BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 06:15 PM

I'm trying to catch up, and NOT totally confused, but Amos already knows my approach to some of these issues and concepts.(I tend to side with Keinstein about some of it, though I do understand how easy it can be to ascribe subjective (as Janie says 'visceral reactions' to simplifying it too much)
   I'm trying to think how to toss in my 2¢ worth without needless repetition.
There are ideas about the relation of language to our expressions of our conciousness that might be worthwhile.

Wish I weren't so busy right now!

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 06:33 PM

Taboo.

It has become a dirty word in Western society.



This is a wonderfully funny remark.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 07:05 PM

Here is an interesting summary of what looks like a good work on the subject of blind spots, pernicious and otherwise.

A

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

And, here's another one on the human potential for evil by the psychologist Philip Zimbardo who did those shocking and surprising prisons and prisoners experiments at Stanford. And their potential for good, likewise...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 11:51 PM

Ivor,

Thanks for your response. To answer your question as best I can, my primary interest, with respect to this thread, is exploring for the purpose of understanding as much as I am able in as many ways as I am able.    I am obviously interested in the neuroscientific research on the biology of consciousness and perception, about which I actually know very little, but would like to know and understand more. Much of what I have posted is simply me thinking and processing out loud. I am posting links to information and viewpoints that I personally consider worth pondering, in the perhaps arrogant belief that others might also find them interesting, informative and thought provoking.    I can only speak for myself, but I am not looking for proof of anything, nor am I seeking to prove anything.    While it is apparent that my interest overlaps with and is informed by my own training and work as a psychotherapist, this as much a personal exploration as a professional one. As Steven Levine says, "the only work we have to do is on ourselves."

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 11:59 PM

Amos,

Here is where I say, "DUH".

Just now recognizing what you saw in my comment about taboos.

Who? Me? Slow?

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 01:51 AM

Janie.

(In my usual rush in the morning)

Not sure about our "only" work, but this psychotherapist largely agrees. being a therapist invovolves constant looking at, and dealing with, aspects , of our selves, because clients are constantly reaching parts of ourselves that aren't finished (!!!?????!)

One my earlier points is touched on by your quote, so it's worth saying again. namelly that it is precisely "looking at ourselves" that people are, in so many ways , resistant to - hence blaming, amongst other things.(A classic way to let yourself off the hook)

And i suggested that the thought that scientists are up for studying absolutely everything in the galaxy with the one exception of THEMSELVES is the Western world's underpinning of avoiding the self. (Psychologists are happy looking at The Self. But Themselves? )

That's so endemic that people have loads of reasons for doing so - indulgent, narcissistic, gangerous, frightening - and even clients (i.e.those who've chosen counselling) and trainees (those who've chosen the therapeutic path) both resist at different times, examining themselves .


Socrates said it; the Oracle at Delphi said it; Shakespeare alluded to it.


Do we want to hear? Politicians? Business people?, Journalists?


Must go.

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 01:53 AM

PS. Science is happy with what it can measure.

      Like wishes, desires, the unconscious, the psychology behind not wanting to know, ........?


   I.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 07:48 AM

One aspect is safety.

Examining self is like moulting -- it makes you very vulnerable for a while.

In any environment where a threat of any sort exists, gain does not occur; likewise, a predominating upset, worry, or other rudimentary impediment.

The great paradox of therapy imo is that self-determinism is sacred, and is being asked to change itself.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 10:32 AM

imo, no paradox, cos what the client does is up to them.

   However, if the client feels/believes they are 'being asked' to change, that would be fit for looking at in sessions as well.

   That could happen once the client (ot even therapist) got to the point of noticing or bringing into the session th't that was their expectation/belief/assumption.

   And yes, completely, clients in all probability feel vulnerable. That's why an early staging post is to get the place where the client feels safe. That's not likely to be so first off. There may be work to do ewven to get to there.

   like everything, will vary from client to client.


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 11:30 AM

A client not looking for change on his own election will not make good progress. Doing it for the spouse or the parent is a pure-dee set up for frustration -- there's no personal energy being invested no matter how cooperative and dutiful the person is. That's my opinion. Conversely an individual seeking to grow on his own election to do so will do a lot of the heavy lifting instinctively.
Especially if he feels he is is in a safe environment where he will not get told what to think or how to be, or have various enforcements and inhibitions run on his puir haid.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 12:59 PM

"precisely "looking at ourselves" that people are, in so many ways , resistant to - hence blaming, amongst other things"

that was part of the idea I was going to allude to today.

On top of that ,Ivor, the percieved reality we make of another person is remarkably so flawed that most of us have learned to keep such "percieved realities" to ourselves.

Sometimes we laugh heartily at the comedian who dares say what others may only think.

