Even an amoeba, a one-celled animal, is not only alive, but intent on staying
alive, as Antonio Damasio put it. Even plants do what they can to stay alive,
so this is something we seem to share with all that lives. I do not think I am
afraid of death, but my body sure is and it reacts with great fear to any
threat that could spell its death.
The brain as either manufacturer or receiver of consciousness has been debated
since the sixties, and there is no answer forthcoming as yet. The brain
surgeon Wilder Pennfield (sp?) did direct stimulation of the brains of fully
conscious patients. In that case, the patient was aware of his life right now
in the operating theater, of the doctor asking him questions, of the nurses
busying themselves with this and that. And when Dr. Pennfield inserted the
electrode into that patient's brain, he could elicit a past experience of, say,
the patient twenty years ago at a symphony orchestra performance. The patient
didn't just remember the experience, but lived it again in all its sensory
fullness, the music, the lights, the smell of his wife's perfume, etc. Yet at
the same time, this patient continued to experience the present moment in the
operating theater.
This seems unimaginable, that we could have two concurrent streams of awareness
going on at the same time, but apparently the mind had no difficulty in
experiencing it.
Pennfield, in writing about this, commented, and I'm almost quoting, though I
don't have the exact words in front of me. There is a third thing we come here
to consider, he said, a third thing that is able to observe and compare two
streams of awareness going on at the same time.
I am always conscious of that "third thing." I observe my mind at work. I am
aware, for example, that this mind is not as good as it was twenty years ago.
This mind does not like that fact, but that which observes the deterioration of
my mind is supremely indifferent and unaffected by that deterioration. So
there is a reason for distinguishing between consciousness (the observer) and
awareness (the mind's workings). That is neither here nor there, however, as
it does not tell me whether either one or both will survive the death of my
body.
----- Original Message ----
From: ruthsimplicity <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2007 9:25:33 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: "Maharishi Effect" Quantum-Failure Essay
--- In FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com, Angela Mailander
<mailander111@ ...> wrote:
>
> A fish does not have a mid-brain. The reason a fish flops around in
the bottom of a boat is that he senses himself as half a fish only.
The reason is that his sense of himself comes from the pressure of the
water on his left side and his right side as he turns left and right.
When he's in the bottom of the boat, he feels the pressure only on
the side he's lying on, and he flips to feel the other half of
himself. If you want to calm him down, put him between your hands and
apply equal pressure on both sides, and he'll calm down completely.
For a fish, the presence of water is his awareness; it's the feedback
he gets from the sense of touch. That is why we can say that a fish
out of water is a Godless fish.
>
Poor fish.
My experience of "amness" is limited to what I have had in this body.
I have no evidence to show "I" was here before or will exist when my
body dies. No one has any such evidence. We are physical beings. Why
do so many people want magic? I suppose it is the deep desire not to
die. Which is a strong human characteristic and may be in part
responsible for our evolutionary success.
Ruth
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