'Thought' is an energy form.

[Bogie]

Hi Lorrina

I know one things for sure and that is thought never seems to stop thinking.

But where do thoughts come from, maybe the brain, but then again the brain is just another thought.

Do we generate our own thoughts? I don't think we do.If we did then you would choose every thought,
and you certainly wouldn't choose evil or negative thoughts.
Thoughts arise uninvited, and you appear to be conscious of them, however your thoughts are not generated by you,
but each thought defines who you think you are.
You can claim them as your thoughts but they are obviously something that you have no control of
and if you have no control how can they be claimed as yours.

You have no control of them because you are not of consciousness, consciousness is of you.
Being of consciousness just means that you are self defining, you have choice in all matters pertaining to you.
Your feelings, your thoughts, your ideas, your intelligence level, your desires, your physical attributes and abilities.
All of these things are defined by consciousness and so is this you that you think you are - consciousness is of you.

These thoughts and ideas bubble up from the depths of consciousness and then dissolve again without a trace,
so too is the idea of this you, just another thought in consciousness that appears, lingers for a while, then disappears without a trace.
You are not this consciousness, this consciousness is you.

Consciousness cannot be located, yet all locations appear in it.

Consciousness cannot be seen, yet seeing appears in it.

Consciousness cannot be tasted, yet all taste appears in it.

Consciousness cannot be felt, yet all feeling appears in it.

We will never know what generates our thoughts, for we only exist as a thought.

All the objects in the world you see around you are impressions, kind of like frozen snapshots. Thinking pictures created by thought.IMO

And its all very grand indeed, i'm quite impressed by it all.

What you say is literally true. But let me test my understanding of how you mean it. All of the senses use our physical equipment, the eyes, ears, etc. to sense the presence of and the apparent existence of things.

The brain processes the findings of the physical equipment but before it can do that it has to be fed input from the senses, and the sense organ has to receive input from some outside source about objects or considerations. Therefore the realization and thoughts about a finding are procdessed remotely at two levels from the source, one level is when the sense organ encounters the input, and the second instance of remote procdessing takes place in the brain which is remote to the sence organ.

I wonder if that is what you mean when you say "you are this consciousness"? The goings on in the brain are two levels remote from the real world, and the concept of "brain" is still just that, a concept in our brain.

[melanie]

What you say is literally true. But let me test my understanding of how you mean it. All of the senses use our physical equipment, the eyes, ears, etc. to sense the presence of and the apparent existence of things.

The brain processes the findings of the physical equipment but before it can do that it has to be fed input from the senses, and the sense organ has to receive input from some outside source about objects or considerations. Therefore the realization and thoughts about a finding are procdessed remotely at two levels from the source, one level is when the sense organ encounters the input, and the second instance of remote procdessing takes place in the brain which is remote to the sence organ.

I wonder if that is what you mean when you say "you are this consciousness"? The goings on in the brain are two levels remote from the real world, and the concept of "brain" is still just that, a concept in our brain.

While there is a sense that life is simply living, thinking and acting though you and as you… this is simply a concept.

There is no separate 'you' to act through or act as.

And there is indeed no separate 'you' imagined when I say that Life appears AS 'you' in the same way that there's no separate ball when clay appears AS a ball.

All there is is Consciousness and all apparent 'things' are only Consciousness appearing to ItSelf

[Bogie]

I have used the term 'receptive TO interaction' and the interjection of the word TO makes all the difference to the premise.

Some people are incredibly 'sensitive' to the energy in their environment, and many domestic animals are likewise sensitive in the respect that they can hear, see and smell, as example, in ranges beyond what humans are normally capable of. Brain waves are now measurable, to some degree, even though we may not be in total understanding of that which we measure.

Horses also have brains, and I would extrapolate that these also have measurable brain waves.

It is my premise that some persons and some species are capable of being aware of each others brain energy, and that this awareness may be capable of fostering a more productive relationship between and within species. I might suggest, also, that in the seeking of any relationship, we are actually seeking a compatibility of this energy that is manifest in 'thought'.

This is not to suggest that all 'ideas' must be compatible for successful relationships, merely the energy or style of it's communication be within acceptable tolerances.

I just looked over the edge of the Maple pavilion, down at the sandy salt marsh where the fiddler crabs are always busy making those little sandballs. As I appeared at the edge, most of the crabs saw me and flinched, some were moving into their holes and others scattering. But this time I noticed one of the larger fiddlers showing his manhood by waving his big claw at me, either looking to defend his mating territory from an intruder, or fancying me as an easy newcomer.

