Do you believe in levels of consciousness?

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28 Oct 2019 05:13 - 28 Oct 2019 05:14 #344914 by Adder
Ones experience of being aware is not static, it can be if we cling to it, but it can also change dramatically. In that regard that consciousness can change, I define psychonautics as the capacity to change it. But I find it useful to have reference models and naturally its often easier to use who you were as a safeharbour, assuming it is safe :S

Obviously a lot of folk use a sledgehammer to open an envelope and think substances to induce biochemical changes are the best or only way to do it. But that usually crushes ones fingers or takes your head off your neck, proverbially speaking. Lots of spiritual traditions use other ways to fiddle with the noggin, but all people make small adjustments every time they learn something into their learn term memory AFAIK.

But I suppose we have to be careful about the language being used, to make any sense at all. I prefer to view it in terms of seen and unseen awareness. What I'm talking about is the interface layer between the consciousness that is our experience of being self aware, and the subconscious that is the mental functions associated with it. I call that an unseen awareness because 'science' has indicated that some of those processes precede the consciousness (seen awareness) in what I call the subconscious (unseen awareness).

NB: I use the term subconscious instead of unconscious, because to me the seen awareness is not a product of a system, but part of many systems. It just happens to be the one thinking its a the only one thinking in a meatsuit. I find 'un' is only appropriate when used in matters only dealing with the consciousness, which this is not. And to me the 'sub' is not a hierarchical association, rather the use of sub is about being just another part of the network that is not the conscious being referred to. In this regard then, my consciousness is a subconscious itself, of you the reader! Albeit a distant one filtered through your own subconsciousness lol

Anyway, my point is I feel we can only extend our inner light of consciousness so far with so much intensity - limits seem to exist. So yes, I do think there are levels of consciousness, but I find the apparatus itself has those limitations. If you demand more from something, it might take from something else. It's a powerful metaphor to consider the Force! One could define the conscious awareness as the light and the subconscious awareness as the dark, for example. Such that if one draw from the dark to spread their light, it might lead to changes in oneself that redress the imbalance which in effect lead to a perhaps unintended or even disproportionate requirement to focus on oneself rather then others.

The change I refer to which denotes levels, is that our experiences define how we define affordance within our awareness. We define things in relation to what they mean to us based on how we've constructed meaning itself. Exploring for exploration's sake tends to be the fools errand. Better to set targets of exploration in a way as not to define the result by limiting the search parameters such that none other is possible. But better yet, make the most of where you are already, or move somewhere where you can. We seem to only get one body so we have to be careful with it, and it only gets stronger for about 3 short decades before it starts getting weaker again!!!! If one thinks working is hard in your 20's, wait till your in your 50's... and the mind is the most sensitive of all organs probably!!

So I think levels of consciousness in practical terms should refer to levels of motivation. Escaping into ones mind to dig for treasure is a bit like acquiring an appetite for sand in a desert. I'd say a Jedi digs.... but for capabilities, ie power, more then anything.

the Force is what gives a Jedi
his power. It's an energy field
created by all living things. It
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binds the galaxy together.
~ George Lucas aka Ben Kenobi


That said.... the light can be shared among others!

:silly:

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28 Oct 2019 06:28 #344917 by Rex
I say "bad faith" as in the opposite of good faith "bona fide"

Also consciousness requires a subject and an object: what are they for your 10 levels?

Adder makes a good point regarding our consciousness vs awareness. What our bodily "hardware" can input versus our mind can process are not necessarily the same, but they obviously have limitations that seem overlooked here

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28 Oct 2019 12:34 #344923 by ZealotX
I think its easy to kind of merge ideas that somewhat obfuscate their original intended meaning; forcing upon those words a meaning more aligned to our own perceptions and wishful thinking.

What I mean by that is... for example... some people treat dimensions like levels in a video game. In reality we exist in all dimensions simultaneously because each (to qualify as a dimension) is simply a plane of existence of our own reality. But since we're trying to understand something in terms of a flat surface (like a map of the world) if its' not flat then it can't be limited to that model.

As far as consciousness...

