Consciousness. part 2

 This morning I was up early and I have been ill and have been struggling to find what is the best way to approach my newest illness. My health has been an issue on and off throughout my adult life since the age of about 30. On Wednesday of last week, I went in an ambulance to the hospital fearing I'd had a heart attack, and of course the following day Lisa Marie Presley passed away from a heart attack. My motto is always "better safe than sorry". This has afforded me a little time off, I am down for the count. The list of things I had done to put myself in this dangerous position is long and scary. Things like not eating for several days and losing almost 48 hours of sleep. Exercising without food and sleep! What was I thinking!

This morning when I woke up, I was thinking deeply about life after death. I have been angry at the people who I've known in my past lately. My ex and his entourage. I have been angry at people for being unkind to me, and I was angrier that I was unable to stifle my feelings of vengefulness, very unkind for a Christian. 

I digress, the point of this is not to complain about whether my body can function or not, God help me, or to alleviate the feelings of stress due to being angry, God help us all. It is actually because in my hour of desperation I continue to look to God the Father, in spite of my being a terrible, below standard Christian. Perhaps we all feel that way sometimes. (This is starting to be like one of those recipe articles where you just say, "Where's the darn recipe!").

Awareness, consciousness, intellect. In no specific order. These things have different meanings. They are not too different from quarks, atoms and neutrinos. I use science because, again, I have made a decision to believe something that is contrary to the standard model of thinking in our age. For to be a living mammal, we have a sort of awareness that is different than a tree. We are alive like trees, but trees cannot see, hear, speak, or even breathe in a sense, although without them we would not be breathing. 

It was the fault finding that led me to my latest inquiry into what consciousness really is. The fact that I am currently working with dogs as well, you see, often times I find myself thinking disparagingly about other people. But as I am meant to be a creature of God, I know that it is my duty to try to surpass my knee jerk reaction to things, sort of compel myself forward, if you will, because I claim to know the word of God, which very plainly asks that you forgive and treat kindly those who are odds with you. Plus a whole lot more!

It occurred to me that a certain awareness beyond awareness happens when you commune with God.

I am willing to understand, some aren't, and yet others don't understand at all. My idea was that I could sort of train myself to kindness if I looked at these offenders as dogs, and myself also, as long as I am unable to find it conscionable to refrain from being upset by ignorant offenders. It really bothers me when a person is unkind to an animal, or a person with a disability. Dogs are sort of simple creatures, only partially aware. It gets too complicated for me to really define the difference between their consciousness and mine at this point. Let's borrow!

If a dog is only partially aware, then perhaps we are only partially aware also. I never really thought of it that way until now, with the idea that knowledge is a sort of part of the equation of consciousness.  But it is, and in some very simple straightforward ways. 1st- a baby is only conscious until it has gained enough experience with the world to be aware of its responsibility to care for itself. Then it is aware. 2nd- most humans would agree that they are of a higher consciousness than animals. 3rd- Humans who are atheists do not believe that there is anything higher than themselves. 4th- living things do not necessarily have the gift of consciousness.

The 3rd point was influential to me as it pertained to my thoughts on the nature of knowing. Like consciousness, knowing is something definable but not tangible. You cannot hold consciousness in your hands, life maybe, but not consciousness. This may or may not be true, depending on your idea of what goes on inside the brain of a living thing, and if it isn't doing anything, is that brain not dead?

After having my existential debate, I put up a list of Christian scientists on the post we argued over. This was the meme:

As I Christian I am looking at this thinking, what nerve! Then I'm in awe of the ignorance, you know, as it is because of philosophy and metaphysics that science exists. This is a very illustrative comment in that it shows how some jerks like to say they exist without the help of that which created them. Maybe I even like this meme.

But in my big fight over the ego, the NERVE of these guys, I ended up finding out some stuff absolutely unequaled in awesomeness, fact. As I have not probably related my full experience in regards to Revelations, the last book of the bible I'd never read until December of last year, I will share this one small statement, it appears that much of the last half of the bible was about this same subject matter. 

Throw in an "I know my redeemer lives" and voila! We have the stuff that makes a true prophet and believer. This takes wisdom. Or ...

But back to knowledge, or awareness or consciousness ... and speaking of the bible, what is wisdom? Is it not knowledge? And how do you go about obtaining knowledge, "the [awesome fear/reverence] of God is the beginning of wisdom/knowledge". I believe that it was a strong reverential fear and belief in Isaac Newton that had him staying a virgin and praying for answers and studying the bible. 

If we as people deny these things, we are setting ourselves at the highest. And we know that those who have no respect for high things would not be placed on top, the cream of the crop, even according to human standards. 

(** Because my thumb is bothering me. Ideas I had today- my compost pile has old plastic in it, my bible inspirational says to break up a put to add to the draining of the soil. Perhaps there is a solution to a problem there. Also, I have been thinking about cosmetics, hyaluronic acid injections under eyes? Why not near joints. My bad thumb and wrist are showing the tendons that ache.)

Being that we cap achievement at the human level, it occurred to me that is an unbelievable stance, because we mustn't deny that someone, somewhere is higher, and who are these people anyway? Does knowledge make you smarter and better? If so, why not the knowledge of god? Goodness, after all, is the most sought after state, it makes things better. Very, very few stinkers out there, just like Newtons. Let everyone choose. To be the filth or the foundation?

If we proceed to believe that there is a possibility of things that are higher, we can start to look outside ourselves and to some this is obvious. as to me, like looking outside the earth and seeing a vast space, our planet not the only one, not the middle one. Incidentally, I just saw that all the planets from Jupiter on have some form of rings, Jupiter holding its own, as it is almost entirely gas. Very interesting. Even a moon, a special moon, outside of Saturn has a ring.

Either last night or this morning I was marvelling at pineapple. I must not be the only person who felt this way about pineapple, people from the old days put them outside their homes you know, as a status symbol. I am often wonderous about the food from the "New World" as were the old world people. Tomatoes, cacao, banana, potatoes, avocados, pineapples. (several links ;) Corn too, but you know, it comes out the way it goes in. Oh, but pop-corn! 

Imagine this paradise! They lived like the old timers did. Er, prehistory folks?

The very idea of it had me looking at our planet like a glowing jewel. Which in turn made me see the jewel of heaven again, not a hard leap after this. 

( A bonus link!)

This "consciousness" blog has gotten off track. 

Life, as of right now, still, not all that different from consciousness.

ps. after reading revelations I found a little article about the beliefs of other cultures about the end. Aside from the very obvious similarities, there was this weird idea about the world drowning. My mind creates this infamy, I like to create, bring stories to life. What a clue, you know, that all people had a flood story, at Babylon. And how fitting to have the end sort of look like this to some, a place where all people come together to build a new tower.