Understanding Consciousness

[twonine29]

Below there's a post about consciousness evolving. If this is true, than could it be said that we are still evolving in consciousness?
Meaning some people are farther along and are more conscious of a "deeper" reality, while others are just conscious of their happenings and surroundings.

Are most of us still staring at the shadows on the cave wall?

[JMAnon]

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Below there's a post about consciousness evolving. If this is true, than could it be said that we are still evolving in consciousness?

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Seems doubtful. I don't see a competitive breeding advantage in today's society for a "deeper consciousness." In industrialized nations, it tends to be the uneducated, less-intelligent residents who are breeding, not the intelligentsia.

[knowledgeORbust]

I think about this a lot, because it seems like our consciousness can evolve and expand. I mean: when you're young you're kind of just cruising through life and don't really know what you're doing. Well, you know WHAT you're doing but you don't really know why or anything. But if you study your own behavior, others' behavior, read books, study psychology & philosophy, you do become conscious of yourself and others more often. "Knowing thyself," and such, is a process.

I like to think of it in terms of video games. Because, well, that's one of the only things I know very well. You play the game, you're thrown into this other world, and you explore a bit. Then you get to know the physics and how everything seems to work. Then you learn the map, and the little nuances about your environment. Then you start competing with others, guessing what they're gonna do, kind of, and the whole game evolves. You're still keeping sharp on all that other stuff, you've just got more layers in your head. Ideally, the entire map is in your head at one time, you know where everything is, what everyone's doing, and then you can play better.

There's a cool OP from ZJ talking about this kind of stuff, relating it to poker. He describes learning it (poker) so well, it becomes unconscious. You're still processing stuff, ya know, but it's unconscious - and you're conscious mind can then go on to the next "level" or what-have-you.

[amplify]

There are two ways for anyone's consciousness to evolve, individually and socially. Socially, we have moved through Archaic to Magic to Mythic to Rational and the next level is Integral (Read Jean Gebser, Ever Present Origin). Personal evolution is much more subjective (by definition) and attempts to map this progression range from profundity to silliness to materialist denial of any possibilities whatsoever. William Irwin Thompson and Ken Wilber among others have some interesting books on both progressions.

Suffice to say that no new physical structures are prerequisite to the evolution of consciousness. Societally we will continue to evolve through interdependence and transpersonal realization while individually we can pierce our own veils of ignorance and embrace the unity.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

whats does consciousness mean? personally, i try not to examine my life or think too much because it depresses me. whenever i examine the meaning of life, the word pointless comes up over and over again.

[evil twin]

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Seems doubtful. I don't see a competitive breeding advantage in today's society for a "deeper consciousness." In industrialized nations, it tends to be the uneducated, less-intelligent residents who are breeding, not the intelligentsia.

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There doesn't really need to be a competitive breeding advantage for some kind of deeper consciousness to be spreading. See this article . I would imagine there is some kind of gaussian distribution of consciousness levels among humans and if so possibilities for evolution would seem to exist.

[Valentyno]

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Are most of us still staring at the shadows on the cave wall?

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Something from nothing. That's the strongest possible way to will it.

[amplify]

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whats does consciousness mean?

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Excellent question. People mean different things of course, including awareness, thoughts, shared feelings and beliefs. One of the key techniques I practice is to notice how separate awareness is from thought. That awareness continues when no thought is present. That for every observed thought, there is an observer outside of it. I understand that if you keep going down down the rabbit hole with this observation, that you can arrive at pure unadulterated awareness, the essential "I am" which defines you as a conscious being. For consciousness to evolve, it first has to transcend.

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personally, i try not to examine my life or think too much because it depresses me. whenever i examine the meaning of life, the word pointless comes up over and over again.

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That's because you are stuck in the trap of hanging a "meaning" on life from the perspective of analytical thought. From a coldly logical standpoint, life of course has no "meaning" as such. Life does have power and drive and direction though. Evolutionary impetus drives the pursuit of happiness and freedom at our level of development as much as it does lunch and sex. If you get depressed thinking about life, it may be because the direction of your life is away from happiness and freedom rather than toward them.

Consciousness, being a product of conditions and circumstances, depends on them and changes along with them. What is independent, uncreated, timeless and changeless and yet ever new and fresh is beyond the mind. When the mind thinks of it, the mind dissolves and only happiness remains.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj