I can tell you why, or at least what jumps out to me -- physical consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, just like various aspects of our computers are emergent phenomena. Physical consciousness has a kind of biologic foundation, but nowt beyond that. Biology only provides the possibility for consciousness and, through alteration of that foundation, can in various ways alter the functioning of the levels of biology from which consciousness emerges, thereby affecting consciousnes. Otherwise, they're two entirely seperate things.
Our collective understanding of The Way Things Work is that we are essentially noncorporeal -- that is, our essential compnents as beings are nonphysical and not dependent on the body for existence (most people would call that a 'spirit' or 'soul'; we do for simplicity's sake.) The thing is, a nonphysical being cannot experience, much less interact with, the physical world in any really meaningful way. Hence physical incarnation. But physical consciousness emerges from the complex animal brain (even relatively simple animal brains, though not nearly the same way as humans and other 'higher' mammals, hence why humans tend to think of them as 'lower' or 'inferior' because they haven't overcome the egocentrism that causes them to assume that their form of consciousness/self-awareness is the only form, and therefore anything that does not share the human brain paradigm cannot possibly be conscious or self-aware) on its own, for reasons unknown (emergent phenomena aren't very well understood yet; we've made a big leap just to be able to identify them. Consciousness is generally considered the ultimate emergent phenomenon but there are plenty of others.) So what happens, at least as we understand it, is that an incarnate being ends up with three distinct portions of selfness -- the body, with its tools for perceiving and interacting with the world; the mind, which is the emergent phenomenon of the brain as it processes, analyses, sorts, and stores all that incoming information; and the spirit, which is filtered through the capacity of the mind and brain to control the body. The interaction between spirit and mind is where all these different permutations of consciousness occur.
At least, that's the idea. I have no idea how much truth is in that; it's just what I've assembled in the 22 years of this life with as much input as I can get from Drrkhn's memories and other bits of past-life errata, visionquesting and talking to spirits, et cetera.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-11-25 06:12 am (UTC)Our collective understanding of The Way Things Work is that we are essentially noncorporeal -- that is, our essential compnents as beings are nonphysical and not dependent on the body for existence (most people would call that a 'spirit' or 'soul'; we do for simplicity's sake.) The thing is, a nonphysical being cannot experience, much less interact with, the physical world in any really meaningful way. Hence physical incarnation. But physical consciousness emerges from the complex animal brain (even relatively simple animal brains, though not nearly the same way as humans and other 'higher' mammals, hence why humans tend to think of them as 'lower' or 'inferior' because they haven't overcome the egocentrism that causes them to assume that their form of consciousness/self-awareness is the only form, and therefore anything that does not share the human brain paradigm cannot possibly be conscious or self-aware) on its own, for reasons unknown (emergent phenomena aren't very well understood yet; we've made a big leap just to be able to identify them. Consciousness is generally considered the ultimate emergent phenomenon but there are plenty of others.) So what happens, at least as we understand it, is that an incarnate being ends up with three distinct portions of selfness -- the body, with its tools for perceiving and interacting with the world; the mind, which is the emergent phenomenon of the brain as it processes, analyses, sorts, and stores all that incoming information; and the spirit, which is filtered through the capacity of the mind and brain to control the body. The interaction between spirit and mind is where all these different permutations of consciousness occur.
At least, that's the idea. I have no idea how much truth is in that; it's just what I've assembled in the 22 years of this life with as much input as I can get from Drrkhn's memories and other bits of past-life errata, visionquesting and talking to spirits, et cetera.