The distinction between consciousness and mind in Indian philosophy is one between witnessing and the thing witnessed. For instance take the analogy of light, the light illuminates the chair but is not the chair itself, so too thoughts, feelings, are all illuminated by consciousness, as in, you are aware of them. The metaphor of illumination is key to Indian philosophical discussions of consciousness. Also may I recommend David Bentley Hart on mind? He is quite polemical in his temperament but I would say educated.
To understand the subject-object notion that consciousness is the witness to which objects appear I would recommend looking into the teachings of Ramana Maharshi in which it is taken through a process known as self-inquiry which denotes that You are That, or you are pure consciousness, the witness. For example Ramana may point to a person who does not understand something intellectually to inquire, 'To whom does this misunderstanding appear, whom is the subject to which all varying opinions you have held through your life appear to, which has not changed, what is the witness of all these states?' or "To whom do thoughts appear?". The obvious answer is "I". Then he may ask someone to inquire "Who Am I", What is that I? Is it the body which it is aware of, is it the mind which appears to it? Has it changed with the changes of the objective reality? Is it not the subject to which all these changes appear? Sink away from the content of your experience and into That and it is Bliss itself. It is Existence Absolute, Being-Absolute, Bliss Absolute which is where the Vedantic term "Sat-Chit-Ananda" gains its name, that being Existence (or Being)-Consciousness-Bliss. Again this just helps you to understand the whole Advaita Vedanta view. The life of Ramana Maharshi too is interesting to study.
This is the definition of consciousness written in hindu scriptures thousands of years ago: "Not inwardly cognitive, not outwardly cognitive, not both-wise cognitive, not a cognition-mass, not cognitive, not non-cognitive, unseen, with which there can be no dealing, ungraspable, having no distinctive mark, non-thinkable, that cannot be designated the essence of the assurance of which is the state of being, one with the self, the cessation of development, tranquil, benign, without a second (a-dvaita)". - Mandukya Upanishad
*Consciosness itself is "Not this" because it is not an object to consciousness but it is the subject to which the object appears to. We are trying to find the source subject so if its called object then we will have to find something else which can be considered subject and not an object.* I am not an expert but I agree with Swami ji here.
When swamiji said "Consciossness appears to itself" that appearance is not the actual consciousness, it is Maya meaning its just an appearance of Consciosness not the actual consciousness." like how we cant equate the mirror image of something to actual thing that is reflected in the mirror. Appearant form of conscioussness is just an image of consciousness which appears as this universe of object to itself but its not actually the Consciousness itself. its just a reflection of it.
"Consciousness is not mind" means by Indian definition consciousness is not an object to consciousness where mind is an object, we can experience our thoughts, ideas, etc thats why it cannot be called consciousness because it is an object to consciousness not the subject to which object is appearing to.
If the materialist critics are right and consciousness is fundamental, there can be no progress in discovering how it works. If it is emergent from material processes, we can investigate and learn more about it. Maybe even use this new knowledge as a tool for more things. I know this is an appeal to consequence fallacy but I still think it's a reason to hope materialism is correct.
@@rishabhthakur8773 maybe. I think every option has things about it that seem weird. Panpshychism, idealism, dualism, materialism, they're all weird in their own ways.
Lol, this comment seems biased and somewhat ignorant. Event if consciousness is proved to be fundamental that doesn't mean there can be no progress in discovering how it works. Just look at the indian philosophies. most of them and including all the religions in the world, almost all consider consiousness at fundamental entity yet there is progress happening for thousands of years. Whole purpose of Vedanta is to discover and understand how Consciousness works considering it as fundamental. understaning how it works solves almost all the problems that we face because arguebly it will solve the problem of suffering and purpose. most of our problems are subset of problem of suffering, so solving that will solve most of our problems. I don't think materialism is correct because it considers secondary experience as real and primary as unreal. Primary experience is consciousness and all of our other experiences and secondary experiences are what we call this material universe which cannot be experienced without being conscious. U may disagree but I think materialism is currently having hard time explaining the things they claim to be true.
