Personal "God" and self-representation

by Narkissos 50 Replies latest jw friends

  • Abaddon
    Abaddon

    Part of what I mean about us pretending we are not animals is the way the nature of our consciousness makes it feel like there is a little man/god inside.

    Giving into the delusion of consciousness and thinking in terms of little men is just part of the process of pretending we are not animals. It's an understandable delusion - but not a helpful one.

    And whilst we all do it all the time I think we have to understand it's just a way of coping with our nature rather than a representation of it.

    Think of a pocket calculator. It processes environmental inputs (button pushes), puts them through a 'hidden process' (our subconscious) and sends a result to a display subsystem (our conscious mind). Often the environmental input will go along several paths before delivering a result.

    No little man, just a mechanistic process.

    Human thought and action is not normally - if ever - a single linear subconscious mental process, but is the averaged result of many subconscious mental processes. A conscious 'thought' is not a neuron's output, it is a consensus of lots of neurons, if you will.

    We massively 'parallel process'. Our conscious mind fills with the result of these parallel processes. Normally there will be a clear consensus among the many parallel processes, so our mind gets a clear 'result'.

    Sometimes our conscious mind cannot draw a clear result from our subconscious processes. This is especially obvious when people are tongue tied, confused, drowsy or shocked.

    It might 'feel' like a little man, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

    James

    However, there is an extremely complex universe -- including the bodies and mind we identify with -- which came into being with absolutely no input from us. It would seem there certainly is an intelligence beyond the human mind.

    Mmm... that's more of a statement than a reasoned argument. Why should the Universe require an intelligence beyond the human mind? How do you know that the Universe is not wholly a product of your mind? If a such intelligence comes about as a result of mechanistic processes that made this Universe, how is this anymore relevant to our understanding of the Universe than the human conceptualisation of there being a 'little man' inside is to our understanding of the human mind?

    JAVA

    Nope, the watchmaker argument is not a reasoned argument for god, it's a statement that there is a god. Two different things. When did your watch put on a mating display and mate with another watch? Or divide into two? Or respire?

    what happens when "thinking" stops and the mind simply perceives

    Semantic mine-field ahoy! Nakissos got there before me, but... how can a mind perceive without thinking? The senses inputs are not something one can disconnect. One can school ones mind to give a semblance of calm, but surely this is just the result of a sub-routine itself, i.e. a thought process. It's like saying you can only join a club if you can stand in a corner for half an hour and not think of polar bears...

    Could someone point me to a good resource for starting out on TM? I'm quite happy to give it a serious go, as without doing so I either have to assume people I respect are talking out their hats as it goes beyond anything I've experienced, or accept on trust something that I haven't experienced is not just a conceptualisation.

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    Hi Steve,

    Just a few remarks:

    In the beginning, Man created God

    Millenia before "God" man created gods. And even this was probably not the "beginning" of what we (somewhat anachronistically) call "religion". We have little idea of the symbolical and imaginary background of the rituals (e.g. burying the dead) observed in very early human societies.

    Paul's comments in I Tim 3 about "all scripture" being inspired results in a new perspective on what he meant by "scripture" as well as what he meant by "inspired", especially considering there was NO new testament when he made the comment.

    Although both the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Pastorals have little to do with the author of Corinthians or Romans, I agree that "all scripture" in 2 Timothy certainly had a different scope (both narrower, excluding the NT, and broader, including much non-canonical material) than the average Christian fundamentalist imagines.

    By shutting down thinking that is eating up your mental processor time, you take over the mind. Now you have all the resources at your control to percieve what your thinking mind was too busy to pay attention to.

    My question is "who is this 'you'?" I suspect it is just another avatar of the ever-resurrecting "little man" of consciousness and language, which always re-emerges by distinguishing itself from whatever it names, including its own self-representations (mind, spirit, soul, ego). To each new name it gives itself it has to answer "I am not that" and be always one step further in reflexivity.

    So yes we can become more and more aware of our thinking devices and processes, deconstruct them from within language, even "close" some of them by some sort of meditation, but inasmuch as there is perception of anything I guess there is still something working in our "mind" or whatever you may call it.

  • Siddhashunyata
    Siddhashunyata

    "Semantic mine-field ahoy! Nakissos got there before me, but... how can a mind perceive without thinking? The senses inputs are not something one can disconnect. One can school ones mind to give a semblance of calm, but surely this is just the result of a sub-routine itself, i.e. a thought process. It's like saying you can only join a club if you can stand in a corner for half an hour and not think of polar bears".

    There is a release or collapse of the thought process and things are perceived without symbols interfering. "Things" become language. Meaning is inherent in the thing itself and this becomes known directly without explanation . Intelligence is still operating but it is free of the conceptualizing of the prefrontal cortex. In this state, "understanding" is so dominant that one knows that the other state of mind is a form of illness or at best a state "gone wild" for the sake of biological survival. The first state of mind (conceptualizing) is a tool that is to be controlled from the vantage point of the second state, if you will.

  • Abaddon
    Abaddon

    Like I say, at this moment I feel rejecting the possibility of what you say being true is unreasonable not having tried to experience such a state, although some of it reminds me of being really stoned or on LSD.

    However, we're talking about non-chemically assisted mind-alteration.

    Well, non-chemically as a biological entity can be; my girlfriend's breasts tingle at the thought of breat-feeding and she gets light-headed and happy. Oxytocin; and she has not had kids! We are electro-chemical soup.

