Please do your own research. The information I share is only a catalyst to expanding ones confined consciousness. I have NO desire for anyone to blindly believe or agree with what I share. Seek the truth for yourself and put your own puzzle together that has been presented to you. I'm not here to teach, preach or lead, but rather assist in awakening the consciousness of the collective from its temporary dormancy.
The term raising our consciousness refers to the act of stepping back from the canvas to perceive a bigger chunk of the picture.
Just like a painting, when you are too close to the painting you can see all the little imperfections and confusing dots that make no sense from that point of view.
But when you take a step back, you realize that every single thing in the picture is at its right place, there are no imperfections on the beautiful picture that you are seeing.
Suddenly all the little things you saw as flawed fade away and you start to see a different reality, one where many things create a bigger meaning that you can now perceive.
10 Profound Realizations That Arise With Higher Consciousness:
1. You are responsible for your life.
The control of your life depends on the responsibility you take about your life. The higher your consciousness raises the more you realize you are the only one responsible for your life.
There are many things you can control and many things you can’t control, but your real control is in the way you react to things that happen. You can make choices and reactions, and that’s all the control you really need.
2. Everything connects to everything else.
The bigger picture gives you a different perspective about reality, it shows you how seemingly unconnected details link together. You see that choices and events you didn’t really think had anything to do with each other actually connect on a deeper level.
And this is because most of our choices are inspired by our subconscious configuration. One subconscious occurrence might pull different strings that are seemingly not connected.
3. Our unconscious mind plays a big role in our life.
Just like our subconsciousness is responsible for most of our choices, our unconscious mind is responsible for most things in our life.
Things we have experienced and suppressed, traumas we repressed, emotions we don’t want to feel again, all these things configure a record that is spinning in circles. This record is making us relive same old patterns because it wants us to embrace the parts of ourselves we run away from and become whole.
4. Our emotions shape our reality.
The emotions we feel at a certain moment shape the theme of our reality. If we are in a happy state we perceive things that maintain this state. When we are in a sad emotional state we perceive things that justify the sadness.
When we are angry it’s the same. When we are afraid we start seeing danger in most things. As we raise our consciousness we become aware of this, we see emotions as lenses of reality.
5. Suppressed emotions prevent smooth energy flow.
The emotions we suppress, the sensations we run away from and do not want to feel stay within our emotional body. These sensations accumulate and start to block the smooth energy flow of our body.
The longer they stay the bigger the resistance of feeling them grows. As we raise our consciousness we learn to embrace all of our emotions. We realize there are no good or bad emotions and we embrace all of our sensations.
6. Everything is energy.
As we raise our consciousness to higher levels we start seeing beyond the matter that constructs the world around us. We start to realize that within the matter there are particles smaller than atoms and between these particles there are forces.
We realize that even these particles at their fundamental level are energy. Hence, we realize that everything is energy in a different level of density.
7. Our intuition is most often right.
Most people get the messages their intuition is giving them but they are so focused outside of themselves that they do not even perceive them. Some people feel these sensations but can’t find the logical sense to trust them.
As we raise our consciousness to higher levels, and as we see how things connect to each other, we realize that our intuition was right most of the time in ways we were unable to perceive.
8. Relationships reflect the self.
The relationships we have with other people are the biggest mirrors for the relationship we have with our selves.
The level of dependency and avoidance of our partner, the circle of friends, the way we express our love for other people, the relationship patterns we spin around in, the attributes we find attractive, the personality of our romantic partner, everything reflects an aspect of our inner self.
9. Love is our default state of being.
Most of the world is being presented the romantic idea of love. This is one form of love not all that love is. It’s just one reflection of its infinite number of reflections.
Real love is not just romantic just like fruits are not the only form of food that exists. Real love is our natural state of being and everything that reminds us of this purity within us is associated with this vibration of love that we all naturally have.
10. We are not our feelings and thoughts.
The emotions you are feeling, the thoughts you are thinking are just information. They are like the words you read and the images that you see, like the smells and tastes that you perceive through your senses. You are not these.
