I am not saying that a universal consciousness, if it existed, would necessarily be egotistic and narcissistic. What I'm saying is that the concept of universal consciousness is a product of narcissistic and ego-centric thinking.
Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Free Will
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I am not saying that a universal consciousness, if it existed, would necessarily be egotistic and narcissistic. What I'm saying is that the concept of universal consciousness is a product of narcissistic and ego-centric thinking.
This is still Sri Aurobindo?
What does “form of consciousness” even mean? And what is consciousness then? What is “quality of being” supposed to be? What are the practical/experimental implications of this hypothesis?
Modern science has in fact moved on from 19th century notions about matter, and found upon closer inspection that matter is comprised of energy and “empty” space. But that does not automatically mean that matter is an offshoot of consciousness. Our notions of solid matter and objects clearly do have a lot of truth to them at the macro level, even if they don’t at the sub-atomic level. Again what are the practical and experimental implications of the above claim? It seems to be suggesting that one can manipulate matter Matrix-style, but available evidence offers very little support for this idea.
The evidence is that when the brain stops behaving in certain ways, consciousness ceases – both from a first and third party perspective. When you fall into a dreamless sleep, or when you get knocked out, the brain stops functioning in a way which sustains consciousness, and consciousness only resumes when the brain resumes its normal functioning.
Regarding the definition of consciousness, well that’s the core of the whole problem isn’t it? We can talk about the features of consciousness – e.g. sensory information, memory, thought processing - without too much trouble but when we get to awareness itself we run into all kinds of difficulty, because awareness is something which only seems to exist when at least one of the aforementioned features is also present. A couple of thought experiments might be useful here:
1)Try to think of any memory, thought, emotion, or other mental process which doesn’t originate with some sort of external sensory data. That external data comes in the form of light, sound, or electro-chemical messages, all of which are material phenomena.
2)Take a conscious person, and one-by-one remove the features of their consciousness. First remove all external sensory input, then all thinking and imagining, then all emotional impressions, then long-term memory, then finally short-term memory. After all these have been removed, what remains? Nothing, as far as conscious mental activity is concerned. With nothing to be conscious of, awareness itself falls away.
Bring all these features back online, and what you notice is that what we call consciousness/awareness is not really a “-ness” but a continual feedback process which roughly goes something like this:
Sense data + memory capability + thought and emotion processing capability -> creation of memory of sense data -> new sense data -> formation of new memory -> cross referencing with previous memory -> generation of emotional and thought impressions -> creation of thought/emotion memory -> (rapid ad nauseum repetition of previous steps) -> development of a mental construct of a “self” - > self-awareness -> initial sequence of steps filtered through the mental construct of a “self” -> more compelling sense of self-awareness-> impression that consciousness is a real, substantial independent thing.
Keep in mind that all of this happens extremely rapidly and begins (presumably) in the womb. So like a roll of film moving at high speed through a projector, there seems to be a moving stream of consciousness, and the thought processes have a whole lifetime to reinforce the misleading impression.
(I assume you meant to say consciousness, not conscience).
You could imagine it, but does that mean that such a creature therefore must exist independent/outside of your imagination?
Matter can give rise to consciousness because its properties allow it to arrange in certain complex ways which give rise to the sort of information feedbacks that generate consciousness. Perhaps it is possible to have comparable consciousness-generating feedbacks arise from a non-matter basis (e.g. maybe with interactions between EM fields??), but an imaginary creature made of imaginary thought is ultimately an emergent property of matter by way of its human creator, and as such will cease to exist as soon as their human creator is not longer able to sustain their own matter-based consciousness.
^The point was that matter itself is a concept we have due to particularities in our own form and senses. 'Matter' might still exist for that being, but it could not be sensed so it would be another theoretical concept or property. And by your own view, to base something on imaginary concepts seems to be ambiguous in regards to its worth as a foundation of a thinking-system.
So it remains that you seem to only base your materialism on our human particularity that enables us to view matter as something immediately sensed by us. This by itself does not render matter as a foundation for anything outside some human thinking-system.
So it remains that you seem to only base your materialism on our human particularity that enables us to view matter as something immediately sensed by us. This by itself does not render matter as a foundation for anything outside some human thinking-system.
That cant be since existence of universal consciousness means a demise of an ego. Why would anything ego-centric come up with an idea which completely denies it? That doesnt sound very ego-centric. Universal consciousness doesnt mean some sublimized larger ego big as a universe becouse in this conception there is no place for other such egos who all the other beings necessarily represents.
The implication is that matter is an illusion. It completely turns up side down the conceptions of existence and impossibility. How can there be something impossible in the universe where everything is consciousness (not necessarily mental one)? While in the universe where everything is nescience nothing is possible and everything is a miracle.
