this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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What if you are not the “highest” level of consciousness in your own body? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by aCosmicWave@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I see the human organism as a layering of different levels of consciousness. Each layer supports mostly automated processes that sustain the layers beneath it.

For example, we have cells that only know what it’s like to be a cell and to perform their cellular processes without any awareness of the more complex layers above them. Organs are much more complex than cells and they perform their duties without any awareness of anything above them either. And the complexity keeps increasing with various systems like endocrine, cardiovascular, etc. Then we have our subconscious and finally our conscious.

At our level, we do not consciously control any of the layers beneath us. Our primary task is to keep our bodies alive.

This got me thinking… isn’t it a little too self aggrandizing to think that we have a near infinite layering of consciousness beneath us and then it just stops at our level of awareness? What if there is some other conscious process that exists above us within our own bodies?

When people take psychedelic drugs they often describe achieving a higher level of awareness akin to ecstasy. Well what if this layer is always there actively ”living” within us but we are just the chumps that go to work, do our taxes, and exercise, while it doles out just enough feel good chemicals to keep us going (sometimes not even that)?

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[–] sxan@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm going to ignore the drugs part; having taken a great many myself, I suspect any revelations gathered under the influence unless they withstand scrutiny after the drugs are out of my system. This perspective has occasionally allowed me to prevent bad experiences from turning into horror trips.

As to your thesis, there are not infinite levels of "life" below us, right? At some point, the mechanisms at play are purely chemical interactions. Are there an infinite levels above us? If not, there must be an ultimate consciousness, above which there are no more. Why aren't our consciousnesses that level? If we aren't, then can that superior, ultimate consciousness also hallucinate and imagine something greater than itself? Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem implies that even an ultimate consciousness at the very top would not be able to know as a fact that there isn't a hidden consciousness superior to itself.

As an aside, I don't know that I'd place the subconscious below consciousness in the foundational way you built. I have wondered whether what we've thought of as the subconcious is merely the manifestation of right hemisphere expressing itself; callosal syndrome - while still controversial - raises some interesting questions, and while I've found no research exploring it, I think it's an interesting possibility. In any case, I don't think it's accurate to consider it the "subconscious and finally our conscious." I think they're at the same level, two equal partners.

An interesting point is that no level below consciousness does science. No organ (besides the brain), no cell, no DNA strand, ponders the the question you pose.

[–] aCosmicWave@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

As to your thesis, there are not infinite levels of “life” below us, right? At some point, the mechanisms at play are purely chemical interactions.

I do not believe that are are infinite levels of "life" below us or above, but I do believe there are infinite levels of consciousness. But my definition of consciousness is not restricted to life. I do not equate consciousness with “intelligence” or life. I think consciousness is a fundamental property of every little thing in our universe. I believe that higher levels of consciousness arise due to higher levels of systemic complexity. This definition is more intuitive to me as compared to the modern definition where conscious life develops on earth from essentially nothing that is itself “alive”.

As an aside, I don’t know that I’d place the subconscious below consciousness in the foundational way you built. I have wondered whether what we’ve thought of as the subconcious is merely the manifestation of right hemisphere expressing itself

This is a fascinating idea! Thank you for sharing and I'll be sure to read more about this.

An interesting point is that no level below consciousness does science. No organ (besides the brain), no cell, no DNA strand, ponders the the question you pose.

I would argue that all levels below us do science, at our meta level we simply have ability to observe and describe the science that they do. Sure our cells almost definitely do not have the capacity ponder the question that I raised. But how do you know they don't have other ways to express their agency? A renown biologist Michael Levin took some basic skin cells from a frog embryo and separated them from the rest of the organism. Astonishingly these "skin" cells rebooted themselves and converted into a new type of organism that is able to solve simple mazes, and demonstrate individual and group behaviors. Source: https://youtu.be/p3lsYlod5OU?si=t2-mBbwNWTSX2Lp8&t=389