So read-up on some well-dumbed down interpretations of his gospel, or just come on over to the Kierkegard Camp.

Yes, I do admit that he is indeed thick as a brick... and may not speak clearly enough for most of us modern-day-sheeple to be able to be understood properly; each person follows their own path to enlightenment, of the accumulation of intrinsic and extrinsic knowledge on their way to their graves; some do so through bars and broads, others through books and Blooms.

I am.. therefore I think Vs I think therefore I am.

Scramble the brain.. I am limited in the physical.

Do plants know that they are.

Do plants have wisdom?

Can a plant be a teacher?


The physical brain is not enlightened but your spirit has connections?

WARNING: Long post to follow. Read at your own risk

I am aware that what I will say here is controversial, but I would like to give my own opinion on this subject, which is a favorite of mine . I see that some individuals in this thread were wondering about any books, etc, that discuss this stuff well - so I'll include a handful references in the course of trying to support my views on the subject, and hopefully they will be of interest to someone. I hope by listing these references I don't come off as pretentious...B/c this can be a controversial topic, and b/c perhaps a bit of this might seem "fringe-y" to some, my intentions are only to provide rational support for what I say.

I do not believe materialist reductionism can account for consciousness and perhaps some other mental phenomena. I think there are philosophical (analytic), empirical, and phenomenological/ experiential arguments in favor of some kind of non-reductive view of consciousness. By non-reductive, I mean a view that takes some central aspect of mind or consciousness as at least fundamental in its own right, and at most perhaps more fundamental than physics, in some way. In other words, mind or consciousness is more than the result of high level emergent functional properties of the brain. There is - perhaps surprisingly - a good deal of converging lines of evidence that cumulatively support such views. This does not mean that the brain doesn’t have anything to do with mind - it clearly plays an important role in mental processes, and there are lawful correlations between certain forms of mental activity and brain activity. But of course, this does not entail that mind and brain are identical. Any respectable theory of the mind or consciousness must take seriously and be able to accommodate the findings of neuroscientific research.

I do think that more and more of science and western analytic philosophy is beginning to at least take seriously the above position. For instance, in the mid 1990’s with the publication of some seminal works in philosophy by David Chalmers and other like-minded thinkers, there arose an increased interest in pursuing non-reductive theories of consciousness in academic philosophy, and this has slowly but steadily continued since, even branching out and influencing the thought of certain scientists. The mid 1990’s also saw the start of the biennial “Toward A Science of Consciousness” conferences, which features a multitude of rigorous, diverse discussions on theories of consciousness (both reductive and non-reductive) from a broadly interdisciplinary perspective.

Recently, there been a number of academic books published in the philosophy of the mind on a particular subset of views known as panpsychism and Russellian monism (aka neutral or dual aspect monism). This form of monism takes mind and matter to be two sides of the same coin, together unified at some more fundamental, deeper level. It's a view associated with Bertrand Russell, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and more recently with David Chalmers, Galen Strawson, David Ray Griffin, Philip Goff, Neil Theise, etc. (Interestingly, two of the most prolific “mainstream” neuroscientists - Christoff Koch and Giulio Tononi - have recently tentatively embraced a version of panpsychism which they call “Integrated Information Theory”.)

Some of my favorite books that discuss these views and the arguments for them, from the perspective of analytic philosophy, are the following:
- David Chalmers 1996, 2010: “The Conscious Mind,” “The Character of Consciousness”
- Godehard Bruentrup and Ludwig Jaskolla et al. 2016: “Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives” - a collection papers from multiple contributors.
- Michael Blamauer et al. 2011: “The Mental As Fundamental” - a collection.
- David Skrbina et al. 2009: “Mind That Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium” - collection.
- Robert Koons and George Bealer et al.: “The Waning of Materialism” - collection.

