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Metaphysics Paper 3Jason Shane

As Descartes claimed with his famous statement “I think therefore I am. . .”, I too find that I must be conscious.  If I am questioning my consciousness, then I am surely conscious since there is an “I” that is identifying that particular term “consciousness” with myself.  I can only assure that I fit into this label in my subjective-view and nothing else.  For the purpose of my argument, I will have to assume that I am conscious and that the general population of humans around me are conscious in a similar fashion to myself.  Without this assumption, there is little that we can say since perhaps I am the only conscious being in existence.  

We live in this reality, this world, in a subjective point-of-view.  Our subjectivity restricts us in our ability to understand many things in an objective way.  While this is very limiting, it seems to intrinsically create the consciousness or awareness that we in essence are.  There is much difficulty in defining many of the terms needed to communicate the ideas of consciousness due to the difficulty in identifying or separating an objective definition for each term.  There are two common ways that I have come to understand consciousness.  Consciousness is perhaps solely the awareness of the body and its processes.  In this way, awareness is simply observing all of the inputs, outputs, and processing of our brain while retaining only a casual connection with the functions of the body.   Consciousness is also described as a range of awareness that includes emotions, perceptions, sensations, and all of the inputs that we are involved with throughout life. I tend to take the definition of  consciousness in the first, more simplistic term, as it seems to be the only aspect of a general consciousness that cannot be perhaps explained by biology.   We are not always fully aware of our emotions and sensations which leads me to believe that there is some separation.  I know of no classification for my view on consciousness.  Though it may fit into numerous categories or none, it is not really of my concern what title should be used. 

 Biology seems to be able to explain a lot of the functions of a person.  We can reduce our sensations, emotions, and our reasoning down to biological action in the brain.  Our brain is like a machine.  Input comes in, is processed,  selectively stored, and some sort of output is made.  The more research we do on the brain, the more we can imagine that a brain’s functions can be reproduced by a man-made machine such as a computer.  A computer can process information in the same input, store, output method that our brain uses. A parallel processor can emulate the brain even further by processing multiple data at the same time.  A well designed computer program can even modify itself to make changes as the program assimilates more data and more adjust for it.  The computer program, though, needs input from an outside source.  The computer can learn and grow, but it does not seem to have any sort of consciousness.  This consciousness is the major difference between a computer and the brain.  It is the aspect of the mind that we cannot seem to figure out or reproduce with a machine.    How can we explain consciousness, at the fundamental level, biologically?  This is where the simple biological standpoint seems to falter.  Philosophers suggest that we will understand this in the future, but is there perhaps a more fundamental level of the universe to which we can attribute consciousness?  Perhaps, and that is my view of how consciousness exists.

