Energy and Consciousness...what is the relationship? (Page 1 of 2)

Hey Tilli,

I think that consciousness maybe the highest or at least a higher form of energy. This impacts manifesting things and events into your life. It affects what is attracted or repelled from your life.

I can't remember the numbers but the Laws of Thermal dynamics: Energy is neither created nor destroyed but transferred from one form to another.

And

Things naturally progress from higher order to higher disorder without an input of energy.

Just a thought.

Good question!  Here are my thoughts, from both opinion and experience...

My opinion (current belief) is that there is no difference in the "building blocks" of consciousness and energy.  I do believe, however, there are tremendous differences in how the building blocks are organized.  That, to me, is what the essential difference is from consciousness and energy--its degree of organization.

For instance, I would say that I am energy.  I would also say that the lamp on my desk is energy.  We're both energy.  The difference is how that energy is organized.  To wit, "my" energy is organized in a way that it is self-aware of its energy, is mobile, and partially self-sustaining.

I would say the materials of the lamp are "conscious," but not how humans understand it.

This is where my experiences come in...

In meditation, and in energy play, and in random instances, I've "felt" what it was like to be "inanimate" objects.  I used to l-l-love to meditate in the middle of a river not far from my apartment, and if I let go, I could feel the river passing through the lower portion of my aura.  When I focused on that movement, my attention point would wander from me and follow the flow of the river a couple of feet. 

I guess I, of course, interpreted the experience in human terms, and yet, the "feelings" of the river weren't like my own.  The only way to describe the feeling of the river is as "ease," "easiness." 

In that canyon I also frequently practiced seeing the auras of the mountains.  They were really red mountains (it was southern Utah).  Whenever I did this (and do this) I receive impressions.  Again, they're humanized, but I'll share them.  I would stare at the energy of the mountains and I would feel like I was with old, wizened Navajo grandfathers.  The energy I felt was...sacredness, yet with humor.  A kind of a laughing, unperturbedness.

So I suppose, In my experience, everything is "conscious," but it's not the same kind of consciosuness all around.

I think of consciousness in "strict" terms. For example, certain animals are definitely "conscious".

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=consciousness

In a "strict" sense, even the unconscious mind is "conscious". It's just that our conscious is rarely
"aware" of what the unconscious mind is doing. In certain situations, I think we can learn enough
about how our unconscious mind works to "understand" what it is likely doing at any given time...

I surmise that even artificial intelligence, once advanced enough, can be considered "conscious".
Therefore, consciousness is not defined by "life". I view "sentience" as the complete scope which
levels of consciousness can be loosely equated. A computer that's "running" is akin to sentience.
If someone's in a coma, are they sentient? Are they conscious on any of its various levels? Well,
in one way of thinking, absolutely not. It's as if the "kernel" is running but nothing else. Stimulus
isn't being processed; the "processor" isn't even aware of its existence. Yet comas have varying
"levels". Some people who have "awakened" from a coma offer evidence of having been aware.

Back to consciousness and energy. I think the former depends on the latter, but is independent
of "biology". Sufficiently advanced robots with the ability to process external stimuli could obtain
a "state" of consciousness. They could behave with self-awareness AND so-called "personality".
Rather than use that word, I prefer "character". Because after all, each individual develops from
the events they experience. Emotion is an integral part of that dynamic, but I expect that robots
could also "feel" emotions if they are advanced enough. Thus to me, consciousness isn't unique
to humans, animals, or even biological life. Even "free will" isn't beyond a robot's capabilities...

To state what Dreamosis said in a different way, consciousness is merely energy "arranged" in
a specific manner. The act of arrangement itself consumes energy, but in a highly efficient way.
Part of what consciousness affords is the ability to obtain more energy for self-sustenance. ALL
aspects of an entity's behavior are at the most basic level the manifestation of this desire for a
sustained existence. Happiness is part of the equation, for it not only "validates" existence, but
itself can "generate" energy which perpetuates said desire. Conversely, an extremely unhappy
person may decide that they no longer have the "energy" to desire existing, and kill theirself...

