BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 04:30 AM

Human consciousness? It doesn't exist. You only think it exists.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 12:14 AM

According to this link, Mind, neuroscience makes no distinction between the mind and the brain.    I think this is a relatively recent development as the neurological correlates of the mind are beginning to be identified and studied. Neuroscience is one of the hard sciences that involves the collaborative work of neurologists, neuropsychiatrists and neuropsychologists. Although it is largely a field of multidiciplinary research, it's influence on the nature of the practices of general psychiatry is reflected in changes in nomenclature of inpatient psychiatry units, especially at large, research medical facilities.   For example, the inpatient psychiatric section at UNC Hospitals was renamed the UNC Neurosciences Hospital when it underwent major renovations in the mid and late 1990's.

Here is a Standard dictionary definition of the mind.

Perhaps the mind can be viewed as representing the synthesis of the sum total of the functions of the brain that relate to consciousness.

I am reluctant to use the terms mind and brain interchangeably.   I am even reluctant to think of the mind as the product of the brain. Synthesis sounds less threatening to my beliefs and assumptions about the specialness of being human.   I don't know enough about the available research to have an informed opinion. I have a visceral aversion to the idea that my mind is nothing BUT biology, vs. enabled by biology.   That aversion can skew any analysis I might be inclined to do on the available research, especially if i am unaware that I have this emotional reaction to the the mere idea.



The following link is a more technical description and discussion of the amagdyla. The amagdyla is very instrumental to emotional learning and the storing of emotional memories.   http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Amagdyla

As Ivor noted upthread, much of the work of perception happens in the brain/mind. And that work is all interpretive. Emotions can, and usually do, play a strong part in our interpretations of much of the information entering the brain through the senses.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 02:45 PM

Well, if there is such a thing, I would have to suspect it would not be anchored to the brain-body complex. Nor even to the mind-and-language complex. I like the metaphor of step-down transformers used in electrical and electronic systems.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 02:03 PM

"And a third question arising from these is whether there is such a thing as "pure consciousness" without an object of which it is being aware." - Amos

Recently, I learned that language is learned in the womb. Not the actual words but the rhythms. Speech is just little bursts of air which we control with out tongues, throat, lips, etc and those little bursts of air are transmitted to the womb in waves of energy and arrive at the fetus via waves in the amniotic fluid. Therefore, regardless of what language is spoken in the home following birth, a child's first language is the language spoken by the mother while pregnant.

I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the subject under discussion but I do think that language and self are closely intertwined, if not one in the same. It is, at least, the way we communicate to others who we think we are. My guess is that consciousness occurs with that first breath but that the formation of language occurs in the womb.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:45 PM

There's no question on the macro scale that solids are solid to the viewer, and light bounces off solids and gets picked up by various waiting eyeballs, and so on, and waves of sound get sensed and smells get smelled.

The possibility exists however that this whole spectrum of apparent solidity is the way it is because of postulated conditions set up by and in consciousness. This perspective aligns more closely to the Hindu cosmology than it does to most Westerrn schools. The big knotty question it raises is whether any given individual viewpoint (such as thee or I) could be restored to the level of energy or causation (or whatever it should be called) from which it made/subscribed to those conditions, thus regaining an ability to shift them about.

Richard Bach plays with these ideas to great effect in The Bridge Across Forever.

If a spiritual being gets dragged down to hynotic agreement with spacetime as it is experienced by bodies ioperating on their limited bandwidths, what gets "him" stuck therein, and how does he get to undo the addiction?

And if this is the case, what happebns to his own perceptions when he does undo the habits of lifetimes being focused soelly on the forces and frequencies of the apparent material plane?

I think these are really interestin questions, even though they are based on a hypothesis.

If, converesely, our basic nature IS just complex networks of cells and nerves and all consciousness is a projection from these arrays, like a movie projector pointing back at itself with mirrors or some such, then the questions become very different indeed. SUch as, "where does virtue come from"? , etc.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 10:19 AM

There are a couple of things about quantum mechanics that cleave more closely to maya than to particle endurance and intereaction, but even the Rutherford atmoic structure was 99.9% space, and no-one could define what the space was. I have found that people like myself who sometimes blovate about general schools of thought often do not care to do the work necessary to understand what the fug they are really talking about.

