2015.03.17 13:00 - Consciousness Arrangement

The Guardian for this meeting was Darren Islar

Darren Islar: hey sweet
Avaline DeCuir: Good morning my love

--BELL--

Avaline DeCuir: Hey Bruce
Darren Islar: hey Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Ava and Darren!
Bruce Mowbray: GREAT to see you both!
Darren Islar: thanks, good to see you Bruce
Avaline DeCuir: you too Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: TY!
Darren Islar: I see you protect your head better now
Bruce Mowbray: Ha ha!
Darren Islar: or your hair of course
Darren Islar: :)
Bruce Mowbray: I'm nore and more getting the notion that my head is the least important part of me.
Darren Islar: sweet thing
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Darren Islar: oh that sounds like a good item
Darren Islar: why so Bruce?

Bruce Mowbray: The helmet thing came out of a rezzing of my Vespa....
Bruce Mowbray: yesterday, I "think" it was....
Bruce Mowbray: Just sec, please.
Darren Islar: yes it looks like it :)
Bruce Mowbray: There it is.
Darren Islar: ah nice
Bruce Mowbray: ty :)
Avaline DeCuir: nice
Darren Islar: so what's wrong with using your head?

Bruce Mowbray: I've been listening to dharma talks about embodiment and am feeling more and more that the body is involved with all so-called "thinking."
Bleu Oleander: hi all :)
Avaline DeCuir: Hello Bleu
Darren Islar: hi bleu
Bruce Mowbray: in the West we want to separate the head from the body (a la Descartes, probably.)
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Bleu!
Darren Islar: yes, that is different in the East, it can be seen as a door
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Avaline DeCuir: that poses an interesting question though ... if I don't think .. am I aware of my existence?
Bruce Mowbray: I'm not in favor of decapitation, please understand, but I AM in favor of listening to the body... and maybe even listening WITH the body to the body.
Bleu Oleander: what do you mean, "if i don't think?"
Bruce Mowbray listens.
Bruce Mowbray: (GOSH, I surely HOPE you're aware of it.)
Bleu Oleander: sorry, not sure what you are talking about ...
Bruce Mowbray: Basically, Bleu, I have been chatting about the notion of embodiment of consciousness.
Avaline DeCuir: well Descarte said .. I think therefore I am ... so I am posing the question .. does thinking create existence for us?
Bruce Mowbray: It creates a sort of disembodied existence.

Bleu Oleander: well you could still exist but you wouldn't know it except on a non-conscious way
Darren Islar: to me it's not in the thinking whether we exist or not, but thinking indeed makes us aware of what we think, or can make us aware
Bleu Oleander: yes
Bruce Mowbray: Would you accept a merely conceptual existence? That may one day be possible, or so the transhumanists hope.
Avaline DeCuir: I guess that is what I am actually asking ... does existence require consciousness
Bruce Mowbray: The body is conscious....
Bleu Oleander: no existence doesn't require consciousness
Bruce Mowbray: !!
Bruce Mowbray listens very carefully.
Darren Islar: in the Buddhist way existence require consciousness, but they define it differently than thinking
Bleu Oleander: a lot depends on how you define consciousness
Avaline DeCuir: think about it this way then ... as humans we think verbally .. because we learn language at a very early age ... yet before we have language ... we still exist .. we are still aware of our needs
Darren Islar: yes
Bruce Mowbray: "Mind" is one of the six senses in Buddhist, as I understand it, anyway.
Bruce Mowbray: Buddhism*
Darren Islar: and it's actually not even true what I said, stones exist as well, they don't have consciousness

Avaline DeCuir: however ... Piaget says that children in the pre language state are not aware of themselves as separate from the world around them
Bleu Oleander: right, tables and chairs exist too
Darren Islar: I agree Ava, it's more basically though, but yes
Bleu Oleander: they figure it out pretty quickly though
Darren Islar: hehe
Bruce Mowbray: How do you know about stones, Darren. The animists feel that everything that exists has some form of consciousness, if only a consciousness that says, "Keep on being stone."
Bleu Oleander: that is yet another definition of consciousness I think
Bruce Mowbray: Children in the pre-language stages are at least aware that they have thumbs to suck, etc.
Avaline DeCuir: do stones actually exist outside our consciousness of them?
Bleu Oleander: yes
Bruce Mowbray: Are you suggesting an inter-dependence of existence or of consciousness. . . or both, Ava?
Darren Islar: in my opinion as far as I have figured it out now, I would say yes, the stone exists out of itself
Avaline DeCuir: of consciousness
Bruce Mowbray nods, agrees.

