Philosophy Now Forum

I see that the term 'consciousness' has been used, to the point of being abused, by mainly the New Age 'spiritual' community. It's become, unfortunately, a vague word that none of these new age 'hippies' or 'gurus' can ever really articulate and grasp, but however can divert away from the actual word with a bunch of vague 'spiritual teachings'. They cannot really articulate consciousness, and definitely not 'pure' consciousness, because they have not learned the proper tools of critical thinking or have been properly educated by these tools like that of the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric). Had they done so, instead of being swayed by sophists and scam artists, they might begin to articulate what consciousness, or 'Pure Consciousness', really is.

Of course, I am still learning about things and so I myself cannot tell you simply about 'pure consciousness'. However, perhaps I can share with those reading the actual basics of learning to be aware that has unfortunately not been taught by the school system and the modern society.

First of all, let's get to the actual basics of what 'consciousness' is. To be conscious to be aware of things and to have knowledge, as 'conscius' (the Latin derivation) actually is to be aware. To be 'aware' and 'awake' (other two terms that have been abused by the New Age, and including the conspiratorial community), means to have an objective point of view that actually matches the actual object that is in this world. To have an objective point of view, you must not only use the intuition and the senses, but you must know how to filter out the possible fallacies and groundless speculation that arise from an otherwise untrained mind. Learning logic is very crucial, because it can be a tool used to mentally 'protect' yourself from all of the possible liars and manipulators that exist in the world. Of course, rhetoric is also important as it pertains to communication.

What a 'pure conscious' mind also takes, which is what the New Age movement is lacking, is the dedication to take in the hard work of developing oneself. For example, in order to become 'godlike', as in really to master the universe and be one with it, you must learn to live in this 'mundane' physical reality that nonetheless exists for us. You cannot simply escape from the problems of the world and ascend up to heaven or some higher '5th dimension' that various New Age websites have peddled from the 2012 phenomenon. To 'ascend' to this 'higher level' means to look at yourself and see what kind of habits that are needed to be worked on; how you can overall improve yourself in overcome whatever social obstacle that exists in your life. What is seen instead from the people of the New Age movement, looking at it historically in the modern era as it developed, are people who do not want to take the responsibilities of learning how to deal with life and instead seek to leave behind everybody to somehow escape the world and obtain 'nirvana' or enlightenment. They do not take care of themselves: eating poorly, not having proper hygiene, and not even being aware of things.

Instead of being truly conscious and aware, the New Age hippy is simply the complete opposite of it. Their spirituality is nihilistic; they believe that there is no 'Truth' and that all things are opinion, which is completely contrary to being conscious which requires objectivity. They are in little camps out in the larger societal meme culture; they dogmatically defend their belief and fight against others when feeling threatened. They are just as easily swayed into being manipulated by some sophist just as any other group whom the New Agers call 'sheeple'. Thus, they cannot really know 'pure consciousness', unless if they were to become truly objective with themselves and with reality.

wanderlands is your pure consciousness the unmoving measurer of c.because pure consciousness dosnt move and what measures c dosnt move.?what measures c is stationary relative to the constant speed of a photon.brains aint stationary but pure consciousness is.so the brains local or has locality in the observed event but consciousness on the other hand has to be nonlocal to the event to be the stationary measurer of c the speed of light.

WanderingLands wrote: First of all, let's get to the actual basics of what 'consciousness' is. To be conscious to be aware of things and to have knowledge, as 'conscius' (the Latin derivation) actually is to be aware. To be 'aware' and 'awake' (other two terms that have been abused by the New Age, and including the conspiratorial community), means to have an objective point of view that actually matches the actual object that is in this world. To have an objective point of view, you must not only use the intuition and the senses, but you must know how to filter out the possible fallacies and groundless speculation that arise from an otherwise untrained mind. Learning logic is very crucial, because it can be a tool used to mentally 'protect' yourself from all of the possible liars and manipulators that exist in the world. Of course, rhetoric is also important as it pertains to communication.

Hi WanderingLands,

I concentrated me on this central quotation of you, because I also think that the etymology is crucial to understand - so thank you for the informations as latin derivation of knowledge being the conscious, and the two other.

Some philosophies - I heard of (as being in databases conception) - consider that there is a stratum before logic. It would be the concepts (without connexions letting logic to operate, at this stadium).
The teacher let hear that it was Descarte, but I did not see such division in his works, do you know more ?

