Consciousness v. awareness

Although there were many interesting comments about my last post, I wanted to single out one thread of the discussion in particular. Matthew Cromer, who maintains a blog of his own, addressed my point that "if the transcendent mind (God or Cosmic Consciousness or what have you) collapses the wave function, then the wave function should collapse instantly at every moment, because there's never a moment when God isn't looking."

He wrote, 

In software development, we have a concept called "lazy initialization".

What it means is that information is retrieved only when it is needed.

For example, I might display a tree model of my hard drive (think of Windows Explorer, or the Finder if you are a Mac guy).

One way to generate the tree would be to catalog the complete contents of the hard drive, and then populate all the folders and subfolders with folder and file icons.

However, for most software tasks, that is not done. It consumes too many resources to generate a complete model of all the folders, subfolders, etc. and keep it updated at all times. Instead, the contents of each folder are retrieved when it is opened. So to discover a file located deep within the hierarchy, a series of queries are performed against the file system index as each folder is opened.

I suspect that the universe is the same. As each observation is made, then and only then is a particular part of the universe made actual. I suspect the "users" of the universe are the ones who bring these parts of the universe into reality.

The question becomes, who counts as a user? And what kinds of observation get made? All of that is an open mystery.

The question "Who counts as a user?" led me to think about a suggestion made on an earlier thread by another commenter - that we can distinguish between consciousness and awareness. Unfortunately I don't recall offhand who said this, but whoever it is should feel free to identify himself. In any case, I think this may be a useful distinction and may tie in with the philosophical idea of neutral monism, which is associated with Spinoza and, more recently, with Alfred North Whitehead. (The closing chapter of Irreducible Mind makes a case for neutral monism.)

According to one definition, neutral monism holds that reality is all of one kind, neither mental nor physical. Another source tells us that in neutral monism, "neither mind nor matter is ontologically basic, but are both reducible ... to another more fundamental principle that is 'neutral' between them." (Kenneth Sayre)

Now, it occurs to me that we might use the consciousness-awareness distinction to our advantage here. Suppose we define awareness as focused attention, which constitutes Mind. Consciousness, on the other hand, is something else again - something difficult, maybe impossible, to define. It is the ground of being, the substrate of awareness, the sense of continuity that connects one moment of focused attention with another.

After all, we do not exercise focused attention all the time. We are aware in fits and starts. We focus on something ... then there is a gap of no particular focus ... then we focus on something else. This gap may be very brief, but it is there and can be detected by meditation. In fact, the process of meditation consists of homing in on this gap and extending it, until awareness, in the sense of focused attention on particular thoughts, drops away, and what is left is only a generalized being. (One might say that meditation involves losing awareness or Mind in order to make room for consciousness or pure being.)

Let us say, then, that this generalized being is consciousness, as distinct from the focused attention that is awareness or Mind.

Okay. Then we might say that "the more fundamental principle that is neutral between" Mind (awareness) and matter is consciousness.*

Now, if the ground of being is consciousness in the above sense, then everything that exists is a part of consciousness, an aspect of consciousness, a manifestation of consciousness, or however you want to say it. The most fundamental "material" building blocks of reality - subatomic particles, say - are bits of consciousness. They are the contents of consciousness and they are consciousness in and of themselves. This does not mean they are aware or that they have minds. It does not mean they are capable of focused attention.

So we have consciousness as the ground of being, which gives rise to "material objects" that we might describe as thought-forms, and these thought-forms are themselves conscious but not, in most cases, aware. But at some point in this process, a thought-form arises that is not only conscious but aware. What the threshold of awareness is, I don't know. It might be a one-celled organism or it might be an animal or it might be a human being. At this point, whatever it may be, awareness enters the picture, and with awareness comes focused attention and Mind.

How does this relate to the quantum paradox of wave-particle duality that is central to our discussion? We might say that consciousness does not collapse the probability wave  into a localized observation. Only awareness can do this. We might go on to say that consciousness has no need to force such a collapse, since its contents can include an infinite set of possibilities. But Mind, being finite (as opposed to consciousness or pure being, which is infinite), cannot hold an infinite set of possibilities and so is required to collapse the wave function into a specific, localized "object."

