Soupie
Paranormal Adept
what-it-is-likeness just is the pond
The ripples that arise within it just are minds
When these minds perceive other minds, they appear as bodies
(Haha the metaphor kinda unraveled at the end.)
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 9
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
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The ripples that arise within it just are minds
When these minds perceive other minds, they appear as bodies
(Haha the metaphor kinda unraveled at the end.)
Why would they? And why would they appear as the manifold plurality of bodies, species, things, environing gestalts, and ideas that we experience in humanly evolved life?
smcder
Paranormal Adept
So there it is something-it-is-like to be the pond?
Quoting from the vacuum state paper linked by Steve:
". . . Tibetan contemplatives describe the substrate as the objective, empty space of the mind. This vacuum state is immaterial like space, a blank, unthinking void into which all objective appearances of the physical senses and [5] mental perception dissolve when one falls asleep; and it is out of this vacuum that appearances re-emerge upon waking.[6] The subjective consciousness of this mental vacuum is called the substrate consciousness. In the natural course of a life, this is repeatedly experienced in dreamless sleep and finally experienced in the moment before death. A contemplative may consciously probe this dimension of consciousness through the practice of meditative quiescence, in which discursive thoughts become dormant and all appearances of oneself, others, one’s body and one’s environment vanish. At this point, as in the cases of sleeping and dying, the mind is drawn inwards and the physical senses become dormant. What remains is a state of radiant, clear consciousness that is the basis for the emergence of all appearances to an individual’s mind-stream. All phenomena appearing to sensory and mental perception are imbued with the clarity of this substrate consciousness. Like the reflections of the planets and stars in a pool of limpid, clear water, so do the appearances of the entire phenomenal world appear within this empty, clear substrate consciousness. Contemplatives who have penetrated to this state of consciousness describe it as 'an unfluctuating state, in which one experiences bliss like the warmth of a fire, luminosity like the dawn, and nonconceptuality like an ocean unmoved by waves.'[7]
The above description can easily be misinterpreted as an expression of philosophical idealism. However, these contemplatives are not claiming that the entire universe is of the nature of the mind, only that one’s individual world of appearances arises from this substrate consciousness. Moreover, the qualities of bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality associated with the realization of the substrate consciousness have led many contemplatives to mistake this for the ultimate nature of reality, or nirvana. But simply dwelling in this relative vacuum state of consciousness does not liberate the mind of its afflictive tendencies or their resultant suffering. By fathoming the nature of the substrate consciousness, one comes to know the nature of consciousness in its relative ground state. This realization, however, does not illuminate the nature of reality as a whole. It is also important not to confuse this substrate consciousness with a collective unconscious, as conceived by Carl Jung. Buddhist accounts of the substrate consciousness all refer to it as an individual stream of consciousness that carries on from one lifetime to the next. . . . ."
I have no doubt that contemplatives, mystics, and disciplined meditators (as in the Buddhist tradition) discover aspects of Reality/What-Is through their motivations and efforts to escape conflicts and suffering arising in what is thought as 'duality' in their cultures. Nevertheless, I see their experiences as 'time-outs' from the general conditions of the lived and emotionally felt experiences of embodied consciousnesses in a physically evolving world. It seems inescapable to me that consciousness and human mind have evolved in a physically evolving world, out of "the body of the world" as WS expresses it. At the same time, within temporal existence in the physical world, we are subject to marginal, liminal, influences that penetrate our consciousnesses from beyond or behind the conditions/states of being that our species endures in waking consciousness, and which we have come to recognize as 'supra-normal' experiences not explicable in the terms of what we have needed and/or preferred to think of as 'normal' and 'natural'.
The early modern theoretical psychologists {Freud, Jung, and Frederick W.H. Myers} increasingly identified 'abnormal' and also 'supranormal' ideation and experiences in terms of 'subliminal' consciousness, gradually recognizing (it seems to me) precincts of the history of the evolution of consciousness yet unwritten, unexplicated, in their time and still in our own time, yet clearly accessible by our species' embodied consciousness.
