GENIUS FORUMS

Continued from another thread:

Kelly Jones wrote:Are you saying that:

- Consciousness is equivalent to memory and other parts, connected
- "Connectedness" is particular connections between parts, rather than connectedness per se
- Consciousness arises only when all the parts are connected in a particular way

Yes.

Consciousness is a thing that is conscious of itself

It creates the idea "self".

I'm asking two questions: what exactly is consciousness/awareness

So you're asking something like, what is a car engine?

I'm still not clear what you're asking. (maybe more below)

and is quality of memory really, generally, the determining component re better consciousness?

Yes. Weininger makes an irrefutable case that it is, because without memory A=A would not be possible - which is to say logic, and the conscious creation of identity.

I'm not asking what causes consciousness absolutely, because that is obviously the "Hidden Void". I'm asking scientifically, what is it, as if it is a conceptus.

"Scientifically" is also a bit vague, as there are many branches of science, like biology, chemistry, physics, perhaps psychology, etc.

I could say that consciousness is a chemical state.

It is evidently different from the thing called unconsciousness (pre-conceptus), and it as stages of growth.

Just like there's a difference between a car engine and a pile of engine parts on the floor.

Is it biological, as something that is alive, or not?

It depends on how you want to look at it. Is a car engine alive or not?

- If it is not itself any of the parts, but all the parts connected (in a particular way), then it cannot be equivalent to appearances, including "observer".

I don't know what you mean by "equivalent to appearances".

We can speak of consciousness as being a sequence of appearances. But we can speak of a car engine as being a source of propulsive force.

The problem is, one cannot say with certainty that any particular part is the key to "how to connect things to create consciousness", because one can never know the part is missing.

All parts of consciousness are key. Saying that memory is the key part is just a figure of speech, like saying that a car key is the key part of a car.

Are you saying that consciousness is a finite thing?

There's only one thing that's Infinite, and that's the Totality. Concsciousness is something we demarcate from unconsciousness, so it is therefore finite.

then there is a gap between "refreshing memory" (better) and no reliance on memory (best).

Memory is required for conscious thought and logic, so there is necessarily a reliance on memory.

So there would seem to be some other determining component for "consciousness that is better than better". The answer might be: memory of why relying on a memory is false provides impetus not to - for as long as the memory's life. That is, the memory itself doesn't appear, but its effects do. Those effects would be the other determining component. (?)

I'm not sure what you're saying there.

What a strange man you are sometimes!

Kevin wrote:

Saying that memory is the key part is just a figure of speech, like saying that a car key is the key part of a car.

But a car key is the key part of a car, which is not a figure of speech.

.

Leyla Shen wrote:But a car key is the key part of a car, which is not a figure of speech..

Yes, but ultimately all words are a figure of speech. To a professional car thief, the key isn't key - so to speak.

I'm going to go ahead and respond to the title of this thread, given that I'm not to familiar with how the term is generally used on this board. Consciousness has a number of meanings. It can represent a wakeful state, general attention towards things, or the raw experiences we all have as characterized by a feeling-of-being. Sartre said that consciousness is defined purely by intentionality, which is to say that it's always about something, without being-in-itself. Dennett would say that consciousness is something of an illusion, akin to the vital force that people in past times imagined to animate life. Others have claimed consciousness to be the merging point of phenomena and noumena, meaning it's a thing-in-itself composed of things-as-they appear. I myself am just happy to have it, although I occasionally take an opinion on the issue.

Kevin Solway wrote:Kelly: Consciousness is a thing that is conscious of itself

Kevin: It creates the idea "self".

This is getting closer to the nugget.

Is your meaning of the idea "self" simply any identity (a truth, because a thing and a memory of it are matched, A=A), meaning that consciousness "comes first" and creates selves? Or do you mean the characteristic of consciousness (a coherent and idiosyncratic being with personality and memories) ? The latter is how David defines the idea "self" irt consciousness (see quote further down), but i think you mean the former, and also i'm more interested in the first definition.

Kelly: I'm asking two questions: what exactly is consciousness/awareness

Kevin: So you're asking something like, what is a car engine?