Happy Xmas, consciousness lovers everywhere....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 01:43 AM

" autoclus; Suppose you were omnicient. Tell us if the affairs of mankind require any special attention or guidance at this time"

      Donuel, Never having been. or ever going to be, omniscient, (obviously}, I cannot begin to answer your question.

      From where I'm sitting, they always need attention and guidance.

    As for the latter, I doubt if enough people are prepared to be guided. They want to tell everbody else what to do.

   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 12:29 AM

Talk about a hurting head! Last night, I thought to post definitions of objective reality, so off I went to Google. Yowee Zowee! First the philosophers, then the quantum physics and mechanics theorists!   I knew I was an ignorant cuss, but didn't know how ignorant!

After skimming 15 articles in 15 minutes, I am, naturally, now an expert in all things quantum (not!)

Thinking about rational, empirical, knowledge, belief, perception and reality.   

Before I took my little tour around the web last night, Quantum theory meant nothing other than some physics theory that people talk about that is really freaky that has to do with how very small particles behave and however they behave it is not what you would think if you didn't know anything about quantum theory.

I'll be honest. That is still all it means to me.

AND, it also appears to include some evidence or theory - I couldn't quite sort this out - to suggest that nothing that we perceive as real is actually real, except that there is some argument that there is local realism, or only that which is observed is real, and then, only if it is being observed. In otherwords, scientific evidence (I think), and interpretation, that sounds just like the philosophical arguments around subjective vs. objective reality, except that photons are involved.

Interestingly, the first discussions and articles I read regarding quantum theory were from sites and blogs relating to existential, usually spiritual, interests. When I googled the names of the physicists, I did not find any articles or research reports authored by the scientist themselves that drew any conclusions whatsoever related to any 'big picture' ideas about the result of their experiments. So I found myself wondering, are the metaphysically inclined drawing, at least thus far, rationally unwarranted conclusions because it fits with whatever paradigm they are looking to confirm, is the scientist just not interested in any inplications the work and findings may have beyond their own narrow speciality, Or what?

NOt enough info. for me to draw any conclusions.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 10:30 PM

Art,

I bet it is quite a wild ride, in more ways than one. From what little I know about you, it seems you have a life long tendency toward paths and journeys that are not exactly 'typical.' Although MS is not at all a path you have chosen, may the lessons and experiences of those other journeys along 'roads less travelled' serve you well along the path of this journey thrust upon you.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 09:55 PM

I recall a topic on consciousness and the quantum experience thread inspired by 'what the bleep do we know ' was fun for me while others percieved a different reality.

Afterall we tend to see more of what we think than what is there.

Something entirely (and I mean entirely) different to your reality frame of reference will most likely be invisible to you, unless you have been trained otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 09:43 PM

I was fortunate enough to learn of my pre natal perceptions as a result of adolescent fevers that would re trigger them.

Survival, threat perception, awareness of history and 'nowness' were all there but encoded within shapes and time/distance rather than language.

Hey Art, we both share doing talks about ufos. I did so for radio shows and local Rochester NY clubs. As a hypnotist there were many al night BS sessions about consciousness, let alone the experiments.

autoclus; Suppose you were omnicient. Tell us if the affairs of mankind require any special attention or guidance at this time.

Amos, point of view in memory is an interestinf topic n itself especially when put in the context of information theory.

Janie, what made you think of consciousness and reality at this time? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 09:25 PM

Could be what Joseph Campbell called "the wisdom body.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 09:01 PM

The degree and nature of the body's role in thought has always been problematical. To a purely mechnistically-minded researcher, of course, i is the noiton of a "tinker" aside from the body that is problematical.

Here is a general survey on the subject of out-of-body perception and movement.

The implication is simply that there is a large collection of experiences going n in the world supporting an alternate model: that a unit of awareness operates as different from the body, and capable of being fully identified and locked inside it, or of various degrees of freedom from it.

Personally I find this to be a hopeful idea. But aside from that it is an interesting spectrum of experiences being discussed. It is, as you would expect, wildly variable in the consistency and analysis provided.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 02:34 PM

An interesting list of brothers-in-discovery who have undetrtaken less conventional research projects into the realm of consciousness. And sisters, too, yeah.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 02:33 PM

Kat, ---- Yep, my li'l bro, Richard, is pretty amazing to me. Thanks for posting that. Some of the other Mudcatters might like to see his writings too. They are all at

www.thiemeworks.com

He does have a book out containing several of his columns. The title is:

ISLANDS IN THE CLICKSTREAM
by Richard Thieme

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 12:13 AM

Love you, Art.