So then, we can examine consciousness in terms of an entity's self-awareness. Animals rarely,
if ever, commit suicide. Is the ability to "self-terminate" a facet of consciousness? Could robots
make such a decision? I would again say yes. Some critically injured or terminally sick animals
do decide to wander off and just pass on. How aware of the decision are they, though? Could it
be that they simply don't have the "energy" to desire sustained existence? Could it be that they
"understand" that their continued existence may actually harm the community they live within?
For example, an understanding that in their weakened state they may attract more predators...

I've said in other diatribes on other boards that evolution is "biological altruism". I think that by
and large, altruism is a very base "instinct" that all self-sustaining "processes" possess. Seems
logical that any process which adversely affects its environment risks increasing the difficulty of
existence. On a grand scale, the genetic process which "seeks" to increase a species' ability to
sustain prolonged existence could be called a "cellular instinct". Cells themselves could be seen
as "conscious", as possessing this instinct to increase their own ability to self-sustain by making
their environment "better". This in turn advantages the "community", thus "validating" that cell.

If a cell becomes a negative influence on its environment, its community is disadvantaged, and
that cell may "decide" to self-terminate. A cancerous cell doesn't have such an ability, so it will
continue to negatively influence its environment - often to the point in which ALL "communities"
are unable to sustain existence. Over time, a healthy cell's abilities diminish; this inevitability is
probably why life on all scales will ultimately self-terminate. To continue advantaging entities of
proper ability, those entities unable to contribute properly will cease to exist. This paradigm can
be applied not only to humans, animals, or even cells, but also to a wide range of "systems"....

A society, for example, could be considered "conscious". It can desire to sustain existence, and
can cease to exist for any number of reasons. A corporation can be analyzed in the same way.
Consciousness, then, would seem to describe the ability to affect sustained existence - whether
or not the entity which "exists" is a biological life form or a complex product of their interaction
with other entities. Thus, the ability to decide not to self-sustain is a consequence of this ability.
Whether "bound" by the human, biological, and/or natural laws within which the entity exists or
"freed" by the ability to avoid disadvantaging the community... consciousness is the ordering of
energy such that said energy can sustain existence, in its ordered state, until no longer useful.

HB,

For the record, talks on energy and such like this are really over my head. I'm a nurse, not a scientist.

Eventually it gets to be a "what came first the chicken or the egg" question and you decide and move on. Consciousness can exist without expression or measurement.  Energy really can't. Energy down grades, whereas consciousness is tending to upgrade(debatable I know in light of the polarities in society)

I do think that consciousness is an energy that does exist separate from other energy and from biology. I don't think consciousness depends on energy, since I believe consciousness came first(though not necessarily consciousness in man), therefore energy depends on consciousness. Again in Holographic universe, the author uses an story of a lab "finding"(he hints at creating) a new subparticle, yet other labs can't, as more people see the experiment and go back to their labs, suddenly more and more people start having successful experiments and find the sub particle as well...again hinting that it is our consciousness that creates alot of what becomes our reality.

In another thread here, some one mentioned about their husband saying while working in her garden that a fern would look nice there...eventually one grew there, it was not planted...the seed would provide the energy, yet no seed was used...it was thoughts, consciousness.

Energy follows its laws, it can't decide to go against them, so in my mind it is the ability to decide for itself(as you put forth), that sets it about raw energy alone.

Tillibullu to answer your question I missed from above: if it wasn't for consciousness there would be no reason for energy or for the laws to remain in place. At least by my thinking.

Back to HB,
I agree a clan/society/corporation can have a "consciousness" of its own. But it's interesting that a downward spiralling corporation can regenerate itself, with a change of direction, by changing it's thoughts, focus and emotions in essence it's spirit(who it is) and this direction is by a change in mental and heart energy, which has no calories, no thermals, no way of measuring it. To me that puts it high, since lower ones are the first discovered and the first to be measured.