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: But that's not actually the case, as it were.
Bruce Mowbray: [drops]
Bruce Mowbray loves Ava's "interdependence of consciousness" approach.
Avaline DeCuir: we think stones exist because every time we encounter stone .. it exists for us .. and if we build with stone .. the building doesn't fall down ... but does it actually exist outside of our awareness of it?
Bruce Mowbray: Reminiscent of co-dependent arising, btw.
Avaline DeCuir: and along with that ... is my experience of stone the same as yours?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes and no.
Darren Islar: no the experience will be different
Darren Islar: as to water the experience of stone will be different as well, or taking a sentient being, to an ant
Avaline DeCuir: could you not say then that if stone actually existed then our experience of it would need tobe fundamentally the same?
Bleu Oleander: we only understand the stone using our limited senses and experience ... we all agree for the most part to call an object that looks a certain way and behaves a certain way a stone. we are now enhancing our senses so can perceive more.
Bruce Mowbray: No, I would not say that, Ava.
Bruce Mowbray listens carefully for more.

Avaline DeCuir: when you think of it in a basic way though .. stone is just an arrangement of electrons and protons and neutrons ... the same as everything else .. the same as us
Bleu Oleander: yes
Bruce Mowbray: and energies...
Bleu Oleander: arrangement is key though
Avaline DeCuir: so what makes our existence .. or stone's existence different?
Bruce Mowbray: and co-dependencies.
Bleu Oleander: different arrangements
Bruce Mowbray: kk, an example:
Bleu Oleander: different clumps of atoms
Bruce Mowbray: every time I draw the same thing - again and again- it becomes something "different."
Bleu Oleander: come together for a short period of time and then go back into the mix

Darren Islar: is consciousness a clump of atoms?
Bruce Mowbray: I think not, and I feel not.
Bruce Mowbray: Is there no end to this?
Bleu Oleander: consciousness is information
Bleu Oleander: information that the brain tells itself
Bleu Oleander: says "I am aware"
Bruce Mowbray: (darn SL viewer reversed the order of what I said...)
Bleu Oleander: so not a clump of atoms
Avaline DeCuir: so .. if clumps of electrons and neutrons and protons come together for a time in an arrangement .. then fall apart to become another arrangement do they really exist?
Bruce Mowbray: [13:20] Bruce: Is there no end to this? [13:20] Bruce: I think not, and I feel not.
Darren Islar: hmmm, the transhumans think that in the future there might be a way to transfer consciousness to a machine
Bruce Mowbray: The flow seems to exist . . . among emerging and re-arranging atoms, I mean.
Bleu Oleander: yes, might be able to transfer information to computers
Bruce Mowbray: What a flat existence that would be!
Bleu Oleander: maybe, maybe not :)
Bleu Oleander: if its a quantum computer, could be exciting!

Avaline DeCuir: so if everything is an arrangement of the basic elements of atoms .. and a lot of empty space in between ... what is consciousness?
Bleu Oleander: information
Bruce Mowbray: Computer data as we understand it now is quite flat.... Embodiment is more, well, spherical, for lack of a better world...
Bruce Mowbray: i alsmost typed, for lack of a better world!
Bruce Mowbray: almost*
Avaline DeCuir: hahaha
Darren Islar: heh
Bleu Oleander: :)
Bruce Mowbray: In fact, I DID type "world." Ha ha.
Bleu Oleander: ok I leave you to solve this problem ... :)
Bruce Mowbray listens.
Avaline DeCuir: farewell Bleu
Bleu Oleander: IM me if you solve question of what is consciousness :)
Darren Islar: ok Bleu, thanks for coming
Bruce Mowbray: bye bye, Bleu.
Bleu Oleander: bye for now
Bleu Oleander: take care
Darren Islar: consciousness to me is a flow which embodies itself in ... us

