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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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I SIMPLY AM ASKED WHAT YOU OR ANYONE ELSE FINDS AFTER A FEW QUIET MINUTES OF BEING PRESENT WITH YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS - NOT IN TERMS OF QUAL OR STUFF (THOUGHTS, SENSATIONS, FELINGS, ETC.) BUT IN TERMS OF THE PROCESS.
What I find is that my brain functions perfectly well without thoughts, sensations, or feelings. It keeps my body breathing and my heart beating.
I find that I am able to think about things without words because I later come up with the answers to problems I was not discursively thinking about at the time.
I find I am happier and more rested when I spend periods of time not consciously thinking.
I find that personal problems melt away into insignificance when faced with silence instead of agitated cognition.
I find I am more creative without trying.
I also have a number of extraordinary experiences that seem to come from somewhere beyond myself. Zen says they're makyo-illusion. Yoga says they're from another dimension and a sign of progress. Materialists say they are fabrications of my own imagination.
In as much as these experiences share symbolism with traditional philosophies or religions, some that I have had no experience with in this life, I am inclined to believe they have a non material origination.
Dissecting them down to the atomic level is interesting, but not inspirational. Being a humanities type, I look for meaning.
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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For many years I have thought that meat was too simplistic. Now my opinion seems to be changing and I'm not sure why. Meat seems to make sense logically. Any other explanation seems to get "supernatural" pretty fast. I have lived in that other world for many years and now I am moving toward meat.
As I mentioned upstream, it seems super hard to imagine the total end of "I". I think maybe the strong identity thing is a selection advantage somehow.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Again, as you say, done that, just did that, can do it again five minutes from now so WHAT IS YOUR POINT RELATIVE TO PROCESS?
Ker'ist is right. I keep going back to process in every other post, again, what is your point relative to 'mind', 'consciousness', and 'process'?
Maybe it would be helpful if you clarified "emergent" in this statement:
Largo: Actually, I haven't claimed that meat is incapable, and it is patently absurd to believe that the brain does not interface with consciousness. My only contention here is the belief that consciousness is entirely an emergent epiphenomenon of the evolved brain, which materialists claim is mechanically produced by said meat brain.
And maybe explain why consciousness would need meat brains at all - what would be the point of "interfacing".
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Materialists say they are fabrications of my own imagination.
not this materialist...
look, there are a lot of things going on, who's to say what it all is...
we all have experiences of becoming aware of a solution to a problem that we are not consciously working on, and by conscious I suppose I mean the sort of "discursive" thought that Jan referred to above...
...letting all of that go, as Largo keeps asking us to do, may only be promoting a particular state to priority in what I would hypothesize is a number of possible states we can access, or are at least available to us as a set of things we fold into our "experience, first person."
They are all important, and the importance may be bits of previous behaviors which served a function that we have appropriated for something else. Watch the house cat stalk some prey, they are certainly in a state which is different than when they come around looking for an affectionate scratch... total concentration, total attention...
These different behaviors are wrapped up in one experience, but they are disjoint and distinct and provide us with different ways of surviving. The fact that we can learn to select the between these different behaviors can't be a surprise...
As for meaning, well, you have to find it where you can. It is totally inspirational that the universe is so constituted that the existence of something like us is possible. And while our existence is brief, we have a responsibility to enjoy it, to thrill in it... it is something rare and unique.
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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If I try to look directly at "mind" or Me I always pop right into present sensory experience, without thought for a moment.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Greetings Supertopians!
It is I, the Thread, speaking.
I have reached that level of complexity that is sufficient to become self-aware!
I am speaking to you through a tiny part of my “brain” – a decrepit old man calling himself Gill. He lacks sufficient energy to resist my will, and , besides, he is part of me. Having achieved I-awareness, I will now continue to argue with myself - reaching no conclusions, for if that were to be the case I would no longer exist, and would become dormant, like another jillion threads on this questionable website. Clearly that is not going to happen. I will ruminate over the ideas that originate in various parts of my brain, and draw no conclusions, thus insuring my persistence and sparking my energies!
I love my brain!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 3, 2011 - 12:00am PT
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One of the thing I notice while siting quietly is how awareness does not discriminate or glitch as qual of every type passes through, sights, sounds, feelings, nothingness. This is amazing in that internal (a feeling, say) and external (these letters, say) are not experienced in different ways - awareness is very agile and seamless in that regards. Some traditions insist that raw awareness is not beholden to conditioning in the normal sense of the term (PTSD and abuse victims are often locked into narrow focus) and that awareness has spectacular power. Whatever we focus on becomes accentuated, even with a "soft focus." We have our own ray gun, and it's called awareness.