If this is so,then a physical mind-brain is not necessarily required to make the observation. What us required is only the sort of Mind (focused attention, awareness) that is conventionally associated with a physical mind-brain structure.

In this case, consciousness has always existed and is all that does or can exist. The physical universe is a congeries of thought-forms that comprise the contents of this consciousness. These thought-forms are themselves conscious to varying  degrees, but most of them are not aware. Some of the more complex thought-forms, such as humans, are aware and are thus able to use their focused attention to collapse a nearly infinite array of possibilities into localized observations that we call "objects" or "facts."

I realize that there are many problems and difficulties with this suggestion, and it may not actually get us anywhere except deeper into confusion, but I throw it out for whatever (if anything) it may be worth.

---

*Some neutral monists, like the above-quoted Kenneth Sayre, say that the fundamental principle not consciousness but information. I do not see how information can exist apart from a matrix of consciousness. The information "2 + 2 = 4" cannot exist outside of consciousness, it seems to me. In fact, the simplest solution to a variety of philosophical dilemmas, such as the problem of universals, is to say that all properties and qualities are ultimately contents of consciousness.

Comments

[Jack Sadoul]

Do you think this would fit with Dr. Roger Penrose's suggestion that consciousness IS the collapse of the wave function? I'm not sure whether or not Penrose makes the same distinction between awareness and consciousness you have- I doubt he has- but at first glance there doesn't necessarily need to be a contradiction. I'm not sure whether Penrose's "consciousness" should be equated to your "consciousness," or your "awareness."

[Matthew C]

It's tough to have these sorts of discussions, because there are so many squishy ways that words like consciousness and awareness are used. I would tend to call the universal phenomenon Awareness and use the term consciousness for self-awareness.

In any event, I think your ideas about this are quite intriguing.

[william]

“(One might say that meditation involves losing awareness or Mind in order to make room for consciousness or pure being.) “ Do we not in meditation strive to lose that continuous flow of conscious thoughts and reach a point of purer awareness?

I believe reality is often 180 degrees from what we perceive it to be. Is this universal “isness” that most call God a universal consciousness or perfect awareness? From my point of view consciousness is a creation and manifestation of this perfect awareness. We may very well need another term for this perfect awareness as awareness has been taught as a synonym of consciousness.

As our consciousness grows due to I suspect many lifetimes of experiences we become more aware of an underlying reality of physical phenomena. What separates us (perception only) from this perfect awareness is an innocence of our true identity. Stated another way Perfect Awareness plus innocence equals consciousness. Without that innocence there is no creation/manifestation of unique souls.

Perfect Awareness is the creative principle in the universe.

Consciousness is necessary for the phenomenal world to exist. Stated in I suppose religious terms for God to experience its “isness” it must manifest itself as something less than perfect awareness. That something less than perfect awareness is consciousness.

The perfection of this universal mind is not consciousness but awareness.

Michael I know you put a lot of confidence in the experiences of the mystics and I believe that the mystics have become more aware of reality. They see a reality that at this time we are unable to see and experience. They have become more aware for reasons we have yet to discern.

As our conscious mind grows in its understanding of reality we become more aware of reality. As our consciousness grows we become more and more aware that we are not a unique individual self outside this infinite mind but an “aspect” of that universal mind.

Consciousness is the vehicle that allows us to participate within this infinite mind. As our consciousness grows in awareness we slowly begin to realize our connection to this oneness or what some call universal mind.

It is very difficult to introduce a new paradigm. I discovered this subtle difference during the six years I tried to connect the dots between ignorance and suffering and asked the question: what is the origin of that ignorance?

I am not going to pretend that these statements I have just made are infallible but it is what I see at this time in my journey.

[william]

“It's tough to have these sorts of discussions, because there are so many squishy ways that words like consciousness and awareness are used. I would tend to call the universal phenomenon Awareness and use the term consciousness for self-awareness.”

I think after that extremely long blog of mine what MC stated above may be more to the point. I might add that as this self-awareness grows we become more and more aligned with this infinite universal pure awareness.

