User blogs

Holographic Trans-disciplinary Framework of Consciousness: An Integrative Perspective (by Tamar Levin): Abstract: This paper suggests an integrative framework for conceptualizing human consciousness and compliments it with existing research data. The 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. It 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. The 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. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/174

Cells, Neurons, and Qualia: The Holographic Strange Attractor Model (by Claudio Messori): Abstract: A biophysical model to interpret biological, neurological and psychic phenomena is presented, in a quantum-relativistic key. A central role is attributed to the concept of Spin in explaining space-time geometry as well as the genesis of energetic and sub-energetic phenomena. Energy is considered in relation to both its vectorial and scalar components. 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, an epigenetic and relativistic location is assigned to the mental fact, thought, and consciousness. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/163

Transcending the Shamed Self (by Gary Schouborg): Abstract: To contribute to understanding self-transcendence, this article 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. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/186

Existential Mechanics Part I: The Three Progressive Levels of Reality and Experience (by Steven E. Kaufman): Abstract: In this article 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. Thus, 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. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/183

Existential Mechanics Part II: The Big Picture; The Relation Between the Structure of Reality and What We Experience as Reality (by Steven E. Kaufman): Abstract: In this article 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, the Relational Structure of Reality is described 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. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/184

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

In his editor’s introduction entitled "Transcending Self-Consciousness", Nixon delivers his introduction with the following opening: "What is this thing we each call “I” and consider the eye of consciousness, that which beholds objects in the world and objects in our minds? This inner perceiver seems to be the same I who calls forth memories or images at will, the I who feels and determines whether to act on those feelings or suppress them, as well as the I who worries and makes plans and attempts to avoid those worries and act on those plans. Am I the subject, thus the source, of my awareness, just as you are the subject and source of your awareness? If this is the case, it is likely impossible to be conscious without the self (yours or mine), the eye of consciousness, and it must certainly not be desirable, for such a consciousness would have no focal point, no self-that-is-conscious to guide it, so it would be cast adrift on wide and wild sea like a boat that has broken from its anchor. Without self-enclosure, “We shall go mad no doubt and die that way,” as Robert Graves (1927/1966) expressed it."

In his first article entitled "Transformations of Self and World I: Modeling a World", Christopher Holvenstot states in his Abstract the following: "Severe seasonal depression entails the yearly collapse and reconstruction of a functional, useable, meaningful world. This radical annual transformation provides a unique perspective onto fundamental conscious processes by illuminating the cognitive elements and dynamics behind the construction and deconstruction of self-models and world-models."

In his second article entitled "Transformations of Self and World II: Making Meaning", Christopher Holvenstot states in his Abstract the following: "A theater workshop, ostensibly about acting, turns out instead to be about not acting, yet answers a lot of questions about how to act in the real world – ironically, by exploring the world of dreams. This transformational experience provides a view into the realm of the psyche, and this view is used to highlight the inappropriateness of empirical precepts in the formation of a field of consciousness studies."

In his article entitled "The Shock of the Old: A Narrative of Transpersonal Experience", Milenko Budimir states in his Abstract the following: "Here I present a description of some transpersonal experiences that occurred as a result of meditation practices as well as reflections on those experiences. I connect these experiences with some historical precedents, particularly to sources in the Eastern Orthodox Christian spiritual tradition, but also to contemporary sources as well as some 20th century philosophical ideas. Lastly, I describe how these experiences ended up shaping a new worldview, the most significant and lasting being a deep sense of interconnectedness with the world. This sense of interconnectedness further lends support to an inclusive rather than an exclusive understanding of religious belief, and correspondingly a mystical sense of the world and humans’ place in it."

