mind blowing thought

[SteveA]

Something interesting to consider is in terms of memory. It would make sense that life would be a construction of memories and thoughts associated with ones growth in life, but for example, would these be comparable experiences to that of some other form of life or even the experiences of another person?

As a better analogy, if someone learns to speak English but they move somewhere that noone speaks English and another language has to be used, there are not many things except for more basic commonalities of experience and mental concepts that have "direct translations" between these. Along similar lines, things that occur while dreaming are not necessarily remembered when consciously awake and also concepts that a child might grow up with that change can become dated and unrelated to their life later and it seems very likely that beliefs about the world as a child could be lost over time simply because they don't "fit in" with conceptions about life as one grows older. Some drug experiences are suppose to be similar in that those experiences grow "foggy" or "clouded" when that state of experience returns to "normal" (though it's always questionable as to what is "normal" ... I don't think there's really a reliable reference - it's always normal and unusual at the same time - life could be considered unusual, especially considering how and where things came to be as they are).

Though not all things are necessarily "translateable" in a relevant way across experiences, I do believe there are commonalities that allow for such transitions to occur and this constant framework would likely be similar to the concept of a soul - unique individual biases that determine the pathways of experience they exist with in a compatible manner.

(I've got to run some errands but will be back later. Sorry if I didn't reply to all the comments)

Until later ...

[melanie]

Certain, specific molecules of anesthesia, when reaching certain, specific areas of the brain prevent the brain process of consciousness. The brain still does its analysis and so forth, both of what would be thoughts and feelings, as well as its other functions of keeping the hear pumping, but the thoughts and feelings can't make into consciousness, for that is prevented so that you will not feel the pain of the operation. Attendants also monitor your blood pressure and other bodily functions.

Consciousness is a tail-end of a process that has been shown to take about 200-300 milliseconds, so, consciousness is not first—this is not even close, for it is last. Of course conscious experience becomes a part of your memory and so its experiences get referenced by subsequent actions.

95% of what the brain does remains subconscious, which is fine and well, for it would be rather nerve-wracking to be constantly informed of all the electr-chemical processes of body maintenance.

Just because we only ever see the inside of our heads is no reason to make an unwarranted leap to saying that nothing is out there beyond. We manipulate external reality all the time, also to make devices that work—and so it is that we have a fine understanding of external reality, which knowledge is ever increasing by leaps and bounds. Now there is even a 4-D microscope that can look at DNA/protein folding/unfolding.

Are you saying that every time we look at something, that it's like a dream, some kind of DVD projector movie then playing that exactly matches what would go on if all were real?

Take your spark-plugs out of your car and it won't run. If the so-called dream always matches, then it's all about a difference that makes no difference whatsoever; thus, they must be the same, eliminating the dream. Besides, wouldn't there have to be something real down the like, like, say the dream projector mechanism? Wouldn't it be tough to simulate everything in real time, not to mention sending the signals over infinite distances?

There are no infinite distances in the here and now. Where ever you go there you are as consciousness, consciousness is all there is.

Conscious awareness is either switched on or off. Just because it's temporally switched off doesn't mean it's not there, here.

Without consciousness as the ground of all being - the concept 'brain' is not known, without no-thing, some-thing could not exist.
That which is aware or conscious of the existence of some 'thing' or 'object' is not a 'thing' or 'object' in itself,
thus, they cancel each other out.
Did some-thing come from no-thing or did no-thing come from some-thing? either way, it'll always equal to zero.

Consciousness is antecedent to the brain processing mechanism,
as it is responsible for the witnessing of all data instantaneously projecting it onto the screen of awareness
illuminating the darkness as memory.
All that exists is perception, yet no one perceiving, as perceived and perceiver are one.

There is no separation here despite the illusory appearance of an observer observing the observed, the idea of any separation is absurd.
Consciousness is not an experience - an experience is an appearance in that which is not an experience,
consciousness is the experiencing…experience - in
as the very act of seeing IT-self.

