Consciousness, Transcendence & Integration

[Mikal]

The self/soul is the nuclear atom of the psyche, the center which unfolds consciousness.

Please read David Lewis-Williams ‘code in the mind’ Post #1134 and please do notice that he broke from the herd to do his work. The majority of scholars in the field of neurology have unquestioningly yoked themselves to the unproductive methods of thought as to the chemical story—beyond this lies the nature of man with a fully formed and inherited ancestral urge to connect with his own spiritual side.

Great thinkers like David Lewis-Williams show strength of character when they mark a path of their own for he had no interest in established and rigidly fixed ideas choosing to focus on the fact that beyond chemicals is hidden the true mystery of man…..

Regards Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

The self/soul is the nuclear atom of the psyche. — Mikal

So be it proclaimed then, out of nowhere, but indeed I'll go with the herd of the self portion. but not the unherd magic of the "soul" invisible parts over any and all objectivity whatsoever that are wished for via pure subjectivity. Let me know when the subjective can match the level of proof shown by the objective or at least not be treated as if it were not there (although I realize that that is the tact that has to be taken to get past it).

Until then… have a wonderful day, and, yes, Label's stuff in Daily Laughter was really a bunch of funny one-liners that had me rolling too.

P.S. I broke form the herd about the Big Bang and the red-shift.

[Mikal]

I tell you what! Have the experience and then come back and talk to me...

EXPERIENCE IS THE GREAT TEACHER!!!!!!!!!!


Regards Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

I did have it/them, but saw it for what it was, not an NDE, though, but OBEs, lucid dreams, humor, glory, triumph, love, introspection, flights of (knowing) fantasy, poetry, science, philosophy, breaking from herds, a life over-brimming with all that it can be, and other consciousness altering inducements of "highs" from a few drugs (in the early days), as well as the very natural and opiate endorphins unbeatable highs of life lived to the utmost degree. The feelings were in and of the brain, which is fine, but are not taken way beyond and simply "invented" by wishful speculations as pathways to invisible realms and then even umpteen assumption beyond to build a whole entire structure. They were, like all, in the end, sensations, for that's what the brain does, and I've learned much about why it does and can, for there are many floors beneath that feed it.

Sensations, sensations, sensations, and what sensations are made of for this mammal species.

I am though, still out of here for as long as I've been away, for there are really no conversations here about any of my post content details, but only more proclamations and pronouncements upon the invisible that try to seep away the known, even the presentation of them as fact, which is surely deceptive. Whatever happened to "seems", "could be", and "maybe"?

The subjective limits itself to its own little space, treating itself as if it were some kind of first cause.

I've seen you, in turn, try to throw away evolution, and then kind of have to come back to it, as one must (See Rascal's postings), "chemical" not doing anything, but coming back slightly, brain doing nothing but then, OK, it may, as well as denying, heaping scorn upon other undeniable things to the point of simply not answering or neglecting them, save for the absolute pronouncements upon the "hidden", to which I must agree: that the so-called invisible surely must be hidden—and ya know where all that goes… nowhere. (Lloyd talk) There is more to life than sensation in the brain.

Have a wonderful year and enjoy all the myths.

I'm not really mad at you, for the universe, including you and I, is only as it must be—and is all it can be, for its relationships must be maintained. The experience is what is, along with the unwished of what can't and won't, not what ought to be, should be… would be nice to be… has to be… falsely preach as truth without proof, etc. Only learning can save the unfixed will to bring it another level of another, better, unfixed will, which at least has wider knowledge of what really goes on beyond the inventions of the invisible's doings… and of star formations meaning anything, counts of a certain number of pebbles and a language to signify that number designation doing something (numerology), tales of various fabricated gods, etc.

I think I am the one down to earth with my feet on the ground and not a high-flying poet, as if that somehow places someone, and indeed that it is your ideas that are very much in the clouds.

Well, fare thee well—and always remember the love that we shared.

[SteveA]

The self/soul is the nuclear atom of the psyche. — Mikal

So be it proclaimed then, out of nowhere, but indeed I'll go with the herd of the self portion. but not the unherd magic of the "soul" invisible parts over any and all objectivity whatsoever that are wished for via pure subjectivity. Let me know when the subjective can match the level of proof shown by the objective or at least not be treated as if it were not there (although I realize that that is the tact that has to be taken to get past it).

