What are the fundamental "qualities" of consciousness?

[Joshe]

What determines if a consciousness is prone to truth or falsehood. Is it simply "awareness"? 

We say things like "The quality of their consciousness". But what are these "qualities" we're referring to?

To understand consciousness, wouldn't it make sense to build a model or scale around whatever these "qualities" are? I know it wouldn't be easy since the qualities can't be measured, but I think our current heuristics are pathetic compared to what they could be. 

Please share any ideas of what you think are the fundamental qualities of consciousness. Also, this is a new exploration for me, so I don't know very much. 

First, I want to identify all the fundamental qualities that I can. 

A few preliminary ideas:

• I think "awareness" should be #1. 
• The model needs to account for selfishness/evil. Awareness might explain that but not sure. 
• Intensity - I think this is good but also could be a property of awareness. 
• Need to figure out how many qualities might just be properties of awareness. 
• Shit, this is harder than I thought. 

Of course, AI isn't gonna be too helpful here. It's out of its depth. 😂

When I look inward, all I can see is awareness/consciousness itself. How can you describe the "quality" of that? I'm not sure if you can. I'm drawing a blank. 😂

Maybe awareness is the only quality? 

Edited September 7 by Joshe

[Leo Gura]

You are taking that phrase "quality of someone's consciousness" too literally.

It's a figurative notion. You can't literally look inside and see low qualities in your consciousness.

We could say that Trump has "low quality consciousness" in the sense that his mind is quite corrupt. His ego runs the show and he gets a cheap thrill out of attacking people, conning people, bullshitting, stealing money, and influcting revenege.

A low quality consciousness would, for example, get pleasure from torturing a monkey.

[Joshe]

@Leo Gura What I really want to know is what determines the quality of a consciousness. For example, why do some people care about reality and others don't. I was trying to answer this question by defining the qualities. 

David Hawkins has said people are mostly born with a fixed level of awareness. Some are born with high and some low. This may be true but I don't like this answer. Do you think it's true? 

Edited September 7 by Joshe

[Leo Gura]

@Joshe It's something like 80% genetic and 20% environmental. My best guess.

You're not going to get a more precise answer.

Edited September 7 by Leo Gura

[Joshe]

@Leo Gura I was afraid of that. lol. Thanks!

[Reciprocality]

You distinguish consciousness in two different contexts and words are not typically made for that kind of task, what is for instance both opposed to elevated and tricky or integrated and low?

Luckily there is some inherent similarity between the two things that are distinct from consciousness, that is: their causal continuity, "death" or most precisely "non-positivity".

When we observe a fly crashing with the window we immediately notice about it something different from the dust particles that flies around it, and we call that distinct characteristic spontaneity.

When we reflect on our own existence we find a continuous absence and presence of motive or will followed by a sense of identity but we never find a preceding reason for the motive or the will just like how we did not find any preceding reason for the movement of the fly we were observing.

 

We connect the behaviour of the fly and our own motive before we even get to think twice about it because we can not fail to know that they are opposed to the necessitated effects (causal continuums) that exists outside them, verify it yourself.

[Clarence]

33 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Joshe It's something like 80% genetic and 20% environmental.

To talk about someone's level of consciousness, wouldn't the word 'innate' be more accurate than the word 'genetic'? I feel like the word genetic emphasize a strong bond with the body, pretty much as if consciousness was produced by someone's  body/brain and their specific genes, while the link and relationship between someone's mind/consciousness and their body is very complex and even somehow separate, especially as we believe/have become conscious that physical death is not the end of ourselves, of our consciousness.

Innate, to me, doesn't make that strong link with the body, and so better account for the nature of consciousness.

[Hojo]

I dont think awareness is necessarily number 1. I think you can be experiencing reality as is now and not be aware that you are experiencing reality. Its not necessarily the closest to consciousness so I dont think it or anything else should be number 1 when it comes to consciousness.

A rock can be there with no awareness of the rock being there.

