[ExI] The simplest possible conscious system

[Gordon Swobe]

--- On Sun, 2/7/10, Spencer Campbell <lacertilian at gmail.com> wrote:

> This seems to me a good argument for the idea that all
> consciousness is that of a subject being aware of an object. 

Yes. 

> I'd have said that before, but my source regarding that particular state 
> (from Ken Wilber, I think) wasn't very specific on the matter.

Mystics including Wilber like to talk about such things as consciousness-without-an-object. I believe they're misguided.

> The vast-consciousness-without-content state does seem to
> contradict this theory, though, from what little I know about it. I've
> heard it described (probably by Ken Wilber again) as a void which is
> only aware of itself. 

Speaking only from my own experience, I can tell you that there does exist for me a state that *seems* like consciousness-without-content. I can see how those who have mystical philosophical biases might interpret that state as consciousness of the "void" or some such. I have no such mystical bias (although I once did) and I believe that, in reality, the experience to which I refer above represents only a very clear and silent state of mind. It appears typically in the moment following that during which subject-object actually does disappear -- after the transcendent moment itself -- and is easily mistaken for it. 

-gts