Consciousness and the Paranormal

[smcder]

For me, it has been more of a semantic/terminology shift than a conceptual one.

The biggest change for me is thinking of subjective experience as being composed of an element that doesn't reduce to matter/energy, that is quale.

However my prior conception of the way matter gives rise to mind hasn't changed and is precisely as you've described it.

The only difference is where I in the past would have said mind/consciousness I might now say qualia.

Likewise my conception of the nature of what-is. I'm a monist at heart and reflexive monism reflects my worldview perfectly. The term is new to me, but not the concept.

Btw, I'm not trying to get you, smcder, or anyone else to agree with me. I'm simply trying to learn.

Chalmers says he is a property dualist, not a substance dualist – so it sounds very close to his position, check it out and see if you think that is right – try about 64 minutes into the podcast:

http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2012/12/21/ep68-chalmers/

 

[Constance]

For me, it has been more of a semantic/terminology shift than a conceptual one.

The biggest change for me is thinking of subjective experience as being composed of an element that doesn't reduce to matter/energy, that is quale.

I'm wondering why you have recently used that term, as just above, in its singular form. I checked it in the online Oxford dictionary (see this link: quale: definition of quale in Oxford dictionary (British & World English) (US) I'm not generally suspicious by nature, but I do suspect that you might be reducing the usual term 'qualia', expressed in the plural, to the singular 'quale' in order to suggest that qualia are expressions of some kind of physical substance or entity.

More importantly, qualia are not alone in identifying subjective experience, i.e., consciousness. Consciousness includes not just the sensed qualities [qualia] of our experiences in the world but our sense of the world as actual, of our perceptions as of actual things in the world visible in their phenomenal appearances before us, of our reflections on what we see and the way in which we see it, and our thinking based on our experiences and what they signify about reality -- i.e., mind.

However my prior conception of the way matter gives rise to mind hasn't changed and is precisely as you've described it.

I described consciousness in phenomenological terms and suggested, in line with emerging theories in science referred to by Chalmers, that it might be understood to have evolved out of protoconsciousness and phenomenal properties present in exchanges of information at deeper levels of nature, which we would not define as 'conscious'.

The only difference is where I in the past would have said mind/consciousness I might now say qualia.

Qualia are not adequate to account for consciousness and mind but they constitute what is without doubt a 'hard problem' for materialist science and thus a convenient place to begin arguing for the nonmaterial aspects of consciousness.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

This is a pretty good capture of Scientism as I've been using it:
The Archdruid Report: Toward Ecosophy

By the way, it's a good blog, well-written and thought provoking. I try to follow it most weeks because his thinking develops over time.

Another question about the singularity and AI++

Will AI++ have a subconscious?

 

[smcder]

Yes, I am frankly at a loss as to what "perspective" you're referring to.

We've discussed and agreed upon the idea that what-is - so far as we humans can discern - appears to consist of at least two elements that appear not to reduce into one another.

This doesn't appear to be the perspective you(s) are referring to however. Scmder has mentioned his skepticism (I believe) in the concept of reduction, at least as far as a universal concept. (I'm assuming he does think at least some of what-is can be reduced.)

I took this perceived skepticism in the idea of reduction to mean that he (and possibly you) feel that some complex - what I would call - systems are irreducible. Thus, the question about souls.

So I apologize if you (and Smcder) feel that you've made a strong case for your (mutual?) perspective, but I'm not getting it.

Constance and I don't hold a mutual perspective because she is well informed by Phenomenology and I know very little about that area of philosophy.

It's an interesting question whether complex systems are irreducible, I'll have to think about that - are there other particular systems you have in mind with this question? As to the question of souls, personality - the nearest discussion might be survival of death which has been brought up on this thread, also NDEs and mediumship. All related to consciousness and the paranormal.

I don't say I'm skeptical of reduction - but it's like science/scientism ... so reductionism that I would question as a belief system. And it's not really even one thing, but a set of tools.

We've discussed and agreed upon the idea that what-is - so far as we humans can discern - appears to consist of at least two elements that appear not to reduce into one another.

So here you are using "what-is" to mean reality, everything . . . right? I like Chalmers' scrutability project discussed on the PEL interview I linked above . . . you start with a minimal base in order to know all the rest of the facts of the world - and he discusses "mood" and "generosity" in terms of what to allow in that minimal base - PQTI for him: Physical, mental (Qualia), "That's all" and "indexical" - they give the example of fields as a new primitive, charge as an example of an ontological primitive . . . an example of how you sometimes (as rarely as possible) have to allow in something new to your base.

 

[smcder]

Panpsychism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
4.2 Analogical arguments
4.3 Intrinsic Nature Arguments - touches on the problems of emergentism:

"The panpsychist's hope lies in the thought that any modification of our conception of the physical that does not incorporate mind will leave us in an essentially unchanged position, with no explanation of how consciousness emerges from the radically non-mental physical elements of the world. We have seen that this argument has been bruited since at least the time of the Presocratics and it has often led emergentists to reconsider their position when the problem of consciousness is directly considered ...

This leads to the final consideration in favor of panpsychism to be considered here, which is a sort of methodological argument. Panpsychism enjoys a metaphysical advantage in that it avoids the difficulties of emergentism, which are greater than is generally thought. Not only is there a problem simply in accounting for the emergence of something so distinctive as consciousness from mere matter, it is surprisingly difficult to articulate a form of emergentism that does not threaten to make the emergent features causally impotent or epiphenomenal. This is not the place to discuss the difficulties of all the varieties of emergentism, but they seem serious."

If we go forward in the discussion of consciouenss, I think the problems of emergence deserve a closer look.

 

[Soupie]

Chalmers says he is a property dualist, not a substance dualist – so it sounds very close to his position, check it out and see if you think that is right...

Yes, the concepts of property dualism and reflexive monism sound compatible to me.

I would say both concepts are compatible with my conception of reality. I haven't completely digested all the information/terminology related to both, but I wouldn't label the most primal substance (what I have been - probably confusingly - referring to as an "element") as a "physical substance" per se. I would simply say that it's a substance that has both physical and mental properties.

(The physical property might be the "O" and the mental property might be the "not-O" I referred to above. If that's too confusing, just ignore it, haha.)

Regardless, I am absolutely dying to read more about both concepts. Thanks so much for introducing both to me. They both fit so well with my own thoughts/intuitions regarding reality.

I like Chalmers' scrutability project discussed on the PEL interview I linked above . . . you start with a minimal base in order to know all the rest of the facts of the world - and he discusses "mood" and "generosity" in terms of what to allow in that minimal base - PQTI for him: Physical, mental (Qualia), "That's all" and "indexical" - they give the example of fields as a new primitive, charge as an example of an ontological primitive . . . an example of how you sometimes (as rarely as possible) have to allow in something new to your base.

