consciousness = EMF?

[daniel]

This is interesting:

Our Conscious Mind Could Be An Electromagnetic Field

Are our thoughts made of the distributed kind of electromagnetic field that permeates space and carries the broadcast signal to the TV or radio?

Professor Johnjoe McFadden from the School of Biomedical and Life Sciences at the University of Surrey in the UK believes our conscious mind could be an electromagnetic field.

"The theory solves many previously intractable problems of consciousness and could have profound implications for our concepts of mind, free will, spirituality, the design of artificial intelligence, and even life and death," he said.

Most people consider "mind" to be all the conscious things that we are aware of. But much, if not most, mental activity goes on without awareness. Actions such as walking, changing gear in your car or peddling a bicycle can become as automatic as breathing.

The biggest puzzle in neuroscience is how the brain activity that we're aware of (consciousness) differs from the brain activity driving all of those unconscious actions.

When we see an object, signals from our retina travel along nerves as waves of electrically charged ions. When they reach the nerve terminus, the signal jumps to the next nerve via chemical neurotransmitters. The receiving nerve decides whether or not it will fire, based on the number of firing votes it receives from its upstream nerves.

In this way, electrical signals are processed in our brain before being transmitted to our body. But where, in all this movement of ions and chemicals, is consciousness? Scientists can find no region or structure in the brain that specializes in conscious thinking. Consciousness remains a mystery.

"Consciousness is what makes us 'human,' Professor McFadden said. "Language, creativity, emotions, spirituality, logical deduction, mental arithmetic, our sense of fairness, truth, ethics, are all inconceivable without consciousness." But what’s it made of?

One of the fundamental questions of consciousness, known as the binding problem, can be explained by looking at a tree. Most people, when asked how many leaves they see, will answer "thousands." But neurobiology tells us that the information (all the leaves) is dissected and scattered among millions of widely separated neurones.

Scientists are trying to explain where in the brain all those leaves are stuck together to form the conscious impression of a whole tree. How does our brain bind information to generate consciousness?

What Professor McFadden realized was that every time a nerve fires, the electrical activity sends a signal to the brain's electromagnetic (em) field. But unlike solitary nerve signals, information that reaches the brain's em field is automatically bound together with all the other signals in the brain. The brain's em field does the binding that is characteristic of consciousness.

What Professor McFadden and, independently, the New Zealand-based neurobiologist Sue Pockett, have proposed is that the brain's em field is consciousness.

The brain's electromagnetic field is not just an information sink; it can influence our actions, pushing some neurons towards firing and others away from firing. This influence, Professor McFadden proposes, is the physical manifestation of our conscious will.

The theory explains many of the peculiar features of consciousness, such as its involvement in the learning process.

Anyone learning to drive a car will have experienced how the first (very conscious) fumblings are transformed through constant practice into automatic actions.

The neural networks driving those first uncertain fumblings are precisely where we would expect to find nerves in the undecided state when a small nudge from the brain's em field can topple them towards or away from firing. The field will "fine tune" the neural pathway towards the desired goal.

But neurons are connected so that when they fire together, they wire together, to form stronger connections. After practice, the influence of the field will become dispensable. The activity will be learnt and may thereafter be performed unconsciously.

One of the objections to an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness is, if our minds are electromagnetic, then why don't we pass out when we walk under an electrical cable or any other source of external electromagnetic fields? The answer is that our skin, skull and cerebrospinal fluid shield us from external electric fields.

"The conscious electromagnetic information field is, at present, still a theory. But if true, there are many fascinating implications for the concept of free will, the nature of creativity or spirituality, consciousness in animals and even the significance of life and death.

"The theory explains why conscious actions feel so different from unconscious ones -- it is because they plug into the vast pool of information held in the brain's electromagnetic field," Professor McFadden concluded.

The University of Surrey is one of the UK’s leading professional, scientific and technological universities with a world class research profile and a reputation for excellence in teaching and research.

(Reference: The paper "Synchronous firing and its influence on the brain’s electromagnetic field: evidence for an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness" by Johnjoe McFadden is published in the current edition of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, along with a commentary by Dr. Susan Pockett.)

