BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality

14 Dec 07 - 08:44 PM (#2215623)
Subject: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Lousy thread title, but as close as I could get.

This started as a post to the "There Is No God" thread. I decided it was too tangential, so I'm bringing it over here instead.


In that thread, somebody, I think Don Firth, shared a quote to the effect that the universe is not only odder than we suppose, it is odder than we can suppose. I suspect the same is true of the workings of the human mind, as well the brain.

We are in the infant stages of learning about the development and functioning of the human brain, limbic system, the effects of hormones, enzmes, and other neurochemicals. I'm gonna kinda go all over the place in this post, just to lay out some information.

Human beings have a limited capacity to observe objective reality. We do have the capacity to develop tools that can detect what our 5 senses can not, and the ability to interpret and extrapolate from that extra-sensory information. Interpret is in italics, because interpretation can never be completely objective.

The empirical, or 'scientific' method is the best tool we have been able to come up with so far to 'test' hypotheses about those aspects of 'reality' that we have the current tools to discern to some degree or another. And it may be that it is the best method there is. It may be that the only only limiting factor is our capacity for discernment, through our own faculties or the tools available at any given point in time.   If that is the case, those limits on discernment are real, and are huge. And the capacity for discernment varies humongously within and between individuals. Toss in the interpretation factor, and things get 'interesting.' (This is a partial explanation for the widely divergent views in the afore mentioned thread.)

Some one in that other thread observed that we can not observe the content of thought. In the forseeable future, however, the first crude means to do so will be available.   This article implies what those first crude measures will consist of. The possibilities are pretty scary. "Thought Police" could be a future tangible reality. Hope the ethicists get busy on this one sooner rather than later.

Visual perception is one very concrete example regarding perception. Follow some of the linked articles on the greater development of hearing among people who are blind. Ponder perception of reality from individual to individual.

As I said above, we are in the infant stages of neuroscientific understanding. We know this much:

1. Sensory perception begins before birth.

2. In the absence of extreme developmental abnormalities, there are some basic brain structures that all humans have. There are likely some basic functions and characteristics beyond brain stem functions that we all have, but there is not an established 'baseline' for many of these functions. It may be more accurate to say there are likely to be some baseline capacities and potentialities. Even so, the baseline has not been established.

Continued next post.

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14 Dec 07 - 08:50 PM (#2215626)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: michaelr

I've heard that the surface of the neonatal brain is smooth. The ridges and convolutions develop following sensory input.

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14 Dec 07 - 09:08 PM (#2215633)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

3. Even considering that some hardwiring is 'baseline', there is considerable variation among humans at birth, though we do not have the capacity yet to distinquish except between the most gross differences. Some of those significant differences have to do with sensitivity and functionality, and not with actual structure. Hormones, enzmes, other neurotransmitter chemicals, number, variation and sensitive of receptors, etc., etc. etc. Like the outer universe, infinite possibilities.

4. Experiences - stimuli - (among other factors) beginning before birth, and continuing throughout the life span, but especially during childhood, effect both the development of the brain structure itself, the hardwiring of brain 'circuits,' glandular output of hormones, the kinds of neural pathways or connections, the number of neural pathways and connections, the sensitivity to stimuli, the accessibility (superhighway or grown-over logging road) 'gates,' that influence which neural pathways get 'travelled' under what conditions, and so on.

5. In 4 above, remove 'experience' and insert the individual's initial hardwiring, hormones, et. al, based on genetics and in utero exposure to whatever crosses the placenta or travels through the umbilical cord. These influence the effect of the experiences-stimuli.

We do know that much, and not much else. Already, the possibilities, even within the individual brain, are infinite.

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14 Dec 07 - 09:48 PM (#2215662)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

My colleagues and I work with a lot of people who were physically, sexually and or severely emotionally abused or neglected beginning in infancy or early childhood. For years before the tools were developed and the research began to provide the empirical evidence, we would comment to one another in peer supervision and consultation, our sense that the brains of many of these clients simply did not work the same way. We observed cognitive differences that we intuited went beyond the then esoteric theoretical constructs of psyche. We hypothesized the trauma had led to both physiological and functional differences in the brains of many of these individuals that affected cognitive perception, sensory perception, emotion regulation, and therefore, perception of reality. We perceived in the nightmares, flashbacks, repetition compulsions, attachment difficulties, trauma bonds, that brain function and physiology were involved, as well as the 'mind.'

