Consciousness, A Discussion

An internal representation of an external event is always going to be a symbolic representation. Internally representations are multiplied, meaning symbols made of symbols, etc. We have advanced symbolic representations that multiply far more than animals, which allow us to not only express ourselves through overt external action, such as fight/flight or marking territory, making warning noises, etc. but through advanced systems of symbols such as language.

I can't think of how we could do otherwise.

 

The problem is that we are as much a relationship, a symbiosis between ourselves and our environment as we are individually existing systems. Relationships are unpredictable, and I don't think you can really call them purely physical. The dynamics of all relationships are in constant flux. There is no lasting physical state. So I think the real thing here is what is meant by something's being physical. Physical things are supposed to be tangible, yet we know they are ever changing, never "the same" as they were. What is something that is never the same as it once was? How can you define that as something physical, something concrete?

It is more like a phantasm to begin with. To use consciousness to try to measure itself would be like finding a ruler on the ground and suggesting that it must be a foot in length because it has writing on it that says it's twelve inches long. But is the ruler really an accurate measurement of itself, or would it be more prudent to use another ruler, and another ruler to measure it, to see if it's truly a foot in length?

 

(I also posted this in Top Ten Failed Proofs of God or whatever it's called)

The nature of consciousness WILL at some point be the proof of God's existence. Notice how Religion can never please Science and Science can't pinpoint what Consciousness actually is? How is it not obvious that the true nature of Consciousness is the bridge and answer to these questions?

Even moreso than Religion, Spirituality and the quest for Enlightenment are also dealing with the Mystery of Consciousness. Gnosis, Samadhi, Kundalini Awakening, all are pointing to the same thing and are dealing with coming into an experiential contact with the nature of Consciousness. This is why Science should begin studying these so-called Mystical experiences. Everything is eventually going to point back to the nature of Consciousness.

There are even direct quotes from the Gospel of Thomas (left out of the Bible) that has Jesus talking about realizing that the Kingdom of Heaven is within and yet is also everywhere, and finding your own Immortality. This is also what the things that i already listed are dealing with. Coming into your own Immortality doesn't mean living forever, it means that you come into contact with that which survives death and has gone through multiple incarnations. AKA the Soul. Death then becomes very transparent. It's only terrifying to the Ego, which is your false sense of Self. Coming into an Awakening of your Consciousness reveals your True Self. You can then perform your True Will.

This again points to the notion that Science has yet to prove that Consciousness originates in the brain, even though that view is clung to tightly by many Scientists. Therefore, it has become a dogma and world-view, and is guilty of that which it blames and claims only Religion to do. The brain could just as easily be a receiver, like a radio, channeling Consciousness from a Cosmic source.

If you are a skeptic into the nature of these experiences, then you must also be a skeptic to the DMT experience, and call it a mere "hallucination of the mind". You might as well call watching a movie the same thing. Or going to a concert. Or even talking to your friends. If everything can be broken down as a hallucination, then you might as well throw that word out. The experience itself is still real.

 

here's the Gospel of Thomas

http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html

 

Yes, this is why Magick can be a useful tool. You are purposefully putting symbolism into your subconscious and then the manifestation seems "magical" but is actually just a natural result of what was at first rolling around in your subconscious.

If anyone considers putting symbolism into your subconscious a non-powerful or non-legitimate thing, then what do you think advertisement is doing 24/7? What do you think brand name logos are for?

This is why i posted the Psychology vs. Science discussion.

 

The places to start here would likely be Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area which are linked to Speech Production and language comprehension respectively. These are separate areas, however I think they reside roughly in the same part of the brain. You are suggesting that neruonal connections and pathways develop between them based on various cues over time?

By the same token, the hallucinations in a Crystal Meth Psychosis is as much a reality as playing with your pet cat and dog. I think that's erroneous thinking, a logical fallacy of false equivalence you're making. However, hallucinations do raise an even more complex issue surrounding consciousness. Admittedly, DMT is a mind-blowing experience that can allow the user to tap into parts of mental realm that would otherwise lay dormant for perhaps their entire lives, which I do see value in experiencing, but I don't think introducing exogenous chemicals with a pharmacological effect necessarily makes the experience 'real'. With the movie example and the concert example we recognize that the experience is residing 'out there' . i.e. there is a movie being projected onto a screen and there is a band up on the stage, during the DMT experience there is no correlate of 'out there', certainly not one that could be verified by other people.

You do raise an in interesting issue though, Can we 'directly apprehend reality' with our own mind? and I am curious what Okiefreak makes of hallucination in relation to consciousness...

