We're witness to one of the finest minds of our lifetime (s)and personally, I'm unable to shed an overwhelming feeling of wealth while witness to the these moments.
ALL: I cannot comment on philosophical content via RUclips comments anymore, due to limited time and redundancy with other places where I do discuss my philosophical system. So if you like to engage on philosophical discussions, please post in my Discussion Forum at: groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/metaphysical-speculations. You can find more useful links about my philosophical system here: www.bernardokastrup.com/2015/04/social-media-policy-and-useful-links.html. I count on your understanding!
I like the way you think, and have had similar thoughts. Particularly when it comes to Dissociation. An interesting aspect of psychological dissociation is that it arises from trauma. Now what kind of trauma might a universal consciousness have suffered? My thought is that the infinite sense of utter loneliness was enough to shatter the universal mind, into everything we see. I have come to different conclusions regarding matter, energy, space, et. al. I believe in something between idealism and panpsychism. I believe that there are no objects separate from consciousness- that the continued existence of objects is proof of their consciousness of their own existence. In other words, unlike you, I believe that the entirety of reality, known and unknown, is consciousness on some level. Everything was built from consciousness, reflecting only on itself, and there is nothing other than consciousness- any images or forms that arise from it are essentially aspects of consciousness viewed from a dissociated perspective. Think of it this way- to have dreamed our reality (and any others) the dreamer would have required a subject to build from; our own dreams are filled with the symbolism of our own experience- why would it be different for the dreamer? If there is nothing other than the dreamer, than all experience it has to draw from is an aspect of itself. Therefore, any images in its dream must be conscious.
I think the line between awareness and consciousness is unclear. Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably and sometimes there is a clear distinction like in example of deep sleep. In deep sleep I am conscious but not aware of it or is it that I am aware of no experience(including consciousness). So as long as there is no clear definition of both the terms we are going to be stuck in the misty domain.
Consciousness can be seen here as a presence. Something is there, an inner existent. However, awareness can be the knowledge that something emanates from consciousness. It is like a small projection of consciousness.
Thank you again and again for this very exhaustive explanation. But...what about water, which crystals change according to the way it is treated; what about plants that communicate between them and react differently if well/bad treated?
Dear Mr. Kastrup, thank you very much for your clear, precise and eloquent explanations. You manage very well to make the viewer belief that everything you say is logic and makes sense. You say inanimate objects are primary excitations of mind. Conscious "objects" (what is all life for you) in contrast are secondary excitations of mind, self-localizations (localisations of individual selves from one self) originating from dissociative processes. But primary excitations are no self-localizations and are therefore not conscious. Also secondary excitations have an image, i. e. the body of living beings (are primary and secondary images different except there is more behind secondary ones (consciousness)?). Is that correctly described so far? But those are only some statements and definitions. Let's see if we can give a coherent and logic model of this theory, which is also capatible which the knowledge of physics. In your idealism fundamental entity of everything is a field of consciousness (I don't know what field means in context of consciousness and what I shall imagine here). That field is somehow conscious and is empty in "ground state" (before big bang?) without any experience. Then primary "excitations" of the field can occur, which lead to the experience (dream) of inanimate physical objects like at first spacetime and then matter in it like galaxies, stars, nebulas, planets, rocks, etc. by the field of consciousness. It experiences those physical objects like we with our five senses (that's my interpretation, you remain completely vague here). But not only from one individual perspective as we but simultaneously from every possible perspective (which might be infinite). But the field has no self-awareness awareness but only those experiences. They occur to it like a film which we are totally absorbed in so that we forget everything around us, including our self. That field also is not capable of abstract thinking like humans. It just experiences things happening and evolving. Perhaps it not even has an understanding for what it is experiencing. Just like some adult who has been blind for his whole life and sees for the first time after a new medical treatment is available. However, the evolution and behaviour of things has to be according to physical laws (unless we do not want to deny their existence). So we need a mechanism steering the excitations or experiences of the field according to those laws. But the field is unaware of this mechanism. So far the field of consciousness is the only conscious entity. But it has no image or even understanding what itself is: a (mysterious) field of consciousness (excited like a piano is played by someone by mysterious processes). Then as the universe evolves at some point of time (maybe after several billion years), the first stage of life occurs. Let's say