What is Consciousness?

[anthony]

I'd like to know.

There you go, using those terms...

Wasn't there one of the author philosophers at one of the parties spouting this stuff in Atlas?

A...

I couldn't find the passage, but yes it rings a bell. What this gent puts across I think goes well past philosophical skepticism to a conclusion of nihilism, he then wishes to fill the void with pure mysticism: you see nothing, you know nothing, there is nothing and you are nothing (except for the remnant of transcending "consciousness").

Hopes that he himself became an intellectual "nothing", are a little deflated by those comments he receives from some admirers.

What it looks like Backlund (Swedish?) basically wants, is

a. consciousness without anything to be conscious of

b. consciousness without effort - and

c. consciousness without content, therefore without an identity. (He invokes Kant in your link, Adam ... hmm!).

[PDS]

I'd like to know.

There you go, using those terms...

Wasn't there one of the author philosophers at one of the parties spouting this stuff in Atlas?

A...

I couldn't find the passage, but yes it rings a bell. What this gent puts across I think goes well past philosophical skepticism to a conclusion of nihilism, he then wishes to fill the void with pure mysticism: you see nothing, you know nothing, there is nothing and you are nothing (except for the remnant of transcending "consciousness").

Hopes that he himself became an intellectual "nothing", are a little deflated by those comments he receives from some admirers.

What it looks like Backlund (Swedish?) basically wants, is

a. consciousness without anything to be conscious of

b. consciousness without effort - and

c. consciousness without content, therefore without an identity. (He invokes Kant in your link, Adam ... hmm!).

Tony: the guy's website seems to have a comment section. I would recommend that you sharpen your sword and go tangle with him. Or, perhaps, go tangle with him and get your sword sharpened. As I said above, I'm not endorsing his website. The comment I linked to was simply one of the clearest expressions of the consciousness is a verb (as opposed to a noun) formulation we have been discussing.

[anthony]

I realise your spirit of enquiry, PDS, and believe me I appreciate you bringing him in. It's not often I've seen anyone so unambiguously - and honestly - put this view. This writer's conviction lies at the extreme polarity from reality and reason, while paradoxically affirming them, and several other folk I've known, mix in to their vague belief systems something similar. Ideas out there are very much my concern, so thanks.

[moralist]

PDS, you are the one thinking, correct? If it's you thinking, then you are not the one watching the thinking.

You have just succinctly described the two states of being.

1. Believing the lie that you are the one thinking.

2. Realizing the truth that you are the observer of thought.

1. Inside thought... immersed in it.

2. Outside thought... watching it.

1. Mind as computer.

2. Mind as radio.

Note that with #1, you have no choice but to act on whatever you think because it is impossible to act against yourself when you believe your thinking is all the you there is.

But with #2, you have the free choice to act contrary to your thoughts...

...and that is the beginning of wisdom.

Greg

[anthony]

It is - "all one" (the individual and his consciousness) - Greg. What you propose is only another variation on an old theme.

What you indicate as the inside and outside: 'you' behind the you, the noble and the ignoble, the sacred and the profane, the soul behind the substance, or the good overseeing the nasty (usually 'bad' thoughts, impulses and emotions). Both, only one entity.

An individual consciousness, containing its percepts, concepts, principles, morals, emotions, memory and subconscious, etc., is as much real as anything in reality. It's 'you' who gives it its singular flavor in keeping with which you think is most important - and of lesser and least importance - of reality.

But that's 'conviction' - a word-concept which has fallen out of favor in recent times, largely from the secular... Do you notice how few people use it any more?

[anthony]

Watching oneself thinking, is very interesting. I think the idea may prompt disunity and discord in a mind, to say nothing of introducing a supernatural element. More accurately, it seems that in the process, one reviews (with a fraction of a second's delay which appears to be an instantaneous 'overmind' at work) one's prior thought, 'second-guesses' it so to speak, to estimate how much in keeping this line of thinking is with facts of reality; and equally how it compares and integrates with one's existing concepts. A "self-directing" consciousness, iow, operated by choices depending on values.

Still one and the same cognitive faculty in operation.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Makes me wonder how many mirrors Obama has and how much time he spends looking at himself.

[PDS]

Watching oneself thinking, is very interesting. I think the idea may prompt disunity and discord in a mind, to say nothing of introducing a supernatural element. More accurately, it seems that in the process, one reviews (with a fraction of a second's delay which appears to be an instantaneous 'overmind' at work) one's prior thought, 'second-guesses' it so to speak, to estimate how much in keeping this line of thinking is with facts of reality; and equally how it compares and integrates with one's existing concepts. A "self-directing" consciousness, iow, operated by choices depending on values.

