The next step: science and consciousness

[Gem]

Originally Posted by metal68

isn't it something like gravity or electromagnetism that's at work inside the atom??

Sure, forces, but then what's inside an atom, whats inside a proton what's inside what's inside a proton until we get to the 'fundamental particle', like an electron. Then there is nothing inside it. It has no structure, and we don't where it is or when it will be somewhere. We measure it as charge and mass, but there is nothing there with any size which has charge and mass.

[organic born]

Originally Posted by Gem

I go back to the begining of QM where it's recognised founder, Max Planck, made declarations about the fundamentals of matter:

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness (Planck, 1931).

And later

There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter (Planck, 1944).

Source: Wikiquote

That being said, are we then attempting to use our own experience with with consciousness, as expressed while being human, as somehow the basis for the consciousness-of-creation?

Human consciousness is uniquely focused on the human experience. What we think-of as consciousness may have nothing to do with how the "big-picture" consciousness involves itself with matter.

Science can not find anything that is solidly physical, but what it does see is so integrated and intense that the form itself would need to be taken seriously as an expression of the highest order. The manor in which DNA replicates, in which single celled organisms cooperate in order to create the most complex of life forms, the consistency in which elements interact to form planets and the variables there-in.

We humans would compare this to 'thought', because we're aware of little else but thinking when it comes to evaluating consciousness. But animals survive just fine without thought, suns develop and explode without thinking, the combined plankton in the oceans generate almost 50% of the oxygen that support life on this island-in-space, all of which is done without the expression of one single thought.

So 'thinking' itself is not necessary for consciousness, no thought is apparent when we observe the ways in which matter regenerates itself. To say consciousness is at the root of creation would then require us to reformulate our base impressions of what consciousness may actually be.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by organic born

If consciousness was the only factor to consider then why aren't we living in relation-to a far more fluid environment? If consciousness created thought, which then created things, then such thoughts would have had to been stable for billions of years. We have planets and stars and rocks and ocean waves that have remained steadily in motion well before our time.

In the philosophical concepts discussed by the early quantum physicists I have read, Planck, Shrodinger and Bohr (Shrodinger and Bohr both referenced Eastern esoteric texts)... Mind (with a capital M) is a universal property, and not the byproduct of a human being. For a long while, after say 1940, the philosophical musings of physicists was replaced by the mantra 'shut up and calculate'. The mindset became, who cares what it is, we have the math that works, so just do the experiments and calculations.

Since the 90's we had access to rapidly increasing computing power, the rooms of men cranking the handles of mechanical calculating machines was well and truly over, but it's really only in the last couple decades or so that philosophical musings have became a facet of mainstream physics again. This is because there hasn't been any real progress in QM since around the 1950's, with the exception of small orgasms, like when we found the Higgs boson, for example. No particularly remarkable Eureka moments.

The real emerging cry in the physical sciences today is 'where do we go from here'. There's a crisis with the fundamental paradigm of physics, and I claim this is because, not the immateriality of the universe (we knew that empirically since 1900 or so), but an actual existential crisis concerning the role of consciousness in phenomena. I'm not the only cat mewing on this. It's a lot of voices are making a lot of noise.

At the same time, with a few seeds being planted in the 80's, Eastern mindfulness philosophies were planted in the pseudo science of psychology. As our 'physics crisis' became so blatantly apparent, the new wave of mindfulness psychology played a part in establishing a Western social sanctioning of Eastern ways of thinking.

The questions are remerging as ontological - what can we know, and epistemological - how can we know it, And I'm suggesting the universe is stable and not erratic and random for two closely related or interconnected reasons. The primal essence of consciousness is Knowledge - knowing its own existence - so the universe is predicated on an actual fact, and the Mind in which The Thought of the universe occurs is singular - or universal Mind.

Now we come to an interesting an new ontology, because by understanding the function of form in the mind, how distinctions and relations create distinct entities that extend in space, and how forms in the universe can only be perceived according to the Mind's operating functions, it is the exaction of Mind's function that gives 'appearance' to stable phenomena (according to Gem). The founding philosophy of this scientific paradigm would be, 'perception is creation'.

A quick mention here, although the universe appears stable on macro scales, it is highly unpredictable on quantum scales. We actually don't know what a location is (only conceptually) and we have never actually located a particle (see Heisenberg's uncertainty principle).

In fact, all the time we have supposed that we are studying a 'universe', we have only been studying our perception of it. That being, primarily, the perception of physical objects (which are physical only with respect to the physical human body).

It is true that there is no physical matter, in quite the way that our senses suggest. But there is something that's happening that predates our current participation. We can certainly bet that our 'conscious' mind didn't come-up with this body, or come-up with the unlimited details that compose our surroundings. If consciousness is the key to all that we see, then there is still much to know about consciousness that's likely beyond current reach.

