The "conscious self"

I'm curious to hear how you all conceive of "the self" or "the ego" or whatever you want to call it. I've been reading quite about it--mostly in the Western philosophical tradition--and have learned some interesting things. At first, I accepted the notion of the Cartesian "Reasoning thing." Remember, Descartes said "I think, therefore I am?" That led to the notion of an atomistic "self"--an entity capable of reason and perception and whatnot.

I had taken this view of the "self" for granted for quite some time. I'm a reasoning, perceiving being. I always assumed that there was some essential "self" at the root of all of this. I had a vague "feeling" that there was some "I" at the root of all of my reason, and that that "I" contained my self-identity and whatnot.

But some further reading called my attention to the importance of self-awareness and reflexive thought. So here's a bit of a thought experiment. Take a look at your hand. Now, can you identify some mental "entity" doing the perceiving? No--you are simply aware that the perceiving process is happening. You are aware of a process, not an entity. Take this one step further. Can you identify some internal entity--a "self"--that is aware of this process of perceiving? No, you can't. You're only aware of the *process* of reflecting on the process of perception. It is possible to extend this indefinitely. It is not possible to identify a "self" at the root of these various perceiving and reasoning processes. It's recursive. It's always awareness of a process, not of an entity. The "I" remains elusive.

What does this mean? Well, some believe that the essential "self"--self identity, the ego, whatever you want to call it--arises from this process of reflection. It is reasoning process aware of other reasoning and perceiving processes that constitutes a "self." Others posit the existence of some unconscious "other" that is the essential "self" entity. This "other" is inaccessibly to reason and self-reflection. It may be a particular reasoning entity or it may be a deep, powerful "unconscious will" that uses reason as a tool.

Now, many have told me that the "self" is a composite of one's experiences, opinions, memories, etc. --This is not sufficient. All of these things require a synthesis process. What is at the heart of this process? "Who" does the synthesis? What core "entity," if there is one, is responsible for the unity of self?

To summarize: Consciousness is always *of* something other than itself, even if it is conscious of another conscious process. The "I" that is actually conscious of something remains unknown. What is it?

Thoughts?

reply to post by backwardluminary


I see it this way: The self (soul) is like a child that we carry in this world. It is our job to bring it up. The spirit is the part of us that is consciousness from God. We sense this as we live. There seems to be one aspect of us that is like a child and not under control. The other side of our nature seems to be fighting this child inside. Consider this thought:

The sun and moon come together in union. We know this causes all life on earth to unite in similar pairs of opposites. We see the obvious pairs, but we may miss the more subtle pairs. Sperm and egg are the most obvious. Male and female. Right and left hand. Feet, eyes, nostrils, toes, and so on. Up and down, right and left, big and small and on it goes. This seems to be the nature of things. Union brings new possibility.

For me, this union is the secret to understanding the rest. When two pairs come together, they need a domain to exist and develop. My hands come together every day to drive my car. My eyes have the domain of light. These unions create our reality.

When sperm and egg come into union, the womb is necessary for development. When the soul and spirit come into union, the womb is the earth. The placenta is the body. Union takes place to create new children. We know this, but is there a union that takes place in the womb of the earth? Where are we born if union takes place?

The answer is in the Bible. John 3 tells the secret. Jesus says, "you must be born again." This is said in such a way that leaves no other options. We gain union back with the water of the material word to repeat the process, or we gain union with the spirit if it is allowed to shepherd the soul to salvation from the process. This is the adversary we fight. Satan is the one we overcome in life. The spirit of God is the sword we use to defeat the enemy. This is the flaming sword of truth from Genesis 3. It protects the tree of life.

There is yet another secret to this. Union with the male and female is produced in a bond of love. Luke 10 reveals the next secret to this mystery. The bond of love that causes the salvation from the material to the spirit is love for God. The Holy Spirit is God's spirit. Blasphemy is saying that the spirit did not preexist man. This is essentially saying that man arose form the material world. The opposite is true. We come from the consciousness of God. We are artificial creations living in a body for development, residing in the womb of the garden. We are are the prodigal sons and God is the Father awaiting our return when we find the love that draws us back.

The soul is the self, a child we bring up by bringing it together with God in union. Salvation comes from the secret in Luke 10. We must love God and we must love others. We must even love our enemies. Love is the key that removes the flaming sword of Genesis 3. This is the consuming fire that fights our doubt, fears and pride. The refiner's fire is the only thing that can protect the tree of life and love is the only thing that can unlock its power for union to the next realm of existence. We are all related by the blood of Jesus.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to God apart from Him.

reply to post by backwardluminary


It is the "Awareness" of your consciousness. I know mind-blowing right....You are conscious, yet where is your consciousness. And how do you know about your consciousness...How are you aware of it? Where does the Awareness come from?

reply to post by SuperiorEd


While I can't say that I fully agree with this religious conception of the self in general, I do have a specific question: What particular aspect of us is actually responsible for raising "the soul," and what has made it qualified to do so?