[YellowWing Cat]

It would seem quite unlikely that consciousness
could be modelled as a configuration of an electromagnetic field. If consciousness is
defined, for example, as the substrate, or continuum, upon or within which sensory impressions are arrayed, this would include
information received by "telepathic" means,
and it has been clearly demonstrated that
telepathic data reception is (at least sometimes)
independent of distance, which would not be
the case if consciousness depended on electromagnetic fields. (It is irrelevant whether
sensory data and "telepathic" data might be
qualitatively different, because both are "recieved" by consciousness, which is defined as that which receives them.)
There are many other insurmountable problems with the electromagnetic model, among which may be mentioned the simple fact that, were it the case that consciousness were fundamentally electromagnetic in nature, than strong electromagnetic fields would affect consciousness
much more than is, in fact, the case.
On the other hand, it is clear that consciousness is related to electromagnetic fields, just as consciousness is related to all
realms of being.
It is not difficult to imagine
that EMFs, as well as all other aspects of existence, are "epiphenomena" of a more fundamental primary "field."
I take the description of the primary field to have been approximated in Dirac's original description of the "virtual-electron-field," which description has been elaborated and particularized by a number of workers since.
That model (variations of which become
more and more necessary to explain results in experimental physics since Dirac's time, while also providing satisfying and elegant "maps" of other phenomena, such as perception, choice, Sheldrake's "morphic resonance," etc., etc.)
is very likely the nearest thing we have to
an explanatory truth in this area thus far.

[YellowWing Cat]

It would seem quite unlikely that consciousness
could be modelled as a configuration of an electromagnetic field. If consciousness is
defined, for example, as the substrate, or continuum, upon or within which sensory impressions are arrayed, this would include
information received by "telepathic" means,
and it has been clearly demonstrated that
telepathic data reception is (at least sometimes)
independent of distance, which would not be
the case if consciousness depended on electromagnetic fields. (It is irrelevant whether
sensory data and "telepathic" data might be
qualitatively different, because both are "recieved" by consciousness, which is defined as that which receives them.)
There are many other insurmountable problems with the electromagnetic model, among which may be mentioned the simple fact that, were it the case that consciousness were fundamentally electromagnetic in nature, than strong electromagnetic fields would affect consciousness
much more than is, in fact, the case.
On the other hand, it is clear that consciousness is related to electromagnetic fields, just as consciousness is related to all
realms of being.
It is not difficult to imagine
that EMFs, as well as all other aspects of existence, are "epiphenomena" of a more fundamental primary "field."
I take the description of the primary field to have been approximated in Dirac's original description of the "virtual-electron-field," which description has been elaborated and particularized by a number of workers since.
That model (variations of which become
more and more necessary to explain results in experimental physics since Dirac's time, while also providing satisfying and elegant "maps" of other phenomena, such as perception, choice, Sheldrake's "morphic resonance," etc., etc.)
is very likely the nearest thing we have to
an explanatory truth in this area thus far.

[Capitalist]

I also have reservations regarding consciousness as a form of strictly electromagnetic function, at least not at frequencies understood by current scientific knowledge.

However, what of the concept that the essence of consciousness is encoded in elemental particle physics?

Therein could be found the root of past lives; shared consciousness; and the profound sense of oneness that we can sometimes tune into, and sometimes block out completely.

Someday in the future, I feel we may identify evidence of consciousness at levels that have not even been discovered yet, and that will be a new path of discovery and enlightenment for all.

Now, if we can only survive our own humanness until that point be reached. Somedays I fear we may not.

Peace ~ Paul

[Bill Bridges]

This has interesting parallels to Rupert Sheldrake's morhic fields theory. I wonder if this electromagentic field isn't part of a spectrum we can't yet fully measure, akin to the subtle energies like chi, prana, astral bodies, etc.

[daniel]

Neurons have been found in the lung and the heart and other organs. Sasha Shulgin did studies of some psychedelics that went directly to the lungs before making their way to the brain hours later. Yet the effect was felt in the mind.

Interesting that some occult traditions say the "root of the brain is in the heart." The Ur group even recommends a meditation physically moving the locus of consciousness, emptied of thought, from the brain to the heart.

As for consciousness and EMFs, does anybody wonder if the stress we are putting on the EM Fields through cell phones may be having subtle but direct effects on human consciousness? Does it seem that people talk faster than they used to (it would be interesting to measure this with old TV shows and films)? Does it seem that many people are less and less capable of thinking deeply and logically rather than in superficial, disconnected fragments? Is it possible that some of this shift could be due to physiological effects of EMFs?

