if a higher power were to create a beautiful, creative, explorer of life, stunningly brilliant, practical and courageous, gentle yet fearless, it would be modeled after one Jessica Rose.
Seconded...my wife and I appreciate your exploratory thoughtfulness.
Yet we seem to be diving deep down a rabbit warren here.
Materialism, or its energetic counterpart, can never be the source of mind, language, consciousness, intelligence, heart, soul - art or music etc.
This is beautifully illustrated by the language of DNA in which instructions do not exist in the material - but in a fragile code - language; and this is only for the material of life - the body - not the soul.
The language which we are using to communicate with each other is a mind-level of consciousness - which is not describable materially.
It has been said that we humans can understand - more or less fully - lower life forms and material things, but we cannot fully understand ourselves - we would need to be of a higher order to fully do so. (It is utterly mind-blowing to realise that all the instructions for the brain [cellular, organic growth, development, healing etc.] all come from ONE tiny cell at conception.)
Dear Jessica - you will only find the answers - and ALL of them - in the revelation which God has made in that self-vindicating document - the Bible.
Hebrews 11:1-3 " By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by [the] word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear."
I came across this short commentwhich you should find amusing and salutary:
"The Stuff Happens Law enters quantum physics, where it also achieves nothing worth knowing"
"The Stuff Happens Law (our term for Natural Selection) is the opposite of knowledge. Any theory that explains everything explains nothing. “Selectionism” has gotten so far out of hand, it is used on anything and everything in the universe. According to the selectionist, anything that exists has been naturally selected. The Darwinist can’t lose. Everything becomes evidence for his vacuous theory.
‘Quantum Darwinism’ may explain why we live in a shared reality (New Scientist, 7 April 2025). Reporter Karmela Padavic-Callaghan begins, “A framework inspired by evolution may demonstrate why two observers see the same non-quantum world emerge from the many fuzzy probabilities of the quantum realm.”
The quantum realm is notoriously full of uncertainties, but observers like us still manage to agree on how we experience it in very concrete ways. A quantum framework inspired by evolutionary principles may explain how such consensus is possible – and now researchers have proved it mathematically."
The discussion of psychedelics always reminds me of the interview with George Harrison where he was talking about LSD (but I think it applies to hallucinogens in general).
He thought that the only time you'd get an insight would be the first time you do it. After that it was just recreational.
The interviewer asked him "So did you do it more than once?" and he nodded almost laughing "Oh yes a lot more" LOL.
I have had strange synchronicity events happening in my life. The latest happened the day before yesterday. My wife’s dad passed away that day in Japan. He was a beekeeper. I browsed through Facebook posts and there was a video about a beekeeper passing and his wife ‘told’ the bees about her husband’s passing. During the funeral the bees flew over a mile to the cemetery and some landed on the casket. How weird is this?
Another one happened maybe 20 years ago. I wrote up how I thought ‘conscious creation’ worked (a book with that title from Lynda Meddan Dahl). I wrote that our thoughts are like a freshly woven spiderweb, it is so fine that you can’t see it. But during the night, dew drops settle onto the web and when the sun rises then you suddenly see it sparkling in the sun! So the thoughts ‘materialized’.
Not two weeks later, I went to my favorite health food store. There was a poster about a free Tarot Card reading, which I had never done before and this was the only time I tried that. Before the reading I told the card reader how I thought this worked: through synchronicity. I drew the cards and on two cards (!) was the spiderweb with the dewdrops in the morning sun! I had to laugh, ‘someone’ was pulling my leg!
Dr. Jess... Excellent review and theorizing about biologic function and consciousness, in particular. Having pondered this for decades, I have become a lot more "eastern" in my rationalizations about who we are as conscious (admittedly, at the level of toddlers) beings. For all the wonders of the biology of humans and all of the other life forms about us, I am forced to the conclusion that consciousness existed before these temporal bodies and will be there after they disintegrate. It is not a collection of cell organelles or chemical processes as we profess to understand them that creates consciousness, but rather that these poor mortal frames are created and inhabited by that Universal Consciousness of which we are all a small part.