You mentioned this before, and this is another line of thought that I am anxious to read/learn more about! Thanks once again!

If we go forward in the discussion of consciouenss, I think the problems of emergence deserve a closer look.

I could be wrong, but I think a Reflexive Monist/Property Dualist sidesteps the issue of emergence. That is, rather than argue about whether "mind" emerges from the physical or whether the "physical" emerges from mind, a Reflexive Monist says both physical and mental are two sides of the same coin - or two properties of a primal substance, haha.

In any case, I would have called myself a panpsychist as described below in the article you linked to:

There have been some panpsychists who, while being much more liberal than most in their willingness to ascribe mind, seem to have been unwilling to extend mind right down into the roots of the world. Both Gustav Fechner (1801-1887) and Josiah Royce (1855-1916) developed panpsychist accounts of nature that did not necessarily attribute mental properties to the ultimate constituents of mentalistic “systems”. It would seem to be intuitively clear that if one does not place mind at the very foundation, and in fact regards mentality to be a feature of systems of non-mentalistic entities, then one is an emergentist.

However, it appears that these panpsychists are not panpsychisty enough, haha.

I would say this: The mental property is not reducible to the physical property, but some differentiated systems of primal substance (such as brains, or what I called Information Processing Systems to indicate they could be non-biological) can emit the mind.

My thinking (or perhaps just my terminology) has changed in that before having this discussion I would have said:

Some differentiated systems of primal substance (such as brains or Information Processing Systems) can produce the mind.

I do suspect that you might be reducing the usual term 'qualia', expressed in the plural, to the singular 'quale' in order to suggest that qualia are expressions of some kind of physical substance or entity.

I was not suggesting they reduce to a physical substance, but I was suggesting they reduce to a more primitive mental substance.

(If nothing else, this discussion has helped me learn the common language/terminology to express my views.)

More importantly, qualia are not alone in identifying subjective experience, i.e., consciousness. Consciousness includes not just the sensed qualities [qualia] of our experiences in the world but our sense of the world as actual, of our perceptions as of actual things in the world visible in their phenomenal appearances before us, of our reflections on what we see and the way in which we see it, and our thinking based on our experiences and what they signify about reality -- i.e., mind.

I agree with this 100%. I was using quale/qualia incorrectly.

The more appropriate term for me to use perhaps would be "mental unit" rather than "quale" or "element."

What you have described, Constance, is the stream of consciousness. I think this stream can be viewed in three ways:

(1) The entire stream may be irreducible. (See my question about whether complex systems can be irreducible.)

I think this is a non-starter as we both seem to agree that the stream can be reduced to multiple "things" such as thoughts, sensations, emotions, quale, etc.

(2) The stream may be made up of several "things" which are themselves irreducible such as thoughts, sensations, emotions, quale, etc.

This would be akin to a system of taxonomy where we identified these complex things and gave them a name. So John's thought about getting to work on time on Monday would be one kind of thing, and his sensation of being itchy would be another kind of thing; and his feeling of joy about winning the lottery would be yet another kind of thing; all would be irreducible.

(3) The third possibility is that the stream of consciousness can be reduced to mental units out of which it is made. Thus, when brains interact with the environment the mind emerges; or said differently: when differentiated systems of the primal substance exchange physical information they emit a stream of differentiated mental units.

Regarding the paranormal: Just as there are physical information processing systems that experience mental streams of consciousness; there may be mental information processing systems that experience physical streams of consciousness: Maybe our physical reality is God's stream of consciousness.

 

[smcder]

Yes, the concepts of property dualism and reflexive monism sound compatible to me.

I would say both concepts are compatible with my conception of reality. I haven't completely digested all the information/terminology related to both, but I wouldn't label the most primal substance (what I have been - probably confusingly - referring to as an "element") as a "physical substance" per se. I would simply say that it's a substance that has both physical and mental properties.

(The physical property might be the "O" and the mental property might be the "not-O" I referred to above. If that's too confusing, just ignore it, haha.)

Regardless, I am absolutely dying to read more about both concepts. Thanks so much for introducing both to me. They both fit so well with my own thoughts/intuitions regarding reality.

You mentioned this before, and this is another line of thought that I am anxious to read/learn more about! Thanks once again!

I could be wrong, but I think a Reflexive Monist/Property Dualist sidesteps the issue of emergence. That is, rather than argue about whether "mind" emerges from the physical or whether the "physical" emerges from mind, a Reflexive Monist says both physical and mental are two sides of the same coin - or two properties of a primal substance, haha.

In any case, I would have called myself a panpsychist as described below in the article you linked to:

There have been some panpsychists who, while being much more liberal than most in their willingness to ascribe mind, seem to have been unwilling to extend mind right down into the roots of the world. Both Gustav Fechner (1801-1887) and Josiah Royce (1855-1916) developed panpsychist accounts of nature that did not necessarily attribute mental properties to the ultimate constituents of mentalistic “systems”. It would seem to be intuitively clear that if one does not place mind at the very foundation, and in fact regards mentality to be a feature of systems of non-mentalistic entities, then one is an emergentist.

However, it appears that these panpsychists are not panpsychisty enough, haha.

I would say this: The mental property is not reducible to the physical property, but some differentiated systems of primal substance (such as brains, or what I called Information Processing Systems to indicate they could be non-biological) can emit the mind.

My thinking (or perhaps just my terminology) has changed in that before having this discussion I would have said:

Some differentiated systems of primal substance (such as brains or Information Processing Systems) can produce the mind.

I was not suggesting they reduce to a physical substance, but I was suggesting they reduce to a more primitive mental substance.

(If nothing else, this discussion has helped me learn the common language/terminology to express my views.)

I agree with this 100%. I was using quale/qualia incorrectly.

The more appropriate term for me to use perhaps would be "mental unit" rather than "quale" or "element."

What you have described, Constance, is the stream of consciousness. I think this stream can be viewed in three ways:

(1) The entire stream may be irreducible. (See my question about whether complex systems can be irreducible.)

I think this is a non-starter as we both seem to agree that the stream can be reduced to multiple "things" such as thoughts, sensations, emotions, quale, etc.

(2) The stream may be made up of several "things" which are themselves irreducible such as thoughts, sensations, emotions, quale, etc.

This would be akin to a system of taxonomy where we identified these complex things and gave them a name. So John's thought about getting to work on time on Monday would be one kind of thing, and his sensation of being itchy would be another kind of thing; and his feeling of joy about winning the lottery would be yet another kind of thing; all would be irreducible.