Cell phones are an interesting phenomenon to me - a mass experiment on the effect of beaming microwaves directly at the human brain for hours a day, with no control group and no regulation.

[alienmindscape]

Here is a rather long-winded rambling on consciousness, salvia divinorum experience, reality and evolution I wrote stoned. I think there are some useful ideas in here.

My position isn’t that the material realm (including subatomic particles, and seemingly inexplicable quantum phenomenon) is all there is. I just think that there’s something in addition to it. I’ve proven it to myself empirically, unintentionally, by smoking salvia enhanced leaves. The minimum conclusions I can come to, based on my limited experiences are nevertheless astounding: My consciousness is capable of experiencing something completely unlike waking reality or dreaming reality, but which is immediately recognized with the full force of verisimilitude as it’s own dimension or otherwise extant realm.

I don’t know what that is, outside of the comfortable bubble (as relates to shape and space and gravity and ego) that feels like my mind being peeled like a grape. I’ve witnessed a real seeming void and dissolved in it. Even if it were real, and all of mystical religion and tradition state that it is (The Tibetan Book of the Dead in particular), that would not mean that the material realm doesn’t also exist much as we know it to, and as we are overly attached to. Personally speaking, I’m in no hurry to be shuttled to another realm without girls, music, art, food, sex, and the other wonderful sorts of experiences we enjoy here.

My view is hardly original. Much of consciousness operates and even originates in the physical brain. I could quote passages left and right from recent books on the subject… Uh, I guess I'll give one so you all don't think I’m just boasting. Earlier I mentioned that memory is stored in the brain. Here's an argument to support that from Rita Carter’s new book, “Exploring Consciousness:"

“Laying down new concepts derived from experience involves creating new patterns in the neural network. But these patterns… are at first very fragile because the linkages between their neurons start to fall apart almost immediately. Such forgetting is essential because if everything we experienced stuck in our brains we would be overburdened with useless information… So only a tiny selection of our experiences are selected for permanent storage as memories.
These experiences are consolidated into memory by a process that can take up to two years. First the event is experienced; then it is ‘kept warm’ for a period through repeated replay until the pattern is effectively ‘etched’ into the tissue of the brain. As this happens it is incorporated into other concepts. The last of these two stages occur mainly during sleep – one reason why we all need to spend a considerable part of each day asleep.
Experiences are (or are produced by) specific patterns of neural firing, and recall happens when these patterns… recur after the event that originally caused them…”

Rather than paste a bunch of quotes, here's a little argument I thought up myself. If a cheap calculator can do complex equations, is it a surprise that the most highly organized three pounds of matter in the known universe can perform simple multiplication? The millions of organic neurons in that machine can’t compete with an old 286?

There may be some other part of consciousness – the part that is left when the “you” part is peeled away like a grape – the pure vulnerable and infinite source perhaps, that exists independent of the physical brain. That’s just the type of scenario I think after a good salvia trip.

I’ve thought that the two realms of the material and the immaterial (not to be confused with solid objects and open space around them) butt up against each other. A good toke of salvia can release me into that immaterial realm. A calculated dose might just allow me to look in, or dip in sideways. From the perspective of the void, material reality was the smaller, occupying about the mass of my body, once I’d extricated myself of it.

If this immaterial void were pure consciousness (more as in an intense awareness, something like the blazing star consciousness of our sun), the way it would penetrate into the material realm would be to make fissures into it, something like a widespread root system. The roots of consciousness would move through the material reality by producing the conditions out of which increasingly conscious host animals would arise. Carl Jung argues something similar to this, in his "Memories, Dreams, Reflections":

"By virtue of his reflective faculties, man is raised out of the animal world, and by his mind he demonstrates that nature has put a high premium precisely upon the development of consciousness. Through consciousness he takes possession of nature by recognizing the existence of the world and thus, as it were, confirming the Creator. The world becomes the phenomenal world, for without conscious reflection it would not be. If the Creator were conscious of Himself , He would not need conscious creatures…"

One can’t get confused about open space and land representing the material and immaterial realm. Whether something is in the air or on the ground, or is air or is ground, it butts up against the immaterial realm in an intersecting dimension. At least this is what happens in my first-hand salvia experience (I realize others come up with completely different maps of realities based on their entheogenic expeirences).

