Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
That they understood, 2000 - 2600 years ago or more, as neuroscientists do now at long last, that everything "we" experience is a pale copy/shadow/replica/representation of the ***real*** world/heavenly kingdom of waves, particles and energy. ... That "we"/these little avatars, and this ( model ) world, are being created at every single instant by that "real self". <snip> ... but now I find that there is a very real neuroscientific foundation to the "dynamic"/relationship, "myth".

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
I ***really*** am created by an almost unimaginably vast and infinitely complex invisible being, which sees all I do, to "whom" I am extremely important/valuable, etc.

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Can you enlighten us what supposed neuroscientific evidence you are talking about?

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From Michael Graziano, author of "Consciousness and the Social Brain", and a neuroscientist:

"Anyone who works on sensory physiology is convinced of this. There's the real world, about which we know a little through scientific experiment, and there's the world as it is re-constructed and simplified by our brains. The "reality" we mostly think we live in is actually a neural simulation, and tends to bend the physical laws here and there. A bit like in a cartoon, when the guy walks off the cliff, gravity doesn't work until he realizes there's no ground under him, and then his legs fall while his torso stretches, and then his upper body falls. Clearly a distorted representation of reality. Just so, our brains give us a distorted representation of reality. Sometimes we can tell where our brains get it wrong. It can be simple and obvious; like the case of white light that we reconstruct as pure luminance with the contaminating colors scrubbed out of it, whereas simple experiments with prisms show that white light is a mixture of all colors. In that case everyone gets it."

And yes it feels like shit, we suffer, but it's possible that is the price that "we"/the little avatar has to pay, as part of the simplification process, as part of modeling our vast and infinitely more complex "real selves'" attention processes, ie. pain/suffering is part of "living in" this model ( maybe like living in a computer program/video game built on 1100100111101, an inherent unavoidable tendency to duality, oppositions ), perhaps signaling urgent/seriously large differences between the model and the heavenly real world of waves, particles and energy.

We "are" each one of us "Jesus", sacrificed and suffering on the cross for the purposes of enabling higher cognitive functioning in our infinitely more complex "real selves".



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[ 10. May 2015, 16:20: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:

We "are" each one of us "Jesus", sacrificed and suffering on the cross for the purposes of enabling higher cognitive functioning in our infinitely more complex "real selves".

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
From Michael Graziano, author of "Consciousness and the Social Brain", and a neuroscientist:

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
We "are" each one of us "Jesus", sacrificed and suffering on the cross for the purposes of enabling higher cognitive functioning in our infinitely more complex "real selves".

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
That paragraph explains, correctly, that we are not directly experiencing the real world, but rather the real world as filtered through the senses and reconstructed by neural processing. It says nothing about the existence of some quasi-Divine real self, it talks about the experiential limitations of the biological human self.

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We are not directly experiencing the real world, we are models in a model world ... so ...

Who or what built these models? Who or what built the model that you, the little avatar/model, live in"?

*We*/our "lives" are "made up of" awareness of things, ( that awareness is a highly simplified model of the attention which our infinitely more complex "real selves" are paying to things in the world of waves, particles and energy ), and our experience is ( almost always ) exclusively *of* the model, which however awesome, extraordinary, and gigantic it seems to us, is still just a model of the real thing.

The model is not built by *us*, because *we* are models/avatars, living in a model. "We" are tiny little things.

The model is built by a being far far vaster, infinitely more complex than our little avatar, it is created by our "real selves", which are made up of waves, particles and energy. *That* is the being which is best expressed in the term "God".

My "real self" is not researching suffering but is engaging in/*achieving* extremely complex cognitive functioning as a result of using these models.



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[ 10. May 2015, 16:21: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted                      

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Biological avatar-me now talking to you seems to be sufficiently distinct from quasi-Divine-me to allow feelings of resentment at being used by the latter as a kind guinea pig to research suffering.

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie: Yes, we all suffer humanity and death as Jesus did. But that's because He suffered humanity and death as we do (not the other way round).

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Not just "like", we ***are*** Jesus. The character Jesus is a portrait of each one of us, the Gospel stories are about *us*, condemned to suffer for our "father"/creator". Models of that greater self created "in its image", sort of, within the limitations of the model's capacity for representation, "conceived" to serve the "father"/our unimaginably vast and infinitely complex "real self".

Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
We are not directly experiencing the real world, we are models in a model world ... so ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
Who or what built these models? Who or what built the model that you, the little avatar/model, live in"?

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
The model is not built by *us*, because *we* are models/avatars, living in a model. "We" are tiny little things. The model is built by a being far far vaster, infinitely more complex than our little avatar, it is created by our "real selves", which are made up of waves, particles and energy. *That* is the being which is best expressed in the term "God".

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
My "real self" is not researching suffering but is engaging in/*achieving* extremely complex cognitive functioning as a result of using these models.

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Posted                      

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Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:
I have a feeling that I'm going to regret this...

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I really hope not. That would be such a shame.

What makes you think that you will?

Is there anything that you, or I, could do to avoid that happening?

Should I perhaps wait a while before I reply to your post in case you change your mind/decide you'd definitely rather not get involved? :?



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[ 10. May 2015, 16:22: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
We are not directly experiencing the real world, we are models in a model world ... so ...

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First, even on its own terms this is an unwarranted leap. You can maybe say that our brains model the real world for us, but how does that make us a model?

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Posted                      

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Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:
I have a feeling that I'm going to regret this...
From what you are saying, it seems that our real selves are made up of energy which is the true reality and responsible for the existence of our avatars. So is there only one true self or as many true selves as there are avatars? Also if we are really energy, where did this come from? Finally, the Gospel are readily intelligible on their own terms i.e. against 1st Century, 2nd Temple Judaism. What evidence is there that your alternative reading is (a) required or (b) intelligible?

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I have only one "God". You have only one God. Each one of us has only the one God/"real self".

What I see of you is an avatar of you. I do not know how accurate this model of you is, but I do know that it is an avatar/model created by ( my ) God/"real self". You and everyone else that I ever interact with is created by ( my ) God/"real self", ...

... and because this model, "me"/this little avatar and the "world" it lives in, are *part of* the heavenly "real world"/kingdom of waves, particles and energy, if somehow mysteriously divided/separated from it, ( a synecdoche, representing it and part of it at same time ), therefore you, and everyone else I interact with are part of "my real self"/the Kingdom of Heaven.

Hence I *must* love my neighbour "as myself". I can't *see* any "neighbour" who is *not* "myself".

The energy just "is", it is/is part of God.

This alternative reading is required by me, and I just wondered if it rang bells for anyone else.



[ 10. May 2015, 15:58: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

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IngoB ...

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PS. Ref. ex of rock falling; yes the model must match to a certain extent basic physical/real world parametres or it would be a really bad model. But our version is both extremely simplified as well as surprisingly extensively distorted.

And we each of us forever "live in" our own model world, unable to ever get outside of it.



[ 10. May 2015, 16:04: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

Posted                      

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IngoB: Also the claim that this Divine entity is in some esoteric sense "me" does not satisfy me in the slightest. That super entity "me" can torture its super self for its super purposes if it wants to, I - bio me - have not signed up for any of that shit!

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Totally get that. The Jesus character expresses that state of mind pretty well at a couple of points.

I think that it makes a difference to me to believe in the existence of my unimaginably vast and infinitely complex "real self", to feel that vast other dimension ***outside***/beyond this so often highly unsatisfactory model ...

... To simply know that this ****is*** a model, created, makes a huge difference too.



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[ 10. May 2015, 16:23: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
hosting/

OliviaCA, welcome and congratulations for first posting by starting a thread; I hope you find your place here

Please take a moment to preview your posts to make sure the code is right and harried hosts don't have to keep editing it. There is a UBB practice code on the Styx board if you need it. I know it's obsolete but we like it. Thanks in advance!

/hosting

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Thank you. Sorry for the coding mess. Didn't realise.

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[ 10. May 2015, 16:41: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

Posted                       

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
And to distinguish between others' attention processes and its own it models itself too, and assigns that state of awareness to it, and that model "wakes up" and is "us". That is what our conscious-self-experience consists of.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
We are models that think they are conscious, models being manipulated for the purposes of higher thought.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
That is *our* life, a tiny little bit of what our infinitely more complex "real selves" are actually doing ( the millions of molecular, cellular, neural activities/events happening all the time ).

