Consciousness

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

6:15 a.m. All right, Jon, point two? Consciousness not what we think it is?

You will notice that even a few hours, or a day or two, spent with a question in the back of your mind, and it clarifies somewhat. That is, if you don’t dwell on it, talk to yourself about it, reason about it. If you just let it be, it changes, just as an author brooding over a plotting problem.

C.S. Forester said plots feel forced if they are developed too consciously. He said a Hollywood script conference is just that kind of forcing process, which explains a lot of Hollywood movies!

Hold the image of – well, of holding an image. It will connect many things.

I’m getting the idea. You will be aware that our small group discussed this point yesterday. Should I include what I got during the drumming?

That’s up to you. It isn’t essential.

Let’s skip it, then. Your move.

• The vast majority – the overwhelming majority – of potential input to the brain is filtered out, necessarily, to avoid overwhelm.
• Those filters have their own internal logic. They don’t filter out reality at random.
• That logic, like all logic, may be followed back to its primary tenets. They are a logic-tree, with one initial decision (or rather, one initial definer of decisions) that multiplies endlessly, specific case by specific case.
• Each of the branching points in the logical chain of filters results from a combination of factors that vary by individual. They combine the “external” and internal situational motivation.
• Therefore, each individual has the potential ability to modify his or her own filters, which will modify the world as experienced.

I realize that this is not immediately clear, but let’s look at it.

Think of it this way. The universal consciousness – you could say, the universe as it is conscious of itself – is at one level. It is a vast sea, without shore or islands or interruption of any kind. To change analogy, it is a universal light.

“And the darkness comprehendeth it not.” That is, it is unshadowed and unequalled. (At least, that’s what I suppose that phrase means.)

Well, universal uninterrupted consciousness. Now here we need a visual image similar to the one of the water level being modulated between different bodies of water by locks, because I want to show individual consciousness as separated from what has no separation.

High tide, low tide, something like that? Connected sometimes, not other times?

No, not subject to that kind of periodicity. Try again.

I know what you want, but it’s physically impossible. In effect, holes in the water where the water layer is less than the rest of it. Or – what about whirlpools?

Yes, let’s go with that. A good analogy in several ways: Whirlpools are temporary, dynamic structures that could never be frozen in place.

So let us envision a 3D/non-3D being as a whirlpool in a vast ocean. For the moment – but not forever – we will ignore the fact that there are uncounted other whirlpools. For the moment we will consider any one whirlpool in the vast unending sea.

You may (and I want you to) envision a whirlpool as a cone inserted into the water, a funnel-shape, broad at the top narrowing to a center at a lower level. The funnel has several salient characteristics:

• It is dynamic. It can only exist as a shaped motion. It is in no way a solid object.
• It is variable. Its shape will alter as various forces interact, but though it may bulge or distort, still it is fundamentally a cone-shaped pattern.
• It is a gradient. That is, if you look at it in relation to the surface, some parts are higher than others, wider than others. This is within the regularity of the structure, but, as I say, variable and continually distorted by various forces.
• It is conceptually separable, yet essentially inseparable, a productive contradiction in terms. It is individual yet only temporarily so, and even while it exists, it is only conceptually separate; it is still the same old sea, in one specific pattern.
• And of course, it is temporary, as whirlpools form and cease to hold their form. Does a whirlpool “die” when its energy subsides and it becomes again an indistinguishable part of the ocean? Its substance was never different, only the shape it was swept into.

Now, combine the two analogies – that of the filter and that of the whirlpool – and although you will not come up with an image, you may be able to grope toward what can’t be said but can only be intuited. (If intuited, then it can be said, perhaps, but what is said will likely be meaningless or at best opaque to those who didn’t get it intuitively. This however is no reason not to try if you wish.)

That’s a more inconclusive conclusion than I expected!

We don’t want a conclusion, we want an active chewing. And again, the best way to proceed, probably, is to hold this in mind, but in the back of your mind, observing insights and ideas as they bubble up, but resisting any temptation to force conclusions.

I am finding it impossible to associate the two images.

Good. But don’t give up. Righteous persistence brings reward, you used to quote.

Yes, and haven’t though of that quote in a long time. Well, we can righteously persist, but maybe better if we get just a hint.

Think of moving up and down the sides of the whirlpool. Think of picking and choosing. Think of bringing your filters to your conscious awareness.

In fact, think of the difference between consciousness per se and awareness. Consider your sense of the two things carefully. You are not aware of your internal functions such as digestion or circulation of blood or respiration unless something goes wrong, perhaps. But your body is conscious of all of it, all the time. So what is the relationship between your individual awareness and the universal consciousness in which you exist? What is the relationship between your share of the consciousness and the sea in which you exist?

I know you would rather have answers than questions, but answers deter growth, and questions stimulate it.

Well, a lot to think about here. And it came quickly, 45 minutes or so.  Thanks, and looking forward to more.