The Primacy of Consciousness

This guy is trying to make the idea of Consciousness gel more with scientific ideas than just philosophy and metaphysics.

He says consciousness IS reality. That there is ONLY consciousness. That we can't see anything in it's true form, just our interpretation or experience of it - our conscious awareness of it. There may not even be a "true form" or objective reality except consciousness. No matter. No space. No time. He says that all we know for sure that is real is our experience, our consciousness - that we exist.



- Mind blown -

I'm just wondering what ATS thinks of his premise.

My main question is how do we have shared experiences? Are we all one being? Experiencing many different realities? For instance, that guy in the video, Peter Russell, is giving a lecture and we are all experiencing it. If it's not real, how can separate beings experience the same thing?

I believe consciousness exists in more than one level at a time. We obviously have an autonomous system that most of us are never really aware of. Its even responsible for translating the 32 million -odd pixels of our vision 30 times a second into something we can interpret.

That said, I believe there a consciousness we have at a higher level that is in constant, direct communications with other higher consciousness of other people and other beings. Kurt Leland expressed the groundwork into discovering this hierarchy of consciousness and awareness in his book "Otherwhere: A Field Guide to Nonphysical Reality for the Out-of-Body Traveler"

www.amazon.com...

I believe he has come very close. A lot of "shared consciousness" experiences, ESP, telepathy, precognition and other psychically attributed phenomena can be easily explained if we are actually higher order spiritual beings that are in direct contact, but focusing our awareness into a 3 dimensional plane that we all agree on as far as physical properties and causality events.

Some people believe this 3D experience is a prison, and for some it might be. But I see it as a teaching tool where we are learning to master the ability to create and moderate in a sandboxed environment.

Originally posted by OsirisIndigo
I believe consciousness exists in more than one level at a time. We obviously have an autonomous system that most of us are never really aware of.

In the video he gives an example of that. Like when you are driving and all of the sudden you are miles further down the road and yet you have no recollection of it. You didn't crash, so obviously your consciousness was active at another level. But you don't remember any of it.

Originally posted by KillerQueen
My main question is how do we have shared experiences? Are we all one being? Experiencing many different realities? For instance, that guy in the video, Peter Russell, is giving a lecture and we are all experiencing it. If it's not real, how can separate beings experience the same thing?

Easy. You dont "know" anyone but you are experiencing it. While it may look like there are groups of people around you sharing the same experience, where is your proof?

Its the same as the "brain in a vat" theory. Much like the Matrix movies, it hypothesizes that we are all simply brains in vats hooked to a computer that creates our world and experiences. So, while you can discuss an experience you believe you had with a friend, you simply do not "know" your friend is real, therefore you do not know you shared anything.

Originally posted by KillerQueen
My main question is how do we have shared experiences? Are we all one being? Experiencing many different realities? For instance, that guy in the video, Peter Russell, is giving a lecture and we are all experiencing it. If it's not real, how can separate beings experience the same thing?

How?

That's easy, We are inside God's/SurCe's Mind and everything you experience is being experienced IN Thought.

I haven't had the time to watch the video but your simple description sounds like the truth. I'll watch it tomorrow and then I'll remark on the video afterwards.

Ribbit

reply to post by KillerQueen


Haven't watched the video, yet, but from what you wrote I completely agree. This is the same thing that all the great sages and wise men have said. Once you see this as true, not just philosophically or as an idea but actually feel it in the core of your being, your entire perspective shifts and life opens up and reveals her hidden secrets.

As Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, "Timelessness is not a philosophical concept to me, it is a reality".

Will watch the vid tomorrow, thanks!

reply to post by KillerQueen


Are you having a shared experience when you are dreaming? Are the people in your dream real? Is the dream separate from you? Or is it just all dream stuff, illusionary?
youtu.be...

Originally posted by KillerQueen
My main question is how do we have shared experiences? Are we all one being? Experiencing many different realities? For instance, that guy in the video, Peter Russell, is giving a lecture and we are all experiencing it. If it's not real, how can separate beings experience the same thing?

We can only engage in shared perception (to any extent whatsoever) if there are objective reality anchors that set the skeletal structure that our perceptions can (and do) then fill in with the finer details. There is no other plausible explanation, regardless of how many convoluted phrases and ethereal video clips are thrown at the fact that reality - if it is shared at any level by intelligent sentient beings - must possess an objective nature, even if each of the beings sharing the experience of said reality are completely incapable of objectively perceiving it.

