A unique View on Awareness

To me awareness takes the form of just any physical sensation within the body. Without these physical sensations that are yielded by complex processes within the body, awareness does not exist. When we are asleep for most of the night, we don't have any awareness at all. Awareness however does not exist through images, sounds, tastes, or smells. Seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling are all just processes that occur just like any other process in the body. The important thing that matters is the physical sensation that these processes yield. You can not have awareness of an actual process going on inside you. You can only have awareness of it through a physical sensation yielded by the process. Some might say that images, sounds, tastes, and smells are all things you can be aware of, but I disagree. Sight, taste, smell, and hearing are all just processes that occur and then when the process occurs (based on what else is happening in the body), signals will be sent to the place where the body thinks that is important to yield a physical sensation from the said process. To me, most people will yield a higher percentage of physical sensations from things they see or hear in a day than all of the other processes that can yield physical sensations combined. I also believe that every single thing you feel period has to be positive or negative. During a positive physical sensation, you are thriving in what you are doing and you don't question things such as "why am I here" or "life sucks". Even if you do, it is yielding a positive physical sensation and you don't actually feel that way. It doesn't matter what you see, hear, smell, or taste, all that matters is that physical sensation yielded from these processes. We can easily honestly say that the abstractions of positive and negative exist, and I really think that they need more attention, but in a more scientific broken down way. I could also explain why similar things you see, hear, smell, taste, or all the thousands of other processes in the body don't ALWAYS yield positive or negative physical sensations, but that is for another post. The meaning of life is for you to experience a positive physical sensation yielded by one or more complex processes within the body. This is also true for insects, animals, some plants (maybe), and some bacteria (maybe). Next time you feel good, just ask yourself how silly it is to question the meaning of life.

There is no objective meaning to life.

Nope. Good job redefining awareness to suit your crackpottery, though.

Read more.

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Originally Posted by hurricane1124

When we are asleep for most of the night, we don't have any awareness at all.

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I've been meaning to reply to this thread and finally got around to it lol. You said we don't have awareness when sleep, but I think we do, always. It's just unconscious.

The conscious mind is only 10% of our brain potential. The other 90% is sub-conscious and unconscious. In my experience, consciousness is really strange. Actually NOT paying attention or focusing on the outside world is when you can see everything and access the hidden 90%. It's a completely different world.

I agree with Majestic; we obviously have awareness when we sleep, or people wouldn't be able to wake us up by calling our names. We must have *some* awareness of our surroundings, even while we are asleep--or think about it, we would never have survived as cave-men; we'd all have been Saber-Tooth Chow a long time ago. Aside from this, lucid dreaming wouldn't be possible if that were the case, since lucid dreaming is awareness that you are in a dream--therefore, being "aware."

Interesting theory, but one I can't really buy into personally.

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Originally Posted by TheSilverWolf

I agree with Majestic; we obviously have awareness when we sleep, or people wouldn't be able to wake us up by calling our names. We must have *some* awareness of our surroundings, even while we are asleep--or think about it, we would never have survived as cave-men; we'd all have been Saber-Tooth Chow a long time ago. Aside from this, lucid dreaming wouldn't be possible if that were the case, since lucid dreaming is awareness that you are in a dream--therefore, being "aware."

Interesting theory, but one I can't really buy into personally.

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Yes, I gotta agree with this. We definitely still have awareness in our sleep, I can't even count the number of times I've heard something while dreaming only to wake up to that sound in real life. Awareness in reality seeps in to the dream world. Hell, I once had an entire conversation with my brother while he was asleep, he didn't remember any of it and the idea kind of blew his mind. We don't just exit the physical world when we dream.

Also if awareness is just "physical sensation" that certain processes yield, then obviously there is physical sensation yielded from dreams. I've woken up with anxiety over a nightmare plenty of times, and the symptoms of anxiety are definitely physical. Also, take into account guys who have wet dreams, that's physical.

