water said:
No, for I have seen The thing!
Hollywood gets better and better (worse and worse?) every year. But Spielberg has nothing to compare to my shocker.
It is not good to arbitrarily define human and then claim this 'other form' is not human.
We are creating our own truth.
You see, the greater the number of people who believe in something you already believe in, the more cogent that belief becomes. Of course it doesn't work if you didn't already believe, but once you do, then the group becomes like an anchor for our belief. Our assumptions become truth. And so the big religions thrive. And so science thrives. And so we thrive. Herd mentality, regardless of how much we like to perceive ourselves to be independent, objective, and all the other egocentric terms.
As I will go on to show, we are not even human to begin with. We are. Not.
No no no. No. NO.
How many times have I said that such a definition of free will is no good?!
Here comes the 'no' thing again...
See here
If we cannot think, or more accurately, if 'I think' is an untrue statement, then anyone who thinks they have free will is obviously going to have to rethink their philosophy. Free will is inescapably, undeniably, rooted in the assumption that "we" - that there is a "we" - who has control over certain neurological processes. As far as I am concerned, it does not even have to be all neurological processes. Even having control over ONE neurological process is enough to convince me of free will's validity.
Too bad Libet shattered that pipe dream.
I am also now in a better position to soon explain my most famous statement:
Just because you think you think does not mean you think.
So what's your stand? Can we think or not?
Thoughts are being thought.
Come on! Answer the question directly: yes, or no, or even sometimes, if you like. Take a stand. Be a man!
I wish I knew where we disagree.
Where did I say that the I *has* ultimate insight into the brain?
We can say that the I is one of the functions of the brain. It does not have ultimate insight into the brain, but it does make conclusions (one of these conclusions being that it does make conclusions).
The 'I' has no insight into the brain whatsoever. Period. It is actually the other way round which is simply marvelous because it means we are living in a dream. A dream we cannot wake from. We are doomed to forever think from the perspective of an 'I' which does not even exist. This I, as I will show later on, actually
limits our thinking. And yet, we free willed sons of gods can do nothing about it. We are living in a dream.
The 'I' does not make conclusions. The 'I' is not even a function of the brain. It continues to baffle me when people say "my mind", or "my brain", or even "my arm" or "my leg" considering the 'I' is such a non existent thing. And that is the painful part. Even though we know there is no 'I' to refer to, our thinking is still stunted by the fact that we have to think in terms of an 'I'. Dammit.
To backtrack a little:
We are our thoughts, our thoughts are us.
There would be no us without our thoughts, just as there would be no thoughts without us.
'We' are not 'our' thoughts. 'We' are not even thoughts. Sorry if I gave that implication before. We are
before thoughts but we exist ONLY during thoughts. It is a truly hateful detriment to knowledge. Before you think, or when you are not thinking, there is no 'I' to speak of - becaues you never think of an 'I'. But as soon as you think, there is an 'I' and you think this is you. The 'I' exists hardwired into our thinking, beyond society even - nothing can impede the 'I' from emerging in the mind. We are not our thoughts. Our thoughts say to us there is at all an 'us'. But our thoughts are not us, we simply must not trust our thoughts that quickly. There is more to it than meets the eye. We may say for the sake of simplicity that the 'I' is a type of thought, but it is not
thoughts. It is not always we are thinking of an 'I' when we are thinking. Only when an action or thing needs to be assigned to an 'I' do we ever think of the 'I'. Try it. 'Try' as you can, you simply cannot think of the 'I' independently of things that need an 'I' to be assigned to them. When an 'I' does not need to be assigned, the 'I' won't do you any good, try as you may. Try thinking that you are the monitor in front of you. Won't work. (Of course there are exceptions to this second challenge where a person might think he is a teapot, but these outliers simply argue more forcefully against free will). But of course, these are senseless things. Referring to the 'I' as a teapot or as a human being are merely clever ways of avoiding the fact that we don't know what an 'I' is, much less why we think in terms of 'I'. But that is not so bad, it can be explained without referring to an 'I'.
