A new form of Science

[lightofdarkness]

You need to review the literature on the placebo effect a bit more. You have obviously been over-exposed to 'expressions'; and the ability to self-reference allows for the effect but not as some universal panacea (if you love it so - go and aid the HIV+s on the planet - explain to them that their cancers etc are their problem due to their slackness in thinking! LOL! Get real dude.)

The IDM focus is not on consciousness per se but on the border of our speciesness and the realm of expressions - and so what seeds our meanings and so what consciousness will label/relabel to 'fit' some local context.

Given that position we can identify stimulus/response and the action of self-referencing that elicits mediation/representation that then falls back to autopilot and stimulus/response (but with more choices).

Thus a focus on self-referencing and on blending, bonding, bounding, and binding. Simple. Out of that all else follows (including the dynamics of consciousness but that is also a realm of paradox creation being parts oriented).

The dichotomy of Science/Religion can be made self-referencing and so bring out aspects of one in the other but the biases re gratification overall will remain. That said, zoom-in on each will give aspects of the other within.

e.g. There is 'delayed' gratification for religion in the areas of Buddhism etc (mountain) in that one uses time to develop rather than the instant gratification of fundamentalism.

This dynamic reduces back past these specialist labels to the generic focus on issues of bandwidth/time.

Your out of your depth dude. A bit hex 54 I think - perhaps you need to focus more on the properties and methods of 53.

 

[matt]

"You need to review the literature on the placebo effect a bit more. You have obviously been over-exposed to 'expressions'; and the ability to self-reference allows for the effect but not as some universal panacea (if you love it so - go and aid the HIV+s on the planet - explain to them that their cancers etc are their problem due to their slackness in thinking! LOL! Get real dude.)"

The problem is not due to their slackness in thinking, its due to the conditioning that society has given us. We are TOLD that these are the limitations, we are TOLD there are boundries we cannot pass beyond. Science has preached causal determinism and it has been integrated into out consciousness. Religion had preached belief in miracles by praying to an outside source and taken away our own self power. Prayer is a powerful meditation when done the right way. Science is a powerful ally when cause and effect are relinquished. This isnt about placing 'blame or fault' with anyone, its about new ways of being, and those ways are now opening up to us.

 

[luz]

Matt is so right!! It's not a good day for debating.

Happy Valentine's day everyone!

 

[matt]

p.s. thanks for the compliment about 53 - exploring ones potential - and whatever happened to ALL contains one? hehe Why would I need to concentrate on 53... surely 54 contains 53 in your IDM

 

[matt]

Happy Valentines Lightangel! If I carry on debating with Chris, I promise to include some kisses and hearts in my posts

 

[martin]

"(6) the IDM material covers the roots of meaning from differentiating/integrating and that includes all sensations of 'disappearing', losing boundaries and sinking into the universe - this is best experienced in sex at the point of orgasm - that comes in two forms, the other being the explicit sense of 'oneness', of pointedness rather than of fieldness, from a differentiating position and so heightened consciousness. (so we see (a) a sense of loss of boundary and (b) a sense of over-emphasis on boundary)"


Hmm, I think there is something missing here. Losing boundaries and "sinking into the universe" does not necessarily lead to a loss of differentiation. A heightened sense of oneness can go very will with an equally heightened sense of detail or "crispness".
In fact this is what we experience in socalled "meditative" states. More oneness and more crispness at the same time.
On the neurological level one of the factors here is probably a better coordination between the two hemispheres of the brain.

"from a differentiating position and so heightened consciousness".
IMO the "so" in this phrase is questionable. Differentiating is one thing, being awake and aware (i.e. conscious) is another.

If you follow closely what happens when you awake in the morning you may see that at some point your are already fully awake and aware while there is as yet no "world" to be aware of.
The construction of the world, including ones personal situation, has not yet started. And then it suddenly hits you, OMG, I have a appointment with the dentist!

So, awareness doesnt imply object consciousness (awareness of) and differentiation.

And the other way around, differentation also doesn't imply or need awareness. When I drive a car on autopilot - meanwhile discussing IDM with Chris on the back seat - I can still accurately respond to small changes in the environment and avoid headon collisions with other cars out there.

Of course there are limits. If something happens that is not programmed in my autopilot at least some awareness will be needed to deal with it.
But within those limits being awake/aware and differentiating are not the same.

I think that awareness has to be treated as a factor that is - at least within certain limits - independent of integrating / differentiating.
Our subject-ive experience bears this out, regardless of the question if awareness should be seen as originating or derived.