I think this has more to do with frequency. You can only hear sounds within a certain frequency. You can only see light within a certain frequency. So your awareness is within a certain "physical" frequency which can be altered. If your brain waves are closer to that of sleep then you may have a different experience and perhaps your subconscious mind will get to be more in the driver's seat because perhaps it is usually operating at a different frequency all the time and so we're only aware of it at the points of intersection with the frequency used by the conscious mind.

At any rate, there's a lot of different ideas relating to consciousness, especially the kind that deals with levels. In this form, I believe we're talking more of a knowledge that comes from being aware where as the ability to identify things we are aware of is somewhat dependent upon the database of information we have to draw from. Some people find it very difficult to see certain things just because they haven't personally experienced it. Without that experience the mind has to rely on imagination which is based on ideas based on past experiences of its own. Information builds on top of information the same way a child goes from 2nd to 3rd to 4th grade.

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28 Oct 2019 14:31 #344926 by
subject and object are not required for force level consciousness though. thats what Jedi try to get to right? the rising up through the levels to the point where all that dissapears, or at least so we can tell the difference that there is no difference. to say we are connected is one thing, to know that we are is different. this is a higher level. We start out a shattered pieces and our goal is to put ourselves back together. we can do this through pain or through ascention. one way or the other it will happen, so why not avoid the pain? This is what the force wants for us. to rise by knowledge and understanding, not screaming and kicking like a bad child!

Until we get this knoweldge we recycle ourselves though the lower aniimal layers of the astral planes until they move on to guardian level where the spirit guides are. they are the ones that help us in the journey. after they do that for a while they get to shed even their energy bodes and become pure thought until they can asend to master level where the teaching of the force come from. above them are the very planes of creation and beyond that is the infinite itself. the realm of pure force energy where all things are one and all other things come.

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28 Oct 2019 18:14 #344937 by Proteus
This isn't quite the same thing as what is being talked about here, but it is this idea that I feel is most realistically in play for us when we think of this, and in which I think we would get the most practical and progressive benefit from discussing, in my opinion.

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/Jediism/121939-an-overview-of-developmental-stages-of-consciousness

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28 Oct 2019 18:20 - 28 Oct 2019 18:23 #344938 by Gisteron

ZealotX wrote: As far as consciousness...

I think this has more to do with frequency. You can only hear sounds within a certain frequency. [sic]

Yes, indeed. But is this just some mystical restriction upon the human condition, or a consequence of the way our bodies are built? If the way our hearing mechanism is constructed is the reason we can only hear sounds within a certain frequency range, then there is precious little we can do to "transcend" that, no matter how hard we "open ourselves to the possibility".

There is only so much space in our skulls, and hair cells the way our bodies construct them can only grow so long before their stability is seriously affected - not to mention the increase in volume of higher frequency modes if the ducts inside the cochlea are that wide. That gives a soft limit on the lower end of the scale. On the higher end the molecules involved do have a finite size and hair cells that are too short are not flexible enough to get affected by the fluid currents - which themselves are also dampened severely that deeply inside the cochlea. I can easily enough believe that some people can indeed hear below the nominal 20Hz. I myself am not sure I could perceive the nominal upper limit of 20kHz, but we know of animals that can. But nothing, I dare say, can hear the rotation of our planet, with one revolution per day. Nothing can hear some 20MHz either, because detecting sound comes down to mechanics, and devices that do it are constructed from atoms of finite size with finitely strong forces between them.


You can only see light within a certain frequency.

And again it raises the question, can there be any amount of mind one can put to it to overcome this limitation or are there real physical boundaries playing outside of which is just entirely unrealistic? Again, I maintain, that there is such a thing as the photoelectric effect. To affect an atom or molecule with a light particle, it has to carry some minimal amount of energy, i.e. it needs to have a sufficiently high frequency to even interact at all with the light-sensitive cell. Likewise, the states it can then change the molecule to is determined by the individual atoms and their arrangement in it. So there is a limit to how high a photon's frequency can be before it is no longer able to interact with any part of the retina at all anymore.


