Theory of Consciousness — Theory of the Self; Enself Part 2
The self has to get to know each other.
888. Four new concepts: unself, enself, enclusive and enself-awareness.
889. Beyond the two commonly acknowledged personal-private-local identities, 1) physical body/brain/central nervous system, and 2) immaterial ego consciousness, it is a premise of this manuscript that just as you have unconscious and subconscious levels of consciousness, you also have unself and enself levels of your personal-local being. It is possible to cultivate enself-awareness.
890. The existing definition of unself is as a verb.
i. Unself: “to do away with selfhood or selfishness in (oneself)” Merriam Webster Dictionary[1] (brackets original)
891. If you search Google for enself you get a group on Facebook (= ENself), and other results not related to using enself as an English language noun. If you search for enclusive, you will be informed you are misspelling inclusive.
i. “ENself — Facebook” Google Search[2]
ii. “Did you mean: inclusive? Not English. Enclusive has no English definition. It may be misspelled.” Wikidiff[3]
iii. “We think the word enclusive is a misspelling. It could be just an incorrect spelling of the words which are suggested below. Review the list and pick the word which you think is the most suitable.” Spellcheck[4]
Word Games
892. Nominalisation means using words traditionally defined as verbs, but intentionally using them as nouns; verbs-to-nouns, e.g., verb legalize to noun legalization.
i. Nominalisation[5] examples (verbs to nouns):
· Verb: I am building a bridge. → Noun: It is a lovely building.
· Verb: I repeat myself. → Noun: That is a repeat of the previous one.
· Verb: We attack at dawn. → Noun: The attack was fierce.
893. Verbing, sometimes called denominalization, means using words traditionally defined as nouns, but intentionally using them as verbs; nouns-to-verbs. For example: table, calendar, action, workshop, and task. Traditional grammarians do not like verbing.
i. “‘We’re all set, but we need to table that topic for next time.’ ‘You want me to calendar that meeting?’ ‘Yes. Prioritize this topic and action the other two. We can fast-track this project for completion.’ ‘But not without workshopping it. We’ve got to beef it up.’ ‘There’s no way to task anyone with this without approval.’” Grammarly[6]
ii. “Today, the following verbs-born-from-nouns are commonplace: chair, cup, divorce, drink, dress, fool, host, intern, lure, mail, medal, merge, model, mutter, pepper, salt, ship, sleep, strike, style, train, voice.” Grammarly[7]
894. British philosopher (and Zen master) Alan Watts (1915–1973) is famous for verbing. One illuminating example is “an apple tree apples.” Extending this to the universe, it is coherent to suggest the universe “Is” (pronounced “eyes” = plural for singular I). We could say the universe eyes = Is. This is coherent if you acknowledge that the purpose of our universe is life. It is also coherent because it is a logically correct way to describe what actually happens. Who would deny that apples grow on apple trees? This is exactly the GAIA concept. Our universe is a complete whole live organism; GAIA peoples.
i. “We say, ‘I came into this world.’ But we did nothing of the kind. We came out of it in just the same way that fruit comes out of trees. Our galaxy, our cosmos, ‘peoples’ in the same way that an apple tree ‘apples’” Alan Watts[8]
895. I introduce the usage of unself as a noun, which is an instance of nominalisation, changing verbs to nouns. Unself is a being, which is a noun. I also introduce enself as a being, which is a noun. There is a profoundly important category distinction between unself and enself.