I responded by raising my arms up over my head and every time the fiddler made a threatening gesture, I waved my arms again. After a moment I began to wonder if this fiddler was actually eying me and engaging with me, or was it just natural behavior meaning whatever it means to the other crab witnesses who had all reappeared, though not fully leaving their retreats.

Then the test; instead of raising my arms up above my head, I motioned in the direction of my challenger.

The result, I have now got a way to measure the shortest possible instant of time, lol. Every fiddler in sight reacted instantly and was literally gone in the blink of an eye. Not only was I being observed and engaged, but I was able to communicate in a way that was universally understood.

[melanie]

What, precisely, is a 'thought'?

What if a thought is just the awareness of some 'thing'

What is it that is aware? Awareness is - and it is not a 'thing' (no concept in mind)

So some 'thing' which is really no 'thing' is the reflection relation to itself, which sums to no thing, except in the dream of separation or as a concept/label.
When one thing is known all things are known in relation to.


Pure Awareness does not need anything other than itself to be what it is.
Contrary to what logic dictates, it does not need an object outside of itself to be aware of.
Another way of saying this is that Awareness is both the subject and the object.
As such Awareness is Self-luminous.
It is a Self-sustaining, Self-aware feedback loop, which the use of language seems to split into subject/object, the creator and the created, or Awareness and its content.


It is only because of the dualistic and linear nature of language that this text appears to split that which is essentially one into Pure Awareness and its content. In reality, there is no such duality.

[Bogie]

While there is a sense that life is simply living, thinking and acting though you and as you… this is simply a concept.

There is no separate 'you' to act through or act as.

And there is indeed no separate 'you' imagined when I say that Life appears AS 'you' in the same way that there's no separate ball when clay appears AS a ball.

All there is is Consciousness and all apparent 'things' are only Consciousness appearing to ItSelf

Thank you, and what I take you to mean is that there is a universal or cosmic consciousness, a universal living consciousness and we are each individual emanations or expressions of the greater whole.

I enjoy contemplating that possibility and often test the limits of our connection to a greater nature, not going so far as accepting it as a universal consciousness, but definitely considering Nature to be the connection, even if it is passive in being there.

[melanie]

Thank you, and what I take you to mean is that there is a universal or cosmic consciousness, a universal living consciousness and we are each individual emanations or expressions of the greater whole.

I enjoy contemplating that possibility and often test the limits of our connection to a greater nature, not going so far as accepting it as a universal consciousness, but definitely considering Nature to be the connection, even if it is passive in being there.

Thanks Bogie.

Chuang Tzu illustrates this.

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection:

The water has no mind to receive their image


Life is a mirage Bogie. Knowing this puts all our petty little problems into perspective IMO.

We just need to learn to accept the fact that we do not and never have existed as a separate 'I' identity entity.

There are many people that would not touch that idea with a barge pole.

Life is as it is - there is no way out.

Because there is 'no one' to get out of it.

[Bogie]

Thanks Bogie.

Chuang Tzu illustrates this.

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection:

The water has no mind to receive their image


Life is a mirage Bogie. Knowing this puts all our petty little problems into perspective IMO.

We just need to learn to accept the fact that we do not and never have existed as a separate 'I' identity entity.

There are many people that would not touch that idea with a barge pole.

Life is as it is - there is no way out.

Because there is 'no one' to get out of it.

But if we want to we can see ourselves existing individually; as I consciously motioned to the fiddler crab. I overcame the levels of remoteness with a simple conscious gesture.

The mirage is not just imagination but there is a subtle mirage that requires a physical presence, an instrument like the brain that is dedicated to each of us as individuals.

But let me test my understanding a little further and get to the energy of thought which LW offers as "assume it to be true". We may argue about what energy is, a measurement, a potential, the ability to do work, or something in the background that all physical things are composed of, but when the 'physical' evolves to living beings we can utilize that energy consciously.

Even if the physical being is an illusion to the extent that it is composed of complicated structures of energy, wave energy, standing waves, widely varying frequencies, etc. that are capable of producing an awesome illusion, there is nothing there that is solid through and through. Everything is energy and its primary characteristics other that humans are made of it, is that it exists in waves that can vary in terms of frequency and density and can become apparently physical by intersecting and overlapping in so many ways, but when not busy representing some physical form, they are LW's energy that potentially can fuel thought and everything else as needed.