You are the one who perceives them. You are the one who is observing the thoughts, you are the one who is observing the emotions. You are the one who sees them.
If some of these realizations resonated with you it means that your consciousness is already at much higher levels than the consciousness of others.
We all like to think of ourselves as smart, capable individuals. But what is intelligence, really? Merriam-Webster defines it as “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations” and “the skilled use of reason.” Some are highly intelligent.
Highly intelligent people approach life in a way that allows them to leverage the capacities described above much more efficiently than the average person. They flex their critical thinking muscles and imagination on a regular basis. They seek to cultivate as much awareness as possible. They may have uncommon values and sometimes feel a bit alienated or different.
Whether you’re wondering how some of the smartest people in the world think and act or you’re simply always on the lookout for ways to better yourself, here are eight things the sharpest minds do differently. Adopt some of the smart habits below and say hello to peak cognitive performance.
They never stop questioning things
Highly intelligent people know better than to follow groupthink. They don’t make assumptions and set out to form their own opinions. They follow the trail of the seemingly random questions that pop into their mind, as they know that it doesn’t always directly lead to answers but that the question alone might spark a brilliant train of thought.
They let their mind wander
On that note, the smartest people let their minds travel. They value thoughts that are not immediately directed or practical because these moments cultivate their ability to create and innovate. “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something,” said Steve Jobs.
They follow their intuition
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am,” said Albert Einstein. Incredibly intelligent people use the power of intuition to make decisions. They don’t ignore existing facts or data, but they also know that there are things that have yet to be discovered that only a gut feeling can begin uncovering.
They stay curious
Plato said that learning is, by nature, curiosity. From successful entrepreneurs like Walt Disney to best-selling authors like Elizabeth Gilbert and Nobel prize-winning scientists like Marie Curie, most intelligent people praise the merits of staying curious. So go ahead and keep that childhood ability alive at all costs.
They practice lateral thinking
Writer and philosopher Edward de Bono coined the concept of lateral thinking, the idea of using an indirect and unconventional approach to view problems in a new light to generate ideas and solutions from a fresh angle. “We assume certain perceptions, certain concepts, and certain boundaries,” wrote de Bono. “Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces but with seeking to change those very pieces.”
They take notes
Highly intelligent people know that great thoughts can happen at any moment and tend to carry notebooks. “No matter how big, small, simple or complex an idea is, get it in writing. But don’t just take notes for the sake of taking notes, go through your ideas and turn them into actionable and measurable goals. If you don’t write your ideas down, they could leave your head before you even leave the room,” said Richard Branson, who credits the birth of some of Virgin’s biggest projects to his note-taking during meetings.
They seek intellectual stimulation
The smartest people gravitate towards meaningful conversations over small talk and prefer growth-oriented pursuits over binge-watching TV shows on Netflix. They love to continuously learn and broaden their horizons because they know that it improves their ability to solve problems on a regular basis.
They know that there is so much they don’t know
“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing,” said Plato. Einstein echoed a similar sentiment: “As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.” The brightest minds understand the dangers of being a know-it-all and welcome the unknown as an opportunity to find new insights. Ignorance, on the other hand, is often rooted in firm convictions and absolutes.
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your thoughts? Many of my clients have expressed frustration, even anguish, with their relentless experiences of self-imposed mental interrogation. It occurs as an irresistible urge to analyze practically everything they think, but especially the unwanted, spontaneous thoughts that just pop into their mind.
Consider a young woman we’ll call Jessica. She sought treatment for anxiety, but within a short period of time, it was clear that she was caught in a self-defeating mental trap. Any negative, unwanted thought triggered an agonizing process of self-analysis.
She’d ask herself over and over “what caused me to have this thought,” “what does it mean,” “what if I get stuck and become more and more anxious,” or, “I need to find a way to get better control of my mind.” She spent hours analyzing thoughts that suddenly popped into her head. She’d also overanalyze what people said to her, always questioning whether a negative intention was meant. By her own admission, Jessica was “stuck in her head.”
