Witness all the obtuse and self-serving wankers who embrace self-development and awareness workshops in the New Age movement. — Tom Storm

It sounds to me like you are referring to people who are trying to exploit other people who have a genuine belief, which isn't really an indictment of self-development as a genuine goal or a belief.

The problem is, how do you tell difference? And from what I have seen our friends are totally sincere, they just lack... wait for it...self awareness. :party: :scream:

I've read this a few times now and the meaning is not yet in my grasp. In other words. I'm :chin:
Perhaps if you rephrase the first 2 sentences? — Amity

1. The content of awareness is experience.
2. Experience is everything one can be aware of -self, sensation, ideas, memories the taste of mango, the fear of flying, the sound of mother's voice. Present feeling, past memories, future imagining.
3. Awareness is an idea one has to have in order to understand the world, of something that is outside experience.
Thus one has the idea, but can give it no content, because if it had content it would be an experience that one was aware of not the awareness itself.

So in order not to recreate awareness as an experience one has, that would necessitate another 'one' to be aware of it, I say that we have the idea of awareness, but it has to be empty, silent. Unlike the self, which is this complex of memories ideas and sensations that one is aware of and identifies with.

[This is a repetition in other language of the homunculus problem of indirect realism. You know the story - the eye forms an image on the retina and the optic nerve carries the information to the visual cortex where it is processed, and somewhere behind that is the person who is looking at the screen, rather than directly looking at the world. This is indirect realism, and it is nonsense because the person looking indirectly needs also to have eyes and an optic nerve, and a person in the back of that... ]

It's like anything, caveat emptor. Learning that one has an epistemic responsibility is certainly key to self-awareness! Perhaps, for some, the way to genuine self-awareness leads through the valley of shams.

Could be. Just as mistakes are often the necessary path to success.

:up:

Part of the problem is that the OP didn't really indicate what particular obstacles to self-awareness he/she was facing, only a vague and abstract desire to increase self-awareness.

In that context, I would say that becoming aware that the mind in its natural state is a creature of habit is the best starting point. Invariably, it is our own habitualized choices that form the first and biggest barrier to increasing self-awareness. Learning that we have the power to alter ourselves, even to choose something completely contradictory to what we take as our own inclinations (Sartre), is the beginning of awareness.

First note you need to differentiate between the neurobiological awareness of animals and the language and culture expanded conciousness of humans. Awareness is biological. Self awareness is socially constructed. Knowing that should deflate a large part of the problem as it is the neurobiology that is the complicated bit.

Second, it will help to realise that awareness is not about a passive neural display - a representation of the world - that then requires some further mysterious witness. This is the dualistic Cartesian mistake. Awareness is a pragmatic and embodied modelling relation with the world. The brain exists to predict how the world could be in the light of actions that might be taken. It is an active engagement rather than a passive contemplation.

A third thing that could be added when it comes to getting started on the neurobiology is that neuroscientists prefer to talk about awareness in terms of its two critical levels of process - habit and attention. As part of the whole prediction-based design of the brain, it is set up to learn to process the world as automatically and “unconsciously” as possible. Attention only kicks in if the world doesn’t fit the predictions and the brain has to pause to generate some new predictive state that better explains the available evidence. — apokrisis

When we say that awareness doesn't require further witness, how would you say that attention interacts with our subconscious unraveling of experience? Do we have the ability to reason and thus change our habits through attention and doesn't there need to some kind of an awareness of the self during this process? A deeper and more expansive consciousness to our subconscious behavior which allows for change and movement?

Moving into self-awareness, which we are saying is social; do our external interactions not connect to our internal relationship with our sense of self which has the ability should we navigate it to show us where we are wrong in a given moment by means of sharing perceptions with others?

For example, if we feel possessive over an object stemming from the roots of our biological nature and another person triggers this within us by taking the object from us, there is the natural course for the subconscious reaction to occur. If we are only the embodiment of the actions taking place and unable to access any other mode of observation, then how could we experience the flooding in of emotion when we fully realize our actions? What is the source of that feedback?

If we attack the other person and thus gain our object back, that biological urge has been completed and there would be no further need for exploration or inquiry. One would simply continue on because that method works to satisfy those basic needs.

