Mostly everyone operates/navigates in this world as if their mental representation of it were synonymous with the objective world. Few stop to think about the fact that their 'objective world' is merely their mental representation and wonder over the nature of mental representation in general.

Pick an object in your environment, like a book or sculpture and examine it closely. What is that? I don't mean the object considered as thing-in-itself. I mean the object considered as your mental representation. What is that mental representation? And why do I perceive it as such an not otherwise?

Let's forget about ontologies and metaphysics for the moment; we don't care about the thing-in-itself if such a thing exists, at least for the purposes of answering the above questions. The concern here is the nature of the mental representation itself.

Thoughts?

If you remove metaphysics/ontology, then perception of any object is simply psychological predetermination. A separation of what is and isn't according to determination in quality and point of reference.
Ergo, ego.

that sounds Freudian. I agree that speaking of an unconscious determining our conscious awareness is useful but would like to understand more about the unconscious, preferably not in terms of archetypes or similar devices.

psychological predetermination is just a word with no real meaning. It doesn't explain anything.


are you saying ego is necessarily at work in the mental representation of objects?

To elaborate a bit more on the original post, it can be broken down into two parts: 1) answering the question, "what are mental representations?, and 2) examining the illusion of the external objective world.

1) is very difficult to approach, though it seems safe to say that unconscious processes play a role. Further details would be nice, though.

2) is interesting because it seems the designation of our percept of the world as "objective" and "external" to us is implicit knowledge that underlies our awareness, though we are not usually directly aware of this. It's also interesting to consider the consequences of switching this implicit knowledge off, so that our percept of the world is no longer external.

No it doesn't but if you narrow thoughts so that they are exclusive rather than inclusive your bound to run into dead ends.

What are objects but a collection of molecules. Their grouping and identity is relative to spontaneous recognition or association to the object through memory.

So 1) Are you particular about the answer to the question?
2) in examining any illusions you would have to be free from any conditioned reaction to an object. This would mean you would be able to multi-dimensionally perceive the object rather than through one avenue of interpretation, see it in different levels of being, or first recognize the difference between illusion and reality.
This is going to necessarily be divided in the mental constructs of perception based on levels of accepted awareness.

Then one would have to be familiar with the unconscious to understand any underlying influence.


Find a way to do that and the door opens to greater awareness and experience, but then would you accept something that wasn't fitting into your habitual recognition patterns.
Wouldn't you have to be willing to leave your house to experience what is not confined within its walls?
If the walls are the illusion then everything you haven't experienced isn't hidden, just ignored.

I'm seeking understanding and explanation without regard for exclusion or inclusion.


So you don't think ego is necessariliy at work in the mental representation of objects?

like I mentioned, I'm just seeking understanding and explanation, without regard for much else.


In this case, I don't agree that perceiving the world percept as "external" is a conditioned reaction (at least not in the typical meaning of conditioning). It seems rather a default mode of perception that's the issue, that involves implicit knowledge that the world percept is "external".

And being familiar with the unconscious makes it conscious and thus is no longer the unconscious; kind of a dilemma. You don't recognize the unconscious, do you?

Ok

If it didn't fit into my recognition patterns, that is, if it wasn't recognized, I would be blind to it and would not have the opportunity to accept or deny it. If I had the opportunity, I would accept.

this hearkens back to your suggestion that conscious awareness is changing but not consciousness itself. Interesting idea.

Did anyone knows about the claim that consciousness leads to the "Wave function collapse"!??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse


If you hear about the famous virtual experiment of Schrodinger, "the schrodinger's cat"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

according to the consciousness claim, the cat will stay in a state not dead and not alive until you open the door and your consciousness collapses one option (alive or dead) over the other!


Is observability is a property of the observed item or the observing individual?

In a broader sense, does reason makes the sense or the sense makes the reason?????


Wafa

There are two distinct kinds of mental representations of objects. Consider the experience of holding a book, looking at it, hearing the sound of flipping through the pages, the feel of the paper. Then consider the memory of that experience. The second representation is more dream-like with much lower fidelity of representation, but with most experiences, we cannot repeat them in real-time at will, we must make do with memories.