Can you relate? Do you find yourself caught in a distressing cycle of overanalyzing your thoughts? Overthinking is a prominent characteristic of worry, rumination, and obsessive thinking. But it is not limited to these conditions. It can be a problem in its own right, and yet few people recognize the negative effect it can have on our emotional health, happiness, and well-being. Many people have concluded that overthinking is part of their personality; they’ve not realized that strategies are available to counter this anxiety-inducing habit.
The Overthinking Mind
I am using the term “overthink” to refer to an excessive tendency to monitor, evaluate, and attempt to control all types of thought.1 Overthinkers are not only highly aware of their thoughts, but they also spend a lot of time trying to understand the causes and meaning of their thoughts.
Sometimes this can be a useful characteristic if our thoughts are significant, and we need to decide on the best course of action. For example, if I have a thought like, “Should I leave my spouse and file for divorce?” “I’m going nowhere in this job; maybe I need new employment,” or “I’m having chest pains; maybe I should go to the hospital,” I need to pay attention to these thoughts. Ignoring the thought or not taking it seriously could be disastrous.
Overthinking is a problem for another type of thinking that I discussed in a previous post: negative intrusive thoughts. When we pay too much attention to such thoughts, overanalyze their meaning, and try too hard to control them, we can slip into unhealthy forms of thought, like worry, rumination, obsession, and the like. And when we overanalyze negative, intrusive thoughts, we can end up anxious, depressed, frustrated, and guilt-ridden.
Signs of Overthinking
If you’re wondering whether overthinking is a problem for you, consider the following questions:
Are you easily aware of what you’re thinking at any given moment?
Do you often question why you are having certain thoughts?
Do you often look for the deeper meaning or personal significance of your thoughts?
When feeling upset, do you often focus on what you are thinking?
Do you have a strong need to know or understand how your mind works?
Do you feel it’s important to have strict control over your thoughts?
Do you have a low tolerance for spontaneous, unwanted thoughts?
Are you often in a struggle to control your thoughts?
If you answered yes to many of these questions, it’s possible you have a tendency to overthink.
There are two dangers to this. If you are overthinking important issues in your life, you can get stuck in indecision, avoidance, and procrastination. A person thinking about their relationships, health, career, self-identity issues, and the like needs to spend time in thoughtful reflection, but too much time in the head can be costly. On the other hand, we all have negative, intrusive thoughts that are best left alone. Spending time on these thoughts can lead to significant personal distress.
How to Curb Overthinking
If you suspect you’re falling prey to overthinking, there are several steps you can take:
Know your triggers. Even the most ardent overthinkers don’t do it all the time. Probably there are certain thoughts or issues that are more likely to trigger overthinking. If you’re a worrier, for example, thoughts about the future may be more likely to trigger overthinking. For another person, it may be thinking about their competence or whether they are liked by others. Whatever the case, it’s important to know the “hot spots” that trigger your overthinking.
Be aware of overthinking. To reduce overthinking, you need to know when it’s happening. What are the telltale signs that you’re overthinking? Is it when you’re trying to interpret the meaning of an intrusive thought when it probably has no hidden meaning? Is it when you’re trying too hard to control or suppress the thought? Or is it when you become frightened or anxious with the thought? There may be other signs that indicate you’ve slipped into overthinking.
Fully embrace its futility. You won’t be able to curb overthinking as long as you believe it has value. Review your past experiences with overthinking and write down how it helped. Did the overthinking result in any meaningful solution or revelation? Were there more positive or negative consequences associated with it?
Disengage. When people are “too much in their head,” this signifies over-engagement with unwanted thoughts. The opposite approach is to disengage from the thought. So, the best way to curb overthinking is mindful acceptance in which we observe but don’t evaluate our unwanted thoughts. A second approach is focused distraction, in which we shift our attention to another train of thought or activity, without engaging in an attempt to resolve or understand the unwanted thought we’re overthinking.