(3) The third possibility is that the stream of consciousness can be reduced to mental units out of which it is made. Thus, when brains interact with the environment the mind emerges; or said differently: when differentiated systems of the primal substance exchange physical information they emit a stream of differentiated mental units.

Regarding the paranormal: Just as there are physical information processing systems that experience mental streams of consciousness; there may be mental information processing systems that experience physical streams of consciousness: Maybe our physical reality is God's stream of consciousness.

I would say this: The mental property is not reducible to the physical property, but some differentiated systems of primal substance (such as brains, or what I called Information Processing Systems to indicate they could be non-biological) can emit the mind.

My thinking (or perhaps just my terminology) has changed in that before having this discussion I would have said:

Some differentiated systems of primal substance (such as brains or Information Processing Systems) can produce the mind.

There's a new thread started by Christopher O'Brien:

The Brain Does NOT Create Consciousness

...discussing related issues, it might be of interest to you.

@Constance wrote:
More importantly, qualia are not alone in identifying subjective experience, i.e., consciousness. Consciousness includes not just the sensed qualities [qualia] of our experiences in the world but our sense of the world as actual, of our perceptions as of actual things in the world visible in their phenomenal appearances before us, of our reflections on what we see and the way in which we see it, and our thinking based on our experiences and what they signify about reality -- i.e., mind.

Constance may have a response here - but I wanted to take a shot at what I think she means in saying: "but our sense of the world as actual" as I am learning about Phenomenology and want to test my understanding:

So consciousness is more than qualia - the basic unit of experience - it also is being "in tension" with the actual world - (intentionality is a technical term in phenomenology and hopefully I am using it correctly, it is a word-play on "in tension" - consciousness in tension with its object - and means that consciousness is always conciousness of something) ... we seem to have this model that we take in the world into our brain, we perceive it and then construct a model, a "virtual reality" and that's how we perceive the world - but phenomenology seeks to eliminate this duality and says conciousness is the actual world - if we jab our finger with a pin, the pain is in the finger, not "in" our brain - phenomenology starts with watching this experience, watching how things come into our consciousness ... that's as far as I can get with it - but it's a fascinating area of philosophy that I just don't know much about yet.

(1) The entire stream may be irreducible. (See my question about whether complex systems can be irreducible.)

Still not sure I understand this - which complex systems? Personality or soul was mentioned and stream of consciousness - in one sense (maybe trivial) any complex system is irreducible in that it ceases to exist as soon as it is "reduced".

"What is essential about the boiling process is not what has been distilled but what has evaporated - " David Berlinski "The God of the Gaps"

. . . except we do have a potential discussion in survival of consciousness after death, this would test our ideas of the brain/mind relationship.

Regarding the paranormal: Just as there are physical information processing systems that experience mental streams of consciousness; there may be mental information processing systems that experience physical streams of consciousness: Maybe our physical reality is God's stream of consciousness.

A very intriguing statement! Can you "unpack it"?

 

[Soupie]

we seem to have this model that we take in the world into our brain, we perceive it and then construct a model, a "virtual reality" and that's how we perceive the world - but phenomenology seeks to eliminate this duality and says conciousness is the actual world - if we jab our finger with a pin, the pain is in the finger, not "in" our brain…

On the one hand, I completely agree. I prefer the phrase information processing system because to me, that incorporates the entire body, not just the brain.

But more than that, I don’t think just the body/brain emit mind; the mind emerges from the exchange of information between the body/brain and the environment. So, I do agree that the environment is a part of our mind.

On the other hand, there does seem to be some virtualizing going on in the brain; for example, phantom limb syndrome is when the mind experiences that an amputated or missing limb (even an organ, like the appendix) is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. The mind can even perceive these phantom limbs to be experiencing extreme, excruciating pain.

This is also why I struggle with the concept of OBEs wherein people assert/believe that a mind can exist disembodied from an IPS that exchanges information with the surrounding environment. That’s like saying if you had a cylindrical glass full of water, that upon removing the glass, the water would would remain standing in a cylindrical shape.

@Soupie (1) The entire stream may be irreducible. (See my question about whether complex systems can be irreducible.)

@Scmder Still not sure I understand this - which complex systems? Personality or soul was mentioned and stream of consciousness - in one sense (maybe trivial) any complex system is irreducible in that it ceases to exist as soon as it is "reduced".

A stream of consciousness would not cease to exist if it were reduced; for example, if someone loses the ability to experience sound waves, they still have a stream of consciousness. The stream of consciousness may be different than it once was, but it would not cease.

When I use the term reduction, I mean it in the sense that complex things are made of less complex things. And thus, complex things can be reduced to less complex things.

A stream of consciousness, in my opinion, is a complex thing that is composed of less complex things.

The primal substance - whatever it may be - is a thing that cannot be reduced to less complex things.

we do have a potential discussion in survival of consciousness after death, this would test our ideas of the brain/mind relationship.

Perhaps. I think mind is different than consciousness.

A mind emerges from the interaction of an IPS with the environment; consciousness arises when a mind is self-aware.

So when I use the phrase stream of consciousness, what I really mean is stream of mental units.

mind = stream of differentiated mental

consciousness = self-aware stream of differentiated mental

I think it’s certainly possible that a self-aware stream of mental units may exist separate from a physical IPS, but I’m not sure how it would. Any ideas?

(Consider a physical stream meandering through a rocky landscape. If you removed the landscape, would the stream retain it's shape? Thus it is with a stream of consciousness, a mind.)

@Soupie Regarding the paranormal: Just as there are physical information processing systems that experience mental streams of consciousness; there may be mental information processing systems that experience physical streams of consciousness: Maybe our physical reality is God's stream of consciousness.

@scmder A very intriguing statement! Can you "unpack it"?

The trick is understanding that our terms “physical” and “mental” are just labels for things we don’t really understand. When we think of “physical” we might conjure up the image of a rock, but this would be a mistake because a burst of light is also physical.

Furthermore, the primal substance might be a vibration, a field, a point particle, a string, whatever. Who knows.

So the point is, if there can be complex physical systems, there can just as easily be complex mental systems.

 

[smcder]

On the one hand, I completely agree. I prefer the phrase information processing system because to me, that incorporates the entire body, not just the brain.

But more than that, I don’t think just the body/brain emit mind; the mind emerges from the exchange of information between the body/brain and the environment. So, I do agree that the environment is a part of our mind.

