True North wrote:What are the limits of science in determining or defining consciousness? Clearly there is matter, substances if you will, that remain imperceptible to science. Gurdjieff says as much in his presentation of the hydrogens, as well as being borne out in the history of science. And how might this relate to Gurdjieff's insistence that one can only know consciousness in oneself? How are we to understand consciousness in others?
Fridays, weekly 10:00-11:15 AM (Central Time) ongoing
The practical teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949) requires ongoing self-observation over many years. The purpose of such self-observation while making the effort to self-remember is to gradually free us from our identifications with fears and desires in their many forms. This helps us to realize that we are not the body-brain-ego organism that we have been mistakenly taught to believe is our true identity.
For this purpose pupils typically organize themselves into ongoing groups that meet regularly in order to share their self-observations, and in support of their ongoing efforts to remember themselves. “Remember yourself always and everywhere” is the aphorism expressing the central teaching that Gurdjieff brought. This online Gurdjieff Study group has been meeting weekly since the beginning of 2011. Participants bring their self-observations to share at the beginning of each meeting. Afterward, there takes place a reading from the course textbook, Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vol. 1, and from which a psychological exercise is selected for participants to work on in between the group meetings.
This is not an introductory group, so you need to be familiar with Gurdjieff’s concepts and terminology in order to participate. If you are not, please download the introductory book Ginsburg, Gurdjieff Unveiled (Lighthouse, 2001) which is now offered as a free Ebook on the Theosophical Society website. After reading this book, if you would like to participate, please email syginsburg@aol.com for further information. Because of the interactive nature of this Study Group, participation is necessarily limited.
The facilitator of this Study Group is Seymour (Sy) Ginsburg. Sy studied Gurdjieff’s teaching for nineteen years under the tutelage of Sri Madhava Ashish and has co-facilitated the ongoing Gurdjieff Study Group at the Theosophical Society in Miami (Deerfield Beach) since 1993.
VelisEtRemis wrote:Consciousness is the awareness of yourself as an independent, limited, entity in space, and the attempt to organize this identiy with your environment.
VelisEtRemis wrote:All life, demonstrates self awareness
tayga wrote:VelisEtRemis wrote:All life, demonstrates self awareness
That's a view at variance with psychology. I'm not about to get into an argument to justify the consensus in psychology but if you think that all life is self aware you should check that you are using the term in the same sense that everyone else is. Definitions in this field are notoriously tricky.
VelisEtRemis wrote:When a baby, or a frog, or a cell touches a hot plate, they all three know to pull away from it
VelisEtRemis wrote:It seems obvious that there are two fundamental qualities, and only two, energy and space. The greatest impediment to our understanding of everything is the lack of recognition to the fact that space is an entity to itself.
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