Overthinking can be harmful to our emotional health, especially when it’s directed at unwanted, spontaneous, negative thoughts, images, or memories. Fortunately, we can learn to curb this unhelpful way of thinking through greater self-awareness and the practice of mental disengagement.
References
1 Janeck, A.S. Calamari, J. E., Riemann, B. C., & Heffelfinger, S. K. 2003. Too much thinking about thinking?: metacognitive differences in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 17(2): 181-195.
2 Clark, D. A. 2018. The Anxious Thoughts Workbook: Skills to Overcome the Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts that Drive Anxiety, Obsessions & Depression. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
Emotional intelligence has become a topic at the forefront of human resources workshops, leadership groups, and corporate training sessions—and with good reason.
Evidence shows that emotional intelligence plays a big role in workplace performance. Individuals with high emotional intelligence perform better and usually experience better psychological and physical well being.
Emotional Intelligence Components
7 Simple Ways to Deepen Your Emotional Intelligence | Psychology Today
The concept of emotional intelligence was made popular by an author named Daniel Goleman. His 1996 bestseller, Emotional Intelligence, introduced it to the public. The idea was originally proposed by John Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1990.
The model of emotional intelligence proposed by Salovey and Mayer contains four parts:
Perceive emotions in oneself and others accurately;intel
Use emotions to facilitate thinking;
Understand emotions, emotional language, and the signals conveyed by emotion; and
Manage emotions to attain specific goals.
Studies have shown that emotional intelligence can be learned. It has become a billion-dollar industry, as training programs have proved very effective in helping people raise their emotional intelligence and perform at their best.
But you don’t need a formal training program to boost your own emotional intelligence.
Here are seven simple ways to boost your emotional intelligence.
7 Simple Ways to Deepen Your Emotional Intelligence | Psychology Today
1. Label your emotions.
People rarely like to talk about their feelings, despite the fact that our emotions affect every decision we make. Many people are much more comfortable saying things like “I had butterflies in my stomach” or a “lump in my throat” than what they are really feeling, which is sadness or anxiety.
Practice labeling your emotions with real feeling words—frustrated, anxious, disappointed, etc. Check on yourself a few times a day, and pay attention to how you are feeling, even if you don’t announce it out loud.
2. Consider how your emotions affect your judgment.
Now that you know how you’re feeling, take time to consider how these emotions are affecting your thoughts and behaviors. If you’re sad, it may cause you to be afraid of rejection, and you may underestimate your chances of success.
7 Simple Ways to Deepen Your Emotional Intelligence | Psychology Today
On the other hand, if you’re overly excited about an opportunity, you may overestimate your chances. This could lead to taking risks without examining the potential consequences or drawbacks.
To make better decisions, you need to recognize how your emotions are affecting your judgment. In doing so, you will balance the outlook of your own logic and emotion, and thus be better equipped to make decisions.
3. Decide whether your feelings are a friend or an enemy.
Every emotion we experience has the power to be helpful or unhelpful at times. The same emotion can affect us in either a positive or negative way, depending on how we use it.
Once you determine what you are feeling at any moment, next consider whether that emotion is being a friend to you or an enemy at the time. Anger could be a friend when it helps you stand up for injustice. It could be an enemy, however, when you’re entering a discussion with your boss.
Sadness can be helpful when it reminds you to honor a person you no longer have. But it could be an enemy when it gets in the way of your motivation in life.
If you realize that sadness is being an enemy, you must do what you can to regulate your emotions. Try to experiment with different coping strategies to help you do this. Maybe meditation for a few minutes can help you calm down. Afterward, even a simple activity like walking around the block might help you cheer up.
4. Be responsible for your own emotions.
Saying that your co-worker makes you feel bad about yourself, or blaming your boss for putting you in a bad mood, implies that you are letting other people control your emotions. Your ability to respond to your emotions involves your accepting full responsibility for them.
7 Simple Ways to Deepen Your Emotional Intelligence | Psychology Today
Only you can choose how you decide to respond to your circumstances and to other people. Remember this any time you are tempted to think someone else is dragging you down emotionally. So rather than think, “He’s making me mad,” try something like, “I don’t like what he’s doing right now, and I’m getting mad.”