In his article entitled "Background Motivations for My Views on Consciousness", Chris Nunn states in his Abstract the following: "I wish to show here that my theories, and my life in general, have been greatly constrained (though I would say enlarged) by a few, brief and unusual experiences. Equally clearly, the content of the experiences reflected to some extent my cultural and personal history. Can they be regarded as no more than a culturally determined curiosity, perhaps a bit like the dancing manias of the Middle Ages or the recent epidemic of ‘alien abduction’ experiences? My personal answer to that question is: ‘No. The experiences truly reflected aspects of Reality that we don’t often perceive and the culturally determined part of their content was just the icing on the cake – how Reality was able to express itself within my particular, very limited mind.’ That’s why I feel it has not been a waste of my time to try to build ideas that promise to integrate experiences of this sort with more mainstream Western understandings, for theories foster observations and, thus, sooner or later, fuller appreciation of truths about ourselves and our world."

In her article entitled "How Often or How Rarely Does a Self-Transcending Experience Occur?", Syamala Hari states in her Abstract the following: "Almost always, the self is involved in our perception of the world, thinking, and actions, but it does momentarily step aside now and then. I describe below a few of my experiences of self-transcendence that seem quite ordinary with nothing mysterious about them and they are all of short duration. To explain how the self is present or not in an experience, I describe some properties characteristic of the self such as its sense of personal identity and ownership of action. Manifestation of these properties in an experience indicates the presence of the self and absence of these properties indicates its absence. In an act of observation, full attention paid to what is being observed seems to push every thought, including the self, out of the conscious mind and keep it fully occupied with the act of observation. A characteristic property of the self-transcendent state seems to be that one can only recognize such a state as being free from self, but one cannot prove that it is so because the outward effect of the state may be the same as that of an alternative state where the self is present."

In his article entitled "Self-Transcendence as a Developmental Process in Consciousness", Roland Cichowski states in his Abstract the following: "After an introduction describing certain difficulties in relating the nature of self-transcending experiences, I give a narrative description of three successive episodes in which a certain relationship and development over time can be discerned. This is followed by a discussion of the impact they have had over the course of my lifetime together with observations on how they have affected my outlook. These experiences have led me to the view that it is more likely that it is consciousness generating the illusion of a material reality than a material reality generating consciousness. I consider self-transcendence to be understood as a stage in the development of the consciousness of each human being, and ultimately in the development of humanity as a whole."

In his article entitled "A Longitudinal History of Self-Transformation: Psychedelics, Spirituality, Activism and Transformation", Phil Wolfson states in his Abstract the following: "A longitudinal historical approach for portraying and examining personal transformation is presented along with a proposed instrument—the Transformational Codex—for cataloging that history and the elements that compose it. One element, psychedelic transformation, is then discussed in depth along with a schema for viewing transformations that may occur related to psychedelic use and practice."

In her article entitled "Transcending the Self Through Art: Altered States of Consciousness and Anomalous Events During the Creative Process", Tobi Zausner states in her Abstract the following: "The capacity for transcending the self through art arises from the creative process, an altered state of consciousness facilitating the occurrence of anomalous events such as precognition and interior visions that appear to be outside the spacetime of waking life. Frustration can trigger the far-from-equilibrium conditions necessary for creativity, while inspiration may seem as if its source is exterior to the artist, and the experience of flow, like a trance state, can produce an altered sense of time. Archetypes in the creative process link a single mind to the collective unconscious and works of art become self-opening worlds that create an expanded reality."

Finally, in his article entitled "Breaking Out of One's Head (& Awakening to the World)", Gregory M. Nixon states in his Abstract the following: "Herein, I review the moment in my life when I awoke from the dream of self to find being as part of the living world. It was a sudden, momentous event that is difficult to explain since transcending the self ultimately requires transcending the language structures of which the self consists. Since awakening to the world took place beyond the enclosure of self-speech, it also took place outside our symbolic construction of time. It is strange to place this event and its aftermath as happening long ago in my lifetime, for it is forever present; it surrounds me all the time just as the world seems to do. This fact puts into question the reality of my daily journey from dawn to dusk with all the mundane tasks I must complete (like writing of that which cannot be captured in writing). My linear march to aging and death inexorably continues, yet it seems somehow unreal, the biggest joke of all. Still, I here review the events leading up to my time out of mind and then review the serious repercussions when I was drawn back into the ego-self only to find I did not have the conceptual tools or the maturity to understand what had happened."

Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

October 9, 2011