an online book by David Gurteen
Consciousness | The Greatest Mystery in The UniverseConsciousness is the state of being sensory aware of and responsive to the world around us and of ourselves: our activities, bodies, and mental lives.
Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of internal and external existence. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debate by philosophers, theologians, and all of science. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked.
Examples of the range of descriptions, definitions or explanations are: ordered distinction between self and environment, simple wakefulness, one's sense of selfhood or soul explored by "looking within"; being a metaphorical "stream" of contents, or being a mental state, mental event, or mental process of the brain.
Credit: Wikipedia - consciousnessIn this book, Changing Consciousness, David Bohm and Mark Edwards show how we need to adopt a new way of thinking in order to solve the crises facing the planet. Their thesis is presented in dialogue form, accompanied by a photo essay. Through the examination of a totality or whole system, they suggest that we may … Continue reading Changing Consciousness by David Bohm & Mark Edwards (1991)
For both the rich and the poor, life is dominated by an ever-growing current of problems, most of which seem to have no real and lasting solution. Clearly, we have not touched the deeper causes of our troubles. It is the main point of this book that the ultimate source of all these problems is in … Continue reading We Have Not Touched the Deeper Causes of Our Troubles David Bohm
In this book The Empathic Civilization, Jeremy Rifkin tells the story of the extension of human empathy from the rise of the first great theological civilizations, to the ideological age that dominated the 18th and 19th centuries, the psychological era that characterized much of the 20th century and the emerging dramaturgical period of the 21st … Continue reading The Empathic Civilization: the Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis Jeremy Rifkin (2010)
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. Credit: Albert Einstein (paraphrase of original text) Source: Albert Einstein on problem solving (One of several paraphrases of what he originally wrote)Posts where this quotation is embedded Artificial Intelligence Verses Natural Intelligence A profound distinction Consciousness ** Our subjective experience of the world Enlightenment … Continue reading Solving Problems and Consciousness Albert Einstein (paraphrase of original text)
The Knowledge Age of the past two decades is passing today as the digital revolution and artificial intelligence replace knowledge work. William Halal’s study of social evolution explains how this marks the passage to a new frontier beyond poorly understood knowledge — an “Age of Consciousness” is here. But more pandemics, climate change, gross inequality, … Continue reading Beyond Knowledge: How Technology Is Driving an Age of Consciousness by William E. Halal (2021)
Consciousness is everything you experience. It is the tune stuck in your head, the sweetness of chocolate mousse, the throbbing pain of a toothache, the fierce love for your child and the bitter knowledge that eventually all feelings will end. Credit: Christof Koch Source: Scientific American – What Is Consciousness?Posts where this quotation is embedded Artificial … Continue reading Consciousness Is Everything You Experience Christof Koch
Gurteen Knowledge Blog February 15, 2022, 11:53In his book Beyond Knowledge – How technology is driving an age of consciousness, Bill Halal predicts the Age of Consciousness — an age where our collective global consciousness reaches a level where it starts to impact the world significantly for the better. An era that, at least for now, I am more inclined … Continue reading What Is Global Consciousness? Consciousness, collective consciousness, higher consciousness, and global consciousness
Gurteen Knowledge Blog March 3, 2022, 10:40I wasn’t aware Henry Kissinger (United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford) was still alive. At 98 years old, he seems to be still going strong. This Time article Henry Kissinger’s Last Crusade: Stopping Dangerous AI is interesting. … Continue reading Henry Kissinger and Artificial Intelligence We are moving into a new period of human consciousness
We are moving into a new period of human consciousness which we don’t yet fully understand. When we say a new period of human consciousness, we mean that the perception of the world will be different, at least as different as between the age of enlightenment and the medieval period, when the Western world moved … Continue reading We Are Moving Into a New Period of Human Consciousness Henry Kissinger
We each perceive things differently | Clip from An Ecology Of Mind directed by Nora Bateson Posts where this video is embedded Artificial Intelligence Verses Natural Intelligence A profound distinction Consciousness ** Our subjective experience of the world Enlightenment 2.0 21st century enlightenment Focus Group Café An improvement on traditional focus groups? Global Consciousness The capacity and disposition to understand … Continue reading We Each Perceive Things Differently Nora Bateson, Tim Keanini
In this book, Future Minds, Richard Yonck challenges our assumptions about intelligence — what it is, how it came to exist, and its place in the development of life on Earth and possibly throughout the cosmos. Taking a Big History perspective — over the 14 billion years from the Big Bang to the present and … Continue reading Future Minds: the Rise of Intelligence From the Big Bang to the End of the Universe by Richard Yonck
Human consciousness has long puzzled philosophers and scientists. The hard problem of consciousness grapples with explaining how subjective experiences arise from physical brain processes. Various approaches offer different perspectives, but a comprehensive solution remains elusive. The Meaning of the Word Consciousness Consciousness has two meanings: basic awareness, which involves sensing and responding to the environment, … Continue reading Consciousness ** Our subjective experience of the world
Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture? Credit: David Bohm Comment: What a wonderful thought. One of my favorite quotations.Source: Changing ConsciousnessPosts where this quotation is … Continue reading A Real Revolution in Culture David Bohm
The question of why human life exists is complex and profound and touches upon fundamental questions about the nature of existence. The universe would appear remarkably fine-tuned to allow life and consciousness to emerge. The precision of universal constants, from the strength of gravity to the stability of critical elements like oxygen and carbon, seems … Continue reading Why Does Human Life Exist? ** Why are we here?
The relationship between consciousness and intelligence is complex and not fully understood. Here’s a breakdown of their relationship: Definitions Overlap Consciousness and intelligence are functions of the brain and interact in various ways. A certain level of consciousness might be required for particular kinds of intelligence tasks. For instance, solving a complex math problem requires … Continue reading The Relationship Between Consciousness and Intelligence ** Both concepts are multifaceted and the relationship is not well understood
What is global consciousness? Before answering that question, we need to look at the terms consciousness, collective consciousness, and higher consciousness as they are poorly understood. Introduction The terms consciousness, collective consciousness, higher consciousness, and global consciousness are poorly understood and often used casually without much thought, but what do they mean? What is Consciousness? … Continue reading Global Consciousness The capacity and disposition to understand and act upon global issues