I only partially agree with you guys, and what you said about dreams is completely true. I think there is a little bit of confusion about what I said. The processes that go on with our unconscious thoughts are vast and so complex that we may never fully grasp how certain associations are made. When you are asleep, you can wake up at any moment and there is obviously so much still going on in with the mind and body. The point that I was trying to express is that this isn't "real" awareness. Real awareness to me only exists through the phenomenon of an actual physical sensation yielded by a process or physical make up of the body. Most things in the universe go through these amazingly complicated processes, why are humans so special? Humans go through thousands of processes, along with every other nonliving thing. The only difference with living things is that there is a certain process or makeup of something that allows us to experience a "physical sensation". EVERY physical sensation is associated with the abstraction of positive or negative. Yes, some may be too bizarre to even understand, but that is the topic of another debate and can very well be easily explained and how it fits into this topic. I may have gotten a little off topic, but what I am trying to say is that nothing deserves to be called awareness without the actual physical sensation. Without the actual physical sensation, all you have is the process, and you don't say that the floor, TV, water, most plants, taco, lamp, or radio waves have awareness. All of these things are made up of something and react to things as well. The only argument that somebody might pose now is that certain processes or physical human make up deserve to be labeled as being aware when you are sleeping (like sensors on the skin, rise in heart rate, etc.) The only thing I have to offer to that is that these things happen when you are awake as well. You can't associate awareness with the processes that occur inside of you or any living thing, it doesn't make sense. Awareness is only awareness when a physical sensation is yielded.

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Originally Posted by Abra

Nope. Good job redefining awareness to suit your crackpottery, though.

Read more.

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It should be defined differently, and I made sure to use as many aspects as possible to explain this. Yes, you can easily say physical human makeup and processes that occur are awareness themselves, but that doesn't make sense to me (it doesn't matter if they lead to real awareness or not). Please read the last thing I posted. I am not trying to come off as writing a theory, it just makes sense to me based on several aspects basic reasoning.

I'd like to know what you think about the idea of Remote Viewing, hurricane. Because I believe in remote viewing, as I've had some limited success with this myself back when I was actually practicing. Now, if awareness is only the physical sensations our body feels, which does make some sense at first glance, then what about our awareness of what we aren't physically seeing or ever have seen, as with remote viewing? (Presuming you can believe remote viewing is a real ability). And, what do you make of the supposed sixth sense, which relies less on physical awareness as you describe, and more of a psychic awareness, an awareness of spirit?

~SilverWolf~

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Originally Posted by TheSilverWolf

I'd like to know what you think about the idea of Remote Viewing, hurricane. Because I believe in remote viewing, as I've had some limited success with this myself back when I was actually practicing. Now, if awareness is only the physical sensations our body feels, which does make some sense at first glance, then what about our awareness of what we aren't physically seeing or ever have seen, as with remote viewing? (Presuming you can believe remote viewing is a real ability). And, what do you make of the supposed sixth sense, which relies less on physical awareness as you describe, and more of a psychic awareness, an awareness of spirit?

~SilverWolf~

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Firstly, I would like to say that this subject deeply fascinates me. Remote Viewing is something that has always caught my interest and something that I really would like to experience myself (if it exists). I have had some pretty crazy incidences that seem hard to put off as just coincidence, but that also doesn't mean that they are dismissed from reason. As that may be, I would say that I believe in these types of experiences more than I don't believe in them and that is based on reason. Most people who would say this would be on the opposite side of the argument. Now I will talk more about the remote viewing as it is to me. To me, remote viewing (if it exists hypothetically), is just another series of complicated processes that occur in the body and yield a physical sensation. This may be some feeling you get in your head or the obvious image in your mind of what the thing is in the other room, etc. It always kind of confuses me why people say that you only have 5 senses though, because you have much more than that. You are saying that this is a psychic sense and isn't really a physical sensation. I have to disagree with that for two reasons. When remote viewing occurs, the controller is supposedly able to see something that is going to happen in the future or is able to see something extremely far away, etc. These images are yielded by a process or series of processes in the body to me (no matter how mysterious or confusing they may be). The only thing special that occurred here is the physical sensation yielded by what you call "psychic awareness". You feel exhilarated from the physical sensation(s) yielded (not the process itself). Even if you are exhilarated by the process itself, it is just excitement in the form of whatever kind of physical sensation (images, regular PFs, etc.) As I said before, I believe in phenomenon like this more than I don't believe in it, but I HAVE to continue to emphasize that processes that occur with living things is not awareness. Awareness only exists in physical sensations and that is it. The other thing I wanted to talk about is how bizarre feelings like this may be (sorry if this may be off topic). Remote Viewing may yield some physical sensations that seem EXTREMELY different than anything you've ever felt. All of these feelings must be considered positive or negative and this opinion can never change with me after months and months of paying attention to this. Although all physical sensations have this in common, the uniqueness of the Physical sensation is completely dependent on what is going on inside the body. This might seem weird and abstract to think about, but let's say that something you are feeling is positive for sure and feels EXTREMELY mysterious. Now mysterious things on this level are usually also more extreme on the positive/negative basis because the physiological process was so complex. I am about to use random numbers, but this will just be an example. Let's say a physical sensation yielded by astral projection is like +200. A song you hear is at about +150. The rule of thumb is that things you are currently experiencing get the precedent over everything you have ever experienced (based on extremity of the physical sensation). The less extreme the physical sensation, the more likely that you body will yield a new physical sensation from a different process. I guess my point with all of this is that anything can seem mysterious at a certain threshold of positive when it comes to physical sensations (awareness). Half of the songs that I have on my Ipod seem mysterious, mystery is basically a physical sensation that only arises in extreme negative or extreme positive (and negative and positive can only exist with awareness, nothing else). As I pay more and more attention, I realize that it is extremely easy to find mystery literally all the time (as weird as that sounds). That is why I look at things like people claiming to be psychic and actually think that is very possible (but not the way most people portray it). I just compare more things now with other things than I ever have and am starting to realize that there are literally unlimited possibilities with new extremely positive physical sensations. Btw I think that precognitive thinking is completely related with speed and time of some sort of processing of the rate of which your unconscious thoughts associate to certain things.