Still one and the same cognitive faculty in operation.

Tony:

Why speculate about what happens when you watch yourself think? Just do it. Next time you get pissed off by one of Greg's comments, observe the thought loop that begins with the reaction and ends with the urge to hit the reply button. This is a highly observable arc of events. One thing you will find is you cannot continue to be pissed off once you get outside your thoughts. The second thing you may wonder is: who is observing the thoughts?*

*That's actually consciousness.**

**The Big Question (for purpose of this thread, at least) is whether it's your consciousness, or simply Consciousness.

[Jonathan]

Tony:

Why speculate about what happens when you watch yourself think? Just do it. Next time you get pissed off by one of Greg's comments, observe the thought loop that begins with the reaction and ends with the urge to hit the reply button. This is a highly observable arc of events. One thing you will find is you cannot continue to be pissed off once you get outside your thoughts. The second thing you may wonder is: who is observing the thoughts?*

I think the way that it works with Tony is that something happens and then he observes the thought loop of what he thinks Ayn Rand would think.

J

[anthony]

Watching oneself thinking, is very interesting. I think the idea may prompt disunity and discord in a mind, to say nothing of introducing a supernatural element. More accurately, it seems that in the process, one reviews (with a fraction of a second's delay which appears to be an instantaneous 'overmind' at work) one's prior thought, 'second-guesses' it so to speak, to estimate how much in keeping this line of thinking is with facts of reality; and equally how it compares and integrates with one's existing concepts. A "self-directing" consciousness, iow, operated by choices depending on values.

Still one and the same cognitive faculty in operation.

Tony:

Why speculate about what happens when you watch yourself think? Just do it. Next time you get pissed off by one of Greg's comments, observe the thought loop that begins with the reaction and ends with the urge to hit the reply button. This is a highly observable arc of events. One thing you will find is you cannot continue to be pissed off once you get outside your thoughts. The second thing you may wonder is: who is observing the thoughts?*

*That's actually consciousness.**

**The Big Question (for purpose of this thread, at least) is whether it's your consciousness, or simply Consciousness.

Pissed off? Why would I be that? You misread me this time, I'm stimulated by others' differing ideas as long as I think they are honest. Really, the "loop" or "arc" begins and ends with me. It just so happened this time Greg had to catch a counter argument.

I'm supposing that you, PDS, champion individual rights and individualism. I.e. that the smallest minority is the individual, which 'the majority' has no power over, being in reality an anti-concept. So I wonder how you do not transpose this individuality to consciousness - versus some sort of super-Consciousness - as the next logical step.

I'd thought I have been always clear, that I think each consciousness is all that exists, never an all-encompassing "Consciousness" shared by everybody. Not to say, we can't of course speak of consciousness - in the abstract - as being the property of all individuals.

(I assure you, it's MY consciousness and I would know). ;-]

[PDS]

Tony:

Why speculate about what happens when you watch yourself think? Just do it. Next time you get pissed off by one of Greg's comments, observe the thought loop that begins with the reaction and ends with the urge to hit the reply button. This is a highly observable arc of events. One thing you will find is you cannot continue to be pissed off once you get outside your thoughts. The second thing you may wonder is: who is observing the thoughts?*

I think the way that it works with Tony is that something happens and then he observes the thought loop of what he thinks Ayn Rand would think.

J

Randveita Pedanta?

[PDS]

Watching oneself thinking, is very interesting. I think the idea may prompt disunity and discord in a mind, to say nothing of introducing a supernatural element. More accurately, it seems that in the process, one reviews (with a fraction of a second's delay which appears to be an instantaneous 'overmind' at work) one's prior thought, 'second-guesses' it so to speak, to estimate how much in keeping this line of thinking is with facts of reality; and equally how it compares and integrates with one's existing concepts. A "self-directing" consciousness, iow, operated by choices depending on values.

Still one and the same cognitive faculty in operation.

Tony:

Why speculate about what happens when you watch yourself think? Just do it. Next time you get pissed off by one of Greg's comments, observe the thought loop that begins with the reaction and ends with the urge to hit the reply button. This is a highly observable arc of events. One thing you will find is you cannot continue to be pissed off once you get outside your thoughts. The second thing you may wonder is: who is observing the thoughts?*

*That's actually consciousness.**

**The Big Question (for purpose of this thread, at least) is whether it's your consciousness, or simply Consciousness.

Pissed off? Why would I be that? You misread me this time, I'm stimulated by others' differing ideas as long as I think they are honest. Really, the "loop" or "arc" begins and ends with me.

