The next step: science and consciousness

[Gem]

Originally Posted by organic born

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!

We have to take the holistic view, and understand, pure vegans still experience the stressors and tensions due to the mind/body integration and all its psychology, but they're one step ahead doing right at the purely physical level, so it's easier to bring the mind into the body's subtle levels. If human society was actually concerned with well-being (instead of consumer profit), we'd be starting with bodies in the broader sense of the term (cultural perspectives of the body), and how bodies interact with one another to form social bodies.

The well-being of the body is primarily pure physical nourishment.

This then extends to higher order needs, such as caress for example, and the activity of bodies (we call 'exercise'), is naturally work and play. This pertains to the interactive social body. Due to the regimen of our society, 'exercise' becomes another busy task that we 'need to find time for' as individuals. An individual body can't really be-well as a unit perceived of as an individual apart from the social body.

Western society has quite a warped cultural perspective in all regards to the body. Our 'human labour farm' is like a disciplinary system that produces what Foucault calls a 'docile body'; a body trained in every detail to perform tasks with exaction, that through the discipline of its training, becomes obedient. A docile body is intricately trained and obedient - and isolated as an individual 'unit' within the disciplinary structure.

If this were a garden, we'd be hedgerows and topiaries. In psychology there's even such a thing as a 'Bonsai Child', stunted by over-parenting (referred to as 'helicopter-parenting'). But, isn't parenting also a 'speciality field' dictated in intricate detail by 'experts' in child psychology? It's a whole discipline unto itself that comes out of the 'hospital'.

[organic born]

Originally Posted by Gem

The well-being of the body is primarily pure physical nourishment.

We have been steered into thinking that the body is one thing, and that the mind is another, and the soul is yet another. I tend to feel that they are all intertwined, the need then is for the holistic blend.

The body, mind, and soul overlap into a unified experience. The body is the manor in which we physically experience, the mind provides the order that we bring to that experience, and the soul aligns with time to provide our conscious involvement.

Any sense of separation is artificial.

Originally Posted by Gem

If this were a garden, we'd be hedgerows and topiaries. In psychology there's even such a thing as a 'Bonsai Child', stunted by over-parenting (referred to as 'helicopter-parenting'). But, isn't parenting also a 'speciality field' dictated in intricate detail by 'experts' in child psychology? It's a whole discipline unto itself that comes out of the 'hospital'.

As a people we've made this much harder than it needs to be. Parents have been tasked with "socializing" their children to an artificial set of priorities that, in the end, leaves everyone exhausted and bitter. We're busy teaching our kids a cobbled-together version of what's right and wrong, so that they may muddle along toward a lifetime of just getting by. They grow up knowing almost nothing. They specialize in some twisted job, and daily rinse and repeat. They/we can't make our own cloths, can't grow our own food, we can in no way take care of ourselves directly. We use a thing called money to buy stuff that we're not sure that we need. We're immersed among chemicalized layers of human-created toxicity, we watch television shows that mirror our confusion, and we grant dedicated importance to things that are lacking in heartfelt satisfaction.

Is it any wonder that we're not making this holistic connection?

We are dreaming without the benefit of a holistic context, leaving us with an experience that is functionally, and often fearfully, fake.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by organic born

We have been steered into thinking that the body is one thing, and that the mind is another, and the soul is yet another. I tend to feel that they are all intertwined, the need then is for the holistic blend.

Yes, the Cartesian influence of mind/body duality deeply affected Western thought, but Descartes openly stated he had no particular grounds on which to base this disparity of 'substances'. In spirituality, this duality is predicated on the soul's continuity after the body's demise, so the idea has found a lot traction. It doesn't matter in practical terms because we know that ingesting a drug affects the state of mind, so we can safely assume that the ingested diet has a profound psychological affect.

The body, mind, and soul overlap into a unified experience. The body is the manor in which we physically experience, the mind provides the order that we bring to that experience, and the soul aligns with time to provide our conscious involvement.

Any sense of separation is artificial.

Indeed the experience is not fragmented and we experience sensation and (or including) thought by means of the same awareness.

