James wrote...



What can one think about and remain in this state?

My understanding is that this state which you deem to be pure awareness is, in fact, a purely thoughtless state of mind, which to me at least, refutes the idea that it is an equal to conscious thought - of any sort.



I find it hard to consider this a palapable conclusion to the point that I am now going to make. One obviously does not continue their existence in this state of mind, for any conscious thought(the mental recognition that one is actually thinking) reduces it to a normal one which constantly does this.

Therefore, the state itself cannot be equated to a kind of thought.



Consciousness itself is not thought, it is however born of thought - specifically, the realization that one exists. That is my point. Consciousness and awareness are not one in the same. Consciousness is self-awareness - a product of complex thought.



I would again agree, if thought is considered to be 'conscious awareness'. Again, a bee has conscious awareness: they are awake and quite aware of their surroundings.

Do bees think?

Bees have no consciousness, they do not realize that they exist.



In closing, Massagetrade is a prophet!

I want to say that all is good, regardless of our different perspectives here. I hope that all have enjoyed this as I have...

Yes.

I'm actually quite surprised by many of the things that you have stated in your last post. Especially considering that you seem to be totally absorbed in philosophy.

You last statement that bees do not 'realize' that they exist truly brought a genuine belly laugh when I read it. It's clear to me that you have totally different views of life than do I.

Just because animals have no self-awareness as defined egotistically by humans, doesn't mean that they don't realize they exist.

If you believe that, where do you draw the line. What about a dog, or a cat? If they don't even realize that they exist then would you feel that it's ok to torture them or be mean to them, because they don't even realize they exist?

If you have any feelings whatsoever concerning the humane treatment of animals then you must believe that animals are aware of their existence.

You speak about the self-awareness of humans almost in a way that seems ludicous to me. The self-awareness of humans that sets humans apart from animals is the EGO. Just because animals don't have egos doesn't mean that they have no sense of existence. In fact, I would even argue that some animals actually do exhibit egotistical traits.

I just don't see this cut-and-dried line that you seem to draw between animals and humans. For me that line just doesn't exist. That's one of the illusions of analytical thought.

We are not our egos.

That's my whole point.

Language (or analytical thought) may very well be what gave rise to our egos. But it did not give rise to our awareness (except perhaps the awarenes of our egos)

I simply do not agree with your stance that animals aren't aware that they exist. They may not be aware that they were born, and that they will die, and all those analytical details that we have become so aborbed with to believe that they somehow define us. But those analytical details are not what gives rise to our consciousness. At least not in terms of consciousness as I see it.

Clearly you have an entirely different perspective of what consciousness even means.

I won't argue with your perspective, I'll simply say that it is not mine, and we can just leave it at that.

We just don't appear to have anywhere near the same views on this. That's all. No one is right or wrong. We just have completely different views.

I'm currently listening to another Teaching Company Course. This one is called: "Conciousness and Its Implications".

I've only just started with the first two lectures. In these lectures he discusses ideas similar to what you're presenting here. He speaks about the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Both of whom attempt to get at the essence of consciouness via a newtonian point of view. It's almost laughable at what these philosophers were suggesting. But I guess in hindsight of the newtonian view of the world it's understandable.

Although they did recognize some fundamentals which I feel actually places your language analogy in a secondary role. The main idea is the story of the prince and the cobbler. Who is the prince, and who is the cobbler? If their roles were change in mid-life, would that change who they are? Clearly not. It would merely change their life's circumstances, but it wouldn't chance the essence of who they are.

It is this underlying essence that is totally unaffected by language. Language and analytical thought is what make us think we are a prince or a cobbler. But it's not the true essence of our conciousness. And that's really the point that I was attempting to get at in this thread.

I have 10 more lectures to go in this course. Usually these lectures start out with this old archaic stuff and then end with more cutting edge ideas, so I'm interested to see where this course ends up.

I just listen to these courses for entertainment. I'm not concerned with defining consciousness. I experience consciousness and that's far more enlightenting for me.

I find the physical sciences far more interesting to "analyize".

This is very funny to me.