molecules which can make copies of themselves or are copied by some mechanism in a predecessor of cells. You now say that these excitations of the field of consciousness are somehow more than primary excitations. They are secondary ones and as such have been separated from the original field by mysterious dissociative processes. However, the excitations (conscious experiences) of this new field are ruled and caused by the excitations of the original field (which is steered by the physical laws simulating mechanism). So the original field (although not self-aware) can somehow influence itself. The new field does not have the overall experience of the original field of consciousness, as it is only a part (one perspective) of the original field. The new fields are also deprived of each other's experiences and original field's. In fact those first self-replicating molecules only have a very simple kind of consciousness. Whatever the experience of molecules shall be like, as we only are familiar with macroscopic experiences, whereas on microscopic level for example no colour and no sound exists. Then in the course of evolution of life and brains more complex consciousnesses develop, peaking in self-consciousness and finally the human consciousness with its ability for abstract thinking and metacognition. With every new kind of living creature evolving, in the original consciousness more complex new fields of consciousness are created/split off of the original field of consciousness. The new fields also gain completely new dimensions of conscious experience like the feeling of being in love for example, abstract tinking or self-awareness. Those new dimensions are somehow magically added to the abilities of the original field. That's my formulation of your theory if you get a bit out of the completely vague. I think it's the only logic and consistent model you can draft to describe your postulates and empirical findings without staying completely abstract. Do you agree with that or where do you disagree? From that model, however, the following (old) problems arises from my point of view: 1. You have to assume something else beside/outside consciousnesses - the activation mechanism for the original field of consciousness (including steering/modulating our experiences, e. g. making us awake after sleep) and its patterns causing the dissociation. Also the dissociation mechanism is out of consciousness as we are not aware of it. So you still have a dualism. I think you reply to that that the dissociation was only an illusion and in reality our minds are not separated. Well, if such an illusion (you have experiences but do not know it) is possible, then also qualia could be an illusion (you have no experiences but believe to have them). Then the hard problem is also solved. 2. The original field of consciousness has artificially to be enriched by new dimensions of experience during evolution of life. You can't derive the feeling of self-awareness from experiences of our senses. This happens magically and again requires some mechanism outside/before consciousness. If the original field of consciousness initially only dreams inanimate objects. So no self-aware being can dissociate from it by definition. 3. What is the image of the original field of consciousness? As you say conscious beings represent as life to each other, where is the image of the universal consciousness? Why do we only see its contents? 4. You have to postulate that our individual consciousnesses can be combined at all into one consciousness, from which they can dissociate. If you consider the empirical evidence of binocular rivalry, this is highly questionable. I would very much appreciate your thoughts on this. Kind regards, Stefan
Is the phenomenal conscious substrate just a way to get around solipsism? Because if we are consciousness dissociated from our one true consciousness we would all be just one mind without dissociation. In this case we can see that we all share the same consciousness but just do not associate ourselves with the consciousness of others. Solipsism is that only your mind and consciousness exists and no one else’s does. In the end idealism and solipsism say the same thing that only one mind exists. I feel like phenomenal consciousness or this non conscious conscious material is a way to get around this. Can someone break down where I’m wrong?
What are your thoughts on reincarnation in any possible concept but as a whole? You should read the late Danish writer and philosopher Martinus and his Cosmology. He actually bridges the gap between your "ridgid" distinctions. It's not necessarily one or the other (idealism vs panpsychism) but different levels of conscious presence. What you call inanimate objects are fundamentally made of the same as what you call life. Martinus claims both exist in our "physical reality" but with different levels of presences of consciousness in the vast eternal cycle of consciousness exploring it's self. He does not suggest that your wooden artifact or a random rock of minerals are conscious like you are, but that they are present here in our perception of a physical reality with dormant consciousness. It seems to me that you're actually absurdly stuck in the materaleistic science with your odd distinction between life and inanimate. If everything exists and is a manifestation of consciousness - where and how do you distinguish? Are plants and jellyfish conscious? They're alive, right? What are they made of? Are bacteria "life"? Are they conscious? What are they made of? Are quarks? Leptons? Where does your definition of consciousness arise?
if ideas create objects within consciousness, like dream rocks, then what if you dream of another dreamer? Then that dreamer is BOTH an object of your consciousness AND conscious. AWKWARD.
