User blogs

From Panexperientialism to Conscious Experience: The Continuum of Experience (by Gregory M. Nixon)

Abstract: When so much is being written on conscious experience, it is past time to face the question whether experience happens that is not conscious of itself. The recognition that we and most other living things experience non-consciously has recently been firmly supported by experimental science, clinical studies, and theoretic investigations; the related if not identical philosophic notion of experience without a subject has a rich pedigree. Leaving aside the question of how experience could become conscious of itself, I aim here to demonstrate that the terms experience and consciousness are not interchangeable. Experience is a notoriously difficult concept to pin down, but I see non-conscious experience as based mainly in momentary sensations, relational between bodies or systems, and probably common throughout the natural world. If this continuum of experience — from non-conscious, to conscious, to self-transcending awareness — can be understood and accepted, radical constructivism (the “outside” world as a construct of experience) will gain a firmer foundation, panexperientialism (a living universe) may gain credibility, and psi will find its medium. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/21

Hollows of Experience (by Gregory M. Nixon)

Abstract: This essay is divided into two parts, deeply intermingled. Part I examines not only the origin of conscious experience but also how it is possible to ask of our own consciousness how it came to be. Part II examines the origin of experience itself, which soon reveals itself as the ontological question of Being. The chief premise of Part I chapter is that symbolic communion and the categorizations of language have enabled human organisms to distinguish between themselves as actually existing entities and their own immediate experience of themselves and their world. This enables them to reflect upon abstract concepts, including “self,” “experience,” and “world.” Symbolic communication and conceptualization grow out of identification, the act of first observing conscious experiencing and intimating what it is like, mimesis, a gestural protolanguage learned through imitation, and reflection, seeing oneself through the eyes of others. The step into actual intentional speech is made through self-assertion, narrative, and intersubjectivity. These three become the spiral of human cultural development that includes not only the adaptive satisfaction of our biological needs, but also the creativity of thought. With the mental-conceptual separation of subject and object – of self and world – the human ability to witness the universe (and each other) is the ground of our genuinely human quality. Consciousness gives human life its distinctively human reality. It is, therefore, one and the same ability that enables us to shape planet Earth by means of conceptual representations (rather than by means of our hands alone) while also awakening us to the significance of being. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/22

Myth and Mind: The Origin of Human Consciousness in the Discovery of the Sacred ( by Gregory M. Nixon)

Abstract: By accepting that the formal structure of human language is the key to understanding the uniquity of human culture and consciousness and by further accepting the late appearance of such language amongst the Cro-Magnon, I am free to focus on the causes that led to such an unprecedented threshold crossing. In the complex of causes that led to human being, I look to scholarship in linguistics, mythology, anthropology, paleontology, and to creation myths themselves for an answer. I conclude that prehumans underwent an existential crisis, i.e., the realization of certain mortality, that could be borne only by the discovery-creation of the larger realm of symbolic consciousness once experienced as the sacred (but today we know it as the world – as opposed to the immediate natural environment of ourselves and other animals). Thus, although we, the human species, are but one species among innumerable others, we differ in kind, not degree. This quality is our symbolically enabled self-consciousness, the fortress of cultural identity that empowers but also imprisons awareness. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/23

The Philosophy of Mysticism: Perennialism and Constructivism (by Randolph T Dible II)

Abstract: The encountering of the experiencer or observer—transcendental subjectivity itself—at the foundation of the world leads inevitably to the recognition of pure objectivity as ultimate reality (which can be taken as its ultimate deconstruction, analogous to the apophatic or via negativa), from which objects derive their value, weight, significance, meaning or objectivity. In this way, pure objectivity can be seen as the supra-self-evident Axiological Axiom, so to speak, even Unconditional Love, in romantic terms. This axiology (value theory) has a structure inverse to the relationship between transcendental subjectivity as the radical unity of pure self-reference and on the other hand, the world of forms, as mere traces (representations, indications) of the unique, original “first distinction” Spencer-Brown speaks of at the foundation of his calculus. That is, all forms (i.e., distinctions, differences) would reduce to being the first distinction, also known as the marked state, which I call penultimate reality (pure self-reference or transcendental subjectivity: the Spirit which animates us), except that forms are complimentary to their content, which is their objectivity or value, which would reduce to the unmarked state or ultimate reality. It is the incongruity of form (thoughts; Whitehead’s “negative prehensions”) and value (feelings; Whitehead’s “positive prehensions,” or my notion of objectivity, meaning and qualia; in short, the non-formal aspects of experience) that holds forms open and keeps them from absolute reduction. This accounts for the brute, concrete persistence of the “functional illusion”-- to use a term from Dzogchen Buddhism-- of the world. Thus this system has an axiology of metaphysical objectivity grounded on the ideal of pure objectivity as the source of all value, meaning and significance, itself the very fecundity of profundity, which is the motive of drawing the distinction in the first place. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/16

