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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 29, 2018 - 01:48pm PT
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As eyonkee has pointed out, on a planetary scale, the two main schools of thought here are that consciousness depends on the evolved brain or that consciousness exists separately and is somehow imposed upon the human brain.
At the local human level, it seems that healeyje and Werner have again defined the differences. Healeyje says that empty awareness is an experience of the subconscious or unconscious mind only, while Werner says that it is something beyond the subconscious mind which enables a person to see "as it really is".
My question to Werner is if one can see "as it really is" in that state, then why do people coming back out of it give quite different interpretations as to whether it is personal or impersonal for example?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 29, 2018 - 02:51pm PT
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MikeL: What we seem to have instead are metaphors, one of which you made reference to: the computer (memory, information processing). It's a conceptualization of how "things" happen in mind, but without saying what mind or consciousness is.
I'm not referencing computers. I'm inferring how it is you have subjective experiences of red, touch, a birdsong, or a sight which is contextualized by things from the past and things not in sight at that instance. We live in a computer-in-your-pocket age so the leap to that metaphor is apt but somewhat irrelevant because all that is required is to acknowledge something is happening under the hood, labels and metaphors don't really matter.
From from my perspective, the idea of consciousness sans brain is on par with red without eyeballs, a caress without skin, or a birdsong without ears - unlikely at best. It's pretty clear in between light entering your eyes and you subjectively experiencing 'red' (and knowing it is red) a shitload of work takes place by some means and that work is what hands you a completely-formed and fully-contextualized 'red'. And by that I mean your conscious mind doesn't get handed an equation or kit for 'red' it then has to solve or assemble in order for you to subjectively experience 'red' - no, you get handed 'red' in all its pre-formed and pre-contextualized glory. Ever wonder from where? It's from your subconscious mind and it would seem a very difficult point to argue to the contrary.
So, in all that, do I ever say exactly what mind is? Or to what 'red' is being handed off to by the subconscious mind? Clearly not. We can't at this time state with any certainty how the conscious mind arises from the brain, but we can very much state it's a 1:1 correspondence and you can see it arise evolutionarily, in extant species, and in a newborn child. But for me, that lack of an immediate answer or even the prospect we won't get to a definitive answer doesn't then open the door for panpsychism or other religious alternatives. To me, that is a desperate, fear-based, and near-universal inclination of humans to stamp out all unanswered questions by any and all means.
It seems to me that the best data anyone can come to is what is observed subjectively. Places to start are typical: thoughts, feelings, emotions, instincts, intuitions, etc. For the most part, that is not what's normally suggested here in this thread by people with your view. Do you not see *any* usefulness in simply observing subjectively what's going on for you, in you? What do you see? Can you make careful, detailed, subjective observations of your own subjectivity?
Again, my issue here is the fact that I have my own 'subjectivity' at all is contingent on an iceberg's worth of subconscious pre-processing, i.e. what you are observing subjectively is essentially the output of another level of your mind - your subconscious. There is no direct experience of anything as there is nothing which reaches your conscious mind that doesn't pass through your subconscious mind first. In other words, you might like to believe you are directly experiencing no-thing or raw awareness when meditating, but that's not the case, everything you perceive and subjectively experience is pre-processed. How can I know this? Because without the continuously running pre-contextualization provided by the combination of your short-term memory and subconscious mind you wouldn't even know you were meditating five seconds after you started. So more the question is: exactly what is it you think you're making detailed subjective observations of?
What made people masters was not that they achieved total liberation (a freeing from illusions) but that they appeared to have mastered themselves. I don't know that science has very much to tell us about that topic at all.
I don't know that they themselves have enough knowledge to say that much about what it is they've mastered other than bringing some disciplined priority around what they are willing to entertain from the continuous stream presented to their subjective mind by their subconscious. But still, at what point is that not like simply having the discipline to turn down the volume and put down the channel changer (and as much as some would like to claim otherwise, you can't simply turn the subconscious mind completely off and still remain conscious).
Jan: At the local human level, it seems that healyje and Werner have again defined the differences. Healyje says that empty awareness is an experience of the subconscious or unconscious mind only, while Werner says that it is something beyond the subconscious mind which enables a person to see "as it really is".
This more concisely defines and frames up the issue from my perspective.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Apr 29, 2018 - 02:51pm PT
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Jan, I agree with you earlier post that there are other categories of poster. And frankly, science, to me, has never conflicted with a sense of awe and mystery. And thanks for supporting my main contention on that post of a dividing line between pre-existing and evolved mind.
You got me to riffing a little more on the idea of what was a pre-evolutionary consciousness doing before nervous systems allowed consciousness to express itself? It reminds me very much of thought experiments I associate with my Catholic upbringing. Catholics, unlike most evangelical Christian denominations, have no issue (at least for the last few decades) with human evolution. But it does beg the question, if human salvation is the purpose, why did God have to wait around for billions of years before the game of human salvation could begin?
