In my recent post “It’s a joke” I wrote that YOU, or consciousness is not really in control of the body. That it is just an observer. You’re a person sitting in a cinema. As I expected this claim raised a lot of skepticism, but some people actually thought about this idea and I congratulate you, if you’re one of them. The thing is, we don’t know for sure if what I wrote is true or not, so it is perfectly healthy to consider that idea and not be blocked by your “ultimate knowing” of the way things are. Get out of your head. I actually don’t believe what I wrote. I was just fucking with y’all. I believe that you have control. What kind of control is the BIG question? We shall play a game here to find that out.
I have a couple articles planned which could be described as self-help. For anyone that is struggling with productivity or wants to generally improve their work potential and flow. The problem is what I will write will be rubbish if you don’t realize one thing. And that is YOUR relation to yourself and everything while we’re at it. I know the answers, I didn’t make them up, they were made ages ago by men much wiser than me, but you have to know what you’re looking for. This understanding I have WORKS and helps me with my life and work immensely. Now if you’re interested in scientific fact this is not the place, if you are interested in increasing performance then continue. I want to play a game with you all here today. We’ll drop the scientific/brain reasoning and work only on metaphors.
WHAT is YOU?
Meaning what is the consciousness/awareness/observer. What is it?
We can find out what it is by knowing what is its role. If we find out the role we will know what is awareness and how does it control/affect its reality. So the purpose of this game is to find out who YOU are.
Write your best possible answers in the comments. The game ends if somebody makes the same claim as I believe in, if nobody does that I’ll reveal my answer in a couple days. Let’s begin.
Suppose the human being is a PIRATE SHIP.
The obvious is that the body of the ship, the shell is the human body (skin, flesh, bones).
This is actually a corsair ship, because we need more roles. So the ship consists of:
the upper deck crew,
the lower deck crew,
the captain,
the captain’s parrot (sits on the captain’s shoulder and talks),
the ship monkey (a little pet rhesus monkey with a bell attached),
the loyalist (spies on the captain and reports back to the queen),
the queen (she’s not on the ship but it’s her ship),
the mail pigeon (carries messages),
rats,
sail map and measuring tools (compass, barometer),
a chronicler or writer aboard the ship
Now the purpose of the game is to find out what is consciousness in our model. So assign it to what you think it is, say why and say what is its relation to the rest of the ship. For example: consciousness is X because I have to do Y and Z all the time.
I reckon the captain’s parrot is the observer. The captain would be making decisions. The parrot would only be able to have it’s say after the captain has made it’s decision, therefore allowing the parrot to have influence over the captain.
I also think it’s the parrot.
The consciousness doesn’t have an unique counterpart in that setting, It is the chronicler, constantly cataloging events that occur within the body and around it. It is also the captain, sometimes instructing the scientist aboard the ship to work on difficult problem so they can navigate better, on other occasions, letting the crew have a good time, as a reward for reaching port.
Consciousness isn’t limited to logging external and internal events. You can actually play a role in the proceedings of the brain by controlling blood flow to specialized regions of the brain (emotional / memory / reasoning etc. centers).
hum… the Queen? it’s her ship, but she is not actually “working” on the ship, she get the messages from the pigeon aboute something that’s happening and then send it back. The captain can or not do what the queen wrote, she’s far away from the “action”… Acording to your statements, i guess it’s the Queen
Btw, the title remind pme of pirates xD
the upper deck crew – instincts
the lower deck crew – organs
the captain – hmm intresting!
the captain’s parrot – a part of the brain that is called conciousness
the ship monkey – immune system
the loyalist – a priest
the queen – god
the mail pigeon – memory
rats – viruses? intresting
sail map and measuring tools (compass, barometer) – senses
a chronicler or writer aboard the ship – time?
i think about it later
So what is the consciousness on the ship right?
My answer is: ALL of them.
IMHO all of our feelings, memories, decisions and even body parts are our consciousness. Say if you’d lose your arm some could say your still yourself. I think it’s not the whole truth. I think our physical being is also a part of our consciousness. It impacts our decisions, our feeling, and even the way we experience the world. They all form what we are. Even rats which can stand for illnesses shape ourselves. We are what we are.
I don’t really think t was what MM considered the right answer, but i wanted to express my opinion on the matter.
PS: “I actually don’t believe what I wrote. I was just fucking with y’all.”
………..I’m relieved to hear that MM 😀 Really!
consciousness is the pigion because the captain orders the body around depending on what the queen says, the queen would be everyone else effecting you since our mindset is composed of many other minds.
Shuger is cheating! I could have said the same thing
“Shuger is cheating”
And he is completely wrong. Your consciousness doesn’t expand through the existence of virii in your blood stream, or through the immune system’s upgrade through defeating them.
Consciousness is a brain function and only a brain function. A virus can have an effect on your body, but it effects consciousness only if it shuts down the brain. It cannot expand it.
