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Lucid Waking: The Answer to the Problem of Consciousness
There is no problem more baffling to the academic world than the problem of consciousness. It’s fair to say that no academic has any clue at all about what consciousness is. In fact, academics have totally confused it with something radically different, namely sentience. The problem that faces the academic world is the insurmountable one of how you get lifeless, mindless, purposeless objects (material atoms) to manifest subjectivity. It’s a category error to imagine that matter can provide any answers to the foundational issues of mind.
Academics believe that to answer the problem of subjectivity is thereby to solve the “hard problem” of consciousness. In fact, the problem of subjectivity (sentience) is totally different from the problem of consciousness. To understand why, simply ponder all of the following 1) animals are sentient but not conscious; 2) human babies are sentient but not conscious; 3) humans who never encountered another human are sentient but not conscious; 4) sleepwalking humans are sentient but not conscious. The problem of sentience is drastically different from the problem of consciousness and if you conflate the two you have immediately set yourself an impossible task, especially if you make any attempt to solve these problems within the framework of materialism (i.e., the ideology of anti-mind).
To understand what consciousness actually is, it’s essential to understand the difference, in the world of sleep, between dreaming and lucid dreaming. Exactly the same dichotomy is present in the waking world. A sleepwalker is a person who can do complex tasks – such as riding a motorbike for half an hour – without any consciousness. A conscious version of a sleepwalker engages in what we refer to as “lucid waking”. Lucid waking is the key to consciousness.
The fact is that consciousness is not an inherent property of human individuals. It’s not built into them. It’s acquired, just as some people acquire the ability to become lucid dreamers. Since sleepwalkers could do many of the same things as conscious individuals, the question is invited of why consciousness is required at all.
In philosophy, there exists the issue of the “philosophical zombie”. This is a hypothetical being physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but which does not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. It’s a sleepwalker without subjectivity, which doesn’t experience anything but nevertheless carries out complex tasks, just like real, conscious people.
A zombie world is the same externally as this world, but is internally totally different. No one has any subjective experiences or conscious experiences. The issue is, given the ideology of materialism, predicated on lifeless, mindless objects, why isn’t zombie world the real world? Why do subjectivity and consciousness exist at all? Who needs them? They are entirely superfluous in a material universe, and evolution does not produce superfluous things. To produce pointless things is contrary to Occam’s Razor. But subjectivity and the need to generate consciousness are absolutely essential in a reality predicated on monadic minds as opposed to material atoms.
Come inside and find out the true explanation of subjectivity and consciousness. The first geniuses to have real insight into the problem were Leibniz, Hegel and Nietzsche, but the most important breakthroughs were by the twentieth century psychologist Julian Jaynes with his hypothesis of "bicameralism".
If you don't know what consciousness is, how can you expand your consciousness to the maximum? Wouldn't you like to be maximally conscious? Think of the power you would have.
Academics believe that to answer the problem of subjectivity is thereby to solve the “hard problem” of consciousness. In fact, the problem of subjectivity (sentience) is totally different from the problem of consciousness. To understand why, simply ponder all of the following 1) animals are sentient but not conscious; 2) human babies are sentient but not conscious; 3) humans who never encountered another human are sentient but not conscious; 4) sleepwalking humans are sentient but not conscious. The problem of sentience is drastically different from the problem of consciousness and if you conflate the two you have immediately set yourself an impossible task, especially if you make any attempt to solve these problems within the framework of materialism (i.e., the ideology of anti-mind).
To understand what consciousness actually is, it’s essential to understand the difference, in the world of sleep, between dreaming and lucid dreaming. Exactly the same dichotomy is present in the waking world. A sleepwalker is a person who can do complex tasks – such as riding a motorbike for half an hour – without any consciousness. A conscious version of a sleepwalker engages in what we refer to as “lucid waking”. Lucid waking is the key to consciousness.
The fact is that consciousness is not an inherent property of human individuals. It’s not built into them. It’s acquired, just as some people acquire the ability to become lucid dreamers. Since sleepwalkers could do many of the same things as conscious individuals, the question is invited of why consciousness is required at all.
In philosophy, there exists the issue of the “philosophical zombie”. This is a hypothetical being physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but which does not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. It’s a sleepwalker without subjectivity, which doesn’t experience anything but nevertheless carries out complex tasks, just like real, conscious people.
A zombie world is the same externally as this world, but is internally totally different. No one has any subjective experiences or conscious experiences. The issue is, given the ideology of materialism, predicated on lifeless, mindless objects, why isn’t zombie world the real world? Why do subjectivity and consciousness exist at all? Who needs them? They are entirely superfluous in a material universe, and evolution does not produce superfluous things. To produce pointless things is contrary to Occam’s Razor. But subjectivity and the need to generate consciousness are absolutely essential in a reality predicated on monadic minds as opposed to material atoms.