Even the Dalai Lama acknowledges that parts of consciousness are the domain of the material brain:

“There are a great many varieties of awareness, and degrees and qualities of consciousness. Some, which are of a grosser nature, are entirely dependent on the brain. In respect to them unless the brain functions, these grosser mental experiences will not occur.”

He fleshes this out a little here:

“According to Buddhist theory, there are some things that belong to subtle consciousness, or subtle mind, that are independent from the body, from the brain. There is no assertion in Buddhism that there is a thing called a soul or a thing called consciousness, some thing that exists independently of the brain. There is no such thing existing independently of the brain or being dependent upon the brain. But rather, consciousness is understood as a multifaceted matrix of events. Some of them are utterly dependent on the brain, and, at the other end of the spectrum some of them are completely independent of the brain. There is no one thing that is mind or soul.”

What is the part of consciousness that is independent of the brain, that isn’t mind or soul? Incidentally, Huston Smith (author of “The World’s Religions,” and papers correlating psychedelic to mystical experience) would say it was the spirit, which exists in the infinite realm. Smith posits four levels of reality, and four corresponding levels of selfhood: terrestrial/body, median/mind, celestial/soul, infinite/spirit. Each level is controlled or created by the level above it. On salvia I’ve experienced such a progression of shuttling through ontological layers of reality and being cast in the infinite void. Each level of awareness is more intense. Here’s what the Dalai Lama offers:

“What you call consciousness has its basis in a subtle type of awareness. There is a capacity for awareness, a kind of luminosity which is of the nature of awareness itself, which must arise from a preceding moment of awareness. In other words, there is a continuum of awareness that does not itself arise from the brain.”

One evening I thought that awareness itself will not cease. We will be aware beyond death, but aware of what is inconceivable to us. It wouldn’t be of a grave or dirt or any of that cliched stuff. It would be something independent, or transcendent, or even adjacent to this reality. We worry that when we die (or some of us would welcome it) that the flame of awareness will be extinguished. But we always were and always will be aware. Awareness takes different forms. Infused in a rabbit, awareness will be of a rabbit. Perhaps the immaterial realm that butts up against the material realm is awareness, and not consciousness, which is awareness of being aware. That self-reflectivity arises in the stipulated mirror awareness of the creature that bears it.

Those are the types of insights I have on Salvia. Completely on the other hand, my research in consensual reality reveals convincing evidence that not only thinking and maintaining memory are brain based, but all of consciousness is, as an emergent phenomenon. Think of a magnet, and the way you can use it to magnetize inert pieces of metal such as paper clips. The process of stroking the magnet over the other piece causes the emergent quality of “magnetism” to arise. The whole of the magnetized metal is more than the sum of the material parts, it is also the rearrangement of current via the process of directing it with an existing magnet. An emergent property is always a novel phenomenon.

Brains aren’t like computers in that computers don’t realize that they’re computing. The chess champion computer, “Big Blue,” while it could defeat the world’s best organic master, did not even know it was playing chess. But brains are like computers in that the synaptic firing resembles the 01 code of computing. They are both compelled by electricity. Our neurons are said to “fire.” They “fire” on and off in conjunction like fields of pistons, powering the brain. One might say that all brains are computers, but not all computers are brains.

Larry Squire, professor of psychiatry, stated:

“I think that the neuroscientists would say that just as there is tremendous complexity and subtlety to consciousness, so the brain has every bit as much complexity and subtlety and detail. As one looks into the brain in increasing detail, one sees extraordinary specialization, especially in the primates and in humans. For example, the brain has developed from fifty to one hundred different little areas in the occipital and temporal lobes, all specialized for different aspects of vision. Within each of those areas are millions of neurons and connections. Although once cannot prove the hypothesis in any final way, there is optimist that the brain has the capacity, and the complexity, for all of the subtlety that consciousness displays.”

[As I look up another quote, I observe an interesting quirk of consciousness that supports the stance that neurology and consciousness are intimately intertwined, so much so that it is nearly completely transparent to us. I usually remember where on the left or right page the quote is, top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right. There is a connection, perhaps a proximity in biological wiring, between spatial memory and conceptual memory.]