tibetan buddhists sleep in awareness. aware that they are asleep, aware that their dreams are just thoughts, being aware of that, they can observe, in awareness

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Originally Posted by Majestic

The conscious mind is only 10% of our brain potential. The other 90% is sub-conscious and unconscious. In my experience, consciousness is really strange. Actually NOT paying attention or focusing on the outside world is when you can see everything and access the hidden 90%. It's a completely different world.

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I'm not actually disagreeing with your point, but honestly I hate when people say this. This is not right, and never will be right. It is a myth, and a very stupid one at that--as in there is no evidence backing it, because all the evidence points to the contrary. There are too many working parts that make up consciousness in too many different places to be able to make a claim like we only use 10% of our brains and that there is some vast amount of potential we could possibly tap into. The brain simply doesn't work like that, it's incredibly complex and multi-faceted.

I can't help but see this post and think that were it true that the meaning of life was to "experience a positive physical sensation yielded by one or more complex processes" that we should just shoot up with heroine and continue to do so until we die. Just keep an IV of the stuff on drip until we finally succumb. Sure we'll die, but it'll sure be a positive experience.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it does not take into account how easy it is to hijack the reward centers of our brains. This mode of thought also doesn't address whether we're aiming to maximize these positive experiences in quantity, quality, or both. That is, if given the choice between having many moderately positive experiences or a few acutely positive experiences, which should we prefer? How would we make such a value judgement? Basically, if we put Dorian Grey and Epicurus in a room to debate hedonism, which would be correct? would they come to a compromise?

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Originally Posted by SuperOhm

I can't help but see this post and think that were it true that the meaning of life was to "experience a positive physical sensation yielded by one or more complex processes" that we should just shoot up with heroine and continue to do so until we die. Just keep an IV of the stuff on drip until we finally succumb. Sure we'll die, but it'll sure be a positive experience.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it does not take into account how easy it is to hijack the reward centers of our brains. This mode of thought also doesn't address whether we're aiming to maximize these positive experiences in quantity, quality, or both. That is, if given the choice between having many moderately positive experiences or a few acutely positive experiences, which should we prefer? How would we make such a value judgement? Basically, if we put Dorian Grey and Epicurus in a room to debate hedonism, which would be correct? would they come to a compromise?

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This is something I really should have addressed more and you do have a very valid point. Positive quantity is better than Positive quality hands down, but there are many factors to this (as well as other talking points). First off, I would like to point out that the abstractions of positive and negative only exist in physical sensations, nothing else. Some physical sensations are very "bizarre", but that doesn't dismiss the abstractions of positive or negative to be associated with them. I have done hours and hours of self evaluation with this theory with many different "bizarre" physical sensations. With that being said, I will explain why many moderately positive experiences is better than few acutely positive ones (and how we make such a value judgment). Let's say I am shooting up with heroine. Let's just say that most of the physical sensations I get from this are extremely positive (random value of +1,000). Now let's say that I am tapping my fingers and the vibration is causing a physical sensation of +20. For this case, let's just say that you feel the vibration and then shoot up with heroine. While you are shooting up with heroine, you remember the vibrations and think that they are negative because they were so low compared to what you are doing now. This is simply just a misconception because you are not currently feeling the vibrations. Again, positive is positive and negative is negative. When you are focusing solely on the vibrations again, you will think it is the best thing ever. Everyone goes through this. With everything foresaid, I KNOW that quantity is better than quality (only in terms of positive physical sensations). Don't get me wrong, people want to experience extremely positive physical sensations WAY more than experiencing many moderately positive ones. The reason for this is because of the avoidance of very near future or current negative physical sensations.