As a people we've made this much harder than it needs to be. Parents have been tasked with "socializing" their children to an artificial set of priorities that, in the end, leaves everyone exhausted and bitter. We're busy teaching our kids a cobbled-together version of what's right and wrong, so that they may muddle along toward a lifetime of just getting by. They grow up knowing almost nothing. They specialize in some twisted job, and daily rinse and repeat. They/we can't make our own cloths, can't grow our own food, we can in no way take care of ourselves directly. We use a thing called money to buy stuff that we're not sure that we need. We're immersed among chemicalized layers of human-created toxicity, we watch television shows that mirror our confusion, and we grant dedicated importance to things that are lacking in heartfelt satisfaction.

Well described.

Is it any wonder that we're not making this holistic connection?

No wonder. Our social paradigms are contradictory and conflictual, and we have a discursively constructed society, so we adapt in that same manner to survive the social world. People don't even understand that our social foundation is discourse, so we don;t really look at what is being said, or remain conscious of our own internal narrative - or how these correlate. We're so largely unaware in this way, and need a far more profound sense of self awareness.

We are dreaming without the benefit of a holistic context, leaving us with an experience that is functionally, and often fearfully, fake.

Indeed. Many lives are driven by fear which has been indoctrinated by arbitrary moral codes and religious social underpinnings. This appears as a society based on obedience rather mutual respect. On conflict and suspicion rather than trust and dignity. We don't value the real and give priority to the symbolic.

[organic born]

Originally Posted by Gem

No wonder. Our social paradigms are contradictory and conflictual, and we have a discursively constructed society, so we adapt in that same manner to survive the social world. People don't even understand that our social foundation is discourse, so we don;t really look at what is being said, or remain conscious of our own internal narrative - or how these correlate. We're so largely unaware in this way, and need a far more profound sense of self awareness.


Indeed. Many lives are driven by fear which has been indoctrinated by arbitrary moral codes and religious social underpinnings. This appears as a society based on obedience rather mutual respect. On conflict and suspicion rather than trust and dignity. We don't value the real and give priority to the symbolic.

Your replies are impeccable Gem, Thank you! :)

It's a really odd game that we play with ourselves. We define ourselves based on the leanings of a cultural template, we form a composite of beliefs and alignments, we then identify with that composite and defend it at as though we're protecting ourselves. The composite we form is quite arbitrary, and will shift as we age and form various alliances. When most want to add to this composite they seem to do so by adding assumptions, we call these assumptions "beliefs". Progress is then marked by how these beliefs are then coordinated into a structure that resembles a stack of playing cards.

So what happens when we dump these beliefs? Do we need them? Do we need to have a belief about what happens when we die, even thought the actual experience of leaving may have very little to do with what we assumed along the way? Can we simply sit back and allow tomorrow to unfold on it's own without our continually trying to embed it with the preferred meanings that we've steadily been nursing, in order to establish a feeling of predictability?

I finally found the nerve to let it go. I love to study and add new thoughts and insight with persistent regularity but I now do so out of the joy of curiosity, it's amazing how much we can learn when our intentions are clean!

I deeply enjoy going where the emerging trail leads me. Right now I'm studying the level of toxic exposure that our fellow humans have generated for us over the last hundred years. A couple of books fell naturally into my lap that does an amazing job of explaining this dilemma. My interest in this as a central focus only emerged a couple of days ago and magically the right books appeared, as they always seem to do. The thrust of this interest may pass in a week or so, but the info of course will remain.

Is this the case for yourself? Do you tend to drift from subject to subject as the pathway to doing so makes itself clear? I'll have little interest in a subject until one day it 'clicks', and then book after perfectly targeted book will simply surface and my learn-curve on the subject burrows straight to the core. Sometimes the synchronicity that forms is almost creepy.

I find that the less that I invest myself in the outcome, and only focus on the act of being educated, then the flood of new info is more easily digested and the connections among subjects become more easily apparent.

For the longest time I thought that most everyone learned in a similar way. This whole "ask and ye shall receive" thingy I was assuming to be somewhat ubiquitous. And yet talk with anyone about almost anything and it's often clear that they're invested in simply getting by. It continually seems to be the case, that if you're wanting to discuss anything of what should be of deep interest to everyone, you essentially have to approach it from scratch.

