I offer that we have little basis for genuine self awareness. We are barely sentient creatures. Dolphins may in fact be more self aware than we are, perhaps other species as well. We zip between thought and sensation running back and forth in our minds, and if anything should alter that, compromise that, we say we are impaired, drunk, high, tired or crazy.
Are you talking about self-image now? What I am talking about does include self image, yes. Self image is just a collection of tracks run between these two domains of experience, sensation and thought.
I mean, by “sentience” to mean a sense of self? Sense of self, yes. Sensation of self. Everything in conventional thinking provides no such sensation and people are desperate for it. It’s why our social structure is so deranged, the unmet demand for personal significance, and as things stand it will never be met. It will just get worse and worse until things collapse under the pressure and re-consolidate, but it doesn’t have to be that graceless, that wasteful of energy and resources.
Methinks thou hast disproved Descartes. Merely thinking does not ensure my existence – or demonstrate it.
Instead I offer this, invert the polarity. It’s points in a non euclidean geometry, so in fact it’s more like a mobius strip than a cube.
Let what was observed now observe me? Neither.
One observer. . . not two! There is no observer. There is no observed. They are the same process. You aren’t in it. Where you are… Well, the observer and observed process is an organ of your being like your hand. The hand so far has been numb as it would be when it’s being pulled apart. It didn’t start out that way though. They have recently proven that the diaper set, as they called them, toddlers, are better at abstract reasoning than five year olds. Five year olds struggle to get their head beyond object focus, concrete line item observations. Young children draw intuitive associations and conclusions freely and easily. They make accurate predictions without being taught anything, but that goes away. The brain itself is pulled apart.
The relationship between thought and observation is the posture of your own mind. It moves gradually as you sort of roll in your sleep. Points of discomfort make you roll over, social/emotional crisis. Do people ever move their being outside of this, really?
Sometimes brain injury or drug induced abnormality produce involuntary convulsions in the mind, but the person gains little from them. What does always happen is a dramatic change in personality and perception. They are even looking into using some psychedelic drugs for therapeutic reasons because they seem to produce a reliable centering of the individual’s persona, or sense of self. Magic mushrooms are a big candidate there.
I question how anyone could know the drugs were “reliable.” Ah, the drugs appear reliable because brain metabolism more or less is.
So do you really have to have your hand slammed with a hammer to understand that you can move it? What is the crux of this movement? The articulation in the hand or the mind? Hint. It’s the same thing that keeps your mind rigid, holds it in a fixed relationship to the world. Attention.
Sort of like “the mind’s eye”? (sense of self?) Yes, the minds eye. You keep chanting a recipe for real life, a list of things you are supposed to pay attention to like a program. Can a list of commands be self aware?
No. Each stopping point of your attention, I assure you, is a command. Every observation demands a certain process of recognition. It carries both the simple keystone recognition and the necessary associative context.
A list of commands can serve to alter the original commands, and data path, etc., but these do not constitute self-awareness.
What allows for command lists that can alter themselves?
Different levels in the command structure and priorities. What can see what, etc. Dimensions. Dimensions only definable by their exclusion. The programmer has to know what not to include in the code so that logic errors don’t crash the whole thing. Any definition is only functional because it rules out other things that are not acceptable.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~