What is Consciousness?

[Wolf DeVoon]

It would be ungentlemanly to blame my parents or teachers or anyone else. Man is a being of self-made soul.

I was particularly dense, especially untalented, stubborn, unteachable and vain. [Eggshell ms, p.50]

[Brant Gaede]

It would be ungentlemanly to blame my parents or teachers or anyone else. Man is a being of self-made soul.

I was particularly dense, especially untalented, stubborn, unteachable and vain. [Eggshell ms, p.50]

And you flew your jet up to Nova Scotia to see a total eclipse of the sun?

--Brant

you probably think this is about you (yep!)

in a dispute between two gentlemen concerning a woman, the woman is never wrong

[anthony]

How self-consciousness emerged in nature is absorbing. Why did it become evolutionarily necessary for our 'line' to forgo the only survival advantage so far existing, of 'pre-programmed', instinctual behavior? Initially, self-consciousness and consciousness, identification and conceptualization, might not have shown any evolutionary merits, I'd have thought -- but it so happened, it did.

Dumb of me. Of course it would have been a gradual (with many leaps) transition of brain and consciousness over a lo-ong time.

Maybe call it the developing 'pro-active consciousness' - which can infer fact and hold an idea constant - which gradually showed its superiority over and replaced the 're-active' one.

[Selene]

Maybe call it the developing 'pro-active consciousness' - which can infer fact and hold an idea constant - which gradually showed its superiority over and replaced the 're-active' one.

And survive to be able to breed...

Happy Thanksgiving Tony to you and your family and I include all pets as family...

[anthony]

Adam, my thanks and to you and yours. Great timing, about to sit down for dinner.

[PDS]

You've given examples of how consciousness manifests itself as it relates to your dog. But you haven't said what consciousness is.

con·scious·ness

ˈkän(t)SHəsnəs/

noun

noun: consciousness

the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings

Tony (whynot) callled consciousness a "faculty." Wolf's dictionary calls it a "state".

Both responses have a dog chasing its tail quality to them, no? If consciousness is, as one example, the ground of being--in the sense that without it there is literally nothing to talk about--it would seem that merely superimposing a label on top of this noun/verb does not get us very far down the road.

The one thing about consciousness (as a subject of inquiry) that most other subjects do not have (as a subject of inquiry) is that we can introspect very directly this "state" or "faculty".

Upon honest (and difficult?) introspection, does anybody really think that is all consciousness is?

[PDS]

Okay, PBS. Stop traducing producing. Do some producing.

--Brant

Brant: I am thinking (pun intended) that this is directed at me (PDS--not PBS).

I will start with an analogy. In advanced martial arts, there is a concept called mushin. This is roughly translated as "no mind". The marial artist has reached a stage where conscious thought is not need to execute moves, kicks, etc. Instead of thinking about them, you just do them, with relative ease. There is a companion concept called zanshin. This is roughly translated as "alert awareness". Zanshin is the is the other side of the coin, so to speak. Assuming a baseline of physical competance, when you stop thinking you are left with alert awareness. Consciousness is thus whatever is "left over" when one stops thinking (no mind) and notices the remaining alert awareness. That's the noun: alert awareness.

A question that has occupied the great mystics of virtually every religion for the past 2500 years is this: is this alert awareness personal to you or to me, i.e., is it a soul-like thing existing inside your head, behind the back of your eyeballs somewhere), or does it exist generally as that one energy that makes up all of existence, i.e., the energy spoken of by quantum physicists? The mystics say that consciousness is that "one energy" that makes up all of existence. One example of this view is Advaita Vedenta.

So, the mystics go one step farther than merely calling consiousness "alert awareness". They call it existence itself.

Important, if true--as the saying goes.

[PDS]

A man thinks. A deer runs.

I'm with Old Potato Face on this. Thinking is a voluntary act. Refusal to think is the root of all evil.

If you think you can't think you can't think right for you are thinking.