An interesting observation of mine is that most of us fear giving up our personal self-identity but the reality may be that we never give up our identity but as our awareness matures our “identity” becomes “that that is” which in my vocabulary is perfect awareness.

[drew hempel]

The real consciousness becoming awareness! Check out qigong master Chunyi Lin! He's an amazing healing working with the Mayo Clinic and showing how everyone can heal! Brand new radio interview for free!

http://www.springforestqigong.com/content/view/56/85/

[alanborky]

Michael, I suspect one of the problems we really face when evaluating anything is we assume all those words tumbling around in our heads are our quintessential selves thinking and deciding.

Yet if you've watched these verbal based thoughts long enough, you may've come to the same conclusion as me, namely, they're something quite separate from our REAL selves, something society's grafted on to us, something I dub 'the Narrator'.

I'll give you an example of what I mean:

Imagine you're sitting there, watching the TV, and suddenly you spring to your feet.

You think, 'I think I'll make a cup of tea'.

So you head out towards the kettle.

But then you find yourself walking past the kettle towards the toilet.

So you say to yourself, 'I think I'll just have a pee, first'.

But after you've had your pee you immediately walk straight back past the kettle to the TV, telling yourself, 'O, I've changed my mind'.

If you've watched these sorts of thoughts long enough, and the contexts in which they occur, you may've noticed how at such times you always automatically assume you've consciously chosen to carry out your actions.

But then you may've noticed how your body and ultimately your brain'd already initiated the actions before your verbal thoughts even had a chance to kick in.

Then you may've noticed how you were actually momentarily surprised to find yourself getting up, and that when you thought the thought, 'I think I'll make a cup of tea', you were actually only trying to explain to yourself why you were getting up.

Then you may've noticed how you then assumed, okay, while you didn't actually DECIDE to get up afterall, when you decided to make a cup of tea, you immediately put yourself back in charge by making that decision.

But then you may've noticed how the 'decision' to make tea was actually still only really an explanation, because not only did you walk past the kettle to the toilet, but on your way back you walked straight back past it to the TV.

Ditto you may've noticed your 'decision' to have a pee was also only an explanation, ditto your 'decision' to change your mind about having a cup of tea.

I'm not sure how much research's been done in this area but based on a lifetime of personal observation I'm fairly certain if enough electrodes and monitors were strapped all over the bodies of enough people for long enough, it'd become perfectly clear to everyone that not only are all our physical actions initiated long before we verbally 'decide' upon them, but that our REAL mind, our REAL consciousness, as is the case with children, functions completely independently of what we call our 'thoughts'.

The problem is we're trained to believe that without words in particular, but also numbers, we not only can't think, and can't act, but we don't actually exist.

Then again, maybe it's just me.

[Bill Ingle]

I hope to get more thoroughly involved with this discussion when I can.

In the meantime, my own "general map" of being, identity, and consciousness includes what I'll call "regions" (some call these 'domains').

These are all connected, although they usually _seem_ distinct:

o Conscious self;
o Inner self;
o Entity; and
o All.

This is simplified for my own meditational purposes -- there is much more, 'mega' entity regions, for example.

Everyone is familiar with conscious self; inner self is just 'beneath' it; entity is that region associated with all life experiences (a huge area, larger than many might assume); All is self explanatory.

Each region includes self awareness (I am not distinguishing between awareness and consciousness, for the most part); what I experiment with is _focusing_ on each particular region while meditating.

Physical reality is associated with conscious self and the physical senses and here is where my activities connect with the ponderings about QM (which I don't claim to fully understand).

I suggest that we each create our own unique physical continuum with everything in it but in accordance with certain "ground rules." (This is more or less straight from Jane Robert's Seth.)

Mass reality is created by coordination, largely telepathic in nature; obviously, physical reality includes more than just humans -- take the earth itself, for example. Thus a full picture must incorporate other non-human regions.

Meanwhile, I treat the physical brain as, in essence, a transducer. It "steps down" what we'll call "energies."

Can I relate this to QM? Maybe, but I'm not completely convinced the effort is worth it.

The map I use could be completely incorrect, but as a guide to inner experimenting it does work for me.