I'm supposing that you, PDS, champion individual rights and individualism. I.e. that the smallest minority is the individual, which 'the majority' has no power over, being in reality an anti-concept. So I wonder how you do not transpose this to individual consciousness vs. a sort of super-Consciousness, as the next logical step.

I'd thought I have been always clear, that I think each consciousness is all that exists, never an all-encompassing "Consciousness" for everybody. Not to say we can't of course speak of consciousness in the abstract, as being the property of all individuals.

(I assure you, it's MY consciousness and I would know). ;-]

"pissed off" is not meant literally--I used the term as an example. Could be "annoyed", could be "perplexed", etc. Could be a small bout of "road rage" on the way to work today. I was just throwing out an example.

Yes, you have been clear what your view is. That doesn't mean that your argument has won the day.

Just as one example, when you say that "I assure you it's MY consciousness and I would know", you may be confusing your thoughts about what you think you know about consciousness with consciousness itself. This is especially so if consciousness the blank slate or the empty mirror that half the world has been thinking for the past 2500 years.

[moralist]

Tony writes:

What you propose is only another variation on an old theme.

Of course Tony.

I'm certainly not claiming any originality. It's just a pre existing principle I realized from watching my thoughts while meditating. To see them for what they really are in an objectively moral light requires a vantage point outside the mind as well as an external source of illumination which shines upon thought to reveal it, which I'll call Conscience.

Trying to deal with thought and emotion while inside the mind is like standing in a bucket while pulling on the handle in a futile struggle to lift the bucket off the floor.

It simply CANNOT be done... because while inside it, you have absolutely NO mechanical advantage over it.

However, step outside the bucket... and it can easily be lifted off the floor.

Greg

[anthony]

"...you may be confusing your thoughts about what you think you know about consciousness with consciousness itself. This is especially so if consciousness the blank slate or the empty mirror that half the world has been thinking for the past 2500 years.

Proof perfect, half the world (or more) don't have to be right, often aren't. Like many collective and long term errors, a notion takes on a life of its own and remains unquestioned. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Everybody believes..." (such n such).

[Selene]

", you may be confusing your thoughts about what you think you know about consciousness with consciousness itself. This is especially so if consciousness the blank slate or the empty mirror that half the world has been thinking for the past 2500 years.

Aristotle's meaning of tabla raza has been battled over by Aristotelian "scholars" for a long long time.

A loan-translation of Aristotle's pinakis agraphos, literally "unwritten tablet" ("De anima," 7.22).

[PDS]

"...you may be confusing your thoughts about what you think you know about consciousness with consciousness itself. This is especially so if consciousness the blank slate or the empty mirror that half the world has been thinking for the past 2500 years.

Proof perfect, half the world (or more) don't have to be right, often aren't. Like many collective and long term errors, a notion takes on a life of its own and remains unquestioned. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Everybody believes..." (such n such).

Yeah, I think everybody on this forum gets that an appeal to authority is out of bounds. I hope you also get that this is not what is going on here. The "notion" we are discussing is not here and has not--over the past 2500 years--remained "unquestioned." To the contrary.

Some people on this thread have called consciousness simply "awareness". Let's accept that definition for a second. "Awareness" is a blank slate, is it not? There is no "content" to awareness, in other words. Think about that. No need to immedietely respond. Think about what that means, if true.

[Selene]

Yeah, I think everybody on this forum gets that an appeal to authority is out of bounds. I hope you also get that this is not what is going on here. The "notion" we are discussing is not here and has not--over the past 2500 years--remained "unquestioned." To the contrary.

Some people on this thread have called consciousness simply "awareness". Let's accept that definition for a second. "Awareness" is a blank slate, is it not? There is no "content" to awareness, in other words. Think about that. No need to immedietely respond. Think about what that means, if true.

If, "awareness" is aware there is "no content," it has to have a perspective to conclude that right?

[anthony]

Tony writes:

What you propose is only another variation on an old theme.

Of course Tony.

I'm certainly not claiming any originality. It's just a pre existing principle I realized from watching my thoughts while meditating. To see them for what they really are in an objectively moral light requires a vantage point outside the mind as well as an external source of illumination which shines upon thought to reveal it, which I'll call Conscience.

Trying to deal with thought and emotion while inside the mind is like standing in a bucket while pulling on the handle in a futile struggle to lift the bucket off the floor.

It simply CANNOT be done... because while inside it, you have absolutely NO mechanical advantage over it.

However, step outside the bucket... and it can easily be lifted off the floor.

Greg

Greg, (Please tell me which Greg this was, thinking the above...inside, outside?)

