Some very rough thoughts emerging from reading Carl Jung's "Man and His Symbols".
1. The starting point for consciousness is that it became necessary to ensure that we are not overloaded with information. We select the important information for conscious thought and the rest remains in the unconscious. This is an evolutionary adaptation and it is a new phenomenon. Jung describes it almost like it's a beta version of the newest software. He says it's buggy and prone to malfunction. It's new and we're still getting used to it.
2. A friend was describing a computer hard drive he bought recently which is separated into two sections. One section is a higher quality storage system which is less prone to problems and the other is a more standard hard drive with moving parts that can break. The hard drive adapts to user patterns over time and stores the most commonly accessed information in the safer higher quality portion of the hard drive in order to protect it. This seems to me to be a crude form of consciousness. The machine is processing the information and the sorting it based on importance, as determined by usage.
3. When a composer writes a great piece of music they connect with something powerful in the unconscious. When a conductor conducts a great piece greatly they connect with that same powerful force in the unconscious. Therefore it seems possible to transmit and communicate the unconscious directly. What remains is a mystery is whether all the performers of a piece are connecting to the same unconscious force and the implications of that idea. Very confusing for me to think about at this point.
4. Is it that I believe my unconscious is smaller and less powerful than others or is it that I'm afraid to find out? Is there even a such thing as "my" unconscious or is it all the same thing? If it's just one big unconscious then the concept of universal identity doesn't seem so far fetched does it. If you strip the self away are we all the same consciousness and therefore all the same being, like cells making tissue or tissue making organs? Do cells and tissue and organs have consciousness then? Is that what the buddhists mean when they say the buddha resides everywhere?
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