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
...

So I'd say, you can get to a psychological state that may be foundational for religious experiences, but what you build above the foundation is probably the construction of human imagination in the context of social and cultural learning.

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
And to distinguish between others' attention processes and its own it models itself too, and assigns that state of awareness to it, and that model "wakes up" and is "us". That is what our conscious-self-experience consists of.

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And this is exactly and precisely where all such explanation strategies fall flat on their face. There is no such thing as a "waking up" in this. A self-reference is just that, a self-reference. I can program a computer to have some routine that "watches" the activity of other routines. Heck, switch on you Windows PC and start the "TaskManager". Do you think that this piece of software has a "conscious-self-experience"? No? Well, neither would a similar self-observing attention process lead to anything resembling a consciousness. It might inform a consciousness: if there was something that had "woken up" already, then it would need an introspective process to gather data about itself. But this gathering as such does not wake up anything. It just gathers. Self-reference is no magic juice, and it does not become magic juice either if one just stacks multiple self-referential loops on top of each other.

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
We are models that think they are conscious, models being manipulated for the purposes of higher thought.

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And even if the above was true, rather than being the desperate handwaving of materialists, then this conclusion would still not follow. What you have described does not lead to consciousness, but if it did, then obviously it would do just that. There would be no additional manipulation. There would be no Divine über-me pulling the strings. That's really the whole point of this well-known argumentation strategy, that supposedly consciousness "emerges" from a self-referential system without anything other "manipulating" it.

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
That is *our* life, a tiny little bit of what our infinitely more complex "real selves" are actually doing ( the millions of molecular, cellular, neural activities/events happening all the time ).

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OK, so now our "real selves" are suddenly not Divine, but rather the basic physical functions of our bodies?

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It seems complicated I agree, and surprisingly difficult to explain, because it involves a twist in perspective which many/most people haven't been trained to engage in, or ever experienced, but once you have "got" the "twist" it is actually very simple.

Graziano's "attention schema" theory of consciousness is *not* about "self-observation", that "sort" of relationship is already inherent in the building and use of models generally ie. models only serve any purpose if the system, or part of it, refers to or registers feedback from them.

His theory is about consciousness, what it consists of, and his argument is that it is a kind of illusion produced by assigning the state or "status" of awareness to its model of itself as part of the modeling of the brain's attention processes.

This creates an "experience of self/consciousness - narrative" in which "we" appear to "exist"/experience things inside the model.

The model of our unimaginably vast infinitely more complex "real self" is "*described*" as "being aware of" whatever x y or z that the "real self" is paying attention to at any microsecond, and that *description" is "believed" by the brain such that there appears to be a "me" that is a model/avatar interacting with models of other things or people.

This "conscious-self-experience" that we/this avatar are "made up of" is an absolutely tiny, extremely narrow/limited/blinkered thing.

Our model/avatar "life"/"existence", however amazing/impressive in some ways, is very very small compared to that of our "real self", is in fact like a nut or seed compared to the tree it comes from which is our "real self" and the kingdom of heaven of waves, particles, energy, molecules, cells, etc that it belongs to/is part of.

The extremely limited, simplified thing that *we*, the avatar/model, call life is a mere shadow, pale copy of that extraordinary reality, which you refer to as "basic physical functions".

But it is true that most people in our society are brought up looking down on the body, despising it, or using it as a stupid animal to be driven about like a vehicule, refueled at intervals etc.

I realise that it is very hard to reverse that entrenched worldview, to perceive value in all of that.

People seem to be able to do that about the vastnesses of space, about abstract waves, particles etc, but have difficulty appreciating the glory and immensity of our bodies relative to our little track of thoughts/"conscious-self-experience".

The "twist of perspective" I mentioned is about realising one's position in that system, which is the very very little representative/symbol of the vast infinitely complex, tracking what some of its most complex processes ( of attention ) are up to.

The world that we "experience" is not the real world. The "we" that thinks it is experiencing it is not the "real self" but a model.

