[ExI] The simplest possible conscious system

[Gordon Swobe]

--- On Sat, 2/6/10, Spencer Campbell <lacertilian at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've heard of mental states available in meditation that
> eradicate the subject-object duality, and others that are devoid of 
> all content save for vast diffuse consciousness. The latter is obviously
> conscious, by definition, but I don't know about the former; if I am
> meditating on an idol, and then perceive myself to be identical with the
> idol, am I conscious? Is the idol?

I have since the 70s practiced transcendental meditation. Occasionally while meditating my mind seems to, as you say, eradicate the subject-object duality. However I can only infer this indirectly, and only after the fact. During those actual moments I have awareness of nothing at all. 

I don't believe in qualia, as such, because the idea implies the possibility of consciousness-without-an-object or consciousness-sans-qualia. Such states seem to me impossible both in theory and in practice. Instead I believe one experiences various qualities or aspects of one's own unified field of consciousness. 

-gts