Conscious-awareness And Self-perception

[FindingPeace]

From a young age I started questioning reality and being curious about how everything, everyone worked. I remember contemplating about consciousness awareness. Unfortunately there was no one I could discuss the topic with because when I tried, people would look at me like I had two heads, laugh and say “you’re funny..”. So, 25 years later, what better place than this forum? Finally I can get this idea out into the world..

This goes down a deep rabbit hole, and I’m not even sure I can accurately convey my thinking through the spoken word.

 So there I was thinking about what conscious awareness is. The thing that struck me was that we all must have it. Perhaps every brain, be it human or otherwise, has it. And for each life-form the conscious awareness is from a first-person perspective. Through the senses and thoughts of the being.

But this got me asking – so how did ‘my’ conscious awareness, or the perceiver of my awareness come to be associated with this particular body, i.e. this body I call ‘mine’. I mean, life-forms are created and ‘come online’ every day, and have done so throughout history. So how did my consciousness, my perspective, come to be from this body on the day that it ‘came online’? Why not a different body at a different time?

Are you following me so far? This is where people look at me funny and edge away…

Sure, this body was created and became conscious, just like every other. But how did my perception come to be associate with it specifically and not any other. Some other perceiver could have been ‘assigned’ to it instead.

I look around at others and try to imagine that each person I’m looking at is perceiving their conscious awareness from the perspective of ‘their’ body just as I am. But then I ask, how is it I’m not perceiving that other person’s consciousness instead of mine? And I don’t mean in that particular moment. I mean, when that body’s conscious awareness came online, instead of being aware of my body when it came online my perception could have been assigned to that one instead. I could have been anyone one of millions of people yet I became aware of this body’s life.

I image the ‘perceiver’ as a sort of camera that is viewing that body’s brain’s consciousness. Every consciously-aware brain is being viewed by a separate camera. Yet each cameral is uniquely assigned to that particular brain.

It blows my mind. Frankly, it questions what conscious perception is at all in the first place. Let alone how we can all have a uniquely assigned perception from a specific viewpoint.

I don’t expect anyone to understand what I’ve written. No doubt there’ll be many misunderstandings. But if anyone does catch on and have something to add I’d be very interested to hear it.

In fact, any other thoughts or theories people have had about consciousness, awareness and perception would be interesting to hear about.

[abrakamowse]

I understand, and I ask myself the same thing but I think that this is because I am not enlightened so, I still can't understand some of the stuff, understanding will came later, IMO.

 

But I think about the same everyday.

Edited February 15, 2016 by abrakamowse

[Guest]

10 hours ago, FindingPeace said:

 So there I was thinking about what conscious awareness is. The thing that struck me was that we all must have it. Perhaps every brain, be it human or otherwise, has it.

Yes, this awareness is everywhere.  There is not a place or time when it is not.  But it does not originate in a brain, which is a thing.   Awareness is the source of consciousness and out of consciousness everything is manifested.  Awareness and consciousness precede everything.  Awareness and consciousness are not things.  Rather they might be thought of as NO THINGS (nothing)... Nothing that the mind or intellect can comprehend.

Everyone knows that they exist.   You say "I exist", and of course you feel it, you know that you exist.  But this "you" is NOT the "you" of the ego/body/mind complex.  That is just a manifestation of consciousness, like the entire universe is a manifestation of consciousness.  The "you" that knows that "I exist",  that knows "I am",  is awareness itself, which is the same awareness in everything and everybody.   There is only one of it not two or more.   The concept of ONENESS originates from that understanding.   Therefore there is only ONE you, only ONE "I AM".  It is the "I AM" of awareness itself.

Because of the millennia of conditioning of mind,  the manifestation called people and minds have a belief system built in that makes them believe that they are separate from other parts of life.   They do not know that life is ONE.  It is the same life in everyone.  This not knowing is usually referred to as ignorance or the play of Maya in eastern philosophy.   It is the process of self-realization that leads to an understanding and living of this reality.

joy

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by walt

[30secs]

@FindingPeaceSo how did my consciousness, my perspective, come to be from this body on the day that it ‘came online’? Why not a different body at a different time?

