If that is the case, then the OP question becomes irrelevant and superfluous.

Stuka, I think he is honestly trying to figure out how/why a sense of self prevails in the minds of not only sentient being for whom the DO applies to, but also in any living thing for that matter (not really a sense of self in that case but a basic survival instinct). Even a micro-organism like a bacteria cell has that instinct. I don’t think he is particularly trying to understand if consciousness is really just sensory cognition or anything more than that. I know I cannot speak for the OP but that’s just the impression I got when I read his post.

Hi Deshy,

I think a bacteria just reacts in accordance to the environment conditions... a bacteria is not aware of them. It is not trying to survive, it just reacts in accordance to its genetic arrange of chemical reactions. I mean, the bacteria do not know they are surviving. At least it is just my guess.

About how a self prevails I will adventure a hypothesis...

Due that the brain is working even when a coma has come... it is still reacting to sensory stimulation... awake or in dream state the brain works with "learnt path" synapses that are the building blocks of recalling or memory. As a hypothesis... I think that fabrications have to do with this property of the brain. Learnt path sinapse never rest until death... so the sense of self will be reestablished at every time.

As I said, it's nature

I am not trying to prove that bacteria are sentient.

No need of a hypothesis. Stuka explained the DO in plain language, didn't he. It's just that, I don't think this is what the OP is looking for.

IMO (I could be wrong), OP is trying to understand why a basic survival instinct is there in any living thing. I just told him it's nature.

IMO (I could be wrong), OP is trying to understand why a basic survival instinct is there in any living thing. I just told him it's nature. Yes, sure it is nature... but survival just happend and happens in the biological realm. Maybe, again, just guessing, we colour that with an anthropocentric ideal or construction of "survival". This idea of a "survival aim" in nature became a very hot issue in the 60's and 70's with accession of Sociobiology in France, as a "not too beautiful daughter" of the last Naturalists who see an end of their field in the first half of the XX century. With the advent of Thermodynamics of Living Systems, the DNA model and the Complexity field this idea has come to an end. Anyway... I will look for this later on.

Nature http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/grin.gif

So? It doesn't really matter what you call it you know. You can call it generally as "survival instinct" or you can load it up with some scientific and biological terminology and call it that.

I mean that's just the way things are.

....with accession of Sociobiology in France, as a "not too beautiful daughter" of the last Naturalists who see an end of their field in the first half of the XX century. With the advent of Thermodynamics of Living Systems, the DNA model and the Complexity field this idea has come to an end... Sorry Kaarine dear, but all of that has gone over the top of my head completely... and I'm left wondering what it has to do with the suttas and Theravada Buddhism , to be honest !

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I just happen to have too much spare time these days http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/green.gif

Well seems that nothing...

I was just giving an answer to the idea of survival that came in Deshy's post #22, as a sense of self that prevails and prevails because an instinct of survival. This idea of survival, I was telling, is an anthropocentric construction given from the late Naturalists of the beginning of the XX century, but nature do not has a survival intention at all... the survival idea is about our own existential worries; so a self that needs to survive is behind this distress.

But anyway... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/topic.gif

Incorrect interpretation. I didn't talk about a sense of self "because an instinct of survival". http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/confused.gif I said a survival instinct is visible in non-sentient living organisms. DO does not apply to non-sentient beings. A sense of self is irrelevant in this context. However, even non-sentient living things have a basic instinct for survival/protection/life triggered by biochemical reactions (nature). I am just trying to tell the OP that, if this is what he is wondering about, then that is just that - nature. This basic instinct is there in sentient beings also, once again possibly triggered by bio-chemical reactions (nature). The moment an infant is born it cries for food/attention/survival/life. It is a general observation.

OK... It's understood now Deshy.

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Do you think self-identification arises in a new born infant? If so how? What are its verbal/mental fabricators? Does it have mental perceptions? http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/dontknow.gif

The Buddha didn't say we are born with ignorance. He just said that the nutriment of ignorance are the five hindrances:

A first beginning of ignorance cannot be conceived,[58] (of which it can be said), 'Before that, there was no ignorance and it came to be after that.' Though this is so, monks, yet a specific condition[59] of ignorance can be conceived. Ignorance, too, has its nutriment,[60] I declare; and it is not without a nutriment. And what is the nutriment of ignorance? 'The five hindrances,'[61] should be the answer. I doubt if self-identification arises in a new-born. It is driven by a basic survival instinct IMO just like a non-sentient organism.

In the documented cases of feral children found in wilderness they do not show self identification when they were shown infront of a mirror. They went into learning that the image in the mirror is about themselves. Some succeded, but in other cases [the most] this never happend. The debate is still alive and is a core issue for physical anthropology field.

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Does "OP" mean original post? If so, the original question was, "Did anyone ever ask the Buddha (as recoded in the Pali texts) about what happens when a person becomes unconscious, and then after a period of time regains consciousness?"

I posted this shortly after having begun reading a book, whose context is mahayana, in which the following appears:

"One ...problem was how to combine the denial of an underlying atman, or Self ...with the continuum of an individual. For though one moment of consciousness is said to give rise to the following moment, what could explain the reappearance of consciousness after its interruption by deep sleep or unconsciousness..."

Now, before I continue, I understand that there are some who regard anything espoused by later mahayanists to be, essentially, crap. And while I don't personally agree, I respect that viewpoint and and ask that you understand my purpose in asking is not because I am asserting that mahayanists have a good answer to the "problem" quoted above. I merely want to know if that 'problem' (what could explain the reappearance of consciousness after its interruption by deep sleep or unconsciousness) has been addressed in the Pali literature or not.

My assumption would be that what seems to be a "reappearance" of consciousness is actually a next moment of consciousness which takes on the same characteristics of the previous one simply because the causes, individualized by the particular karmic events, are essentially the same. Of course, that is merely my 'speculation' and so I thought I'd try to find out if the Buddha had already addressed this question, provided an "explanation" or even whether or not this is structured as a viable question.

Thank you.

Mental fabrications... they reapear as a natural function of brain and the ilussion starts again...

You can explore the issue here:

At Savatthi. "Monks, form is inconstant, changeable, alterable. Feeling... Perception... Fabrications... Consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable.

[...]

Khandha Sutta: Aggregates (SN 25.10)
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I think this is exactly the delusion that Buddha teaches to be aware. There is no denial. To denial is to fight, to hold, to be stressed by... to elaborate views. Anatta is to be experienced by means of insight; of an attentive inspection of how things arise and fade; impermanence... The continuum of an individual is the core delusive thought. IMO the ariseing and fadeing away of fabrications do not mean a "continuum of an individual".

No, that's the whole point. There is no continuum of the individual.

It is with that understanding that the question "what could explain the reappearance of consciousness after its interruption by deep sleep or unconsciousness" is asked.

If there is no continuum, what is it that seems to be picking up again where it left off before?

Again, I am asking if there are any references to this in the Pali (Theravada) sources.

I gave you one... the Khanda understanding will answere your question... try to explore, elucidate, investigate, bring into light... SN 25.10, as an example of where is the answere.

Fabrications...

How does the fact that they are fabrications explain their reappearance?

A careful observation of how thoughts arise and fade...