Here is presented an experimental philosophy and model of consciousness. The model is simply one possible way of viewing reality and our perception of it. It is not meant to be authoritative nor even accurate… it is just an experiment.
If it seems appropriate, this model may be presented as part of the Nature Sensitivity Training module of the curriculum. It provides a context by which one can get a more nuanced sense of their feeling of separation from the rest of reality.
A key element of this model is the attention cloud. One can imagine attention as a cloud that coalesces around things one is perceiving. That cloud is very dense around the focus of one’s attention, and more diffuse around things that one is only peripherally attending.
For example, in conversation with another person, one may have peripheral focus on that person’s face and body while the core of their attention is in the abstract realm: on the concepts that that person is explaining.
That attention cloud is presented as a subset of the cloud of awareness, which includes things that one is aware of but not paying attention to (in the same example, imagine a fan droning in the corner). And awareness is itself defined by perception: the things that are actually being processed by one’s senses.
We are only perceiving one small piece of reality at any time; and beyond that is the rest of reality that we could potentially perceive.
And beyond that are the things that we cannot perceive at all. Atoms used to be in this category, but with technology and science we have brought them into the realm of abstract things (we still cannot perceive them directly; so they are not perceived as material things). It is logical to assume that many other things still exist in this category.
For the purposes of this model, the following definitions apply:
- Attention – the current immediate focus/foci of awareness.
- Awareness – the things within one’s field of perception that one is comprehending.
- Perception – an interaction with some thing that causes the self to understand that that thing exists as a distinct piece of reality.
- Thing – any part of the material and/or abstract world that we understand to be distinct from the rest of reality.
- Abstractions – things having properties defined through interpretation of previous interpretations of sensory input.
- The Tao – The one thing that we tend to divide into fragments that we think are distinct things. Also known as “everything” or “spirit.”
From that model, we could potentially look at self in this way:
- Self – the thing that is aware, that is perceiving. For us, it is an animal neural system doing that perceptive processing; creating an awareness cloud.
- Ego – the attention cloud.
As we look into that animal neural system of the Self, we may start to wonder how it processes reality in relation to our attention.
The following diagram is offered as a view into how external stimuli are processed into feelings. Those feelings are then are processed through the existing patterns in the nervous system (including the brain) and are warped by patterns of the fascia of our body.
The body (including the brain) then reacts to those feelings with behaviors: actions, thoughts, and emotions. Those three kinds of behaviors all influence each other.
The actions we take change the shape of our fascia; which can influence the processing of new stimuli through those fascial patterns. Likewise, the thoughts that arise can reshape our neuronal patterns, changing the way we process subsequent feelings. Emotions that arise get processed back through the fascial and neuronal patterns into new feelings.
Again, this model is experimental and may need substantial modification to cohere into a legitimate basis for philosophy. But it does give perspective on one’s role within the universe and the centrality of attention in shaping our understanding of it.
Return to: Nature Sensitivity Training
Further reading: What Is Healing?