@@theeternal6890 progress? What progress? Everything they present is a post hoc rationalization, they do not present new information. Neuroscience has given us medicine, surgery, and most recently the explosion of AI into popular use. All of these successes are based on a view that the moving parts in the squishy machine are the mechanism by which thinking occurs. We examine the small parts, see how they work, help them work better, and build new things off the same premise. And they all work. THAT is progress.
Imagine an ocean. Consider the ocean as Consciousness. Now, you have waves and whirpools in that ocean. Advaita Vedanta says, the waves and the whirpools are also the same non-dual consciousness. Its appears in a different form with a different name is Maya and the truth is its essence is that of the ocean. Similarly, reality as we know it is like appearences in this fabric of Consciousness. We have to be careful in that the way Consciousness is described in Eastern Philosophies such as Advaita Vedanta is slightly different from how Consciousness is usually described in Neuroscience.
Nice reaction and comments. Not related to this or maybe. The chant that he sings at the beginning is "Om Asato Ma Sadgamaya",(lead us from the unreal to the real; from darkness to light; from death to immortality) is the song for The movie Matrix Revolutions at the end. More less the entire film's philosophy too. This Swami Sarvapriyananda's videos are interesting. Edit- Also, to know more about what he says or explains as conscience in Advaita Vedantic's perspective is to see his " Swami Sarvapriyananda's Who am I" video. He lectures to some students in a detailed way.
When u say "this consciousness" U r not actually pointing to a subjective entity because u can say this only if u can experience it. so that wont work. saying "This" doesnt mean just to say. it has specific condition.
@onemorebrown Thanks for this, and I appreciate that you mentioned what I said on Deepak Chopra episode. You have landed on a gem here, Swami S. is extremely good at communicating about this and hopefully you will have a discussion with him. I can see your mind churning which is good - coming from a habit of objectifying [which is all of us], it's not easy to understand or get Advaita. It has taken me years to "really get it" - it's actually wrong to even say that. It's all about the Subject - if one can talk about "it" then one doesn't really get it.
*Consciousness doesn't appears to itself as it is but as all objects which can't really be called consciences. U cannot experience consciousness, U can only recognize urself as conscious. If u experience something and called it consciousness then according to advaita it's not consciouness because consciousness is not an object so it cannot be experienced directly. So when u say I know that I am aware, U are just acknowledging the fact of being aware u are not actually experiencing the consciousness itself. If u could experience consciousness then we would be able to experience conscioussness of every other person too but we cannot/\.*
I think you are analysing every expression of Swamiji as if he is speaking for PHD dissertation in front of a panel of which you are a member or as if you are a judge and a lawsuit has been discussed in front of you. He has made it clear at the outset that he is giving lecture for a layman, a basic level. E.g. when Swamiji gave the analogy of the car assembly what he meant was that we as in mankind, not specifically you or me or anyone in particular, have an understanding of how the components of car are put together, how the components work with each other and function as a vehicle. Now with regards to consciousness we cannot really decipher how to neural activity is producing these vivid experiences that we have. An analogy's purpose is to convey a point - no purpose is served by dissecting it.
