• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

What does consciousness consist of?

Migrated topic.
^..i like your attitude use any name..
i agree it's pointless without contemplation or observation..
my additional 2c worth>
how do you know there is existence? because of the apparent external world? because of thoughts?
it's usually in reaching the root level of experience that many draw the conclusion that, like we could say existence is existence, that consciousness is consciousness..at the base level..and that that is the only reality we can know..hence it is reality..
but wiser folk than me have stated this more elaborately..
 
Use any name said:
I guess the question what does consciousness consist of is quite vague and maybe you could answer with; Consciousness is everything. I think though that this is equivalent to saying everything is everything and of course everything is everything or all is one or all is god. I personally do not find this answer very interesting anymore as it is not something I can relate to on an everyday basis. My consciousness certainly isn't everything, or it is in the sense that what my consciousness shows me rests upon the fact that by its use certain things are hidden, but that's my point you can't talk about all consciousness or pure consciousness because you can't define it. In it's lack of definition I find myself and my human consciousness and that is what interests me. Do you think that I'm trapped in illusion?
Click to expand...

Your right. It is a very vauge question. I think the thread should be renamed to "What does human consciousness consist of"? That would narrow it down a bit, and people would interpret the question as I intended
 
Synkromystic said:
bub said:
...and the name of God is truth.
Click to expand...

I agree! If God had a name it would be Truth. But once we name something, we have defined it, and once we have defined it, we have limited it. And I would say that God is limitless. 😁
Click to expand...

The hard part is not finding god, it is finding where god is not. limitation is part of being limitless...
 
nen888 said:
^..i like your attitude use any name..
i agree it's pointless without contemplation or observation..
my additional 2c worth>
how do you know there is existence? because of the apparent external world? because of thoughts?
it's usually in reaching the root level of experience that many draw the conclusion that, like we could say existence is existence, that consciousness is consciousness..at the base level..and that that is the only reality we can know..hence it is reality..
but wiser folk than me have stated this more elaborately..

(therefore consciousness would consist of everything)
Click to expand...

I didn't mean to dismiss the experience of some kind of fundamental realization, I just think that in saying it you don't really say anything more than if you had of remained silent. The realization is incomparable to anything else and language compares things.

The thing that is all things but any one thing is not this thing. If it is the one thing then it isn't. Maybe I'm being to stern, it is fun to say.
 
As I feel like I've gone a bit off topic, Synkromystic, what books by Carl Jung have you read?
I think I have one, I haven't read it but am thinking now that I might dig it out.
 
Use any name said:
As I feel like I've gone a bit off topic, Synkromystic, what books by Carl Jung have you read?
I think I have one, I haven't read it but am thinking now that I might dig it out.
Click to expand...

Man and his symbols.

Collected Writings....I think that's the name. Dont have it near me.

And parts of Alchemical studies. I really need to completely finish this one though.

One of my early mentors had read his entire collection, and was the reason I got turned onto Jung

I highly recommend his work. He was a Genius...nearly flawless in his logic in my opinion. And he knew so much more than he came forth publicly, but to prevent being ostracised I believe he kept a lot to himself. But it's for the better. He never would have been so widely accepted had his view strayed too far from the ''norm''.
 
use any name wrote:
I didn't mean to dismiss the experience of some kind of fundamental realization, I just think that in saying it you don't really say anything more than if you had of remained silent. The realization is incomparable to anything else and language compares things.
Click to expand...
..well the title of the thread was 'What does consciousness consist of?' a pretty big question! ..Mind is not Consciousness (by the definitions i accept, anyway) ..consciousness is the experiencer of the mind and it's contents..this is the logical premise that leads to the 'realization', which is beyond language, but people attempt to symbolise it as it comes from experience (meditation etc..)
The thing that is all things but any one thing is not this thing. If it is the one thing then it isn't. Maybe I'm being to stern, it is fun to say.
Click to expand...
..the thing can only be pointed to, not described...let's also not forget 'western' philosophy can't deal with paradoxes..but some would say consciousness is not a 'thing'...the mind contains things, but consciousness is what is aware of them..this is stopping just short of the next step (the big one)
i don't see how this is off-topic :)
Sky Motion wrote:
Likely just a product of the brain
Click to expand...
:)
..
 
The paradox was more like the example in the Tao Te Ching. The other way "the observer of the observed" renders into a infinite regress.

nen888
"...the mind contains things, but consciousness is what is aware of them.."

Would consciousness being aware of them not be the same as consciousness containing them?

The mind contains things, but consciousness is what contains them...

Or does awareness not contain things?

So is it that consciousness contains the thing that contains the thing?

"Nameless is the origin of heaven and earth."
:)

The next step I guess can't be elaborated.
 
use any name wrote:
Would consciousness being aware of them not be the same as consciousness containing them?

The mind contains things, but consciousness is what contains them...

Or does awareness not contain things?

So is it that consciousness contains the thing that contains the thing?
Click to expand...
...hmmm...language is tricky, and i have to watch my language with you use any name :) we could truly go on for 20 pages here (or infinite regress) ..but that's the nature of the OP thread title..and certainly i don't claim to have the ultimate knowledge..just threw my 2c in..my earlier post was a bit sloppy..here's more spare change..

the OP begins with 'pure awareness'...

objects which are seen, or thoughts processed in the mind, can only be experienced through consciousness... (or they wouldn't be known)

in this way, all that is truly being directly experienced is knowledge, which is not the object..

the object is not in the consciousness, as it is the means by which the object is experienced (like the screen i'm looking at isn't in my eyes) but the known existence of the object is comprised of the consciousness (but limited)

pure consciousness (or pure awareness) is where there is no limitation...∞
all objects/thoughts are limited manifestations of consciousness... every 'thing' is comprised of limited consciousness, as there is dualism (object/subject) ..when there is no division between object and subject (or perception itself) there is just existence..
it doesn't contain anything but everything is it..

analogy: the direct current DC electricity doesn't contain the AC which generates the image on the screen in front of me, but the AC and the image are derived from it...

the only answer i can see to the OP thread title is the Absolute

now i will rest my thoughts so as not to inflate the thread :)
 
nice topic :thumb_up:

wish i had more time to comment, but just for now (from Gilles Deleuze's book Bergsonism): "there cannot be a difference in kind, but only a difference in degree between the faculty of the brain and the function of bodies, between the perception of matter and of matter itself".
 
Well... we may never truly be able to feasibly define what consciousness is, with any modicum of accuracy or quantifiable success. Still, I feel that one of the most significant characteristics of consciousness itself, is the questioning of just what exactly, is one's own consciousness, both from the windowsill of one's own awareness of being and the interconnected nature of consciousness, at large.

Perhaps the burning query and the enactment of such searching and pondering, are indeed, the very answer to the question itself? We seem to destined to ask why, even before we arrive at the apex of said pondering. 8)
 
Back
Top Bottom