Until then… have a wonderful day, and, yes, Label's stuff in Daily Laughter was really a bunch of funny one-liners that had me rolling too.

P.S. I broke form the herd about the Big Bang and the red-shift.

Notice that you yourself are making similar claims. How does consciousness arise from atoms? Which came first, thought or atoms? I know first hand that thoughts came first and then later concepts like atoms etc. came along.

If you look at the structure of the mind, it already has enough rules by which it operates to have the equivalent of mental laws and these can be seen as physical laws. I posted some comments regarding this on the other thread.

How could a brain be seen if your mind is one itself? If you arose from physical DNA, how did you detach yourself from remaining it?

The dual view in science is unsalvagable IMO and you'll need to give a very solid an concrete resolution to these problems (which have remained around for a long time) if you can't resolve these paradoxes, then at least for me, I have to go with the very solid view that physical experiences exist as a subset of processes that occur in the mind.

[SteveA]

I did have it/them, but saw it for what it was, not an NDE, though, but OBEs, lucid dreams, humor, glory, triumph, love, introspection, flights of (knowing) fantasy, poetry, science, philosophy, breaking from herds, a life over-brimming with all that it can be, and other consciousness altering inducements of "highs" from a few drugs (in the early days), as well as the very natural and opiate endorphins unbeatable highs of life lived to the utmost degree. The feelings were in and of the brain, which is fine, but are not taken way beyond and simply "invented" by wishful speculations as pathways to invisible realms and then even umpteen assumption beyond to build a whole entire structure. They were, like all, in the end, sensations, for that's what the brain does, and I've learned much about why it does and can, for there are many floors beneath that feed it.

Sensations, sensations, sensations, and what sensations are made of for this mammal species.

I am though, still out of here for as long as I've been away, for there are really no conversations here about any of my post content details, but only more proclamations and pronouncements upon the invisible that try to seep away the known, even the presentation of them as fact, which is surely deceptive. Whatever happened to "seems", "could be", and "maybe"?

The subjective limits itself to its own little space, treating itself as if it were some kind of first cause.

I've seen you, in turn, try to throw away evolution, and then kind of have to come back to it, as one must (See Rascal's postings), "chemical" not doing anything, but coming back slightly, brain doing nothing but then, OK, it may, as well as denying, heaping scorn upon other undeniable things to the point of simply not answering or neglecting them, save for the absolute pronouncements upon the "hidden", to which I must agree: that the so-called invisible surely must be hidden—and ya know where all that goes… nowhere. (Lloyd talk) There is more to life than sensation in the brain.

Have a wonderful year and enjoy all the myths.

I'm not really mad at you, for the universe, including you and I, is only as it must be—and is all it can be, for its relationships must be maintained. The experience is what is, along with the unwished of what can't and won't, not what ought to be, should be… would be nice to be… has to be… falsely preach as truth without proof, etc. Only learning can save the unfixed will to bring it another level of another, better, unfixed will, which at least has wider knowledge of what really goes on beyond the inventions of the invisible's doings… and of star formations meaning anything, counts of a certain number of pebbles and a language to signify that number designation doing something (numerology), tales of various fabricated gods, etc.

I think I am the one down to earth with my feet on the ground and not a high-flying poet, as if that somehow places someone, and indeed that it is your ideas that are very much in the clouds.

Well, fare thee well—and always remember the love that we shared.

I posted a reply that actually deals with a lot of your comments here:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/your-t...tml#post120777

The mind is a fractal structure and relationships are mirrored in many ways. Thought is not random and it has structure and rules by which it operates. Memory has specific properties that are assumed true of it as well and all these fit together into a structure that is not myth but fundamental.

Yes, there could exist a layer of logic that is always true, but this isn't the version that we see of things moving in space or or bodies and thoughts that change etc. (I detailed much of this in that post)

[SteveA]

Here, if you need another example Austin, try to tell me how science can resolve this one?

Imagine some experience like throwing a ball and "feel" your arm swing etc.

