A New Theory of Consciousness

[Dmitri]

Group hug!!

[wiesiek]

world is mental
so
everything is and was .
what we reading/getting is another story

[wiesiek]

my take on `shrooms:
they are able to open some "valves" in the brain.
However, it can be done by meditation, or even occurs w/o any special treatment...
but
`shrooms are the fast track, able to show you what can be done,
minus is - not good for everyone.

[cloudz]

This is perhaps a timely and opportune moment for me to drop this here.
Because, you know, maybe "new", isn't really what we need after all.
Nothing new under the Sun, so to speak.

Panpsychism maybe a good place to start a new, old science of consciousness. maybe

this particular article is written from the perspective of a materialist; I'm not one of those, just to be clear. Where he says "there is only matter". Someone like myself may as well say "there is only mind". We're back in that Dualistic place. The Mystics have an explanation but we can't expect too much of a leap from the scientific community at any given point. Rightly or wrongly the culture is by and large one of Atheism and Materialism. There are plenty of other treatments and online links regards Panpsychism for those wishing to seek them out.
https://theconversation.com/science-as- ... ing-126143

[cloudz]

Read your guys philosophy bit.

nice.

Dimitri,

have you ever wanted to change something about yourself that was very difficult. It takes willpower. It takes changing of daily habits and instincts. As Origami told it nicely; changing our patterns.
We do have free will, it's just not evident the large majority of the time. It's easy to forget how subconscious we are sometimes.

It takes a lot of effort to basically 'change our mind'.
It lives in that conscious reflective part of our mind - the bit that's awake and self aware.

That's not to say there is no determination either, certainly there is I think.

Steve, smart and knowledgable as always.

regards

world is mental
so
everything is and was .

give this man a big fat cigar !
Praise be to the highest
the first and the last

[Dmitri]

Dimitri,

have you ever wanted to change something about yourself that was very difficult. It takes willpower. It takes changing of daily habits and instincts.

Hey George,

That's the "illusion" part. It absolutely feels like you're making a decision (to push yourself, persevere, etc.)

Our company used to have this "Fitbit stepping challenge" thing and I saw people react to it in a vast variety of ways, from barely registering it on the radar to, in one notable case, changing one's lifestyle dramatically, and for good (he hasn't reverted to old behavior still, after 8 years, and I don't think he ever will). I don't have the exact data of course, but I would presume that this variance wasn't a function of having (or not) enough will power. There are plenty of people who know that exercise is good for them, or that they should eat better, or what-have-you, who have tremendous will power, and yet they're not using it to improve their lives.
Why?

Here's another thought, from a different direction: have you thought about the exact moment when a human becomes capable of "making a decision"? We start as a collection of cells that are dividing by a strict program and reacting to outside influences based on chemistry, temperature, EM field levels, etc., etc., turning eventually from a couple of cells into an embryo, a fetus, etc. At which point we (can) "make s choice"? Let's say, a 2-year-old can make one, but a two-weeks-old cannot. What - and more importantly, when - was that moment in time when this presumed qualitative change took place, that turned us from collections of dividing cells into philosophers?

To me, that's a rhetorical question, because we never stopped being those collections of dividing cells driven by programming (genetics) and outside factors. We just grew in complexity, with a side effect of a "self-aware" mind.

But that's just me... How would you answer that one?

It's easy to forget how subconscious we are sometimes.

Indeed!

[cloudz]

Well i kind of agree with you that pretty much most of the time our minds are 'made up.' If I had to come up with an analogy, i might use the idea of a self learning automaton or something like that. But that doesn't mean all self learning automatons will want or desire to learn the same habits or be the same as all their neighbours.

We all more or less walk around with conflicting beliefs in us. Some are just more energised than others depending on our experiences in the world and what has worked for us and how they have worked for us.

So on the most basic level a small kid bitten by a dog will usually grow up fearing dogs. He'll believe that all dogs pose the same threat; which isn't true.
The subconscious mind will never really forget this though, it won't let him easily lose his fear of dogs. The way something like that is overcome for example is to create a new reality for the boy where he will gradually start to accept a conflicting belief.

Imagine all the different narratives and excuses and what have you of your fit bit crowd. As you rightly allude to motivation isn't really enough. Willpower is hard to maintain in of itself. The way we tend to understand it is unhelpful; we think of it as struggling to push through, doing things we don't want to do all the time and so on. Well partly, yes. discipline is necessary to a point. You can't just do x all day and expect y; you need a plan right, to achieve x. It starts with desire and then it's about how that's managed and shaped internally, which in turn expresses externally as daily steps to change a persons experiencing of the world.

That could be losing weight, getting a better job, learning a new skill.

The question you pose, is to do with our communication ability and our growth. Both in our lifetime and our growth species wise. My boy who's two has always and will always have 'no choice' about certain things he feels and experiences. Same as me. If a certain thing happens I can already predict a reaction of mine. I know this because I have memory; I can reflect back and self analyse. At some point my two year old will start learning and doing this himself. It's part of us, he will have help. Language, behaviour codes passed to him by parents etc. But a lot is already in him - in terms of characteristics. He may find empathy normal and easy or he may be more aggressive and less empathetic and so on.

The memory ability is a game changer; think how different you would be if you didn't have the kind of memory you do. How that changes the mental landscape the opportunity to learn, change, grow. That you have it and can act on it is what makes us who we are. That memory plus Our scale of language, communication and logical abilities are what makes us uniquely different in terms of animal species. I think it comes down to intelligence, our scale of it is such that to compare to the nearest animal species it's almost baffling..

So basically what I am saying is we all have the opportunity to get to know ourselves, understand ourselves and our behaviour. Why we do the things we do and why we don't do other things. It's a mixture of outside programming and how far we are prepared to go to change our programming to orient ourselves differently. But bottom line it takes work and not everyone is up for the same things.. as we can all appreciate at times it's just way easier to sleepwalk through most of life and 'go with the flow', or status quo perhaps.

something like that.

[Dmitri]

think how different you would be if you didn't have the kind of memory you do

Would you, though? People with amnesia only lack in social interactions; outside of that, they're completely "themselves".

Thanks for your answer to my "what/when was that moment in time when we turned from collections of dividing cells into philosophers" question, although you went in the direction away from the essence of that question -- which, I suppose, one should fully expect from a non-materialist. It's all good.

[wiesiek]

`cause I got the cigar...
our body is present vehicle of the soul,
to effectively using it - you need driving license 1st.; it will take quite some time,
later you may tune it up, or leave as it is.
Worth to mention, that some % of drivers have no idea how to drive safety, some are even not able to pass driving license exam, hey, there is part of users which don`t service it regularly.
and
now something not completely different:
Natascha, one of Ukrainians which was under my hospitality, got suddenly heavy brain stroke.
her body was 1/2 paralyzed ,and she was unable to communicate, follow the doc - due to massive brain damage she has no chance for recovery.
Now,
after 2 months she is able to walk with with help of the stick, and started to speak.
so,
koan is:
are we the brain?

[everything]

so happy to hear about her case! hope her mind/body keep forging the new/alternate? neural pathways