Locked Mind Thought Experiment

[Dontaskme]

...
The statement made that there is an assumed 'Awareness' as an entity outside of us? makes absolutely no sense to me.
.

The fact you can use "me" should make you blush but maybe I have the wrong end of your schtick, so are you claiming that there is only this Awareness in reality and in fact reality is this Awareness and there is nothing else other than this Awareness? If so then I think it absolute nonsense as any 'Awareneas' needs an other to be aware of.

You can only know yourself as a thought. You cannot know yourself as the knower of the thought because you are already being the knowing awareness of every thought arising in you only. 'Thought' is what causes the concept of other. ''Other'' is an effect of it's own self created cause...aka duality. A 'me' can only exist in spacetime duality as a 'thought' aka a fictional character. But you are actually more than that, you are the eternal awareness of the temporal thought. Notice you can observe thought, but you cannot observe the observer....but you don't need to observe the observer because you are already being it...but even this is all conceptual knowledge..which is a fictional story arising in you inseparable from you, so in essence you are the whole enchilada so to speak.

So the other that you are talking about that you say awareness needs to be aware of is just a thought. The other is always an appearance already within you only, there is no other than you. All apparent others are this same one awareness. The awareness that knows Arising_uk is the same awareness that knows DAM.

Knowing comes from the interaction between awareness and what it is being aware of ..right now there is an identification with thought as it is appearing here now on this computer screen in the form of symbols which is not outside of the awareness that is reading those symbols..all symbols are by-products of thought ..notice we are both reading the same symbolic data, what is being read here now is the same for you as it is for me...and that's because it's all appearing within the same awareness that is everywhere at once seeing the same things because no thing can ever exist outside of the awareness that knows it.

As awareness you cannot exist or experience yourself as a thought, because you are only the awareness of a thought which is inseparable from you ..awareness of thought is how you know otherness because identification with thought automatically and magically creates a subject / objective divide which is the awareness of being aware. And so until there is awareness of thought, aka awareness of being aware, there is no you. You only appear when there is identification with what you are aware of aka thought...as in I think therefore I am. You literally have to think yourself into being, and you could not do that unless you already existed. But the you that you are thinking into being is a only a fictional imagined character because A YOU can not appear until you think about it.

So this known thought ''I am'' is just a thought. It's an appearance, and for an appearance to become known or made possible at all ..there has to be an awareness already present prior to the knowing . The presence is the only KNOWING there is...If there was no awareness already here present then nothing would be able to be known. That self-evident presence means awareness is irrefutable. So yes, there is only awareness, the immutable state of knowingness than cannot be known, because it is the only knowing there is aka nothing being everything.

.

[Dontaskme]

I usually think of [ absolute ] nothing and non existence as being fundamentally the same
Now I have to accept that there is a difference between them - albeit a rather subtle one

I cannot accept No Thing as a part of reality but can understand it from a conceptual perspective
Because I think that I am too much of a materialist to also accept it as something that truly exists

Trying to explain nonduality is just a silly conceptual word play anyway. It's a bit like trying to explain silence by filling it up with noise that is only sound heard as words anyway?..see how it's not really possible to explain nonduality? Nonduality can be known without using concepts or having to explain it...it can also be known via concepts when it is seen that concepts are all we've got to use to explain it and those concepts can only point to what we are trying to grasp. Concepts need to be transcended totally to reveal the natural default position of nondual reality which is always and ever constantly unchanged and unmoved behind the overlay of concepts.

Any difference between duality and nonduality is purely conceptual for it is impossible to comprehend nothingness without making it something.
So the fact that conceptualisation is known to exist means that something exists but that something can only be known in relation to it's opposite nothing, and so the relationship here is only ever nonduality relating to itself the one and only...Nonduality IS DUALITY.

And that is bascially what AWARENESS is, it's not-a-thing and something in the exact same instant instantaneously manifesting all at once NOW

The only way to divide NOW is to conceptualise it which can only happen now. So any division is illusion, that's not to say NOW is an illusion, no, only the idea of division is an illusion..There/here is only ONE NOW.

Now is eternal awareness without beginning nor end.

.