Happy Valentines to all, especially to my light angel!

 

[bruce]

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Guess it just depends what kind of music you like.

 

[pakua]

Hi Matt, question for you - if we evolved from single cells, long long ago, where was our consiousness then, and how did it lead neuron behaviour?

 

[matt]

Hey Pakua,

Well the quantum brain theort advocates that consciousness is not just found in the neuron, but inside the cytoskeleton of a cell - the cytoskeleton is like the scaffolding that supports the structure of the cell. Inside the cytoskeleton are microtubules - which are like transportation pipes for chemicals used by the cell. Hameroff (one of the founders of the quantum brain theory) speculated that the cytoskeleton may have a neural function that is even more advanced than neurons themselves. - and can also explain the intelligent tasks performed by single cell organisms.

They believed they had found coherent bio photos inside the micreotubules in the form of high structred water/proteins - this meant that information was processed in classical AND quantum ways. They said that the cell recieves its 'consciousness' from the collapse of the universal mind - they called individual thought the collapse of universal thought, and the biophotons in cells then collapsed from their quantum state into classical state for the emergence and processing of information/chemicals. So not only did it support neuron based species as conscious, but also sngle cells.

I'm not an advovate of this theory, but I find it interesting.

 

[pakua]

Do they define the consciousness of a single cell entity differently than the consciousness of a human? I guess I'm wondering why you're saying consciousness leads neurons - were single cells of that time conscious enough to have a game plan that led to us, or was that just 'chance'?

 

[bradford_h]

Hi Pakua
In neuroscience we define the single-cell counterpart to consciousness in terms of plasticity and irritability.

 

[matt]

Hey Pakua, its all about what feels the best for you. For me, chance doesnt exist.

 

[bruce]

Pakua, I could be wrong, but the picture I got from Matt?s description was that, neuropath ways are merely the means or conduit which carries or transfers consciousness - not consciousness itself.

This would explain the whole life after death phenomenon, assuming there is such a thing: Consciousness doesn?t stop; it?s merely the cessation of transference of conscious energy into a cellular system.

 

[matt]

Yes thanks Bruce

Thats exactly it.

 

[bradford_h]

Why is everyone always looking for intelligence and consciousness in the zero's and one's of neural electronics? Not that this isn't used by the mind, but this is just nama rupa. Molecular biochemistry carries a lot more complex information. Please pass the shrooms.

 

[bruce]

Fascinating idea to contemplate, Matt.

Any thoughts on the individuation of energy devoid of the cellular system? Or, minus the hardware, how might the operating system or other software operate? Is the only possibility dormancy? Or, is there a greater OS which still functions, and which powers the individual sans his hardware? Or, is the hardware a more subtle hardware substance?

 

[bruce]

Brad, zeros and ones are what I've been attempting to move beyond, aside from this or other threads. But don't hold the poor shroom responsible. Contraire! lol

 

[bruce]

Brad, my (albeit confused sounding) question to Matt is presented to you also. I'm asking the obvious here without asking it obviously. It's not difficult to imagine consciousness existing before, during or after a physical body - where all this said chemistry is taking place - but what about the individual's own energy, sans the body? How might that occur? Saying spirit or soul, isn?t the type of answer I?m looking for here. But more in line with Matt?s expressed points of view.

I have my own thoughts on this but am curious of others' ideas.

 

[bruce]

Why not...

Please describe individual consciousness, sans the physical body. Gua 6, lines 1 and 3, changing to 1.

To me it?s saying that it is not possible to understand it on the terms I?ve presented, but turning back to the Way is without fault. (grmp...)

Brad, had to laugh at your line 3!

 

[bradford_h]

B

I shorely wasn't dissing shrooms, one of the paths beyond one and zero and back to wholeness.

I tend to think of both spirit and consciousness as epiphenomenal, more as verbs instead of nouns. So in a sense, the same thing happens to my consciousness when I sleep, as happens to my spirit when I die, as happens to my lap when I stand up, as happens to my fist when I open my hand. As a scientist, of course, I'm a skeptic.
But none of that means that my lap or fist don't come back, or that I can't reassemble a fairly continuous consciousness on reawakening the next day, or even a partly continuous spirit upon rebirth. Maybe I just snag some old memories from some kind of Gaian or Akashic field.