Yes. Like i mentioned earlier, one cannot know the key when its missing (because one would be unconscious then).

David wrote that no one can really know for sure how consciousness works. He says what it is (things), and what its useful for (survival), but not anything about what causes things to turn into consciousness.

That's basically what i'm interested in.



Here's the quote.

The Impotency of Consciousness

When I was a young man, I had a simple but important insight into the workings of consciousness. I recognized that every thought and decision enters consciousness from some "place" outside of consciousness. In each moment of time, we do not actually create or choose the thought we will have in the next moment. It is not as if our consciousness burrows down into the neural pathways of the brain like a scurrying clerk and consciously selects what it will think next. It is too busy occupying itself with the thought that is already in consciousness to worry about what happens next. Instead, our thoughts and decisions just "pop" into the mind via a process that occurs completely beyond our awareness.

If truth be told, none of us have the faintest understanding of how a thought or decision is formulated in our minds. We have no consciousness or control over the thousands of millions of chemical processes which lead to its formation. All we ever experience is the end result. And yet here we are, proudly believing that we are exercising our free will!

If free will is to have any chance of being a reality, then at the very least our "willing" has to constitute a conscious act of some kind. If something is not a conscious act, then by definition it is just a blind happening - no different from the wind blowing through the trees or the waves crashing into the rocks. Since a blind happening is totally incompatible with the notion of "willing", it is clear that consciousness has to underpin any process that we care to call "free will".

But what exactly is consciousness? In essence, it is the act of perceiving one object, or a collection of objects, at a time. In each moment, consciousness is wholly absorbed in its field of awareness, during which it is unaware of everything else in the Universe. I might glance at a tree, for example, and, in the very moment that I do so, I am unconscious of everything else in the world, with the possible exception of the tree's immediate surroundings. In the next moment, I might focus upon a car, or another person's speech, or an inner train of thought - and each time, my mind automatically blocks out the entire Universe apart from these things. For all practical purposes, the rest of the Universe might as well not exist at all.

Consciousness is oblivious to everything except what it perceives in each moment. This is the fundamental truth of its being. It is even blind to what it will perceive next. Thus, by its very nature, consciousness cannot bring anything into existence.

You might feel that you are causing the next thought to arise, but what is really happening? Some muscular tension, a sense of continuity between one thought and the next, an urge to bring forth a new thought, an impulse to act, etc - in other words, happenings within consciousness. But consciousness itself is entirely passive in the matter.

This is not to say that consciousness is unimportant to human behaviour. On the contrary, consciousness is integral to our behaviour as biological organisms. It is the means by which we correlate and unify data from our senses. It enables us to respond quickly to complex situations. It provides us with the capacity to fuse our various perceptions, conceptions and reasonings into a manageable and self-consistent whole. Without consciousness, our species probably would have died out long ago.

But one thing consciousness cannot do is originate thoughts and decisions as though it were somehow an isolated, self-sustaining entity existing above the world of causation. In reality, our thoughts and decisions arise out of a multiplicity of factors - neurological, chemical, hormonal, psychological, environmental, etc - which consciousness also plays a part. But there is no beginning to any of it - anywhere.

Kelly: and is quality of memory really, generally, the determining component re better consciousness?

Kevin: Yes. Weininger makes an irrefutable case that it is, because without memory A=A would not be possible - which is to say logic, and the conscious creation of identity.

You're saying consciousness = things remembered
and
Not-consciousness = memory + particular connections + and other things - actual assembly

How does memory / logic connect with things to cause thing-consciousness? Can one have certainty about how consciousness works, or is any hypothesis about how connections are made subject to further data ?

Kelly: I'm not asking what causes consciousness absolutely, because that is obviously the "Hidden Void". I'm asking scientifically, what is it, as if it is a conceptus.

Kevin: "Scientifically" is also a bit vague, as there are many branches of science, like biology, chemistry, physics, perhaps psychology, etc.

I could say that consciousness is a chemical state.

Alright, you're having me on.

But it's still an interesting question. Like learning how to stop a toilet cistern leaking. "Where is the most likely cause for the leak?"

What is the way memory/logic causes self-creating/consciousness? Can one be any more specific than A=A?