Graziano thinks that it is a question of "comfort zones", that the idea of being merely a model, of such a different place in the world, is very shocking and difficult to accept for a lot of people, and that results in them not being able to understand, not having eyes to see in fact.

But it is not an unimportant role, far from it, because the feedback from the model(s), or *representation(s)*, of the attention processes *to* the processes of attention themselves, which are in the *business* of organising ( enhancing or reducing etc ) various *representations*, *including* those representing itself/the attention processes, creates what he calls a "strange loop", such that this model/avatar "us" and the model world we live in, play a part in directing/shaping those advanced cognitive processes.

Even the story of Noah and the flood may be a bit of description of how the "attention model" evolved, from including the representation of many more/other cognitive processes to submerging most of them, the "lower" level ones, and retaining only the most advanced/most complex cognitive processes to do with long-term planning, being able to imagine the future, capacity for complicated calculations, etc ... sustained productive effort on a long-term projects like the arc to escape the flood, etc ... because while the model included representations of all/so many it was too "noisy"/there was way too much noise of conflict between extremely-short-term thinking and long term thinking etc.



[ 11. May 2015, 08:14: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
His theory is about consciousness, what it consists of, and his argument is that it is a kind of illusion produced by assigning the state or "status" of awareness to its model of itself as part of the modeling of the brain's attention processes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
The model of our unimaginably vast infinitely more complex "real self" is "*described*" as "being aware of" whatever x y or z that the "real self" is paying attention to at any microsecond, and that *description" is "believed" by the brain such that there appears to be a "me" that is a model/avatar interacting with models of other things or people.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
The extremely limited, simplified thing that *we*, the avatar/model, call life is a mere shadow, pale copy of that extraordinary reality, which you refer to as "basic physical functions".

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
But it is true that most people in our society are brought up looking down on the body, despising it, or using it as a stupid animal to be driven about like a vehicule, refueled at intervals etc.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
The world that we "experience" is not the real world. The "we" that thinks it is experiencing it is not the "real self" but a model.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
Graziano thinks that it is a question of "comfort zones", that the idea of being merely a model, of such a different place in the world, is very shocking and difficult to accept for a lot of people, and that results in them not being able to understand, not having eyes to see in fact.

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
That vast realm of waves, particles, energy, and molecular interactions, cellular activity, etc is what determines every single thing in you/your avatar's life, every single last thing about the tiny/highly simplified *model* world that you "live in". Every thing you experience is the result of that realm, created by that realm, by your "real self".

"You" are a precious part of the model/representation, producing data for the attention processes about which representations to enhance, which ones to fade/drop. But the decisions are being made by that realm, not by you. You don't need to worry about anything because it is that "real self" that has to process how to deal with things.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
It just occurred to me that perhaps you still believe in contra-causal free-will. That would be a serious obstacle to understanding/appreciating this analysis/parallel.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
NB. Ref. the powerful experience of a "conscious self"/life of some kind which is just a product of processing data: A recent study showed that simply introducing a very small time-lag between when a subject moves their arm/hand to touch something and when a robot behind their back ( connected to their arm/hand ) replicates exactly those movements, and touches their back, will cause the subject to believe that there is someone else in the lab room with them, to such an extent that some of them refused to continue with the experiment.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by itsarumdo:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
...
So I'd say, you can get to a psychological state that may be foundational for religious experiences, but what you build above the foundation is probably the construction of human imagination in the context of social and cultural learning.

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Don't the two go together? If I just intend to get in a particular mental state without having a spiritual goal in mind, then it's just a mental state. . .

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Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

quote:

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Originally posted by itsarumdo:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
...
So I'd say, you can get to a psychological state that may be foundational for religious experiences, but what you build above the foundation is probably the construction of human imagination in the context of social and cultural learning.

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Don't the two go together? If I just intend to get in a particular mental state without having a spiritual goal in mind, then it's just a mental state. . .

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Yes, exactly.

I'm reminded of the theory of a schizophrenic person who told us in a lecture in the 1970s what he thought was the meaning of the Eden story. He thought that the unconscious mind formerly had a direct connection with God, which was broken and disconnected and we have been struggling even since to get back to our Garden Minds. This sort of theory has been suggested in various ways since, though taken in some rather odd directions at times.