On the other hand, there does seem to be some virtualizing going on in the brain; for example, phantom limb syndrome is when the mind experiences that an amputated or missing limb (even an organ, like the appendix) is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. The mind can even perceive these phantom limbs to be experiencing extreme, excruciating pain.

This is also why I struggle with the concept of OBEs wherein people assert/believe that a mind can exist disembodied from an IPS that exchanges information with the surrounding environment. That’s like saying if you had a cylindrical glass full of water, that upon removing the glass, the water would would remain standing in a cylindrical shape.

A stream of consciousness would not cease to exist if it were reduced; for example, if someone loses the ability to experience sound waves, they still have a stream of consciousness. The stream of consciousness may be different than it once was, but it would not cease.

When I use the term reduction, I mean it in the sense that complex things are made of less complex things. And thus, complex things can be reduced to less complex things.

A stream of consciousness, in my opinion, is a complex thing that is composed of less complex things.

The primal substance - whatever it may be - is a thing that cannot be reduced to less complex things.

Perhaps. I think mind is different than consciousness.

A mind emerges from the interaction of an IPS with the environment; consciousness arises when a mind is self-aware.

So when I use the phrase stream of consciousness, what I really mean is stream of mental units.

mind = stream of differentiated mental

consciousness = self-aware stream of differentiated mental

I think it’s certainly possible that a self-aware stream of mental units may exist separate from a physical IPS, but I’m not sure how it would. Any ideas?

(Consider a physical stream meandering through a rocky landscape. If you removed the landscape, would the stream retain it's shape? Thus it is with a stream of consciousness, a mind.)

The trick is understanding that our terms “physical” and “mental” are just labels for things we don’t really understand. When we think of “physical” we might conjure up the image of a rock, but this would be a mistake because a burst of light is also physical.

Furthermore, the primal substance might be a vibration, a field, a point particle, a string, whatever. Who knows.

So the point is, if there can be complex physical systems, there can just as easily be complex mental systems.

But more than that, I don’t think just the body/brain emit mind; the mind emerges from the exchange of information between the body/brain and the environment. So, I do agree that the environment is a part of our mind.

On the other hand, there does seem to be some virtualizing going on in the brain; for
example, phantom limb syndrome is when the mind experiences that an amputated or missing limb (even an organ, like the appendix) is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. The mind can even perceive these phantom limbs to be experiencing extreme, excruciating pain.

A very interesting example. Here is a Phenomenological view:

The Phenomenon of Phantom Limbs in Merleau-Ponty | InfoRefuge

This is also why I struggle with the concept of OBEs wherein people assert/believe that a mind can exist disembodied from an IPS that exchanges information with the surrounding environment. That’s like saying if you had a cylindrical glass full of water, that upon removing the glass, the water would remain standing in a cylindrical shape.

Well . . . it would if it were frozen like Walt Disney! ;-)

Shroedinger discussed "dissapitive structures" . . . he used the example of a vortex formed when you drain the bath tub - water swirls through the vortex but the structure remains - he analogized this to the fact that you don't have any of the same material in your body as you did several years ago. To me that suggests possibilities.

This is also why I struggle with the concept of OBEs wherein people assert/believe that a mind can exist disembodied from an IPS that exchanges information with the surrounding environment. That’s like saying if you had a cylindrical glass full of water, that upon removing the glass, the water would would remain standing in a cylindrical shape.

OK, so . . . it's like saying that . . . but it's also like saying the mind is a computer and when you pull the plug you lose your Word document . . . except there are backup options, ROM, a hard drive and a connection to the internet in a computer and when you plug the computer back in - your Word document is still there (or some earlier version of it) ... so there are also many theories based like the computer/internet analogy (e.g. Akashic record) about how a disembodied consciousness (or information) might work in terms of reincarnation, OBEs and NDEs.

However, the larger point is that your struggle to understand it might relate to our intuition and understanding being rooted in physical metaphors.

You say it better yourself:

The trick is understanding that our terms “physical” and “mental” are just labels for things we don’t really understand. When we think of “physical” we might conjure up the image of a rock, but this would be a mistake because a burst of light is also physical.

Furthermore, the primal substance might be a vibration, a field, a point particle, a string, whatever. Who knows.

So the point is, if there can be complex physical systems, there can just as easily be complex mental systems.
...
Regarding the paranormal: Just as there are physical information processing systems that experience mental streams of consciousness; there may be mental information processing systems that experience physical streams of consciousness: Maybe our physical reality is God's stream of consciousness

So, is one possibility for conserving consciousness after death that we live on in God's stream of consciousness - or am I taking that out of context?

 

[smcder]

On the one hand, I completely agree. I prefer the phrase information processing system because to me, that incorporates the entire body, not just the brain.

But more than that, I don’t think just the body/brain emit mind; the mind emerges from the exchange of information between the body/brain and the environment. So, I do agree that the environment is a part of our mind.

On the other hand, there does seem to be some virtualizing going on in the brain; for example, phantom limb syndrome is when the mind experiences that an amputated or missing limb (even an organ, like the appendix) is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. The mind can even perceive these phantom limbs to be experiencing extreme, excruciating pain.

This is also why I struggle with the concept of OBEs wherein people assert/believe that a mind can exist disembodied from an IPS that exchanges information with the surrounding environment. That’s like saying if you had a cylindrical glass full of water, that upon removing the glass, the water would would remain standing in a cylindrical shape.

A stream of consciousness would not cease to exist if it were reduced; for example, if someone loses the ability to experience sound waves, they still have a stream of consciousness. The stream of consciousness may be different than it once was, but it would not cease.

When I use the term reduction, I mean it in the sense that complex things are made of less complex things. And thus, complex things can be reduced to less complex things.

A stream of consciousness, in my opinion, is a complex thing that is composed of less complex things.

The primal substance - whatever it may be - is a thing that cannot be reduced to less complex things.

Perhaps. I think mind is different than consciousness.

A mind emerges from the interaction of an IPS with the environment; consciousness arises when a mind is self-aware.

So when I use the phrase stream of consciousness, what I really mean is stream of mental units.

mind = stream of differentiated mental

consciousness = self-aware stream of differentiated mental

I think it’s certainly possible that a self-aware stream of mental units may exist separate from a physical IPS, but I’m not sure how it would. Any ideas?

(Consider a physical stream meandering through a rocky landscape. If you removed the landscape, would the stream retain it's shape? Thus it is with a stream of consciousness, a mind.)

The trick is understanding that our terms “physical” and “mental” are just labels for things we don’t really understand. When we think of “physical” we might conjure up the image of a rock, but this would be a mistake because a burst of light is also physical.

Furthermore, the primal substance might be a vibration, a field, a point particle, a string, whatever. Who knows.

