Consciousness a multilayered experience.

By: Denver Mason

Author Note

This article is the opinions of the author and is based upon the experiences of the author. While every effort to be accurate and truthful will be taken the unvarnished truth is one must examine one’s self and decide how germain or on point these shared experiences are for themselves. At no time does the author wish for the reader to take his word for the truth, but to check and re-check any and all representations of fact for yourselves.

 

Testimony without evidence is in my opinion the worst method for determining truth and is second only to just having faith. The ancients had a unique comprehension of testimony. Testimony comes from Latin word testis which means an organ that produces spermatozoa (male reproductive cells). Thus to give testimony is to show your testis and to take someone’s word in my mind is to give the testis a lick. I may have to show you my intellectual testis, but I sure do not have to accept a lick from anyone!

 

Google might not be the best source as a dictionary, but it has the advantage of being accessible to everyone who can go on the internet.

What is consciousness?

Google defines consciousness as follows.

Search Results

con·scious·ness

ˈkän(t)SHəsnəs/

noun

noun: consciousness

1. the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings.
2. “she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later”
   • the awareness or perception of something by a person.
   • plural noun: consciousnesses
   • “her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence”
   • the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.
   • “consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain”

 

One can easily see that as defined by Google there is nothing special about consciousness. However in my opinion this definition lacks definition and leaves one comprehending nothing about consciousness. I noticed for myself if I ask myself the five universal question (What, who, where, when and why) a broader and fuller comprehension of consciousness emerges.

 

The what

The first claim google makes about the word consciousness is that it is a noun. To me this is not accurate because having the experience of consciousness is a verb. It is a activity. One uses one’s perception to perceive one’s own consciousness. It is the act of perceiving one’s consciousness which allows one to know I, AM. Google alludes to this in the next claims with its defining phrases

 

 

• the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings.

• “she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later”

• the awareness or perception of something by a person.

• plural noun: consciousnesses

• “her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence”

• the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.

• “consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain”

 

 

At this point I have to point out that I disagree with the idea that consciousnesses is a plural noun. To me it is a plural verb as the example “her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence” proves.

I also disagree with “the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world”, because it ads nothing to explain consciousness. To me consciousness begins with the perception of, I am and is the lowest level of consciousness possible. So I would say here that the fact of my perception of I, am is the foundation for my awareness of  the world. A ancient African saying embodies this very well. “Man know thyself” author unknown.

This “consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain” is misleading to say the least. One can go online and look up the emerging data on Near Death Experiences and discover that many experts in the field are finding that during operation that takes as long as 45 minutes; while the patient is clinically dead, the patient can accurately describe what occurred during the operation. All the while there was no blood, oxygen, or bio-electromagnetic fields in the brain. Evidently dead men can tell tails. Universities are now doing studies that one can google and watch youtube videos of researchers and the subjects involved. Note: Do not skip checking this out for yourself as it provides motivation for spiritual growth and evidence that death is just a part of what we experience.  Note: spiritual means highest level of consciousness.

 

A great source for finding studies on near death experiences is google scholar.

 

Here is a link to PDF on A NEW CONCEPT ABOUT THE CONTINUITY OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS BASED ON RECENT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE IN SURVIVORS OF CARDIAC ARREST http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/vanLommel2006.pdf

 

So to me consciousness is a verb that can be described as the experienced perception of your consciousness and is the lowest level of consciousness. Awareness of objects that reside outside of the self is a experience of a higher level of consciousness. Awareness of the experienced connections between self and outside objects is an even higher level of consciousness. This is of course not even close to an exhaustive list of experiences nor is it representative of the order in which the experiences occur.

 

Comprehending that consciousness is proof of your being, which is another verb as being means existing from moment to moment is paramount to understanding. How is it proof one should be asking? Evidence is proved by the experience of it. No evidence literally means no experience. Having evidence literally means having something for, I Am to experience.

 

For experience to become evidence it has a necessary validating process to go through.. That is that two I, am’s can together investigate that something that is outside of themselves and say I agree it is dry or wet or anything. In this way the two I, am’s who have validated themselves through the knowledge of their existence then turn their perception which they used to prove themselves on the outside object. Thus they are validating the outside object when they perceive the same things about said object.

 

Two share an experience (sharing the experience of an outside object makes the object evidence) of an object is not the same as sharing consciousness. Our individual consciousnesses cannot ever actually be shared except through the imperfect tool we call language. We can however describe our experiences of consciousness. An example of this can be expressed using absolutes.