How in your theory are common excitations of consciousness that are part of the worlds furniture according to many conscious agents(The moon for instance, ala Einstein) accounted for? Answering this question in a very sound way would deflect a lot of seemingly valid criticisms.
@@whatisiswhatable More like what is the ontological status of said excitations. How are they formed by what process. We know they’re mental, but without more explanatory mechanism explaining the process of how objective reality arises the theory seems easily attacked for being too vague.
Regarding the primary and secondary excitations, I think you said that water/matter is the primary excitation of conciousness. Then a whirl pool/wave/soliton , would be the secondary excitation of conciousness. The body, which is an intricate structure in matter could also be the secondary excitation of consiousness.Mind (dissociated conciousness/separate personality, not conciousness, which the substrate) would have to be a different kind of excitation arising from the substrate, since it is not visible as a whirlpool. It would either have to be a secondary excitation of exotic matter (dark matter etc, which we cannot perceive, consequently its secondary excitations would not be directly visible to us) or, as prof.carr put it, in an interview at New Thinking Allowed, a phenomenon in the orthogonal dimensions, in a universe with more than 4 dimensions. either the excitations of ordinary matter and exotic matter are dancing around each other to create the dance of samsara/individual existence or, the phenomena in orthogonal dimensions are doing the dance. either way, the two sets of phenomena do interact with each other, but too subtly to be easily observable (at least on the matter side)..........
Brilliant insights Bernardo! Love this.❤️ But what happens if the dreamer dreams up both, a ROCK and a PERSON (say, Bob)? Both being images in the dreamer's consciousness, can be called Primary Excitations. Plus there is nothing "like to be Bob" as the dreamer is only watching Bob as an image in his dream, just like he's watching the Rock. Does this forebode the possibility that there are "some animate beings who are TRUE dissociations", while there "may be" some others who are just images (Primary Excitations), though they too look like animate beings?
I'm reading "Why materialism is a baloney" and I can tell you this is one of the most amazing mindblowing books I've ever read When are we gonna see it in Spanish & Portuguese?
I have an uncomfortable sense that you are using a binary model of consciousness/not-consciousness about what we experience in Creation, whereas I am inclined to wonder whether ‘consciousness’ may not also be shared by natural elements of the created world that we experience, as well as by what you call ‘living’ creatures, and to think that there may be gradations of consciousness whose lowest levels do not conform to our (at present) notion of the infinite variety consciousness manifests. Over time we have changed our understanding of the intellectual/mental faculties of females or non-whites. We may well have much to learn regarding the levels of consciousness of all of the natural world. I believe you fall into this possible error of ignoring possible gradations of consciousness because when you talk of the consciousness of humans, in fact you seem to be referring to our self-consciousness. Without microscopic technology we did not know of the existence of certain organisms. We did not at first know of the full light range, because some wavelengths were invisible to human eyes. It may be that making an assumption about there being no consciousness in water or rock is a bit presumptuous in a similar way, simply because we have pre-existing views about what ‘consciousness’, (not ‘self-consciousness’), is. Thank you for your books and videos, Bernardo. I enjoy them and learn a great deal from them.
A rock knows its a rock, a tree knows its a tree etc. Awareness has different levels as all matter vibrates at different levels. i do agree that when one imagines the rock or river or sunrise that those imagined states do not nor cannot hold awareness. When ones cuts down a tree to make lumber or your figure of wood , the awareness state remains as wood not as the object man has molded it into. Much like TIME itself is merely a concept of the human mind. We refer to the big bang as the begining of time but there was a vibration that preceded the big bang. " Intuition" is accepted today and holds equal weight as per your explanation used for the persons imagined site. Neither in each case is in the present state. I found you're site today and it is a site i wish i found in my early days!! Certainly would have led to my attending a higher education. You are very good at explaining complicated puzzles of the mind. Even if i disagree with the inanimate line of thought. Cheers.
I said to Philip Goff on twitter that if something is conscious, then it's alive. He disagreed, saying particles can be conscious without being alive. I said, if it's dead, then it isn't conscious.