 Albert Einstein revolutionized the world of physics when his General Relativity and Atomic Theories gained acceptance by the scientific world.  E=mc² is the most fundamental concept in today’s general physics.  Energy is mass, and mass is energy; they are one in the same.  This led scientists to investigate the atom itself and attempt to understand its structure and processes.  The development of Quantum Physics has led us into a whole new world of understanding how the universe works.  According to  atomic theory, the atom is made up of a nucleus of protons and neutrons.  Around each nucleus is a field of electrons that orbit at different distances.  We step ahead into quantum physics and see that when examining these subatomic particles we find they too are made up of yet smaller particles.  The quarks themselves are thought to be made of smaller yet particles.  As we move down to the fundamental levels of the structures within the atom, we discover that there is really nothing there.  This is the void that is noted in our research.  The matter that we perceive is really electromagnetic fields that are rotating at high velocities in a non-matter form.    I don’t mean to give an extended lesson on physics, yet it is very relevant in my understanding of consciousness and the universe as a whole.  In essence, Einstein discovered what mystics and Eastern wisdom have known for hundreds of years.  The entire universe is a single, organized, and expanding field of energy.   According to The Unified Field Theory that is a currently accepted theory by most of the scientific community, the universe came about approximately 20 billion years ago and continues to expand and will continue to expand indefinitely.  The difficult idea to understand is that it all came forth from nothingness.  The whole Unified Field is a very difficult concept for me to understand.  Physicists describe this field, the universe, as infinitely: knowing, evolving, dynamic, correlating, and creative. This is often associated with what religions term as God.  The theories of Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Edward Hubble, Arno Penzias have all come to show that Unified Field Theory is correct.  The more interesting, fact to me, is that scientists have found  (including Einstein and Tesla) that the breakthroughs we are finding today are recorded in many ancient texts including the Indian Vedas.   In essence, the universe is a field of energy in various forms.  Energy exists in various frequencies and concentrations.  These variations create everything from matter and what is called anti-matter, to light, to sound, to any form or process that we find in the universe. This energy is not a simple wave that normal physics describes energy as, but a “particle-wave”.  When physicists measure this they find that it acts as a wave and a particle simultaneously depending on which aspect they are measuring.  In seeing this, we lose the dichotomy of matter and energy.  There is a formula called the wave function that is used to determine a relationship between the wave and the probability that a material body would be found in a particular location relative to another.  This suggests that our body, or more precisely all of the particles that make up our body remain in their place by mere probability.    Many contemporary physicists such as Nadeau, Goswami, and Wigner have been quoted claiming that the laws discovered in quantum mechanics cannot be understood without the direct interaction of consciousness in the relationships.  There are phenomena that occur in quantum physics that do not obey the conventional laws of physics, but act very differently.  Space and time seem to have little or no relevance to the actions at the subatomic level.  I find this a simple and straightforward solution to the question of material or non-material consciousness.   We have discussed in class the fact that we cannot not attribute consciousness to a certain location in the brain, though we feel that consciousness surely originates somewhere within the brain.  There is a scientific field of study called Intrinsic Data Fields (IDF) that has been researched and established by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen.  This research found that if you separate two individual particles, measuring one particle will give information about the other particle.  This theory states that there are fields that occur around everything in the universe.  These fields contain information about what is inside of the field.  Using this understanding, we find a place that consciousness can easily be found.  An electromagnetic field exists around a motor only when the motor is working.  We can detect the field, but we have no way of knowing what patterns are in the field since it is constantly changing.  IDFs are analogous to the software  in a computer.  The computer will do very different tasks depending on what software is loaded.  Our body acts as a machine; we can reduce most of the things that we do to simple biology and to behaviorism.  There is one thing that seems to elude us in this description, and that is the aware self that controls or at least experiences these actions.  This IDF is a field that exists without a particle state at least above the subatomic level.  It is hypothesized that is it not bound by time and space since it seems to communicate instantaneously across spans of space.   Some scientists believe that our memory is setup like a hologram in that  every cell in the entire body has the ability to accept, store, and update information.  The IDF is what is responsible for transmitting and manipulating energy.  Our body functions entirely on waves of energy.  Our senses, our actions, our brain functions, everything is energy at different frequencies and concentrations.   We cannot even detect all of the energies around us as our senses are limited.  Only within the past century have we discovered x-rays, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma, etc.  The IDFs  are first seen as the electromagnetic fields found in subatomic particles.  When these fields are concentrated, the energies form electrical potential (charge).  This potential is what provides the “glue” in atoms, thus forming matter as we know it.  It is not the fact that consciousness cannot exist according to science, it is the mere fact that we must realize that there are energies in the universe which are not yet completely understood.  Any biologist will assure that there are electromagnetic fields surround all living things.  Any contemporary physicist will tell you that theses fields surround all matter.  The problem we run into once again is the technology.  We know that these fields exist, and science is bringing consciousness into the picture more and more.  With an understanding of the theories that are presented today it is hard to deny that intelligence is found within this arena. 

I have covered much material on he micro level of the universe.  I believe that this very relevant in how we understand consciousness.  There are many levels on which we understand how the universe works.  I feel that it is necessary to understand as much as we can about the microcosms and macrocosms of our reality.  Although, as a general population, we may not have to deal with the subatomic level, it can help us gain an understanding of the possibilities.  Of course we live on a further macro level in dealing with solid objects and energy in more material forms.  This is a very important point to see, but I feel that it rests on the back of the micro levels for out understanding of how things work.  Philosophy is generally discussed on a level of human to human or at least in the general idea of being to being.  It is difficult to cover much ground when discussing at a subatomic level because the language gaps are wide.   It is strange to attribute particles with emotions, and hard to see ourselves as simply systems of these energies.  When we take this whole point-of-view to a macro level, we seem to arrive somewhat at a materialistic view.  The major discrepancy is at the subatomic level and is the different views of what is really material.  The argument has been made that the consciousness cannot be material because we cannot find it.  Being a field surrounding our physical brain and our entire body, we find that there would really be no way to remove consciousness except by possibly removing the whole body.    Dualism seems to not even be a question any longer.  When we evolved physics into quantum physics, we have  found a place for consciousness to reside—or some suggest a place where it must reside.  By making a place in our physical reality for consciousness, dualism really has no ground to stand on.   When we jump back to the wave function, and the probability factors, it seems difficult to imagine that we have free will in an objective sense.  Free will obviously applies in an aspect opposing other people or even society, but when we speak of free will as an absolute relative to the universe it seems very unlikely to exist.  Our mere presence in the universe  position is relative to other things which is all based on probability of a wave.  This in itself tends to object any notion of free will.  In examining the question of life after death, I find that we can surely live after death—in some way.  It is very difficult to imagine any kind of reincarnation or rebirth into a physical body.  There seems to be only one way that any kind of permanence seems possible, and it also seems impossible not to exist.  When we die we are leaving behind the same sub-atomic structures, though dissolved out of a system.  The information held in the intrinsic data fields would remain as it is theorized to be unaffected by energy.  This is not any life as we might imagine, but a retention of our energies.  So as religion views life after death, I see no way to explain or even suggest why it would occur.

