What If Consciousness Comes First?

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

But even causal chains that go through brains do not have to be *conscious* at any point. Our brains process quite a lot of information (say, about heart rate, blood pressure, stomach contents, etc) that never make it to consciousness.

I wasn't referring to consciousness. I was not trying even to define objective and subjective, but explain it is natural term.
So part one is done. We agree that there are causal chains that run through brains and others outside brains that comes to brains.

Part 2. Logic.
The limit of the law of non-contradiction.
Now I don't use it as just about propositions, I use it about that what is. E.g. the observation of a cat and the statement "the cat is black" is not just about words, it is about that the cat is black. We can nitpick black, but it ends here that is a fact about the cat that either is so or not so.
So adapted from Aristotle: Something is at a time(period of time), in a given position in space(area in space) and in a certain aspect and it is not different from this( the effect of non-contradiction).
So the effect of this is for same, similar and different in regards to reduction is this:
Everything is physical(same), but not all physical aspects are the same(they are similar), because in a rock there is no replication of the fittest gene, where as in a living organism there is(different).
For causal chains, there either is or is no causal chain for the relevant example.
Now if you want to claim, that there are cases of processes in brains, where there are no causal chains, go add and do so.

So for everything is physical, I can do that, but for everything is the same as just being physical as the same, then no! There are emergent properties that are caused by the physical, but these loose distinction if treated as all the same as just physical. This sentence are in part made up of e.g atoms, therefore all that is going on is atoms.
It is that reductionism we either agree or disagree on

So it is crunch time - yes, everything is physical, but that is to broad in a sense. You have to check what is going on in a given case and check for same, similar and different.

 

[Polymath257]

I wasn't referring to consciousness. I was not trying even to define objective and subjective, but explain it is natural term.
So part one is done. We agree that there are causal chains that run through brains and others outside brains that comes to brains.

OK so far.

Part 2. Logic.
The limit of the law of non-contradiction.
Now I don't use it as just about propositions, I use it about that what is. E.g. the observation of a cat and the statement "the cat is black" is not just about words, it is about that the cat is black. We can nitpick black, but it ends here that is a fact about the cat that either is so or not so.
So adapted from Aristotle: Something is at a time(period of time), in a given position in space(area in space) and in a certain aspect and it is not different from this( the effect of non-contradiction).

First, I would warn you that resorting to Aristotle isn't likely to end well. We have learned a LOT about logic over the last 2200 years. Aristotle and the law of non-contradiction are the beginning and not the end.

So the effect of this is for same, similar and different in regards to reduction is this:
Everything is physical(same), but not all physical aspects are the same(they are similar), because in a rock there is no replication of the fittest gene, where as in a living organism there is(different).
For causal chains, there either is or is no causal chain for the relevant example.
Now if you want to claim, that there are cases of processes in brains, where there are no causal chains, go add and do so.

Sorry, but I could not make sense of what you wrote here. Could you explain it again in different words?

So for everything is physical, I can do that, but for everything is the same as just being physical as the same, then no! There are emergent properties that are caused by the physical, but these loose distinction if treated as all the same as just physical. This sentence are in part made up of e.g atoms, therefore all that is going on is atoms.
It is that reductionism we either agree or disagree on

Well, let me give an example. No single atom has pressure or temperature. But *collections* of atoms do. Pressure and temperature are *emergent* properties. Are they physical properties? Yes, of course. They ultimately are based in the physical, so are themselves physical.

So it is crunch time - yes, everything is physical, but that is to broad in a sense. You have to check what is going on in a given case and check for same, similar and different.

Why is that too broad? Mental phenomena are physical: they happen in brains. In fact, we have absolutely no evidence or suggestion of evidence that mental phenomena can happen anywhere else.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

OK so far.


First, I would warn you that resorting to Aristotle isn't likely to end well. We have learned a LOT about logic over the last 2200 years. Aristotle and the law of non-contradiction are the beginning and not the end.

Yes, there is more to logic, but this is a case of the basics, more later.

Sorry, but I could not make sense of what you wrote here. Could you explain it again in different words?

