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Perhaps the most prominent victim of TED censorship and idea suppression is none other than Graham Hancock, author of the now-censored TED Talk called, "The War on Consciousness." Although it was de-listed by TED, the video was archived on YouTube
As you'll see in this talk, the idea that humans might have consciousness was so offensive to the TED high priests that they felt the talk needed to be suppressed and "removed from circulation."
Graham Hancock and The War on Consciousness
Graham Hancock presents evidence on his belief that there is life both before and after physical death. We are not our bodies. We are our consciousness. And consciousness is the greatest mystery of science.
Basic behavior - or morality, ethics, is the general parameter for consciousness formation. The "idea",or kernel, or what you are, is implicit in the actions animated by the behavior of others.
In about 100 experiments with Jaytee, Sheldrake ruled out various ordinary explanations. Smart came home at varied times, ruling out routine. She came home in taxis, in friends’s cars, or by foot, all to make sure the dog wasn’t just recognizing the sound of her car from afar.
It is not uncommon for people to telephone friends or relations who say that they were just thinking of calling them. Likewise, many people have had the experience of thinking of a particular person, with whom they have not spoken to for a while, who then calls them on the telephone later the same day. Some domestic animals, notably dogs and cats, also seem to anticipate telephone calls from particular people, their owners, while ignoring calls from other people (Sheldrake, 1999).
Thinking is operating with reference to feeling, but is focusing on its mental objects, which threatens to dissociate from the category-situation created by the behavior i.e. the affect (shame/irritability/anger/depression) unless focalized. Hence, thinking and feeling need to be aligned; the mind must symbolize in language to properly manage feeling. It can only symbolize in language, however, if social situations reward the expression of such behavior.
In face-to-face situations, being rewarded by others' positive expression and acceptance may be the driving force of forming the structure of socialization, this being a basic need most of us share, however is it really to be considered a shared type of consciousness? Or, simply addressing basic human physical and emotional needs? Could thinking to be aligned with operating with reference to feeling fit nicely into specific emotional need cases?
originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: InTheLight
In face-to-face situations, being rewarded by others' positive expression and acceptance may be the driving force of forming the structure of socialization, this being a basic need most of us share, however is it really to be considered a shared type of consciousness? Or, simply addressing basic human physical and emotional needs? Could thinking to be aligned with operating with reference to feeling fit nicely into specific emotional need cases?
In early life - as a baby - the early brainstem represents and controls the whole cycle of perception and cognition; yet there is no consciousness of self in the baby. My 8 month old nephew is mesmerized by the tiniest little things; his hand; objects he can move through space; he loves rotation, and of course, loves putting the object in his mouth. Consciousness is there - mentation. But it is a very deep absorption in simple states: movement, objects, physical relations. Right now he is weaving his self together, and its from this weaving process that the self - as an integrated, neurodynamical entity - is formed.
But can you ever abstract his mental experience from the smiling or doting face of a mother? Or a father? Initially, it is just body-heat; the mothers body heat (one object) up against the baby (another object). But for the baby, it is the interaction - or combinatino of both objects - which creates the mental state he experiences. The feeling of goodness is not an evolutionary or biological given: it is received, nurturted, and cultivated into being by other human beings (or social mammals). The entirety of our selves is a structure that exists on this sub-structure of attachment, created by the caregiver-infant relationship, and augmented and stimulated into further development by the enlivenment of others who, in seeing your cuteness, cannot but help but recognize the uniqness of your being.
We should all be very skeptical of what historical religions have to say, insomuch as religion and state have mutually evolved with one another. This means, simply because humans are organized from the bottom-up, that we can't change our nature - or societies, or religions - without acknowledging how deeply suboptimal our belief systems towards the mind have been. The self is entirely a function of attachment, and yet a love-deprived society can create the impression that the self is different from love; that conscioiusness, or motivation to know, can exist without the primacy of an attachment process between self and object. The object - the Other - is capitalized because it is basically the other half of our psychological process. This is what Vygostky got from a cognitive perspective, but infant researchers and developmental psychologists developed further.
I for one am reconciled to this view - and its a beautiful one. If you are adapted to a less-loving image of the universe, or yuor self, you may find it overwhelming; but this is merely a reaction between your existing belief system (and your attachment to it) and a more expansive and encompassing one.
There still remain fronteirs to be crossed. The universe for humans (in my opinion) becoems more interesting and subtle from here on out; hopefully leaving the chaos and trauma worship of the past behind.
originally posted by: Sheye
Your threads are on the university or college level of learning intricate stuff about the brain and how it relates to consciousness.
I’ll be honest and say much of it is too detailed and inticate for my simple mind to comprehend easily, but I do appreciate you putting the effort into such threads.
You are obviously a very intelligent person who I assume is either learning about how the brain works or is teaching it to others.