896. I agree with Gregory Bateson on this.
i. “…children in school are still taught nonsense… they are taught…the way to define something is by what it supposedly is in itself, not by its relation to other things.” Gregory Bateson[9]
ii. “They are told that a ‘noun’ is the ‘name of a person, place, or thing, that ‘verb’ is ‘an action word’…Today all that should be changed. Children could be told that a noun is a word having a certain relationship to a predicate. A verb has a certain relation to a noun, its subject… Relationship could be used as basis for definition, and any child could see that there is something wrong with the sentence ‘go is a verb’.” Gregory Bateson[10]
Prefixes “un” and “en”
897. As commonly defined, the prefix “un” means an absence of something; an absence of whatever “un” is attached to. For example, unself would be not self.
i. “Un is a prefix meaning not. It’s used to give opposite and negative meanings to adjectives, adverbs and nouns.” English Language Centres[11]
898. As commonly used, the prefix “en” means to include something; include whatever en is attached to. For example, enlightenment, to light within, to include light, to generate light; light is intrinsic to enlightenment.
899. Therefore, it is coherent to describe enlightenment to mean: 1) to light within, 2) to realize you are the source of being a self, 3) to be aware of self-creation, 4) everything becomes within, 5) everywhere becomes local (no spooky action at a distance).
900. It is coherent to describe enself to mean external other is within = inside: 1) within physical body/brain/central nervous system organism, 2) within ego consciousness, 3) within superconsciousness, and 4) within eternal Aseity.
901. It is coherent to describe enself-awareness to mean: 1) to bring unself within your conscious awareness, 2) to realize nothing is external or extrinsic to self, 3) that self is inclusive, simultaneous with, or inside of everything, both inside body/ego and outside body/ego.
902. It is coherent to describe enclusive to mean: 1) to bring one thing inside another thing, or 2) to realize one thing is inside another thing.
903. As defined here, enclusive is a new term that means the internal experience when personal-private-local ego consciousness identity expands to include aspects of external reality that exist outside your bag of skin, and beyond your local ego consciousness awareness boundaries. Having that experience instantly expands self-awareness to enself-awareness.
904. In normal waking ego consciousness, you assume everything that is confined within your bag of skin is your physical self. Before you have knowledge of what is inside your physical body, all you know is that something is inside you, but you do not know what. Your only source of knowledge about exactly what is inside you, how it works and why it works the way it works, must come to you as reports from people who have looked inside physical bodies. For example, how do you know you have something called a spleen, pancreas, lung, kidney, heart, aorta, vein, cell, molecule, etc.? You only know about those parts because someone has told you about them. You take it on faith, those telling you about those parts are telling the truth, that they are not deliberately deceiving you. Few of us have any desire to look inside cadavers to confirm the existence of the parts inside a human body, so we take someone else’s word for it.
905. How do you know you are enself? Only from reports of people who have discovered that enself is real, and that must satisfy, at least until you do have the illumination of enself-awareness.
906. In normal waking ego consciousness, everything outside your bag of skin is experienced as other. Enclusive means you have the awakening = realization = illumination experience of enself-awareness. With the enclusive enself-awareness experience, you have the profound realization that your unself is your enself.
907. Unself previously relegated to the same status as unconscious, is elevated to enself, with the same status as subconscious. With enself-awareness your unself becomes your enself, and that is known (with sentient feeling certainty), to be your primary identity. With enself-awareness, your enself comes fully into waking ego consciousness awareness. This enself-awareness experience presents such a staggeringly profound reality that just one glimpse changes you forever in unimaginable ways, all of which are good. Notwithstanding that I say “all of which are good,” I nevertheless acknowledge that while you resolve the meaning and significance of these experiences, it almost certainly will not feel like it is all good, for example instances of profound self-doubt, confusion and frustration, are common, at first.
i. “… The golden secret, the sought ‘Kalon,’ found, And seated in my soul. It will not last, But it is well to have known it, though but once: It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense, And I within my tablets would note down That there is such a feeling.” Lord Byron[12], capitalization original.
Unself Like Unconscious; Enself Like Subconscious
908. Unself is to being, what unconscious is to consciousness.
909. Unconscious does not mean without consciousness at all. Unconscious means involuntarily without normal ego consciousness self-awareness. Unconsciousness means a human being is unable to be self-consciously aware, even though the physical body remains alive.