". . . Tibetan contemplatives describe the substrate as the objective, empty space of the mind. This vacuum state is immaterial like space, a blank, unthinking void into which all objective appearances of the physical senses and [5] mental perception dissolve when one falls asleep; and it is out of this vacuum that appearances re-emerge upon waking.[6] The subjective consciousness of this mental vacuum is called the substrate consciousness. In the natural course of a life, this is repeatedly experienced in dreamless sleep and finally experienced in the moment before death. A contemplative may consciously probe this dimension of consciousness through the practice of meditative quiescence, in which discursive thoughts become dormant and all appearances of oneself, others, one’s body and one’s environment vanish. At this point, as in the cases of sleeping and dying, the mind is drawn inwards and the physical senses become dormant. What remains is a state of radiant, clear consciousness that is the basis for the emergence of all appearances to an individual’s mind-stream. All phenomena appearing to sensory and mental perception are imbued with the clarity of this substrate consciousness. Like the reflections of the planets and stars in a pool of limpid, clear water, so do the appearances of the entire phenomenal world appear within this empty, clear substrate consciousness. Contemplatives who have penetrated to this state of consciousness describe it as 'an unfluctuating state, in which one experiences bliss like the warmth of a fire, luminosity like the dawn, and nonconceptuality like an ocean unmoved by waves.'[7]
The above description can easily be misinterpreted as an expression of philosophical idealism. However, these contemplatives are not claiming that the entire universe is of the nature of the mind, only that one’s individual world of appearances arises from this substrate consciousness. Moreover, the qualities of bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality associated with the realization of the substrate consciousness have led many contemplatives to mistake this for the ultimate nature of reality, or nirvana. But simply dwelling in this relative vacuum state of consciousness does not liberate the mind of its afflictive tendencies or their resultant suffering. By fathoming the nature of the substrate consciousness, one comes to know the nature of consciousness in its relative ground state. This realization, however, does not illuminate the nature of reality as a whole. It is also important not to confuse this substrate consciousness with a collective unconscious, as conceived by Carl Jung. Buddhist accounts of the substrate consciousness all refer to it as an individual stream of consciousness that carries on from one lifetime to the next. . . . ."
I have no doubt that contemplatives, mystics, and disciplined meditators (as in the Buddhist tradition) discover aspects of Reality/What-Is through their motivations and efforts to escape conflicts and suffering arising in what is thought as 'duality' in their cultures. Nevertheless, I see their experiences as 'time-outs' from the general conditions of the lived and emotionally felt experiences of embodied consciousnesses in a physically evolving world. It seems inescapable to me that consciousness and human mind have evolved in a physically evolving world, out of "the body of the world" as WS expresses it. At the same time, within temporal existence in the physical world, we are subject to marginal, liminal, influences that penetrate our consciousnesses from beyond or behind the conditions/states of being that our species endures in waking consciousness, and which we have come to recognize as 'supra-normal' experiences not explicable in the terms of what we have needed and/or preferred to think of as 'normal' and 'natural'.
The early modern theoretical psychologists {Freud, Jung, and Frederick W.H. Myers} increasingly identified 'abnormal' and also 'supranormal' ideation and experiences in terms of 'subliminal' consciousness, gradually recognizing (it seems to me) precincts of the history of the evolution of consciousness yet unwritten, unexplicated, in their time and still in our own time, yet clearly accessible by our species' embodied consciousness.
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Soupie
Paranormal Adept
There is no "would." I'm arguing that they do!
That is, these ripples do appear as the manifold plurality of bodies, species, etc.
Perception will have evolved in the same way under a CR paradigm as in a physicalist paradigm.
The question remains: how?
