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Where is the seat of awareness?

jeebus13

jeebus13

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So, I've been kind of a lurker in this forum, but it seems to me that there are a lot of open minds in here. I thought I might ask a question that is near and dear to me...

I know that modern science only acknowledges five sensory organs and that it is basically accepted that it is through these organs that we assemble our perceptions, but several friends and I have experienced something that contradicts this entirely. I'm talking about perceiving without the standard sense organs.

I know that a lot of you are going to think that this question is a bit simplistic in nature, but I am fascinated by it. I believe that all beings are capable of perceiving with any part of their body. I remember reading articles about osmosis, or reading with the fingers, arms, legs, or even buttocks, but this isn't really what I'm talking about either. I am referring to the experience of your awareness, which most people attribute to somewhere behind the eyes, suddenly migrating to a remote location on or off the body.

I have experienced something that I have trouble explaining in any other way, but I am curious as to what some of the people in here believe. So, I guess my real questions are these: Where is the seat of awareness? Is it stationary? Has anyone else experienced the shift I referred to above?
 
The pineal gland...

Our pineal gland, a tiny organ in the center of the brain, is known in neuroscience as an endocrine gland which produces a set of hormones which are regulated, among other things, by the light-dark (day-night) cycle. The hormones are serotonin, melatonin, DMT (dimethyltryptamin), 5meo-DMT (5-methoxy-dimethyltryptamin) and pinolin.1-5 Ancient spiritual traditions like yoga and tantra consider the pineal a "cosmic antenna" through which we can contact the deeper mystical reality.6 Science has indications that our pineal does play a role in mystical (or transcendental), psychic and hallucinatory experiences, as some of the hormones it produces are psychoactive.7-10

These hormones bind to serotonin receptors in many areas of the brain. This leads to complex patterns of electrical activity. Subjectively the person will have inner experiences ranging from hallucinations and dreams to mystical experiences.7-10 During hallucinations and mystical experiences it has been found that especially the temporal lobes show complex electrical activity patterns.
 
Ever read "Seat of the Soul" by Gary Zukav?

He discusses our transition as a species from the 5 sensory being into the 6 sensory being. Interesting read....
 
To answer your question rather circumspectly...

Based on my class on consciousness and perception it sure looks like the standard 5 senses are integrated in the inferior parietal lobe, with attentional modifications looping back from prefrontal cortex. Although there is no scientific support yea or nay at this time, I'd go ahead and guess that the sensory information that actually becomes conscious is being encoded by large batches of synchronized signals that substantially impact the brain's electromagnetic field. From there, EM signals are transduced into subtler energies.

However, extrasensory perception is probably not being integrated physically at all. It's being perceived on subtler levels, although it may almost feel like it has a physical location in the body since that is the best you are able to do at integrating it with the physical sensory input you are also getting. You can also lose physical consciousness, for example when you disrupt the brain's EM field heavily enough with drugs or certain auditory frequencies (i.e. ritual drumming), which produces OOBE experiences.

So, where is awareness actually seated? Well, I hate to give an annoying zen-type answer, but my experience has been that it is really everywhere and nowhere. It is what fills in all of the nodes that all descovered scientific laws of relationship describe. It is boundless, beyond time and space and yet generating and existing in them at the same time. I don't really understand, I can't really understand, because the mind cannot grasp infinity, but at the same time I know that any more limited view is false.

***

As for the pineal, I think it's an area that has been tuned to produce spiritual experience by generating chemicals that temporarily disrupt physical consciousness so that more subtle levels can be perceived. It also does a nice job with sleep regulation. And, of course, physical consciousness is disrupted during sleep too in favor of more ethereal and difficult to remember experiences.
 
I think there is room for improvement using our existing senses and perhaps other senses like telepathy etc may develop in the future, but i dont think that this is where you are coming from.