    But given I do know thought can alter body chemistry and thus the perception of reality, I want to try TM.

    Websites or books where I can get some information would be appreciated. Or is it something that has to be taught? (and if so, why, or am I thinking too much? )

  • jst2laws
    jst2laws

    Narkissos,

    Millenia before "God" man created gods.

    Anderson does cover the "gods" period as part of her history of monotheism. I think she opened with the phrase "In the beginning man created god" as a parody on Genesis 1:1.

    I suspect it is just another avatar of the ever-resurrecting "little man" of consciousness and language

    I can't say I understand this well, but I think the the overall concept of the perennial philosophy is that there is no little man but the little man thinker only imagines he exists as a real man. What these people try to accomplish is completely removing themselves from objective reality to the point they feel they perceive their true identity, as part of the collective consciousness. As for language, both mystics and quantum physicists say there is no language to describe their worlds.

    However it does boil down to what is consciousness. Personally, I think it is less local than the confines of my organic, parallel processor on my shoulders.

    Abaddon,

    my girlfriend's breasts tingle at the thought of breat-feeding and she gets light-headed and happy. Oxytocin; and she has not had kids

    Good example of mind induced physical change. Another more palatable example (or should I say less palatable example, if puns are allowed) is the placebo affect. Nearly everyone has a limited ability to alter their physical reality in the case of illness simply by thinking (or if one subscribes to faith healing, BELIEVING) they are going to get well. Placebos do nothing, except trigger the placebo affect.

    I have not personally indulged in TM or mystic phenomena although all my life I have felt what I call "spooky connections". I try to investigate this from the scientific perspective. If you are interested in that angle I would suggest The Tao of Physics by Fritoff Capra.

    Jst2laws

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    Ab,

    TM is too slow it takes a long time, it has its benifits but have you ever thought of Mind Tools? I just bought 2 machines that work together. (a biofeedback and a light & sound machine). I think you could stop thinking with these it definitely opens up the subconscious and allows repressed memories to surface, it's a little frightening but once you get used to it you will start to see your mind in different altered states,,some high Alpha and Delta(visions). Seeing your mind in these different states can be very enlightening.

    Here's a place you can buy them, also look up "Micheal Hutchison" on the net he has some interesting books out on nootropic and mind machines:http://www.mindpowertools.com/Orders/Catalog.htm

    I'm taking nootropics, Hydrazine, Piracetam, Choline, bought without perscription and using the mind tool as well. I have used the mind machines while under a heavy dose of Ayasuasca and pot it is a very hard to discribe expereince other than very intense and therapeutic, it is like your watching your mind get worked on when your on the ayasuasca the visions are pretty intense and rapid,, sort of like a massive download with certain feelings becoming very intense and allowed to be expressed through moans and groans. Definitely very transformative and enlightening.

    I think you can make much faster progress using modern technology for altering brain wave activity.

  • Siddhashunyata
    Siddhashunyata

    Abadon, try some of the writings of J. Krishnamurti. He recommends watching your mind as thoughts arise (mindfulness?) This you can do on your own without any other practice. It will not be long before you notice that your mind is quite noisy. Keep doing this. Notice every thought but don't attach . Let it go. Another will rise. Let it go . This is not easy to do. Watch what's going on in there as you are reading this. Don't attach, don't judge. . Acknowledge the thoughts and then let them go. If you attach, the conceptualization process begins and you sail along until you come back to watching. If you keep watching ,awareness itself soon becomes your prioity. There is no better way to know yourself . I look forward to your insights.

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    Abaddon

    'How to meditate' by lawrence leshan, a psychologist (psychiatrist?) is quite simple, straight forward and nonreligious. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553244531/102-6696987-7634532

    S

  • OldSoul
    OldSoul
    jst2laws: However it does boil down to what is consciousness. Personally, I think it is less local than the confines of my organic, parallel processor on my shoulders.

    Won't it be grand when we artificially fabricate those organic, parallel processors and thereby establish that we may well be artificial fabricants?

    I kid.

    I do not think consciousness can be confined to a purely objective definition, so my answer to, "What is consciousness?" would be, "It isn't." Consciousness has always defied attempts at objective definition, yet everyone behaves as though consciousness is a reality. This lack of objectivity is what renders all discussion of consciousness moot to most realists. I find it funny that these same realists are quick to accept many other concepts that defy objective definition, so long as there is social or scientific consensus to a degree sufficient to cause them to accept them.

    Typically, these abstract but nonetheless "real" concepts such as temperature, qauntity, and derivations stemming from the like are nothing more than an elaborate system of agreed upon ideas built on other agreed upon ideas. If anyone decides to stop agreeing with those ideas they are immediately labeled "crackpot" or worse, when they have really done nothing worse than expose the underlying lack of basis for a generally held idea.

    They have exposed it simply by behaving as though the concept(s) aren't reality, which requires those who observe the results to establish their basis for belief that the concept(s) are realities. In my experience, that reaction usually results in a headache because concepts like consciousness are greater than "reality."

    In my opinion, trying to mentally force such concepts into a box too small just for our own convenience can be hazardous to our health. I believe that the greatest strides forward in science throughout history are the result of allowing for concepts to be grander than the current definitions and limitations of what we call reality.

    Respectfully,
    OldSoul

  • SixofNine
    SixofNine

    :As for language, both mystics and quantum physicists say there is no language to describe their worlds.

    Can you elaborate on this as it pertains to science?

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