Moji: It's interesting that what they attempt to overcome, is the conceptual limitation.

Tom: I’m not sure you said it, but I know what you mean, they guarantee erroneous results due to the assumptions they use to avoid errors. They are conceptually limited by their belief — a belief that is such an intrinsic part of their culture and training, it is automatically assumed to be irrefutable truth. Assume a false truth and guarantee a false answer. This interesting symmetry you noticed is often seen when a cause and effect pair are confused -- it is the natural outcome of the belief being 180 degrees out of phase with reality. Among the most erudite of scholars, it is often called the bass-ackwards syndrome.

Moji: As far as I know, there is only correlation between the brain and consciousness that can be observed and it seems that to conclude that the brain causes consciousness is to step beyond the boundaries of science.

Tom: Exactly so. Those belief traps suck you in so smoothly you don't even know you’ve been had. Basing science on belief limits what you can do with the science. Often the conceptual solution space you need to solve a problem is proscribed by the assumptions you use. That is the nature of belief — it is always conceptually limiting.

Moji: If the existence of consciousness is only determined by measuring the body, then the theory that the brain causes consciousness (or any other mental construct) isn't falsifiable. Uh oh....

Tom: "Uh oh, indeed -- you caught them with their circular logic showing. But try pointing that out that simple example to one of your learned scientific companions and see how quickly he denies, brushes off, and squirms away from the logical implication — and if for some strange reason he doesn't, be sure to give him the URL to my website.

Tom

Tom: … The local causality that appears to drive things in a local PMR subset, is usually reducible to time ordered particle events because that Physical appearing virtual reality is largely (though not necessarily completely) generated and evolved from time ordered particle events that are constrained to follow the defining rule-set. Local causality is a reflection of the local rule-set. If one wishes to understand the higher level causality that produces the local reality, one must look beyond the local rule-set for answers.…The existence, function, and point of the little local reality is still completely dependent upon the larger reality. The larger reality represents another level of causality. And so it goes until one gets to THE biggest picture of reality, the cause of all causes -- the buck stops there. You may or may not be in a position to see that far — it depends on how far up the ladder your awareness goes.

Moji: This paragraph is pretty far back in the thread, but I wanted to bring it up again because it is a stunning description. Thinking back to the events-ordered-in-time example of one billiard ball hitting another and causing it to move, it’s easy to see how upward causality theories occur. Certainly, the first ball, with its mass and momentum, transfers its energy to the second ball, when it collides with the second ball. And, yes, the second ball moves. But this is only part of the story; part of the story because the interaction of the billiard balls only occurs because of the rule-set which defines not only the mechanics of the their collision, but also the balls as physical entities with properties of mass, charge, and energy, the billiard table where the incident occurs, and the space and time in which it occurs. In short, to say that one ball hitting another causes this event, is to sell the situation short; by a wide margin. We can't even talk about the billiard balls without talking about the defining rule-set. Where do all of these physical properties come from anyway? I like your description immensely. It’s been said to me many times that laws of physics don't cause anything. While I agree with the statement when “laws of physics“ are equations in a book, once we leave the laws-of-physics-as-symbols-in-a-book universe, it is precisely the rule-set of reality which causes things. To attempt to describe anything without the rule-set by which it is defined, is to have an incomplete description.

Moji [brackets added for clarity]: We can't even talk about the billiard balls without talking about the [higher level] defining rule-set [that is the direct cause of the local reality wherein the balls interact]. … once we leave the laws-of-physics-as-symbols-in-a-book universe, it is precisely the rule-set of [the larger] reality which causes things. To attempt to describe anything [existing or happening within a little picture as defined by its local rule-set] without [taking into consideration] the [larger] rule-set by which it is defined, is to have an incomplete description.

Tom: Yes, to complete the description one must ask: Where did time and the three dimensional space come from? (That’s the same as asking where the universe and our sense of reality comes from. The Big Bang doesn't describe where the universe comes from; it describes only an initial condition within some preexisting time that has no cause, a state vector, a single point on some unknown history thread). One can think of time and 3D space (the independent variables of physics) as the media upon which the rule-set defining the local PMR reality expresses its constraints. Scientists simply declare that time and 3D space, i.e., the fundamental properties, the existence of our local reality frame, to be a given condition without cause — that sort of magical thinking does, as you say, leave one hanging with an incomplete description.