Regards

Bill

I think the general Samkhya framework can get rid of a lot of these problems. In the Samkhya, matter exists in a subtle and unmanifest form. In the presence of "consciousness," matter becomes manifest.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Samkhya/evolution.htm

[drew hempel]

Hey thanks -- that's the best summary of Samkhya that I've read! The Tai-chi symbol is the same as the gunas is the same as the Tetrad -- all connected by music in every culture being based on the 1-4-5 harmonic intervals.

Here is another good summary of the Samkhya:

http://ignca.nic.in/ps_04013.htm

[drew hempel]

The "subjects" of pure consciousness implies a final state of evolution consisting of souls eternally liberated from matter in some astral level. This new summary you have given connects the gunas with matter and the consciousness with light. This is why Advaita Vedanta states that only consciousness is real and that there are no subjects, nor evolution! But equally problematic, most followers of Advaita Vedanta don't realize that Ramana Maharshi literally killed himself and then came back to life, after his heart stopped for over 10 minutes, thereby achieving "eternal liberation." He stated that only then, after 9 years in solitude, did he "cut the knot" on the right-side of the heart and become a jnana.

Certainly this paradox of eternally liberated subject versus just the illusion of individuality is deep because most Advaita Vedanta followers consider jnana to be achieved when consciousness naturally and spontaneously arises. But the question remains -- to whom does it arise? Ramana Maharshi taught that if the I-thought still arises then "I-I" must be repeated to pursue its source -- the heart chakra. He meant that death must be transcended while still in the body and that this embodiment of formless awareness -- as an UnDead Zombie -- is the only means of eternal liberation.

Since only a Jnana can determine another Jnana -- not by any outward signs of miracles, etc., -- then obviously this stage of "eternal liberation" could easily become a con-game. Also, even more obviously, most people would not want to sincerely practice something that in actually transcends suicide (even though the greatest Jain saints starved themselves to death).

With these paradoxes in mind about Advaita Vedanta how could I slight Samkhya? haha

[Namaste]

And before this, before words and numbers, there was vision. And when you see it, you do find a way to describe it, and hence we have words, and numbers. It evolves, before that we were apes,then we ate from the trees of knowledge and what once we get over our ignorance will the future hold?

[william]

I don’t believe at this time that humans have the ability to be eternally liberated while living in a human body. I think there is a very long progression ahead of us before we give up some resemblance of a personal identity. We humans I suspect are very low on the evolutionary scale.

The exception may be a divine being that comes to earth on a mission to serve others and even then while this deity is serving others I suspect some kind of purification is going on within the deity’s consciousness.

Gradual on-going continuous improvement with some rare spikes of "realizations" may describe the general flow of life.

[drew hempel]

This is exactly the issue. Science currently argues that humans are a combination of bonobos and chimps. Brain asymmetry coevolved with bipedalism and tool use. It was recently discovered that female chimps use spears to hunt! Otherwise female chimps are at the behest of males who use meat in exchange for sex. When the female shows that she is ovulating the male stands, looking up, shaking a branch, to signal he wants sex. If the female does not respond, because shes already enjoying some fruit, then the male charges up the tree and rapes the female. Read "Significant Others: The Ape-Human Continuum and the Quest for Human Nature" by professor Craig Sanford for details.

I bring all this up because when primates were not bipedal, say more like orangutans, then SOUND was the dominant sense -- not vision.

The amazing paradoxes of sound is that as pressure it creates anti-gravity but as the practicing of "listening" it resonates back to formless awareness. When brain symmetry is restored then the 3rd Eye opens up and the bliss of harmony is restored.

The left-brain-right hand dominance of science is literally replacing left-hand carbon-based molecules of Nature with right-hand technology-produced molecules of deep disharmony -- the ecological crisis and increasing social injustice.

Science is not evolution and the term is ironic since it was coined at the industrial revolution that has destroyed the source of evolution -- ecology.

Language uses only a small part of the brain while music uses all of the brain and transcendes the brain through transduction of sound into ultrasound and ionization of chemicals into light and then back into spacetime reversal.