Our 'current participation' is the human body life form, which indeed, is what makes the universe perceivable as a solid. It's an assumption based on perception via the bodily senses.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by organic born

That being said, are we then attempting to use our own experience with with consciousness, as expressed while being human, as somehow the basis for the consciousness-of-creation?

Was mentioned in my previous post under the philosophical premise, perception is creation.

Human consciousness is uniquely focused on the human experience. What we think-of as consciousness may have nothing to do with how the "big-picture" consciousness involves itself with matter.

Indeed, the big picture has to consider the fuller notion of 'what is human'.

Science can not find anything that is solidly physical, but what it does see is so integrated and intense that the form itself would need to be taken seriously as an expression of the highest order. The manor in which DNA replicates, in which single celled organisms cooperate in order to create the most complex of life forms, the consistency in which elements interact to form planets and the variables there-in.

We humans would compare this to 'thought', because we're aware of little else but thinking when it comes to evaluating consciousness. But animals survive just fine without thought, suns develop and explode without thinking, the combined plankton in the oceans generate almost 50% of the oxygen that support life on this island-in-space, all of which is done without the expression of one single thought.

I propose this all the expression of a single Thought. We perceive that Thought, and there aren't actually any individual thinkers pre-se. What we assume as individual thinkers is more like an assumption that a thinker drived the body rather than The Thought driving all the bodies (the bodies are a facet of The Thought)...

This isn't a thought that anyone thinks, it's more a 'perception within Mind'. From our individual perspective we can liken it to when you're just sitting there and an idea occurs to you out of the blue. We then think, respectively, that 'I thought that idea', but experientially, the thought was 'inspired'.

So 'thinking' itself is not necessary for consciousness, no thought is apparent when we observe the ways in which matter regenerates itself. To say consciousness is at the root of creation would then require us to reformulate our base impressions of what consciousness may actually be.

Precisely. If I may put this figuratively, the 'inspiration' occurs before what we call thought (generated by a thinker) occurs.

[Mr Interesting]

Ah ha, but doesn't the inspiration actually occur from after the thought?

My investigations tend to this. That what is inspiration is because that which is yet to be already is... which.of course, is entirely quantum because that which is settles in time regardless of time itself so it is all basically remembering the future.

And if it all already is then why bother attempting to make it so or maybe it is already so because we decided to make the attempt?

This is maybe why Communism was so interesting when I was young and even now I know the foibles of the psychology of want it still seems the most practical implementation of the way to live and give us the free time to contemplate and play with the actual ramifications of what is possible.

It's almost as if we all actually know that indeed the quantum nature of existence has a huge bearing on how we exist but coming to a full and complete acceptance of this would see so many completely naked and as babies that the almost full attempt of human reasoning is towards denying the existence of our own possibility.

But just because it's possible doesn't mean we have to make it possible which then throws up the same inherent denial in the sense of having freedom doesn't necessarily mean we have to fill it up with free.

[r6r6]

The problem we have here is similar to other threads of this nature, and that is complex;

1} not presenting a clear definition of consciousness, or the word "universe",

2} once presented, having two or more participants who agree on the definition--- ask a hundred differrent people and get at least 50 differrent answers ----

Saying that Universe-- again presentation and agreement of definition ---is all consciousness leaves open to disscussion #1 and #2 above plus the complex set of specifics associated with #1 and #2 that are then related to all parts of Universe.

I.e. without narrative of descriptive nature and aggreement therein, then all the players skip around each others concepts with mind-playing word games.

3) a third problem that stems from #1 and #2 is that of two, or three, inherent kinds of Universe;

....3a} metaphysical-1 mind/intellect/concept universe,
....3b} non-occupied space universe,
....3c} occupied space universe.

Again #1, #2 and #3 help layout a few initial problems that have to be addressed in order to begin to have a rational, logical common sense disscussion involving consciousness and universe.

Some like to say it is all consciousness,
.... others like to say it just IS, and others like to say,
.. its all moderation/modification of angle and frequency.

Another way of to see the above mentioned problems, is as follows;

the universe is complex and then you ask how do you mean complex so they then say mathematically it is a number more complex than 1 and specifically 36.203867196751233249323231339768.

Well great, at least they give you a specific number, but then well how did you that number.

And they say I used such and such calculator and typed in the various parts of universe as follows;

t sq root of 4 * 4 ^2nd power / 10 =
36.203867196751233249323231339768.

Ok great, except how accurate is that specific calculator compared to others?

Thats great the calculator did all the mathematical hard part and all I had to do was punch in few numbers but I dont really know how that math is done if I had to do in my head or with pencil and paper.