Yes, if consciousness is parent to matter it should be in position to manipulate it but we do not posses consciousness fully. At present we are naturally bounded by subconcience and inconscience. What we are aware of (egoistically through our mental consciousness) is only a quite insignificant tip of an iceberg...
timtofly
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Matter would have to exist, since hitting oneself with a hammer still produces pain. If it was all an illusion we would have just imagined that it felt good, since if the hammer did not exist, it would not cause any damage to the matter in our bodies.
Matter can still 'exist' even if it is not sensed by an entity. Pretty much the same as your shoe still will crush an insect no matter if you are unaware the insect is there, and surely without the insect having any notion of you or your potentially murderous protrusions. 
Likewise an alien may have no sense of matter, if that alien is not a stable form anyway, or it has no organs which allow it to examine immediately the properties we readily attribute to shapes and mass
My own point was that it would not be any basis for that being's understanding of its existence and the world around it.
Likewise an alien may have no sense of matter, if that alien is not a stable form anyway, or it has no organs which allow it to examine immediately the properties we readily attribute to shapes and mass
My own point was that it would not be any basis for that being's understanding of its existence and the world around it.
timtofly
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Are we saying that matter can exist, or does exist though? Why would we need the alien strawman to determine what matter is?
We see and observe what is around us and have come up with a definition for "concrete" form and we have called it matter. Upon further study we have observed this vast space inside of matter. The ancients may or may have not had knowledge to such extent. They also held to forces that could not be explained. These forces have yet to be explained even from modern knowledge. Why humans hop on board the latest stop of the "knowledge" train and declare "eureka" is beyond me though.
Humans can declare what existence is and how it effects them all they want, but I doubt humans will ever agree on a common answer. It would make more sense to me to declare that thought does not exist without matter, as opposed to matter cannot exist without thought. That is coming from one who accepts there is a "meta" dimension that has reality and is not connected with either thought or matter.
We see and observe what is around us and have come up with a definition for "concrete" form and we have called it matter. Upon further study we have observed this vast space inside of matter. The ancients may or may have not had knowledge to such extent. They also held to forces that could not be explained. These forces have yet to be explained even from modern knowledge. Why humans hop on board the latest stop of the "knowledge" train and declare "eureka" is beyond me though.
Humans can declare what existence is and how it effects them all they want, but I doubt humans will ever agree on a common answer. It would make more sense to me to declare that thought does not exist without matter, as opposed to matter cannot exist without thought. That is coming from one who accepts there is a "meta" dimension that has reality and is not connected with either thought or matter.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Most humans refuse to think. They will assume that the most debated theory, which is probably the last one, is the true one, and they carry one. Specialist communities are no different, once theyhave rebated the previous theory they are all smug that they have advanced and stop thinking for a while that they have not reached the end.
Hm, not sure exactly what your post is about, tim, but in the case it is actually mostly meant to further this debate:
I did not even touch upon the issue of whether matter 'exists'. That is entirely different. My current posts were about the possibility that for other organisms it would not even be sensed, and therefore would not be a prime part (or even any part at all) of their consciousness and concepts they would have.
If something is not even a concept, then it may still influence you, but it cannot consciously be a foundation for a view of your world or your own entity.
I did not even touch upon the issue of whether matter 'exists'. That is entirely different. My current posts were about the possibility that for other organisms it would not even be sensed, and therefore would not be a prime part (or even any part at all) of their consciousness and concepts they would have.
If something is not even a concept, then it may still influence you, but it cannot consciously be a foundation for a view of your world or your own entity.
timtofly
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I think the current subject was on an universal consciousness made up of the internal components we do observe in the cosmology we reside in. If matter is only in our collective consciousness, it would be futile to create another entity of the same makeup.
So first we have to determine if matter does exist or not. If it does not then attributing it to any other being outside our conscious would be futile, seeing as how it only exist in our imagination to begin with. If matter exist outside of our consciousness, then that matter is what allows our consciousness, but not necessarily the makeup of other beings regardless of what we imagine that could exist within our own consciousness.
So first we have to determine if matter does exist or not. If it does not then attributing it to any other being outside our conscious would be futile, seeing as how it only exist in our imagination to begin with. If matter exist outside of our consciousness, then that matter is what allows our consciousness, but not necessarily the makeup of other beings regardless of what we imagine that could exist within our own consciousness.
Well, it depends on whether you think the organs (mostly sensory) a sentient organism has are really by themselves something 'important' above their faculty and use in that organism. If a being was immobile, it would not really sense space, despite (potentially) sensing gravity. If it was blind it would not sense a number of other phenomena.
And if that being was not matter-based, chances are it would have little to do with any concept of this quality anyway.
I suppose that the foundation of any overarching way of thinking which is at least weary of attributing to matter a property of 'reality' that exceeds the sensory input of that organism having this ability to define matter, is by now termed as 'idealism', although it dates back to Plato and probably also before him. There are degrees of idealism, of course.