Originally posted by backwardluminary
reply to post by SuperiorEd

 

While I can't say that I fully agree with this religious conception of the self in general, I do have a specific question: What particular aspect of us is actually responsible for raising "the soul," and what has made it qualified to do so?

Are you a human having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having a human experience? The answer is not what you may think. The answer is yes. Why do we have two eyes? Depth of perception. Why do we have a duality of soul and spirit?

Hillel's Seven Rules of rightly dividing truth indicate that what applies in a less important case will certainly apply in a more important case. The Bible contains all the answers you require as long as you know how to rightly divide truth. All contradictions with truth can be resolved if you look to the root of all knowledge. The spirit of God is within us all. This is the Holy Spirit. Read my blog article on the image of God and the Trinity. LINK

reply to post by SuperiorEd


I believe you are correct and I may have not researched the areas that you have, but I have researched many....I am not religious at all. I am spiritual however. I have come to understand that the bible DOES have all the answers, if one is willing to release the dogma and look at the truisms. It was however written by men for a specific reason. For every good lie, therein lies a bit of truth....

One final word...

Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few." - Pythagoras

Originally posted by blazenresearcher
reply to post by SuperiorEd

 

I believe you are correct and I may have not researched the areas that you have, but I have researched many....I am not religious at all. I am spiritual however. I have come to understand that the bible DOES have all the answers, if one is willing to release the dogma and look at the truisms. It was however written by men for a specific reason. For every good lie, therein lies a bit of truth....

Jesus said that the path is narrow. Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

All verses in the Bible are spoken literally and then figuratively. There are many layers to every thought, especially where the words are spoken by Jesus. For me, this verse shows the obvious implications of our actions and choices in life. The deeper meaning can be drawn by looking at other verses in relation.

The narrow path will be between a gate. For me the gate represents exoteric (Church dogma) and esoteric (Spirituality). The materialism and dogmas of the church can be extreme, judgmental and restrictive from pride. Spirituality can be too liberal and free. The narrow path is between these two extremes with balance. We learn from the material world and apply to the spiritual.

In the end, our relationship with God is personal and does not involve the church or the teachers of spiritual matters. God is the best teacher of all. The Western esoteric tradition says that If the student is ready, a teacher will appear. When I was at this place, I searched out every perspective I could find. After some time, it became obvious. No human teacher is necessary, although we are all part of the process that God uses. The very fact that you and I are connecting here demonstrates the multiple truth of how many perspectives and experiences come together for the overall revelation of learning. Synchronicity and destiny are the little things that happen along the path of life. The Good Shepherd leads. God is the only way through the path in the end. Anything else leads to destruction. The Bible is the root knowledge to divide the light from the darkness.

Good luck and I enjoyed reading your thread.

The awareness of self is due to the fact that what you experience as consciousness is the loading of ongoing conscious thought into your short term memory after being vetted by the conscious, self-aware information that has collected since the moment your brain began actively configuring data clusters (bursts) of this dynamic information (meaning that this stuff is an activity/information hybrid) that is created by the brain to assist the corporeal DNA directives as they are served by the umbrella organization on behalf of the rest of the corporeal enterprise that is the physical body. This information vetting process (we call it the construction of personality) causes the developing human being to - generally by active default - choose patterns of right, wrong, good, evil, real, false, important, trivial, pain, pleasure, as well as a whole contextual slurry of predilections that will ultimately define the person who will emerge as a direct result of that vetting process. We only consciously experience the crafted results of that process as soon as it is biologically stored as memory information within the carbon material of our brain cells.

This is what Corporeal Conscious Awareness (CCA) consists of, and the fact that there is an active and intelligent effort - by what will become the Post-corporeal Conscious Awareness (PCA) upon the death of the corporeal brain - creates this "sense of observable self" within the human CCA. After all, the CCA is directly served by this vague awareness, and depending on the information vetting process (can be organically or culturally exacerbated, depending on the individual) the CCA awareness can be really vague or extremely detailed. In some people, the CCA and the PCA can shift back and forth - to a wide variety of degrees - causing all kinds of "supernatural" experiences for the person that is so afflicted/enabled.

Due to the fact that animal brains configure these activity/information hybrid bursts as much less sophisticated system directives (response and reaction, as opposed to much more advanced planning and intellectual expression burst configurations) they don't possess a self-concerned "Intellect" mass that has gathered in response to their brain's ongoing survival efforts. The gathered mass exists (as all information does, and as all information gathers in-kind as an eternal mass per specific authoring source) but it isn't "self-aware" in the same way that human intellect is. The difference is only due to the configuration capacity of the authoring brain itself, but that difference is the difference between intelligent self awareness and simple existence, and that's pretty significant. Nothing "supernatural" or God-chosen. Just the difference in brain functionality, and the natural ramifications of such sophisticated information being configured by such a brain.

