An Empirical Inductive Method.Applied to a Panpsychism Model of Consciousness

[Rader]

I agree if consciousness is non-physical, and yet it is "intertwined" (as Shan says) here in physics, then there has to be some common basis between the two for a connection. I am saying the physical is what resulted from compression of illumination; it accentuates illumination's natural vibrancy to become first vibration, and then with enough compression causes "differentiation" into simultaneous and counterbalanced modes, the most common of which is what we call "hydrogen." That is what Diagram 6 portrayed in my original thread post. So it seems to me that what most determines how non-physical becomes physical is "particlization." The fields created by the processes which created particlization whether electromagnetic or gravity or Higgs or whatever, also are seen as an effect of particles and therefore physical.

As yet, we really do not know, what the wave funtion is, physcial or non-physcial. Shans paper indicate, it can be measured and it can be timed. It can be known the difference between machine and a human selfs experience.

Yet I think we are really agreeing that there is something continuous running between the non-physical and the physical, and so on some level distictions are arbitrary. That continuous aspect is exactly the reason for postulating illumination as the basis for all existence. Not only does it eliminate duality, it also solves the very difficult problem of "first cause." In other words, illumination was never created and is indestructible, but it also has great potential for mutability, which is why it takes so many shapes. One "shape" is physicality, another shape is consciousness. Because physicality is grounded in particles, and the quantum realm is what determines particle behavior, then it seems that is where consciousness and physicality come together on the physical side. I have suggested on the non-physical side, the meeting point is the pulse of consciousness.

That meeting point is the experience for the moment. Where conscious experience knows itself. By knowing itself, in the experience, it also knows all other point particle experience simultaneously.

Great question, but difficult to answer. Philosophically speaking, physical is temporary, non-physical is eternal; finite -- infinite; form -- formlessness; structure -- essence; manifest -- potentiality;and (from a consciousness perspective) analyzed -- felt.

That might only be one. A purpose.

 

[Rader]

I can't seem to get to any of the links. Until I can figure out how, I wonder if you can explain why you think Shan's experiments would support an answer for the hard problem on the panpsychic side. I am not certain if he is using the fact of EM's wave function collapse as his basis for that, but if he is, why would the fact that conscious observation affects the behavior of matter confirm a panpsychic explanation of qualia and subjectivity?

Conscious observation, affects the behavior of matter because it alters matter, it alters specific energy fluctuations, which give birth to point particles, it gives birth to form. Then you might ask, why are forms conscious to what they are self consciouss of? Because forms, just might only be consciousness, knowing itself.

I’ll rely on my model to set up my answer. When we experience, I’ve said there are three aspects to consciousness which work together. There is our sensitivity which allows us to detect stuff, whether it be through the senses or what we feel inside. Once we detect, a second aspect of experience is that what’s detected is held in place in consciousness for awhile, or retained; I’ve said the more we concentrate on what’s sensed/felt the more embedded it becomes in consciousness. Those two aspects alone, however, cannot create conscious experience. A video camera can detect and retain information; even if we added a computer to analyze what’s taped (i.e., adding a “thinking” aspect), the system still is incapable of conscious experience. I believe what is most responsible for consciousness is the third aspect: knowing.

Consider two children the same age, learning two distinct languages. Both hear the word ouch, in two distinct languages, as the father sees his son pinch his finger with a needle. The child heard the word, felt the pain and then, thinks and sticks his finger again to see what will happen. Now if you go to either child, the third time and show him a pin there is no need to say ouch, the child will know and feel the pain, before you say a word, he will tell you in his language ouch. The integration of information through memory is quite comparable to how experience is experience though consciousness.

Now, Hypnagogue and I have disagreed over my use of the term “knowing” to describe the most subjective aspect of consciousness; popular now is to say subjectiveness is “what it’s like” to experience a particular color, or taste, etc. I am suggesting that what creates “what it’s like” is a type of knowing.

What other way could you equate this type of knowing, except by my example? It seems to be the knowing of knowing.

The way I’ve modeled it is that the core of consciousness operates through integration; it functions in cooperation with our sensitivity which feels information contacting it, and our concentration which embeds the information as history/memory. So when, for instance, we try and try to learn to first ride a bicycle, information is being embedded. When suddenly we “know,” I say related information integrates into the core of consciousness a conscious singularity.

You might not have understood me, about my bike story at night, in a past post but I will bring it back up here. When you ride a mountain bike at night, through roads you have many times done in the daylight, it is distinct. Very little light reaches your retina, yet you somehow know your way quite comfortably. There are moments when you, do not know the way, they occur when you come out of a dream state and focus attention. You would think that should be the other way around. Yes you can day dream while riding a bicycle and you can night dream while riding a bicycle. If you try this on a never before taken trail, your focus of attention is continuous, yet that is not when you loose control for a second, its when you fall into the dream state.

I’m suggesting that there is a part of us whose nature is to know . . . that is what it is, that’s what it does. When consciousness feels things, it knows that, so it is the heart of conscious experience and the heart of subjectivity.

Is what you mean your subconscious, becomes the knower of what is known?

Back to your question which I will answer in two parts. First, when I said “self-knowing has been there all along,” I was referring to that core of us which establishes subjectivity. I also was hinting that a person could explore self-knowing more deeply because that is exactly what union is. If you look at my explanation to Moonrat above, along with Diagram 7, you can see I am saying that in union the core predominates and the peripheral operations are stilled. Since that core is pure knowing, it is a very powerful experience to consciously operate with the core predominating.

Can this be described in a single phenonemal experience?

As to whether there is, as you say, a priori knowledge present in all consciousness at birth, that is how I modeled it. In the last section of my original post, I suggested that when consciousness enters biology, it is drawn from the general panpsychic pool. If so, then when we are born we are born with some level of general knowledge that is present in the panpsychic continuum.

I observed something a 3 year old child experienced for the first time, the other day. The grandfather hung a lolipop from the side of his glasses and commented to the child nonchalantly, let's go for a walk. The child answered immediately, silly. There was no learned information priori to this experience, that could identify going for a walk and hanging a lolipop from the side of his glasses, is silly.

 

[Fliption]

Les, I have questions in three areas of the model and then some points on the method as a whole.

1. In trying to understand the distinction you've made with the 3 components of consciousness I found myself trying to assign actual experiences I've had into each of the categories but then second guessed myself as I read further. For example, Embedded retention is:

"That which we’ve felt/sensed and paid attention to, whether to purposely learn and remember or from repetition (such a driving the same route to work everyday), becomes entrenched in consciousness as memory. Unless reinforced, this retention will fade over time."

The first thing I thought was "this is like studying for the CPA exam". You're just cramming stuff in trying to retain it long enough to take the test and pass it. This stuff certainly won't be retained for too long. But the whole idea behind forcing CPA's to pass this exam is because during this retention process they actually have to go through lots of processes of "understanding" many different topics which will allow them to "recollect" the topics more quickly should they ever need to go back and reference them.

But it is "integration" that has reserved itself for "understanding". In this case it would be the "mentality engendered" integration. So is studying for the CPA not an example of embedded retention or are we saying that accountants don't really understand what they're being tested on? Perhaps I have made this too simplistic by trying to assign an experience to each type of retention. Perhaps it is much more complicated than that? Perhaps a single experience that I would label "taking the CPA" involves all three aspects of consciousness? In this case it almost seems to be some fusion of embedded retention and mentality engendered integration. Am I misundertsanding these concepts? Initially, I was going to suggest an example for every category would be helpful but trying to assign a clean-cut experience to each one may actually be the problem.

2. This model involves panpsychism which makes the claim that all things have psychic properties. In one part of your post you made a distinction between "life" and other forms of matter. I believe you say that non biological matter has not been shown to be able to self organize and build upon itself layers of complexity. It can replicate but eventually repeats the same patterns. But in light of your model and accepting that all matter is created by and from consicousness, are we really saying that non biological matter cannot self organize or are we saying that it chooses not to because it isn't the most fruitful path for emergence? I don't want to put words into your mouth so I'm asking the question in this way to make sure I understand.

3. Another question I have has to do with the general pool of knowledge that exists in the core. After reading and understanding this idea I would have guessed that this means that all things created from this "entity" would share this knowledge because the core is supposed to be homogenous. Yet you suggested later in your post that it might be possible that there is a section for dogs, cats etc. which contradicts what I would have guessed. How can the homogenous core have distinguished sections of knowledge? Is it possible that dogs do have access to knowledge of laughing and loving but just don't have the "equipment" to make any sense or use of it? To use your analogy, the same force(knowledge) is blowing into the instrument, but the instrument isn't shaped correctly to produce the potential sound(love) that the force can produce. At my level of understanding, this seems more consistent and less problematic then talking about distinctions in a homogenous core so maybe there is something I haven't understood.

 

[Fliption]

As for the approach itself, I see there has been quite a bit of discussion on it(some of it not so tactful). I've always found the topic about "knowledge" to be interesting. When do we consider something to be knowledge? When does science consider something knowledge? To me it seems there is personal knowledge and then there is what we call "established" knowledge. Where do the two overlap? There is no established knowledge on what it feels like to love someone. Yet no one will doubt that we do it. It is a personal knowledge that I experience what love feels like, yet it is also established knowledge that we all experience it. Seems the standards for established knowledge are relaxed in this case.

When I look up the scientific method and study it, it says that the results of an experiment have to be repeatable. It doesn't require that all subsequent experiments be performed by different people. The analogy I like to think of is to imagine that a scientist gets stranded on an island with all of his lab equipment. Can he perform the scientific method on his island surroundings? Seems that he can from what I've read. Yet there are some people who seem to think that this scientist can call nothing he discovers knowledge because he cannot show it to someone else.

I'm struggling to see the difference between what Les has suggested here and this stranded scientist's situation when it comes to claiming what knowledge is. I do understand that in principal the scientist could show his results to someone else and Les cannot, but in practice he cannot, so they are the same. So does either of them have knowledge? Seems they both have personal knowledge only.

I think what I'm trying to say here is that there is a lot of debate that Les' method cannot work because of the subjective nature of it's evidence. The argument seems to be that personal knowledge cannot become established knowledge. Yet I think in the case of love and other things we've made this connection with no problem at all. The only difference between love and "union" as someone pointed out earlier is that not everyone experiences union. But using this as an argument against this method is the same as deciding not to rescue the stranded scientist and forever being ignorant of his discoveries.

Having said all that, I do realize the problems with subjective evidence. As was pointed out earlier, there are all sorts of crack pots in this world. And we don't even have to go that far. There is just the problem with communicating experiences. For example, the word "illumination" has been used in this model extensively but I'm sure that we all have slightly different things that come to mind when we hear that word. The word "vibrancy"? Same thing. I know some people will always claim "yeah I saw that vibrancy thing!" when they have not even touched what Les might be talking about. So I'm not real sure how we make something like this useful. I know that no one here would doubt that we experience love even though they cannot prove it. Perhaps it's because we all claim to experience it. So it seems this is enough evidence for us to at least be interested in doing what it takes to experience union and find out for ourselves. Choosing not to is similar to this situation: If the stranded scientist dies leaving all his notes, and you have an opportunity to go there alone to repeat the experiments, you will choose not to know anything about them simply because you can't prove the knowledge to the rest of the world. Sounds silly to me.

 

[Fliption]

Now for the quantum. First I'll say that I read the paper from the link and it does seem that what this theory is ultimately arguing for is consistent with Les' theory. In the beginning of the paper it rivals the view "consciousness is a fundamental property of matter" with what it calls "emergentism", which says that consciousness emerges from matter. From the context of the paper, I think the words "fundamental property of matter" might just be a poor choice of words. It even says it a different way in another paragragh by saying that consciousness is a fundamental property of the world that exists thoughout the universe.

Radar,

I have to say that while I understand the point of the paper i.e. to show that consciousness has causul efficacies that can be detected, I don't see how the paper actually succeeds in doing these things. I have read and studied a great deal on quantum experiments just trying to understand the implications and even trying to understand what is meant by the word "measurement". Reagrdless of where I read, none of this is very clear. I haven't seen anything yet that shows results that can point to a conscious observer versus a non-conscious measuring device. I have taken this topic to the physics section of this forum to get the science people to help me. I can assure you that they do NOT accept any role for consciousness in quantum activity. And I have not been able to find anything that necessarily suggest otherwise. But I will admit that their explanations don't always explain what I do see happening in the experiments either.