Basically, your consciousness is different from the reality of your state of being.
It’s a cool game, but I would rather play Link-Dead =)
@ Shuger
You’ve got a point, did you know that there is cases of people aquiring other people likes and costumes by organs transplants?
I heard once that a man suicide and he wanted to donate his organs, a woman recieved his kidney, and then she suddenly start liking rap and M&M, which was things that the man who donated the kidney liked… yeah, kinda wierd but it happened,….
I say the sail map and measuring tools because you plan how to get to a certain goal and stay on course. People don’t plan what they want their goals to be they just ‘feel’ they want to do that. The feeling to do a goal is the Queens orders by pigeon post. The Caption breaks up the goal into short term goals (shorter than a day maybe a minute long goal), the upper deck crew is the part that says walk from here to there and pick up this object, the lower deck crew does the heart beating, digesting food etc. The parrot is your conscience which is where guilt comes from. The ship monkey is your instinct, (very naughty little critter). The loyalist is the part that gives you joy when you achieve a goal or makes you feel sad when you don’t. The chronicler or writer is the part that reflects on what you did and what you can do more efficiently to stay on course. The rats are human error, disease and bad thoughts (like saying ‘I’m going to fail my exam’ etc.)
but who is the captain?!
Queen has a pirate ship for a reason. What is the purpose of the pirate ship?
Sail the seas, attack merchant ships, carry loot.
Of course, the captain could also think about quitting this dangerous lifestyle and start considering of making this ship as a tourist attraction. “Come, see the great pirate ship with merry pirates! Meet the mighty captain and his dirty speaking parrot! Only 2 pieces of eight! (Children get 50% discount)”
But probably the crew would not like that and the captain walks the plank and a new temporary captain is selected from the crew.
Or maybe the crew likes the idea, but the loyalist sends a message to the queen, and soon this ship is surrounded by queen’s other ships. Centuries later divers find the ship under the sea and it becomes a popular diving place (=tourist attraction).
Ok, sorry about this mind play. My answer is:
“a chronicler or writer aboard the ship”.
That could be a memory (or more like memory management) in human body. I believe we are shaped by the things that have happened to us.
I guess the rest of the roles are:
The upper deck crew = mostly senses
The lower deck crew = mostly body functions
The captain = rational mind
The captain’s parrot = inspiration(?)
The ship monkey = emotions
The loyalist = conscience
The queen = the reason why you are here
The mail pigeon = religiousness(?)
Rats = The things that devour us, physically and mentally.
Sail map and measuring tools = intelligence
Wait a minute! *idea* I’ll change my answer; new answer:
“The ship monkey”
Reason: he can observe/be aware of things almost anywhere on the ship, but has almost no control at all. Probably he could kill the parrot, mail pigeon or maybe some rats, mess up the sail map and measuring tools, but he would be punished for that, so he does not do it.
Consciousness = control, because it makes you aware of what’s happening, giving you the possibility of making choices and react. Without consciousness, there would only be reactions on inputs, but there would be no actual control.
The ship’s actions and ability to act depends on all of the people on board with their specific purposes and skill, but also the sea. I see this sea as the one causing all the outside influence on our control. We only have as much control about things as the ship can give us. Some things we can’t control, like rocks in the sea or blizzards, but as captain we can decide what the plans will be and how we would like to control our lives. Our ship gives us the means to do so, but with eventhough we have unlimited freedom in planning our actions, it doesn’t mean we actually cán do anything we wish. (example: fly (like superman) because we want to).
Thanks I’ve got some good answers here. Still we need to go deeper, have this clarified.
This is a corsair ship, so its mission is to find and kill pirates. But as you know many corsair ships became pirates themselves because there was little control from the Queen on the wide open sea. Still there is a loyalist which can mess up the plans…
So lets say we have free will. Suppose we want to switch sides and become pirates or sail into treasure island and find gold. How do you do this considering you are the part of the ship you think you are?
so the loyalist is consciousness? His decision to report back would affect everyone on the ship but would have little effect to the ship itself.
Yeah, I think the loyalist would be consciousness. The one thing that’s stopping us from doing all kinds of crazy things is the one thing observing our line of thoughts and trying to counter our ideas with other ideas.
