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The basic structure of this seems to match my experience. > This experience can be perceived as the "normal" mind turning off and another mind awakening. This

The basic structure of this seems to match my experience. > This experience can be perceived as the "normal" mind turning off and another mind awakening. This "other mind" does not think serially with words. Instead, it thinks dimensionally, with mental sensations of pure meanings. An important note is that it is, imo, not the case that the "conscious mind" shuts off and an "unconscious mind" begins operating; rather, the unconscious mind is always the one doing the work, and the conscious overlay is more akin to a debugger pausing, stepping and querying its operation. A good exercise for verbal thinkers that I've found, is to try and think a thought out loud, then interrupt yourself before actually mentally verbalizing it, but still keep the thought at the forefront of your mind. This allows you to examine the "pre-verbal form" of the thought. edit: I've also found that a good way to get rid of intrusive visual thoughts is to do the opposite of their planar deconcentration exercise, basically embedding my observing perspective completely in my vision, leaving no "space" for imagination. edit: POSSIBLY IMPORTANT INSIGHT that I've just had. Why is there a sense of "I exist/I have control" to begin with? Well, with our imagination, we can move our center of perception somewhere or sometime else. When we do that, the center of our perception diverges from our actual current body. In this state, consciousness cannot command actions at the point of perception, so there has to be a sense of "I do not exist here/I cannot perform actions here", in order to differentiate the state of imagining a fictional center of attention from living in the moment. That sense is precisely the quale of existence.

plutonorm 5y ago
I agree the unconscious is the one delivering the 'stuff'. If you know anything about neural networks, you may have come across an autoencoder. This is what I think is happening as information gets passed into the conscious mind. We are aware of the shifting patterns of non verbal thought within our mind, when we pay attention, this is viewing the compressed output of the inner mind - just as the second stage of an autoencoder views the compressed output of its first stage. The unconscious is unconscious because it's machinations are not directly recorded into memory and so we cannot self reflect upon them. But of course in the moment that part of our mind is conscious just as we are, it's just that that consciousness cannot be recalled. So this article is calling for the shutting down of the fore mind so that we can better listen to and interpret the output of the subconscious. And further to start to think in terms of the same non verbal architecture that the subconscious moves with. It is also apparent to me that this matches with the MBTI personality classification system. Sensing types rely upon machinations within the fore mind, logic, verbal translations of inner thought - whereas the intuitives listen directly to the unconscious. I'm an intuitive and when solving a problem I will often simply wait for the answer to arrive.
fjabre 5y ago
You have touched on some very old knowledge found in Hindu and Buddhist texts. You do not exist in the same frame of reference as the objects you perceive. You are fixed while the objects perceived are subject to spacetime. The sense of existence is all that you are. Free will and control over external environment are only apparent. We claim to be the owner of actions and deeds. Claims do not make it so. The senses and intellect are easily fooled, i.e. Dreaming or VR. I suggest the Upanishads for anyone looking for more. Eknath Easwaran’s version is an excellent read.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  I don't agree that that view is correct. Perceived self and perceived reality are abstractions, but that doesn't mean they aren't real. Also I'm a compatibilist, meaning that I think that free will arises from and within determinism. At any rate, how can you tell anyone "what they are"? That's a subjective categorization; it can be useful or useless, but I don't know how it can be mistaken even in principle. My consciousness isn't the (only) thing that thinks or makes decisions, but I am more than my consciousness. My consciousness is just a part of the system that I view as my self.
  - klik99 5y ago
    >> that doesn't mean they aren't real. This feels a little semantic. In buddhism this is partly due to sunyata being translated as "emptiness," which implies "not real" or "doesn't exist." I think most people are on the same page on this instinctively but struggle to find the words because it's not something that can easily be put in words, but in the words of Leonard Cohen "everybody knows" What is free will? Is there a non-free will?
    - FeepingCreature 5y ago
      I mean, I don't think there is non-free will either, but this debate is kind of confused because the widespread concept of philosophical free will, as "choosing one of a set of possible alternative futures to become real", is either self-contradictory or forces some very strange models of selfhood, to the extent of requiring some form of dualism or magical powers of consciousness. In contrast, I just think that people can evaluate imaginary futures and select which seems most pleasing, then act to bring it about, and that this is what free will is in the decisionmaking sense. But I don't think that's the same meaning of will as in this article, which seems to refer more to the ability to act from intention at all. I think people instinctively feel that more extensive concepts of selfhood "aren't real" more because they don't have the conceptual tools to recognize and describe their presence in their minds. Most people behave as if self and control are real, at least. For context, I believe that the universe fundamentally consists in a kind of mathematical structure; I don't think there is a reason to postulate a difference between "matter" and "the laws of physics" as a plain mathematical abstraction. As an extension of that, it seems to me that "models" of reality, such as self and the subjective perception of the universe, are embedded, compressed mathematical structures that can be viewed as a simplified abstraction plus an error term. We hold these models precisely because they predict and enable control of the larger system; this is occasionally useful. :) As such, I think they are fundamentally constructed, but not arbitrary - I think that's my major disagreement with the buddhist view.
klik99 5y ago
As a side project I've been trying to build a conception of consciousness/unconsciousness with unconsciousness as a mental model, in a sense of a programmed simulation continually attempting to mirror the inputs from the senses, and consciousness as a programmer to override or possibly act as another input, but it's power is pretty weak. It would make sense that it would look like machine learning, as we find machine learning useful because it categories inputs in a similar way to the way we do. In other words, our unconscious model may be a very complex and subtle set of categorizations, we understand the world by dividing and grouping sense inputs. But I still haven't cracked how the feeling of consciousness arises from this, your comments are pretty interesting and in line with all that. *edit - I understand that this way of describing it is deeply informed by me being a programmer of many years, I imagine a life long woodworker would describe it in terms of their trade!
112 5y ago
Identity and time (the process of remembering the past and projecting the future) are two core ideological viruses that shaped humanity, but that's all they are - ideas we've been thought to model the world around with. Intentional thinking is a completely different game.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  I mean, but they're useful though.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Nothing is useful until you define where do you want to go. I am privileged to enjoy the world the way it is with all we've got thanks to these concepts, despite them obviously being the primary sources of stress (I bloody wish people didn't use clocks for anything but science). But billions of people and animals struggle and could possibly live happier lives if we didn't get "here". I think the optimum is in the middle - use time and identity but keep aware these are just concepts and avoid taking them seriously. Never really self-identify with your "identity". You are you, not your profession, public image, body appearance, gender, age, ethnicity or anything. Believing "identity" is something real, let alone important, leads to all sorts of struggle and existential crisis ultimately. Just look at some unhappy old people struggling to make sense of their lives after they retired and their children moved away. I feel like I would already go nuts or something if I seriously perceived time and identity the conventional way, wouldn't even need to get old. This probably is what turns people into alcoholics or worse.
bemmu 5y ago
If you can speak several languages, then you can also notice that in the moment before choosing which language to express something in, you already “just know“ what you mean. At that point even if you don’t turn it into words, you know the thought anyway.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Some forgetfulness sort of helps even more in this: oftentimes I can't actually recall a relevant word/phrase in any of the languages I know although I know there are. I usually manage to find the words after a pause but the gap between the experience of the sense I want to express and its verbalization can feel huge.