As tools have been developed to monitor brain function and activity, as well as other body organs and biological systems and how these systems respond/react to stress, our intuitions are increasingly confirmed, though the details are still poorly understood. Research on stored memories, emotional memories, theamagdyla begins to allow integration of psychodynamic models and biology. These are the seeds of a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of the matrix of nature/nurture and the human being.

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14 Dec 07 - 09:54 PM (#2215669)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

I am impressed.

I also wonder about an omission, I think -- the self-organizing individual decision. Or is that included in "experiences"? People (in my observation) do change themselves and do s by an act of decision. It's one of their most endearing chaqracteristics! ;>0


A

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14 Dec 07 - 10:01 PM (#2215677)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Bill D

Yep, Janie... research IS learning more every day about the brain and its complexity. More & more we are seeing some 'tendencies' hard-wired. In the future, it may affect not only psychology, but also court cases...etc. YOU are already seeing how you need to re-evaluate some treatment plans based on new data.
I'll be interested to see how this thread goes.

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14 Dec 07 - 10:15 PM (#2215684)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Extreme childhood trauma, a young man whose consciousness is locked in a body unable to respond with his consciousness, and a man whose sight is restored after many years of blindness are extreme examples. But our tools - our own senses, and the external tools we have developed that exceed our own sensory capacity, are still too crude to detect anythng but extreme differences.

But we can extrapolate to the vast majority of human beings whose experiences and physical conditions fall within that still very broad range considered 'normal' (regardless of what we are looking at) on the bell curve.

All of this is the nuts and bolts stuff. 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.

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14 Dec 07 - 11:15 PM (#2215722)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Bill,

Interventions with children are changing a great deal. With adults, (the population with whom I work,) what we have so far is a better understanding of why and how psychotherapy works, a better understanding and appreciation for therapies such as EMDR and Neurolinguistic Programming, and more realistic expectations.   

Amos,

The impact of decision and choice are huge. However, that tangle of hardwiring and experience strongly effects self-awareness, the capacity for insight, and the capacity to make effective use of insight. Each of us have 'blindspots' where we do not perceive choices that others see, where we mistake belief for 'absolute' or cling to our version of 'reality', or 'truth' come hell or high water, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

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14 Dec 07 - 11:24 PM (#2215726)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

Fixed ideas and bum data will screw up th emost potentially rational chain of thought. Plus, overlays of culture and overlays of trauma all play a part. The fact, on top of all this, that an individual can decide to see things differently and do so is most remarkable, and I think an important clue to the layers at work.

A

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14 Dec 07 - 11:28 PM (#2215729)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

I often wonder about the variation in the capacity for insight into the self, and also, the variation, among people who do display the capacity for insight, to put that capacity to good use. By good, I mean effective.

It is not a function of intellect.

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14 Dec 07 - 11:32 PM (#2215730)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing

I, too, will be interested in watching this thread. Thanks for starting it, Janie and for sharing your incredible intellect.

I believe my sisters who are twins are "hard-wired" in a different way than we single siblings; at least in our family. I think it has something to do with them being identical twins. There are just different ways in which their thinking and perceptions seem odd compared to the rest of us. I know it's just anecdotal, but I've always found it interesting.

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15 Dec 07 - 12:19 AM (#2215746)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

We are not just biology. We are not just psychology. We are not just sociology. We are especially not a combination of the three. We are each an integration of the three, or at least striving toward that integration.   I have some primitive conceptualization that I have yet to articulate to myself, much less anyone else, that our existential perceptions and concerns represent our striving to comprehend that integration.

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15 Dec 07 - 12:52 AM (#2215756)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Reality.

Perception. Paradox. Absolutism. Primitive defenses such as projection. Intellectualization (my own favorite and overused psychological defense), Experience. Belief. Data. Interpretation. Empathy. Knowledge. Ambiguity. Ambivalence. Intuition. Cathecting. Decathecting. Relativity. Belief. Interpretation. Filters. Mindfulness. Emotion. Values. Truth.

Who has a corner on the market of objective reality?

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15 Dec 07 - 01:54 AM (#2215765)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Taboo.

It has become a dirty word in Western society.

