--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tartbrain <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > Consciousness is Consciousness. It does not develop. > > It does not become. > > Bravo. This is the first intelligent thing said > here in weeks.
You know Barry, this comment applies to all the posts you have made in the past couple of weeks too. :-) John's post, from which this quote from tartbrain was a reply seemed to mostly rehash the TMO perspective. Since discussion of consciousness always seems to end in paradox, maybe this will be a mystery forever. John used terminology very loosely. For example we can ask is Being pure consciousness? And is it conscious or does it become conscious under certain circumstances. Maharishi once used the phrase 'when pure consciousness *becomes* conscious'. This throws a monkey wrench in the fray if you are promoting the TM perspective because it seems to imply that consciousness in its 'pure' state maybe really isn't what we think of consciousness as an awake kind of thing. Consciousness, at least when we have it and assume we exist, seems to be a 'given', and so I would agree with tartbrain's assertion here. Consciousness is a tautology in a manner of speaking. It is always true, but there is nothing else you can say about it. An experiential parallel to a logical tautology 'he is employed or he is not employed', a statement that is always true, but conveys no information.