BTW, I remain convinced that biophotons are key to much of the physical processes that we try to explain through mechanical, chemical, and "quantum" theories.
From Light we have come and to Light we will return. This existence is but a poor manifestation of Reality (and, all too brief).
Mind is a level of reality disjoint from matter — mind is not a property of matter and is not generated by the brain any more than “Jeopardy” is generated by your television. Rather, mind rests on the material mechanism of the brain.
Studying the brain to find the mind or consciousness is crudely analogous to studying the circuitry of your television to find the answers to the “Jeopardy” questions. You can learn a lot by doing either, but it will never be what you’re looking for because you’re proceeding on a flawed premise for which there is no real evidence, only a “what else can it be?” kind of argument.
It depends. It depends on your definition. But to me, mind is that part which has been given to you. It is not yours. Mind means the borrowed, mind means the cultivated, mind means that which the society has penetrated into you. It is not you. Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education.
Mind means the conditioning. You can have a Hindu mind, but you cannot have a Hindu consciousness. You can have a Christian mind, but you can't have a Christian consciousness. Consciousness is one; it is not divisible. Minds are many because societies are many; cultures, religions are many. Each culture, each society, creates a different mind. Mind is a social by-product. And unless this mind dissolves, you cannot go within; you cannot know what is really your nature, what is authentically your existence, your consciousness.
The effort to move into meditation is a struggle against the mind. Mind is never meditative, it is never silent, so to say 'a silent mind' is meaningless, absurd. It is just like saying 'a healthy disease'. It makes no sense. How can there be a disease that is healthy? Disease is disease, and health is the absence of disease.
There is nothing like a silent mind. When silence is there, there is no mind. When mind is there, there is no silence. Mind, as such, is the disturbance, the disease. Meditation is the state of no-mind. Not of a silent mind, not of a healthy mind, not of a concentrated mind, no. Meditation is the state of no-mind: no society within you, no conditioning within you. Just you, with your pure consciousness.
In Zen they say: Find out your original face. The face that you are using is not original; it is cultivated. It is not your face; it is just a facade, just a device. You have many faces, each moment you change your face. You go on changing it. The changing has become so automatic by now that you don't even observe it, you don't notice it.
When you meet your servant you have a different face from when you meet your boss. If your servant is sitting on your left side and your boss is sitting on your right, you have two faces. The left face is for the servant and the right face is for the boss. You are two persons simultaneously. How can you have the same face for your servant? Your one eye has a certain quality, a certain look. Your other eye has a different quality, a different look. It is meant for the boss and the other one is meant for the servant. This has become so automatic, so mechanical, so robot like that you go on changing your faces, you have multi-faces, and not a single one is the original.
In Zen they say: Find out your original face, the face you had before you were born, or the face you will have when you are dead. What is that original face? That original face is your consciousness. All your other faces come from your mind.
Remember well that you don't have one mind; you have multi-minds. Forget the concept that everyone has one mind. You don't have, you have many minds: a crowd, a multiplicity; you are poly-psychic. In the morning you have one mind, in the afternoon a different mind and in the evening still a different mind. Every single moment you have a different mind.
Mind is a flux: river like, flowing, changing. Consciousness is eternal, one. It is not different in the morning and different in the evening. It is not different when you are born and different when you die. It is one and the same, eternal. Mind is a flux. A child has a childish mind, an old man has an old mind; but a child or an old man have the same consciousness, which is neither childish nor old. It cannot be.
Mind moves in time and consciousness lives in timelessness. They are not one. But we are identified with the mind. We go on saying, insisting, 'My mind. I think this way. This is my thought. This is my ideology.' Because of this identification with the mind, you miss that which you really are.