All that's really happening when the self sees itself is the dreamt character creates a story
about how it came to realize that it is dreaming.
The character within the dream and the dream itself can never be real,
it would be like trying to paint a sunset with the words "red" and "orange".
Exactly the same phenomena occurs in our nightly dreams.

The very act of seeing --- is real,as an experience, but only as an appearance in that which is not.
even though the eye cannot see itself.
It's a divine paradox.

[melanie]

Consciousness is a tail-end of a process that has been shown to take about 200-300 milliseconds, so, consciousness is not first—this is not even close, for it is last. Of course conscious experience becomes a part of your memory and so its experiences get referenced by subsequent actions.

It's my idea Austin,
that consciousness and brain activity arise instantaneously in concord with one another despite the appearance of a delay?

For example: Are you separate from the dreams you have in your sleep?

[melanie]

One cannot experience unconsciousness because experience is inhibited during that time. This is not indicative of anything deeper, further, or wider.

One cannot experience consciousness either, for one very good reason, who would do that? consciousness itself of course = zero

Consciousness experiencing itself from inside out. It's inside out, meaning there is no inside or out, except in the dream of separation.

In this conception.

[melanie]

Unconditional Love

Exquisite Austin, simply love it. Thanks.

[SteveA]

I recognize and am familiar with the storyline you're presenting Austin and I appreciate you presenting it because it's nice to have a refresher of how the conventional story goes, but when one does a bit of closer inspection it's full of lots of holes, but I do appreciate you being willing to present it:

[SIZE="3"]Consciousness arises from the arrangement of brain matter, not just from any old matter in any old form.

First of all, how do we know that matter consctructs consciousness? Isn't matter something witnessed by it? Matter, in the form we see in the universe is a product of the mind and physical perceptions - in that form it would appear impossible that matter could have constructed these as that mind and perceptions would have been needed to first construct matter.

The only conventional form of reply I could imagine that could address this would be that we do not see all of matter exactly as it exists and it exists with properties that are not yet fully understand etc. etc. etc. (the mysteries left to be uncovered ... etc.) and basically this would be exactly the same as I've been saying - the physical brain, in conventional terms does not contain the mind but is simply a projection of a subset of aspects contained by the mind in the same manner that physical DNA we see "out there" is not actually the DNA that constructed life but a representation of some of its attributes within the context of physical perceptions.

So my arguments are more consistent than the conventional storyline.

Consider this problem in the conventional view as well - what influence does the brain have on our perceptions of the world and do physical mechanisms within the brain influence any of this?

Obviously to be consistent with the idea that the brain is similarly "immersed" in space with all of its physical phenomenon, then a legitimate conventional theory would have to claim that such physical processes in the brain do influence conscious experience.

Ok, so now we can ask in what manner and how can we observe these or differentiate between them and supposed external events?

Notice that according to Relativity, there should be no manner to observe the external world without it being at least filtered by the brain. The most likely short and simply conventional storyline would be that the brain simply allows for learning ... that would appear the minimum "non-influencial" in terms of immediate experience, version of the storyline, but shouldn't we also assume that things like optic nerves process and filter information, or that sounds and physical textures would be similarly processed and altered by the nervous system, pattern recognition and associative pathways etc. in the brain?

Well wouldn't the same be true for an external physical brain? Wouldn't one only be interacting with the subset of components that one physical perceptions are compatible with?

If what we experience is a product of two unknowns, then we know nothing specific about either - what's illusion and what's not or what's a product of the brain versus the environment and why is one labeled real and the other illusion? It's an equation with one too many unknowns in it - we need to look at what a single unknown is if we want to figuratively solve the equation.

For example, if we want to solve for x, the equation can't look like this:

x=y+z

If only x is experienced and we have to "blame" it on y and z and can't assign components this leaves us with a degree of freedom that doesn't exist in experience. For example, if x is 5, then there remain many ways to assign this to y and z:

5=0+5
5=1+4
...

But this is actually not a problem at all and if we take ideas from Relativity literally then there is no problem and if we assume that information does not simply "tunnel" (in a QM sense) past any influence of the brain and somehow be consciously detected in a manner immune to any influence by the brain, then we're left with consciousness as a singularity in space (and a/the photon containing apparently a very large quantity of information that is not physically witnessed).

