Progress in consciousness?

TF, I'm confused by your statement. Are you supporting monism or pluralism? It seems to me, when I suspend "thought-about" experience that I, my computer, the floor, walls and ceiling of my study are all aspects of a single changing context, of a single aesthetic continuum. I would call this an orientation best described as dynamic monism, a single realilty characterized by internal dynamics. This would be opposed to a monism in which all is one single "chunk" in which no dynamic process is possible. That seems to be the image that pluralists or dualists have when contemplating the idea of non-dualism or monism. DualISM seems to conceptualize the world as consisting of ontologically distinct (I should say metaphysically separate) "things." They rip the fabric of reality into distinct pieces and then invoke a kind of Newtonian materialism to explain their interactions. Dynamic Monism sees "interaction" to be at the heart of the internal dynamics of our Unitary Reality.

careful jlN; mine is a 'creeping' futurism!

See what I mean, everybody, by "creepy"?

perhaps, if we consider my theory mentioned elsewhere that 'time' does not actually exist, but is a phenomenon of relationships, we come close to a non-dual concept of everythingness.

an endless, timeless matrix of interconnected material/energy/thought? would seem to approximate the 'spiritlike' essence of universality, being alluded to here.

However, and "here's the rub", the fact remains that in order to immerse ourselves in this 'web of being' we still have to be functioning creatures, with food in our stomachs, roofs over our heads, and threads covering our little bums.

There remains the practicalities of existence in the 'pretend' world of "reality"!

fresco:
You say that "the problems 'ordinary lanquage'has in discussing consciousness" is that it
tends to draw boundaries between 'what is' and
'what is not'. Isn't that what lanquage is all about?
When you even suggest that there is no boundary between the two, forces the obvious conclusion that
'what is' IS in fact 'what is not'......and this becomes sheer intellectualism mysticism....and it does indeed offer the 'enlightenment ' you speak of, that is hard to come by any non-mystical considerations.,

BoGoWo, even after we die--and before we were born--we ARE this universal timeless essence. Having a body to feed is only one of the infinite possible modalities of being this essence.

Fresco:

Thanks for the heads up. I seemed to have jumped in mis stream.

JLN:

I was not supporting anything, but was looking at Fresco's 'monism'.

I am in turn a bit confuse by what you stated and I am looking for clarity.

Parminidean Monism is what I talked about as everything as one.

What you were calling Dynamic Monism seems to be an ontological monism that tacitly assumed as metaphysically dualistic universe.

Am I even close here?

TF

p.s. My weakness philosophically is that I am an ancient philosopher that focuses on ethics primarily - and thus if it has happened in the last 100 years - I am very weak.

alikimr and BGW.

I think BGW's flux of relationships is a key insight. However both of you are taking "existence of categories" from the anthropocentric position. When BGW speaks about "food" or "ourselves" these are understood from the point of view of " a consciousness observing". Similarly when alikimr talks of "mysticism" this can only be interpretated with respect to what cannot be publically (anthropologically) observed.

If on the other hand "relationships" are analysed with respect to a general concept we might call "structure" we may not be bound by "informatics" which are observer dependent, but by more general dynamic mechanisms of "structural coexistence". At this level. what we call "consciousness" may have no more (or less)significance than the tropisms of plants.

Fresco, I DO share, if I understand you, your orientation to "structural coexistence," but between substructures not in the sense of cooperation superficially considered, as in "peaceful co-existence" when talking about political units. I mean this quite literally, namely that the existence of things depends ontologically (even metaphysically) on the existence of other things (even ALL other things--I should put "things" in quotes). This is symbolized by the Yin-Yang "talisman" in which its two halves define one another, where the very existence of something is dependent on the very existence of other things. From this VERY GENERAL perspective I understand your statement that "what we call 'consciousness' may have no more (or less) significance than the tropism of plants'". All things and activities (e.g., consciousness and tropism alike) within the whole "structure" (the universe) ARE the "collective" whole. The whole is, for me, no more than the sum of its parts. To say it is greater than that sum, is to take a position apart from that whole to gauge its total quality or significance. We cannot do that, with regard to Reality because we cannot stand apart from it. To do that would involve objectifying the whole and examining it dualistically. In which case it would cease to be the whole. Thus the whole must remain objectively mysterious, quantitatively speaking, but we can experience it qualitatively as our very nature. Plese stop me somebody...

edited

JLN

Your understanding of my general position is clear.
I would only add that the particular perspective or level for which "structure" has significance must always be overtly considered. The general position is therefore like the Platonic form, whereas the particular (arbitrary) position is an exemplar.