[labelwench]

Some excellent discussion transpired while I was absent, and I thank you all for respectful participation.

On the subject of thoughts as an energy form, the following is quite interesting.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2011) — You need to keep your thoughts from wandering, if you drive using the new technology from the AutoNOMOS innovation labs of Freie Universität Berlin. The computer scientists have developed a system making it possible to steer a car with your thoughts. Using new commercially available sensors to measure brain waves -- sensors for recording electroencephalograms (EEG) -- the scientists were able to distinguish the bioelectrical wave patterns for control commands such as "left," "right," "accelerate" or "brake" in a test subject.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0218083711.htm

More details and a video at this link: http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/...iven-car-1379/

If our brain waves can interact with mechanical devices, why would they not be able to interact and/or interfere with the thought energy of others?

One other intriguing detail I have observed on graveyards is that persons who can synchronize with each others 'energy' are able to work in close proximity to each other, while persons who may like each other as individuals, yet whose energy 'interferes' with each other do better to work toward the shared objective, yet with an aisle or two between them.

I wonder if people actually carry an electrical charge, as in positive, negative or neutral?

[austintorn@aol.com]

Mel,

No brain, no consciousness.

Anesthesia to the brain, no consciousness.

Brain gets tired, consciousness fades into sleep.

Consciousness comes last, not first.

The consciousness ‘problem’ has been contained and localized to the brain, not just floating around on its own, but we still don’t know how it comes about or what it is.

We do know that it comes last, not first, as the brain needs some small amount of processing time, and that neural correlates and brain areas have been roughly identified to correspond to what appears in consciousness, but, again, ‘correspondences’ don’t say how the brain process of consciousness operates. Some think that the lastness of conscious witnessing makes them a kind of tourist just along for the ride on a brain having thoughts, but that’s another matter.

Yet, we know that it is a brain process, which is useful, for it further limits the possibilities. A worm or a snail probably has some degree of a smudge of consciousness, or at least high responsiveness, say, to light or dark, warm or cold, wet or dry, whereas a dog or a cat probably has more, but still as an extended-present kind of thing without self-reflection.

As for the brain’s results, it seems that it is able to go through scenarios of consequence rather quickly, and, of course, these may just be provisional, after coming into consciousness, getting ruminated on further, etc.

The purpose of consciousness would seem to be to know what we are doing, plus a way to imagine action without actual activation of it, this ‘consciousness’ extending beyond the brain proper even down to the nerve spindles throughout the body, but it is, of course, the brain that gets these reports. Also for learning, such as when learning to drive a car, one has to be very attentive, automatic pilot often taking over later when one has become experienced.

So what is a vague concept of what consciousness is? Seems to be kind of an ‘it from bit’ thing, as QM suggests about quantum information, or, as David Chalmers suggests, that information can be represented in two ways. This would be fundamental, such as mass or an electron is a fundamental, but we still don’t know what ‘it’ is. This is probably the last frontier of the big unknowns, along with ‘What animates the inanimate to become life, and why there is existence?”

Other ideas are that the brain literally makes a ‘map’, this map becoming the territory, which theory still needs more explanation, but I haven’t read the book ‘The Self Comes to Mind’ yet.

As for the pantheistic cosmos, a rose is still a rose the same by any other name, plus, ‘God’ would be limited and restricted in only being able to do what the universe could do.

[SteveA]

I enjoyed reading your Fiddler crabs story, Bogie. (Maybe they were trying to wave "Hi" and you scared them off? ).

As many have said, it appears the 'true source' is not really referencable because it's a singular property that's already implicit in everything else. It's simply what allows reality to persist and is like a monopole with no specific orientation and no specific phenomenon to describe it. It doesn't construct any form of coherent space with specific properties except as that unity of persistence and I think in time it's represented similar to the fundamental motive, direction or desire in time though it's likely the generalized desire to exist, growth or experience change and that's what I assume to be the fundamental source of energy.

It also appears that because there's no specific form/logic/structure involved, all specifics that are a part of that are involved simply because they share the same property/desire/motive, but to what extent it's something innate or unchangeable for anything other than ones own reference else appears impossible to determine and that's where rationally things have to be centered around oneself.