Your brother's writings have a way of making my head hurt in the same way. There is so much going on in them! Remember this one of his writings: Click Here? Certainly relevant to this thread, imo.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 11:48 PM

Janie, Thanks for providing me with your ruminations tonight. They have precipitated some flights of verbiage of my own that, if I could recall the specific instances, I would tell you how many times in the last week my recent memory has failed me, how many times I fell down, how my hands feel sheathed in padded leather and prohibit my playing any instruments now. Somewhere along the line of my life, or so I've been told, my own immune system is doing ice pick lobotomies all over my brain's white matter and spinal cord. The diagnosis is MS --- finally --- !! After the l-o-n-g years of spinal surgeries for those same symptoms, finally TO KNOW is like a huge weight lifting. And the symptoms change every other day. Quite a roller coaster ride that, when one is acclimated, can be even exhilarating.

Janie---it's an adventure and a half, and they say I'm doing it to myself -- attacking my own synapses and myelin nerve insulations randomly, piecemeal. Physicality failures, cognitive diminishment, bodily functions askew and shut down.-------- We spend our life looking at our own personal variations of the thoughts you've raised in this good thread. Looking for some answers. I only seem to find myself sadly preoccupied with "ME"---flailing around, now, like a turtle in my own tale of "The Great Turtle Drive" who is over on his back in the middle of this road I was once the king of. All 4 limbs are wildly waving in the wind. My "perceived reality" you speak of is different now from the way it's always been. Who'd-a-thunk it!

As Robert Frost said in his good poem called "The Oven Bird", I find myself left, after all is said and done, pondering "what to make of a diminished thing!"

Legs waving in the wind! The wind... As Dylan said, "That's where the answers are blowing!!" Maybe. Matbe not.

I will leave this heavy stuff to you intellectuals who have the inclinations to search therein. If I am still alive when you solve all of it, please, let me know-----especially if it leads to a cure for MS... Maybe! Maybe not.

I say all of this with great respect for the ideas generated here. My tongue, and my foot,too, probably, are firmly set in my cheek--and lodged in my mouth -- respectively. For now, your good words are making my head hurt too. So, I'm going to bed!! **SMILEY FACE**

Love,

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 09:40 PM

A dear friend of mine had an onset of brain damage because of a toxic batch of vitamins / amino acids (synthetic) that got into this country and caused a run of bizarre symptoms, known as eosiniphelia myalgia syndrome. She suffered from cognitive lapses, language skill loss, and sometimes complete switch-offs. After many trials of various things, her neuropsych told her to learn new things, and she set about doing so with determination. She swears she could feel the brain pathways clicking when she finally managed to retain the new data she was forcing herself to go over nad over until it lodged. Gradually she recovered her old competencies by exercising herself in the pursuit of new knowledge. The condition is in complete remission. She was one of the lucky ones, though. Some died, and some lived in severely reduced cognitive states.

True story. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 09:10 PM

Occasionally, head injury patients are referred to me with a request that I "do something."

It is a testament to the flexibility and regenerative powers of the human brain that many head injured people recover physically and cognitively as much as they do. But there is not, to my knowledge (and I don't have any expertise in the area of work with head injury patients) any thing that can be done psychotherapeutically to address the personality changes, impulse control, impaired judgement, psychotic symptoms, & emotional lability that often occur.

There was a doctor at the big state mental hospital at Spencer, WV, who performed hundreds of 'ice pick' lobotomies, I think right up until the very early 1960's. I had a friend who worked there as a tech who said the back wards of the hospital were inhabited by a number of people who had the "benefits" of his treatment. I've only encountered one lobotomy patient, and that was long before I went to graduate school and moved into mental health. She was quite bizarre in her presentation.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 08:44 PM

Gee, Cobble -- it was such an interesting conversation, too!! Would you care to expand on your observation?

Because, tell ya what, I don't think it is a load of crap, and I think your impulse to categorize it as one is a big red flag, reflecting more on your own battened-down and welded-shut mental state than on the thread itself.

'Course, maybe you don't think you have a mental state, and maybe you'd be right. But something came up with your enlightening remark.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Cobble
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 08:37 PM

What a load of crap all round.

