What are the fundamental "qualities" of consciousness?

[Girzo]

12 hours ago, Clarence said:

Many people do. Some have spontaneous flashbacks, others get to know about their past lives through the Akashic Records (you can learn how to access them yourself), or through past life regression hypnosis.

You can look into Michael Newton's work, who specialized in regressions in the period in between lives, but he also talks about past lives. Through this practice, people can get direct access to their past lives.

That's not direct access and neither consciousness work. I doubt Sadhguru would be talking about some new age ideas when talking about multiple lifetimes.  You don't even know in what sense he has used that phrase. He could have as well mean the whole evolution of humankind up to this point in a poetic manner. Anything really. And if multiplicity of lifetimes is somehow a thing one can get really conscious of, I doubt that reality matches the map new agers like Newton sell.

[Clarence]

@Girzo I don't care about Sadhguru.

[Forestluv]

1) Genetics

2) Past life 

3) Environmental

I can't resist integrating these together. I'll probably get a bit loose with definitions as I often do. . . 

It's known that we inherit our DNA gene sequences from our parents. What's less obvious is that we can also inherit patterns of gene expression. One factor the influences which of our genes get turned on and off stems from the environment of our mother before we were born. . .

A classic experiment involved mice and a cherry blossom scent. Mice have no reason to fear the smell of cherry blossom. . . Scientists repeatedly exposed female mice to the smell of cherry blossom and then electrically shocked them. The female mice then began turning on stress-response genes in when exposed to a cherry blossom scent. . . Intuitively, this makes sense.

Let's now consider her offspring. . . her offspring also turn of stress-response genes when exposed to a cherry blossom scent (even though they've never been electrically shocked). If the child mouse could think, it might think: "Why do I get stressed-out around cherry blossoms? It makes no sense. Perhaps I had a Past life where I was traumatized by cherry blossoms". In a sense it's true. The mouse had a 'Past life' in which the 'Environment' shaped their "Genetic" expression. 

Similar phenomena have been observed in other vertebrates such as fish and humans. 

[Keryo Koffa]

@Forestluv Here are my ideas, and some food for thought:

"Our perception is pure imagination, loosely based on input patterns"
"The subconscious is conscious elsewhere, to expand focus here"
"Every thing is ultimately made out of the literal experience itself"
"Within consciousness, there exists great mobility and variability"
"Matter is a denser, more stable, and structured form of energy"
"Hollarchies coordinate intelligently to form the entire universe"
"Everything now subconscious was once a conscious (re)action"
"Thoughts shape reality, focus shapes & reinforces perception"
"Evolution is an active process and a directed conscious effort"
"One's level of self-awareness exponentiates personal growth"

Edited September 7 by Keryo Koffa

[Forestluv]

1 minute ago, Keryo Koffa said:

@Forestluv Here are my ideas, and some food for thought:

"Our perception is pure imagination, loosely based on input patterns"

One of my curiosities is the interplay between imagination within my mindspace and inputs from the environment

5 minutes ago, Keryo Koffa said:

"Within consciousness, there exists great mobility and variability"

Much of my mindspace is within this realm. 

[Davino]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What about disgrace?

Can hit you too. 

Lmao

Touché

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

One factor the influences which of our genes get turned on and off stems from the environment of our mother before we were born. . .

Okay, but I would just say that's part of what genetics is.

Genetics is basically a clever database of past factors that affect survival.

[Ishanga]

1) Blissful of Your Own nature, its naturally occurring and not due to any circumstance!

2) Highly Aware of what is going on around You, and within You, the Unconscious and Subconscious mind is within Your Awareness, You know why thoughts and desires are coming up in Your Mind and Life, and You are Aware of the Karma that is present in Your Life, why the situations that are happening are happening..

3) Your Naturally Kind, Compassionate, Gentle, but can at Your own Will be assertive and forthright, and confrontational (in a aware and compassionate way, tough love per say), when needed.

4) Your Attracted to Nature, Natural things that happen and you feel very connected to Nature and the Universe as a Whole!

[Forestluv]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Okay, but I would just say that's part of what genetics is.

Genetics is basically a clever database of past factors that affect survival.

