Big Bang as Birth of Some Aspect of Human Cognition?

[Buddy]

So, I took a break from work today, and, while reclining to do some pipe breathing while meditating on "beginnings" as we have formulated our ground for discussion here and further down-thread, I had the following experience:

Whereas I am usually aware of drifting off to sleep when I fall into a power-nap, this time there was no 'drift'. I wasn't aware of falling to sleep, I just had an immediate sense of being in conversation with someone I couldn't see (though it might well have been just me verbalizing to myself).

I had been focused on the logical asymmetry of existence, while recalling much of what Laura wrote on this subject of Being and the thought of Non-Being in that material I linked further up on the mentioned thread. At some point, I felt I was about to ask a question and, at that point, my phone rang (telemarketer) and it snapped me back to wakefulness. For a split second, I felt I'd brought back a baby but then I realized I was recalling an experience with a newborn granddaughter. As my daughter held her for me to view, I looked into the baby's big blue un-focused eyes and observed as they seemed to drift from side to side, ever so slowly.

Immediately, I was reminded of the "void" concept as a beginning for drawing or making first-distinctions, only this void wasn't "empty", it was an undifferentiated mass of pure experience (from the baby's point of view I imagined). I already know that babies are born in such a state that input via stimulation to the optic nerve is required to begin the electro-chemical transforms that end in foundational neural connections in the visual cortex. This activity must continue until sufficient connections have been made through sufficient layers of neurons that can support more complex activity like focusing the eye for the beginnings of making distinctions from those contrasts being discovered in the visual field (like motions and colors).

So, then it occurred to me to wonder if any Creation stories recorded in any extant literature might actually be talking about the birth of human consciousness, cognition, awareness or whatever, and on through the cognitive evolution in a kind of epistemological 'big bang', as contrasted with a "universe big-bang."

Something about this seems strange, though. On the one hand it seems like I've wondered this before and yet it also seems fresh. On the other hand, it kind of feels like old news in a different way, yet I can't recall how that might be.

Anyway, this doesn't seem like my thought, in the sense of having worked it out in some way, because it required no effort from me - no cognitive perspiration from me, so to speak, so I'm moved to ask: Has this possibility been discussed somewhere before, whether analyzed and dismissed or not? Was it treated in Laura's Wave or Adventures series and I just blanked it out or something? Does anyone know?

Note: I usually Google any question I have and find answers or at least some leads to answers, but this time I'm drawing a blank.

Thanks for reading. :)

 

[arpaxad]

Interesting.

I don't know if Laura has covered it, and would be interested to know if she has, but just off the top of my head it reminds me of the Vedic and Neoplatonic ideas.

The major dichotomy arises from the decision: Do you consider "Consciousness" (Nous, Intellect) as even possibly a primordial aspect of Existence, or do you side with the materialistic viewpoint that it is an epiphenomenon?

 

[Buddy]

Ok, so now I'm feeling kinda silly. I must of run across the idea before because 'nous' is familiar although I'm not recalling anything related to any specific neoplatonist or Vedic literature. About all I recall about Vedic stuff right now is you're not supposed to post parts of Vedas as if they're standalone Buddhist koans designed to be tumbled around in the head until enlightenment. That's what the Vedic shock saying "if you find a Buddha in the road, kill him!" is supposed to refer to: fix the situation so that the full context is revealed along with all the connections to science.

Anyway, the Focalin I just started experimenting with must not be helping so I'll just stick with my Omega-3, zinc, pipe breathing and mindfullness protocol. I shoulda caught a clue old ADD symptoms might be showing up when I finally remembered to stop by the dollar store to get only the toothpaste I've been needing for a week, only to come back with a few nice cell-phone accessories and a couple kitchen gadgets for my wife. No toothpaste.

Yeah, consciousness maybe as a part of every bit of matter and when concentrated in aggregates of organic matter, capable of developing as a formal relationship between parts, hence, awareness. And, in a suitably wired nervous system, reflexive self-awareness. What do you think?

Thanks for the response.

 

[whitecoast]

Sounds like you zoned out and were maybe communicating with your higher self. Perhaps that resulted in the unconscious shuffling around of material, leading to a more coherent and efficient integration of concepts (the new-yet-familiar feeling). I hope you find your toothbrush.

 

[arpaxad]

Thank you, it's my pleasure! :)

Yeah, consciousness maybe as a part of every bit of matter and when concentrated in aggregates of organic matter, capable of developing as a formal relationship between parts, hence, awareness. And, in a suitably wired nervous system, reflexive self-awareness. What do you think?