Alternately we can simply integrate the two views and realize that the brain, body, external world etc. are all inseparable in terms of which is the "real" thing and which is not.

If you consider information available to experiences there's nothing to work with more than the totality of beliefs, experiences, perceptual information, memory etc. and to say that some component of this is illusion is simply yet another addition to totality as a belief that something is "illusion" (and we could assume that this belief would not similarly be labeled an illusion). We can see that views in physics would allow for the same thing - a nearby physical tree could arise from the influence of a dendritic structure of a neuron in the informational vicinity of whatever is consciously observed at the moment and the diffuse electrical characteristics of the body with trillions of cells could easily appear similar to a diffused space with various fractal properties as well.

Logically we can't have a parallel layer of moving objects existing in a common space without a manner to unite them in motions and positions etc., otherwise there is no specific position at any moment that something exists and it might as well be nowhere at all and this can be seen in space as the faster than light speed communication of space itself or in the body, in a conventional sense as the uniting of experiences into a single awareness.

So we have both a problem with an ignorance of the influences of the dynamic structures of the brain as well as what appears to be an insurmountable informational paradox in considering qualia as being derived from a subset of itself as seen physically. These are foundations of logic and information theory that are being ignored by the conventional storyline.

It's actually better to recognize when something is unknown or when a conflict is present in ones beliefs than to simply try to create a storyline to mask over it ... the storylines can be fun and entertaining but if there's a real interest in how things work, then it's a disservice to continue storytelling.

The higher the brain, such as in man, the more consciousness. A snail’s consciousness may but perceive light and dark, warm and cold. Brian injuries or drugs can alter consciousness. No brain, no consciousness.

1) As you imply it's not really known what a snail's consciousness might perceive or whether or not it's part of something larger, in the end it's just ones own consciousness that is experienced. This can be projected into an assumed external context - such as we can imagine that a snail would perceive (and then we look around and see what we perceive to be near the snail as well as the forces that we experience to be real etc. and can assume that snail's possess nothing beyond that ... until we continue to learn otherwise) and then consciously imagine a snail consciously experiencing a subset of whatever we happened to imagine. Obviously imaginations are real things because of all the things in the world that are considered to be "real" that are just products of the imagination.

2) When you say no brain, no consciousness, it appears the verifiable evidence of causation is backwards - brains are seen as real because consciousness exists to perceive them, so it should be - no consciousness, no brain and not the other way around.

How do brains exist without consciousness and how can unconsciousness exist? What is it that sees the existence of unconscious brains? (I know Melanie can answer this one ... she's the one that pointed out the fact)

We have senses because their really is an external reality to be sensed.

Well I'd have to say it's just "reality" and not external and because everything is included in reality, then there's really no reason to even call it reality - there's just ... well everything.

[SteveA]

The eye, for example, isn’t just there for show, as complicated as it is, with several brain visual modules behind it. No eye, no vision of external reality.

Thank for another good subject. Ok, let me try to see if I can clear this up some so that a more detailed and broader view can be recognized:

1) Conscious structures are hierarchical. Motions occur within a space and the dimensions of it are the properties that a can be altered to show motion. So the space in which an object exists defines the parameters/properties that can be altered regarding it.

In the case of vision, we obviously need an ability to see first before we can see eyes and so the ability to see, as a timeless and unchanging properties is contained as a property of the space itself in which objects can change and be seen or not, hence the ability to see is encompassing of individual experiences of sight.

Notice that the eye has a smooth surface relative to a Euclidean interpretation of space. This implies a coherent correlation between the properties of space itself and the eye. For example, if we took a "random" arrangement of atoms in space, and made observations of these via constant velocity observations, the arrangement of this collection would reflect that information in a similarly "random" ordering of the detected elements, though when observed from solely the information these detect, the space can still be interpreted to be "flat" and when the collection observes its own properties it can appear to be similarly smooth/flat/Euclidean.