Conscious Control of an Electron (by Ronald Bryan)

Abstract: I consider the possibility that the electron, not a human observer, precipitates the collapse of the electron's wavefunction when it is detected. This would seem to endow the electronic wavefunction with an elementary consciousness. If so, then perhaps a human consciousness could interact with the electronic consciousness to flip its spin. I propose an experiment to test this possibility, namely one in which the electron is the single valence electron of a magnesium ion immersed in a 50-gauss magnetic field. A dye laser shines on the ion and is tuned to bring about laser induced fluorescence (LIF) at a wavelength of 280 nm. The LIF is so strong that if the ion were shining in the visible range, it could be seen with the naked eye. Instead it is shining in the near ultra-violet, and a photomultiplier is used to detect the light. If a person can now lower the electron's energy minutely, then this will flip the electron's spin and the LIF will cease. If the person can succeed in flipping the electron's spin once again by raising its energy, then LIF is restored. By initiating LIF for long and short periods, such a person could send a lengthy International Morse Code message which could be read by anyone observing the ion’s output. We would see if a person succeeding in this task could send a message from increasingly distant points. If so, then the person's control could not be mediated by any fields currently known to physicists: electromagnetic, weak, strong, and gravitational. We would hypothesize a new kind of controlling field which does not weaken with distance, nor be attenuated by obstructions. Such a field might mediate distant healing and remote viewing. It might be identified with Chinese qi. We hypothesize that this conjectured field propagates in higher dimensional space-time to avoid obstructions, and converges on the target to avoid weakening. In this space, the field might travel faster than light does in the lower four dimensions of space and time. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/17

Representational Qualia Theory (by Brent Allsop)

Abstract: I believe there is one theory that deserves much more press than it is receiving. This is a representational theory where there is, what I call a “spirit world” produced by our brain, made of phenomenal “qualia” (singular quale) that is everything we consciously know. There doesn’t seem to be any popular books or articles on consciousness that even consider anything like this theory, nor any of its implications. Given that representational theories of consciousness have been around since Descartes and before it’s surprising to me that at least something like this doesn’t receive more consideration. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/18

Observer Is a Function of Four-dimensional Timeless Space (by Amrit S. Sorli, Tadej Gregl, Dusan Klinar)

Abstract: Recent research on time shows that one has to distinguish between physical time and psychological time. Physical time is run of clocks in space. Space itself is timeless. With clocks we measure material change i.e. motion that happen in space. Linear psychological time “past-present-future” is a result of neuronal activity of the brain. Observer is experiencing material change through psychological time. Observer is unchangeable and independent of psychological time running. This indicates that observer is not based on neuronal activity of the brain as psychological time is. Space and observer are both timeless. Here a proposal is taken that physical basis of the observer is space itself. In scientific exploration the process of observation is the function of space. Hypothetically every point of space has the function of observation. Human senses and brain are biological devices through which space experiences material change i.e. motion in space. Observer as a function of space is an integral part of the universe. This view opens new perspectives in understanding of Lorentz transformation and “proper time” of different inertial systems in Special Theory of Relativity. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/11

What Is Consciousness and Where Is It (by Dick W. Richardson)

Abstract: What is consciousness? It is the mean by which that which I do not know and do not understand makes me aware of it, know it, and come to understand it. And then I can say ‘I KNOW’. Maybe that makes two of us when that is done, maybe not. Find where consciousness begins. THAT is worth finding and knowing. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/12