Dissolve these links with the mind. Remember that your minds are not your own. They have been given to you by others: your parents, your society, your university. They have been given to you. Throw them away. Remain with the simple consciousness that you are ¯ pure consciousness, innocent. This is how one moves from the mind to meditation. This is how one moves away from society, from the without to the within. This is how one moves from the man-made world, the maya, to the universal truth, the existence.
"All visible things are "maya"....One must strive to get rid of Maya...meditation is the only way in which to dominate Maya." Adhilash Rajendran, hindu.com As a part of the visible-material world, you yourself are Maya. You are a mere illusion. You don't exist. Bhagavadgita.
I think it increases my belief that there really is some form of afterlife. I don't think anything in our universe/dimension is ever destroyed, it is often changed beyond our limited recognition and understanding but never actually destroyed. Maybe consciousness does flip into another dimension after death in this one. I'd like to think so. So yes, articles like this increase my "faith".
On a similar theme it never ceases to amaze me that virtually no consideration is given to the fact that quantum effects must play a huge role in precisely how the human body works especially when it comes to immunology and virology (and don't get me started on vaccinology!).
I thought my last ESP experience was about 10 years ago. A few minutes' worth of "swallows" from this post, & I see it was really just last week - when I "pranked" your Brownstone (April 1st) posting! I DIDN'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT!!!
. .
Okay - groceries, toilet paper, pause mail delivery,
then back to Consciousness Emergence....
. .
BTW: Jess, you have readers everywhere in the world. If it turns out that the answer to this whole
thing is "42"*, there'll be nowhere to hide! 😁🙄 *(HHG2G Ref)
There was a centipede who ran quite fine….until he stopped to consider how he worked…and wound up in a ditch. Paddle out, enjoy the dance. Tremendous compilation and thoughts. Enjoy!
I actually believe this is the meaning of life: to go through the process of understanding that life happens when you're trying to figure out what it is and it is "here" to enjoy. something like that
AI is extremely dangerous, since most people will see it as merely a tool, however glorified: some kind of logical outcome in the drive to maximize both science and technology in order to achieve a fabled good end of some ultimate kind. What will likely happen is that -- once it gets established and "trusted" so to speak (perhaps it solves the controlled fusion problem, or the mideast crisis (or both)) -- then an evil spirit will invest it and really start to cause trouble...unnoticed, at first.
Jessica,
if a higher power were to create a beautiful, creative, explorer of life, stunningly brilliant, practical and courageous, gentle yet fearless, it would be modeled after one Jessica Rose.
Thank you.
wow. thank you. that's really nice.
Seconded...my wife and I appreciate your exploratory thoughtfulness.
Yet we seem to be diving deep down a rabbit warren here.
Materialism, or its energetic counterpart, can never be the source of mind, language, consciousness, intelligence, heart, soul - art or music etc.
This is beautifully illustrated by the language of DNA in which instructions do not exist in the material - but in a fragile code - language; and this is only for the material of life - the body - not the soul.
The language which we are using to communicate with each other is a mind-level of consciousness - which is not describable materially.
It has been said that we humans can understand - more or less fully - lower life forms and material things, but we cannot fully understand ourselves - we would need to be of a higher order to fully do so. (It is utterly mind-blowing to realise that all the instructions for the brain [cellular, organic growth, development, healing etc.] all come from ONE tiny cell at conception.)
Dear Jessica - you will only find the answers - and ALL of them - in the revelation which God has made in that self-vindicating document - the Bible.
Hebrews 11:1-3 " By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by [the] word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear."
PS Biology is certainly complex - far more than we yet know - but chaotic it is not!
I came across this short commentwhich you should find amusing and salutary:
"The Stuff Happens Law enters quantum physics, where it also achieves nothing worth knowing"
"The Stuff Happens Law (our term for Natural Selection) is the opposite of knowledge. Any theory that explains everything explains nothing. “Selectionism” has gotten so far out of hand, it is used on anything and everything in the universe. According to the selectionist, anything that exists has been naturally selected. The Darwinist can’t lose. Everything becomes evidence for his vacuous theory.