Complex consciousness requires a complex descriptive narrative to better refine our definitions of our terminiologies/words, better access to them and know how they come to fit together in orderly way that makes sense( computes so to say ).

r6

[organic born]

Originally Posted by Gem

The real emerging cry in the physical sciences today is 'where do we go from here'. There's a crisis with the fundamental paradigm of physics, and I claim this is because, not the immateriality of the universe (we knew that empirically since 1900 or so), but an actual existential crisis concerning the role of consciousness in phenomena. I'm not the only cat mewing on this. It's a lot of voices are making a lot of noise.

What a very cogent reply Gem, Thank you! :)

I feel the problem is really quite simple. We are 'thinking' ourselves beyond functionality. QM is interesting but it's not very functional on a day to day basis. We think lofty thoughts while eating foods that are no longer nourishing, while breathing air that is increasingly tainted, while watching species going extinct at around a dozen or so a day (the 'past' normal background rate of extinction was around 5 species on a yearly basis: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/p...nction_crisis/ ) We have been spending our time contemplating the big picture while generally ignoring our biological place within a biological system.

It seem to me that the models we're creating through things like QM, or traditionally through religion and general spirituality, are models that tend to perceptually remove us from our tactile connection with ourselves and our surroundings. We attempt to dream ourselves into a context that has very little physical relevancy.

I lived out on that limb for many years, attempting to look beyond the horizons of what's out there to be discovered. In the mean time I was getting physically sicker, running tense all the time, I was a really good dreamer, but my body was dying. Over the last couple of years I started applying the breaks and was drawn to the science of how our senses work, how our brain organizes itself from fetus to old age, and how the foods and the ubiquitous chemicals affect how we experience ourselves. A bunch of stuff happened as a result. I got better. My body began working again in ways that I remembered from a much younger day.

I think we've been going the wrong way. We've been trying to move forward with actively-dreaming-minds, but we haven't been factoring-in the very ground that we stand-on while doing so.

One of my primary studies right now involves complimentary nutrition. As our body is fed properly, it relaxes. As our body relaxes our mind relaxes as well. A relaxed mind is naturally quiet, meditation is no longer a challenge.

And as to how we've come to 'think' as we do is a really huge issue.
We have a historically natural way of being that is a default for our species.
We then have a culturally instilled language, and set of images, that tend to overwhelm our innate abilities as a species among species.
We get smarter in terms of thinking bigger thoughts, while getting ever more functionally ignorant.

A clean body is a clean instrument of perception. A clean body is awake within the moment. A clean body that is awake to the moment is a potent experience. It seems to me that we should master that first. :)

[r6r6]

r6r6r--
1} not presenting a clear definition of consciousness, or the word "universe",
2} once presented, having two or more participants who agree on the definition--- ask a hundred differrent people and get at least 50 differrent answers ----

Ex some people believe matter does not exist, yet other humans have defined some phenomena as fermionic matter ever since Enrico Fermi split the atom in the first reactor.

So there does not appear to be a common agreement on the definition of the word 'matter'.

I will always remmber the black and white Superman tv series where George Reeves will not break through wall of out of control nuclear reactor because it would allow radiation to escape, so someone--- and I forget who ---teaches him how diffuse his phyiscal body into much smaller parts that allow him to fuse into, and through the thick concrete wall, and materialize on other side, where he then is able to pull the rods out of the core and stop the out-of-control reaction.

So then he places his palms and body against the wall diffusess into and through the wall again and comes out feeling weak from his exposure to high radiation and or his diffusing process.

Little did I realize at that time how much that show was my introduction to physics at an early age, that I would not really realize until some 40 years later when someone first mention to the two primary particle catagories of Universe are fermions and bosons.

So it was magical what superman did with use of his mind.

Fullers study of various times periods between humans circumnavigation of Earth led him to surmise/prognosticate, that, the first teleportation-- beam me up Scotty ---type of circumnavigation of Earth would occur by 1985.

So, without any teleporatation visible in humanities immediate future, were still left with Supermans mind-over-matter magic. I was rasied christian scientist( Mary Baker Eddy ) and they were deep into mind-over-matter.

I'm forever grateful to my mother talking to me and sister about metaphysics and mind-over-matter type ideas.

r6

[Gem]

Originally Posted by organic born

What a very cogent reply Gem, Thank you! :)

I feel the problem is really quite simple. We are 'thinking' ourselves beyond functionality. QM is interesting but it's not very functional on a day to day basis. We think lofty thoughts while eating foods that are no longer nourishing, while breathing air that is increasingly tainted, while watching species going extinct at around a dozen or so a day (the 'past' normal background rate of extinction was around 5 species on a yearly basis: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/p...nction_crisis/ ) We have been spending our time contemplating the big picture while generally ignoring our biological place within a biological system.