Kelly: It is evidently different from the thing called unconsciousness (pre-conceptus), and it as stages of growth.

Kevin: Just like there's a difference between a car engine and a pile of engine parts on the floor.

By stages of growth, i meant degrees of consciousness. A lawn-mower engine can't recreate itself to be V8. How does consciousness go from chugging to super-car?

Kelly: Is it biological, as something that is alive, or not?

Kevin: It depends on how you want to look at it. Is a car engine alive or not?

You described education, order-of-birth, and other things as non-biological causes in the Reincarnation thread (i think). There, you defined biological as "alive". I'm not entirely sure what you meant.

Some machines can be programmed to re-machine themselves, and produce new-machines as well. Is that biological? The consciousness program is capable of deliberate adaptation and organisation of various parts.

Kelly: If it is not itself any of the parts, but all the parts connected (in a particular way), then it cannot be equivalent to appearances, including "observer".

Kevin: I don't know what you mean by "equivalent to appearances".

Is the same as appearances.

E.g. "something is appearing" is a definition of consciousness. But because things themselves aren't conscious (your statement), therefore this definition is incorrect.

We can speak of consciousness as being a sequence of appearances. But we can speak of a car engine as being a source of propulsive force.

Forget the "biological/non-biological" idea. I don't think it's relevant.

Are you saying "sequence of appearances" is itself conscious, because of the relationship of one appearance to another? So, when there is relating (memories), then there is a specific particular connectivity happening?

Memory is the relating......?

Kelly: The problem is, one cannot say with certainty that any particular part is the key to "how to connect things to create consciousness", because one can never know the part is missing.

Kevin: All parts of consciousness are key. Saying that memory is the key part is just a figure of speech, like saying that a car key is the key part of a car.

Fine with that. But when all the keys bar one are in place, the missing key is important to getting the whole working.

Kelly: Are you saying that consciousness is a finite thing?

Kevin: There's only one thing that's Infinite, and that's the Totality. Concsciousness is something we demarcate from unconsciousness, so it is therefore finite.

Fine.

Kelly: then there is a gap between "refreshing memory" (better) and no reliance on memory (best).

Kevin: Memory is required for conscious thought and logic, so there is necessarily a reliance on memory.

See below.

Kelly: So there would seem to be some other determining component for "consciousness that is better than better". The answer might be: memory of why relying on a memory is false provides impetus not to - for as long as the memory's life. That is, the memory itself doesn't appear, but its effects do. Those effects would be the other determining component. (?)

Kevin: I'm not sure what you're saying there.

Enlightenment doesn't depend on any particular memory, because Enlightenment is of the Infinite and whatever the memory is, is a finite existence. The Truth that spells out enlightenment is everywhere, so no particular memory can be rested on. That is, any Truth statement's meaning must reveal something eternal and timeless, that cannot be remembered (for then the Truth would be limited to "past").

Truth-consciousness is conscious and rational (by definition). These two necessarily rely on memory.

So i concluded that the memory that identifies Truth to be what it is, creates a momentum of Truth-consciousness. That momentum is the effect i mentioned above.


.

More simply, Enlightenment is spontaneity after reflection. Reasoning and memory fuel the enlightenedness of the mind, but aren't themselves relied on anymore.

.

Kelly Jones wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote:

Consciousness is a thing that is conscious of itself

Kevin: It creates the idea "self".

This is getting closer to the nugget.

Is your meaning of the idea "self" simply any identity (a truth, because a thing and a memory of it are matched, A=A), meaning that consciousness "comes first" and creates selves?

"Self" is simply an appearance, the same as anything else that appears in consciousness. An identity.

Or do you mean the characteristic of consciousness (a coherent and idiosyncratic being with personality and memories) ?

No, I don't mean that. That kind of self is a changing one, but the one I am speaking of is an unchanging logical identity.

Like i mentioned earlier, one cannot know the key when its missing (because one would be unconscious then).

You can't know it if you're unconscious, but you can know it if you're conscious.

Whether a person becomes conscious is not at all through their own doing - since an unconscious person can't "do" anything, as such. It is a matter of fate whether Nature has determined they will become conscious.