Those cues that we experience seem to be communicating a wealth of wisdom to us, which then allows freedom if chosen to accept it, for us to change our behavior. Would this have been possible without the social aspect of awareness? And could we learn from them without conscious observation of the exchange which took place?

Ah, I see this expansion of thoughts and ideas only after I've responded to your previous post. I look forward to digesting these as well.

1. The content of awareness is experience.
2. Experience is everything one can be aware of -self, sensation, ideas, memories the taste of mango, the fear of flying, the sound of mother's voice. Present feeling, past memories, future imagining. — unenlightened

1. OK, so I've got me a bucket of awareness. Hmm. No, awareness is not a container, material or otherwise. What is it? A type of consciousness, perception or knowledge of something happening or existing.
2. This is a subjective experience of our external and internal world or life. However, not all that happens or existed in the past, present or future can be totally known to us. Past and future imaginings can be problematic if we are not aware of their partial and illusionary qualities.

We have limited and different types of awareness. Some parts we pay more attention to, they are personally more meaningful and so, there is a sensitivity or 'heightened' awareness.
Examples: emotional, political, environmental.
Most of the time, we can choose to engage or disengage with thoughts, communication, and action.
However, we are not always aware we hold on to certain habits of thought or ways of thinking/feeling when it might be an idea to reflect and review our individual patterns.

We can be living with a religious belief bestowed upon us by our parents; we might hold them dear or fear estrangement if we doubt, challenge or change. This can be an emotional experience heightened by increased awareness.
So, I don't see 1. experience as the content of awareness, rather they are intertwined. Awareness has an effect on experience and v.v.

3. Awareness is an idea one has to have in order to understand the world, of something that is outside experience. — unenlightened

So, now 'awareness' has changed from subjective perception to an abstract concept. Who keeps that general idea or mental image in mind when different aspects of the world are explored? Scientists?
To understand anything beyond our experience, we need to travel - externally or internally - but we need to consider where we want to go. Which paths to take.

In a cage of negativity, the positives can't be seen or are out of reach.
Sometimes we are not even aware that we have been depressed until the shadows lift.
I suggest that we hardly ever have true emotional awareness.
To develop, we need to have or be shown skills; to identify moods, their causes, the tools to manage any problems. Understanding ourselves and others, to relate better is vital for holistic wellbeingness.

Thus one has the idea, but can give it no content, because if it had content it would be an experience that one was aware of not the awareness itself. — unenlightened

This doesn't make any sense to me.

So in order not to recreate awareness as an experience one has, that would necessitate another 'one' to be aware of it, I say that we have the idea of awareness, but it has to be empty, silent. Unlike the self, which is this complex of memories ideas and sensations that one is aware of and identifies with. — unenlightened

Again, no sense. How can an idea be 'empty'?
OK, I think I'm in danger of repeating myself so I'll stop here.

Thanks for engaging and provoking thought. :sparkle:

To address all here, as I am reading through these responses and working my way towards formulating my own, I feel immense gratitude at the willingness of others to share here within this space.

I find that being able to share ideas and thoughts with other inquisitive beings to be far more valuable than an abundance of material wealth. It is a beautiful thing that we can experience.

Thank you, for both yourselves and for myself, for spending the energy to do so.

I am appreciative that we are all willing to learn, explore and seek understanding.

I may be unrushed to respond, but I wanted to take the moment before heading off to work to share this felt experience of appreciation and love that is flooding in - openly!

I find that being able to share ideas and thoughts with other inquisitive beings to be far more valuable than an abundance of material wealth. It is a beautiful thing that we can experience. — Universal Student

:up: :sparkle:

Take care and thank you, again :clap:

How can an idea be 'empty'? — Amity

If there is a photograph, there must be a camera, but a camera cannot photograph itself, only another camera or a reflection of a camera Thus a camera cannot obtain an image of itself, but proposes that image 'beyond experience', or proposes itself as the unphotgaphable source of photos. One might say that awareness is a virtual image of the unseen seer. One cannot grasp it, but again one cannot dispense with it.

But perhaps I am wrong about this; perhaps someone can describe the experience of awareness. I await with eager anticipation a better explanation.