plutonorm 5y ago

I agree the unconscious is the one delivering the 'stuff'. If you know anything about neural networks, you may have come across an autoencoder. This is what I think is happening as information gets passed into the conscious mind. We are aware of the shifting patterns of non verbal thought within our mind, when we pay attention, this is viewing the compressed output of the inner mind - just as the second stage of an autoencoder views the compressed output of its first stage. The unconscious is unconscious because it's machinations are not directly recorded into memory and so we cannot self reflect upon them. But of course in the moment that part of our mind is conscious just as we are, it's just that that consciousness cannot be recalled. So this article is calling for the shutting down of the fore mind so that we can better listen to and interpret the output of the subconscious. And further to start to think in terms of the same non verbal architecture that the subconscious moves with. It is also apparent to me that this matches with the MBTI personality classification system. Sensing types rely upon machinations within the fore mind, logic, verbal translations of inner thought - whereas the intuitives listen directly to the unconscious. I'm an intuitive and when solving a problem I will often simply wait for the answer to arrive.

fjabre 5y ago

You have touched on some very old knowledge found in Hindu and Buddhist texts. You do not exist in the same frame of reference as the objects you perceive. You are fixed while the objects perceived are subject to spacetime. The sense of existence is all that you are. Free will and control over external environment are only apparent. We claim to be the owner of actions and deeds. Claims do not make it so. The senses and intellect are easily fooled, i.e. Dreaming or VR. I suggest the Upanishads for anyone looking for more. Eknath Easwaran’s version is an excellent read.