Here the image of the many symmetries in a mosaic wall comes to mind. We can pick out particular patterns of "structure" versus "background" but never simultaneously....and "Reality" (capital R) is in essence the ACTIVITY of this multifarious structuring without citing any particular example.

So the world may be conceptualized as systems nested within systems, but, of course this must apply in all directions not just up and down, from big to small, but I cannot imagine what they would be--outside of my perceptual and conceptual spectrum. I like the mosaic metaphor. This applies not only to foreground and background but also to being and ground. The total is to its parts, the exemplar for all the subsumed nestings? That makes the latter as spiritually significant as their totality. I like that notion, reminds me of the mustard seed principle. Also your notion that one can "pick out" particular patterns in the total mosaic (of structures and backgrounds but never simultaneously) points out the creative constructivist nature of our experienced reality. Seeing what is structure and what is background is similar to the intuitive grasping of dualist and non-dualist patterns; they cannot be done simulaneously, with one rare exception: the mystical perspective. The problem for so-called dualists is that they cannot grasp non-dualist patterns because they cannot suspend their dualist orientation. This is not a problem for non-dualist "mystics", since they can grasp both versions of reality simultaneously, or at least swtich back and forth with sufficient speed to see the world , as it were, stereoscopically.

Reading. Hmmmm. I always thought that I knew how to read. Guess not.

If you don't follow my babble, Letty, it has nothing to do with reading skills. It has to do with familiarity with some esoteric issues, concepts, writings, etc. Stick with us and some of it might rub off for better or for worse.

you should be happy just to be still breathing tTF!

what i'm picking up here is still in keeping with my 'timeless' universal concept.
But there is an important stratification in 'scale'.
in universal terms there is no 'time' everything is held in a gravitational matrix, wherein billions of years are simply represented by distances from galaxy to galaxy.
However at the micro level (human scale), these relationships are in a greater state of flux, where shifts in the space/time between them produce the 'appearance' of temporal movement, whereas it is still simply their relative position on the matrix as it changes. (no observer, just an 'observation).

So then duality is the illusion of temporal fluidity.

fresco:
You are saying that in the "structural co-existence" you are obviously fully aware of , is not
observer dependent. This is a pretty blatant use of consciousness, ('significant, or not'), in manner most mystical.
I note that JLN leans towards your point of view with the proviso that the event in question is
understood to be of a metaphysical , not mystical, nature. The fine" difference" is mystifying because
of the reliance on the much maligned "language definition" earlier in your explanations.
Your rejection of holism , in either the dualism or non-dualism state, is a surprise ....I truly
expected that it would be relatively easy for you to
observe that in many observations the sum exceeds the total of the parts.

All there is exist simultaneously in the melding of future and past known as 'now'.

All consciousness springs from 'now' as awareness of the transition of future to past.

To be conscious is to realize the existance of 'now'.

Followed with great interest...... Understand fully? not really, accept it seems, one requires... to be alive, have sight, hearing, and a spoken language,otherwise, everything said so far would have no purpose or meaning.

tcis, yes, the human race has made tremendous progress and greatly expanded its collective consciousness over the last 2000 years. A substantial portion of the world respects the rights of women and children as human beings instead of property, outlaws slavery, prefers negotiation to force when settling conflicts, requires humane treatment of animals, and recognizes that the environment must be shared by all living things, not destroyed by greedy individuals.

The technological revolution has contributed greatly to this progress by allowing ideas to be collected and shared world-wide through books, radio, television, telephones, and the internet. It has also made it possible for people to liver longer, healthier lives, have access to more ideas and the leisure time to think about ethics, and given us the tools to investigate consciousness itself.

We have made progress in understanding how consciousness is produced by the brain, and how mental defects, illnesses, drugs, physical damage, traumatic experiences, and biological drives affect our mental functioning. We no longer need demons and gods to explain good and evil actions.

Individuals vary widely in their own progress, of course, depending on their education, experiences, culture and personal inclination for self discovery.

JLN, I must take issue with your assertion that the religious thinkers of evangelical America are inferior to the authors of the Upanishads. In what way? There is a tendency to judge those whose beliefs agree with your own to be superior to those whose thinking is different.

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BoGoWo and Doug, our consciousnesses do indeed create an illusion of "now," but time itself is not illusory but a necessary part of the space-time matrix of our universe on a micro level as well as a macro one. If quantum particles did not vibrate and waves did not oscillate, nothing would happen, nothing would change, and this universe would still be nothing instead of everything.