That isn’t disparaging. It is to say it is is another level of semiotic regulation. And we can aspire to professional standards and evidence backed practice. It isn’t something mystic that can only be acquired in encounter groups or exotic eastern practices. — apokrisis

I didn't take it as disparaging, I just think it's inaccurate. I see self-awareness as a skill, not a technology. I don't see self-awareness as mystical either. As I said, I think it's everyday, bread and butter human behavior, although I admit it can feel magical sometimes.

But is that attaining self awareness or shedding it? I’m talking about finding a better way to integrate with a community of minds rather than just escaping its constraints. Our challenge is how to find a balance in that regard, not particularly about finding a way to disappear into some sublime sense of self. — apokrisis

I agree this has nothing to do with "some sublime sense of self." Oh, good. I get to quote from the Tao Te Ching. From the Ellen Marie Chen translation of Verse 10:

In being enlightened and comprehending all,
Can you do it without knowledge?

This is one of several passages that say something similar - knowledge leads to artificiality - a false sense of self. I've had arguments about this before. Lao Tzu can't possibly mean that knowledge is bad, but I think he means just that. A release from knowledge and surrender to experience is what self-awareness is for me.

Again, holism is the oneness of the many, and the multiplicity that forges its oneness. Parts and wholes are that which are both differentiated and integrated. So it is not an opposition but a synergy in the systems view. — apokrisis

I agree.

Sounds like you think he achieved something nevertheless. But DuPont. How easy would it be to create genuine community values in an industrial corporation? — apokrisis

You're right about big industrial corporations. It was always a struggle for him. I wasn't denigrating his way of doing things, it's just not my way.

We need scientifically astute philosophers and philosophically astute scientists in order to arrive at a philosophically and scientifically respectable position on human experience/consciousness/thought/belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms...

But perhaps I am wrong about this; perhaps someone can describe the experience of awareness. I await with eager anticipation a better explanation. — unenlightened

I'll try to describe how it feels for me to become aware of something. The first time I remember doing that was while learning Tai Chi. I was having trouble with a move, so I kept doing it over and over. I tried to focus not only on the movements, but how the movements felt in my body. I would ask my teacher "what's it supposed to feel like?" Tai Chi for me has to do with the movement of power through my body, so I would ask "What is the power supposed to do?"

While I did the movement, I would try to pay attention to how my body felt as well as I could. A couple of times I thought I felt something that might be important, so I focused on that feeling when I was practicing, but it didn't help. Then I felt something again, I always call it a "tickle." When I paid close attention to that feeling it grew and came into focus. It was a feeling in my body - the muscles, balance, stress - I had not been aware of. After enough practice, it became natural to be aware in that way. That experience and awareness was helpful in working on other moves.

Since than, I've found a similar process takes place in other areas of awareness - intellectual, physical, emotional, social... I guess that's awareness of awareness.

That experience and awareness was helpful in working on other moves. — T Clark

Thanks for that. It's a good description of becoming aware of a subtle sensation that one probably overlooks completely most of the time. I guess it's somewhat similar to the way a musician develops a very precise sense of exactly where their fingers are in relation to keys or strings, a form of proprioception for which we do not really have words.

But I don't think it's awareness of awareness as such. I lie awake in the dark, and very gradually it dawns on me. That is to say I notice the lightening of the sky. but all my description is of the sky of my developing experience of the sky, not my developing experience of what awareness itself is like.

To the extent that awareness can be aware of itself, it seems (to me) to manifest as a silence, and an emptiness. I don't know if anyone else has another experience? — unenlightened

Makes sense to me.

Get's along with how I understand the notion of "listening" too. Listening well requires me to have that silence.

When we say that awareness doesn't require further witness, how would you say that attention interacts with our subconscious unraveling of experience? Do we have the ability to reason and thus change our habits through attention and doesn't there need to some kind of an awareness of the self during this process? — Universal Student

Sure. We can act out of habit or we can act via attention. And indeed, every act is a balance of both in fact. The way the brain is wired means that arriving sense data will be allowed to trigger the simple emission of learnt habits to the degree is slots right into a state of prediction. That takes a fifth of a second or less. Then where something is unexpected or requires reorientation, then the brain squashes the habitual response to kick it upstairs for a full attentive response. That takes about half a second to arrive at a new state of intention and readiness.

So to change a habit, we have to get into the habit of interrupting it as it about to happen and instead replace it with some different attentional plan. We have to catch ourselves and remind ourselves not to snap at our partner, or whatever, until this just becomes the new desired routine.