Most people equate "reality" with the experience of the first type, real-time sensing. And they consider memories of experiences as a kind of abstraction for thinking about the world. However, real-time experience is also as distinct from the physical world of things in themselves as are memories.

A bat has a sonar-built model of the world it flies in. An intelligent robot will certainly have a different conscious experience of both the world and memories, and will certainly have vastly different mental representations.

mm this is dependent on a number of factors. Neurologically the brain does not distinguish the difference between real and imagined experiences. Instead it is the conscious mind which uses its intellect to deduce what is real and what is imagined.

This may also be the reason why we do not remember all of our dreams, perhaps it was an evolutionary trait designed to avoid confusing the conscious minds concepts of reality.

Then you won't leave out what what you would label metaphysics/ontology.

Of course it is, the refinement of the senses include taming the ego and its layered physical and psychological stresses that are habit, judgment, belief, projections based on belief, fear and expectations.
In responding to your first statement seeking explanation; what you really want is satisfaction. If you had the answers then you would take the answer and create more questions. One thing leading to another the endless supply of questions and answers engages the mind into the mechanical nature of reality but may distract you from actually experiencing why you are here and what you can do with what you have created.
The ego seeks mental explanations and representations of reality which is why it will accept and altered state such as an entheogen inspired hallucination as expanded awareness.
The ego in itself cannot contain consciousness but it can contain its conclusions and temporarily satisfy the mind with illusions. This is why we stay stuck in illusions, because the ego accepts them as reality.
The part of you that knows there is more is colored by the ego and by habit is seeking to add another answer or conclusion to the box you already have built. It will continue to distract you with questions and answers until the body grows old and dies.


If you had understanding would it have to be explained? If understanding could not be contained but experienced and expressed in words that would not contain it could you live with that?
An example would be love. If you are in love you can express your feelings about what you are experiencing but you could never express an explanation that could give the experience to someone who has never experienced it. Then there is the difference in emotional attached love and unattached, unconditional love. The second being the natural playground God creates so that all desires/thoughts are manifest, even the desires/thoughts of war, disease, and suffering.


To know about conditioning one has to have the direct experience of creating the external or experiencing the external manifest through thought.
This requires a discipline to turn the mind inward and to clear the nervous system of its attachment to beliefs or the mind and body of psychological and physical stresses.

I recognize consciousness, whether it is experienced or not it is the same. There are certain impulses created by desire/belief that remain unfulfilled and they can be circumvented, such an impulse is physical death. Other conditions such as illness and separation from God are stress related and can be easily removed by removing stress.

You always have the opportunity but you do not always make the choices to pave the way for greater experience.


Awareness is simply consciousness, but the ego is stuck in the relative world and conscious itself/you, are not limited to the relative.

The ego is the container of ego-consciousness, when it is transcended one enters the non-dual realm of unity-consciousness. All is consciousness, just differing layers.

The container is an illusion.
Unity still carries the remnants of the illusion and connects it to the one. This is called in sanskrit, leshavidya, one lives life with one foot in the manifest and the other in the absolute. When one transcends duality, duality still exists. The differing layers are duality.

Joesus, do you call the manifest the objects of dual consciousness and the absolute a unitive state of consciousness? Is this all you recognize in consciousness, is dual and unitive? Don't you think infinite consciousness would have more than merely dual and what you call absolute?

The manifest is more than the objects of dual consciousness, it is active awareness, Also called God.
The absolute appears still in contrast to the movement of awareness and it supports all activity, because activity could not exist without it, yet they are, one.
The absolute is not a state of consciousness, unless it is the only state of consciousness, because it exists in all relative states of consciousness, whether one is cognisant of it or not.


More, meaning extrapolations of God/the absolute? There are as many ways to experience it as there are thoughts about it but then if you follow experience or thought to its source, you end up at the same place.

To quote scripture

Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

So what I think, appears as movement of consciousness, and what supports the movement is an infinite field of stillness.
Some think thought precedes the infinite stillness and without thought the stillness could not exist, but one can transcend thought into stillness and then rise again into thought bringing with them the experience of having left thought and the awareness of stillness behind.
The fact that consciousness can do this means that it doesn't disappear or end in the lack of experience.

