What is consciousness?

[Spiny le Norman]

So, is non-local consciousness, but an endless sea of consciousness? And, is our individual "share" of consciousness dependently arisen, or but a small part of the sea with a delusion that it is somehow become isolated between me and thee?

Perhaps consciousness is like electricity, which would make us like long-life light-bulbs.

Spiny

[Hanzze]

Another thought just arose regarding consciousness, especially with regard to non-local consciousness or non-local mind, which I would like to put out for discussion:

If the senses were not associated with the brain, then why would five of them:

Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, Mental Processing be located on the head?  Seems like that would be a perfect place from an evolutionary strategy to locate them?

Again, if you support the notion of non-local consciousness, or non-local mind please cut off your head and tell us what happened.

Does the head continue to live and only the torsos breaks apart? Thinking on the body (physical touch) it's maybe for quite more dukkha responsible as the other five sense organs could "produce". Why do you like to get the consciousness located and maybe even "real" (eternal/nihilistic)? *smile*

[Bodhisatta2012]

Another thought just arose regarding consciousness, especially with regard to non-local consciousness or non-local mind, which I would like to put out for discussion:

If the senses were not associated with the brain, then why would five of them:

Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, Mental Processing be located on the head?  Seems like that would be a perfect place from an evolutionary strategy to locate them?

Again, if you support the notion of non-local consciousness, or non-local mind please cut off your head and tell us what happened.

Does the head continue to live and only the torsos breaks apart? Thinking on the body (physical touch) it's maybe for quite more dukkha responsible as the other five sense organs could "produce". Why do you like to get the consciousness located and maybe even "real" (eternal/nihilistic)? *smile*

The question my dear friend is:  " Is consciousness local, dependent upon brain, and therefore impermanent?", or, Is consciousness non-local and "eternal"?

My guess is that it is local, dependent upon brain, and impermanent.  I guess this based on my experience with folks who have died.

Although I cannot "disprove" that a non-local consciousness is out there, none of the folks with whom I was closest (so far) ever came back to me to say hello or to tell me where they hid their money. 

According to Buddha's teachings, only advanced practitioners are capable of non-local mind:  http://what-buddha-said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/g_m/iddhi.htm

However, HHDL has noted that during an experiment with an advanced practitioner, another monk, his body remained fresh for over sixteen days, and when they checked his brain activity, they found electrical activity, which HHDL associated with what he called a most subtle, purified mind.

He did not name names, but he discusses it in his "The Nature of Mind" talk.

[Hanzze]

The question my dear friend is:  " Is consciousness local, dependent upon brain, and therefore impermanent?", or, Is consciousness non-local and "eternal"?

I would say that the consciousness is very flexible. Sometimes it appears very local and sometimes nearly eternal. Sometimes it's part of somebody outside, sometimes its in your little toe when you have pushed a stone. Sometimes it's in the sky and sometimes it seems to hide and often is far away, especially regarding time. *smile* Sometimes it's strong and potent, sometimes small, smaller then an end, sometimes it gets hurt and sometimes you can not break it down. It seems to be dependent on so many things, like dust in the wind forming a cloud.

[Spiny le Norman]

According to Buddha's teachings, only advanced practitioners are capable of non-local mind:  http://what-buddha-said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/g_m/iddhi.htm

In the suttas there are references to the formless realms, which presumably is consciousness only.

From Wiki:

The Formless Realm or Ārūpyadhātu (Sanskrit) or Arūpaloka (Pāli) (Tib: gzugs med pa'i khams) is a realm in Buddhist cosmology.[1] It would have no place in a purely physical cosmology, as none of the beings inhabiting it has either shape or location; and correspondingly, the realm has no location either. This realm belongs to those devas who attained and remained in the Four Formless Absorptions (catuḥ-samāpatti) of the arūpadhyānas in a previous life, and now enjoys the fruits (vipāka) of the good karma of that accomplishment. Bodhisattvas, however, are never born in the Ārūpyadhātu even when they have attained the arūpadhyānas.

[Bodhisatta2012]

From this morning's readings:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.15.0.than.html

[Lobster]

The sense of consciousness from my experience is dependent on conditions.
Being awake for example.
Also any sense of the unformed, eternal requires human (or similar) consciousness for its arising.
Would a synthetic human produce the sense of consciousness? I should imagine so. Would the cyborg be easy to tweak for a sense of the Clear Light?

Enlightened operating system reboot . . . 
http://tmxxine.com/yy/teaching.html

[Bodhisatta2012]

From this evenings readings:

The Magic of the Mind

[Spiny le Norman]

I've pinned this thread, thanks to Bodhisatta2011 for suggesting it.

Spiny

[Spiny le Norman]

The question my dear friend is:  " Is consciousness local, dependent upon brain, and therefore impermanent?", or, Is consciousness non-local and "eternal"?

I recall watching a TV documentary on consciousness, where there was a suggestion that according to quantum mechanics consciousness isn't necessarily local - something to do with probability waves I think.

Spiny

[Bodhisatta2012]

The question my dear friend is:  " Is consciousness local, dependent upon brain, and therefore impermanent?", or, Is consciousness non-local and "eternal"?

I recall watching a TV documentary on consciousness, where there was a suggestion that according to quantum mechanics consciousness isn't necessarily local - something to do with probability waves I think.

Spiny

Yeah!  I've read that too, but the problem is that "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein called it has to do with pairing of electrons, which somehow get separated from their initially paired orbitals.  This is called "quantum entanglement".  Scientists have been experimenting to see if this principle could be used to produce communications perturbations, such as that found with Morse Code, across vast distances.  Here we are talking galaxial distances.  This is what would be required if mind was somehow made non-local.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080813/full/news.2008.1038.html

However, Dr. Michiu Kaku points out why this is not possible:

The Possibility of Using Quantum Entanglement to...

[Spiny le Norman]

I've read that too, but the problem is that "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein called it has to do with pairing of electrons, which somehow get separated from their initially paired orbitals.  This is called "quantum entanglement".  Scientists have been experimenting to see if this principle could be used to produce communications perturbations, such as that found with Morse Code, across vast distances.  Here we are talking galaxial distances.  This is what would be required if mind was somehow made non-local.

I think in the TV programme they were only talking about short distances.  And I don't think it was to do with quantum entanglement but with probability, a fuzziness of location.  That thing where at the quantum level particles only "make up their mind" where they are when they are actually observed...observed by consciousness...

Spiny