Self awareness thus would have to start in getting used to noticing how we have been interacting. Or indeed, pay attention to the rationalisations that likely have always supported our habitual responses. We might have victim thinking or other habits ingrained since childhood.

So the brain is designed to reduce as much of action to an unthinking flow as possible. It’s like learning to drive a car as an automatic activity. You want to free your attention to deal with genuine novelty. Then to change a habit, you must bring attention back to what you are doing automatically. And because your habits move at a faster pace, they can be slippery buggers.

f we attack the other person and thus gain our object back, that biological urge has been completed and there would be no further need for exploration or inquiry. One would simply continue on because that method works to satisfy those basic needs. — Universal Student

You are talking about thought at the level of training a toddler. Telling kids that it is not polite to snatch. The basic standards of social interaction start with simply training some impulse control and self regulation in kids.

But if we are talking about doing better as adults, then there is a whole complex web of thoughts about rights and wrongs we must learn to navigate. Whether or not to snatch something back could be an impulse that needs to be negotiated in any kind of social context. Are we playing rugby or is it a policeman who had just grabbed something off us.

But I don't think it's awareness of awareness as such. — unenlightened

To be prosaic, it is just noticing and fixing a sensory-motor pattern in memory so you can recognise or execute it again.

The brain works on prediction. To find the same thing again, you have to have to have developed a memory that could recognise it. It is then noticing it for the first time which is the tricky bit.

That is why sports coaching is all about suggesting cues to notice. Start your deadlift by pushing the ground away with your feet.

The way the brain is wired means that arriving sense data will be allowed to trigger the simple emission of learnt habits to the degree is slots right into a state of prediction. That takes a fifth of a second or less. Then where something is unexpected or requires reorientation, then the brain squashes the habitual response to kick it upstairs for a full attentive response. That takes about half a second to arrive at a new state of intention and readiness. — apokrisis

I love this almost poetic description and the timings, how are they arrived at?

Self awareness thus would have to start in getting used to noticing how we have been interacting. Or indeed, pay attention to the rationalisations that likely have always supported our habitual responses. We might have victim thinking or other habits ingrained since childhood. — apokrisis

That makes complete sense.
Developing a keen observation of thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Asking relevant questions.
Also trying to understand any reasons, conscious or subconscious. Keeping an eye on internal dialogue...helpful or harmful. Paying attention to mind/body interaction.

Then to change a habit, you must bring attention back to what you are doing automatically. And because your habits move at a faster pace, they can be slippery buggers. — apokrisis

:rofl:

Thanks for all your most informative posts. Smoothing slithery subjects :cool:

It is then noticing it for the first time which is the tricky bit. — apokrisis

Yes, and that's the tricky bit to even talk about. How to notice, how to even notice what it is to notice or as you put it

to kick it upstairs for a full attentive response. — apokrisis

But who is upstairs if it is not the homunculus in chief?

But who is upstairs if it is not the homunculus in chief? — unenlightened

The homunculus exists if you treat the brain as being about Cartesian representation - the neural display of information. But a predictive and enactive approach to brain processing says the brain forward models its inputs so as to be able to cancel all that arriving information away

It is an anti-representation theory. Your model of the world works if the end result is that you managed to make nothing unexpected happen. The goal of the brain is not to be aware in an attentive sense.

So the homunculus in chief is the sense of self that arises from being in full control of the flow of reality. The world is unfolding as you already imagined it in terms of your wants and needs. Life is easy. You don’t even have to pay attention or remember.

The future is being cancelled from mind as fast as it can happen. You are driving through busy dangerous traffic and you can’t even really remember the tune you were listening to on the radio as you vaguely daydreamed about this or that.

You are the boss of the situation. Until you mow down the elderly cyclist.

So it isn’t about a mental representation of the world that “someone” then has to react to. That someone is already driving the car through their routine life as mindlessly as they can get away with. It doesn’t even matter that they day dream as there is no neurobiological reason to be having grand and important thoughts.

It is purely a social construction that a person’s state of mind should be any different. If you are a good Catholic, you would need to be feeling guilty about something at other. If you are one of life’s busy entrepreneurs, you would have to be maximising your productivity by consuming another Tony Robbins podcast.