Evolution includes evolution of consciousness. It didn’t suddenly dawn on homosapiens one fine morning (unless perhaps after eating psychedelic mushrooms, as Terence McKenna hypothesizes). There was “prebiotic” or “molecular” evolution of inanimate matter prior to the emergence of living cells. Then came amino acids, RNA, and single-celled organisms. But primary forms of consciousness may not have arose until the arrival of nervous systems. We now know that chimpanzees (who’s DNA is only 1.6% different from ours, and who are more closely related to us than they are to gorillas or orangutans) communicate using elaborate hand signals, which vary from group to group. Symbols indicate abstraction and compression of events into agreed upon signals.

The theory goes that as our ancestors, closely related to the chimps (look closely at our Commander and Chief), were able to use hand signals more effectively as they became more upright. Further, the area of the brain that controls the acrobatics of hand gesture also controls the movement of the tongue. It was natural for us to economize to tongue/vocal symbols, which freed up the hands for other activities such as handling tools. Many agree that consciousness as we experience it, as the awareness of being aware, and all that entails, is the consequence of the ability to take oneself at a remove through abstraction, or to look in the conceptual mirror. The form the abstraction takes is forged in communication with others, and is thus a social phenomenon.

While the emergence of consciousness required the elaboration of agreed upon symbols between disparate entities, these symbols were and are reflections of the body and body activities. Some initial symbols must have been pointing, gesturing to "come here," making a fist… Cognitive linguists observe that most of our conscious thought is in the form of metaphor, a harkening back to the body and the material realm it occupies. Even our reason and logic, which we have taken for granted as truly objective, reflects the ultimate perspective of the body. We think in terms of before and after, in front of, behind, inside, outside, over, under… If you put these two ideas together, consciousness requires the interaction of disparate entities, and it requires that they possess material bodies (or elements) as a form of reference. The only independent entities that are gong to interact are going to be living ones. One could conclude that consciousness requires living independent entities co-existing in a community, and developing in time. What would void signal with, or to, or about? Awareness is what it is aware of, so there must be something to be aware of for awareness to exist.

If consciousness is an “emergent property” triggered by the developed networking of different aspects of consciousness, and emergent properties are by definition novel properties, biologists (Maturana and Varela) may be right in asserting that consciousness is not a registering of the outside world but the bringing forth of a new (novel) world, not “the world” but “a world,” a uniquely human world.. They insist that we exist in language and through communicative exchange continually weave and remake the linguistic web in which we dwell.

I try to apply these ideas to tripping, such as with salvia divinorum. The introduction of Salvinorin A into brain chemistry creates new and different perceptions of space (I have been negative space in a solid universe). Alteration in bodily perception, and especially unprecedented ones (such as bodilesness or sensing another dimension) would give a new angle for metaphor.

Cognitive linguists Lakoff and Johnson contend that if we perceive a cat as “in front of” a tree, this spatial relationship does not exist objectively in the world, but is a projection from our bodily experience.” Our bodies cleave our range of awareness in the material realm. There is no color independent of eyes. Because we have eyes, our reality includes color. A bat sees a narrower band of the spectrum, but navigates by sonar, which is not an aspect of our perceptual reality. Neither can we communicate through instantaneous change of color and form, as can the octopus. These other avenues of perception are occupied by consciousnesses other than our own, and they prove the existence of consciousness of physical reality that is outside of our perceptual envelope.

When you think of how “reality” is commonly used, it means “the way things are,” which largely means "the way things appear to be.” In one of his lectures, Alan Watts asked “What is reality?” and then he clanged a bell. But even as the sound of the bell attenuates into nothing, there are other sounds that are playing loudly, but which we are oblivious to (we can’t hear the low calls that elephants use to communicate over great distances). What we perceive reality to be conceptually reflects how we perceive reality physically. We are the defining factor, and the delimiting one.

We give form to the universe.

If our perception of physical reality is altered to include new perceptions, so to is our universe expanded, even exponentially. This is how our consciousnesses creates new worlds on top of the linguistic one’s in which we already inhabit. It is emergent phenomenon on top of emergent phenomenon. Where there is greater complexity, greater organization will result, and a new pattern emerge. When the greater complexity is of consciousness (by introducing a new sense of body or new dimension), the result is a new pattern of consciousness. These perceptions are new appendages of the mind, awaiting symbols to arise in order to facilitate self-reflexivity in the added dimension. Because these symbols are absent, one may be peeled of self-reflexivity when plunged in those exterior realms, becoming pure awareness.