[Sculptor]

I'll give you an analogy. Someone could ask about an image on a TV: There is Electronics inside the TV that makes this Image but how does the Electronics do that? Your answer would be to say: The Electronics IS the Image. I would say Big Explanatory Gap.

It's a very poor analogy.
The TV image (as seen by spectators) is analogous to the speech and gestures of the human body, which are all generated by neural activity.

So you really do think saying that the Electronics IS the Image is a good Explanation? Go try to fix a TV with that kind of understanding.

You, like all dualists are always trying to defer. when you assert that the soul is the source of consciousness, will you say what it is that operates the soul, and what operates that in turn?

No, what I am saying is that your analogy is very poor indeed.
A TV is nothing more that a conduit - a receiver that collects and shows images and sounds from a remote source.
I am saying that the human brain is NOT collecting impressions and thoughts from a remote source, and that the key to understanding consciousness is to be had through the study of neural activity, not from some mystical source outside the brain.
Neural activity is obviously more than just consciousness, but consciousness is not more than neural activity.
Whilst it is possible that some neural activity is evident without consciousness, there is absolutely NO evidence of any consciousness in the absence of neural activity.
Where there is no neural activity, there is no consciousness means that consciousness is characterised by neural activity, and to understand consciousness, the investigation of neural activity is the only place to look.

[Dontaskme]

I am saying that the human brain is NOT collecting impressions and thoughts from a remote source, and that the key to understanding consciousness is to be had through the study of neural activity, not from some mystical source outside the brain.

The idea there is a source outside the brain implies there is a source inside the brain. If you were the only human being alive you wouldn't even know you had a brain. You only know you have a brain because you can see the brain of another. When you are looking at another brain all you are looking at is an image of a brain appearing in the consciousness that is you looking at the image of a brain. Consciousness itself is projecting every known image from itself. There is no consciousness in an image seen, an image seen is only a projected hologram of consciousness itself.

There is neither an inside nor outside of the brain. It is more correct to say that the outside of the brain is a direct mirror image of the inside of the brain, so in essence the brain is literally inside and outside of itself at the same time. We usually think of our brain as existing inside our skull, and that the source of consciousness is coming from that place only and that the outside of the brain is not where the brain is.

But what if the outside of the brain is the only place where the brain actually exists? what if we are literally walking through our own brain when we stroll around the supermarket with our shopping trolley? or when we are strolling along the beach or park taking in all the sights and sounds and smells and textures of everything?
Yes, it is clear that the brain is both inside and outside of itself simultaneously.

Neural activity is obviously more than just consciousness, but consciousness is not more than neural activity.
Whilst it is possible that some neural activity is evident without consciousness, there is absolutely NO evidence of any consciousness in the absence of neural activity.
Where there is no neural activity, there is no consciousness means that consciousness is characterised by neural activity, and to understand consciousness, the investigation of neural activity is the only place to look.

This is all just word salad because there can never not be the absence of consciousness that can be known about.
Consciousness exists whether it is being conscious of itself or not, whether it is known or not. It seems consciousness can switch to on or off, and in order to do that it must infinitely exist, it must have an inexhaustible source that permanently exists, else no switching from on to off to on again would be possible.

.

.

[Sculptor]

I am saying that the human brain is NOT collecting impressions and thoughts from a remote source, and that the key to understanding consciousness is to be had through the study of neural activity, not from some mystical source outside the brain.

The idea there is a source outside the brain implies there is a source inside the brain.

NO it does not.

If you were the only human being alive you wouldn't even know you had a brain.

Not relevant to the discussion.

You only know you have a brain because you can see the brain of another. When you are looking at another brain all you are looking at is an image of a brain appearing in the consciousness that is you looking at the image of a brain. Consciousness itself is projecting every known image from itself. There is no consciousness in an image seen, an image seen is only a projected hologram of consciousness itself.

Gibberish?

There is neither an inside nor outside of the brain.

Dah - there is both. But this discussion is about consciousness, which is what the brain does.

It is more correct to say that the outside of the brain is a direct mirror image of the inside of the brain, so in essence the brain is literally inside and outside of itself at the same time.

Really? YOu really want to say that?