But it would ultimately boil down to what a person understands as consciousness. (Forget about tossing out some dictionary definition of the word consciousness.) Think only about the concept. (Definitions are created by individuals and each individual has a different point of view.)

We all have gone round and round with the semantics of these words, and until we can agree on the concepts we can't discuss whether or not bees have consciousness.

It is true, a bee has probably never stopped to consider whether or not it exists. Bees don't think like that. They are more like part of the whole consciousness of bees. They operate not so much as individuals but as a whole because they are programed for certain duties and functions of survival. But I believe that the group hive does have consciousness and that consciousness is shared in that they work together as a whole and for the whole, but certainly not as individuals.

It is called "Hive consciousness."

This dialogue has lost any form of mutual understanding...



I want to correct all of the misleading extrapolations, but I will not. I recognize where it has gone awry, but have consciously chosen to not address it directly.



James,

You have not contemplated what I have actually written, and your responses clearly show this.

I could say the same thing about your responses.

I think we just have views of reality that are so drastically different that perhaps we are not able to understand each other's perceptions.

Or like Jeanniebean just said:



I think the only resolution here would be to delve into an indepth conversation concerning what we mean by conscioussness and ultimately thought.

This was the very reason that I had asked very early on if you were considering only analytical thought or if you were considering thought in general (i.e. Descartes' "I think therefore I am")

Although it seems to me, based on your responses to my comments on Descartes' quote, that you even take Descartes' words to be quite literally referring to analytical thought.

Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that we just have totally different views of these ideas altogether.

I stated that Descartes' quote would have been better stated, "I'm aware, therefore I am." I personally believe that this is what he actually meant when he wrote this.

You seem to have a differnet view. You state:



Well, clearly we have a drastically different view of things right there.

What's to contemplate? I fully understand what you are writing. I just have a problem with what your writings are suggesting.

If we take Descartes' words to literally mean analytical thinking (i.e. in terms of language and the dichotomy of things), then we must concede that only humans do this.

But now if we take Descartes' quote and apply it to animals that don't think analytically, then we must say, "Animals don't think, therefore they aren't"

This makes utterly no sense to me.

Also Descarte didn't say, "I think therefore I am self-conscious".

He said, "I think therefore I AM"

I personally take this to mean that he was using the word "think" to mean that he is "aware".

In fact, this was my whole point to begin with.

When you ask, "Is thought unspoken language". I must ask, "What do you mean by thought?"

In fact, that's precisely what I meant to ask when I asked if you were referring only to analtyical thinking.

If to be aware is to think, then any awareness at all is thought. But it doesn't need to be analytical thought nor would it be dependent upon language in any way.

So all I was doing was attempting to clarify just what we mean by thought for the purposes of this discussion concerning whether or not thought is synonomous with language. (i.e. Is thought unspoken langauge).

My answer to that question is quite simply.

Yes, analytical thought is synonomous with language and gives rise to language.

However, all thought is not anaylitical in nature. Pure awareness qualifies as thought or consciousness.

Animals are conscious (perhaps not egocentrically self-conscious), but they are conscious non the less. And from my point of view that qualities as thought.

Based on what you have been presenting it appears to me that you are insistenting upon a very strong dichotomy between the awareness of animals and the awareness of humans.

I believe that there is no fundamental dichotomy there, until we speak in terms of self-awareness.

Self-awareness is indeed analytical thinking. There's no question about that, in my mind. The very division of one's self from everything else is indeed an analytical thought.

So while you seem to be concerned with 'language', I would suggest that what's truly important is not language, but analytical thought.

I hold that analytical thought is what gives rise to language. So in that realm of thinking I agree with the notion that "Analytical thought is unspoken language".

But at the same time I must also establish that all thought is not analytical.

For me this is paramount. In fact, I would hold that it's the non-analytical thought that constitutes true awareness. The analytical thought is what creates the drama and dichotomy. Analytical thought can be transcended or ignored and consciousness remains in tact.

That's the only point that I'm attempting to make here. And non-analytical thought would most certainly not be dependent on language in any way shape or form.

At least that's my position. That's all I can say.

