Start of Conciousness

NOTE: This may not belong in this forum, but I can't figure out which one would best suit it so I went with Paranormal because that tends to deal with topics like conciousness more so than any of the others.

A concept I find absolutely intriguing (hopefully I'm the first to mention it here) involves the moment we became concious. Try to bear with me. If there was that point that we spontaneously became concious, we would have had no sense of time or existence beforehand. Therefore, it would seem like there was not even an instant of time that existed before that moment, meaning it is as if we became concious at the start of time. I hope I'm not sounding confusing, but if you understand what I'm saying, you'll know there's no way for us to comprehend what this felt like. It would be like us waking up instantly from non-existence at the absolute beginning, which just seems so hurried and bizarre to me. And it's the same experience for all of us, regardless of when we were born. We were just too young to notice it. What do y'all think of this because, to me, it is like trying to comprehend 2 and 2 adding up to 5? Tell me if you don't understand what I'm saying so I can try to better word it.

I always believe that man became conscious the day that the soul was able to inhabit the human body.

Before that the human body was not ready to support the soul.

Onces it was advance enough that is when the soul was allowed to take home in the human body and take consciousness.

Occurs this only my personal opinion.

Hadn't really ever thought about that before, but now that I have, it is kind of a mind-bender. If I get what you're saying there is for everyone, a point where they just, for lack of a better expression, wake up. We just don't remember it. Well, I suppose if we did remember it, that would be pretty upsetting. One day, just open your eyes and go, what the heck?!? Maybe that's why babies cry so much. And while not really religious, I've always thought babies were born self-aware. I think it happens during the development of the fetus, be it a soul, increased electrical levels in the brain, who really knows for sure?

I don't know. I don't think I was conscious until I was 2 years old.

Well, having been around a lot of children, I can tell you that it is gradual, and in small stages. It happens so slowly that most people dont notice.

Newborns only seem to be aware of hunger, pain, and its opposite. About 5-6 months they start to realize they can consciously manipulate parts of their enviornment. At about 2 (oh those terrible 2's) the start the first stages of self awareness, and awareness of parts of the world other than themselfs.

At about 6 - 7 they are almost fully functional, and mentally become capable of asking questions like what is a nipple? Why dont I have a penis?

About 13, they begin to be much more self aware, and are easily embarrased by their flaws. Then later in the teens the become sexually aware among other things. About 25 or so the begin to realize their place in the world, and have a much better understanding of how the world works.

By the time they are 40 the begin to tire of the mundane day to day issues of living, and begin to question their previous actions and the direction they are heading. About 60 they seem to become very aware that the end may be near, and generally are more compasionite to others and really try to enjoy the time they have left.

So you see, the word consciousness implies total awareness of yourself and your enviornment. But that is not really how it is. It is a gradual learning, and transition of several stages of consciousness thruout the course of a lifetime.

For me, the thing that is amazing, is that at each stage, one day they wake up and it is like a lightbulb went off. Bam! I understand my times tables. Yesterday, I didnt have a clue.

*Disclaimer* This statement has been dramatically oversimplified to save space.

what if in your present state you weren't even fully developed in the womb yet. your sences have not developed: touch, hearing, seeing, etc. and all the love and memories and horries which engulf your mind to a boiling point, are all part of a collective conciousness preparing you for the 3rd dimension.

For clarification, when I use the term conscious, I mean having an awareness of one's self and your situation. To me, including your environment would make it cognizance. Just semantics, maybe, but I feel there is a small difference between the two. So, if a baby is crying because he is hungry then, perhaps, that indicates consciousness on some level. Of course, YMMV. It really all comes down to how you define consciousness, I guess.

*Edited for extremely obvious contradiction of myself. If only I could do that in real life

[edit on 7-1-2005 by Duzey]

I think the first time a person actually wakes up from the non-existance into existence is during labor when the baby stops relying on the mother for air, food, etc. I think thats when the body begins to be self sufficent and a state of limited "survival" conciousness begins. Another good question is how babies know how to swim directly after they leave the womb, but if you dont regularly let them swim they forget as they grow older. Maybe its becuase they are in liquid for nine months in the womb.
Any ideas?

Where does red end and green start on the rainbow? Im not sure, I can only guess, but I would say it begins around the time we learn langauge, as that is the time when our memories begin to form in our brain, allowing us to organize events so that we can make sense of our world. Without our memories, we are nothing. Not aware, not concsious.

Well, what I mean by it is the phenomena how it feels like we were born at the start of time, meaning we had no concept of time or anything before hand. The thought of time starting when we were born is what boggles me, meaning that eternity before we were born doesn't even amount to an instant of time to us so we feel like nothing had passed before we came to be. Even if gaining conciousness is gradual, there's still that one moment when we become "aware". I think, for a better lack of words, everything was technically infinitely fast before we became aware, faster than an instant in time.

i believe in reincarnation i think that on the other side we just wait untill a new baby is born to use as a vessel untill it dies then all of the personality and traits given to said baby is then imprinted onto the souls memorys.

so i think we are constanly learning the minute we are more than a egg but less than a new born is when we become concious and like others have said when we get a soul

Originally posted by Alec Eiffel
Where does red end and green start on the rainbow? Im not sure, I can only guess, but I would say it begins around the time we learn langauge, as that is the time when our memories begin to form in our brain, allowing us to organize events so that we can make sense of our world. Without our memories, we are nothing. Not aware, not concsious.

