Sunday 19 September 2010

Consciousness is not a thing, but a process

deep inroads dug .. the stream is narrowing .. are nearer to a solution

In Fractal Neurodynamics and Quantum Chaos: Resolving the Mind-Brain Paradox through Novel Biophysics, Chapter 2.1 Defining Mind and Consciousness, Paragraph 2.1.3.3

"As William James originally pointed out "consciousness is not a thing, but a process"."

Consciousness, a process and by being a process is ongoing, it needs to keep going. Sustained by what has sparked it, in the first place. Once sustaining is not possible, ceases to be, consciousness dwindles to its ground state, nothingness.

"Conscious features may thus be rapidly transformed by the very act of observation, leaving only the sensoria as stable observables."

Conscious features what we use to define and describe our inner and outer worlds and by such an act instantiating an instance of existence of ourselves at its centre. Consecutive instances stringed along depicting the flow of our lives, each instance depending on the conscious features being continually transformed enabled by the very act of observation anchored in our sense organs.

"Thought is an example of such dynamically unstable observation, because the act of thinking results in an evolution of the experience."

Thought being more than just an example, but the reason the human individual has reached to such heights of development, the part of consciousness that enables experience to evolve, to transform experience in ways impossible for other brain architectures existing and use this transformation to continually re-define its role in its surroundings. Adjusting to its surroundings enabled and simultaneously transforming the surroundings to fit self, a virtually eternal cycle.

"An idea is an unstable bifurcation to a novel thought state."

The essence of idea, as they appear as unstable bifurcation, fledglings to be nurtured, fed to fulfil their purpose thereafter, to consummate the role they will play in restructuring our inner and outer worlds, our world. Their immense transformative power. Without ideas we would have never progressed from our primitive stage.