That is of course a language-based description but it's modeled by the infinite spiral resonance of 2:3 as a nonlinear waveform -- the Tai-chi symbol. In the Law of Pythagoras C to G is 2:3 while G to C is 3:4 with C x G not equaling G to C. Asymmetry goes against the basic equipartition principles of science, since the rational number system is inherently aligned with the phonetic language system.

The myth of the "tree of knowledge" is literally the imbalance of language through religion. God is the Heart and the "tree of life" is sex energy and "tree of knowledge" is mind energy. Phonetic knowledge is based on the "separation of heaven and earth" with heaven as the mind and earth as the body.

Fruit eating by primates established the original territorality with strict monogamous couples (gibbons) based on the limited resource of high sugar-fat nutrition.

[william]

Drew it appears our research has taken two different paths. Maybe we are talking on the same topic but I am not sure. My research has been into such topics as the possibility of life after death and the meaning of life. Contrary to what some state I have always felt that life has meaning even if it is for this apparent isness in the universe to have experiences or whatever.

[Bill Ingle]

How can the general Samkhya framework be personally "tested" such that it becomes much more than an abstract description?

There are so many frameworks, with a great number of similarities and yet differences, too; validation for some at can be at least partially obtained by doing "exercises," as for example Gurdjieff's "Watch yourself and remember yourself" (quite powerful if you can keep this up for any period of time).

Clearly, with so many frameworks to choose from and a limited time in which to do so, we must make choices.

Under these circumstances, I prefer something as simple (yet effective) as possible, plus I am leery of leaning too heavily on any particular teachings, no matter how highly esteemed, as I tend to believe that reality is best appreciated (and explored) as a perpetually fresh experience.

What if, for example, there were no authorities whatsoever to serve as guides in such pursuits -- what if we had to start anew, from "scratch?"

Bill

[drew hempel]

I just wrote a review for a new book on paradoxes of time, motion and progress:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product//0525949925/ref=cm_rv_thx_view/104-2831386-1355116

[Leo]

Hey,Michael I have came across some comments about what those closed-minded skeptics had to say about your article on James Randi's Flim Flam

http://forums.randi.org/archive/index.php/t-52791.html

[Matthew C]

Leo, a fun read.

I like this comment at the end:

"I think somebody got to Michael Prescott's pocketbook."

Hey guys. I'll sell out to the skeptics for the right price! And I bet if you outbid the woo-woo crowd, you can get Michael back on your side too!

[drew hempel]

I've been attacked on the Flim Flam Flunkies Forum as well! haha. All I did was post someone else's debunking of Magic Randi on my blog and presto! I guess the Skeptics got a kick out of my blog, as per http://tricksterbook.com -- George P. Hansen really has figured out what makes the Skeptics tick.

Then someone complained to Magic Randi about qigong Master Chunyi Lin presenting at their workplace and so Magic Randi attacked Master Lin without knowing anything about Master Lin! haha

Qigong Master Lin just co-authored a chapter for a Mayo Clinic medical textbook with Mayo Cinic doctor Nina Mishek. Here's other doctors that support Master Lin -- below.

I studied with Master Lin. Anyone who takes his class can immediately experience the paranormal. Master Lin does long distance healing all the time and he spent 28 days in a cave, sitting in full-lotus, without taking food or water!

http://www.springforestqigong.com/content/view/14/37/

[Tim]

That Randi forum was actually well-behaved compared to some of the profanity-ridden, hateful scenes I've seen. But their ignorance about SRI is amazing, if predictable. If you read "Extraordinary Knowing" or just see Joe McMoneagle in action, it's very clear that the RV results were exceptional.

[Leo]

Hi,Michael this is really interesting there is a article about a critque to the article in time about the mystery of consciousness by steve pinker. This article totatlly slaughters the idea that the brain produces consciousness.

http://www.truthforce.info/?q=node/view/2233

[Tim]

Great article, Leo. Very cogent, smart and comprehensive. I was personally ticked off by Pinker's tone in the Time piece: very know-it-all in telling readers "Everyone knows all this is true." One thing that's becoming clear about the human condition is how desperate we are to think we KNOW all the answers.