Cobble

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 08:36 PM

Having typed the above, now I wonder what the subjective experience of consciousness is of the individual with advanced Alzheimer's.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 08:30 PM

As humans, it is difficult, if not impossible to separate our subjective sense of our own consciousness from our sense of identity.

What may happen with practices such as meditation is the subject/observer is able to acheive a conscious state where they reach, or at least approach, an awareness of the separateness of consciousness and identity. This may lead to a perception of a larger, or cosmic consciousness or awareness. Whether that is a misperception, or whether that is an intimation of some trancendant something or other that humans can only anthropomorphically describe as consciousness, is interesting, but probably not very important to know as we go about our daily business of being humans.   I do know that state is a psychologically healing environment for the wounded psyche.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 08:12 PM

One of the earliest case histories in the subject, the remarkable story of Phineas Gage, who accidentally became the first documented case of a prefontal lobotomy.

It has never made sense to me that the action of intentionally removing prefontal lobes became a preferred practice for certain cases, when this case history makes it clear that the action either did nothing or made him significantly worse. YEt up until the early 1970's in the United States over 40,000 people were treated with vartiations of this technique. One of note was Rosemarie Kennedy (JFK's sister) who received the operation when her father complained of her "moodiness". (See this page.)

Just an aside concerning where we've been in the not too distant past.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 07:54 PM

Neuroscience is at work trying to identify and understand the neural correlates of consciousness.

I think this means that there is implied agreement that consciousness is not a 'thing'. It is a dynamic process.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 07:24 PM

We know enough now regarding that naturenurture matrix in brain development to understand why, just like snowflakes, each human being is unique.

It also explains why a clone of me would not be another me.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 07:03 PM

One jumping off place for theories, research and definitions on consciousness.

.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 04:05 PM

Ivor, I think most psychotherapists agree on that, regardless of the neck of the woods they inhabit.

Frank, I tend to think of them as theoretical constructs more so than simply idea constructs.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 03:48 PM

Can't talk intelligently about reality without talking about perception.   Can't talk about perception without talking about consciousness. Can't talk about consciousness without talking about experience. Can't talk about anything related to life without talking about biology. Can't talk about the individual without reference to the social.   

Thanks, Janie. I hadn't followed the other thread. I like the way you put that.

Ivor said:
consciousness roughly = being alive and awake

awareness       "    = noticing.

Not sure I agree completely, based on my experiences with patients who were not conscious, yet upon waking, remembered hearing, i.e. noticing, what was said around/to them when they were "under." As a patient, I remember the same type of thing. Hearing is the last faculty to go and still works even when we are heavily sedated, so...there can be consciousness even if one may not be awake?

Of course, there is also consciousness based on metaphysics, which to me, would be an "all aware" consciousness (higher self) regardless of the circumstances. Whether I/ego? grokked (to use Amos') onto what that consciousness, within me, was aware of or not, would depend on whether I was paying attention, interested, open to, etc. And, right there we have a conundrum because I believe I am never separate from that higher self, so it feels odd to refer to myself as apart and having to "notice." In some AMORC monograph, many, many years ago, I am sure there was a better explanation. (Obviously I didn't retain it.:-)

For the thirty years or so I have studied metaphysics, I soaked up what I believed of the teachings, having proven them to myself (subjective/perspective/etc. I know!)and they became innate or meshed with what was already within me. Once that became the case, I did not retain the particulars of what I read, so I can offer only anecdotal experiences. I have been reluctant to share those in recent times on the Mudcat as they didn't meet certain criteria. I didn't think they would be appropriate for and/or measure up to the high bar this thread has raised.:-) I'll keep reading. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 03:35 PM

The consciousness of others may be an idea construct, Frank, but I doubt that your own consciousness, dynamic and central to your thought processes about every aspect of existence, really strikes you as an idea. It's more of a center, your own place of being aware and being the Who that is you. Or so mine seems to me, anyway. Not an idea, a live ongoing experience.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 03:32 PM

And what about perceptions the person is taking in, that the individual is not consciously perceiving?

Subconscious. Unconscious. Conscious. Collective conscious. Experience. Interpretation. Perception.

Related to your remarks about pure consciousness and the object of which it is being aware, who or what is the observer?

