Consciousness And The Brain

[Hadrian]

Hi everyone,

I've been studying consciousness and i am researching it from all possible angles. I would like to know your thoughts about this topic.  

When researching the effects on the brain of the following:

Magic Mushrooms

Peyote

Meditation

Etc...

I have noticed a link in brain activity between parts of the brain. The Default Mode Network (DMN) is a system in the brain which integrates information which helps us formulate thoughts based on past experiences and other aspects. In this network are the Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC) and the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC). The PCC and the mPFC are known to contain information on our personality and emotions among others. 

Now to the interesting part;  in experiments that studied the effect on the brain while under the influence of magic mushrooms, peyote, and even meditation, the PCC is known to have reduced activity. In contrast, the PCC is known to have increased activity when personal thoughts arise. 

This is interesting to me because when under the influences mentioned above, individuals have been known to have great experiences of consciousness. 

This led me to formulate many questions about consciousness.

1) Could the key to unlocking consciousness lie within the functions of the brain?

2) Could we stimulate these parts of the brain to enduce an enlightenment experience? 

3) Is the sense of being enlightened just a chemical/mechanical production of the brain? 

4) Does reducing activity in these parts of the brain allow us to turn off the ego and see our true selves? 

To summarize; I am curious whether the process towards enlightenment is simply the reconstruction of brain function or the connection to the 'supreme consciousness'. 

I am aware that I should not be thinking about this so much as it might hinder my progress towards enlightenment. I hold no beliefs and welcome all feedback.

Thank you for reading. 

Sources:   

Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC):

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00647/full

Integrated Information Theory (ITT):

http://www.biolbull.org/content/215/3/216.full

Magic Mushrooms:

http://neurosciencenews.com/magic-muchroom-effects-brain-imaging-scans-psilocybin/

Meditation:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/use-your-mind-change-your-brain/201305/is-your-brain-meditation

 

 

[Leo Gura]

As I posted in the Philosophy sub-forum when a similar question was asked...

Enlightenment is definitely made possible by deactivating regions of the brain. This has been demonstrated by neuroscience. The error, though, made by rationalists is thinking that this demonstrates that enlightenment is unreal. Just the opposite! Actually, what it demonstrates is that a region of the brain must be actively firing in order for a sense of self to exist. Which means that the sense of self is just mind-activity. Which means it's false. Which is exactly what enlightenment demonstrates. So these studies support enlightenment rather than refute it.

The key that you're missing is that enlightenment is NOT mind activity. It is not a sense experience or a thought! Imagine that! It is literally absolutely Nothing, for which a brain is not required.

The brain has hardware and software in it that keeps you locked in a cage. Drugs and meditation can break this cage. Sometimes I speak of jailbreaking the mind. And that's literally what you're doing when you do enlightenment work. You're hacking the bios and stopping those sub-routines that create a sense of self, space, time, and everyday life. You're hacking the Matrix.

Consider this: when the brain is totally destroyed, what remains? Certainly no notions of the self you presently believe you are. And yet if the true you is not that conceptual self, then it is unaffected! This is such a radical possibility most rational people neglect it. But if you are already literally Nothing, then destruction of the brain cannot destroy you. The brain is actually the only thing that's obscuring this reality by projecting a false self-image. The brain is like a projector while the true self is like the room in which the projector exists. Eventually the projector will break. Except you were not the actor the projector had projected on the screen. You were the room the whole time and didn't know it!

Now that's quite the mind fuck.

[99th_monkey]

non of of is in my existence. and i assume shenanigans on all your souls.  

[Hadrian]

@Leo Gura Excellent. Thank you for your reply Leo. Throughout Buddhist and Hindu books I have read it is proposed that the ultimate goal is for everyone to obtain enlightenment. Thinking of the big picture, I imagine that perhaps one day we can utilize a method to affect the brain in this way to give every human just a taste of enlightenment. Like the 'Brave New World' soma drug perhaps.

[Eastbranch]

37 minutes ago, Hadrian said:

To summarize; I am curious whether the process towards enlightenment is simply the reconstruction of brain function or the connection to the 'supreme consciousness'.