While on psychedelics I have felt a feeling that you can only describe as "being one with the universe"..... It is like every part of you is connected to every part of the universe and as such you have the ability to see what is happening in the universe at any place or even time. Our connection to the world around us should not be underestimated, it is strong and it guides us through life, wether we know it or not. The senses we are used to infact restrict this infinite connection by giving us only an 'immediate' response to the world around us.

So i think the seat of conciousness is eveywhere....... but our finite conciousness is only capable of absorbing this infinite in a finite manner, through our senses.

Perhaps this is a bit too extreme a view of what you are trying to say?

peace
 
Well, of course everyone's experience is their senses... and you can improve your sensitivity, especially in non-physical senses, with practice.

I think I'm actually more extreme than you perhaps. I don't think there is really a finite consciousness/infinite consciousness distinction. There is just the great consciousness experiencing, and sometimes that experiencing feels like it is constricted ("the ego"). The aim of many meditative paths is to gradually deconstruct the constricting sense of a separate self. That isn't to say that if you do this you will suddenly experience being the whole world, or lose track of boundaries and become totally nonfunctional. You will just be operating without a bottom, without a limitation on your consciousness.

Hmm, I feel like I didn't do a very good job explaining myself.
 
I think we are a physical body and an energy/spiritual one. You can through practice shift your consciousness into ur energy body, or like go half/half. Not an out of body experience where you leave your body, but just ignite ur energy body and create a union between that and the physical one.
 
yah it does sound like you are talking about the pineal gland. One thing is for sure it is not the heart, I was always confused about that as a child. a prayer is a construct of the brain, that is hightened by the heart, Then concievably energized to something else. but never the less, even children can tell where thier thoughts come from.
So union or not, if we had to concieve of a seat I would give it to the irreplacable organ that is who your are-the brain. I believe what void said, I also believe the spirit has limmited awareness outside of the nogan. but that is probably an enept fualt of mine.
 
I know but he was referring to the third eye chakra , more commonly associated with pituitary gland then pineal I think, but I don't know.

jeebus13 said:
I am referring to the experience of your awareness, which most people attribute to somewhere behind the eyes, suddenly migrating to a remote location on or off the body.
Click to expand...

this also entails a anal retentiveness of spacial recognition and A sense that you did not include aside from the five sense organs .

(((((((Kinesthesis supports the perception of the sense organs. If some informations delivered by a sense organ and by kinesthesis are contradictory, the brain will prefer the information coming up from the sense organ.

Kinesthesis (perception of body movements): (physiology, psychology) Kinesthesis is the perception that enables one person to perceive movements of the own body. It is based on the fact that movements are reported to the brain (feedback), as there are:

angle of joints
activities of muscles
head movements (reported by the vestibular organ within the inner ear)
position of the skin, relative to the touched surface
movements of the person within the environment (visual kinesthesis))))))

http://hwr.nici.kun.nl/~miami/taxonomy/node21.html

essentially kinesthesis is a map in your head that tells you where everything you feel is occurring, it is why when a mosquito bites your back you can hit it with one swat. I believe this same principle is applied to the internal tracking of spiritual movement and distribution amongst the many aspects of the anatomy, or chakras. So even when spirituality feels prominent in the solar plexus (?serotonin?) the message is sent to the third eye and or crown chakra, thus seemingly always giving them claim to a "seat", as the analyzers and assessors of the situation.
 
man I couldnt explain all this shit I've experienced and I dont think it matters, not as much as pushing the boundries and seeing what you can experience. Anyway I've finally writen up a report of my minor little escapade into reality, should be posting it up soon.
 
I believe in the "supernatural" but I think it is only super because we humans only know as much about ourselves as sience is currently capable of prooving. do tell, your responces seem to be getting shorter recently :(
 
Took my answer in the first post! Another good read: phantom in the brain, by some Indian doc whos name I can't spell.
 
