Philosophy Now Forum

Consciousness is the interface between awareness* and mind**. Habitual fragmentation of existence, due to modern societal specialization of skills, has led to fragmentation of consciousness, or states of consciousness.

States of consciousness are illusory fragmentations of the one singular consciousness; an adaptive reaction to conditions that creates a comfort zone in order to get a little rest and relaxation from the toils and troubles of the predatory world of cheat you for a nickel.

For example: the frat boy transitioning into middle-aged corporate anxiety enters one fragmented state of consciousness while working and climbing up the ladder of success, and enters into another fragmented state of consciousness when whooping it up on the weekend in some watered-down burning man ritual of debauchery reminiscent of the formative, coming of age years, rituals made necessary by the Worship Gene adapting sacred behaviors to Bizarro-World conditions.


* Awareness precedes attention, and in relationship co-exists with attention.
** thought.

Consciousness is the passive reaction to the physical world as an object the input of which forms apparent reality/read your everyday reality.

RogerSH wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:02 am ...We can consciously make a choice at whim, such as when asked to “think of a number”. The number thought of necessarily emerges from the unconscious, but only because we have consciously wanted that unconscious process to take place.
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To summarize: the process that we experience as a focusing of conscious attention is the way we exercise (partial) control over many different kinds of unconscious processes. This is achieved by setting questions for the unconscious to answer...

I think it might be beneficial to find out who (or what) this "we/self", that you are referring to in your writings, actually is.
You state that "we can consciously make a choice", that "we experience something" and that "we exercise (partial) control"... now... what exactly is this entity that does all that? Where can it be found? Can it be experienced? If not... how do you know it actually exists and is not just pure imagination?

Investigating how "attention" actually "works" will eventually lead one to the conclusion that there is no such controlling entity at all - it will lead one to the understanding that "attention flows freely", unconstrained by a separate, controlling entity and that it is always simply a reaction to what happens right here/now (no matter if attention flows towards a mental process or a sensory input).
Try not paying attention to someone suddenly yelling behind your back or the sour taste of biting into a lemon... once you "consciously" try to not pay attention, you have already paid attention... there is no such thing as "(partial) control" - control is either 100% or 0% (and both values lead to the same result: absolute control and absolute no-control - which, at the end, is exactly the same)

Consciousness is reaction.