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
You are constantly using the same unwarranted leap in the various iterations of this. You are speculating about some form of mechanism within me that does the required "data collection" and "modelling" that I find myself experiencing. And then you make the leap to say that I am that very mechanism. But that does not follow at all. That is a bit like saying that when I read a book and become immersed in the story it tells, the book is me. But that's obviously nonsense. Likewise, the description of some brain mechanism that supplies the sort of input that I find myself experiencing by introspection does not at all mean that I am that mechanism. You have a Frankenstein problem there. Just stitching up dead body parts (just collating data and model descriptions) does not make a living being. You need some "lightening" power to make it come alive. Even if your description was not mostly speculation, even if you had much better data than anybody in neuroscience currently has, it would not help you. Just like the most perfect surgery in stitching together dead body parts does not create anything living. What you need to say is precisely how you step from the data and the model to "me" experiencing all this. This is a qualitative shift, so you require a qualitatively different cause. No amount of quantitative detail on data or model will solve this for you (except perhaps by inspiring you where to look for something qualitatively different).

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It has already been solved, but it does seem to be difficult to explain clearly, and/or in less than several thousand words, and/or to certain people.

I appreciate very much your replying to my posts, because it is obvious that I need to practice explaining it in such a way that it is understood/understandable, eg. in the right order, with the "right" metaphors, ( avoiding the wrong/misleading ones etc ), etc, and arguing it over and over again in different ways is one way to learn how to do it better.

Right! ...

First of all, "I" am *not* "the mechanism".

The mechanism, the "attention model/schema", is run by the "brain"/"real self".

"I"/this "conscious self experience" am the product of the mechanism's modeling of the whole "real self" and its "attention processes" plus the object of those processes at any given moment.

This "I"/"conscious self experience" is produced by the brain running the highly simplified but nevertheless still extremely detailed models of itself and its attention processes "together".

That data/info is "read" by the brain ( the "real self" ) as "the model is aware" and therefore "the model ( ie. the constantly renewed/recreated "us" ) ***is*** "aware"" ***in the model*** because the *model* is determined by the brain/"real self"'s data.

Our "conscious-self-experience" only exists/happens *in* the model. In the same way as we perceive white as an absence of all colour whereas in the "real world" of waves, particles, etc it is actually the presence of all colours/many waves of light so our "conscious self experience" is "*of* the model".

The "model of itself"/us/the avatar experiences "awareness" because the brain/"real self" "says that it is so". The "real self" "says"/determines that there shall be white that looks like no colour in the model and there is, whereas in the real world/kingdom of heaven white is all colours.

Ref. Eliza: I agree with Graziano on this, that it may not be long before an AI of some kind *does* declare/express "conscious self experience".



[ 11. May 2015, 13:39: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

Posted                       

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
That data/info is "read" by the brain ( the "real self" ) as "the model is aware" and therefore "the model ( ie. the constantly renewed/recreated "us" ) ***is*** "aware"" ***in the model*** because the *model* is determined by the brain/"real self"'s data. Our "conscious-self-experience" only exists/happens *in* the model.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
Our "conscious-self-experience" only exists/happens *in* the model. In the same way as we perceive white as an absence of all colour whereas in the "real world" of waves, particles, etc it is actually the presence of all colours/many waves of light so our "conscious self experience" is "*of* the model".

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
Ref. Eliza: I agree with Graziano on this, that it may not be long before an AI of some kind *does* declare/express "conscious self experience".

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
The problem is that in your scheme there is no actual experience anywhere, but merely an assignment of labels.

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That is the point. The model ( of our "selves", other people, the world and everything in it ) is made up of labels, of descriptions, of words for things, of *names* for them.

The model is made up of representations/symbols for things.

So the attribution of the "status" or *label* of "awareness" to the model which is "us" is all it takes *in the model* to "make us aware"/experience a conscious self.



[ 11. May 2015, 14:49: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
So the attribution of the "status" or *label* of "awareness" to the model which is "us" is all it takes *in the model* to "make us aware"/experience a conscious self.

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Posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
So the attribution of the "status" or *label* of "awareness" to the model which is "us" is all it takes *in the model* to "make us aware"/experience a conscious self.