There is also a rich empirical side of support for these perspectives. Some of this comes from what has been referred to as “Psi” research, aka laboratory parapsychology - scientific investigation into purported "extended mental capacities", or so-called ESP. Now, it is very difficult to talk about such topics seriously without being derided and branded as a "quack" - for many, these are dirty words (although this may be changing too). This is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that the caliber of the research, and the results of studies in this area (a number of which have been published in mainstream journals), are virtually unknown by the general population, and by the majority of academia as well. Within the past 20-30 years there has been a large number studies published by many independent labs and investigators across the globe (employing various experimental paradigms) that have overall demonstrated robust effects that are modestly replicable and that have held up to scrutiny even as the controls have tightened and the experiments have become more and more rigorous. These results carry highly significant implications for our understanding of the consciousness, and strongly suggest that certain mental processes contain at least partially an objectively quantifiable ingredient that extends beyond the boundaries of a person's sensory system and psychological makeup as ordinarily conceived. There are a many books and discussions on these experiments - such as those written by Dean Radin. Two of the best, most thorough, and up-to-date books are the following collections, written by numerous contributors - proponents and detractors - who are active researchers, and containing detailed summaries of the various forms of evidence.

- Etzel Cardena, John Palmer, and David Marcussen-Clavertz et al. 2015: “Parapsychology: A Handbook for the 21st Century.”
- Edwin May and Marwaha et al: 2015: “Extrasensory Perception: Support Skepticism and Science.” - 2 volumes.

Also see:
- Damien Broderick and Ben Goertzel et al. 2014: "Evidence For Psi: Thirteen Empirical Research Reports."
- James Carpenter 2015: "First Sight: ESP and Parapsychology in Everyday Life"
- Dean Radin 1997, 2006, 2013: "The Conscious Universe"; "Entangled Minds"; "Supernormal."
- Stanley Krippner and Harris Friedman et al. 2009: "Mysterious Minds: The Neurobiology of Psychics, Mediums, and Other Extraordinary People."
- Chris Carter 2007: "Parapsychology and the Skeptics: A Scientific Argument for the Existence of ESP."

{ EDIT: Here is another resource on this kind of evidence, provided below. The following link contains a list of roughly 100 or so peer-reviewed scientific studies on psi research, compiled and pdf-linked for accessibility by psychologist and researcher Dean Radin. While browsing through said list, it's very important to keep in mind the following: Over the past century, a myriad of experimental protocols have been employed to research different theoretical constructs broadly falling under the rubric of "psi research" - however, not all protocols have fared as well as others (as one might expect), and this is reflected in Radin's list. For example, the research into "distant healing" by way of "intercessory prayer" (which is not really within purview of "psi research", but is nevertheless included by Radin his compilation) has tended not to produce strong or overall consistent results. Other protocols or paradigms (in fact most others) have been far more successful, evidence-wise. Here's the link:

http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm }

Two additional highly relevant books published in the past decade also tackle the empirical, and theoretical, side of things from a wide angle. Written mostly by researchers at the University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies, the books discuss several different avenues of research and thought - mostly coming from the clinical literature - that they argue serve to seriously challenge the current materialist perspectives in psychology. The first book (which is around 800 pages) for example, contains painstakingly detailed and rigorous discussions of developments in philosophy of the mind, extreme examples of psychophysiological influence, memory, “automatisms and secondary centers of consciousness”, the near death experience and related phenomena, genius (e.g., savantism), mystical experience, and psychedelics. It also contains appendices with many references to books and publications that discuss other relevant consciousness-related phenomena. The second book came out a year ago, and is attempt to get a grip on the theoretical underpinnings of consciousness and said phenomena. Two extremely interesting books.

- Edward Kelly et al. 2009: "Irreducible Mind" - again, a collection from multiple contributors.
- Edward Kelly et al. 2015: "Beyond Physicalism" - collection.

Relatedly, the recent book "Transcendent Mind: Rethinking the Science of Consciousness," by psychologists Julia Mossbridge and Imants Baruss, 2016, proceeds in a very similar vein as the above, mounting an empirical argument for the incompleteness of materialism with regards to the mind.

I've already written way too much - but, as you can guess, the "experiential" aspect of this includes many of the things that are written about here on The Nexus (that is, the phenomenology of psychedelic, meditative and mystical experiences). First-person experience may be the most convincing kind of support for anyone that has undergone such experiences themselves. Direct experience or "gnosis" is very powerful, indeed (it has been for me at least!) It is quite hard to go back to one's previous, ordinary ways of thinking about reality after one has undergone a paradigm-shattering psychedelic, meditative, or mystical experience.

