The Evolution of Consciousness

[Encephalon]

[C T]

Thumbs up! Thanks for taking the time, Blasto.

 

The prodigal son's father did not say to him, "You remain in the pigsty, son - we're soon gonna make it into a nicer pigsty". Thank god for the evolution of consciousness...

[Marblehead]

I will have fun with this thread if there is interest in the subject by other members.

 

I agree with much of the essence of what was presented but I also disagree, or at least cannot accept, much as well.

 

Yes, I have not problem with the thought that consciousness of homo sapien has evolved greatly during the very short period of time 'modern man' has been on the planet.

 

However, I think that we have here over-stated the importance of 'modern man' as to the reality of the universe. (No, I can't say 'meaning of the universe' becuase I doubt that there is any meaning.)

 

I think that planet Earth did pretty well for itself for 4.5 billion years without the need for man to identify it and give it meaning.

 

I think that it would be an error to put man on too high a pedestal. Afterall, we too may one day become extinct.

[doc benway]

[deci belle]

Wow thread, Blasto!! I'm probably being somewhat myopic concerning historians' myopia in treating modern thought as a western phenomenon (…stole part of that from my Mac's dictionary).

 

Richard Tarnas said:

This participatory epistemology, developed in different ways by Goethe, Hegel, Steiner, and others, can be understood not as a regression to naïve participation mystique, but as the dialectical synthesis of the long evolution from the primordial undifferentiated consciousness through the dualistic alienation

 

I am not so quick to qualify mind as human. I would call human being as a type of resonance within a general quality unique to awareness.

 

haha! I don't want to be too (self-consciously) kind to those hairy hunter-gatherers— there's still a lot of us around! Yet had any of the illustrious European thinkers experienced the primordial undifferentiated themselves, there wouldn't be so many later western students extolling the virtues of so-called consciousness evolution in terms of participatory epistemology. Rather, they would take up objective nonpsychological participation in the knowledge that it not only has never progressed (what is there to evolve?), but the skills of this participatory premise are themselves dependent on evolution within one's very own personal lifetime, based directly on experience of the primordial itself.

 

Mr. Tarnas said:

In this view, the essential reality of nature is not separate, self-contained, and complete in itself, so that the human mind can examine it “objectively” and register it from without.

I cannot disagree enough! Is separate, self-contained, and complete in itself whereby it is possible for each individual human being to experience essential reality in itself as itself. Experience of selfless impersonal aware conscious being has no without; has no distance; has no beginning to objectify.

 

It is the selfless quality of awareness and one's apprehension of nonorigination as one's essential self in the experiential event of nonbeingness, whereby one gains the kernel of authentic impersonal objectivity.

What is enabled to evolve within the context of one's lifetime is objective participation by virtue of receptivity and response.

 

Civilizations and Culture are the direct result of universal goodness, which is the very nature of mind, not a country. I don't see that modern intellect is an improvement upon much developing in the sciences in Moorish mediaeval Spain. Give me a big 0! How many stars have Arabic names? I'm just guessing, but perhaps the ratio of people participating in space travel compared to the general population count was greater in cultures 7,000~10,000 years ago than it is today. Just a guess…

 

In other words, the conceit of intellect is assured when it can proudly justify it's so-called modern progression (it's separateness from the great unwashed), in light of the ever romanticized, torturously incipient evolution from the primordial undifferentiated swamp-bogs of consciousness.

 

All it takes is an instant to revert to the undifferentiated. This has been experienced personally by numberless human beings since before the time of naïve participation mystique. Some people just know better. Some people have always known better. It is simply due to the nature of mind. All those naïve hairy folk just couldn't deal with what was being described to them by the ones with the silly hats. How is that so different than today? I'm with Picasso~ we haven't learned a thing.

 

I am assured, awareness has never changed. That's not what it does. Real participatory operation is described in full detail by the ancients of any wisdom tradition you may care to explore. You just have to know what to look for (I happen to like silly hats). This thing that wants to be seen as modern… one glimpse of the primordial, and it's clear that what's new and improved has just had yet another round on the talk-show circuit.