I didn't see any section of this paper that goes into detail as to how an experiment can be set up to show that consciousness has any result on the findings. The math symbol illustration showing how a conscious observer is different from a machine is not concrete enough for me to understand the linkage. I want photons and test tubes lol .

I will say that I am open to the idea of science finding a way to show that panpsychism may have some teeth. From what I've read here, Les doesn't seem to think so. So I have a question for Les.

Les, you seem to think that if science could prove something in a quantum experiment related to consciousness then consciousness would be physical. It seems obvious to me that consciousness interacts with the physical somehow. Even though we may never be able to see consciousness, you don't believe we can even seen it's causal impact? It seems you have already noticed yourself that something is missing in the emergentism view since you've taken the time to come up with your model. Perhaps the science version of seeing the same thing is simply to show that consciousness has an impact at the quantum level? Understanding "how" that mechanism works may never happen for all the reasons you suggests but it seems logical to me that science could in principle see a "difference" in results. Have I misunderstood you on this?

 

[Rader]

Gao Shan answer

I wonder if you can explain why you think Shan's experiments would support an answer for the hard problem on the panpsychic side. I am not certain if he is using the fact of EM's wave function collapse as his basis for that, but if he is, why would the fact that conscious observation affects the behavior of matter confirm a panpsychic explanation of qualia and subjectivity?

Les this is Gao Shan answering your question.

I would like to answer his question using the origional demonstration in my paper as follows:

"As we have demonstrated, the conscious being or the matter with consciousness can distinguish the nonorthogonal states, while the usual physical measuring device or the matter without consciousness can't. This seems to be also possible if consciousness is reducible or emergent, but there exists an essential difference here. If consciousness is reducible or emergent, then the matter with consciousness should also follow the basic physical principles such as the principle of energy conservation etc. As we know, according to the basic quantum superposition principle in quantum theory, the nonorthogonal states can't be distinguished using the physical measuring device without consciousness. But the observer or the matter with consciousness can distinguish the nonorthogonal states in principle, and then consciousness evidently violates one of the basic physical principles---quantum superposition principle. Thus consciousness should be not reducible or emergent, but a new fundamental property of matter."

Flipton interpretation of papers is always left best to who writes it, that is why I posted Les question to Gao Shan for him to answer me directly by e-mail to me. I do realize that the reader could have a different interpretation. There is a whole series of papers that have to do with this whole subject were you able to open them all? I do not like that word either "emergentism", and want to discuss that with Les, it seems to contradict his model but I think he is referring to panpsychic consciousness that evolves, not that which always was.

From these links below you can access all the papers. My interest here is to demonstate, that there is evidence and experimentation with results for science to review. If "consciousness is a fundamental property of matter" and it can be measured then the experience Les has is no different than the scientist on the island. It seems to me there is more than what you got out of them but i could be wrong, that is just me opinion. I will try and find the points in some of the other papers that have you in doubt. At any rate give me your question and I will put it to Gao Shan.

http://www.ioq.cn/ or http://www.ioq.cn/indexe.html

 

[Fliption]

At any rate give me your question and I will put it to Gao Shan.

Thank you. Let me read through some of these other links a bit and try to reconcile that with all the things that I've been told by the people particpating over on the Quantum Mechanics Physics forum.

 

[Rader]

Thank you. Let me read through some of these other links a bit and try to reconcile that with all the things that I've been told by the people particpating over on the Quantum Mechanics Physics forum.

OK Flipton, you might start here. I know you been investigating this longer than I have. This seems to be one of the papers central to the study at hand. We will discuss this all later and review the interesting points.
http://www.ioq.cn/papers/qscfpl.pdf

 

[Moonrat]

I don’t disagree at all with describing “inner and outer” as you have. But keeping in mind that I am giving explanations according to the illumination model, your description is also a little different than the perspective I was expressing. I’ll explain after I acknowledge what I think you are saying.

I believe I understand what you mean if by “feeling” you don’t mean emotions, but rather what I termed in my model the “base sensitivity” of consciousness – the overall ability to feel/sense (I consider emotions to be the exaggeration of our natural feeling, usually aided by hormones). In my opinion, that sensitivity is part of the foundation of consciousness (along with retention and integration/knowing), so it is indeed subjective.

.

hmm, so I see, you are placing these dual aspects of consciousness, mind and feelings, together as 'one'

When you say “mind” I assume you mean thinking mind, or mentality, and that you are not referring to consciousness in general.

by mind I mean 'giest'..awareness..clarity...

Having said that, I would explain that what I meant by inner and outer is related both to the body and to the illumination model. In terms of the body, outer is pretty simple because it refers to anything I experience with my senses. The senses are focused outward and send information “in” to us about what is outside of us. Because the only information the senses send is physical info, I interpret that to mean the senses (being physical themselves) are only capable of physical perception; there are others, physicalists, who believe that sense perception is the only trustworthy experience, and conclude that the senses failure to give anything other than physical information proves reality is entirely physical. That brings us to “inner” because part of the theory expressed here is that that inner part which is receiving (and feeling ) “outer” information from the senses can also experience itself. That experience does not seem physical, and in fact results in the observations and impressions I used as premises for the panpsychic model.

hehe, I thought there were no paradoxes in your system?

Outer reality IS MATERIAL, inner reality is, to use the poetic, spiritual...

If that is outer and inner in terms of the body, might one also describe outer and inner from within consciousness itself?

hmm,yes, you are correct here...

as long as consciousness has a point of singularity, which it does in each of us, yes..

If you look at Diagram 7 below, I compare the “look” of consciousness dominated by mentality (the normal way human consciousness exists), and consciousness in the experience of union. In mentality-dominated consciousness the periphery swells overshadowing the core; because mentality is weighted toward concentration, the sensing mode of consciousness also diminishes.

In contrast, in union the core of consciousness predominates, and therefore so does knowing. In that centered experience, “inner” is the core and “outer” is everything outside the core, including mentality; in this instance, I am speaking from experience of how it “feels” to be centered in union when everything feels outer except where one is merged.




I am not saying there aren’t differences, but differences don’t have to eliminate the possibility of oneness.

I guess what we have here is just perhaps a semantic difference. This 'oneness', to me, is an illusion too. Oneness implies and indeed needs an 'other' for it to have existence...another 'one'

one and one are two..two also is an illusion, neccesary to desribe two 'ones'

on a number line, ones continue out into infinity, there are an infinite number of 'ones'

one is only left with 'nothing' or zero, to express this. This zero, is divided into duality, or 'two', which is an illusion of two 'ones'..

o my god, does this drive you nuts! ;-)

Once again, keep in mind I am reasoning from my model, and that in this instance we are talking about the monism of illumination; that is, the theory that everything which exists, without exception, is some form of illumination. That is the ultimate reality because nothing can exist except as illumination can be.

Reality is composed of light, agreed..

but there is clear light, and dark light...

So the reason I am consciousness and that atoms are as they are is because illumination can become that. There is no duality, no two separate realities, but there are two different set of conditions which establish illumination as consciousness and which establish illumination as atoms. So the “distinctness” I’ve been talking about is the distinctness of conditions, not some absolute distinctness between physical and non-physical, or inner and outer (which is the only distinctness of perspective).

hmm, I see...

well, again, I guess there are two schools of thought on the matter..

yes, all is 'one' describes it, to me, poeticaly, yet this distinction of inside outside, light dark, objective subjective, seems to be universal in all directions...


you know, like the song says.."It takes two to make things go right"

with the distinction, we have an 'eternal' relationship. Without the distinction, we have infinite loneliness...

Whether there is conflict depends on whether one gets the inner message of the Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed (and here I definitely mean by “inner” the core experience of union which all of them recommended). If one relates to the “outer” development of religion, then yes there is lots of conflict because outer is not where one experiences oneness.

yet even on the inner. when one has a buddhist experiance, he or she is functioning in that model, one can transcribe, yes, but at the core, Jesus does not lead you to the bodhisattvas he leads you to the father...the systems do not function at once in the individual, although they may lead the individual to the same place at different times..

It seems the “one principle” you are referring to is the structure of physicality. But that which establishes physical structure is hardly one principle.

it is in ONE enviroment...each motion has ONE set of laws or princaples. Inside of this ONE enviroment, we have an almost infinite number of subjective or personal realities...that all participate in the one, yet each one of them contain '2'...

c'mon Les, paradoxes are fun and illuminating! ;-)

If one turns to experiencing oneness however, there is no mystery at all, just knowing.

or, one can also experience 'nothingness' or zero, that which is beyond oneness...I speak from experience on this one too...

there is a 'play' that exists between oneness, nothingness(0) and duality (2)...

one cannot have the transedance of one without the one, and one always returns to the one...plays in the 'two' and experiances in 0...

I don’t see how that can be true unless it is a poetic way of describing the dilemma of the person trying to grasp oneness mentally. I am convinced that “paradox” is only the confusion of our logic, and that reality itself is never paradoxical, or true and false at the same time. As far as I can tell, reality is only true.

well, it is true that it is mystery. here is the paradox...

true, false, and mystery are inner states and outer objective expressions, you can't escape them...

I am mystery. I am true and false at the same time...so are you...

a 'ufo' is a mystery that all can agree is mystery..but we can see how many people try to make what is true or false about them without just accepting it as a participating mystery..

The only thing I would add, again relying on my illumination model, is that I think “opposite” is only found in orientation or perspective. In reality there wouldn’t be any essential opposites because of the oneness of illumination

opposites is a function of universality.

there is day, and there is night. there is the obvious distinction between them. There is male, and there is female, and the obvious distinctions between them...anything that prevents seeing this is also an illusion...and not a helpful one

Les, thank you so m uch for taking the time with us in this discussion. It's a lot of work that you are doing. You certainly got me thinking.

I am in harmony with everything you write, more or less. I just think there is more relationship perhaps that your model is missing...although your model does present a brilliant picture, hehe, pardon the pun...



Moonrat

 

[Les Sleeth]

I am sorry for taking so long to respond to everyone's great posts. I've needed time to think about some things said, and then I have been really busy. I will answer everyone, hopefully tomorrow. Just quick comments for now:

Moonrat, you are right, there are more, a lot more, "relationships" to things . . . of course, I am a generalist, and so am more interested in metastructure.

Radar, I really appreciate you contacting Gao Shan, and him taking the time to answer. I think his work is important. Having said that, I must point out that his statement “Thus consciousness should be not reducible or emergent, but a new fundamental property of matter” reinforces my view that his model is physicalistic. If consciousness is a property of matter, whether or not, as Mr. Shan suggests, that property is new, it is still something derived from matter and therefore is physicalistic (even if no longer “physical” once emerge from matter). I still haven't been able to access any of your links, but while investigating "nonorthogonal states" (a difficult subject) I came across this description of panpsychism: http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cach...0007006+emergent+consciousness&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 . . . which I suspect is the variety you are interested in. I hope you can read that and let me know how well it describes your view. If that is what you are thinking, then it is definitely in conflict with my model. When I do a longer answer to you I will explain myself better.


Fliption, thanks for taking the time really understand my consciousness model. I can't wait to answer your great questions.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Part 1 of a 3 part post

Then you feel that the physical world and panpsychic consciousness, evolved together, so does QSC, in theory, it can function only inside of a finite universe.

While I would agree that panpsychic consciousness and the physical universe both evolved, I don't think it makes sense for the two to have evolved simultaneously. I think physics and the rest of the universe is easier to account for if they came after the evolution of consciousness. Over the next three posts I’ll explain why (hey, you might be right, this could be the longest thread in history . . . well, excepting the epic battles between Lifegazer and Tom in the old days).