 

 

your using "why" when everything just happened. your specific consciousness "you" is the result of the unique very complex biological order and cannot just be another human mind or exist in another time. By the way the "you" is just a concept just like anything else.

 

[Iovestar]

I've thought a lot about consciousness as well, and the rather amazing ability to be aware of one's consciousness. It's definitely not the easiest topic to accurately convey as it's essentially your brain attempting to study itself. We can theorize and experiment, but how accurate can we really be when we automatically fall under the human bias?

I've always wondered, what is the function of consciousness? Why haven't we evolved to be automatons with no awareness? Why is awareness necessary? Why do we have the ability to know we are aware? Anyone who can ask "Am I conscious at this very moment?" has consciousness awareness, so it must have constituted an evolutionary advantage of some sort - or is it just an accidental byproduct of evolution?

I have quite a few different ideas in regards to this topic, but for the sake of keeping my sanity, I will just share a few. haha. I have thought a lot about what distinguishes human beings from automatons / AIs. What can we do that automatons / AIs cannot? Perhaps consciousness may be required for planning the future, or being able to predict unforeseen situations, which AIs seem to have a terrible time at doing. To be able to feel emotions and to analyze situations in order to make decisions.. is this possible without self-awareness?

I have also wondered.. will we eventually be able to create a complex machine with consciousness awareness, and how would we even test its awareness? Perhaps, once we are able to create machinery which can autogenerate/delete itself (like neurons in the brain which constantly form new connections) we will be able to generate artificial consciousness?

I feel that there's definitely a lot we don't know, and we can only theorize. I often wonder if we will ever really understand consciousness and what it truly is. 

--

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” – Max Planck

 

[Philip]

@FindingPeace Another similar question we can ask is :
Why are you only aware of your conscious thoughts, feelings and sensations ? Why are you not aware of your subconscious ones ?

To me, both conscious and subconscious thoughts are simply a cascade of electric signals in the brain. What makes them so different ? What structure or process in my conscious mind makes it "belong" to me ? Why doesn't it belong to no one ? Why doesn't it belong to someone else ?

And furthermore, why couldn't your subconscious mind belong to someone else. Maybe there is another person in your head, only conscious of what you're unconscious of.  Seeing what you can't see. Remembering what you can't remember. Making the thousands of decisions you don't have time to make in a day. Controlling most of you behavior since you're born. Maybe it totally knows who you are.

That would be freaky...

[FindingPeace]

15 hours ago, Philip said:

why couldn't your subconscious mind belong to someone else. Maybe there is another person in your head, only conscious of what you're unconscious of.  

I like this idea. It has occured to me before. Perhaps there is another conscious awareness that is only aware of the subconscious brain activity. That's a pretty cool idea. The thing that reinforces this concept is when we witness people who have been hypnotised, are unconscious of their actions yet are able to function as thought they are fully conscious. It does ask the question whether our unconsciousness has some awareness that is not connected to 'our' higher-level consciousness.

[Galyna]

@FindingPeace

Wow, I love your topic. I am thinking about this all the time. 

I have a questions for you? 

How can you validate that other people are also conscious and not a part of your Consciousness? 

[Kelley White]

On 3/2/2016 at 10:37 AM, Philip said:

Why are you only aware of your conscious thoughts, feelings and sensations ? Why are you not aware of your subconscious ones ?

@Philip I would theorize by observation you can, through the use of hyper-awareness states, be in the flow of one consciousness to the degree everything becomes serentypical where you can actually begin to see the subtle subconscious reflected back; that said be careful what you wish for?  You see things differently enough its painful and rewarding all in the same experience.

I love this thread I think about these things all the time.

I think everyone might find this of interest: 

 

[Philip]

@FindingPeaceHave you heard of split brain patients ? Since their right and left hemisphere are not connected anymore, the person sometimes behaves as if there was two people in one head. But none of them is aware of the other. 