So the eye appears as it does because it is seeing subsets of its own properties in the space that vision constructs. The eye could be, from some other perspective of space a random collection of distributed atoms around the universe.

In a similar manner, vision cannot be altered by what it sees, just as a picture of a broken screen on a television does not in fact break the television. Vision is instead altered by the space containing vision, which extends beyond vision itself to the conscious mechanism that constructs that capability which I'd have to assume would be related to the same structure that constructs all perceptions. I'm still working on this, though it seems most likely that all perceptions arise from asymmetric or prime structures and that there's likely the equivalent of a structure like a spin network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_network that determines the context in which perceived spaces exist and this likely extends to more mental processes as well. In a sense, vision is similar to touch and knowledge/learning/memory is similar to a growth building these.

I won't say that someone could not for example, become blinded but the causes of this aren't derived from what is observed by vision but instead determined by the structure creating the capability of vision.

The mental and physical spaces can be identical in this respect. From a physical perspective we can have physical influences alter visual capabilities (such as wearing glasses, an eye injury or opening and closing the eyelids etc.) and this occurs within a physical space that encompasses and has surrounding influences on it.

Fomr the mental perspective, we can see the same scenario - there is a formless creative space/void that constructs perceptual capabilities to allow spaces with diverse dimensional properties to be wtinessed and this can also alter the surrounding context and properties of vision itself. So there also exists in such a unified version an equivalent "eye" that is surrounded by a (formless) mental void/space of potential (there is no specific form that describes creative actions or unknowns beyond (current) visibility except as possibly, future potential(s)). The "eye" in this space simply allows additional contexts to be informationally related to it (the presence of this "eye" would be similar to adding a number to a number line and increasing the equivalent information that all other numbers possess relative to it - it's a wholistic gain and not an individual one - without the unified context, no perception in itself exists within any informational space) but the information presented by the addition of this "eye" remains, in the same wholistic sense, dependent upon the context it provides relative to everything else and the "eye" effectively places this information into a unique context, defined by its property/spacial dimension of vision, so it can remain equivalent to the mind "seeing" itself (grow) from a specific context/dimension and alterations to this space remain influencial relative to that "eye".

In a sense, for our discussion it would appear we could describe nothing beyond such a mental space as all of our comments regard mental beliefs and constructions etc. The primary question is simply whether or not some external space constructed ones consciousness or the mind etc. or whether it was the mind or consciousness that constructed space or whether there is simply no difference between these and that it's all part of a single awareness that places things into various contexts and constructs these spaces in diverse forms and I believe the last is really the case and it appears to agree with everything from physical phenomenon to the rest.

It appears to all be summarizable as simply learning about oneself and in many ways this "learning" is actually creative, though that influence has no specific predetermined form and hence can't be pointed to anywhere - what will you eat tomorrow for dinner? There's no way to point to anything to show it, but whatever that is or even if it exists will be influenced by you (or in this case, as always, me/us/everything etc.)

The brain does a face-lift on the waves and molecules of external reality, turning them into qualia.

Again, the problem here is that molecules are known via qualia. Molecules don't turn into qualia, they are qualia. Trees and space don't exist without colors and textures. Molecules don't exist without smells, tastes etc. and electricity doesn't exist without all the senses of touch, vision etc.

Some people have degrees of color blindness, even just gray, maybe (like cats), since some or all of their three types of cone proteins don’t work (and rotate according to the amount of respective primary color present, all of this again pointing to a real reality out there).

Notice that information through a network can be blocked at some point (if we imagine that the information could otherwise pass through it). For example, if we map a system in 3 states to a system with 2 states and then try to uncompress this back into a 3 state representation - the information simply isn't there. We can substitute mental contexts and assume some arbitrary additional information is present, but that's not something provable. In this case if we saw just 2 states, then really there never were 3 states except as future possibilities or imagined potential but not as a deterministic logical structure with provable characteristics.

So if we have to get down to absolute nuts and bolts, there's really no way to verify any vision other than ones own. This is just logic and science. We can paint the picture differently but in terms of conflicting views, unless we can somehow swap visual capabilities and somehow know that one is external etc., then really there appears no way to prove anything in a concrete manner beyond ones own visual abilities.