So the point is, if there can be complex physical systems, there can just as easily be complex mental systems.

A stream of consciousness would not cease to exist if it were reduced; for example, if someone loses the ability to experience sound waves, they still have a stream of consciousness. The stream of consciousness may be different than it once was, but it would not cease.

That’s actually an interesting example – is the stream of consciousness actually reduced at all by removing an ability? It’s altered yes, but reduced? What about a dose of DMT? Reduced? Altered? Or, as it is commonly experienced – expanded? Does the idea of quantification, of increase/decrease apply to mental properties in the same way it does to physical?

When I use the term reduction, I mean it in the sense that complex things are made of less complex things. And thus, complex things can be reduced to less complex things.
So I think emergence and reduction are going to keep coming up and maybe we should examine them more closely. I’m reading the SEP article on emergence now.

I think it’s certainly possible that a self-aware stream of mental units may exist separate from a physical IPS, but I’m not sure how it would. Any ideas?

(Consider a physical stream meandering through a rocky landscape. If you removed the landscape, would the stream retain it's shape? Thus it is with a stream of consciousness, a mind.)

It’s not something I know a lot about – but I mentioned some things in the last post and I have seen ideas similar to being plugged into some kind of higher consciousness or something like an Akashic record – traditional views (Hinduism for example) include the concept of subtle bodies.

Earlier in this thread that idea was tied in to the idea of "shadow matter" by physicist John Hagelin, I’ll see if I can find the post where I transcribed that part of the conversation:

Consciousness and the Paranormal | Page 33 | The Paracast Community Forums

213. John Hagelin, Ph.D. - Buddha at the Gas Pump

Here you go, discussion of hidden sector matter and subtle bodies from the BATGAP interview #213 of John Hagelin

62:13

Hidden sector matter/shadow matter and subtle bodies


63:42 JH anyone who has for a variety of reasons and it can happen for a variety of reasons, finds themselves projected outside their physical body and are seeing and perceiving and functioning from a different place where you could literally turn around and observe your physical body sitting there, can’t deny the existence of levels of our human, say subtle physiology, that are independent of the gross physical physiology, connected to a degree, but more or less independent.

So I must say from a from a physics perspective that has been very hard to accept for physicists because What we know about the universe, what most physicists know about the universe is that its comprised of four forces, light, gravity, etc its comprised of known particles, like quarks and leptons, electrons, protons, neutrons and we pretty much know, nothing else. Whatever this subtle body’s made of – some kind of subtle matter - you can almost rule it out from the standpoint of physics and experiments that have been done.


But there’s a loophole and the loophole is there is a certain type of matter predicted by superstring theory, never predicted before superstring theory to exist. And its called “hidden sector matter” its, you’re starting to hear reference to it as shadow matter in the scientific literature, but it is a whole 'nother category of matter with its own set of forces and its own set of particles of a very different kind and that exists almost independently of us, fills this room, this is what had been thought - only interacting with us, by virtue of whatever gravitational mass it might have and due to its mass, any gravitational influence – but the gravitational influence between things of ordinary size, between you and me, even at this proximity is essentially zero, negligible – never measure it

RA You have a little bit more gravity than I do.

JH I’ve got twice the gravity you do, in every respect, um but the loophole in these calculations pointed out by I forget whom, but still relatively unknown fact is that this extra set of matter, extra forces, extra particles, and we don’t know a whole lot about the details of what those are like, but the caveat has now shown in most cases, in addition to its negligible gravity influence upon us and vice versa, there will be a weak electromagnetic tie a weak electromagnetic influence for reason that are comlex to go into and b/c of that electro-magnetic influence on us we could subtly see and feel the presence of these things.

But b/c that influence is rather weak its probably not something that the human eye is going to see well its not something that particle detectors have yet been able to discern although we’re looking the variety of tests looking mostly for what’s called dark matter in this hidden sector matter is in effect a form of dark matter a specific form predicted by superstring theory so were looking for dark matter we may find evidence of this stuff but the interesting thing about it is b/c it interacts with us electromagnetically it is really through a subtle, an alternate form of light that it could be perceived in principle . . . dimly perceived dimly perceived (sic) now the eyes, may be too dim for the eyes however through complicated mechanisms this stuff b/c its attraction to us electromagnetically it’s a little bit like cling-wrap.

It’s an electro-static attraction a faint electro-static attraction between this stuff and ourselves so for example its very easy, relatively easy to take a piece of glad wrap off of a cantaloupe even though it tends to cling its removable like that this subtle body if it were made of this HS matter or shadow matter could be removed from our physical body and could live quite independently of it – hidden sector matter would be very cold, cold is a relative thing, but it would be less than two degrees above absolute zero which is a good thing in a sense because it means it would be a deeply quantum mechanical world, a world that’s covered by quantum mechanics and if these HS particles happen to be bosons and there almost certainly would be some they would be super-fluid bosons and they would have all kinds of properties that would be very reminiscent of mind these bodies might be very much an aid to the physical human brain in the process of thinking maybe even in the process of transcending.

So could a body made of this stuff firstly cling together into a body and not just a pile of gas? Yes, it could. Could such a body be a vehicle of thought? That is it could think independently of the human brain if the human brain were to have a problem, maybe it even brings elements to the human brains ability to think that the human brain wouldn’t be very good at itself including possibly the ability to transcend? Yeah, so there’s very little known about it, very speculative area, not a lot of people thinking about it besides myself, but provided such people are seeing such things and for anybody who’s ever found themselves outside the physical body, as a physicist if you’re willing to admit such experiences exits, you kind of have to, as a physicist you should know right away this must be a body made of HS matter or shadow matter.

 

[Soupie]

This is also why I struggle with the concept of OBEs wherein people assert/believe that a mind can exist disembodied from an IPS that exchanges information with the surrounding environment. That’s like saying if you had a cylindrical glass full of water, that upon removing the glass, the water would remain standing in a cylindrical shape.

Well . . . it would if it were frozen like Walt Disney! ;-)

Shroedinger discussed "dissapitive structures" . . . he used the example of a vortex formed when you drain the bath tub - water swirls through the vortex but the structure remains - he analogized this to the fact that you don't have any of the same material in your body as you did several years ago. To me that suggests possibilities.

OK, so . . . it's like saying that . . . but it's also like saying the mind is a computer and when you pull the plug you lose your Word document . . . except there are backup options, ROM, a hard drive and a connection to the internet in a computer and when you plug the computer back in - your Word document is still there (or some earlier version of it) ... so there are also many theories based like the computer/internet analogy (e.g. Akashic record) about how a disembodied consciousness (or information) might work in terms of reincarnation, OBEs and NDEs.