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Basically your claim here is that if we write "banana" on a piece of paper, then we have an actual banana. This is however not the case, as one quickly finds out when one tries to eat it.

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I'm pretty sure you realise that that is *not* my claim here. I hope so anyway ...

*I*, the little avatar/model of my unimaginably vast and infinitely complex "real self" can definitely *not* do that ...

But placebos do work to a surprising extent with about a third of people, especially with pain management. ie. Belief does have a significant effect on one's experience of things ... We do see the difference that names/labels make to things ( eg. how most people report that an expensive wine tastes better than a cheaper one, when in fact the labels were reversed ... ).

But the main point is that it is the brain/ the *real self*, that unimaginably vast infinitely complex being, ( *not* the model/the little avatar/"me" ), that does the labeling.

Our "experience" is the results of that labeling.

A model is always a representation, made of symbols of the "real thing". We are models living in a model/"interacting with" other models, and we have "conscious self experience" because that label is assigned to us by our vastly greater infinitely more complex "real self"/brains.

The model has to resemble the "real" in enough ways ( especially the grossly physical/concrete but also anything(s) which are highly valued or take up a lot of "place" in a society, eg. money ) to provide the brain with good enough data about its attention processes ...

... so in many ways my model will correspond with yours etc ...

... but it will never the less have many differences, which may not be noticeable for a very long time, or only in certain v specific circumstances, but that does not alter the fact that it is a model, made up of "labels"/descriptions/names/symbols, which our brains/"real self" assigns/distributes, from the very basic division of the world into light and dark for instance, and land and sea, through to conscious and unconscious etc.

We live in models in which the name or label of something ( eg. water or wine etc ) makes a very real difference, but we are not responsible for the distribution of the labels, or only very indirectly/slightly via the feedback the model provides about representations/attention processes.



[ 11. May 2015, 16:56: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

Posted                       

quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
I'm pretty sure you realise that that is *not* my claim here. I hope so anyway ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
Our "experience" is the results of that labeling.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
A model is always a representation, made of symbols of the "real thing". We are models living in a model/"interacting with" other models, and we have "conscious self experience" because that label is assigned to us by our vastly greater infinitely more complex "real self"/brains.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by OliviaCA:
We live in models in which the name or label of something ( eg. water or wine etc ) makes a very real difference, but we are not responsible for the distribution of the labels, or only very indirectly/slightly via the feedback the model provides about representations/attention processes.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
You give no reason why having this label assigned by our "real self" would lead to any kind of experience in us. If I write "happy" on your forehead, you do not necessarily become joyful. Assigning the label "aware" to "model-me" also does not do anything necessarily other than assigning that label. In particular, you have given no indication how it would lead to any experience of consciousness.

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The reason why the label of "conscious self experience" or "awareness" being assigned/applied to our model-"me"/avatar by the brain/"real self" leads to our apparently having "conscious self experience" is the same as for why our "real self"/brain applying the labels "alive" or "dead" or "big" or "small" or "red" or "black" to things in the model makes those things have those attributes ... ***in the model***.

ie. because if the brain/"real self" assigns those properties to things in the model, including the model of itself, then the those things *will* "have" those properties, including "conscious self experience".

The label/description of "awareness" is a very complex label, full of detail about what that consists of, the sorts of behaviour it involves, the consequences of it, etc, ( just as richly detailed as the labels "tree", "child", or "truth" ), it is a faithful model.

The detailed description/narrative conjures up/creates the "conscious self experience". Because it "says" that that is what you/the avatar/model is "doing"/"has".

Applying the label of "awareness" to us/this little avatar/model of itself creates that quality/property for "us".

I don't seem to have managed to make it clear to you that it is not "you" that applies the labels, but the "real self"/God. :?

It is ***not*** "you" the avatar/model which applies the labels, which builds/creates the model; it is God/your unimaginably vast infinitely complex "real self" which does that.