May I quote again from the Wikipedia? -- my favorite these days! :) It is the article on Panpsychism. In relation to your initial idea I've found especially interesting the quote in the section on the "Evolutionary" argument (see below).

Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers like Thales, Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz and William James. Panpsychism can also be seen in eastern philosophies such as Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism. During the 19th century, Panpsychism was the default theory in philosophy of mind, but it saw a decline during the middle years of the 20th century with the rise of logical positivism. The recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness has once again made panpsychism a widespread theory.

The term "panpsychism" has its origins with the Greek term πᾶν pan, meaning "throughout" or "everywhere", and ψυχή psyche, meaning "soul" as the unifying center of the mental life of us humans and other living creatures." Psyche comes from the Greek word ψύχω (psukhō, "I blow") and can mean life, soul, mind, spirit, heart and 'life-breath'. The use of psyche is controversial due to it being synonymous with soul, a term usually taken to have some sort of supernatural quality; more common terms now found in the literature include mind, mental properties, mental aspect, and experience.

[... - Here I skip the whole section on History]

Arguments for Panpsychism

Non-emergentism

The problems found with emergentism are often cited by panpsychists as grounds to reject physicalism. This argument can be traced back to the Ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides, who argued that ex nihilo nihil fit — nothing comes from nothing and thus the mental cannot arise from the non-mental. In Thomas Nagel's 1979 article "Panpsychism" he tied panpsychism to the failure of emergentism to deal with metaphysical relation: "there are no truly emergent properties of complex systems. All properties of complex systems that are not relations between it and something else derive from the properties of its constituents and their effects on each other when so combined." Thus Nagel denies that mental properties can arise out of complex relationships between physical matter.

Evolutionary

The most popular empirically based argument for panpsychism stems from Darwinism and is a form of the non-emergence argument. This argument begins with the assumption that evolution is a process that creates complex systems out of pre-existing properties but yet cannot make "entirely novel" properties. William Kingdon Clifford argued that:

[...] we cannot suppose that so enormous a jump from one creature to another should have occurred at any point in the process of evolution as the introduction of a fact entirely different and absolutely separate from the physical fact. It is impossible for anybody to point out the particular place in the line of descent where that event can be supposed to have taken place. The only thing that we can come to, if we accept the doctrine of evolution at all, is that even in the very lowest organism, even in the Amoeba which swims about in our own blood, there is something or other, inconceivably simple to us, which is of the same nature with our own consciousness [...]

There is more interesting stuff in this section of Arguments for Panpsychism, but I will leave it up to you to read the rest of it.

In the History section there is also a lot to wonder at, especially the number of references in the subsection on Modern philosophy came as a surprise to me. There is even a mention of Bertrand Russell:

Bertrand Russell's neutral monist views also tended towards panpsychism.

I may be slightly off topic with these citations, but this is what our initial exchange led me to.

As a side note, I find relief in the feeling that maybe the positivistic materialism of the 20th century has had its last breaths, and we may be witnessing the birth of the new world view. Perhaps, it is more like Neutral monism?

 

[Sol Logos]

Yeah, consciousness maybe as a part of every bit of matter and when concentrated in aggregates of organic matter, capable of developing as a formal relationship between parts, hence, awareness. And, in a suitably wired nervous system, reflexive self-awareness. What do you think?

If consciousness is a part of every bit of matter, its suggests that it's dependant on matter to exist. Could consciousness exist without matter? Some people believe that near death experiences (NDEs) are an example of that occurring.

If we consider that imagination can bring things into existence at least subjectively speaking, we could see it as a model for what happens on a much larger scale.

If I imagine a pink elephant and hold it in my mind for as long as I can without being distracted, this thought form slowly becomes more substantial in my mind the longer I hold it. It starts out with not much but soon becomes more detailed, soon the distinction between form and space / background becomes more distinct, it becomes clearer that there are rules that define its position and movement, it develops some uniqueness etc.

It's just a thought / imagination experiment but it follows a pattern. First we have consciousness, in this case mine. Then we have the ability to imagine, and parameters around what can be imagined based on my conscious capabilities, so there must be some predefined limits or rules determining this experiment based on me. Then we have the basic structure of the thought form, its foreground and its background, then comes the detail and later more complexity etc.

What if I had a much higher capacity to imagine, would it be possible that I could imbue some type of character, some rudimentary will on this thought form, some level of independence?

It brings up at least for me at lot to ponder about. If this is model for matter coming into being, does it mean that consciousness is required first?