Bruce Mowbray: I'm not so much trying to define what consciousness IS
Bruce Mowbray: as I am saying what consciousness must include.
Bruce Mowbray: and the body must be included, in my view.
Bruce Mowbray: In fact, the entire universe must be included, in my humble view.
Darren Islar: I feel the arrangement of atoms is just a receiver ... ah yes, I feel so too
Darren Islar: I think consciousness is more than just the brain
Bruce Mowbray loves the notion of a flow that embldies itself.
Bruce Mowbray: embodies*
Avaline DeCuir: I think so too .. but I guess what I am asking is does it require a brain to be aware of it?
Avaline DeCuir: or does it require language to be aware of it?
Darren Islar: no, I think awareness can take place on different levels, language and thinking are only aspects of it

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: non-vertebrates that do not have brains are apparently still conscious.. because they respond (react?) to stimulae.
Bruce Mowbray: [drops]
Avaline DeCuir: I tend to agree ... and if you think of it .. people who have lost a limb .. are still aware of that limb ... so it begs the question again ... what is our consciousness?
Bruce Mowbray: yes, also, one would need to define what is mean by "aware." I'm saying that "aware" is anything that can repond to changing stimulae.
Bruce Mowbray: meant*
Darren Islar: I like Bruces approach, I think it's hard to say what it is, but we can have a look at it's qualities
Avaline DeCuir: people who see auras and do aura photography say that the limb is still present in the aura ... so maybe there is something more to consciousness than just awareness
Bruce Mowbray: But, of course, language and congition are enormous boosts to the excellent of our awareness.
Bruce Mowbray: cognition*
Bruce Mowbray: excellence*
Darren Islar: being aware of something that is not there
Bruce Mowbray: not there physically, anyway.
Avaline DeCuir: the same with a leaf .. if you take an aura photo of it .. then cut it in half .. and photograph them separately .. they both show a complete leaf in the photo
Bruce Mowbray: energetically? Perhaps.
Bruce Mowbray nods, excellent point Ava.
Bruce Mowbray: Rupert Sheldrake was really big on this stuff.
Avaline DeCuir: of course that all depends on how much credence you put in kirlian photography
Avaline DeCuir: but it is definitely an interesting point to ponder
Bruce Mowbray: Perhaps, but if kirlian photography is "realy," then those energies existed long before the photography did.
Bruce Mowbray: real*

Darren Islar: it stretches out to other phenomena, I mean being aware of something that is not there physically
Darren Islar: yes, it's not our brains that makes them 'real' or 'existing'
Bruce Mowbray: I'm guessing that folks had their doubts that what we now call "photography" was "real" when it was first invented.
Darren Islar: yes, but it is something you can 'proof'
Bruce Mowbray: I have RL friends who STILL refuse to admit that virtual reality is "real."
Avaline DeCuir: is it real?
Darren Islar: yes
Bruce Mowbray: Virtual reality, you mean?
Avaline DeCuir: yes
Bruce Mowbray: Well, here we are!
Bruce Mowbray: reponding to each other.
Bruce Mowbray: In my book, that's some sort of awareness.
Bruce Mowbray: and some sort of reality.
Bruce Mowbray: Are images in mirrors "real"?
Avaline DeCuir: I agree ... I just wish I could transfer this body into my real life .. along with the sliders .. and skin changes
Bruce Mowbray: They move as my body in front of them moves.....
Darren Islar: hah ... I would say no
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, Ava! I know that wish.
Bruce Mowbray: My typist's body knows that wish, I meant.
Avaline DeCuir: hehehe
Darren Islar: grins at Ava, don't we all, but ... virtual reality has it's own limitations
Bruce Mowbray: (as does RL.)
Bruce Mowbray: ha ha.

Avaline DeCuir: do you think it would be an interesting world if we could all present ourselves as we chose .. without the limitations of the physical?
Darren Islar: I think it would be chaos :)
Bruce Mowbray: It would be "interesting" -- but not sure it would be "good."