I admit I love great storylines but sometimes it works fine to be blunt as well.

Consciousness does have a built-in time delay, just like the broadcast of a live TV show.

Once again that's just a belief that someone can hold. Obviously it doesn't pan out in the case of those experiments because the experimenters own conscious view of things would be delayed and hence the person could not see ahead of time to witness that some event occured before consciousness.

If you take consciousness out of the picture you would be a zombie.

And what it be that would witness such a zombie? Let me guess some conscious entity? Sorry ... there really has to be something qualitatively different to get the conventional story to work. It's just like the treatment of infinitesimals in Calculus ... once some piece of information is tossed away, it's unrecoverable without going back to square #1 and reconstructing everything (and hoping that memory serves correctly - though I guess that simply requires a measure of faith).

All the loopholes are in the realm of invisible imaginaries of “consciousness floating around by itself”, with no evidence, to boot.[/SIZE]

Well you could swap it around then and say that there is no consciousness then ... where's the evidence provided by science that consciousness exists as some separate entity out there somewhere? It's never been found ... they're seeing it the entire time! LOL Sort of like not seeing the forest for the trees

[melanie]

How do brains exist without consciousness and how can unconsciousness exist? What is it that sees the existence of unconscious brains? (I know Melanie can answer this one ... she's the one that pointed out the fact)

How indeed.

Lets assume then, that all the material matter in the universe has always existed.

How then, is it, that matter is known about- unless there is a conscious observer observing it?

How did all this matter come into actualisation / being.
Who and what is observing it?

It's not the brain. The brain cannot do anything no more than a shadow can do anything.

Just where is all the material matter in the universe when it is not conceptualized.

Things only exist as named objects, they exist in that which is not an object.

No brain, matter, or universe has ever been seen, these concepts only exist as known objects by the only knowing there is and that is consciousness, which is one with the knowing.
As subject and object are one.

And what's even more weird, is that not even one thing could exist.

= zero.




"If all there is is Buddha Mind, where are you going to go to find it"

Real truths cannot be lied about.

[SteveA]

How indeed.

Lets assume then, that all the material matter in the universe has always existed.

How then, is it, that matter is known about- unless there is a conscious observer observing it?

How did all this matter come into actualisation / being.
Who and what is observing it?

It's not the brain. The brain cannot do anything no more than a shadow can do anything.

Yes, it's not specifically the brain though everything is connected of course and your description as a shadow seems very appropriate.

Just where is all the material matter in the universe when it is not conceptualized.

This is the big question for me and why I continually think there is something "out there" still, but no way of knowing it.

On the other hand, something to consider is that in many ways it is unimportant as well. If the desire is simply to pursue a knowledge of what's continually more fundamental than the last thing then either we'll never reach that or we'll be left with it and then have nothing else to satisfy that desire.

Overall though, it appears it must already be connected in time and similar to a predetermined subconscious (though on an existencial scale) and though I'm certain I'll still be trying to bump my head in that direction on occassion, it doesn't really matter too much - there's always more when you want it and plenty of stuff to do with what's already around and I don't think the 1 dimensional drive is necessarily ideal ... at least for now it appears something that has to be recognized is for another day - the present with "tomorrow" written on it and you've got to finish today first opening up the "today" one otherwise you'll similarly miss the forest for the trees

Things only exist as named objects, they exist in that which is not an object.

I believe there's a network of conscious perceptions but these can even include beliefs (which gives a problem of a paradox as my belief that such exists could similarly be just some "node" describing that property, but it seems we've got to begin from somewhere and it appears that we must consider some value or reliability to memory - I guess when it comes to value there's the question of what it is and this appears to be the fundamental unit behind all the rest of the exploration/growth - the only value that appears to persist is the growth itself, though reflected in many ways. We tend to see disease and death or tyranny, captivity etc. as undesirable and I believe that this is because such states are all confined and not growing, whereas we see life, energy, productive acts etc. as beautiful and these are all "open ended". My assumption is that time can't be contained and in a sense there's no manner to avoid an infinite time - whatever starts or stops time, if such is possible (seems a paradox, though I'm only referring to time in its most fundamental form - on the other hand, the actual perception of change seems impossible to describe as anything with any specific form - structures don't describe their own change - the form of time that appears most likely is a growth and fundamentally just 1 dimension or an increasing quantity) is not something that is determined by any action within time.

