When we recognize the gamble in every perception, we realize the active and creative nature of our consciousness
Where the Materialist metaphor for consciousness appears passive, once we recognize that each perception that we make is best considered to be a gamble rather than a certainty, consciousness appears very active indeed. Nobody is born a great pianist, a quantum physicist, a theologian, or a murder: people have made themselves into those things by actively selecting which perception-gambles they will make habitual and what types of other experiences they will edit our as “irrelevant.” The typical conformist—the typical “bank-clerk”, say—will reveal some astonishing creative acts in their own private model if you talk to such a person long enough.
If the brain’s perceptual systems actively and pre-consciously interpret and edit their input, then consciousness is not a passive receptor, but an active creator, busy every nanosecond projecting the artwork that is an individualized reality tunnel and is usually hypnotically dreamed of as the “real” universe. This trance, in most cases, appears as deep as anybody professionally hypnotized to repress pain during surgery. And the more certain of our views we become, the more we perceive ourselves to be victims of an impersonal world, but we are not victims of the “real” universe, we have created the “real” universe that we have reified and happen to be victimized by. At this point one begins to perceive that their are at least two kinds of consciousness: hypnotized consciousness and existentialist consciousness.
References
- Wilson, A., Robert. (1986). The New Inquisition Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science Chapter 8 Creative Agnosticism (Page 251 · Location 5284). Grand Junction, Colorado: Hilaritas Press.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Psychology / Philosophy / Epistemology / Ontology Status:☀️