But our Memories aren't 'Something'. They are actually much closer to being nothing IMO. Memories are just illusions of the mind, dreams, fantasy, thoughts and/or ideas. Some more accurate than others and some of them completely fabricated even.

Some would say that the only true state of awareness possible is the NOW. So it's not really the organized memory but the awareness of every moment and only that moment that is true conscienceness. In other words 'To Be' in the act of 'Being'.

After all:
'I AM'

Not:
'I Was'
or
'I Will'

IMO, consciousness exists when it can percieve its surroundings, but not that it is separate from them.

Self-awareness is the point when one percieves oneself as separate from one's surroundings, and becomes an "I".

Originally posted by mOjOm

Originally posted by Alec Eiffel
Where does red end and green start on the rainbow? Im not sure, I can only guess, but I would say it begins around the time we learn langauge, as that is the time when our memories begin to form in our brain, allowing us to organize events so that we can make sense of our world. Without our memories, we are nothing. Not aware, not concsious.

But our Memories aren't 'Something'. They are actually much closer to being nothing IMO. Memories are just illusions of the mind, dreams, fantasy, thoughts and/or ideas. Some more accurate than others and some of them completely fabricated even.

True, but they are still memories, and they still define us and give us the illusion of "I". Without your memories, your experiences, everything accumilated, you would have no sense or comphrehension of "i".

Originally posted by Alec Eiffel
True, but they are still memories, and they still define us and give us the illusion of "I". Without your memories, your experiences, everything accumilated, you would have no sense or comphrehension of "i".

Ok. But like you said, "they, (memories), still define us and give us the illusion of "I".
So do we both agree then, that memories and the 'Awareness' that comes with them is only an 'Illusion' or in other words a 'False Awareness' or 'Dream'??? Others may even call it 'Self Awareness', 'Personal Ego', or something like that.

That isn't/wasn't the 'Awareness' I was talking about though. What I was talking about was the idea of 'Total Awareness'. This type of 'Awareness' unlike the 'Memory of Self' is not linked to 'Memory' at all. There is no 'Memory' because this form of 'Awareness' is, for lack of better words, 'Timeless', 'Eternal' & 'All Knowing without Thinking'. There is no 'I' which is separate, however, that doesn't mean there is No Awareness but instead that there is Full Awareness.

So when you say, "you would have no sense or comphrehension of "i", in a matter of speaking you're correct. On the other hand, it is my opinion that without memories to define the "Self Awareness' what you would have is simply 'Awareness''. 'I' then is All there IS while also being Individual yet All Inclusive.

Depending on how I interpret what you're saying, we are either both saying the same thing using slightly different words or we are saying slightly different things using the same words. I can't really tell which it is just yet and although I am actually trying to figure it out, I may just be complicating things even more. I guess we'll soon find out...

Originally posted by mOjOm
That isn't/wasn't the 'Awareness' I was talking about though. What I was talking about was the idea of 'Total Awareness'. This type of 'Awareness' unlike the 'Memory of Self' is not linked to 'Memory' at all. There is no 'Memory' because this form of 'Awareness' is, for lack of better words, 'Timeless', 'Eternal' & 'All Knowing without Thinking'. There is no 'I' which is separate, however, that doesn't mean there is No Awareness but instead that there is Full Awareness.

I can't really tell which it is just yet and although I am actually trying to figure it out, I may just be complicating things even more. I guess we'll soon find out...

This could be very hard to define what IT is actually, but definitely something to do with the awareness. I believe we don't even have right words to describe all this, so it is a scheme just to give up. . .no point to describe something we can't.

``

what i've come to understand...is that we, also rocks and plants and animals- - in fact all material forms in the universe are conscious.

that 'inate' consciousness is the paradox you are finding inexplicable
all those milestones in our human development, seeing ourselves in a mirror, learning language, developing love & compassion, aren't stages
of a growing-expanding conscious so much as learned mechanisms for survival.

those life-long series of epiphanies, revelations, awareness unfoldings, 'religious experiences',
are natural progressions...the humans little niche in the consciousness spectrum.
makeitso had a nice meme, pointing out this standard 'cycle' ...
it is the unusual individual that breaks out of that 'seed casing' and
embraces the galactic-cosmic consciousness.

*

The thought of "non-time" is unbelievably difficult to grasp. Even an instant of time is infinitely times larger than non-time. To think that all of existence up until we became concious exists as "non-time" to us, that means everything before us happened infinitely fast. It would seem like there was no time before we were born...we were born in "no time." I think that is what is the most mind-blowing to me.