Lets try an experiment:
Since I have never met any of you and you are all virtual personalities to me as well, could you openly share what your perceived reality of me would be. ( I promise to remain objectively unoffended)
And if you did how close do you think it would be to other realities as well as my own?
Some of us have been taught "Judge not lest ye be judged" but we do do it internally every moment.

Beyond your likely first thought of "I don't know" there would be some kind of mental image but sharing that image would be sharing inate and acquired fears, hopes and personal experiences far removed from who I may be or who I may be like. There may also be a strong reluctence to do so because one would not want to offend or hurt the other by being honest with one's acquired perception.
What I am getting at, beyond projection, is that it is as difficult to share your deep impression of another as it is to share an understanding of yourself. To do so is to reveal your own emotional self which , in my opinion, most people do not do.

The totally open and unabashed person is usually a joy to be around but to be that way ourself is difficult and in many situations impossible in society.

Because of training I suspect Ivor could do it fairly accurately but my acquired perceived reality of Janie says that she could not.

Since Janie is largely an unknown person to me... Let me first ask permission from Janie if I were to be allowed to state what my internal judge has to say about Janie.
In doing so I certainly dare to be wrong .

which is why we don't do this along with avoiding causing hard feelings. THis is hard feelings may come from the internal nether world of perception and could be totally wrong headed,

so lets not and say we did :)

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 04:13 PM

I have no idea why, Donuel, but in my imagination you are lanky, with a long jaw and long limbs. Creative, obviously and intensely curious and energetic and also given to impassioned spates. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 04:36 PM

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YOv2cUv4gcU

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 08:17 PM

Millennium Blessing
by Stephen Levine

There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,
    but in timelessness
when the mind sinks into the heart
and we remember.

It is an insistent grace that draws us
to the edge and beckons us to surrender
safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass
    beyond knowing
and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward
    none-the-less
through forgotten ghosts
    and unexpected angels,
luminous.

And there is nothing left to say
but we are That.

And that is what we sing about.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 07:29 AM

We can see what a vast set of subjects this thread is on about.

   And there are shelves of books and articles on both human consciousness, and reality and our perception if it.

   little wonder heads are hurting. Great philosophers, religious and other thinkers have been at these subjects for a year or two.

   We all go thru life with flawed philosophies, flawed theories and erroneous perceptions.

   Donuel, I haven't followed your posts enough to get enough of a picture of you. I'm very aware of what gaps there can be between one person's view of another, and some of the reality (can't say the reality). So much of what people both do, and don't do, comes from what they THINK another person is like. Same with all human groupings - company boards, bosses. employees, partners et cetera.

   And how people believe they DO know another like a book.

   Pirandello did a play about this ("You're Right if You Think So". I think). You ger a plethora of views of x by the characters in the play.

no doubt all of whom think their view is correct. In a way they can. Because a,b and c are different people, and bring out different parts of x. There isn't one relationship , x and another; x and a - x and b - and x and c.

    Ivor


    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 09:42 AM

Or x^N(a^n)(b^n)(c^n)...(n^n).

It's a matrix out there, kid, I'm tellin' ya! :D



A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 01:27 PM

" There isn't one relationship , x and another; x and a - x and b - and x and c."



    That should have read,


    " There isn't one relationship , x and another.

There are three, namely:- x and a - x and b - and x and c."




   and one Ivor (aren't there? [in a funny voice] Ys)

   PS Didn't get on with The Matrix - some people shot and they die; others shot the same way and they didn't.Hunh? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 01:41 PM

I don't see how you get three relationships.

Freud once is reported to have written in a letter, "I am coming to the conclusion that every conversation involves at least four epople. We shall have much to say about that....".

For any viewpoint, x there is an infinite number of relationships with the things and people of the world, and from them to him, and from his view of them to each other, and, indeed, from him to himself in relationship to any one or all of them.

Ability in generating and experiencing all these directions and qualities of flows is a "Desireable Thing", present in greater or lesser degree in everyone.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 01:59 PM

In my ex., there are four people, a,b,c and x. x has relationships with 3 other people. a,b and c will each have different relationships with x because a.b and c are different people. consequently a.b and c won't see x the same as each other.

And that's only a part of our troubles.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 02:08 PM

Oh, I see your point. Thanks, Ivor. Of course, each of those lines or pairs has different costumes at either end of it. In fact it is the generating of those costumes of others that often leads us into all kinds of difficulties because they so rarely reflect the identitiy the person sees himself as having.

The only path out of all that is good communication and the tolerance of individual self-definition. (IMO).


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 02:58 PM

There's so much more than that, Amos, surely.

Like how people often don't meet the other but their own projections,(or even avoid the other because their own projections), and have no idea th't that's what's going on. To do so requires a depth of self-knowledge that any number of people know little or nothing of (and have no idea exists.)