Take a bunch of atoms. Are they exactly the same? No, they are similar in some cases. Same only applies for logic at the same time, same place and in the same aspect for the law of non-contradiction. That is all I need for now. More later again on this part of logic. As for different, then different is another time, place and/or aspect.

Well, let me give an example. No single atom has pressure or temperature. But *collections* of atoms do. Pressure and temperature are *emergent* properties. Are they physical properties? Yes, of course. They ultimately are based in the physical, so are themselves physical.

Correct, but not relevant here.

Why is that too broad? Mental phenomena are physical: they happen in brains. In fact, we have absolutely no evidence or suggestion of evidence that mental phenomena can happen anywhere else.

We are doing epistemology and I have to establish the different aspects of same, similar and different for the next part.

Example: Are we the same? No, we are similar in some cases and different in others. That is an everyday example of same, similar and different.
Here is a weird one: A⇔A or its other variants. So is this A the same as the other A? Yes, as a cognitive process(logic), but it is not the same for time and space, because in effect "A⇔A" one A is in other time and space than the other one.
They are not exactly the same for all aspects of the world, rather they are similar. All of these As are not exactly the same for all aspects of time, space and aspects. Even some of the aspects for how the As are used, are in fact different.

I need you to understand this limit for same, when we come to epistemology and what goes on in brains.
Your thoughts?

 

[Polymath257]

Yes, there is more to logic, but this is a case of the basics, more later.

Take a bunch of atoms. Are they exactly the same? No, they are similar in some cases.

Actually, two oxygen-16 atoms (say), are indistinguishable except for position. Atoms tend to be more than just 'similar': they have incredibly regular properties based on the type of atom.

Same only applies for logic at the same time, same place and in the same aspect for the law of non-contradiction. That is all I need for now. More later again on this part of logic. As for different, then different is another time, place and/or aspect.

Correct, but not relevant here.

We are doing epistemology and I have to establish the different aspects of same, similar and different for the next part.

Example: Are we the same? No, we are similar in some cases and different in others. That is an everyday example of same, similar and different.

Well, even different oxygen-16 atoms will be in different locations. That is what makes them different, after all.

Here is a weird one: A⇔A or its other variants. So is this A the same as the other A? Yes, as a cognitive process(logic), but it is not the same for time and space, because in effect "A⇔A" one A is in other time and space than the other one.

OK, please make the distinction between logical equivalence, A<=>A, and equality A=A. They are different notions.

What you said about space and time makes no sense. If two things are in different space-time locations, they are not equal.

They are not exactly the same for all aspects of the world, rather they are similar. All of these As are not exactly the same for all aspects of time, space and aspects. Even some of the aspects for how the As are used, are in fact different.

I need you to understand this limit for same, when we come to epistemology and what goes on in brains.
Your thoughts?

OK, so the mind that I have (one location) is different than the mind you have (different location) which is why some causal links are in *my consciousness* and not in yours. That is the reason for subjectivity. Right?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

OK, so the mind that I have (one location) is different than the mind you have (different location) which is why some causal links are in *my consciousness* and not in yours. That is the reason for subjectivity. Right?

Bingo. Subjectivity is natural and part of causal links. So when you hit subjectivity the processes are similar in some aspects yet different in others.
So back to a broader view of logic. Not same time, place and aspect; but different in aspect. One way to understand when a reduction is illogical, is. when 2 different aspects in different time and space and causal links are reduced away. and all that is looked at. are different aspects. Here is an absurd one: I am me and since you are different, you are wrong with logic!
Of course, that is not the case, but some people in effect do this and it relates to the psychology of the law of non-contradiction: "No one can believe that the same thing can (at the same time) be and not be." - Aristotle
Now remove (at the same time) and you can notice this effect in some humans:
I can't understand how you can understand it differently, therefore you can't understand it at all!
So they take an aspect, which is subjective at least in this relevant case; e.g. good and in effect remove time, space and causal links and claim that there is only one kind of good, because in effect they can't hold that it is different, because they can't believe, that it is different.

Now this was a side track, but I still want your thoughts.

 

[Thief]

I am me and since you are different, you are wrong with logic!

well gee.....we both can't be right

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

well gee.....we both can't be right

There is a 3rd option between right and wrong. That it is subjective and you don't have to use right and wrong as some people do it.