And only one of them can communicate through language, because the verbal parts of the brain are mostly located in only one hemisphere. But does the other one feel left out ? Is it a second person that just feels trapped because she can't express herself ? I hope not ...

[Philip]

@Galyna You can't. You just have to leave a big question mark on this one, forever.

Because you would only have two ways of investigating this mystery : Science or Introspection. 

Science is quite powerless on this issue, because it needs to measure stuff with instruments, or to question people with sheets of paper. The results always have to be accessible to any other scientist. 

If you wanted to prove that I'm conscious, you would have to ask me. I would tell you : "Yes, I see colors, I hear sounds, so I'm conscious !" But I would be the only "scientist" to have access to this evidence, so it wouldn't be real science.

Introspection is to look inwards. The problem is : you can only look inside your own mind, so you still can't prove that I'm conscious. 

That led many people to believe that they were the only existing being. And that every other person is only a figment of their imagination. It's called solipsism, and it'll blow your mind, even though i'm not sure your mind exists

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism?wprov=sfla1

[Philip]

@Kelley White At least I know one way to access to your subconscious thought : Psychedelics. Listen from 2:09 to like 2:51.

 

It's intense, but also short and hard to remember. Another way I know is through introspection. For example, I remember when I first discovered why I had debates with people. Before, I thought I was the one who's right. And I thought I had to educate those who were wrong. But someday I saw that any debate I had was just an elaborate and subtle strategy to make myself superior to others. An ego game, so to speak.

But my original question was more interested in the microstructure of one's brain. I'll give you the answer I came up with last week :

"You can't access your subconscious thoughts, desires and beliefs because they are neurally connected in a way that you can't recall them or speak of them. They surely are present inside your brain. And they surely have lots of repercussions on your overall behavior and personality. They have surely been stocked like some kind of memory. But even though your brain loves to have them around, it really hates to bring them up. So it makes it really hard for you to remember them or talk about them."

Now I'd really like you to elaborate a bit on those hyper-awareness states. Have you reached them ? If so, how ?

[FindingPeace]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

@FindingPeaceHave you heard of split brain patients ? Since their right and left hemisphere are not connected anymore, the person sometimes behaves as if there was two people in one head. But none of them is aware of the other. 

I watched something about this on a tv documentary recently. Very interesting. Isn't it a cause of 'alien hand syndrome' where on side of the brain tries to assert itself over the other, maybe by using an arm to hit the body and demand control while the other side of the brain is using verbal reasoning etc

 

Edited March 7, 2016 by FindingPeace

[Philip]

@Iovestar Amazing comment. Bravo.

I don't see why consciousness would be needed for future planning, or even creativity, or any other human activity. Evolutionarily speaking, it would be stupid to spare any amount of effort in maintaining consciousness all day long. As you said, it really seems like a by-product of evolution.

But this also raises a huge existential doubt :

If consciousness has no evolutionary reason to exist, has no influence on any particle in this universe and has no way of being described in logical terms, maybe it simply does not exist.

And before you start throwing rocks at me, please know that I'm totally aware of the paradox there. The existence of consciousness is literally the only thing you cannot doubt. It is one of the most fundamental assumptions of human logic. It's more fundamental than 2+2=4. So if you want to throw consiousness by the window, you also have to throw 2+2=4, and everything else.

EXCEPT ONE : We'll call it "The Law Of Identity". It's the simplest law ever. It states that something is what it is. X=X. I am me, you are you. Consciousness is consciousness.

But what if we try to doubt this one ? What if consciousness isn't consciousness ? What if it is and isn't at the same time ? What if it neither is nor isn't ? 

What if even the most basic building blocks of logic are false ? Try to think about that. Tell me it didn't blow your mind...

[Galyna]

@Philip

Hey Phillip, first of all,  thank you for your feedback. 

I am not claiming here that other people DO NOT exist, what is really interesting for me is to grasp the Nature of Reality! Since Reality encapsulate people, all matter and an integral part of Consciousness (which is for majority of people is unexplored territory) basically, everything that outside your inner perception should be read as a faulty condition, as YOU, as an entity, can not verify it, unless you are Enlightened!  