Now we're into my earlier point about levels of consciousness.

Just as children can't get a lot of what is going on with adults because they inhabit a different psycho-biologico-intellectual world, so those who've been thru many sorts of experience canno have dialogues of real comprehension with those who haven't, common language or not.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 03:12 PM

Well, that is certainly true.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 06:09 PM

Neurolinguistics seems to have an influence on someone's recognition of reality. The choice of words can alter someone's view of what they think is real.

The problem of reality is that it's up for semantic grabs. Is what a person experiences
really real? Is what we visualize in our imagination reality? Is there an objective reality?

Philosophers talk about phenomenology. The metaphysics folks say that only what we see
is reality and that is all we can hope for in identifying it.

Consciousness can change on a dime. Perceived reality can only be tested by a variety of
experiential imput by others. I see reality as a scientific construct to be measured and tested. It is a relative reality and not an absolute. I think that human consciousness is
a process and not fixed but fluid. I see reality as being relatively verifiable, not absolute.

I think there may be more than one kind of reality. Experiential reality may not be readilly tested or observable.

In the use of identifying reality for therapeutic purposes, experiential reality must be tested by verifiable reality. It's interesting how language plays such an important role
in how we view reality. A sense of self is often slanted by the words we use to describe ourselves. In attempting to communicate what we think of as "self", we may alter that definition many times. The sense of "self" then changes and is fluid. It's like cellular
growth, it may not be the same one minute to the next.

I wonder, in the metaphor of The Golden Compass, if the sense of self is like dust.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 06:43 PM

Who, I wonder, would see it as such, Frank?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 04:25 AM

Frank ,

the stuff about language helring define us may be partly why Gestalt therapy takes more notice of what the client does than what they say.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 11:22 AM

Semantics is a tight blanket and most minds get woefully enmeshed in it. Every measure of stressful or upsetting experience has its sound track, and at some degrees of reduction in power the ability to discriminate can fall below a threshold and words themselves can seem to have energy and power. But I do not think the mind is language driven, in herenty, just that it gets language-entangled.

In the several traditions that build around meditation, it is a common theme to find an emphasis on letting go of words, and of even thoughts, and to seek to acheive a state of no-thought, consciousness without object. And many people report they have done this successfully.

Feelings, forces, and perhaps meaning itself, are more the upholstery of thought than the dinglicheit of thought itself, I think. But thought, conversely, easily gets tangled up in its own forms and symbols, and can confuse them either with outside reality or its own substance.

One path to betterment is through discriminating more and more among these things.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 05:36 PM

i I wonder, in the metaphor of The Golden Compass, if the sense of self is like dust.


   i don't think there's such a thing as "the" sense of self.

There's 'your' sense', 'my' sense, and so on. If the sense isn't personal, then it will certainly be more like dust.


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 09:41 AM

In good hands, psycho neural liguistics, hypnosis, control of the mind body connection are all very much the same thing and can be of great value to the individual or collective.

I think you have all seen what may happen when they are used by the wrong hands for greedy purposes.

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 10:37 AM

Consider, too, that for one individual the sense of self can easily expand to include an infinite array of past and present perceptions, generated views, envisioned realities whether past or wholly imaginary, considerations in cross-connected webs of opinion and belief, and perspectives beyond count.

One individual. An infinite array of things to know and ways to know 'em.

The walking population of earth alone, sub-group homo sapiens multiplies that infinite array by 6.6 billion.

Add in whatever other sentient awarenesses may be in play, from elephants to disincarnate artists hanging out in treetops for a break, and you get a pretty complex matrix of consideration, do you not?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 10:40 AM

Current real-time population of Earth and other statistics of interest.


S

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 10:58 AM

Back in 2001, there was a really interesting report on seeing which made the point that we do not see with our eyes, and asserted that we see with our brains. Blind people were trained to see with their tongues in the lab work covered by the article. Hmmmm.

This deserves a lot of thought.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 01:15 PM

Amos, that reminds me of a line off one of the philosophy lecturers at my uni (UEA), back in the 79s.
I may have quoted it already.

There's more to perception than jits tje eyeball.

That's how come we can make sense of funny (pocket0 carttons, which are so far from realistic - cos our brain fills in what's mising (makes a gestalt or pattern)

HAPPY NEW YEAR


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 05:14 PM

Should read "hits the eyeball", sheesh

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 09:26 PM

More research on the power (i.e.effect) of perception.

Mirrow Therapy for Phantom Pain

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 09:59 PM

The posts to the numerous recent and current political threads are also powerful examples of how filters, beliefs, etc. shape perception of reality. The reactions to Obama's recent speech on "a More Perfect Union" (and include the different commentaries from columnists that are not only cited on the thread, but that one can read as one cruises assorted news and blogs on the internet.)