Some of the people I work with have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder.) , and many people experience dissociative states.   People with DID have compartmentalized (in any number of ways and configurations) both the conscious and the unconscious. There is clearly one body, one human entity, sitting in the chair opposite me.   That one entity experiences itself as being more than one human entity, sometimes simultaneously, and sometimes not, and with various degrees of "co-consciousness" of the other identity fragments, depending on the completeness of compartmentalization.   Assorted "personalities" with conscious awareness of other of the "personalities" may have the perception of sharing a body with other 'people', other of the co-conscious "personalities" may believe they inhabit a separate body, even to the point of attempting to physically kill other of the personalities, unable to recognize it as an attempted suicidal act. (Rude awakening when that happens!)

"I think, therefore I am" is not existentially confirming when one mind is fragmented such that there is the subjective experience of more than one "I" accompanied by belief based on that subjective experience that the separate "I"s are truly separate beings, whether they inhabit the same physical body or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 02:41 PM

"At this point in time, we can begin to grapple with issues of function, of the mechanics of things. it does not tell us what consciousness is, what consciousness means, or what mindfulness is."

Janie, "consciouness and mindfulness" are idea constructs. There is no way to measure something that is in an idea form and not necessarilly physical. If these thing become measurable, then we will have useful information. In the meantime, we have to be satisfied with someone's experiential view of these elements which may not be shared by others.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:54 PM

In my neck of the Gestalt psychotherapy woods, we say that the healing takes place in the relationship.

   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:49 PM

As does the metaphysical.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:46 PM

The structural aspects with their intricate explorations of mechanism, chemical and electronic patterns and brain-mapping are endlessly intriguing. But my bias is toward communication as a healing medium and an avenue of discovery. There are things at play in communication which seem to me to break the bank of mechanism, whether we are talking about live communication between viewpoints or the semi-live communication of a Self appreciating things in the environment. For one thing, live communication enhances the individual sense of space and makes one feel bigger and more alive. (I have to add that not all noises coming out of people are really live communication, because sometimes they are just old tapes being replayed without present-moment exchange being considered at all, just dramatizations, and these don't have this effect.)

But live communication, now, also has the magic end result of bringing about understanding, the moment when you grok the point of view to which you are paying attention, or the delight of knowing that your expression has been grokked. (Sorry for the technical lingo). For one perspective it is like "trading consciousness".

I think this phenomenon is central to all learning and healing.

Perhaps this seems over-simplistic, but it strikes me as being of monumental importance.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:46 PM

I'd say Oliver Sacks definitely belongs on this thread, Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:24 PM

Kat, I had seen headlines about those twins and had written a note to myself to track down more information when I had time.

I know I'm putting up a lot of info. here about the physical stuff. That does not mean I have a mechanistic pov.

(This is an aside - As a psychotherapist who lives and works in an area with two major research institutions that do lots of research for the drug companies, and who crank out a lot of psychiatrists trained only from a biological model (i.e. mental disorder is all nature), this newer research is very validating and informative, especially since I work mostly with clients who do fall at the extreme ends of the normal curve in terms of their own life experiences. )

I'm not a linear thinker, and the other thread that I started to post to originally had my brain firing about all manner of tangentially related stuff, based not just what people were posting, but observations and speculations about what the posts were revealing about how people think and perceive. That thread touched on psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, theology, and probably a couple of other 'ologies.' But it boiled down to arguments about what constitutes reality. Can't talk intelligently about reality without talking about perception.   Can't talk about perception without talking about consciousness. Can't talk about consciousness without talking about experience. Can't talk about anything related to life without talking about biology. Can't talk about the individual without reference to the social.   

So I am interested in seeing this thread go all over the place, and be an exploration and a sharing of information and experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 12:21 PM

We can all find a body without looking too far and notice it is there.

We can all drum up a picture of some past moment and look at it, thus examining a part of the complex of recordings that makes up the mind.

We can all extrapolate about where the brain is and sort of sense its location inside the skull.

Two interesting outliers, though, are these:

1. Some, most, of us can take such a picture and place it far away, in front of us, behind us, or anywhere we choose to put it, and look at it being there.

2. All of us, at some point, face the question, "what is looking at the picture"? While some would argue it is a neurological subroutine, others would assert it is something more unique -- a viewpoint in consciousness not necessarily hard-coupled to any particular structural element.

