[Yoseph]

Me and my friend were talking about how we think their is a minority in the human population who have not only consciousness, but a perception of consciousness; the ability to analyse their consciousness from an external perspective. They see the fascade humans have put up for themselves from a sociological point of view; as a meaningless structure we've set up to distract from the animals that we really are.

[Ringer]

So would this ability be part of their conscious mind? If so it is not an external, objective perspective.

[PhDwannabe]

It sounds like plain old self-important gnosticism to me. A few of us, the elect, can really see the world for what it is. You're not talking about "consciousness," the cognitive state of wakeful self-awareness, you're actually talking about nothing more elaborate than the actual content of people's beliefs. To critique society, to call its structures cheap or artificial or meaningless, does not have anything to do with the cognitive state. Read Plato. He beat you to this by 2400 years, give or take. Also:

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So would this ability be part of their conscious mind? If so it is not an external, objective perspective.

Agreed. You have no external perspective. That's self-referentially incoherent.

[Yoseph]

In a sober state I'm inclined to agree with you now. Although is it not more than just the content of people's beliefs, more like I way of thinking, a way of processing information. I do understand how the topic sounded self-important or arrogant but do you not think that there's a next level above just being self aware?

[Phi for All]

Yoseph, on 6 November 2011 - 04:58 PM, said:

In a sober state I'm inclined to agree with you now. Although is it not more than just the content of people's beliefs, more like I way of thinking, a way of processing information. I do understand how the topic sounded self-important or arrogant but do you not think that there's a next level above just being self aware?

I think the next level of awareness is thinking about the way you think. Most people think they make rational, logical choices, but if we're aware of the way our minds really work, we understand that we have to fight against preconceptions and prejudices in order to make a truly rational choice.

A good example is procrastination. Most people think it's about laziness or a lack of will power. If you really think about the way you think, it's more about a choice between A (what you want to do) and B (what you need to do). When we procrastinate, we make a promise to do B in the future, without thinking about how your future self will probably also want to postpone B in favor of A. If you understand this, then you can tell yourself that B isn't part of a choice, it's simply what you need to do now so you can make choices later.

[Yoseph]

Yes! That was what I was trying to get at. The main question I guess is whether it's nature or nurture that gives us the ability to see ourselves in this way, if there is a line that seperates people who can do this and people who can't, or whether it's an illusion that gets stronger the more you understand about the human mind and the way it operates.

[Phi for All]

Definitely nurture, imo. It's part of the education and learning process, and a willingness to let go of some ego in order to allow a more open perspective, while always admitting that we can never be truly objective about ourselves.

[Ringer]

Although I would agree that a large part of that sort of thinking, like scientific thinking, has to be learned and practiced; there is still probably a predisposition in your heredity to that type of critical thinking as well as introspection.

I don't think Phi was saying that it is all nurture, I just wanted to make sure it was clarified.

[Phi for All]

Ringer, on 6 November 2011 - 06:38 PM, said:

I don't think Phi was saying that it is all nurture, I just wanted to make sure it was clarified.

Good catch. I typed "more nurture" but somehow lost it in editing down. There has to be some nature for complex thought to exist in the first place.

[anch0red]

A lot of people feel awakened when they shake off something taught to them by society. For me when I first got interested in feminism it was like re-learning something I already knew that was really obvious, and I moved into understanding a lot about social politics and social science very quickly and easily, and sometimes when you find background information about how something works; be it what chemicals are in farm dairy food, or the structures of capitalism, or certain areas of physics, people often feel like they can now make real decisions about the choices that they make based upon being informed and understanding things. You can change the world, or at least not contribute towards certain things yourself and make an effort and its very good for the soul.

For a lot of people though, this same thing applies to spiritualism and conspiracy theorists, and these are the people who I have found use that language the most and see themselves as the elite in touch with the earth and understanding everything, we are all one, people need to wake up the sheeple from the banksters and the politicians, we are all one, peace and love, etc etc etc. They can get lost in their own fantasy if they go in too far, and exit the matrix into a world which doesn't actually exist, and you can't get them out when they reach this mindset. Oh no, they start thinking everybody else's opinion was brainwashed into them by the television or else you're a "shill" sent by "them" to try and trick them. Especially if you're their psychiatrist. Seriously! Keep them away from the Zeitgeist films! Generally these people think they have found out about the world. Some have and some haven't, but rather than working to change it or talking to people and having rational discussions, they either preach a lot of rubbish, pat themselves on the back, and just try to help themselves and their spirituality have a mental revolution... or something... Sound like them?

[Greg Boyles]

Yoseph, on 6 November 2011 - 04:15 AM, said:

Me and my friend were talking about how we think their is a minority in the human population who have not only consciousness, but a perception of consciousness; the ability to analyse their consciousness from an external perspective. They see the fascade humans have put up for themselves from a sociological point of view; as a meaningless structure we've set up to distract from the animals that we really are.

In my opinion it is more about peoples' emotional levels. Some people are highly emotional and this mind state clouds their more cold rational judgement. Analysing things with cold harsh rationality is effectively have a perception of your consciousness as you prefer to put it.