To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/10/05 11:31
Subject: Re: [K-list] Consciousness
From: Ville Vainio
On 1999/10/05 11:31, Ville Vainio posted thus to the K-list:
On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Martin Thompson wrote:
> >Experiences as an abstraction seem to happen. That doesn't suggest they
> >are anything special, or essentially different from other things. I might
> >throw the old All is One-cliche here.
> You don't like this specialness idea. Well, I'm not sure that I see
> consciousness as anything special anyway, except that I want to know how
> it works, or at least, how it *can* work, since my concepts of matter
> and energy don't seem to allow for such a phenomenon. Life, I can
Ego creates just this "wall" that prevents you from integrating the
consciousness with your concepts of matter and energy (which I assume to
be in essence similar to my concepts of those things).
> >> I don't think so... Just what has ego to do with it? Are you saying that
> >> someone without a personal history in their mind cannot experience?
> >
> >Ego is not personal history. Ego is the motor that makes consciousness
> >seem special. (respectively, spiritual ego makes higher state of
> >consciousness seem special). This is a matter of definition of words,
> >which is unproductive, though.
> How does ego make consciousness seem special?
Objectively: a creature functions better when it gives itself (and
consciousness) a "special" value, something that helps it seperate itself
from the things he is observing "objectively". Surely he can't be similar
to those things (he sees their apparent simpilicity as an enslaving
property). Ego is the thing that does just this trick. Also, ego gives one
values to live by, reason for existence (even though the person may claim
to be nihilistic), and gives a nice warm feeling of "me". Ego also
insulates us from the objective reality, it "abstracts" all the complex
things that are contained in this body to simple "me". This abstraction is
not logical, therefore it must appear to be "natural" and "obvious" in
order to survive our reasoning. And that makes it appear "special", and I
assume this was the problem you were struggling with. Ego casts a shadow
of doubt on the logical chain that would be quite obvious without the
interference from ego.
(Excuse any possible incoherence in my verbalization, I'm feeling a bit
lightheaded at the moment... did lots of yoga yesterday)
Ville Vainio - vvainioATnospamtp.spt.fi http://www.tp.spt.fi/~vvainio
We're all puppets
The first step on the path to understanding is seeing the strings
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