In the link I provided above:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cach...0007006+emergent+consciousness&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 is P.A. Zizzi’s paper, Emergent Consciousness: From the Early Universe to Our Mind. His use of “emergence” isn’t from brain physiology as functionalists believe, but initially from the entire universe at the moment of inflation, and now in biology. Actually I think this version of panpsychism is very exciting, but not because it is going to solve the “hard problem” of consciousness (since, as I will argue below, it doesn’t), but because it lends support to my model. To explain, let’s consider the last part of Zizzi’s paper:

6.4 The analogy
Inflation (the "qubits era") is for the universe what pre-consciousness (superposed tubulins) is for our mind. The end of inflation (beginning of the "bits era") is for the universe what consciousness (Orch OR of superposed states of tubulins) is for our mind. The analogy goes like that: For tubulins in the brain:

CLASSICAL CA Æ EMERGENCE OF QUANTUM COHERENCE (PRE-
CONSCIOUSNESS)ÆQUANTUM CAÆSELF-COLLAPSE BY ORCHESTRATED OBJECTIVE REDUCTION Æ CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCEÆCLASSICAL CA.

For qubits in the early universe:
CLASSICAL BIT (THE VACUUM) ÆHADAMARD QUANTUM LOGIC GATE ÆQUBIT ÆBEGINNING OF INFLATION (THE UNIVERSE IS A
SUPERPOSED STATE OF QUANTUM REGISTERS) ÆSELF-REDUCTION BY OBJECTIVE REDUCTION (END OF INFLATION) ÆCONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE ÆCOLLAPSE OF QUBITS TO BITS (THE XOR GATE) ÆCLASSICAL CA.

Of course, the analogy between our mind and the universe is very speculative at this stage, but the emergent picture is quite exciting: it seems that our brain owes its structure and organization to the very early universe. This is in agreement with the Penrose-Hameroff’s belief that consciousness is a fundamental property of reality, and has its roots in the spacetime structure at the Planck scale.

Then, although we can be just classical as observers, we can be also quantum as thinkers (for example, we can conceive quantum computation). This fact must be the result of some kind of imprinting we received from the quantum computing early universe. If we had not both quantum and classical computational modes available in our brain, in other words, if we were always conscious and Boolean, we would not be able to think quantum.

7. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we described the early inflationary universe as an ensemble of quantum gravity registers in parallel. At the end of inflation, the superposed state self-reduces by reaching the quantum gravity threshold as in the Penrose’s Objective Reduction model. This self-reduction can be interpreted as a primordial conscious experience. Actually, the number of quantum gravity registers involved in the OR equals the number of superposed tubulins in our brain, which are involved in the Orch OR, leading to a conscious experience. Further, the qubits of the selected quantum gravity register get entangled with the emergent environment and collapse to classical bits. This environmental collapse is the source of classical information and Boolean logic in the actual universe. Thus, we make the conjecture that the post-inflationary universe starts to organize itself, very likely as a classical Cellular Automata, and necessarily produces self-similar computing systems (our minds). In this way, the actual universe and its products use the same (Boolean) logic so that the past can be recorded, and information can be stored. It should be noted that, in this model, the quantum gravity registers in parallel are parallel universes. This interpretation is very much on the same line with Deutsch’ idea relating quantum computers to parallel universes (the "multiverse")]. However, at the end of inflation, only one universe is selected, the one which is endowed with that particular amount of entropy which makes it our world.

So what do I find exciting? I’ll start with an analogy. Let's say there was a small, isolated tribe of Indians living 10,000 years ago in one of Earth’s forests. Every day an advanced alien planet in another universe projects a light to a spot in the forest. Tribal members find that when they stand in the light, they grow in intellect and wisdom. Those Indians predisposed to the intellect grow stronger intellectually from the light, while those Indians predisposed to wisdom grow more wise from the light. After several generations of Indians being exposed to the light, they decide to investigate exactly what causes that light. The intellect Indians lead the study and finally proclaim they know what causes it. They present their findings to the tribe where in minute detail they describe the light technology, how a black hole is used to time travel and bridge the two universes, the quantum factors taken advantage of, the Boolean algebra involved, the projection algorithms employed, and so on. When they finish, the wisdom Indians have a problem with the intellect Indians’ model. They say that while the intellect Indians have explained the mechanics of the connection, they haven’t explained why the light boosts intellectual ability and wisdom.

Similarly, quantum panpsychism is exciting in that it seems to offer hope for explaining the mechanisms which allow consciousness to interact with matter, but it doesn’t explain what comes through matter as consciousness.

You said “I do not like that word either ‘emergentism’, and want to discuss that with Les, it seems to contradict his model but I think he is referring to panpsychic consciousness that evolves, not that which always was.” I have probably been too creative with my use of the term, but what I meant was that consciousness developed first, and then emerged through physical systems. To relate that to Zizzi’s model, I would have a huge sphere of consciousness surrounding the area that is now our universe, and with the universe’s quantum arrangement such that consciousness could “emerge” through into the physical realm. To avoid further confusion with more popular meanings of both emergent and panpsychism, from now on I will refer to my emergent theory as transemergence and for my panpsychic model transemergent panpsychism.

SEE DIAGRAM 8

In the diagra the universe is portrayed within a consciously evolved area of the infinite illumination continuum. Notice the panpsychic realm approximates the human model of consciousness.

If I am excited by the promise of quantum panpsychism explaining the mechanisms of transemergence, I see no reason to hope it will explain consciousness, which as of now it fails to do utterly and completely. The reason why Zizzi (and likely Shan too) think quantum realities will account for consciousness is revealed in Zizzi’s statement, “Thus, we make the conjecture that the post-inflationary universe starts to organize itself, very likely as a classical Cellular Automata, and necessarily produces self-similar computing systems (our minds).”

Zizzi believes consciousness is computing power, and granted, the quantum model might explain that aspect of the human mind (actually, that is another exciting aspect of the theory). But which quantum aspects are going to explain the experience of qualia, love, knowing, wisdom, self awareness? If you read my thread simulating a debate between Daniel Dennett and the Buddha, I argued that if consciousness is the result of the mind’s “busy-ness,” then shouldn’t a still mind become unconscious? The same would apply here too -- that if computing power (and memory of course) establishes consciousness, then shouldn’t a non-computing (and non-remembering) mind be unconscious? Yet we know that isn’t the case at all (at least in a mature consciousness).

So as far as I can tell, the quantum panpsychic model in the end is not much different that the functionalist model; it is merely funtionalism transferred to the universe as a whole. It is to first define consciousness as a computer so that what really defines consciousness doesn’t have to be accounted for by physics.

I believe there is only one reason we are not agreeing right now, and that is because of my experiences of union. I would theorize that everything quantum panpsychists are hoping can be demonstrated through QSC is because science is looking for what is most basic to our existence. Now, what do you think those taking the QSC approach assume is most basic? The quantum world; and they think that because quantum factors are most basic to physical existence.

However, because of my experience of illumination, I believe there is something more basic than quantum factors. Quantum panpsychists don’t know about it, so they relate to what their experience tells them is most basic. I have to argue, quantum factors may be most fundamental to physics, but illumination is most fundamental to quantum factors. This is precisely why I introduced the transemergent illumination panpsychism model, and the empirical evidence acquired from union experience.

To further explain why I think an illumination-based transemergent panpsychism model makes more sense than the quantum panpsychic model, I’ll use another of your posts.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Part 2 of a 3 part post

(. . . continued)

In order for consciousness to as you say individuate a “point” from its general awareness, there would seem to have to be a connectivity and awareness of all the points inside the closed system. What affects one point would also affect all points inside the system.

What I want to do to explain your “connectivity question” is to answer you in two parts. At the beginning of the previous post, I said “physics and the rest of the universe is easier to account for if they came after, way after, the evolution of consciousness.” To understand why, I think one has to grasp the all the implications of illumination monism. So first I’ll offer a little contemplation of that monism here. Then in a follow-up post I will answer both the connectivity-point question, and why it is easier to account for physics with an illumination-first model.

To start, let’s say there is an “ocean” of illumination, the ocean is infinite, the ocean has always existed and will always exist. Let’s call this ocean the Source.

As existential stuff, the Source is a cache of the one essence of all existence. It is the base substance of all that exists, and is a single, uncreated and indestructible vibrant light, which in its absolute ground state dwells in a homogeneous, unbounded, and infinitely extended continuum. In other words, the Source is an infinite “ocean” of vibrant luminescence (illumination). Such an inference provides a good test for itself because nothing can possibly exist which doesn’t reflect the base nature of this absolute essence. Source illumination is what any and everything ultimately is, and as such shouldn’t be thought of as another item to be added to the list of existence’s basic ingredients. Source illumination is rather an unrecognized state of existence—the absolute ground state which can be reduced no further. It is unrecognized because when in that primordial state, Source illumination, by definition, must be more subtle than all forms of itself. Since any apparatus we might invent to detect Source illumination is a “form” of Source illumination, that makes devices incapable of registering the Source’s formlessness.

The Source is the ultimate foundational principle because it is to propose that everything springs from some single, absolute base. It’s logical that manifest creation has some unmanifested foundational condition; and a useful way to think about that facet of the Source is to have it represent potentiality. Stated as a principle we might say: all that exists in time must be preceded by the potential for it to exist. This point is not mere sophistry, but a logical observation about things that have beginnings. In the case of our universe, it apparently did have a beginning, and therefore all the basic properties which allow it to exist must have been present in the potential that preceded it coming into existence. Since all we know to exist (the universe) originated there, the Source of creation represents absolute potential (not that absolute potential means the potential for anything, just all the potential there is).

If the absolute potentiality of the Source is the bottom line, the base reality, the true nature of all, then it retains the raw substance and base conditions that serve as the foundation of our universe. At the ground state of the Source, all is “one” (i.e., one essence and nature) and therefore the attempt to show how the “oneness” of Source illumination becomes the great variety of things that exist is an exercise in practical monism.

For the illumination model first we will interpret oneness to mean that everything is composed of and determined by the same base substance: atoms, the ground we stand on, the clouds floating by, the crawling bugs and soaring birds, rocks, the thoughts we think, logic, dust, light, bad moods, will power, decomposing fruit, sexuality, happiness, life itself, truth, time, space, nuclear forces, gravity . . . everything! It is fairly easy to see how physical things and forces, like rocks or gravity, might have a common essence, but it’s not so easy to apply the oneness concept to intangibles like truth or time or space.

Next, because everything shares a common ground state (or “essence”}, the oneness of the Source is also how we explain certain of its unifying and singular qualities. For example, to be truly one, Source illumination must exist everywhere (it’s infinite), and without temporal limitation (it is eternal). Since in its primordial state this essence would exist, logically, as one infinite and eternal ocean of vibrant illumination, then all the things we observe or know in creation, like stars and planets, would be interpreted as being temporary forms Source illumination has taken. Based on these ideas, what we call space in our universe, for example, is a section of the Source illumination ocean which contains no matter and appears as a void to us because illumination in its ground state is too subtle to be detected by the senses or other direct physical means.

Another way to represent the oneness of the Source ocean is with the principle of absolute homogeneity. Absolute homogeneity means there are no spaces (not anywhere) because Source illumination exists uninterrupted in every possible direction, and for all time, from the infinite smallest to the infinite largest measurement. Almost analogous to absolute homogeneity would be something like a body of water because water’s composition appears to be continuous and uniform; however, if it were possible to shrink oneself down to the size of a hydrogen atom, one would see that in reality there are areas between water molecules where no water molecules exist, so water cannot accurately be used to analogize absolute homogeneity.

The rule of absolute homogeneity, then, concerns the nature of oneness and (in creation) the relation of created things and oneness all to each other. That is, there cannot be a beginning or end or suspension of the Source, whether in time-space or in the absolute. If there existed a time when the Source did or would not exist, or if a zillion zillion light years away a boundary could be found, or if there were places where something else besides Source illumination existed (even if only an infinitesimally minute bubble of nothingness), then the Source would not be truly one (since something other than illumination would exist).

For these reasons the term absolute homogeneity refers to the impossibility of any type of discontinuity in the Source, and consequently determines that illumination in its primal condition must reside in an eternal and infinitely vast ocean. Additionally, since there can be no spatial breach, the forms of illumination (like a planet or ourselves, as well as our universe as a whole) are understood to not only be composed of and within the primordial ocean of illumination, but also wholly connected to (or one with) it. In the above water analogy, for example, we would say that the molecules of water (like every created thing of the universe) are composed of concentrated illumination, and that the so-called “space” between water molecules is occupied by (less dense) illumination as well.