Of course you also have to explain how memory works without assuming something outside consciousnesses. And how mental deseases can be explained with idealism.
if ideas create objects within consciousness, like dream rocks, then what if you dream of another dreamer? Then that dreamer is BOTH an object of your consciousness AND conscious. AWKWARD.
Hello, I am considering Idealism myself and I am curious about something. How do you escape the problem of other minds? How do you know other minds exist outside of your own mind?
To grant other people and even other life the property of being conscious themselves is the simplest, most logical explanation for empirical observations. The argument for this is elaborate and I can't do justice to it in a RUclips comment. I discuss the topic at length in my book 'Why Materialism Is Baloney.'
***** Thank you for such a hasty response, Dr. Kastrup. I can see why an answer to my question can be hard to squeeze into a youtube comment. I guess I'll have to check out your book for a more detailed response. So far it sounds like an inference to the best explanation. However it also reminds me an argument from Dharmakīrti, and it goes like this: P1: I experience actions of a certain type. P2: Actions of this certain type have their cause in consciousness. P3: These actions do not have their cause in my consciousness. C1: Therefore, these actions have their cause in another consciousness. C2: Therefore, consciousnesses other than mine exist. Is this sort of how your argument would like look? Thanks again for your help.
Bernardo, thanks for this video, great insights. As I listened I was wondering of taking the exploration in the opposite direction, where no "thing" and no "one" other thanConciousnes is Councious. In the dream analogy, even if the character you identify with appears as part of the dream, it is clear that 'it' is not Councious (as non of the other made up characters or things). This same reasoning in 'awake' state, would mean that the eyes don't see, the skin does not feel nor the brain (or apparent person) is conscious, all these are just modulations in Counciousness itself, nothing beyond, no sentient beings other than the 'ideas' of them as in the dream state.
thoge40 Insofar as you suggest that all characters and personal identities are just stories in consciousness (which I call "localizations of consciousness"), I concur. There is a strong sense in which individual identity is an illusion. Yet, the illusion is empirically undeniable, so we must find a way to explain how the illusion arises within the one consciousness (the only thing that is conscious). This, in a sense, is what I attempt to do.
***** Well, to the extent that you and I are empirically and undoubtedly conscious, this phenomenon we call "individual consciousness" is undeniable, even if illusory at bottom. After all, there is something it is like to be me, and you, and we can't deny it by saying that you and I aren't conscious.That said, I entirely agree with you that our "personal consciousnesses" are, in fact, the one-consciousness in disguise. I agree that there is only one consciousness, which is the same in you, me, all other people, and likely all other living beings. I agree that personal identity is an illusion. Yet, it is a fact that the illusion happens. As such, this fact must be explained. How does it come to pass that I have the illusion of being me, separate from you and all other living beings? What process in consciousness can explain this? This is what I try to tackle.In essence, I agree with you. I think we're basically debating semantics.
regarding dissociation, there is the following exchange in one of Francis Lucille's discussion : "if we are all part of the same conciousness, how is it that I am not aware of your thoughts, sensations and perceptions?"; " how do you know that you were not aware of it, and then forgot it" (like you forget one of your own thoughts when you are processing the next thought - ok, i am not sure this part was in the discussion, but the previous reply to the question was certainly there, and Francis attributed that reply to the question to his teacher). It is like the one conciousness switches context and enters a different thread, for each autonomous subjective experience - this anology of a thread in operating system is my own...
Is something wrong with me, the people or philosophers? 25 minutes dedicated to explaining the difference between being in consciousness vs. being conscious ... just too much.
We're witness to one of the finest minds of our lifetime (s)and personally, I'm unable to shed an overwhelming feeling of wealth while witness to the these moments.
ALL: I cannot comment on philosophical content via RUclips comments anymore, due to limited time and redundancy with other places where I do discuss my philosophical system. So if you like to engage on philosophical discussions, please post in my Discussion Forum at: groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/metaphysical-speculations. You can find more useful links about my philosophical system here: www.bernardokastrup.com/2015/04/social-media-policy-and-useful-links.html. I count on your understanding!
