Justification of conciousness

[dropofahat]

I will have to check on Huxley and the apollonian/dionysian information, i don't usually read too many sources that are overtly ethnobotanical in nature. to do so seems as if I am reinforcing something I "want" to believe, instead of looking for a true persepective.

yes, the heirchy appears to make sense, but who says that the ego after being developed cannot exist in its own right? like a child born into a world that has grown up it looks for nourishment to sustain itself (ie. our attentiion and energy), it may have devised all sorts of tricks and methods to pull this nourishment away from us, and has grown fat and lazy because of the ease of the work needed to direct our response.

when i say baseline, i would say similar or more inline with collective unciousness of the of existence. Or conciousness in its most primal form (primal not in the sense of negative or impaired/less developed) that makes up the plane that is inhabited - the charnel ground maybe?

also, on the particle subject, I don't use those metaphors often becuase I am unfamiliar (haven't read WU LI Dancers in awhile) with anything more than the basics. I have been more inclined to use buddhist and nature metahphors as my mode of transferance, but i should read more into particles - know of any laymens with a tripper's twist?

Also, as far as visions being "real" - I am becoming more resolute in fact that states visited in the "trip" zone are as real as any other - if a man can find solace and repair in these areas who is to say that they are not real?

 

[blue_velvet]

yes, the heirchy appears to make sense, but who says that the ego after being developed cannot exist in its own right?

Just pulling this off the top of my head, but the story came immediately to mind. Satan challenged God. Lucifer wanted to be God, to overthrow God. For this, God exiled Lucifer from the Kingdom of Heaven to spend an eternity in Hell. Of course, Lucifer goes on to have dominion of the World. From a Jungian perspective, this bit of Biblical folklore demonstrates a struggle between the ego and the unconscious. The ego sprang from the unconscious, but then proceeded to assert itself. Satan, as the possessor of the World, influences people to forsake God for the glorification of their egos. Worldly, materialistic, selfish, etc. The Church of Satan, though atheistic in their philosophy, exercise exactly that kind of ego-worship.

 

[DreaMTripper]

Ive started reading The Future of The Mind by Michio Kaku recently (I recommend it, very interesting so far).
He lays out his model of Conciousness, space-time conciousness [YOUTUBE]

Attached another paper that looks thought provoking too.

 

[RAM]

Ive started reading The Future of The Mind by Michio Kaku recently (I recommend it, very interesting so far).
He lays out his model of Conciousness, space-time conciousness

Thank you for this video, it was quite interesting. However Kaku's idea of the Reptilian-Mammalian-Human brain is not new; it was originally proposed by Paul MacLean and popularized by Carl Sagan. You can read more about it here: Triune brain - Wikipedia

This model was also discussed in depth in my favorite book, Prometheus Rising. This is popular in the psychedelic community, and I am sure many here have read it. Any time someone talks about different brains, I always think, oh first circuit, second circuit, third circuit, higher circuits, etc. It's all based on Leary's eight circuit model of consciousness, which I have found to be the most accurate so far in my studies.

Here's a link to that book for anyone who doesn't already have it: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/downloads/04 Prometheus Rising.pdf

Happy travels

 

[DreaMTripper]

Ive started reading The Future of The Mind by Michio Kaku recently (I recommend it, very interesting so far).
He lays out his model of Conciousness, space-time conciousness

Thank you for this video, it was quite interesting. However Kaku's idea of the Reptilian-Mammalian-Human brain is not new; it was originally proposed by Paul MacLean and popularized by Carl Sagan. You can read more about it here: Triune brain - Wikipedia

This model was also discussed in depth in my favorite book, Prometheus Rising. This is popular in the psychedelic community, and I am sure many here have read it. Any time someone talks about different brains, I always think, oh first circuit, second circuit, third circuit, higher circuits, etc. It's all based on Leary's eight circuit model of consciousness, which I have found to be the most accurate so far in my studies.

Here's a link to that book for anyone who doesn't already have it: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/downloads/04 Prometheus Rising.pdf

Happy travels

Indeed it was more his specific model that he is proposing that caught my attention, albeit a very brain/biology-based theory which is actually surprising seeing as he was involved in string theory which is quite far out.
I watched a google hangouts fan interview not long after and what is blatantly obvious is he has very little idea of what psychedelics are about and how they work as he lumped them in the same category as addictive drugs! Very surprised but then I suppose some scientists get caught up in their own field and dont have an interest or motivation to educate themselves in other fields which is fair enough. Still, I expected him to know the difference between opiates and psychedelics.
Thanks for the link will check it out!

 

[rootsie]

I'd have to agree with gibran2's take on this whole issue.

Problem is, you're trying to examine/define/deconstruct something with the only tool you have at your disposal... which just happens to be the very thing you are trying to define. You can't really get outside of it for an "objective" examination of consciousness.