Ontologically speaking, this Source theory is claiming for itself the most powerful of all existence principles such as, for instance, the long-pondered mystery of first cause. When trying to explain the origin of creation, its “first cause” is hard to account for because whatever first cause is proposed, whether it be God or quantum fluctuations of nothingness, the question inevitably comes back to: “. . . but what caused that?” In the illumination model however the issue is naturally solved because in the Source we’ve postulated a forever-existing, uncaused base substance and potentiality. As the first cause the Source accordingly defines whatever is absolute. The Source is absolute in the sense there is nothing more basic or greater than it; there is nothing before or beyond it; there can be no discontinuance of it; there is nothing that is not a manifestation of it; and there is no appearance or behavior which is not 100% (i.e., absolutely) determined by it. Absoluteness turns the spotlight back once again on existence because we can now see that existence, all existence, is ultimately decided by what Source illumination is; in fact, Source illumination is existence because it cannot not exist! Consequently it follows that existence, in the Source, is eternal, is complete potentiality, is absolute—in short, true existence is fully positive.

There could not be more bottomless ideas to contemplate than those associated with the Source, nor logically confounding. How, for example, does one ponder something that is everywhere and determines everything but cannot be observed, and which is so real it can’t cease to exist yet is also the antithesis of what we understand as substantive? And especially, how does one contain with concepts, delimit or define that which is uncontainable, unlimited and therefore indefinable? The danger one faces when developing assumptions for and reasoning about the Source is allowing the discussion to degenerate into a rationalistic exercise. This is the exact reason why if one is determined to reason about the Source (i.e., as opposed to pursuing the direct experience of it), using Source illumination in an inductive model of the universe may be the best way to test its absolute, if obscure, preeminence.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Part 3 of a 3 part post

(. . . continued)

. . . there would seem to have to be a connectivity and awareness of all the points inside the closed system. What affects one point would also affect all points inside the system. . . . you feel that the physical world and panpsychic consciousness, evolved together, so does QSC, in theory, it can function only inside of a finite universe.

So, the “connectivity” you spoke of above is the oneness of illumination. And what is a “point”? It is not separate, but is rather a location within the panpsychic continuum; imagine a perspective that converges on or diverges from a “position,” and that is a point. Your concern that what affects one point must affect all I think is only true in the relationship of a point to the whole. My theory is, that a point and the “whole” of the panpsychic realm are exact opposites. One is specific, the other is general respectively. Any change in the general realm affects all points within it, but any change to one point has minimal effects to the whole and therefore to other points.

The second problem, that of the physical world and panpsychism evolving together is more difficult to explain. Mostly it is still related to which is easier to first develop: physics or consciousness. If my monistic idea of a Source is correct, then anything which develops within it is more likely to evolve the closer to the nature of illumination it is. From my experience of illumination in union, consciousness appears to be illumination gently differentiated as sensitivity, concentration, and a core which retains full homogeneity. But matter, on the other hand, is anything but “gently differentiated.”

For example, one problem with having the universe bubbling up from quantum fluctuations of nothingness is explaining energy. The sophistry of the zero point energy concept does not account for the huge amount of energy packed into matter in our universe, nor the dark energy that’s expanding it ever and ever faster. The spontaneous quantum fluctuations we observe now in the universe are little more than the appearance and immediate disappearance of virtual particles, which isn’t exactly powerful enough to generate a big bang.

One reason for assuming there was a big bang is because the universe is expanding. Since observing that the rate of expansion is increasing, dark energy has been assumed present in the fabric of space; the reason the energy is called “dark” is because so far we can’t associate it with any form of matter. The energy of a photon, for instance, determines its oscillation rate. If a photon loses energy, its oscillation rate slows but still remains light which proves light and energy are two different things. The truth is, no one knows what energy is, and no one knows what light is. But using my model, the answer is really very simple, and supported by observed facts. “Light” (as photons) is compressed illumination; compress illumination more and you get an atom.

But what is capable of such intense compression? Here is where I say the illumination monistic theory has the advantage. If consciousness developed first, and if our own consciousness reflects the general nature of consciousness, then we can see part of what we can do is concentrate.

Now imagine a consciousness developing in the infinite, eternal Source. Once it gets going, it has eternity to evolve. How “big” can it get? The terms “big and small” don’t make any sense in relation to infinity, so our universe might be downright microscopic in relation to the panpsychic realm this model predicts it is within. But a more important question is: how evolved can it get? Well, there is no limit when an entity has eternity, infinity, an indestructible essence, and unlimited resources and power from which to develop characteristics.

So if that panpsychic consciousness decided it wanted to evolve individual “points” within itself, then it might create an individuating tool that isolated the point within a system (CSN), and which directed it “outward” away from its panpsychic origin. The illusory sense of separation from something whose nature is oneness would create a longing, and that in turn might create the striving to reunite. If a point were, from its own desire, to reunite with the oneness of its origin, then it would attain something which must seem truly “mystical” to us: individual consciousness and oneness with its consciousness origin . . . or its “father” in “heaven” . . . or “in-light-enment” in “nirvana . . . or “surrendered” to “Allah” . . . or however someone experiencing that oneness decides to express it.

In conclusion, I would say that the potential for the explanation of human consciousness is not going to be found in quantum models alone, or in illumination models alone because a human is the joining of something temporal and something eternal. Until experts on both side realize this, all we are going to get is either a mechanistic model, or a flaky and unrealistic model.

 

[marcus]

Hi Les, Moonrat, Rader et al,
I heard about this thread and was curious so I dropped in and
read quite a few of the posts, which had ideas that were often new to me.

I regret to say I haven't anything to contribute

It seems to me that there must be quite a few people out there
who are groping for what you could call "empirical spirituality"

it might be an historical moment when the search for something like that
becomes prominent or perhaps it has been going on for a long time---I don't know enough about the history

maybe people need to figure out how to harmonize their committment to empiricism (I'm not versed in correct terminology---I mean things like the commonplace notion of the scientific method and the idea that a theory has no meaning unless it is falsifiable---you have to be able to construct some experiment such that a certain outcome would cause the theory to be rejected)

well, maybe people are committed to empiricism (if that is the right term) and they want to harmonize that with a kind of joy or happiness which they get from contemplating Nature, or clouds in a blue sky, or the wind in the trees, or the stars on a clear night, or from singing Baroque/Classical choral music, or just shutting their eyes and not thinking about anything in particular

they want to achieve a consensus between, say, modern cosmology and some meaningful experiences they've had

well I think people have always tried to do this so the way I would look at it is I would try to go back in history
and try to get in touch with Johannes Kepler at the moment on 15 May 1618 when he perceived the third law (while writing a book on the platonic solids and the harmonies of the world) and with the person who made up the Hindu creation myth of the lotus coming out of Vishnu's navel while he was asleep and Brahma sticking his head up out of the lotus flower and looking around and getting the idea to create the world just for the fun of it
and in touch with whoever wrote the book of Genesis----and maybe Dante too----or in touch with the mind of whomever you think was making a serious effort in his time to put the cosmology of his time together with some essential experience he'd had----some experience of extreme beauty probably (like kepler's with the 5 platonic solids and the planets)----oh and Pythagoras too probably, and people like that.

Maybe I have picked the wrong historical people as examples. But my guess is that if there is some valid project of Empirical Spirituality then it probably has been a perennial human project----the cosmology changes and seems to have gotten a lot more reliable recently but this doesn't matter each person at each time does they best they can with that side of things

Oh, and it has occurred to me from time to time that the project is doomed to fail. but that is my own private pessimism and of no real use to the discussion

I have to bail out---I don't ordinarily think about these things

 

[Rader]

I really appreciate you contacting Gao Shan, and him taking the time to answer. I think his work is important. Having said that, I must point out that his statement “Thus consciousness should be not reducible or emergent, but a new fundamental property of matter” reinforces my view that his model is physicalistic. If consciousness is a property of matter, whether or not, as Mr. Shan suggests, that property is new, it is still something derived from matter and therefore is physicalistic (even if no longer “physical” once emerge from matter).

Yes his work is physicalistic, theoretical, yet I get the feel we all are looking for the same answer. Flipton did mention he seemed to agree with this. I realize you can not read his papers but you are, I believe reading into this, what is not there. There is nothing I have said or Shan about brains, that matter produces consciousness. If a property is not reducible or emergent, how can a physical matter produce consciousness? I seems to be quite the opposite. That is what we seem to be all investigating in our own ways.

I still haven't been able to access any of your links, but while investigating "nonorthogonal states" (a difficult subject) I came across this description of panpsychism: http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cach...0007006+emergent+consciousness&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 . . . which I suspect is the variety you are interested in. I hope you can read that and let me know how well it describes your view. If that is what you are thinking, then it is definitely in conflict with my model. When I do a longer answer to you I will explain myself better.

Yes I have read it and Penrose-Hameroff’s coins it quite the way I see it. This is in agreement with the Penrose-Hameroff’s belief that consciousness is a fundamental property of reality, and has its roots in the spacetime structure at the Planck scale. The meaning of "nonorthogonal states" is coherent states. http://www.physics.mq.edu.au/~barry/research/ecs.html

 

[Rader]

While I would agree that panpsychic consciousness and the physical universe both evolved, I don't think it makes sense for the two to have evolved simultaneously. I think physics and the rest of the universe is easier to account for if they came after the evolution of consciousness. Over the next three posts I’ll explain why (hey, you might be right, this could be the longest thread in history . . . well, excepting the epic battles between Lifegazer and Tom in the old days).

This is kind of like answering a book

I want to try and be carefull with my words so I do not mislead you. When I say, panpsychic consciousness and the physical universe both evolved together, that is, the physcial world evolved just the way we observe and measure it but panpsychic consciousness evolves matter and each jump in complexity, it seems to be more aware of itself.

In the link I provided above:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cach...0007006+emergent+consciousness&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 is P.A. Zizzi’s paper, Emergent Consciousness: From the Early Universe to Our Mind. His use of “emergence” isn’t from brain physiology as functionalists believe, but initially from the entire universe at the moment of inflation, and now in biology. Actually I think this version of panpsychism is very exciting, but not because it is going to solve the “hard problem” of consciousness (since, as I will argue below, it doesn’t), but because it lends support to my model. To explain, let’s consider the last part of Zizzi’s paper:

Actually, I think I said before, the hard problems might just be we do not realize, we do not have rocks in our heads. Why is it so much more amazing to you when you watch the sun rise over the horizon than watching it on TV? You know our heads and a TV have a lot in common. Yes, do not get exited over my statements. What I mean is, could consciosness be searching for something. Every level of complexity is more consciously aware.

So what do I find exciting? I’ll start with an analogy. Let's say there was a small, isolated tribe of Indians living 10,000 years ago in one of Earth’s forests. Every day an advanced alien planet in another universe projects a light to a spot in the forest. Tribal members find that when they stand in the light, they grow in intellect and wisdom. Those Indians predisposed to the intellect grow stronger intellectually from the light, while those Indians predisposed to wisdom grow more wise from the light. After several generations of Indians being exposed to the light, they decide to investigate exactly what causes that light. The intellect Indians lead the study and finally proclaim they know what causes it. They present their findings to the tribe where in minute detail they describe the light technology, how a black hole is used to time travel and bridge the two universes, the quantum factors taken advantage of, the Boolean algebra involved, the projection algorithms employed, and so on. When they finish, the wisdom Indians have a problem with the intellect Indians’ model. They say that while the intellect Indians have explained the mechanics of the connection, they haven’t explained why the light boosts intellectual ability and wisdom.

Which means they have answered the how but not the why. Science can and will keep answering the hows. Do you "KNOW the "WHY" Or better said can you "FEEL" the "WHY". I really would like to understand your analogy, you seem to imply, there is no other way but to experience union?

Similarly, quantum panpsychism is exciting in that it seems to offer hope for explaining the mechanisms which allow consciousness to interact with matter, but it doesn’t explain what comes through matter as consciousness.

We know what comes through from our own experience. What comes through is a trinity of things. A more knowing mind, a more aware consciousness and a more complex lifeform.

