Are We More Alive?

As WWIII looms just around the corner in the face of the Syria crisis, we don't know how many precious days of ATS we have left to enjoy, so avoiding adding to the doom and gloom I wanted to create a thread not pertaining to the situation.

I think a lot, and stumbled across a question which is puzzling me and maybe you can help me out.

Everyone has differing levels of intelligence, ok we base this on the flawed IQ system which measures over a few parts of the spectrum but not all parts.

Some people may have a great memory and remember what they learn easily, others may take longer but are actually more capable in the long run, some people might be studying quantum physics and understand the subject with ease, yet be unable to read instructions to a microwave meal.

Intelligence has more than just one measurable part to its whole, therefore we can't deem individuals more intelligent based on an IQ test or because they have Dr. In their title.

But...how about consciousness?

Now, I'm under the impression that this cannot he measured. Do we all have the exact same levels of consciousness? I don't believe that could possibly be the case.

If we could measure it, and see that it wasn't equal amongst all men and women, would those with lower consciousness be deemed less alive? Not in the sense of flesh and bone, of course fish are alive as much as we are.

I mean in the sense of what we call 'being alive'. Consciousness is the awareness of that life, the higher an animals consciousness the more conscious they are. Obviously when you reach a certain attainment, like us Humans you have a greater awareness of what life is.

Now, the question is, are we actually all equal and do we all have equal consciousness?

I believe that we actually all have differing levels, you know when you come across individuals and they tend to live just by going to work and seem happy and content with the same routine daily for the rest of their lives, and never seem to ask deep questions or seem to even care. You know the people that watch the News and swallow it down without a thought.

Well we all know people like this and they seem vacant and zombie like, if that doesn't make you ponder upon my question I don't know what will.

But don't worry ATSers, I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I believe It's many of us if not all of us here that seem more aware and alive than any body else that I know. We are definitely more conscious than the masses, I just wonder if it will one day be measurable and what that would mean to the equality of Humanity...

reply to post by DAZ21

You are conscious.
You are present and aware.
And the mind projects yesterday and tomorrow and the awareness is seeing the projections all made of stuff already conceived and believed so nothing new can arise. The chattering mind and worries about other things stops 'consciousness' from really shining - when what is here is not clouded by the mind stuff aliveness is felt.

The mind with its stories about before and after take one away from real life (the beauty and humour) so yes I would say that one is like the walking dead until one sees the light of consciousness.

We are only conscious of what our brains allow our minds to see.

We do not experience 'true' reality. We experience, as far as we know, some personal interpretation of reality, a mirror of sorts that we see in our minds. There is no evidence that there is actually a world outside of our minds. Our sciences are still very valid, but they are based on the 'reality' that we are experiencing, and not on any outside world.

We all experience the same level of consciousness: our own.

Are you perhaps referring to sentience?

Humans, relative to most life-forms that we know of, are very sentient.

Some Humans, perhaps, are more sentient than others.

reply to post by DAZ21

Now, the question is, are we actually all equal and do we all have equal consciousness?

In philosophy, there has yet to be an agreed upon definition of consciousness. Some consider it knowledge, ranges of sensitivity, sensuality, bodily function and such abstract entities as soul, spirit, psych etc. It's too loose a term to have any real application. No it cannot be measured, for it isn't sure what they should measure; there is literally nothing there called consciousness to which we can compare with other consciousnesses.

So we have to work with what is there, and we find that no two things are equal. The term "equal" cannot be applied to anything outside of language.