If you disagree with this position more power to you. I'm just trying to share how I view these things.

Like Jeanniebean suggested, perhaps it all comes down to semantics and we just disagree with the labels (the language).

I just hold that by my underestanding of these terms language is not required for concsiousness. And for me, consciousness is synonomous with thought.

I'm in agreement with the quote of Eckhart Tolle, "Consciousness is required for thought, but thought is not required for consciousness"

Clearly in this statement he's using the term 'thought' here to mean "analytical thought". Analysis.

In other words, what he truly should have said is, "Consciousness is required for analysis, but analysis is not required for consciousness."

I believe that make it far more clear as to what he actually meant.

People don't always choose the best words for communicating what they actually mean. Words are often quite ambigous. Especially words like thought, consciousness, awareness, etc.

These are deeply illusive concepts.

And I can't help but posting a quote from one of my favorite physicists:

"We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers, who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, 'You don't know what you are talking about!' The second one says 'What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?', and so on." - Richard Feynman

This is why I typically avoid philosophy. It's an ill-defined field of study.

I don't think this dialog ever had any form of 'mutual understanding' to begin with.

Creative you made the statement that bees have no consciousness and do not realize they exist. How would you know that? From where does this assumption come? How do you draw this conclusion?

You say you want to "correct" all of the misleading extrapolations... (as if your statement is to be assumed 'correct' and everyone else's is 'wrong' or incorrect.)

If you don't want to back up or explain your assertions why do you even make them? Why should you be believed? I make tons of assertions, some of them outlandish. But if asked to explain my reasons for believing so, I will do my best to explain why I believe the way I do; not for the sake of proving anything, but for the sake of understanding where I am coming from.

Communication begins with some sort of understanding.

I have a couple of suggestions...

What would the conversation look like if the terms thought, language, and consciousness were left unsaid?

Could the statements retain their meaning? Better yet, could that meaning be further developed?

Or we could just use the terms as the Webster's says that they are meant to be used...



Which is one in the same, for me at least.

con·scious·ness

1 a: the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself b: the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact c: awareness ; especially : concern for some social or political cause

2: the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : mind

3: the totality of conscious states of an individual

4: the normal state of conscious life <regained consciousness>

5: the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes



thought

1 a: the action or process of thinking : cogitation b: serious consideration : regard carchaic : recollection, remembrance

2 a: reasoning power b: the power to imagine : conception

3: something that is thought: as a: an individual act or product of thinking b: a developed intention or plan <had no thought of leaving home> c: something (as an opinion or belief) in the mind <he spoke his thoughts freely> d: the intellectual product or the organized views and principles of a period, place, group, or individual <contemporary Western thought




lan·guage

1 a: the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community b (1): audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs (2): a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings (3): the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings <language in their very gesture — Shakespeare> (4): the means by which animals communicate (5): a formal system of signs and symbols (as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions (6): machine language 1

2 a: form or manner of verbal expression ; specifically : style b: the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or a department of knowledge c: profanity

3: the study of language especially as a school subject

4: specific words especially in a law or regulation

As I wrote earlier...

The only problem that I have with the most commonly used definition of language is the fact that it requires communication. Which leads me to the following question...

What is it in the mind that is already had prior to this?

Representational understanding.

If I would leave that definition alone, my claim actually has more weight, as Di has been suggesting. However, I do believe that animals think much more than we are aware of. I do believe that they have some form of representational understanding, depending of course on how far away from pure instinct their minds have evolved.

So James,

For you to extrapolate in the manner that you have regarding what you think my writing suggests is to have completely misunderstood the meaning behind the words.

All I have to go by is what you type in your posts. I can't help that. If I'm misunderstanding your intent then this can only be attributed to a failure of written words to properly communicate our thoughts.

As far as appealing to dictionary definitions for these concepts, I think that's rather absurd to be perfectly honest about it. If you give dictionary definitions all that much weight then when you want to understand something just look it up in a dictionary. However, if you look it up in more than one dictionary you'll probably discover that even the publishers of dictionaries don't always agree on the meaning of words.