910. Unconsciousness means ego consciousness is suspended, not terminated. A human being experiences unconscious as absolutely, totally, fundamentally disconnected from normal waking ego consciousness. It is as-if unconscious does not exist at all, but that cannot be the case, because the human body remains alive. It is certain that unconscious is not the same as death. Unconscious does actually exist while a human being is alive, nevertheless, it exists, as-if it does not exist.
911. A person in a coma cannot wake up as they ordinarily do from natural voluntary sleep; nevertheless, it is possible to wake up from a coma. Severe trauma to the brain can cause such an unconscious condition, in which the physical brain can no longer process information generated by consciousness or any of the senses. When a human being is alive but unconscious, it is unconscious continuing to exist that becomes the definition of life. Loved ones typically refuse to remove life support precisely because that is true. Medical doctors do not frame it that way; they simply talk about the physical brain being alive or dead. They do not talk about the unconscious as the remaining thread-of-life, even though that is a more correct explanation.
912. While the physical body remains alive, it is possible to revive ego consciousness, if you can repair the physical brain damage. Until you repair a damaged brain, you keep the physical body alive using mechanical life-support devices such as a ventilator. Waking from unconsciousness is quite different than waking from normal sleep; more like waking from death.
913. Enself is to being what subconscious is to consciousness.
914. Subconscious is normal active consciousness, but below self-awareness. With normal active ego consciousness, you know, and you know that you know (self-awareness), however with subconscious you know, but do not know what you know. You know that you know, but the actual contents of what you know, remain hidden from ordinary waking ego consciousness. Your subconscious is active during sleep, for instance dreaming, but also when you are fully-awake conscious, say digestion of food, wound healing, breathing, daydreaming, etc. Techniques such as hypnosis, psychoanalysis, meditation, yoga, and psychoactive chemical compounds, allow you to access information from your subconscious, bringing it into full waking ego conscious awareness-of-awareness.
915. Witness consciousness operates outside your ordinary ego consciousness awareness. In that sense witness consciousness is correctly described as subconscious. However, the commonly accepted meaning of subconscious does not refer to the working of witness consciousness. More commonly, psychologists relegate witness consciousness to the status of being a function performed by ego consciousness (and ego consciousness is reduced to the status, something physical is doing), but that is incorrect. Witness consciousness is a form of higher consciousness, which is a higher logical level than ego consciousness, because witness has direct access to superconsciousness. Direct access to superconsciousness by ego consciousness is forbidden, for the necessary protection of ego consciousness. Witness acts as intermediary between ego and superconsciousness. Ego cannot under normal circumstances, directly access superconsciousness without a very real danger of being permanently damaged.
916. On the other hand, ego consciousness can work intentionally, directing witness consciousness to act as agent on behalf of ego consciousness. Ego consciousness does this simply by looking, which means paying attention to what ego does want. Witness then goes to work to access information from superconsciousness, typically delivering the results of the search (think witness consciousness search rather than Google search), in the form of ah-ha realizations, or epiphanies, that pop into ego consciousness as fully formed gestalt information-rich perception images.
917. The work that witness does is normally beyond your conscious awareness, i.e., subconscious, but the epiphanies are clearly presented for your ego-conscious consideration. You have freewill, which means it is an intentional choice whether to act upon the epiphanic revelations or not. Ego consciousness freewill can also be abused if ego consciousness takes personal credit for the work that witness consciousness does, but witness consciousness will never complain about ego consciousness behaving so narcissistically and selfishly. You regularly access witness consciousness whenever you activate imagination, day-dreaming, and simply by paying attention to your surrounding environment (= looking), because witness says yes to whatever is the object of your attention, and immediately goes to work to help you get more of whatever that is; ironically, good or bad.
i. “In Jung’s depth psychology it is crucial that the unconscious has a collective component, unseparated between individuals and consisting of the so-called archetypes. They are regarded as constituting the psychophysically neutral level covering both the collective unconscious and the holistic reality of quantum theory. At the same time they operate as ‘ordering factors’, being responsible for the arrangement of their psychical and physical manifestations in the epistemically distinguished domains of mind and matter. More detailed illustrations of this picture can be found in Jung and Pauli (1955), Meier (2001), Atmanspacher and Primas (2009), Atmanspacher and Fach (2013), and Atmanspacher and Fuchs (2014).” Harald Atmanspacher[13], italics original.