As famous expression goes: " I am in the world, or world is in Me"

Totally agree with the need for Introspection.

Thank you for the video, watched very similar video 2-3 weeks ago about DMT. 

This subject is very hard, because to know the fundamental Truth you have to separate the Observer and Observation. The famous slot experiment says that the fact of observation changing the outcome.. 

What if consciousness isn't consciousness ? - very nice question, so next level question, something really DOES exist, even if it is not consciousness.

Something really DOES and the fact that reality exist is a miracle. 

What would it change if we call it differently? You will wake up tomorrow and have your coffee, or at least will have illusion of having a coffee. But the fact that we will have both: coffee and something else is a proof for me that Something really IS. Otherwise we would not have this conversation. 

 

[Philip]

@Galyna Yeah I know. Something exists. It's just so obvious. I can't think of an argument against it. And that's what scares me. That's what makes me want to doubt it anyway. And the more I try to doubt it, the crazier I get. And I love this !

[Philip]

@FindingPeace The documentary I saw didn't talk about any conflict between the two hemispheres of a split brain patient. But sometimes, one hemisphere knew the answer to the experimenter's question, while the other hemisphere didn't have any clue. So I guess there's a possibility for conflict sometimes. 

I can't wait for scientists to discover more about those mysteries of the mind ! 

[Galyna]

@Philip @Philip

Yeah Phillip, I feel you here, your pain and your joy. Sometimes I spend days and nights trying to give a birth to another theory, it is like being in labor, your mind trying so hard to push, but nothing comes out, right? 

Here is what we should understand, we can not invent something new in this field. So many people through the whole mankind history said so many things about Reality. We have to relax and observe Reality as is. But forcing hard, you will not get new insights or inspiration, it will only create tension and frustration. 

I love this book : Stephen Wolinsky "You Are Not: Beyond the Three Veils of Consciousness"  I would recommend to read, because he did a great job in describing how consciousness appears. I read it in 2009 and it blew my mind.

 

 

[Kelley White]

On 3/7/2016 at 7:49 AM, Philip said:

"You can't access your subconscious thoughts, desires and beliefs because they are neurally connected in a way that you can't recall them or speak of them. They surely are present inside your brain. And they surely have lots of repercussions on your overall behavior and personality. They have surely been stocked like some kind of memory. But even though your brain loves to have them around, it really hates to bring them up. So it makes it really hard for you to remember them or talk about them."

Now I'd really like you to elaborate a bit on those hyper-awareness states. Have you reached them ? If so, how ?

@Philip  Trance state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trance

Peak creative state from the trance state:   I put ear buds in, I feel, and write.  Its like playing the computer.   I've also noticed these peak experience states seem to accelerate learning?  I can look at something very complex and assimilate it wholly at once versus when I am in non peak states the same information can appear complex and overwhelming.

The two closest examples I have found to what  the process looks/feels like? 

 

 

Or this without the pill:

 

I am a huge fan of Colin Wilson, great documentary where he speaks about peak experience states.....

 

 

[Kelley White]

On 3/7/2016 at 10:46 AM, Philip said:

What if even the most basic building blocks of logic are false ? Try to think about that. Tell me it didn't blow your mind...

@Philip, it blew my mind about five years ago.  I've been wrestling with the radical acceptance since then?

On 3/7/2016 at 11:15 AM, Galyna said:

" I am in the world, or world is in Me"

@Galyna, Love that.

On 3/7/2016 at 11:15 AM, Galyna said:

Something really IS

Or the illusion is just that "beLIEveable?" There is proof now on the quantum level of the observer effect.  I was watching a documentary about it just a day or so ago.   Einstein was working on a Unified Field Theory before he died.  I've watched tens of hours of Nassim Haramein's work, this  is an overview every one in the thread might find of interest.   Its the "proof' for the Unified field theory indicative of a holographic universe. He is very funny, so he makes the topic understandable and interesting.