Taboos often seem completely irrational. But a thorough exploration of the origin of any given taboo usually reveals a rational and/or realistic basis for it's origin. In many, if not most instances, the taboo is originally, and for long periods of history, very functional in terms of the survival of the tribe, group, or society. (Rational and reality may be related, but are not synonyms.)   Taboos are nearly always about the over-all well-being of the group instead of the individual. There is reason to believe, that the individual has gained such prominence in Western society in modern times, however, that the survival our species, (and many others) is in jeapardy.

One of the social functions of the institution of religion is to socialize people to accept taboos, then to enforce the taboo.   Taboos are powerful, largely by virtue of irrational acceptance of them on 'moral' grounds, and slow to change once their functionality has become obsolete.

The human race, however, could stand some additional taboos right now, that might make the difference in how long we can survive as a species on this planet. How about taboos around water and resource usage? How about taboos about environmental destruction? Taboos about atomic weapons? Rational thinking that is dependent on self interest, enlightened or otherwise, are clearly not gonna cut the mustard. A bit of irrational, group-think would go a long way in buying us time on this planet.

I'm not advocating. I'm saying think about it. Think long, and hard and deeply about it. Think intelligently about the interdependence of the individual and the group. Think about the realities of globalization. Globalization is/was inevitable as the world population of humans has increased to at or above capacity.

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15 Dec 07 - 07:32 AM (#2215835)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,Shimrod

I have come to think that 'Homo sapiens' is a species which continually creates false, or incomplete, models of reality and then attempts to force the data to fit the models (often ignoring, of course, data points which don't fit - what I call 'The Elephant in the Room' syndrome).

Examples of false and/or incomplete models are most religions and virtually all of the 19th/20th Century '-isms'. The current '-ism', which will probably lead to the extinction of 'Homo sapiens' at its own hand, is Capitalism with its monstrously absurd assumptions about resource availability, human population growth rates and the irrelevance of the biosphere and all of its components except humans. This is now an unstoppable juggernaut sliding on a slick of greed, arrogance and wilful ignorance towards a precipice.

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15 Dec 07 - 07:48 AM (#2215845)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: MBSLynne

This is a fascinating thread..though very 'deep'.

I can't begin to join the intellectual discussion here on a level with some of you, but I'd just like to make a couple of comments.

Amos...I've always believed too, that humans can make a decision to change themselves...to some extent. All my life I've worked with greater and lesser success, on changing things about my personality that I didn't like. From this experience it appears to me that we can decide to, and succeed in changing some things, but that there are some basic facets of personality which we cannot change no matter how hard we try. Interesting to look at the differences between what we can consciously change and what we can't.

When my children were small I took great joy in using everything we did together to teach and stimulate the children. Shopping was always great fun, for them and for me. We talked about things we saw, we counted things, read things..it was an almost limitless medium. I always worried when I saw some mothers dragging kids around the shops and totally ignoring them, even when the kids were asking questions. Nowadays you see Mum's towing toddlers round and talking on their mobile phones so that the kids get no input from or connection with their mothers. The thing here is that everything we do to and with children (adults too I guess, though probably to a lesser degree) has some effect. Abuse and trauma are extreme, but even every day attention or lack of it has an effect on the person's brain, brain function etc.

I say this from observation but no actual knowledge of brains and their workings.

Love Lynne

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15 Dec 07 - 07:56 AM (#2215848)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Bobert

All this stuff has put a hurt on my head...

LOL...

B~

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15 Dec 07 - 09:40 AM (#2215892)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

We here in gestalt doubt if we can change ourselves that often just by an act of will.

We think instead that change can happen of its own accord once we have truly got to accept where we are/who we are. The difficulty is we think there are parts of ourselves we either don't want to 'own', or will not believe are a part of ourselves.

That happens nationally, too. e.g. while the Cold War was on, we in the West didn't want to know about our surveillance tendencies, for example.

Now the Cold War is long gone, suddenly surveillance has a defence - if you've got nothing to hide. We ARE now willing to own that part our society.


   Ivor

PS Wish you a speedy recovery, Bobert

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15 Dec 07 - 10:57 AM (#2215931)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Bill D

Well, Bobert, some of what Janie is 'brainstorming' is causing MY head to swirl and strain a bit as it tries to expand enough to take in the nuances, both obvious & implied, of her insights. It ain't exactly 'hurting', but I need to chew (metaphorically) on it a bit before hurling myself into the midst of some quite challenging and important ideas about the 'us-ness' of us.

