you need to read all the most relevant scientific papers on this matter. They provide very good clues to help you find your answers. Last twenty years have been quite ground-breaking in this field, and there is no reason you should spare yourself all that information if you are really interested. It´s what philosophers of the mind in past centuries would have done, but they could not.

I think most of our thinking occurs in our subconscious without our conscious awareness. In fact, trying to remain conscious of figuring out a problem is more apt to prevent us from becoming aware of the solution. We are better off to go for a drive or sleep on a problem and let our minds work without our conscious control. Of course, if it is understanding quantum physics that we desire, we must be devoted to a study math and science before we can have a quantum physics thought, but our sleep time is as important to our learning as our wake time, and allowing children plenty of physical activity while at school, would also improve their ability to learn.

This is perhaps the most important explanation of our thinking at this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0

Yes. Can you point me to a work you feel would address this? I have read what I would consider a significant amount, but not all, of course. I read Hegel which I liked and started me thinking more about it. I also read The Soul Machine which was really good. I did not finish that, so that might be my best bet? It's a newish text, so it would have current research. I would value any you can suggest, too. Thanks!

That is true! My mother told us how she solved a complex geometry problem whilst asleep! :-) I am still quite bothered of changes in fortune and how we don't seem to get up to speed on the new life. It can be anything......illness, divorce, etc etc.......What part of us won't accept....is it based in Memory? We remember? I cannot pinpoint it.

The passive frame theory, a metastudy that was published in 2015, was very interesting because it took into consideration many recent studies. Personally, I do not think that Daniel Dennet´s interpretation of the theory and other studies is correct; he seems a good person but I think he probably has a too reductionist idea of reality.

My own interpretation is that mind exists and consciousness exists as the theatre where mind performs its reality movies. Mind for me is the capacity of the universe to produce symbolic representations through the use of animal bodies. I think it´s an emergent property of physical reality. I also suspect that our conscious mind is only the animal form of a much wider phenomenon that we do not understand yet. Who knows.

I can not find "The soul machine". The search engine gives me a rap singer who must be all the rage now. Who wrote it?

Not
15
↪Athena That is true! My mother told us how she solved a complex geometry problem whilst asleep! :-) I am still quite bothered of changes in fortune and how we don't seem to get up to speed on the new life. It can be anything......illness, divorce, etc etc.......What part of us won't accept....is it based in Memory? We remember? I cannot pinpoint it. — Not

Oh put that way, I have a whole different understanding of what you are getting at! I was trapped in hell until one day while riding down the freeway with a friend, she screamed at me for holding onto my past, and I was so upset I almost left a vehicle going 70 miles an hour and she started slowing down and pulling to the right. Fortunately, our friendship was strong enough to get us through this day and it changed my life. I wanted out of the hell I was in for many years but I was lost in Hades. Hades is where we must all go for a sense of meaning, but we should never go there without the help of the gods (concepts of life that help us make good choices).

My first life-changing experience was a divorce and later I was disabled. To contrast these experiences I will begin with the second life-changing experience.

When I became disabled my life fell apart and I don't think our culture is organized well to help people past this point. There was no recognition of the grief and nothing was done to help me know what I could do with my changed body. Being independent, my income, depended on being physical fit and I was not. I was working with a government department of rehabilitation. These programs are supposed to be run by experts but what happens when the experts are clueless? I think this is a cultural problem. In a male-dominated culture, we don't allow much room for being human. I would like to see a resort for people adjusting to a major life change. This would be a more holistic approach.

So is the problem memory? How about values? I valued myself as a wife and mother and my husband who left our lives did not. A local college has classes for homemakers transitioning to jobs outside of the home. That approach to helping a person transition was better than my voc rehab experience because it was more holistic. It was created by women who understood the human experience, and I am not so sure men are that holistic. I think men tend to be goal oriented? The goal is getting a job verse the goal is a life transition.

Philosophically there are so many questions to ask when we are forced to deal with a life change that we may not want. How does this change who I am? What pieces of who I am can I pick up and build on to be a new me? How does this change my sense of value in this world? It is the pits when can no longer be the person we valued because of a life-changing event out of our control.

DiegoT
215
I can not find "The soul machine". The search engine gives me a rap singer who must be all the rage now. Who wrote it? — DiegoT

Might this be the book?

Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind: George Makari ...
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Machine-Invention-Modern-Mind/dp/1531819567

I goolged for a book titled The Soul Machine and different books were offered. It looks like an interesting book.

