LastThursday

@Twega I don't have answers or even a position as such, but I like to tug at different strands, to see where it leads. Imagine a story in which the main character is a novelist. In the story the novelist is hard at it, writing the next best seller. She writes about the entire life story of the protagonist in every detail. But for some reason or another her book never gets published. On her deathbed she thinks back to her early life when she wrote that damned manuscript. In a moment of clarity she realises the story she wrote was exactly the life she lead. So my point is, is the brain in consciousness or is consciousness in the brain? Taking it as a system there really is only three ways to view things: The entirety of reality is produced by the brain (and matter), and consciousness is just some emergent function of the brain's function. The entirety of reality is produced by/inside consciousness, and the brain is an emergent function of that. The brain (matter) and consciousness are two separate "systems" in a symbiotic relationship, and one cannot exist without the other. Take your pick I suppose. I've currently plumped for the middle one. So that being my position, then somehow consciousness has to explain the senses; as opposed to the first, where the senses have to explain consciousness. Or the last where we can explain nothing. That is the primary observation about the consciousness first idea. Consciousness somehow seems to be very well ordered and structured. We inhabit this persistent point of view and a consistency of experience which we label as sight and sound and smell. These in turn seem to be tightly bound to this hulk of flesh that follows us around, so much so that if we poke our eyes out, we become blind. Surely eyes are critical to our sense of seeing? But. If consciousness is well ordered as it is, then there has to be a chain of orderliness to everything. In other words there is always a reason for things having a structure. That is the very definition of a structure! This is as opposed to chaos - or complete disorder - which has no reason for itself at all. Now we're getting somewhere. It's clear that vision for example is structured: there is light and shade and different colours and positions and depth and a billion other elements to it. And lo and behold some of that structure is associated with these spherical appendages in my head. What I'm saying here is that vision includes eyes. The structure and order of vision includes the structure of my eyes within my consciousness. My sense of vision is seemlessly integrated with the consciousness of the existence of my eyes. What this says is that consciousness produces or brings forth or is responsible for everything it experiences including all the senses. Still. Consciousness does give itself some wiggle room and allows you to see and hear without being correlated to physicality - as in daydreams and memories of youth. A man who becomes blind may still dream. And consciousness is probably completely let loose by psychadelics. TLDR - Senses are in consciousness. Consciousness chooses to restrict itself because it's structured.

It's really quite simple. Go back and relive yesterday. Go to bed, set the alarm clock and wake up yesterday. What? You don't know how to do that? The answer is simple, yesterday never existed. What does knowing that change? On the surface, not much. But imagine you were a time fugitive, where's the best place to hide? Now of course - they'll never find you there. More seriously, it allows you to disconnect yourself from the nasty past and the horrible future and live in the happy present. The past and the future are stories inside your head.

The senses serve to narrow down or restrict the conscious experience. Imagine that consciousness was disembodied, and so it had no eyes or ears and so on (no senses). What would the experience be like? Some possibilites could be: A jumble of this and that from different places with no order to it, No experience at all (except maybe the sensation of being aware of awareness but that's a moot point) Experiencing everything at once. If it's the 3rd one above, then it's clear that the senses are somehow "locking you in" to a definite viewpoint in space - and restricting consciousness down. Of course that presupposes that consciousness can expand out to everything at all. But maybe the proof of that is in psychadelics. Don't forget, that the experience of having "senses" is totally within consciousness, so there's circularity there. In a way consciousness (or whatever) has chosen to restrict itself by conjuring up eyes and ears. Perhaps it's like a radio, the antenna can pick up everything, but the circuitry tunes into (senses) one channel. I find it fascinating that biology and physics could be somehow messing with the fabric of consciousness itself, but that's very much from a materialist standpoint. Also, bear in mind that you have hallucinatory experiences, such as memories, and subvocalization which are not dependent on the senses. So this already gives you a clue that the senses are not the whole story.

That's never happened to me. That's despite me thinking about him every second of my waking life. What can a man do? But seriously now: My pet theory is that recognisable people you dream of regularly represent some sort of strong emotional drama that needs resolving. It's not necessarily attachment to that person per se - just what they represent to you. What does Leo represent to you? For years I've had dreams involving ex-girfriends (and trains). What does it all mean? Dunno, still working it out, but it's definitely emotional.

If it was an actual monolith - say a 25 ton smooth granite cuboid stone block, with no signs of activity nearby - then I'd say Occam was quaking in his boots. I'd be impressed anyway.

You are God taking a winding path through infinity. Each POV in every moment is one part of the totality. You will experience everything. The other points in your life are ghosts in your current POV. Since every moment is outside of time (time is also a ghost), you have in a sense already experienced everything.

The 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not be distracted". If only I could always tell when I was being distracted. Ho hum.