 

The perception of I, am has never experienced someone else taking over my body and making my body do things I did not allow. Saying this to another I, am allows the other I, am to experience agreement or disagreement. Remember that two I, am’s can validate experiences making those experiences evidence.  Hopefully all I, am’s that I come into contact with will validate my claim for obvious reasons. This experience that I perceive is as far as I know universal.  Most people I have mentioned this experience too have validated it. Thus it is a fact and I think it is the fact that creates religion and law.

 

It creates religion because of the implications one can associate with the experience along with another understanding that comes from experience. In our minds is the memory of everything we have ever done. Thus I, am has the experience of knowing there is a record of everything I, am has ever done. Even if the only complete record of everything I have ever manifested into the world is in my subconsciousness. There is a record.

 

People think this means there is someone in the clouds watching them and so they had better manifest more of what is good. Some religions sale salvation for a tith. They say the road to heaven is straight and narrow. However no matter how great the sin one need only ask for forgiveness. To me this really means that all roads lead to heaven. The sad part about this is if there really is a heaven than as a result of these unsubstantiated beliefs many have been hurried to the pearly gates.

 

One way to prevent that is to learn how to know something from your own experience.  I am certain that I am. How do I get the same level of comprehension for objects that reside outside of I, am. One can use the experience of I am to experience outside objects and receive validation from other I, am’s that they to perceive the same condition for the object (logic). One can change the condition that the object is found in and use (reason) to determine the effect the change will have on the object. This only works however if the experiences are validated in turn through experiment.

 

I know scientist who will tell you that one should never trust logic or reason until they have been tested under experiments plural. I think this is because no matter how much time we spend working on being logical and reasonable we just do not live long enough to experience enough reality to know what is logical and or reasonable in reality. It is just as reasonable to think that we are subjective in our experiences and in reality we do not have experiences objectively. Thus we cannot know objectivity through experience; only through our imagining of what we imagine objectivity to be.

 

This leads me to thinking about why one must be certain of one’s perception of their own consciousness. Remember that a perception is a verb. It is the act of sensing and experiencing one’s own senses. Consciousness is the perception of your perception. It is a validation of self. Saying that you cannot be certain of self leads to uncertainty in all things perceived. A lack of confidence is a lack of confidence in self perception.

 

While you may be wrong about the condition you perceive the outside object in (logic) or wrong about what you think changing the conditions of the object itself will mean (reason); The experience itself will always be valid. Another way to validate this for yourself is to ask the question why does the scientific method work even though we may describe the logical conditions of the object incorrectly or reason wrongly about the object?

 

Is it because repeated experiments expose our consciousness with the repeated experience necessary for our minds to build a context thus allowing our experience of perceiving to increase? Does not this mean that experience is King. Reading Columbus’s West Indies log will reveal context and the fact that human beings build context through experience.

 

Even when we do not understand logic or reason about the experience we can know for a certainty that we had one. To me this means that certainty is knowable through our experiences. If this is not true I, would like to see someone know something without experience. I submit to you that both theist and atheist do this all the time oblate unknowingly.

 

Recently I was arguing a point with someone who claimed that he could only be reasonably certain about things. This shut me down because being in the presence of someone who can only be reasonably certain of things creeped me out (fault not intentionally expressed). It made me realize that I cannot debate with someone who cannot know things for a certainty. The reason is based on my own experience not only of certainly being conscious, but because with only one I, am being present there is and was no way to validate evidence.

 

Knowing is a verb that happens in the now of experience. In the now I can experience the inability to go back in the past and change it. Thus I can know I cannot change the past. I can know that if I want stronger muscles I must faithfully act in the now by lifting weights. The only thing I can be certain about the future is that it is uncertain.  From these experiences of knowing comes certainty about those experiences.

 

Sense I have always been able to know things for a certainty I can only speculate on why some people seemingly cannot. One reason is that they are lairs. The most damaging lies are about ourselves after all. Believing in a falsehood long enough results in creating a context that allows your consciousness to experience that falsehood as true. It is lucky for us that we can deprogram ourselves as well as program ourselves and  this provides motivation for learning to know things through experience.

 

Another reason could be that they truly cannot know things for a certainty. If so it calls into question stability.  It calls into question the mental health of the individual because if they are not certain of their own experience of existing what does that mean for the others. Does it mean that they think of the others around them as a cartoon (Sociopath) and thus others in their mind are not real. What others will do under any given situation is a unknown even when they admit the ability of knowing something for a certainty. Obviously such is even more of a problem for someone who cannot  know things for a certainty.