Now what would science say is occurring here? Well it's suppose to be, as always "electrochemical phenomenon" (why don't we just relabel that term "magic"? It's the cover up for ... well, we can't figure it out)

But let's assume that's true for a second. Ok, so we have various electrochemical interactions in the brain that are somehow consciously detected (the order of determination is wrong, but let's ignore that for a second).

Well, let's look around at the world. There are whole bunch of other electrochemical phenomenon around ... why is it that these are suddenly not consciously detected?

The reply is (grumble, grumble, hem, haw) well ... they're not part of the brain.

Well what's special about the brain?

If we ask science the reply is suppose be nothing at all! It's suppose to be identical to chemical interactions "out there" (as if things could be seen beyond oneself - that's another paradox).

Ok, so we conveniently overlook that problem (but this is already wrong - if science can't determine something unique about the brain, then this is already a "fail") and assume that somehow the brain is unique. Well the next problem is that there are many brains - what then would be unique about ones own? Obviously it couldn't be some structure of brains in general because then we should all be reading each others mind.

So we have to resort to something specific of ones own brain that is unique, such as a specific frequency or spacing or other spacial property, but this won't work because it implies that consciousness is somehow correlated to a specific spacial structure form. Well where is it in space? I thought it was already suppose to be within the brain somehow?

And then worse yet, is the problem with integrating conscious information - if nothing can communicate faster than light, there is [i]not a specific point in the brain at which such communication occurs and if there was, well then we now have new conscious laws of physics at work and new phenomenon to describe and we could then unify physics with consciousness and recognize it's all one and the same.

And again, how is it that if someone was created from DNA, do they magically become disconnected from it and are about to see space and disconnected strands of DNA etc. We should still be figuratively "looking" out from within a DNA structure (which I do believe is the case but it's not DNA in a physical sense but a very high and potentially even an infinite dimensional space of perceptions/mind/consciousness/awareness etc.)

We can find a theory that describes everything perfectly and it's that thoughts and experiences arise from a space of awareness and that physical events are a part of this. Basically it's "The Matrix" but on steroids and it unites many areas of knowledge in many fields and it has no paradoxes etc.

The paradoxes are just tools to learn from. There's no specific description of what this is - it's everything. Nothing specific describes it precisely, though we can show reams and reams of beautiful approximations and science is mostly about that and manners to communicate and represent these concepts, but there are areas of experience outside that as well.

Things are already moving toward higher levels of abstraction and the logical tools still apply, though it could help to look more at how those tools are creatively applied or even how we can creatively find new directions to explore. There's less need to specifically determine whether or not something exists in nature. A personal computer isn't restricted to only simulating empirical evidence, yet it could also be called a physical object. Physical objects can become as arbitrarily complex as we can imagine them to be (within the limits of our ability to interactively/controllably determine their form). Theory and reality are merging - pick a good theoretical direction and figure out how it can be seen as real. Of course things are only as precise as we can determine them to be and should be built upon the past, unless we're to figuratively start over with something not determined by the present state.

Yes, I'm talking to myself quite a bit here as well and I'm not upset at you at all. In fact, I appreciate some of the "counter views" because they help clarify my own as I'm still trying to fit them more precisely together as well. I think the manner in which you commented to Mikal was undeserved and that you, yourself are missing some of the significance and incorrectly assigning where the confusion arises and that's why I replied as I did. (Seriously, if you don't have resolutions to some of these paradoxes then you shouldn't continue to call the non-paradoxical views "myth" as they're actually more tangible, real and consistent)

It does seem a better view of how "cognitive physics" works is needed, though I believe I have quite a few of the pieces and how they fit together, though it's still hard to extrapolate out to macroscopic views, but then again experiences are also quite significantly fractal and there exist similar things as "atoms" in first person perspectives of things. Any subject or set of relationships that's understand and we act relative to should have very similar structures as exist on small scales (though there are more chaotic features on larger scales - in a sense, atoms can appear largely simple and discrete because not all of its interactions are viewed).

Well anyway, it appears to be a direction that's a lot more accessible to analysis and it holds a lot of potential and would end up being something science would likely pursue anyway, so at least to me it seems better to "bite the bullet" and begin reordering things relative to the mind/conscious etc. and dive in now instead of continuing to head in a direction that appears will need a lot of backtracking eventually.

