The Illuminating Coil of Consciousness
17 Jan 2021Rabid Kiwi
I corresponded to you a little bit yesterday about the subjective roots to this concept we call realty. How morality is beholden to the observer/observers but not a fundamental element of the universe. So if this is so why does it still hold so much power over us? The easy way out is to say that over the course of our evolution we bread it into ourselves. But that is giving us too much credit, humans are not that far from nature that they can control their evolution. I would say we are much more closer to the "natural" laws than most people would feel comfortable with. So if is not from breeding than what? It is just a result of how consciousness works.So what is consciousness? Do not give me that text book ideal, that washed out old thinking of id and ego, conscious and sub conscious. There is no "sub conscious" there only instinct and learned behavior, and by the end of this I hope to see you agree with me on that. So if we break it down consciousness is how aware you are, of your environment and all around you. Like in Plato's day they thought basic elements like fire would control different aspect of your life. So bad things or thoughts keep happening you need to balance your elements. Now we know better we understand more about our environment so we are more aware. So consciousness is merely awareness. So if we want to understand it we have to break it down to it's basic nature, its simplistic form. What is the most basic from of awareness, in the value of consciousness.... Self awareness. Yes that so called indicator of intelligence, self awareness. Now we are going to utterly destroy most people ideals of just how complex self awareness is.
So we are now at the foundation of consciousness that is self awareness, but what is the foundation of self awareness? Lets strip it down, what is the most basic form of self awareness that allows for a lifeform to survive? That would be the ability of a lifeform to tell the difference between it's self and it's environment. With out that it would consume it's self for food. So the lowest ameba is self aware, they just are not as aware as we are. but they still have consciousness, but it is mostly instinct base, as you get to more complex life you start to see brains, or what I like to call "memory upgrades." So now these life forms can store observations and react in new ways. Learned Knowledge, Intelligence. Because intelligence is just knowing what to expect when x happens, or how to make x to happen. Intelligence is all based on memory, and the most successful life form on earth are the ones with the ability to pass on this Knowledge from generation to generation. So self awareness is the foundation of consciousness, and the ability to store and pass on observations is the limit factor. So the more information you can store and process to the next generation the more the consciousness of that species will grow. But for the most part consciousness is simply self awareness 2.0.
That brings us to what I call the Paradox of Self... But more on that tomorrow, for now I have sated the madness and so I must rest, and regain my strength. For the curse of Raxxal is ever tiring....