 

[Thief]

There is a 3rd option between right and wrong. That it is subjective and you don't have to use right and wrong as some people do it.

the short list.....

right and wrong toward moral issues

correct and incorrect to answered questions

good and bad to the condition of a thing

good and evil to the nature of a spirit

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

the short list.....

right and wrong toward moral issues

correct and incorrect to answered questions

good and bad to the condition of a thing

good and evil to the nature of a spirit

Right and wrong towards moral issues are in you, not in the issues, so you don't have to use those. Just use like and don't like.

Correct and incorrect as I understand or don't understand it the same way.

A thing can't be good or bad, that is in you, back to like or don't like.

As for spirit, that is nothing but faith.

 

[Thief]

Right and wrong towards moral issues are in you, not in the issues, so you don't have to use those. Just use like and don't like.

Correct and incorrect as I understand or don't understand it the same way.

A thing can't be good or bad, that is in you, back to like or don't like.

As for spirit, that is nothing but faith.

you are soooooo contrary

THAT is a bad thing

heheheheheh

 

[atanu]

Dennett makes the same flaw as so many psychologists and philosophers make when comparisons of human compared to the animal world are made. He claims they including our related apes are fundamentally different instead of recognizing that we are similar in kind but not in degree. Despite his acceptance of the neurological basis for consciousness which clearly shows the similarities he creates an unproven gap between animal and humans. That gap has been decreasing as we have increase our ability to test animals in appropriate ways. Ironically he made a similar statement in the way we are gaining on improved testing of the neurological system.

His proposal of illusion is really just the description that our interpretation of what we process as correct is a categorization of what we perceive in terms of how we store information and translate it into words thus being able communicate to others. In my opinion consciousness is a real state of neurological activity and not an illusion but limited in how it then translates what we are experiencing into words. Language is limited and often confuses reality because of its limitations. But, language does allow us to communicate and preserve information outside of the brain. This is what has allowed us to create things as a collective over time.

I see no pain or joy in either verbal reports or brain pictures. Our experiences are unitive. There is no such unitive mechanism evidenced in discrete brain processes or explained. The brain processes do not give rise to the competence for knowing.

We all have direct experience of irreducible unity of apprehension, without which there could be no coherent perception of anything, not even unconscious gaps within experience. For example, without an unitive consciousness linking waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of existence, there cannot be an unitive experience of self across these states. It is a unity that cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever. And whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would have to possess a prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. This is the problem of understanding and organising the discrete brain events to an analog narrative, and primarily the awareness of “I am” that is woven through all our experiences.

 

[atanu]

But experience *is* measurable: just ask the person what they experienced.

How is a qualitative experience measurable?

Of course there is. The data coming in is being experienced by the brain.

A bluff. Brain experiences nothing. If it does, please show the mechanism how certain measurable/recordable events generate experience. Show the causality. Show how physical interaction give rise to perception/cognition/knowing.

There are no pain recpetors in the brain, but the brain 'feels' the painmessage sent to it via the neurons.

You may map the correlation. But hat does not explain why thee is perception/cognition/knowing. Please be honest and ponder how a set of neuronal activity can generate cognition?

Pains are diverse and their realisers in brain-nervous system also will be diverse. Suppose we are able to catalogue all causes and map them to all realisers of pain in brain. You may then have a predictive model. But that does not prove a causal link. A third aspect may link the experience of pain and pain realisers.

OTOH, in case of qualia, there is nothing measurable. Even a correlation cannot be established. What to talk of causal linkage? Qualia is experience, not quantitatively definable.

Consciousness is a real phenomenon: it is a process in the brain. We have *internal* states because the brain has an internal model of its own state. That is what it means to be subjective.

No. In your naive explanation, brain states that a conscious being records are real. But the conscious self is not. You mean that phenomenal consciousness can be educed to discrete brain events.

Please explain how a brain state consisting of discrete objects and their interactions give rise to an unitive self consciousness and experience. Do not just assert that the self consciousness and consciousness of experiences are properties of some peculiar sort of mysterious physical complexity, located, for example, within the functioning of the brain. This is vague and extravagant claim. There is neither any explanation nor any evidence of causation.