Finally, you have given a dictionary definition of consciousness, yet this seems quite ironic to me coming from a philosopher.

This course that I'm currently taking on the implication of consciousness begins by making the proclamation that no one has yet been able to pin down the very concept of concsciousness. It has totally escaped precise definition for all of human history.

This is how the course begins. He then goes on to explain various differnet ways in which a variety of philosophers has attempted to pin down the meaning of consciouness. He shows the flaws in each definition and the conflicts between the definitions of various phiolosophers.

He even discusses the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato and shows some of their similarities and differences.

So the very idea of appealing to a dictionary definition seems to me to be quite inappropreate for a philosopher to do.

In fact, if we look at some of the dictionary definitions for consciousness we can see that in many cases they are also vauge or ambigious

You've posted:



Take this first definition of consciousness:

1 a: the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself b: the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact c: awareness ; especially : concern for some social or political cause

This is extremely crude, and sounds like a stab in the dark by someone desperate to write a definition for a word.

Being aware "especially of something within oneself"?

What does that mean?

And then they go on to state, being conscious of an external object, state, or fact.

Here their using the actual word conscious to define itself, and they seem to have already abandoned their first notion that conciousness is being aware "especially of something within oneself"?

Again what is that supposed to even mean?

Finally they say, "awareness ; especially : concern for some social or political cause"

What? Concern for some social or political cause is required for consciousness?

Clearly these are very crude layman definitions and not to be taken seriously for any criteria for a deeper philosophical contemplation of the concept of consciousness.

Let's try the next one:

2: the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : mind

Well, are all these things required for consciousness, or will any one of them do?

I think it's obviouse that if we have thought, we don't need the others, but then again, if we're aware of the others, do we really need thought?

What about the next one?

3: the totality of conscious states of an individual

WOW! It must have been Friday near quitting time when this one was written.

What a cop out on number 3.

How about number 4,...

5: the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes

I think this one was written for lawyers so they could claim that some acts of homocide were committed without conscious intent.

This truly stretches the philosophical meaning of consciousness.

Besides, how ironic is this to appeal to dictionary definitions when you, yourself, wish to cast language in a more abstract way beyond the definition of language as formal symbolic means of communication?

You seem to always be out to prove something.

You should become a mathematician! They are always out to prove things, but they can decide whether or not they have succeeded based on the rigid formal axioms that they begin with.

In philosophy all we can do is share our views. There is no solid foundation of axioms upon which to form a rigid conclusion because the foundational premises cannot be agreed upon.

I'm done.

Well, for whatever it's worth, I'm really enjoying this Teaching Company Course on "Consciousness and Its Implications".

I just listened to lectures 3, and 4. In these lectures he describes the "problem" of consciousness and why it is so elusive. Both Plato and Aristotle held that consciousness is nonphysical, primordial and eternal. They have their reasons which he lays out quite eloquently. Although he goes on to describe why their reasoning is not without its own problems.

The question boils down to whether or not consciousness is physical. If it is physical, then it's a problem of physics and could ultimately be explained in terms of physical laws. However, this idea is extremely problematic and paradoxical in and of itself.

The second idea is that consciousness is nonphysical. This idea explains a lot, but itself raises many paradoxical problems. The first of which is the obvious question, "If consciousness is nonphysical, then exactly what is it?" And more to the point, how does it interact with the physical realm and does not the mere fact that it can interact with the physical world make it physical (i.e. subject to the laws of physics).

Clearly all of these questions are far from being answered and they are all quite intriguing.

I have always intuitively held a position along the lines of Aristotle and Plato, although possibly not in the details. It just seems intuitive to me that we, as the perceiver, are not merely our brains. That actually bring into question the most profound question of all. If we aren't our brain, then what are we?

Also, if consciousness is nonphysical, then instead of the physical realm giving rise to consciousness perhaps consciousness gives rise to the physical realm. This is, in fact, the basis of most mysticism.

As this course progresses the lecturer is promising to speak on the concepts of Mental Causation. Just based on how he has already discussed the different views of physical consciousness versus nonphysical consciousness, I imagine that he will probably address Mental Causation from both of these perspectives as well.