Stillness is a word, and the stillness is not completely still or empty, it often eludes the range of the relative senses and experience. In other words what it is cannot be brought into the subjective experience of awareness that is fixated on a level of reality that is rationed.

"I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.
Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

More could be, anything that means the same as God/the manifest or the absolute.

If one could elevate the senses beyond the relative as it appears in this world one would experience another world that is invisible to the physical eye of the waking state.
IF one could transcend the boundaries of relative awareness, the stillness would be full of manifestations of an even greater presence that is transcendental to the manifest at that level, and so on and so on.

You assume an absolute state of consciousness is still and lacks movement, but this is probably an illusion of your relative states of consciousness, is it not? Even in your mind-states of absolute stillness, you still have billions of neurons in your brain firing away with activity to maintain that state of consciousness, and so what you call a "still mind" is supported by billions of very active chattering neurons; hence your mind is not really still. It can never be at rest. What you call a still mind is an illusion. The nature of mind is activity; that is it's basis, and to deny this is to deny the foundation of mind and all conscious states that we can know.

Wouldn't you agree that if the basis of your mind-states is the activity of billions of neurons, then there is no mind-state that is truly at rest, since any mind-state requires billions of very active neurons? If so, then any experience of stillness of mind is founded on an illusion.

Ever study Zeno's arrow paradox? Maybe your perception of motion is false--ever consider that?

I'm talking about activity, not motion, and this is not dependent on perception of motion as we can devise precise instruments to quantify and measure activity. Besides, Zeno's paradox is not a paradox if you take space to be discrete instead of continuous, which many physicists believe to be the case.

What is activity?

in this context, changing electrochemical gradients and energy potentials.

How can change exist independent of time?

who ever said it did? Einstein believed that time was a measure of change.

Then what is change?

change occurs when a cause produces an effect. It's intimately related to causality.

Probably an illusion? Some say everything is an illusion. But that is a relative determination.

I take it you don't believe in a consciousness extending itself beyond the physical brain.

Mind is the manifest and the manifest is consciousness in activity.

Stillness and activity being relative, would then be subjective. Do you believe mind can be objective, without attachment to subjective points of reference?

Ever study Eastern philosophy which includes the idea that all manifestations of motion are illusion?

In order for there to be causality, there must be an action. In order for there to be am action, there must be a reaction. In order for there to be a reaction there must be time. In order for there to be time there must be motion. In order for there to be motion there must be change. In order for there to be change there must be a cause (energy). Ultimately causality from what I can observe is derivative from energy. This to me is the basis of most eastern philosophy. In order for there to be causality, there must be a cause, but where did the cause come from?

Yes, if you're talking about non-dual consciousness since there are no subjective points of reference in that mind-state. But even in non-dual consciousness, there is activity. I can't accept the notion of an absolute still mind because every mind-state is dependent on activity, and is thus the embodiment of activity. So why bother stilling the mind if the experience of stillness belies the great activity underlying your mind-state? Instead of trying to still the mind, we should go in the other direction, not by inundating it with petty distractions that serve to fragment the mind and weaken it, but with creating great maelstroms of the mind to maximize its power of activity.

from a preceding cause

The container is illusion, that is why I stated it is of ego-consciousness. When perceiving through unity-consciousness, illusion is that which is a manifestation of ego-consciousness. When one transcends duality, duality exists in the lower layer: ego-consciousness. This layer is fully realized and it is this realization that allows one to transcend illusion and attachment to manifestations of egoic projections.

What was the first cause that triggered the Universe? This cause must always have existed no?

I prefer focusing it, rather than trying to pump it up with whirlwinds of delusions in interpretations of mind.


When perceiving reality through Unity consciousness there is only God, inside and outside.

When one transcends duality, duality is God made manifest..Consciousness in action

Yes, that'd be God or the absolute, One, consciousness.

God consciousness is all-knowing. This kind of knowledge includes knowledge of lower layers of consciousness - ego consciousness. When one perceives reality through God consciousness, there is everything.