 

[Laura]

Well, it's kinda what Steve Mithen proposed in his book "The Prehistory of the Mind". He had the idea that there was some sort of dramatic moment when speech triggered self-awareness. I don't buy his idea, but the book is excellent for giving an overview of cognitive studies and observations of ancient stuff.

 

[Deleted member 9511]

Now, I see something. Is it real, or an illusion? Either way, it exists, either as something real or something imagined to be real. Whether it is real or not depends on my perspective.

If I have access to all knowledge, and I mean ALL knowledge about that special something, and that knowledge harmonizes with the reality of that something, then what I see is what it is, and it is real. Any failure to fully harmonize my knowledge about this something (perspective), and I still see it, but what I see is not what it is. What I see is what I imagine it to be from my perspective. Taking this further, I find it easy to see that this is always the case. If I am crazy and hallucinate, then may see illusions, so to speak, but there is a reality to those illusions, and there has to be a way to map the illusions to reality, such as by stating that I am crazy. The truth is that, as a crazy person, I see things and interpret them in such a way that I believe them to be true, even though my beliefs do not constitute reality.

Now, I imagine there has to be some beginning. There doesn't have to be and I would posit that there cannot be a beginning, but I imagine it because my perspective is one of imperfect knowledge and bound by cause-and-effect as a sort of confirmation bias. So I imagine a Big Bang because that's where my perspective, right now, falls back to the limits of the cause-and-effect dynamic: the elusive first-cause. But the Big Bang doesn't have to be real. It's just something imaginary boundary in the collective consciousness. As we are all indoctrinated into the materialist view of the world, the imperfect knowledge that we have points to a Big Bang and we believe it....until we imagine something else and expand the boundary of our collective consciousness.

So, yes, the Big Bang is an aspect of human consciousness. We see the Big Bang because that's what is arising in consciousness both individually (more or less) and collectively. And it arises because that's what our current state of knowledge implies, and there has to be congruence among what we see and what we think we see, even if what we see is wrongly interpreted. In such a case, our view is illusory, but nonetheless congruent with our knowledge of what we are seeing.

In that sense, the Big Bang is a relic of the evolution of consciousness. It doesn't have to be real for us to see it, and we must see it because it's congruent with our perspective.

 

[Buddy]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I've settled on a version of the topic title as a simple verbal thesis statement. Not because I think it's "true", but because it seems to make a sensible organizing principle for tons of stuff I've been contemplating most recently. This seems to help me recall related memories of these studies much more easily. Don't yet know why it seemed to take on more significance than that.

Something similar, and much less attention attracting, seems to have occurred previously when I was contemplating a different ton of ideas relating to the Odyssey-based hospitality concept, everything on Gurdjieff's Reciprocal Maintenance ideas and a lot of ideas accepted but not integrated over the previous years. That central organizing idea seems to be the 'universal exchange principle.'

So, basically, whitecoast appears to be correct with the idea of reshuffling of concepts if I may add to that the idea of compression or distillation of a large amount of data into an effable or expressible essence, so to speak. I also appreciate the idea of possibly having a conversation with my higher self and as an impetus for the reshuffling. If I have a higher self, then that seems like a reasonable explanation. There's a feeling of beauty or appreciation of something beautiful when I look at it that way and when I read that reply while thinking about it, I choked up and wanted to cry. It was a definitely different experience of falling to sleep while meditating with my usual verbal thinking activity. So, thanks whitecoast.

I feel a bit of regret for attracting attention to an issue that seems to be a concern mostly about me, considering the background world context and our need to keep up with the wider view, but I also feel lots of respect for everyone's time, attention and thought.

I can't answer any questions that have been asked until I can give each one due consideration.

Thanks again, y'all.

 

[arpaxad]

Well, it's kinda what Steve Mithen proposed in his book "The Prehistory of the Mind". He had the idea that there was some sort of dramatic moment when speech triggered self-awareness. I don't buy his idea, but the book is excellent for giving an overview of cognitive studies and observations of ancient stuff.

I wonder if this can be related to Terence McKenna's ideas of how magic mushrooms triggered speech in the first place!

 

[arpaxad]

Now, I see something. Is it real, or an illusion? Either way, it exists, either as something real or something imagined to be real. Whether it is real or not depends on my perspective.

[...]What I see is what I imagine it to be from my perspective. Taking this further, I find it easy to see that this is always the case. If I am crazy and hallucinate, then may see illusions, so to speak, but there is a reality to those illusions, and there has to be a way to map the illusions to reality, such as by stating that I am crazy. [...]