Where can symbols arise where you are alone in your own head. There’s a psychedelic song by Paul Parrish:

“I’m Walking in the forest of my mind.
Leaving friends and lovers far behind.
I’m wondering where I’m going and what I’ll find.
Walking in the forest of my mind.
Many cities swirling ????????
Highways of glittering jewels
Lovers eyes shining, dazzling the night
Fish swimming up to the moon.”

As this moody song illustrates (it's better with music), some of the work of establishing symbols in the new territoy can carry over and be communicated as art. Some of the work of Alex Grey or Max Ernst might prepare one for the emergent realm upon the emergent realm.

But inside the forest of the mind, trippers, especially those who implement DMT, encounter beings. Terence McKenna encountered self-transforming machine elves that looked like self-dribbling jewel encrusted basket balls awaiting him under the DMT dome. These entities offered him seeming art objects resembling surreal papier-mâché eggs in perpetual transformation. McKenna saw this as a form of communication. Often trippers experience synesthesia, which is when the object of one sense is registered by another, seeing music for example. Neuronauts frequently report entities trying to communicate with them. Who are these entities?

They may be no more than the entities we encounter nightly in our dreams, and interact with as though they were separate, independent creatures. We are fooled nightly in conventional sleep, on our 10,000th dream we are still fooled, and yet we expect not to be fooled by this same sort of trick on our first handful of ventures into a new arena of consciousness?

I used to be fascinated by DMT as a phenomenon (this is second hand, I’ve never experienced it) that caused one’s mind, at very least, to take itself captive. One’s own consciousness becomes/creates an alien universe in which one is suddenly thrust. Doesn’t this sound like the immediate perception of the network of consciousness branching into new territory and an emergent form of novel consciousness arising? All of this also applies to dreams. In waking life we can’t elect to envision a replete room full of strangers and orchestrate all their behavior in such a way that we are fooled by the verisimilitude of it. But while sleeping, when our mind is relaxed and no longer controlling, the undercurrent wells up and we become the observer of it’s charade. Is it possible that through interaction with the characters of our own unconscious’ spontaneous creation that we could coordinate further consciousness in that realm? This is what is promised with lucid dreaming.

Carl Jung thought the objective of humankind was to bring more of the unconscious into consciousness:

"Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious… his destiny … is to create more and more consciousness. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."

Often I think in our communication with others we could predict much of what, or what kind of thing they will say. Novelists skill at this impresses me as far beyond my own. This probably reflects that our consciousness is “shared” in the respect that our language is shared, and that our consciousnesses developed in communion. To scope further into the currently unconscious, or “out of conscious,” one must catch up to or traverse the limits or threshold established by the community, or at least as regards who you have personally had access to. This predilection appears natural, and occurs in scientific innovation, artistic creation, and all manner of inquisitiveness and inventiveness. These unique vantage points create dialogue, add appendages.

The difference between removing the veils of your own unconscious and exploring the frontier unchartered by the majority is qualitative. There may be sudden leaps in conscious awareness. Conscious dreaming is a common phenomenon. Going in under the DMT dome is not. Extensively explored and cultivated dreaming is a feature of some cultures, but not ours.

The dialogue that emerges in a powerful dream (dialogue also includes with the scenery, props, and general emotional tenor), or in psychedelic experiences is a deepening of awareness into unprimed territory. This is the zone of less particularization. You are no longer necessarily you in your dreams. You could be another person, another age or gender. Your focus is relaxed but your breadth is expanded, as in walking backward from a wall with a flashlight. When your consciousness starts to function as “human” instead of as one particular human, your consciousness of being human may split into different dream characters, and the dialogue with yourself is created. Put simply, at a greater level of consciousness there should be more inner dialogue. As one becomes more conscious of other perspectives, or the possibility of them, it is inevitable that their voices will be incorporated into one’s own.

The dream, mystical and psychedelic forays may be into the next wave of consciousness. Who ever said evolution of consciousness was complete? When people think we are in the image of god, or vice versa, is it the “we” of the modern human, or of the Cro-Magnon man, or of the creature millions of years in the future that evolved from us?

What the inner dialogue represents may be the next level of self-reflexivity, which would mean the next level of consciousness. The next level after one of inner dialogue and simultaneous perception of multiple perspectives may be awareness of all, such as the Buddhists and other mystical religions suggest.

