[extropy-chat] Consciousness is a process in multi-dimensional time! [Was: Quali

[The Avantguardian]

--- Anna Tylor <femmechakra at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Ok..i'm going to ask a bunch of naive questions.

These questions are not naive and they don't have any
right answer. The answer you get to them would depend
on what school of philosophy of mind the person you
asked belonged to. Because much of the content of the
previous threads regarding qualia and consciousness
have been devoted to Western philosophical traditions,
it would be tedious for me to summarize them here.
instead I will answer these questions as a zen
buddhist might.
 
> If I couldn't see, hear, touch, taste, smell or
> speak,
> wouldn't I simply just exist but know nothing?

In buddhism the self is an illusion that is developed
over a lifetime of sensation. What you see, hear,
touch, smell, or otherwise sense makes you believe
that you are separate from the earth, sky, and the
grass beneath your feet. If you NEVER had these
senses, then you would be empty and in Nirvana without
suffering for your entire life as you would never have
developed any concept of self. You would in essense be
no different than the blades of grass that grow and
flourish without worrying if they will live or die or
if the neighboring blades of grass recieve more
sunlight than they do. Thus the physical you would
exist but not the You that asked me this question and
thinks she is a separate entity from the one who is
answering this question.  

That the senses are fallible and imperfect and capable
of being either lost, blunted, or deceived means that
there is no way of truly "knowing" anything. One can
only draw conclusions by the sensory evidence at hand
and hope for the best. Thus even if you had ALL your
senses you could not be sure that you were not
dreaming at any particular moment. This is illustrated
by the following Buddhist legend:

Once upon a time the buddhist monk Won-Hyo was
crossing the country side and when a fierce storm blew
in. He sought shelter from the storm in a damp cave.
Safe from the wind and the rain he went to sleep and
around midnight he awoke, very thirsty. It was
pitch-dark so, half asleep he groped along on all
fours, searching for water. At last his hand touched
what he percieved as a cup on the ground. He picked it
up and drank from it and the water was cool, soothing,
and sweet. His thirst sated, he went back to sleep,
gratitude in his heart. 

The next morning Won-Hyo woke up and saw beside him
what he had taken for a cup the night before. It was a
shattered skull, blood-caked and with tattered shreds
of flesh still stuck to the cheek-bones and bits of
brain still caked in its hollow. Maggots and ants
crawled through the decaying flesh of the skull and
floated on the surface of the filthy rainwater inside
it. Won-Hyo looked at the skull and felt a great wave
of revulsion and nausea. He opened his mouth and
vomited and as the vomit poured out, his mind opened
and he had an epiphany. He suddenly understood the
secret of life, death, the universe, and the nature of
existense. The night before, since he hadn't seen
anything and hadn't thought about it, the skull was a
cup and the water in it was delicious. This morning,
seeing what he drank from and thinking about it had
made him vomit.

The moral of this story is simply that it is thought
and thought alone that differentiates good from bad,
life from death, pain from pleasure, and brings into
being all the complex dualities of life. Without
thinking, there is no universe, no self, and no
suffering. ALL is ONE, and the ONE is EMPTINESS.

To quote the rock band Rush, "You are made from dust
of stars and the oceans flow in your veins." 

> Wouldn't I only know "5" is "5" because someone
> suddenly awakened one of my senses and taught me
> that "red" is "red"?

Yes but only because you are taught that your
perception is called this color or that number. What
is "five" to you is cinqo to a Mexican, or quintus to
an ancient Roman. Likewise what is "red" to you is
"rouge" to a Frenchman. These things are but labels
for perception. Is "red" truly "red"? Or is it instead
"scarlet" or "carnelian"? It is none of these, merely
your perception. Turn out the lights and let your eyes
get adjusted to the dark and look at something you
know is red. It will look a greyish-brown.  


> Should I be focusing on the purpose of "5" or "red"
> or
> should I concentrate more on the fact why "5" or
> "red"
> exist?

There is no purpose and no why. There is no "5" and
there is no "red". All of being is merely perception
and thought. Be content to see the beauty red and
understand that five is more than four and ease your
troubled mind.

> Would that mean that the more senses you use, the
> more
> conscious you are?

Yes, but the more conscious you are, the more
disconnected you will feel from all that is around
you. The more you are aware of the more you will
suffer. You cannot want what you cannot perceive and
you cannot be deprived of what you do not want. Be at
peace, Anna. 

> Would that mean that aliens have different senses or
> that someone taught them that "5" is "3"?

MOO! Unthink that thought. Do not invite aliens into
your reality by contemplating how they do math. You
have no use for aliens, they will only cause trouble
for you. Ignore them and they will not bother you, do
not think of them and they will cease to exist.


The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. . ."

- Albert Einstein, "What I Believe" (1930)

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