TGD Inspired Theory of Consciousness (by Matti Pitkanen)

Abstract: The basic ideas and implications of TGD inspired theory of consciousness are briefly summarized. The notions of quantum jump and self can be unified in the recent formulation of TGD relying on dark matter hierarchy characterized by increasing values of Planck constant. Negentropy Maximization Principle serves as a basic variational principle for the dynamics of quantum jump. The new view about the relation of geometric and subjective time leads to a new view about memory and intentional action. The quantum measurement theory based on finite measurement resolution and realized in terms of hyper-finite factors of type II1 justifies the notions of sharing of mental images and stereo-consciousness deduced earlier on basis of quantum classical correspondence. Qualia reduce to quantum number increments associated with quantum jump. Self-referentiality of consciousness can be understood from quantum classical correspondence implying a symbolic representation of contents of consciousness at space-time level updated in each quantum jump. p-Adic physics provides space-time correlates for cognition and intentionality. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/13

What I Think about Consciousness (by Alan J Oliver)

Abstract: Consciousness is a property of Akashic space to the extent that it has no boundaries. The apprehension of a memory is normally limited to the experience of the individual, and I believe this is a function of Ahamkara, the self-identity of the individual. We are all a memory address code. Memory, in the general sense, is generated by mind and in turn memory influences mind. There is more to it. Memory begins with an event or experience being observed by buddhi. In Yoga Sutra Patanjali describes two kinds of memory. The first is the general kind of memory in which the object of apprehension is primary. The second kind of memory is one in which the instrument and process of apprehension are primary. These distinctions allow me to discriminate between my experience of Samapatti and that of the subject. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/14

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research Vol 3, No 2 (2012): Science of Enlightenment & Various Aspects of Consciousness

Table of Contents http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/issue/view/21

Articles

In the first article "Introduction to Existential Mechanics: How the Relations of Existence to Itself Create the Structure of Reality and What We Experience as Reality", Steven E. Kaufman "presents a general description of how the iterative relations of Existence to Itself create two different realities; 1) Realties that are composed of Existence as it is being in relation to Itself, which Realties or Relational Structures, taken together, make up the Structure of Reality, and; 2) realities that are not composed of Existence, but are created where Existence becomes defined in relation to Itself as a result of being in relation to Itself, and which realities or relative existences are the most proximal basis of what Existence apprehends as experience. Thus, Existence is described as that which, through relation to Itself, creates out of Itself the Structure of Reality and is also described as that which apprehends as experiential reality the products of its relations to Itself that are not composed of Itself. Ultimately, what we call Consciousness, i.e., that which apprehends experience, is shown to be not other than Existence that is involved in some relation with Itself and creating a relative existence as a result, which relative existence the Existence involved in that relation must then apprehend as experience."

In the second article "Existential Mechanics Part I: The Three Progressive Levels of Reality and Experience", Kaufman presents "the three different types of experience that we apprehend, i.e., emotional, mental, and physical, are each related to one of the three different and progressive levels of Realty or Relational Structure that emerge as a result of the iterative process of Existential self-relation." He states "what is presented is a description of how Existence evolves into different levels of Reality composed of different Relational Structures, while at the same time creating at each level of Reality a distinct type of relative existence apprehended by the Existence involved in those relations as a distinct and particular type of experience."

In the third article "Existential Mechanics Part II: The Big Picture; The Relation Between the Structure of Reality and What We Experience as Reality", Kaufman presents "both the inner orientation of emotional and mental experience, as well as the outer orientation of physical experience, are described as a function of our particular position and perspective within the fractal Structure of Reality relative to the particular level of Reality at which each of those different types of experience are created." Additionally, He describes the Relational Structure of Reality "as the framework that underlies our overall apprehension of mental and physical reality by relating the different levels of Reality to different fundamental aspects of what we apprehend as mental and physical reality." "Also described is the relation between what is expressed in quantum physics as the wave function and the underlying Structure of Reality from which that expression is derived, including a description of what occurs within that Relational Structure to produce the event referred to as the collapse of the wave function."

