They're encoded in a neural network and are thus too difficult to express symbolically...but I can try.
I think consciousness exists as a spectrum with individual components defined by some parameter pertaining to something like awareness (environmental and self-awareness). Somewhere in the middle is us, with psychonaut philosophers on the high end and catch-phrase sponges on the low end. At the low extreme are things like subatomic particles, though I'm sure they think that they are actually in the middle of the spectrum and that we are at the low extreme (It's all relative).

I was probably being a bit inflammatory. What I meant to say is that, compared to the high end of the spectrum, I can't get too excited about any form of carbon-based consciousness.

EDIT: Upon further thought, I can perhaps break down the spectrum a bit more. Consciousness is at a cross-roads between curiosity, knowledge, and learning. i.e. what we want to know, what we already know, and how we get from the former to the latter. This is just one of many models that could be used to describe consciousness.

Does that mean that stupid or ignorant people are less conscious than intelligent, well travelled or educated people? Does the environment in which we are brought up affect how much consciousness we have? Does a psychonaut have more consciousness than someone who is provincial, has lived in the same village for all their life without travelling to other regions, has xenophobic tendencies and lives in a state of ambitionless contentment?

I would say that someone who is content to be ambitiousless is indeed less conscious than someone who is not. I think that consciousness of one's inner and outer realities naturally leads to fascination, curiosity, and the desire to understand why things are the way they are. That doesn't have anything to do with travelling the world. Even within a small town, we are trained to walk inside the lines: To follow roads, trails, cultural thought-patterns, defined functions of various objects, etc. I would say it is a sufficient indication of consciousness for someone to occasionally think to push past those guidelines, and that can be done without ever leaving the couch, much less the country.


I would say it does. As a neural network, the brain is trained during our developmental years to navigate the world in a particular way based on the circumstances of our environment and upbringing. That training can result in tendencies toward conscious navigation or unconscious navigation. I think we're born with a very animalistic brain: It has some basic built-in functions, but it doesn't have language (though it has the propensity for language). I think language - our mapping of symbols onto objects in the real world and subsequent manipulation of those symbols - is the basis for our capability for logic and structured thinking. Without language, I don't think we can comprehend relationships between objects, cause and effect, or concepts like the self. So what I'm trying to say is that all of the types of thoughts that we might consider "conscious" or "intelligent" are not innate and, in fact, special training is required to be able to manipulate thoughts in an advanced way indicative of "consciousness". Not that we either have it or we don't. Like I said, it's an N-dimensional spectrum, and nobody fully understands it (at least not while sober ).

I agree. Speaking from my own experience, before I had entheogenic experiences, which in turn led to an unquinchable thirst for knowledge, I was indeed less conscious. I had no clue what my own intentions were, if I was driving, I'd throw cigarette buts out of the window without a second thought, while these days, even if I do, I'm conscious of the fact that it's destructive. I'm more conscious of how my actions effect others as well.
Also, when it comes to others I know, my old friends who are still in the same lifestyle I used to be in, seem far lass conscious than the people I know who are into these sorts of things that interest us, here on the nexus. Also, my psychedelic buddies are all interested in and capable of having this sort of discussion, regardless of their level of education. In fact, I didn't graduate from high school, and I wasn't always so interested in any sort of knowledge, yet when i had the experiences, I became very un content with not being educated, so I learned on my own. I started to notice the utter lack of consciousness of most people in our society. Now I'm conscious of the fact that I need an education, to do what I want to do, which is to research entheogens, so I'll be going back to school shortly. But yes, I would say that some are more conscious than others, for sure.

I think you and hixidiom mistake awareness for consciousness. At least from what I understood reading his post, hug meant conscious more along the lines of the word "experience", not conscious as in being conscious of something. That was my interpretation anyway, but hey it looks like you and hixidiom are in the same boat as far as the meaning you got from it. I interpreted hug's question as more along the lines of "is a psychonaut more conscious than an ordinary person in the same type of way a human is to a dog?"

humans are apex predators, and we use technology to do it.
im comfortable with that.
of course ,there will be winners and losers.

its worked for the alphas so far.
we need to expand it into space colonization........

show some humor and have some fun being a dominant species that regulates itself.

the race for consumerism only applies to those wanting.
those that can have what they want, dont rat race for supply or status.

Ha i remember this discussion and i think that i ended up being lost for words and having to contemplate what Hixidom had said for some time (which is no bad thing as i tend to always want the last word), My response is that i do not think that increased consciousness is related to intelligence but more to do with the processing of information. It may sound like a bit of a bummer but the couch potato that watches the same soap opera each day is processing the same amount of information as the harvard whizzkid/"open minded psychonaut". I do not believe that the subjectively percieved quality of the information has any baring on whether one is more conscious than the other.
So that would imply that i have finally come to the conclusion that psychonauts are probably not more conscious than dogs. I think.

I would tend to agree with that assertion.

obviously we have dogs beat, or we would be on leashes.
or are we on hand leashes as they drag us around?

^hard saying,......
but that is why i dont have dogs.

Interesting topic. The long view, biologically, holds certain extinction for humankind, as with all Earthly species. Could we populate "other" biospheres prior? In theory, possible. Of course, @5 billion years hence, our sun will, "red giant", roasting the inner planets before winking into, "white dwarf" status.

On a greatly diminished reference frame, the next "ice age" looms. Planet Earth has seen @18-20 major glaciations over last @2 million years. Glaciations last @80 thousand years, with inter-glacials lasting @20 thousand years. We're currently @13,000 years into the present inter-glacial. Odds are... Now, our archaic human and homo ancestors cruised through these periods, however at vanishingly small population numbers(compared to current 7 billion "bloat". At the termination of the last glaciation, there were some @few million "people" extant. Talk about, HOWLING WILDERNESS.

These "ice ages" are the real deal. The last one saw 1/2 mile thick ice sheets into Dixie. With a little luck, the coming chill will "thin the heard" considerably. Estimates would suggest the Earth shedding 2/3 of her humanoid complement, likely MANY more as "we" assist the depopulation driven by our anthropocentric tendencies. Very difficult to guesstimate the fate of the human enterprise trans impending "ice age". Which is a near certainty.

Again, on an even more compacted time scale, it's easy to envision humanity decimating "itself" within the next @7-10 thousand years(before next glacial). Mother Earth will likely rebound without us. Of course the complement of life forms will vary.

So, you see it's not ALL grim. Even if one chooses not to grapple with the philosophical conundrum as to the presence/absence of any INTRINSIC value(cosmologically) held by this Earthly epoch, and its denizens, we claim as "our" own.

WHEW!! I think I'll, huff some changa.

Peace

Touché. I tend to think it's a bit of both, though maybe a bit more of the latter. It's actually why I do have dogs

I like the feeling of leading (usually) the pack and connecting with that primal sense of self (live in the here and now!). If there's one thing mushrooms taught me it's that people and dogs are really more the same than different, and we should strive to emulate each other. Well, sort of