In my view, the mind is a fluid thing, not a static thing. It results from an ongoing process:

That is to say, the mind isn't the brain/body and the environment, it's the interaction of the brain/body and the environment. That's why I chose the glass/water analogy and not the computer/document analogy.

The relationship between the glass and the water is fluid (heh) but the relationship between a computer and a document is static. The shape of the water depends on the interaction (exchange of information) with the glass, just as the mind depends on the body/brain and environment - remove those three things, lose the mind. The word document, as you note, can exist even if the computer (the processor) is removed.

Are there ways to preserve the mind in the absence of the body/brain and environment (that is, in the absence of the physical exchange of information). I'm willing to bet there is, but I haven't heard any theories that imho amount to more than speculation and imagination.

In the glass/water analogy, we're looking to retain the "shape" of the water in the absence of the water and the glass. Pretty damn hard to do!

However, the larger point is that your struggle to understand it might relate to our intuition and understanding being rooted in physical metaphors.

You say it better yourself:

The trick is understanding that our terms “physical” and “mental” are just labels for things we don’t really understand. When we think of “physical” we might conjure up the image of a rock, but this would be a mistake because a burst of light is also physical.

Furthermore, the primal substance might be a vibration, a field, a point particle, a string, whatever. Who knows.

So the point is, if there can be complex physical systems, there can just as easily be complex mental systems.

Absolutely. But, our physical metaphors have allowed humans to make predictions about the world that have really impacted the world.

I firmly believe there is more to reality than the physical side and even the mental side. However, knowing, truly knowing, what these aspects of reality are is likely beyond us at this point. For all we know, there may be rabbit shaped beings made of a non-physical, non-mental substance that shoot laser beams out their asses, and reproduce by eating waves of defulince, whereas defulince is an emotion that we as physcal/mental beings can't begin to fathom, nor how there can be waves of it.

So we can speculate and imagine what these others might be, but because they appear to be non-material and even non-mental, we have no access to knowledge about them.

So, is one possibility for conserving consciousness after death that we live on in God's stream of consciousness - or am I taking that out of context?

While our minds appear to consist of a mental substance, they appear to be caused by the exchange of information between physical substances. In other words, while a mind is mental, it needs a physical process (not a thing, but a process) to exist.

For a mind to exist without this physical process, it will need something to replace the physical process. It might be a different physical process (a computer simulation or merging with pure matter/energy) or there might be some other process that we aren't even aware of, maybe a spiritual process, whatever that may be. All I'm saying is that I'm not aware of any processes other than physical ones that might produce a mind (as I conceive of them - and while my conception might be wrong, imho I haven't heard logical other ones).

 

[Michael Allen]

We have to keep continually reminding ourselves that the whole "mental/physical" division of reality is a set of labels we apply to the world to distinguish our own awareness of ourselves from our awareness of other things that are not ourselves. But this border is seemingly enforced by something we cannot control -- for instance, breathing: is it voluntary or involuntary? When its involuntary, is it a happening or are you doing it? Other divisive terms like "conscious" and "unconscious" accomplish the same feat of confusion. We seem to think that we know what we're talking about when we talk about "mind," "consciousness" or "awareness," when the reality is that regardless of the label, all of these formations of reality are seemingly dependent on something we can never be mentally connected to. There's an interesting inverse relationship between two polarized states of existence:

(1) Complete theoretical omniscience destroying consciousness
(2) Complete omniscience and awareness in a limited finite domain requires a domain of not knowing.

I've probably stated this in other ways in earlier posts and discussion. The very fact that we can live in a world and be comfortable with "knowing" and "doing" things and yet stand outside this framework as if it were utterly incomprehensible and alien means that some how, in some manner, our existence somehow thrives on mystery. Weird that it may be, mystery, incomprehensibility, and confusion may lie as the fundamental bedrock for all sensual experience. The wavering line between breathing as voluntary and as involuntary is a division forced on us.

Conscious experience wouldn't exist without the curious human ability to think we know what we are talking about without actually knowing anything at all.

 

[boomerang]

We have to keep continually reminding ourselves that the whole "mental/physical" division of reality is a set of labels we apply to the world to distinguish our own awareness of ourselves from our awareness of other things that are not ourselves.

This is close to the crux of the issue IMO, "what makes me, 'me'--what makes you, 'you' ", as the old Cat Stevens line goes. Neurology tells us that specific structures and processes within the brain are devoted to making distinguishing ourselves as discrete entities from the larger world. Clinical terms for the failure of this function may come under the heading of "depersonalization" or "dissociation". This can make for some very interesting reading.

So--and no, I have not properly done my homework by reading in detail everything posted here. So apologies for good points I have surely missed. But discussion seems to be orbiting variations of the mind-body problem and the substrate dependence vs non-dependence of consciousness. I would note that we often fail to define what aspects of consciousness are being discussed: Immediate self-awareness, the individual subconscious from which it is seemingly derived, a larger collective unconscious (as per Jung) composed of dispersed but interacting non-individuated processes that may possess a different quality of consciousness, and therefore speak (as does the individual subconscious) its own language.

Crude categories:

-The existence of consciousness is dependent for its existence upon matter and energy (as we define them by strict scientific method). But matter and energy are not conversely dependent on the existence of mind. This might be akin to the theory of an emergent consciousness arising from an orchestration of simpler algorithms.

-Mind and matter are mutually dependent. One cannot exist without the other.

-Mind and matter may or may not interact: are mutually non dependent.

-The existence of matter and energy are solely dependent on the existence of mind. This view might see the entire universe as a manifestation of consciousness; i.e. as pure information.

 

[smcder]

This is close to the crux of the issue IMO, "what makes me, 'me'--what makes you, 'you' ", as the old Cat Stevens line goes. Neurology tells us that specific structures and processes within the brain are devoted to making distinguishing ourselves as discrete entities from the larger world. Clinical terms for the failure of this function may come under the heading of "depersonalization" or "dissociation". This can make for some very interesting reading.

So--and no, I have not properly done my homework by reading in detail everything posted here. So apologies for good points I have surely missed. But discussion seems to be orbiting variations of the mind-body problem and the substrate dependence vs non-dependence of consciousness. I would note that we often fail to define what aspects of consciousness are being discussed: Immediate self-awareness, the individual subconscious from which it is seemingly derived, a larger collective unconscious (as per Jung) composed of dispersed but interacting non-individuated processes that may possess a different quality of consciousness, and therefore speak (as does the individual subconscious) its own language.

