You are thinking in the Physical Paradigm where consciousness somehow emerges from matter.
No I’m not – read what I wrote - under your paradigm 2 (Russell’s idea) natural selection can’t work.
Russell is talking about consciousness being the most basic 'unit' of reality. Natural selection then is a phenomenon or process within consciousness. In this framework (paradigm) natural selection is in fact consciousness at work. ['Unit' is an inappropriate word but it gives the gist]
Exactly – and it can’t work. Natural selection works by action of the environment (reality) on the fitness of phenotypes (reality) to permit them to reproduce their genotype or not. It doesn’t work in the ether of consciousness – get it?
You are suggesting that consciousness conjures up countless artifacts of processes that require geological time to work, in the absence of your own consciousness. It’s as daft as the creationist doctrine that the universe was created with “apparent age”.
If consciousness is the basis of reality then physical manifestations such as zits are (to borrow from Douglas Adams) mostly harmless.
It doesn’t matter that they are “mostly harmless” – I’m asking about ontology. What is at the root of a zit inside consciousness?
I'll give a hypothetical answer for zits but its not meant to be literally true but it will explain the principle at work.
Zits are a sign that something is not quite right. It is a signal to the individual that he needs to look at his diet and/or environment to see where some beneficial changes could be made. The zits themselves are very rarely dangerous but if it is an extreme case then perhaps there is a more urgent need to assess diet and lifestyle.
Zits then are a feedback system designed to inform and assist the 'sufferer'.
Why would the sufferer of zits need to look at his “diet” or “environment”. Surely the owner of the zit, once conscious of his consciousness, he should look to his consciousness under your paradigm 2 – where the zits and diet and environment emanate from. Or can one cross between the two paradigms depending on whether one is in reality or in lala land?
Until I have better knowledge I will put Alzheimer's into the same category as zits but a more extreme example indicating a more serious warning about diet and lifestyle - possibly a long term effect of ingesting unhealthy substances which find their way into our processed food supply.
Same problem as above – you are mixing up the sources of your realities. And you haven't given me a reason why consciousness would dim itself.
My attempts at explaining time would be amateur if I attempted it. But I'll make this suggestion - consciousness as a whole does not age. Consciousness experiences, observes and learns. The perception of a physical universe manifests mostly as changing forms but these are simply images presented to consciousness or within consciousness. They are just one particular subset of consciousness. To use an analogy, the images in a movie may convey twenty years of change under the influence of time in the story, while the observer (viewer) is largely unaffected by time.
Dominic, if consciousness does not age then why would our bodies (created by consciousness) age relentlessly? Why would worms, bacteria, and fungi eat our bodies, sometimes before we are dead, and carry on after we are dead.
Say I was driving in the desert and came across a stranded stranger, almost dead and with one eye already picked out by a vulture sitting nearby. Just before saving the bloke I took a photo of the scene and showed it to you 2 years later. Whose consciousness created the reality:
- the vulture, or
- the one eyed survivor, or
- me the photographer, or
- you the observer of the photograph?
More importantly WHEN was the reality created?
NDEs suggest that consciousness continues even when the heart and breathing are stopped and when brain activity is minimal. I know that we talk of 'unconsciousness' from anaesthesia and/or from bodily injuries but I suggest that this is a change of consciousness states, not an ending of consciousness. During NDEs people report more vivid, coherent, meaningful and 'real' experiences than in their normal lives. We actually know very little of what consciousness is capable of.
We’ve done NDEs to death. There are reasonable explanations. You make them rise again like zombies who have been shot down many times before. Dominic, how do you define “near death”? How is it calibrated? Is a person tripping on LCD having a NDE? They also have vivid hallucinations.
How do you define "meaningful" - that a person almost killed by a suicide bomber suddenly believes the prophet Mohammed because he remembers seeing a bright light and hearing voices after being operated on and resuscitated using science?
One theory is that the 'higher being' is the totality of consciousness (whatever that may turn out to be) and we as individuals are each experiencing a subset of that totality in accordance with our current beliefs, senses, understanding.
Finally something I can agree with. The lower ranked consciousnesses all together creating the ‘higher being’.
A clusterfuck of lala woowoo. I have been to many different churches and religious gatherings and have seen that process in action. I will have no further part in it thank you.
