The Fabric Of Awareness

Awareness is a very strange subject. How is it - how does it become? How are we aware, and what does it mean to be aware?

At different times this thought affects us in different ways. It depends on where our "narrative" lies. Where are we at the moment that we ask that question. What have I been thinking? Feeling? The two, of course, go together in all we do. Feeling is either muted or felt to be hardly present (though still forms a background unique to "us") or goes intensely in a positive or negative direction. In each of these directions, a network of thoughts are formed. For the muted mind, for the depressed mind, to the fearful and anxious mind, or the happy, peaceful, and thankful mind, the reflection, "I am aware" can either terrify us, inspire us with awe, or be felt as "meh".

Reality is so utterly constructed by the motions of the past, the fact that we operate as humans in body's constructed by other humans, with their own subjectivity and their own fears of death, and so on back to the point where creatures operated without self-awareness, with explicit consciousness of self's own existence.

We emerge out of this fabric, and today, we live in an incredible world that is motley, so different at the margins, with a scientific 'core' that studies questions in physics and the body, the brain, and the mystery of consciousness. Yet amidst this lies the traditional succor of religion, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, for westerners, and Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism for Easterners. Perhaps, due to the intense literalism of western religion, it can look a bit more pathetic the way humans such as these construct their meanings of the world. But it isn't all bad. The way they relate represents a need that exists regardless of the stamp you put on it. Humans need each other: were all created, psychologically as individual selves, by the social processes that are species have evolved within. Our minds represent the workings of the relational processes that happen between us, so we become aware, perhaps, or very plausibly, the only creature in the known universe that thinks of it's own consciousness and wonders, despite its inherent limitations, "what is this force that moves my mind, that is my awareness, my power to attend"? It's an amazing thing.

But we also search for ourselves, compulsively, we need meaning and coherency to operate in the world - that is, to be a person who lives in time, with a beginning, a middle, and end: a story. Each of us literally embodies a story amidst a world being. There's an unconsciousness all around us, and even in us, in our minds, lies too many computations to count - too many effects from the past and the present/past that brings out our consciousness in 'this' way/

For me, most of the time, the world is amazingly meaningful. I am a person, born to embody a story of meaningful existence. Meaning is born with man. The deeper meaning, I think, is that we represent the activities of a process that began before the big bang. Contingency, the way this affects that, has led over billions of years to the emergence of a creature that grasps meaning. But the creature is not merely a creature. His or her mind was and is simply a "point" of awareness, surrounded by a sea of unconscious resonance, embodied as chemical processes held together by the magic of electromagnetic bonding.

The amazing thing, I think, is that it is quite logical to conceive of ourselves as a 'progression' in evolution in that the universe is conscious THROUGH us, implying, as those hippy new agers sing about, that our consciousness really is a deeply meaningful development in the story of time.

Time does this. Time, I wonder, might have something deeply meaningful about it.

The problem with time is that it is a human construct, often confused with reality, which has no time in it.
a reply to: Astrocyte

a reply to: starswift

Time is one of four dimensions in physics, and a part of spacetime. We speak of time as life experiences it on this planet. Ultimate reality is unknown to everyone.

a reply to: starswift

Time is form of expression. In construct it is comparable to a work of Art from its initial recognition to its final expression in perpetuity. Certain theoretical conclusions exist that makes time one of many other dimensions and one supposition is that time is squared, in that in ten dimensions all possible conclusions exist, at once.

Any thoughts?

a reply to: Astrocyte

Isn't this just another way to say subjectivity? Perception and observation? Being aware is still in the mind of the beholder. Two people can look at the same sky every night from the exact same spot and they will each see something totally different.

Two people can drive down the same street every day and one will notice the red door on the third house and the other will notice the blue door on the house next door.

One culture can see a serpent in the sky and the other can see a snake.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Hi, Astrocyte, on the subject of awareness we can ponder upon the obvious and that is the state of awareness can only be possible because everything is connected on an incredibly intimate level, so intimate that we accept it without question, without 'awareness' of the fact in the same way that we breathe in and out without being aware of every breath we take.
Its a beautiful thought to know that we are all, not just us humans but every living thing on the planet, ultimately one entity. If this were not so we would not even exist let alone have awareness.

Time allows evolution, of energy, of perception, of consciousness, of awareness, of physicality.

During time, the universe is dynamic, the galaxy, the solar system, planet Earth is all moving within the Universe, collecting energy influences and being subject to the energies of other systems and galaxies. From point A 4000 years ago the solar system is now at point D in the galaxy, the galaxy has also moved during this time.

Perhaps, there are areas of the galactic journey that increase consciousness, perhaps there is an influence from the great attractor or something in the galaxy or Universe that affects consciousness on planet Earth that is perceptible to humanity and this influence varies with proximity during the dynamic journey through the galaxy and Universe.

There are also cycles that affect the solar system and planet earth, such as those causing global warming and effects on other planets.

Humanity being aware of time is part of consciousness, though the bigger timescale is perhaps able to be perceived through energy and vibration. Awareness of the Universal timescale is part of the deeper consciousness.

