-wide-web so you'll just have to be satisfied with those glimpses ...

I believe the author's name was Solomon Snyder.

Another fabulous book about schizophrenia that few people have heard of is "The Three Christs of Ypsilanti" - I highly recommend it 2 anyone with an open mind - but there are few minds more "open" than mine :)

It is a tale from BEFORE psych meds were so widespread. The researchers gathered together three patients with schizophrenia and place them on the same ward. Each of them believed they were Christ.

A terrific read if you're into that kind of thing.

Officially, schizophrenia is a "chemical imbalance" in the brain. It causes delusions and hallucinations. There are meds for it now and thankfully few side-effects!

"If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia."

~ Thomas Szasz

That's a LOT to absorb - take your time if you feel like replying.
 
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Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
It's true, we can alter what is happening in our bodies by our thoughts, some obvious, some not so- but your own free will is the instigator yes?

I think life needs an external cause for the same reason this and the computer does; automated function does not equal automated design and creation, I think the opposite argument holds up far better:

You cannot ever truly create anything, without creativity, it's a paradox

I think creation is an illusion. Everything alresady existed. We are just using already existed items to form or build something we consider new.

If anything, life "created" itself. How would The Buddha put it, nothing just appears it just keeps changing form.
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
I think creation is an illusion. Everything alresady existed. We are just using already existed items to form or build something we consider new.

If anything, life "created" itself. How would The Buddha put it, nothing just appears it just keeps changing form.

That was the preferred atheists stance before Big Bang, no creation = no creator

But as far as we can possibly tell, there was a specific and literal creation event, of all space/time matter/energy as we can possibly ever know it, followed by the creation of many sophisticated designs that life relies on, life itself, and the creation of ever more sophisticated life forms.

Don't we agree that creative input was required for this, whether it be from Buddha or someone else?
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
That was the preferred atheists stance before Big Bang, no creation = no creator

But as far as we can possibly tell, there was a specific and literal creation event, of all space/time matter/energy as we can possibly ever know it, followed by the creation of many sophisticated designs that life relies on, life itself, and the creation of ever more sophisticated life forms.

Don't we agree that creative input was required for this, whether it be from Buddha or someone else?

I disagree. With The Buddha, he just taught about his observances.

Think of a plant. A plant wasnt created from nothing. The seed, water, and sunlight already exists. The seed grew (change form) to what "we know" is a flower. We should be able to test creation from nothing just as the plant would grow the same way thousands of years ago (case in point) as it does today. Laws of physics dont change.

I honestly feel its a persons fear of the unknown and it could be possible (which I believe is a fact) that something wasnt created but existed and formed from what we know and can observe today. I havent heard a scientist break up an atom so small that it disapears. So why would we think something just appears.

Some atheist seem to fall on everything came from the big bang. But the particles of the big bamg already existed so from your view, it should go further back than the big bang. Maybe humans have trouble thinking they could have no origin.

I mean, it makes sense why we dont. To think about it probably makes people feel they have no purpose. Unless a scientist can make something disapear or we can reinvent an appearance of a non existant thing, so far I see no prove of needing an origin. Just a combination of existing things to bring together a d bloossom what we now call life.
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
I disagree. With The Buddha, he just taught about his observances.

Think of a plant. A plant wasnt created from nothing. The seed, water, and sunlight already exists. The seed grew (change form) to what "we know" is a flower. We should be able to test creation from nothing just as the plant would grow the same way thousands of years ago (case in point) as it does today. Laws of physics dont change.

Plants did not exist 4 billion years ago, they appeared at some point, they rely on a vast amount of information, literal digital information, to achieve reproduction. Just as an automated watch factory may reproduce watches by it's own 'natural laws'. automated function does not equate to automated creation, in fact the only proven source for this phenomena IS creative intelligence

I honestly feel its a persons fear of the unknown

and a good way to ease this fear is to believe that there is no unknown, just a materialistic automated machine that 'just is' for no particular reason

I certainly found this very comforting when I believed in it, and yes the alternative can come with some unsettling implications, but implications should not be allowed to guide conclusions, that's exactly why the big bang was rejected as 'religious pseudoscience' for so long

and it could be possible (which I believe is a fact) that something wasnt created but existed and formed from what we know and can observe today. I havent heard a scientist break up an atom so small that it disapears. So why would we think something just appears.