Basically, consider this - if the universe is constructed via growth any actions related to this (basically any form of action dependent upon its existence in that form) is attached to it and if those actions are fundamentally creative/additive then this simply appends more to the previous state, hence anything occuring within its space is by nature something of it and similarly becomes a part of it.

Consider this scenario - if there exists an unchanging state, then anything else derived within the context of being changed does not then escape that context by continual change - those changes are all embedded within the previous contexts. As an analogy with physics - if we were standing on an asteroid in space, without motion, that state remains but if we push off from it, there is no manner to continue pushing to reach it. There's one opportunity to do nothing and an ulimited number of ways to do other things.

There could be other details, but to summarize my view - actions that lead toward closed/cyclic/habitual/non-growing areas of "spacetime" are fundamentally impossible and in effect the first moment of time (if such exits) was a predetermination for change, which continues, though there are many ways for such to exist and some are in many ways effectively stationary as well (you don't move but instead space does - in many ways life is like this and motions are relative).

But to elaborate a bit, pathways that are dead ends are impossible to follow, though existence at a specific position requires that one be activity determining components of it and hence choice needs to remain, otherwise one is not there. So the predetermination for a continuation comes at the cost of restrictions placed upon forming those closed motions and this is reflected as pain/death etc. (Someone might like to sit on a couch all day and do nothing, but life is shortened because that's a rather stationary state that has its cost in densely packing a specific location of spacetime and can't be sustained forever, whereas more diverse, balanced, dynamic and growing forms of living are "statistically biased" (though we can also see this as pleasure and enjoyment) toward longevity and history is continually dynamic and environments and times change)

In a sense, we could say that the forms of motions are already predetermined within time to be unbounded by anything within time and that the choices instead are ones of focus/attention and selecting how we perceive things to be (though there can be more involved, but this is the simplest, most instinctive and direct form). The first is learning and the choice is basically to either pay attention to and learn all those closed and self destructive "motions", in which case those never pan out for long and the result is generally disappointment, lose etc. or alternately we can pay attention to and learn the directions in which things grow and continue infinitely and in those directions we find things that can be retained and experience freedom and satisfaction etc. I guess you could see it as there being one chance to sit still and do/have nothing - we didn't do that and instead, like idiots , dove in (and from my guess it was a wide range of swan dives, cannonballs, bellyflops with a diverse array of contorsions to boot! Hard to keep kids from playing in the water maybe? ).

Anyway, it appears that looking in the more infinite directon allows a broader range of possibilities to be seen and choices become more diverse and lead to fewer "learning experiences" and this tends to be seen as a freedom because our decisions have a greater context in which they're made and this expands the equivalent environment in which they're made and because it doesn't appear we experience time at a fundamental level that there are potentially a lot of degrees of freedom and physical properties around that we haven't uncovered yet, but things only have the value you place or retain on them and so I tend to think it's best to appreciate what you already have ... and add more at ones leisure.

Real truths cannot be lied about.

Well they can be lied about, but those lies tend to be seen past. In many ways the lies themselves help to point at the truth and in some ways learning is just a matter of experiencing all the lies LOL

[Meem]

It is what it is.
But what it is,
is not what it is,
as we say it is.

We cannot say what it is.
But if one may,
one might is it.

What it is, we are not.
What we are, is it.
It is what we are,
not what we is it.

To dream,
to be awake,
and awake to dream.

Everything and nothing,
ever always a-mountain of sum-thing.

I have imagined nothing, and it was every-ware, everything.
In and of it-self,
object,
source,
subject ... of illusion.

Everytime,
captivated by its reflection in the ocean,
it is.