When one transcends duality, duality does not manifest, as unity-consciousness is transcendental of manifestations of duality.

Excellent discussion, by the way.

If you accept this:
God consciousness is all-knowing. This kind of knowledge includes knowledge of lower layers of consciousness - ego consciousness. When one perceives reality through God consciousness, there is everything.

That is duality. God manifests itself in duality, good and evil, God is both. layers of dimensional experience this is God too. Duality is the reflection of God. Duality is one with God.

This is duality, because I am thinking it and projecting it. Duality is a projection of mind. When there is no projecting there is no mind, therefore no duality. Although the dual mind is known through awareness or perception through God-consciousness. When in a state of unity-consciousness, duality exists in the state that has been transcended - mind.

God is all, good an evil, up and down, right and left, thought or no-thought, mind or no-mind. But we can see through God's eye or we can see through our own conditioning. This conditioning is a manifestation of God, but it is no direct awareness of God-consciousness and being.

Regarding causality:

1. I hold a rubber band in my hands. I stretch the rubber band; tension in the band increases (stretching the band causes the tension to increase).

2. I hold a rubber band in my hands. I increase the tension in the rubber band; the band gets longer (tensioning the band causes it to stretch).

Both are valid descriptions of cause-effect, yet both describe the same act. "Causality" can be a limited way of viewing things in some circumstances.

I dunno if this might be considered out of this discussion stream -which is very interesting indeed- but I think not..

Can I define something without referral to a higher and abstract level than it.

Can I, define mind and consciousness by using the same mind and consciousness??? Or I have to access a higher level??

if it's mathematical description of a process, and not just playing with semantics, then both of your descriptions above will amount to the same thing



Mind projects things but duality is a state of mind, not a projection of mind. When in a state of unity-consciousness, duality does not exist. Unity consciousness is not a transcendence of dual consciousness, any more so than ice is a transcendence of liquid water. I think you're confusing states of mind with the projections of mind.

When in a dual state of mind, all the mind does is project thought-forms. If it weren't projecting these thought-forms then there would be no duality as there would be no thought - no this and that, just here and now. No-thought is no-mind is unity-consciousness.

This understanding opens inconceivable possibilities for Medicine, Psychiatry, Psychology, Education and the rest of all human activities. If we see the Universe in Unitary Perception time becomes irrelevant. The future is now. The past is right now. The future is a projection of the past in a perception that we have to call “fragmentary.� In Unitary Perception there is only the now.

---

The mind is forever full with its own projection (words and thought, words and
thought, desire and fear, fear and desire) and so it can never be in true contact with anything or anybody.
Only a completely silent mind can have a relationship with someone. A good dialogue is impossible without a silent mind. We stuff our minds with ideologies, beliefs, information, rejections and predilections and in such a way we isolate ourselves. Men built cities not to be lonely and now they are lonely in the cities. Or else they gather in gangs to sell drugs and kill each other. We are so full of words, words, words, that nothing else can enter our mind.
We want to be somebody but we are not even aware of our body in space. This awareness or incarnation can happen only in Unitary Perception. This incarnation in Unitary Perception is the beginning of love but thought cannot recognize love. As long as the word “love� emerges to the mind, love ends.
The word “love� is not the reality of love.
And only this reality beyond words, call it Unitary Perception, or love or Christ . . . only that can solve the problems of mankind. But we want to solve problems created by words and thought (like war and hunger and overpopulation) with more words and thought. When the brain stops creating words and thought, only then it can be in complete touch with creation. That contact with creation is the beginning of a New Life without conflict.

you define unity consciousness in terms of negation (i.e., as lack of thought), which means that for you, it's an impoverished form of typical dual consciousness, whereas for me, it is an expanded form of consciousness where there is no distinction between me and other, and where defining it in terms of lack of thought completely misses the mark. Discussions on consciousness always leave me somewhat disappointed because people invariably discuss it solely in terms of duality versus non-duality, and this is but a tiny glimpse into the myriad varieties of consciousness that are accessible to us. Consciousness is much more than dual versus non-dual.

everything we are saying here is of dual consciousness. there is a lack of thought when one is more conscious of his self. awareness is the flame that burns the process of thought, we are basically coming from different angles. you don't know what consciousness means to me, i don't even know what it means to me. but when it is experienced there is a different form of meaning that is transcendental of conceptualization, which can only be understood when in the reality of. to observe from a less conscious perspective is to dream - maya, that which we are doing now. sure i can realize that i am projecting, everybody should.



i've had many obe's and know what it is like to observe through consciousness. any thought about consciousness misses the mark, it must be experienced. anything is possible in the astral realm, ime.