You said “I do not like that word either ‘emergentism’, and want to discuss that with Les, it seems to contradict his model but I think he is referring to panpsychic consciousness that evolves, not that which always was.” I have probably been too creative with my use of the term, but what I meant was that consciousness developed first, and then emerged through physical systems. To relate that to Zizzi’s model, I would have a huge sphere of consciousness surrounding the area that is now our universe, and with the universe’s quantum arrangement such that consciousness could “emerge” through into the physical realm. To avoid further confusion with more popular meanings of both emergent and panpsychism, from now on I will refer to my emergent theory as transemergence and for my panpsychic model transemergent panpsychism.

OK you seemed to be describing consciousness as if it was physcal. Its the physcial systems that evolves and emerges. Concsiousness emerges through because priori it constructs the matter in which to express itself. This is why Shan work, caught my interest, something interacts, that binds the metaphysical with the physcal and it is measurable.

SEE DIAGRAM 8
In the diagra the universe is portrayed within a consciously evolved area of the infinite illumination continuum. Notice the panpsychic realm approximates the human model of consciousness.
If I am excited by the promise of quantum panpsychism explaining the mechanisms of transemergence, I see no reason to hope it will explain consciousness, which as of now it fails to do utterly and completely. The reason why Zizzi (and likely Shan too) think quantum realities will account for consciousness is revealed in Zizzi’s statement, “Thus, we make the conjecture that the post-inflationary universe starts to organize itself, very likely as a classical Cellular Automata, and necessarily produces self-similar computing systems (our minds).”

What you want to know is where conciousness originated. Can anyone know that? I would be satisfied first to incorporate consciousness in a TOE with gravity and then maybe in a million years ask that question. You are not satisfied that you can experience it and others can measure it?

Zizzi believes consciousness is computing power, and granted, the quantum model might explain that aspect of the human mind (actually, that is another exciting aspect of the theory). But which quantum aspects are going to explain the experience of qualia, love, knowing, wisdom, self awareness? If you read my thread simulating a debate between Daniel Dennett and the Buddha, I argued that if consciousness is the result of the mind’s “busy-ness,” then shouldn’t a still mind become unconscious? The same would apply here too -- that if computing power (and memory of course) establishes consciousness, then shouldn’t a non-computing (and non-remembering) mind be unconscious? Yet we know that isn’t the case at all (at least in a mature consciousness).

Yes I followed your thread and uderstood it, and even though I shun it, do understand the point of view of all of you who love to debate the "hard problem" But does anyone understand my view of no rocks in the head? Can the sun shine through a rock?

So as far as I can tell, the quantum panpsychic model in the end is not much different that the functionalist model; it is merely funtionalism transferred to the universe as a whole. It is to first define consciousness as a computer so that what really defines consciousness doesn’t have to be accounted for by physics.

That quite funny the way you put it. :surprise: There is a big difference, between a physcial sturcture creating a non-physcial structure and a non-physcial structure creating physcial sturcture.

I believe there is only one reason we are not agreeing right now, and that is because of my experiences of union. I would theorize that everything quantum panpsychists are hoping can be demonstrated through QSC is because science is looking for what is most basic to our existence. Now, what do you think those taking the QSC approach assume is most basic? The quantum world; and they think that because quantum factors are most basic to physical existence.

I do not know what there thinking but my interpretation is "Mind" They will not find nuts and bolts.

However, because of my experience of illumination, I believe there is something more basic than quantum factors. Quantum panpsychists don’t know about it, so they relate to what their experience tells them is most basic. I have to argue, quantum factors may be most fundamental to physics, but illumination is most fundamental to quantum factors. This is precisely why I introduced the transemergent illumination panpsychism model, and the empirical evidence acquired from union experience.

So is there a Buddist physicist out there, doing what we are both thinking right now reading this.

To further explain why I think an illumination-based transemergent panpsychism model makes more sense than the quantum panpsychic model, I’ll use another of your posts.

next page>

 

[Les Sleeth]

This is kind of like answering a book

I am not sure when I can answer, but I am very much enjoying your answers (and I want to answer Fliption first). I will need to ask a few questions however, because I am not sure what your perspective is (and I guess I really don't understand what you mean by rocks in the head).

Oh yeah, happy birthday . . . OMG, you are OLD! :surprise:

 

[Les Sleeth]

Hi Les, Moonbear, Rader et al, I heard about this thread and was curious so I dropped in and read quite a few of the posts, which had ideas that were often new to me.

Thank you Marcus for contributing. It was nice of you to in light of the fact that you aren't too interested in this sort of philosophical speculation.

It seems to me that there must be quite a few people out there who are groping for what you could call "empirical spirituality" . . .
. . . maybe people need to figure out how to harmonize their committment to empiricism

This probably sounds like a strange question, but do you remember what it was like to be a child, before your mind began to be shaped by people's influences and life's experiences? I ask that because so many times I wish no one had ever heard the word "spirituality" or God or any of it.

Maybe sometime someone experienced something which people later labeled spiritual or God. Those labeling-people developed concepts about it without any experience of their own, created philosophies about what it means, etc. Then today, when someone wants to refer to the original experience, people listening think he is talking about the non-experiencer's ideas.

Probably the most important thing I wanted to do with this thread was to ask people to reflect on conscious experience. In some earlier thread Canute pointed out to me that the term "empircal" means experience, specifcally to link personal experience to the pursuit of knowledge. His point was that there is no qualifier for how we experience or what avenues we use . . . all of it might lead to knowledge of some sort and therefore be empirical.

So what experience can we trust to give us knowledge? In science, we use sense experience. Is that the extent of human experiential potential? To make this point is why I asked if you remembered being a child. I can say to a child, "look with your eyes, listen with your ears, taste with your tongue, smell with your nose, feel with your skin . . . do you notice what information it gives you?" The child will easily recognize that. But then I can also say without making the child suspicious or defensive, "Look inside, at that part of you which is receiving information through the senses. Notice how sensitive it is, what a feeling thing it is and, especially, how much it wants to feel good.

Now, the child won't get into a big discussion about this, or need to think about it, he/she will simply feel and know. The child right away grasps feeling good. The importance of this, in my insignificant opinion, is what true philosophy is about. Yes we have a wonderful computer built into our mind, but as Moonrat pointed out, we also have a powerful feeling nature which cannot be denied without distorting, making shallow, or perverting consciousness.

I believe we are consciousness, and that ultimately the role of true philosophy is to discover what consciousness needs in order to feel good, healthy, content, actualized and happy.

So there is objective and subjective . . . we can be excited about the nature of the universe, and we can also be the same way about the nature of consciousness because that is about us. (Hey, I'm in a philosophical mood tonight!)

 

[selfAdjoint]

As far back as I can remember (late 3's) I have been trying to figure things out in a materialistic way. I do remember delight in early morning dew on cobwebs and flowers, but I think I am really depleted in innate "sensawunda".

 

[Rader]

answer part II

(. . . continued) As existential stuff, the Source is a cache of the one essence of all existence. It is the base substance of all that exists, and is a single, uncreated and indestructible vibrant light, which in its absolute ground state dwells in a homogeneous, unbounded, and infinitely extended continuum. In other words, the Source is an infinite “ocean” of vibrant luminescence (illumination). Such an inference provides a good test for itself because nothing can possibly exist which doesn’t reflect the base nature of this absolute essence. Source illumination is what any and everything ultimately is, and as such shouldn’t be thought of as another item to be added to the list of existence’s basic ingredients. Source illumination is rather an unrecognized state of existence—the absolute ground state which can be reduced no further. It is unrecognized because when in that primordial state, Source illumination, by definition, must be more subtle than all forms of itself. Since any apparatus we might invent to detect Source illumination is a “form” of Source illumination, that makes devices incapable of registering the Source’s formlessness.

The Source is the ultimate foundational principle because it is to propose that everything springs from some single, absolute base. It’s logical that manifest creation has some unmanifested foundational condition; and a useful way to think about that facet of the Source is to have it represent potentiality. Stated as a principle we might say: all that exists in time must be preceded by the potential for it to exist. This point is not mere sophistry, but a logical observation about things that have beginnings. In the case of our universe, it apparently did have a beginning, and therefore all the basic properties which allow it to exist must have been present in the potential that preceded it coming into existence. Since all we know to exist (the universe) originated there, the Source of creation represents absolute potential (not that absolute potential means the potential for anything, just all the potential there is).

If the absolute potentiality of the Source is the bottom line, the base reality, the true nature of all, then it retains the raw substance and base conditions that serve as the foundation of our universe. At the ground state of the Source, all is “one” (i.e., one essence and nature) and therefore the attempt to show how the “oneness” of Source illumination becomes the great variety of things that exist is an exercise in practical monism.

For the illumination model first we will interpret oneness to mean that everything is composed of and determined by the same base substance: atoms, the ground we stand on, the clouds floating by, the crawling bugs and soaring birds, rocks, the thoughts we think, logic, dust, light, bad moods, will power, decomposing fruit, sexuality, happiness, life itself, truth, time, space, nuclear forces, gravity . . . everything! It is fairly easy to see how physical things and forces, like rocks or gravity, might have a common essence, but it’s not so easy to apply the oneness concept to intangibles like truth or time or space.

Next, because everything shares a common ground state (or “essence”}, the oneness of the Source is also how we explain certain of its unifying and singular qualities. For example, to be truly one, Source illumination must exist everywhere (it’s infinite), and without temporal limitation (it is eternal). Since in its primordial state this essence would exist, logically, as one infinite and eternal ocean of vibrant illumination, then all the things we observe or know in creation, like stars and planets, would be interpreted as being temporary forms Source illumination has taken. Based on these ideas, what we call space in our universe, for example, is a section of the Source illumination ocean which contains no matter and appears as a void to us because illumination in its ground state is too subtle to be detected by the senses or other direct physical means.

Another way to represent the oneness of the Source ocean is with the principle of absolute homogeneity. Absolute homogeneity means there are no spaces (not anywhere) because Source illumination exists uninterrupted in every possible direction, and for all time, from the infinite smallest to the infinite largest measurement. Almost analogous to absolute homogeneity would be something like a body of water because water’s composition appears to be continuous and uniform; however, if it were possible to shrink oneself down to the size of a hydrogen atom, one would see that in reality there are areas between water molecules where no water molecules exist, so water cannot accurately be used to analogize absolute homogeneity.

The rule of absolute homogeneity, then, concerns the nature of oneness and (in creation) the relation of created things and oneness all to each other. That is, there cannot be a beginning or end or suspension of the Source, whether in time-space or in the absolute. If there existed a time when the Source did or would not exist, or if a zillion zillion light years away a boundary could be found, or if there were places where something else besides Source illumination existed (even if only an infinitesimally minute bubble of nothingness), then the Source would not be truly one (since something other than illumination would exist).

For these reasons the term absolute homogeneity refers to the impossibility of any type of discontinuity in the Source, and consequently determines that illumination in its primal condition must reside in an eternal and infinitely vast ocean. Additionally, since there can be no spatial breach, the forms of illumination (like a planet or ourselves, as well as our universe as a whole) are understood to not only be composed of and within the primordial ocean of illumination, but also wholly connected to (or one with) it. In the above water analogy, for example, we would say that the molecules of water (like every created thing of the universe) are composed of concentrated illumination, and that the so-called “space” between water molecules is occupied by (less dense) illumination as well.

Thats quite a philosophic romantic real description of your experience. I enjoyed reading it very much. I can not see how such depth, could only come from anything but continual inbeded experience. I have through pure thougt, it seems to me, to have tried to, experience the like, but probably not, what you have. Can you imagine another dimension, besides the 4 we experience? Not hardly, it seems not to be in the scope of the human mind. Then of course men can not be in other heads, so we really do not know what's in there. Thinking about thinking, is my own personal way of relaxing. There is a dimension, for which I call it the fifth and last. To put it simply it is the big and small dimension. Imagine the big, the end of the horizon of the cosmos expanding, imagine the small, the infinitely small plank scale. Imagine moving between the end of the cosmos and the plank scale, by the wish of command. Imagine everywhere and everytime by the wish of your command being together. There is something there, no need for senses, just calmess and pure thought. There is a deep sense of knowing something, what is it? Nothing is being calculated or observed or measured, just known. Most would say, how foolish, it is to think you know something without using your common sense?