Try that again--the not thinking. It's like holding your breath. For fun try doing both at once while counting to a hundred--slowly.

--Brant

please stop referring to yourself as "Old Potato Face"--it's not seemly

Brant: "not thinking" is quite easy. Advanced meditators do this all the time. Even neophyte meditators can do this with decent success.

It does require effort, however. Most of what we believe is "thinking" is simply replaying the loop over and over--sort of an annoying form of self-gossip. Everybody understands when an annoying song is stuck in their heads. Fewer understand that is precisely what most of their "thinking" is as well.

It's a substitute for the silence that would otherwise exist.

[Selene]

I will start with an analogy. In advanced martial arts, there is a concept called mushin. This is roughly translated as "no mind". The marial artist has reached a stage where conscious thought is not need to execute moves, kicks, etc. Instead of thinking about them, you just do them, with relative ease. There is a companion concept called zanshin. This is roughly translated as "alert awareness". Zanshin is the is the other side of the coin, so to speak. Assuming a baseline of physical competance, when you stop thinking you are left with alert awareness. Consciousness is thus whatever is "left over" when one stops thinking (no mind) and notices the remaining alert awareness. That's the noun: alert awareness.

A question that has occupied the great mystics of virtually every religion for the past 2500 years is this: is this alert awareness personal to you or to me, i.e., is it a soul-like thing existing inside your head, behind the back of your eyeballs somewhere), or does it exist generally as that one energy that makes up all of existence, i.e., the energy spoken of by quantum physicists? The mystics say that consciousness is that "one energy" that makes up all of existence. One example of this view is Advaita Vedenta.

So, the mystics go one step farther than merely calling consiousness "alert awareness". They call it existence itself.

Important, if true--as the saying goes.

I am glad you raised this thread from the "dead" because I tend not to get to involved in some of these deeper discussions on OL.

However, this is particular point you just raised has been on my mind for the past few days.

That "alert awareness" is so accurate in many "activities" that we physically "perform" without "consciousness."

On Wednesday, I found this while I was doing searches on the question you raised of the noun "consciousness."

The prevailing view, however, is that such interpretations are tenuous. Indeed, later Buddhist traditions develop specific notions, such as that of mind-stream, life-continuum mind, and repository consciousness (citta-santāna, bhavaṅga-citta, and ālaya-vijñāna, respectively) precisely in order to avoid the metaphysical implications of the traditional notion of self. Extensive critiques of the attempt to find support in the canonical literature for the existence of a higher self, perhaps equated with consciousness, are found in Warder (1970), Collins (1982), Kalupahana (1987), Harvey (1995), and De Silva (2005). Vasubandhu’s Treatise on the Negation of the Person (Pudgala-pratiṣedha-prakaraṇa, which forms the 9th chapter of his Abhidharmakośa) provides one of most detailed Buddhist critiques of the personalist view (also targeting Brahmanical conceptions of self) (see §5.5).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-indian-buddhism/#1

Sidhartha, the novel, refers to the "stream of life" wherein we are all joined into.

The 1922 novel by Herman Hesse was revived in the '60's in universities.

In Hesse’s novel, experience, the totality of conscious events of a human life, is shown as the best way to approach understanding of reality and attain enlightenment – Hesse’s crafting of Siddhartha’s journey shows that understanding is attained not through intellectual methods, nor through immersing oneself in the carnal pleasures of the world and the accompanying pain of samsara. It is the completeness of these experiences that allows Siddhartha to attain understanding.

Thus, the individual events are meaningless when considered by themselves—Siddhartha’s stay with the Samanas and his immersion in the worlds of love and business do not lead to nirvana, yet they cannot be considered distractions, for every action and event gives Siddhartha experience, which leads to understanding.

