Consciousness, A Discussion

The room and Earth is not all of a sudden actually spinning at a completely different axis because you imbibed a generous amount of alcohol.

Ok? I don't think we're in disagreement there, and the room will remain steady for the sober person.

 

Yes, and if someone stubs their toe, it will hurt for them, and it won't for the person who didn't stub their toe, even if they are in the same room.

The experience of spinning is definitely real because the alcohol is causing their brain and body are causing them to go through a spinning feeling and get sick. What more hard evidence do you need?

Likewise, when you stub your toe, there is the hard science proof of that as well.

 

This has profound consequences. It would mean that consciousness is spread throughout space like a cosmic web of experience. Of course awareness is greatest where there is significant information integration, but in essence, “mind” (or “psyche”) is everywhere. IIT turns out to be a modern twist on an ancient philosophical view known as “panpsychism”. But before you go dismissing the concept because of its name, you should know that intellectual heavy hitters such as Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and William James are all considered panpsychists. Its central tenant is that all matter has a mental aspect, which makes consciousness universal. Koch goes on:
“The entire cosmos is suffused with sentience. We are surrounded and immersed in consciousness; it is in the air we breathe, the soil we tread on, the bacteria that colonize our intestines, and the brain that enables us to think.”

I have been saying all of this the entire time. And if we can Scientifically prove this, then we are getting dangerously close to Scientifically validating Magick, which uses your own "internal" Consciousness to effect the outer environment, which is also made out of the same Consciousness. Since Consciousness is simply just everywhere, it is neither strictly within you or without you, but both (even a cup and other forms of non-living matter, as the Science article says, are made out of the same essential Consciousness). This is what the Hermetic maxim "As Above, So Below" has been talking about since the Dawn of History.

 

So we may say a side effect of alcohol is vertigo, not a full tilt and shift in spinning of the Earth's axis.

 

And likewise, when you watch a movie, the experience is still real, even though that explosion in the movie isn't literally happening in the room.

 

Anyways...


Okiefreak I'm interested to know how you think hallucinations relate to consciousness, specifically in regards to the "apprehension of reality" part...

 

One last point I want to make about hallucinations is that even Sex is a biological form of a hallucination. Boobs and pussy are only attractive to men because our brain is hard-wired to cause a hallucination for the purpose of procreation. But sex is still very much a real experience.

 

Why is it called the Blues ? said the blind one to the deaf one .

 

Yes, it is. In fact, "from time to time" is most of the time (see my discussion of Eagleman's Incognito, supra) .And that's probably a good thing. If I had to think about every keystroke when I reply to your posts, it would really slow me down; and if my ancestors had to think about monitoring their digestion when confronted with a sabretoothed tiger, we might not be having this conversation. As for the "recognizable stages of consciousness in human infants", I assume infants have some degree of consciousness, which probably beings in the womb accompanying rudimentary brain development. As guy who underwent circumcision as an infant, I can say that if I was conscious, I'm glad I didn't have a good memory! There are intelligent people who think grass and rocks have some kind of consciousness, although I think that's getting speculative. We know that some of the time we make decisions before we're aware of them, and then our conscious selves take the credit.

 

Yeah it's a cool theory, huh? I disagreed with the article's points on mysticism as well, but am also a long-standing proponent of panpsychism.

Mind is all that has ever been experienced, so I think it is speculative to suggest that any state other than mind actually exists. I think we erroneously associate consciousness with something's ability to communicate. We try to separate mind from non-mind, but if you take a step back you see you still haven't broken the connection with consciousness. It is never broken. It is always consciousness that is being experienced. We do ourselves a disservice by forgetting that time is an illusion and expecting the seeming chronological order of things to be a factor where the reality of mind is concerned. There has only ever been timeless mind, in my opinion. Though in intervals of time mind seems to stop here and there.

We can only say one of two things. One is that mind is physical, in which case nothing that has ever been perceived has been physically independent of mind. The alternative is only to say that mind is not physical. Either way you are left with a drastically different scenario than most people are accustomed to.