Edited September 7 by Hojo

[Leo Gura]

@Clarence Say as you like but I like genetic because it is more to the point.

Consciousness highly depends on genetics. Which is why a rat is not very conscious.

Edited September 7 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

16 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

I don't know how this is different from saying  intelligence is based on genetics. 

Intelligence is highly genetic, precisely because intelligence and consciousness are so linked.

[Buck Edwards]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Intelligence is highly genetic, precisely because intelligence and consciousness are so linked.

Highly controversial. I guess Sadhguru was just born that way then. 

 

[Girzo]

@Buck Edwards Sadhguru picked up yoga and practiced obssisively with a master since 14, right after finishing education he bootstrapped a construction business and an egg farm business with a friend, then he achieved Enlightenment and went on to become one of the top rockstar spiritual gurus in the world. 

He doesn't sound like an particularly average person.

[Leo Gura]

43 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

Highly controversial.

Not at all. It's commonly understood by science. Heritability for intelligence is above 50%.

Quote

I guess Sadhguru was just born that way then. 

Sadhguru himself says he worked multiple lifetimes to reach his current level.

Edited September 7 by Leo Gura

[Clarence]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

@Clarence Say as you like but I like genetic because it is more to the point.

Consciousness highly depends on genetics.

Ok, I did not see that, but thinking more deeply, it actually seems true. It's a bit confusing to me though. Even scary.

I thought that what made my consciousness the way it was was my consciousness itself, not my particular body and genes. It flips everything upside down.

I've always felt like my sense of self was strongly separated from my body, as if my human body was a stranger to me, and so, as if my consciousness was independant to my body, but that way of being and sensing oneself could as well come from… my genetics.

No wonder I'm confused, it brings me back to acknowledge the existence of my body, and even more so, in relation to my sense of self.

[Clarence]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Sadhguru himself says he worked multiple lifetimes to reach his current level.

But then… his consciousness here is somewhat independant from his body, as it kept evolving with different genetics.

[Girzo]

19 minutes ago, Clarence said:

But then… his consciousness here is somewhat independant from his body, as it kept evolving with different genetics.

You don't really know what Sadhguru is saying when he talks about multiple lifetimes. I for sure don't. He could have meant anything. Who here has a direct insight into such matters?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Clarence said:

I thought that what made my consciousness the way it was was my consciousness itself, not my particular body and genes. It flips everything upside down.

But body and genes are just ways to talk about consciousness.

Yes, it's strange-loopy.

You can call it genetics or past life karma, either way you are just saying that your consciousness tends to flow a certain way and not another.

Why don't you have the consciousness of a kangaroo? You will have to appeal to some external factor outside your control. Basically God decided to go with human vs kangaroo, for whatever complex technical reasons.

Edited September 7 by Leo Gura

[jakee]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You can call it genetics or past life karma, either way you are just saying that your consciousness tends to flow a certain way and not another.

Would Bernardo Kastrup's filter hypothesis be a good way to conceptualize this? So the brain/body is a filtering or localisation mechanism inside the mind at large (God). The brain localizes Infinite consciousness, leading to a  finite and specific perspective or form/structure of consciousness. 

So according to this, the genes do have a derivative relationship with intelligence and potential for development of the individual filtered mind, but they are still a construction of the "mind at large". 

[Girzo]

@jakee This is not an explanation, just repeating the same statement in different words. So yeah, if you just want to talk about it and like the terminology of Kastrup, then why not. But to understand such things you need a direct insight. Just don't confuse more sophisticated thoughts for understanding or consciousness and you are good.

[jakee]

4 minutes ago, Girzo said:

@jakee This is not an explanation, just repeating the same statement in different words. So yeah, if you just want to talk about it and like the terminology of Kastrup, then why not. But to understand such things you need a direct insight. Just don't confuse more sophisticated thoughts for understanding or consciousness and you are good.

Yeah, thats why I said "is this a good way to conceptualize it", not "is this the correct explanation" of said phenomena.