Crude categories:

-The existence of consciousness is dependent for its existence upon matter and energy (as we define them by strict scientific method). But matter and energy are not conversely dependent on the existence of mind. This might be akin to the theory of an emergent consciousness arising from an orchestration of simpler algorithms.

-Mind and matter are mutually dependent. One cannot exist without the other.

-Mind and matter may or may not interact: are mutually non dependent.

-The existence of matter and energy are solely dependent on the existence of mind. This view might see the entire universe as a manifestation of consciousness; i.e. as pure information.

We've just been kind of wandering through an enormous philosophical territory:

Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

we've not talked much about mental causation:
Mental Causation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

... phenomenology, free will and consciousness (morality), whether AI would have a subconscious, Mind in other traditions (Hindu/Buddhist for example) . . . and I think "emergence" is another key area:

Emergent Properties (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[smcder]

We have to keep continually reminding ourselves that the whole "mental/physical" division of reality is a set of labels we apply to the world to distinguish our own awareness of ourselves from our awareness of other things that are not ourselves. But this border is seemingly enforced by something we cannot control -- for instance, breathing: is it voluntary or involuntary? When its involuntary, is it a happening or are you doing it? Other divisive terms like "conscious" and "unconscious" accomplish the same feat of confusion. We seem to think that we know what we're talking about when we talk about "mind," "consciousness" or "awareness," when the reality is that regardless of the label, all of these formations of reality are seemingly dependent on something we can never be mentally connected to. There's an interesting inverse relationship between two polarized states of existence:

(1) Complete theoretical omniscience destroying consciousness
(2) Complete omniscience and awareness in a limited finite domain requires a domain of not knowing.

I've probably stated this in other ways in earlier posts and discussion. The very fact that we can live in a world and be comfortable with "knowing" and "doing" things and yet stand outside this framework as if it were utterly incomprehensible and alien means that some how, in some manner, our existence somehow thrives on mystery. Weird that it may be, mystery, incomprehensibility, and confusion may lie as the fundamental bedrock for all sensual experience. The wavering line between breathing as voluntary and as involuntary is a division forced on us.

Conscious experience wouldn't exist without the curious human ability to think we know what we are talking about without actually knowing anything at all.

I've been re-reading your post . . . but can't understand most of it - I feel like what I understand of it, I agree with (generally) . . . the example of breathing is similar to something I remember reading by Alan Watts - I think he used the skin as an example (maybe in The Book On The Taboo Against KNowing Who You Are - I'll have to look it up)

In general, is there some context you can provide or expand on these ideas?

Other divisive terms like "conscious" and "unconscious" accomplish the same feat of confusion. We seem to think that we know what we're talking about when we talk about "mind," "consciousness" or "awareness," when the reality is that regardless of the label, all of these formations of reality are seemingly dependent on something we can never be mentally connected to.

Vocabulary is definitely a big piece of the discussion . . . what do we mean by such and such - some of this comes out of the context of the discussion, sometimes we refer to other sources ...

There's an interesting inverse relationship between two polarized states of existence:

(1) Complete theoretical omniscience destroying consciousness
(2) Complete omniscience and awareness in a limited finite domain requires a domain of not knowing.

What is "complete theoretical omniscience"?

I've probably stated this in other ways in earlier posts and discussion. The very fact that we can live in a world and be comfortable with "knowing" and "doing" things and yet stand outside this framework as if it were utterly incomprehensible and alien means that some how, in some manner, our existence somehow thrives on mystery. Weird that it may be, mystery, incomprehensibility, and confusion may lie as the fundamental bedrock for all sensual experience. The wavering line between breathing as voluntary and as involuntary is a division forced on us.

It does seem strange that we can "stand outside" and alienation has been a perennial theme of Western thought ... otherwise I'm not following this part very well.

Conscious experience wouldn't exist without the curious human ability to think we know what we are talking about without actually knowing anything at all.

If you can expand on this last part particularly . . . ? Maintaining a keen awareness of our ignorance can definitely be helpful. Piaget talked of meaning in terms of embodiment, constructing our way through the world . . ..

 

[smcder]

This is probably subject for a separate thread but I think it touches on many aspects of this discussion and many other threads on this forum, to the very way we think and interact.

A brief description of The Master and his Emissary by Iain McGilchrist

"This book argues that the division of the brain into two hemispheres is essential to human existence, making possible incompatible versions of the world, with quite different priorities and values.
Most scientists long ago abandoned the attempt to understand why nature has so carefully segregated the hemispheres, or how to make coherent the large, and expanding, body of evidence about their differences. In fact to talk about the topic is to invite dismissal. Yet no one who knows anything about the area would dispute for an instant that there are significant differences: it's just that no-one seems to know why. And we now know that every type of function - including reason, emotion, language and imagery - is subserved not by one hemisphere alone, but by both.
This book argues that the differences lie not, as has been supposed, in the 'what' - which skills each hemisphere possesses - but in the 'how', the way in which each uses them, and to what end. But, like the brain itself, the relationship between the hemispheres is not symmetrical. The left hemisphere, though unaware of its dependence, could be thought of as an 'emissary' of the right hemisphere, valuable for taking on a role that the right hemisphere - the 'Master' - cannot itself afford to undertake. However it turns out that the emissary has his own will, and secretly believes himself to be superior to the Master. And he has the means to betray him. What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he will also betray himself.
The book begins by looking at the structure and function of the brain, and at the differences between the hemispheres, not only in attention and flexibility, but in attitudes to the implicit, the unique, and the personal, as well as the body, time, depth, music, metaphor, empathy, morality, certainty and the self. It suggests that the drive to language was not principally to do with communication or thought, but manipulation, the main aim of the left hemisphere, which manipulates the right hand. It shows the hemispheres as no mere machines with functions, but underwriting whole, self-consistent, versions of the world. Through an examination of Western philosophy, art and literature, it reveals the uneasy relationship of the hemispheres being played out in the history of ideas, from ancient times until the present. It ends by suggesting that we may be about to witness the final triumph of the left hemisphere – at the expense of us all.

Ted Talk:
Iain McGilchrist: The divided brain | Talk Video | TED

Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and his Emissary

Science and the Humanities, A Reply to Stephen Pinker
Iain McGilchrist, Contacts
Iain McGilchrist, Contacts

 

[smcder]

More from McGilChrist's response to Pinker - this ties in with free-will, which we've touched on, science and morality and it also ties in with Francis Bacon's essay The Sphinx

XXVIII. Sphinx; Or Science. Bacon, Francis. Of the Wisdom of the Ancients. 1857

... and its discussion in Roger Shattuck's Forbidden Knowledge

Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography: Roger Shattuck: 9780156005517: Amazon.com: Books

"Scientists want to make a distinction between science and its application in the world. For this reason they often insist that science is value-free. I hope Professor Pinker will forgive me for calling such a view naïve. If, for the sake of argument, we were able through the application of science to create the means to destroy large stretches of the natural world, or to degrade, spy on, enslave or even destroy humanity itself, could such inventions be seen as morally neutral?