Avaline DeCuir: mind you .. some might say that we have chosen the way we look
Bruce Mowbray: Humans have been trying to present themselves as opther than they really are for as long as humans have been around ---
Bruce Mowbray: painting the body, tattooing the body, etc.
Bruce Mowbray: clothes, jewelry...
Bruce Mowbray: other*
Bruce Mowbray: Body modification is nothing new, of course.
Avaline DeCuir: some choices were not given to us ... the colour of our skin .. our gender ... but other than those basics .. we were all born pretty much the same ;.. it is what we have done that has shaped us .. therefore in some way we have chosen our look
Bruce Mowbray: The larger one's perspective, perhaps, the more "the same" we would probably appear to be.
Darren Islar: in that way we probably are yes
Darren Islar: that's an interesting statement Bruce
Bruce Mowbray listens.
Avaline DeCuir: I agree Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: From the top of a skyscraper, ll those bodies down below look pretty much the same.
Avaline DeCuir: we are more the same than we are different
Bruce Mowbray: all*

--BELL--

Darren Islar: strange thing is, or not that strange, we even like to look the same
Bruce Mowbray: Very much so, in my view - - - MUCH more the same than different.
Bruce Mowbray: [drops]
Bruce Mowbray: Did you know that the male brain (human) is tuned for differentiation - and the femal brain (speaking functionally, now) is more tuned to fining sameness?
Bruce Mowbray: female*
Bruce Mowbray: finding*
Avaline DeCuir: that is interesting
Avaline DeCuir: I didn't know that
Bruce Mowbray: yes, I also found it fascinating.
Darren Islar: it makes sense in a wa
Darren Islar: way
Avaline DeCuir: you would think it would be the other way around
Bruce Mowbray: The male and female brains also respond differently to thing like shaming.
Bruce Mowbray: things*
Bruce Mowbray: affects, generally.
Avaline DeCuir: because a female needs to differentiate to identify her young from other people's young
Bruce Mowbray: and a male needs to differentiate to distinguish his mate, and his enemies, and movements on the horizon, etc, etc.
Darren Islar: no, I think females look for the closeness and relative safety of others, being the one birthing and taking care of kids
Avaline DeCuir: but I suppose the male needs to differentiate more .. because he needs to differentiate between enemy and friend
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Bruce Mowbray: perhaps a "wider scope" of differentiations is required of the male brain.
Bruce Mowbray: (But, this by no means we have to be locked into that functionality.)
Bruce Mowbray: by no means means*
Bruce Mowbray: or by no means should suggest*
Bruce Mowbray: The male "should" learn to "know" the nest, as the female "should" learn to know the horizon.
Darren Islar: the wider scope might also have to do with making sure females will wear his sperm ... I don't think we are born monogamists
Darren Islar: hi Druth
Bruce Mowbray nods, excellent point, Darren.
Avaline DeCuir: hi Druth
druth Vlodovic: ummm, on thatv note
druth Vlodovic: "hi"
Avaline DeCuir: hehe good timing Druth