I think they are the same thing. Consciousness occurs when you need to bring attention to a problem. The "subconscious" mind is simply habit/ autonomic functions.
When you put your mind to it you do not walk into walls. However if you are walking and thinking of something else you can quite easily walk into a wall because your mind/consciousness/attention is not there.
@apokrisis can probably able to give a better explanation.

Personally, I do not think that Daniel Dennet´s interpretation of the theory — DiegoT

? Where has Dennett commented on Passive frame theory?

Your post is brilliant and wise. You nailed what I was getting at. Thank you. What keeps you going? You may have found a turn around, but some changes are not reversible.

I loved and hated what you said about the polis not arranged to help people adjust, but to languish.

I am not alone in Hades, I see. Shades of others wander around lifeless, husks of their old selves........

Thank you for you insight. Maybe one day I will be allowed to re-enter.

I am more inclined to accept the esoteric spiritual teachings on consciousness and mind. That means, I think the mind is a part of consciousness which has a particular function or utility (call it reasoning, thinking, mentation, etc). By my understanding, fundamentally, consciousness is the energy which defines the 'self'. This would mean that any faculty we possess is a part of consciousness and that our existence is itself consciousness.

I am starting to believe that consciousness is not Mind. — Not

That’s good, because consciousness is not mind.

If redness is the condition of being red, thickness the condition of being thick, why can’t consciousness be the condition of being conscious? Just as some object must be represented as possessing redness so must some object be represented as possessing consciousness, and, just as the being of red is one of the properties of some thing so the being of conscious one of the properties of some thing. The thinking subject, known as the “I”, is the thing and the total of all objects of experience is the condition of the “I”’s being conscious. All the objects of consciousness is the condition of being conscious and is that which permits “I am” to have it’s objects necessary to define it, re: I am tall (short); black (white); European (Australian); Protestant (Shia); Hegelian (Cartesian)....and so on.

Mind, on the other hand, is what makes all the above possible, being nothing more than the name given to the capacity for rational thought. Consciousness doesn’t think: mind doesn’t define.

My philosophical Jello of the Day......whether it sticks or not, we’ll see.

It is the pits when can no longer be the person we valued because of a life-changing event out of our control. — Athena

The intrinsic and personal value of a human being like you or anybody else, in my current understanding, is not dependant on our contribution to society. If that were the case, a large portion of humanity would be valueless, as many people have a negative contribution to the material functioning of social networks, being more a burden than an asset.
On the contrary, I think that citizens must consider their capacity to experience and imagine the world subjectively paramount for their self-value. In this sense, we can all contribute positively to the soul of our community and the Earth. Also animals make this contribution; but we humans were specialized in just that, like eagles specialized in being awesome.
Without us as meaning-makers and subjective experiencers, society is just a machine, and not one that will work for long.

Men and women have different views of life sometimes, but they are not opposed, and I also totally challenge the idea that we live in "men-dominated" societies". There are no men-only or women-only societies (The Amazons is a legend, not history); this gives us the clue that men and women are a single system. People with more caring and affectionate attitudes in our society are a by-product of people who are particularly tough, and sometimes cruel. Very nice people can afford all that niceness because someone else, actual people or procedures in the system such as law enforcement, are assuming all the hard ways that very friendly and compassionate people do without. In social environments where this specialization is reduced, say the army or a prison or people trying to escape a fire, everybody is tough and not so nice because they can not delegate in social structures, or cops, or those people who kill rats and other pests.
And viceversa: people working in very stressful, competitive and even dangerous jobs can survive and raise healthy children because other people, say a wife (sometimes a husband) or a teacher, are doing the caring tasks that demand sensibility and tenderness.

If a society rejects toughness and its male side, becomes a failed state, like Sweden, unable to control who enters the country, or accept people with different political views, or preserve social order and protect women from being raped on the streets. If a society rejects tenderness and its female side, it becomes like Nazi Germany or modern-day China or Iran, an iron cage for its own people and a threat to the world.

Dang! That was very succinct and clear. I loved it! The jello is sticking :-) I will be musing on this over time to separate the two. Consciousness scares me. I have actually been freaked out by it to the point of near panic attacks. I don't like the idea that all my experiences make m y consciousness because like everyone else, I have much in there I wish I could excise. I can cut off my finger, but not a whit of my consciousness. In fact, if I cut off my finger, I would remember that for the rest of my conscious life. My consciousness bothers me.

That is the book! It is very interesting, I must say.

Consciousness is a term for general awareness.

Mind refers to phenomena including consciousness, ideas, concepts, emotions, desires, reasoning --all sorts of things.