So your awareness is within a certain "physical" frequency which can be altered.

I admit, it probably isn't as simple as I've been picturing it so far. I'm sure a biologist or physician can do the topic much more justice than I can make any attempt to. But even admitting to any technical mistakes I may be making here, these limitations are a matter of physics, not a matter of attitude. We can try and tune our senses, train ourselves to pay more attention to more subtle things they pick up, but they can only pick up so much. And soft as the limits are, they are not arbitrary. No human eye can hear a 100kHz sound or a 3Hz one. No human eye can see a radio wave, or an X-ray. And no amount of awareness alteration can make those things happen any more than they can enable one to jump straight into outer space from the ground, using nothing but a pair of plain old human legs.

Better to leave questions unanswered than answers unquestioned
Last edit: 28 Oct 2019 18:23 by Gisteron.
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28 Oct 2019 20:42 #344944 by
I cant see that proteus??

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28 Oct 2019 20:56 - 28 Oct 2019 21:19 #344945 by ZealotX
I had a better post in response but apparently it didn't make it.

previous response found.
Last edit: 28 Oct 2019 21:19 by ZealotX.

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28 Oct 2019 21:15 #344946 by Proteus

Fyxe wrote: I cant see that proteus??



Sorry about that Fyxe, I forgot that only members can access the forum the thread was posted in. I've provided quoted material from the thread here in the spoilers. I hope you find it engaging on your own personal level to look further into it! It was my apprentice Loudzoo who originally posted this.

Warning: Spoiler!

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28 Oct 2019 21:18 #344947 by ZealotX

Gisteron wrote:

ZealotX wrote: As far as consciousness...

I think this has more to do with frequency. You can only hear sounds within a certain frequency. [sic]

Yes, indeed. But is this just some mystical restriction upon the human condition, or a consequence of the way our bodies are built? If the way our hearing mechanism is constructed is the reason we can only hear sounds within a certain frequency range, then there is precious little we can do to "transcend" that, no matter how hard we "open ourselves to the possibility". There is only so much space in our skulls, and hair cells the way our bodies construct them can only grow so long before their stability is seriously affected - not to mention the increase in volume of higher frequency modes if the ducts inside the cochlea are that wide. That gives a soft limit on the lower end of the scale. On the higher end the molecules involved do have a finite size and hair cells that are too short are not flexible enough to get affected by the fluid currents - which themselves are also dampened severely that deeply inside the cochlea. I can easily enough believe that some people can indeed hear below the nominal 20Hz. I myself am not sure I could perceive the nominal upper limit of 20kHz, but we know of animals that can. But nothing, I dare say, can we hear the rotation of our planet, with one revolution per day. Nothing can hear some 20MHz either, because detecting sound comes down to mechanics, and devices that do it are constructed from atoms of finite size with finitely strong forces between them.


You can only see light within a certain frequency.

And again it raises the question, can there be any amount of mind one can put to it to overcome this limitation or are there real physical boundaries playing outside of which is just entirely unrealistic? Again, I maintain, that there is such a thing as the photoelectric effect. To affect an atom or molecule with a light particle, it has to carry some minimal amount of energy, i.e. it needs to have a sufficiently high frequency to even interact at all with the light-sensitive cell. Likewise, the states it can then change the molecule to is determined by the individual atoms and their arrangement in it. So there is a limit to how high a photon's frequency can be before it is no longer able to interact with any part of the retina at all anymore.


So your awareness is within a certain "physical" frequency which can be altered.

I admit, it probably isn't as simple as I've been picturing it so far. I'm sure a biologist or physician can do the topic much more justice than I can make any attempt to. But even admitting to any technical mistakes I may be making here, these limitations are a matter of physics, not a matter of attitude. We can try and tune our senses, train ourselves to pay more attention to more subtle things they pick up, but they can only pick up so much. And soft as the limits are, they are not arbitrary. No human eye can hear a 100kHz sound or a 3Hz one. No human eye can see a radio wave, or an X-ray. And no amount of awareness alteration can make those things happen any more than they can enable one to jump straight into outer space from the ground, using nothing but a pair of plain old human legs.