5. Notice other people’s feelings.
Your understanding of how other people are feeling is one of the key components to raising your emotional intelligence. Focusing on this will prevent you from interrupting someone you disagree with or jumping into an argument.
Pay close attention to other people’s emotional states. If you can recognize how someone is feeling, then you will better understand how that emotion is likely to influence that individual’s perception and behavior.
6. Limit your screen time.
Spending too much time on your digital devices will impair your relationships. In romantic relationships, studies have found that having a smartphone present while you’re spending time with someone else can inhibit closeness and erode trust.
Too much screen time can also interfere with an individual’s ability to read or understand emotions. And as you read earlier, this is one of the four critical components of emotional intelligence.
A 2014 study published in Computers in Human Behavior found that preteens who spent five days at an outdoor camp without access to their digital devices greatly improved their ability to read other people’s emotions. This improvement of understanding nonverbal emotions happened in just five days without their electronics.
So setting healthy limits on your technology would probably be a good idea. Don’t have your phone out when you are talking face to face with people. Set aside time periods during the day when you won’t use your phone—maybe the first hour after you wake up, lunch time, or before bed.
Doing a digital detox every now and then can really do you some good. A few days without your electronics will better equip you in your ability to read other people’s emotions.
7. Reflect on your progress.
At the end of every day, reflect on your progress. Did you interact well with a frustrated co-worker? Acknowledge this of yourself.
But then also notice the areas in which you need to improve. Did you get defensive about some tough feedback, or did anxiety prevent you from talking to your boss? Be careful to learn from those mistakes, and do better in the future.
There is always room to sharpen your skills when it comes to emotional intelligence. Enrolling in a training program can help you if you’re feeling stuck. And you can always read a book or hire a coach to help you boost your emotional intelligence even more.
Each item of which people are conscious is called conscious content. A conscious content could be a yellow afterimage, a ringing sound, or a toothache. The “conscious field” is composed of all the conscious contents activated at one time, that is, all the things that one is conscious of at one moment in time.
Karl Lashley
Oftentimes, conscious contents are ineffable in nature; that is, they are difficult or impossible to express in words. This is especially the case with sensory “primitives,” such as the sensory qualities of different colors.
Regarding such sensory qualities, Karl Lashley noted, “Quality is something unique, indescribable, except in terms of itself. Red is red, green is green. Neither is, by any stretch of the imagination, a form of either vibration or chemical change in the brain… when by analysis the simplest qualities are reached, nothing more can be said of them save that they are in different, undefinable degrees diverse. They have no describable characters inherent in themselves; they are not analyzable into anything else. They exist by virtue of their indescribable differences and by virtue of nothing else discoverable by introspection” (Lashley, 1923, p. 252-253).
Of course, not all conscious contents are ineffable. One can describe a yellow pentagon sitting atop a rectangle quite accurately. But these would not be sensory primitives. The “yellow” part of the description would be the ineffable part of the description because it involves a sensory primitive.
Color Wheel
As I will discuss in future blogs, conscious contents can also be arbitrary and, interestingly, unarbitrary. An unarbitrary conscious content would be, for example, the positive feeling that one experiences when drinking water when thirsty. The positive feeling is not arbitrary because it should feel good (and not bad) to drink water when thirsty.
When conscious contents are unarbitrary, they tend to be describable in words. The existence of unarbitrary conscious content poses many challenges for theories regarding consciousness.
Philosophy has taken a beating lately, even, or especially, from philosophers, who are compulsive critics, even, especially, of their own calling. But bright young women and men still aspire to be full-time truth-seekers in our corrupt, capitalist world. Over the past five years, I have met a bunch of impressive young philosophers while doing research on the mind-body problem. Hedda Hassel Mørch, for example. I first heard Mørch (pronounced murk) speak in 2015 at a New York University workshop on integrated information theory, and I ran into her at subsequent events at NYU and elsewhere. She makes a couple of appearances—one anonymous–in my book Mind-Body Problems. We recently crossed tracks in online chitchat about panpsychism, which proposes that consciousness is a property of all matter, not just brains. I’m a panpsychism critic, she’s a proponent. Below Mørch answers some questions.—John Horgan
Horgan: Why philosophy? And especially philosophy of mind?