Though, according to a certain kind of rationale, we are free to use the fruits of science or not, anyone who is a fully functioning human being, rather than a calculating machine, can see that if we can use it, it is just a matter of time before we do so.

Scientific actions cannot escape moral judgment. But that is not the same at all as saying that they can ground morality. Mortgage-lending is a moral act, as we have recently had cause to note, but that does not imply that banking is a possible ground for, rather than an appropriate arena for the application of, morality. In fact Kant, who is one of the figures listed in Professor Pinker’s ‘scientific’ pantheon at the outset of his essay, believed that morality could not be derived from any other form of knowledge, and its existence in itself represented for him an argument that there is a God. If you think that knowing more about the frontal cortex would have changed that, you are guilty of a category mistake. The frontal cortex is powerless to tell us what morality is, since it is merely the how, not the what, of morality."

 

[smcder]

"Nor can it tell us what our purpose might be. That is not the sort of thing science can do. For good reasons its method is set up in such a way as to exclude questions of teleology. Yet scientists have become so insistent on the purposelessness of life that it has now gone into the popular culture as a discovery of science. But this is not a scientific discovery at all. That, again, is a category mistake. Science understandably does not find a purpose because purpose is not something its way of thinking recognises. That is not a criticism of science. That is a criticism of those who want to take science into realms where it has no purchase on reality."

 

[smcder]

"Dewey called neglect of context the gravest mistake made by philosophers. It is also a mistake when it is made by science.

Science tends not to be good at context: its main preoccupation is taking things apart, and taking them out of the whole in which they inhere, in order to know what they ‘really are’.

a left brain function

Though in many cases this will tell you how it works, it has no chance of answering the question of what it is, since it only is what it is in context. This applies as much in science as in the humanities.

The same gene will act quite differently in a different context, just as the same words or notes mean something quite different in a different poem or quintet, and analysing them only gets you so far. Similarly, although we feign to be able to isolate entities, physics tells us that in fact one cannot understand any one particle fully without acknowledging that its behaviour can be influenced by particles at the other end of the universe. Scientific method prioritises clarity, efficiency, a direct linear approach to achieving its target and the belief that a thing and its opposite cannot be true.

Not a bad place to start, I fully agree. But it is not a good place to end up.

Many, if not most, systems in the real world exhibit complex and chaotic dynamics which leave linear cause and effect behind at the starting line. They are largely unpredictable, as the strategists behind the Wall Street crash discovered. Many things, such as love, gravity and time, are both very real and very important, but not at all clear. Some aspects of both the phenomenological world and the physical universe are not accidentally, but essentially, indeterminate.

Many things, such as sleep, sex, wisdom and happiness cannot be pursued directly, because wilfully focussing on them makes them unachievable.

Many things are utterly changed when they no longer remain implicit but are forced into explicitness. And there are many cases in which a thing and its opposite can be compatible. Light can be both a wave and a particle. There is a kind of rationality that is itself irrational. Pain and pleasure, adversity and fulfilment, arrogance and humility, can coincide and interdepend.

...

There isn’t, in reality, the slightest chance of science sinking without trace – on the contrary, its ascendancy is unstoppable. But for the humanities the writing is on the wall. One feels that Professor Pinker could be more magnanimous in what must feel like victory – though from my perspective the loss of either partner is a disastrous loss for the other. And here science can give us valuable information.

A generation of children is growing up who are either reluctant to read a book through or have actually lost the ability to sustain attention sufficiently to do so, that are dependent on a level of stimulation incompatible with the practice of scholarship, and are less empathic than their equivalent age group a few decades ago.

A worrying number of them now need to be taught how to read the human face, something only autistic children had to learn explicitly in the recent past.

Many of them are ignorant of their own culture’s history or of most of the great works of world literature. They are immersed in a version of the world that is for a large part mediated through technology. It is a world where they might no longer be aware of what it is that they are missing."

... amd here endeth the digression ... and the sermon! ;-)

 

[Soupie]

We have to keep continually reminding ourselves that the whole "mental/physical" division of reality is a set of labels we apply to the world to distinguish our own awareness of ourselves from our awareness of other things that are not ourselves.

While I do agree that the terms - as with all language - only have meaning in the context of our own perspective, I disagree that's the way we apply those particular terms.

The term mental is applied not just to our awareness of our self, but also to our awareness that we have an awareness. Furthermore, we note that our self-awareness is distinct from our self. Some people take this to mean that our self-awareness (soul) is wholly distinct from our self (physical body). Perhaps you meant to capture that as well if you include our bodies as things that are "not ourselves."

We seem to think that we know what we're talking about when we talk about "mind," "consciousness" or "awareness," when the reality is that regardless of the label, all of these formations of reality are seemingly dependent on something we can never be mentally connected to.

By your own logic, how do you know (for sure) that they are dependent on something? By your own logic, how do you know we can never mentally connect to it? How do you know there is a "we" and not just and I? And how do you define "mentally connecting" to anything, especially since the barrier between us and not-us may be non-existent?

You seem to be expressing something you believe intuitively, but perhaps don't have the words to express.

There's an interesting inverse relationship between two polarized states of existence:

(1) Complete theoretical omniscience destroying consciousness
(2) Complete omniscience and awareness in a limited finite domain requires a domain of not knowing.

I've probably stated this in other ways in earlier posts and discussion. The very fact that we can live in a world and be comfortable with "knowing" and "doing" things and yet stand outside this framework as if it were utterly incomprehensible and alien means that some how, in some manner, our existence somehow thrives on mystery. Weird that it may be, mystery, incomprehensibility, and confusion may lie as the fundamental bedrock for all sensual experience. The wavering line between breathing as voluntary and as involuntary is a division forced on us.

Conscious experience wouldn't exist without the curious human ability to think we know what we are talking about without actually knowing anything at all.

Ok, I'll take a stab at translating this, haha.

You seem to be saying that the experience of consciousness depends on not knowing. If one were to be omniscient, consciousness would evaporate. If an individual was not bound/distinct, it would have no self of which to be aware. There would be no "other" from which it was distinct.

I don't disagree with this. Reality itself would not exist if it hadn't differentiated itself from not-reality.

One might argue this is why God created us, so he could exist.