Just some thoughts.

Yes I did mention "The Eye of the I."  I finished it up a couple of days ago.  The last hundred pages or so are repetitive, but I believe they're meant to be (also, so many people ask him the same questions).

His book definitely opened me up further to the question of ego versus essence than I have ever been (at least, from reading books).  I did finish the book with a few piddling disagreements, however.  I think it's possible to become "enlightened" and still have misunderstanding about some things.

For instance, he cites out-of-body experiences as proof that the senses are generated by the energy body and not the physical body (since people continue to see, hear, feel, etc. during an OBE, and experience their body as a thing apart from them).  However, I think this is an "old-school" statement and ignores many of the experiences of metaphysicians, like Robert Bruce, who have simultaneously experienced both consciousnesses of the body (well, the etheric body, technically) and the energy body during an OBE.

Like I said, it's a piddling disagreement.

T-Ren...

I found a lot of sense in combing over your posts.  Actually, in looking backwards I feel that the opposing formulation of "consciousness versus energy" may be a false dichotomy.

I stated in an earlier post that I thought consciousness is simply organized energy.  But, upon reflection, I feel I made that statement unconsciously.   To wit, if consciousness is organized or orderly energy then there are, broadly, two implications of such a statement.  Or, rather, two assumptions are implied, if you will. 

The first assumption would be that the organizing of the energy was informed BY SOMETHING ELSE--in other words, arguing that consciousness and energy are not separate but that consciousness is just organized energy is an argument with a big, gaping hole.  The question then becomes, "Okay, WHAT organized the energy?" 

The second assumption one could draw from the argument that consciousness is only organized energy is that the energy became organized BY ACCIDENT.

It may seem elementary, but what has come out of this line of thinking is this: either there is an organizing/informing principle at work in the cosmos or there is not.

The next question, in regards to this thread, then becomes: If there is an organizing principle, then WHERE is it?  Actually, I think it's from this point that much confusion arises...

If the organizing principle is believed to be EVERYWHERE, reaching even into quanta, then it is pointless to speak about there being a separation between consciousness and energy.  (If you equate consciousness with an organizing principle).

If the organizing principle is believed to be unequally distributed throughout the cosmos, then one can speak of opposites of consciousness and energy.

However, the view that the organizing principle is EVERYWHERE, does not preclude the possibility that there are LEVELS of organization, and hence, levels of consciousness--and the possibility that one level of consciousness might view another level of consciousness as not conscious at all (as "just energy").

On the subject of "The Eye of the I" again, by Hawkins, he wrote that in the throes of his enlightenment that he felt and understood that even a rock was aware of its own existence, that it lived, and that it lived in a universe of other living things.

...If the organizing principle is everywhere, reaching even into quanta, then even the most mundane (mundane to us) objects contain the organizing/informing spark...

The question, "What is the difference between consciousness and energy?" as it assumes there is a difference, launches one into the realm of differences.  But if consciousness is defined to the maximum--if it is defined as the thing from which all things spring--then there can be no difference.  At least, there can be no difference from the maximum point of view. 

As to how levels of organization, and subsequent levels of consciousness, come about...That is beyond me right now.

Excuse my barging in on the serious nature of the thread, but I'm just happy-happy today, and I'd like to make a happy-happy comment.

Whoa dreamosis! I joined you in that "Om" upon finishing reading your posts!

Snicker! Snort! Was there smoke comin' off of your hair and  fingertips when you completed your Energy Meets Consciousness  Concerto?

Here's a virtual high-five heading your way dream!

I'm finished now and heading off to other realms to spread joy and laughter... I sure hope it works .

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
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Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we might as well dance.
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If you spin around on your chair really fast, things around here will make a lot more sense.