 

[bradford_h]

 

[lightofdarkness]

tsk tsk - typical - the taking of 1s and 0s literally and/or marginalising the dynamics! ;-)

They are representations such that the first '1' represents ALL aspects of differentiating as the first '0' represents all aspects of integrating. Zoom-in and this dichotomy is not enough - so we apply self-referencing, recursion to give us level 2 where we have the representations of 00, 01, 10, 11 BUT the POSITIONS in these representations are NOT the same in that the second 0 or 1 makes a finer distinction than the first since it operates WITHIN the context set by the first. Now we are moving into the representations of QUALITIES, feelings, etc., where we mix the qualities of the original elements of the dichotomy.

A common error in interpreting bit patterns is to not recognise the movement from general to particular that goes towards eliciting rich qualitative differences. The intriguing part is that with these differences in context positions we can still use logic operators to flesh out finer details 'as if' the 1s and 0s were all the 'same'.

By the time we get to the trigrams so the bit patterns now represent basic qualities and so categories used to describe 'all there is' but from a REALLY generic level (but enough to make differences)

Thus the qualitity represented by the bit pattern of 111 is a quality of pure differentiation moving from general to particular. We can read this as "I differentiate on general to then differentiate so I can then differentate at the level of the particular"

The properties of differentiation include that of positive feedback and so avoidance behaviour but this is REACTIVE. That behaviour when made PROACTIVE acts to push others away so as to assert one's own context - IOW to 'make the point' etc etc (and so as high focus on precision)

Due to there being a lot of others so this dynamic is perpetually asserting its own context and in so doing having to maintain that context. This is all high energy expenditure as well as being highly competitive. The high competition focus means a lot of energy is spent on skill development, perpetual training is present (over the long term the goal is 000 - to work as a filtering system and so learn good habits/instincts to allow for the conserving of energy)

Dont interpret the originating 1s/0s 'as is' - they in fact represent the whole that is then cut and cut and cut etc.

See if the diagram mapping the journey of a particular through the binary tree helps - see it in http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/dicho2.html

THEN see the derivation of basic qualities out of generals in the idm page:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/idm003.html

In the neurology the operation of a single neuron is summed with others to elicit the SAME operation but with more bandwidth etc and so can represent more (and so it does the same as we do in ordering bits - self-reference to give more details etc)

Thus a neural network will operate as a neutron does with a focus on one end of 'dendritic' behaviour (integrating of senses etc) and a focus on the other end of 'axonic' behaviour (communicating the firing on to other neurons or to muscles etc to elicit a direct response to a stimulus)

Thus we have:

(a) instincts/habits encoded into ONE neuron
(b) instincts/habits cut up into 'bits' encoded in the input areas of many neurons that, through sychronisation, allow for the whole network to function as if 'one'.
(c) (b) the fractal aspects of (b) are reflected in such neural areas as left/right hemisphere differences that reflect, in general, the dynamics of a single neuron but with huge bandwidth etc and so capable to so what the hemispheres do.

As we move 'up' from the basic neuron so we move into such areas as cooperative dynamics (feedback) that allows for high precision processing (and so the XOR skills etc) and on into specialisations, neural collectives working on a particular that they can then communicate to the overall expression of behaviour through synchronisations.

Chris.

 

[lightofdarkness]

con?scious?ness ( P ) Pronunciation Key (knshs-ns)
n.
The state or condition of being conscious.
A sense of one's personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group: Love of freedom runs deep in the national consciousness.

Special awareness or sensitivity: class consciousness; race consciousness.
Alertness to or concern for a particular issue or situation: a movement aimed at raising the general public's consciousness of social injustice.
In psychoanalysis, the conscious.


[Download Now or Buy the Book]
Source: The American Heritage? Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright ? 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


con?scious?ness (knshs-ns)
n.

The state or condition of being conscious.
A sense of one's personal or collective identity, especially the complex of attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or a group.
In psychoanalysis, the conscious.


Source: The American Heritage? Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright ? 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.


Main Entry: con?scious?ness
Pronunciation: 'k?n-ch&-sn&s
Function: noun
1 : the totality in psychology of sensations, perceptions, ideas, attitudes, and feelings of which an individual or a group is aware at any given time or within a given time span <altered>
2 : waking life (as that to which one returns after sleep, trance, or fever) in which one's normal mental powers are present <the>
3 : the upper part of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes


Source: Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, ? 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.


consciousness

n 1: an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation; "he lost consciousness" [ant: unconsciousness] 2: having knowledge of; "he had no awareness of his mistakes"; "his sudden consciousness of the problem he faced"; "their intelligence and general knowingness was impressive" [syn: awareness, cognizance, cognisance, knowingness]

 

[luz]

Lol

I had to google 'shrooms'!