David wrote that no one can really know for sure how consciousness works. He says what it is (things), and what its useful for (survival), but not anything about what causes things to turn into consciousness.

That's basically what i'm interested in.

What causes it is Natural Selection. When certain chemicals are configured in a certain way, in a way that we call "consciousness", then it lends the organism a survival advantage. There is a survival advantage even if the consciousness is very minor and poorly formed.

A different angle is discussed below.

Weininger makes an irrefutable case that it is, because without memory A=A would not be possible - which is to say logic, and the conscious creation of identity.

You're saying consciousness = things remembered

Yes. You could think of it that way. A rock, for example, "experiences" gravity, but it is unremembered.

Likewise, a person with an animal-type consciousness, experiences things but is unable to learn from them. So they keep repeating the same mistakes, like a computer program with a bug in it. and no programmer in charge to come and fix it.

Not-consciousness = memory + particular connections + and other things - actual assembly

More or less. Sometimes the parts don't even exist.

How does memory / logic connect with things to cause thing-consciousness?

The short answer is, what things? Things don't even exist till consciousness demarcates them, or creates them. Something causes consciousness to create things, and one of those causes would be the senses. You can think of causes transmitting through the senses and having an effect on what things consciousness creates.

More about how memory develops below.

Can one have certainty about how consciousness works, or is any hypothesis about how connections are made subject to further data ?

It definitely works by cause and effect, and the causes of consciousness definitely come from outside itself. That's all you can say for certain. Whatever those causes are, you could call "senses" if you wanted to, since they provide input to consciousness.

I could say that consciousness is a chemical state.

Alright, you're having me on.

No, I'm not kidding. If you could somehow duplicate the exact chemical state (including electrical) of our brain (including the brain stem), and somehow wire it up to a compatible body of some kind, then you will have effectively duplicated the consciousness - perhaps not perfectly, but pretty close.

Just like you can dump the memory of your computer to disk, and transfer it to another computer (with no guarantees it will function identically in the environment of a different computer and different location).

But it's still an interesting question. Like learning how to stop a toilet cistern leaking. "Where is the most likely cause for the leak?"

I would say the main reason human beings don't develop memory, and hence logic and consciousness, is simply that they don't think enough. The more you think about things, the more you can relate one thing to another, and so the better your memory is. You could call that "meditation" or "contemplation".

People are too busy working and having families to think.

What is the way memory/logic causes self-creating/consciousness? Can one be any more specific than A=A?

Let's say you do something today, and it doesn't seem like the first time you've ever done it. So you think "I"'ve done something like this before. The "I" is created to explain, or at least label, the link.

How does consciousness go from chugging to super-car?

Thinking, making connections between otherwise unrelated things, seeing patterns.

There, you defined biological as "alive". I'm not entirely sure what you meant.

I was using those labels to suit tharpa. I think "biological" is just some arbitrary boundary that we use to separate ourselves from things like rocks - for no particularly convincing reason.

Some people would argue that biology is concerned with self-replicating matter, such as DNA.

Some machines can be programmed to re-machine themselves, and produce new-machines as well. Is that biological?

Going by the above definition it would be.

I don't know what you mean by [consciousness is] "equivalent to appearances".

Is the same as appearances.

E.g. "something is appearing" is a definition of consciousness. But because things themselves aren't conscious (your statement), therefore this definition is incorrect.

I don't think "Is the same as appearances" is a good enough definition of consciousness because the important thing about consciousness is that it can link many appearances together and create meaning and purpose, etc.

I used the phrase "sequence of appearances" to try and suggest how they are all linked together in consciousness.

Are you saying "sequence of appearances" is itself conscious

I think it is a mistake to think of consciousness as being conscious, in the sense that if it were conscious then it would need to have yet another consciousness itself. There would be a doubling-up of consciousness.

Rather, I am conscious, because of my consciousness - because of the sequence of appearances.

Memory is required for conscious thought and logic, so there is necessarily a reliance on memory.

Enlightenment doesn't depend on any particular memory, because Enlightenment is of the Infinite and whatever the memory is, is a finite existence.

