This topic will either bend minds or straighten them out more. I can’t say which.
Is there a difference? Actually, not really. I think a bendy mind is better. Well, they say it’s the basis of the brains memory. All those wrinkles.
We will be discussing consciousness as a physical or if you prefer metaphysical force. Some take offense at the idea of consciousness having any physical basis.
There are some things that are persistent in experience no matter what model or theory of consciousness you subscribe to. There is an objective element to consciousness that doesn’t seem to be altered in any meaningful way by changes of mental state or awareness, and there are largely persistent processes of mind that are almost universal between any two minds. If we define consciousness as the capacity of any objective phenomenon to respond to stimuli, then all things respond to stimuli as there seems to be an unbroken and unbreakable chain of cause and effect in our environment. But usually people don’t accept the principle of response ability as a definite basis of consciousness, and they usually insist on confining consciousness to themselves and perhaps those things that at least somewhat resemble themselves. Some will allow that animal life is conscious, say.
That’s an interesting point. That not responding to stimuli would break cause and effect. Yes. In fact, can we know consciousness outside of an objective context? Consciousness without object is what?
You mean just the physical property of moving when pushed? I mean that and more. Consciousness cannot be defined as a single solitary process, and it can’t be identified outside of a causal framework. Can it?
Kicking a rock with kind intent vs. kicking it with anger would have two different responses if we agree that all aspects of cause and effect are maintained. And that is being proven in intention experiments. Usually a different visible effect, as when undertaken in anger there is usually more energy behind the kick and also less focus.
Science itself is a construct of consciousness as a set of assumptions are necessary to establish working terms for experimentation. We have to assume the validity of at least a simple range of human observations.
Causal framework. So consciousness cannot exist in isolation? Consciousness cannot exist in isolation as its processes are inherently connective and communicative. Our minds, or brains if you prefer, arose as an emergence of the consciousness principle in the organic matrix of life on this planet. It isn’t the only possible configuration of consciousness, but it is the most common form here.
Even if you subscribe to a strictly physical and behaviourist model of consciousness, then the cause of consciousness is still inherent in and emergent from our physical reality, and there seems to be no antithetical force present that acts in any way to exclude the presence of consciousness. No principle in reality that if present lets us know that there is no consciousness there. The materials that come together to make what we consider our living forms, in no meaningful way differ from the forms they take in our general environment.
Which came first, the consciousness or the body? The consciousness came first. The potential for the formation was present in the environment before the formation itself arose. As our material reality behaves as a memory medium, these potentials are habitually expressed, or if you prefer persistently expressed.
Consciousness is emergent from the potential of form? Yes. It’s synonymous with it in fact. But metaphorical iterations can appear to bear no clear connection to each other.
So no consciousness in the complete void with no potential to express itself in form? Nature abhors a void as they say, and this includes the concept of oblivion.
Basically consciousness needs the ability to express itself to exist? It is the ability for things to express. The expressive force itself. Consciousness precedes the weak and strong nuclear forces. It exceeds measures of mass and is inherently hyper dimensional. All matter is a stepping down of the energy of consciousness.
I saw on a show that gravity may be so weak because it’s coming from another dimension. Gravity is a by-product of the interaction between dimensional membranes. A sort of tidal flux that runs through the multiverse, even sometimes gives rise to planar collapse. This has been accounted for in many schools of mysticism, perhaps the simplest being the model offered by Hinduism. The cycle they call the breath of Brahman or the all encompassing.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~