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I've long pondered the idea that consciousness is inherent to all "things" - animal, vegetable, mineral; atom, planet, solar system - in that things experience

by driggs 6y ago

I've long pondered the idea that consciousness is inherent to all "things" - animal, vegetable, mineral; atom, planet, solar system - in that things experience _being_, whatever that means for a given thing. A recent oral surgery gave this hypothesis pause. I was given Propofol as an anesthetic, and upon awakening had an extremely impactful existential experience. My very consciousness had been extinguished, instantly, as if by a lightswitch, and for 45 minutes there was nothing but oblivion. If consciousness is inherent to being, then how could it so easily be nullified to the point of oblivion, and then brought back online?

acruns 6y ago
There can be no oblivion if you experienced it. I would suggest reversing the idea that conscience is part of a being and instead suggest that consciousness is inherit in everything because it is everything. Within or without a being.
- driggs 6y ago
  Pardon my inability to express accurately with words, but I most certainly did not experience oblivion. I am using the word "oblivion" to describe the state of absolutely no experience whatsoever. It was practically religious/mystical/psychedelic in that it truly felt that I had not existed at all during that time. (And, no offense, I get the George Harrison reference, but saying that consciousness "is everything" begs the very question of evaluating panpsychism critically. I'm posting this because it is counter to my own longheld beliefs that consciousness is inherent to being.)
  - loopz 6y ago
    Separate the blank stage, from the actors and scenery. For something to fill and empty, you know there's a vessel. It is integral and unseparable. Feelings, thought, emotion, drama, will always change and are tools for seeking.
  - acruns 6y ago
    No offense taken. But isn't nothingness or no experience an experience? It seems you did experience something, that something might equate to nothingness or the void or oblivion but there was an experience? It sounds similar to "experiencing" a thought. It happens and we can all agree they do, but what is it to experience a thought? Can you smell, touch, feel a thought?
    - driggs 6y ago
      I didn't "experience nothingness"; I did not experience, full stop. My consciousness did not exist. I had no awareness of the passage of time. There was no observer. No dreams. From my perspective, I teleported from a chair to another room, with an existential discontinuity in between. The only "experiencing" was after my consciousness was brought back online. I cannot describe it to you sufficiently with words, and you likely cannot understand it sufficiently without ceasing to exist for yourself. Are the dead aware that they are dead? It seems, from my perspective, that for those 45 minutes, my consciousness was extinguished, not unlike that of someone fully dead. (Not that I have first-hand experience being fully dead, of course! And, in a conversation about panpsychism, I suppose the experience of being a dead body isn't something to discredit as "nothing"!)
asey 6y ago
I think that would be a question of memory rather than having a conscious experience though I think it raises the question of whether consciousness can exist without some mechanism for memory even if only short term.
driggs 6y ago
Wow, Tam Hunt touches on this exact idea in this podcast at ~21:00: https://mattasher.com/2020/07/19/episode-11-tam-hunt-on-consciousness-resonance-and-why-cats-fight-their-own-tails/ https://mattasher.com/2020/07/19/episode-11-tam-hunt-on-cons... He pitches the idea (which I'm poorly paraphrasing) that there's a relationship between the complexity of matter and the complexity of its aspect as consciousness. Smaller fields of consciousness merge with a common resonance to form larger more complex consciousness. Anesthesia or coma being states where those smaller fields fall out of resonance and the more complex consciousness breaks down.

by driggs 6y ago

acruns 6y ago

There can be no oblivion if you experienced it. I would suggest reversing the idea that conscience is part of a being and instead suggest that consciousness is inherit in everything because it is everything. Within or without a being.

driggs 6y ago
Pardon my inability to express accurately with words, but I most certainly did not experience oblivion. I am using the word "oblivion" to describe the state of absolutely no experience whatsoever. It was practically religious/mystical/psychedelic in that it truly felt that I had not existed at all during that time. (And, no offense, I get the George Harrison reference, but saying that consciousness "is everything" begs the very question of evaluating panpsychism critically. I'm posting this because it is counter to my own longheld beliefs that consciousness is inherent to being.)
- loopz 6y ago
  Separate the blank stage, from the actors and scenery. For something to fill and empty, you know there's a vessel. It is integral and unseparable. Feelings, thought, emotion, drama, will always change and are tools for seeking.
- acruns 6y ago
  No offense taken. But isn't nothingness or no experience an experience? It seems you did experience something, that something might equate to nothingness or the void or oblivion but there was an experience? It sounds similar to "experiencing" a thought. It happens and we can all agree they do, but what is it to experience a thought? Can you smell, touch, feel a thought?
  - driggs 6y ago
    I didn't "experience nothingness"; I did not experience, full stop. My consciousness did not exist. I had no awareness of the passage of time. There was no observer. No dreams. From my perspective, I teleported from a chair to another room, with an existential discontinuity in between. The only "experiencing" was after my consciousness was brought back online. I cannot describe it to you sufficiently with words, and you likely cannot understand it sufficiently without ceasing to exist for yourself. Are the dead aware that they are dead? It seems, from my perspective, that for those 45 minutes, my consciousness was extinguished, not unlike that of someone fully dead. (Not that I have first-hand experience being fully dead, of course! And, in a conversation about panpsychism, I suppose the experience of being a dead body isn't something to discredit as "nothing"!)

asey 6y ago

I think that would be a question of memory rather than having a conscious experience though I think it raises the question of whether consciousness can exist without some mechanism for memory even if only short term.

driggs 6y ago

Wow, Tam Hunt touches on this exact idea in this podcast at ~21:00: https://mattasher.com/2020/07/19/episode-11-tam-hunt-on-consciousness-resonance-and-why-cats-fight-their-own-tails/ https://mattasher.com/2020/07/19/episode-11-tam-hunt-on-cons... He pitches the idea (which I'm poorly paraphrasing) that there's a relationship between the complexity of matter and the complexity of its aspect as consciousness. Smaller fields of consciousness merge with a common resonance to form larger more complex consciousness. Anesthesia or coma being states where those smaller fields fall out of resonance and the more complex consciousness breaks down.