There is no Infinite apart from finite things. Enlightenment is indeed "of the Infinite" but it is also of that which the Infinite is comoposed of - that is, its contents - which are finite. So it is also "of the finite".

Unenlightened people don't know either the Infinite nor the finite. Neither.

So i concluded that the memory that identifies Truth to be what it is, creates a momentum of Truth-consciousness. That momentum is the effect i mentioned above.

Yes, ok. That momentum, which is really "the past", or "causes" is not a memory in consciousness. It is like a habit - something that happens automatically.

I'm getting much closer to the idea now. Not quite there, as it's too complicated still.

The idea to clarify is the difference between the continuity of things (Natural Selection or survivalism), and the mechanics of continuity that forms memory which is essential to consciousness.

Kevin wrote:What causes it is Natural Selection. When certain chemicals are configured in a certain way, in a way that we call "consciousness", then it lends the organism a survival advantage. There is a survival advantage even if the consciousness is very minor and poorly formed.

A different angle is discussed below.

Kelly wrote:

Kevin wrote:Weininger makes an irrefutable case that it is, because without memory A=A would not be possible - which is to say logic, and the conscious creation of identity.

You're saying consciousness = things remembered

Yes. You could think of it that way. A rock, for example, "experiences" gravity, but it is unremembered.

Likewise, a person with an animal-type consciousness, experiences things but is unable to learn from them. So they keep repeating the same mistakes, like a computer program with a bug in it. and no programmer in charge to come and fix it.

Natural Selection is experienced by all organisms. It is a "causal self" that is responsible for the tendency to maintain "organism continuity". It would be false to call this tendency memory (as in "when soil has been carefully cultivated, it has memory for many years") ----- unless there is an important mutation in which the thing that displays organism continuity adapts to imagined causes. The latter is memory.

Thus, consciousness arises when there is a sense of time. It arises when causes form images. These images can only arise because there is a relationship between what has been and what might be. The image is a "self": a link that is remembered because it is hoped to recur.

Consciousness (memory) is most likely to have come from the evolutionary advantage of food procurement and finding shelter.

Kevin wrote:

Kelly wrote:How does memory / logic connect with things to cause thing-consciousness?

Kevin: The short answer is, what things? Things don't even exist till consciousness demarcates them, or creates them. Something causes consciousness to create things, and one of those causes would be the senses. You can think of causes transmitting through the senses and having an effect on what things consciousness creates.

More about how memory develops below.

Can one have certainty about how consciousness works, or is any hypothesis about how connections are made subject to further data ?

It definitely works by cause and effect, and the causes of consciousness definitely come from outside itself. That's all you can say for certain. Whatever those causes are, you could call "senses" if you wanted to, since they provide input to consciousness.

If you could somehow duplicate the exact chemical state (including electrical) of our brain (including the brain stem), and somehow wire it up to a compatible body of some kind, then you will have effectively duplicated the consciousness - perhaps not perfectly, but pretty close.

Just like you can dump the memory of your computer to disk, and transfer it to another computer (with no guarantees it will function identically in the environment of a different computer and different location).

Ok, the idea of inputters steering the consciousness-construction is credible. But this is just another word for causes.

I'd like to focus on what it is in the senses that causes images - time - reflexivity. I'd say that, as the organism continues to survive, each memory-operator gets fed more stimuli for growth. This is the same operation as Natural Selection, only here the "organism continuity" is self-consciousness. If it doesn't remember and also adapt, its chance of survival decreases, and the memory-operator isn't fed growth-stimulants. This doesn't suggest that evolution is oriented towards wisdom, because self-consciousness is not necessarily.

I would say the main reason human beings don't develop memory, and hence logic and consciousness, is simply that they don't think enough. The more you think about things, the more you can relate one thing to another, and so the better your memory is. You could call that "meditation" or "contemplation".

People are too busy working and having families to think.

Then thinking is adaptation.



Now for the interesting bit.

Kelly: What is the way memory/logic causes self-creating/consciousness? Can one be any more specific than A=A?

Kevin: Let's say you do something today, and it doesn't seem like the first time you've ever done it. So you think "I"'ve done something like this before. The "I" is created to explain, or at least label, the link.