Finally, is psychology a good way to understand consciousness (maybe not if they consider a dialogue between consciousness and other entities, as "It", and another beyond the "me") ?

That's my favorite part too. I'm interested in where the information was obtained from...book, etc.
Niels mentioned a good point 'concepts' which need looking at.

Consider common sense and how little people use it because of concept clutter. People rely on concepts and our cultures are reflections of them. There is logic in common sense.

Meditation helps one realize how concepts effect their daily living/outlook.
People wear concepts on their sleeves, some are more obvious and more attached to them than others.
How are people supposed to see things objectively when everything people see is already suited to them???

jackles wrote:wanderlands is your pure consciousness the unmoving measurer of c.because pure consciousness dosnt move and what measures c dosnt move.?what measures c is stationary relative to the constant speed of a photon.brains aint stationary but pure consciousness is.so the brains local or has locality in the observed event but consciousness on the other hand has to be nonlocal to the event to be the stationary measurer of c the speed of light.

I don't really talk about Quantum Mechanics or Relativity; there's a lot of problems in those theories that have not really been resolved by the mainstream science community. The real science would be in things like the Ether, and also research into concepts such as 'Plasma Cosmology', and also Orgone energy. You can also look into Walter Russell, who combines spirituality with science without referring to QM and Relativity.

NielsBohr wrote: Some philosophies - I heard of (as being in databases conception) - consider that there is a stratum before logic. It would be the concepts (without connexions letting logic to operate, at this stadium).
The teacher let hear that it was Descarte, but I did not see such division in his works, do you know more ?

Logic is mainly a tool of the human mind to use to discern what is true from what is false, but I don't think that it could possibly be separated from the realm of ideas; especially when talking of abstract knowledge like that of mathematics considering that we can easily know that their equations are true 'a priori'. Of course with ideas separate from mathematics, we may have to develop our own ways of logic in discerning what is true and false, but even that at times could be a reflection of knowledge that could just be true in the first place. I believe it has mainly to do with seeing what Logic is correct, though, especially when it comes to the empirical world.

NielsBohr wrote: Finally, is psychology a good way to understand consciousness (maybe not if they consider a dialogue between consciousness and other entities, as "It", and another beyond the "me") ?

Psychology does have some good information about the mind, and so should be explored when finding out what consciousness is or is believed to be. However, we should also keep in mind that psychology has been used for social manipulation and mind control.

sjeff70 wrote:That's my favorite part too. I'm interested in where the information was obtained from...book, etc.

I was reflecting from exploring various philosophers such as that of Plato, Hegel, Rationalism, and esotericism. That was how I got the information from.

sjeff70 wrote: Consider common sense and how little people use it because of concept clutter. People rely on concepts and our cultures are reflections of them. There is logic in common sense.

People just don't have a sharp mind in actually knowing what is 'common sense' and what is false sense. But even 'common sense' can be subjective and interpreted into different ways, depending on what kind of society and culture one lives in. There may possibly be an idea that is believed to be 'common sense' that may be false, especially when you have the term 'common' in there that's synonymous with 'majority' and 'masses'.

sjeff70 wrote: Meditation helps one realize how concepts effect their daily living/outlook.
People wear concepts on their sleeves, some are more obvious and more attached to them than others.
How are people supposed to see things objectively when everything people see is already suited to them???

It's all about questioning whether or not those concepts (a personality or a belief) are really true/real or not.

I see the esotericism, I did a double take.
True, true... most will not attempt to live outside culture's norms. You will look like a simpleton.
What is your value of wisdom?

sjeff70 wrote:I see the esotericism, I did a double take.
True, true... most will not attempt to live outside culture's norms. You will look like a simpleton.
What is your value of wisdom?

I value wisdom in a high regard, with knowledge and understanding being the backbones of it. It's a value beyond the norms and beliefs within societies, yet can also be present in some of the components of society like religion (without the institutionalized fundamentalism, of course). Without it, you cannot find Truth but instead assumptions.

WanderingLands wrote:I see that the term 'consciousness' has been used, to the point of being abused, by mainly the New Age 'spiritual' community. It's become, unfortunately, a vague word that none of these new age 'hippies' or 'gurus' can ever really articulate and grasp, but however can divert away from the actual word with a bunch of vague 'spiritual teachings'. They cannot really articulate consciousness, and definitely not 'pure' consciousness, because they have not learned the proper tools of critical thinking or have been properly educated by these tools like that of the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric). Had they done so, instead of being swayed by sophists and scam artists, they might begin to articulate what consciousness, or 'Pure Consciousness', really is.