Ontologically speaking, this Source theory is claiming for itself the most powerful of all existence principles such as, for instance, the long-pondered mystery of first cause. When trying to explain the origin of creation, its “first cause” is hard to account for because whatever first cause is proposed, whether it be God or quantum fluctuations of nothingness, the question inevitably comes back to: “. . . but what caused that?” In the illumination model however the issue is naturally solved because in the Source we’ve postulated a forever-existing, uncaused base substance and potentiality. As the first cause the Source accordingly defines whatever is absolute. The Source is absolute in the sense there is nothing more basic or greater than it; there is nothing before or beyond it; there can be no discontinuance of it; there is nothing that is not a manifestation of it; and there is no appearance or behavior which is not 100% (i.e., absolutely) determined by it. Absoluteness turns the spotlight back once again on existence because we can now see that existence, all existence, is ultimately decided by what Source illumination is; in fact, Source illumination is existence because it cannot not exist! Consequently it follows that existence, in the Source, is eternal, is complete potentiality, is absolute—in short, true existence is fully positive.

Does God or quantum fluctuations of nothingness need a cause? We are making a human supposition. Cause exists in the classical picture of the macro world. The quantum world arrises from the very source which we are trying to imagine.
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[Rader]

answer part 3

part two was a little long so it got stuck in part 3

There could not be more bottomless ideas to contemplate than those associated with the Source, nor logically confounding. How, for example, does one ponder something that is everywhere and determines everything but cannot be observed, and which is so real it can’t cease to exist yet is also the antithesis of what we understand as substantive? And especially, how does one contain with concepts, delimit or define that which is uncontainable, unlimited and therefore indefinable? The danger one faces when developing assumptions for and reasoning about the Source is allowing the discussion to degenerate into a rationalistic exercise. This is the exact reason why if one is determined to reason about the Source (i.e., as opposed to pursuing the direct experience of it), using Source illumination in an inductive model of the universe may be the best way to test its absolute, if obscure, preeminence.

Can one developing assumptions for and reasoning about certain aspects of the Source, generate into a rationalistic exercise, of comprehension of the "Source". There seems to be only one difference between you and I, in the sense that we do not know what's in either ones head, because we have not had each others experience, or did we? So is knowing just pure faith?

(. . . continued) So, the “connectivity” you spoke of above is the oneness of illumination. And what is a “point”? It is not separate, but is rather a location within the panpsychic continuum; imagine a perspective that converges on or diverges from a “position,” and that is a point. Your concern that what affects one point must affect all I think is only true in the relationship of a point to the whole. My theory is, that a point and the “whole” of the panpsychic realm are exact opposites. One is specific, the other is general respectively. Any change in the general realm affects all points within it, but any change to one point has minimal effects to the whole and therefore to other points.

We know that a point can not be defined, it is a continuam. It is a mentalistic way of thinking to define the physcial world. You can do that exercise by continually drawing smaller maps of the coastline of England, to find all the coves.

The second problem, that of the physical world and panpsychism evolving together is more difficult to explain. Mostly it is still related to which is easier to first develop: physics or consciousness. If my monistic idea of a Source is correct, then anything which develops within it is more likely to evolve the closer to the nature of illumination it is. From my experience of illumination in union, consciousness appears to be illumination gently differentiated as sensitivity, concentration, and a core which retains full homogeneity. But matter, on the other hand, is anything but “gently differentiated.”

For example, one problem with having the universe bubbling up from quantum fluctuations of nothingness is explaining energy. The sophistry of the zero point energy concept does not account for the huge amount of energy packed into matter in our universe, nor the dark energy that’s expanding it ever and ever faster. The spontaneous quantum fluctuations we observe now in the universe are little more than the appearance and immediate disappearance of virtual particles, which isn’t exactly powerful enough to generate a big bang.

Then you do not see that, energy would need only be, the infinite potentiality that you spoke about the source possessing?

One reason for assuming there was a big bang is because the universe is expanding. Since observing that the rate of expansion is increasing, dark energy has been assumed present in the fabric of space; the reason the energy is called “dark” is because so far we can’t associate it with any form of matter. The energy of a photon, for instance, determines its oscillation rate. If a photon loses energy, its oscillation rate slows but still remains light which proves light and energy are two different things. The truth is, no one knows what energy is, and no one knows what light is. But using my model, the answer is really very simple, and supported by observed facts. “Light” (as photons) is compressed illumination; compress illumination more and you get an atom.

The reason that the universe appears to be expanding, are many and factually documentated. They all have one thing in common, the measurement is from inside this universe. Has anyone measured it from outside this universe? If you measured this from outside the universe, and the Source was all there was, is it going anywhere but to the Source? It has been postulated that dark matter or energy is decreasing, as knowledge and anthropy increases, that sounds like more packaging of illumination. As the foton looses energy, does it exchange information, in order to build new forms?

But what is capable of such intense compression? Here is where I say the illumination monistic theory has the advantage. If consciousness developed first, and if our own consciousness reflects the general nature of consciousness, then we can see part of what we can do is concentrate.

Now imagine a consciousness developing in the infinite, eternal Source. Once it gets going, it has eternity to evolve. How “big” can it get? The terms “big and small” don’t make any sense in relation to infinity, so our universe might be downright microscopic in relation to the panpsychic realm this model predicts it is within. But a more important question is: how evolved can it get? Well, there is no limit when an entity has eternity, infinity, an indestructible essence, and unlimited resources and power from which to develop characteristics.

What you seem to be describing is panpsychic consciousness, exponentially growing to become totally self aware of itself, through forms.

So if that panpsychic consciousness decided it wanted to evolve individual “points” within itself, then it might create an individuating tool that isolated the point within a system (CSN), and which directed it “outward” away from its panpsychic origin. The illusory sense of separation from something whose nature is oneness would create a longing, and that in turn might create the striving to reunite. If a point were, from its own desire, to reunite with the oneness of its origin, then it would attain something which must seem truly “mystical” to us: individual consciousness and oneness with its consciousness origin . . . or its “father” in “heaven” . . . or “in-light-enment” in “nirvana . . . or “surrendered” to “Allah” . . . or however someone experiencing that oneness decides to express it.

So then you mean, illumination has a purpose? To know itself through its forms.

In conclusion, I would say that the potential for the explanation of human consciousness is not going to be found in quantum models alone, or in illumination models alone because a human is the joining of something temporal and something eternal. Until experts on both side realize this, all we are going to get is either a mechanistic model, or a flaky and unrealistic model.

I think that both models demonstate that if one knows it, all will eventually know it.

 

[marcus]

As far back as I can remember (late 3's) I have been trying to figure things out in a materialistic way. I do remember delight in early morning dew on cobwebs and flowers, but I think I am really depleted in innate "sensawunda".

irony? modesty? well you are the authority about your state of mind

figuring things out in a materialistic way is coupled (as i see it) with the strongest and surest sensawonda
I can't think of anyone that made the point better than Feynmann, perhaps you know some other author (since people tire of always hearing Feynman made the exemplar)

you get to see the dewdrops in the spiderweb and you also get to imagine the intermolecular forces that minimize surface area and make a dewdrop

and you get to ask how big is a spider's brain and how did she know to make the web and how did that geometry evolve----evolution of beautiful forms is an awesome big sensawonda

and what makes the thread so strong

and how does the sky get reflected in the dewdrop
and is the bright glint an image of the sun

so the more materialistic you are the more sensawonda you get
(which Feynman pointed out with the example of the sunset---I get to paint a picture of it if I want and I ALSO get to understand why its red----or the example of the richness of his experience of the seashore I forget in what piece of writing----Feynmann has a memoir about his father, who ran a costume/uniform sales and rental business and seems to'v been a wise man)

this is a cliche isn't it?

when you start giving abstract or immaterial explanations to the 3 year old don't you start eroding the sensawonda?----I wonda

 

[selfAdjoint]

Marcus, it was just that Les had posted about going back to The Child, and what the Child feels, and I just wanted to point out that as a Child I didn't follow the program. My experiences then seem like my experiences here and now. I couldn't get anybody interested in the fact that the Moon is often visible in the daytime, although the Bible defines it as a light to light the night.

For that matter when I look at my 3 year old granddaughter, I can see she's a little materialist from the git-go. She's all about naive physics, and labelling, and counting.

 

[Les Sleeth]

In trying to understand the distinction you've made with the 3 components of consciousness I found myself trying to assign actual experiences I've had into each of the categories but then second guessed myself as I read further. For example, Embedded retention is:

"That which we’ve felt/sensed and paid attention to, whether to purposely learn and remember or from repetition (such a driving the same route to work everyday), becomes entrenched in consciousness as memory. Unless reinforced, this retention will fade over time."

The first thing I thought was "this is like studying for the CPA exam". You're just cramming stuff in trying to retain it long enough to take the test and pass it. This stuff certainly won't be retained for too long. But the whole idea behind forcing CPA's to pass this exam is because during this retention process they actually have to go through lots of processes of "understanding" many different topics which will allow them to "recollect" the topics more quickly should they ever need to go back and reference them.

But it is "integration" that has reserved itself for "understanding". In this case it would be the "mentality engendered" integration. So is studying for the CPA not an example of embedded retention or are we saying that accountants don't really understand what they're being tested on?

I’ll explain the mechanism more after your next quote, but I am suggesting that we embed before we understand. My wife is an accountant, and she tells me about how some clerks get confused about logging credits and debits. I think if one studied that in a single accounting class, say as part of a business degree, and then didn’t get to use it until working as a clerk some years later, one might have the principle embedded without really understanding how to apply it. My wife is a wizard at it, and understands what to do with any bit of financial information she has to deal with. I am sure there came a point after accumulating lots of accounting experience, where she “understood” the overall system as well as understanding bits and pieces all along the way.

So the model is that we retain information with one part of consciousness, while a more central part is trying to integrate that into the deeper retention mode of understanding. That is why it is very possible to pass a test on information one doesn’t yet understand.

Perhaps I have made this too simplistic by trying to assign an experience to each type of retention. Perhaps it is much more complicated than that? Perhaps a single experience that I would label "taking the CPA" involves all three aspects of consciousness? In this case it almost seems to be some fusion of embedded retention and mentality engendered integration. Am I misunderstanding these concepts? Initially, I was going to suggest an example for every category would be helpful but trying to assign a clean-cut experience to each one may actually be the problem.

You’ve not made it simplistic at all; actually, you are thinking like I am recommending with the empirical induction model. If you recall, my criticism of philosophy, and especially metaphysics, is that often it is too rationalistic and/or too speculative. An important aspect to the idea of empirical induction is to link experience to reason in every way one can. Yes, we are still theorizing, but at least it is guided and restrained by experience.

In the case of sensation, retention and integration, I proposed those after reflecting on my own experience with my consciousness both in terms of how it “looks” in union and how it works for me daily. From my experience, I’ve come to believe consciousness is illumination, with the counterbalanced periphery and core I modeled. That model serves as the metaphysical design behind human consciousness, its metastructure. Assuming (for modeling purposes) the metastructure is correct, then I reasoned it must be intertwined with the nervous system, and the nervous system should reflect that. Observing the left and right brain, one can see they are dedicated to activity that could be associated with the metastructure I proposed of concentration and sensitivity differentiation; also in line with the metastructure is how the senses seem to provide a sensitivity surrounding while inside we concentrate (or not) on information the senses are physically detecting. The metastructural idea of “embedded” is paralleled by memory, and so on.

So trying to relate my explanation to your own experience is exactly what I hope people will do (and after all, that’s how I came up with it myself). That is the best test in my opinion for an empirical induction model, especially for consciousness since we are consciousness ourselves and can easily contemplate it if we want to.

2. This model involves panpsychism which makes the claim that all things have psychic properties. In one part of your post you made a distinction between "life" and other forms of matter. I believe you say that non biological matter has not been shown to be able to self organize and build upon itself layers of complexity. It can replicate but eventually repeats the same patterns. But in light of your model and accepting that all matter is created by and from consciousness, are we really saying that non biological matter cannot self organize or are we saying that it chooses not to because it isn't the most fruitful path for emergence? I don't want to put words into your mouth so I'm asking the question in this way to make sure I understand.