‘Quantum Darwinism’ may explain why we live in a shared reality (New Scientist, 7 April 2025). Reporter Karmela Padavic-Callaghan begins, “A framework inspired by evolution may demonstrate why two observers see the same non-quantum world emerge from the many fuzzy probabilities of the quantum realm.”
The quantum realm is notoriously full of uncertainties, but observers like us still manage to agree on how we experience it in very concrete ways. A quantum framework inspired by evolutionary principles may explain how such consensus is possible – and now researchers have proved it mathematically."
My apologies I should have provided a link. My excuse is that so many other UK sites have had to disallow links to avoid the awful laws here.
https://crev.info/2025/04/quantum-darwinism/
A heroic dose of 9 grams of psilocybin might answer those questions for you.
Prob'ly not, though... and you would not be able to explain it readily.
;-)
Nothing needs explaining with the hero's dose!
Better psilocybin than acid, but the initial quest appeared to be for transmittable knowledge.
There are other paths, and they work better, but they require decades of patience.
What is it Spock?
It appears to be basic carbon life Captain.
Great way to end up in the PSYCH ward.
The discussion of psychedelics always reminds me of the interview with George Harrison where he was talking about LSD (but I think it applies to hallucinogens in general).
He thought that the only time you'd get an insight would be the first time you do it. After that it was just recreational.
The interviewer asked him "So did you do it more than once?" and he nodded almost laughing "Oh yes a lot more" LOL.
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” Wittgenstein.
Good way to end up in the PSYCH ward.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
I have had strange synchronicity events happening in my life. The latest happened the day before yesterday. My wife’s dad passed away that day in Japan. He was a beekeeper. I browsed through Facebook posts and there was a video about a beekeeper passing and his wife ‘told’ the bees about her husband’s passing. During the funeral the bees flew over a mile to the cemetery and some landed on the casket. How weird is this?
https://www.facebook.com/reel/648942224958961
Another one happened maybe 20 years ago. I wrote up how I thought ‘conscious creation’ worked (a book with that title from Lynda Meddan Dahl). I wrote that our thoughts are like a freshly woven spiderweb, it is so fine that you can’t see it. But during the night, dew drops settle onto the web and when the sun rises then you suddenly see it sparkling in the sun! So the thoughts ‘materialized’.
Not two weeks later, I went to my favorite health food store. There was a poster about a free Tarot Card reading, which I had never done before and this was the only time I tried that. Before the reading I told the card reader how I thought this worked: through synchronicity. I drew the cards and on two cards (!) was the spiderweb with the dewdrops in the morning sun! I had to laugh, ‘someone’ was pulling my leg!
There are no coincidences.
agreed
Dr. Jess... Excellent review and theorizing about biologic function and consciousness, in particular. Having pondered this for decades, I have become a lot more "eastern" in my rationalizations about who we are as conscious (admittedly, at the level of toddlers) beings. For all the wonders of the biology of humans and all of the other life forms about us, I am forced to the conclusion that consciousness existed before these temporal bodies and will be there after they disintegrate. It is not a collection of cell organelles or chemical processes as we profess to understand them that creates consciousness, but rather that these poor mortal frames are created and inhabited by that Universal Consciousness of which we are all a small part.
BTW, I remain convinced that biophotons are key to much of the physical processes that we try to explain through mechanical, chemical, and "quantum" theories.
From Light we have come and to Light we will return. This existence is but a poor manifestation of Reality (and, all too brief).
Peace and Hope to All... but, above all, PEACE!
Agree ☺️
Just a little lite reading :-)
and of course, very well written so it was complete yet easy to understand. Good work!
My take: “brain” and “mind” aren’t synonymous.
Mind is a level of reality disjoint from matter — mind is not a property of matter and is not generated by the brain any more than “Jeopardy” is generated by your television. Rather, mind rests on the material mechanism of the brain.