In his fourth article "Existential Mechanics Part III: The Creation of Experience by the Individual", Kaufman describes "the limitations that are inherent in the Individual’s creation of experience, both within a given level of Reality and between levels of Reality, owing to the nature of experience as being the product of a relation in which the Individual that is apprehending the experience must always be involved." Also described by Kaufman "is the reason that positive emotion is associated with a feeling of connection, while negative emotion is associated with a feeling of disconnection. And finally an experiment is presented that any Individual can perform in order to demonstrate and prove to themsel[ves] their ability to control the quality of what they create as emotional experience.

In her article "Holographic Trans-disciplinary Framework of Consciousness: An Integrative Perspective", Tamar Levin proposes "an integrative framework for conceptualizing human consciousness and compliments it with existing research data." Her framework "is based on the holographic and trans-disciplinary worldviews and their implied implicate-explicate order and the holographic knowing-becoming-experiencing-valuing human being who interacts interdependently with/within different levels of reality." The framework "conceptualizes universal consciousness as a fundamental part of reality/universe that complements physical potentialities and brings them to actual physical states. It regards human consciousness as both structure and system, state and process, means and end, experience, information and energy, having a metaphysical /spiritual /implicit /implicate layer and a physical/ material /explicit and / explicate layer expressed via biological, chemical, and physical processes." Levin also considers "human consciousness as incorporating inward-outward 'space' processes and a backward-forward 'time' system's view expressin/influencing different modes of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and personal and transpersonal elements." Her framework "focuses on the unique functions, and interactions in heart-soul and brain-mind relations and their effects on states of consciousness. The subjective nature of consciousness is conceptualized in terms of the essence of individuality manifested by the root of the soul, the genetic spiritual-DNA code, and the individual's historic evolution through different life-cycles."

In his article "Cells, Neurons, and Qualia: The Holographic Strange Attractor Model", Claudio Messori presents a "biophysical model to interpret biological, neurological and psychic phenomena is presented, in a quantum-relativistic key." He attributes a central role "to the concept of Spin in explaining space-time geometry as well as the genesis of energetic and sub-energetic phenomena." Messori also consider energy "in relation to both its vectorial and scalar components." He states that the "dynamic of cells, neurons and qualia is ascribed to the field of nonlinear transient systems of a chaotic kind, and explained in the light of the syntropic action of a quasi-virtual object known as a HoSA (Holographic Strange Attractor)." In conclusion, Messori assigns "an epigenetic and relativistic location...to the mental fact, thought, and consciousness."

In his article "Transcending the Shamed Self", Gary Schouborg contributes to the "understanding self-transcendence" He "provides an account of my personal experience of transcending my shamed self. This requires explaining the kind of self and shame involved. In mystical literature, the consciousness that remains after self-transcendence is sometimes called the Self or non-ego, in contrast to the self or ego, which is the empirical, executive self of ordinary consciousness and functioning. The self includes specific selves that play distinctive roles in various contexts. The specific self transcended in my personal experience was the shamed self, one that was experiencing the self-rejecting emotion of shame. Ordinary discourse as well as philosophical and empirical research often employ the term shame[GMN1] generically while failing to distinguish among at least eight closely related emotions: shyness; embarrassment; fear of rejection; feeling exposed, vulnerable, inferior, or unfulfilled; and self-rejection—shame in the strict sense, the emotion caused by my self-evaluation that I do not deserve love, even my own. The article proceeds in six parts: a summary introduction; a phenomenological account of shame; a phenomenological account of my personal experience of shame; a phenomenological account of my personal experience of transcending my shamed self; a phenomenological account of the aftermath; and an outline of a naturalistic explanation of my self-transcendence. Throughout the article, the term Self refers to an embodied, observing Self that avoids overly identifying with any aspect or function of the self, rather than an ontologically disembodied entity that transcends nature."

Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

Dated: November 22, 2011

Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research has just published Volume 2 Issue 8. It is a Focus Issue on "The Possibility of Metaphysical Knowledge and Insight" edited by Graham P. Smetham, JCER Editor-at-Large.