I don't believe that things necessarily are singular/one or only exist relative to self etc., but simply that it appears there's no way for any form of structure to be coherently understood within that structure existing in a singular space with properties that are definable. So realistically there's nothing 'else' to know of or state anything specific regarding etc., but to me it appears the existence of time and a belief in future unknowns indicates that there does exist something else, though that something else is still dependent upon the innate ability to experience time and construct beliefs etc. (Though it's possible that others could experience the fundamental property differently and it could be my equivalent of space that appears to them similar to my experience of time and ones spacial expansion could be the equivalent of motion into the future for another, or in terms of perceptions it could be in terms of memory, perceptual discriminiation or other qualitiative changes of experience. I guess fundamentally the last description is likely most generalizing, but again, I can't speak for anyones experiences other than my own, so it really remains an unknown)

In the example of the crabs, the way I interpret things is that the fundamental property is shared by all things and beyond that nothing could be referenced, though time is similar to an unveiling of what things share that property or become able to interact. So the crabs, as known, are a part of oneself, but the interactions over time are not solely a product of oneself, though they are enabled by an innate aspect of what one is. The manner in which you act relative to the crabs is self determined, the response is a mixture of both and what limits to that interaction exist are self imposed, but the specifics of which of those possibilities is not specifically self selected, but instead simply enabled by what one is.

In the case of the crabs, you determined your actions as well as have been involved in determining the forms of crabs, but the specific qualities by which crabs are experienced (colors, sounds, shapes etc.) were acquired from 'others' sharing the same innate quality as self, though not necessarily as an identical or unalterable relationship and in the case of the crabs, though communication has been confined to manners that are compatible with oneself or capabilities one has acquired, the specifics that arise aren't directly and this, I believe is where many get the impression of it simply being a dream or nothing etc. ... well, in some ways that could be the case but what does that really mean? A dream is not denied from having structure and what I believe people are truly referencing is simply different qualitative aspects of experience - it's not specifically constrained to being 'dreamlike' or 'real like' etc. The controllable aspects are rationally determined and have forms and rules and that's an aspect of information/memory.

Yes, it's possible that the fundational assumption is simply a belief in a 'correctness' to logic and memory, but in that case, no rational argument to the contrary is going to prove anything differently! If something was truly irrational, there would be no logical purpose behind it. Anything arising from a coherent action relative to any fundamental form is logically constrained to lie within logical capabilities - that doesn't mean that things are predetermined but simply that evolutionary forms have cause and effect relationships and that could be analogized to a 'tree' (of choices) to life.

Whatever initial point caused that is beyond logic and would appear to simply be the common cause/rule behind the rest and I'd assume it's best characterized as simply the desire to remain together/unified and grow.

In the crabs example, it's not specifically crabs that are actually being communicated with ... the actual source could even be potentially incoherent (yes, they might have been trying to be friendly and you scared them off! ... ok, I'm kidding to an extent, but not entirely ... I don't think there's any rational motive outside of simply desiring to be a part of it all that could be said for whatever 'energy' it is that's actually being communicated with. I'd assume the fundamental drive, motive and form is the same but the specific interpretations could be wildly and incomparably different ... they could also potentially be quite similar. It would appear the only version one could rationally work with would be that everything is precisely as one sees it to be and it also appears that the only way to avoid continually looking for something else is to see that the grass is already green 'Here and Now' ... it might take seeing that 'Here and Now' is also a point that has a future direction as well as many other details which could go beyond a simple ability to describe)

... now my comments are simply made in the context of what would appear to be rationally required to get things to work (and I believe rationally is fundamentally rooted in memory and that, once again, memory is derived from the fundamental desire/motive/purpose as an aspect of integration/unification) and some speculations on what extrapolations of it could appear as. I recognize that nothing at all may require rationality be involved, but it could be that the irrational simply whimsically desires a rationality exist (otherwise what metric would allow for something to be specifically irrational or random etc.? )

I think the basis of every discussion/communication fundamental begins with a specific thing and it's the shared meaning/purpose/desire of (realistically) everything (even if it's not necessarily true abstractly ... it seems like there would be no way to determine any other truth ... i.e. what's the purpose of constructing such abstractions? It's simply a desire to satisfy mental curiousity and is once again "driven" by growth and requires an integration with logic and memory etc.).

The fact that it includes growth/change is why there's energy and things happen and people can stop by and chat with crabs

What's the next specific perceptual quality of experience on the list? I guess there's no way to determine the specifics ahead of time, but it could be that the specifics aren't, in themselves, what's really important.