Tag Archives: sublatable-unsublatable

Quantum Mechanics

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Q (Quora): How does the theory of quantum mechanics affect our picture of consciousness?

A (Martin): The two notions (QM and consciousness) are incommensurable in all respects, which should be obvious:
a) QM is a theory referable to reality or an aspect of reality (the microcosm); consciousness, on the other hand, is a known reality, not a theory – not only a fact but that which is behind, the substratum of, all facts and movements of the mind.
b) The reality that is consciousness does not need to be proven for it is immediate, direct, unstultifiable or unsublatable. Everything else – objects or phenomena, thought-constructions, etc. – are stultifiable.

That means that there is not even an approximation between the theory of QM and reality per se. It would be a category mistake to relate one to the other unless using such exercise as analogy or suggestion. In this sense, there are two or three things that can be said:
1) Reality/consciousness is limitless, like the referent (or an aspect thereof) of QM, but the former is un-measurable, unlike QM which is amenable to measurement/quantification and statistical verification
2) Reality is non-local (Bell’s theorem), like QM.
3) Consciousness/reality does not depend on anything, while QM is theory-dependent.

Three Qs & answers

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Three questions & answers

Three Q/A from QUORA (on brain, philosophy, QM, NDE, consciousness)

  1. How does the brain understand philosophy?

M. The brain… understanding philosophy? My reply to this is similar to the one I gave recently to another question and which was based on Socrates’ answer to an observation that someone was making. The man saw a pool of water being stirred by a stick held by a man and said that the stick was stirring the water. To which Socrates replied: ‘Is it the stick, or the man moving the stick?’ (Which one is the real agent – the material, or the instrumental cause, in Aristotelian terms?).

Equally, is it the brain, or the mind which ‘moves’ the brain which moves the stick which stirs the water?

Is it the brain, or the mind which (using the brain as an instrument) understands philosophy?

Actually, it is consciousness (as a substrate) using the mind using the brain… Consciousness itself does not do anything.

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Consciousness/Awareness, the brain, and memories

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(Q&A published recently in QUORA)

Q. ‘Why wasn’t my consciousness generated by another brain? Why am I linked with this brain?’

I heard that everybody experiences consciousness, but then why am I my consciousness and not another person’s consciousness? It’s hard to explain.

Paul Bush. Yes, it’s hard to explain. Basically it’s because the most important part of consciousness, which is awareness*, is the same for everybody. There is only one awareness, and in fact nothing else. All the other aspects of consciousness, the contents, are projections of awareness as it identifies with small parts of reality such as bodies and minds. Such misidentification creates a perspective. From each perspective the part of reality not identified with is seen as the external world. The observer with a particular perspective and the world observed as a consequence of that perspective are both inferences created at the moment of identification.

So, there is only one awareness that is continually pulled into the illusion of being this or that observer. The ongoing personal identity that we think of as ourselves maintains coherence through the construction of the concepts of time and space; memory and an apparent (though not total) physical separation from the rest of reality. Awareness has no personal identity, it is exactly the same for you and everyone else, because it is singular awareness that creates each experience depending on the perspective of the entity that it is identifying with.

*(AM Awareness and Consciousness are generally taken as equivalent in Advaita Vedanta – no distinction being made) Continue reading →