I see the human organism as a layering of different levels of consciousness. Each layer supports mostly automated processes that sustain the layers beneath it.
For example, we have cells that only know what it’s like to be a cell and to perform their cellular processes without any awareness of the more complex layers above them. Organs are much more complex than cells and they perform their duties without any awareness of anything above them either. And the complexity keeps increasing with various systems like endocrine, cardiovascular, etc. Then we have our subconscious and finally our conscious.
At our level, we do not consciously control any of the layers beneath us. Our primary task is to keep our bodies alive.
This got me thinking… isn’t it a little too self aggrandizing to think that we have a near infinite layering of consciousness beneath us and then it just stops at our level of awareness? What if there is some other conscious process that exists above us within our own bodies?
When people take psychedelic drugs they often describe achieving a higher level of awareness akin to ecstasy. Well what if this layer is always there actively ”living” within us but we are just the chumps that go to work, do our taxes, and exercise, while it doles out just enough feel good chemicals to keep us going (sometimes not even that)?
I don’t think there’s any reason to assume there’s something that it’s like to be an individual cell. Consciousness probably needs a certain level of ability to process information for it to emerge, and I doubt cells reach this level. I mean, they could, but I wouldn’t make that assumption.
As someone with untreated ADHD, I absolutely don’t feel I’m the highest level of control in my brain. I can make all the plans and decisions I want, but I can only gently steer what I ultimately end up doing and paying attention to. My “executive function” wields ultimate power and not only can overrule me, but also prevent me from having the thoughts I want to have.
Another indicator that I’m not the only consciousness in here: anxiety-inducing events like deadlines and exams can give me physiological symptoms even when I’ve forgotten about them. I’ll just be sitting there wondering “why is my stomach upset at me?” and only later realize it’s from stress for an upcoming test I hadn’t paid attention to.
I can completely relate! I sometimes enter states of depression or anxiety without seemingly any triggers. I could be having a great evening and then wake up the next morning feeling anxious or numb. It’s like my subconscious is bubbling stuff up to let me know that it’s not happy but my modern life has made me so disconnected from my own feelings that I don’t even understand what it wants.
Not currently high enough to answer, will come back later
How about now?
Houston, I think we lost him…
Other comment haha.
Ok guys, I think we have a big misconception here.
Consciousness is the donation of the society of our body. The body has only enough energy to gift it to us, if it has enough to sustain its needs very well.
That is why we monkeys have such a high consciousness, every animal that managed to have a whole lot to eat, that can then rest and think about shit, has more Consciousness!
There is situatial consciosness, I think every complex animal has this a lot, and the more you do things, the better it gets. Its the control over all the details of your body, feeling pure presence, managing your arms in the heat of the fight. Kungfu fighters have it, masters of every sports discipline. Thats why chess is also a sport, its “how well do you function under immense load” as well.
And then there is meta-consciousness. Not only experiencing your body, but also understanding it deeper, thinking about the world, meaning, thought, yourself and the thing thinking about it. Thats especially something that kinda requires you to be rich, have lots of free time to hang around lazy and get smarter.
So if you have this amount of free time, you can consider yourself rich.
Our society gets more and more complex and smart if people get the free time they deserve. Leaders, “managers” and control-people know this. Philosophers in the beginning of industrializazion predicted, that we would need Psychologists to deal with the immense boredom of doing nothing. But actually its the other way around, people keep on working, producing useless products more and more, as capitalists found out that the process itself is fruitful for them. Its purpose is not to serve a real purpose, help society, but the companies manipulators create Ads, create an artificial need in the minds of the people, to generate this unreal need, they fulfill it and get rich from the process.
As we are intelligent, we are also Monkeys. Other than horses, Sheep, Cows or the other nice pets we decided to not hunt to extinction, we think in 3D, with our arms in the sky, looking to create a new tool to make our effords yield for less work. So we react to Ads, promising that this tool, fundamentally anchored in our sunconsciousness, as the partner to fulfill our needs, will help us be happy.
Why are we fascinated by fishing, woodworking, drawing, repairing stuff, tech? All these things are a fetishism of tools, while tools would normally only have the role to help us fulfill real goals, that should be the real motivators of our action.
So in our society we just continue to produce more and more, and deep down most people know they work is useless. We have a alarmingly shrinking number of people holding up the non-capitalist pillars of pur welfare. All the others are often doing useless work, manage useless numbers with useless collegues, in a company that creates and fulfills useless needs one after another. The situation of so many people is comparable to sisifus, rolling that stone up a hill. The hill is made of trash, when he reaches the top, more trash piles up and he has to push it again. Its nevereding, aa on the other and sits a capitalist that gets richer with every push.
What our society needs is a pause. Realising what we really need next, how we can manage to get our shit together, keep this planet under 2°C, stop killing people or animals. Stop working all the damn day. Dividing the work that has to be done, that nobody wants to do, equally among all parts of this society.
And with this freedom, and our shared luxury, we could then start to think, develop planetary consciousness. Realise what we want to do as Planet, what to do next, what to experience.
But at the moment it looks more like we are in a fucked up simulation. On #Earth3999 that will also fail, go up in flames and maybe #Earth4000 will make it.
Fun fact: vegan we fould already feed more than 10.000.000.000 people on this planet. Also, nobody needs to be rich.
How can cells know what it’s like to be a cell? What capacity do they have to perceive information, what organs do they have to store memories and examine them?
I commented this elsewhere but please take a look at a few minutes of this video. Just because we do not understand the mechanism does not mean that it doesn’t exist.
A renown biologist Michael Levin took some basic skin cells from a frog embryo and separated them from the rest of the organism. Astonishingly these “skin” cells rebooted themselves and converted into a new type of organism that is able to solve simple mazes, and demonstrate individual and group behaviors.
That is very cool, thanks for sharing it. Watching through the video though, there don’t seem to be any claims made or evidence presented that suggest these cells possess a mechanism, understood or otherwise, to know, understand or experience anything. Nothing to suggest they are capable of consciousness.
A hair cell that has had no prior exposure to a brand new environment is able to sense the change and adapt itself. To me this is indicative of an elementary consciousness.
A reaction does not imply consciousness. Water reacts when it hits fire by turning into steam and putting out the fire. That doesn’t make the water or the fire conscious.
This is an interesting idea for sure. However, we have some evidence to support the existence of the systems beneath our minds. What evidence supports the existence of a greater awareness within ourselves? Do we have anything beyond reports from people under the influence of drugs?
I prefer to take an evidence-based approach, taking non-existence to be the null hypothesis here.
One example would be when people move around in large crowds. Their behavior can be misspelled by following fluid dynamics equations. It’s as if thousands of people share a consciousness that they don’t understand/notice.
Taoism teaches us that the it true consciousness is universal. We are essentially waves of energy, all bound together/connected by empty space. So we share a consciousness that can be tapped into his meditation and being in the moment.
I don’t think that really follows. Would you say molecules of fluid have a collective consciousness?
We might be picking up on things we don’t consciously notice that guide our movement but it’s still a local thing that doesn’t require a collective consciousness
