How do you guys reconcile commonly held, bedrock societal views like free will and a soul/self with your practice?

[Ludwig2000]

My perspective is that consciousness is the stuff that underlies the possibility of everything else, so to say that 'consciousness works in the brain ' is nonsensical. The brain (meaning, like every other physical object, a concept that we construe from a particular constellation of sensory inputs) is a product of our consciousness, not the other way around.



Again I would say that consciousness constructs everything else. In that sense it causes everything, including both events that are willed and unwilled.


Ok, maybe we're incapable of comprehending that all that we perceive to be logic is actually nonsense, but if you take that tack then all attempts to reason in any way are futile and we might as just curl up in a ball and console ourselves with bad TV and a pint of Ben and Jerry's.


Yes, the subjective is obviously there, and can be accessed by introspection. Since it is in fact the only thing that is directly experienced (Descartes' 'cogito'), it is most logical and internally consistent to consider it as the basis/prior. Rather than postulating the existence of a 'physical world out there ' that we cannot directly access

Because my subjectivity is unitary, and because I need it to be intact in order to perform and analyze any experiments at all, I cannot involve it in experiments with controlled comparisons. I can only experiment on things that exist in the world of my perceptions, while maintaining intact my subjectivity through which those perceptions arise.

This guy Schopenhauers ^

I too give primacy to the one thing I directly experience. Reductionist materialism ignores the realest thing.

Here's a question for the group though:
Let's say we can get "out" of our minds, and reasonably approximate "objective" reality. Even in that world, why is it that the physical brain must necessarily be creating consciousness, and not just tuning into it, like a radio receiver? You will say, "Because there's no evidence of this separate realm of radio waves!" To which I say, what is the evidence that the brain creates it? Damage to the brain would damage consciousness whether the brain were a mere receiver or the entire stereo system.

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This guy Schopenhauers ^

I too give primacy to the one thing I directly experience. Reductionist materialism ignores the realest thing.

Here's a question for the group though:
Let's say we can get "out" of our minds, and reasonably approximate "objective" reality. Even in that world, why is it that the physical brain must necessarily be creating consciousness, and not just tuning into it, like a radio receiver? You will say, "Because there's no evidence of this separate realm of radio waves!" To which I say, what is the evidence that the brain creates it? Damage to the brain would damage consciousness whether the brain were a mere receiver or the entire stereo system.

Well. I would say those alternatives are equivalent, since we have no way to distinguish between them on the basis of what we perceive.
Since we don't seem to be able to get out of our own minds, I don't consider thought experiments of the "But what if we could!" variety to be particularly illuminating.