918. Gregory Bateson makes an important statement about unconscious, with which I agree, but I draw your attention to the necessary distinction between subconscious and unconscious that I make, and the actuality of witness consciousness. Bateson does not acknowledge witness consciousness. I acknowledge that Bateson has articulated a coherent theory of mind but fails to coherently describe consciousness and certainly offers no theory of consciousness. For instance, “thoughts of consciousness…are expressed in secondary process. Nobody, to my knowledge, knows anything about secondary process.” (918i) In Bateson’s theory of mind, even inanimate physical material objects (objects that are not alive), can form a mind. That may well be the case, but I deny that consciousness docks to anything other than life. In my theory of consciousness, the mind is a holon unity of physical body/brain/central nervous system, docked to an ego consciousness. The mind ends with the physical body, but consciousness goes on. We do know a great deal about consciousness, for instance my theory of consciousness as presented in this manuscript.
i. “This is usually expressed in Freudian language by saying that the operations of the unconscious are structured in terms of primary process, while the thoughts of consciousness (especially verbalized thoughts) are expressed in secondary process. Nobody, to my knowledge, knows anything about secondary process.” Gregory Bateson[14], (brackets original).
919. These three statements by Bateson begs the question, what parts of unconscious-made-conscious would be an improvement, for example much (but certainly not all) of the contents of subconscious would be of great value, and it is supremely important for ego to have full access to witness, to be open to inputs of information from witness, but there is absolutely no need to know all the information in witness consciousness or superconsciousness. I agree with Bateson, that is not possible, nor would it be any improvement. The arrangement between ego consciousness, witness consciousness and superconsciousness is designed to perfection, quite naturally, without ego consciousness having anything to do with it. On the other hand, it is necessary if ego consciousness is to thrive, that ego consciousness becomes aware that witness consciousness is a perfect servant and always says yes to any request from ego consciousness when ego consciousness makes a request for information by paying attention to anything.
i. “…it is commonly assumed that it would be somehow better if what is unconscious were made conscious…the silly idea that it would be a good thing to be conscious of everything of which we are unconscious.” Gregory Bateson[15]
ii. “Consciousness, for obvious mechanical reasons, must always be limited to a rather small fraction of mental process. If useful at all, it must therefore be husbanded. The unconsciousness associated with habit is an economy both of thought and of consciousness; and the same is true of the inaccessibility of the processes of perception. The conscious organism does not require (for pragmatic purposes) to know how it perceives — only to know what it perceives.” Gregory Bateson[16] (brackets original)
iii. “Consider the impossibility of constructing a television set which would report upon its screen all the workings of its component parts, including especially those parts concerned in this reporting.” Gregory Bateson[17]
920. Bateson correctly infers that skill necessarily has an important subconscious component (although he lumps it into unconscious which is incorrect). In my experience, epiphany, whatever else it is, also certainly has a skill component. It is also clear that the information in the gestalt image is from outside normal ego consciousness, but that source is witness consciousness, not what Bateson refers to as unconscious.
i. “…with skill, the fact of skill indicates the presence of large unconscious components in the performance.” Gregory Bateson[18]
921. Unself is the external-other self before you have the enself-awareness experience. Enself is the external-other self after you have the enself-awareness experience. For example, the enself-awareness experience reveals that unself is and always was enself. Such an experience is an experience of enlightenment, to light within.