A major preoccupation of Hesse in writing Siddhartha was to cure his "sickness with life" (Lebenskrankheit) by immersing himself in Indian philosophy such as that expounded in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.[4] The reason the second half of the book took so long to write was that Hesse "had not experienced that transcendental state of unity to which Siddhartha aspires. In an attempt to do so, Hesse lived as a virtual semi-recluse and became totally immersed in the sacred teachings of both Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. His intention was to attain to that 'completeness' which, in the novel, is the Buddha's badge of distinction."[5] The novel is structured on three of the traditional stages of life for Hindu males (student (brahmacarin), householder (grihastha) and recluse/renunciate (vanaprastha)) as well as the Buddha's four noble truths (Part One) and eight-fold path (Part Two) which form twelve chapters, the number in the novel.[6] Ralph Freedman mentions how Hesse commented in a letter "[my] Siddhartha does not, in the end, learn true wisdom from any teacher, but from a river that roars in a funny way and from a kindly old fool who always smiles and is secretly a saint."[7] In a lecture about Siddhartha, Hesse claimed "Buddha's way to salvation has often been criticized and doubted, because it is thought to be wholly grounded in cognition. True, but it's not just intellectual cognition, not just learning and knowing, but spiritual experience that can be earned only through strict discipline in a selfless life".[7] Freedman also points out how Siddhartha described Hesse's interior dialectic: "All of the contrasting poles of his life were sharply etched: the restless departures and the search for stillness at home; the diversity of experience and the harmony of a unifying spirit; the security of religious dogma and the anxiety of freedom."[8] Eberhard Ostermann has shown how Hesse, while mixing the religious genre of the legend with that of the modern novel, seeks to reconcile with the double-edged effects of modernization such as individualization, pluralism or self-disciplining.[9]

A...

[anthony]

...as that one energy that makes up all of existence, i.e., the energy spoken of by quantum physicists? The mystics say that consciousness is that "one energy" that makes up all of existence. One example of this view is Advaita Vedenta.

So, the mystics go one step farther than merely calling consiousness "alert awareness". They call it existence itself.

Important, if true--as the saying goes.

That's very interesting, PDS. Since my early days of learning and forever practising basic karate katas, I've looked at contrasts and parallels between objective philosophy and the 'mysticism' (which I think is sometimes a misnomer) of martial arts. You confirm a few things.

Wouldn't what you portray as constantly executing "moves, kicks etc." to arrive at "mushin" be seen nowadays as deliberate efforts to create the new 'neural pathways', I mentioned? Previously, it would be prosaically called "muscle memory". Whichever, the end result is to be able to react instantaneously without conscious thought.

As you describe the concepts, I can't see any objective contradiction to mushin or zanshin. Like I've often voiced, with their terrific breakthroughs, neuroscientists are catching up with and validating some philosophers ... in particular: "man is a being of volitional consciousness".

[anthony]

{Apologies PDS. I meant to quote the first part of your post, on martial arts. On the other section about mystical consciousness I will have something more to add}

[PDS]

The modern term for the mystical thread is sometimes referred to as non-duality. You are That.

Non-duality means "not two, but one." The "but one" is consciousness itself, the ground of being.

If one peels the onion of the "songs in your head" commonly considered to be thinking, what remains is consciousness.

This recognition that "the remainder" exists is Step 1 on the road to enlightenment.

Step 2 is the realization that the remainder recognized in Step 1 is "not two, but one." in other words, there is no tiny little PDS soul residing behind my eyelids.

Step 1 plus step 2 equals not just enlightenment, but Enlightenment. This is essentially a syllogism.

Contrary to the view one could might get through popular culture, "Enlightenment" does not require 20 years of meditating in a shack on some mountain.

[Brant Gaede]

A man thinks. A deer runs.

I'm with Old Potato Face on this. Thinking is a voluntary act. Refusal to think is the root of all evil.

If you think you can't think you can't think right for you are thinking.

Try that again--the not thinking. It's like holding your breath. For fun try doing both at once while counting to a hundred--slowly.

--Brant

please stop referring to yourself as "Old Potato Face"--it's not seemly

Brant: "not thinking" is quite easy. Advanced meditators do this all the time. Even neophyte meditators can do this with decent success.