He didn't even get into the vast evidence from the book Irreducible Mind, which Michael has referenced. I just finished the chapter on psychophysiological influence, and...WOW.

[MarkL]

alanborky said: Then again, maybe it's just me.

Alan, it's not just you. I've had the exact same experience (without needing years of meditation) after wearing something called the Shakti Helmet set to the 40 Hz "consciousness" frequency. I found myself doing things without "deciding" to do them. I've come to the conclusion that while our conscious mind can initiate actions it usually functions as a censor, i.e. actions initiated by the unconscious are monitored by the conscious to be sure they are appropriate for real-world conditions. Until you've experienced this you fool yourself into thinking "you" (the ego) makes all the decisions.

[Matthew]

I agree Tim, Chapter 3 of Irreducible Minds is just a devastating blow to reductionism.

[drew hempel]

I noticed this unconscious dynamic a couple times today. For example subconsciously my dad wanted to make sure there was enough space in the driveway so that a maintenance person could get into the garage with a car. But since this was out of the ordinary his conscious reaction was to not pull his car up as far as normal so that it looked unusual to him. Only after the car was turned off and he was getting out did he go: "Wow I'm really not pulled up as far as normal and I need to pull up enough to make sure there's enough space for the maintenance car...." In otherwords subconsciously he overcompensated in the opposite direction in order to make sure his conscious mind did the appropriate action.

So then I had a bunch of meat in my hand after coming out of the car but instead of just going up the stairs I stood there just waiting near the doorway -- as if I didn't know what I was doing. Subconsciously though I wanted to eat some bison sausage that my dad had bought but I didn't want him to find out. So he sees me just standing there, apparently pointlessly, and he orders me to bring the meat upstairs while he stays downstairs. Now that I've been given the order to bring the meat up (instead of just ambling up on my own volition) I'm able to consciously bolt up the stairs without causing any suspicion and eat the bison sausage without getting caught.

Those are two very simple examples of how the subconsious creates actions that seemingly don't make sense to people around us yet they create situations of reverse psychology enabling the conscious decisions to have greater efficacy.

[Bruce Duensing]

My own view is that the conscious is entirely self referential while awareness is a fluid set of sensate distinctions that are conceptualising and modeling in the formation of the conscious. Once the sensate is removed, as many old texts convey, you enter a self referential reality where the inside is outside and the outside is inside if you will, the dualism of heaven or hell is only limited by your attachment and identification to either one. The accumulation, storage and transformation of energy in the physical mirrors the same in awareness. One facet or an infinite amount of facets comprise the whole totality of sentinent awareness. The universe or the Supreme Intellect gains consciousness through our awareness of Him and we in turn, are given awareness to mirror ourselves in the same manner by reflecting the universe. The distinction between similarity and incomparabilty falls into play. We are similar but not comparable.

[william]

“The universe or the Supreme Intellect gains consciousness through our awareness of Him and we in turn, are given awareness to mirror ourselves in the same manner by reflecting the universe. The distinction between similarity and incomparabilty falls into play. We are similar but not comparable.”

Very interesting comments Bruce. The term supreme intellect I might prefer to state supreme intelligence. I have worked with a lot of intellectuals but felt there is a huge difference between intelligence and intellectual capability. As I am very interested in how you stated this relationship between awareness and consciousness, I wonder if you would elaborate more on this paragraph.

[Bruce Duensing]