The fact that the perceptions of each sentient mind are completely subjective, and yet the observed reality is in any way shared by all as a concurrently and wholly perceived experience, is enough to prove the objective presence of that reality, regardless of the truth of its minute specifics. Whether the perceivers agree on the nature of those specifics or not, does not affect the fact that the reality itself does, in fact, exist if it is spontaneously sharable as a perceived experience. And if it does exist, then the fact that the perceiving entities may not be capable of achieving absolute consensus on the precise nature of its minute specifics does not negate the fact that those specifics do exist as objective, since the reality itself - as a fully defined existential whole - does exist as an actual item. This is a default impact that can't be avoided, given the attributes of the premise.

Conscious is not primordial. Consciousness is sentience. Sentience is self awareness. Consciousness is self awareness. Self awareness requires the existence of the fully defined self to first exist. The fully defined self must emerge to become delineated from that which isn't the defined self for it to be capable of self-awareness - or consciousness. This means that the concept of universal consciousness is a human interpretation of something that it either has encountered or has imagined to exist, and is not based on what's plausible or even possible - given the very specific nature of consciousness as a defined concept. This flawed interpretation has been promoted for thousands of years, and is now a cultural axiom. But that doesn't make it any more true than some of the other axioms - like dragons and fairies - that have been retired over the centuries.

Consciousness is the result of progressive existential development, not the initiator of it. No amount of philosophical debate is ever going to change that fact, and putting that existential cart before that existential horse isn't philosophy. It's intellectual entertainment.

reply to post by NorEaster


Did you watch the video?
'Self' awareness is not consciousness, awareness is consciousness. 'Self' consciousness is where you 'think' you are separate from consciousness.
You may see it as entertainment and not truth because you are still working with the old paradigm and because of this you will dismiss all that was said in the video, in fact i doubt you even watched it because you are so sure of your own beliefs/facts.
You seem to know a lot of 'facts'. But do you know the truth?

reply to post by NorEaster


There is no separate 'self' (fully defined self).
You can not separate yourself from this moment.
What is seen and what is seeing is one process, there is nothing else happening.

Originally posted by KillerQueen
My main question is how do we have shared experiences?

After thinking on this all night I answered my own question - the shared experience is just how our consciousness is perceiving it, doesn't mean it's actually shared. Or real.

If you want to play around with thoughts, here is something to think about:

Did the brain create consciousness (as most materialists/scientists claim) or did consciousness create the brain? In other words, does consciousness arise only because there is a brain or did the brain evolve and take form as it did specifically so it could utilize this consciousness?

Originally posted by KillerQueen

Originally posted by KillerQueen
My main question is how do we have shared experiences?

After thinking on this all night I answered my own question - the shared experience is just how our consciousness is perceiving it, doesn't mean it's actually shared. Or real.

exactly, which prove how conscious expressions are to evil wills so against directly truth

only honest conscious freedom are proud to admit that perceptions confirm freedom from objective perspectives, while the opportunists would jump to mean their positive free life from using it, as if noone else can know that or stupid like us would always be forced to loose their eyes as they loose their free sense

what is shared is only objective space and exclusively when it is realized

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by NorEaster

 

Did you watch the video?
'Self' awareness is not consciousness, awareness is consciousness. 'Self' consciousness is where you 'think' you are separate from consciousness.
You may see it as entertainment and not truth because you are still working with the old paradigm and because of this you will dismiss all that was said in the video, in fact i doubt you even watched it because you are so sure of your own beliefs/facts.
You seem to know a lot of 'facts'. But do you know the truth?

edit on 7-3-2012 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

Consciousness is sentience. Sentience is awareness of self. Period. Look it up if you need to.

Frankly, it doesn't matter what you believe. Reality is what it is, and whether you understand it or not means nothing. Ricochet of everything if it makes you feel special to be that way, but nothing you do or say affects what's real. So, I'm not the issue here. I'm just being honest about what's real and provable.

Originally posted by LifeIsEnergy
If you want to play around with thoughts, here is something to think about:

Did the brain create consciousness (as most materialists/scientists claim) or did consciousness create the brain? In other words, does consciousness arise only because there is a brain or did the brain evolve and take form as it did specifically so it could utilize this consciousness?

The brain creates consciousness, and it's the only way that consciousness comes into existence. The existential structure that guides progressive physical development to the point of achieving the emergence of the corporeal brain is established as a result of contextual (historical) precedence in the form of residual information, and the impact of default ramification on that which is dynamic and progressive. Consciousness isn't something that "just is", but it seems like if you suggest that sort of "normal" idea as being true and provable it freaks out the people who see themselves as original thinkers. Frankly, I don't understand the threat. There are plenty of other original ideas that don't require a blunt dismissal of reality.

I have not yet watched the video either, but I like the thoughts being presented.