Yea, it's a branch of genetics. . . 'epigenetics'.

I was playing loose with the idea of 'Past lives'

[Joshe]

@Forestluv Thanks! Epigenetics is a good idea. If it is the case, it seems quality of consciousness could potentially be traced back to causal factors. 

[Starlight321]

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Okay, but I would just say that's part of what genetics is.

Genetics is basically a clever database of past factors that affect survival.

One doesn't even have the same genes as their parents due to cross exchange.

 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Starlight321 said:

One doesn't even have the same genes as their parents due to cross exchange.

Doesn't contradict what I said.

[Starlight321]

51 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Doesn't contradict what I said.

It was rather to underscore your point.

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Starlight321 said:

One doesn't even have the same genes as their parents due to cross exchange.

 

The fundamentals of this video is generally correct, yet he is not a geneticist and was imprecise on many points. I wrote a long post correcting each point, yet it got very long and wonky. Plus, his fundamentals are generally correct, so I deleted all the corrections.

For the OP, there is a distinction between genes and forms of genes (alleles). Each gene is a sequence of DNA that usually codes for a protein. A different allele of a gene would be a different DNA sequence that would produce a different form of the protein. Each of us inherits the same genes from our ancestors - its the form of the gene (allele) at issue.

Each generation receives 50% of the DNA from each parent (it's not exactly 50:50 due to the X chromosome and mtDNA, but it easier to round off here)..

So your genome is 50% from Mom and 50% from Dad.

Your genome is 25% from each of your grandparents.

Your genome is 12.5% from each of your great-grandparents.

Your genome is 6.25% from each of your great-great-grandparents

And so on. . . 

Overall, you have all 15,000 genes in the genome yet you have very few of the specific forms of those genes from your maternal great-great-grandfather. For example, you and your great-great-grandfather both had a DNA sequence called the "RAS gene". If you don't have the RAS gene, you are dead. However, it is very unlikely that you have inherited your great-great-grandfather's specific gene sequence of the RAS gene because this specific allele of the RAS gene only has a 50% chance of being passed on each generation.

[Leo Gura]

@Forestluv What is your field of teaching within academia?

[Forestluv]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Forestluv What is your field of teaching within academia?

Genetics, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Neuroscience. . . Yet I integrate a lot of stuff from other academic fields, such as Psychology, Sociology, Art and creative writing.  Also, some things outside of traditional academia such as intuition and direct experience forms of understanding.

[Leo Gura]

Just now, Forestluv said:

Genetics, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Neuroscience. . . Yet I integrate a lot of stuff from other academic fields, such as Psychology, Sociology, Art and creative writing.  Also, some things outside of traditional academia such as intuition and direct experience forms of understanding.

Very cool. What kinda classes do you teach? What are the class titles?

[Forestluv]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Very cool. What kinda classes do you teach? What are the class titles?

My standard courses have traditional titles like "Developmental Biology". Yet in the course, I have some liberty to "go out there".

I've had the opportunity to create a few courses not constrained by science. One was titled "The Evolution of Consciousness". My most recent was titled "SuperNomal Abilities". 

There are aspects I like, yet there is also a social mind of academia that I don't fit well into. 

[Leo Gura]

@Forestluv Smuggling God into academia? You clever devil

Edited September 8 by Leo Gura

[Forestluv]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Forestluv Smuggling God into academia? You clever devil

That made me laugh. So true.

When I returned from Peru, I had a bunch of San Pedro and had to get through Customs. With the officer, I had to speak calmly / matter-of-factly about myself and trip. They are very good at sensing nervousness.

Similarly, a colleague recently caught me smuggling some God into the classroom. I recontextualized it into "System Thinking", of which we have little in our science department. She pushed back a bit about what systems thinking is. . . I agreed and added there are other forms. I went on to describe multiple forms of system thinking that can be inter-related into a higher system that includes the traditional forms she speaks of. . . which is true. She eventually said: "What you are describing is at higher level". I then knew I was home-free. I replied "Each form of cognition has its own complexities, nuances and value. It's great that we each contribute to different areas in our courses". . . I then got through Customs and moved on. . . Everything I said was true and expanded her mind a tiny bit.