Again, what is the "CR paradigm"? Or, perhaps easier to explain, how does it differ from the physicalist paradigm [which still cannot account for how perception generates individual and collective lived meaning in the world]?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Yes. But if we assume the "pond" was ever in a state of singularity, then the SIIL would not be like anything we could identify with (being the super very complex patterns of ripples within this pond that we are).
There wouldn't be any subject/ego, memory, introspection, emotion, pain, joy, imagination, etc.
However, this pond is filled with uber complex ripples such as ourself, and since we clearly are SIILs, and since we are subsystems within the pond, then yes, there is SIIL to be the pond.
However, I'm not suggesting the pond is one giant mega subject. Just as I'm not suggesting the pond is one giant mega organism.
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Continuing from the above extract from the vacuum state paper:
". . . The Buddhist tradition claims that the appearances to our senses do not exist in external, physical space, independent of perception. Likewise, the objects that make up our experienced world, each of them imbued with sensory attributes, such as color, taste, smell, and texture, are not to be found in the objective space described by modern physics. But within the context of our experienced world, it is conventionally valid to say that the physical objects we perceive in the world around us, such as planets and stars, exist within the external, intersubjective space of consciousness; and the mental objects we perceive, such as thoughts and mental images, exist in the internal, subjective space of the consciousness of each individual.
Neuroscientists commonly assume the human brain exists in the real, objective space of physics, but all their sensory images and concepts of the brain appear in the space of consciousness. Moreover, all the sensory images of space experienced by physicists arise within the external space of their consciousness, and all their concepts of space emerge within the internal space of consciousness. Although we may believe in the existence of space independent of consciousness, all our concepts of such real, objective space arise within the space of consciousness. As for the relation between sensory images and their related objects believed to exist in the objective world independent of consciousness, neurologist Antonio Damasio acknowledges, “There is no picture of the object being transferred from the object to the retina and from the retina to the brain.”8 To generalize, the appearances to our senses are not replicas, or re-presentations, of phenomena in objective, physical space. They are fresh creations arising in the space of consciousness. Likewise, our concepts of space and the objects within it are not replicas of anything existing independently of the mind. In short, the brain believed by neuroscientists to exist in real, objective space is as devoid of consciousness as is the physical space conceived of by physicists.
Neither the external space of the physical senses nor the internal space of the mind exists in the brain, nor are any of the contents of such external or internal space located inside the head. Within the context of the experienced world, the demarcation between external and internal space is one of convention, not absolute reality. We may experience mental images, for example, not only in our “mind’s eye,” with our eyes closed and our attention withdrawn from the physical world. We may also superimpose mental images on our sensory fields of experience. For example, we may imagine the face of a man on the moon or an archer outlined in a configuration of stars. . . . . ."
The above grappling with the core question of the reality/real existence of physicality/materiality in the above paragraphs is unsatisfactory to me. The author's quotation from Damasio -- “There is no picture of the object being transferred from the object to the retina and from the retina to the brain.”8 -- does not address this question, but only argues that perception is not 'representational' but rather presentational. Damasio's point is, however, a welcome advance beyond classical reductive neuroscientific attempts to account for perception and consciousness.
". . . The Buddhist tradition claims that the appearances to our senses do not exist in external, physical space, independent of perception. Likewise, the objects that make up our experienced world, each of them imbued with sensory attributes, such as color, taste, smell, and texture, are not to be found in the objective space described by modern physics. But within the context of our experienced world, it is conventionally valid to say that the physical objects we perceive in the world around us, such as planets and stars, exist within the external, intersubjective space of consciousness; and the mental objects we perceive, such as thoughts and mental images, exist in the internal, subjective space of the consciousness of each individual.
