How conscious can we be (and ought to be)?

SJ has just returned from a Laser show where he observes a braid of lasers with DSOM and WOZ. Naturally, he links the show back to his favorite topic of consciousness and asks some questions.

Now if you move to an orthogonal view you get only a point losing a huge chunk of data, the line. Isn't that because you tried to simplify your view as you went down the dimensions? Isn't it important to tag the cube as a cube even while moving down the dimensions?

Possibly, one way to do it is to classify everything as Brahman. You see oneness in evrything and feel Advaita. I believe that trying to do this is very important and a huge step towards realization.


Consciously, I looked forward for the emerging patterns, even though, all the while, I knew this was all an illusion. So was I really conscious?


Assuming you were conscious that it was an illusion, there is a related question: Were you conscious that you were conscious? Yes, because you asked the question 'was I conscious?' Were you conscious that you were conscious that you were conscious? I donot know. Were you conscious that you were conscious that you were conscious that you were conscious? I have no clue. Were you ..... [extend the questionare further.]

We can either

extend the idea further and ask, what is the transitive closure of the consciousness chains? or,

try to break away from such incomputable thoughts.

I call them as incomputable thoughts, as such questioning leads to a possible infinite length path in the thought chain. If we have an infinile length path, a temporal mapping of the thoughts -- given that we have finite resources -- can finish only after infinite time. This means that the though chain is an incomputable computation.

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What does the Judeo-Christian-Islamic-God or Indic-Ishwara do?
He knows everything. So, he can do infinite computation.

What does Buddha do?
Given that Tathagata [The Buddha referred to himself as the Tathagatha, the 'thus gone one'- the one who has reached enlightenment.] is said to have broken the cycle of births and deaths and hence has effectively stopped time, He has ofcourse broken the thought chain.

What does Taoism say about what we should do (and hence Lao Tzu) say we should do?
'When I am thinking, I am just thinking. When I am eating, I am just eating'. This means that the thought chain has been broken. (length of thought chain = 0)

What does Guru Datta do?
He said 'I am free and donot think about either past or future and hence remain as a child, effectively free'. He also has effectively broken the thought chain. (length of thought chain = 0)

Which brings us to the theorem of today: an incomputable thought can be terminated and stillness of mind acheived by humans, as it has been by others before. This is because, the state of all the above "humans", Buddha, Tao, Guru Datta, are attainable by other human beings.

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But, I have to ask, is consciousness asking the question 'was I conscious'? or just using the senses as they are(just seeing? just hearing etc.)?

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When Mr. SJ asks:

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So are the lasers clearing the maze for us; then what was it that we saw earlier, wasn't the laser creating an illusion for us. What is real, what was illusion?

I just like to say, if it is real, it is permanent. Never goes away.