And a third question arising from these is whether there is such a thing as "pure consciousness" without an object of which it is being aware. This is the sort of question that in some case leads to dramatic spiritual states and/or discoveries, but which seems to be well outside the normal spectrum of neurological studies.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 11:09 AM

I hope I'm not wandering too far from the thought-stream of this thread, but. . .

Of particular interest to Mudcatters would be the book (published in 2007) I'm enthusiastically reading right now, called Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks. Sacks is a physician, and Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. He apparently is acquainted with and/or treats many high-level musical people. He is a pianist himself.

He deals, fascinatingly, with the neurological causes and implications of various music-related phenomena, including:

A not-particularly-musical orthopedic surgeon, struck by lightning, who after six weeks suddenly developed an obsessive interest in music; who, after a further period, taught himself to play piano; who eventually became a composer--all the while maintaining his life as a surgeon.

Perfect pitch. (Among other things, that perfect pitch appears much more common in China than in the United States, and why.)

Musicogenic epilepsy.

A chapter called "In Living Stereo: Why We Have Two Ears".

Musical Savants

A chapter, "The Key of Clear Green: Synesthesia and Music".

A chapter, "Athletes of the Small Muscles: Musician's Dystonia".

And much, much, much, much more!

(You might just infer that I'm impressed with the book.)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 04:11 AM

Swiftly and flying by the seat ofmy pants,

consciousness roughly = being alive and awake

awareness       "    = noticing.


So you have to be conscious to be aware

You don't have to be aware to be conscious.



      And there's more to perception than hits the eyeball;i.e. a lot of the work of perception is done in the brain/mind/


    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:13 AM

Here's a better link about the book: click here. The "your stories" section is full of the kinds of stories my sisters share.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:07 AM

Janie, there's a lot of stories I could tell about my sisters and their closeness/interdependence, foreknowledge and psychic knowledge of events to do with either of them. One swears their birth order came about because one was too scared and didn't want to leave the womb!

Did you see a show recently about twins who were separated at birth on purpose for a study on twins? They were NEVER told they were twins! Here's a youtube link to an interview of them: click here. They have written a book about it: Identical Strangers:A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited. The enormity of what happened to them was incredible to me. I thought of my sisters and how tragic it would have been for them. Just my perception, of course.:-) Would they have memories of being together in the womb haunting them all of their lives? Would they chance meet as these women have done?

Anything I would say about consciousness, Self, etc. would be from a metaphysical background, so I'll just keep reading with interest.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 12:47 AM

oh yeah.. and thers that "matter" stuff as well..

seems theres loads of it..

and also that "anti doesn't matter" stuff..



f@ck knows where 'God and Son'
'


and all them other big corporate buisinesses fit into it..



..anyway.. i take comfort thinking when its my turn to be recycled..

my matter and energy will return to source..



just t5hought.. when i'm cremated.. some daft bourgoise hippy f@cker will picket my cremation

and accuse me of contributing to global warming..

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 12:41 AM

errrmm.. sorry... i stopped doing big words and long sentences
back in the 80's when dire financial and health circumstances left me no choice but to fade away from my MA clever bastard studies and seek emergency funding in tele sales and wharehouse stacking..


but.. right now i'm tiringly one phone call away from life and death of a frail elderly close relative..

so..

with mortality on my mind..


seems to me..

in the light of life and death struggle..

[2 litres of cider left]


our sense or our'self' is a "mysterious" happenchance of electrical impulses in the synapses of our mushy meaty offal brains..

we all of us at any point in our vain existance think we could possible be the most important only centre of the universe for this and most time ..

the electricity which supports and defines our individual 'spark' of life..

can be observed more closely as electrons..

and then even smaller stuff under the school lab microscope..

them even smaller buggers "atoms"..

and then right in the middle of them..

them even smaller things that dont respond to rational scientific malarky thought and bighead writing..

..errmm right in the middle.. them nuclear things.. even smaller than them..

them buggerons.. or whatever they science lab clever f@ckers call 'em..


and the even smaller you go looking into them for meaning and understanding..

you eventually meet up with that little tiny fella

off that 1950's movie

"The Incredible Shrinking Man"..



i bet he's thirsty by now..


..so in conclusion..

the closer we go down on our loved ones smallest parts

.. the bigger we get in our appreciation of

of how f@ck all we will ever know..??????






..i'll probably have a follow on theory on "Consciousness & Perceived Reality"

after i crack open the next bottle..