[austintorn@aol.com]

[Elvis has left the building — will reply in 'Idea"]

[Graybeard]

Here, if you need another example Austin, try to tell me how science can resolve this one?

Imagine some experience like throwing a ball and "feel" your arm swing etc.

Now what would science say is occurring here? Well it's suppose to be, as always "electrochemical phenomenon" (why don't we just relabel that term "magic"? It's the cover up for ... well, we can't figure it out)

But let's assume that's true for a second. Ok, so we have various electrochemical interactions in the brain that are somehow consciously detected (the order of determination is wrong, but let's ignore that for a second).

Well, let's look around at the world. There are whole bunch of other electrochemical phenomenon around ... why is it that these are suddenly not consciously detected?

The reply is (grumble, grumble, hem, haw) well ... they're not part of the brain.

Well what's special about the brain?

If we ask science the reply is suppose be nothing at all! It's suppose to be identical to chemical interactions "out there" (as if things could be seen beyond oneself - that's another paradox).

Dear Steve ....

Science replies correctly .... it just sounds like 'grumble, grumble, hem, haw' to you. A Neuro-Surgeon would reply 'grumble, grumble, hem, haw' if a layman asked him for the detailed workings of the brain in six sentences. You need to start from first principles. Your looking at it incorrectly .... and creating your own paradoxes.

The reason you 'feel' your arm swing is because of acceleration. Gravity is also 'acceleration'. (due to the Higgs field ??)

The reason you don't feel Austin's arm swing is because you have no electrical (neural) connection to Austin's arm.

This is not a paradox.

Instead of comparing 'complex' systems to inanimate matter start off with something simpler like an amoeba ..... or flagellum .... and ask does it 'feel' itself swing its tail ... a much less complex process than your arm.

When you see a magician pull a rabbit out of a previously observed empty hat ... it looks mystical. But if you see it step by step ... there is no mystery.

A Flagellum:



cool bananas ... greg

[SteveA]

Dear Steve ....

Science replies correctly .... it just sounds like 'grumble, grumble, hem, haw' to you. A Neuro-Surgeon would reply 'grumble, grumble, hem, haw' if a layman asked him for the detailed workings of the brain in six sentences. You need to start from first principles. Your looking at it incorrectly .... and creating your own paradoxes.

The reason you 'feel' your arm swing is because of acceleration. Gravity is also 'acceleration'. (due to the Higgs field ??)

I was talking about simply imagining ones arm to move and mentally feeling it. If you see things while you dream, you're similarly not visually seeing light. So the sensations of physical experiences need not actually arise from gravity or the Higgs field etc.

In a dream, things can be seen as well and yet there is no visual light, hence none of these "external" explanations you gave are related.

Once again, as I said, the explanation by science would be that these sensations would be electrochemical reactions in the brain and need not be representative of "external" physical events. It can be all self contained.

The reason you don't feel Austin's arm swing is because you have no electrical (neural) connection to Austin's arm.

Ah, but which "you" are you referring to? We need to be precise here. I was referring to conscious perceptions and not a physical brain. You're referring to the brain and this is not necessarily tied to conscious experiences, unless that link can be established.

If you say there is no connection, then I can similarly ask why my experiences are specifically tied to "this" brain and not Austin's brain. Notice that atoms are continually changing in the body and so it wouldn't appear consciousness is tied to any specific matter and if you say it's electrical or electromagnetic, well those travel at light speed and aren't specifically confined to the brain. Notice that thermal energy would similarly dissipate.

Also notice that if we're suppose to be constructed by DNA, but the atoms are all interchangeable, then there's no reason that a specific strand of DNA made me and another made someone else.

This is not a paradox.

Instead of comparing 'complex' systems to inanimate matter start off with something simpler like an amoeba ..... or flagellum .... and ask does it 'feel' itself swing its tail ... a much less complex process than your arm.

Again, you didn't really address my question because I was talking about imagining moving ones arm and hence, there should be no physical mechanics or arm motion involved.

When you see a magician pull a rabbit out of a previously observed empty hat ... it looks mystical. But if you see it step by step ... there is no mystery.

True, I don't see a paradox except that science can't explain how consciousness arises from physically observed events.

A Flagellum:



cool bananas ... greg

Nice looking spaceship!