By the way, all of this is absolutely provable, but it takes about 100,000 words in a presentation that is carefully staged and painstakingly crafted to make sure it doesn't all fall helplessly into confusing digression.

Originally posted by backwardluminary
.... It's always awareness of a process, not of an entity. The "I" remains elusive.

What does this mean? Well, some believe that the essential "self"--self identity, the ego, whatever you want to call it--arises from this process of reflection. It is reasoning process aware of other reasoning and perceiving processes that constitutes a "self." Others posit the existence of some unconscious "other" that is the essential "self" entity. This "other" is inaccessibly to reason and self-reflection. It may be a particular reasoning entity or it may be a deep, powerful "unconscious will" that uses reason as a tool.

Now, many have told me that the "self" is a composite of one's experiences, opinions, memories, etc. --This is not sufficient. All of these things require a synthesis process. What is at the heart of this process? "Who" does the synthesis? What core "entity," if there is one, is responsible for the unity of self?

To summarize: Consciousness is always *of* something other than itself, even if it is conscious of another conscious process. The "I" that is actually conscious of something remains unknown. What is it?

Thoughts?

edit on 26-8-2011 by backwardluminary because: Minor clarification in the fifth paragraph

A touchy thread of your indeed
,,as im reading it for the 2nd time here ..so what is it ?
"Creation" in "process" of "Touchable Holograms"?
"But its inventors have big plans for touchable holograms in the future."


[Hiroyuki Shinoda, Professor, Tokyo University]:
"Up until now, holography has been for the eyes only, and if you'd try to touch it, your hand would go right through. But now we have a technology that also adds the sensation of touch to holograms."

Originally posted by NorEaster

By the way, all of this is absolutely provable, but it takes about 100,000 words in a presentation that is carefully staged and painstakingly crafted to make sure it doesn't all fall helplessly into confusing digression.

edit on 8/27/2011 by NorEaster because: (no reason given)

Do you, by chance, know where I could find such a presentation? I am interested.

reply to post by backwardluminary


There is no separate self. That is why it is elusive. That is why all good teachers will say find the self. When the quest is undertaken (to find the self, find the seeker, find the sufferer) what is actually found transforms everything. A very strongly held belief (the belief all other beliefs stem from) is blow out the water.
If there is no 'me', how can i suffer?

reply to post by backwardluminary


In my opinion, “Self” or consciousness developed from our bodies need to communicate. Thought does not belong to an individual’s existence but rather to his social nature, and that it is a tool of the “Self” in order to communicate or share our perceptions with others. All our thoughts are infinitely individual; but as soon as we translate them into consciousness they no longer seem to be.

I think Descartes put too much emphasis on mind as the essence of humans, unfortunately he totally disregards the body as another essence. He states that once you stop thinking, you stop existing, which would seem logical; except that it's the body that makes you stop thinking.

So in conclusion I believe that the “self” or “ego” or “I” is merely an ability of our bodies.

This moment contains all there is. Within it 'I' appears. 'I' is an appearance that appears at the same time as the world, right now.
In a vacuum virtual particles appear and disappear.
The big bang banging!
You appear/ the world appears, you disappear/the world disappears.
There is no world and there is no you, all there is is this.
This now eternal isness.

reply to post by backwardluminary


I agree with most if not all of what you said. The self is largely derived from false beliefs of reality. Everyone has different beliefs, so their identities are different. There is an absolute self that is realized when truth is known. This absolute identity is not limited to any one individual. From this identity arises absolute reality. This reality that we are acquainted with is shadowed in false beliefs that only allow us to see what we have accepted to be real, therefore it is an incomplete and erroneous view of 'what is'. Therefore, we perceive from separate perspectives. We perceive from different perspectives because we are collectively unacquainted with the truth. Beliefs shape your perception. Your perception shapes your identity and in turn shapes your perception.

Originally posted by backwardluminary

Originally posted by NorEaster

By the way, all of this is absolutely provable, but it takes about 100,000 words in a presentation that is carefully staged and painstakingly crafted to make sure it doesn't all fall helplessly into confusing digression.

edit on 8/27/2011 by NorEaster because: (no reason given)

Do you, by chance, know where I could find such a presentation? I am interested.

Yes, I do. U2U me and I'll let you know where.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

ps.@ The "conscious self",.........
पञ्चन्यून-दशवादने एव वयं प्रस्थितवन्तः paJcanyUna-dazavAdane eva vayaM prasthitavantaH sent.

We departed at five minutes to 10 o'clock.

.......................................................about

The conscious human-self is simply kNot conscious of its true self.

To become fully aware, one must realize the truth isn't what We think it is nor what We want it to be, and to be capable of understanding the truth for what it is, the truth.

What If none of this is Real?

What If the wool was shoved up our butts instead of over our eyes?

What If?

Ribbit

reply to post by ButtUglyToad

wellLLL.....



((a-note to me-self....

....there is nothing and GOD .. ))