FeepingCreature 5y ago
I don't agree that that view is correct. Perceived self and perceived reality are abstractions, but that doesn't mean they aren't real. Also I'm a compatibilist, meaning that I think that free will arises from and within determinism. At any rate, how can you tell anyone "what they are"? That's a subjective categorization; it can be useful or useless, but I don't know how it can be mistaken even in principle. My consciousness isn't the (only) thing that thinks or makes decisions, but I am more than my consciousness. My consciousness is just a part of the system that I view as my self.
- klik99 5y ago
  >> that doesn't mean they aren't real. This feels a little semantic. In buddhism this is partly due to sunyata being translated as "emptiness," which implies "not real" or "doesn't exist." I think most people are on the same page on this instinctively but struggle to find the words because it's not something that can easily be put in words, but in the words of Leonard Cohen "everybody knows" What is free will? Is there a non-free will?
  - FeepingCreature 5y ago
    I mean, I don't think there is non-free will either, but this debate is kind of confused because the widespread concept of philosophical free will, as "choosing one of a set of possible alternative futures to become real", is either self-contradictory or forces some very strange models of selfhood, to the extent of requiring some form of dualism or magical powers of consciousness. In contrast, I just think that people can evaluate imaginary futures and select which seems most pleasing, then act to bring it about, and that this is what free will is in the decisionmaking sense. But I don't think that's the same meaning of will as in this article, which seems to refer more to the ability to act from intention at all. I think people instinctively feel that more extensive concepts of selfhood "aren't real" more because they don't have the conceptual tools to recognize and describe their presence in their minds. Most people behave as if self and control are real, at least. For context, I believe that the universe fundamentally consists in a kind of mathematical structure; I don't think there is a reason to postulate a difference between "matter" and "the laws of physics" as a plain mathematical abstraction. As an extension of that, it seems to me that "models" of reality, such as self and the subjective perception of the universe, are embedded, compressed mathematical structures that can be viewed as a simplified abstraction plus an error term. We hold these models precisely because they predict and enable control of the larger system; this is occasionally useful. :) As such, I think they are fundamentally constructed, but not arbitrary - I think that's my major disagreement with the buddhist view.

klik99 5y ago

As a side project I've been trying to build a conception of consciousness/unconsciousness with unconsciousness as a mental model, in a sense of a programmed simulation continually attempting to mirror the inputs from the senses, and consciousness as a programmer to override or possibly act as another input, but it's power is pretty weak. It would make sense that it would look like machine learning, as we find machine learning useful because it categories inputs in a similar way to the way we do. In other words, our unconscious model may be a very complex and subtle set of categorizations, we understand the world by dividing and grouping sense inputs. But I still haven't cracked how the feeling of consciousness arises from this, your comments are pretty interesting and in line with all that. *edit - I understand that this way of describing it is deeply informed by me being a programmer of many years, I imagine a life long woodworker would describe it in terms of their trade!

112 5y ago

Identity and time (the process of remembering the past and projecting the future) are two core ideological viruses that shaped humanity, but that's all they are - ideas we've been thought to model the world around with. Intentional thinking is a completely different game.

FeepingCreature 5y ago
I mean, but they're useful though.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Nothing is useful until you define where do you want to go. I am privileged to enjoy the world the way it is with all we've got thanks to these concepts, despite them obviously being the primary sources of stress (I bloody wish people didn't use clocks for anything but science). But billions of people and animals struggle and could possibly live happier lives if we didn't get "here". I think the optimum is in the middle - use time and identity but keep aware these are just concepts and avoid taking them seriously. Never really self-identify with your "identity". You are you, not your profession, public image, body appearance, gender, age, ethnicity or anything. Believing "identity" is something real, let alone important, leads to all sorts of struggle and existential crisis ultimately. Just look at some unhappy old people struggling to make sense of their lives after they retired and their children moved away. I feel like I would already go nuts or something if I seriously perceived time and identity the conventional way, wouldn't even need to get old. This probably is what turns people into alcoholics or worse.

bemmu 5y ago

If you can speak several languages, then you can also notice that in the moment before choosing which language to express something in, you already “just know“ what you mean. At that point even if you don’t turn it into words, you know the thought anyway.

qwerty456127 5y ago
Some forgetfulness sort of helps even more in this: oftentimes I can't actually recall a relevant word/phrase in any of the languages I know although I know there are. I usually manage to find the words after a pause but the gap between the experience of the sense I want to express and its verbalization can feel huge.