 

But isn't a Crystal Meth Psychosis as much of a reality as anything else? It may not be to the person not experiencing it, just as it wouldn't be as real of an experience to hear your friend tell of his experience of going on a rollercoaster. It never happened to the person listening, so it's just as "unreal" as the person on Meth for the person witnessing or hearing about it. On the other hand, the experience of going on a rollercoaster and doing Meth is very much real.

And isn't there also an out-there experience with DMT, afterall? Many people describe very similar experiences of hyperspace and the tunnel and even contacting entities. Sure, there are slight differences per person, just as there are slightly or even widely different experiences of two different people going to the same concert.

 

Again, there is a physical location ' out there' where the rollercoaster is located, which is an important part of validation in the story. Are you even considering the things others say or do you prefer to just keep on talking?

In regards to DMT similarities, You brought up your admiration for Carl Jung in the thread about Psychology, I am very surprised you are not able to make a connection here to one of his main ideas, perhaps these experiences are tapping into a "collective unconscious" which may account for their similarities. But who knows, maybe there is an area of the mind that becomes untethered from the body in these experiences.

 

I have considered it to be the Collective Unconscious, actually, and there's no reason to assume that this isn't a collective location.

So when you get drunk, you are arguing that the experience isn't real?

 

There is an intoxication that is real when you drink, but just because you drink enough to feel like the room is spinning, doesn't mean in reality the room is actually spinning in such a way.

I think the phenomena experienced on psychedelics is quite a bit more novel and complex than the alcohol example, I am not so willing to discredit that aspects of it cannot be as 'real' as reality, but we cannot just assume the content of a trip is real just because we have some remote perceptions of it or they make us feel a certain type of way.

 

It all comes down to what you consider to be Real then.

In the same way, the Earth and the ground you walk on appear to be standing still, when in fact it is spinning. Likewise, when you are intoxicated, different things are happening in your brain and body, and the experience of spinning is absolutely real, because it makes you dizzy and you literally can't stand up. If everyone else in the room got intoxicated, they would get similar or the same effects. If you start puking, that's very much an out-there experience happening because of being intoxicated.

If being drunk is a hallucination, then so is standing still a hallucination, and a collective one.

You are arguing that there is nothing "out-there" that's making you spin. Yes there is, and it's the alcohol. In order for the out-there experience of watching a movie to happen, you need the necessary tools and mechanics behind it for your experience of it. And if you can argue that watching a movie is real, then you can also argue that being drunk is real, or having a dream for that matter. It's real, because it happens.

 

I found this interesting:

http://scienceissexy.com/2014/11/15/consciousness-theory-turns-atheists-spiritual/

 

The alcohol is in your system at that point, so still nothing "out-there", in the way I am arguing, as to what is making the room spin.

The room is not actually spinning in the way the perceptions of the intoxication suggest. Relating it to the spinning of the earth is a misrepresentation of the argument because I don't think any of us are acutely aware of the Earth Spinning, it'd be like trying to conflate an Earthquake with the natural movement of the earth, it's not an apt comparison.

I don't think discussions likes these are really useful if you ascribe to a philosophy of solipsism and think your mind is the only thing that exists.

 

I dig it, but once it comes to the point of Consciousness, if it ever does come to understand it, it will only reinforce the Mystical, not explain it away. Discovering the nature of Consciousness is akin to discovering the nature of the Philosopher's Stone.

 

If there's more alcohol to drink, then it's definitely out-there. If you puke because of going on a rollercoaster, the cause of puking is just as real as drinking alcohol. I just don't understand how you can argue that the experiences of intoxication aren't real. You might as well say that everything else "within" you, such as your own thinking, is equally not real.

 

You need work on reading comprehension ChinaCat.

 

So how do proponents of Integrated Information Theory attempt to explain subjective experience?
Christof Koch’s answer: Consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe. Wherever there is integrated information, there is experience. The theory takes its existence as a given and therefore doesn’t have to explain the mechanism behind it. It’s just a fact of nature that information has an inner side in addition to its bit-composed outer side.

Sounds a little similar to:

"True, without error, certain and most true: that which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above, to perform the miracles of the One Thing.
And as all things were from One, by the meditation of One, so from this One Thing come all things by adaptation. Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, the wind carried it in its belly, the nurse thereof is the Earth.

As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…” Hermes Trismegistus


Or this:
“Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.” -Alan Watts

 

But the room IS spinning, with or without being drunk, because the Earth is spinning. And the room is spinning for you, because it makes you dizzy.

Outside of the spinning thing, somebody sober can witness you being drunk and can show that being intoxicated is a real experience.