What is conscious?

I have a strong and clear answer to this critically important question of what is conscious or not.

My convictions about the nature of consciousness are so strong that I feel someday I will impact millions around the planet.

When I was a teenager I had a very high fever that caused my left brain to shut down. This was after having been both a young linguist and math prodigy (expressive of the two most primary skills of the left-brain ).  Through that immensely challenging experience I learned new things.

One of these things was  that“consciousness” is a “universal relationship of connection to which we tap into  – and dependent on how conscious and alive we are.”   This is not human brain centered. Left-brain functions are brain centered but not consciousness as a whole. The left brain create images and words that are projected outward – giving the illusory appearance of brain-centeredness.

As a result, any living or sentient thing  – animal and plant – can be called “conscious.“

This is the third and last part of an introduction to a “global mind change” or global paradigm shift.  Part I dealt with how difficult it is to make such a shift. Part II details how this involves quintessentially a movement away from the 17th-century’s math-based vision of nature. This third segment takes us to a next step.

TRANSCENDENCE
A transcending overview here is right-brain dominant. What does that mean? Our right brain taps into what I call “connective consciousness” the way a radio might tune into a certain channel that specializes in this or that music. What is tuned into prefers to look  at connected wholes rather than separate parts. Transcendence itself is a right-brain process because it moves above (as if to a mountain peak) to look past the smaller separate views .  Then we can see consciousness again as whole. This is akin to the ocean reconnecting its waters’ separate drops or separate feeding from different rivers.

IMPLICATIONS FOR USING MATH SYMBOLS TO CONSTRUCT A WORLDVIEW
In our modern civilization we use math symbols to connect a vision of nature with. However, these symbols really abstract  how to separate all elements of consciousness. This makes the aim an impossible task.

THE MATH-ORGANIZED VIEW AS ILLUSIONARY AND MISGUIDING
As stunning as it may sound, a purely separative or math-based understanding  of all of nature, and especially nature’s depths,  is actually a vast misstep. It is both non-objective because it has a cultural agenda. It is a quite unwise way of seeing for fathoming the depths of nature.  Or it falsely constructs a global view that is actually more akin to what is surface.  Because it’s so extremely separative and surface, it is actually creates the most illusionary of all possible constructed worldviews. This seems impossible to digest because the math-based view is so unprecedentedly powerfully, and dramatically effective in designing technology. Drama, however, is exactly what creates illusions in our consciousness. Past the impressiveness of having machines and modern technology, what is the real deeper impact on the rest of our whole environment? It would take many, many pages to explain this in detail.

MONEY
It is important to note that  money, a form of everyday mathematization of consciousness, does powerfully corrupt awareness. We think we are immune from this corruption process when using this symbolism in a  laboratory to form “laws of nature.” We are not. When oversight is lacking, there is eventually a marriage between the mechanical sciences and corporate profit-drives to harm life on a global level.  Monsanto is the perfect example.

NON-JUDGMENTAL
The above is not meant to judge the essential math-bound view. It is rather to critique it as a specialized rather than the supposed way of seeing nature. It is a way well suited for designing machines. It not necessarily a best way with which to objectively interact with all of nature. Not be far. Not when it engenders the greatest of modern illusions.

BENEFITS
Machines help relieve us of mechanical chores. There have positive uses. Thus the Industrial Revolution appeared to initially be a progressive development,  as in helping the movement ot abolish slavery.

DEFICITS
Crises arose only centuries later, beginning mostly in the 20th century, when we applied this math-bound view far, far too deeply. This is because first consciousness, at the core of life, forms a universal relationship of connection in nature.  Life brings out consciousness, and consciousness brings out that life (like water brings out the same from a seed).  A universally-separative view, the mathematical, is then neither life or consciousness-centered or supportive. It eventually clashes when deeply applied because the essence of life lives deeply within.