Furthermore, the physical world constitutes a causally closed domain. Physics is causally and explanatorily self-sufficient: -- there is no need to go outside the physical domain to find a cause, or a causal explanation, of a physical event.
The constraint that the closure principle lays down is that there can be no causal influences injected into the physical domain from outside.

But then how do you explain mental causation? How it is possible, for mentality to have causal powers, powers to influence the course of natural events?

You will find that the problem of mental causation may be solvable for a given class of mental properties if and only if these properties are functionally reducible with physical/biological properties as their realizers (as in case of well defined pain and pain realisers). These solutions will only help as predictive models. They say nothing about causation of perception of pain. OTOH, the phenomenal mental properties are not at all functionally definable hence are functionally irreducible.
...

 

[Polymath257]

How is a qualitative experience measurable?

Like I said, by asking the person involved. That allows us to get correlates to brain functions.

A bluff. Brain experiences nothing. If it does, please show the mechanism how certain measurable/recordable events generate experience. Show the causality. Show how physical interaction give rise to perception/cognition/knowing.

Well, we know where the brain processes the information. We know how it stores at least some of the information.

What else do you want?

You may map the correlation. But hat does not explain why thee is perception/cognition/knowing. Please be honest and ponder how a set of neuronal activity can generate cognition?

And how is the correlation, especially if it allows prediction and testabliity NOT enough? What do you think is missing?

Pains are diverse and their realisers in brain-nervous system also will be diverse. Suppose we are able to catalogue all causes and map them to all realisers of pain in brain. You may then have a predictive model. But that does not prove a causal link. A third aspect may link the experience of pain and pain realisers.

All that a 'causal link' would be is another sort of correlation. So what is the problem?

OTOH, in case of qualia, there is nothing measurable. Even a correlation cannot be established. What to talk of causal linkage? Qualia is experience, not quantitatively definable.

Of course they are. You can tell easily enough when someone is happy. You can tell when they are deep in thought. And, for more information, you can do what we all do: you ask them.

Qualia are, as far as I can tell, a meaningless concept. We experience because we have senses and process the information for those senses.

No. In your naive explanation, brain states that a conscious being records are real. But the conscious self is not. You mean that phenomenal consciousness can be educed to discrete brain events.

Of course the conscious self is real. We ask for the persons viewpoint and that gives us data about their internal state. SImple enough as far as I can see.

Please explain how a brain state consisting of discrete objects and their interactions give rise to an unitive self consciousness and experience.

Well, the unity is an illusion. That much is clear. The brain 'papers over' missing information. This can be seen in a variety of ways, including the blind spot in our vision, and the way that certain types of brain lesions lead to confabulation.

Do not just assert that the self consciousness and consciousness of experiences are properties of some peculiar sort of mysterious physical complexity, located, for example, within the functioning of the brain. This is vague and extravagant claim. There is neither any explanation nor any evidence of causation.

There's that word causation again. ALL we need is consistent correlation. And that is what we have in every other physical process. The supposition of causation is *after* the correlations are found and is part of the theory.

Furthermore, the physical world constitutes a causally closed domain. Physics is causally and explanatorily self-sufficient: -- there is no need to go outside the physical domain to find a cause, or a causal explanation, of a physical event.
The constraint that the closure principle lays down is that there can be no causal influences injected into the physical domain from outside.

I'll agree to that.

But then how do you explain mental causation? How it is possible, for mentality to have causal powers, powers to influence the course of natural events?

Actually, of course, this is strong evidence that mental states *are* physically based. The fact that our mental states *can* influence the physical is good reason to think they are physical themselves *because the physical is causally closed*. And, in fact, we can point to *where* those mental states are: inside the brain.

You will find that the problem of mental causation may be solvable for a given class of mental properties if and only if these properties are functionally reducible with physical/biological properties as their realizers (as in case of well defined pain and pain realisers). These solutions will only help as predictive models. They say nothing about causation of perception of pain. OTOH, the phenomenal mental properties are not at all functionally definable hence are functionally irreducible.
...