The link is the contrast between two states related by time. Memory is the link: it occurs when a thing is imagined, because to be imagined, it has to be contrasted with something that has its own image. Thus, there is nothing but the link in thinking, for there to be any clarity at all. Even for there to be vagueness requires memory.

Thinking is "adaptive repetition". This needs more unpacking.

Kelly: How does consciousness go from chugging to super-car?

Kevin: Thinking, making connections between otherwise unrelated things, seeing patterns.

Ok. Patterns are generalisations. Imaginings are related based on generalisations.

Kelly: There, you defined biological as "alive". I'm not entirely sure what you meant.

Kevin: I was using those labels to suit tharpa. I think "biological" is just some arbitrary boundary that we use to separate ourselves from things like rocks - for no particularly convincing reason.

Some people would argue that biology is concerned with self-replicating matter, such as DNA.

Ok.

Kevin wrote:

Kelly wrote:

Kevin wrote:I don't know what you mean by [consciousness is] "equivalent to appearances".

Is the same as appearances.

E.g. "something is appearing" is a definition of consciousness. But because things themselves aren't conscious (your statement), therefore this definition is incorrect.

I don't think "Is the same as appearances" is a good enough definition of consciousness because the important thing about consciousness is that it can link many appearances together and create meaning and purpose, etc.

I used the phrase "sequence of appearances" to try and suggest how they are all linked together in consciousness.

Fine.

Kelly wrote:Are you saying "sequence of appearances" is itself conscious

I think it is a mistake to think of consciousness as being conscious, in the sense that if it were conscious then it would need to have yet another consciousness itself. There would be a doubling-up of consciousness.

Rather, I am conscious, because of my consciousness - because of the sequence of appearances.

Right, this is the tricky bit. There are two "unpackings" to do here:

- on adaptive repetition (generalising that imagines time-relative possibilities)
- on the link that is selfhood (the generalisation of self-consciousness)

I think i've been carrying around this error about consciousness being conscious because of this section in Poison for the Heart (in "Learning"):

Alertness:

There are three types of mindfulness:

1. Mindfulness of the body
2. Mindfulness of the mind
3. Mindfulness of mindfulness

Mindfulness is a matter of alertness. Alertness is a part of the mind that stands back and observes, and can see things in perspective. Alertness checks what the mind is doing and asks "Is there anything better I could be doing at the present moment?", and "Is this activity advancing me towards my goal?" Alertness keeps us at a safe distance from the stickiness of the world. Lose your alertness, become absorbed in things, and you will be at their mercy.

Whatever has been learnt
By those whose minds lack alertness
Just like water in a leaking vase
It will not be retained in their memory

I think the habit of self-consciousness is to generalise all behaviour plans relative to an imagined linking agent. This agent is the "false" I. It seems that this I is conscious, because all imagined time-related possibilities are related to being acted out, which requires coordination by something. Thus, the I is memories --- and hence the illusion of self-consciousness.

(?)

Kelly: So i concluded that the memory that identifies Truth to be what it is, creates a momentum of Truth-consciousness. That momentum is the effect i mentioned above.

Kevin: Yes, ok. That momentum, which is really "the past", or "causes" is not a memory in consciousness. It is like a habit - something that happens automatically.

Hmmm. I can't actually get my head around this in relation to what i've just been thinking about. I know it logically, but can't yet place it into the generalising realm.

All i can see is that it is a third type of continuity: not Natural Selection or memory.

Kelly Jones wrote:It would be false to call this tendency memory (as in "when soil has been carefully cultivated, it has memory for many years")

When soil is abused it has memory for many years too. In fact, all things have that kind of memory to some degree. It is really only saying that there are effects which are the remnants of previous causes.

Thus, consciousness arises when there is a sense of time.

Yes, and the sense of time is created by memory. The more linked memories it takes to reach back to a particular memory, the longer ago it seems. That's why when people are having a very interesting time, it can seem like the time is going very slowly (lots of memories being laid-down), while in other respects the time seems to go quickly (no boredom or pain).

Thus, there is nothing but the link in thinking, for there to be any clarity at all. Even for there to be vagueness requires memory.