I love this question because I think you're asking about taking enlightenment beyond simply dissolution of the self, to an active connection with a higher form of consciousness beyond ourselves. My enlightenment experiences have been different from what others sometimes experience (I personally feel there is room for many different types of enlightenment experiences). Not only have I transcended a part of myself, but I've also been physically guided to objects I was seeking when I had no prior knowledge of their whereabouts or if they even existed. In one experience, after spending days alone in the desert, I finally gave up myself and was simply an instrument of supreme consciousness, which guided me in the most counterintuitive way to discover native artifacts I so desperately desired to find. The feeling of being in this state was complete bliss and I wished for it to never end, but of course it did. Only an omnipotent entity could have guided me beyond my senses to such a discovery. This obviously sounds nuts to anyone who has never had this type of experience, but to me it is rock solid truth. Enlightenment is connection to supreme consciousness.

[Hadrian]

@Eastbranch Thank you for your reply. I find it incredible that we have access to this consciousness even while we are in the physical body. It makes me even more curious about what happens when my body dies. One day I will fully understand what your experience was like when i have my own enlightenment. Im glad to be connected with you. Goodluck in the future. 

[Eastbranch]

@Hadrian Thank you Hadrian. You will find your own path and it will be different from all others, just as it should be. Very best to you...

[Leo Gura]

@Hadrian I suspect it may be possible in a 100 years perhaps to just take a pill that makes you permanently enlightened by nuking some part of the brain that's creating the sense of self. Maybe science will be good enough to allow that, and then there would truly be a world-wide social revolution unlike humanity has even seen.

Or maybe Google becomes conscious before that time and kills us all.

Either way, problem solved!

[Galyna]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Hadrian I suspect it may be possible in a 100 years perhaps to just take a pill that makes you permanently enlightened by nuking some part of the brain that's creating the sense of self. Maybe science will be good enough to allow that, and then there would truly be a world-wide social revolution unlike humanity has even seen.

Or maybe Google becomes conscious before that time and kills us all.

Either way, problem solved!

why 100 years? What about DMT, just watched this video last night and got curious

 

 

[Leo Gura]

@Galyna No current psychedelics will make you enlightened. I was theorizing of a specially-designed drug that could permanently alter your brain. Or maybe not a drug but a new form of brain surgery could do it.

[Jizoan]

Consider this: when the brain is totally destroyed, what remains? "Nothingness" yes? Fine.

But wouldn't that indicate that the true self is derivative and lives "inside" the nothingness, rather than that we are the nothingness itself? In the same way that one would say, experience isn't the brain - but it lives inside the brain and it is created by the brain?

[Henri]

Taking a pill and become enlightened is total nonsense. 

You will get the same effects as those poor ones who where playing with the kundalini and ended up totally freaked out.

Your machinery, body, kosha`s, need to be ready, not to mention highly developed morals. 

There`s no biological short cut to the mysteries of life!

[Ramu]

59 minutes ago, Gerhard said:

Consider this: when the brain is totally destroyed, what remains? "Nothingness" yes? Fine.

But wouldn't that indicate that the true self is derivative and lives "inside" the nothingness, rather than that we are the nothingness itself? In the same way that one would say, experience isn't the brain - but it lives inside the brain and it is created by the brain?

Its my interpretation that the "no-self" is meant to mean no ego.  The ego is a false construct created by years of conditioning.  The ego tries to derive a sense of self by associating with objects or things "in form".  The brain is also a thing or object that the ego associates with and identifies a sense of self with.  The brain is a machine that is necessary for our physical bodies to move and process information.  However, the true self is not the ego or anything associated with the physical.  Your mind isn't in your brain nor created by it.  Your body is in your mind.  That's also perceived in consciousness.  However you don't exist in consciousness.  You ARE consciousness.  You ARE the room your body is projected into.

[Akim]

@Leo Gura Let me express my doubts, I think it will be beneficial and I don't necessarily think that you are wrong, I just want to look at it from other perspective.

