To Be Conscious Of....is that statement flawed.

[Princess Arabia]

I see this a lot. Who's conscious or not conscious of something. I'd like to explore this topic.

We say direct experience is king and we also say what we're conscious of is the case; what is real, what's true, but is it? If we're conscious that solipsism is the case, then it must be the case. If we're conscious of the fact that we're God, then it must be so. (this is not a discussion on whether we're God or not, so please don't take it there, I use that as an example).

 We're sensing our lives away; meaning, we're using the senses to navigate our way through life and how we experience things, people, places and circumstances. A dog can sense things a human can't and also a cat and many other animals. A cat sees colors differently and a dog can pick up scents humans can't. Animals experience the world differently. I'm sure we can all agree on that.

I'm conscious of my hand and feet. I'm conscious that I can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. I'm not conscious, however of how my heart is beating and how my inner body is operating, yet it is. Doing it all on it's own. I'm conscious of the fact that I perceive myself to be alive. When I'm dead, I will lose all consciousness. If you say, consciousness will still be alive and kicking after I'm dead, I'm not conscious of that right now so, i can't speak on that. If that's the case, then I can't use what i'm conscious of to decipher what's true, I can only speculate on things of that nature.

Am I conscious of things, or am I conscious of my perception of what appears. If I do some drug and become conscious of whatever that may be, am I really conscious of what's true or how that drug altered my perception. People experience and perceive things differently. How is what I'm conscious of supposed to determine what's the case for everyone including dogs and cats when the senses are used to perceive things differently depending on what species i am and what state I'm in. 

So, the question is, is what I'm conscious of, the truth or is it just what I'm perceiving with the senses which can be altered depending on which state I'm in and is also different for other species so, therefore, cannot be true for everyone and everything but only to me.

 

Edited August 17 by Princess Arabia

[Someone here]

1- being conscious of something absolutely true = you become one with it . Not that you know something separate from you .rather..you are being the truth .you are it .not experiencing it .

2- no..animals don't perceive the world different than humans .that's a baseless assumption .you just learned that in science classes in middle school and you just believed it like a sucker .the truth is you can't be certain of any other creature's experience other than yours .

3-all states of consciousness are true. .absolute truth =everything and anything and nothing. 

4-stop asking impossible questions. You are Never ever going to achieve detailed omniscience .you can't know how many ants in Dubai's desert are looking for sugar right now...nor will you ever know how many particles of sand exist on earth right now..cuz each moment the number changs . You can only know that reality is whatever it Is. This is merging with reality and becoming God. 

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Someone here said:

- being conscious of something absolutely true = you become one with it . Not that you know something separate from you .rather..you are being the truth .you are it .not experiencing it .

Ok, agreed. Chief word here is "you". How does that go for you though. If I'm conscious of being God (just an example), how does that make you God or my cat God, and why is that absolute truth when I'm only going off of my own senses, senses that can change depending on the state I'm in. Isn't that only a perception in the moment?

 

4 minutes ago, Someone here said:

no..animals don't perceive the world different than humans .that's a baseless assumption .you just learned that in science classes in middle school and you just believed it like a sucker .the truth is you can't be certain of any other creature's experience other than yours .

You've made an assumption to where I've learnt this yourself. Plus, i perceive the world differently than you do so what makes an animal, a different species with different, sense perceptions any different.

 

6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

 

3-all states of consciousness are true. .absolute truth =everything and anything and nothing. 

States aren't true; they change and what's absolutely true doesn't change.

[Schizophonia]

@Princess Arabia Objectivity is an illusion.

[Someone here]

8 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

and why is that absolute truth when I'm only going off of my own senses, senses that can change depending on the state I'm in. Isn't that only a perception in the moment?

Absolute Truth means something True under all circumstances . What could that be? Take a guess . I know the answer but will withhold for now. Let's have some fun..tell me what do you think Absolute Truth is ?