It does require effort, however. Most of what we believe is "thinking" is simply replaying the loop over and over--sort of an annoying form of self-gossip. Everybody understands when an annoying song is stuck in their heads. Fewer understand that is precisely what most of their "thinking" is as well.

It's a substitute for the silence that would otherwise exist.

What happens when you stop meditating? Thinking is the default to that. Meditating is not the default to stopping thinking. It's how well you think that requires effort, not the thinking--slow or fast, sharp or fuzzy--as such. All meditating requires effort and the thinking effort to set it up and set it in motion. The choice to think or not to think is actually the choice to focus or not on what and how much. Now I grant you the meditative state might become so well developed and entrenched that the mediator's opinion would be quite different than mine, for the meditation seems easy and the thinking hard--but, way back at the start (in the primordial soup?), the thinking came first.

--Brant

not the chicken

[anthony]

A few minutes a day of total inner silence has strong merits, I think. For one, it defines the distinction between random mental 'chatter' and the real awareness of existence and thinking. Both meditation and thought require conscious focus, way I see it.

(one of those instances that an efficacious practice is misnamed mystical).

[Brant Gaede]

If you think meditation helped you it's the thinking that does that trick. You never meditate that thinking helped you--or not.

Thinking is the gold standard. Meditation is a luxury created by thinkers. Give them their credit.

--Brant

uuummmmmmm

[Brant Gaede]

I'd rather dance.

[anthony]

If you think meditation helped you it's the thinking that does that trick. You never meditate that thinking helped you--or not.

Thinking is the gold standard. Meditation is a luxury created by thinkers. Give them their credit.

--Brant

uuummmmmmm

Olympic athletes too know the importance of rest and recovery (and light training) to enable their utmost efforts when it matters. Energetic exercise justifies rest, and the reverse. Anyway, to anyone who can hold true, focused consciousness and thought every waking minute, I doff my cap. In any down time, meditation could be a brief hiatus which doesn't clash with cogitation, nor be "anti-mind" (obviously leaving aside all the mystical allusions and association).

I gather, I'm not so practised in it to claim much more.

[PDS]

Thinking is foreground.

Consciousness is background.

We know this intropectively because it is possible to witness one's thoughts.

Anybody disagree?

[Wolf DeVoon]

Thinking is foreground.

Consciousness is background.

We know this intropectively because it is possible to witness one's thoughts.

Anybody disagree?

Sure. Let's go with routine perception as background, thinking prompted by puzzlement, demonstrated by driving a car or brushing your teeth. Doesn't require much attention unless there is an unexpected development. Thinking matters more to good students than to bad teachers, so there's a great deal of individual variation.

The deeper background is autonomic and metabolic aspects of bodily consciousness. Brrr, I'm chilly. Have to pee.

[anthony]

Thinking is foreground.

Consciousness is background.

We know this intropectively because it is possible to witness one's thoughts.

Anybody disagree?

As well as being able to 'witness" (and initiate and direct) thought, one is also conscious of (witness to) the contents of one's consciousness. All one's known facts, values, disvalues, virtues, morality, convictions, experiences, abilities, ambitions etc. -- i.e. one's *knowledge*, in full, arrayed as abstractions and concepts. Instead of "foreground", a perhaps minor distinction, I rather see thought as the active faculty which perceives, identifies and judges entities and existents in reality, then integrates them properly into the existing 'content'.

As I understand it, it is this content that makes - defines - one's unique, individual consciousness, which is inseparably a state and an activity.

Much of course owed to Rand while not exclusively, but any errors are mine.

[anthony]

... is this alert awareness personal to you or to me, i.e., is it a soul-like thing existing inside your head...

That is "you" all right, PDS.

[Wolf DeVoon]

All one's known facts, values, disvalues, virtues, morality, convictions, experiences, abilities, ambitions etc. -- i.e. one's *knowledge*, in full, arrayed as abstractions and concepts.