One of the main problems that I find in the looking at a micro level is how we can separate ourselves from the rest of the universe.  If all is one field, how do we come about as having a separate consciousness?  This is the same basic way that we have a separate body.  The different focuses and frequencies make up the various types of matter.  This is easy to see in that aspect, but what makes it my body?  This is difficult for me to figure out and leads to more speculation.  The IDF is a field that is surrounding every object.  At a micro level it houses atoms, and molecules, and cells.  At our level it surrounds our body.  This is called a biomagnetic field in biology and is seen as a resonance occurring around the body.  This is often called an aura, but it is nothing mystical and simply resonating energies that we can capture with infrared photography.   This information field is where we would find our understanding of boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the world.  There are many questions that I am unable to answer in closing the gaps between the micro and macro levels.  This is very difficult due to language barriers and conceptual difficulties in the actual relationships that are present.   Perhaps when technology comes to a point that we can more readily understand the subatomic levels of nature, we will figure out the relationships between subtle energies and how our emotions and our consciousness are effected.

I believe that the main criticism for my argument would have to be argument against the theories of Quantum Physics, Atomic Theory, and the Unified Field Theory themselves.  The language is again a very difficult issue.  I have read many correlation’s between the Vedic teachings and the theories of contemporary physics.  The main difficulties seem to be simply in the language.  By looking at the emptiness or the Void in the Vedas, we find the same idea in quantum physics, yet some continue to insist that they are referring to different matters.  This will most likely continue as an argument until there is a common integration of respected individuals in the fields of contemporary physics and in metaphysical study.  

It can also be argued that subatomic level of the universe has no relevance when speaking of consciousness at a level of beings and humans.  I disagree as I feel that, though we are finding systems composed of these fundamental level and attributing features to them, these features must come forth from the subatomic level.  When we look at an object as a system, we are in essence looking at all levels of it.  We are seeing a creation composed of quarks, atoms, molecules, and larger systems.  Each one of these particles are “building” on top of each other into more complex systems.  All of these systems are created from the same material and logically would be reducible to the same material.  While in these systems we find differences in attributes, (I may see on object as red, one as blue, elastic, soft, etc.) all of these physical properties that we experience are the organization of energies into patterns.  The patterns are what we  label as attributes.   

The final argument that I see as a problem for my view is that, while most of the subatomic nature is taken as science, the consciousness issue is still not widely accepted as true.  This is a very difficult point to argue against, especially since my understanding of the subatomic world is not that in depth.  I see this as the same problem that many philosophies can run into.  When we do not understand this subatomic realm, it is difficult to attribute what we understand as ourselves to this alone.   As we reduce an argument to the fundamental levels, we have either already solved the question or we have not come to agree on definitions or concepts to the point that we can even have an argument.  The definitions that we use are mere labels to attach to concepts that we may or may not understand.  The idea of having an objective definition is almost absurd as we could not comprehend a truly objective term.  A truly objective term would- by definition- not rely on any circumstances or be relative to any other object.  Even out definition our red is really subjective except that we have come to general idea of what red is.  Regardless of our precision in measuring red in the electromagnetic spectrum, there is more effecting red than just an electromagnetic relationship between light and the object reflecting the light.  These external influences are so minute and relatively stable that we do not take them into consideration.  This does not remove the fact that they make even the measurement of red subjective to an environment in which red can exist as we understand it.

I have already touched on my difficulties in accepting some opposing views.  I feel that philosophy is generally a field in which we have not yet found answers and will only be able to find them as science and technology advance even further.  If we were to discover proof and definitive answers in philosophy, the answers that we find will be accepted by general science and no longer be considered philosophy.  This is the same thing that happened to the ancient philosophy of the stars, astronomy.    