Operating within a limiting range is absolutely a good thing. Imagine if you could hear people's thoughts. How soon before you wouldn't want to talk to anyone? If we had "better vision" would it really be better? Or would we see a lot of "excess data" that our brains would have to work harder to make sense of. Sure animals sometimes have better hearing but maybe they only see in black and white or have some other limitation. These input limitations make it so we're not processing more information than we can handle. Same with memory. We don't remember everything; even if we think we do. The brain prioritizes information and uses imagination to fill the gaps in memory that it doesn't actually save. Imagine hearing things from far beyond your range of vision. Would you ever get to sleep at night? We already buy eye masks and think curtains to block outside light. Imagine if we didn't have eye lids. Limitations can be extremely useful and functional.

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28 Oct 2019 21:22 #344948 by ZealotX

Fyxe wrote: subject and object are not required for force level consciousness though. thats what Jedi try to get to right? the rising up through the levels to the point where all that dissapears, or at least so we can tell the difference that there is no difference. to say we are connected is one thing, to know that we are is different. this is a higher level. We start out a shattered pieces and our goal is to put ourselves back together. we can do this through pain or through ascention. one way or the other it will happen, so why not avoid the pain? This is what the force wants for us. to rise by knowledge and understanding, not screaming and kicking like a bad child!

Until we get this knowledge we recycle ourselves though the lower animal layers of the astral planes until they move on to guardian level where the spirit guides are. they are the ones that help us in the journey. after they do that for a while they get to shed even their energy bodes and become pure thought until they can ascend to master level where the teaching of the force come from. above them are the very planes of creation and beyond that is the infinite itself. the realm of pure force energy where all things are one and all other things come.


well, perhaps we recycle through the lower levels of human existence, searching for purpose, until we find it. Until we see that thing, that was there but we weren't aware or fully aware of. "its not the spoon that bends". This goes to your first point about knowledge vs belief. "Don't just think you are, know you are." Most religions have a system of repetition. You even see many prayers that specifically use repetition. It's all about reinforcing belief the same exact way that Trump will keep repeating "no collusion, no obstruction" because the truth doesn't matter when it comes to influence. It's all about what people will believe.

Of course does that we can actually bend spoons with our minds? We can't do things that are physically impossible. But belief can transform your life if you believe that you can obtain the obtainable and do the doable. We all have power that we limit strictly by our own belief that it is out of our reach; because we convince ourselves that it is and that we know it is when that negative thought is simply a belief itself that contradicts confidence.

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29 Oct 2019 20:14 #344985 by
Wow, interesting things proteus. thanks for posting such cool stuff. I wonder if that is a different kind of consciousness than I was talking about though. I wanted to really talk about levels of I guess like universal consciousness and not just consciousness that looks like more of a sort of an ability to understand things in our lives. so that chart divides stuff up by what I call understanding of an idea, understanding of yourself and understanding of the morals civilization. what woujld happen if the understanding of an idea is backwards to understanding of morals though? like what makes it have to be the way the chart shows?

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29 Oct 2019 21:37 - 29 Oct 2019 21:39 #344988 by
Well, let's look at this from somewhat of a biological level.

Ants, birds, fish, cats, heck, even plants, have different senses, different brains (or none at all), different biological makeups, yet all have some sort of consciousness, albeit some much more simple than others, and it shows itself in different ways (hence the ant colony's "hive-mind" versus a more advanced mammal's individualistic, problem-solving, and emotional cognitive capabilities).

So, if we look at it from a purely literal angle, yes, there are different levels of consciousness, in terms of biological complexity.

However, I am sure this question is addressing specifically hypothetically differing human levels of consciousness.

Yet even so, when we speak in terms of shifting focus and perspective via mediums such as mediation and hallucinogens, would one consider these experiences differing levels of human consciousness?
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29 Oct 2019 21:39 #344989 by Carlos.Martinez3
Can one be aware of more than one thing?

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29 Oct 2019 21:48 - 29 Oct 2019 21:49 #344992 by

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: Can one be aware of more than one thing?