Mind is an eternal mystery, because how abstract reality is will always be a matter of opinion. There is an ever-present aspect of reality over which facts have no dominion whatsoever. The question of "What is symbolic?" has been raised, but can a symbol be something concrete? Are objects symbolic representations of undying principles? There is no way of knowing. Mystery will out.

 

Let's start with the questions that were popular in college bull sessions: How do we know whether we're awake or dreaming? And which is real? I'd say by, intuition. Some of my dreams are pretty vivid and realistic, but I know they're just dreams--and not through logic, but intuitively. And how do I know the intuition is valid? I don't. I bet on what seems most likely on the basis of my knowledge, experience and reason, form a judgment, and bet on it, with a willingness to accept the consequences. I've had a life-changing experience that I consider to be a spiritual awakening. Was this insight or hallucination? I haven't decided, but as hallucinations go, it was pretty tame--no visions or voices, just clear, intense thoughts and feelings that gave me a new understanding of a familiar Bible passage (BTW, no substances involved). I decided to accept these understandings as the basis for a new orientation toward life which seems to be working well in making me a better person. Whether perceptions are real or illusory is typically judged by whether or not they correspond to prevailing social mores about what is real. Comedienne Lilly Tomlin once said: "When you talk to God, its prayer. When God talks to you, its schizophrenia." Here in the Bible Belt, lots of people don't get the joke.

 

Amen to that! I don't really think of sex as an hallucination, though, even though it's clearly non-rational. Hallucinations by definition are false. The pink elephant isn't really there, even though we might think it is. Freud distinguished between delusions and illusions. An illusion is a wish-driven belief in something that is highly improbable; for example, a young girl who thinks she is destined to marry a prince who will take her away from the toils of life and live with her happily ever after. Freud put religion in that category (Future of an Illusion), Richard Dawkins to the contrary (The God Delusion). A delusion is a false belief that is firmly held despite clear and convincing evidence that it's probably false and could never happen: e.g., extraterrestrials spy on me through my television set and periodically abduct me and subject me to unspeakable probes. An hallucination is a delusion involving perception of something like voices or visions of things that aren't really there (i.e., nobody else sees or hears them). In this sense, expectation of sex can sometimes be an illusion (I think Miley Cyrus might have sex with me if I ask her over). It could also be a delusional hallucination (I think I"m having sex with her right now). If I'm just having sex with my girlfriend Cindy, I wouldn't call it delusional unless I think she's Miley Cyrus or some person other than Cindy, even though I'm hardwired to be attracted to boobs and pussy. It's simply part of the non-rational (not irrational) programming that keeps the human race in business. And then there's religious experience, which I've sometimes compared (no blasphemy intended) to sex and orgasm in terms of the intensity of satisfaction involved. In the midst of lovemaking, it wouldn't occur to me to ask if my partner exists. It seems really inappropriate and would spoil the mood. Is that illusion, delusion or, as I think, a deeper encounter with reality?

 

I like this post, particularly on the heels of the back-and-forth I had with ChinaCat, however I don't think it's specifically answering the question in the way I intended. Using some of these examples mentioned though will hopefully better illustrate what I'm asking.

Let's start off with dreaming, the 'realness' of the dream state aside, supposedly there are 2 (most notable) different types of dream states, there is dreaming and then there is lucid dreaming, in which the latter apparently elicits dreaming phenomena where individuals are aware and even have control over that which they are dreaming. A relative type of conscious awareness persists in psychedelic experiences, where people have awareness that their hallucinations and pseudohallucinations are just that and not taking place in the external environment, some case studies, mostly non-drug induced on this type of phenonema are mentioned in Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks, where most the patients develop some sort of ailment or disorder.

So how do these examples of consciousness extending beyond the waking reality, that most of us take to be actually present, effect our definition and/or conception of what consciousness is? What possible limitations are their on consciousness to make us not consistently conscious of states such as dreaming or hallucinations?