Some people claim that there can be unconscious mental phenomena, so that you could have a desire that you're not aware of, for example.

I have much in there I wish I could excise. — Not

Fear not!!!! Some neurobiologists insist unused or seldom used neural pathways degenerate to an un-actuated condition eventually. Bad news is, other neurobiologists insist every one of our experiences we’ve ever had maintain their respective pathways forever. On the other hand, philosophical moralists and fundamental religionists both tell us we should pay more heed to which experiences we should have in order to not be in conflict with consciousness.

Funny, isn’t it? Woulda, coulda shoulda on this side, The Serenity Prayer on the other. Find your Happy Place somewhere in the middle and keep on chooglin’’!!!

PM me.

I am hoping that as increasing numbers of us enter our later years, we will use the internet to reinvent a more humane society. I am sorely disappointed by the number of long-lived people who have dropped out and are no longer sure we can manifest a better world. That is nuts! We are gaining the technology that is essential to manifesting a better reality, and we are dropping out?! :gasp: I want to shake members of my generation and tell them the Older American's Act that claims we are entitled to social benefits is not about treating us as children, but enabling us after our years of experience to contribute to society.

If something doesn't take us down when we are young, old age will surely throw a few stumbling blocks in our path of life. :lol: These are gifts to improve our humanness and I have great hope of what we can do when we pick up our responsibility for manifesting a better world.

Societies swing. Since 1958 we have been focused on advancing technology and this is wonderful, but it is time to swing back to human values. Our technology can be a terrible curse if we only concern ourselves with being smart and not with wisdom. That is what Zeus feared would happen when we agained the technology of fire, and why he gave the first man and Pandora a box full of miseries. He was hoping to slow us down, so this day would not come too soon. The day we think we don't need the gods because all we need is technology. We are ignoring the gods and looking for a computer to rule over us. :death:

this mindset is called Luciferian, and it´s important for masons and other secret societies. They don´t believe in a physical Devil but they know they can get what he promises through "natural magic". Natural Magic is what Italian philosophers in the early Modern Age called what we know refer as Science; but their understanding was better because it doesn´t hide the Faustean side of technology and research, that we are all talked thousands of times, is "neutral" and "good". Magic is good or bad, white or black, but never neutral because the essence of Magic is manifesting projects through the power of concentration of an ego.

Luciferians want to turn their egos into godlike entities: inmortal, and with inimaginable power. They want to transcend matter, that is, to go digital. It has took them more than two millennia to get there, but are very close and a global extinction is not something against their plan but a tabula rasa they expect to use to reshape the planet from scratch to their interests. They have always seem Morality and Nature as divine, that is: opposed to their luciferian goals. Because freemasons and other societies have contributed enormously to shape our civilization, our society is led by values that serve their purposes.

Without us as meaning-makers and subjective experiencers, society is just a machine, and not one that will work for long. — DiegoT

:scream: :sweat: :grin: I love that line. We fought two world wars against Germany's mechanical society and then proceeded to imitate it is every significant way. The intentions were good, but not wise. Can I fall back on Zeus? He was afraid this would happen.

I am quite sure there are men dominated and female dominated societies. One is a matriarchy and another is patriarchy. And I am not sure, but I think on sex may be able to dominate culture while the opposite one dominates politics? I think that was true of the US until education for technology and "women's liberation" made it taboo to be feminine?

This is Jacquelin Kennedy the first lady of the US in the 60's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3ZvIzL1JbI

Now here is Hilary Clinton and a changing society

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgQfRod_Iv0

When the military dominates as it came to dominate in Rome and Germany and the US, being feminine is seen as a weakness. In communist Russia the woman who stayed home to care for the family was called a "non-productive" member of society. In the US she became "just a housewife". Who wants to be a non-productive member of society or just a housewife? Who wants to sacrifice her life to her husband's and children's success when there is no social reward for this? Women have been shamed into leaving their families and entering the paid workforce and this is means increasing the economy that is essential to supporting the military. The military, not a national health program and education.

I am not going to emulate Jacquelin Kennedy in today's society, but I did when I brought my children into this world. I am still bruised by my fall from being the 1950 ideal woman and 60-70 earth mother goddess to "just a housewife".

People with more caring and affectionate attitudes in our society are a by-product of people who are particularly tough, and sometimes cruel. V — DiegoT

I am impressed by how the military in Rome came to dominate and also came to benefit their veterans with land and political power, and how today the veteran's administration takes very good care of veterans. My son benefited a lot from his years of service. On the other hand, we begrudge women on welfare our support. Veterans have health benefits but not everyone, not their divorced wives and mothers. Yes, I would say we need a strong measure of toughness and cruelty to get social benefits, and as tough as Hilary Clinton was, it was not enough to get a national medical system.

