Progress in consciousness?

Chances are that if you can see that the first post is much more illuminating than the last, the rest of us can too.

As for progress in consciousness, do you mean in terms of understanding it or our ability to reach enlightenment?

Okay, I'll go with that:

Are we making progress in our ability to reach enlighenment?

Maybe "some are, some aren't."

Well, depends on who you're talking about. Most of us are still operating on the principles set for by our ancients in order to reach enlightenment. judaism and buddhism are as fundamental as you can get. But then there are the gurus who have spent years of their lives finding out how to reach enlightenment by theirselves. And on a whole other scale are those who try to reach it by trying out new drugs.

Have we progressed? I think that once we have the foundation down the only way to progress is in the number of people who are closest to enlightenment. However, I couldn't judge for myself because I don't actually know how many people in ancient Greece tried to reach enlightenment.

Does that answer your question?

Great topic, tcis. I guess we must not confuse progress with accumulation. We have undoubtedly accumulated knowledge regarding medicine, engineering and the like. But I'm not sure that there has been progress regarding "spiritual' matters. We can talk to a very primitive man, say from highland New Guinea and be amazed by his "primitive" ignorance regarding the causes of disease. But we may be even more amazed to find him very "modern" in his thoughts about justice, social morality, etc. The authors of the Upanishads were clearly superior to the religious thinkers of evangelical America. I think that in matters of "wisdom" there is no accumulation. There is, perhaps, progress. I suspect that in our debates here we may not arrive at solutions to problems or resolutions of our differences, but if we really give ourselves to the dialectic of debate, we will find the terms of our discourse are becoming more and more refined. We may be disagreeing at an increasing more sophisticated level.

...

The word "progress" could be a problem.

On the one hand some systems advocate "methods" for "expanding consciousnes", whereas others say that actively seeking progress is self defeating....the "truth" is already there for all of us but our conditioning (to strive and "become") obscures and makes us "forget".

Fresco, great to see you back. Your comment is so similar to the counsel of zen master, Shunryo Suzuki. He warned his students not to try to attain or gain anything in their meditation. Reality is perfectly what it is, complete as it is here and now. To try to go beyond it or to change it is to guarantee a continuance of our delusion. Thus, his method of meditation, shikantaza, is simply to "just sit", to let go, or to enjoy, as Krishnamurti called it, "passive awareness." But this is a COMPLETELY passive awareness, a very difficult and subtle "achievement."

both the terms 'purpose', and 'progress' bother me in this context;

to look for a 'purpose' for humanity is perhaps the most dangerous endeavour one can fall into; it assumes the agenda of a 'ringmaster' for the human circus.

i see no purpose, no agenda, no ringmaster, no circus.

if there is to be a purpose, we as individuals must willfully choose it, and then design our lives around this choice; however it must always be recognized as a choice within the void of 'meaning' in which we find ourselves.

similarly 'progress' must be aligned with a vector; if we are to progress, it must be in a certain direction, and it is assumed we will progress from intellectual darkness, into the light. This is not the universal view of progress.

society sees progress as a measure of mercantile or economic enlargement; the increase of product, the increase of markets, and the increase in the consumer base, and the compulsion to consume.
this is not progress, but the doomed hysterical effort to displace 'meaning' with 'material'.

Yes, good to see/read you fresco

I REALLY appreciate BoGoWo's last contribution.

I'm working on Twyvel's. I'm sure it'll be worth the effort.

(Thanks JLN and Twyvel)...(vacation plus computer problems)

With respect to the opening comments on "general lack of progress of humanity" it may be interesting to note that Gurdjieff for one proposed that "knowledge was not for all" and that there were certain cosmological forces which contrived to keep humanity "asleep". Indeed "knowledge" was considered to be "material" and that there were limited amounts shared by "the few". Thus war or "sleepwalking machines gone mad" was inevitable.

Hmmmm !

Twyvel:

Sounds like a great bit of exestentialism applied to a Pamerinidean style consciousness. However, there is no way that you can state that consciousness is a whole 'thing' if you stated that it cannot be percieved. There is nothing inherently wrong with a unpercieved yet consciousness that exists in multiplicity yet is eternal.

Likewise, there is also no reason to assume, from your perameters, that this conscousness even though eternal, cannot progress. Progress could be defined as adding to or developing. If this mind was consciousness is seperate from other consciousness then it could progress or add things to its self that others do not have (in the way of attributes).

I tend to find truth superior to material in many ways, including its accessability by all. I don't think, like truth, that there can be a countable amount of 'truths' like there is a countable amount of material. (Even if material is infinite - it can be placed in a one to one ratio with numbers).

Thus, if you view consciousness in this light (beyond referencing) there is literally NOTHING that you can say about it - temporal or non-temporal - whole or parts - many or one. It is simply inconcievable - and as Meno asked in the same titled Socratic dialogue "How can one inquire about something one does not know?"

TF

I know how it elitist it sounds but it is obvious that some people can never learn algebra or grasp the meaning E=MC2. And some people are less likely to enjoy mystical experiences than others. But is this what Gurdjieff was referring to? I wonder. I fear he might be a bit like Madame Blavatsky and successors, Annie Besant and Chas. Leadbeater in endorsing a hierarchy of spirituality topped by an exclusive group of illuminati or cognoscenti. I hope not. So much of what he says rings bells with me

BoGoWo:
Great stuff! and beautifully articukated !.


JLNobody:
I knew that somewhere in your consciousness there lurked another BoGoWo !!!!

I have almost always been in agreement with BoGoWo's consistently original ideas. His futurism does sometimes creep me out a bit.

twyvel: you say "......consciousness is temporal and changeless.........it is (not) ....temporal......it is(not)...changeless...."
Well, will you please clarify for one of
the un-enlightened ....what are you saying, exactly?
Is consciousness temporal, or is it NOT temporal?
Is consciousness changeless or is it changeable?
Just for once will you come down to the dualism world and answer the question in a straightforward
manner? ....or will this subject you to some atemporal criticism?

alikimr

Your question highlights the problems of "ordinary language" in discussing consiousness. Since language tends to categorize or draw boundaries between what "is" and "is not" it fails to capture the essence of twyvel's non dualism which "sees truth" in the removal of such boundaries.

By extension, those (like Gurdjieff) who advocate systems from which to "explain consciousness" are tempted to construct a "system language" whose terms (like "material" and "knowledge") allude only partially to their ordinary language origins but claim to transcend them. It is at this point that emersion in such a system (or semantic field) could be viewed as "cultism" by outsiders, but this "accusation" could also in be levelled at any "established religion". We might note here that BGW's "mercantile" warning could be applied equally to "qualifications for entering heaven" or Gurdjieffs " knowledge".

If that is true Fresco, then I would have to stand corrected and say this is strict monism (in the strongest Parminidean sense) and everything, including our language then must be an image.

The problem when everything becomes one thing despite our overwhelming sense perceptions to the contrary is that words, the very sound they produce and thought that they take to form, also become one thing - and then must be illusionary.

I could post more but sense you, I, the computer, and this server and board are all one thing - I will simply ask you to transcend these images to 'sense' what I am trying to say.

TF

thethinkfactory,

On other threads I have raised the possibility of discussing "consciousness" from a non-anthropocentric position. For example, ecological philosophers such as Capra have advocated "sustainabilty of systems" as an index of "value" (and by extension "progress"). Such a move places consciousness as a subset of "life processes" with no separate justification for its apparent existence. Irrespective of sympathy with ecologists I believe this approach illustrates a possible way out of Wittgensteinian language games.