Alternating Consciousness. From Perception to Infinities and Back to Free Will

Claus Janew

Mind-Expanding

Can we trace back consciousness, reality, awareness, and free will to a single basic structure without giving up any of them? Can the universe exist in both real and individual ways without being composed of both? This dialogue founds consciousness and freedom of choice on the basis of a new reality concept that also includes the infinite as far as we understand it. Just the simplest distinction contains consciousness. It is not static, but a constant alternation of perspectives. From its entirety and movement, however, there arises a freedom of choice being more than reinterpreted necessity and unpredictability. Although decisions ultimately involve the whole universe, they are also free in varying degrees here and now. The unity and openness of the infinite enables the individual to be creative while this creativity directly and indirectly enters into all other individuals without impeding them. A contrary impression originates only in a narrowed awareness. But even the most conscious and free awareness can neither anticipate all decisions nor extinguish individuality. Their creativity is secured. 

"Great Read. Thank you for putting your work out into a conscious space for all. Much appreciated." 

Marcel P. Londt, PhD, South Africa

Read online (using Play Books)     
Order the book        

Also in this book:

The Reality of Free Will

The uniqueness of each standpoint, each point of effect, can only be "overcome" by the standpoint changing to other standpoints and returning. In such alternation, which can also appear as constant change, lies the unity of the world. The wholeness of an alternation, however, is a structure of consciousness due to the special relationship between the circumscribing periphery and the infinitesimal center. This process structure brings determinacy and indeterminacy together, unifying them completely. Therefore, everywhere we are dealing with forms of consciousness that have more or less freedom of choice and an increasingly unknown depth. We live in a world of choosing consciousness, or rather awareness. In this respect, our environment expresses a deep truth about ourselves.

"I am impressed by the comprehensiveness of your interdisciplinary approach. There are some major philosophical concepts which you weave very well into a necessary system of reality: potential, the one and the many, alternation, constant change, the reality and uniqueness of oneiric experience and the whole, interdependence, infinity, the mandate of opposites and many more. The combination of these ideas cannot be attributed solely to any other of the established classical and modern thinkers of whom I am aware. I thank you for your enlightenment."

E W Ralph, UK

How to create artificial consciousness

Is there a way to verify or falsify the central thesis of my theory?

Yes, an AI must be constructed so that it comes as close as possible to an ideal infinitesimality-structured state, and also so that this state can be brought about continuously. The continuous transition is necessary in order to be able to calculate an expected distribution of outcomes from the i-structured state from the statistical distribution of outcomes from the non-i-structured state in the event that consciousness does not occur. If the expectation occurs, the theory is falsified. If, on the other hand, “anomalies” occur, they support consciousness in the sense of the theory.

How to create artificial consciousness

I am not an engineer, but I would like to convey the idea of how we can create artificial consciousness with free will using the concept of infinitesimality structure. The basic principle is surprisingly simple and has probably already been realized here and there. We need

How Consciousness Creates Reality. The Full Version

Claus Janew

Profound

The main argument in this book is the undeniable openness of every system to the unknown. And the fundamental question goes: What does this openness produce?

We are a part of the infinite universe and an incorporation of its wholeness. Both for us means an individualized reality, through which the universe expresses itself and on the other hand through which it is built up with. It also means our necessity, importance and indestructibility for the sum of its incorporations. Most connections among ourselves are hardly conscious for us. Meanwhile the infinitesimality structure of all consciousness guarantees not only the logical lack of inconsistency of these connections but also the freedom of choice of every individual.

Our goal by no means can be to decide completely consciously. Responsibility contains spontaneity or rather trust in a meaningful working together of the forces. We increasingly become aware of our role in the entire relationship and we learn to contribute optimally to the value fulfillment of all individuals, ourselves included. Beyond the supposed differences between objective and subjective reality, we at some point of awareness comprehend that we create our reality out of our innermost depths.

"A fabulously good work. Arguments and expositions are coherent. Fascinating!" 