I think there are loyalists for both the good side and bad side and ultimately we listen to the loyalist with the most convincing speech of why to not do something or why to do something.
here goes some mindwork, after 2nd “—-” is the answer
———-
let’s see.. queen is the head of all this buzz, loyalist is for good, one-side link between queen and captain(says about bad things and thoughts of captain, if there are, so queen can change the captain or else), pigeon is two-side link, delivers messages captain->queen and queen->captain, tools and map are for captain to know something about weather and other factors to choose the way for ship, writer does chronicles, for history and some knowledge for other captains, rats.. we all have rats on our ships, yh?:) they always live in good places, they love themselves. upper/lower deck crew are people doing commands, they just do their some extremely important job to keep the ship “alive”, getting on other ships for loot and other. i don’t know the function of a monkey on this ship, and i dont know why man have “conscience”, so
———-
i think its a monkey) sry for semi-primitive english
* i think all of you thought about rats beeing consciousness, but just didn’t want to say about it, perhaps it is disgusting in undermind to think of conscience(what-i-am) like about a rat, don’t know why, even if you like them). legend sais they always leave the ship if they feel bad things coming. i mean, some serious problems wreckage that could forse our ship sink. so does your consciense. you loosing yourself first, only then your heart and breathing takes unlimited rest, brain dies and stuff
rats are consciense?
The tortoise of the world, you who is familiar and whom it wants to feel. If Atagawa is said, banana wani en. But, are you a crocodile if it is a banana in Atagawa because of what? I am about to want to go without thinking deeply.
im a crackhead
I don’t get everything, but I think that:
He’s doing everything, but controlled by all of the other parts (except the crew);
So this gotta be one of the Loyalist-Pigeon-Queen relationship according to my version…
Queen – God
Rats – evil (or some satan-kind stuff, but probably it’s nothing like this);
Monkey – pain/suffering (?) or fear (because it’s alarming us);
Parrot – conscience (it’s affecting the captain’s decisions);
Chronicler – memory;
I think the captain may be… thoughts
Crew – the reactions of the body (this must be wrong because there are two parts of the crew).
@PHeMoX – if the loyalist is consciousness, so what’s the queen? I’m just asking, because I completely don’t get the queen, loyalist and pigeon ;E
–
But I still haven’t got the consciousness
–
After a while of thinking I found out this:
I’m (almost) sure that Queen is God, so I have three choices:
-map and tools – it’s not that, it’s rather intelligence or this stuff)
-pigeon – what the hell is that?!
-loyalist – well, it seems to be the consciousness, but if Queen is God, so what’s the connection between them? Oh, perhaps the pigeon is something like praying? If the loyalist is consciousness indeed, everything may work… But is praying a part of us?
Out of that model I don’t consider any of those specific objects as the consciousness. What I think is closest to describe it from that list would be the tags.
I see the consciousness as the combined impulses being sent through the synapses as various parts of the brain conducts work. It’s nothing that controls or observes, it’s just the collection of every result/output. If the math part of the brain is working on dividing 3 by 7, the output and all the steps you did getting those decimals would be placed in the consciousness array. The size of the consciousness would then be related to how many parts that were activated and how intensive they worked.
Perhaps in a Jolly Roger way I’d best describe the consciousness as the chantey between the pirates, with whoever are participating in it and how much spirit each of them are putting into it as the parts of the brain that gets “thought of.”
Though it’s probably not what MM was thinking of.
… would be the line-break xhtml tags.
would consciousness equal awareness?
According to your first topic, I’d believe the tools would be your definition of the consciousness. As was said in the other topic, the conscious mind is only an “observer”, not effecting the whole, but merely noticing the changes that the whole as made.
The tools and map are where the data is inputed, from both inside sources (body) and outside sources (environment). The captain refers to a map and plots a course, the map had no choice in it but is still aware because of the marks. The tools are a nexus to the outside conditions as well, yet they are still only aware to the conditions and not in control. I feel this fits your description best in the previous post.
However, I’d like to state that this exercise is one in logic and I would be remiss if I let it go on that this is delving into something other than logic and reason, and this is why I think its lacking on its discussion of this topic.
“However, I’d like to state that this exercise is one in logic and I would be remiss if I let it go on that this is delving into something other than logic and reason, and this is why I think its lacking on its discussion of this topic.”
Hmmm I think the most interesting idea in all of this is the idea that you are not you, but a part of you.
You are the part that is aware of your own existence.
Does this part have contorl over the other parts?
Perhaps – but we don’t really know.
It could be that your consciousness asserts a certain amount of control over the other parts (instincts, thoughts, feelings, etc.)
Or maybe you are just observing what the other parts are doing.
“@PHeMoX – if the loyalist is consciousness, so what’s the queen? I’m just asking, because I completely don’t get the queen, loyalist and pigeon ;E’
The loyalist is what’s causing the sudden changes of heart so to speak based on events. The queen is the one abstract thing that sort of should be something of a guideline to what’s supposed to happen. For example our society demands that people find a job, pay bills and so on, but also don’t kill. More the abstract rules I guess.
In my opinion the pigeon is just a pigeon, just like the pirate monkey is just a monkey. 😉
Hello michal i think “every” part you described like the parot and captain is a part of the “pirate ship somehow” but the question is how are they connected. they will be connected in diffrent ways cause there are diffrent “pirate ships”.
o my god. i get a headache if i think to long about it. well anyway, it fascinates me