This would require a book, Ill try to be brief in your visit to my little slice of reality.It has more to do with operating systems and their relationships to one another. According to my current conceptual modeling, there are similarities and incomparabilty manifested between the observed and the observer dependant upon which point of reference or observation you are occupying as well as the state of observation. In other words you cannot compare all points of observation in sum total as manifested within a Supreme Intelligence with one reflective platform..they are incomparible. Although from a certain vantage point, they are one and the same.The secret is that if you tell the locals this and they don't understand this relationship, you are looking at being crucified or martyred. We could not even begin to fathom this intelligence or state of being, of which we are similar to but not comparible to. The expansion of what we term the empirical universe is due to the expansion of a reciprocal relationship. In other words, we are similar to, but not comparible to what is what the process is that we observe in the empirical on a planetary basis as well as within our own constitutions. Energy and matter are interchangable, they are all follow a process of storage ( light trapped by gravitational forces),transformed ( planetary processes)or radiated as electronic energy. Our solar system is a polyphase transformer, the sun is the primary and the planets are secondaries.If you measure the diameters of the secondaries you will find these wire cross sections applicable to this purpose. This is not the flying balls of a mechcanical universe. The mineral matter, dependant on rotational speed, transforms this matter into electronic energy. There are different phases of planetary evolution, the highest being a sun. No rotational speed, no life. No movement no conscious life. All of this simply put is also a part of our processes, the transformation of energy we manifest in this process, albeit on a differing scale. We transform mineral, cellular and molecular forms of matter ascending in fineness to produce a very rarified energy in both biological and electronic informational forms. We are not a final product as we assume but only a gestational locus of maifestation. But we are in a unique position in that we, in effect, transform sensate, conceptual information between an external mirror of and an internal self referrential consciousness based soley on self exploration. This is due to our having a mirror which is always being polished just as the mirror between ourselves and the empirical is being polished. Self defining. The universe explores itself in the same manner by having created us.The universe expands as it gains awareness. What is awareness? Its dependant on a state of being in the right combination with a state of knowledge. States are simply differing platforms of observation, subject to transformation by external and internal mirrored effective behavior reaching a zero point of balance. The Holy Fool, the zero card in the tarot is not a fortune telling device.

[Bruce Duensing]

This may be helpful as it has influenced my own point of view.
http://www.sufienneagram.com/overview.html

[william]

Thanks Bruce that was simple. Just kidding. I have been working out in my own mind the relationship of awareness and consciousness for several years. Most count them as synonyms but I suspect there is a subtle but profound difference. My own take at this time is that perfect wakefulness (awareness) is primary and consciousness is secondary.

This is I suspect why sages, mystics, and those that are referred to as the enlightened one’s tell us we are asleep because we lack this perfect wakefulness or stated another way perfect awareness or in your terms supreme intelligence. I am suggesting at this time that perfect or infinite awareness and supreme intelligence may very well be synonyms.

Like you said about a book it would take one for me to try and explain how I arrived at this premise about the relationship of awareness and consciousness in my life. I will check out the website you recommended.

I do agree with you that at this time it is impossible to comprehend this supreme intelligence but I do think the effects of this supreme intelligence are all around us and indeed we are the effect or creative manifestation of that supreme intelligence.

The mystics during their mystical experiences see and feel the effects of this intelligence and for the most part we pay little attention to their words which they themselves admit are inadequate descriptions of their mystical experiences.

[william]

http://www.prahlad.org/disciples/premananda/essays/NISARGADATTA%20CONSCIOUSNESS%20AND%20AWARENESS.htm

Bruce
Although I do not agree with everything said in this article it explains to some degree the difference between awareness and consciousness. Treating awareness and consciousness as synonyms does not take into consideration how the absolute creates and manifests a world of conscious beings. These consciousness beings perceive themselves as separate from this absolute.

The soul journey may look something like this: from absolute to innocence to ignorance to suffering to perfect awareness. Without suffering would we ever find our way to perfect awareness?

I think it is confusing to state that the absolute is unaware of itself. My take on this at this time is that the absolute is aware its oneness but can only experience itself through consciousness. As our consciousness grows through experiences we increase our level of awareness.

[Bruce Duensing]

William,
I agree with you however there are more than one form of suffering. One is intentional and the other occurs as a reactive, yes\no, good\bad etc mechanical responses to external considerations when no one is home in the driver's seat. If you can't remember it, you were not there. Many times I go back and forth between sleep, imagined awakenings, real awakenings. It's difficult. Everything has a price and must be bought. Sleep is said to be the smaller relation of death. In the empirical world we are governed by the dead, who as Gurjieff said, "are losing their bones along the way.." I view the world much differently than most people I come into contact with, and that in of itself, at times, gives evidence to people going about shopping, etc completely asleep..dreaming.....myself included.