What the --?-- no errors, pleasant half truths, vanity, garbled recollections, lassitude, expectations or habits?

Please. Get. Real.

It's hard enough to make connected sense on the page with two or three cycles of rigorous editing, assuming I can successfully exclude "one's known facts, values" and the rest of my mental garbage extrinsic to the topic at hand.

Cringeworthy reification of valid emotions hull up on the horizon. General quarters!

-------

Quote of the day: Buying this momo* we are all Thanksgiving turkeys. [Zero Hedge]

*small groups of overwhelmingly propagandized stocks are up on average over 60%, but with a collective P/E of 45

[anthony]

All one's known facts, values, disvalues, virtues, morality, convictions, experiences, abilities, ambitions etc. -- i.e. one's *knowledge*, in full, arrayed as abstractions and concepts.

What the --?-- no errors, pleasant half truths, vanity, garbled recollections, lassitude, expectations or habits?

Please. Get. Real.

All that too, and all the rest you haven't mentioned I presume is given.

You want the full laundry list?

I'm glad you have your own imagination. ;)

[PDS]

Thinking is foreground.

Consciousness is background.

We know this intropectively because it is possible to witness one's thoughts.

Anybody disagree?

Sure. Let's go with routine perception as background, thinking prompted by puzzlement, demonstrated by driving a car or brushing your teeth. Doesn't require much attention unless there is an unexpected development. Thinking matters more to good students than to bad teachers, so there's a great deal of individual variation.

The deeper background is autonomic and metabolic aspects of bodily consciousness. Brrr, I'm chilly. Have to pee.

I don't follow your point.

There is little doubt that one is able to observe one's thinking. You can watch yourself get upset for instance, and actually observe the self-gossip inside your head. "I can't believe Wolf did that. Why did he go and ruin two countries? Who does he think he is with his fancy law theories? My nose itches. Oh crap, I have to go pick up my daughter. etc." The endless loop that passes for thinking is an observable event.

Isn't it consciousness that observes not only the outside world, but, per the above, our inside world as well?

[Brant Gaede]

Okay, PBS. Stop traducing producing. Do some producing.

--Brant

Brant: I am thinking (pun intended) that this is directed at me (PDS--not PBS).

I will start with an analogy. In advanced martial arts, there is a concept called mushin. This is roughly translated as "no mind". The marial artist has reached a stage where conscious thought is not need to execute moves, kicks, etc. Instead of thinking about them, you just do them, with relative ease. There is a companion concept called zanshin. This is roughly translated as "alert awareness". Zanshin is the is the other side of the coin, so to speak. Assuming a baseline of physical competance, when you stop thinking you are left with alert awareness. Consciousness is thus whatever is "left over" when one stops thinking (no mind) and notices the remaining alert awareness. That's the noun: alert awareness.

A question that has occupied the great mystics of virtually every religion for the past 2500 years is this: is this alert awareness personal to you or to me, i.e., is it a soul-like thing existing inside your head, behind the back of your eyeballs somewhere), or does it exist generally as that one energy that makes up all of existence, i.e., the energy spoken of by quantum physicists? The mystics say that consciousness is that "one energy" that makes up all of existence. One example of this view is Advaita Vedenta.

So, the mystics go one step farther than merely calling consiousness "alert awareness". They call it existence itself.

Important, if true--as the saying goes.

I've no idea why it's important. I am aware of a state of consciousness where things just flow and your body does things seemingly without error. I think this happens a lot with great athletes. Once someone tossed a pool ball to me with some speed but off to the side. I just snap-put out my hand and grabbed it perfectly.

One reason I stopped karate was I couldn't train myself to stop using my hands to stop kicks. My knuckles got swollen up.

I was having a little fun with PBS Mr. PDS. Be happy I didn't think of PMS. My brain is still sharp enough to chop down trees. Shaving is another matter.

--Brant