All I need is correlation. If a certain type of activity in the brain is reliably correlated to reports of pain, then that is good enough to have solved the problem of consciousness. This is no different than correlating the amount of deflection of a needle measuring charge to the amount of deflection of another needle measuring the magnetic field produced when that charge moves. It is ALL ultimately correlations. The 'causality' comes when we say that moving charges cause magnetic fields. Well, in the brain we would similarly say that certain patterns of neural fire cause such and such mental state.

 

[gnostic]

Brain experiences nothing. If it does, please show the mechanism how certain measurable/recordable events generate experience.

People who suffer from head trauma (eg stroke) that can result in brain damage, which itself can affect how the brain function, such as altering the consciousness, or can reduce sensory perceptions, or can cause memory loss or false memory. A stroke can leave a patient paralyzed on one side of the body. People who suffer from dementia like Alzheimer’s disease is diseases of the brain, which again can affect consciousness and memory. And what happen to the brain when there are lack of oxygen in the brain for extended period, due to suffocation or drowning?

All these are what brain can experience.

Saying that “brain experiences nothing” is wrong from medical POV.

 

[Bear Wild]

I see no pain or joy in either verbal reports or brain pictures. Our experiences are unitive. There is no such unitive mechanism evidenced in discrete brain processes or explained. The brain processes do not give rise to the competence for knowing.

We all have direct experience of irreducible unity of apprehension, without which there could be no coherent perception of anything, not even unconscious gaps within experience. For example, without an unitive consciousness linking waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of existence, there cannot be an unitive experience of self across these states. It is a unity that cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever. And whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would have to possess a prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. This is the problem of understanding and organising the discrete brain events to an analog narrative, and primarily the awareness of “I am” that is woven through all our experiences.

Actually your perception of unity is a biological process of neuron transmissions and hormone effects. With the right pattern the brain gives the feeling of unity just as it gives the feeling of love, sorrow, and other neurologic states. There is sufficient evidence to place consciousness within the brain activity with no evidence of it being outside the realm of natural processes. We still have much to learn but rapid progress is being made as soon as we accepted that we are truly animals and can learn from other animals about ourselves. No need for some mysterious conscious entity when it is all there in the brain and body.

Here is a relatively recent article exploring this with a short excerpt in quotations and a link to the whole article .

Love as a Modulator of Pain
Malays J Med Sci. 2017 May; 24(3): 5–14.
"The rewarding and pleasurable feeling of love results from the release of dopamine tied to the brain reward system. Oxytocin and vasopressin are the most prominent hormones implicated in pair bonding, as studied in monogamous animals, and those implicated in love; not just between partners, but also between friends, or a mother and her child. Vasopressin, the attachment hormone, increases the fear and stress response and induces partner bonding in males. Oxytocin has anxiolytic and stress-reducing effects and expedites partner bonding in females. With the binding of oxytocin and vasopressin, the subcortical dopaminergic reward-related system is activated and extends to the medial insula, anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, striatum and hypothalamus, thereby contributing to the rewarding experience of love."

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5545613/

 

[Bear Wild]

People who suffer from head trauma (eg stroke) that can result in brain damage, which itself can affect how the brain function, such as altering the consciousness, or can reduce sensory perceptions, or can cause memory loss or false memory. A stroke can leave a patient paralyzed on one side of the body. People who suffer from dementia like Alzheimer’s disease is diseases of the brain, which again can affect consciousness and memory. And what happen to the brain when there are lack of oxygen in the brain for extended period, due to suffocation or drowning?

All these are what brain can experience.

Saying that “brain experiences nothing” is wrong from medical POV.

Exactly! We still have much to learn but there is so much evidence already available as you pointed out. People with depression are given a medication that modulates the way they feel with many no longer feeling depression but other the feel nothing. No sadness but no joy. Thus the alteration in the neurotransmitters controls our feelings. Rats show the preference to help another rat instead of going for their favorite food. This behavior is lost when given benzodiazepines that influenced their Gaba receptors.