Though this assumption/belief (that time and space simply exists because they do) is currently considered scientific, it is logically equivalent to the religious assumption of “god does it.“ Like all fundamental beliefs, it’s felt to be so obvious and beyond question that no actual understanding or rational assessment is necessary. With mystical belief being the fundamental assumption (for both science and religion), one necessarily gets an incomplete description.

One wonders how anybody could miss this point. Yet ask a scientist about what constitutes the larger defining rule-set that creates, defines, necessitates, or causes the PMR rule-set that defines physical reality and they will say: “There is no larger defining rule set, no higher level causality — 3D space and time just exist because they exist, it’s a given, the nature of reality — an initial condition from which we proceed.“ Generally, there is no point in trying to argue with a true believer. They’re right , your wrong (as well as goofy, nuts, confused, and lost — you have obviously been twisted by some irrational belief) -- end of discussion.

The belief that brains necessarily create consciousness is a similar issue — same type of circular logic — as you pointed out, non-falsifiable bullpucky.

Tom

“The belief that brains necessarily create consciousness is a similar issue — same type of circular logic — as you pointed out, non-falsifiable bullpucky.“

In the case of brains and consciousness, many scientists and philosophers believe in a materialist reductionism description of consciousness, where the brain generates all of the features we attribute to the mind (including consciousness). The phenomena associated with the mind and consciousness are thought to be epiphenomenal, or derivatives of the brain with no causal powers. They seem to exist, but are really nothing but sets of neurons firing in a particular way. But within this simple description is the fundamental flaw of the theory; the existence of brains. Without a higher level rule-set, brains are really nothing but molecules, which are nothing but atoms, which are nothing but protons, electrons and neutrons, which are nothing but…do you see the trend?. My point, however, is that without a higher level rule-set, these discrete particles would not interact or exist. Their existence and interactions are wholly defined by (they are derivatives of) a higher level rule-set.

One particularly clever philosopher seems to be catching on. He says that the mind is a feature of the brain (the same way that reflectivity is a feature of mirrors), but that it has its own existence which isn't just the firing of neurons. Why? Because he says that the mind is causally reducible to the brain, but not ontologically reducible; the mind has features which the brain lacks. When the mind is ontologically reduced, the subjective experience that minds (consciousness) have disappears. This, he says, is the reason why minds aren't just brains. Subjectivity is a thing that is a real thing, so it must be a part of physical reality and that any part of physical reality is a necessary part of physical reality because without all of its parts, physical reality isn't real (complete). You may have noticed that this philosopher still holds on to upward causality, but there’s a dent in the armor of this belief. I don't know whether he’ll ever see the dent for what it is, but I think that he’s just short of being able to see the implications of his theory. He has already recognized that the mind has features that the brain (a collection of neurons) lacks. The idea that the functioning of a collection of neurons has properties that the individual neurons lack practically screams “higher level rule-set!“

This ontological irreducibility is a distinct problem for reductionist (materialist) theories. In the case of the mind (consciousness) and the brain, we may rightly ask “Do neurons exhibit the features of the mind?“ It would seem that they must, if the mind is causally reducible to the brain. Physical properties of discrete matter are additive (mass and charge), are they not? The properties of a collection of matter, if they are not observed in the component bits, must come from somewhere. But where? Does an individual water molecule change to ice or steam under the right conditions? If not, then ice and steam would seem to be a state in which water cannot exist without a higher level rule-set. But with even with a higher level rule-set, water molecules do not become a solid, liquid, or gas on their own. Only with a set of molecules, and in the appropriate environment, can we observe these states. We can't really talk about something as simple as states of matter without bringing up all sorts of other things (like the rest of reality).

Note that in my previous post I included time. Causality requires time as a fundamental ingredient.

The point you are making in your first paragraph is that when you follow causality to the very beginning of the chain (brains, molecules, atoms, elementary particles,…) you eventually get to the point where “a miracle occurs“ and something just exists because it exists (just like space and time and consciousness). You end up with the logical conclusion that our proud science, at its root, is actually based on a belief in miracles. If one is scientific and logical, one quickly concludes that instead of believing in miracles science should be looking for a higher level of causality — a higher level rule-set.