Society demands the existence of an eternally attentive homunculus as the brain’s command module. That is the technology it means to insert in us to make us properly socially regulated beings. So no wonder that is the standard folk psychology model of consciousness. We should just expect to find that little vigilant person who misses nothing and is responsible for everything.

Whether we flub a tennis forehand, or mow down a cyclist, it is all the same. The social expectation is that we were always attentive, and own every act as something carefully planned and thought out, even if we are in fact quite naturally creatures of habit.

But I don't think it's awareness of awareness as such. — unenlightened

Being aware of the feelings in muscles, balance, and energy when I move in certain ways is awareness. Observing and being aware of patterns in the way I learn to be more aware in different situations is awareness of awareness.

I love this almost poetic description and the timings, how are they arrived at? — Amity

The most vivid research is from reaction time studies in sports psychology. You film folk as they have to react to the bad bounce of a cricket ball. This shows that it takes 200 milliseconds to “see and respond” that you mispredicted but found time to correct. The simplest reactions, like hearing the starter’s pistol in a race takes about 100ms. That is how they can make rules around false starts.

So that gives you concrete timings for habits. And then there are a variety of psychological tests for showing that attentive awareness takes 500ms or more. You have phenomena like the attentional blink that shows it takes that long to switch attention from one event to another,

There is plenty of lab evidence. But it is not a standardly taught way of understanding the brain. Cognition is treated like a branch of computer science and so thinks of the brain in a very disembodied fashion.

For us humans, it is all about the biological embodiment, and only secondarily about the abstracted or disembodied point of view that is our social programming.

Why do you think building robots that can move fluidly is so hard, yet building a computer chess program is so easy? It is not tripping over your own feet that requires true genius in the real world.

It is an anti-representation theory. Your model of the world works if the end result is that you managed to make nothing unexpected happen. The goal of the brain is not to be aware in an attentive sense.

So the homunculus in chief is the sense of self that arises from being in full control of the flow of reality. The world is unfolding as you already imagined it in terms of your wants and needs. Life is easy. You don’t even have to pay attention or remember.

The future is being cancelled from mind as fast as it can happen. You are driving through busy dangerous traffic and you can’t even really remember the tune you were listening to on the radio as you vaguely daydreamed about this or that. — apokrisis

That has happened to me a few times driving a familiar route, that I find myself arriving with no memory of the journey. And of course the were no cyclists mown down, because if there were any risk of such, the homunculus would have been alerted. Your account of the functioning of the thinking, remembering and decision making mind rings true to me and accords with my experience.

But in relation to the matter of awareness, it simply avoids the question. While I cannot tell you much about that state of absent-mindedness whilst driving, I can confidently say that there was awareness and attention to the road and traffic, because without it there would have been a crash almost immediately. Rather, i would liken that state of mind to a meditative state of alert awareness without the thought narrative.

My theme for the thread has been to distinguish (particularly verbal) thought from awareness. This is naturally rather hard to do in words, and inclined to provoke resistance and incomprehension from thinking verbal minds that dominate philosophy.

Science begins with the observer:- "I think therefore I am", and it seems natural to presume that if I think not, then I am not, but this turns out not to be the case, and the absence of mown down cyclists rather demonstrates it.

Observing and being aware of patterns in the way I learn to be more aware in different situations is awareness of awareness. — T Clark

No. Learning is about memory, and memories are things one becomes aware of when something reminds one. Learning about learning is doubly so. I could put it this way; "Awareness is the present moment", and one can be aware of the past but not in the past. I remember being aware as I wrote that last sentence, that it would likely be confusing, and I am aware as I write this one that I may not be clarifying things much.

How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?

My first thought is that the inquiry itself is a helpful place to begin exploring. — Universal Student

My first thought is that I don't know.

My second thought is the same.

And no matter how I try, all my thoughts result in the same conclusion as the first two.

I can confidently say that there was awareness and attention to the road and traffic, because without it there would have been a crash almost immediately. — unenlightened

The lack of working memory formation tells you there wasn’t full attention of the kind needed to underwrite aperception of the perception. Like a dream, it was a flow of experience being forgotten as fast as it happened. No imagery was being retained in a way that would allow introspection.