Studying the brain to find the mind or consciousness is crudely analogous to studying the circuitry of your television to find the answers to the “Jeopardy” questions. You can learn a lot by doing either, but it will never be what you’re looking for because you’re proceeding on a flawed premise for which there is no real evidence, only a “what else can it be?” kind of argument.
Are mind and consciousness two separate things?
<< Back
It depends. It depends on your definition. But to me, mind is that part which has been given to you. It is not yours. Mind means the borrowed, mind means the cultivated, mind means that which the society has penetrated into you. It is not you. Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education.
Mind means the conditioning. You can have a Hindu mind, but you cannot have a Hindu consciousness. You can have a Christian mind, but you can't have a Christian consciousness. Consciousness is one; it is not divisible. Minds are many because societies are many; cultures, religions are many. Each culture, each society, creates a different mind. Mind is a social by-product. And unless this mind dissolves, you cannot go within; you cannot know what is really your nature, what is authentically your existence, your consciousness.
The effort to move into meditation is a struggle against the mind. Mind is never meditative, it is never silent, so to say 'a silent mind' is meaningless, absurd. It is just like saying 'a healthy disease'. It makes no sense. How can there be a disease that is healthy? Disease is disease, and health is the absence of disease.
There is nothing like a silent mind. When silence is there, there is no mind. When mind is there, there is no silence. Mind, as such, is the disturbance, the disease. Meditation is the state of no-mind. Not of a silent mind, not of a healthy mind, not of a concentrated mind, no. Meditation is the state of no-mind: no society within you, no conditioning within you. Just you, with your pure consciousness.
In Zen they say: Find out your original face. The face that you are using is not original; it is cultivated. It is not your face; it is just a facade, just a device. You have many faces, each moment you change your face. You go on changing it. The changing has become so automatic by now that you don't even observe it, you don't notice it.
When you meet your servant you have a different face from when you meet your boss. If your servant is sitting on your left side and your boss is sitting on your right, you have two faces. The left face is for the servant and the right face is for the boss. You are two persons simultaneously. How can you have the same face for your servant? Your one eye has a certain quality, a certain look. Your other eye has a different quality, a different look. It is meant for the boss and the other one is meant for the servant. This has become so automatic, so mechanical, so robot like that you go on changing your faces, you have multi-faces, and not a single one is the original.
In Zen they say: Find out your original face, the face you had before you were born, or the face you will have when you are dead. What is that original face? That original face is your consciousness. All your other faces come from your mind.
Remember well that you don't have one mind; you have multi-minds. Forget the concept that everyone has one mind. You don't have, you have many minds: a crowd, a multiplicity; you are poly-psychic. In the morning you have one mind, in the afternoon a different mind and in the evening still a different mind. Every single moment you have a different mind.
Mind is a flux: river like, flowing, changing. Consciousness is eternal, one. It is not different in the morning and different in the evening. It is not different when you are born and different when you die. It is one and the same, eternal. Mind is a flux. A child has a childish mind, an old man has an old mind; but a child or an old man have the same consciousness, which is neither childish nor old. It cannot be.
Mind moves in time and consciousness lives in timelessness. They are not one. But we are identified with the mind. We go on saying, insisting, 'My mind. I think this way. This is my thought. This is my ideology.' Because of this identification with the mind, you miss that which you really are.
Dissolve these links with the mind. Remember that your minds are not your own. They have been given to you by others: your parents, your society, your university. They have been given to you. Throw them away. Remain with the simple consciousness that you are ¯ pure consciousness, innocent. This is how one moves from the mind to meditation. This is how one moves away from society, from the without to the within. This is how one moves from the man-made world, the maya, to the universal truth, the existence.
Osho, The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Talk #27
"All visible things are "maya"....One must strive to get rid of Maya...meditation is the only way in which to dominate Maya." Adhilash Rajendran, hindu.com As a part of the visible-material world, you yourself are Maya. You are a mere illusion. You don't exist. Bhagavadgita.