In your second and third paragraph you make the point that an honest and thoughtful assessment will discover that consciousness (the supersystem) has properties and abilities that cannot be causally derived from the physical brain (the subsystem). Consider this: There have been many thousands — indeed such experiences are not all that uncommon — of well documented instances of telepathic communication, precognitive dreams, accurate remote viewing, mind over matter healings and psychokinetic phenomena, etc.. The concept of intuition is commonly accepted, even within our scientific culture, to go beyond clever guessing and reading of clues. These phenomena taken together, even under the most skeptical assessment, do indeed scream for the logical inclusion of a higher level rule-set — that consciousness is more than brains, that reality contains more than material particles, that space and time have a reason, a purpose, a cause. Consequently science, in order to maintain the integrity of its core beliefs, must categorically deny that all paranormal phenomena exist. By definition, such phenomena cannot exist because they conflict with the fundamental theology of science — i.e., with the beliefs (as opposed to facts) of science. When the existence of these “beyond physical“ phenomena is undeniably contained within your personal experience, you can't help but notice the blinders that science wears to protect and maintain its fundamental belief in miracles, i.e., the non-causal, non-falsifiable, assumption that space, time, and consciousness just exist because they do.

Tom

"...you make the point that an honest and thoughtful assessment will discover that consciousness (the supersystem) has properties and abilities that cannot be causally derived from the physical brain (the subsystem). "

With a healthy dose of open-minded skepticism, such an assessment might enable you to discover this, but it's still the long way around, as I think you inferred later in your reply.

I don't know whether this philosopher's theory is better than any other such theory, but I thought it was worth posting within the context of this thread. Certainly, from our perspectives, the flaws that his beliefs lend to his theory may be no less apparent than anyone else's theory, but when I read his book, I got a sense that he was so close to taking the next step and uncovering those beliefs, that with only the slightest nudge, he could overcome them. Of course, I may be completely wrong; but I do find this example to be an interesting reference point for those who may be thinking along those lines, who have a sense that something is wrong, but can't quite figure it out. Perhaps not. I wasn't able to do it. It took everything coming to a head for me to get a sense of how deep the rabbit hole went, but I think that without such examples, of which I had many, it would have taken much longer.

How close an individual is to seeing the bigger picture is determined by how committed he is to his belief that physical reality is all the reality there is. More often than not when the demands of logical consistency smack a true believer directly between the eyes, the true believer just goes on about his business as if nothing ever happened. Never even blinks. Such is the power of belief and the steep price of allowing one’s ignorance and fear to limit one’s decision space and thus define one’s reality. Sometimes the believer does blink. The next time he runs into this (or a similar) logical inconsistency he may blink twice. Occasionally the issue grows into something so troubling that it cannot be ignored. When his drive to know the truth overpowers his fear of having to live without the comfort of the belief, he transcends his need to believe and goes on a quest to find a greater, less limited truth living in a larger, more productive and satisfying reality. Because such an act requires the courage to grow up and stand alone in unfamiliar territory beyond the reassuring support of the herd and to follow the quest to wherever it might lead, it is the path less traveled.

Tom

Let’s get back to the subject of consciousness and the brain. Analogies are never perfect but sometimes, if you don't push them too far, they can help produce a useful perspective. Consider a computer based multiplayer role playing game like Everquest or World of Warcraft. Your character’s allowed interactions are constrained by his attributes, and abilities. These attributes and abilities are stored in a chunk of memory on the game server and may change as your character gains experience within the game. Think of the individuated chunk of memory on the game server (The Big Gaming Computer) as representing the character’s brain and you as representing the characters consciousness.

Imagine that this game is more sophisticated than the games currently on the market and that your player has more than just memory of his characteristics — i.e., he can process the likely advantages and disadvantages of some potential action (modeling thinking). He might also have preferences for some actions and some entities over others (modeling ego attachments and feelings). Also imagine that his preferences and his ability to process effectively also change according to his experience — i.e., he has some capacity to learn from his experience.

You control the intent of the character, set direction and develop motivation but let him make most of the decisions that drive his actions (based on the results of his processing and preferences). You may challenge, nudge, or guide his decisions one way or another by manipulating the conscience, guilt, reasoning, fear, attraction, and intuition character interface functions. The size of your decision space (knowledge of the rule-set that defines the game) also constrains your character. You may wish for a more capable character but you must work with the characteristics supported by his brains (stored on the game server instead of your computer to keep you from cheating and thus running the ability of experience to be the best teacher). His brains can only change as he gains experience (interacts with other entities and his environment) -- brains may grow more capable with productive experience or suffer damage (dysfunctional change) with counterproductive experience (i.e., take in counterproductive information).

