Philosophy
Related: About this forumHas consciousness emerged as the immune system for the mind
I will not elaborate on the parallels. I only point out that the mind often gets hijacked by behaviors and beliefs in much the same way as our biology gets taken control of by viruses, parasites, and disease. Also, I point out my belief that recovery from things like addiction and fanaticism are made possible by conscious redirection.
delrem
(9,688 posts)and perhaps all of fanaticisms are themselves events owing to consciousness?
Regarding fanaticisms, consider the existence of "think tanks". Entities that media empires go-to uniformly and (almost?) exclusively to inform the population about what is real in the realm of politics, economics and war.
Could anything better fit the definition of 'fanatical'?
Regarding physical addictions, IMO consciousness hasn't been all that much of a boon.
Consider crack cocaine. From wiki:
"Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. The plant is grown as a cash crop in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru, even in areas where its cultivation is unlawful.[2] It also plays a role in many traditional Andean cultures as well as the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (see Traditional uses)."
In the original plant, coca is ... benign. In benign form coca is part of a thriving culture.
What degree of "consciousness" had to emerge, to concoct crack cocaine from the plant, and sell it on the streets of our cities as a quick fix for hopelessness?
leftofkant
(14 posts)Interesting speculative idea, though I'm not sure it would hold up if subject to a systematized critique. Though it's a nice heuristic Have you ever read about neuroethics? It's a new branch in philosophy that seeks to combine biology and traditional philosophic questions, might overlap with your idea here!
sanatanadharma
(4,074 posts)Objects of consciousness (sights, sounds, thoughts, feelings) vary, come and go and can be extremely addictive to other objects of consciousness (body-mind-sense-complexes) that are on the same plane of reality.
My writing desk has an apparent reality of solidity but science negates this at a different quantum level of reality.
Where does the unifying truth lie? What is the ultimate 'unified field explanation'? How can the explanation of every-thing ever be known by any-thing? Such an explanation needs be as though, a mobius-strip of knower-knowing-known!
!But! There is one non-negate-able Truth. Consciousness (not what is thought, not objects of consciousness).
The a-priori existent "I AM", known intimately in every human, is self-evident, needing no proof! Are you here? What evidence is needed to answer this? What proof could convince you that are not here or that you do not exist.
Lifes' problems are all situated in our mistaken beliefs about "what I am". Beyond certain givens like gender, family and place, all else is added on after birth. It is this belief-bundle of experiences, education, desires, etc- our suitcase of self-identity. We pack it, we rearrange it, we carry it around and we think this is ME, though sometimes tossing treasures thought to be previously me. Is the suitcase useful? Yes, sometimes. Difficult to haul around? Mostly. Packed with what we need for the unseen future? Never! We always pack from the past. We need to be unpacking our suitcases.
In all times, every product of the hand of womanity, every truth revealed by science, every brain cell that lights up and conveys self-information, every body-mind-sense-complex (with a name and a memory and even more not-memory), every scholar and expert of every field, every opinionated professional pandit person of passion, every less than Einsteinian-graced neighbor struggling with congenital body-mind-sense-complex problems...
...it all exists on the nature (plane-realm-ocean) of awareness/consciousness as the the knower, as the known, as the many means of knowledge. Start taking everything away. Do your best to negate all knowledge, explore the quantum world of the smallest of the small and negate it. Investigate the vastness of the universe looking for the One explanation and dismiss it.
Look for what remains when all differentiation is gone, all objects of consciousness and all mind-ideas erased, all questions answered, all dusty cobwebs of crusty cosmic confusions cleared....Consciousness remains to to uphold this KNOWLEDGE.
As is true of any study of the subtle, knowing this requires long study and definitely requires being awakened from the false belief that "I AM" no more than the stories I've been told (birthdate and education) plus imperfect memory of this body-mind-sense-complex.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)and seems to have that free will thingy
sanatanadharma
(4,074 posts)We, individuals witnessing our body-mind-sense-story-complex and having limited means of knowledge (the mind and senses), posit freedom of will. When we are freed from our limited point of view, the full-view reveals that bubbles on the stream are not controlling the flow.
The inhibited, limited knowledge of any body-mind-sense-complex in its localized environment, lacks the limitless, uninhibited 'knowledge' that informs and makes possible the Total System of subject/object individualization.
All of the observable orders of the natural world, (e.g. the motions of cosmos, the biology of life, the psychology of mind, etc) reveal "Knowledge" as the "stuff" of everything.
Normally we use terms like instinct, laws of nature, quantum information packets when speaking of these less-than-fully understood observations.
These 'systems of smartness' exist (manifest) in the mindless inert (i.e. gravity), in the living but mindless (plants, trees), and in the living with brains and minds.
Individuals are the means through which the Total System reveals ItSelf.
Free will may explain picking this fruit rather than that from the tree (quantum fluctuation).
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)The inhibited, limited knowledge of any body-mind-sense-complex in its localized environment, lacks the limitless, uninhibited 'knowledge' that informs and makes possible the Total System of subject/object individualization.
lets look
this all happens in the "back" - My thought is that the "front" (that small band width) can work to lessen the (your word) inhibition - or as I would characterize it the filtering of it or even most likely the construction of it.
When the hidden back "sees" little or paints what it receives only in a "wrongly" constructed structure it seems likely that to move from this state of misinterpretation to a state of "openness" requires the conscientiousness to redirect what one needs to recieve.