Clearly you're imaginative and explore your interests with integrity. I assume you've been doing so for years. What has your experience been like in relation to your own personal learn-curve (I'm assuming you're self-taught), and how do you navigate your intermingling with others along these lines?

[George-Ananda]

Originally Posted by ian77

I think that before we can unlock the mysteries of the universe we need to answer the age old questions of 'Who are We?' and 'Where do We come from?'
Consciousness is just a part of the question,and the answer.

Those great sages and mystics that claim to have found the answer to 'Who are We' tell us the answer is pure consciousness in a state of that the Vedas describe as sat-cit-ananda (being-awareness-bliss) or God/Brahman. Everything below that is vibrating thoughts from that Source.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by organic born

Your replies are impeccable Gem, Thank you! :)

It's a really odd game that we play with ourselves. We define ourselves based on the leanings of a cultural template, we form a composite of beliefs and alignments, we then identify with that composite and defend it at as though we're protecting ourselves. The composite we form is quite arbitrary, and will shift as we age and form various alliances. When most want to add to this composite they seem to do so by adding assumptions, we call these assumptions "beliefs". Progress is then marked by how these beliefs are then coordinated into a structure that resembles a stack of playing cards.

Yep, we need to understand the informational knowledge (discourse) isn't actually what we know as it is acknowledged. For example, a CD viewed from an angle is acknowledged to be an elliptical, but the empirical measurement of it reveals that it is 'actually' circular. The disparity between acknowledgment and measure is the basis of what we call 'knowledge', or 'information'. This means that knowledge is produced as something that isn't directly experienced, and we have tremendous faith in the measure. We then come to a spiritual paradigm which says that the 'direct experience' is truth, so we can always wonder which is 'more true'; the acknowledgement of things or the knowledge about things. Our minds are in a balance of knowing a CD is circular even though we witness a changing ellipse. We give consistency to our world, which as a pure acknowledgement, has none.

In quantum physics, we don't have any idea of what 'things' are, and all we have is arbitrary descriptions, which function as does a description of a CD, but for more obscurely. In the meditation we become more sensitive of the body senses and whereas the visual body assumes a fairly reliable shape, the sensation body morphs and bends and stretches, expands, quivers, waves, or is otherwise dimensionally nondescript. Which sense then is 'reliable knowledge'? In all, the acknowledgment of objects provides no 'information' at all, and therefore, all knowledge is abstract... i.e. objectivity is, ironically, abstraction.

So what happens when we dump these beliefs? Do we need them? Do we need to have a belief about what happens when we die, even thought the actual experience of leaving may have very little to do with what we assumed along the way? Can we simply sit back and allow tomorrow to unfold on it's own without our continually trying to embed it with the preferred meanings that we've steadily been nursing, in order to establish a feeling of predictability?

I argue that we do need belief for the practical purpose of lending consistency or stability to the momentarily morphing world of the senses. Without belief a CD would be a different shape each time it is acknowledged. Through the belief that it remains consistently circular (which is not our experience of it) we have practical predictable applications.

I finally found the nerve to let it go. I love to study and add new thoughts and insight with persistent regularity but I now do so out of the joy of curiosity, it's amazing how much we can learn when our intentions are clean!

Yes, pure intention is like a way to clear thinking, because by 'pure' I suppose I mean an intention without contradiction, which leads to a whole or complete movement of action. Our mental fog largely comes about due to thoughts conflicting with each other, but under all that is the inspiration, where the thought arose from, and moving without a second thought is the secret to great art and grace in movement.

I deeply enjoy going where the emerging trail leads me. Right now I'm studying the level of toxic exposure that our fellow humans have generated for us over the last hundred years. A couple of books fell naturally into my lap that does an amazing job of explaining this dilemma. My interest in this as a central focus only emerged a couple of days ago and magically the right books appeared, as they always seem to do. The thrust of this interest may pass in a week or so, but the info of course will remain.