As intentions are acted out within the constraints of the games interactions, immediate feedback [in the form of additional new direct game experience for your character to process and by way of the intuition interface (the results of you processing the characters experience)] is often generated from which both you and he learn more about the rule-set driving the game, more about the nature of the characters you are interacting with, and more about yourselves. You and your character are both growing (increasing your knowledge, understanding and effectiveness) together in a tightly connected, interactive, symbiotic relationship. You are both trying to reduce your entropy, or equivalently, increase the value/effectiveness of the information content that defines you. His brain changes (attributes, abilities, memory content, processing effectiveness, and preferences) to reflect the effect of any new experience and feedback. Likewise, the information content and entropy level of your consciousness changes to reflect the effect of his and your new experience (your experience is your assessment, your processing of the interactions and feedback his characteristics and capabilities generate in the game as he executes your intents and is nudged by your guidence. You are his mentor, his guide, his conscience, his inspiration, his intuition, and transfer to him (through your intents) your free will, knowledge, understanding, limitations, fears and ego. He operates according to the values that you input to him through the intuition interface — your values that unavoidably express the limits of your understanding and consciousness quality. You are his soul.

Taking into account your own strengths, weaknesses, and proclivities, you originally defined some of his fundamentals (like race and appearance to whatever extent the rules allowed) and put him in some particular situational context (particular server or specific environment/place within the game) in order to optimize his potential for growth. How effective your initial decisions are in facilitating his growth depend on how well you understand the game and on what/who your character happens to run into (interact with) which define his experience, initiates feedback, modifies his brain, and thus strongly influences what he does next. Remember there are thousands of other characters in the game exercising their limited understanding, free will, intents, and intuitions as well as the gamming environment which execute widely variable, sometimes random, interactions -- consequently much of what happens to a character is unpredictable and uncontrollable — like social Brownian motion.

Ok, the parallels could go on and on -- you are welcome to pursue them as far as you wish, but I think I have beat this overworked analogy to death in this limited venue. If this perspective has helped more than it has confused, good — otherwise let it go — analogies tend to fall apart if pushed beyond their usefulness. In other words, don't get wrapped up in the details. At the very least you should see the point and value of the virtual physical system -- with each PMR inhabitant and their consciousness inexorably intertwined and connected in an interactive dance of learning opportunities and growth as they together mix it up with others in the PMR school yard. Think of your brains and your consciousness not as two separate, nearly opposite things, but rather as two individuated, mutually interactive, growth enhancing sides of The One Coin. Imagine an apparently physical (but actually virtual) brain and a nonphysical consciousness representing two symbiotic aspects of one consciousness -- each aspect being defined and differentiated by the imposition of differing sets of constraints; or perhaps think of them as two mutually reinforcing portions of the consciousness-evolution fractal pattern.

Tom

The question has come up: OK, so I’m not perfect (yet), I sometimes damage my brain, as well as my consciousness quality because of my fear, ego, lack of understanding, and beliefs — I’m not always one with the Big Picture. So what do I do about it, how do I BE differently?

If the consciousness has direct influence over the configuration and wiring of the physical brain and if your intent has direct influence over the will, action, or energy of the consciousness, then, given that you have the ability to focus and direct your conscious intent, you should have some direct influence over the configuration and wiring of your physical brain. Of course, that’s exactly how you pull yourself up by your bootstraps while engaged in PMR.

You have the ability, by focusing and directing your conscious intent (exercising your will), to modify both the content and quality of your consciousness as well as the structure and function of your physical brains. Here’s how: Regularly and consistently pouring your time and energy into directing your intent, focusing your consciousness, or applying your will toward BEING differently -- i.e., to reconfiguring your consciousness content into a more profitable, lower entropy, configuration -- creates a pressure that continually nudges you, one tiny increment at a time, toward positive personal growth. This is the dynamic that drives consciousness evolution. If your approach is more haphazard than “regularly and consistently“ then your growth is more haphazard as well.

In PMR we see this intent, brain, body dynamic play out in many ways. For example, consider a stroke victim with brain damage. If the stroke victim can maintain a steady (regular and consistent) pressure on the brain (through focused intent animated by physical therapy), the brain will, yielding to this pressure, reconfigure and rewire itself one tiny increment at a time until normal function is restored or the pressure subsides, which ever comes first. The intent, brain, body, machine pulls itself up by its bootstraps. Here, in this PMR example, both the will (through intent) and body (through physical therapy) must develop the required pressure together.