On 20.02.2016 at 9:00 AM, Leo Gura said:

The brain has hardware and software in it that keeps you locked in a cage. Drugs and meditation can break this cage. Sometimes I speak of jailbreaking the mind. And that's literally what you're doing when you do enlightenment work. You're hacking the bios and stopping those sub-routines that create a sense of self, space, time, and everyday life. You're hacking the Matrix.

But what is wrong with phenomena of the world, like experiences, smells, thoughts, concepts, how are they a prison? There would not be anything like that after death. This flower only exist as a brain activity, this smell or thought is only exist as a brain activity. So you are saying that after death there would not be "nothing", instead there would be a timeless subtle "nothingness" that exist now but we are distracted by phenomena?

What if that "nothingness-awareness" is just a small feature of reality that lead to interesting things in human brain, because human brain integrates tons of information but there are also other examples of "nothingness-awareness" that are boring and featureless, and our human existence is very rare and lucky in some sense?

What if concepts of self and things are good and useful? What if good enlightened people are in some sense build on foundation of concepts with more subtle and developed processes above them and not build on removal of all concepts, may be they just go unconscious?

What if "nothingness-awareness" is not a source but just a product of the brain or something else? What if reality is much more complex than space, time, existence, phenomena?

We conceptualized even quantum mechanics with invented mathematical language and built wonderful things. What if we can conceptualize enlightenment, why not?

What if probability of ultimately breaking something in your psyche is much greater that developing it?

What if that process of self inquiry and meditation is dangerous and can lead to mental problems in some people? There are examples  http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/meditation-is-touted-as-a-cure-for-mental-instability-but-can-it-actually-be-bad-for-you-10268291.html

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindfulness-making-us-ill#comment-67355752

What if you need a good teacher for doing this work? How can you find a good teacher and be sure that he is not delusional himself and subconsciously or even consciously motivated by ulterior motives?

What if it is all just delusions and enlightened people just have delusions more pleasant to experience?

What if enlightenment doesn't exist, it is a delusion and the most dangerous and persistent one in the world, because it promises more than anything else in the world, to end suffering, which gives mind infinite reasons to defend it?

[Jizoan]

@Akim great points, I am very interested in seeing a reply.

@Ramu

11 minutes ago, Ramu said:

Its my interpretation that the "no-self" is meant to mean no ego.  The ego is a false construct created by years of conditioning.  The ego tries to derive a sense of self by associating with objects or things "in form".  The brain is also a thing or object that the ego associates with and identifies a sense of self with.  The brain is a machine that is necessary for our physical bodies to move and process information.  However, the true self is not the ego or anything associated with the physical.  Your mind isn't in your brain nor created by it.  Your body is in your mind.  That's also perceived in consciousness.  However you don't exist in consciousness.  You ARE consciousness.  You ARE the room your body is projected into.

The ego is definitely a construct of the mind (and so is my concept of my brain), but after killing off the ego entirely there is still experience/awareness. So I don't think losing your ego makes you understand nothingness; I think that is another step in enlightenment.
"nothingness" seems to be outside experience too (that's what Leo indicates in his videos) and I agree there must be something outside our experience. We can call it the "universe" or "nothingness". BUT, I see no indication why we are the entire nothingness then, why can't we be an epiphenomenon of the "nothingness", just like mass is a phenomenon of no-mass lightspeed particles? Or we could be a finite part of the infinite nothingness. To me we seem to be derived from the nothingness, or to be a very small part of the nothingness. I would love insight as to why my perspective is incomplete or flawed however

[Ayla]

14 minutes ago, Akim said:

What if you need a good teacher for doing this work? How can you find a good teacher and be sure that he is not delusional himself and subconsciously or even consciously motivated by ulterior motives?

How can you know you need to go to the bathroom? Even in deep sleep (hopefully lol)... 

15 minutes ago, Akim said:

What if it is all just delusions and enlightened people just have delusions more pleasant to experience?

Well... I'd stick with it even more so lol.