Most extremely positive physical sensations will lead you to believe that the percentage of positive physical sensations you will experience in the near or long future will be higher. This is actually very true based on what type of physical sensation, but people often get very tricked by this illusion. Now I would like to end this post off by explaining death, your statement about shooting up heroine until you die, and where other living things fit in. Death is the end of any physical sensation you will feel again (some might disagree, but I am just trying to make a point for this discussion). Before you die, you might go through EXTREMELY bizarre physical sensations, but this still does not denounce the existence of the abstractions of positive and negative being associated with all of these. If you are reading and don't agree or feel uncomfortable with this notion, you may be experiencing a negative physical sensation, but this does not denounce the truth. These are the two main forces that drive our actions. Also, the points that you are asleep when you are not dreaming is also the absence of a physical sensation. I would like to end off my explanation of death by saying that neutral is better than negative, but NOT the same thing as positive. Neutral is also neutral.

Now I will address your statement about shooting up heroine until you die. First off, I would like to say that doing this affects 2 parties, you and other living things around you and that is really all that matters. Shooting up heroine until you died would be a SPECTACULAR life. The percentage of positive physical sensations that you experience would be extremely high (just assuming). I am not mentioning the fact that the physical sensations were extremely positive because that doesn't matter (as expressed earlier). Now let's say you do so much and you die. When you die, you no longer feel any physical sensations. This means that you have a "neutral overall state of being" as I would say. Positive is better than neutral, neutral is better than negative, and Positive is WAY better than negative. Yes, you had a SPECTACULAR life, but now the loss is with you (even though you no longer exist) and living things that have to deal with your death. That leads me into the third thing I wanted to talk about and that is the living parties currently being affected by your actions. Sure, you could do whatever you want in life, but you may be affecting a lot of people around you in a negative way. This isn't fair because you know that you wouldn't have attained your opportunity to experience these physical sensations without the previous hundreds of thousands of years of order or your parents, etc. This is why people usually always start experiencing some sort of negative physical sensation when they think their actions will cause a grievance, in any way, shape, or form. This doesn't have to be anything even remotely big. This isn't really something I wanted to talk abut too much, but is also a great value judgment of how we should decide quantity over quality. I hope I have answered all of your questions. There is actually a lot more I could still add and things I may have over-explained just a little. The biggest thing I still want to discuss regarding this topic is reproduction and where that fits in.

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Originally Posted by Blackfox

tibetan buddhists sleep in awareness. aware that they are asleep, aware that their dreams are just thoughts, being aware of that, they can observe, in awareness

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Yeah, those are all physical sensations being yielded by physiological processes in the body. Instead of complex I am going to just say physiological from now on (meaning any process that occurs inside or on a human being). Awareness is the thought, you are right, and thoughts consist of images, sounds, tastes, smells, AND physical sensations. Images you see, things you hear, things you taste, and things you smell are actually all physical sensations. The only reason they get so much attention is because they are the most occurring physical sensations (and most important usually). They are all yielded by physiological processes within the body and can all be associated with the abstractions of positive or negative (varies with each person). Finally, I would like to say that thoughts to me are just basically anything that you feel (and usually remember). You can only remember physical sensations and that is it. The most occurring conscious thoughts are images and sounds for most people. Why? When we are asleep, we usually only have physical sensations in the forms of images and sound and not the hundreds of thousands of other things you can feel. You need to be able to figure out the world around you, and the best way to do that for most people are the physical sensations of images and sounds. Oh and by the way, many images and sounds you see and hear activate another area in the brain usually which I call unconscious reordering of thoughts which is a constant physical sensation throughout the day, but that is just my opinion for now and a theory I have presented using many aspects. That is for another thread perhaps haha.

Perhaps I just didn't catch it. How do you justify quantity over quality logically within this framework? How does it flow from your initial premise?

Why should I care about the other people I may or may not hurt if I feel good in the process? That is, if a person completely lacked empathy (they exist) why should they consider others at all? If it is only the their capacity to face negative experiences as repercussions, then why should a very powerful person lacking empathy consider others? That is, imagine a president or a mob boss of sufficient influence that few, if any, pose any real threat to them. Did they just win at everything?

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Originally Posted by SuperOhm

Perhaps I just didn't catch it. How do you justify quantity over quality logically within this framework? How does it flow from your initial premise?