Karin Kuretschka, Germany

Read online (using Play Books)

Order the book

"Claus Janew's undertaking to put down on paper mental processes and procedures that we cannot always analyze, recognize, or follow with our external senses, and especially the depth with which he treats the subject, is simply admirable." 

Ingomar Doering, United States

"Again and again I open it, reread passages, chapters, and follow your thoughts, smile, thank you inwardly that you wrote it, spent years finding words and ways for it, and realize in everything the perfect solution..." 

C. I. M., Germany

The Self, Emptiness, and Awareness

In this exploration of self-identity, I argue that the self is not a standalone entity but an integral part of a broader consciousness. Deep meditation reveals the self as a construct beyond egoistic confines, interlinked with the external world and others' experiences. Decisions arise from an awareness that transcends individual ego, suggesting that our sense of self is an inexhaustible center of dynamic consciousness rather than an ultimate emptiness.

This is a chapter of the book Truthfulness. The Consciousness that Creates Reality.

Justifying decisions in hindsight

The reasons we often give for our decisions are often less compelling and rational than we think – they only seem so because we have chosen them cleverly in retrospect. It is a process that helps us make our choices more certain and explainable. We look for reasons that retrospectively fit our choices into a coherent story. This story, in turn, gives us a sense of security and identity. It helps us reduce the perceived responsibility for our decision by making our choice seem logical, reasonable, and inevitable. In retrospect, the alternatives seem, so to speak, more distant from each other.

How Consciousness Creates Reality

Claus Janew

Most Read

This is the abridged version of the book of the same title, written out of the desire to examine the structure of our reality from a standpoint unbiased by established teachings, be they academic-scientific, popular-esoteric, or religious in nature. It begins with seemingly simple interactions in our daily lives, examines how they originate on a deeper level, comes to understand the essentials of consciousness, and finally recognizes that we create our reality in its entirety. In the course of this quest, the reader will uncover little-heeded paths to accessing the subconscious, other individuals, and that which can be understood by the term "God". And the solution to the classical problem of free will constitutes the gist of the concepts thus revealed. 

"There is no book that explains consciousness in such a clear way as it is given in this book."
Rajagopalan Madasami, India

Read online (using Play Books)      

Order the book        

Also in this book:

Omnipresent Consciousness and Free Will

This article is not an attempt to explain consciousness in terms of quantum physics or neurobiology. Instead, I would like to place the concept of “consciousness” on a broader foundation. I will therefore start from everyday reality, from precisely the point where we experience ourselves as conscious beings. I will define the concept so broadly that the question of whether only humans possess consciousness or whether a thermostat does as well is resolved; the difference is considerable, but not fundamental: every effect consists in the perception of consciousness. Accordingly, I will address its freedom of choice, which I consider the most important source of creativity. The problem of a truly conscious decision does not disappear by mixing determination with a dash of chance. Both must merge into a higher unity. It will then become clear that a certain degree of freedom of choice is just as ubiquitous as consciousness – an inherent part of reality itself. 

Dynamic Existence

What is real? What is creation?

Everything is in motion. "Inertness" arises from (approximative) repetition, that is, through rotation or an alternation that delineates a focus of consciousness. This focus of consciousness, in turn, must also move/alternate (the two differ only in continuity). If its alternation seems to go too far - physically, psychically or intellectually - it reaches into the subconscious. In this way, interconnection is established by the alternation of the focus of consciousness. Therefore, in a world in which everything is interconnected, all focuses must reciprocally transition into each other. "Reality" is a common "goal", a focus which all participants can switch into and which is conscious to them as such, as a potential one. Its "degree of reality" is the probability of its fully becoming conscious (or more simply: its current degree of consciousness). Thus, a reality is created when all participants increase its probability or, respectively, their consciousness of it.

Laws of Form:  Why Spencer-Brown is missing the point

Radical constructivism - a hollow shell?

On focus dynamic

Awareness Meditation Template (World Formula)

From zero to infinity and from free will to anything and vice versa. The metaphysical "world formula."