 

[pakua]

Still wondering why Matt says consciousness leads neurons - leading implies a goal or at least a direction, does it not?

"In neuroscience we define the single-cell counterpart to consciousness in terms of plasticity and irritability"

This sounds like just a stimulus-response kind of thing.

What is the goal that consiousness is leading neuron behaviour to, and when did it start - it's hard to believe it started back in the single cell days.

 

[bruce]

(hope this isn't too big) After some thought..

 

[lightofdarkness]

Pakua, for some there is a tendency to be lazy such that well-defined terms are hijacked and so distorted to represent something - it is easier to them rather than try and coin a new term.

At the level of cellular dynamics there is genetic activity that elicits stimulus/response to the presence of hormones etc in the surrounding 'waters'. Genetic diversity alone will allow for variations in this stimulus/response and as such differences in "plasticity and irritability".

To label this as "the single-cell counterpart to consciousness" and use the term "consciousness" to now include that is IMHO deplorable and shows a cop-out or probably more so the influence of creationist/intelligent_design perspectives. Bradford did try and qualify the definition, to make it a specialist term outside of its usual form where the focus is on the analogy/metaphor of cellular activity in the form of 'plasticity and irritability being 'like' consciousness (where it comes more across as examples of Brownian motion!)

Thats why I gave the dictionary definitions of consciousness where those terms are the standard.

Matt made the point that HIS concept of consciousness is 'different' which means it is ideosyncratic and so he is re-defining terms, hijacking terms, generalising terms - all acts of lazyness IMHO. ;-) (but then we are all guilty of that in some form or another!)

Given the material available re cellular dynamics and the influence of genetics and hormone presence there is no need for such a definition of "consciousness" at the cellular level - unless one needs to have such a definition to validate one's belief systems - common in creationist/intelligent_design perspectives.

Chris.

 

[martin]

Lol Chris, generalising and hijacking concepts, that is what people do when they try to find the universal behind the local.
We have hijacked the word intelligence again and again in the past century or so. Then why not consciousness or awareness?

And who was that guy - I forgot his name - who "hijacked" the traditional yin-yang concept and the I Ching?
How lazy of him!

 

[bruce]

Consciousness is. Render someone ?unconscious? and they just experience a different form of consciousness. Fall asleep, same thing. A dog has consciousness, as does a tree, and even a rock. More than just a clever anthropomorphism to say ?become the lake, sky, earth, fire, etc, etc." To be a lake is to experience actual lake consciousness, not only the deliberate attributes we?ve assigned to a lake, though of course that plays a role.

 

[lightofdarkness]

IMHO Your being silly Martin. ICPlus has 'hijacked' nothing. ICPlus is a specialist perspective derived from applying IDM to an ancient, limited, small-world, specialist metaphor called the "I Ching".

ICPlus lays no claim to being the traditional "I Ching" since ICPlus is focused on universals, the regular network, not the small world network derived from the dynamics of ancient chinese culture.

ICPlus does not, could not, sell itself, has no intent to do so, as the traditional "I Ching" since that material has its roots and representations grounded in the 10th century BC. (With some additions in perspectives, categories, etc sourced in the 11th century AD)

What ICPlus DOES do is show how through analysis of 3000 years of research into psychology, neurology, physics, chemistry, biology etc etc
we can in fact show what is BEHIND the traditional and so what can be done to bring out properties and methods 'hidden' in the traditional material out of ignorance as to what is being delt with.

My 'lazyness' is in (a) coming up with the basic IDM template and then (b) finding four specialist perspectives to demonstrate the template 'shining through' rather than spell it all out from scratch. IOW I use Plutchik's well researched categories of emotions etc rather than come up with my own - but I see no issue with that in that Plutchik's categories demonstrate their roots in the IDM template clearly so why waste energy in rewritting the Bible so to speak.

Developing IDM all the way from neuron to specialist metaphor would be competitive, trying to REPLACE the existing. To me there is no need for replacement since the focus is on what is SAME in all specialisations where THEY focus on replacement (and so differences)

As for the meanings of yin/yang, they are not changed in any way just developmed more to bring out their generality rooted in 'integrating/differentiating' so I see no hijacking there.

OTOH to use a term such as "consciousness" to mean something totally different to its 'usual' meaning and to present that term in general conversation WITHOUT clear claim that the term is being used in an unusal way is a form of hijacking and is deceitful (a common behaviour in the creationist/intelligent_design arguements etc)

Chris.