BIGGEST DEFICIT – DEATH-DELIVERING
In other words, a falsely depth-applied mathematical view becomes predictably death-delivering and harmful on a global level.  It tends to harm life very profoundly. It will, if universally applied, undermine the overall sustainability of life on Earth – that is unless it is reigned in. We see this with chemical pollution and atomic weapons’ proliferation. This is why we so urgently need a fundamental different understanding of nature , ourselves and our cosmos. We can call this a global mind change or core paradigm shift.  Not since the 17th century has there been such a major inner shift – as from the medieval to the modern view. We now greatly need another, a similarly vast and post-modern mind shift

GLOBAL MIND CHANGE =  A HUGE BRAIN POLARITY SHIFT
Because the math-bound view is a penultimate left-brain dominant orientation, we must move away from this left-brain dominant to what is a final refuge – a highest right-brain, connective-consciousness view. Since our culture has been primarily left-brain dominant for millennia, or at least since ancient Greek times, the math-bound atomic view has deep roots. A change thereof will take time.  Threatening health pandemics and environmental challenges can acceleate this change. Thus we have an unprecedented opportunity to become next-step more enlightened, to shift away from the present global eco-destructiveness to what will deeper than ever in the past, support, maintain, nurture and promote  life on earth (rather than what is mechanical).

CONTINUATION
This is a continuation of an earlier post about seeing a life-centered vision of nature through a right-brain dominant way of seeing. We have a literally split right and a left hemisphere and they tend to see reality differently (unless brought together in a whole brain view). This corresponds to two forms of consciousness that may be united or posed at odds.

TWO ROOT FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Bertram Russell once offered two metaphors for understanding out universe  – a pail of molasses and a pail of sand. This is reminiscent of the choice between a particle and  a wave theory in quantum physics. Which view, the separative or connective, the pail of sand or that of molasses,  is the  best or the more objective?

CONNECTIVELY DOMINANT
There is no really black and white answer. What I’ve discovered is that the surface/separative appearance of nature is best left-brain described and dealt with. The depth-essence of nature is fathomed with the opposite approach.  Raw-wisdom moves only to our awareness becoming more connectively dominant, with the separative view remaining essential but subservient. What all this means becomes clear in the application to the healing arts that bring out life and consciousness from what appears to have little.

RAW VIEW
The right-brain dominant view may also be called the  “raw” view or what is concept-naked.  This is similar to Buddhism’s emptying our minds to raise consciousness of the oneness in meditations. There is also a second usage of the term “raw” as discussed below.

ROLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Let me first say that the single greatest discovery in my whole and entire life, without exaggeration, has been the central understanding that what is  “consciousness”  taps  into a universal relationship of connection in nature, and thus forms nature’s core essence and depth laws.  Universal connection equates with Oneness and thus consciousness also is the foundation of nature’s interconnected view as a whole.

PAIL OF MOLASSES
This is the” molasses view” in contrast to the “pail of sand view” that offers mechanical, atomistic laws for the surface/separative/illusionary appearance view. This overall and right/left brain understanding has a thousand and one implications and powerful applications. The “pail of molasses view” differs fundamentally from the atomic or mathematical view of  physics and chemistry again representing the pail of sand perspective. The latter is usually the sole “true” vision we have all been brought up to believe in – except for some traces of religious mysticism.

WHAT WE ARE TAUGHT
In our impressionable years attending primary and high schools, we take in this left-brain-eschewed and authoritative way of seeing reality. We are taught to buy-into an only superficially true and depth false view. Because mathematics represents a “universal symbolism for the separation of all forms of consciousness,” it actually makes no logical sense to apply this view to the depth connections of nature (which are consciousness-based) We want to mostly connect not separate ourselves from an understanding of  the whole fabric.  Applying the Newtonian vision, we’ve instead put ourselves in a either passively separated or actively clashing stance.

RAW LIFE WISDOM
Because the concentrated presence of consciousness forms life, this bringing out of life and consciousness (especially in the healing arts) is not the same as the bringing out of the mechanical using physics and chemistry. Here we can note that the term “raw” is thus further associated with bringing out what is life and consciousness in ourselves, including by engaging the foods we eat. We thus recommend to others to follow a living foods diet. There is a profound reason to water our seeds (water elicits life and consciousness)  or to not cook our foods (fire elicits the destruction of life).

