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InvisibleSymbols
§✪λⓡɕHⒶŠƎƦ

Registered: 03/13/12
Posts: 688
"A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness."
    #15958293 - 03/17/12 01:58 AM (12 years, 14 days ago)

I read this today. What do you all think?

"I figure this is as good a place as any to write this down and share it even though it was not directly due to a psychedelic trip (though I hold my trips from a decade ago in high regard in my current thought processes today). And besides, I think you guys will get it more than [1] /r/philosophy

Humankind has a history of modeling technology after nature. That is to say, our technological achievements have not occurred due to pure imagination out of a nothingness, but are already around us and model something that already exists in the natural world. For instance, a car is the model of/ performs the same function as a horse did before the industrial revolution. An airplane models flight after birds. That is to say that man, some time before the airplane looked at a bird and thought "I want to fly too". A computer models a brain. Again, the brain works on a different level but a computer is an attempt at modeling the logical processes of the brain if nothing else - the emotional side of the brain is not attempted to be modeled within the confines of a processor.

When you link up all of the computers via the internet, you model consciousness. If you look at what the internet is, it is our story of humanity. Right now, I can find everything from the name of the third king of Hungary (it was a Pagan named Samuel if you were wondering) to the entirety of John Zorn's discography in one place. These things would have been possible in years past, but would have taken so much effort on the part of the inquirer that those questions might not even go asked. Following that backwards, we can see how books, art and oral traditions are the ancestors of our modeled consciousness today, passed down throughout the ages.

It seems as if it stops there but following this train of thought to its conclusion, we must ask, "If the internet models consciousness, what models the sub-conscious?" I believe the answer to be "reality". Everything we perceive in this current moment, from the tiniest microbe to the furthest star whose light barely reaches us is all part of the sub-conscious, which is also shared. Language is metaphor that gives us a shared framework (the French post-structuralist philosopher, Jacques Derrida champions this idea) to conceptualize this world. A chair is a chair because we have no other way to conceptualize it within the framework until we do have another way.

This leads me to the most interesting part of all of this and begs further questions and possibilities as I've always had a fascination with space exploration. If the universe is our shared sub-conscious, then the way to get into space isn't to go out of the earth's atmosphere, but in to our own minds. Is the psychonaut the evolution of the astronaut? What does a post-psychonaut world look like?"


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InvisibleEminence
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Re: "A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness." [Re: Symbols]
    #15958377 - 03/17/12 03:12 AM (12 years, 14 days ago)

I'm not really followin his logic.


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InvisibleSymbols
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Registered: 03/13/12
Posts: 688
Re: "A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness." [Re: Eminence]
    #15958387 - 03/17/12 03:26 AM (12 years, 14 days ago)

I'm not sure if I understand the logic fully either, but it seems he or she is first equating human technological inventions as a form of "biomimicry," and reversing that analysis to assume that reality (being composed of nature itself) is modeled after the human subconscious. Perhaps the implication is that exploring the mind (e.g. "reality") through thought is similar to exploring space (e.g. also "reality") through physical exploration.

I believe it was an attempt to equate psychonautism with the zeal of astronautics.


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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: "A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness." [Re: Symbols]
    #15958428 - 03/17/12 04:21 AM (12 years, 14 days ago)

Sounds like mystical handwaving.

He premises all this on the unsupported claim that technology is modeled on reality and then makes the fallacious leap to claiming reality is modeled in technology.  It is this later leap that allows him to conclude the internet's model of conciousness means the subconcious of the internet (which he never explains or justifies) is reality.

I reject all of this.  In what was is a car modeled on a horse?  In what way is an airplane modeled on a bird?  The only similarities are vague properties and uses that say nothing about the actual construction or substance of the various natural/artificial machines.

Further, he treats the subconcious as a tangible thing, rather than an abstract concept, a presumption he's provided no support for.

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InvisibleSymbols
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Registered: 03/13/12
Posts: 688
Re: "A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness." [Re: johnm214]
    #15958468 - 03/17/12 04:51 AM (12 years, 14 days ago)

Quote:

johnm214 said:
I reject all of this.  In what was is a car modeled on a horse?  In what way is an airplane modeled on a bird?  The only similarities are vague properties and uses that say nothing about the actual construction or substance of the various natural/artificial machines.