 

What about the fact that if you are uncertain about things that others can be certain of than such uncertainty makes truth unknowable by definition.. For instance. I ask you if I can have a drink from your kitchen sink and the uncertain one says yes. The obvious question is are you certain? What part of the drink I get from the uncertain ones sink am I stealing if it turns out that they were not certain. This is of course ridiculous and so is claiming that you cannot be certain.

 

I have heard the excuse that the uncertainty is coming from things that are unknown but could occur. Knowing is not about the unknown except in so far as making the unknown known through experience  nor is it about what could occur. It is about what one has experienced. I have heard the excuse that there is a probability that something else occurred than what you perceived.  The problem is that probabilities don’t exist as reality by definition. Knowing is about what you have experienced and experiments are about discovering what is (logic) about that which you have experienced or what is reasonable about what you have experienced. Clinton was right when he said that he was guilty dependent upon what the definition of is is paraphrased.

 

Google says is is

third person singular present of be.

Verb

Google says this about exist.

have objective reality or being.

“remains of these baths still exist on the south side of the Pantheon”

synonyms:

live, be alive, be living;

 

Thus certainty is not about what would have, could have or should have been. It is not about what was possible to experience. Nor is it about what was probable to experience. It is about what is, being, existing in the moments that one is perceiving.  What is, being, existing as an experience during the now is what is, being, existing for a certiantanty.

 

The role of skepticism

 

I have heard it said that a person should be open minded, but not so open minded that their brains fall out. While this might be funny to say, it is not an accurate allegory to the meaning of skepticism and leads to bias.

 

How does google define skepticism.

 

noun

1. a skeptical attitude; doubt as to the truth of something.
2. “these claims were treated with skepticism”

s	doubt, doubtfulness, a pinch of salt

Doubt as to the truth of something is bias as to the truth of something. True skeptical attitudes do not include biases. To me a skeptical attitude is actually the act of experiencing for one’s self the evidence or evidences. So to me skepticism is the act of checking out the evidence for one’s self. Human’s do not have to just believe things, and in fact those who do are practicing a religion.

 

When an atheist says there is no evidence for God, they are making a statement of fact for which no one can be certain of. No one lives long enough to perceive all the evidence it is possible to examine. It is reasonable to think what they mean is that they have not perceived evidence or what they will consider evidence that proves God’s existence.

 

Biases prevent experiences. One can present a pile of dirt as evidence for God, but because a person considers themselves an atheist they cannot perceive the dirt as evidence at first. Than once they realize that denying dirt as evidence is actually a bias they will say you cannot provide the connection between the existing dirt and a God. I noticed that they are treating the word existing as a noun. I however treat existing as a verb.

 

When you point out that science is as much about finding the cause for things as it is about finding the affects of things. They will insist that because they cannot sense in some way the connection between the existence of the dirt and the existence of a cause (God) that one cannot believe the dirt is evidence for a God. Theist and atheist both treat a lack of evidence as evidence for what they believe.

 

Whether or not one perceives dirt as evidence for God is not the point. The point is the resistance to examining or experiencing the evidence is evidence for a bias and is not skepticism. Thus the fact that bias is often mistaken for skepticism is evident. There is another way of seeing the effect of bias on perception.

 

In Hermetics  is taught the concept of duality. The dual nature of things is discussed as the opposites of to poles. In the case of skepticism being the pole on the right and bias being the pole on the left one can seek to be in the perfect position by attempting to exist at the pole on the right (skepticism). Whether or not you are existing at the pole on the right depends upon which way a person approaches the poles. Bias causes the person to turn 180%, thus changing from the right to the left; without being aware or experiencing the figurative turn.

 

True skepticism is an open mind that examines the evidence without beliefs about whether or not something is or is not something. True skepticism is about discovering what something is. True skepticism requires the inquirer to know they do not know, and that there not knowing is based upon not having experienced the something. Often people have examined things in a biased setting and do not recognize that the setting can unknowingly create bias.

 

When someone says they are a theist they are in fact admitting to one of three things at the very least. Either they believe in a God or they have had experience of a God or both.  When someone claims they are an atheist according to google they are disbelieving in a God.