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 11:49 PM

That is interesting, Mrrzy. Do you by any chance have a link you could provide?

The link between language and conceptualization is pretty fascinating. Conceptualization and perception mutually influence one another.

A number of years ago I read a book called "An Eternity of Species" that was basically a collection of biographies about the New World naturalists of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th century who collected and identified New World species of flora and fauna. Before the explosion of technologies that heralded the Industrial Age, it was possible to be a generalist expert whose knowledge covered pretty much all that was factually known, as well as a good working knowledge of most plausible scientific theories based on the data available at the time.   Sometimes I'm jealous.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 11:06 PM

I am inclined to say that awareness and consciousness are not the same thing, but I wouldn't even begin to say how they might be different.   I think it likely that it is possible to have sensory awareness without consciousness, and I also think it possible to have consciousness without sensory awareness. However, that may only be true if sensory awareness was at one time present, but has been lost.

I also think that some forms of memory are stored in the body, as opposed to the brain. I know that what we think of as psychological trauma can have profound effects on the body, on disease processes, and on vulnerability to many, many physical ailments and problems.   I have talked with people who work with individuals who are at the low end of the moderate and high end of severe mental retardation who say there is evidence that body techniques such as deep tissue massage appear to help with grief when parents die.

We are dependent on the senses to perceive external stimuli.   But the actual stimuli, and the perception of the stimuli are different. I haven't a clue about when the cognitive interpretation of perceived stimuli begins.   Cognitive interpretation is salient in psychotherapy, but that does not mean it is salient to awareness or to consciousness.
The sense of touch perceives, among other things, pain. But there is a great deal of variation among 'normal' individuals in the perception of pain. We perceive sound through hearing.   But some people have perfect pitch, and some are tone deaf. I know that when I am singing with people regularly, my ability to hear pitch and sing harmony is better than when I go long periods without singing at all, or just sing by myself. I also know that when I am nervous about singing, I have a much more difficult time finding the proper pitch. (although I can hear that I am out of pitch.) People habituate to climate. So sensory perceptions of cold and hot, and of humidity vary.   Sensory perception varies.



Even without interpretation, perception of stimuli varies (assuming any given sense functions within the range of 'normal' for humans.

Awareness is a prerequisite for self-awareness. Consciousness is a prerequisite for self-consciousness.    Descarte's "I think, therefore I am," may be confirmation that I am. But even if I don't think, I am.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 08:50 PM

And another cool finding...

If your language has a word for blue and a separate word for green, you will sort red, blue and green chips into 3 different piles if asked to sort by color, and you will pick the same blue as others when asked to pick the best example of blue - and it won't be teal, or turquoise, or periwinkle, it will be plain blue.
If your language has a word that covers both blue and green, you'll put the blue and green chips into one pile and the red ones in another. But if asked to pick the best example of "bleen" or "grue" or whatever your word for both green and blue is, you'll still pick the "prototype" blue (or the prototype green) - not the blue-green central color.
See Rosch/Heider for more cool color perception and language research.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 08:20 PM

Not to mention past lives and their faintly forwarded patterns.

I think the affinity between self and others is a major component of one's very awareness at all ages. Like any such component it can be distorted by denial, or by enforcement, and turned from a natural grace into an aberrant force in the heart.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 07:52 PM

So the social is essential to the human psyche, beginning with the interaction between the care giver and the infant.

But the new born infant is also not a blank slate. Differences in temperment are evident at birth, even between genetically identical twins.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 07:35 PM

The studies cited above all involve infants and young children for whom attachment did occur. This article is about the correlation between brain development and the quality of the attachment. The capacity to attach appears to be genetic, and given the opportunity to attach, an infant will attach to an abusive caregiver as readily as to a nurturing caregiver.   

There have been some studies done on Rumanian orphans (more info in the "This American Life" podcast linked in an earlier post), some of whom never had the opportunity to attach at all in infancy or early childhood. These children were also deprived of many stimulation experiences over a period of a number of years. Those not left at the orphanages near their time of birth probably experienced other forms of deprivation, including nutritional, before ever arriving at the orphanage. It is therefore not possible to conclude that brain abnormalities noted in many of these children are the direct result of lack of attachment. Be that as it may, brain scans on a number of these children showed significant areas of brain atrophy and/or failure of parts of the brain to develop.