The 'I' is probably an inference. An inference is building an imaginary bridge where one did not exist and declaring the bridge was always there, we just couldn't see it. The brain is an inference machine. It most probably infers an I. This is how the brain acquires knowledge - by inference. The 'I' is obviously needed for matters of assigning ownership and (gasp) - social relations. Shockingly enough, ownership and social relations overlap quite a bit. And so we can assume what the function of the 'I' is. But if the 'I' is the imaginary bridge, then who builds it - and who walks on it?
And so herd mentality kicks in. Everyone has some knowledge of the 'I' and so do 'I', I guess my knowledge must be right. Group reinforcement, yay! A very sad means of determining the validity of knowledge, this "intersubjective provability" talk. Just because every person in the world thinks clouds are white does not mean clouds are white. It means that is how nature has programmed us to see clouds. We see them as white, we agree, and society is not broken apart by disagreements. Convenient, eh? This is why our knowledge is so very untrustworthy. Just because you think you think does not mean you think.
Now in multiple personality disorder, researchers distinguish the 'I' by behavioral traits This is no different. We make the inference that since there are different behaviors at different times, there must be different persons in 'control' at different times. And so do we forget that it might be the same person behind the wheel, but in a different car. Or even that there may be no one behind the wheel, no 'person' in control. This is the miracle of life. Almost everyone who sees a MPD patient will infer that there are actually different people. Nature has programmed us to make similar inferences - to keep society together. THE SAME WITH MORALS. This is what I had meant to say when I claimed in the Godel thread that we might all have been born with inborn prototypes. We think so much alike. And yet it never occurs to us that this might mean we have no free will. Because all our knowledge is based on inference - and is therefore circular, our only comfort in and standard of knowledge is the fact that we can and do make similar inferences, across the ages, across continents and oceans. Because nature has afforded us the same mindset, we can make similar inferences. And since we make similar inferences, the herd mentality jumps in and we become confident that our inferences have been truth all along. Every scientist came to the same conclusion independently and so it must be objective. I protest.
And of course, inferences cannot be supported linearly. When little Timmy holds himself and prances around, we infer that he wants to go to the bathroom. Logically speaking, the conclusion is a non sequitur. But. We find solace in the fact that all children do the same thing. And so do we return to identification by behavior. To think our truth is circular is to question the validity of our own assumptions. But that would be absurd, for is it not 'I' who made the assumption? And so we are trapped in our knowledge. And the group says we have free will. Dammit.
Remember what I said in the Godel thread: Experience is what gives us knowledge.
This needs elaboration. Knowledge cannot be "given", it is made, developed -- in accordance with the brain's abilities.
This too needs elaboration. And onward to the savant. From whence cometh his knowledge then? His knowledge cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I think saying "in accordance with the brain's abilities" is a little specious. Knowledge is first and foremostly based on the senses - where a blind man does not imagine and make visual inferences, the deaf do not make auditory inferences. (By "make", I mean 'experience', but I don't want to bog down the explanation more than I already have)
Did you see the thread where I talked about reading with my tongue in between my lips? I found that reading in my head while my tongue was in between my lips created a lisp
in my head. It was dumbfounding - how could disabling my tongue possibly impair my auditory thought? Was that action therefore an impairment of the brain?
As follows from what I theorized, since the savant has never experienced
how he calculates, he can never
know how he calculates. In the same way, since we have never
experienced how thoughts come to be, we can never
know how thoughts are thought. (By 'know', I mean "make an inference as to") And so because a blind man does not
experience visually, his knowledge cannot be visual either. The same goes for the other senses. In this way, we see that knowledge is based on the senses. Of course, I don't consider words to be knowledge. We might know words, but words themselves are not knowledge. Our knowledge of words comes from our senses. To restate nicely: Our knowledge of words comes from sensory input (sound, sight). But when we
think of words, is our thought free of the rule of the sense? No, for we think in terms of sound, and we think in terms of sight. If we had no sight to see the words, then we would have no sight when we think the words. This is what I mean essentially by knowledge is based on the senses.
When you look at the computer screen, you see a computer screen.. But how do you see the computer screen? Do you experience the process by which the brain refines the image? No. You only experience ex post. In this way, we can say that conscious knowledge (pleonasm) is also second hand. ALL knowledge, by this token, is "second hand", in the sense that knowledge (read "inference") has to be inferred
before we can be conscious of it.