@Keyhole sounds scary as hell (as all unknown things are), but I'm well up for encountering one of those. If you have any techniques available please let me/us know. As for the cheap welded metal monothings in the video, I'm sure aliens also have cost/benefit analyses. Shoddy workmanship is not disproof of aliens.

I thought that monoliths were made of stone. Still, why shouldn't aliens weld or have an artistic sense of humour?

Most computer programs are not compressible. In other words, you can only calculate the end result by running that specific program, no other program will do it for you. So there are many programs which can't be fast forwarded. The second problem is that the information content of society and evolution is immense, possibly even infinite. The best you could do with a computer program is to emulate a society statistically, no computer has the storage capacity you would need. Also with that amount of information, you would need a huge supercomputer, which would be a hungry power beast. Lastly, society and evolution is not a closed system. Do you include weather events, hurricanes, earthquakes in your simulation? Do you limit yourself to Earth, what about the Sun and space weather and meteorites strikes and so on? In fact do you need to simulate the Earth itself as well? Any simulation would be a chaotic one with infinite sensitivty to initial conditions. We can't even predict the weather next month with any certainty at the moment. The infinite mind is not a finite computer. In short the answer is sadly: no.

What is reality like? God, consciousness, awareness, You, are the infinitesimally thin film, with colours constantly shifting around. The bubble show started from nothingness itself; one uniform colour with no structure, that is non-duality, that is nothingness.

A young woman with passion and vision and awareness, there's hope for the future: I came accross her channel because of investigating tiny houses. On the other side of the size spectrum, this guy is unbelievable:

@MrWolf you say tomato I say tomato. I'd say we've both got valid observations.

Once an addict always an addict eh? Thing is it's not true, addiction is not a static thing, you can become unaddicted again. Avoiding strong triggers can be part of the tools to use against addiction. Trust me, keeping away from smokers when trying to quit makes it a lot easier. And I can now stand with a group of smokers and not crave a ciggy: I'm unaddicted.

You could waste a lot of time in any activity. The word to pay attention to is "waste" not the activity itself. I'm sure YouTube has plenty of high consciousness vids, you just have to find them. You just have to be more aware of your own intent. If your intention is just to relax and have some fun, then that's ok, don't beat yourself up. If your intention is to develop yourself, then use that to guide your actions. It's a matter of building up a habit of strongly focussing on what your intention is at any particular moment. Environment plays a great role too. If you're addicted to doughnuts, you should probably avoid Dunkin' Donuts the triggers are too strong. If @trenton is actually addicted to YouTube he should probably avoid it, at least until his intention is strong enough to override his default behaviour. The internet is big though, go somewhere else for high consciousness resources.

I'm in a pensive mood today. In a sort of segue from my most recent post, I think I've identified the cause of my, what do I call it? indifference? limbo? stuckness? It's the existential tussle between stillness and motion (a.k.a. The Story) . I think I need to elaborate. For me stillness has the following connotations: Centredness, stoicism, reliability, steadfastness, confidence, aloofness, status quo, minimalism, low effort, avoidance. You get the picture hopefully. In turn these things are about the following possibly unconnected ideas: Protection from and avoidance of bad stuff; freedom from others' problems and needs and dictats; freedom to be and do what I want; yearning to be accepted and loved; being respectful and trustworthy; being decent to others; being unemotional. A large part of my character is pensive, passive and analytical. Whether by nature or nurture (my father is pensive, passive and analytical) I don't know. So far in my life the Stillness has served me well enough. I have plenty of money, stability, health, a roof over my head and peers to keep me going until I die. This is contrast to my immediate family, who are on benefits, needing to be financially bailed out, needing a crutch of a man, or perenially skint and in varying states of ill health. I'm the wonder child. I'm the sensible first child. Except this is never acknowledged whatsoever by anyone. Instead I just get used by everyone - basically it's low conscious ignorant behaviour on their parts. I suppose I'm virtue signalling here, I'll stop. To summarise stillness has taken care of my survival needs. Ok, so on to motion: Excitement, energy, fun, laughter, purpose, direction, change, flowing, freedom, creativity, curiosity, productivity, novelty, collaboration, building, adventure, development, optimism - all in no particular order. The other side of the story of me, is that I have a boisterous, funny, loud and energetic side. This is connected with the following ideas: Getting attention and love; authenticity and freedom; feeling good and/or high; connection to others; helping others; bringing joy and humour; being silly; physicality; breaking rules; making and creating stuff; being responsive and fluid; improvisation. I was quite an energetic kid. From a young age I spent all my time outdoors, in an urban environment. Occasionaly it was threatening or physically dangerous. Physicality was the order of the day. Saying that, I was never that boisterous or overbearing, not a bully. And it was mostly about playing games, exploring the environment and being part of a group. In summary motion is about living life and being in alignment with it, flowing with it. Reading the above back to myself is actually useful. Due to my age, circumstance and super ingrained habits I've become very insular and still and now it's hurting me, despite it being authentic. I need much much more motion to be fully authentic and respectful to myself. Otherwise life is not worth continuing with. The big question is how? How do I achieve that motion? I have no choice other than to be an adult, and a not young one at that. I can't behave like a child playing games and going exploring any more - I have to do grown up versions of those if at all. And people rely on me for their survival. I am actually completely lost on how to do that. It seems that everyone around me acts in the following way: thought -> want -> action. That seems to be motivation enough for them. I find it exceptionally robotic and mindless. I only appear to act out of necessity, none of my thoughts seem to generate any form of motivation or want or at least enough for me to take action. The way other people carry on seems alien to me, even if it's authentic to them. I'm not a complete lost cause though. I do have interests and minor motivations. But the interests are very analytical and pensive, mostly programming projects, or musical interests. And I have desires, but these are too vague or big or overwhelming to take action on. Put a different way, any motion I desire is in complete contradiction to the stillness I desire. Stillness is winning, but it's unbalancing me. So here are my ragbag of my Vague Desires in Motion (I really should get a dreamboard going and maintained): Not to work for someone else To be out in the sunshine year round and to be closer to nature To use my body constantly, be physical, exert energy To be with an authentic beautiful woman who is self sufficient and energetic and adventurous Not to have money concerns or survival concerns (I have this already though) To build my own house with my own hands To tread lightly in the world, be self sufficient and connected to my environment To be highly creative, use intelligence and skills and make an impact on people Just to be allowed to be "let loose" and be me without judgement Give up programming and sitting in front of a monitor, and just have it as an occasional hobby To be away from the death grip of my parents' problems One of my old maxims apply here: if you do nothing, nothing will change.