 

Google defines atheist

noun

1. a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.
2. “he is a committed atheist”

synonyms:

non-believer, disbeliever, unbeliever, skeptic, doubter, doubting Thomas, agnostic; nihilist “why is it often assumed that a man of science is probably an atheis

For a scientist true skepticism is not a belief or a disbelief.  Thus #5 “why is it often assumed that a man of science is probably an atheist” is an expression of a bias and in fact so is the expression of a belief. Having no evidence for a God translates in my mind as I, don’t know and there is no but about it. People who believe because there is no evidence for a God that this means there is no God are believing no evidence means no existence and thus are just believing. Conversely people who believe in a God with no evidence are just believing.

 

Thus we can say that religious thought is believing that a lack of evidence is knowledge. A clue to the truth of this is the route word of believing, which is lie. Who is being lied to and by who is the lie coming from.  The liar is the self and so the liar is to the self. The difference in believing and know is the difference between knowing (having experienced) a thing. Believing occurs without experience and knowing can only occur with experience.

 

This is why testimony is just believing or self lying. One must be able to distinguish the difference between an experience and  a belief, which can be said to be the difference between experiencing the evidence (knowing) and believing in testimony (self deception). Suppose someone says to you they I saw a UFO. This is just unvalidated testimony and a mountain of salt is appropriate.

 

Suppose someone says to you there is a UFO over there, and you look and see a UFO where indicated. That is validated evidence. Can you then tell others about your experience. Sure you can, but to those who did not experience it such is only testimony. In natural science for something to be evidence it must be repeatable and testable or it is just testimony. Thus testimony only has value if it can be validated and repeatedly tested. Another corollary is the question “Did NASA go to the moon? By now a person should be comprehending that such a claim is only testimony and should be taken with a mountain of salt.

 

    Is it a bias or skepticism to question testimony. I would say it is the duty of all I, am’s to question anything that is presented as evidence. That being said testimony alone is not evidence by definition and during the course of practicing natural science no one would present testimony unless it is testifying the location of the object of interest for validation, thus making the testimony validated evidence.

 

Are scientist better at using logic and reason?

 

    Are scientist better at using logic and reason? The answer to this depends upon you. A scientist is giving testimony in the here is the evidence way. The truth is if you refuse to experience and therefore validate the evidence the fault lies with you. Scientist do not just make claims of having evidence they also provide a description of the object and a description of the logic and reason as determined by the experiments along with a complete description of how to duplicate the experiment.

 

Hear is an example of testifying to evidence in fact. Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

If and only if you go and read the study and duplicate it then the statement “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” becomes evidence. A person still needs to experience the evidence in order to evaluate it.

 

It is in the experience being testable and repeatable that makes it natural science. When you practice the scientific method you are a scientist. Just reading the study makes you religious and therefore a believer. It is the fact that people do not actually perform the experiments that they can be and remain ignorant. It is extremely hard to successfully lie to someone who knows things through experience.

 

A comprehension of this leads to understanding that evidence that a person for whatever reason cannot experience for themselves is not evidence period. For example the fact that I cannot build a rocket and go to the moon myself regulates NASA’S claim to have gone to the moon to testimony and really not very credible testimony sense government has been caught lying all through history.

 

Let us look at an example of why testimony that is not validated through another I’am and experiment is actually just practicing a religion. I remember when I was a child that it was explained to me that the world was a sphere. The testimony that was presented as evidence was the fact that a ship on the horizon would slowly disappear from the bottom up. It was said that this proved the earth was a sphere because it logically and reasonably could not happen unless the earth was a sphere. In the same video was also a picture of a flat earth and the water along with a ship falling of the earth.

 

Today a person can go and buy a P900 zoom in camera and watch ships disappear over the horizon only to continually bring them back into view through the zoom. This falsifies the claim that ship’s disappearing over the horizon proves a sphere and so does the mathematical formula  8 x Distance squared divided by 5292. The 8 represent how many inches per mile. Distance squared represents the curve of a sphere that is roughly 25,000 miles in circumference. The 5292 represents inches per foot and foot per mile added together.

 

A easily calculated example for how much curve between to object that are 10 miles from one another is expressed. Eight times ten miles squared divided by 12 equals 66.6 feet. This shows that if we did live on a sphere ships would disappear over the horizon. A person cannot know for themselves unless they perform the experiment. Remember if one does not buy or obtain a camera and do the experiment and the math for one’s self they are a believer. If one does both the experiment and the math one is a knower.

 

The real question is which do you want to be?