He also has a lecture called Other Minds which I'm looking forward to. Deepak Chopra, as well as others, have also spoken to the issue of "other minds". We look at animals and just assume that they think like we do, only on a far more primitive scale. But this may not be the case at all. Just like Jeanniebean had mentioned about the bees. How can we say what a bee might or might not be aware of. Bees may think in a totally different way from humans altogether. They may experience the world in a way that we can't even begin to conceive. There is no reason to believe that a bee's nervous system and cognitive abilities parallel the human nervous system in any way. For all we know bees could be totally self-aware in a way that simple isn't apparent to us because we think of the self in terms of a personal ego, whereas a bee may think of itself in a totally different way that we aren't even capable of comprehending. Without having actually been a bee no one can say.

He then goes on to discuss Physiclism Refined which sounds interesting too. I'm really enjoying this course. And for whatever its worth I enjoyed addressing the topics in this thread as well. I don't need to come to conclusions to enjoy the banter. This actually emphasizes the idea of why we should not assume to know how or what bees might think. Often times we can't even understand the way that other humans think.

Anyway, for anyone who might be interested in this course these are the lecture titles:

1. Zombies
2. Self-Consciousness
3. The "Problem" of Consciousness
4. The Explanatory Gap
5. Mental Causation
6. Other Minds
7. Physicalism Refined
8. Consciousness and Physics
9. Qualia and the "Mary" Problem
10. Do Computers Play Chess?
11. Autism, Obsession, and Compulsion
12. Consciousness and the End of Mental Life

It's a Teaching Company Course

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=4168

I borrowed the copy I'm currently listening to from a library.

Sometimes these can be rented though Netflix as well.

Thanks James. That sounds very interesting. I should also point out that the entire Monroe Institute is dedicated and based on the exploration of human consciousness. Entire books, and courses like you mention are based on the exploration of consciousness of all kinds. Practices like Yoga and Meditation are based on explorations of consciousness.

To confine the term to a dictionary meaning seems very limiting.

Consciousness can mean different things to different people depending on how they are using the word.

Human consciousness is based around the human mind. But human consciousness is not the only kind of consciousness. It is consciousness working within the confines of the human body and mind.

I have said before that all things have consciousness of some kind and of some degree. Consciousness permeates all that is. How can it not?

Bees and ants are fascinating insects. I don't think those who study these insects have fully understand how they manage to keep such a tight knitted well organized system. Each bee or ant has a responsibility. Who decides the tasks in hand? I mean one is responsible for gathering honey, others for caring for the children, and so forth. It is fascinating. I mean even looking at a trail of ants going from one side of a pavement to another like they are marching to war! It is just fascinating. Well at least for me it is.

I think we as humans who value nature can just sit outside looking at the simple things in life and just fascinate themselves with how the little world functions.

Perhaps we as humans have also learned alot from these insects more then we care to mention. Can we give credit to standing in line at a grocery store to ants? Probably not but maybe how a a system of communication we can? Ideas have to come from somewhere right.

Concerning conscience, maybe insects have a different type of conscience that they use then what we as humans can understand. I don't think they sit and ponder about it. They really just think of the "now" of life and move along with it.

Yet believe me that a bee or ant doesn't want to be smashed by a shoe, not that I do such things. I actually try to get it alive and place it outside if found in my household. I know I am a nutcase, but I value all life. lol

I also don't think they want their bee hive to be destroyed or their ant hill. They will get pissed and show it! Have you ever been bitten by a fire ant? Ouch!

So if that is considered instinct or a conscience you can decide on that, but in the long run they value life! That I have to see as true.

Also I always wondered, do they have a actual brain. Go figure at my age I still don't know the answer, yet have always asked that question since childhood.

Actually does one have to have a brain to have a conscience?? Also something to think about, even if it doesn't sound logical to most that conscience isn't possible without a brain.

Well, actually most people believe that consciousness is possible without a brain. Statiticians claim that over 95% of humans believe in some sort of conscious God which exists as pure spirit. Surely spirit would not have a physical brain.