 

The progression since the European enlightenment (thanks Greece and Rome!) and its looong evolution since its recent localized dark age (when real northern Europeans partied hardy) has improved— don't get me wrong. I just talk about mind itself. You know what they say about jazz~ if you have to say what kind it is…❤

 

Sweet post, Blasto!!

Edited May 12, 2011 by deci belle

[Encephalon]

Perhaps I am biting off more than I can chew, but as far as I can tell, the Santiago Theory of Cognition will likely resolve most of these outstanding questions posed, including my general discomfort with teleological explanations. I haven't fully assimilated it; perhaps you intellectuals can get a head start, hmmm?

[Aaron]

[manitou]

 

I think that planet Earth did pretty well for itself for 4.5 billion years without the need for man to identify it and give it meaning.

 

I think that it would be an error to put man on too high a pedestal. Afterall, we too may one day become extinct.

 

I'm thinking that 'It' didn't need modern man's brain for It's manifestation. The manifestation started with a chunk of the sun, then cooled, and the manifestation began. Modern man is perhaps the most modern manifestation. But we continue to evolve - maybe kundalini awakening is an evolution of sorts for man. All of nature has a brain.

[Marblehead]

I'm thinking that 'It' didn't need modern man's brain for It's manifestation. The manifestation started with a chunk of the sun, then cooled, and the manifestation began. Modern man is perhaps the most modern manifestation. But we continue to evolve - maybe kundalini awakening is an evolution of sorts for man. All of nature has a brain.

 

Actually, some species on this planet have a complex nervous system without a central brain. I like to look at the universe in this manner. It eliminates the need to have a central brain and therefore a central "controller". This complex nervous system operates according to Tzujan, self-naturalness.

 

But you go ahead with your universal brain. Afterall, you may be right and I may be lost in space. Hehehe.

 

Edit to add:

 

Ooppps. I forgot to speak to the thread subject.

 

Well, okay, it seems that many here are speaking to an evolution of the consciousness of the universe as opposed to the evolution of living things on this planet. That's okay, I guess. The universe is still expanding so I suppose it could be said that it is still evolving and therefore those who hold to a universal consciousness could easily say that the consciousness of the universe is still evolving as well.

 

That's all.

Edited May 12, 2011 by Marblehead

[Encephalon]

The point I was attempting to highlight in this post is captured by the first sentence italicized: "the relation of the human mind to the world was ultimately not dualistic but participatory." Tarnas' eco-friendly reputation would not does not sit well with hierarchical notions of human consciousness sitting upon a throne but neither is he denying that human consciousness performs the important function of global mind connected to the rest of the planetary nervous system.

[manitou]

 

Well, okay, it seems that many here are speaking to an evolution of the consciousness of the universe as opposed to the evolution of living things on this planet. That's okay, I guess. The universe is still expanding so I suppose it could be said that it is still evolving and therefore those who hold to a universal consciousness could easily say that the consciousness of the universe is still evolving as well.

 

That's all.

 

I sometimes wonder if the universe isn't expanding because our relative consciousness is expanding.

[Otis]

Blasto, I think you might enjoy this (long but) very interesting talk by Peter Russell, who makes a similar argument from a neuroscientist's point of view.

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7799171063626430789#

[Otis]

Well, okay, it seems that many here are speaking to an evolution of the consciousness of the universe as opposed to the evolution of living things on this planet. That's okay, I guess. The universe is still expanding so I suppose it could be said that it is still evolving and therefore those who hold to a universal consciousness could easily say that the consciousness of the universe is still evolving as well.

It could also be said that consciousness is not evolving, but just the tools of consciousness (all communication systems, including brains). Brains may just be a way of focusing consciousness, like a lens can focus light. As brains evolve, so then does consciousness have an opportunity to become more localized, and perhaps, more aware.

 

I don't see a special place for humans, though. Whatever it is that follows us will undoubtedly see themselves as the means by which the universe knows itself, and will see the legacy of sapiens sapiens as just a step along the way.

[Marblehead]

The point I was attempting to highlight in this post is captured by the first sentence italicized: "the relation of the human mind to the world was ultimately not dualistic but participatory."

 

I actually have no problem with this thought. In fact, my understanding of the evolution of man indicates that this is a fact.