922. Unself is like unconscious; it seems not to be myself at all. I do not ordinarily have any conscious awareness of myself including anything outside my body — brain — ego. Just as, if I am in a coma, I would have no awareness of my body — brain — ego, even though they continue to exist.
923. Unself is like unconscious in the sense that in ordinary waking ego consciousness, unself is absolutely, totally, fundamentally disconnected from your self-identity. There is no reason to question this or doubt it, unless 1) you receive reports from someone who has experienced enself-awareness, 2) you personally have a spontaneous experience of enself-awareness, or 3) you intentionally cultivate such an experience.
924. Unself is like subconscious; it is possible to bring the contents of subconscious into normal ego consciousness self-awareness, and possible to bring unself into enself-awareness.
925. Through intentional meditation, or spontaneous experience, it is possible to realize other, that which exists outside my bag of skin, and know that other is myself, as surely (with sentient feeling certainty), as if it were my body — brain — ego. With expansion of awareness, literally everything that exists outside your bag of skin = your unself, can be known to be your extended self, your enself.
926. Illumination means your internal light goes bright enough, that you wake up to realize your self does not end at the boundary of your bag of skin, or your private ego consciousness, but extends enclusive to all physical reality, extends in fact to the entire universe. An even brighter illumination extends enself to superconsciousness and eternal Aseity through holographic equivalence feels like identity; feels like certainty strength of belief.
927. Illumination means your inner light goes brighter enabling you to be aware of previously unknowable aspects of your-self, like turning up the light in a room enables you to see more of what is in the room. I am certainly not saying that you see everything, know everything, understand everything, etc., rather only that your combined immaterial epistemological feeling knowledge plus ontological physical existence knowledge, is known with certainty far beyond knowing you are an ego consciousness docked to a physical body/brain/central-nervous system organism.
928. If you experience knowledge through identity, your unself instantly is known with sentient feeling certainty, to be your enself. Because knowledge through identity is a direct personal experience, while you are alive occupying a physical body, this experience is subjective empirical, which means directly observable and can be repeated.
i. “The message of skill of any sort must always be of this kind. The sensations and qualities of skill can never be put in words, and yet the fact of skill is conscious.” Gregory Bateson[19], italics original.
929. A human being empirically observes the internal direct experience of knowledge through identity, in exactly the same way a human being observes physical objects outside their physical body/brain/central nervous system. Objective observations of internal states of consciousness are precisely equivalent to objective observation of all external physical objects, in the sense it is consciousness doing the observing. Only consciousness can observe anything, whether internal or external. Knowledge through identity is consciousness seeing, knowing, grokking, feeling consciousness as an object of consciousness.
930. You realize, I AM THAT. This illumination occurs in a flash, like having a veil lifted, or having a light turned on, and you can see what was always there, but the inner light (not electromagnetic radiation visible light) was too dim to reveal. All spiritual practices are methods used by human beings to turn their inner light brighter, which is why it is named enlightenment, to light within, when you have success with your spiritual practices.
[1] Merriam Webster Dictionary
[8] Alan Watts, Lectures and Essays, p. 19.
[9] Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, E. P. Dutton, 1979, Introduction, pp. 16–17.
[10] Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, E. P. Dutton, 1979, Introduction, p. 17.
[12] Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron, Baron Byron), Manfred: A Dramatic Poem, John Murray Publisher, Albemarle-Street, London, 1817, Act III, Scene I (Manfred and Herman).
[13] Harald Atmanspacher, “Quantum Approaches to Consciousness”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Section 4.6.
[14] Gregory Bateson, (brackets original), Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Jason Aronson Inc., 1987, p. 148.
[15] Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Jason Aronson Inc., 1987, pp. 145–146.
[16] Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Jason Aronson Inc., 1987, p. 145.
[17] Gregory Bateson Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Jason Aronson Inc., 1987, footnote 47, p. 145.
[18] Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Jason Aronson Inc., 1987, p. 146.
[19] Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Jason Aronson Inc., 1987, p. 147.
