THE BOOK of CONSCIOUSNESS

This is an amazingly informative book written by Susan Pocket on the subject of consciousness.

It is explicated that there are two aspects of congealed light of consciousness that give rise to our 'physical' reality by a way of thought and emotional energy. These include space and matter, of which space is an illusory concept, but provides a convenient venue for life experimentation. Innerspace, however, is quite real. It is a forum in which the units of consciousness are at play. And, consciousness originates from the 'Divine Mind' of the Prime Creator, what the author refers to as the SOURCE. The Prime Creator gives each and every sentient being its consciousness, and is the originator of the ALL THAT EXIST or CAN EXIST by what is referred to as the 'First Cause' of creation. All sentient beings exist as the constituent parts of the body of the Prime Creator, which is referred to as the 'cosmos.' As the offspring of the Prime Creator, all sentient beings are, in essence, co-creators, a fact that constitutes the 'Second Cause' of creation. Life signifies dynamism, a venue for consciousness expansion, which is attained through spiritual education via experimentation in space with matter, effectuated through proper utilization of thought and emotional energies. The frequencial energies originally conceived by the Divine Mind of our Prime Creator as the First Cause, are presorted via the Second Cause of co-creation and woven as the fabric of our reality, which are, subsequently, streamed upon us to form our sojourns of life with the singular

Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 3(2): 125–134, 2010

DIALOGO, 2021

"This paper addresses the central idea of nonlocal consciousness: that all life is interconnected and interdependent, that we are part of a matrix of life, but even more fundamentally than spacetime itself arises from consciousness, not consciousness from spacetime. It is not a new idea. The excavation of burials dating to the Neolithic (≈ 10,200-2,000 BCE) has revealed that early humans had a sense of spirituality and some concept about the nature of human consciousness. It discusses the bargain made between the Roman Church, and the emerging discipline of science in the 16th century, one taking consciousness (packaged as “spirit”), the other spacetime, and how this led to physicalism taking root as a world view and becoming the prevailing materialist paradigm. It describes the emergence of a new paradigm that incorporates consciousness and lays out the four relevant descriptors helping to define what this new paradigm will look like. They are: • Only certain aspects of the mind are the result of physiologic processes. • Consciousness is causal, and physical reality is its manifestation. • All consciousnesses, regardless of their physical manifestations, are part of a network of life which they both inform and influence and are informed and influenced by; there is a passage back and forth between the individual and the collective. • Some aspects of consciousness are not limited by the time/space continuum and do not originate entirely within an organism’s neuroanatomy. "

Dogma: Revue de Philosophie et de Sciences Humaines, 2022

This article is the THIRD of several excerpts from my book The Nondual Mind: Vedānta, Kashmiri Pratyabhijñā Shaivism, and Spinoza (forthcoming, DK Printworld). “I liked James H. Cumming’s The Nondual Mind a lot. It is beautifully written, thoughtful, and very clear.” (Prof. Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University) “James H. Cumming’s scholarly interpretation of Spinoza’s works, persuasively showing how 17th century European ideas that ushered in the Enlightenment find a precursor in 10th century Kashmir, is a masterpiece of reason and philosophy that will leave the reader with profound thoughts on the meaning of history, God, and life itself. As a senior staff attorney in my chambers for many years at the California Supreme Court and a top scholar of ethics and philosophy of law, Mr. Cumming never ceased to amaze me with his outstanding research and intellect. This scholarly book is a must read for all who want to know why Spinoza continues to influence contemporary philosophy and how his work is still relevant in today’s challenging, interconnected world.” (Hon. Ming W. Chin, Associate Justice (Retired), Supreme Court of California, 1996–2020)

2020

Consciousness is, probably, the most common and the most mysterious experience in human life. It encompasses a stream of mental activities that include knowledge and recognition, emotions and feelings, organic dispositions, and linguistic acts, as well as altered states such as those provoked by drugs and pathologies, and mystical moments. The philosophy of mind is habitually reprimanded for neglecting to characterize exactly what consciousness is. In this regard there has been little change over the previous decades because consciousness has a wide assortment of meanings according to authors and disciplines. Consciousness is analysed in scientific perspectives such as neurosciences, psychology, linguistics, physics, and cybernetics. Each science highlights special features of consciousness’ rooting in the subject, according to specific interpersonal contexts, biological developments and always as a mirror of the brain's complexity. A short state of the art of consciousness’ stu...

Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy, 2012

The mystery of consciousness by Paul Broks Nicholas Humphrey's latest book on the mystery of consciousness travelled with me to Crete, Latvia and America. And the intellectual journey it took me on has half-persuaded me that his evolutionary approach will one day provide an answer Paul Broks is a clinical neuropsychologist based at the University of Plymouth. He is author of Into the Silent Land One day I'll be dead. The thought swirled by on a summer's evening in Crete. There was cold beer at my elbow and my sandalled feet were up against the trunk of a pine. A book lay open in my hands but I wasn't reading. I was noticing colours: the bark running blue-grey to rust, the red geranium. I was noticing insects and animals: the tiny green bug on my forearm, the microscopic orange thing that dropped on to the book, no bigger than a full stop, the ginger cat stretching in the shade. The air was filled with the din of cicadas and Mediterranean scents. I sipped my beer and savoured the moment.

One key issue connected with the scope and limits of human knowledge and human belief systems is the ontological relationship between human consciousness and the physical world. Within the study of human knowledge there has been ongoing inquiry and debate regarding the methods that should be used to acquire and validate human knowledge. In this article I address both these philosophical issues.

Theology and Science, 2014

Knowing has to do with taking in Reality, with letting Reality speak to us. The first three parts of this book have to do with letting Reality speak to us, letting Reality tell us what is so. That sounds passive, but knowing is also an active quest. It is science. It is contemplation. It is actively noticing what works and what doesn't. Doing has to do with putting forth our lives into an engagement with and a shaping of history. The last three parts of this book have to do with doing. Doing is a creative response to Reality, a response that co-creates with all the other forces of the cosmos what the future shape of Reality will be. That sounds very active, but it is also passive in the sense of being attuned with the real limits and real possibilities of Reality. Being has to do with the support of the Final Enigma that puts us into the grand drama of knowing and doing. Being is the Source of all our knowing and the Calling for all our doing. Being is both gift and challenge to act. Being is both the Mystery that upends all our current knowledge and the Inspiration that opens deeper awareness. Being is both the Judge of all our doings and the Command to do the never before done.

Drawing on the often-overlooked transcendental philosophy of consciousness developed by Ernst Cassirer, I argue that the debate between contemporary realists and illusionists about consciousness is misconceived and misses the most interesting feature of the problem of consciousness - namely, that the explanandum, consciousness, has a transcendental status in virtue of being the condition for the intelligibility of particulars. I argue that this shows that consciousness is neither an introspectible datum, as qualia realists (like Chalmers and Nagel) suppose that it is. Moreover, I argue that it shows that it is not a theoretical posit, as illusionists, like Dennett, Frankish and Blackmore argue that it is, either. Instead, what makes consciousness escape our dominant patterns of explanation is that consciousness is neither datum, nor posit, but is instead the general foundation of sense-making. Ultimately, I argue that only once we rethink the logic of explanation in the light of the transcendental status of consciousness can we make progress in our efforts to find a way to naturalize conscious experience without thereby distorting its very meaning, and without undercutting the epistemic basis we must stand on in our efforts to make sense of anything at all.