I like the way you think, and have had similar thoughts. Particularly when it comes to Dissociation. An interesting aspect of psychological dissociation is that it arises from trauma. Now what kind of trauma might a universal consciousness have suffered? My thought is that the infinite sense of utter loneliness was enough to shatter the universal mind, into everything we see.
I have come to different conclusions regarding matter, energy, space, et. al. I believe in something between idealism and panpsychism.
I believe that there are no objects separate from consciousness- that the continued existence of objects is proof of their consciousness of their own existence.
In other words, unlike you, I believe that the entirety of reality, known and unknown, is consciousness on some level. Everything was built from consciousness, reflecting only on itself, and there is nothing other than consciousness- any images or forms that arise from it are essentially aspects of consciousness viewed from a dissociated perspective.
Think of it this way- to have dreamed our reality (and any others) the dreamer would have required a subject to build from; our own dreams are filled with the symbolism of our own experience- why would it be different for the dreamer? If there is nothing other than the dreamer, than all experience it has to draw from is an aspect of itself. Therefore, any images in its dream must be conscious.
Thanks for this. I understand idealism better now. It sounds like some form of simulation/dream mode
I think the line between awareness and consciousness is unclear. Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably and sometimes there is a clear distinction like in example of deep sleep. In deep sleep I am conscious but not aware of it or is it that I am aware of no experience(including consciousness). So as long as there is no clear definition of both the terms we are going to be stuck in the misty domain.
Consciousness can be seen here as a presence. Something is there, an inner existent. However, awareness can be the knowledge that something emanates from consciousness. It is like a small projection of consciousness.
Thank you again and again for this very exhaustive explanation. But...what about water, which crystals change according to the way it is treated; what about plants that communicate between them and react differently if well/bad treated?
Great explanation! Thank you!
It's a very good explanation to refute concept of Pantheism like for example in Hinduism or eastern philosophy...
Dear Mr. Kastrup,
thank you very much for your clear, precise and eloquent explanations. You manage very well to make the viewer belief that everything you say is logic and makes sense.
You say inanimate objects are primary excitations of mind. Conscious "objects" (what is all life for you) in contrast are secondary excitations of mind, self-localizations (localisations of individual selves from one self) originating from dissociative processes. But primary excitations are no self-localizations and are therefore not conscious. Also secondary excitations have an image, i. e. the body of living beings (are primary and secondary images different except there is more behind secondary ones (consciousness)?). Is that correctly described so far? But those are only some statements and definitions. Let's see if we can give a coherent and logic model of this theory, which is also capatible which the knowledge of physics.
In your idealism fundamental entity of everything is a field of consciousness (I don't know what field means in context of consciousness and what I shall imagine here). That field is somehow conscious and is empty in "ground state" (before big bang?) without any experience. Then primary "excitations" of the field can occur, which lead to the experience (dream) of inanimate physical objects like at first spacetime and then matter in it like galaxies, stars, nebulas, planets, rocks, etc. by the field of consciousness. It experiences those physical objects like we with our five senses (that's my interpretation, you remain completely vague here). But not only from one individual perspective as we but simultaneously from every possible perspective (which might be infinite). But the field has no self-awareness awareness but only those experiences. They occur to it like a film which we are totally absorbed in so that we forget everything around us, including our self.
That field also is not capable of abstract thinking like humans. It just experiences things happening and evolving. Perhaps it not even has an understanding for what it is experiencing. Just like some adult who has been blind for his whole life and sees for the first time after a new medical treatment is available. However, the evolution and behaviour of things has to be according to physical laws (unless we do not want to deny their existence). So we need a mechanism steering the excitations or experiences of the field according to those laws. But the field is unaware of this mechanism. So far the field of consciousness is the only conscious entity. But it has no image or even understanding what itself is: a (mysterious) field of consciousness (excited like a piano is played by someone by mysterious processes).
Then as the universe evolves at some point of time (maybe after several billion years), the first stage of life occurs. Let's say molecules which can make copies of themselves or are copied by some mechanism in a predecessor of cells. You now say that these excitations of the field of consciousness are somehow more than primary excitations. They are secondary ones and as such have been separated from the original field by mysterious dissociative processes. However, the excitations (conscious experiences) of this new field are ruled and caused by the excitations of the original field (which is steered by the physical laws simulating mechanism). So the original field (although not self-aware) can somehow influence itself. The new field does not have the overall experience of the original field of consciousness, as it is only a part (one perspective) of the original field. The new fields are also deprived of each other's experiences and original field's.