It seems quite strange to me that so many people can easily believe in a spiritual God, but they balk at idea of things like ghosts, and anything else that they might be considered to be supernatural.

After all, what is a God but a "Holy Ghost"?

They also believe that with God all things are possible yet they refuse to believe that a lot of things are possible.

Maybe we shouldn't stand in such awe of our own consciouness in general, but instead we should stand in awe at how unreasonable seemingly conscious people can be.

Are we truly any smarter than rocks? Or is that just our own self delusion?

I agree that one does not have to have a brain to have consciousness. But perhaps our definition "brain" is limited. Do plants have brains? Does a cell have a brain? Yes each cell does have what functions as its own 'brain' which receives and processes and reacts to information. Does a rock have a brain? I don't know. If it does, it is very different from what we consider to be a brain. Does it have a mind energy or consciousness? I believe it does.

Those are very interesting questions. In fact, in that neurobiology course I just watched Dr. Sapolsky did indeed state that cell membranes actually act like the "brains" of the cell. This was a rather new insight that biologists are just beginning to realize. Brains don't necessarily need to be made of neural nets like the brains of most animals. There is definitely a level of consciousness going on at the celluar level.

Deepak Chopra had mentioned this as well in some of his spiritual lectures, he's also an M.D. and fully educated in neurobiology. He talks about how our bodies can combat disease, deal with the stresses of the moment, monitor all of our bodily functions including changing our heart rate depending on our excitment level, and make a baby all at the same time! Without any "conscious" thought on our part. Clearly there is some other level of "consciousness" going on, these things are just all happening by happenstance accident.

Chopra is a very big proponent of celluar consciousness, and he suggest that our mood affects the "moods" or consciousness of ever cell in our body. He claims that this is why people who have high level of stress have health problems. When they are stressful they cause ever cell in their body to be stressful.

I've been thinking about the "consciousness" of rocks. This may seem like a truly silly notion to many people, but I feel that it genuinely has merit. But again, this requires a very loose and abstract concept of what is meant by 'consciousness'. One thing that rocks to possess for sure is vibrations. Every stone has a unique vibrational pattern. And a these can often be quite complex vibrations, not just a single solid tone, in fact, they almost never vibrate in such a simple way. Their vibrations are often extremely complex, this is especially true of crystals.

Well, if consciousness can be manifest as vibrations (which many spiritualists believe it does), then rocks certainly have very unique vibrations. Clearly this isn't the kind of 'self-aware' consciousness that we associate with. However, it may be a form of consciousness that can indeed interact with our own virbrations. In fact, there are whole industries that make fortunes selling "Healing Crystals". Crystals are a huge thing in many spritual and mystical practices. I have been using crystals myself ever since I was introducted to witchcraft and shamanism, and I'm finding their is definitely something to this. Whether or not it has to do with 'consciousness' is an open question, but the power of crystals is real. Of course we already know that from the electronic industry. The first radios were crystal radios. I had one of these when I was a child. You placed a needle on the crystal and where you placed the needle would determind which station you picked up. That's how sensitive they are to vibrations.

The radio wouldn't work without the crystal. The crystal was the 'life' of the radio. Of course there were other things involved, like a capacitor and a coil of wire. I remember vividly because I made this from scratch. I made the capacitor out of wax paper and aluminum foil, and I wrapped the coil of wire around nothing other than an empty toilet paper tube.

I had to by the cystral, but it worked GREAT! If I remember correctly it didn't even require batteries. It used the power of the cystral. Well, actually it was the power of the incoming electromagnetic radio signal, but the crystal was sensitive enough to 'pick that up'.

Picking up a signal? Sounds like a form of "consciousness" doesn't it?

Rocks are listing to "Rock Music" all the time.

Yes, rocks are rather interesting.

The interesting thing to consider is this,...

When you aren't placing the needle on the crystal then which station is it picking up? All of them simultaneously?

Maybe rocks are capable of listening to a lot more stuff at one time than we are! No wonder we can't talk to them, we're morons in comparison.

Insert 'God' here...



Continue on, please... this is an interesting dialogue.