Mørch: I remember thinking at some point that if I didn’t study philosophy I would always be curious about what philosophers know. And even if it turned out that they know nothing then at least I would know I wasn’t missing anything.
One reason I was attracted to philosophy of mind in particular was that it seemed like an area where philosophy clearly has some real and useful work to do. In other areas of philosophy, it might seem that many central questions can either be deflated or taken over by science. For example, in ethics, one might think there are no moral facts and so all we can do is figure out what we mean by the words “right” and “wrong”. And in metaphysics, questions such as “is the universe infinite” can now, at least arguably, be understood as scientific questions. But consciousness is a phenomenon which is obviously real, and the question of how it arises from the brain is clearly a substantive, not merely verbal question, which does not seem tractable by science as we know it. As David Chalmers says, science as we know it can only tackle the so-called easy problems of consciousness, not the hard problem.
Horgan: Did you have any odd experiences of self-awareness as a child, like those described in this column, or mystical experiences? And if so have they influenced your philosophy?
Mørch: When I was maybe 12, I remember sitting on a bus and suddenly being very struck and puzzled by the fact that I am me and not someone else. That sounds like the same kind of experience as you had, though not as intense. I’m not sure how it influenced me, but it might have made me more inclined toward to deflationary views of the self along the lines of Derek Parfit, Galen Strawson and Buddhism. The experience represented the self as very hard to make sense of, and if so it makes sense to deflate it as much as possible.
Mørch: IIT implies a form of panpsychism, which projects consciousness onto nature, and this might seem geocentric or anthropocentric. But one person’s anthropocentrism is another person’s anti-exceptionalism. If everything is conscious, then humans and animals are not special exceptions to the rest of nature, in the sense of uniquely possessing the rare property of consciousness; rather, we are just like everything else. From this perspective, panpsychism is more in the spirit of the heliocentric revolution than a step back to geocentrism.
I should also clarify that neither IIT nor panpsychism in general project advanced consciousness, such as human-like cognition or self-awareness, onto most parts of nature, only extremely simple qualities. Projecting advanced consciousness would be unreasonable and perhaps geo- or anthropocentric. But projecting simple consciousness, in my view, actually contributes to an elegant solution to the mind-body problem which removes all the “epicycles” generated by physicalism and dualism—just like heliocentrism did to geocentrism.
Horgan: Okay, maybe I have been too critical. But can you tell readers, briefly, why they should take panpsychism seriously?
Mørch: Physicalism and dualism are the two main alternatives to panpsychism.
Physicalism implies that consciousness doesn’t exist. Physical science cannot capture what it’s like for someone to have conscious experiences, such as seeing red or being in pain, or any of the qualitative or subjective features of consciousness. So if consciousness is physical, it’s not qualitative or subjective, and therefore not really consciousness after all.
Horgan: Did you have any odd experiences of self-awareness as a child, like those described in this column, or mystical experiences? And if so have they influenced your philosophy?
Mørch: When I was maybe 12, I remember sitting on a bus and suddenly being very struck and puzzled by the fact that I am me and not someone else. That sounds like the same kind of experience as you had, though not as intense. I’m not sure how it influenced me, but it might have made me more inclined toward to deflationary views of the self along the lines of Derek Parfit, Galen Strawson and Buddhism. The experience represented the self as very hard to make sense of, and if so it makes sense to deflate it as much as possible.
Horgan: I’ve called integrated information theory an example of neo-geocentrism, in which we project human traits onto nature. Am I being too critical?
Mørch: IIT implies a form of panpsychism, which projects consciousness onto nature, and this might seem geocentric or anthropocentric. But one person’s anthropocentrism is another person’s anti-exceptionalism. If everything is conscious, then humans and animals are not special exceptions to the rest of nature, in the sense of uniquely possessing the rare property of consciousness; rather, we are just like everything else. From this perspective, panpsychism is more in the spirit of the heliocentric revolution than a step back to geocentrism.