We usually think of our brain as existing inside our skull, and that the source of consciousness is coming from that place only and that the outside of the brain is not where the brain is.

Do we? Speak for yourself

But what if the outside of the brain is the only place where the brain actually exists?

Are you taking the piss now?

what if we are literally walking through our own brain when we stroll around the supermarket with our shopping trolley? or when we are strolling along the beach or park taking in all the sights and sounds and smells and textures of everything?

"literally". FFS?

Yes, it is clear that the brain is both inside and outside of itself simultaneously.

Neural activity is obviously more than just consciousness, but consciousness is not more than neural activity.
Whilst it is possible that some neural activity is evident without consciousness, there is absolutely NO evidence of any consciousness in the absence of neural activity.
Where there is no neural activity, there is no consciousness means that consciousness is characterised by neural activity, and to understand consciousness, the investigation of neural activity is the only place to look.

This is all just word salad because there can never not be the absence of consciousness that can be known about.
Consciousness exists whether it is being conscious of itself or not, whether it is known or not. It seems consciousness can switch to on or off, and in order to do that it must infinitely exist, it must have an inexhaustible source that permanently exists, else no switching from on to off to on again would be possible.

.

.

PLONK

[SteveKlinko]

It's a very poor analogy.
The TV image (as seen by spectators) is analogous to the speech and gestures of the human body, which are all generated by neural activity.

So you really do think saying that the Electronics IS the Image is a good Explanation? Go try to fix a TV with that kind of understanding.

You, like all dualists are always trying to defer. when you assert that the soul is the source of consciousness, will you say what it is that operates the soul, and what operates that in turn?

No, what I am saying is that your analogy is very poor indeed.
A TV is nothing more that a conduit - a receiver that collects and shows images and sounds from a remote source.
I am saying that the human brain is NOT collecting impressions and thoughts from a remote source, and that the key to understanding consciousness is to be had through the study of neural activity, not from some mystical source outside the brain.
Neural activity is obviously more than just consciousness, but consciousness is not more than neural activity.
Whilst it is possible that some neural activity is evident without consciousness, there is absolutely NO evidence of any consciousness in the absence of neural activity.
Where there is no neural activity, there is no consciousness means that consciousness is characterised by neural activity, and to understand consciousness, the investigation of neural activity is the only place to look.

I don't say anything about a Soul. I simply say, Given:

1) Neural Activity for Red happens.
2) An Experience of Redness happens.

How does 1 produce 2?

It's a simple straightforward question. Saying that 1 IS 2 is not an answer. When you say that where there is no Neural Activity there is no Consciousness you seem to be saying that, just the realization of that causation, would Explain Consciousness. We have known for a hundred years that Neural Activity produces Consciousness. Degenerate cases will be Explained someday. For a Normally developed and operating Brain, how does the Neural Activity produce something like the Experience of Redness? If it is all in the Neurons then How? A Physicalist Explanation would be perfectly acceptable, but it has to be an actual Explanation and not some Mantra like: the Neural Activity IS the Conscious Experience.

[Dontaskme]

The idea there is a source outside the brain implies there is a source inside the brain.

NO it does not.

But this discussion is about consciousness, which is what the brain does according to you. You are implying the brain is the source of consciousness and that consciousness is not from some mystical source outside of the brain, and yes you really did say that. But now you are denying the concept of an inside source. If as you say consciousness is what the brain does then the brain must be the source of consciousness according to you?
But when I mention there could be a source inside the brain ..you deny it by saying NO..and you do that without ever explaining why you say no, as if I'm supposed to understand what you've said. Well wow, what a very insightful discussion going on here, are we any closer to understanding each other, I doubt it.

If you were the only human being alive you wouldn't even know you had a brain.

Not relevant to the discussion.

I think it's very relevant to the discussion, or would you prefer this discussion to be on your terms only? after all, we are talking about the same things here are we not...things like consciousness and brains and neural activities which is what consciousness and brains are all about etc.

You only know you have a brain because you can see the brain of another. When you are looking at another brain all you are looking at is an image of a brain appearing in the consciousness that is you looking at the image of a brain. Consciousness itself is projecting every known image from itself. There is no consciousness in an image seen, an image seen is only a projected hologram of consciousness itself.

