On the cutting edge of consciousness studies.
A Neuroscientist’s Radical Theory of How Networks Become Conscious
Brandon Keim
(h/t Mark Thoma at Economist's View)
There is little disagreement that what we call being conscious is an emergent property of matter, specifically, an organism with sufficient neurological complexity. There are two contending approaches to a theory of consciousness. The first assumes that consciousness as conscious experience is produced by greater neurological complexity, which emerges from that complexity. The second approach is that consciousness is a ubiquitous field and emergent neurological complexity creates the conditions necessary for reception, as for instance, electronic devices receive and interpret signals, and that this is the basis of conscious experience.
These are now new views. The former is the view of realism and the latter the view of idealism historically. The difference historically is that now we tend to approach the question scientifically rather than the philosophically, but the issues are ancient. The contemporary realistic appraoch is grounded in biology, having to do with neurophysiology and biochemistry, while the contemporary idealistic view is based on quantum physics.
3 comments:
When ‘consciousness and ‘energy’ become synonyms, then we will be getting somewhere. Then we will understand a higher energy at work on a lower energy (consolidated as matter). Consciousness evolving vehicles for itself so that it may manifest on a lower plane. Neurological complexity and ubiquitous fields originating from one Infinite Energy. A vessel and what is contained in the vessel, one and the same.
Then plan and purpose (understood in human terms) spring to mind!
Right. Without comprehensive knowledge (understanding illuminated by experience), it's a matter of groping in the dark.
According to perennial wisdom putatively based on non-ordinary experience, there are three "bodies" and three "worlds." The availability of the world of objects to experience is determined by the level of consciousness of the experiencer, and the level of consciousness is determined by the "neurology" of the type of "body" of the experiencer.
The gross body and gross neurology is capable of experiencing the gross world; the subtle body and subtle neurology, the subtle world of energy, and the mental or causal body and its mental neurology, the causal world of intelligence. The vast majority of people are in gross consciousness, so prevailing worldviews are of the gross world.
These three relative changing levels are nested within consciousness-existence as the absolute unchanging ground, which has its foundation in the Urgrund. These levels of experience are set forth in the various mystical traditions. See here for a summary.
Yabba dabba doo
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