Durn, Janie...I wish you'd done this at a less busy time.....but I am tracing the thread just in case it slips off the bottom when I am not here. I want to read it again, slowly.

("hey, Bill", says a little voice from somewhere deep inside, "you know you CAN print the durn thing and carry a copy around so you can make note in the margins!"
"Why, thank you", little voice, I reply, "I might just do that!"

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15 Dec 07 - 11:18 AM (#2215943)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,Miss G

I just want to get laid again before the world ends. Is it Taboo to be so shallow?

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15 Dec 07 - 11:39 AM (#2215954)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Bill D

Nope...but if you ARE that shallow, I'd suspect that your goal should not be too hard to meet.

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15 Dec 07 - 12:04 PM (#2215964)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Paradox
Paradox
paradox

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15 Dec 07 - 12:06 PM (#2215966)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

I think it is fundamental that to face plainly what is is a pre-requisite for changing, whether in individual conscious structures or group and organization structures.

The whole process of "changing for the better" has to begin with seeing what is there.

THat said, however, the individual act of will, or generating an organizing postulate about how things are, is what finally has to occur for change.

WHat is amazing to me is that this ability exists in humans.

In the other thread I posted a link to SciVee scientific video which did a mathematical analysis of the degree of randomness in the responses of fruitflies. Even in a tiny organism like that, there is an undeniable presence of something beyond mere S-R chaining. Or so they conclude.

A

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15 Dec 07 - 12:41 PM (#2215982)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Because we can never see absolutely clearly, we can never see all that is 'there.'   

It pays to recognize I am not only always looking through some sort of distorting lens, but that there is always the possibility that not everything is within my field of vision.

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15 Dec 07 - 02:40 PM (#2216043)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Kat,

Your mention of the twins has me thinking about attachment and bonding, and also the possible effects of the experience of sharing the womb, which would include elements of physical competition, physical accommodation, and physical cooperation.    Toss in the possibility that social learning begins pre-birth in the shared womb, even though the actual infant brain does not conceptualize, and shake it up with our emerging realization of the matrix of naturenurture.

Contemplate consciousness vs. self-consciousness. Awareness vs. self-awareness.

The newborn infant definitely has what we call 'awareness', but does not have awareness that discriminates between 'self' and 'other.'

Then go read and contemplate on Eastern philosophies about consciousness and awareness, some Carl Jung, and some Joseph Campbell.   Talk to some one who has had the repeated experience of dreaming about the death of family members who have then died quite unexpectedly in accidents or from things such as stroke or heart attacks where there was no prior knowledge or indication of cardiovascular problems, or from a sudden and severe illness within a few weeks of the individual having the dream.

Look at your plastic keyboard and contemplate that it is what it appears to be in terms of the limits of our senses and what they tell us about 'reality', then think about chemistry, physics, atoms, particles, string-theory, the space-time continuum, energy/matter.

Self. Other. I am me. You are you. We are separate. We are related. We are interrelated and interdependent. I can wrap my mind around those concepts. What if, in addition, we are also NOT separate but related and interdependent. What if we are also not separate at all? What if we are also, and quite literally, one?

I don't have any beliefs about that. I am simply open to the possibility.

What is objective reality? What is consciousness? What is awareness?

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15 Dec 07 - 03:18 PM (#2216055)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Humans (and many other, but not all, species) appear to have the innate capacity for attachment and bonding. The development of human attributes such as empathy, intimacy and what we call the "conscience" are dependent on what we call attachment and bonding.   This relates to humans being an interdependent social species.

We know that infants who are not held and cuddled and soothed, who do not experience 'mirroring' of facial expressions, touch, sound, are more likely to exhibit behaviors that fit the diagnostic criteria that we call Reactive Attachment Disorder, than are children who do have the aforementioned experiences. Other conditions, such as autism, also effect attachment and bonding.

"This American Life" did a show that illustrates Attachment issues.

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15 Dec 07 - 04:13 PM (#2216075)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

The range of what is considered normal in terms of nearly all human behaviors and reports of subjective experience is very broad. Individual and social values largely determine what is normal, and also what is acceptable in terms of human behavior. Concepts of normalcy and acceptability tend to be socially determined.