I should also clarify that neither IIT nor panpsychism in general project advanced consciousness, such as human-like cognition or self-awareness, onto most parts of nature, only extremely simple qualities. Projecting advanced consciousness would be unreasonable and perhaps geo- or anthropocentric. But projecting simple consciousness, in my view, actually contributes to an elegant solution to the mind-body problem which removes all the “epicycles” generated by physicalism and dualism—just like heliocentrism did to geocentrism.
Horgan: Okay, maybe I have been too critical. But can you tell readers, briefly, why they should take panpsychism seriously?
Mørch: Physicalism and dualism are the two main alternatives to panpsychism.
Physicalism implies that consciousness doesn’t exist. Physical science cannot capture what it’s like for someone to have conscious experiences, such as seeing red or being in pain, or any of the qualitative or subjective features of consciousness. So if consciousness is physical, it’s not qualitative or subjective, and therefore not really consciousness after all.
Dualism implies that consciousness doesn’t matter. Physical science shows no sign of any non-physical forces causally influencing the brain or body—everything seems explainable in neurological, electrochemical, or other physical terms. So if consciousness is wholly distinct from the physical world, as dualism says, it probably doesn’t influence our actions at all; it’s purely epiphenomenal.
Panpsychism avoids both of these consequences. Put very simply [more details here], according to panpsychism, science only describes matter from the outside: it tells us how physical things relate to each other and to us, not how they are in themselves. But every outside needs an inside. We know the inside of one physical object, namely ourselves, and this inside is consciousness. Why not think other things have the same kind of inside as well? If so, consciousness gets to play an essential role in the physical world, without being reduced to something purely physical.
Horgan: Okay, but will science ever find a solution to the solipsism problem?
Mørch: One might think panpsychism solves this problem, because it tells us that all physical things are conscious. But panpsychism does not imply that all things are conscious as a whole. Human brains (or certain parts of it) are conscious as a whole, but tables and chairs are probably not—they should rather be regarded as mere collections of conscious particles. The question is whether the same holds for, for example, insects, jellyfish and plants.
To solve this problem, we should of course look at empirical correlations between human consciousness and physical properties of the brain. From this, we can reasonably infer that animals fairly similar to us are also conscious (as a whole), but when it comes to organisms like jellyfish, which are very different from us, I think we cannot determine in a principled way whether they are similar enough to also be conscious (as a whole). Therefore, it seems that empirical studies alone cannot give a full answer.
I think IIT has a promising approach to this. It says that not only must we study correlations between consciousness and brain properties from the empirical, third person or objective perspective, we must also consider the structure of consciousness as it appears to us from the first-person or subjective perspective, and infer the physical criteria of consciousness from this. This is known as the axiomatic argument for IIT [more details here]. One might object to the specifics of this argument, but as a general approach it seems to me like the only clear way forward, assuming the problem can’t be solved in a standard empirical way.
Horgan: I’ve argued that we will never find a single solution to the mind-body problem. What do you think?
Mørch: I think we already found it, the problem is just to convince more people!
Horgan: What about quantum mechanics? Does it have anything to do with consciousness?
Mørch: As I said, science only captures the physical world “from the outside”, or more precisely, in terms of its relational structure, and this also holds for quantum mechanics. Some seem to think quantum structure is more likely to be connected to consciousness than classical structure, perhaps because features such as indeterminism and non-locality are perceived as distinctively mentalistic. But as I see it, any kind of physical structure is equally in need of an “inside” or an intrinsic, and therefore conscious, basis.
One might think quantum entanglement has something to do with mental combination, that is, with how simple particle consciousness combines into complex human and animal-type consciousness. This is roughly because an entangled system is irreducible to the sum of its parts similarly to how combined consciousness seems to be, and perhaps also because, within a conscious mind, information seems to be shared instantly between all its parts, which can also be seen as similar to how entanglement works. One problem with this idea, though, is that our combined consciousness is confined to the brain, but entanglement is not, insofar as evidence suggests that the whole universe is an entangled system.