Our lives are experienced with various levels of awareness with dramatic changes even moment my moment.  At one moment I can be very aware of what is around me, very alive and awake.  I seem to become aware that I was not just aware when I pop back awake.  I only real know how long I was “gone” because of indicators around in the environment. 

I was at a picnic today where they had a lot of dogs that are being trained to be seeing eye dogs.  As I watched the dogs interacting with people and with the other dogs, it was interesting to watch their behavior.  I wondered how dogs experience their normal waking state.  Do they have moments of clarity or moments of insight amongst a normal background of awareness?

I made the post below on 43things.com late one night last fall when I was almost in a panic attack over fear of death, or better stated perhaps it is a fear of non-existence.  I’ve enjoyed emailing with people that read the post and have shared similar experiences.  I decided I wanted to record a blog about my experience with this fear over time and compare with others who so we may help each other.  So here is neti-neti.org  “Not this, not this. . .”  In regards to something unknowable, we can only define it by what it is not.  not this, not this. . . नेतिनेति

 -Tunky

Fear of what is beyond the process of death

http://www.43things.com/person/tunky888

It is a little bit of relief at least knowing there are many people struggling with the same unanswered question—what happens when my body dies? I am 34 years old, great family, great career, etc. I have struggled with fear of death since my early teens. Ironically, another poster mentioned a simliar trigger—Edgar Allen Poe. I have spent much time since consumed with different religions, metaphysics, mediation, and altered states. I believe all of this drive is to find the answers about death and beyond.   

It reminds me of being a child playing and you lose track of time—I feel like the recess bell (that signals we have to return to class) could ring at anytime and I am trying to make sure I am ready for it, but I don’t know how to be ready. All of what I do in this world, from working hard to playing with my kids seems like buildling sand castles at the beach. When the wave comes up it will all go away and have little meaning.   

This morning was a particularly bad “wave” of fear and emotion about post-death. I usually start with anxiety, then I find myself thinking about purpose and values, then it turns to “what if there is no higher intelligence than human?” We are just ants or perhaps sparks from a fire. We are no more significant than the sparks coming off a fire that fade and and then out of existence.   

Then I start thinking about what if it was eternity and we continue on and on and on. While that seems fine at first, it is just as horrifying eventually as ceasing to exist. It seems to come back to the only place I am comfortable with is the present- right now, right here. Then I end up in a mixed battle of utter joy for the opportunity to be here and now mixed with the angst of ceasing. It’s simply insane!   

I get discouraged when people start quoting from the Bible of other religious texts. I am still hoping for science to understand consciousness to a degree that we understand the root questions:   

Who am I? Why?   

I would love to have discussion with people that are experiencing the same issue. For me it is background most of the time, but sneaks up on my early in the morning, late at night, and seems to increase in the winter months. I would love to chat about more regularly it if anyone has interest.

I’ve been having some conversations online with people going through similar experiences as I am with the fear of death.  A common thread is that people don’t understand why we are afraid.  I am not afraid of dying– the process of death.  I am afraid of what does or does not happen after my body, and presumably my mind, dies.  As I’ve pondered this many times, it seems like it is a fear of non-existence and a fear of the unknown.   We have no idea what all of “this” is.  I am defined by my awareness.  I a self-awareness that recognizes being a person in a world experiencing time and space.  All the rest are details, but essentially I am afraid of life as well as death because I don’t understand what I am, what this reality is, what and why is existence?  I love it, I just don’t know the purpose or what I should be doing to… I don’t even know– to thank whatever created me?  to continue being conscious?  I really love experiencing and I just don’t know what else to do.

Source

 By Laura Roberts
Published: 6:15AM BST 02 Sep 2010

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded.

The scientist has claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.

In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

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He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

In A Brief History of Time, Prof Hawking’s most famous work, he did not dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world.

He wrote in the 1988 book: “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”

In his new book he rejects Sir Isaac Newton’s theory that the Universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.

In June this year Prof Hawking told a Channel 4 series that he didn’t believe that a “personal” God existed. He told Genius of Britain: “The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions.”

Until his retirement last year Prof Hawking was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post previously held by Newton.

The book, co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, is published on September 9.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

- Edgar Allan Poe

Sometimes I feel as if my heart has stopped beating.  I am used to it by now, but I still press my hand against my chest and feel to see if there is a rhythm.  It’s not there.  I relax and realize I have been here so many times before.  Floating around and a sudden move or thought makes me aware of my mortality in a very intimate way.  I experience a flinch of, “What if my heart just popped and this is what it feels like for the last minutes of life.”  “Do I hang on?  Do I let go?  Is there anything really to say?  In this most bizarrely intimate moment, the only word of any import is silence. Stillness.