Yes. Information’s 2nd Order class is composed of all of the scratches, scars, bang marks, dents, heat residues, ripples, vibrations, holes, cracks & tears disfiguring the surface of, &/or deforming the underlying body, bearing it. The underlying body becoming thereby the bearing medium thereof. Whether or not any contact event between any two solid bodies creates a visible scar, scratch or impression nevertheless each & every single individual contact event that has ever occurred here in our Universe invariably/ineluctably creates & leaves behind an electromagnetic signature, or heat stamp, which exists as a perfect & precise outline of the exact configuration of of the contact event even if it lasts only for a few seconds or moments as ‘heat’. Many of these scratches & scars fade quickly away - some last for billions of years - but for however long or short any unit of 2nd Order information lasts, each bears some fully certain & some fully readable/measurable information contained within its particular configuration. While the ‘meaning’ of any one or another unit of information, or ensemble thereof is a fully mental or mindful phenomenon, ‘information’s’ other identifying characteristics such as shape, backfilling, being bourn on an underlying bearing medium, are ‘hard’, physically measurable components of the phenomenon, which particular properties makes it eminently possible to identify, trace-&-track any kind & amount of the phenomenon where- & whenever any of it exists, here in our Universe, including any of it being handled &/or operated on &/or used (as the means with which to think (as the means with which to guide & direct action &/or movement)). Including any of it being shunted along & used inside our own internal thinking machine. A useful exercise for any one desiring greater familiarity with the phenomenon is simply to note that any recognisable unit, or ensemble of units of information will exhibit all of the phenomenon’s defining features. Take all of the words & letters on the page - note that each not only has location & temporal duration, but even more definitively shape, back-filling (ink or pixels), an underlying bearing medium (paper or comms screen), meaning x the latter which you learnt at your mother’s - or teacher’s - knee. ‘Meaning’ ? Inarguably ‘information’s’ most valuable property. It is a purely mental (sentient//mindful) property of information. Each & every single, individual unit of information present here in or Universe carries some one, another or an ensemble of items of highly informative information. Or put a little more colloquially but just as usefully/correctly, each & every fully back filled, medium bourn unit of information present here in our Universe carries some one, another or several mind-only-discernible ‘snippets of wisdom’, ‘gems of knowledge’, ‘morsels of meaning’ on its back. But it is ‘information’s’ traceability via its hard, physical features (shape/back-filling/bearing medium) which allows both the ontological identities & the full science of all of ‘information’s’ closely related phenomena such as ‘thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’, ‘cognition’, ‘consciousness’ & cognitive self-conscious awareness to be established. These introductory comments are but the tip of the iceberg, my principal point at this juncture being simply that ‘information’ as a phenomenon in its own right - along with an accompanying full science of the phenomenon- remains as yet completely unknown (except for myself) & in this ignorance, no possibility whatsoever of successfully identifying, defining & understanding any information-related//information-using phenomena such as ’thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’, ‘cognition’ & ‘consciousness’ (etc) exists.
You might want to consider reaching out to the RU-vidr Dr. k who does Healthy Gamer. He seems well versed in both traditions. I believe conversation between you two would be very interesting!
can you explain me how your statement "why a particular mental state is associated with a particular brain state " not same as asking why sky is blue when could have been otherwise, if it is same...why is it a problem to you?
Sure thing, when we ask 'could the sky have been a different color' what we mean (since there, in a sense, is no sky) 'could the sky have appeared a different color to creatures like us?'. The answer to this question straightforwardly depends on what the atmosphere is made of, what kind of light is emitted by the su and the kind of photreceptiors and brains the relevant creatures have. If any of those were different in various ways then the sky would have appeared a different color to us. That is to say that we have an explanation of the sky color as it is currently in these terms. This is because we can explain how the white light from the sun is filtered by the atmosphere ad how the resulting light has the effect on us it does in a way that allows us to see how it could (and couldn't) be different. However, the question "why does that wavelength result in a brain state which is phenomenologically blue?' is just the Hard Problem question again. The TLDR of this is: in the one case it looks like we can give an explanation of why it is that way and the other we don't know what an explanation would even look like
so assuming blueness is the associated brain state(identity-theory?)..you are asking for a sufficient causal explanation of that correlated wavelength??@@onemorebrown
In geeta, God Krishna says that the last consciousness ( or thought i dont know exact term) that you are in the final moments of death decides which species of organism you are going to be born into Thats one of the fundamental laws of this spiritual world, as Krishna delivers As a human, who has gone through many religions, hinduism strikes me the most, You should give Geeta a read, especially while heavyweights like einstein, shrodinger, hiesenberg, Oppenheimer were mesmerised by it.