Darren Islar: hehe ... we are talking about consciousness, now we seem to have been visiting the differentation the mind can make, which seems to be different with males and females
Bruce Mowbray: My typist sort of has the best of both worlds: In his waking life his sexual fantasies are homosexual, but in his dreaming state, his dreams are heterosexual. So, go figure.
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, druth!
Darren Islar: hmmm ... what does that say about you Bruce? ;)
druth Vlodovic: odd, using labels that would make you a variation of "bi"
Bruce Mowbray: I guess it says that I revere diversity.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, for SURE a variation of "bi." No doubt about that!
druth Vlodovic: or perhaps you seek familiarity in life and diversity in spirit
Bruce Mowbray: But why do you say "odd"?
druth Vlodovic: just the differentiation of "place"
Bruce Mowbray: I seek diversity in both waking life AND in spirit.
druth Vlodovic: my daughter is allin to the human rights angle of GBLTJMYOP
Bruce Mowbray: we were just talking about "differentiation" - just before you arrived, druth/.
Bruce Mowbray listens careful for more about druth's daughter.
druth Vlodovic: I keeptelling her that labels separate, you want labelessness for unity and acceptance
Bruce Mowbray: carefully*
Darren Islar: those abbreviations are becoming more complicated every day :)
druth Vlodovic: god forbid you forget one
Avaline DeCuir: well I know what the GLBT is but no idea of JMYOP
Bruce Mowbray: !!
druth Vlodovic: use youimagination :-P
Avaline DeCuir: just make your own party
Bruce Mowbray: jolly - moping - yellow - opinionated - and preposterous?
Darren Islar: we are social animals, we all need some security, and if you see different things happening in the outside world, you need conformation of who you are in a 'different' group
druth Vlodovic quickly jots that down for future reference
Bruce Mowbray: ha ha!
Bruce Mowbray: you mean, the mirror's confirmation is not sufficient?
Bruce Mowbray: Riddle!
Darren Islar: it's a different kind of differentiation
Riddle Sideways: sorry to be so late
druth Vlodovic: hi riddle
Darren Islar: in my opinion it's not enough
Darren Islar: hi Riddle
Riddle Sideways: clock on the wall is not changed yet :(
Avaline DeCuir: hello Riddle
Darren Islar: ha!
Bruce Mowbray: sry to have to leave soon, but Rl calls, and my typist must be a-scraping up din-din....
Riddle Sideways: really wanted to be at this new session
Darren Islar: here it hasn't changed either, but I was in time :)
Avaline DeCuir: bye bye Bruce .. good discussion
Bruce Mowbray: Yes! I made a special point of being here -- as i intend to do every Tuesday afternoon.
Bruce Mowbray: THANK YOU all!
Riddle Sideways: by by Bruce
Darren Islar: well, we have other Tuesdays ... bye Bruce

--BELL--

Riddle Sideways: what was the topic?
Avaline DeCuir: so .. when I put GBLTJMYOP into Google .. all I get is myopia ... I had no idea that was a sexual preference
Darren Islar: we have been talking chaotically about consciousness, what it entails, if a stone has consciousness as well, the capacity to make differentiations and the difference between female and male, now we are talking about the social aspect, since differentiation made by our brains, also 'proof' we look for less differentiation
Darren Islar: hahaha, not as far as I know
Riddle Sideways: hmmmm 'proof'
Darren Islar: it's the opposite and it makes sense
Riddle Sideways: needed to have thanked Bruce for the link to the "Beyond Belief" series
Darren Islar: we are social animals, so we have a need to 'fit in'
Riddle Sideways: it went on about science not being able to prove something, but can prove something is NOT
Darren Islar: hmmm, that's an interesting approach
Riddle Sideways: fitting in by sometimes telling lies or not telling all so that the others don't hate us
Avaline DeCuir: or so we don't hurt other people's feelings
Riddle Sideways: yep
Riddle Sideways: wb
Darren Islar: wb Druth
druth Vlodovic: hi, I was hoping I'd solved it, but no
Darren Islar: teh same approach Bruce took today ... it's hard to define consciousness, but we can determine what it includes and what not
Darren Islar: solved the crashing?
druth Vlodovic: yeah
Riddle Sideways: or solved all our questionings
Riddle Sideways: :)
Darren Islar: if we can solve that right here and now, i guess we are enlightened :)
druth Vlodovic: better not solve all questions, aliens might come and build a bypass through the earth to orvent it getting out
Riddle Sideways: Deep Thought
Riddle Sideways: Deep Thought was the computer that answered everything.
Riddle Sideways: and stated that the question was wrong
Darren Islar: somemovie?
Riddle Sideways: some books
Riddle Sideways: Douglas Adams
druth Vlodovic: hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
Riddle Sideways: (the other Adams :)
Darren Islar: when you don't know, you just say the question is wrong