There is no way for me to know if worker bees or ants fret about their circumscribed roles. The further the species is from my particular branch on the tree of life, the more limited is my capacity to even speculate in a way that has any 'objective' value. When I begin to speculate about species other than my own that are closer to the human branch, say, mammals, it behooves me to be aware of the possibility of anthropomorphic tendencies.

Although it is not true of all human cultures, being from a Western culture, it does not bother me in the least to stomp on a cockroach. It does bother me to accidentally run over a groundhog. I could quickly re-arrange my "conscience" however, to justify shooting the same groundhog, if he keeps destroying my vegetable garden. Alternatively, I can assuage my 'conscience', by trapping him in a box trap, and then releasing him in some other territory, where he may or may not be able to establish himself and continue to live. Out of sight, out of mind.

From a purely rational point of view, I do not believe that the life of a human being is inherently more valuable than the life of a chicken, cow, groundhog, or sunflower.

For the sake of convenience, realistic manageabilility , and survival, I am willing to assign a tertiary value to the evidence that suggests humans in general, and this human in particular, are no more or less significant than any other life form. I am even willing to ignore, suppress or repress all evidence of such, and adopt primary and secondary beliefs (which I will treat as 'fact' or 'truth', ) in order to insure my own survival and sense of well-being.

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15 Dec 07 - 04:21 PM (#2216079)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Even so, cockroaches were around long before humans, and are likely to be around long after humans.

What does this mean?

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15 Dec 07 - 04:23 PM (#2216081)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

What is meaning?

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15 Dec 07 - 04:43 PM (#2216089)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

Well, there may be no objective grounds for valuing a groundhog more than one of the Joad brothers; but from a human point of view, the angles seem to support the sense that human survival depends on human survival -- we survive as well as all others. When an organism cuts across our bows by chewing up our vegetables, he becomes fair game, valuable or not.

The computations about survival are not just one-unit-organism. We also want out families to be there tomorrow, and our groups, our races and towns, our species overall. That's why contemplating "right" action is complex and so debatable. It hinges on opinions about probable outcomes, and opinions -- well, we know what tey're like.

As for the survival potential of cockroaches, they are well adopted to bring about cockroacvh survival.

Human survival is a lot more complex, I believe, and a lot richer in shades of value. So even thugh it may be a much more difficult game, I am glad to be playing it instead of the cockroach version.

A

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15 Dec 07 - 05:31 PM (#2216121)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie - PM
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 12:41 PM

Because we can never see absolutely clearly, we can never see all that is 'there.'   

It pays to recognize I am not only always looking through some sort of distorting lens, but that there is always the possibility that not everything is within my field of vision




   We can never see all there is because we are humans not omniscient deities.

   It's certain that not everything is even in the field of humanity in totality.


    Ogden and Richards wrote a book in the early 20s exactly called "The Meaning of Meaning."

   Ivor

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15 Dec 07 - 05:48 PM (#2216131)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

'Course, we could set out to become omniscient deities, abandoning limitations and immersing ourselves entirely in Higher Selfhood. Wouldn't pay the rent, though...



:D



A

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15 Dec 07 - 05:55 PM (#2216134)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Exactly, Ivor. And most of us have some intellectual understanding of that. But many, and perhaps most, of us often fail to conduct ourselves in a manner that suggests we have internalized that intellectual knowledge.

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15 Dec 07 - 06:00 PM (#2216137)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Bonzo3legs

Que Meeester Faulty?????

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15 Dec 07 - 07:03 PM (#2216167)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

The article below is a brief summary of some of what we are learning about the naturenurture interface, brain development and the human psyche.   

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p980547.html

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15 Dec 07 - 07:35 PM (#2216175)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

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15 Dec 07 - 07:52 PM (#2216182)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

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15 Dec 07 - 08:20 PM (#2216195)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

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15 Dec 07 - 08:50 PM (#2216211)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Mrrzy

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.

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15 Dec 07 - 11:06 PM (#2216265)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

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15 Dec 07 - 11:49 PM (#2216288)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 12:41 AM (#2216307)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: punkfolkrocker

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..

---

16 Dec 07 - 12:47 AM (#2216311)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: punkfolkrocker

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..