In his Editorial "The Possibility of Metaphysics", Graham P. Smetham introduces the issue: "Although the title of this focus issue is ‘The Possibility of Metaphysics’ the first part has as its focus not only metaphysics in general but Buddhist metaphysics in particular. This is because the motivation for this focus issue was sparked by an email from a colleague who asked for my opinion of a book written by Robert Ellis. The aspect of the ‘experimental metaphysics’ of quantum theory is examined in detail in the first article "The Matter of Mindnature" The Buddhist metaphysical viewpoint tells as the nature of ultimate reality is best understood as a fundamentally interrelated and interpenetrating field of Mind-like energy, or Mindnature, and such a view is clearly supported by the quantum violation of Bell’s inequalities. In this article I examine Ellis’s notion of the impossibility of metaphysics in the light of both philosophical considerations and the implications of the quantum evidence. The next article "Taking the‘Meta’ Out of Physics" is Ellis’s response to my criticisms of his work. I leave it to readers to come to conclusions without further comment from me. It is my hope that there will be feedback concerning the issues raised as I am personally convinced that Ellis’s position is untenable but am curious to know whether my viewpoint is widely held. Certainly the last two articles from James Kowall, ‘What is Reality in a Holographic World?’, and Brian Whitworth, ‘Introducing The Virtual Reality Conjecture’, seem to support my position."

In his Article entitled "The Matter of Mindnature", Smetham discusses Bell’s Theorem Tolls for Dogmatic ‘Middle Way’ Scepticism and Rings Out for ‘Experimental Metaphysics’ and ‘Quantum Mindnature’. He states "In recent years there has developed a movement in the West which seeks to convince people that the original teachings of the Buddha were far more mundane than his later followers would have us believe. An extreme recent example of this is the book The Trouble with Buddhism in which Dr. Robert Ellis claims that every Buddhist who has ever lived has been ‘scandalously” confused about the central doctrines of Buddhism, especially the ‘Middle Way’ philosophy, which is a central teaching of all Buddhist schools. He also claims that if one takes Humean scepticism ‘seriously’, as he thinks one should do, it follows that it is impossible to know anything with any certainty. Metaphysics therefore become a ‘foolish’ dream. In fact according to Ellis it is “foolish” to think that quantum physics supplies “evidence about the universe itself.” This article considers Ellis’s claims regarding metaphysics and physics in detail, particularly focusing on the implications of the quantum violation of Bell’s theorem, in order to show that we must be sceptical of extreme scepticism."

In response to Graham Smetham’s ‘The Matter of Mindnature’, Robert M. Ellis in his Article entitled "Taking the ‘Meta’ out of Physics" defend the approach of metaphysical agnosticism on philosophical grounds. He argues that "Pyrrhonian (agnostic) sceptical approaches are distinguished from Academic ones and shown not to be contradictory provided one does not begin with unnecessary metaphysical assumptions. The burden of proof needs to be put on those who make metaphysical claims rather than those who stick to experience as a point of reference, and falsification involves a provisional, not an absolute, process of elimination of theories that do not fit the evidence. Smetham’s appeals to certain results from quantum physics as exceptional are shown to be unacceptable on the grounds that no scientific observation can confirm metaphysical claims that lie beyond their scope. A wider psychological, moral and linguistic context is given for the argument that we should avoid the adoption of a metaphysical framework of understanding."

Then, in his Article entitled "The ‘Epiontic’ Dependently Originating Process of Cyclic Existence According to Early Buddhist Metaphysics", Smetham discusses the following: "Some modern Western interpreters of Buddhist teachings and philosophy claim that the original teachings of the Pali Canon were staunchly anti-metaphysical. In this article I exa-mine the early Buddhist worldview and demonstration that this assertion is deeply mistaken. Whilst the early teachings of the Buddha clearly rejected dogmatic metaphysical positions which the Buddha characterised as being ‘extreme’, he also implicitly, yet clearly, taught a subtle metaphysical view of the process of reality which is consistent with the modern quantum ‘epiontic’ (epistemological perception creates ontology) perspective of ‘quantum Darwinism.’ Central to this viewpoint is 1) a non-materialism which indicates that the ultimate process of reality is of the nature of mind; 2) the assertion that the ultimate nature of reality lies between the extremes of ‘existence’ and ‘non-existence’, ‘eternalism’ and ‘nihilism’; 3) the assertion that the epiontic mechanism operates as ‘kamma’, or ‘karma’, a central mechanism for the functioning of conditioned samsaric (cycle of dissatisfactory lives) reality. On the basis of these fundamental insights the doctrines of ‘rebirth’ and ‘dependent origination’ are shown to be crucial metaphysical components of the overall early Buddhist worldview as taught by the Buddha. These doctrines are also shown to be consistent with modern quantum theory. On the basis of this investigation recent claims that the 3-lifetimes model of dependent origination is mistaken are shown to be desperately misleading."