My theme for the thread has been to distinguish (particularly verbal) thought from awareness. This is naturally rather hard to do in words, and inclined to provoke resistance and incomprehension from thinking verbal minds that dominate philosophy. — unenlightened

Very true. And the kicker is that forming sentences relies on a lot of unconscious habit. Note how that just before a sentence forms, you have the general gist of what you want to say. You are orientated and ready to go with an utterance.

When you are using your inner voice to create an internal monologue or regulating narrative, this means you don’t actually have to hear yourself saying the full sentence. You just have to get as far as being about to say it for that nascent thought to already have sufficient effect. So even the essential role of the inner voice bubbles along at almost unverbalised levels as one half formed speech act is overtaken by the next to keep things zipping along.

How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?

My first thought is that the inquiry itself is a helpful place to begin exploring.
— Universal Student

My first thought is that I don't know.

My second thought is the same.

And no matter how I try, all my thoughts result in the same conclusion as the first two. — god must be atheist

Self awareness is a skill, just like any other. It is developed through practice. Everything boils down the ability to discriminate and differentiate the subjective from the objective in experience. Because even the "objective" is, for the human mind, a representation of the objective. Consider that objective means both that which is (thought to be) mind-independent and also the state of being independent of subjective predispositions or bias. The Husserlian phenomenological reduction presupposes an accurate self-awareness. The practice of good science requires achieving objectivity.

So yes, the inquiry is itself a helpful place to begin exploring.

I lie awake in the dark, and very gradually it dawns on me. That is to say, I notice the lightening of the sky. but all my description is of the sky of my developing experience of the sky, not my developing experience of what awareness itself is like. — unenlightened

Clever. You become aware of a gradual change; enlightenment from both a physical and mental 'darkness' or a not-knowing. You are awake. You are describing to yourself, in an internal dialogue, your sense of how the sky changes. You liken the lightening sky to your mental state enlightening. Are they the same kind of thing? It seems not. You can't put into words how your 'dawning' is happening.
And yet, you did.
Or at least, what you wrote seems to indicate a high level of self-awareness (SA)
I would say that your SA has been developed by the practice of writing.
I might even go further and suggest that SA is key to being a compelling writer.
They are intertwined.

My theme for the thread has been to distinguish (particularly verbal) thought from awareness. This is naturally rather hard to do in words, and inclined to provoke resistance and incomprehension from thinking verbal minds that dominate philosophy. — unenlightened

I think we might be talking about different kinds of awareness. My focus has been on SA, inseparable from thought. If any TPF reader fails to comprehend words or thoughts about awareness, it is not necessarily because there is resistance. Often, the confusion lies in different definitions or meanings.
Or habitual ways of thinking. We can talk past each other and end up :chin: :brow: :smirk:
When what should be happening is accepting questions and trying to respond as best we can.
Even if we still disagree, that's fine. We've explored and the sun still shines :cool:

I remember being aware as I wrote that last sentence, that it would likely be confusing, and I am aware as I write this one that I may not be clarifying things much. — unenlightened

This shows the great benefit and challenges of writing.
Previously, I've written that I sometimes don't know what I think until I write.
Even as I write, there is a general background awareness or knowledge that whatever is produced can be changed, misinterpreted or misunderstood.
I question my inner voice: Is that right, is that really what I think?
It's a wonder anything gets posted at all...actually, things posted have been self-edited and deleted!

And that brings me to confidence and I guess to the OP question. How to develop SA, the barriers, etc.
Lack of confidence, being too self-conscious are hurdles to overcome.
If writing is one of the many tools to develop SA, then all the more reason to value it.
Words matter.

Being creative and productive matters. Even if nobody listens or responds.
It is a way to find your self, your voice in relation to others.
Check-in to your state of mind...or awareness...in the moment.
Some call that mindfulness...it can be therapeutic.

I think we might be talking about different kinds of awareness. My focus has been on SA, inseparable from thought. — Amity

Yes. Self-awareness is awareness of self - a complex of habit, memory, thought, narrative, identification.
I am talking of what awareness is, not of what one might be aware.

Lack of confidence, being too self-conscious are hurdles to overcome. — Amity

Now here is something intriguing, or perhaps it is just a matter of accretions of meaning in different contexts ... you seem to be saying that self-consciousness is a barrier to self-awareness. Now I'm wondering what that could mean?