Click here to view the PDF slides. The center and the unfamiliar symbol are both clickable.

The Original German version is here.

Alternation and Approximation: Notes on the Foundations of Consciousness

This is a collection of unpublished reflections on the structural conditions underlying consciousness, agency, and perception. Central is the concept of infinitesimality structure, a theoretical framework that aims to reconcile determinacy and indeterminacy in decision-making processes and perceptual experience. Building on my major work, How Consciousness Creates Reality – The Full Version, I assume that consciousness emerges through dynamic processes of condensation, approximation, and alternation.

Primal trust

If we ask for the one cause that repeatedly leads to human misbehavior against our better judgment, we find the lack of a sense of connection with others, with the environment, and with everything higher. If we had it, we would be aware that everything is a single movement of consciousness, that every experience flows into all other experiences and draws from the dynamic balance of a deep wholeness. On the one hand, this comprehensive balance allows us to be flexible with our own mental and social balance without falling into a bottomless pit. On the other hand, flexibility on a smaller scale is a good way to maintain stability on a larger scale.

Opinions

I have been trying to understand how people come to their opinions. Pure logic and impartiality are rare - largely independent of intelligence. Emotions constantly distort thinking in one direction or another. Fear of something in particular does this. Often subliminally, but you can see it very well if you pay attention. In discussions, I can sometimes see, as if under a microscope, how someone fails to think ahead at a particular point, but always turns back to what is pleasant. And, of course, the appearance of rationality has to be maintained.

Truth, Harmony, and Free Will

The stem of the Reality Funnel summarizes the alternation of the less conscious points of view "perspectively". But if they don't just jump around there, they also have a closer effect on each other and are wound up in places to cores that harmoniously connect many perspectives. (Without harmony, they would fall apart again.)

Such a comparatively harmonious core, such as our inner self, can hold our Awareness (I) together, and from it probably emanate more comprehensively harmonizing impulses for thought and action than from the adjusting roles of our little ego. On the other hand, this ego can often handle everyday situations better. Therefore, it is best if each one devotes itself to its own subject and benefits only from the skills of the other. We can feel such a harmony like a beautiful concert. If, on the other hand, the ego is completely in tune with the inner self, we can speak of unity, but hardly of harmony: The connection is too rigid and the duet probably short.

Probability Thinking

When we weigh between two alternatives, say between job A and job B, we weigh between their respective priorities. Each job has a certain probability of realization, which can change during the weighing, whereupon the probability of the other job immediately adjusts. That is, if we prefer job B, job A becomes less probable, but remains available in the background for a while. With job B we choose an individual probability hierarchy as such to our reality.

What about the other candidates? They and their choices are also part of our probability hierarchy. They are aspects of our individual Awareness, which as a whole decides for a new individual reality, for a new probability hierarchy. This means in reverse: The other candidates have their own awareness and choose their own probability hierarchies. We all meet in the respective awareness, but we do not merge.

Subconscious - Free or Not?

If we combine the results of Consciousness I and Consciousness II as well as Awareness I and Awareness II, the following picture emerges:

• We are aware of what exists for us in the circumscribing alternation of perspectives as their common approximation.
• When perspectives slip away from the approximation, we can still be aware of them. They exist as such in constant alternation.
• Everything that exists dynamically (i.e., alternately) transitions in a funnel-like manner from the most conscious "opening" through a perspectively "narrowing" stem into an awareness that we can call subconscious.
• This subconscious ultimately extends to All That Is.

How is Freedom of Choice Possible?

The question of whether we can freely choose among several possibilities, without imagining this freedom or confusing it with chance, leads us to the truth about our responsibility. For if we had to answer for something that came from us but was not decided by us, it would be no more than the responsibility of a cloud for its rain.