When the mind is still there is the experience of no thought, but the nature of consciousness is not complete stillness. The Universe exists because of the nature of consciousness, which is activity.
Union is between creator and creation.
The creator is both still and active, and in reflection of that experience is both of the active part of consciousness and the still part of consciousness. Duality must exist to display the reflection but consciousness does not have to be hypnotized by creation, as so often happens in the waking state.

There really is no reality to no mind in stillness, just no recognizable thought for a period of expression.
Stillness is a thought too.
Universal mind is the essence of all of creation and it is in itself still, in expression and experience just before the experience of it both in activity and stillness.

When one expresses the experience of the stillness they are not still, and so it creates a sort of conundrum to express stillness, especially if the stillness is expressing itself through the experience.

In Union, the experience of Natures stillness, is greatest in activity.


The ego's explanation for not achieving in the relative; duality.
Exalted experiences through altered states of consciousness do not create a stable conscious experience.

Don't worry no one is going to deny your experience, but it would be an advantage to quit identifying with them, and defending them.

Why must there be a reflection? Can one see without there being a reflection?

The unmanifest, that level of wholeness, the silent witness has no reflection, ime.




Don't worry, we are all identified with something here. The advantage is to realize it...

I guess what I am trying to say is any reflection outside of ourself seems of the ego.

When Joesus says this - "Duality must exist to display the reflection" - "displaying the reflection" sounds like a mirror outside of oneself - the ego. We are the mirror, we can reflect on ourself and realize we are nothing/everything/consciousness, but when we are reflected that does not sound like the experience of unity consciousness to me. Maybe I am misunderstanding..

No it wouldn't sound like unity, if unity is a belief.
The ego can become very enlightened and cling to the identity of duality where it says I am that while standing outside of what it perceives.

Stillness or silence of the absolute are the reflection of consciousness and you are both consciousness and the absolute. The reflection is still you. You in any aspect of conscious experience are individual, and One, The Absolute. You are all, and none of it at all.

Jn 10:30 I and my Father are one.

Jn 8:18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

Jn 10:25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.

Guess I just don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyways, wise words people, wise words.

Would that mean you are now reconsidering your grouping of shroomic experiences as higher states of consciousness/OBE's/NDE's/egoless?

When I see my body from an outside perspective, that to me is an OBE. Are you trying to tell me otherwise?

Are you still entertaining the idea that a shroomic out of body experience is a higher state of consciousness/ego death/NDE?

Would you say a non-shroom induced OBE a higher state of consciousness?

No, would you?

Well it obviously is a different state of consciousness being experienced, "higher" may not be the right word to use here, or any word for that matter. But it fits fine for me, maybe "expanded" would be more accurate. When experiencing an OBE (whether drug induced or not), I definitely feel more conscious and alive. As well as with astral projection.

Altered state of consciousness are enticing. They offer an escape from the mundane, and a glimmer of hope to those who believe there is more and can't seem to find a stable experience.
With a little help from the outside one can rationalize what might lay dormant and unused on the inside.
For one to achieve a higher state of consciousness it must be permanent, not a drive by glimpse of the neighborhood.
There is usually a subjective as well as an objective experience of the mind and body in their functioning.
For instance the permanence of aligning the left and right hemispheres as demonstrated by Maslow in the peak experience.
One can achieve the affect with a meditative discipline that is in effect residual and present in the known states of consciousness, waking dreaming and sleeping.
Shrooms do not create the same measure of permanent stillness of mind and healing of the body. Maybe a long lasting memory and a nice random ride in some distant neighborhood of exalted experiences, but not higher states of consciousness.