I believe the author is expounding mechanically on Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy of form follows function. The properties of locomotion, flying, typing, etc. all extract their design (albeit very gradually) from some earlier and more simpler technology, which was inspired by nature. This seems intuitive if we understand that humans started off as mere arboreal primates. The innovations we have, if not modeled after (and by) nature, from where do they come? "Mystical handwaving," as you put it, seems to be a default if we assume the brain's ingenuity doesn't use experience and observation as part of its toolkit. 

Quote:


Further, he treats the subconcious as a tangible thing, rather than an abstract concept, a presumption he's provided no support for.




Stan Grof, Jung, and other transpersonal psychologists have documented experiences and dreams that correlate with a universal human unconscious (Joseph Campbell's archetypes and myths also explored this concept). It is no more observable than the laws of nature, but several experiments suggest a large part of our consciousness - measured by neural activity - is not actually perceived by the immediate mind, and yet preserves and maintains unified/holistic "themes."

I neither reject nor ascribe to this theory, but I enjoyed the attempt to make a simile for psychonautism and astronautics.


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OfflinePrimal Call
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Registered: 09/05/10
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Re: "A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness." [Re: Symbols]
    #15962300 - 03/18/12 02:56 AM (12 years, 13 days ago)

I wouldn't call it a proof necessarily, but I like the writing nonetheless.

Additionally, shared consciousness has already been proven by a multitude of scientific experiments spanning decades. This matters not when an individual, or entire societies/civilizations for that matter, are not yet prepared to believe in such a thing.

The classic example being the earth is flat era. People that talked about this "too soon" spoke to deaf people.

The same can be said for what we still call "paranormal" abilities/skills.

:peace:


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Offlinecbub
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Re: "A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness." [Re: Primal Call] * 1
    #15962494 - 03/18/12 06:37 AM (12 years, 13 days ago)

This isn't exactly proof either, but a good reference.
I mean, this guy proved that he understands reality to the peak of our abilities.
And then he said.
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time
and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something
separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion
is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for
a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by
widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of
nature in its beauty...

-Albert Einstein

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Offlinecrkhd
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Re: "A short attempt at a proof of a shared consciousness." [Re: cbub]
    #15962791 - 03/18/12 09:54 AM (12 years, 13 days ago)

One thing the internet demonstrates is that thought is not something that happens within skulls but is the very essence of reality. The difference between a thought in "my" mind and being in mind is a bunch of key presses. Identity dissolves; once we post here, these words are no longer "me". They're "Shroomery".


"What's happening is that information was running itself on a primate platform, but evolving according to its own agenda. In a sense we have a symbiotic relationship to a nonmaterial being which we call language. We think it's ours, and we think we control it. This isn't what's happening. It's running itself. It's time-sharing a primate nervous system, and evolving toward its own conclusions."


I don't agree with the part about modelling the subconscious. The distinction between conscious and subconscious is relevant only when studying how the mind itself works. The mind acts as one unit, neither conscious or subconscious are independent. Unnecessary anthropomorphisation of reality.

Likewise I don't think language is a "metaphor". If anything it is the fabric of the universe. Human language is a complex & refined subset of a much larger space where the alphabet seems to consist of elementary particles, strings, bits. Look at the words you're reading right here. Each letter is a set of particle arrangements, each sentence being a set of sets. We're all masterful set theorists in a way.

Anyone heard of Christopher Langan and the CTMU?


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"Everything there is, and all that there is, is a Pattern of unspeakable proportion. The Pattern contains everything that is, completely fixed in succession, all the minimal particles interconnected in every way that is. Every way that is is not every conceivable way, because not everything that can be conceived is manifest in the pattern."

"THE Human, you, is a miniscule but essential part of that pattern. In it lies complete fulfillment. It will never become something it is not, but it will never need to be anything else." - Wiccan_Seeker

"If boring drudgery was the way of the universe, everything would have killed itself long ago." - Spacerific

Edited by crkhd (03/18/12 10:01 AM)

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