Stopping time

[pj]

If time really is an illusion, then there is no such thing as procrastination.

[Shellidfl]

If time really is an illusion, then there is no such thing as procrastination.

I am going to use that excuse the next time I forget to pay my bills

[Sunshine]

(content removed by user request)

[johnb]

Yea, that's a good point.  

I guess you're right about bb's example; the feeling of time passing is subjective; so I guess if you that dream you aren't feeling the passage of time, you really aren't feeling the passage of time.  Time is often distorted in dreams, so why not all the way to no time at all?

I think so. It's just a feeling that time doesn't exist. It doesn't make sense (to me, anyway) to say that one could have an illusion that one was having that feeling. Feelings are real, so they're not illusions.

I don't know about my split-consciousness example.  It seems like it could go either way.  It's not really a "feeling".  But it is something subjective.  If I feel as if I have two consciousnesses, do I have two consciousnesses by definition?  I guess so.

Right. It's more than just a feeling. So I'm less sure of that one. Don't think it makes sense to say that one can have the illusion of having a feeling or an emotion. You either have the feeling (or emotion) or not. But one might be convinced that two consciousnesses were existing simultaneously in their mind without actually having two consciousnesses existing simultaneously. So maybe that could be an illusion.


Love those old SNL routines!

[Sunshine]

(content removed by user request)

[DrTechnical]

Sounds and seems to me like your mind remembers what ego death feels like. And why wouldn't it? That experience is part of your supermind.

[johnb]

I don't know; it's hard to think about. The only way we know we have one consciousness is that we feel it, right?  So if we feel two, why couldn't there be two?  How could we just "think" there were two?  The only way we know that there is one is that we just "think" there is.    It hurts my brain. 

It is pretty difficult to think about. I guess it's like you're observing two independent thought narratives going on in your brain. But maybe the actual consciousness is the part of you that's observing those narratives. So maybe it's just one consciousness. There might be two existing simultaneously, but they wouldn't experience each other. So they wouldn't know that the other consciousness existed. Would they? Not sure. It is hard to think about.

Love those old SNL routines!

That one seems to come in handy!

It does.

[johnb]

Sounds and seems to me like your mind remembers what ego death feels like. And why wouldn't it? That experience is part of your supermind.

What's ego death? Sounds scary.

[Sunshine]

(content removed by user request)

[Jomid59]

 I have elusive recall right now, something almost there, but not quite, and this is making it seem like I can almost remember it.  There should be a word for that feeling of knowing something, and you can almost figure it out, but not quite, and you can even feel it go even tho it was never really there.  It feels like straining to see something that is blurry.  

How about "vague" ?

Oh no!
Vague Memory May Be Linked To Depression
http://jezebel.com/5800475/vague-memory-may-be-linked-to-depres

[Sunshine]

(content removed by user request)

[bluebird]

What's ego death? Sounds scary.

DrT will give a better answer, but I think it's something to do with losing your identity as a person and experiencing only consciousness or something along those lines

[johnb]

What's ego death? Sounds scary.

DrT will give a better answer, but I think it's something to do with losing your identity as a person and experiencing only consciousness or something along those lines

That would make sense, given the name.

[johnb]

Well, I think therefore I am, so if you think you have a consciousness, you do have a consciousness....so we think, therefore we are?    

I think there are several separate possibilities.  One is the higher/lower consciousness, in which the lower is not aware of the higher, but the higher is aware of both.  I think this not too incredibly rare; people becoming lucid, but somehow watching themselves in the dream rather than just being in the dream.  Meanwhile, the non-lucid consciousness in the dream goes about unknowingly. I've occasionally had that, and read about it in other peoples' journals.

The dream I remember was not like that.   The two consciousnesses seemed equal.  One was no more an observer than the other.  I did have on other one where it seemed that in addition to two equal consciousnesses, there was an observer as well.  But that didn't make it "seem like" the lower consciousnesses were any less conscious.  

I guess it depends on the definition of consciousness.  Since we don't have any way to mind-meld to test it out, maybe consciousness implies separateness from other consciousnesses, and if they know they are the "same thing", they aren't really separate.

Another possibility might be that split-brain thing, when they separate the right and left hemispheres.  But maybe that doesn't count; it's not the same if at least one isn't aware of the other, and now they are living in two separate structures anyway.  And multiple personality disorder, which I think is pretty discredited at this point.

 I have elusive recall right now, something almost there, but not quite, and this is making it seem like I can almost remember it.  There should be a word for that feeling of knowing something, and you can almost figure it out, but not quite, and you can even feel it go even tho it was never really there.  It feels like straining to see something that is blurry.  

So maybe it's just one consciousness. There might be two existing simultaneously, but they wouldn't experience each other. So they wouldn't know that the other consciousness existed. Would they? Not sure. It is hard to think about.

Good hypotheses. Not sure how to verify any of them, though. Maybe something involving brain scans. But, not sure how that would allow a researcher to count the number of consciousnesses existing in a brain. I give up.

[Sunshine]

(content removed by user request)