Neuroscientists commonly assume the human brain exists in the real, objective space of physics, but all their sensory images and concepts of the brain appear in the space of consciousness. Moreover, all the sensory images of space experienced by physicists arise within the external space of their consciousness, and all their concepts of space emerge within the internal space of consciousness. Although we may believe in the existence of space independent of consciousness, all our concepts of such real, objective space arise within the space of consciousness. As for the relation between sensory images and their related objects believed to exist in the objective world independent of consciousness, neurologist Antonio Damasio acknowledges, “There is no picture of the object being transferred from the object to the retina and from the retina to the brain.”8 To generalize, the appearances to our senses are not replicas, or re-presentations, of phenomena in objective, physical space. They are fresh creations arising in the space of consciousness. Likewise, our concepts of space and the objects within it are not replicas of anything existing independently of the mind. In short, the brain believed by neuroscientists to exist in real, objective space is as devoid of consciousness as is the physical space conceived of by physicists.
Neither the external space of the physical senses nor the internal space of the mind exists in the brain, nor are any of the contents of such external or internal space located inside the head. Within the context of the experienced world, the demarcation between external and internal space is one of convention, not absolute reality. We may experience mental images, for example, not only in our “mind’s eye,” with our eyes closed and our attention withdrawn from the physical world. We may also superimpose mental images on our sensory fields of experience. For example, we may imagine the face of a man on the moon or an archer outlined in a configuration of stars. . . . . ."
The above grappling with the core question of the reality/real existence of physicality/materiality in the above paragraphs is unsatisfactory to me. The author's quotation from Damasio -- “There is no picture of the object being transferred from the object to the retina and from the retina to the brain.”8 -- does not address this question, but only argues that perception is not 'representational' but rather presentational. Damasio's point is, however, a welcome advance beyond classical reductive neuroscientific attempts to account for perception and consciousness.
What does the acronym SIIL stand for?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
According to physicalism the primary substrate is non-feeling matter.
According to CR the primary substrate just is feeling.
There are many similarities between these views, the main one being that both substrates, matter and feeling, are capable of differentiating and evolving.
A physicalist might say that mind eventually emerges from life. A Conscious Realist would say simply that mind is life.
The body just is the mind viewed from the 3rd person perspective.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Something-it-is-like
@Soupie, thank you for trying to clarify your theory. I'm sorry to say that I still do not understand what appears to be the asserted identity of feeling, life, and mind. What is the evidence or reasoning supporting this claimed identity? Also, how does a "3rd person perspective" enter into it?
smcder
Paranormal Adept
You should read it ... Especially in re: your latest posts.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
"Consciousness is best understood in context, as one element of an interactive waking state in which the greater part of cognitive processing takes place in a nonconscious fashion. But if conscious and nonconscious processing are combined in the waking state, what distinguishes the former form the latter, what is consciousness, and what is its purpose? The answer to the second question depends crucially on our conclusion regarding the first. What is the property in virtue of which a state is conscious rather than nonconscious? In the following, it will be argued that of the answers most frequently proposed— intentionality, subjectivity, accessibility, reflexivity—only the final characteristic, reflexive, autonoetic awareness, is unique to the conscious state. Reflexivity can best be explained not as the product of a self-representational data structure, but as the expression of a recursive processing regime, in which cognition registers the properties of the processing state to a greater extent than properties of the content represented. And the principal characteristic of a reflexive processing state is cognitive reflexivity or autonoetic awareness."
Definition
Autonoetic consciousness is the human ability to mentally place ourselves in the past, in the future, or in counterfactual situations, and to thus be able to examine our own thoughts. Our sense of self affects our behavior, in the present, past and future.
Definition
Autonoetic consciousness is the human ability to mentally place ourselves in the past, in the future, or in counterfactual situations, and to thus be able to examine our own thoughts. Our sense of self affects our behavior, in the present, past and future.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
Does the pond have autonoetic consciousness?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Not instrinsically (I.e. Not when in a state of singularity). Autonoetic consciousness seems to me like a process, and imo would therefore require there to be structure and complexity.
However, autonoetic consciousness could—and self-evidentially does—manifest within the pond.
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smcder
Paranormal Adept
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