And if that being was not matter-based, chances are it would have little to do with any concept of this quality anyway.
I suppose that the foundation of any overarching way of thinking which is at least weary of attributing to matter a property of 'reality' that exceeds the sensory input of that organism having this ability to define matter, is by now termed as 'idealism', although it dates back to Plato and probably also before him. There are degrees of idealism, of course.
And our own form and senses have in turn evolved in and from what we call matter. The concept of matter has served us extremely well, as modern science can attest. It has served us extremely well because it has a great deal of practical truth to it.
Let me reiterate that this other type of being existing "outside some human-thinking system" is purely hypothetical, and that we don't even have a vague idea about how such a being might function or arise.
Not a good phrasing there, given that most beings exist outside the human-thinking system, in regards to how they supposedly act. Insects do not appear to have a notion of matter, despite some of them being bound to the earth. Surely they move things around, and some make complicated nests, but that by itself does not really mean they have to sense matter as something crucial as a foundation in their existence; for all we know they see 'matter' as some variable of what their hive/nest etc is in its ideal state.
I suppose, though, that you meant to say that a being which is sentient enough by our standards is not that likely to not have a sense of matter. This is hypothetical by itself. Maybe matter in our existence is non-matter in that other being's existence, or any other of the countless varients between matter and non-matter, some of which are ambiguous even in our human way of perception.
In theory it might mean the demise of an ego. But in practice it usually gives people hope that "I" will continue to exist as a glorious eternal "Higher Self", i.e. a much bigger, more powerful, more knowledgeable and more awesome version of my current "ego" self. From an evolutionary point of view, it offers the believer the promise of an infinite sense of belonging, safety, and the prospect of the whole universe as one's own territory. If it really did mean losing all sense of your own self and your own consciousness then it would be an utterly terrifying prospect, as it would be functionally the same (from the believer's perspective) as the utter demise of consciousness that materialists say happens when the brain dies anyway.
What does it mean that matter is an illusion? How is it an illusion? Not to say I don't agree with you here, but I'm curious about how you'll answer these questions. If matter is an illusion, that doesn't mean that consciousness isn't a meta-illusion produced by (the illusion of) matter. As I said, it's about the successive emergence of different nested orders of information.
We don't possess consciousness fully hey? Yeah, a likely story. I've never met or come across verifiable reports of anyone who 'fully possesses' consciousness as you describe, and I challenge you to produce evidence of such a person who is 1) currently alive and 2) demonstrates abilities to manipulate matter which cannot be explained as (a) illusionist trickery and/or (b) unconventional but ultimately mundane (i.e. physically explainable) processes.
Insects don't have a notion of matter as far as we know, but their lives and behaviour are certainly centred around and governed by the properties of what we call matter. But yes, I was talking about beings of similar or greater sentience and sapience to humans. We don't know if they would have sense of matter or not, because as far as we know they don't even exist. So the only type of high-level sentience we can talk about without being purely hypothetical is human sentience.
MS will have his own take on this, but I think I can point you in the direction he would go. In an Eastern view of things existence is defined by two very fundamental truths. The first is that there is one Reality and it transcends everything; it is alone and all encompassing; it is timeless. The second is that the physical universe (that of matter and energy as we see it) is nothing more than a dream of our limited consciousness. When you are asleep and have a vivid dream, you mind sees it as very real. You feel emotions and do things. Then once you wake up, you realizer that the dream, no matter how real it seemed, was just a dream and was an illusion created in your sleeping mind. The physical universe is such a dream. Our "waking up" happens when we experience the one reality that encompasses all. The pain and suffering and joy and happiness we experience are all part of this world, but are not real within the context of permanent, unchanging infinite nature of god.
timtofly
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The point of contention though is western thought has backed itself into a materialistic corner. There is a point in which God is the originator of everything material, as well as the giver of consciousness to humans, so they can recognize and communicate with God.
The two truths of eastern thought counteract each other, in the point where humans have a "say" in what appears in the physical which leaves God out of the physical. Humans are just another part of the first reality which includes all matter and consciousness.
If humans are just mere matter, it does not follow that even a hint of consciousness creates their own physical body and what is physical around them. Consciousness is only God's domain and is allotted to that which would use it as a lease from God. Some would even say it is only given to that which God deems as part of his plan. That would be pure determinism. I would not hold that seeing as how God allows free will and choice even to the detriment of his "plan".
The two truths of eastern thought counteract each other, in the point where humans have a "say" in what appears in the physical which leaves God out of the physical. Humans are just another part of the first reality which includes all matter and consciousness.
If humans are just mere matter, it does not follow that even a hint of consciousness creates their own physical body and what is physical around them. Consciousness is only God's domain and is allotted to that which would use it as a lease from God. Some would even say it is only given to that which God deems as part of his plan. That would be pure determinism. I would not hold that seeing as how God allows free will and choice even to the detriment of his "plan".