 

I say brain-body, instead of just brain, because I don't want to give the impression that I'm talking about anything specific such as the things you mentioned. I try to take an approach to this where neuroscience and other such sciences can only confirm or cast doubt upon conclusions that I made based on my own observations. I'm suggesting that humans in general may have evolved to have more connections/pathways between those parts in the brain-body most responsible for speech, and those for language comprehension, whatever those parts may be. And similarly, throughout an individual's life, if he's not isolated from modern languages/cultures, those pathways/connections will develop further.

So basically, if they're too undeveloped, a person will act as if he's hearing voices in a sense, and if they were ever to be hypothetically too developed, such a person would not understand the complex paradoxical subtleties we speak of when we speak of the 'hard problem', because being more harmonious in regards to language, he would see no disconnect.

 

I would argue that it's not so much whether objects and symbols are concrete or not but that they simply represent what intention and meaning is put into it. For example, if nobody had ever used the Mcdonald's M symbol, then that style font and the yellow on the M would mean nothing. But it has meaning because we all collectively have put meaning into it. This is why some Occultists argue that ancient symbols have more power to them than creating your own symbol or Sigil for example, or using a block as a talisman, like a Chaos Magician would do. I would say that anything can have meaning, but could have more meaning on it if it has been focused on as a single meaning by many people over many years.

The same goes with any symbol, such as the letter a. In reality, this shape is meaningless, but it has meaning because of collective and repetitive meaning put into it. Same goes with calling someone a "fucking bastard". Fucking bastard is literally meaningless, but it carries meaning over generations and so can be felt as insulting potentially.

Overall, it's the meaning that you put into the symbol that matters. They are mirrors for your internal subconscious' projection.

 

After gallbladder surgery, when I was souped up on painkillers, I had a "vision" of pages of words on plexiglass between me and people I was talking to in the hospital room. I was well aware this was an hallucination. When my brother was in the hospital dying, he complained about seeing faces in the wall. One of his religious friends said these were demons, but my brother said: No, it's the drugs they gave me.

I'd say that these hallucinations are a part of our consciousness, since we're aware of them. If we're aware they're real experiences of unreal events, they're not a problem in my opinion. Consciousness is subject to distortions, delusions and hallucinations. The sources of influence on these are varied, but can be powerful. For example, consider all the recent books by people who have gone to heaven and back--some after dying or having near death experiences. What accounts for that? Cynics might say the profit motive, but it's a phenomenon comparable to alien abductions. I tend to dismiss them as hallucinations, because I've read some of them and they seem utterly fantastic and simple minded. For example, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven, which describes the doctor's trip to the hereafter and back during a medically induced coma. My guess is that the operative factor there was the anesthesia. He, of all people, should have known that, but his need to believe, especially his encounter with his dead sister he'd never met, may have gotten the better of his judgment. (And he did also have a business background) In other cases, the psychiatric literature offers plausible explanations. Neuroscience seems to support the importance of the unconscious, the anonymous "committee of rivals" that influences our conscious life. Of course, maybe these Real life encounters" are all all true, but I hope not, because Reality would just just be too hokey.

 

The limitation that prevents being aware of dreams is not being fully awake. If you look at MRI images of the brain before and after meditation it's night and day. There's much more activity after meditation then under the normal state and both hemispheres become synchronized. The brain actually becomes fully functional.

 

Significant events that happen to us leave an impact on us in someway, but for them to be something which we can speak of in terms of it having been an event that we personally, our selves, were involved in, then we must have been self-conscious during the event and the memory mustn't have been forgotten or suppressed. So when we don't remember a dream it was either because we lacked a degree of self-consciousness during it, found it not worth remembering, or found it worth suppressing.

 

I recall going to a council meeting to speak , upon entering I hear voices excitedly say here he comes , here he comes . I
took a seat . The next moment I remember is when I heard the last question to me and my short reply . I had tranced .
I later learned what I had said in it's entirety was impressive , though I really couldn't comment on it and rather just smiled
politely for the recognition .

It's apparently good for the self-concious to trust the mystery conciousness .

So , when I get accidently black-out drunk no i won't set the house on fire cooking noodles .

 

That makes sense but what I am asking is then what do we make of this phenomena of lucid dreaming?