Where is time? Where is tomorrow? Where is yesterday?
Time is a thought, an idea.
What there is is what is appearing presently - and because awareness is always present it will never know time.
There maybe words arising within awareness that speak of other than what there is and this can lead one to believe there is other but it is just a story arising in awareness - which is always here and now.

My point is that there is no time.
No past no future, nothing to count.
You are counting mechanical cycles of clock springs or atomic decay, but that is not "time".
It's not a semantic argument but a logical fallacy.
a reply to: Kashai

I disagree, time is an artificial measurement, not a "thing".
Just cause you can get a definition out of a science textbook is not a proof of "time"
There is a persistent "now" of approximately 3 seconds long that will, focus, energy, inertia, latency can modify to some degree or other.
But that's all there is, though it is enough.
Because anything that has existed, does exist, or will exist will happen due to that 3 second window.
You can measure how many cycles any ting has had that has relation to other things experiencing cycles, but it is still all happening now.
a reply to: pl3bscheese

a reply to: starswift

What I am suggesting is that those 3 seconds you refer to are everywhere and do not only apply to our scale. But as well as upon the scale of what everything is as a whole.

Of course we can digress into space time and being,
I suspect there are similar arguments that can be made.
Everything as a whole is holy everything.
a reply to: Kashai

Duration, all physical matter is bound to time, this earthly existence won't be forever, it had a beginning and it has an end.
So i doubt that time really has something deeply meaningful, especially when it comes to the development of consciousness, maybe 100 years from now we are fighting ww4 with sticks and stones.

a reply to: earthling42

Without time consciousness does not exist.


Are you suggesting a "creationist" view?

a reply to: Astrocyte

My understanding of "awareness" is very different from yours, to me is the final understanding of our role in earth as humans and our spiritual purpose.

a reply to: Kashai

No, an ever changing movement in which all that manifests itself will return into the same nothingness.
But the movement is without begin or end.

a reply to: earthling42

Nonetheless it (that is reality) seems to have some kind of middle.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
Awareness is a very strange subject. How is it - how does it become? How are we aware, and what does it mean to be aware?

At different times this thought affects us in different ways. It depends on where our "narrative" lies. Where are we at the moment that we ask that question. What have I been thinking? Feeling? The two, of course, go together in all we do. Feeling is either muted or felt to be hardly present (though still forms a background unique to "us") or goes intensely in a positive or negative direction. In each of these directions, a network of thoughts are formed. For the muted mind, for the depressed mind, to the fearful and anxious mind, or the happy, peaceful, and thankful mind, the reflection, "I am aware" can either terrify us, inspire us with awe, or be felt as "meh".

Reality is so utterly constructed by the motions of the past, the fact that we operate as humans in body's constructed by other humans, with their own subjectivity and their own fears of death, and so on back to the point where creatures operated without self-awareness, with explicit consciousness of self's own existence.

We emerge out of this fabric, and today, we live in an incredible world that is motley, so different at the margins, with a scientific 'core' that studies questions in physics and the body, the brain, and the mystery of consciousness. Yet amidst this lies the traditional succor of religion, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, for westerners, and Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism for Easterners. Perhaps, due to the intense literalism of western religion, it can look a bit more pathetic the way humans such as these construct their meanings of the world. But it isn't all bad. The way they relate represents a need that exists regardless of the stamp you put on it. Humans need each other: were all created, psychologically as individual selves, by the social processes that are species have evolved within. Our minds represent the workings of the relational processes that happen between us, so we become aware, perhaps, or very plausibly, the only creature in the known universe that thinks of it's own consciousness and wonders, despite its inherent limitations, "what is this force that moves my mind, that is my awareness, my power to attend"? It's an amazing thing.

But we also search for ourselves, compulsively, we need meaning and coherency to operate in the world - that is, to be a person who lives in time, with a beginning, a middle, and end: a story. Each of us literally embodies a story amidst a world being. There's an unconsciousness all around us, and even in us, in our minds, lies too many computations to count - too many effects from the past and the present/past that brings out our consciousness in 'this' way/

For me, most of the time, the world is amazingly meaningful. I am a person, born to embody a story of meaningful existence. Meaning is born with man. The deeper meaning, I think, is that we represent the activities of a process that began before the big bang. Contingency, the way this affects that, has led over billions of years to the emergence of a creature that grasps meaning. But the creature is not merely a creature. His or her mind was and is simply a "point" of awareness, surrounded by a sea of unconscious resonance, embodied as chemical processes held together by the magic of electromagnetic bonding.

The amazing thing, I think, is that it is quite logical to conceive of ourselves as a 'progression' in evolution in that the universe is conscious THROUGH us, implying, as those hippy new agers sing about, that our consciousness really is a deeply meaningful development in the story of time.

Time does this. Time, I wonder, might have something deeply meaningful about it.

Separate yourself from your shell (being). What is the mass we call a brain calculating? If we put your excised brain in a vat of nutrient liquid, ship it out to Morocco, will it know it's out of body.
It more complicated than that. It about BILLIONS of neurons and their multiple connections that make up who we are. This is how scientists, currently can introduce false memories into animals. We are next.