9 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

You've made an assumption to where I've learnt this yourself. Plus, i perceive the world differently than you do so what makes an animal, a different species with different, sense perceptions any different.

Girl, you don't have..you never had ..and you will never have any shred of evidence of any other creature's subjective experience other than yours . Just get it .it's not difficult to get .

11 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

States aren't true; they change and what's absolutely true doesn't change.

If states are not true they cannot exist .

[Princess Arabia]

28 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Absolute Truth means something True under all circumstances . What could that be? Take a guess . I know the answer but will withhold for now. Let's have some fun..tell me what do you think Absolute Truth is ?

Girl, you don't have..you never had ..and you will never have any shred of evidence of any other creature's subjective experience other than yours . Just get it .it's not difficult to get .

If states are not true they cannot exist .

Who or what determines what's true. True is an adjective that describes. I have a hand, that's true. If my hand gets chopped off and i don't have that hand anymore, that's true. There was a change there so having a hand is only true in that moment. Therefore, there is no Absolute truth other than what is, regardless of circumstances and circumstances change so it cannot be Absolute.

I mentioned nothing about experiencing an animal's reality. I said how they experience life is different from how we experience it because we experience the world through our senses and animals have different sense perceptions than we do. Let's see you go sniff out a murderer's clothes miles away. A dog can, that's why police use them. That's proof a dog doesn't experience the world as we do and that's just in that sense alone. Imagine the others. I don't have to know how a dog experiences the world to understand that their senses are different from ours in certain aspects; so, therefore, they must experience the world differently than us just by that example alone.

States exist but the different states that are experienced are not truly perceived because those perceptions vary from state to state and can be interpreted differently according to the circumstance. A happy state can quickly turn into a sad state from the same exact experience depending on how it's being perceived, so that cannot be true. The only truth is that a state is being interpreted but that interpretation is just that, an interpretation. So states exists but their interpretations aren't true only relatively and relativity is an illusion.

Edited August 17 by Princess Arabia

[Princess Arabia]

31 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

@Princess Arabia Objectivity is an illusion.

How does that equate to the topic. Are you saying to be conscious is an objective experience and therefore no such thing exist. Not sure, your response is very vague.

[Staples]

@Princess Arabia What you are conscious of is your experience and that's it. Any further intellectualizing misses the point that experience is fundamental, and the form it takes is not important to understand what experience is.

Edited August 18 by Staples

[Hojo]

What staples said its there but you cant say it like a dream. You are actually hyper thinking reality into existence via infinite imagination. When you hyper think it its there and dosent need an explanation about whos seeing it.

When I was dreaming I became concious I was dreaming and I became concious that I was hyper thinking what the dream was doing very quietly. I was like im going to go over here I am going to grab that guy and punch him and i grabbed him and punched him. So before its spoke into existence you already created it and the character needs to say I am conscious of this. Its like God thinks something and then infinite imagination makes it happen. It dosent have to try to make it happen it just does.

When you are dreaming its the same as real life except you cant be like I am concious of this. Its like a movie you are hyper thinking in infinite imagination. This is too but you are a dissasosiated character that can stop it and thats your shadow.

Edited August 18 by Hojo

[Bufo Alvarius]

9 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

Am I conscious of things, or am I conscious of my perception of what appears.

You are conscious as the perceiving, not “of” perception as an object. If you treat consciousness as a container that holds or observes perceptions, then you create a dualistic model (subject + object), which does not reflect your direct phenomenology when inspected closely. Consciousness is not “what I’m aware of”, it is the fact of awareness itself. The appearing of the field is consciousness.

9 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

we're using the senses to navigate our way through life and how we experience things, people, places and circumstances. A dog can sense things a human can't and also a cat and many other animals. A cat sees colors differently and a dog can pick up scents humans can't. Animals experience the world differently. I'm sure we can all agree on that.

Different perceptual faculties do not equal different consciousnesses. Yes, a dog’s experience is a different content, but it is still arising within the same fundamental consciousness (Being/Awareness). The modulations vary, not the consciousness itself, because sensory experiences appear within consciousness, not the other way around.