We cold say QM is functional, as all our technology rests on its abstract descriptions, but we can recognise that the paradigms that underpin humanity as a society are terribly misguided and disfunctional. I saw a quote on face book that represents this contradictory condition "I spend half my income on food, and the other half on weight-loss."

There is a very fundamental problem that involves deep disturbances of the human mind, emerges in the quality of human relationships, and thus forms human society on a global scale.

It seem to me that the models we're creating through things like QM, or traditionally through religion and general spirituality, are models that tend to perceptually remove us from our tactile connection with ourselves and our surroundings. We attempt to dream ourselves into a context that has very little physical relevancy.

This refers to institutions that are associated with 'knowledge', traditionally the religion held it all, and the sciences then assumed the role of knowledge production. What we associate with 'truth' has tremedous power, as belief is the essence of manifestation.

I lived out on that limb for many years, attempting to look beyond the horizons of what's out there to be discovered. In the mean time I was getting physically sicker, running tense all the time, I was a really good dreamer, but my body was dying. Over the last couple of years I started applying the breaks and was drawn to the science of how our senses work, how our brain organizes itself from fetus to old age, and how the foods and the ubiquitous chemicals affect how we experience ourselves. A bunch of stuff happened as a result. I got better. My body began working again in ways that I remembered from a much younger day.

I think we've been going the wrong way. We've been trying to move forward with actively-dreaming-minds, but we haven't been factoring-in the very ground that we stand-on while doing so.

One of my primary studies right now involves complimentary nutrition. As our body is fed properly, it relaxes. As our body relaxes our mind relaxes as well. A relaxed mind is naturally quiet, meditation is no longer a challenge.

Nothing works better than a pure food diet and strenuous exertion. It's amazing they even allow the kind of 'food' which is being sold. When I declared that I shall not eat any food additives, there wasn't much on supermarket shelves that I could consume. We know that diet is is the leading cause of illness in Western societies... what a ridiculous situation that is.

And as to how we've come to 'think' as we do is a really huge issue.
We have a historically natural way of being that is a default for our species.
We then have a culturally instilled language, and set of images, that tend to overwhelm our innate abilities as a species among species.
We get smarter in terms of thinking bigger thoughts, while getting ever more functionally ignorant.

Indeed, language is the way people communicate, so it is the most powerful social emblem of all. It's within the mind of every person and it is between them. But, do we really listen to our own narratives and actually understand each other? Oh my, this is such a complex area.

A clean body is a clean instrument of perception. A clean body is awake within the moment. A clean body that is awake to the moment is a potent experience. It seems to me that we should master that first. :)

That is a very constructive notion!

[organic born]

Originally Posted by Gem

Nothing works better than a pure food diet and strenuous exertion. It's amazing they even allow the kind of 'food' which is being sold. When I declared that I shall not eat any food additives, there wasn't much on supermarket shelves that I could consume. We know that diet is is the leading cause of illness in Western societies... what a ridiculous situation that is.

You are absolutely correct!

I came at this in layers. I started reading ingredient listings and was generally eliminating products based on the things that I was learning and, over time, I just about eliminated them all! I now enter a grocery store knowing that I'm good if I manage to find a very few items worth purchasing. Even the organic sections are suspect. Most of the fresh produce that are grown organically are done so using factory farm methods. Nutrient density has fallen about 80% since they started keeping records on such things back in the 1940's. Overworked soils may manage to produce the structure of an item but the nutritional depth just isn't there.

The food thing is disturbingly strange. I at first was focused on retreating from the dysfunction in our food system but slowly shifted to falling in love with the much better options available. There really is a great deal to celebrate!

I have a little land so I've been working at building the soil in my garden and reestablishing nutrient density to my food supply. Fresh and naturally ripened foods are a wonderfully tasty process to invest in. I started making my own milk kefir about a year ago and have recently added Kombucha (both the sugar based and honey brewed varieties) as well as a ferment called JUN and a ferment called Ginger Beer, both grow a SCOBY that's very similar to Kombucha. I also found a true yogurt culture called Caspian Sea Yogurt, which is amazingly easy to make. In the last month I've been nursing 7 different styles of live cultures as well as enjoying the study that comes with it! It was the study called the "Microbiome" that provided the inspiration for my moving in the direction of nurturing such cultures.

Once we return to healthy eating, and pay attention to the bacteria that we share our lives with, our body essentially disappears as an issue! The perfect experience with our body is to not realize we have one. A clean running body does not generate tension, no aches and pains, no "symptoms" of one thing or another, when it's tired it's a comfortable type of tired.. a healthy body is a wonder to celebrate!

In our looking toward spiritual issues we should start with the body that we live in! A messy running body will continuously pull us off track both emotionally and mentally. The experience of a relaxed and healthy body runs wonderfully deep!