From: travers@iWarp.intel.com (Jim Travers)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Soul
Date: 30 Sep 92 00:02:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1992Oct1.160711.21937
Organization: Intel iWarp, Beaverton, Oregon, USA

In article <1992Sep21.175220.1838@sandman.uucp> dkarma@pro-nbs.acme.fred.org (Druta Karma) wrote:  
 >Just look at yourself. You are a distinct conscious entity. At least you are
 >distinct from me. The proof. We have different ideas. You are in fact a
 >distinct conscious individual, and your behavior here on the net proves it.
 >You identify yourself as a distinct conscious individual with ideas different
 >from mine. So we are conscious, we are distinct, and we are different. And I
 >will say the same of everyone else on the net. 
 >>
 >>
 >Okay, one thing at a time. I do take individual consciousness as a foregone
 >conclusion and so do you. Your behavior proves it. You, a distinct conscious
 >entity, are taking the trouble to deliver messages toward other distinct
 >conscious individual entities who are not you. Just the fact that you post
 >messages is proof that you take individual consciousness as a foregone
 >conclusion. You have something to say to someone else. You are conscious, and
 >you assume the target of your message is conscious. And I will tell you, yes,
 >I am conscious. And I am different and distinct from you. I have received the
 >message that you conceived in your consciousness, I disagree with it in my
 >consciousness, and therefore I am responding to you, as one conscious
 >individual to another. So we both take individual consciousness as a foregone
 >conclusion. 
 >
 >You cannot identify consciousness with the neurological mechanisms of the
 >body, such as the brain. Take consciousness of the color red. When
 >electromagnetic energy of a certain wavelenght hits the retina, certain
 >electrical impulses are biochemically transmitted along the optic nerve to the
 >brain (a certain region of it), and in the neurons of the brain, certain
 >electrical impulses are transmitted. But that does not explain our
 >consciousness of the color red as such. There is no neurological explanation
 >of consciousness. If you don't accept a soul, you just have to assert that
 >somehow consciousness arises in the brain. 
 >
 >
 >I would agree that there is consciousness beyond the flow of thought. But that
 >consciousness remains distinct and individual. Otherwise it would not be aware
 >of being beyond the flow of thought. Actually, we can all experience this if
 >we just concentrate on it. We all experience the flow of thoughts. The reason
 >we can experience the flow of thoughts is because our individual consciousness
 >is permanent and distinct whereas the thoughts that flow through consciousness
 >are impermanent, and are not really the essence of consciousness. Thoughts are
 >subtle material constructs. At no time does the distinction between observer
 >and observed break down. If the observer is observing that there has occurred
 >a break down between observer and observed, that is still an observation of
 >something, and therefore the distinction between observer and observed
 >remains. You never get out of it. You can try if you want. But if you are
 >serious about that, then I think you would have to stop debating on the net,
 >where the distinction between observer and observed is a definite and
 >permanent feature of reality.
 >
 >Cheers.
 >
 >Druta Karma
 >----

Dear Druta,

A little comment, a little poem.      

It is true that for convenience sake there are references to I, you, they,
it etc..  These are emptiness; they are form; as is everything else we may
assert absolutely. 


    Conscious is . . . perhaps
    Something . . ephemeral . . .
    Connected . . 
    Interpenetrating . . . empty

    It's nice to meet a part 
    Of me I didn't know.
    I and me, you and you;
    They and them, he and she;
    Thin lines, etched carefully:
    Blown away with the morning fog.


Jim Travers