9 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

If I do some drug and become conscious of whatever that may be, am I really conscious of what's true or how that drug altered my perception. People experience and perceive things differently. How is what I'm conscious of supposed to determine what's the case for everyone including dogs and cats when the senses are used to perceive things differently depending on what species i am and what state I'm in. 

You're not conscious of things, you're conscious as the field in which appearances arise. Perception can be distorted or altered but consciousness itself is not a perception or belief. For example: if you see a hallucination, that hallucination is real as experience. What can be false is the conceptual interpretation, not the appearance itself. Consciousness is not mistaken, only thinking is.

So no, “what you’re conscious of” isn’t absolute truth, but the fact of consciousness, the isness of what appears, is the only undeniable ground. And that ground is the same, regardless of species or state.

9 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

When I'm dead, I will lose all consciousness.

This is assumed from the human perspective, not known from direct experience. In fact, you have never experienced non-consciousness. Even sleep (dream, deep sleep) has experience. You can’t confirm the absence of consciousness, only a blank spot in memory.

So consciousness is not something that comes and goes, it is the ever-present field in which the sense of time, birth, and death arises.

9 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

I'm conscious of the fact that I perceive myself to be alive. When I'm dead, I will lose all consciousness. If you say, consciousness will still be alive and kicking after I'm dead, I'm not conscious of that right now so, i can't speak on that. If that's the case, then I can't use what i'm conscious of to decipher what's true, I can only speculate on things of that nature.

This is conflating consciousness with knowing, but they are fundamentally different. Consciousness doesn’t require you to know something in order to be present. In fact, you can be conscious of not knowing. That felt sense of mystery, uncertainty, or even silence is already something appearing within consciousness.

Consciousness is not just a container of facts or knowledge, it is the field in which both knowing and not-knowing arise. Mistaking consciousness for intellectual certainty reduces it to content, but consciousness is not content. It’s the formless clarity in which all experience, including the absence of answers, appears.

[Hyperion]

Whatever you are conscious of is what you experience. Whatever you experience is a part of reality. Whatever is a part of reality is an aspect of the Absolute.

Being conscious of something = the Absolute looking at itself from a certain perspective. (This is the function of the ego btw. No ego = no consciousness / experience of reality.)

So yes, whatever you experience is relatively true. That which is absolutely true is the source, the sum and the essence of all possible relative truths.

You're welcome. 

[Mellowmarsh]

11 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

Who's conscious or not conscious of something.

Consciousness is.

Consciousness cannot know Consciousness because Consciousness is already being Consciousness.
There’s nothing outside or inside of Consciousness. Consciousness is Omnipresent without a centre even.

No one knows this.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

I had a think on this - do you think there is confusion because we can be speaking about consciousness as a noun OR verb.

And context is being lost without defining consciousness as a noun vs consciousness as a verb, when we speak?

Resulting in confusion.

[Princess Arabia]

1 hour ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I had a think on this - do you think there is confusion because we can be speaking about consciousness as a noun OR verb.

And context is being lost without defining consciousness as a noun vs consciousness as a verb, when we speak?

Resulting in confusion.

Yes, I think that's the issue. Leo says Consciousness is fundamental; but we refer to it as "being conscious of....which implies separation. Notice the heading says "to be conscious of", many are replying as if I'm referring to Consciousness itself and that can be where the confusion lies. 

[Princess Arabia]

9 hours ago, Staples said:

@Princess Arabia What you are conscious of is your experience and that's it. Any further intellectualizing misses the point that experience is fundamental, and the form it takes is not important to understand what experience is.

Ok then, so if we say "what I'm conscious" of VS "consciousness is", is that referring to two different things. This is not about intellectualizing but understanding. 

[Princess Arabia]

6 hours ago, Hyperion said:

Whatever you are conscious of is what you experience. Whatever you experience is a part of reality. Whatever is a part of reality is an aspect of the Absolute.