Nah, not the pineal gland. I just don't buy dualism at this point. I recommend Dennett - Consciousness Explained. Whether you buy his muptile drafts theory or not, it's worth a look. I think awareness is an illusion (if packaged as a phenomenon); that there is in fact a continuum processed in a parallel fashion (built up from myriads of evolved functions) with expectation driven, and frugal picking and choosing (rather than open see-all, grab-all) and missing bits filled in if pressed on by the experiencer. In other words, I buy most of the arguments in the book.
 
Void said:
nah, doubt its all penal gland related. Goto think outside the square, or in this case the body.
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I believe Siddartha Buddahs teaching that awareness requires the union of body and spirit, it is counter-productive to try to deny one or the other.
 
killarava2day said:
I believe Siddartha Buddahs teaching that awareness requires the union of body and spirit, it is counter-productive to try to deny one or the other.
Click to expand...

Sure. But what I think Void is getting at is, for example, the centre of gravity of an object is a single point where all the gravity of the body acts. For a plate, it is in the centre of the circle, right ? However, for a cup it is in a space half-way down the inside in the middle where the liquid goes - not in the cup material at all. So the COG is outside the body in this case. I won't waffle any more, just leave you with that analogy.

I personally don't believe in any point at all. I think it's an illusion, thrown over a parallel continuum, moving through time in an apparent linear fashion (the illusion I mean).

I see no contradiction with meditative / spiritual practice either. If there is a union between body and spirit (which I am very open to, actually), it is of a fashion nothing like dualism expects.
 
I think awareness is an illusion (if packaged as a phenomenon); that there is in fact a continuum processed in a parallel fashion
Click to expand...

I agree that it would be an illusion to think that we are aware of everything going on in the world, or that the contents of our consciousness are aware. The question that dualists like, say, David Chalmers are trying to raise is why this brain processing is subjectively experienced at all.

Sometimes it seems like Dennett says that awareness doesn't really exist, but at the same time I've heard quotes that make it sound like he also thinks the whole universe is subjectively aware, even down to the atomic level. I'm too lazy to buy and read his whole book - which thesis do you think he puts forward?

I'm no dualist, BTW; in the neurophilosophy debates I would be classified even farther to the "left" as a monist.
 
Molybdenum said:
I agree that it would be an illusion to think that we are aware of everything going on in the world, or that the contents of our consciousness are aware. The question that dualists like, say, David Chalmers are trying to raise is why this brain processing is subjectively experienced at all.

Sometimes it seems like Dennett says that awareness doesn't really exist, but at the same time I've heard quotes that make it sound like he also thinks the whole universe is subjectively aware, even down to the atomic level. I'm too lazy to buy and read his whole book - which thesis do you think he puts forward?

I'm no dualist, BTW; in the neurophilosophy debates I would be classified even farther to the "left" as a monist.
Click to expand...

I suppose the idea that we can make a copy of ourselves (like Star Trek transporter without losing the sent body) is what he might mean by the latter idea, although I haven't noticed him mentioning the whole universe as being subjectively aware. My take on it is like the platonic existence of maths objects - new concepts are discovered, not invented. And so with brains. But I'm not really sure how he himself reconciles the 2 ideas. I should read the book again.

I would say that he does think awareness exists, but that it is illusitory. Or as an analogy, if you wanted to know how a pentium processor worked there is little to be gained from studying Windows XP. Especially if that XP is so modular as to be fragmented like swiss cheese with short cuts (very like XP;))... also with independent bits and pieces all evolved for some survival skill or other. EDIT: Just want to tighten up this analogy: at first suppose when you build a pentium processor various interfaces just appear as needed at various points. When you're finished, voila, XP is just "there". That's a better description I hope.

Dualism sucks IMHO because it's just an infinite loop of someone being aware of something at some point in your brain (look at that point, where in there does it all come together ?). And of course the idea that there is a mind acting on the brain through a conduit is dodgy (where the mind is not subject to the laws of the universe, and the brain is). At what point in the conduit do the laws of the universe stop and have a smoke, as it were ?
 
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The seat of awareness is the brain. The brain produces awearness just like a leg produces walking.
 
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