We know that consciousness is manifested in nervous systems. Evolution has a clear explanation of how and why nervous systems evolve. The idea of a pre-existing consciousness just waiting to be discovered by nervous systems just seems backward to me from a plausibility standpoint.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 29, 2018 - 03:00pm PT
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The idea of a pre-existing consciousness just waiting to be discovered by nervous systems just seems backward from a plausibility standpoint.
For me, it always begs the question of, if it just exists, then why waste consciousness on anything physical? A hobby? Lonely? Universal boredom? A desire to self-fragment? Nothing better to do?
Seems more pointless than anything else.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 29, 2018 - 03:41pm PT
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pre-existing consciousness just waiting to be discovered by nervous systems
Wow, you guys ever listen to yourselves (your minds)?
I never made any such "pre-existing consciousness just waiting to be discovered by nervous systems" nonsense statements.
Consciousness is always there! and has been there before even the entire material creation.
Consciousness is eternal
You guys are in material only consciousness.
When your own consciousness gets purified you'll see and understand the subtle material and spiritual consciousness which to you right now as far as your consciousness is developed are covered (you're blind to them).
You also are clueless to the soul which is you yourself but is NOT material.
So, in reality, as far as our consciousness goes, we are miles apart .......
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 29, 2018 - 04:15pm PT
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Consciousness is always there! and has been there before even the entire material creation. Consciousness is eternal
That's exactly the consciousness we're talking about. Why would an eternal consciousness bother with something as unnecessary as the material or material beings at all?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 29, 2018 - 04:26pm PT
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healyje: all that is required is to acknowledge something is happening under the hood,
Tell me what that is. Then we can move forward.
I think Werner might have implied the same thing. (Maybe not.)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 29, 2018 - 04:27pm PT
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Healyje: Why would an eternal consciousness bother with something as unnecessary as the material or material beings at all?
Do you have an artistic bone in your body?
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 29, 2018 - 04:28pm PT
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Because we ARE NOT material entities but part parcel of that whole original consciousness which is NOT material either.
Consciousness is what actually aminates matter.
Without consciousness matter is inanimate.
A brain is not even needed to animate matter, trees, plants, bacteria, lower life forms.
The individual souls can enter those lower life forms.
And much much more but that is far beyond the scope of this forum.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 29, 2018 - 04:42pm PT
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healyje: all that is required is to acknowledge something is happening under the hood, MikeL: Tell me what that is. Then we can move forward.
It's not necessary to define or label it for the purpose of this discussion given your mind doesn't query your eye for some photons and then consciously generate 'red'. The only thing that matters here is that something is happening under the hood before you subjectively experience anything.
Healyje: Why would an eternal consciousness bother with something as unnecessary as the material or material beings at all? MikeL: Do you have an artistic bone in your body? |
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 29, 2018 - 08:49pm PT
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One version according to the Hindus is that the universe is God's lila, his play. So yes, I think you could argue, using this reasoning that primordial universal consciousness got bored by that pristine state and so created and descended into matter.
Hindus and Buddhists both believe that there is life in other parts of the universe, which seems a likely assumption given its age and vast size, so Consciousness could easily have been busy elsewhere while earth was slowly evolving toward consciousness.
One interesting question in this regard is whether a person feels better about our planet to think it is the least evolved or worse to think it might be the most evolved?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 29, 2018 - 10:07pm PT
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One version according to the Hindus is that the universe is God's Lila, his play. So yes, I think you could argue, using this reasoning that primordial universal consciousness got bored by that pristine state and so created and descended into matter.
So that's two votes for it's a hobby.
One interesting question in this regard is whether a person feels better about our planet to think it is the least evolved or worse to think it might be the most evolved?
I think you answer your own question there.
I'd say the odds are pretty good there has been and is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. I'd also say intelligent life actually being intelligent enough to survive itself is probably the biggest challenge they and we face.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 30, 2018 - 08:08am PT
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healyje: It's not necessary to define or label it for the purpose of this discussion given your mind doesn't query your eye for some photons and then consciously generate 'red'. The only thing that matters here is that something is happening under the hood before you subjectively experience anything.
Ok, I can now see what our disconnect is.
This is not about labeling. It’s about perception. What you seem to be perceiving is a set of conceptualizations. You’re thinking and imagining what is happening in a consciousness. What I occasionally perceive is a ground of consciousness, awareness itself, alone, pristine, unelaborated. I can’t describe it to you.
We need to be on the same basis. You seem to be working from a theory of what I (or a generalized being) might or might not be perceiving. I’m working from direct perception, watching consciousness morph from and to or through various stages or phases. I doubt we are talking about the same things. We need the same starting point.
I think this sort of thing happens any time there is some sustained discipline and training in some topic area. The more one looks, the more one sees: noticing brings more noticing. If you’re not really looking very carefully and systematically, what you most often will see looks simple and mundane.
So, it’s a hobby then?
You have a way of denigrating other people’s viewpoints. Hobby is hardly an appropriate word for the expressions of the Absolute. (But, I might imagine that you would think there is no such thing as An Absolute.)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 30, 2018 - 08:22am PT
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What I occasionally perceive is a ground of consciousness, awareness itself, alone, pristine, unelaborated. I can’t describe it to you.