Gibberish?

I don't think so, think about it, when you look at a brain, you are looking at an image right?

You see an image of a brain only because it's appearing in your vision, the image is sourced in you, if it wasn't in you, you would have no sense of the brain even existing at all now would you?

It's the same with any image, take the image of a pencil for example; is the pencil looking at you, or are you looking at the pencil? You see, that's what it means to discuss consciousness...just so you know.

.

[Sculptor]

So you really do think saying that the Electronics IS the Image is a good Explanation? Go try to fix a TV with that kind of understanding.

You, like all dualists are always trying to defer. when you assert that the soul is the source of consciousness, will you say what it is that operates the soul, and what operates that in turn?

No, what I am saying is that your analogy is very poor indeed.
A TV is nothing more that a conduit - a receiver that collects and shows images and sounds from a remote source.
I am saying that the human brain is NOT collecting impressions and thoughts from a remote source, and that the key to understanding consciousness is to be had through the study of neural activity, not from some mystical source outside the brain.
Neural activity is obviously more than just consciousness, but consciousness is not more than neural activity.
Whilst it is possible that some neural activity is evident without consciousness, there is absolutely NO evidence of any consciousness in the absence of neural activity.
Where there is no neural activity, there is no consciousness means that consciousness is characterised by neural activity, and to understand consciousness, the investigation of neural activity is the only place to look.

I don't say anything about a Soul. I simply say, Given:

1) Neural Activity for Red happens.
2) An Experience of Redness happens.

How does 1 produce 2?

You just have two ways of expressing the same thing.

It's a simple straightforward question.

Saying that 1 IS 2 is not an answer. When you say that where there is no Neural Activity there is no Consciousness you seem to be saying that, just the realization of that causation, would Explain Consciousness. We have known for a hundred years that Neural Activity produces Consciousness. Degenerate cases will be Explained someday. For a Normally developed and operating Brain, how does the Neural Activity produce something like the Experience of Redness? If it is all in the Neurons then How? A Physicalist Explanation would be perfectly acceptable, but it has to be an actual Explanation and not some Mantra like: the Neural Activity IS the Conscious Experience.

[Sculptor]

The idea there is a source outside the brain implies there is a source inside the brain.

NO it does not.

But this discussion is about consciousness, which is what the brain does according to you. You are implying the brain is the source of consciousness and that consciousness is not from some mystical source outside of the brain, and yes you really did say that. But now you are denying the concept of an inside source. If as you say consciousness is what the brain does then the brain must be the source of consciousness according to you?
But when I mention there could be a source inside the brain ..you deny it by saying NO..and you do that without ever explaining why you say no, as if I'm supposed to understand what you've said. Well wow, what a very insightful discussion going on here, are we any closer to understanding each other, I doubt it.

No. It means that the brain is the source; not that there is a source inside the brain.
You are obsessed with imposing a dualism.

If you were the only human being alive you wouldn't even know you had a brain.

Not relevant to the discussion.

I think it's very relevant to the discussion, or would you prefer this discussion to be on your terms only? after all, we are talking about the same things here are we not...things like consciousness and brains and neural activities which is what consciousness and brains are all about etc.

Thankfully I'm not the only man alive and science has struggled for 100s of years to recognise that the seat of all conscious activity is the action of the brain. It would not make an a'porth of difference if I knew that or not. It would still be true.

You only know you have a brain because you can see the brain of another. When you are looking at another brain all you are looking at is an image of a brain appearing in the consciousness that is you looking at the image of a brain. Consciousness itself is projecting every known image from itself. There is no consciousness in an image seen, an image seen is only a projected hologram of consciousness itself.

Gibberish?

I don't think so, think about it, when you look at a brain, you are looking at an image right?

You see an image of a brain only because it's appearing in your vision, the image is sourced in you, if it wasn't in you, you would have no sense of the brain even existing at all now would you?

It's the same with any image, take the image of a pencil for example; is the pencil looking at you, or are you looking at the pencil? You see, that's what it means to discuss consciousness...just so you know.

.

PLONK again

[SteveKlinko]

You, like all dualists are always trying to defer. when you assert that the soul is the source of consciousness, will you say what it is that operates the soul, and what operates that in turn?