Of course, I am still learning about things and so I myself cannot tell you simply about 'pure consciousness'. However, perhaps I can share with those reading the actual basics of learning to be aware that has unfortunately not been taught by the school system and the modern society.

First of all, let's get to the actual basics of what 'consciousness' is. To be conscious to be aware of things and to have knowledge, as 'conscius' (the Latin derivation) actually is to be aware. To be 'aware' and 'awake' (other two terms that have been abused by the New Age, and including the conspiratorial community), means to have an objective point of view that actually matches the actual object that is in this world. To have an objective point of view, you must not only use the intuition and the senses, but you must know how to filter out the possible fallacies and groundless speculation that arise from an otherwise untrained mind. Learning logic is very crucial, because it can be a tool used to mentally 'protect' yourself from all of the possible liars and manipulators that exist in the world. Of course, rhetoric is also important as it pertains to communication.

What a 'pure conscious' mind also takes, which is what the New Age movement is lacking, is the dedication to take in the hard work of developing oneself. For example, in order to become 'godlike', as in really to master the universe and be one with it, you must learn to live in this 'mundane' physical reality that nonetheless exists for us. You cannot simply escape from the problems of the world and ascend up to heaven or some higher '5th dimension' that various New Age websites have peddled from the 2012 phenomenon. To 'ascend' to this 'higher level' means to look at yourself and see what kind of habits that are needed to be worked on; how you can overall improve yourself in overcome whatever social obstacle that exists in your life. What is seen instead from the people of the New Age movement, looking at it historically in the modern era as it developed, are people who do not want to take the responsibilities of learning how to deal with life and instead seek to leave behind everybody to somehow escape the world and obtain 'nirvana' or enlightenment. They do not take care of themselves: eating poorly, not having proper hygiene, and not even being aware of things.

Instead of being truly conscious and aware, the New Age hippy is simply the complete opposite of it. Their spirituality is nihilistic; they believe that there is no 'Truth' and that all things are opinion, which is completely contrary to being conscious which requires objectivity. They are in little camps out in the larger societal meme culture; they dogmatically defend their belief and fight against others when feeling threatened. They are just as easily swayed into being manipulated by some sophist just as any other group whom the New Agers call 'sheeple'. Thus, they cannot really know 'pure consciousness', unless if they were to become truly objective with themselves and with reality.

WL,

My experience with new age religionists is that they are mostly a harmless and friendly lot, trying their best to believe that they are each little bits of a once-almighty God who became bored with himself, and disintegrated into the tidbits of consciousness that we know as ourselves.

Don't worry about them. Last week I went to a religious service put together by a group of Ernest Holmes' followers. E.H. was probably the founder of the New Age Religionist movement. They are just a gaggle of people who need to do something with their inherent sense that there is more to the human mind than the brain. IMO good people just wanting to bond with like-minded souls. The minister's sermon indicated that he has his head up his ass, and that he voted for B.O. both times, and will vote for every socialist/communist that the Democratic party puts on his ballot.

Otherwise, except that is for his desire to destroy the civilization that gave him a safe place from which to preach his bullshit, he's harmless. Mostly, people just sang/listened to "uplifting" songs (the bass player was superb), jiggled around by way of dancing, and hugged one another (not me) when opportunities were offered.

New Agers are not out to usurp your lifestyle. They are not proposing Jihadist movements, or conducting classes in how to make a suicide vest. They are not against any other religious or atheistic movement. I felt more welcome there than I've felt on any internet forum.

Please don't imagine that I agree with them. They are just a bunch of inherently good, if ignorant people, who have not thought out their philosophical position any more assiduously than the nitwits who post here, or on religious forums, or on physics forums. Leave these good people be. If you want to pick a nit, get it on with some Muslims who would be delighted to rape your wife and daughters while you watch, before cutting off your head.
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Would not "pure" consciousness mean, the consciousness of one's own existence, or of the existence of oneself as mind? This would be classical Cartesian consciousness-- Cogito Ergo Sum.

Humans are conscious only via their awareness of external things/entities. We experience dependent, or what you might call "impure" consciousness.

Beon Theory describes a universe that depended upon the work (literally, in the physics sense of "work") of entities that had become conscious without previously experiencing sensory experiences that are dependent upon external energy forms.

Greylorn