If you look at Diagram 8, you can see I do have the universe within the panpsychic realm, but that doesn’t mean matter is conscious. If I had made that drawing correct, it would resemble the human model of consciousness; and to be conscious, according to the illumination model, requires the three dimensions of sensitivity, concentration, and the undifferentiated core. Although I didn’t say so in my original post, I think the human nervous system simulates the panpsychic metastructure, and projects a miniversion of that through biology:

SEE DIAGRAM 9

Diagram 9 has the core much larger because it is assumes lots of evolution has taken place. There is also an area between the extremes of polarization I call the interpolar field, and that’s where I have the universe is located. That field is an area between the polar extremes of concentration and sensitivity differentiation, a zone of harmonized convergent-divergent forces. In the drawing notice the representation of the extreme limits of contraction and expansion. It means that in differentiation we should anticipate a tightening of illumination convergence at the extreme inside border of concentration, and (to counterbalance the density of convergence) a significant extension of illumination divergence at the extreme outside border. The interpolar field sits in between these two polar extremes and is created by the pull of each differentiated realm on either side of it:

SEE DIAGRAM 10

That area is where I suggest the universe is situated. If so, then every single aspect of the universe – quantum factors, nuclear forces, atomic configurations, gravity, relativity, the constancy of light speed, energy, time etc. -- should be able to be explained by interpolar field dynamics (I think I can explain them too). For example, consider the Big Bang:

SEE DIAGRAM 11

Interpreting the drawing from the bottom, the Big Bang is explained as due to the convergence of an area of the interpolar field (which, because concentration is basis of the illuminative entity, should be possible). There is convergence until the point of the Big Bang, and then the universe is in the grip of divergence. Matter is interpolar field illumination still compressed, and energy is the force of decompression both in between large masses of matter of galaxies causing expansion (i.e., “dark energy”) and also that trapped inside the tiny differentiated oscillators we call atoms (the wave in the center of each figure represents vibrancy accentuated by compression to cause oscillation). If so, it is obvious why we cannot observe energy itself, but merely it’s effect as movement power.

However, to answer your question, since in my model I describe matter as compressed, oscillating, differentiated illumination of the interpolar field, and since each bit of matter (atoms and other particles) lacks its own evolving core of illumination, then matter is not conscious even if it is under the influence of consciousness.

(I've answered your third question two posts from here. )

 

[Les Sleeth]

Marcus, it was just that Les had posted about going back to The Child, and what the Child feels, and I just wanted to point out that as a Child I didn't follow the program. My experiences then seem like my experiences here and now. I couldn't get anybody interested in the fact that the Moon is often visible in the daytime, although the Bible defines it as a light to light the night.

For that matter when I look at my 3 year old granddaughter, I can see she's a little materialist from the git-go. She's all about naive physics, and labelling, and counting.

It seems too bad that we may feel we have to choose between the two realms. I don't feel that way now, but I remember what I was first attracted to as a child put me at odds with physicalistic understanding. We lived in the country, and I used to go out at night and spend hours looking up at the universe. I wondered what its Source was, and became obsessed with that. I was forced to go to church, so in Sunday school I kept trying to turn every scripture around so we could talk more about the Source. Sadly, no one knew anything about it experientially; in fact most of them didn't even know why they believed what they did, which is why I became an atheist at age 11 (later I decided that because religion is silly doesn't mean there isn't "something more" than physics).

Now, here at Pf, the physicalist perspective tends to be content with the fact that the universe is here, and studying it (which is a good thing). Where did it come from? Well, maybe a quantum fluctuation did it, even though that is about as credible as Adam, Eve, and the garden of Eden. Still, I understand the interest.

I theorize some of us are born with certain predilections, and that might come to dominate what we focus on early in life. But now as an adult, I've found that understanding the physical nature of the universe is fun, and doesn't interfere even slightly with my inner practice. Likewise, I can't understand how experiencing more deeply what's inside should interfere with understanding the physical universe.

You say that "as a Child I didn't follow the program." Good for you, neither did I. But I would bet my inheritance (if I had one) that if you were a healthy child (I mostly mean psychologically) you were open and happy like all healthy children. I'd bet you can see it in your grandchild right now, no matter what her predisposition for understanding is. That is the child I was referring to.

My point is, there is our intellect and brain, and there is how we feel. We both might go to the ocean that's roaring about 9 miles away from where I live, and I might enjoy it so deeply I can't speak, and you might sit there trying to figure out what the white stuff is all over that huge rock out in the water. If a person can do both, that is wonderful. But if a person has become so obsessed with trying to figure out how everything works, or so spaced out from getting off on the ocean (or whatever), that he's lost touch with the wholeness of his nature, then I think that's too bad.

The inner experience, when it is real, is a method for turning inward to experience more deeply one's being. It enhances sensitivity to things, it brings contentment, it makes one happy. All that is good if you ask me, and should not interfere with understanding how things work.

But there is help for the intellect too, because I'd say the inner experience tends to reveal the macro view of things, the "whole." Now, that perspective when combined with reductive thinking can be quite a team.

I guess I am saying there is no reason for the two realms to be at odds even if they each have very different rules for realizing them. They are both part of the human consciousness dimension, and each offers great rewards when developed properly.

 

[Les Sleeth]

so the more materialistic you are the more sensawonda you get
(which Feynman pointed out with the example of the sunset---I get to paint a picture of it if I want and I ALSO get to understand why its red----or the example of the richness of his experience of the seashore I forget in what piece of writing----Feynmann has a memoir about his father, who ran a costume/uniform sales and rental business and seems to'v been a wise man) . . .

when you start giving abstract or immaterial explanations to the 3 year old don't you start eroding the sensawonda?----I wonda

I agree with what you included in your post, as I just posted to selfAdjoint (how did he come up with that handle anyway?), but you left out what my point is.

You can do the painting, you can see the painting, and you can understand its mechanics, just as you say. If you go to the trouble of painting it, you will also want to appreciate the experience while and after you do it.

Let's distinguish between things a bit. Painting itself involves skills, understanding of perspective, paints, etc.; seeing involves the physical senses; and of course understanding what color is relies on the intellect. All fun stuff. Van Gogh did much that, and was was so miserable he killed himself. Do you think if he could have understood about wavelengths of EM that would have brightened his day?

What was wrong with Van Gogh's appreciation? Two people can have exactly the same thing, and one experiences deep appreciation, while the other is miserable no matter what he has.

Now, it just so happens that there have been people who figured out something about the part of us that appreciates. They found a way to experience it, to actually practice experiencing it. What that does is develop and make more prevalent that part of us. It is sad to say, but it is just about the last thing most people are paying attention to, which is one reason why there are so many discontent people in the world.

Regarding the child, I wasn't talking about giving him/her abstract explanations, but rather stimulating a child's curiosity in the inner direction. I do that every chance I get with children, but I also try to get them to understand how things work. The inner thing isn't at odds with intellectual curiosity! It is the companion, the friend inside who wants to be happy when things are quiet, in solitude. It wants to be at peace and to enjoy life deeply WHILE one understands it.

 

[Les Sleeth]

3. Another question I have has to do with the general pool of knowledge that exists in the core. After reading and understanding this idea I would have guessed that this means that all things created from this "entity" would share this knowledge because the core is supposed to be homogenous. Yet you suggested later in your post that it might be possible that there is a section for dogs, cats etc. which contradicts what I would have guessed. How can the homogenous core have distinguished sections of knowledge? Is it possible that dogs do have access to knowledge of laughing and loving but just don't have the "equipment" to make any sense or use of it? To use your analogy, the same force(knowledge) is blowing into the instrument, but the instrument isn't shaped correctly to produce the potential sound(love) that the force can produce. At my level of understanding, this seems more consistent and less problematic then talking about distinctions in a homogenous core so maybe there is something I haven't understood.

I would predict that the evolution of the “whole” core and individual points within it are separate developments. I was suggesting that one might imagine certain areas would contain “points” that are related to the same level of consciousness; but now that I think about it, I don’t suppose that would be necessary since each point is developing individually.
But you raise a good point, so let me offer another diagram to develop this idea more because I think is really important to the illumination theory:

SEE DIAGRAM 12

According to the model, the core is our “heart,” it is where our center resides. In fact, the location of that element of consciousness is not really even in the physical universe. The universe, the body, the brain which teaches us to think and creates the sense of separation from the core . . . are all located in the interpolar field.

The very first time a point enters biology, it would have never experienced separation from the oneness of the core. We might suppose such lack of individuality is suited for one-celled life; looking up the scale of central nervous system life, one can see ever greater self awareness. The idea is that biology is working to individuate a point in the panpsychic core, and as it does, that point becomes more and more awake both as an individual and to what its nature really is. Taking this to the idea of union, I suggest that those instances of “enlightenment” by individuals such as the Buddha and Jesus have been their full awakening to where there own heart was located, and what it is they are.

Les, you seem to think that if science could prove something in a quantum experiment related to consciousness then consciousness would be physical. It seems obvious to me that consciousness interacts with the physical somehow. Even though we may never be able to see consciousness, you don't believe we can even seen it's causal impact? It seems you have already noticed yourself that something is missing in the emergentism view since you've taken the time to come up with your model. Perhaps the science version of seeing the same thing is simply to show that consciousness has an impact at the quantum level? Understanding "how" that mechanism works may never happen for all the reasons you suggests but it seems logical to me that science could in principle see a "difference" in results. Have I misunderstood you on this?

I meant that if a physical device could actually reveal the underlying nature of consciousness (i.e., not just its functions), then consciousness must be physical. But while considering Radar’s points I realized that consciousness and the material must connect somehow, somewhere for biology to exist, and that is likely at the quantum level. If some method were developed for observing the physical side of that connection, that would be incredibly exciting. Of course, I’d be worried that committed physicalists will interpret that connecting point as meaning quantum behavior is causing consciousness, (which seems what they are already doing with the most popular panpsychic model). The idea of what I am calling transemergence isn’t even being considered.

 

[marcus]

Marcus, it was just that Les had posted about going back to The Child, and what the Child feels, and I just wanted to point out that as a Child I didn't follow the program. My experiences then seem like my experiences here and now. I couldn't get anybody interested in the fact that the Moon is often visible in the daytime, although the Bible defines it as a light to light the night.

For that matter when I look at my 3 year old granddaughter, I can see she's a little materialist from the git-go. She's all about naive physics, and labelling, and counting.

I'm hip
mommy why are the clouds white, grandad why is the sky blue
why are the stars so little

it seems that we have both met (or been) children that didnt follow the program set out for the Child.

the underlying meaning of the word God is shut up
why is the sky blue
because God made it blue
means shut up don't ask so many questions

the 3-6 year olds I've know have been as far as I remember (in Les term) physicalist
that is to say materialist
and sometimes they have interesting minds and can ask interesting questions----not only about nature and people with their social conventions but also about language

if one of them asks what clouds are and you say the World Soul makes them so we can get rained on, well they probably won't be satisfied with that----they will keep probing. Well how does the world soul make them and why are they white and if the world soul wants them to rain why don't they always rain

when you first want to teach such children an abstract immaterial concept you probably have to use something concrete as a metaphor or example to generalize from

but it could well be that not all are such pesky question askers

I am glad you noticed that mistake in the book of genesis
gave you a good start in life
but it is great poetry----the OT is tops

 

[Les Sleeth]

the underlying meaning of the word God is shut up
why is the sky blue
because God made it blue
means shut up don't ask so many questions

. . . if one of them asks what clouds are and you say the World Soul makes them so we can get rained on, well they probably won't be satisfied with that----they will keep probing. Well how does the world soul make them and why are they white and if the world soul wants them to rain why don't they always rain

when you first want to teach such children an abstract immaterial concept you probably have to use something concrete as a metaphor or example to generalize from

but it could well be that not all are such pesky question askers

I am glad you noticed that mistake in the book of genesis
gave you a good start in life
but it is great poetry----the OT is tops

Just so you understand my position on all this, I think questions about the world deserve rational explanations, and if the question is about rain or clouds, then the answer is going to include physical factors.

Also, you might not have read what I based the modeling on for this thread, but it is the practice of a type of conscious experience, and it isn't religion. I am not religious, or "spiritual," or mysticial or whatever and never have voluntarily been. Religion isn't where I am coming from, or "beliefs" without experience, or faith, or any of that. But I have to say, if someone is answering God to every question, that is the ignorance of the person saying it, and has nothing to do with the reality of God.