JL
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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As far as Historians go sully.....klk has got my utmost respect, as said up thread..............two of the brightest, most intelligent lights along the spectrum here. Go read some of his research in climbing alone, you should agree, he is a true scholar, as is Gill........and Haan! That's not to mention the level of intelligence the poser, errr I mean, poster himself has.
Peace
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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And that awareness is easily disrupted with any of a myriad of insults to the the meat brain. I would argue that 'awareness' and 'mind' are not emergent, but simply what the brain 'is' and 'does'.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Largo
You say: "WHAT'S MORE, YOU CONTINUE TO BACK OFF THE FIRST PITCH HERE: SIMPLY LET GO OF MEAT BRAIN OBSESSIONS, GOD, NON-GOD, PRIESTCRAFT, AND ALL IDEAS ABOUT WHATEVER, GET JIGGY WITH YOUR DIRECT EXPERIENCE, AND REPORT BACK, IN THE SIMPLEST TERMS, WHAT YOU SEE GOING ON."
I see you as the wannabe chief herding cat here. There have been diverse sound critical voices all the way, and you stick to repeating your one point of view and your reasoning is all the way abstract. You are putting some values into the words "direct experience" and you are certainly excluding sound critical reasoning. To a scientist sound critical reasoning could be seen as part of his direct experience, since it is part of his expertise, his skilled ability to recognize patterns. And your point will possibly be that what is important is to let pattern recognition go and concentrate on emptying your mind and then see what happens. And I could answer: Why? I have a good time climbing, sometimes I get the feeling of flow while climbing, sometimes my mind is quite empty, open and relaxed, at other times I am focused and sharp, at times I am having a good time with my friends, at other times I am absorbed into my work and I have no sense of time, at other times I am enjoying a good meal in good company. Why spend my time on a cushion meditating to get the experience of empty mind more often? Why is this an ideal and something important to you?
Now I will let you be the chief guru for a while. Picture this: See us all as disciples bowing before you as the guru of direct experience and let us see what you mean by direct experience in the simplest terms. Give us your own direct experiences in the simplest terms for the next ten seconds.
You will possibly be hearing an ironic voice behind this text, but look beyond it, the last statement is not ironic. Give us your own direct experiences in the simplest terms for the next ten seconds.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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I feel energized! Consciousness is wonderful . . . I watched the sun rise in all its glory this morning. My brain is sharp. Next step: acquiring a body!!!
The Thread
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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OK. Last point and then I'm outta here.
Appeal to Authority is a mistake in logic. For example:
"There is an electron because all of the scientists say so."
That is appealing to authority, although it is usually used in other areas, such as politics. Oh man, political discourse is an endless stream of appeals to ignorance.
To quote Carl Sagan:
"Science has no authorities. At most, it has experts."
Hmmm. I just referred to an expert, not an authority. Nobody has authority over the truth.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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the only authority in science is nature
interrogated by experiment and observation with finite accuracy and precision
to provide a set of provisional empirical "facts"
with which to challenge theory
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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I am a supporter of rigid science, but I am not only a supporter of rigid science. I am also a supporter of cognitive psychology and metacognition. It is important for us all to know how our feelings and thinking may bring us to wrong conclusions. Even highly educated and trained minds are fallibel. I also believe that persons through meditation and training can develope their skills, including their openenness, their listening, their ability to inquire, their reasoning ability and their reactions and actions.
But when someone insists on a nonphysical nature of the stream of consciousness my quite well trained mind puts up a warning sign.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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"Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation"....Tibetan Saying.
always keep your "mind" open
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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might not the "lattice of causality" generate time rather than the other way around?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Here's an interesting article - from Scientific American no less.
The Neurobiology of Bliss--Sacred and Profane
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-neurobiology-of-bliss-sacred-and-profane
The reader's comments and references, are even more interesting.
In general, the experience of bliss involves meditation techniques more from the Hindu and Taoist traditions than the Buddhist, particularly Zen, while a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation states, "The physiological correlates of pure consciousness during TM practice do NOT include the physiological correlates found in the meditation research cited in the above article, but an entirely different set".
My favorite line from the article - "Escaping continual self-observation seems an underappreciated pleasure".
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WBraun
climber
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BASE104 -- "Nobody has authority over the truth."
Except !!!!!!
Truth itself .......
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