[betty boop]

Am writing an article on the physical basis of consciousness, and invite FReeper input in regard to all questions of evidence and method.

This article from Prof. Raman is an extraordinarily elegant outline of where I think I want to go with this. Your feedback is invited and much appreciated!

[dennisw]

The Sense of Being Stared At

An Interview with Rupert Sheldrake from the Seattle Post Intelligencer 1st April 2003

 

[Constantine XIII]

A nifty idea, but it doesn't really allow us to say anything new except "I have this idea." :p

Don't misunderstand, I don't want to be a stick in the mud, but if it can't be quantized, it isn't very useful as far as science goes.

For example, if this UTF has a field nature, it should also have a particle nature too, which is used to transmit the effect. For it to be a useful theory, it needs to answer questions like: What is the particle's mass, what is the range of this new force, what is the speed of propagation, and so on and so forth.

[js1138]

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lakoff/lakoff_p1.html
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lakoff/lakoff_p2.html

[UnChained]

I lack the wit to lampoon this article the way others on this thread have but I agree that it is new age claptrap.

The nature/mechanism of conciousness has always fascinated me and I'll try to deal with it seriously.

Science fiction authors sometimes introduce the concept of machine sentience. Stories like "2001", "Colossus","Terminator", and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" come to mind. Usually the author just describes a huge computer that just "becomes" aware by virtue of it's size. No serious treatment is ever given to what architecture is required or what sort of recursive feedback is required for a processor to observe itself processing.

Thirty years ago, in the wake of the discovery of hallucinogenic drugs by our culture there seemed to be a lot of research into consciousness. Unfortunately, whenever I read anything that promised to investigate the mechanism of being, the main focus was on sensory and perceptual systems. What I considered to be the central issue was never mentioned. The I AM in each of us is what I wanted to understand but it was as if there was a blind spot that all the researchers had with regard to the cental concept of the "I AM". Perhaps it was so enigmatic that they just didn't go there.

After I became a Christian I stumbled upon something remarkable. In the Bible when Moses asked God for His name the answer was "I AM, I AM" This liguistic construct confuses a lot of people and they translate the passage "I AM WHO AM" or "I will be who I will be" or some other bit of deep sounding mishmash. The Jewish scribes turned it into an unpronouncable acronym that became the Hashem, the Holy name of God. Some today try pronouncing the name and say Yahweh or Jehovah.

The next verse should have prevented all that linguistic mischief. After God said to Moses "I AM, I AM" He added "This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you" God saying "I AM I AM" is equivalent to me saying "I am Robert"

I'm dwelling on this because what we are dealing with is the central truth in everyone's reality. There is nothing so certain to you as your existence as an "I AM".
You were created in the image of the one whose name is "I AM". This being was able to create a space time continuum,(the heavens and the earth) and a physical body (Jesus) that he was able to place His I AM into. There are some pretty weird references in the Bible with regard to this.

Jesus said: "Before Abraham was, I AM"
In the garden, when the soldiers were coming to arrest Jesus, They asked Him if he was Jesus of Nazereth and he answered: "I AM" and the soldiers were knocked down by something.

What I'm getting at is that I suspect there is no mechanism discoverable that explains the "I AM" in us. Your being may be a supernatural spark within you that is a reflection of it's creator. That may be the reason that nobody has any inkling of how it works. I believe the existence of sentience is a supernatural manifestation of the Almighty God.

Please don't look for answers in quasi-technical mystic babble like the article you posted.

[SupplySider]

A "thought-provoking" post :)

Ancient Indian philosophers held that consciousness is not a product of the brain, but rather the mind, brain, and even the environment are products of universal consciousness.

[William Terrell]

The prof sets up a theory for having a thought. But there is also using thought in a directed way. That implys that by will I can affect the UTF using directed thought, a necessary assumption using his model.

Some nonChristian religious or spiritual philosophies refer to a "universal consciousness" where all knowledge and every nuance of every idea exists already. Nobody ever generates an idea, they all come from the universal consciousness.

I strikes me that if the UTF exists, and it bears some resemblance the the universal consciousness, then I can direct the UTF to serve me up an idea on demand. Indeed, it seems to work that way.

Putting a purely religeous spin on it, the UTF would be the Mind of God with which every person has continuous contact. Perhaps we see here the direction and nature of prayer.

[edsheppa]

Raman should tread carefully. The Bhagwan (that's Osho, the Maharishi formely known as the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) probably copyrighted the "Unified Field." Certainly this seems a derivative work.

[xm177e2]

by Varadaraja V. Raman

I think you spelled Dennis Kucinich's name wrong.