Horgan: Thanks, for a comment on quantum mechanics and consciousness, that’s surprisingly clear. Do you believe, and perhaps hope, that science, even if it cannot understand the mind, might transform it through brain chips or other technologies?
Mørch: I’m not very informed about this, but it seems to me that the brain is so complex that it might be difficult to drastically interfere with it such that consciousness changes in an interesting way rather than just breaking down. I also think there are so many interesting experiences available already, so I don’t strongly hope for it.
Mørch: I don’t know—William James puts it nicely when he says that the question of free will is undecidable in theory, and so, “craving the sense of either peace or power”, we can only choose to believe in it or not on pragmatic grounds.
I also like Galen Strawson’s view (from his book Freedom and Belief) that although we have good reason to think free will is impossible, most of us are still psychologically incapable of not believing in it, but maybe with practices such as meditation we can eventually become capable of not believing it. But it seems to me perhaps the opposite could also happen: if we develop our minds in a certain way maybe we can come to understand how some kind of freedom is possible after all.
Horgan: What about God?
Mørch: Not really. But there is a religious view I find interesting, which is pandeism: the view that God used to exist, and be the only thing that existed, and then transformed himself into the universe, and so no longer exists. The reason God did this was basically for fun, or to see what happened. And maybe at some point the universe will transform itself back into God—that would be like nirvana or heaven. But then eventually God would get bored again and start the cycle over. As I understand it, this is close to some parts of Hindu cosmology.
It might also resonate with your psychedelic vision of God that you’ve written about? Though this version seems less depressing.
Horgan: I like that! I think I’m a pandeist! What’s your utopia?
Mørch: I suspect that true utopias are impossible, because all pleasure will eventually get boring, and to avoid boredom one must take the risk of pain. As Schopenhauer says, “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom”, except the pendulum also swings through their opposites, pleasure and fun, which at least makes the cycle more bearable, and worth partaking in. This is also partly why the pandeistic view I just described appeals to me.
But until boredom sets in, I would probably like to spend some time in the garden of Epicurus, where they lived a simple life focused on avoiding pain and enjoying simple food, philosophy and friendship. I especially like Seneca’s description here.
How to Invite Spirituality in Your Life: 8 Simple Methods
Sometimes we can associate spirituality with magic or think that it is something that can only be practiced by conscious or educated individuals.
But in reality, it’s not as complex as that, we still live the same everyday experiences, only our way of seeing them changes.
Invite spirituality into your life: 8 ways to achieve this if you want to connect more to your inner self:
Intuition.
We are all born with what we call intuition. Nevertheless, the more years pass and the more we begin to ignore it because we give more importance to logic and reasoning. Pay more attention to your intuition, so you can get in touch with your inner being.
Learning.
Learning new things every day is the best partner you can have in your spiritual quest. If you realize that learning is infinite, it will take you far.
Mindfulness.
The mindfulness is the art of focusing only on the present moment. Thus, you do not hang on at past times, because you are aware that they belong to the past.
Meditation.
The meditation is the art of concentration. It requires great discipline, but the benefits it brings are well worth it. When your mind is managing many things at the same time, meditation allows your mind to rest by letting it focus on one thing at a time.
Nature.
Nature is the most powerful tool that exists. Meditating in nature, in pure air, is really inspiring.
Gratitude.
You may not know it, but you can be thankful for many things in life. And unless you count your blessings and be thankful for what you already have, you would never open the doors of all you can have.
Be open.
When you open your mind to possibilities, you realize that your life was actually constrained. Everything you experience happens for a reason, and once you wake up to the wonders of life, you begin to see miracles manifest in your life.
Make spiritual friends.
The awakening process is really an individual one, but having friends who already have gone through this journey might surely ease the pain of this path. So try to make new conscious friends with whom you can share your experiences and learn from theirs. The spiritual social network may help
The World We Live In 