- Psychologists David Luke, Benny Shanon, Stanislav Grof, Rick Strassman, neuroscientist Andrew Gallimore, and anthropologist Michael Harner, have discussed in various places the implications of certain psychedelic experiences for understanding the mind in relation to the brain. For example, Shanon's book, "Antipodes of the Mind", on the phenomenology of ayahuasca, is a classic - he argues therein that the cross-personal and mystical-like experiences induced by the substance warrant an expansion of the boundaries of mainstream cognitive psychology. On the other hand, philosophers like W.T. Stace, Paul Marshall, Ken Wilber, Randall Studstill, Robert Forman, William James and Frederick H. Meyers, have emphasized the implications of mystical experiences proper for our understanding of mind and reality, arguing for a broadly trans-personal view of the psyche. There is also some recent neurobiological evidence suggesting that the brain functions, in some respects, as a filter or a "limiter" of certain aspects of mind and consciousness - this could provide further support for these perspectives. I wrote about some of this research here https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=71180 .

I'm a thoughtful fellow, yet not too academically versed in Philosophy.

Emergent v Non-local? Since the development of Quantum in the early 20th c, we've been forced to embrace the indubitable, fundamental/primordial, transrationality of nature/reality. Our modeling requires a dualistic wave/particle description to "accurately" describe that which we materially perceive.

The Uncertainty principle turns out to be an aspect of nature, as opposed to an artifact of our limited perceptual apparatus, physiologic or mechanical. Complementary descriptors, momentum/position and energy/time, can only be known/measured in an inversely proportional manner. Relativity reveals that matter/energy are a unity along with space/time. Together, Quantum+Relativity, reveal that the very fabric of REALITY, matter/energy+space/time, are a non-local UNITY. The more we appreciate about "what" something is(momentum/energy), the less is known of "when/where" it is(space/time), and the reciprocal.

The whole shebang is, local/non-local AND reciprocally complementary. Hence "consciousness" must be described as emergent AND non-local. As we define it from a particular body/mind perspective, it's non-local nature, diminishes(consensus, mundane, subject/object). However as we define/experience it from a non-local("overmind" ) perspective, the particular body/mind perspective, it's emergent nature, diminishes(psychedelic, altered state, unitive). The very fabric of reality demands/dictates that it be defined/experienced so!

This is the ABSOLUTE beauty, utility and sacramental nature of psychedelics. They catalyze the ascertainment of consciousness from it's non-local perspective(and everywhere in betwixt). In fact one of the most blessed aspects of a "good trip" is the interval during which one's awareness is vacillating/looping BETWEEN the local and non-local perspectives. This happens typically, peri-peak, on either side of the grand unitive sensibility, when one is fortunate. These compounds are true gifts to be humbly utilized. We, the psychedelically informed, gain a unique appreciation of this fundamental quality to conscious reality.

Is this experience of consciousness from it's atypical pole(non-local) some sort of foundational TRUTH??? That is the mysterium tremendum. But what a gift to have experienced it from "both sides" in a single life time.

Nexians, strive to remember the specialness of what we share and nurture on this great forum!

Peace

Maybe it's not such an important question as we like to think.

There's no denying that counsciousness and the brain are intimately related.
Maybe the brain produces counsciousness, and maybe what's going on in the brain is merely a reflection of it.

But sometimes it's just best to treat counsciousness, AS IF we know it's a product of the brain.

For instance in how we treat animals that have brains, nearly as advanced as ours. There is no reason not to assume that such creatures posses some highly evolved kind of counsciousness that closely resembles ours.

If we had to choose between what for instance the bible says about such animals, namely that they are here, just to serve our needs, that we can subject them to our wishes. Or what neuroscience says, namely, that we are very much like them, i think it is by far, more ethical, more civilised, AND ALSO MUCH MORE SPIRITUAL, to choose the scientific angle.

So, I'm on a bunch of painkillers courtesy of a recent medical procedure (seriously, could this week get any worse?) and so I'm going to float an out-of-character theory that has ABSOLUTELY NO BASIS IN SCIENCE WHATSOEVER. But I'd like our thoughts.

What if consciousness is a universal field, something like the Higgs Field, or space-time: a fundamental property of the universe and complexity causes the field to 'bend' in the same way that gravity does. The structure of the network that's bending our universal consciousness field dictates the quality of conscious experience by changing the deformation of the field slightly.

