Benjay: yes, in introducing states of meditation and lucid dreaming and drug altered states.... you may perhaps hone in on the essence and nuance of what qualifies consciousness and illuminate something of the qualitative texture and subtly and scope of its complexity of modes or states.
There is the notion of awakening or the notion of a coming to consciousness or a higher state of consciousness.... this complicates the generalized notion of consciousness. damn. But it seems "higher consciousness" has something to do with what Spinoza called adequate ideas and also with the notion of 1) clarity 2) concentration 3) serenity 4) active consciousness 5) accuracy and comprehensiveness of conception 6) power of imagination I don't know... this is a really complex subject. p.s. does anything change in the shift from ordinary dreaming to lucid dreaming but the introduction of the revelatory idea "I am dreaming" and all that that intuitively implies to us and the shift or reorientation it accomplishes along with the heightening of self- determination and experimentation and urgency and free spiritedness it harnesses. Generally I like your view on things or your basic insights and mode of discourse (are you really 21? I am 25).... but I want to critique a few things: " After we leave behind pain and strife and come together in peace to learn and blossom ever faster, our lives may become very glorious, and they will become only better... Also, what is the alternative to progress? I have yet to see any way to escape progress." there are a lot of presuppositions underlying this.... but anyways... I want to respond to this by recommending you to reflect on Heraclitus if you haven't already. Or even the symbol yinyang. Also I want to recommend to you the picture of the human condition arising from a read of Pascal and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground... this shows a very interesting picture of the human being, and its inherent rebellion or aversion to your naive picture of technocratic progress and optimism. That is a simple and indirect way to respond to the complexities arising from your optimism. "Optimists and pessimists differ only on the date of the end of the world." Nevertheless, this is a compelling thought: "The universe apparently has a drive towards progress. If we assume the world makes any sense from a point of conscious beings it wouldn't have this drive if there wasn't something to gain by this. If there wasn't, there would be a fundmental error in this omniverse. There is too much perfection in the fundamental principles of the omniverse (as shown by math) for me to believe that. But this is absurd and medieval scholastic logic: "The greatest truth is the truth that is beyond itself and the greatest being the one that is greater even then itself" "Perfection is the beginning, I'd say, and not the end." So perfection is behind us? Like in a Romanticist sense? " We just have to be careful not to understand balance as indifference and pursuit as stress." It seems to me that indifference and stress are implied in both. "Instead we should try find calm, clear-headedness and peace through balance in our lifes - and fun, excitement and motivation through relentless pursuit of our deep wishes and hopes." This sounds to naive and idealistic to me. I am opposed to this notion of peace... some peace is good, but some war and strife and hyperactivity and excitation is good to. Calm, clear-headedness and peace can be a kind of weakness, a kind of overly sensitive and passive meakness... and opposed to the way of things. Calm and peace never last and can not be the main course, as far as I understand. I think Bruno is more right. "Almost all happy people pursue something they think is important." If you read Spinoza's analysis of hope and how it operates... how it is inconstant and shifts into despair... you wonder if hope or these dreams that drive people are not often the cause of despair and disillusionment... or a kind of absurd activity of ever chasing the ever elusive. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