In fact those first self-replicating molecules only have a very simple kind of consciousness. Whatever the experience of molecules shall be like, as we only are familiar with macroscopic experiences, whereas on microscopic level for example no colour and no sound exists.
Then in the course of evolution of life and brains more complex consciousnesses develop, peaking in self-consciousness and finally the human consciousness with its ability for abstract thinking and metacognition. With every new kind of living creature evolving, in the original consciousness more complex new fields of consciousness are created/split off of the original field of consciousness. The new fields also gain completely new dimensions of conscious experience like the feeling of being in love for example, abstract tinking or self-awareness. Those new dimensions are somehow magically added to the abilities of the original field.
That's my formulation of your theory if you get a bit out of the completely vague. I think it's the only logic and consistent model you can draft to describe your postulates and empirical findings without staying completely abstract. Do you agree with that or where do you disagree?
From that model, however, the following (old) problems arises from my point of view:
1. You have to assume something else beside/outside consciousnesses - the activation mechanism for the original field of consciousness (including steering/modulating our experiences, e. g. making us awake after sleep) and its patterns causing the dissociation. Also the dissociation mechanism is out of consciousness as we are not aware of it. So you still have a dualism. I think you reply to that that the dissociation was only an illusion and in reality our minds are not separated. Well, if such an illusion (you have experiences but do not know it) is possible, then also qualia could be an illusion (you have no experiences but believe to have them). Then the hard problem is also solved.
2. The original field of consciousness has artificially to be enriched by new dimensions of experience during evolution of life. You can't derive the feeling of self-awareness from experiences of our senses. This happens magically and again requires some mechanism outside/before consciousness. If the original field of consciousness initially only dreams inanimate objects. So no self-aware being can dissociate from it by definition.
3. What is the image of the original field of consciousness? As you say conscious beings represent as life to each other, where is the image of the universal consciousness? Why do we only see its contents?
4. You have to postulate that our individual consciousnesses can be combined at all into one consciousness, from which they can dissociate. If you consider the empirical evidence of binocular rivalry, this is highly questionable.
I would very much appreciate your thoughts on this.
Kind regards,
Stefan
Then how was consciousness created or what is this field of consciousness where does it come from, or was it just always there.
Is the phenomenal conscious substrate just a way to get around solipsism? Because if we are consciousness dissociated from our one true consciousness we would all be just one mind without dissociation. In this case we can see that we all share the same consciousness but just do not associate ourselves with the consciousness of others. Solipsism is that only your mind and consciousness exists and no one else’s does. In the end idealism and solipsism say the same thing that only one mind exists. I feel like phenomenal consciousness or this non conscious conscious material is a way to get around this. Can someone break down where I’m wrong?
Wrong. All is consciousness. Because consciousness is all that there is.
What are your thoughts on reincarnation in any possible concept but as a whole?
You should read the late Danish writer and philosopher Martinus and his Cosmology. He actually bridges the gap between your "ridgid" distinctions. It's not necessarily one or the other (idealism vs panpsychism) but different levels of conscious presence.
What you call inanimate objects are fundamentally made of the same as what you call life. Martinus claims both exist in our "physical reality" but with different levels of presences of consciousness in the vast eternal cycle of consciousness exploring it's self. He does not suggest that your wooden artifact or a random rock of minerals are conscious like you are, but that they are present here in our perception of a physical reality with dormant consciousness.
It seems to me that you're actually absurdly stuck in the materaleistic science with your odd distinction between life and inanimate. If everything exists and is a manifestation of consciousness - where and how do you distinguish? Are plants and jellyfish conscious? They're alive, right? What are they made of? Are bacteria "life"? Are they conscious? What are they made of? Are quarks? Leptons?
Where does your definition of consciousness arise?
if ideas create objects within consciousness, like dream rocks, then what if you dream of another dreamer? Then that dreamer is BOTH an object of your consciousness AND conscious. AWKWARD.