This leads me to another issue. I like to read Stanford's philosophy site to read up on some terms because they try to give multiple different views to a subject. After reading on consciousness at their site, however, I was left with the feeling the sum of what they said had little meaning. Language is probably humans most powerful tool yet it seems to create ideas without real foundation that become more imaginary. This was nothing compared to when I tried to read about metaphysics at the site. The point is we can create ideas beliefs with words that are best left as metaphorical rather than explanations. I believe this is true of the concepts of consciousness which is finally being understood through advances of neuroscience and comparative animal studies. Ok a bit of a ramble and opinion for what it is worth.

 

[atanu]

Qualia are, as far as I can tell, a meaningless concept. We experience because we have senses and process the information for those senses.
...
Of course the conscious self is real. We ask for the persons viewpoint and that gives us data about their internal state. SImple enough as far as I can see.

I will take up your post in detail. But this is what confuses me. On one hand, you say that qualia (experience) is meaningless. Which will mean that the "self awareness is meaningless, since experience of self is the foundation. OTOH, you also say that conscious self is real. How?

What you believe? Why? Do you think that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I", sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love etc.

How? How the the quality-less physical ultimates generate the conscious self and its competence for experience? Please do not just assert. But give a valid mechanism or evidences.

What you mean by saying "Qualia is a meaningless concept? I think this assertion is meaningless.

...

 

[atanu]

Actually your perception of unity is a biological process of neuron transmissions and hormone effects.

Love as a Modulator of Pain
Malays J Med Sci. 2017 May; 24(3): 5–14.
"The rewarding and pleasurable feeling of love results from the release of dopamine tied to the brain reward system. ..

The article shows that pleasurable feelings are accompanied with release of dopamine. It could be another chemical 'xyz'. That does not explain who and why perceives happiness?

Further, it seems that you have not grasped my point about unity of apprehension. What has a chemical to do with it? The unity of apprehension is irreducible to manifold brain material and processes. I will repeat the the problem as I see it.

Without the irreducible unity of apprehension, there could be no coherent perception of anything at all, not even the breaks within experience. For example, without an unitive consciousness inking waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of existence, there cannot be an unitive experience of self across these states. It is a unity that cannot be reduced to some executive material faculty of the brain, as this would itself be a composite reality in need of unification by some still-more-original faculty, and so on forever. And whatever lay at the “end” of that infinite regress would have to possess an inexplicable prior understanding of the diversity of experience that it organizes. This is the problem of understanding and organising the discrete brain events to an analog narrative, and primarily the awareness of “I am” woven through all our experiences.

Furthermore, more fundamentally how do you explain that that physical parameters such as mass, spin, momentum, charge, of the physical ultimates give rise to sense of "I", sense of warmth, sweetness of sugar, and bitterness of failed love etc.?

You need to explain and not just assert "Brain does it".

 

[r2d2009]

What Is Consciousness?
Vladimir Antonov, Ph.D. (in biology)

Translated from Russian by Vladimir Antonov.


What is consciousness?

Someone will say that it is the same as the mind, intellect...

Also — in the "soviet" time in Russia, the term "public consciousness" was common, i.e., the generalized opinion of "the human masses"...

But, in fact, the meaning of the word consciousness is closely related to the phenomenon of self-sensing, the real feeling of oneself not as the body or the mind (in fact, the mind is not able to feel itself; thinking is only one of the functions of consciousness) but namely the living energy — thinking, having a memory, emotions, etc. — which can be fastened to the material body to one degree or another, or to be completely free from the body in unembodied status.

The word consciousness is equivalent to the Sanskrit word buddhi. And namely in this sense, it is used in spiritual literature.

Also there is the word soul (in Sanskrit — jiva). Souls are incarnated by God into material bodies — relatively small bundles of living energy, which should develop themselves while living in these bodies. Each soul undergoes a long series of incarnations. In the most typical case, this occurs in a sequence of embodiments in bodies of plants, animals and then later — people. The reason for this is the qualitative and quantitative development of souls, for, in the end, they achieve the Divine Perfection and Merge with the Creator, enriching Him with themselves.

At the human stage of development, a soul (jiva) — when it is already ripe for this by developing its mental function (intellect) — may begin to become consciousness(buddhi).