This stillness reminds me of the reflection of, “Who am I?” or “What am I?”  I have been thinking a lot lately about “Who am I?”  My focus on death is more of a focus on wholeness and understanding.  Death is a process in the whole and I don’t see a reason to fear death any more than you would a taxi cab.  The cab takes you where you’re going, but it’s the destination that is of more importance.

In looking beyond and trying to figure what to make of all this, I thought about what I am.  I am the yang of the tao.  I am the yang because I am the active experiencing part, or part of the part of the part.  The yin is the stillness from which we appear.  It is not really an “I” per se.  “I am” the experience of myself as an aware identity.  I am aware which defines me and we don’t understand much past that with any surety.  I feel like the path after death is probably a mechanical process along with the spinning of atoms and universes.  We experience through our senses and in many ways define ourselves by the senses.  If we remove the “I” awareness from the sense inputs, it’s a very different world.  The idea of being detached from all memories and all experiences is very scary in some ways.  Imagine now, taking away seeing, then hearing, and smelling, tasting ,touch, and on.  Thinking disappears.  Awareness is pure and unclouded with thoughts.  The sky is clear blue.  Fully aware, you are at peace.  Not defined by any shape, by any characteristics, you are pure awareness.  Pure bliss. 

From where I sit, this sounds wonderful, in some ways.  Because I am not in that state of bliss, I have a hard time imagining anything that could take place of the experience of being alive that is better.  Enlightenment seems to be the ability to transcend desire.  By transcending desire, there is no need to experience in order to be perfectly blissful.  Desire is the action that brings us back into lives of individual experience in a body.  Without desire, everything is complete bliss, that natural state of existence, the yin.  With desire comes movement, action, the yang.

The pain I experience in fearing death is two-fold.  I fear losing everything around me; all of my friends and family, the world.  I love this place so much!  Intellectually it is easy to understand that everything is a process and nothing is static.  Emotionally it is our nature to grab on to the things around us and not want things to change “too much.”  Without the attachment to the things here, the only attachment is to my identity.  Since my identity is too a process, it seems silly to be attached, but it is part of my experience.  Am I dreaming now and will wake?

“Who am I?” has to be asked in the deepest recesses of your being.  You have to resound with this question.  It has to vibrate in you, pulsate in your blood, in your cells.  It has to become a question mark in your very soul.

And when the mind is silent, you will know.  Not that some will be receieved by you in words, not that you will be able to write it down in your notebook that, “This is the answer.”  Not that you will be able to tell anybody.  “This is the answer.”  If you can tell anybody, it is not the answer.  If you can write it down in a notebook, it is not the answer.  When the real answer comes to you, it is do existential that it is in expressible.

I myself am a question.  I know not who I am.
What to do?  Where to go?

-Osho

 Who 

Wikipedia definition of existential fear

Adyashanti asks, “Are you motivated by existential fear?”

I’m listening to an Adyashanti broadcast on existential fear and really connecting with it.  I am kicking myself for browsing and posting while listening to these truths.  Done.

In response to your question, “where should you go from here”, no where.  There is no place to go, just time to be spent.  Insight is wonderful, but it is looking into yourself.  In addition to insight, we would like you to focus on understanding the nature of your fellow man.  How and why do people feel, react, motivate, etc?  We are communicating with you, and you in turn will be involved in communicating our message to those that are not yet able to hear us.

Your challenges to face are surety.  You have looked at this process, and you have tried it, but you have not been 100% ever.  There is doubt, and doubt it good, but not when it continues to inhibit your growth as it is.  Take a “leap of faith” and decide that you are going trust and believe.  This is “faith”.  You willfully give faith, then you reflect on and study the results.  By doing this, you will be taking action that will eventfully fulfill that void where the doubt lies. 

Be kind to yourself, but focus on what you need, not what you want.  You, in a way, are your own parent.  The child in you wants pleasure, fun, satiation.  The Father in you wants discipline, joy, and growth.  Be both the Father and the child.

How do you take this leap of faith?  Just do it. . .

Remind yourself with pep talks and with time assigned to conversation, learning, reading, stillness.  This will become part of your life, but it takes work.  Just as any interest, it takes effort, and unfortunately, the fruits of these efforts are a little harder to see without putting in the efforts that we ask.  Consider this and act on it.

Blessings.