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That's an absolutely fascinating thing to claim... Your description sounds like what I have very recently read about research into artificial neural networks, w

That's an absolutely fascinating thing to claim... Your description sounds like what I have very recently read about research into artificial neural networks, which would have vast implications for the future of the field. I have not ever seriously considered the ability to turn consciousness on and off at will. In my experience consciousness is absolute and once deep in reverie when I happened upon a mental switch to turn seemingly everything off I instead experienced a brief 'no-mind' blank state and a moment later my mind basically 'rebooted'. During no-mind, "I am" was definitely there but there was no thought to reflect this fact. There was an observer with nothing to observe. Normally, the only interruption to consciousness that I experience is for the time between wakefulness and dream and for this period I have no recollection. Is this no-mind state what you mean by turning off consciousness?

trevyn 7y ago
I mean turning off the sense of intention or agency (i.e. “conscious” decision-making), as well as the sense of self (i.e. self-“consciousness”). There is still awareness of sensory inputs and memory of events, but there is no sense of making deliberate choices, personal identification with the sensory data or events, or emotional response. So there is, for linguistic convenience, “a body” doing things, but it doesn’t feel like it’s “mine” or that “I can control it”. Overall it feels lightly dissociative, and I can carry on normal everyday interactions in this state; it feels like everything is on auto-pilot and the body knows what to do, probably mostly by habit. I mention this particular state because it seems to reveal that the feeling of being an agentic self is a specific construction of mind, and that it can be intentionally deconstructed while maintaining other brain functions. There are lots of related directions one can go with this; the “no-mind” state you mention and the techniques to achieve it are excellent to practice with.
- ganzuul 7y ago
  I understand. However self-consciousness is not what I mean by consciousness. If you observe 'your' actions there is still something there along for the ride. It is this which I surmise is common for all humans.

trevyn 7y ago

I mean turning off the sense of intention or agency (i.e. “conscious” decision-making), as well as the sense of self (i.e. self-“consciousness”). There is still awareness of sensory inputs and memory of events, but there is no sense of making deliberate choices, personal identification with the sensory data or events, or emotional response. So there is, for linguistic convenience, “a body” doing things, but it doesn’t feel like it’s “mine” or that “I can control it”. Overall it feels lightly dissociative, and I can carry on normal everyday interactions in this state; it feels like everything is on auto-pilot and the body knows what to do, probably mostly by habit. I mention this particular state because it seems to reveal that the feeling of being an agentic self is a specific construction of mind, and that it can be intentionally deconstructed while maintaining other brain functions. There are lots of related directions one can go with this; the “no-mind” state you mention and the techniques to achieve it are excellent to practice with.

ganzuul 7y ago
I understand. However self-consciousness is not what I mean by consciousness. If you observe 'your' actions there is still something there along for the ride. It is this which I surmise is common for all humans.