It takes dedicated consistent effort over years to effect major changes. The steady pressure you bring to bear on your consciousness and body by a regular and consistent program of focused intent can mitigate the brain “damage“ discussed in an earlier post, as well as many of the problems derived from other body damage (physical health issues). This is true whether the “damage“ is hereditary, environmental, or a product of your experience. Additionally, the steady pressure you bring to bear on your consciousness by a regular and consistent program of focused intent can decrease the entropy, increase the quality, and advance the evolution of your consciousness. Thus one can see the connection between spiritual growth and physical and mental health — both can be developed (encouraged or squandered), one increment at a time, by a relentlessly focused intent. Individuated consciousness is the driver, the engine that pulls your train, changes your state, and animates your being — it is the fundamental unit of individual existence and a card carrying member of the One larger consciousness system.

Tom

“You have the ability, by focusing and directing your conscious intent (exercising your will), to modify both the content and quality of your consciousness as well as the structure and function of your physical brains. Here’s how: Regularly and consistently pouring your time and energy into directing your intent, focusing your consciousness, or applying your will toward BEING differently -- i.e., to reconfiguring your consciousness content into a more profitable, lower entropy, configuration -- creates a pressure that continually nudges you, one tiny increment at a time, toward positive personal growth.“

Thank you for this post. I’ve found the discussions over the past month to be immensely informative and helpful. The answers to questions you have received seem to be simple and follow directly the theory you’ve put forward and, in some cases, are blatantly obvious but somehow get overlooked. I seem to suffer from an expectation that the method for decreasing entropy must be far more complex than it actually is. This expectation probably comes from the fact that, intellectually, if something is unknown or not understood, it must be complex or difficult (does this sound familiar?).

Your answer about reconfiguring the brain begs the question; how does one focus one’s intent?

Moji: The answers to questions you have received seem to be simple and follow directly the theory you’ve put forward and, in some cases, are blatantly obvious but somehow get overlooked.

Tom: Yes, that’s the way it works. Big Truth is always blatantly obvious and completely trivial once you get it, and impenetrably opaque before you get it. It is a paradigm thing, you don't get it until your reality and decision space grows enough to hold it.

Moji: Your answer about reconfiguring the brain begs the question; how does one focus one’s intent?

Tom: Understanding the general answer to your question is easy; explaining it to a particular individual is difficult. If a 10 year old boy came to you and asked: “How does one grow up to be a man“, what would you tell him? That you didn't know exactly how he should go about it and that he would have to figure that out by himself? He would be terribly disappointed. If you told him “The Big Manly Secret“: that during the next full moon he should stand on one foot, face the moon, and howl three times, he would be forever grateful. That’s the kind of answer he wants. Or would you just accept his disappointment, pat him on the rump and tell to get back out there in the game …. and not worry too much about the process, that he will somehow figure out how pull himself up by his bootstraps. It’s sort of like that, but here is my best shot at it:

A good start is to be, through diligent practice, an accomplished meditator. That is, be able to find and remain in that state where you have shut out all the ego and background noise and exist only as a single point of consciousness (awareness) floating in an empty silent void. At that point you are nothing but intent just waiting to be focused. The action of focusing is an act of free will expressing purpose and goal. Now, while remaining in that state, you can focus that intent on growing your being, exploring NPMR, or healing a physical body in need of some assistance. Don't expect anything — expectation (a function of ego) should not exist in that still quiet place — be grateful for whatever tiny increment you get. Eventually, with much practice, you will be able to access that state even while driving home or talking to someone.

Tom

So, what you're saying is that howling at the moon doesn't help?

This is what I had assumed, but I thought I'd ask.

Hm...Interesting. I have never noticed this thread before now. This looks very interesting, and I've only read the first couple lines of the first post. I am posting the link to 3 video's by Brian Josephson in which he is trying to go where no one has gone before (present company excluded) so hard it is almost painful to watch. I'll be going to his website to inform him of MBT today. His last words in video 3 are prophetic if this was filmed before MBT, imo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7sI0H6M ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq1B4zGs ... 7297367.74
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrXGtqT7 ... re=related
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

It doesn't help? Sometimes it is indeed terribly satisfying :)

_________________
always, John

The brain is a container of consciousness:

I don't particularly like this concept it means that we are then limited to whatever message is encoded in the brain. Yet Mystics have taught for thousands of years we are spiritual beings having a human experience, we are only limited because we think we are. In other words we are running negative programmes.
Besides that the work of Sheldrake, Lipton, Radin et al all shows that Consciousnes does not arise in the brain, heck, there are people born with very little brain who would not be able to fucnction if Consciousness arose in the brain.
Nope Consciousness is all around us in fields and our brains tune into those fields and we then experience life. It is like a fish swimming in water, the water is all around the fish.
What stops us really percieving it all is the ego.