---

16 Dec 07 - 01:07 AM (#2216318)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing

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.:-)

---

16 Dec 07 - 01:13 AM (#2216320)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 04:11 AM (#2216346)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 11:09 AM (#2216491)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Uncle_DaveO

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 12:21 PM (#2216526)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 01:24 PM (#2216562)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 01:46 PM (#2216581)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 01:46 PM (#2216582)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 01:49 PM (#2216585)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

As does the metaphysical.

---

16 Dec 07 - 01:54 PM (#2216590)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

   Ivor

---

16 Dec 07 - 02:41 PM (#2216607)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Stringsinger

"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

---

16 Dec 07 - 03:32 PM (#2216645)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 03:35 PM (#2216647)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 03:48 PM (#2216658)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 04:05 PM (#2216674)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 07:03 PM (#2216785)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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

.

---

16 Dec 07 - 07:24 PM (#2216799)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 07:54 PM (#2216818)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 08:12 PM (#2216834)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

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16 Dec 07 - 08:30 PM (#2216840)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 08:36 PM (#2216841)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 08:37 PM (#2216843)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Cobble

What a load of crap all round.

Cobble

---

16 Dec 07 - 08:44 PM (#2216847)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 09:10 PM (#2216870)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

16 Dec 07 - 09:40 PM (#2216886)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

16 Dec 07 - 11:48 PM (#2216930)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Art Thieme

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

---

17 Dec 07 - 12:13 AM (#2216934)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: katlaughing

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.

---

17 Dec 07 - 02:33 PM (#2217407)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Art Thieme

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

---

17 Dec 07 - 02:34 PM (#2217408)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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


A

---

17 Dec 07 - 09:01 PM (#2217718)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

17 Dec 07 - 09:25 PM (#2217734)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Art Thieme

Could be what Joseph Campbell called "the wisdom body.

Art

---

17 Dec 07 - 09:43 PM (#2217741)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel

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? :)

---

17 Dec 07 - 09:55 PM (#2217754)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel

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.

---

17 Dec 07 - 10:30 PM (#2217768)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

18 Dec 07 - 12:29 AM (#2217819)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

18 Dec 07 - 01:43 AM (#2217840)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

" 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

---

18 Dec 07 - 10:19 AM (#2218100)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

18 Dec 07 - 12:45 PM (#2218221)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

18 Dec 07 - 02:03 PM (#2218277)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,dianavan

"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.

---

18 Dec 07 - 02:45 PM (#2218318)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

19 Dec 07 - 12:14 AM (#2218689)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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

---

19 Dec 07 - 04:30 AM (#2218758)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,PMB

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

---

19 Dec 07 - 10:52 AM (#2218943)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

Janie:

I think conflating mind and brain is an instance of supreme arrogance, or at least overweening assertiveness about a little-understood phenomenon.

I mentioned earlier the simple observation that most people can move pictures around and view them near of far away from the body. So obviously there is no 1:1 correllation in mapping.

This whole "brain is thought" shtick is, to my mind, a peculiar blind alley, sort of like the Galen model of circulation by tides and humours. It was persuasive enough to be totally accepted for centuries, until someone bothered to look.

If there is a single instance of thought occurring after brain-death (and according to Kubler Ross and others in her field, there is) then the model is flawed.

If there is a single instance of a "brain" containing data which has no legitimate business being in it, such as knowledge of language to which it was never exposed, or memopries from a lifetime in which the brain did not exist, the model is flawed; and there are many such instances reported in the studies that have been done on alternative models.

If there is a single verifiable instance of a being moving out of a body, then it (the notion of brain=mind) is immediately compromised.
Research into OOB experiences will bring up many reported, a few of which are not controvertible.

I prefer to think of the mind as the content, without screwing up the question by insisting on an uunprovable assertion about structure. But then, my interest has always been in function, what minds do and how they can do it better.

A

---

19 Dec 07 - 04:00 PM (#2219151)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

Yes quite, to pick that last sentence, what our respective interests are, also plays a part in what we're interested, what out goal/s ie/are,not to mention the ways we might "prefer2 to think of things, the role that scientific proof has to play for each of us - don't want to hurt anyone's head!!!!

Sorry (in a way) for setting off so many hares at once earlier.

   in my neck of the woods, where healing and becoming human are central, I don't place such emphasis on how the brain works, what cosciousness might be etc.

