The Complete Solution to the "Hard" Problem What I am saying is so obvious, that all the pundits are either so dense they cannot comprehend it, or else so embarassed that they cannot acknowledge it. The world "out there" is in the first instance comprised of consciousness, and only in the second instance comprised of a noumenal essence. Since the noumenal essence is not mechanical, requiring bottom-up causation, it does not in any way negate or disqualify the first creation of phenomenal reality comprised of consciousness itself. The key to the understanding of quantum theory is that it is precisely the kind of noumenal reality that is necessary to allow for top-down causation. The redness of the red house is really out there - the red house is really red - that is the simple explanation of "qualia". The objective features of phenomenal reality qualify or condition consciousness, but consciousness is their substance, and so "redness", which is a creation of consciousness, a type of consciousness, can be a real objective feature of what is "out there". The brain just keys into the consciousness that comprises the world perceived by the brain. Consciousness is not in the brain, but essentially beyond the brain - it is the link to the environment of the organism, transcendental or otherwise. Through out-of-body experience of infinite consciousness, or consciousness itself, one can become fully convinced that consciousness is not in the brain. Once one has experienced unqualified self-existent consciousness, it is very easy to understand that the entire phenomenal world is comprised of qualified consciousness - that is its only basis, for consciousness alone is the true existent throughout all universes - even spacetime is not so fundamental and is essentially derivative from the self-existence of consciousness. This is the key to the understanding of quantum relativity - it must be a theory of the inherent properties of consciousness rather than the inherent properties of spacetime. Infinite space and infinite consciousness are experientially closely related, but infinite consciousness is more fundamental. Infinite light is the gateway to both infinite space and infinite consciousness. It is true that there is a noumenal essence to the phenomenal world, and that noumenal essence is the basis for physical reality and physics, per se. But quantum theory has dissolved the notion that physical reality is of such a mechanical self-existent character as to disqualify the self-existent and reality-constituting character of consciousness. Rather, it is of such a character as to support it. It is only humans who, possessed by the death urge, invalidate their fellow human beings and hence their own humanity. This has been the history of Western science, and in spite of the revolution in physics, the rest of science is still firmly in the grasp of the death urge. Most if not all of the pundits working in the field of consciousness research have not grasped the essence of the quantum revolution. Certainly Francis Crick has not grasped it, judging by his recent essay, "A framework for consciousness". He should go back to his first love and try to gain a real understanding of quantum theory before he dismisses it as irrelevant to consciousness research. It is in fact quintessential for the reason I have stated. Finally, both the phenomenal reality and its noumenal essence are all within the true Mind of the Observer. The Mind is the quantum implicate order of David Bohm, and all that unfolds from it is the observational process of von Neumann, which encompasses both the first creation of phenomenal reality and its underlying noumenal essence. So, there is nothing *really* "out there", although there is most certainly a Mind-Independent Reality that is transcendent to the phenomenal Mind, but not to the all-encompassing Buddha Mind, which is the quantum implicate order. The phenomenal Mind is the memory of the universe, or the so-called akashic record. Hence, novelty and creativity demand that the present Reality is ever transcendent to the phenomenal Mind. Psychologists in the group of Herbert Muller, relying on false or unscientific phenomenology, which amounts to mere solipsism, cannot grasp this distinction, unfortunately. And so, they have all gone astray. Not one of them seeketh understanding. [Earlier - the genuine premises of consciousness research] All is in the Mind. The Mind is the quantum implicate order. The observational process unfolds from the Mind - it is just the Mind unfolded, and yet the Mind retains in every unfolded version of itself its selfsame supreme status in the hierarchy of existents. The Mind is the highest subworld of the seventh and meta-physical or classical world. The following worlds are unfolded from the Mind, in descending order: meta-physical, causal, phenomenal, etheric, mental, emotional, and physical. The upper triad is von Neumann's III, in the extra-physical unreduced sense, the etheric world is von Neumann's II, in the extra-physical unreduced sense, and the lower triad is von Neumann's I, in the psycho-physical unreduced sense. The actual observer, as the psychological or Freudian "ego", is in the seventh and meta-physical or classical world. Consciousness is ostensibly in the fifth and phenomenal world - it constitutes the essence of the phenomenal object. Hence, consciousness is "out there" - it is not in the brain, but in the world actually perceived in human perceptual experience - it constitutes that world. Everything we see is comprised of consciousness - it is a world of pure experience, to use the phrase of William James. That world of consciousness or pure experience can be analyzed into its noumenal essence, but performing that analysis transfers us from the fifth and phenomenal world in the higher "octave" to the first and physical world in the lower "octave". The noumenon is just the part of the Mind that it cannot directly grasp, that is directly unknowable to the Mind, and for that reason the material worlds come into being, so that Mind can attempt to know the noumenon through the observational process. This is how it is. Starting from any other set of premises is a non-starter, that can only lead down one dead-end after another until mankind finally destroys itself with its own ignorance. The choice is yours. We await your decision. |