Some atheist seem to fall on everything came from the big bang. But the particles of the big bamg already existed so from your view, it should go further back than the big bang. Maybe humans have trouble thinking they could have no origin.

I mean, it makes sense why we dont. To think about it probably makes people feel they have no purpose. Unless a scientist can make something disapear or we can reinvent an appearance of a non existant thing, so far I see no prove of needing an origin. Just a combination of existing things to bring together a d bloossom what we now call life.

I take your point, but by that rationale; Leonardo DaVinci did not create the Mona Lisa, because the atoms in the paint already existed? Okay. but this definition simply removes 'creation', by removing the very meaning of the word. It does nothing to remove the necessity of an intelligent creator for the artwork, to arrange the atoms in this 'non-creation'. And a single painting is selling the universe pretty short!

It was once believed that everything ran on a handful of simple classical laws + lots of time and space to randomly bump around in, and this was enough to account for all the wonders of the world. But it required a vast amount of information to operate as it does, this cannot simply write itself accidentally..
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
It's funny, but I actively avoid using the word consciousness. It's become right up there with "spiritual" in terms of useless gobbledygook words for me. :sweat:
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Plants did not exist 4 billion years ago, they appeared at some point, they rely on a vast amount of information, literal digital information, to achieve reproduction. Just as an automated watch factory may reproduce watches by it's own 'natural laws'. automated function does not equate to automated creation, in fact the only proven source for this phenomena IS creative intelligence

I dont understand creative intelligence. A plant "created" itself. Saying anyThing or anyOne created anything is to me like a science fiction movie.

and a good way to ease this fear is to believe that there is no unknown, just a materialistic automated machine that 'just is' for no particular reason

There is an unknown unless we claim to know everything. The Buddha taught to be comfortable and clear minded in understanding of this unknown because what we dont know causes suffering. It literally "just is." Can we live with that or?

I certainly found this very comforting when I believed in it, and yes the alternative can come with some unsettling implications, but implications should not be allowed to guide conclusions, that's exactly why the big bang was rejected as 'religious pseudoscience' for so long

I dont understand the big bang just as I dont understand god as a creator.

I take your point, but by that rationale; Leonardo DaVinci did not create the Mona Lisa, because the atoms in the paint already existed? Okay. but this definition simply removes 'creation', by removing the very meaning of the word. It does nothing to remove the necessity of an intelligent creator for the artwork, to arrange the atoms in this 'non-creation'. And a single painting is selling the universe pretty short!

Creation is an illusion. Its ego when taken seriously like claimong knowledge of how the universe got here. Many artists and writers know we didnt "just" make things up. There is a beautiful quote that says: Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.” We are all interconnected as artists.

Its not belittlement. Its taking out "I create" to based our creation on the thoughts and works of many before us. "We" created...

It was once believed that everything ran on a handful of simple classical laws + lots of time and space to randomly bump around in, and this was enough to account for all the wonders of the world. But it required a vast amount of information to operate as it does, this cannot simply write itself accidentally..

It sure can. Accieental? No. Its just the laws of nature. Whether we want to find patterns and meaning is up to us. Nature lives without us. It doesnt need god for its survive. That is human understanding and application to how they think the universe is here.

The fact that, say, buddhist dont think that way is a huge sign that this isnt a universal fact that can be observed but ones personal belief. Which is alright. Its only fact when its universal. Creative intelligence is not.
 

shivsomashekhar

Well-Known Member
Yes. Yes. I know we all HAVE it but what IS it?

You do not have consciousness; you are within it.

Where is your consciousness located? - There is no location.

Where exactly do our thoughts come from? - Consciousness. But consciousness is itself a thought too.

How can meditation alter your consciousness? - It cannot.

How does a lump of grey matter inside your skull produce the experience of being alive? - It does not. The lump of grey is within consciousness - not the other way around.

How is it possible to be aware that you are aware? - Through thought, inference.

How is it possible to be aware that you are aware that you are aware? - Through thought, inference.
 

SalixIncendium

अहं ब्रह्मास्मि
Staff member
Premium Member
It's funny, but I actively avoid using the word consciousness. It's become right up there with "spiritual" in terms of useless gobbledygook words for me. :sweat:

I find my myself a bit disappointed by this statement. Please tell me more about why you find these words to be 'useless gobbledygook'.
 
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