All of us gain our fund of knowledge conceptually, and so, hierarchically. Seems to me, initial cognition occurs at the superficial level of your active senses and mind encountering real facts of life. I maintain that during this thinking you are almost instantly back tracking to evaluate the precision of the thinking, checking it (identification) against the facts before you - and against your established conceptual content (including your morality and principles). This way you check the validity and value of the new thoughts.

'Outside-in' is perhaps what it ~feels~ like. But there's only one conscious mind doing it all and containing it all.

I'm thinking maybe, that what some call spirituality and you call conscience, is concept-conviction formation and integrity.

[anthony]

Yeah, I think everybody on this forum gets that an appeal to authority is out of bounds. I hope you also get that this is not what is going on here. The "notion" we are discussing is not here and has not--over the past 2500 years--remained "unquestioned." To the contrary.

Some people on this thread have called consciousness simply "awareness". Let's accept that definition for a second. "Awareness" is a blank slate, is it not? There is no "content" to awareness, in other words. Think about that. No need to immedietely respond. Think about what that means, if true.

Not at all, awareness is active, identifying and evaluative. What I think you might be suggesting, is that it's a passive 'portal to the mind' - something like our senses. I'm sure Rand equated the two, "consciousness is the faculty of awareness", not anything blank slate about it.

"Unquestioned", you are right, it wasn't completely. But it certainly appears the inherent, fundamental supernaturalism hasn't been overturned, or drastically changed: only different iterations of it, all the way to present New Age notions.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Yeah, I think everybody on this forum gets that an appeal to authority is out of bounds. I hope you also get that this is not what is going on here. The "notion" we are discussing is not here and has not--over the past 2500 years--remained "unquestioned." To the contrary.

Some people on this thread have called consciousness simply "awareness". Let's accept that definition for a second. "Awareness" is a blank slate, is it not? There is no "content" to awareness, in other words. Think about that. No need to immedietely respond. Think about what that means, if true.

If, "awareness" is aware there is "no content," it has to have a perspective to conclude that right?

Ahem, survival. In certain spots, fight or flee, which is hard wired. We're mostly animal, ya know.

If you fall hard for a babe, it isn't the result of conscious comparison of perception with soft abstract values.

[Selene]

Yeah, I think everybody on this forum gets that an appeal to authority is out of bounds. I hope you also get that this is not what is going on here. The "notion" we are discussing is not here and has not--over the past 2500 years--remained "unquestioned." To the contrary.

Some people on this thread have called consciousness simply "awareness". Let's accept that definition for a second. "Awareness" is a blank slate, is it not? There is no "content" to awareness, in other words. Think about that. No need to immedietely respond. Think about what that means, if true.

If, "awareness" is aware there is "no content," it has to have a perspective to conclude that right?

Ahem, survival. In certain spots, fight or flee, which is hard wired. We're mostly animal, ya know.

If you fall hard for a babe, it isn't the result of conscious comparison of perception with soft abstract values.

What does it have to do with my question?

[Wolf DeVoon]

Yeah, I think everybody on this forum gets that an appeal to authority is out of bounds. I hope you also get that this is not what is going on here. The "notion" we are discussing is not here and has not--over the past 2500 years--remained "unquestioned." To the contrary.

Some people on this thread have called consciousness simply "awareness". Let's accept that definition for a second. "Awareness" is a blank slate, is it not? There is no "content" to awareness, in other words. Think about that. No need to immedietely respond. Think about what that means, if true.

If, "awareness" is aware there is "no content," it has to have a perspective to conclude that right?

Ahem, survival. In certain spots, fight or flee, which is hard wired. We're mostly animal, ya know.

If you fall hard for a babe, it isn't the result of conscious comparison of perception with soft abstract values.

What does it have to do with my question?

The perspective and power to conclude things is forced by the imperative of survival, which is hard wired.

[Selene]

If you fall hard for a babe, it isn't the result of conscious comparison of perception with soft abstract values.

What does it have to do with my question?

The perspective and power to conclude things is forced by the imperative of survival, which is hard wired.

Hard wired/reptile brain is a fact.

However, there is a consciousness that is aware of what that hard wiring is.

Obviously, you and I are.

This does not eliminate the "blank tablet" that Aristotle and others know/assume existed.

Now I believe that Ayn's analysis missed its mark on this one and PDS, Tony and others are discussing that, or, at least that is what I am aware of...

A...

[Brant Gaede]

I'm all animal.

--Brant

grrrr

[PDS]

I'm all animal.

--Brant

grrrr

This isn't about you.*

*Be careful--I pulled a "Brant" there...