The united idea of consciousness and by that I mean the you who controls your arms moving, the thoughts you think, your tastes in movies, people you like/dislike, etc, is scientifically an illusion because all those actions are carried out independently by different areas of the brain. There is no central place where all these functions meet to be controlled through some metaphorical remote by a 'self'. Yet we all have this self, the sense of consciousness that can choose to contract muscles, as well as choose to think about a particular topic. We feel like the same being, the same 'I', that decides to contract a certain muscle is the same being who decides to think about a particular topic. But thinking thoughts and making muscles contract are carried out by different parts of the brain. This idea we get that there is a place in the brain to which both of these functions are connected to does not exist and is only an illusion.
I feel like if this was really the case, there would be no experience at all. I mean, everything would happen exactly the same, but people would be like robots who have this idea of consciousness implanted in their programming. They would ponder it, but there would be no one behind these robots to experience it.
Who's to say that this is not the world we live in? Well, I am and I can only truly say this to myself. Because: the only thing I know FOR SURE is that I am having this conscious experience. That I exist. For all I know, all of you are just figments of my imagination. But, of course, if you're not and you're reading this, you can vouch for your conscious experience existing as well (and you could only prove this to yourself, no one else).
But here's the stump: regardless of whether or not you exist or not, the validation of my own conscious experience did not just come out of nowhere. But where did it come from? Where did my physical brain get this idea and be able to articulate it into this post? Consciousness is something I feel, something I experience. It is simply obvious to me. And yet for me to be able to think about it, I have to use my physical brain, inside of which such a thing does not exist.
My conscious experience and the fact that scientifically it does not exist is the only proof I need to know that I have what spiritual mambojumbo would refer to as a soul. A piece of myself that is not made of atoms and 'worldly' matter, but something entirely different. The fact that I can think about it through my physical brain proves to me that there is a link between this otherwordly soul and my physical brain, through which I experience my body (and through the latter, I can affect the environment around me).
Psychedelics are no more spiritual than our ordinary states of existence. Though that is not to say that the sober state is incapable of being spiritual; same for the psychedelic state, though the reason behind the spiritual nature of the experience is not in the chemicals or the chemical changes that take place in the brain. In fact, as far as their course of action goes, that is all that psychedelics do on their own. They alter the individual processes in the brain that create the illusion of consciousness, therefore resulting in an illusion that is different in nature, sometimes drastically so. This fact can be easily used to completely hinge the idea of consciousness to the brain and discredit any spiritual possibilities, but to me, they only strengthen my belief in the soul.
Why?
It's simple: all you have to do is flip it around. What if, instead of consciousness being the illusion and its vessel (the brain, the body, the world it exists in) being real... What if everything material is an illusion and only consciousness is real?
This is actually the core of all spiritual teaching. It is also the only leap of faith you need to make to believe in spirituality. Why do I make this leap of faith? Because of the certainty I have in the existence of my own individual self and the fact that this self is scientifically non-existent.
YOU exist too. How do I know that? Because if you didn't, then I'd be just typing to myself and it wouldn't matter anyway because no one conscious would read my writing. And if that is not the case, then well... You do exist 
Consciousness is not your thoughts. Consciousness is not your emotion. Consciousness is not any physical sense that you feel. Thoughts change, just as personalities change, and so do emotions, yet in the end you're still conscious of your new self. In a similar sense, when you take a psychedelic, you become conscious of what happens when the chemicals that make up these emotions and thoughts are messed with. It is not the consciousness that changes on a spiritual level, it is what the consciousness is experiencing through the brain that changes.
I believe that we do not experience consciousness through our brain. We experience our brain through our consciousness.
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 <<<<<<<<---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->>>>>>>> A game without challenges is boring. It is possible to live a happy optimistic life without being in denial about all the shit that goes on all around. You just gotta get up and dance with the fire instead of moping about it. Be thankful for your problems. Without them, your life would be a fucking bore. But don't make it all about the problems. There are magnificent wonders in this world worth living for
Edited by ThePhilosophizer (04/29/11 02:44 AM)
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