   I'm interested in the concern for getting to self-awareness; it's hard enough becoming aware.

   So being aware of the other, and, dimly, of the sheer reality of the other is also a fascinating, enlightening move to make.

   And about knowledge,fwiw, when a client says (or I say)," I'm feeling.......", I don't then ask for prof or a scientific demonstration.

       (((And I know some pschological jokes)))


    Ivor

---

20 Dec 07 - 12:42 AM (#2219443)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

While waiting in my son's Dentist office today, I picked up the 12/3/07 copy of Time Magazine and read the cover article,What Makes us Moral. I found it pretty interesting and thought provoking.

I lifted the following from it:

Sociobiology has been criticized as one of the most reductive of sciences, ascribing the behavior of all living things--humans included--as nothing more than an effort to get as many genes as possible into the next generation....

My response is that the sentence, and the thinking of those who view these efforts at understanding more about life and living as reductionist might be a bit turned around. I see it more as looking backward to try to find the seed(s).   I'm a gardener. Seeds are wondrous, awesome, mysterious, even knowing what I do about how they are formed, what is inside, and about germination and plant growth. I have never looked at a flower and thought of it as nothing but a seed factory. I have never once looked at a large oak and thought it was really nothing but an acorn, though I have marveled that it came from something as small and apparently insignificant as an acorn. The tree is not diminished in any way by my knowledge that it came from that acorn.


Ivor,

You said, "And about knowledge,fwiw, when a client says (or I say)," I'm feeling......., I don't then ask for prof or a scientific demonstration. "

I'm trying to understand your context for that statement. Can you say what prompted that remark?

Janie

---

20 Dec 07 - 01:38 AM (#2219454)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

Janie,

I did also ask or meant to ask what each poster's interest is.
   
Mine is, roughly healing.

Much of the thread is about science and proof.

Healing, which so many may want, doesn't require scientific proofs to be effected.

   Ivor

---

20 Dec 07 - 03:28 AM (#2219486)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,Keinstein

I think conflating mind and brain is an instance of supreme arrogance, or at least overweening assertiveness about a little-understood phenomenon.

It's a long time since neurologists made the distinction between the hardware (the brain) and the process running on that hardware (the mind). It's certain that brain damage severely compromises the mind, spirit, soul, or whatever you like to call it.


I mentioned earlier the simple observation that most people can move pictures around and view them near of far away from the body.

No they can't.

If there is a single instance of thought occurring after brain-death...

If there is a single instance of a "brain" containing data which has no legitimate business being in it,...If there is a single verifiable instance of a being moving out of a body...

A lot of big ifs. Whenever tested properly, they have been proved illusionary. You seem to be desperate to have "something extra". That's just greedy. Read Oliver Sachs and wonder.

---

20 Dec 07 - 07:54 AM (#2219568)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

Keinstein:

I beg to differ. Perhaps moving your own pictures around is not something you have tried or cannot do. How arrogant to assert this is true of al people.

You may not have read all of this thread, or the earlier discussions -- or you are ignoring them in your rush to sameness.

Your blunt statement about proper testing is, itself, incorrect, in my opinion.

A

---

20 Dec 07 - 08:51 AM (#2219586)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

A smile for the day from DIlbert.

A

---

20 Dec 07 - 09:22 AM (#2219595)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,Keinstein

Amos, all you are saying is that you can imagine a scene from a different point of view. That's nothing to write home about, all it requires is a recognition that you have seen many scenes from different angles, and can mentally apply the transforms to get a different view of it. The result will probably be more or less accurate depending on how much experience you have of viewing the object imagined, and other similar scenes, from different aspects. That doesn't require any modifications to even the most primitive concepts of how the mind runs in the brain. It CERTAINLY doesn't require that the mind should ever have to run outside the brain.

If you are making any stronger claim than that, until you provide the evidence, I stand by my statement: to any claim that the mind can be detached from the brain, the reply is, no, it can't. Prepared to modify that statement on the basis of evidence.

---

20 Dec 07 - 09:55 AM (#2219618)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

K:

Well, that is not at all what I was saying, actually.

Your conviction that mind and brain are inseparable and even identical is understandable, especiall y at this time and place. But I would not call it a fact.

The Targ and Puthoff series at Stanford Research is one body of evidence you might want to examine. THere's quite a lot of material out there, and I am under a bit of pressure at work this morning, so I cannot spare the time to dig up a bibliography for you.