For practical every day purposes, yes of course. But that's only from the perspective of separation. If you remove the separation, then there is no "you" and there are no "other beings", there is just one you/other beings entity. It's like you're the milk and they're the coffee, if you remove the separation, then it's just milky coffee. If there is no separation, then there aren't separate minds and thoughts either. If there were then there would still be separation. But it doesn't mean there would be a mind-meld or something strange like that. Your mind and thoughts are not separate from stuff "out there" either. You mind and thoughts are the same thing as the chair you're sitting on. Hopefully you see where it all leads.

@Amaal This is a matter of perspective only. From an absolute perspective separation doesn't exist out there or anywhere (non-duality). The separation only arises as a thought or appearance in awareness. For example from one perspective the hand has fingers and a palm, from another it is a whole hand (+arm +body). Only thought creates the separation.

Something to try would be to reflect it back on to your friends. Start calling them sweet and adorable and pixie fairies or other cutesy names. At the very least it will raise awareness within them. Secondly it will be a softer indirect challenge - since it is not your normal way of addressing them - which may work better for you.

You're being deliberately daft. Would a sword protect you from a gun etc. etc.? How likely is it you're going to be beheaded in London? Don't you get the gist of what @Preety_India was saying?

No way is language consciousness; language is just a brushstroke within the picture of consciousness. Admittedly language can modulate consciousness. But the bigger picture is that consciousness modulates itself to its own ends - that is its very mechanism of creation. If it decides to modify itself through language or by any other means it can do so. But language is neither the only means nor the primary means of self-modification. Inserting "free will" into the equation is unnecessary.

Exactly. But you only understand better what the concept of consciousness is. It's worth thinking about what equating one concept to another actually does. Does it collapse the boundary between two concepts? Does it create a hybrid concept? Or does it create a new concept that only has the shared characteristics of both? The "danger" of equating concepts is that the result isn't known. I think that is where you're going to struggle on this forum to get any agreement. There's a strong belief here that all language is one step removed from "direct experience". I'm in partial agreement with you, that language can inform experience directly, but it's not the whole story. I'm in definite disagreement that language is primary in any way. Consciousness first.

There is a big difference between talking about consciousness and the actual experience of consciousness (whatever that is). One is the map, the other the territory. All you're doing here is using language to equate one concept to another. It doesn't wash. And WTH is "direct experience" anyway? Experience is experience no? whatever flavour it comes in. Also, meaning is far too woolly a concept to be useful. What is it? Recognition? Awareness? Feeling? Epiphany? Rant over.

Granted, you wouldn't see a chair without having a concept of one. But before you learnt the language concept "chair" I'm sure you sat on one - so there was something there, even if it wasn't identified as a chair. So qualia are "prior" to concepts. But I agree some qualia are the results of concepts. In general for those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

I stand corrected and I apologise. I was being lazy in not reading all the posts. Although in my defense (as if I had to defend myself), in my answer I was pointing out that consciousness is a concept in language - which it is. Whatever you equate consciousness with, it's still couched in language (on this forum).