[MD] Mystics and Brains

[David M]

Hi Platt

>How does consciousness observe itself?

Here's one example. I decide to move my book from a to b,
I observe this possibility becoming actual, and afterwards I can say: I did 
that.

> Does your consciousness create the present, or is the present always 
> already
> there?

DM: Another example, something flickers at my side, I turn to focus on it,
yes, here is a bird.

> Do organisms embody a consciousness that's present in the present?

DM: What is present is present, what is absent is absent. When an
organism is alive it has enourmous potential, but not when it is dead.
Is this potential present when an organism is alive, depends how you
want to look at it and use your terminology.

> Does an organism's pre-conceptual consciousness include evaluation?

DM: I think yes, otherwise there is no awareness. Awareness=taking notice,
or care.

> Who is the "I" that knows it's own mind?

DM: How do we find this 'I' that we refer to. As children we struggle
to understand and make sense of our experience. Adults order
and explain our experiences for us, we probably believe everything
we are told. We discover our bodies and the unique relationship
we have to our own bodies, and then we discover a secret, that
we have our own understanding and perspective, that we can know
things that others do not. Hence the joy of hiding things for children.
This secret should tell us something very important about truth, that
we all have part of it and none of us all of it. The 'I' is the unique truth
we all possess.