Further, in his Article entitled "The Quantum Truth of the Buddhist Metaphysics of the ‘Two Truths’ or ‘Two Realities’", Smetham proposes and discusses the following: "According to the ‘Buddhist’ writer Stephen Batchelor the core Buddhist doctrine of the ‘two truths’ or ‘two realities’ is a major mistake on the part of Buddhist practitioners and philosophers throughout the ages. Although this doctrine has been central to Buddhist thinking since the time of the Buddha, Batchelor says that it is a serious mistake, and is completely unscientific. This article show that it is Batchelor who is desperately mistaken because modern quantum theory has validated the metaphysical claim that the ‘classical’ or ‘conventional’ world is an illusion which is derived from the deeper quantum realm. Thus the division into the ‘classical’ realm and the ‘quantum’ realm maps onto the Buddhist distinction between the ‘conventional’ mode of reality and the ‘ultimate’ mode of reality. Far from Buddhist philosophy being ‘unscientific’, it is Batchelor who displays ignorance of modern science."

In his Article entitled "What is Reality in a Holographic World?", James Kowell proposes the following: "The nature of a holographic world is described. This scientific description of the world is based upon the assumptions of modern theoretical physics. These natural assumptions are inherent in any unified theory, such as string theory, and in any theory of the creation of the world, such as inflationary cosmology. At their most basic level, these are the assumptions of the equivalence, uncertainty and action principles, along with the second law of thermodynamics. Any world consistent with these fundamental principles is easily shown to be a holographic world. The mathematical consistency of such a holographic world also implies something about the nature of consciousness. If that mathematical consistency is followed to its logical conclusion, in the sense of the Gödel incompleteness theorems, this scientific description of the world also has something to tell us about the nature of reality. What this scientific description of the world tells us about the nature of reality is compared to what mystics have told us about reality throughout human history."

Finally, in his Article entitled "The Virtual Reality Conjecture", Brian Whitworth suggests the following: "We take our world to be an objective reality, but is it? The assumption that the physical world exists in and of itself has struggled to assimilate the findings of modern physics for some time now. For example, an objective space and time would just "be", but in relativity, space contracts and time dilates. Likewise objective "things" should just inherently exist, but the entities of quantum theory are probability of existence smears, that spread, tunnel, superpose and entangle in physically impossible ways. Cosmology even tells us that our entire physical universe just "popped up", from nowhere, about 14 billion years ago. This is not how an objectively real world should behave! Yet traditional alternatives don't work much better. That the world is just an illusion of the mind doesn't explain its consistent realism and Descartes dualism, that another reality beyond the physical exists, just doubles the existential problem. It is time to consider an option we might normally dismiss out of hand. This essay explores the virtual reality conjecture, that the physical world is the digital output of non-physical quantum processing. It finds it neither illogical, nor unscientific, nor incompatible with current physics."

Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

November 8, 2011

Max Planck and Consciousness
Walter B. Russell and the Universal One
David J. Bohm and the Implicate Order
Eckhart Tolle and the Power of Now
Peter Russell and Spirit of Now
Paul Laffoley and Visionary Arts
F. David Peat and Gentle Action
Charles T. Tart and the End of Materialism
Bruce H. Lipton and the Biology of Belief
Amit Goswami and the Self-Aware Universe
David R. Hawkins and the Truth vs. Falsehood

(To be continued)

Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

September 25, 2011

(To be continued)

Huping & Maoxin

September 24, 2011