... A soul should grow and develop itself — in each incarnation in a material body. But at the stage of being the consciousness (buddhi), a person exceeds the body in size and naturally learns to live outside it.

Many people tried and try to learn how to "leave the body", to stay out of it — at their earlier stages of development, when the soul is not ready for this yet. To do this, they use drugs or poisons, for example — urine. This leads to distortion of the development and disruption, weakening, primarily, of the intellectual function.

But the most important thing is that the embodied soul must develop primarily the intellect.

A significant stage in the development of a soul is the accommodation of basic religious knowledge. It is called faith — faith in God's existence. For further development — faith is needed. But the faith must be correct. And this depends on the possession of the appropriate knowledge and the ability of the individual to adapt this knowledge, to adequately include it in one’s world outlook.

An extreme difference between the faiths of different people can be observed. High and higher levels of spirituality can be — and, on the other hand, primitivism, consisting of hatred and enmity towards all who, for whatever reasons, are different from me or from "us" (that is, conformation of people of the same level of development — like a type of religious sects).

Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita told about the existence of the methods included in the section of spiritual knowledge, which is called Buddhi Yoga [4-12]. All the Divine Teachersof humanity reached Their status through the methods of Buddhi Yoga.

Much information about this can be got from our books and films; the list of which is given in the end.

Buddhi Yoga is the upper stage in the methodology of spiritual development.

And it is very desirable that its complicated techniques not be taught to yet foolish people, because it can damage them. (This is what I talked a lot about in my other books and articles). The cause — the inability of currently young souls to accommodate the ethical principles, which are suggested to us by God, as well as the difficulty in integrating and differentiating various forms of methodological knowledge.

That is, only the methods of development of the spiritual heart can be offered for the positive development of all, including children. These methods could do no harm, rather they will provide the basis for further successful spiritual growth, perhaps after the years or even much longer, when favorable conditions for this will be.

... Achieving the proper levels of a) refinement (subtling) of the consciousness, and b) its quantitative growth — on the background of stainless ethical purity — permits one to learn the clear direct perception of the Holy Spirits. Since that time, They become personal Divine Teachers for such spiritual devotees, and lead them into the Abode of the Primordial, to merge with Him.

* * *

I will say a few words about the unembodied existence of people of different levels of development.

"Postmortal" fate of each one is determined by two main factors: a) the quantity (and the closely related level of active capacity), and b) the level of coarseness — or refinement.

Those, who have developed in themselves rough emotional qualities, are in hell; there they are tortured by beings of their own sort.

Souls, who have accustomed themselves to the refined tenderness, gain paradise: life among those similar to themselves — in a gentle caress with them and taking care of the worthy of embodied beings.

Between these two, there is a number of intermediate possibilities of life — in the layers of the so-called "astral plane".

The most primitive souls — regardless of their religion, rituals, and prayers — after the death of their material bodies can continue to identify themselves with those corpses, suffering from their rotting. Or — such souls are in a grotesque horror during the burning of their dead bodies in a crematory...

But those, who have achieved the Perfection, are accepted by the Creator in His Abode. They merge there forever in the Universal Love with Others Who have attained. Then They reveal Themselves to incarnate beings — as the Holy Spirits. Or They may even reincarnate in human bodies: to help embodied people more efficiently. So They become Divine Preachers and/or the Wonderworkers, demonstrating to people their (people’s) spiritual potential.

And each person has a choice: which direction to steer through life to...

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original:
What Is Consciousness?

 

[atanu]

The word consciousness is equivalent to the Sanskrit word buddhi. And namely in this sense, it is used in spiritual literature.
What Is Consciousness?

Allow me to suggest please. Buddhi is intellect, a function of mind, which is material as per Hinduism. But actual cognition is powered by consciousness, which is called jnana - knowledge and which as per Vedanta is the intrinsic to existence. Consciousness reflects in diverse ways on diverse minds and it seems to appear to minds that they are intelligent of their own. That is an illusion, as per Vedanta.

Eliminativists and reductionists have got it reverse. In their philosophy the 'seen' objects are objectively real. The consciousness that powers this seeing and cognition is illusion.