Another thing to consider is that an additional emergent level of consciousness may be able to perceive actual things, in actual other dimensions (a friend is fond of reminding me that cell-phone technology is based on the assumption of twelve dimensions. I don’t know if he knew what he was talking about or not).

As far fetched as these ideas may seem, they don’t require that consciousness not be largely material based. I find the idea of the next evolutionary level of consciousness exciting enough, whether that state is material based or not. Who knows, that state may not be material. But it looks like the evidence that the more primary components of consciousness are material is daunting if anyone cared to look at it. But consciousness doesn’t have to be immaterial in origin in order to transcend materiality. It already does. It might just transcend again the level at which it already does.

:cool:

[ November 06, 2002, 10:53 AM: Message edited by: alienmindscape ]

[daniel]

Hi Alienmindscape,

A great long post - difficult to begin to reckon with it. Have you read Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous? According to Gurdjieff, everything is material - even the Absolute, the Godhead or whatever, is a type of material. He gives complex charts explicating finer and finer types of material - the more subtle the material, the more conscious it is. He talks about the 3 types of "food" we are constantly consuming: food, air, and sense perceptions. He argues that sense data is actually the most necessary of the three, as we can't live without it even for one second. Other beings from other cosmoses presumably live on even more subtle substances.

You could say "We give form to the universe," or that our mind manifests reality. Just as plausibly, you could note that most of our thoughts are not generated by us at all - according to Crowley, they are extra-dimensional object (or beings, according to Steiner) flowing fractally through our mental realm.

According to William Irwin Thompson in Coming into Being. the "emergence" model of consciousness is Eastern, and "emanation" is the Western concept.

[michael heany]

A picture I've come up with that I like:

That our soul is like a body (an astral body maybe? I don't know what that is, but maybe it's something like what I'm talking about). And the body we have in this dimension is merely a weak image of the greater, truer body... and maybe this reality here, our brain and physical body, is like a cage put over the head of our true, astral body. Sometimes that cage constricts (physical pain, etc.) But there are ways to lift that cage, that mask, if only for a short while, via some of these drugs, and other techniques, religious or otherwise. When we die the cage distintegrates and we're free... though I suspect not totally free, and there may be greater cages holding us at the level of other dimensions, which we have no awareness of now.

Mixed metaphors, but I like the picture.

[alienmindscape]

Daniel wrote:

"You could say "We give form to the universe," or that our mind manifests reality. Just as plausibly, you could note that most of our thoughts are not generated by us at all - according to Crowley, they are extra-dimensional object (or beings, according to Steiner) flowing fractally through our mental realm."

I suppose I would gravitate to such notions if I had the types of experience such as you have had, which might show one such phenomenon. I would have dismissed the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a bunch of strictly metaphoric folklore and superstition if I didn't get dipped in the void myself. Now I assume that there's more truth in the Tibetan Book than I can gather.

I might have to encounter an extradimensional object before I start accumulating the explanations of them. But I probably won't find 'em if I don't go looking.

adios.

[Agent Smith]

...well i hope people will explore other area of this forum besides that...mmm, 'other' thread...

... take care!

smile.gif

[Rob P]

I just read this again...damn it's fascinating!
seeya
r o b

[s3r3bro]

Then it makes sense to me all that Tai/Chi Qi/Gong stuff: somehow, with that movements, you're in some way "fixating" (or "fixing"?) the soul/electrical-body. In fact, all of these out-of-body experiences are often accompanied by electrical discharges on the body, did'nt them?

[Lured]

Originally posted by michael heany:
A picture I've come up with that I like:

That our soul is like a body (an astral body maybe? I don't know what that is, but maybe it's something like what I'm talking about). And the body we have in this dimension is merely a weak image of the greater, truer body... and maybe this reality here, our brain and physical body, is like a cage put over the head of our true, astral body. Sometimes that cage constricts (physical pain, etc.) But there are ways to lift that cage, that mask, if only for a short while, via some of these drugs, and other techniques, religious or otherwise. When we die the cage distintegrates and we're free... though I suspect not totally free, and there may be greater cages holding us at the level of other dimensions, which we have no awareness of now.I agree with what you're saying, and your description is quite beautiful.

[ocoyai]

http://www.bioenergyfields.org/

this woman to my knowledge has done a great amount of research with HEF..She also has these watches that balance out the field

http://www.bioenergyfields.org/index.asp?secid=5&subsecid=0

vibrate your bones
into the stars of the known