I like the self-contradiction.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 30, 2018 - 08:33am PT
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Healyje:
Let’s say you go to a bar where there is live music to meet a friend. You meet up, order drinks, talk, and as you talk you begin to notice that the band is not too bad. After a while, the band moves into some interesting improvisations, and finds a groove that captures you and the crowd aesthetically. The band, you, and the crowd become as one for a few minutes. It feels somewhat magical. The band finishes the song, you and the crowd cheer, and for a moment the feeling that you and the crowd experienced lingers somewhere. The impression of a perfume, a taste of a special dish, the sight of a view on top of a mountain—all these extraordinary phenomena dissolve into you, just as they arose in you, as they are expressions of what you are. Observation is creation. The power of awareness represents itself—to itself—creatively or artistically.
Just before when the feeling that you experienced with the crowd and band finally subsides and moves aside for another creation (another thought or feeling), there is the briefest of moments when there is no thought or feeling at all, not even a perception. *That* is my best example of pristine unelaborated awareness: no things, just being.
Gotta get to work.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 30, 2018 - 08:59am PT
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We need to be on the same basis. You seem to be working from a theory of what I (or a generalized being) might or might not be perceiving. I’m working from direct perception, watching consciousness morph from and to or through various stages or phases. I doubt we are talking about the same things. We need the same starting point
We need to be on the same basis. You seem to be working from a theory of what I (or a generalized being) might or might not be perceiving. I’m working from direct perception, watching consciousness morph from and to or through various stages or phases. I doubt we are talking about the same things.
We are not. I'm simply saying what you believe is 'direct perception' is not direct at all, that everything you consciously perceive and subjectively experience is pre-processed and contextualized by your subconscious mind. That you have a 'self' at all or have a moment-to-moment continuity of a consciousness 'you' is due to your short-term memory and subconscious mind. I'm saying your conscious mind simply has no direct perceptual access to any aspect of the universe and that begs the question of what it is you are directly perceiving. I'm suggesting your direct perceptions are not of some internal or external absolute, but rather the highly filtered and contextualized cognitive output of your subconscious mind; that when you meditate, there is no getting further than your subconscious.
The impression of a perfume, a taste of a special dish, the sight of a view on top of a mountain—all these extraordinary phenomena dissolve into you, just as they arose in you, as they are expressions of what you are. Observation is creation. The power of awareness represents itself—to itself—creatively or artistically.
They "arose" and "dissolve into you" by way of subconscious processes which often impact you in subconscious ways. Gasping or spontaneously bursting into tears at the sight of something or someone is not a conscious decision, it is a subconscious response. But I agree, observation is very much creation - it is part and parcel of the nature of the inherent integration and continuous feedback loop between the conscious and subconscious minds. What you call "pristine unelaborated awareness", I call flow and consider it more a matter of (for a change) turning off conscious processing of what your subconscious is serving up to you and simply experiencing and appreciating it as is.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Apr 30, 2018 - 09:11am PT
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In my experience most people believe in the view /relationship that they are experiencing ( I would not expect it to be any thing else). Most people have a dualistic view/experience (me vs the world) survival of the fittest etc... An egocentric view.
There are a few people around that say there is another view/relationship that you can experience. A non-dualistic view, a relationship where the I, me, my,you, them takes a back seat in our view/relationship. A non-egocentric view/relationship. I have only stimulated a strong non-dual experience by meditating in retreat settings , an LSD trip and in the few months after my daughter was born. Wall climbing had a mild non-dual experience because you have to just do a lot of work before the water runs out regardless of what "I" feels about it, climbing friction also can be a good stimulus because you really have to let go of your fear and pay attention.
So is intense concentration a non-dual view? The kind of attention where you have to put everything aside in order to just do it (the task). Zen Master Seung Sahn 's motto was "only Just do it !"
I hear there needs to be insight after the intense concentration phase. Insight into what? my guess/experience is insight into it is not all about "I, My,me" . And insight that you can't think your way to the non-dual experience.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 30, 2018 - 10:27am PT
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everything you consciously perceive and subjectively experience is pre-processed and contextualized by your subconscious mind.
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To me, this goes back to the difference between "everything" we perceive and perception itself, which is what Mike is driving at. What Healje is apparently driving at is a physical process that he can reengineer back to physical fundamentals in the brain, and which he can play forward in an increasingly complex step order arriving at "everything you consciously perceive."
In this way, perception itself is held as emergent quality of this physical step process to which awareness is unaware.
It's telling to note that hard science can take us far up this ladder of complexity, but stops dead at the threshold of awareness, which is sometimes described as the emergent result of data processing, of all that locomotion going on "under the hood."
It's worth noting that this belief is not drawn from examining the phenomenon itself, but rather the physical processes believed to "create" it. This strategy has worked wonderfully so long at the
phenomenon in question is observable - that is, with every other phenomenon in reality other than perception.
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