Very nice people can afford all that niceness because someone else, actual people or procedures in the system such as law enforcement, are assuming all the hard ways that very friendly and compassionate people do without. — DiegoT

I am attempting to shift my great-grandchildren from being angry and intimidating to remaining calm and firm. If we do not have social agreements, we will have to rely on authority above us and that authority will have to more power then we do. I am working on it, but I think we need to work on character, virtues and social agreements? Relying too much on authority over the people is not a good thing. The goal is not to have kings ruling over us as children, but to be a society of adults.

I agree with there needs to be balance. When I was a teenager it was exciting to be ready to fight with fist and brute force, and I sent one intended rapist to the doctor with a broken bone. At this time in my life, I think I need to take different steps? My grandmother who was a school teacher, could just look at someone and get control. It was obvious the power of God stood behind her and He would strike a child, or a full grown man, dead if she was displeased a second time and she never raised her voice or a hand. That is possible when everyone is working with a notion of virtues and have social agreements. Today, a child throws a tantrum and the teacher removes everyone except the misbehaving child from the room and the police are called to deal with the child who is out of control. I am horrified that schools have taken so much authority from the teachers, the teachers can no longer maintain their authority in the classroom. Something is very wrong! What does it mean to be strong, and is having strength the same in all circumstances?

My goodness, what you said is fascinating! I want to focus on what you have said but once again I have spent way too much time in the forum. The day is more than half over and I haven't even begun to do everything scheduled for the day. Perhaps a thread specifically for this hidden hand and how we might deal with it and why it is important for us to do so is appropriate? PM me if you start the thread.

x

I'm confused why you addressed the above to me.

DiegoT
227
↪Terrapin Station ↪Athena this mindset is called Luciferian, and it´s important for masons and other secret societies. They don´t believe in a physical Devil but they know they can get what he promises through "natural magic". Natural Magic is what Italian philosophers in the early Modern Age called what we know refer as Science; but their understanding was better because it doesn´t hide the Faustean side of technology and research, that we are all talked thousands of times, is "neutral" and "good". Magic is good or bad, white or black, but never neutral because the essence of Magic is manifesting projects through the power of concentration of an ego.

Luciferians want to turn their egos into godlike entities: inmortal, and with inimaginable power. They want to transcend matter, that is, to go digital. It has took them more than two millennia to get there, but are very close and a global extinction is not something against their plan but a tabula rasa they expect to use to reshape the planet from scratch to their interests. They have always seem Morality and Nature as divine, that is: opposed to their luciferian goals. Because freemasons and other societies have contributed enormously to shape our civilization, our society is led by values that serve their purposes.
21 hours ago — DiegoT

You have made the Hindu concern about ego even more interesting. The Luciferian intent looks like the anti-Christ? I have not held this combination of thoughts before, so I will play with them. The Luciferian would be as the monster of destruction that eats everything until all that is left is to eat itself. One god, one mind, one entity, one ego.

Two types of selves
The Self is universal, eternal, one and without divisions. The expansive or exalted feeling that I am everything and I am all this does not constitute egoism. However, the feeling that I am so and so, or I have this and that constitute egoism or ahamkar. When the universal Self is covered with the impurities of delusion and ignorance, it develops this limited view of itself as a separate entity, which we recognize as ego.

Thus, the ego is the feeling of separateness, the sense of duality, or the idea of being distinct and different from others. It is the false perception of oneself as a separate being or a limited being. Egoism creates the limitations of space and time in which we become stuck. Since it exists in all of us as individual consciousness, it is a universal feeling. Ahamkar is that which is shaped by egoism. It manifests in us in several ways such as the following...
https://www.hinduwebsite.com/ego.asp — Jayaram V

So are we separate from God? The desire to be part of the Hegelian state, the Borg or a computer run society with immortal power, is a Luciferian intent?

Are we conscious of our desire to be separate or a part of what? Sorry for that question. I am not sure of what I am asking but maybe someone can answer it?

I once experienced a consciousness of being one with everything, and can say in this state of mind one is not a separate ego. There is not even a separation of mind and matter, as all is energy.

Is the Western concept of consciousness that same as the Hindu concept of consciousness? Is it possible to have altered states of consciousness that are valid and not just imaginary or hallucinations?