this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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What if you are not the “highest” level of consciousness in your own body? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by aCosmicWave@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I see the human organism as a layering of different levels of consciousness. Each layer supports mostly automated processes that sustain the layers beneath it.

For example, we have cells that only know what it’s like to be a cell and to perform their cellular processes without any awareness of the more complex layers above them. Organs are much more complex than cells and they perform their duties without any awareness of anything above them either. And the complexity keeps increasing with various systems like endocrine, cardiovascular, etc. Then we have our subconscious and finally our conscious.

At our level, we do not consciously control any of the layers beneath us. Our primary task is to keep our bodies alive.

This got me thinking… isn’t it a little too self aggrandizing to think that we have a near infinite layering of consciousness beneath us and then it just stops at our level of awareness? What if there is some other conscious process that exists above us within our own bodies?

When people take psychedelic drugs they often describe achieving a higher level of awareness akin to ecstasy. Well what if this layer is always there actively ”living” within us but we are just the chumps that go to work, do our taxes, and exercise, while it doles out just enough feel good chemicals to keep us going (sometimes not even that)?

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[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So we have nodes, points in a mesh network, that communicate, exchange nutrients, signals and so on.

The product of this is something like a society, a whole that acts on a more abstract level. Our gut bacteria may not know they are helping us to take up food, but this is what they do on the higher level. At the same time they only get this livable environment because we exist, feed them with food. At the same time though, our bodies also fight them, thats why they eat up our bodies when we die.

Its pretty crazy but in my view live is such a constant fight, and if you would stand still and do nothing, stop breathing, stop digesting, stop pumping blood through your vessels, you would be dead withing minutes.

So cells, individuals, environments, bigger systems. I think the bigger system than that is our society, but thinking that everything has an internal sense is kinda what our monkey brains want, I think its called "false causality". We think everything has to have a structure and purpose, so that we can create a simplified concept of it in our brains and understand it more easily.

Meanwhile on LSD it felt really crazy, the trees where like Antennas, sticking toward the sky, capturing radiation. Earth felt like our space ship, like the floating organic society on a rock that it is. We are a society with all the living beings on this planet, as we depend on each other.

If the air on this planet is used up, if the reserves in the ground are used up, if the sensible living conditions are surpassed, this organism can't sustain our little lives anymore.

We are not almighty, as we are also just a tiny part of this planet. But we are special, as we have never accepted this role, built tools and went further and further, until today huge parts of the earth are entirely human-made.

So practically, and maybe also in some deep metaphysical sense I cant grasp right now, we are all a huge consciousness, or should be, as consciousness is like the control center of this huge complex society of cells, organism, compartiments.

But we pretend not to be a part of the same organism, and this results in absurd, stupid and destructive behavior.

[–] aCosmicWave@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks so much for sharing your LSD experience! That is wild. One thing that I struggle with internally is whether humanity is good or bad for the greater organism on this planet?

On the one hand, humans have the best chance of expanding all life from our planet to other planets and thus ensuring the survival of this organism should anything catastrophic happen to Earth. On the other hand we also have the best chance of destroying ourselves along with everything else here.

I was watching Oppenheimer recently and I just couldn't believe that the brightest minds of that generation banded together to create... a weapon. Instead of launching rockets to other planets we are launching rockets at ourselves. It's pure idiocy. Then I thought about how things aren't that much different today. The brightest engineering minds are working for large corporations that are also destroying our planet, our attention, our privacy, etc.

I'm really curious to hear where you stand on the matter!

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, I think I talked about this in my other comment too.

If "good" simply is to increase the general consciousness of the planet, so to understand more, I still have no idea. How foolish can we be to think, our monkey idea of consciousness, or good and bad, could simply be extended to this planet?

I will say this: what we do, serves us. We may plant a seed, but not for the plant, but to get something from the plant. The exception maaaybe being nature conservatists. But also they are simply smart enough to understand that this helps us survive too.

If "being smart" would be a goal. Would a planet with only one elite, mostly white, male, homo sapiens, be better than with Neanderthals, other intelligent animals etc?

We hunted every other intelligent species down. Dogs are our tameable friends, the smartest creatures we can control regularly.

Even if we may keep this planet alive, get together and fix our shit, we would certainly not commit mass-suicide after saving the planet. To offer these nice conditions to other species?

Also, fungi are intelligent. Dolphins are. Forests are. What else is? Do psychedelic plants "outsource" their brain to save energy? Would be pretty smart.