As for the issue of "other people." Just as our perception of "things" is actually just our own personal interpretations of energies being projected as if "external" and having its own independent existence, It is the same with "other people." All living entities and non-living "things" are energies, manifested through consciousness, projected externally based on the tendencies of the perceiving consciousness. To speak of the "reality" of other people is a somewhat irrelevant point of speculative philosophy. Regardless of the "reality" of things/people external, all we ever experience are our projections, which are based on the tendencies of our own consciousness.

reply to post by NorEaster

The existential structure that guides progressive physical development to the point of achieving the emergence of the corporeal brain is established as a result of contextual (historical) precedence in the form of residual information, and the impact of default ramification on that which is dynamic and progressive.

Ummm... and this is your argument for why you BELIEVE consciousness is a derivative of the brain? You talk the talk of a scientist, but I have no clue what you said. Is science just a WAY of talking now days?

My belief on this topic: I have none. Honestly, it could be either. It is a fun thought to play around with though, however, it brings about no peace of mind and so it is of very little use to hold onto long enough to form a belief system out of it.

Peace.

Originally posted by NorEaster

Originally posted by KillerQueen
My main question is how do we have shared experiences? Are we all one being? Experiencing many different realities? For instance, that guy in the video, Peter Russell, is giving a lecture and we are all experiencing it. If it's not real, how can separate beings experience the same thing?

We can only engage in shared perception (to any extent whatsoever) if there are objective reality anchors that set the skeletal structure that our perceptions can (and do) then fill in with the finer details. There is no other plausible explanation, regardless of how many convoluted phrases and ethereal video clips are thrown at the fact that reality - if it is shared at any level by intelligent sentient beings - must possess an objective nature, even if each of the beings sharing the experience of said reality are completely incapable of objectively perceiving it.

The fact that the perceptions of each sentient mind are completely subjective, and yet the observed reality is in any way shared by all as a concurrently and wholly perceived experience, is enough to prove the objective presence of that reality, regardless of the truth of its minute specifics. Whether the perceivers agree on the nature of those specifics or not, does not affect the fact that the reality itself does, in fact, exist if it is spontaneously sharable as a perceived experience. And if it does exist, then the fact that the perceiving entities may not be capable of achieving absolute consensus on the precise nature of its minute specifics does not negate the fact that those specifics do exist as objective, since the reality itself - as a fully defined existential whole - does exist as an actual item. This is a default impact that can't be avoided, given the attributes of the premise.

Conscious is not primordial. Consciousness is sentience. Sentience is self awareness. Consciousness is self awareness. Self awareness requires the existence of the fully defined self to first exist. The fully defined self must emerge to become delineated from that which isn't the defined self for it to be capable of self-awareness - or consciousness. This means that the concept of universal consciousness is a human interpretation of something that it either has encountered or has imagined to exist, and is not based on what's plausible or even possible - given the very specific nature of consciousness as a defined concept. This flawed interpretation has been promoted for thousands of years, and is now a cultural axiom. But that doesn't make it any more true than some of the other axioms - like dragons and fairies - that have been retired over the centuries.

Consciousness is the result of progressive existential development, not the initiator of it. No amount of philosophical debate is ever going to change that fact, and putting that existential cart before that existential horse isn't philosophy. It's intellectual entertainment.

You say sew much that's borderline to the truth but kNot quite hitting the mark and your last statement shows the flaw. Consciousness is kNot the "result of progressive existential development." That's what's known as Conscious Ability, which COMES FROM the Consciousness, which is the Initiator of All!

The Collective Consciousness is where your human-self consciousness originates FROM as well.

Ribbit

Originally posted by NorEaster

Originally posted by LifeIsEnergy
If you want to play around with thoughts, here is something to think about:

Did the brain create consciousness (as most materialists/scientists claim) or did consciousness create the brain? In other words, does consciousness arise only because there is a brain or did the brain evolve and take form as it did specifically so it could utilize this consciousness?

The brain creates consciousness, and it's the only way that consciousness comes into existence. The existential structure that guides progressive physical development to the point of achieving the emergence of the corporeal brain is established as a result of contextual (historical) precedence in the form of residual information, and the impact of default ramification on that which is dynamic and progressive. Consciousness isn't something that "just is", but it seems like if you suggest that sort of "normal" idea as being true and provable it freaks out the people who see themselves as original thinkers. Frankly, I don't understand the threat. There are plenty of other original ideas that don't require a blunt dismissal of reality.

The brain does kNot create consciousness and you prove that constantly!

You're playing baseball and WE ain't playing baseball, WE's playing Chess and Checkmate is just around the corner.

Ribbit