Here's my analogy: those keycards you use to get into and out of your office building each create a unique electromagnetic field that can be read. The cards are unique because the different patterns printed on them in magnetic ink create different fields.

Maybe your brain is like that keycard. Each architecture is a little different, so each consciousness is a little different. Anywhere you have integrated information (computers, plants, animals, even maybe molecules and atoms) creates a tiny dimple in the field of consciousness and has some 'level' of consciousness corresponding to the depth of the dimple.

In this model, information does not *create* consciousness, nor does the brain receive it, but rather, consciousness is a universal fundamental that information bends towards it in the same way that mass bends spacetime.

I was sort of inspired by Phillip Pullman's idea of 'dust' with this.

Blessings
~ND

The brain is basically just a node where consciousness is retrieved and integrated. There is nothing in the realms of biology that can explain consciousness in the phenomenological sense. Just the domino effects that lead to its organization. In fact in a biochemical sense there is nothing really special about the brain as opposed to any other entity or organ. It certainly has its unique organization and we can identify pathways that are involved in decision making and other calculated responses and it's certainly interesting. But it's not fundamentally any different than how your immune system detects and responds to the presence of bacteria, or how bacteria use quorum sensing to alter and coordinate behavior, or... anything else. To say the brain creates consciousness is like saying how many numbers do you have to add to get the color blue. But i guess it depends how you define consciousness too. I tend to think of it as the intrinsic capacity for awareness. In which every system is aware of the thing it measures. With the brain just being one of the highest realizations of that capacity. Good discussion though, i've always been curious how others view and define this process. I'll be honest i haven't thought about it in a while and like Nathanial the mu-opioid receptors are going strong So i apologize for any sloppiness.

Indeed it is this "hard question" of consciousness, "how can something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as matter?", that elucidates the limitation of a reductionist/materialist paradigm. Science, rigorously applied, restricts itself to the realm of the disprovable. By convention and consensus, this model operates according to, local/pre-quantum/classical notions defining material bodies in terms of their properties, in particular their momentum/energy and location/time, DISTINCTLY.

Quantum demands, if accepted as a replacement for classical modeling, we accept the essential WHOLENESS of phenomena and the realm within which they transpire. Bohr, recognizing the indivisibility of quantum phenom, stressed that each experiment or observation must be taken as an unanalyzable whole. In reality, matter/energy and space/time are NOT distinct variables but unitary correlates that manifest as inversely proportional complementarities throughout "nature".

The very structure of the reality that we consciously participate in disallows a, subject/object, description. As N.D mused, consciousness may function as the universal "field" throughout which gravity(the foundational force) operates/organizes. Modern quantum physics is indeed modeling well outside the boundaries of classical science. The observation that psychedelics may allow the average schmo(me) to participate experientially in the actual "consciousness continuum", betwixt local and non-local, seems worthy of consideration.

Peace

I am curious though: how do the people who're realy convinced non-materialists look at animals with brains, much like ourselves?

Do you think that because of the fact that, at least from a scientific point of view we are very close to these animals, we should be treating them more respectfully?
Or do you reject the idea that we have anything in common with these animals, that they are counscious beings like ourselves?

I see the spark of consciousness peering thru my kitteh's eyes
is the same spark peering thru all eyes,
that there is but one such spark in all existence,
that hyperspace is the House of the Allspark

Hmmm... their consciousness is different to ours, for one. The combination of Soul and physical body together create the comparatively limited speck of consciousness that is our ego, that fades away sometime after death.

We have a human ego, with all its trappings. Tiger, bee, aloe vera, oak tree, ant, crow, bacterium, etc. All have egos, and so, personalities that are unique to them.

We can intersubjectively say more about the human condition than that of the non-human, because we're so much more similar in ways than not, and *even then* we have trouble understanding others apart from ourselves!

Why does it have to be so binary? The universe is instead a series of spectra. I like Valmar's answer.

I think consciousness is an innate[ancient?] property to the universe. Actually, I think consciousness IS reality itself, and what's outside of that - im not sure. I think in some ways, at some very deep, intricate level, consciousness is interwoven within the framework of our brain chemistry; hence the changes in our subjective experience when we ingest psychedelic plants/drugs/etc. I'd even go so far as to say that consciousness is interwoven within things at the molecular level. Though with that said I don't personally think that the framework itself 'generates consciousness' or anything like that, I just think that whatever 'consciousness' is, is that it's intimately tied in with our brain/body when we're born.