Furthermore, who says there has to be a reason for it anyway? What reasons for your reasons? Turtles all the way down, I say!

Maybe it didn't emerge from anything. Not biology, not complex systems, not god, the big bang or any of it. Maybe it's just always been here... and always will be here. I certainly can't be sure that it hasn't always been around. All I got is stories... stories that are occurring in this phenomenon I call consciousness. A dog chasing it's tail.

And I can't escape it.

 

[RAM]

To that I say: very few things are objective. It's all about making models of these things. Over time the models get better and better, but they never can quite reach perfection. That's why they're models, and that's why science provides the scientific method for better results over time.

As an epistemological solipsist myself, I feel that the only one, true, objective fact is that my consciousness exists right now. Not that it existed a second ago, not that it will exist in a second, but that I am aware currently. There's not really anything else I can know for sure.

There's different levels of this, of course. Some deny the existence of everything else, but my take is: you can't really know if everything else is actually there/real. Not denying it, not saying it's there, just saying you cannot know at this time of an objective reality outside of your awareness.

I have a personal theory that things are there; events like sharing of consciousness is evidence to me of a coexistent reality that we share. But I've never experienced this, even on DMT. So I'm just not sure.

Living in the HERE and NOW is really a great thing (for me at this time)

 

[thymamai]

Turtles all the way down, I say!

Quote For Emphasis

I look to gibran2's response by default, but can't help wanting to find a crack, something to contradict, to topple - it's just so simple, so accurate! how dare he. But I respectfully abstain.

 

[○]

I am a believer of the idea that consciousness not only arises out of complexity but is generally inherent in all of existence. You want to define some kind of threshold of consciousness by which to define it, but what is there below this threshold. And what exactly is problem-solving?
A univesral Turing-machine doesn't solve problems in the sense that it knows it solved a problem - this is a level of abstraction and we have no way of measuring or finding out if the Turing machine possesses this meta-pattern of awareness when it solves a problem. All we can see is information going in, in the form of say a pattern, if you were working with a Universal Cellular Automata, and a pattern coming out. If the system was very complex and hat a lot going on *inside* while it processed the information, we would still have no idea if these interactions within had any kind of awareness of their doings. How could you tell? The pattern, the form of information that it can deal in can't very well suddenly speak our language and tell you, I'M ALIVE!!
So beyond not really having a good definition of consciousness we also have no real way of telling whether something is conscous at all. The time-scale of a different kind of consciousness could be completely different from ours so that a thought could take a million years to form. We have no way of knowing.

But what I don't understand is that if you don't believe that consciousness is a property of matter/energy/space or the physical comsos in general, and the complex interactions of the different stages of energy, what in the world is it then??? For me it is inseparable from existence itself.

Great post and my thoughts exactly.



Consciousness, ime, is the ground of the phenomenal world.

 

[○]

Most of us would propably say: Yes, we've got something we call "consciousness". We are aware of our own mental process. Every thought or feeling can be made aware and reflected upon.

There are two interesting questions:

1. Is it POSSIBLE to justify our knowledge or at least awareness of our conciousness?
Is it logicaly possible to find reasons why we are aware?

2.Do we NEED to justify our conciousness? It seems at least intuitiv to me, that something like that is self evident. But is this a good enough reason to KNOW that we've got conciousness?

1. Possible to justify? Yes. Experience. Relative, but yes.

2. Imo, there's no need to actively justify. Imo/ime, consciousness needs no justification. It's a self evident property of reality. When I look all around me....seems consciousness has all the justification it needs..

 

[SKA]

Most of us would propably say: Yes, we've got something we call "consciousness". We are aware of our own mental process. Every thought or feeling can be made aware and reflected upon.

There are two interesting questions:

1. Is it POSSIBLE to justify our knowledge or at least awareness of our conciousness?
Is it logicaly possible to find reasons why we are aware?

2.Do we NEED to justify our conciousness? It seems at least intuitiv to me, that something like that is self evident. But is this a good enough reason to KNOW that we've got conciousness?

The paradox is that to ask the questions you just asked requires consciousness.

The answer to question 2. is: No, we don't need to justify our consciousness.
Which makes question 1. (Why are we conscious) redundant I think.

I'm assuming you suggest that we may have to explain and prove just why we are conscious beings?
Just in case you only THOUGHT you were conscious, but were really unconscious?


If you were unconscious you would not speak, you would not move, you would not think, you would not question, you could not experience or remember anything.

So the question "am I conscious?" is answered simply:


Yes, or you could not have asked that question.

You would not even experience existing at all.
No consciousness = No experience.
So as long as you are experiencing anything at all, you can be sure that you are conscious.


Off course there are many shades/levels of ignorance in between complete unconsciousness and
complete consciousness and thus some people will be more conscious than other people.
But as long as you can experience anything at all, no matter how shallow or subtile,
you must conclude that you are conscious...


or rather, that you have at least SOME degree of consciousness.