Oh wow, this one really stumped me.

Well, I'm not sure.

It depends on your definition of "one thing".

I mean, you may think, for example, by imagining the Universe, you are thinking of many things, but wouldn't you in reality only be imagining one concept?

Or practicing mindfulness, and being aware of only that which is present in the present, are you thinking of everything that is happening now, or simply just "now"?

This is an excellent question!

I am currently reading through The Way of Zen by Alan Watts, and in the first chapter, the very first thing he addresses is our natural tendency to only think linearly, as in, one thing at a time.
This is why language takes the form it does.
Yes, we understand what a runny nose is when we say it, the concept just pops into your head and you know exactly what I mean, but the language does not capture the essence of the thing itself, the complex biological and environmental systems that make the thing what it is, or even the evolution that led to the adaptation of noses secreting boogers/mucus to ward off dirt and bacteria and such!
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29 Oct 2019 22:22 - 29 Oct 2019 22:27 #344995 by OB1Shinobi
What about riding a bike? Have to be aware of your balance, traffic or obstacles, the slipperiness of the gravel, steering and your hand/s on the handles, and the destination or route youre on. Pretty much all of this at the same time. Driving is similar. Heres a question then: are we aware of several things at once or do we cycle through single things so quickly that it only seems we’re aware of several things?

People are complicated.
Last edit: 29 Oct 2019 22:27 by OB1Shinobi.
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29 Oct 2019 23:04 #344996 by
Yes you can be aware of 7 things at one time consciously but subconsciously you can be aware of like 200 or more but is not realised.

So the consciousness I was wondering about was an awareness of higher realms. Like ascension conscious.

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29 Oct 2019 23:38 - 29 Oct 2019 23:57 #344997 by OB1Shinobi

Fyxe wrote: Yes you can be aware of 7 things at one time consciously but subconsciously you can be aware of like 200 or more but is not realised.


How do you know thats true?



So the consciousness I was wondering about was an awareness of higher realms. Like ascension conscious.


I gave some examples of “higher” levels of consciousness that we can validate fairly well back in this post . The problem with the idea of “ascension” is that it seems to be just a rumor. Today, we look back on people like Jesus or the Buddha and we say they had achieved a higher level of consciousness - they ascended - but thats not something we believe because we have any good reason (aka convincing evidence) to believe it; its something some of us choose to believe because we want it to be true. From what i have seen so far, all examples of “ascension” fall into this same category.

EDIT: tell you what, though; if higher levels of consciousness do exist, its probably going to take quite a lot of dedication to various kinds of meditation, visualization, and lucid dreaming in order to access them.

People are complicated.
Last edit: 29 Oct 2019 23:57 by OB1Shinobi.
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30 Oct 2019 01:01 #345000 by Rex
One of my favorite podcasts, the Partially Examined Life, recently did a series of episodes discussing the philosophy of mind (which includes consciousness) and it really solidified my functionalist leanings.

If you vaguely care about the discussion, people far smarter than I have written many books on the subject (what it's like to be a bat, etc.) and I'd be delighted to point you that direction. This is my final post in this thread, because it's too cluttered with presumptions for my liking.

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30 Oct 2019 09:27 #345008 by Brick

OB1Shinobi wrote: ...Heres a question then: are we aware of several things at once or do we cycle through single things so quickly that it only seems we’re aware of several things?


Now that's an interesting question OB1Shinobi!

Our senses and mind work 24/7, so we're always having information delivered to our brain in a continuous stream. So in that sense, we're always 'aware' of everything that's going on around us. However, I personally think we can only focus on a couple of things at a time.

For example, it's possible to hear what someone else is saying whilst you your self are talking. I don't think that's a case of switching rapidly because no matter how quickly you switched you'd still only be able to say/hear 50% of what's occurring. So it must be possible to be aware of at least 2 things at once.

However, the more we take on, the more likely we are to overload our brains - hence when we may be saying one thing and thinking another thing and we end up saying a mix of the 2 that doesn't really make sense.

Thinking and acting linearly is clearly our most comfortable 'default setting'

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