The issue for this thread is the breadth and depth of human experience. When I pointed to what a child is like, maybe I didn't explain what I meant very well, so possibly that is why you've responded to something I didn't mean. That's fine I suppose if you want to change the subject from what I said, to talking about how one first learns how to think. But thinking doesn't have the slightest thing to do with what I meant.

I was trying to point to the openness of the child, the lack of conditioning; and then in a later post the natural joy of a healthy child. The child's mind is very "clean" to start off, not filled with concepts about how things are, or how things must be. That conscious state has a good side and a not so good side. The good part is that the child's mind is probably the best condition it will ever be into learn; the down side is that a child is naive and can learn things that either aren't good for him/her or is illusory.

In Zen there is a concept of "beginner's mind," where one practices returning to that open, unconditioned mind . . . back to zero. It doesn't mean to become stupid, or to forget the truths one has learned. It means to get one's mind clear of conditioning, bias, self image and egocentric illusions . . . and consequently become open.

This might sound strange, but one very powerful sort of conditioning is done by the senses. We are dependent on them for perception, and have been since birth (or before). We unabashedly participate in the sense-view of reality, and many (most people I'd say) never question the picture the senses give.

Now, they feed us information, but who is the "us" being fed? Who knows that? Socrates said "know thy self" as a secret to wisdom . . . was he talking about one's psychology, or physiology? No he wasn't, and neither were those people throughout history who undertook the practice of union. That is the empirical basis (empirical means experience) of this discussion topic, along with a type of experience other than sense experience I am suggesting gives new information about reality.

If one only uses the senses, and if the senses only reveal what's physical, then what sort of world view do you think that person will form? Physicalistic, of course. If one turns one's attention around, and learns how to more deeply experience that part of oneself which is receiving information, the "knower," then one gets a whole new experience and entirely new information to add to what the senses have been giving.

There is nothing mystical about that, or weird. That potential is present within each person; it is part of our make up, so it isn't unnatural either. Some people have become so skilled at that inner-view, they've attained it permanently; probably the Buddha was the first (no, I'm not a Buddhist). It didn't make such individuals incapable outwardly, it just added a dimension to their consciousness.

If someone only wants to rely on their senses, that's fine with me. And if all they want to look at is physical stuff, that's fine with me too (although I admit I get frustrated at physicalist metaphysical assumptions -- but then I feel the same way about religious assumptions). The only objection I've had is when they go on to talk and behave as though the physical is all there is when they've neither investigated the long history of inner achievements nor have they attempted to experience it themselves. Maybe they should say instead that the physical is all they want or care to know. Of course, I can't figure out why anyone wouldn't want to know more about themselves; I mean really, what is the risk? There is only an up side to self knowledge.

 

[Moonrat]

In Zen there is a concept of "beginner's mind," where one practices returning to that open, unconditioned mind . . . back to zero..

Returning to the mystery, the melting and synthesis of the objective and subjective and all distinctions inbetween.

 

[Royce]

Les, once again, GOOD WORK; and you leave me nothing to say or add that hasn't been said before. I can only affirm that my understanding of my experiences are much the same as your model. I see it slightly different, a different slant and would use different terminology but it is in essence the same.

A speculative question, if I may; could the outward pointing , pulsating portion of the illumination be the interactive connectivity of physical life, such as we humans, and the core be the central, dare I say it here, constant oneness of the universe, that which I would call God, but which you do not, with which we are all part of and connected to?

 

[Moonrat]

could the outward pointing , pulsating portion of the illumination be the interactive connectivity of physical life, such as we humans, and the core be the central, dare I say it here, constant oneness of the universe, that which I would call God, but which you do not, with which we are all part of and connected to?

beautiful question if you do not mind me saying..for withouth the 'outward pointing, pulsating portion' how could we ever connect in the first place? this outward connection is what creates *physical life*...as physical life creates more inward that which *connects*

 

[Les Sleeth]

A speculative question, if I may. . .

NO. Speculation is not allowed in this thread.

. . . could the . . . [be] that which I would call God, but which you do not . . . ?

Thank you for your comments and questions Royce. I want to answer you in two parts. The first part is about why I have described things as I have, and then I’ll interpret your question in terms of my model.

You are right that I avoid using the term God; and as I said to Marcus, I don’t like using terms like “spiritual” or anything else people already have a lot of concepts and opinions about. You know how it is, you say “God” and everyone starts talking about how dumb creationism is, or how illogical religious believers are.

Yet I have had this union experience. I’ve also studied a lot of people in the past famous for their innerness and discovered many of them too practiced union. Is it a coincidence that the most powerful reports about “God” stem from those in union. Jesus, for instance, said, “I and my Father are one.” But what does it mean? Those who looked at things “gross” as Jesus put it, interpreted “Father” to mean an actual father! Someone interpreted “reborn” as meaning climbing back in the womb and . . . Many think resurrection means rising up physically from the dead, etc.

It’s nearly impossible to get around such concepts when talking about God or spirituality. So my approach has been to try take the experience I think individuals had which led to their particular expression, and make that as distinct as possible from the words someone uses to describe the experience because, of course, words and concepts are not the experience itself. Consider these words by the 11th century monk Benard, “I confess, then, to speak foolishly that the Word has visited me—indeed very often. But, though He has frequently come into my soul, I have never at any time been aware of the moment of His coming . . . You will ask then how, since His track is thus traceless, I could know that He is present? Because He is living and full of energy.”

Now, what is the “Word,” what is his “soul,” how does Benard know it is a “him”? Those are terms in use in his day, in his culture. We could write it off as religious babbling, except there is something about his statement which seems linked to personal experience. When he says it is “living and full of energy,” it conveys a definite “impression” of something experiential don’t you think?

Likewise, another 11th century monastic (German) Hildegarde said, “. . . my soul has always beheld this Light; and in it my soul soars to the summit of the firmament and into a different air . . . the brightness which I see is not limited by space and is more brilliant than the radiance round the sun. . . . . sometimes when I see it . . . I seem a simple girl again, and an old woman no more!” When I read that I feel certain something is going on in her, especially since I’ve experienced something like that myself.

I relied on Christian concepts above because they are most criticized in Western culture by science types, and modern culture seems more and more inclined toward factual, accurate descriptions. When I reported that when I experience union, it seems joined to some much bigger ocean of illumination, and that the illumination seemed “generally conscious,” I relied on terms (as best I could) that are in use today. It is a way of saying “look at the experience” and decide for yourself what it is, and to minimize the verbal/conceptual aspect.

Is that illumination continuum what others have called “God”? In my opinion it is. And also in my opinion, there is no way to prove what it is to another. They have to learn how to reach it experientially just like everyone else did who has reported what the experience was “like” for them.

. . . could the outward pointing, pulsating portion of the illumination be the interactive connectivity of physical life, such as we humans, and the core be the central, dare I say it here, constant oneness of the universe, that which I would call God, but which you do not, with which we are all part of and connected to?

Of course I don’t really know how creation and consciousness are organized. The model I presented is inductively projected from the experience I have, along with others’ reports, and trying to make the way the known universe works fit with both my/others’ experience and the projected model. But relying on my model, then I’d have to make some adjustments to your statement to fit the model.

The illumination model relies foremost on my experience of brightness in union practice, and the consistent reports of brightness by other practitioners in the past. The concept of an infinite illumination continuum is part of the model because it solves a HUGE problem for theorists. It’s not that I have actually experienced it being infinite, but only that the continuum is big. But it is a practical element because is gives an answer for the source of the raw material needed to create a universe. If everything material, from energy and forces to atoms, are a form of some absolutely basic “stuff,” which was never created and can’t be destroyed, and which has the mutable potential to take all the forms present observed in the universe, then we have a means to solve the first cause problem. That is, the first cause is present in the mutability potentials of the infinite, eternal illumination continuum which has always been there.

I know most people imagine that what you call God, but which I am trying to avoid saying and so will call panpsychic consciousness, is eternal, infinite and therefore all-powerful and all-knowing. But if panpsychic consciousness is omniscient, it presents a serious logic problem which (for some reason) reminds me of the ultraviolet catastrophe which plagued pre-quantum physicists. If panpsychic consciousness has always existed, then as predicted it must be all-knowing; but if it is all knowing, then how can anything new in the realm of consciousness be happening? Everything that can be done will have been done, everything that can be known will have been known. Yet here we are learning and developing, and we are consciousness.

So it is more logical that the panpsychic consciousness had a beginning. If we assume the illumination continuum is infinite and eternal, then it must follow that panpsychic consciousness developed within that, and so is finite in size and power too. Finite in general means panpsychic consciousness is not omniscient, but is rather a learning consciousness. Of course, even if the panpsychic consciousness hasn’t always existed, it can be “fowardly” eternal, which means it could have been evolving for a time span we can’t even imagine, and could be a size that is also too vast to comprehend. After all, with infinity and eternity in which to develop, there is no limitation to learning and growth.

I set that up to answer your question because panpsychic consciousness needs to be finite in order for my model to make sense. It also needs to have some sort of internal structure that differentiates it from the general, unconscious illumination continuum . . . something that makes it both conscious and an entity. I’ve proposed a type differentiation based on polarity; that is, some quantity of illumination in the infinite chaotic illumination continuum has organized itself. The basis of the organization is a periphery that is counterbalanced into two phases: an extended or diverged phase, and a concentrated or converged phase. There is an oscillatory tension between these phases which causes the entire periphery to pulsate (so the “pulse” is not outward oriented . . . it’s the diverged phase that is, and which is gives us our outward-oriented sensitivity). But in the center is a pure core of illumination, which is not subject to differentiation or pulsing. It is still.

With those three aspects, we have the means to model consciousness as it works in us. In other words, I have assumed that our consciousness is a mini-version of the panpsychic consciousness. I studied my own consciousness, both looking at its apparent polar structure and then, in union, its illuminative nature. I also noticed the pulse, and how it seemed linked to my autonomic system, and so postulated that it is through the larger, more-powerful pulse of panpsychic consciousness that a link is established between it and biology. Further, we and the universe are within the panpsychic entity; our core is a “point” inside the panpsychic consciousness core, and our biology developed in the polarized periphery of the panpsychic entity (as Diagram 12 and 10 above shows); finally (to give the overall perspective) panpsychic consciousness itself is within the infinite, eternal illumination continuum (as Diagram 8 indicates).

 

[Royce]

Actually, Les, I like your terminology and think them very apt and descriptive, at least to me. "Illumination" is very apropos and for some reason resonates with me. I too have become very reluctant to use the words "spirit" and "God" here in the PF's because of the knee jerk reactions they invoke. Rather than getting the point or thought across people are too busy reacting to the words to get the meaning or idea.

In my experiences, both with illumination, the Light, and with the void or oneness I never considered or felt an impression or perception of size or time or infinite or finite. The main experience was of light and oneness, of being free and unfettered, love and belonging (I was HOME), peace and joy. I also often felt the presence of an entity, the benevolent boss, which I took to be G_d. Thinking back I do seem to remember a pulsation but that it and I were in complete harmony and it was really a barely noticeable, unremarkable, acceptable part of the whole experience. I may have projected some of my preconceived notions into the experiences and it was of course unique to me as your experiences are to you.

I do still have a strong feeling, almost conviction that the outer realm is the interactive connectivity between the inner core, the oneness and biological life in the outer core. Possibly I am projecting or trying too hard but your model is very compelling and very much in harmony with my experiences.
It is almost as if your model is helping me recall facets of my experiences that I did not notice before and did not know that I knew until your image model drew them forth into my conscious memory. I'm sure you have had similar experiences where you hear,see, read something for the first time and your first thought is;" Oh yeah. I knew that." As for the rest, I'll have reread it and think about it for a while. I like it, your concepts, impressions and descriptions; but, I have to digest them for awhile before I can make any more comment about them. This is very deep stuff here, at the very core of our existence and being.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Thinking back I do seem to remember a pulsation but that it and I were in complete harmony and it was really a barely noticeable, unremarkable, acceptable part of the whole experience.

When I read that my entire body experienced a rush. That subtle thing you noticed, that is the background, or "breath of God" as past practitioners called it (hey, if Hawking can talk about the mind of God, then . . . ). It is exciting to hear when someone has felt it. Because it is so subtle, often people don't know that focusing on the subtle thing can carry one deep into a realm that awaits behind everything apparent.