A

---

20 Dec 07 - 10:21 AM (#2219640)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,Keinstein

I didn't say mind and brain were identical. I said that the one was a process running in the other. If you can dig up any contrary evidence, that the mind can run without the brain, let's see it.

---

20 Dec 07 - 10:34 AM (#2219649)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,Keinstein

Ah, Targ and Puthoff. They conducted a series of "remote viewing" (a sort of telepathy) tests, the results of which have never been replicated by independent investigators, and the methods of which were highly dubious.

---

20 Dec 07 - 11:42 AM (#2219692)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

Did a quick Google, didja?

:D

I guess you showed them!


A

---

20 Dec 07 - 12:03 PM (#2219711)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: GUEST,Janie

On the premise that it is OK for people to ask for what they want, and it is also OK for others to say no, I would like to see this thread stay clear of turning into arguments about who is right and who is wrong in their thinking.

Like was said upthread - no one has a corner on the market of objective reality. It is possible to explore, discuss and note differences, expound on why one believes or opines as one does, without turning it into a pissing match.

Think about the difference between these two statements:

"This is the way I see it" -   "I am right, (and you are therefore wrong."

---

20 Dec 07 - 02:02 PM (#2219795)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Leadfingers

100 and STILL confused

---

20 Dec 07 - 06:15 PM (#2219952)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Bill D

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!

---

20 Dec 07 - 06:33 PM (#2219968)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

Taboo.

It has become a dirty word in Western society.



This is a wonderfully funny remark.

A

---

20 Dec 07 - 07:05 PM (#2219986)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

A

---

20 Dec 07 - 08:07 PM (#2220027)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

20 Dec 07 - 11:51 PM (#2220112)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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."

---

20 Dec 07 - 11:59 PM (#2220114)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

Amos,

Here is where I say, "DUH".

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

Who? Me? Slow?

Janie

---

21 Dec 07 - 01:51 AM (#2220135)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

---

21 Dec 07 - 01:53 AM (#2220136)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

PS. Science is happy with what it can measure.

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


   I.

---

21 Dec 07 - 07:48 AM (#2220246)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

21 Dec 07 - 10:32 AM (#2220329)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

---

21 Dec 07 - 11:30 AM (#2220360)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

21 Dec 07 - 12:59 PM (#2220419)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel

"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 :)

---

21 Dec 07 - 04:13 PM (#2220498)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

21 Dec 07 - 04:36 PM (#2220505)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Jack Blandiver

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

---

21 Dec 07 - 08:17 PM (#2220637)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.

---

22 Dec 07 - 07:29 AM (#2220820)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

---

22 Dec 07 - 09:42 AM (#2220872)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

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



A

---

22 Dec 07 - 01:27 PM (#2220974)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

" 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? :-)

---

22 Dec 07 - 01:41 PM (#2220981)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

22 Dec 07 - 01:59 PM (#2220995)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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.

---

22 Dec 07 - 02:08 PM (#2221000)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

---

22 Dec 07 - 02:58 PM (#2221029)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

---

22 Dec 07 - 03:12 PM (#2221040)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

Well, that is certainly true.

A

---

22 Dec 07 - 06:09 PM (#2221115)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Stringsinger

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

---

22 Dec 07 - 06:43 PM (#2221125)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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


A

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23 Dec 07 - 04:25 AM (#2221255)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

---

23 Dec 07 - 11:22 AM (#2221361)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

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30 Dec 07 - 05:36 PM (#2225116)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

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31 Dec 07 - 09:41 AM (#2225485)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Donuel

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.

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31 Dec 07 - 10:37 AM (#2225526)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

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31 Dec 07 - 10:40 AM (#2225529)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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


S

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31 Dec 07 - 10:58 AM (#2225540)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Amos

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

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31 Dec 07 - 01:15 PM (#2225644)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

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

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31 Dec 07 - 05:14 PM (#2225773)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: autolycus

Should read "hits the eyeball", sheesh

Ivor

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19 Mar 08 - 09:26 PM (#2293185)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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

Mirrow Therapy for Phantom Pain

Janie

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19 Mar 08 - 09:59 PM (#2293209)
Subject: RE: BS: Human Consciousness & Perceived Reality
From: Janie

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.)

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