Why should I care about the other people I may or may not hurt if I feel good in the process? That is, if a person completely lacked empathy (they exist) why should they consider others at all? If it is only the their capacity to face negative experiences as repercussions, then why should a very powerful person lacking empathy consider others? That is, imagine a president or a mob boss of sufficient influence that few, if any, pose any real threat to them. Did they just win at everything?

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Before I start typing any further, I just want to say that my entire theory is completely contradictory in one way; but very valid in another. It is contradictory in that it causes you to use introspection after you feel many things (which actually ruins a lot of experiences for me, sadly). This means that I am using intelligence, but I am certain that the only real important use for intelligence is to later on find a way to yield unlimited positive physical sensations. Don't get me wrong, intelligence can cause you to have extremely positive physical sensations all the time, but it is definitely not the meaning of anything and shouldn't be the main thing to decide any ultimate species. Yes, I am saying that humans are actually ranked extremely low on the list of the ultimate species (as radical as it may sound). Also, I am actually against saying that anything is the "meaning of life". Things have functions (not meaning) and there are too many things to still understand in the cosmos to say ANYTHING has meaning. I saw that you said this in your second paragraph, "Why should I care about the other people I may or may not hurt if I feel good in the process?".

This is actually a perfect summary, so forgive me if I ignore anything else you said in that paragraph. You are right, you shouldn't care for your own good. I can't possibly refute anything you said in that second paragraph. Although this may be, I still have a few comments regarding this truth. One is that if you have no empathy for ANYONE, then you have no empathy for ANYONE. This happened because of an array of reasons, etc. This can actually be called antisocial personality disorder. A second comment I have is that this is extremely rare and hard to achieve. This would be extremely nice to be able to have objectively (assuming not too many other negative physical sensations from other things). A third comment I have is that if everyone did achieve this, there would be massive deaths everywhere. The only safe way of everyone (including you and me), to have constant positive physical sensations is going to require much more research. In the meantime, people should try to experience as many positive physical sensations as possible while trying not to affect others negatively. Although I think this should be done, human intelligence causes many accidents and people will still harm others emotionally or physically on purpose (even me obviously). A few antisocial individuals will not ruin a society in this era, but if everyone exhibited this, there would be a big problem. What I am saying, in summary, is that antisocial behavior is good (assuming limited negative physical sensations from other issues). It is good if you are antisocial, you are having a very high percentage of positive physical sensations. Somebody else might see your behavior and want to do the same thing; they might succeed or fail. If they succeed, then that is good for them. If they fail, then it really doesn't matter.

As for me, I can't try to be antisocial because of the negative physical sensations I get from even trying to do such a thing. If everyone starts to try this, then your species is suddenly wiped out. It is like any pleasure that is actually harmful (the harm to the atmosphere is the BEST example). People will do what is necessary to have a positive physical sensation (and the avoidance of negative ones). It would be good to be completely antisocial, but your entire species may cease to exist if too many people start to exhibit this, and it is extremely unlikely that many people would be able to exhibit this because of extremely negatively yielded physical sensations. For some reason, these are the only two arguments I feel I can pose on this subject (and what I explained for a while in the beginning of the post). I think they are sufficient enough explanations and I hope you can make some associations to how this mode of thought is actually flawless. I know this seems really high for me to say, but I honestly have not seen any other mode of thought or theory that explains as many aspects as my theory on motivation, behavior, or the functions of different physical sensations.

Modern Psychology has many flaws, but also many helpful explanations on how certain physical sensations are yielded. Modern Psychology also really explains where certain physical sensations are located in the brain pretty well. I have a website where I explain all of this stuff in great depth, but most of my posts are not very good. Some posts were excellent and still are, but some things are not stated correctly, and I did have to make some changes to what I was saying all throughout early and mid 2013. I also do not post very much on it. My overall confidence of my own theory is now fully confident. I am fully confident in what I am saying and can entertain any counter-arguments. My theory is on awareness, but I also explain motivation, behavior, and the varying factors of physical sensations and the effect they have on our entire lives. I may have gotten a little bit back off track, but I will end my post with saying this; Using human intelligence, it is better to choose negative temporarily to preserve positive, and avoid a much greater negative. This will avoid the ultimate fate of permanent neutrality (which is better than negative, but worse than positive). This fate is directly better than any acute pain you will ever feel, but is WORSE THAN NEGATIVE indirectly. As for your first three sentences, I feel like I explained that pretty sufficiently. If you really, really want a further explanation of that, I will explain (and how it ties in properly to my initial premise).