RAISING CONNECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
Ultimately the healing of our disintegrated visions, the greening of our mind, is what leads us consistently to a healing change in lifestyles. This offers to raise our connective consciousness and is what raw life wisdom is all about.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

In my prior post,  Stopping Environmental Pollution – The First Wave, I began to explain that this reversal begins with ourselves and deep inside. It is the core of ourselves that expresses and manifests the essence of life on earth.

SEVEN WAVES
We thus can begin to heal from deep within and in outwardly growing waves. W can start with the deepest core of ourselves (our mind and consciousness) and then stretch out towards our emotions, then our bodies, then our home surroundings, then our livelihood and other distant social networks and finally our whole relationship to all of nature on our planet and in and throughout the cosmos.

BRAIN POLARITY SHIFT
The first wave is the most critical and because it triggers and determines the shape and force of all the rest. I also tried to express this in that prior post plus that this inner core change involved a “brain polarity shift.” This refers to a shift from left- to right-brain dominance, or from the reign of separative to connective consciousness. Is such a shift possible?

JILL BOLLTE TAYLOR, Ph.D. is a brain scientist from Harvard who had a stroke that suddenly shut down her left brain functions This also allowed her to see the world in a  more right-brain dominant way. It was like stepping into nirvana for her It got her to a place where she can see the core essence of all of nature as One. We shift from again separative to connective consciousness – and where there is an appreciation of the greater importance of all that is connective, healing, loving and at peace in our lives. It is a life-centered consciousness orientation because the essence of consciousness , at the heart of life, is to connect.

THE  QUACKING CLAIMS
There are a few of sites on the Web that claim to unravel the “real dirt” of the holistic health movement. They include vicious attacks on the therapies that work the best. These are especially pounced upon for obvious reasons. They serve as significant competition to the pharmaceutical, surgical, and radiation industries. When I wrote to one of these sites asking who their corporate sponsors were, there was no response.

On such sites, the general tone is usually to categorize conventional approaches as the only successful ones based on “science”  and holistic alternatives as being baseless dogma created by individuals who do have foggy minds, harbor ideologies, treasure theories that contradict facts, and have never done or published real peer-reviewed research plus have no authentic credentials.

THE PSCYHOLOGICAL GAME OF SUPERIOR-AUTHORITY POSTURING
These sites are, in essence, superior-authority posturing that also demean others with arrogance. God forbid there should be an ounce of doubt or humility in making their declarations. Arrogance is a sign of a closed, left-brain-dominant mind.  The disseminating of mountains of misinformation is a craft that does harm. But what else is new!

WHY WE NEED RAW-WISDOM
It is left-brain dominant posturing that is fake and a right-brain approach that is authentic – why we need more raw-wisdom

RAW LIFE WISDOM

SHIFT
Raw life wisdom  or life wisdom in the raw offers a revolutionary view of the world of nature, shifting from the mechanical, machine-like or dead vision to an oppositely life-centered understanding.

BUT LIFE IS RARE
Of course life manifesting as sentient or aware organisms is quite rare in our universe. How can what is rare represent the essence of nature universally permeating? Isn’t that a contradiction? The aim here is to arrive at possible answers to such questions, and then offer to use that knowledge to turn around our major planetary ecological, social and health crises.

RAW-WISDOM
This also involves a certain pun in using the term “raw.” We advocate a raw-living foods diet as a result of a life-centered vision. However the “raw” view first refers to how our right brain sees naked of “conceptual illusions.

LEFT BRAIN CONCEPTUAL VIEW
The left brain view of reality is the conceptual. ” Concepts are outline images that help us separate something out in our awareness. For example, we might be walking down a street and all the while  have a concept of a “building with red wood trim” in mind. We survey the different buildings and find one that fits our image. We then focus on it. This focusing is a separating out of an element of consciousness. Next we might have the concept of a sidewalk. So we focus on what is beneath our feet. Concepts focus attention using outline images. A line in an outline forms a visual separation. If we strip the mind of all its concepts, its mental separations, we no longer focus in a separative or isolated-elements way. This takes us to the right-brain dominant way of experiencing our consciousness – as an indivisible ocean.

“SURFACE ILLUSIONARY“
Why might the conceptually-driven or left-brain dominant view be “surface illusionary”?  This is because it is akin to diving into an ocean  and thereby creating walls of water that did not pre-exit. We experience a created consciousness reality rather than a naked or raw one!