Yes, and the more vagueness, the lesser the consciousness.

People can however be extremely forthright with their vagueness - such as fundamentalist Christians - because they don't have enough consciousness to be aware of their own vagueness.

"Alertness is a part of the mind that stands back and observes, and can see things in perspective."

The "part" that stands back is really the "I".

People who have little consciousness, and are vague, don't have a well-formed "I", so they can't stand back. That's why they don't have much character. They are part of the Merged Void.

I think the habit of self-consciousness is to generalise all behaviour plans relative to an imagined linking agent. This agent is the "false" I. It seems that this I is conscious, because all imagined time-related possibilities are related to being acted out, which requires coordination by something. Thus, the I is memories --- and hence the illusion of self-consciousness.

I would say that the created "I" is the true "I" - since it is a real creation. But people who don't have a clear idea of what it is pile all sorts of false concepts ontop of it, confusing it with all kinds of other concepts, contaminating it, and turning it into a false "I".

There are two lines in this exploration, i think:

- how memory actually works
- how memory developed "in the first place"

I'd like to clarify the first first.

The link and/or relating is the essence of memory (A=A). The link is the equality of two things. To link, or compare, or "make equal", requires a "sense" of the Absolute. Namely, that a thing is what it is, in comparison to everything else.

Equality is what comes from relating, and is the essence of memory.

This sense or ability appears because things are compelled by Nature in a mechanical way, to be what they are. Sanity is programmed into every thing ---- in the sense that Nature has a kind of compulsion to create things. Nature cannot help but not to be nothing or to be incapable of creating. This is akin to Kierkegaard's idea of God's love, God's constancy (not quite the same, though).

I'll move to the second, but will come back to the first, because of what equality means.

From the hardwired "sanity" (unconscious memory) comes consciousness, when the "unremembered" compulsion moves a thing to be itself in so many ways that it is harder to become "disembodied". That is, greater complexity and
overall development in the organism. The more it advances in organism complexity, the more it has "sense". The more inputs of Nature's constancy, the more there is consciousness.

A rock remains a rock, and a diamond remains a diamond even more, but a diamond cannot create more diamondness, so it has less "remaining ability" than an ant. So an ant is more conscious.

The "sense" turns into a feeling for something - henidlike feeling. This in turn becomes a drive, in which there is some sense of time and projection --- and then comes imagination, which is like a quantum leap in consciousness.

It all is the movements of the Absolute.

Now, going back to equality.

"Unremembered" effects become links when there is greater compulsion to be. Relating and making "selves" - making more "remaining ability". Memory is the core ingredient of "life" - selfhood, reproduction. The drive that develops out of the henid-state is the basic ingredient for purpose, and creates the first sense of time.

So, i agree, the eternal agent (consciousness) is the true self, because it must always be related to the Absolute. That is the true "I" because there can be no self except one that relates the finite to the Infinite. I had been thinking that the true "I" is the Absolute, the Infinite, but in fact, there is no Absolute but consciousness of the Absolute. Or, more accurately, there can be no truthfulness about the Absolute, without the memory of a conscious identification.

The urge to truth is absolutely embedded in consciousness, but memory is not, because "remaining ability" takes so much "effort" on Nature's part. There is more overall power in Nature towards unconsciousness, but there are more lasting effects in consciousness, because consciousness coordinates and reproduces.

As we see with humankind organising planet Earth.

Humans are so emphatic about truths, and so upset about liars --- yet so incapable generally of clarifying what is truth. They are still very weak, lacking grace.

What kinds of things are the "greater compulsions to be" that cause quantum leaps in consciousness, thinking, and an I to form clearly?

Perhaps crystal-clear genetics (neural and sensory pathways), causation-aware parents, exposure to "reminders" of the evolution of consciousness via interaction with all kinds of life-forms as a child, and a sense of dignity (self-discipline, unification or coordination --- whatever reinforces one's character and choices to give a sense of implications and consequences).



Interesting --- this has been one of the best things i've written so far.

It is hard to remember that, it's too complicated.

All it is, is identifying things logically.

Thinking.

I am the memory/logic function of consciousness.