Cool. I'm a ponderous reader, and I have to read quite a lot for my studies anyway, but I still manage to read the underlying philosophy in addition to the compulsory literature.

Is this the case for yourself? Do you tend to drift from subject to subject as the pathway to doing so makes itself clear? I'll have little interest in a subject until one day it 'clicks', and then book after perfectly targeted book will simply surface and my learn-curve on the subject burrows straight to the core. Sometimes the synchronicity that forms is almost creepy.

I have access to a 7 story library at university, so I just get any book I want, basically. I don't usually read spiritual stuff, but there is a massive collection of religious and spiritual literature in the library, too.

I find that the less that I invest myself in the outcome, and only focus on the act of being educated, then the flood of new info is more easily digested and the connections among subjects become more easily apparent.

Oh yea same here. I just do assignments whithout even caring about my grades. I get good grades because I only want to produce a great paper. I'm not distracted by the outcome or the result.

For the longest time I thought that most everyone learned in a similar way. This whole "ask and ye shall receive" thingy I was assuming to be somewhat ubiquitous. And yet talk with anyone about almost anything and it's often clear that they're invested in simply getting by. It continually seems to be the case, that if you're wanting to discuss anything of what should be of deep interest to everyone, you essentially have to approach it from scratch.

I think most people work and live as a means to an end, and far fewer just do what they do. I'm much more focused on what I do now, and I very rarely think about a reason why I do it. I think my zenish meditation made me realise that living IS what you're doing now. Activity should be the primary focus, and not a secondary means to an end.

Clearly you're imaginative and explore your interests with integrity. I assume you've been doing so for years. What has your experience been like in relation to your own personal learn-curve (I'm assuming you're self-taught), and how do you navigate your intermingling with others along these lines?

I did learn nearly everything informally but I've been back in education (university degree) for the last year. I had been studying and done some work in community services before, and I basically learned a lot by dealing with hard times - mine and others - but I tend to think things through, generally speaking.

[r6r6]

So we know there exists three catagories of "U"niverse. Are there catagories of consciousness? Are they the same as "U"niverse or UniVerse?

Three primary subcatagory's catagoy's of;

1} "U"niverse:

....1a} metaphysical-1 mind/intellect/concept universe,
------------------------------------------------------------------
....1b} non-occupied space universe,
... 1c} occupied space UniVerse
........1c1}fermions and boson
........1c2} gravity
........1c3} dark energy


We know that the minimal set for consciousness is twoness i.e. for a something entity to be conscious they have to have a somethingness entity to be aware of ergo I think about a something ergo I exist.

That something can be brain, finger whatever.

In order to be consciously aware of a somethingness there has to exist a line-of-relationship between us the observer and the observed.

That is three subcatagories of conscious so far, however, there is 4th and that is the background withing which the observer, the line-of-relationship and observed exist.

So whereas 'U"niverse has only 3 subcatgory's, consciousness can have no less than 4 inherent subcatagorical parts.

1} consciousness:
...1a} observer
...1b} observed,
....1c} line-of-relationship,
....1d} background within which all three exist.

Ex we( observers ) observe the computer screen( observed ) via photonic line-of-relationships or brail if blind.

Occupied space UniVerse's three subcatagories are debateble, since they may eventually fall into the standard models bosonic catagory if ever quantified or quantised.

r6

[Gem]

Originally Posted by r6r6r

So we know there exists three catagories of "U"niverse. Are there catagories of consciousness? Are they the same as "U"niverse or UniVerse?

Three primary subcatagory's catagoy's of;

1} "U"niverse:

....1a} metaphysical-1 mind/intellect/concept universe,
------------------------------------------------------------------
....1b} non-occupied space universe,
... 1c} occupied space UniVerse
........1c1}fermions and boson
........1c2} gravity
........1c3} dark energy


We know that the minimal set for consciousness is twoness i.e. for a something entity to be conscious they have to have a somethingness entity to be aware of ergo I think about a something ergo I exist.

That something can be brain, finger whatever.

In order to be consciously aware of a somethingness there has to exist a line-of-relationship between us the observer and the observed.