PARTLY REAL
In the surface or moment of time these created perceptions exist. They are real. But they tend to obliterate raw experience or cover over what is naked. For example in Nazi Germany a Jew was considered to be like a rat, worthy to be exterminated. But in raw experience Jews don’t look like rats. It is a conceptual imposition, an ideology, and thus a created illusion.

THE ISSUE OF DOMINATION
In general our left-brain mode of consciousness is separative and the right brain connective. We can allow the latter to dominate when we focus on (separate out) something in order to connect to it. For example, we dial a phone number  in order to find (focus attention on) someone. Ultimately this is in order to connect with them, and possibly to shower them with love. Or we might subject them to hatred. The former is  more consciousness-connective and the later consciousness-separative. Because mathematics abstracts how to separate all elements of consciousness, it is the highest left-brain symbolism used to potentially organize a worldview.

USES OF MATHEMATICS
The question then arises: shall we use such a math-constructed vision of nature in a dominantly-separative or subserviently-connective way? With the former choice, we gravitate to an atomic, math-based understanding as in physics and chemistry - which allows us to build atomic weapons and the means for chemical pollution – or is it a better life through chemistry? With a non-conventional approach, we use mathematics consciously and wisely. For example, with a thermometer we measure the departure form a temperature representing a state of balance, such as 98.6 Fahrenheit. This separative knowledge is used for a reversal, a return of the body temperature to a state of balance. We use a separate measurement in order to connect to wholeness and healing.

DOUBLE NEGATIVE
The above refers to  a double negation that creates a positive. Because opposites are reversible in a wholistic understanding, the mathematical orientation can be used invaluably but  subserviently. Otherwise there are vast destructive potentials when used dominantly and without oversight.

Raw wisdom is a revolutionary view of the essence of nature, shifting from the mechanical, machine-like and dead view to an oppositely life-centered vision – and to turnaround our major planetary ecological, social and health crises.  It also involves a certain “pun” in using the term “raw.”

RAW-WISDOM
First the “raw” view refers to how our right brain sees naked of conceptual illusions. What is sees is an ocean of consciousness, the opposite of the left-brain separative view that gravitates to an atomic, mathematical understanding. Bertram Russell once contrasted this with two metaphors – the pain of molasses and the pail of sand vision of nature. Which is more true.

What I have discovered is that the surface appearance view or “maya” supports the separative, left-brain dominant kind of vision  while a depth-perceptive right-brain dominant view is the oppositely more connective view.   Our alternative use of the term “raw” is thus explained below and in this context.

ROLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Let me first say that the single greatest discovery of my entire life, spanning more than half a century, has been simply the understanding that what we experience as “consciousness” is really a tapping into a universal relationship of connection in nature, and this also forms nature’s core essence – its true “soul.” It also forms nature’s real rather than surface-illusionary laws. This is also the” molasses view” in contrast to the “pail of sand” view of nature. This differs profoundly from the mathematical orientation of physics and chemistry or we are all brought up with an yielding the centrality of an atomic focus. Because mathematics represents the “universal symbols for the separation of all forms of consciousness,” it really makes no rational sense to construct our dominant vision of nature out of mathematical patterns  because laws are intended to connect and not separate profoundly our understanding of the fabric of events. Real causality is what deeply connects not separates events, why billiard ball mechanical laws do not describe depth-causality in nature. Sorry, Galileo and Newton, by in my experience you got it all wrong! What we think is the sanest of sane views, is actually not very sane. That we later pollute our world and create threatening atomic weapons should not come as a surprise.

RAW LIFE WISDOM
Secondly because the concentrated presence of consciousness forms life, bringing out what is life and from the bosom of nature  and rather than bringing out – so-called “discovering” the mechanical and thereby designing and creating machines or factory-farming, etc) is a critical choice we can make.  Here we can note that the term “raw” in the natural healing arts is often associated with living foods, and raw-wisdom is thus all about a raw life-centered as well as a raw or ideologically naked vision of nature – explaining  finally the dual punning use of the term “raw.”