Consciousness and the “Integrated Information Theory”

 
 

 

 

 Tell me the Truth: after you have read all the Samadhi material and the mind and meditation stuff – what is the furthest they have gone in showing us what is at the end of the tunnel. They will go as far as saying that one has to get to a silent mind, meditate and meet the true self – experience it. But then is consciousness part of that true self. If it is then our true self is also part of everybody’s else’s true self as there are many true self’s connected to this one massive Cosmic Mind. Hence can our true self be experienced only when consciousness itself is removed from the equation. 

So lets look at what Giulio Tononi is suggesting in his Theory about consciousness.

He says, one only sense consciousness or self-awareness when there is a kind of integration that occurs in the brain through observation. Giulio Tononi’s “integrated information theory” might solve neuroscience’s biggest puzzle – consciousness.

It is not something that you can sense until the brain starts to compute its presence because of how you interact with your environment. There are a lot of possibilities to consider here. what happens when one is in meditation and devoid of thinking and eyes shut from the external world – can we still be self-aware of the hidden force.

See what you think of Tononi’s theory that self-awareness and consciousness might be sensed only as the result of the mindbody interacting with its environment:

“I realised that knowing what consciousness is and how it came about is crucial to understanding our place in the universe and what we do with our lives,” says Giulio Tononi, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

and,

“It begins with a set of axioms that define what consciousness actually is.”

and,

“each experience will be different depending on the particular circumstances, meaning there are a huge number of possible experiences. And it is integrated. If you look at a red book on a table, its shape and colour and location – although initially processed separately in the brain – are all held together at once in a single conscious experience. “

and,

“From these axioms, Tononi proposes that we can identify a person’s (or an animal’s, or even a computer’s) consciousness from the level of “information integration” that is possible in the brain (or CPU). According to his theory, the more information that is shared and processed between many different components to contribute to that single experience, then the higher the level of consciousness.”

Then what happens during deep meditation?. To a certain extent one is still aware and sense the surrounding and mind. But there are times the mind can disappear and we lose time and the presence of the body and then we come back and wonder where we had been those few moments. Ironically when the self becomes one with the true self it cannot experience itself. How can the self see itself when the consciousness cord is cut and when it is itself on its own and not connected to the cosmic whole.

This is what Giulio Tononi is saying about his experiments in mapping out brain interactions with actions in mind.

 

 One study, published in 2015, examined the brains of participants under various forms of anaesthesia – including propofol and xenon. To get an idea of the brain’s capacity to integrate information, the team applied a magnetic field above the scalp to stimulate a small area of the cortex underneath – a standard non-invasive technique known as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). When awake, you would observe a complex ripple of activity as the brain responds to the TMS, with many different regions responding, which Tononi takes to be a sign of information integration between the different groups of neurons.

 

But the brains of the people under propofol and xenon did not show that response – the brainwaves generated were much simpler in form compared to the hubbub of activity in the awake brain.  By altering the levels of important neurotransmitters, the drugs appeared to have “broken down” the brain’s information integration – and this corresponded to the participants’ complete lack of awareness during the experiment. Their inner experience had faded to black.

Hence is deep meditation  anaesthesia? –  “Their inner experience had faded to black” where brain manifesting a probability stops. 

What are you saying – that being self-aware or sensing consciousness at any moment is as a result of the 5 senses. That consciousness itself is experienced or felt only when an “integration” takes place. If not we don’t even know it is there? What happens then when we meditate or when our minds are silent of thinking – can we still feel consciousness here or it is there but not felt? So consciousness has to interact with the brain/mind via the 5 senses for us to know it is present?

and then,

“Giulio Tononi’s theory asserts that consciousness arises from certain kinds of information processing.”

and,

“They are combined and cross-linked to form a meaningful narrative. Every time we experience something new, it is integrated with that previous information. It is the reason that the taste of a single madeleine can trigger a memory from our distant childhood – and it is all part of our conscious experience.”

There is no escape from experiential data or is there? How is the new in you going to take giant steps if it has to follow the past in you all the time? This is not acceptable and evolution should be allowed to take giant leaps forward rather than follow the past in you. The “new” in you can arise from nothing and from a mind that is void of thoughts and the 5 senses only in “choiceless observation”. When you see the pop-ups of the new in you when your mind is empty, then sticking them to the past in you is just a waste of a good thing from the repository of the Truth of Things.

and,

 “Although the concept of “group consciousness” may seem like a stretch, he thinks that Tononi’s theory might help us to understand how large bodies of people sometimes begin to think, feel, remember, decide, and react as one entity.”

and,

  “…in the future, Tononi’s theory may help us to understand ‘minds’ that are very alien to our own.”

 

There are different ways of thinking. One can separate one’s self-talking thinking mind from the intuitive thinking mind and think only from an intuitive space:

Then silent the mind using “speak thinking” or meditation:

You then get to no mind, all knowing sense of being and finally sever consciousness completely and “fade to black” and all alone in the Cosmos. I cannot see how one can get any further than this in this spiritual thing about the mind. This must be the end point of what our minds can experience when still alive but we can find many mind spaces as we float around in our minds and think differently from others and see what powers might lie in those unseen crevices. 

Tathagata – 2 minds thinking:

I guess why we do spirituality all the time is because there is some kind of evolution of the mind which takes place when we find different mind spaces and think differently from those mind spaces. Our mind-body and spirit becomes what we put into it.

 In deep meditation when the mind and memory and self disappears and the body is lost is it because there is no more interaction of consciousness with the brain. Consciousness is “seen” in the brain only when thinking during self-talk thinking or intention in mind during intuitive stream thinking needs to communicate with its repositories.

The mind I feel can work itself into silence in mind until this consciousness presence is severed and the mind and self stand alone with itself. Coincidently, in deep meditation, there is no memory of the moment when the brain and the mind separate and stands alone. Hence is it possible that consciousness itself is where the mind is located, in the ether around us and is part of the universe/cosmic mind? Our body is only a vessel and when the body dies – the rest of us is still alive.

This video will show you where others have been and how you can go into the ends of the earth in the mind and double back and find a sweet spot for you to exist. If the mind can travel back and forth in different mind spaces and experience different aspects of you – then what does it say about what you consider reality in your mind. What you see and hear in front of you is only because of the translation of your 5 senses especially your eyes. It is just an interpretation of the electrical activity in your eyes after receiving the different frequencies that are emitted by the objects you see and the mind creates an image for you to make it real. There are other frequencies around you that you cannot see and that does not mean that it cannot affect you. Everything is an illusion outside and inside of you in your mind. So what is your true self? So what is “new”.
 
Practical Methods of Meditation | Swami Sarvapriyananda
 

Are we close to solving the puzzle of consciousness?

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