Being conscious of something = the Absolute looking at itself from a certain perspective. (This is the function of the ego btw. No ego = no consciousness / experience of reality.)

So yes, whatever you experience is relatively true. That which is absolutely true is the source, the sum and the essence of all possible relative truths.

You're welcome. 

Ok, so the statement No ego=no consciousness implies consciousness is the dream of separation and doesn't really exist.

[Princess Arabia]

7 hours ago, Bufo Alvarius said:

You are conscious as the perceiving, not “of” perception as an object. If you treat consciousness as a container that holds or observes perceptions, then you create a dualistic model (subject + object), which does not reflect your direct phenomenology when inspected closely. Consciousness is not “what I’m aware of”, it is the fact of awareness itself. The appearing of the field is consciousness.

Different perceptual faculties do not equal different consciousnesses. Yes, a dog’s experience is a different content, but it is still arising within the same fundamental consciousness (Being/Awareness). The modulations vary, not the consciousness itself, because sensory experiences appear within consciousness, not the other way around.

You're not conscious of things, you're conscious as the field in which appearances arise. Perception can be distorted or altered but consciousness itself is not a perception or belief. For example: if you see a hallucination, that hallucination is real as experience. What can be false is the conceptual interpretation, not the appearance itself. Consciousness is not mistaken, only thinking is.

So no, “what you’re conscious of” isn’t absolute truth, but the fact of consciousness, the isness of what appears, is the only undeniable ground. And that ground is the same, regardless of species or state.

This is assumed from the human perspective, not known from direct experience. In fact, you have never experienced non-consciousness. Even sleep (dream, deep sleep) has experience. You can’t confirm the absence of consciousness, only a blank spot in memory.

So consciousness is not something that comes and goes, it is the ever-present field in which the sense of time, birth, and death arises.

This is conflating consciousness with knowing, but they are fundamentally different. Consciousness doesn’t require you to know something in order to be present. In fact, you can be conscious of not knowing. That felt sense of mystery, uncertainty, or even silence is already something appearing within consciousness.

Consciousness is not just a container of facts or knowledge, it is the field in which both knowing and not-knowing arise. Mistaking consciousness for intellectual certainty reduces it to content, but consciousness is not content. It’s the formless clarity in which all experience, including the absence of answers, appears.

This seems to me dualistic. Something appears within consciousness is dualistic. How can one be conscious of not knowing. There must be someone conscious that they don't know which is still a form of knowing. Not knowing is reference to something not known.

[Hyperion]

27 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Ok, so the statement No ego=no consciousness implies consciousness is the dream of separation and doesn't really exist.

 You're kidding, right?

Feel free to re-read my "What Are Illusions" thread (as well as my theory of everything while you're at it) where I explain at length why illusions are in fact the only things that exist.

Sorry, but I really don't know how to make it any more clear than that.

 

Edited August 18 by Hyperion

[Princess Arabia]

42 minutes ago, Hyperion said:

 You're kidding, right?

Feel free to re-read my "What Are Illusions" thread (as well as my theory of everything while you're at it) where I explain at length why illusions are in fact the only things that exist.

Sorry, but I really don't know how to make it any more clear than that.

 

No need to make it any clearer. I'll re-read your post. No biggie. It's all done.

[Breakingthewall]

Perception is always relationship. It is the flow of reality relating to itself. Without contrast, difference, or movement, there is no perception. 

There is not false perception, there are degrees of openess. Total openess is the flow of reality perceiving it ultimate nature, that's limitlessness. 

The flow of reality is being, that is relation. The being can perceive itself as the totality of relationship, infinite relational flow that is, what's called Brahman. It's real, there are no limits and the being perceive it. Then it perceive the impossibility of death in sense of stopping being, because it's limitless.

Also there could more closed perceptions, for example perceive that everything is shit. It's not false, it's just a closed perspective, contracted