That is three subcatagories of conscious so far, however, there is 4th and that is the background withing which the observer, the line-of-relationship and observed exist.

So whereas 'U"niverse has only 3 subcatgory's, consciousness can have no less than 4 inherent subcatagorical parts.

1} consciousness:
...1a} observer
...1b} observed,
....1c} line-of-relationship,
....1d} background within which all three exist.

Ex we( observers ) observe the computer screen( observed ) via photonic line-of-relationships or brail if blind.

Occupied space UniVerse's three subcatagories are debateble, since they may eventually fall into the standard models bosonic catagory if ever quantified or quantised.

r6

If we consider 'twoness', we first consider what defines duality, and I suggest that duality is fundamentally a distinction, because to define 'two', both objects must be within the same set of objects, or in other words, related to each other.

We can then say that that 'twoness' is relative in the sense that one object is not the other, which as I said, is a distinction. By that same token, one object also defines the other, and vice versa, but virtue of not being the other. This is to say, each object is wholly defined by the other.

This then becomes difficult because in the case of a duality, either object is both the signifier and the signified, being definitively dependent on each others' property (each singularity is a single property). This means that neither object can be discerned from the other because the property of each of these are 'inter-determinate', which is to say indefinable, meaning the initial distinction of 'twoness' isn't actually possible.

This brings about a very peculiar link between uncertainty and infinity, where infinity can actually be defined as a dual relationship, rather than an infinite set of 'things' that can't possibly be quantified - just as 'two things' can not actually be quantified as 'twoness'.

[r6r6]

This is realatively, real simple stuff to grasp. imho

The observer, the observed, the line-of-relationship between them and the background all exist as differrentiation.

Each is distinct from the other ergo there exists 4 parts. If there existed no diffferrentiation then there would not be four parts.

There can exist no consciousness without differrentiation and our complex, finite, occupied space UniVerse is full of differrentiations. Thats part of what makes its so wonderfully interesting to humans.

This word is deferrentiated from next word by spaces between the words, and differret patterning of the letters, but also by the context of greater whole of what the sentence is pertaing too, as well as the paragraph and the whole post and subject of thread.

Each letter is differreniated from the next letter by the background that is not same shading as the letter ergo differrentiation.

This is not complex stuff to grasp and we dont need a lot of hokey pokey shifting of the basic parts as Ive laid them out to understand, or too invalidate the integrity of the ideas as Ive laid them out fairly clearly in outline accompanied by clarifying information where neccessary.

Distinction exists as diffferrentiation. No more no less.

Infinity is only relevant to my givens, as stated, as the macro-infinite background for the existence of our finite occupied space Universe.

Simple stuff, yet so many try all kinds of irrelevant tangencies to invalidate what I believe to be relatively obvious truths and integrities of concept. imho

r6

Originally Posted by r6r6r

So we know there exists three catagories of "U"niverse. Are there catagories of consciousness? Are they the same as "U"niverse or UniVerse?
Three primary subcatagory's catagoy's of;
1} "U"niverse:
....1a} metaphysical-1 mind/intellect/concept universe,
------------------------------------------------------------------
....1b} non-occupied space universe,
... 1c} occupied space UniVerse
........1c1}fermions and boson
........1c2} gravity
........1c3} dark energy
We know that the minimal set for consciousness is twoness i.e. for a something entity to be conscious they have to have a somethingness entity to be aware of ergo I think about a something ergo I exist.
That something can be brain, finger whatever.
In order to be consciously aware of a somethingness there has to exist a line-of-relationship between us the observer and the observed.
That is three subcatagories of conscious so far, however, there is 4th and that is the background withing which the observer, the line-of-relationship and observed exist.
So whereas 'U"niverse has only 3 subcatgory's, consciousness can have no less than 4 inherent subcatagorical parts.
Ex we( observers ) observe the computer screen( observed ) via photonic line-of-relationships or brail if blind.
Occupied space UniVerse's three subcatagories are debateble, since they may eventually fall into the standard models bosonic catagory if ever quantified or quantised.

r6

[Gem]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRhtFFhNzQ

Dave Chalmers talks about science and consciousness.