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Consciousness and Thought
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Consciousness and Thought

almeta
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Posted 10/02/08 - 12:02 PM: Subject: Consciousness and Thought	#1
A conversation I had with someone recently sparked this discussion on thought and consciousness which left me a bit frustrated in trying to articulate what exactly it was I felt about consciousness and how thought plays into it. Due to the fact that I have spent so much energy into eastern thought and spent many hours in meditation and juggling around the idea of consciousness and awareness, I had a tendency as to thinking about things as though thought was something that could be observed if you put your effort into merely observing it rather than becoming too involved in it. As I'm sure many of you know, it's a way detaching yourself from your thoughts -- you'll still have them of course -- it is not an act in trying to rid yourself of them but just to be mindful of them. The person I was discussing this with thought it was silly, that there is no way to detach yourself from your thoughts, because when observing your thoughts you are just approaching this observation of thoughts with another thought and not observing them from some other state "outside" thought. In his eyes there is no "other" part of consciousness aside from thought in his opinion, he basically thought consciousness was one consistent thought in a sense. I tended to disagree. He asked me to define what it was, but that was something very difficult to do for me not having a good way off hand to explain how I felt and what ideas about it I had encountered in the past. So, not giving a definition as to what "else" there was, I mainly explained that consciousness being merely thought didn't sound right, that I felt as though there was more to consciousness than thought -- such as sensation and so on that then provoked thought. Later on in the discussion we were talking about lower level animals in relation to consciousness, and I saw that the way he was approaching the definition of consciousness itself was a bit different; he believed that consciousness was the ability to think of things abstractly, whereas I was approaching the idea of consciousness as just a being that is conscious. In lower animals such as rats, they have consciousness, but do they have thought? As far as I know, they don't. It was feasible to me that humans could spend moments in direct experience and not have this direct experience be equal in meaning or equal as a consciousness state to thought, and this direct experience - whatever it may be, was the thing I was trying to define that was a part of consciousness but not thought itself. Something "outside" of thought. So if anyone has any insight to offer on this idea that might help articulate this argument better, I'd love to hear it.

wuliheron
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Posted 10/02/08 - 03:39 PM:	#2
The only way to be conscious of anything is acceptance. If I reject awareness of something I cannot say I am conscious of it, although I might be unconsciously aware of it. By this I don't mean that I have to love it, for example, I accept that someday I will die so it is fair to say I am conscious of my mortality. In other words, consciousness is as much an emotional affair as an intellectual one. The more content we are with what we are aware of, the more conscious of it we become. Edited by wuliheron on 10/02/08 - 03:43 PM

unenlightened
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Posted 10/02/08 - 03:41 PM:	#3
almeta wrote: It was feasible to me that humans could spend moments in direct experience and not have this direct experience be equal in meaning or equal as a consciousness state to thought, and this direct experience - whatever it may be, was the thing I was trying to define that was a part of consciousness but not thought itself. Something "outside" of thought. So if anyone has any insight to offer on this idea that might help articulate this argument better, I'd love to hear it. The problem is that anything you can articulate or argue is thought. You may be pointing at the moon, but that which points is only a finger, and not the moon. For most of us, most of the time, consciousness is filled with a 'stream' of thought, and you are suggesting that there is a consciousness that is not this. So the important question is 'Is this merely another thought you have, or is it a reality?'
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

deekone
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Posted 10/08/08 - 08:05 AM:	#4
almeta wrote: he believed that consciousness was the ability to think of things abstractly, whereas I was approaching the idea of consciousness as just a being that is conscious. To me thought and awareness are products of but not synonymous with consciousness. Consciousness is the ability of ourselves to choose. So now you have the question of am I really choosing or do the atoms and molecules inside my brain make me think that I'm controlling myself when it's really just a big deterministic system that can't be changed. That is the big question that you have to face yourself with. Because both answers could be supported by logical arguments. Whatever you do could only have turned out one way, which is the way it did... so what says that you consciousness chose this outcome? Well basically the answer is you. It all comes down to you asking yourself "am I real?"

vykk_draygo
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Posted 10/08/08 - 11:34 AM:	#5
I agree with deekone that thoughts and awareness are more like products of consciousness. Consciousness, in my eyes, seems to be the platforms of the mind upon which the abstracts may lie. Hence, "levels" of consciousness. However, by saying that one can detatch oneself from thought by thinking about it is still a paradox. The only way to simply be conscious and not thinking would be through traditional meditation (or similar practices), in which thought is ignored, washed out, cleared away.
"But are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false?" H.P. Lovecraft

wuliheron
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Posted 10/10/08 - 04:00 PM:	#6
vykk_draygo wrote: I agree with deekone that thoughts and awareness are more like products of consciousness. Consciousness, in my eyes, seems to be the platforms of the mind upon which the abstracts may lie. Hence, "levels" of consciousness. However, by saying that one can detatch oneself from thought by thinking about it is still a paradox. The only way to simply be conscious and not thinking would be through traditional meditation (or similar practices), in which thought is ignored, washed out, cleared away. Our beliefs and thoughts are habitual. The human brain seems to be designed to collect beliefs the way some of us eat potato chips (with little regard as to their truth, usefulness, or health effects.) As is so often the case in nature, it seems the evolution of humanity's beliefs and thoughts is as much trial and error as anything else. Meditation is merely a means of bringing the focus back to the body so that we can reclaim our mind amidst all the habits we have adopted.

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