|
 Rhizoid
carbon unit
Registered: 01/22/00
Posts: 1,739
Loc: Europe
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
|
 Universal consciousness and representative realism 
#1819455 - 08/16/03 10:07 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
In the thread about representative realism I said that what we experience is not the real external world, but a representation of it that exists inside our minds.
Now let's play with the idea that representation of reality is all it takes to have an experience, on a fundamental level. The quality of the experience, the percepts and the concepts, is determined only by how the details of the representation hang together. This means that anything that is some kind of representation of something else, like for example a photograph, contains a tiny piece of proto-awareness about reality. The human mind is just an extremely complex version of this. At the other end of the scale there is the empty experience, where there are no percepts or concepts. Or there should at least exist such a thing if the assumption above is true: that the essence of experience is representation.
If the collection of my own experiences is identified with my consciousness, then whose consciousness should the empty experience be identified with? I say the label "Universal Consciousness" is a fitting name for that, because it's the only type of consciousness that doesn't come in several versions with several alternative perspectives.
Note that there is nothing in this picture that implies a "soul" that enters a human body (or an ant or a thermostat or whatever) and then sits there and experiences stuff. The soul is just the device that does the representation that is equated with the experience. In humans, this device is apparently the brain, because that's what all the evidence says. Or are there reasons to believe that this is not the case?
Edited by Rhizoid (08/16/03 10:15 AM)
|
 kaiowas
lest we baguette
Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
Loc: oz
|
Re: Universal consciousness and representative realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1819482 - 08/16/03 10:25 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
I agree, but also remember that there's someone judging the representation, unlike the photograph. When you say the real external world, are you just referring to the world as it really is? If so, do you mean physically, mentally, spiritually, or all of them?
--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.
|
Rhizoid
carbon unit
Registered: 01/22/00
Posts: 1,739
Loc: Europe
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
|
Re: Universal consciousness and representative realism [Re: kaiowas]
#1819501 - 08/16/03 10:38 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
I mean all of reality, as it really is, or more specifically everything that has any kind of influence on the experiences I was talking about. I personally think that this is the same as the totality of physical reality.
And regarding judging of the representation, that's the active or creative part of consciousness. In simple cases like photographs it's not a complex thing like a judgement, it's rather a projection onto a measuring device.
|
Spokesman
The HighPhilosopher
Registered: 08/05/03
Posts: 847
Loc: New Jersey U.S.
Last seen: 18 years, 9 months
|
Re: Universal consciousness and representative realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1819528 - 08/16/03 10:53 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
We could never see reality as it really is because were not even sure if reality is a physical thing, how could we be sure? when everything we experience is basicly just a translation of the brain to the "real" events? For example, what we consider life is mostly based around our visuals, what we see, when what we see is simply light=Colors, and colors being nothing more than the brains translation of a bunch of waves. If were able to really see what our eyeballs catch we would see upside down and with a whole lot of vains and blackspots on top, bacause this is what our pupils are like. The brain takes that, flips it, and only god knows how, it "adds in the black spots and veins. Is anyone getting what im trying to say? Hearing= Our brains translation of a bunch of vibrations, Touch almost the same thing, translation of contact. We base our reality souling 'trusting' what our brains say is real.... do u get my point????
I belive in order to take a closer look at reality we must look from the molecular/atomic level to the universal/galactic level. Not just 'our' life experiences.,
--------------------
|
Malachi
stereotype
Registered: 06/19/02
Posts: 1,294
Loc: Around Minneapolis.
Last seen: 13 years, 9 months
|
Re: Universal consciousness and representative realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1819556 - 08/16/03 11:06 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
well, whose to say that the brain isn't just the power house part of the device, where the real controling part exists in a manner that humans haven't figured out how to represent >> be aware of?
you know, like the car analogy, if aliens came to earth and saw all the cars running around, they might assume that the car is the lifeform, when really it's the humans turning a wheel inside. or a remote control, I guess in this case, and the radio waves are the method that we can't represent (/understand) very well.
--------------------
The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side.
- Paul Tillich
|
Spokesman
The HighPhilosopher
Registered: 08/05/03
Posts: 847
Loc: New Jersey U.S.
Last seen: 18 years, 9 months
|
Re: Universal consciousness and representative realism [Re: Malachi]
#1819586 - 08/16/03 11:21 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
yeah, very intresting concept you have there Malachi, i also thought about something like that, like what if there are some things are brain cant pick up on, If its color waves are unrecognizable and our brain just doesent regestir or "feel" it. Makes you think about the whole "Spirit/Sould" thing doesent it.
--------------------
|
Rhizoid
carbon unit
Registered: 01/22/00
Posts: 1,739
Loc: Europe
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
|
Re: Universal consciousness and representative realism [Re: Malachi]
#1822116 - 08/17/03 04:50 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
well, whose to say that the brain isn't just the power house part of the device, where the real controling part exists in a manner that humans haven't figured out how to represent >> be aware of?
That's possible of course. There are mind-body dualists who believe that the brain is just some sort of antenna that receives signals from the mind, which is located elsewhere. And some people have proposed that the representations must in some way depend on superpositioned quantum states. But we know that the brain does contain some representations of the outside world, where the representations have been identified on the neural level. So it seems reasonable that these play a role, even if we don't have the whole picture.
|
Malachi
stereotype
Registered: 06/19/02
Posts: 1,294
Loc: Around Minneapolis.
Last seen: 13 years, 9 months
|
Re: Universal consciousness and representative realism [Re: Rhizoid]
#1822500 - 08/17/03 11:31 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
well to extend the analogy the representations that have been found in our brains (memories and the like, I'm assuming) would be like the hard drive of the computer that is your self, whereas mind would be the cpu... except the cpu is an ethereal (or quantum-magic.. is there really a difference?) thing. so the role that the flesh plays could be, in this light, be seen as not the most essential.
just trying to be optimistic, since our brains are destined to rot in a hole in the ground and all.. 
--------------------
The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side.
- Paul Tillich
|
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order 
Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder 
Red Vein Kratom
Edit 
Reply 
tekramrepus
1 2 3 4 all )
trendal
World Spirit
Rhizoid
Reggaejunkiejew
Swami