This reminds me of George Berkeley (1685--1753), an underappreciated philosopher in the preceding age:

"[It is] impossible that any colour or extension at all, or other sensible quality whatsoever, should exist in an unthinking subject without the mind, or in truth, that there should be any such thing as an outward object."

 

[Buddy]

Well, it's kinda what Steve Mithen proposed in his book "The Prehistory of the Mind". He had the idea that there was some sort of dramatic moment when speech triggered self-awareness. I don't buy his idea, but the book is excellent for giving an overview of cognitive studies and observations of ancient stuff.

I wonder if this can be related to Terence McKenna's ideas of how magic mushrooms triggered speech in the first place!

I'd have to read the arguments of both. I've lost track of my copy of Steve's book and only read it quickly when I bought it. Maybe a trip to the library is in order.

ATM, I don't buy any idea of "triggering speech" if by speech either of those guys mean verbal noises with mutually understood meanings. I would think such a speech with any mutually understood meaning would qualify as "convention" and doesn't conventional understanding depend on mutual agreement being established first? Before the convention was established, would 'speech' be anything more than babbling to anyone but the 'speaker'? Or am I misunderstanding something important?

 

[Buddy]

May I quote again from the Wikipedia? -- my favorite these days! :)...

Sure, why not? References to Panpsychism are in many places on the forum now, so Wikipedia's input here is not so critical as a starting point, I think.

It is the article on Panpsychism. In relation to your initial idea I've found especially interesting the quote in the section on the "Evolutionary" argument (see below).
[...]
There is more interesting stuff in this section of Arguments for Panpsychism, but I will leave it up to you to read the rest of it.

Thanks, I have looked at this before and I believe I understand the connections you see. In addition, we've got an interesting discussion on Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel that involves references to a version of Panpsychism. I participated on the thread and if you like, you are welcome to contribute to it too.

 

[Buddy]

Yeah, consciousness maybe as a part of every bit of matter and when concentrated in aggregates of organic matter, capable of developing as a formal relationship between parts, hence, awareness. And, in a suitably wired nervous system, reflexive self-awareness. What do you think?

If consciousness is a part of every bit of matter, its suggests that it's dependant on matter to exist. Could consciousness exist without matter? Some people believe that near death experiences (NDEs) are an example of that occurring.

I see what you mean. It appears the idea expressed as "...concentrated in aggregates of organic matter" and 'development' would seem to imply dependence. Perhaps if consciousness were suggested to be a field, then permeation or penetration would be a better way to represent the connection with matter, but I don't really see consciousness that way, so I no longer see much sense in the construction as I originally worded it.

It's just a thought / imagination experiment but it follows a pattern. First we have consciousness, in this case mine. Then we have the ability to imagine, and parameters around what can be imagined based on my conscious capabilities, so there must be some predefined limits or rules determining this experiment based on me.

What is a conscious capability if not 'to imagine', and how could the ability to imagine, which is a capability of consciousness, define it's own parameters? Perhaps such a constraint would originate in an external or material context like the processing power or connecting speeds of brainy neurons. I don't know.

What if I had a much higher capacity to imagine, would it be possible that I could imbue some type of character, some rudimentary will on this thought form, some level of independence?

ATM, I doubt that 'higher capacity to imagine', alone, is related to the possibility suggested. Maybe you are thinking you could direct the full energetic force of your being into an imagined construction? In such a case, I have no idea what might be the result.

It brings up at least for me at lot to ponder about. If this is model for matter coming into being, does it mean that consciousness is required first?

My OP suggested the model is about some aspect of human cognition rather than what we typically think of as matter, but taking your question in mind, all I can say is that, if so, I don't know what the consciousness would be conscious of, nor who is being conscious. It would certainly seem that this consciousness wouldn't have the nature of human consciousness until humans with a nature entered the picture.

Thanks for the interesting thoughts.

 

[Buddy]

Well, it's kinda what Steve Mithen proposed in his book "The Prehistory of the Mind". He had the idea that there was some sort of dramatic moment when speech triggered self-awareness. I don't buy his idea, but the book is excellent for giving an overview of cognitive studies and observations of ancient stuff.

Thanks for the reference, Laura. It reminded me of some rather potent ideas in Visions of Caliban (Peterson and Goodall, 1993, 2000) on what the human species seems to have lost of our sense of being in touch with each other and the environment when we moved up to so-called symbol-based thinking. Apparently some of us went "all in" (into our symbols) and quite literally lost all touch with reality.

I've read Steve's book before but apparently too fast to capture the idea of speech-triggered self-awareness, or I simply don't remember it. I'm gonna get it again to keep on hand for its value for the other stuff. Thanks for your response.