That's where God comes in as the master dreamer, I think.
How in your theory are common excitations of consciousness that are part of the worlds furniture according to many conscious agents(The moon for instance, ala Einstein) accounted for?
Answering this question in a very sound way would deflect a lot of seemingly valid criticisms.
Not sure I understand. Do you mean how do conscious agents agree on shared perceptions?
@@whatisiswhatable More like what is the ontological status of said excitations. How are they formed by what process.
We know they’re mental, but without more explanatory mechanism explaining the process of how objective reality arises the theory seems easily attacked for being too vague.
Thanks yes, i dont think there is conscious 'of'. Just consciouness. In night dream, the dreamer IS the events, characters. Xx
So funny how intellectual people always want to show which books they read. Easy Bernardo, Sam did it too ;)
I guess I'm just not smart enough to understand this I wish I knew what he was getting at
Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily Merrily Merrily
Life is but a dream ❤️
Regarding the primary and secondary excitations, I think you said that water/matter is the primary excitation of conciousness. Then a whirl pool/wave/soliton , would be the secondary excitation of conciousness. The body, which is an intricate structure in matter could also be the secondary excitation of consiousness.Mind (dissociated conciousness/separate personality, not conciousness, which the substrate) would have to be a different kind of excitation arising from the substrate, since it is not visible as a whirlpool. It would either have to be a secondary excitation of exotic matter (dark matter etc, which we cannot perceive, consequently its secondary excitations would not be directly visible to us) or, as prof.carr put it, in an interview at New Thinking Allowed, a phenomenon in the orthogonal dimensions, in a universe with more than 4 dimensions. either the excitations of ordinary matter and exotic matter are dancing around each other to create the dance of samsara/individual existence or, the phenomena in orthogonal dimensions are doing the dance. either way, the two sets of phenomena do interact with each other, but too subtly to be easily observable (at least on the matter side)..........
Brilliant insights Bernardo! Love this.❤️
But what happens if the dreamer dreams up both, a ROCK and a PERSON (say, Bob)? Both being images in the dreamer's consciousness, can be called Primary Excitations. Plus there is nothing "like to be Bob" as the dreamer is only watching Bob as an image in his dream, just like he's watching the Rock.
Does this forebode the possibility that there are "some animate beings who are TRUE dissociations", while there "may be" some others who are just images (Primary Excitations), though they too look like animate beings?
I revisit your videos all the time. They’re so soooo good! Such gold!
I'm reading "Why materialism is a baloney" and I can tell you this is one of the most amazing mindblowing books I've ever read
When are we gonna see it in Spanish & Portuguese?
I have an uncomfortable sense that you are using a binary model of consciousness/not-consciousness about what we experience in Creation, whereas I am inclined to wonder whether ‘consciousness’ may not also be shared by
natural elements of the created world that we experience, as well as by what you call ‘living’ creatures, and to think that there may be gradations of consciousness whose lowest levels do not conform to our (at present) notion of the infinite variety consciousness manifests.
Over time we have changed our understanding of the intellectual/mental faculties of females or non-whites. We may well have much to learn regarding the levels of consciousness of all of the natural world.
I believe you fall into this possible error of ignoring possible
gradations of consciousness because when you talk of
the consciousness of humans, in fact you seem to be referring to our self-consciousness.
Without microscopic technology we did not know of the existence of certain organisms. We did not at first know of the full light range, because some wavelengths were invisible to human eyes. It may be that making
an assumption about there being no consciousness in water or rock is a bit presumptuous in a similar way, simply because we have pre-existing views about what ‘consciousness’, (not ‘self-consciousness’), is.
Thank you for your books and videos, Bernardo. I enjoy them and learn a great deal from them.
I love you Bernardo Kastrup
A rock knows its a rock, a tree knows its a tree etc. Awareness has different levels as all matter vibrates at different levels. i do agree that when one imagines the rock or river or sunrise that those imagined states do not nor cannot hold awareness. When ones cuts down a tree to make lumber or your figure of wood , the awareness state remains as wood not as the object man has molded it into. Much like TIME itself is merely a concept of the human mind. We refer to the big bang as the begining of time but there was a vibration that preceded the big bang. " Intuition" is accepted today and holds equal weight as per your explanation used for the persons imagined site. Neither in each case is in the present state. I found you're site today and it is a site i wish i found in my early days!! Certainly would have led to my attending a higher education. You are very good at explaining complicated puzzles of the mind. Even if i disagree with the inanimate line of thought. Cheers.