To find the answer, let us consider the simple choice between two continuations of our day, for example, whether to go to the cinema or to the theater. Actually, we like both equally, although sometimes we feel more like one than the other. Today, however, we really don't care; we could just as well flip a coin. But we don't - that would be too cheap. We think. We put ourselves into the cinema, then into the theater, then back into the present, and so on. In this way we circumscribe the entirety of the decision situation, the present being its center. Strictly speaking, this center is infinitely small, right in the middle of the whole circumscription with all its details. That is, in us.

Circumscription and the Center: Determinacy, Objectivity, and Authored Choice

This paper develops a unified structural account of perceptual consciousness, awareness, objectivity, and free will. The core proposal is that any determinate episode instantiates an i-structure: a nested center–horizon organization generated by circumscriptions, understood as the reciprocal integration of differences into a whole. The “center” is a limit-like unity-role by which the whole is determinately one; the “horizon” is the structured field of co-implicated possibilities, constraints, background, and anticipations. I argue that the phenomenological center–horizon pattern can be treated, under a restricted transcendental move, as a condition on determinacy itself, provided one adopts a determinacy-for stance in a metaphysical sense: determinacy is inseparable from the space of possible determinations within systems of discrimination and interaction. Consciousness and awareness are then distinguished as emphases within i-structure: consciousness is stabilized thematic unity, whereas awareness is explicit openness of horizon and depth. Objectivity is characterized as communicatively stabilized approximation whose normativity lies in robustness under widening and deepening practices of determination. Finally, decision episodes are analyzed via identity- and affordance-determinacy, a crossing phase, and authored resolution. Compatibilists and libertarians share this structural target and differ primarily on the metaphysical reading of the openness in that shared structure.

Structural Libertarianism and the Veridicality of the “Up-to-Me” Experience: Psychophysical Openness, Authored Indeterminacy, and Residual Luck

This paper defends a libertarian account of free will grounded in the phenomenological structure of live decision episodes. Such episodes instantiate an i-structure, a center–periphery organization in which a focal node represents the decision situation as a whole and a periphery represents alternatives, reasons, and constraints. There is an “up-to-me” region in which the situation’s identity is fixed while what will be done remains open. I argue that the best interpretation of this up-to-me phenomenology, when taken as serious evidence about agency, is global metaphysical openness: even given the total state of the world and the total laws at a time, more than one future action is nomically possible. I make this explicit through a strengthened Psychophysical Openness Thesis (POT): psychophysical laws are probabilistic and sensitive to i-structures, constraining and biasing outcomes without deterministically fixing them. I then define authored indeterminacy as underdetermined settling whose explanatory stopping point is the agent’s reasons-integrating act rather than an independent chancemaker. Luck objections are addressed by conceding that global libertarianism entails irreducible bruteness and chance within the agent while arguing that responsibility does not require eliminating chance but locating irreducible settling within the agent’s evaluative act.

Center, Horizon, and “Taking a Stand”: A Phenomenological Map of Decision Episodes

This paper offers a phenomenological description of conscious decision episodes in which agents experience themselves as facing a live choice and “taking a stand.” It also argues that such a description supplies a structural supplement to existing accounts of decision and self-commitment, especially Moran’s account of avowal and Chang’s account of hard choices. Moran shows why deciding is not merely reporting an antecedent psychological fact; Chang shows why some choices are not settled by the balance of given reasons and may involve will-based reasons. What both accounts leave underdescribed, I argue, is how an agent can encounter a practical question as already determinate enough to be this decision now while the outcome remains open enough to require commitment. Drawing on Husserl’s object–horizon structure, Gurwitsch’s theme/field/margin, and James’s focus/fringe, I describe such episodes as instantiating an i-structure: a center–horizon pattern whose focal node gathers “this situation” as a unified whole while its horizon encodes considerations, constraints, and possibilities. I distinguish two gradients across this structure: identity-determinacy, concerning how settled “what this is” is, and affordance-determinacy, concerning how settled “what I can still do” is. Their divergence marks a crossing phase, whose resolution I call authored resolution: a commitment experienced as my doing, neither mandated by reasons alone nor random or alien.