--BELL--

Riddle Sideways: this conscienness issue takes dualism
Darren Islar: yes
Riddle Sideways: this inside of a me/ego/id/head/brain/soul/etc.
Riddle Sideways: separated from the rest of everything
Riddle Sideways: by only 6 sences
Riddle Sideways: that the brain does not really touch
Riddle Sideways: is a construct
Riddle Sideways: but so many hold on to it
Riddle Sideways: an I has built a construct that is a me
Riddle Sideways: and needs to separate this me from ya'll
Darren Islar: dualism is a way of learning, it can give us different angles to look at things ... since we live in time and space, we live in duality
Riddle Sideways: well, we have about 7 years of material about both time and space on the website logs
Riddle Sideways: a whole book on time
Darren Islar: hehe ... yes
Riddle Sideways: a great section on zeroth time
Darren Islar: then I still must read that
Riddle Sideways: search for Stev explaining zeroeth time
Darren Islar: I will
Riddle Sideways: and as for space ... well
Riddle Sideways: It's
Riddle Sideways: BIG
Riddle Sideways: really really BIG
Riddle Sideways: :)
druth Vlodovic: or imaginary, according to some
Riddle Sideways: [more quotes from that book]
Darren Islar: that's a bit where we started, is something you don't perceive, exists
Riddle Sideways: so an I differenciates from ya'll
Darren Islar: adn the other way around, does it not exists when one or more senses are registering it
Darren Islar: *does something
Riddle Sideways: and the labeling of it
Riddle Sideways: does a thing exist if we don't have a word for it?
Riddle Sideways: like all those letters you typed into Google?

--BELL--

Darren Islar: for water that flows over rocks it and which flow gets determined by the banks, for water all those things exist. Do we need one or more of the senses to become aware of it
Avaline DeCuir: we can ask in a different way .. without our senses are we still aware?
Darren Islar: good one
Riddle Sideways: several good books writen on that
Riddle Sideways: darn, can't think of the term
Riddle Sideways: the sensory deprevation tanks
Darren Islar: what can we be aware of without the 6 senses? we won't be aware of forms, of speech, you can say the 6 senses help us to navigate within this world, but I think we have more 'senses'
Riddle Sideways: ha, the sixth sense is that
Darren Islar: ah ... true :)
Avaline DeCuir: which goes back to what I said earlier about children in the pre language state are not yet aware of themselves being separate from the world around them ... which then begs the question .. does that separation happen because of language .. or would it happen anyway?
druth Vlodovic: it happens anyway, it is fun to see a baby discivering limbs and objects
druth Vlodovic: defining them or just appreciating them
druth Vlodovic: figuring out which can be controlled and learning to use the ones that can be
druth Vlodovic: most easily controlled, of course, is the adults around them
Darren Islar: There was this research what children do to learn speech, their bla bla doesn't seem to be as random as it seems. which means that children are determined to learn that ... there is some sort of pre-phase
druth Vlodovic: funny, direct controll is the definition of the separation between "myself" and "other"
Darren Islar: adn the research about wulf-children is interesting ... no contact with humans might deprevate the ability in a way you can't learn it anymore
druth Vlodovic: pre-linguistic babbling has grammar it seems
Avaline DeCuir: yet we know that for a child under 2 that if a ball disappears from view .they don't look for it .. Piaget's theory .. and it says that for them the ball ceases to exist
Darren Islar: yes
Darren Islar: but it does exist when it is there. so some awareness would be there I would say
druth Vlodovic: I always suspected that the child simply didn't know they were supposed to care
druth Vlodovic: pre-control babies live in a world of needs, communication, and "what's next!!!"
Darren Islar: don't we adults do the same, only more disguised ? :)
Avaline DeCuir: but .. take away the 5 senses ... and what is left?
druth Vlodovic: after movement comes a desire for repetition
Darren Islar: yes
druth Vlodovic: maybe the desire for similarity would fade if someone were left without control or input for lengthy periods
Darren Islar: I don't know Ava, I suspect though there is something

--BELL--

Darren Islar: I think Ava and I need to go ... looks at Ava
Avaline DeCuir smiles and nods
Riddle Sideways: ok
druth Vlodovic: have fun you two
Darren Islar: ok, have a good time to crack the riddle
Avaline DeCuir: thank you for the discussion
Avaline DeCuir: and I wish you a good week
Darren Islar: see you around all
Riddle Sideways: by by All