I said to Philip Goff on twitter that if something is conscious, then it's alive. He disagreed, saying particles can be conscious without being alive. I said, if it's dead, then it isn't conscious.
Of course you also have to explain how memory works without assuming something outside consciousnesses. And how mental deseases can be explained with idealism.
if ideas create objects within consciousness, like dream rocks, then what if you dream of another dreamer? Then that dreamer is BOTH an object of your consciousness AND conscious. AWKWARD.
Hello, I am considering Idealism myself and I am curious about something. How do you escape the problem of other minds? How do you know other minds exist outside of your own mind?
To grant other people and even other life the property of being conscious themselves is the simplest, most logical explanation for empirical observations. The argument for this is elaborate and I can't do justice to it in a RUclips comment. I discuss the topic at length in my book 'Why Materialism Is Baloney.'
***** Thank you for such a hasty response, Dr. Kastrup. I can see why an answer to my question can be hard to squeeze into a youtube comment. I guess I'll have to check out your book for a more detailed response. So far it sounds like an inference to the best explanation. However it also reminds me an argument from Dharmakīrti, and it goes like this:
P1: I experience actions of a certain type.
P2: Actions of this certain type have their cause in consciousness.
P3: These actions do not have their cause in my consciousness.
C1: Therefore, these actions have their cause in another consciousness.
C2: Therefore, consciousnesses other than mine exist.
Is this sort of how your argument would like look?
Thanks again for your help.
Bernardo, thanks for this video, great insights. As I listened I was wondering of taking the exploration in the opposite direction, where no "thing" and no "one" other thanConciousnes is Councious. In the dream analogy, even if the character you identify with appears as part of the dream, it is clear that 'it' is not Councious (as non of the other made up characters or things). This same reasoning in 'awake' state, would mean that the eyes don't see, the skin does not feel nor the brain (or apparent person) is conscious, all these are just modulations in Counciousness itself, nothing beyond, no sentient beings other than the 'ideas' of them as in the dream state.
thoge40 Insofar as you suggest that all characters and personal identities are just stories in consciousness (which I call "localizations of consciousness"), I concur. There is a strong sense in which individual identity is an illusion. Yet, the illusion is empirically undeniable, so we must find a way to explain how the illusion arises within the one consciousness (the only thing that is conscious). This, in a sense, is what I attempt to do.
***** Well, to the extent that you and I are empirically and undoubtedly conscious, this phenomenon we call "individual consciousness" is undeniable, even if illusory at bottom. After all, there is something it is like to be me, and you, and we can't deny it by saying that you and I aren't conscious.That said, I entirely agree with you that our "personal consciousnesses" are, in fact, the one-consciousness in disguise. I agree that there is only one consciousness, which is the same in you, me, all other people, and likely all other living beings. I agree that personal identity is an illusion. Yet, it is a fact that the illusion happens. As such, this fact must be explained. How does it come to pass that I have the illusion of being me, separate from you and all other living beings? What process in consciousness can explain this? This is what I try to tackle.In essence, I agree with you. I think we're basically debating semantics.
regarding dissociation, there is the following exchange in one of Francis Lucille's discussion : "if we are all part of the same conciousness, how is it that I am not aware of your thoughts, sensations and perceptions?"; " how do you know that you were not aware of it, and then forgot it" (like you forget one of your own thoughts when you are processing the next thought - ok, i am not sure this part was in the discussion, but the previous reply to the question was certainly there, and Francis attributed that reply to the question to his teacher). It is like the one conciousness switches context and enters a different thread, for each autonomous subjective experience - this anology of a thread in operating system is my own...
Is something wrong with me, the people or philosophers? 25 minutes dedicated to explaining the difference between being in consciousness vs. being conscious ... just too much.
I wish you would give us a tour or your book collection I see some interesting books behind you