***You*** are a model, part of the mechanism, not in charge, just a tiny contributor to processes.



[ 11. May 2015, 18:07: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
The reason why the label of "conscious self experience" or "awareness" being assigned/applied to our model-"me"/avatar by the brain/"real self" leads to our apparently having "conscious self experience" is the same as for why our "real self"/brain applying the labels "alive" or "dead" or "big" or "small" or "red" or "black" to things in the model makes those things have those attributes ... ***in the model***. ie. because if the brain/"real self" assigns those properties to things in the model, including the model of itself, then the those things *will* "have" those properties, including "conscious self experience".

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Originally posted by OliviaCA:
It is ***not*** "you" the avatar/model which applies the labels, which builds/creates the model; it is God/your unimaginably vast infinitely complex "real self" which does that. ***You*** are a model, part of the mechanism, not in charge, just a tiny contributor to processes.

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Originally posted by Alyosha:
Olivia, it is vitally important that you do not harm yourself or others by testing this worldview to its natural conclusion. ... Go ahead and study and dialogue (in fact, please do communicate with people on this site who will help you, as they are trying to do, to progress). ... Also, please do not write off your positive childhood experiences in your growth.

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Originally posted by Komensky:
Just to interject briefly with a few bits of recommended reading:

The Neural Basis of Human Belief Systems, edited by Frank Krueger, Chief Cognitive Neuroscience Section National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Jordan Grafman, Jordan Grafman

Not neuroscience, but possible useful:
Michael Argyle, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, Belief and Experience

K.

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Thank you very much. I will go look at them.

This is the book which triggered my recent revelations ref. God and the "real self":

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consciousness-Social-Brain-Michael-Graziano/dp/0199928649/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1431443241&s r=1-1&keywords=graziano+consciousness

Graziano also explains the theory at his website at:

http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/Consciousness_Research.html

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Originally posted by Alyosha:
It is highly possible that God is beyond even higher selves.

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This is the only bit of your post which I feel I understand. :? :oops

In one sense/at a certain "level"/in a certain state I can find myself agreeing with this; after all surely my "unimaginably vast and infinitely complex real self" "lives" *in* some sort of world among other people etc ...

And when I first read Graziano's theory and "felt" its meaning in a religious sense I thought that his theory provided supporting evidence or proof for the ideas/beliefs of the Gnostics, with their teachings about the "Demiurge", or "builder-god" who created this world of illusion, but was a deceiver/trickster/misleader to be wary of, to avoid being tempted by etc.

I thought that the Demiurge referred to my vast and complex "real self", which had built this model I lived in, and that I "must" try to see past it, through it, to the "real God" beyond ...

And I believed this for a few weeks/couple of months, read some of the Nag Hammadi writings, and "explored"/tested out/"tasted" ( mentally, etc ) the idea of three planes of reality ... but somehow it didn't work for me, felt full of negativity ...

( Also the only bit of the Nag Hammadi writings which I really clicked with was the Gospel of Thomas ... eg. "if you understand these things you will become like me" said Jesus ... etc, which is significantly different, makes absolutely *no* mention of Demiurges, and sounds v like an extremely early/unadulterated/undoctored version of the ( canon ) Gospels in fact ... ).

And then I changed my mind/totally re-eavaluated my position after someone on a Naturalism forum I belong to ( because Naturalists don't believe in free will and that is still quite rare/precious ) suggested that our "real self" was actually totally at ***one*** with the rest of the "real world"/universe of waves, particles, energy, ie. is not the stunted and/or twisted and/or unimpressive thing we might, based on our "model-me experience", imagine our "real selves" to be, however semi-divine in powers etc.

ie. it would not be subject to all the "digitalisation"/dualities/black and white-value-judgments that the model is because of the necessary simplifications required ... ie. the model is perhaps cursed with intrinsically divisive "mechanics" ( perhaps a basic symbol system made up of yes and no or similar ).

I think that it is possible to imagine a third layer of reality between the model and the kingdom of heaven/world of waves and particles and energy, but I didn't find it helpful or positive.

ie. At the moment it seems to me that my "real self" *is* that "thing" most accurately represented by the social construct/label God, and that it is at one with/same thing as the the kingdom of heaven, more or less ...

I concede that it is still possible that it will turn out to be a lure/the "builder-god" instead ... but at my current stage it feels totally divine.



[ 12. May 2015, 16:07: Message edited by: OliviaCA ]