"Mind is the disease." Speak for yourself only please. "Meditation is the state of no mind." No thank you sir!
Mind is the channel for consciousness, seems to me
The Japanese seem to point to the hara rather than the head. 🤔
Spot on.
I wonder what this holds for the afterlife.
excellent question. what do you think?
I think it increases my belief that there really is some form of afterlife. I don't think anything in our universe/dimension is ever destroyed, it is often changed beyond our limited recognition and understanding but never actually destroyed. Maybe consciousness does flip into another dimension after death in this one. I'd like to think so. So yes, articles like this increase my "faith".
On a similar theme it never ceases to amaze me that virtually no consideration is given to the fact that quantum effects must play a huge role in precisely how the human body works especially when it comes to immunology and virology (and don't get me started on vaccinology!).
This paper also gives food for thought-
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0079610717301839
That said, I'm afraid that fascinating as this and your paper are, both are mainly well beyond my limited understanding.
Many thanks though for your thought provoking article.
Afterlife/before life - eternal life?
We are in "the afterlife" now, but also engaged in human bodies, which is a Huge Distraction.
When we disengage from the body, our consciousness is no longer dominated by it.
(I surmise ;-)
But our spirits need to be embodied for this life
John, for whatever it might be worth, here's my reply to your question about the afterlife 😉👍
> https://jessicar.substack.com/p/on-consciousness-minds-models-and/comment/108387175
Wow, inversion of comments to like ratio! Seems the verdict is out on AI. I think it's misunderstood.
Wow. Only 75 likes. I am surprised by this. :)
I thought my last ESP experience was about 10 years ago. A few minutes' worth of "swallows" from this post, & I see it was really just last week - when I "pranked" your Brownstone (April 1st) posting! I DIDN'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT!!!
. .
Okay - groceries, toilet paper, pause mail delivery,
then back to Consciousness Emergence....
. .
BTW: Jess, you have readers everywhere in the world. If it turns out that the answer to this whole
thing is "42"*, there'll be nowhere to hide! 😁🙄 *(HHG2G Ref)
Here is Paper 42, "Energy Mind and Matter" from The Urantia Book, dictated to sleeping savants by far away beneficent aliens, and possibly read by Douglas Adams https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-42-energy-mind-and-matter
Thanks! Doug Adams' work was my source.
Parenthetical hastily added later to avoid confusion or offense
Nothing can compare what God has made .
i don't think God makes, i think God is.
Psalm 139:13. .. Genesis 1:27
🤔
What might be "outside" of that, one wonders...
There was a centipede who ran quite fine….until he stopped to consider how he worked…and wound up in a ditch. Paddle out, enjoy the dance. Tremendous compilation and thoughts. Enjoy!
AMAZING COMMENT!
I actually believe this is the meaning of life: to go through the process of understanding that life happens when you're trying to figure out what it is and it is "here" to enjoy. something like that
Reflections on our attempts to explain the Infinite:
> https://www.awakening.net/WExplaining.html
My brain hurts.
mine too
No, it's just your scalp muscles.
;-)
"If the human brain was simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand it." I wish I were smart enough to pen this kind of quote.
Ah, going back to Penrose and Hameroff! My guess is yes. Especially after reading jack Kruse.
Jack's an interesting human.
AI is extremely dangerous, since most people will see it as merely a tool, however glorified: some kind of logical outcome in the drive to maximize both science and technology in order to achieve a fabled good end of some ultimate kind. What will likely happen is that -- once it gets established and "trusted" so to speak (perhaps it solves the controlled fusion problem, or the mideast crisis (or both)) -- then an evil spirit will invest it and really start to cause trouble...unnoticed, at first.
For a significant percentage of humanity, I think that horse (trusting AI) has left the barn, and is already long gone.
Reflections on AI: Can you trust it? Is it safe? Will it ever be conscious?
> https://bra.in/6vPkRJ
No.