Come inside and find out the true explanation of subjectivity and consciousness. The first geniuses to have real insight into the problem were Leibniz, Hegel and Nietzsche, but the most important breakthroughs were by the twentieth century psychologist Julian Jaynes with his hypothesis of "bicameralism".
If you don't know what consciousness is, how can you expand your consciousness to the maximum? Wouldn't you like to be maximally conscious? Think of the power you would have.
534 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2021
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 30, 2022
scattered and confused
This book is in my view an overly long, long-winded, waste of time and I cannot recommend it. But it does have some interest if you have the time and the patience for perusing a bit of a mad rant in the interest of exposure to and openness to all points of view. Diversity of input. Or just pure entertainment.
Someone was bound to make the analogy. Dreaming is to lucid-dreaming as waking is to lucid waking. I am surprise I haven’t come across it before this in my recent reading about dreams and lucid dreaming. The title was intriguing. It is also misleading. The author doesn’t do much with it. Later in the book he introduces ‘hyper-lucid waking’. Of course he does.
What he does focus on if anything is defining consciousness - in relation to subjective experience, qualia, awareness, self-awareness, sentience, attention, awake/asleep states, language, culture, inner monologues, hallucinations, volition, decision making, the self. It is all a bit confused and heavily influenced by Julian Jaynes bicameral mind theory - itself a bit confused and confusing. The notion of hallucination is heavily misused. As is the word ‘sentience’. He emphasises the role of language and culture in the development of full self consciousness. He would just say consciousness. These are deep questions. And a closer look at what the real contemporary experts have to say would seem to be an advisable first step or two. But no. This guy seems to think he knows everything. The book then wanders around all over the place and seems to have something to say about everything else. There are a few interesting points. He is quite critical of mystics and meditators and very critical of religion in general. He does quote a lot of philosophers. There is also a lot of silliness. Ontological mathematics!! Sine waves as the true basis of objective reality!! You might reasonably suspect that you were being Sokal’ed.
The author’s dogmatic, opinionated, shrill and strident tone, is amateurish and off putting. Everyone else is an idiot. And ‘Science’ and ‘Scientists’ (sic) are of course wrong about just about everything. He often takes time to denigrate imaginary, or perhaps not imaginary, opponents and detractors. Only he ‘knows’ the truth, and the ‘powers that be’ are utterly opposed to him. Of course they are. You probably have a pretty good idea by now of the type of book I am describing. Caveat Emptor.
Having said all that these are deep, hard, and important questions. Anyone who makes an effort to understand them is deserving of some respect. And anyone might stumble across a worthy idea or two. Who knows.
But anyone who thinks and says they have the answer - Ultimate and complete - is delusional and/or simply lying.
This book is in my view an overly long, long-winded, waste of time and I cannot recommend it. But it does have some interest if you have the time and the patience for perusing a bit of a mad rant in the interest of exposure to and openness to all points of view. Diversity of input. Or just pure entertainment.
Someone was bound to make the analogy. Dreaming is to lucid-dreaming as waking is to lucid waking. I am surprise I haven’t come across it before this in my recent reading about dreams and lucid dreaming. The title was intriguing. It is also misleading. The author doesn’t do much with it. Later in the book he introduces ‘hyper-lucid waking’. Of course he does.
What he does focus on if anything is defining consciousness - in relation to subjective experience, qualia, awareness, self-awareness, sentience, attention, awake/asleep states, language, culture, inner monologues, hallucinations, volition, decision making, the self. It is all a bit confused and heavily influenced by Julian Jaynes bicameral mind theory - itself a bit confused and confusing. The notion of hallucination is heavily misused. As is the word ‘sentience’. He emphasises the role of language and culture in the development of full self consciousness. He would just say consciousness. These are deep questions. And a closer look at what the real contemporary experts have to say would seem to be an advisable first step or two. But no. This guy seems to think he knows everything. The book then wanders around all over the place and seems to have something to say about everything else. There are a few interesting points. He is quite critical of mystics and meditators and very critical of religion in general. He does quote a lot of philosophers. There is also a lot of silliness. Ontological mathematics!! Sine waves as the true basis of objective reality!! You might reasonably suspect that you were being Sokal’ed.
The author’s dogmatic, opinionated, shrill and strident tone, is amateurish and off putting. Everyone else is an idiot. And ‘Science’ and ‘Scientists’ (sic) are of course wrong about just about everything. He often takes time to denigrate imaginary, or perhaps not imaginary, opponents and detractors. Only he ‘knows’ the truth, and the ‘powers that be’ are utterly opposed to him. Of course they are. You probably have a pretty good idea by now of the type of book I am describing. Caveat Emptor.
Having said all that these are deep, hard, and important questions. Anyone who makes an effort to understand them is deserving of some respect. And anyone might stumble across a worthy idea or two. Who knows.
But anyone who thinks and says they have the answer - Ultimate and complete - is delusional and/or simply lying.
Displaying 1 of 1 review