i think of it as a system or process thru which inbound information is held up to the light (our awareness) of the context/contents of our mind/self, intentionally automatically. I would strongly disagree that this self does not exist. it is not an illusion, though seeing it clearly is fraught with all kinds of difficulties. Our selfs are as unique as fingerprints. Awarenesses molded and formed by the living a life. Self is not an illusion in my opinion, yet a distorted view almost certainly. More for some than for others dependent upon the characteristics of their awareness. if the Buddhist monk sheds herself of self, what has the point been in all the effort?

"The paradox is that to live fully in the present you have to embrace non-existence."? to embrace non-existence denies experience. pure context has no meaning, no wisdom, no insight..... it's useless. imo. peace.

@hankster
It's very tricky stuff to talk about, or even think about, and I'm never certain I've got a handle on it. I don't think we are naturally endowed with the tools to see it clearly, let alone communicate about it. (But that never stopped me from trying )

I do see what you're saying and I don't disagree with it - there is certainly a point of view from which it could be said that these things "exist" in a sense, like mathematics exists. It just does - there's no denying it. I would say that it just isn't the only valid way to conceptualize it.

Humans are likely the only creatures (on this planet anyway) that have the capacity for abstract thought, and even we don't have that until about the age of eleven, according to Piaget. Add to that the estimation that somewhere between one third and two thirds ( ? ) of adult humans never in a lifetime develop useful skills at this kind of thinking (formal operational stage) it starts to look like being able to construct abstractions at all is a pretty tenuous and rare phenomenon in the universe.

I think it is worth keeping in mind that any conceptualizing we are able to do about these matters is just an abstraction of reality to begin with, rather than the reality itself. So there is also a legitimate case to be made that abstractions about reality don't "exist" in precisely the same way as reality itself does, all the while not being able to deny that those abstractions are a phenomenon that is happening (in very limited quarters in the universe).

All this to say that both views are available to us, and neither tells the whole story. I don't think that the Buddhist practitioner actually sheds that phenomenon we are calling self, but rather sheds her identity with it. And instead of that shift of identity being a denial of experience, I would say that it is a sort of willful refusal to conceptualize about experience, and in doing so, experiencing more fully.

I don't know of course. It's just fun to cogitate about!

@skado I hear you, I think. ? it is fun. it makes for some interesting questions and what ifs. different points of view, thank you Braque and Picasso, can produce some pretty funky results. kind of like a mash-up.

@hankster
That's it! Exactly. (erm, I mean, sort of exactly )

@skado this paragraph you wrote:

"Humans are likely the only creatures (on this planet anyway) that have the capacity for abstract thought, and even we don't have that until about the age of eleven, according to Piaget. Add to that the estimation that somewhere between one third and two thirds ( ? ) of adult humans never in a lifetime develop useful skills at this kind of thinking (formal operational stage) it starts to look like being able to construct abstractions at all is a pretty tenuous and rare phenomenon in the universe."

reminds me of how Consciousness, as far as We Know, has not been around for very long in this universe. not very long at all. it took a while for the Big Bang to settle down and make some Stars and then some galaxies and a few planets. still settling down, cooling down, life emerges, and recently consciousness. the universe is in no hurry it would seem, based on our calendar. so I think it's 13.7 billion years since this all started and Consciousness is the new kid on the Block. human consciousness seems to be confined to the individual in terms of its tenure, but it is a cumulative production from one generation to the next. as a species some of the Lessons Learned before us applied to today have increased our capacity to affect this world around us. what will that capacity be in a hundred thousand years? what is going to happen when science realizes matter and energy were doing things behind their back all the time?

@hankster
Yes it’s quite awe inspiring to imagine what could happen if a linear projection of the present could extend into the distant future. I’m not confident our species will get the chance to find out. Our most powerful adaptation is likely to be our downfall I’m afraid. I hope I’m wrong.

In the meanwhile, my (current) worldview says it’s easier for me to manage my emotional equilibrium by disidentifying with self-as-thing than by hoping for a spot in eternity. Each person has to manage that challenge as best suits them. None of us know the deep facts.

But as you say, the universe got along just fine without us for a very long time. We wanted to think the universe revolved around the earth, but science proved that wrong. The same impulse can lead us to think the universe is setting things up for our existence, but I suspect we are just a rash on a flea’s butt, where the universe is concerned. It will go on spinning with or without consciousness.

@skado I'm just kind of wondering how far the rash is going to spread.

@hankster
I’d love to know... but I don’t want to make any rash predictions.

@skado not likely there is any salvetion to ease the itching.

@skado I put some anointment on it.

Perhaps it is a matter of definitions. everything in this universe is matter or energy, or both, same thing. if you're saying consciousness is something else, then physics needs to revisit possible variant forms of existence. If Consciousness has done nothing more than raised a hand to scratch an ear, it has interacted with the Universe.

@hankster No, I'm saying not everything is matter or energy, and consciousness is neither. It's a concept; in fact, a meta-concept. It's thinking about thinking. The underlying physical processes of course are rooted in matter and energy, specifically in the human brain and neurochemistry. You cannot argue for an abstraction to be interacting with anything.

@mordant I think we're going to disagree on this. consciousness I don't see as some abstraction. I do see it as some other form of matter and energy. I see it as very real. just as real as the homes, roads, pizzas, and wars it has manipulated matter and energy to make.

@hankster I can cheerfully agree to disagree. My issue is that once you take something we don't yet fully understand but know to be an abstraction, and give it substance, you tend to give it agency, and we're back to woo. But I understand why people do it, and as long as I'm free not to do it, I have no issue with it.

@mordant cool..... I guess I'm looking at it backwards. the whole of civilization would not exist were it not for consciousness. I'm not giving it substance, I'm not saying it's woo, but to deny its role in the universe and its interaction with it insofar as our little planet is concerned, seems to be a very truncated point of view. peace.

not that serious i hope......

@hankster haha no just serious consciousness talk, like the kind that can get a person run outta this town on a rail for peddling woo....

yes it's an interesting article. I've seen this. my question isn't about it's evolution as much as its role in this universe. I'm curious about consciousness's influence outside of us.