No, what I am saying is that your analogy is very poor indeed.
A TV is nothing more that a conduit - a receiver that collects and shows images and sounds from a remote source.
I am saying that the human brain is NOT collecting impressions and thoughts from a remote source, and that the key to understanding consciousness is to be had through the study of neural activity, not from some mystical source outside the brain.
Neural activity is obviously more than just consciousness, but consciousness is not more than neural activity.
Whilst it is possible that some neural activity is evident without consciousness, there is absolutely NO evidence of any consciousness in the absence of neural activity.
Where there is no neural activity, there is no consciousness means that consciousness is characterised by neural activity, and to understand consciousness, the investigation of neural activity is the only place to look.

I don't say anything about a Soul. I simply say, Given:

1) Neural Activity for Red happens.
2) An Experience of Redness happens.

How does 1 produce 2?

You just have two ways of expressing the same thing.

It's a simple straightforward question.

Saying that 1 IS 2 is not an answer. When you say that where there is no Neural Activity there is no Consciousness you seem to be saying that, just the realization of that causation, would Explain Consciousness. We have known for a hundred years that Neural Activity produces Consciousness. Degenerate cases will be Explained someday. For a Normally developed and operating Brain, how does the Neural Activity produce something like the Experience of Redness? If it is all in the Neurons then How? A Physicalist Explanation would be perfectly acceptable, but it has to be an actual Explanation and not some Mantra like: the Neural Activity IS the Conscious Experience.

Ok, I'm thinking about Neural Activity ... Now I'm thinking about Redness ... sorry but they seem like very different Categories of Phenomena.

[Dontaskme]

No. It means that the brain is the source; not that there is a source inside the brain.
You are obsessed with imposing a dualism.

The brain is the source is dualistic, it's imposing dualism, don't worry it's unavoidable since duality is all that is known.

[Envelope]

Ok so you are saying that a Pattern of Neurons is involved. Saying that it is a Pattern of Neurons firing has no more Explanatory power than just saying there was Neural Activity and then the Redness happened. There is a huge Explanatory Gap between the statement Pattern of Neurons and an Experience of Redness. The 100 year old mystery is no closer to being solved by using a word like Pattern. You are talking about the Neural Correlates of Consciousness and not Consciousness itself.

I think I get what you are saying but to me you are already assuming Dualism. For me experience is not what happens to you but how you deal or explain, if you like, what happendr happens to you. Put it this way, computational neural nets can identify red things, now I'm pretty sure you'd say they are not experiencing 'Redness' but two things come to mind, how do you know others experience Redness and what is this 'experience of Redness' you talk about, can you describe it? As for me I can't really find this Redness other than imagining or retrieving a red image or images and comparing them but these are all things a computational neural net can do too. When you say 'experience Redness' are you talking about assigning some other sense represention, so for example this red gives me a crrtain feeling? If so I can agree that a computational neural net does not do this but for me this'll be because we haven't assigned another net for 'emotion'(again a very vague term but I hope you get what I mean) that associates the input patterns of 'Red' with some 'emotional' output. I think what I'm trying to say is that I don't have 'Red' or 'Redness' as separate from the neuronal activity in us, there is no gap as 'Red' is the activation of a neuronal pattern as caused by wavelengths hitting the cones of the retina and being 'sorted' or stored. Put it this way, a long time ago a friend and I took some colour blind tests and he could not see the number in the red/green pattern which I could clearly see so he was considered colour-blind but when we looked at data cables he could still pick out the red and green ones even though we knew he couldn't easily distinguish them in the same way I could, so is he experiencing Redness or not?

Are you trying to say that you are an organism without sentience? (I feel this question might be taken the wrong way, I'm just asking it with the most pure and loving curiosity that I know)

[Arising_uk]

Are you trying to say that you are an organism without sentience? (I feel this question might be taken the wrong way, I'm just asking it with the most pure and loving curiosity that I know)

Nope, what I am saying is that we are a body with senses, memory and language in an external world and as such I think the how of sentience, consciousness, et al will be answered in terms of that body's mechanisms or systems and processes if you prefer.