Consciousness is everywhere and it is everything. Funny though the 'word' consciousness. I think you could also call it a complex form of 'awareness', at a higher order of complexity in comparison to the other animals and such. In alot of ways, beyond the scope of what I mentioned, I think consciousness to be shrouded in mystery (i.e: what IS it?). Maybe consciousness IS the mystery?

I find that I could replace the word consciousness with another word that's floated around my head - Dream. I look at it like this - when you're dreaming, you're looking out through the subjectivity of your own experience while dreaming (similar to me looking out through my subjective experience of life), essentially you ARE the dream itself, though you are also the character, and possibly the characters within the dream as it's happening. I think there's many parallels with a powerfully rich, stable dream and the subjective experience of me moving through this life. I'm starting to think they're one n' the same - all is Dream. I think there is potentially much overlap between these two words.

And in that - 'consciousness' and 'dream' are interchangeable in my eyes. Two words to describe this same elusive something.

My 2c.

Well, the decission to treat some animals respectfully is a binary one. For instance, the choice not to eat some animals is pretty binary. Even the decission to eat LESS meat, or to prefer the meat of some animals over that of others, is a yes/no decission: you either decide to do it or you don't.

So i think it's a relevant question related to the materialism/counsciousness debate: do we have the right to kill animals that have brains simmilar to ours?

Abortion is an other, probably more sensitive issue that comes to mind.

I wasn't referring to the decision to eat meat. Rather, I was referring to binary of whether animals are conscious like us and thus ought to be treated like us, or whether they are not even remotely conscious and thus do not deserve equitable treatment. My point was that both perspectives are extremes on a binary scale, when in reality a lot of evidence points to animals experiencing the world in ways individual to their genetics, anatomy, etc. For example, some nematodes use a receptor to detect light which is used to detect taste in other organisms. Or consider recent research showing rats to be ticklish and that the same class of neurons that responds to tickling in humans behave analogously (https://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/bbef11295319cd83dd7e4b9b30e174bf.htm).

So, at least in my opinion, consciousness (or at least experience) shares many degrees of similarity and appears to be built on the same basic neural architecture between mammals, though different species present different types of experience and to different degrees. For example, some species have 4 or even 5 unique photoreceptors as opposed to our 3, and can thus see a wider range of colors than we can. Why wouldn't this extend to other structures and functions of the brain?

And in any case, the decision to treat animals ethically is not necessarily binary either. Ethics exist on a spectrum and are relative to the societies that use them. Killing animals and giving them the right to vote are simply two opposite extremes. What about something like a pet dog? Recent research shows that they regularly deceive and "train" humans nearly as successfully as we do unto them, and they've been shown to genuinely enjoy various tasks that we would consider subservient to us. So is it ethical to keep them as pets if they enjoy our company and serving us if it turns out in the near future that they experience the world in a way we would intuitively accept as "conscious" or self-aware?

The question is, yes.

It is all conscious(ness) and I am just a dream. "God" ever is, regardless of how and what, the design is ego.

tseuq

awesome, man. didnt expect to find a response here that at all hit home for me. pretty much agree with this viewpoint

Same thinking about ground of consciousness that we all share? Go to the root of awareness and is it not the same thing for everyone.

Do we have a soul? That's what I want to know. Do we advance along some hidden plane of existence that follows us along a path of growth, or is it just the collective that changes/grows in awareness.

Or is the ground of consciousness pure in essence and always the same being the source.. for lack of better words.. of all awareness.

OK.. so awareness/consciousness (God?) is having a dream that we are a part of and our egos are our own personal delusions.

Shedding the ego people do become enlightened ( what ever that is) and it's a fact, have we not at one time or another seen this simpler wonder in our own lives.

By simply resting in this wonderful consciousness that seems to be everything anyway, just let it flow.

Go with the flow..even if it is all just in our heads. Does the question even matter one way or another when a person is fully relaxed into the moment. Maybe your next fling with it will be a lot like this one unless you do something great, er.. not so great.

And beneath this there is this heart awareness that grows too, and is all bent around our Karma?. If one is a complete idiot they might come back as a worm with not much else to learn other than how to dig it again.