I said in the rough draft, "The consciousness can perceive (be aware) of thoughts and sensory input. Thoughts in this case will entail emotions and the voice in our head. Sensory input refers to when we feel, taste, see, smell, or hear. The two often
seem to overlap for at times, sensory input can be ‘mimicked’ in thoughts."
Now what you think you are seeing with your eyes, you are actually seeing
inside ("") your brain. Not with your eyes per se. There is just the inference that you are seeing with your eyes; the inference is ex post. The inference comes from you actually touching and waving your hand in front of your eyeballs and so on. From this experience came the inference. And from the inference came the knowledge. Everyone believes they are seeing
with their eyes when they are seeing with their brain. From this, we can again confirm that knowledge is second hand. We only know
after the inference, never during nor before. I suppose that's what you had been saying all along about "ex post" but I was too dense and had to reach the inference on my own.
Since we only know ex post, then it cannot possibly be true that thinking "I think" means you think, for the thought itself is an inference made, not by 'you' but by the brain. Now why do you not experience yourself as the brain instead of an independent entity? You don't! Remember, knowledge is based on the senses. Have any of your senses ever detected the brain? Therefore could the ancients ever have suspected they were the brain? No! But as soon as we experienced the brain, we began to make inferences of what it could do, and from those very experiences did we leap out of our old circle of thought where the heart was king and into another circle of thought where the brain was king. We saw that grey blob, but the final inference could not be made. For is it not "I" who moves my arm, is it not "I" who thinks? And so the herd mentality suppressed one truth for another.
The brain cannot observe itself. Knowledge comes through thought and thought through inference and inference through experience. As I said before, 'our' knowledge is second hand. More importantly, the brain's knowledge must also be second hand. The brain cannot know the thought it creates until
after it is created. That's where consciousness comes in but I'm too lazy to write about that here. Since the brain never experiences itself, it can never know know itself as the brain. I might
think I am representational of the brain, but I don't know myself to be a brain for I never experience myself to be so. Just because you think you think does not mean you think. By the same argument, it is impossible for 'you' to have know who, or what, the 'you' is - you have never experienced it. It is then safe to say that it is not 'you' experiencing, but rather that the inference is made, ex post, that 'you' are the one experiencing.
You do however experience thoughts, actions, emotions, and always ex post. [/b]The brain can not know that it is the one thinking, or acting, or feeling, because it is not self aware. This is a limitation of knowledge. The brain will always think in terms of an 'I'. Even though I say it is the brain thinking for 'me', I am still unable to think from the perspective of a brain, instead of thinking in terms of an 'I'. (The 'me', the 'I', will be better described later on). Nature has programmed the brain to infer the 'I' and to know in terms of an 'I'. Objectivity is shattered here. The assumption that our thoughts, our knowledge, is reliable, that too is shattered. Just because you think you think does not mean you think.
Good. Now you are dedesensitizing me.
Our local Mengele you are!
Have you a twin?
!
So that sanity be kept.
The connection between us and objective reality is our belief that objective reality is consistent. This belief ensures our sanity.
How this belief developed is crucial -- I think it is beyond our ability to consciously develop that belief. It happens as we grow up, in early childhood.
Sanity be kept. At the experience of hypocrisy? Double standards? Inconsistency? Incompleteness? What is man looking for? Truth? Or comfortable truth?
Belief is not 'consciously' developed. Nothing is ever developed consciously. It often ends up in consciousness, but that is not where it begins - ever. The assumptions that we think consciously or that we act consciously or that we know consciously, they are all absurd. That is where consciousness and its function come in. It's beautiful really. Remind me to explain in the next reply.
But I will ask for asking's sake: how does one consciously develop a belief, or consciously decide right from wrong, or consciously think, or consciously act? There is a misunderstanding of consciousness. The misunderstanding can be attributed to knowledge and its relation to consciousness. Which is all very beatiful, but I save it for later.
Have you seen Spidergoat's thread on the fear of death?
Where is it?
I think this is beyond knowledge, beyond choice.
Nature programmed us that way. To be the same. To think the same way. We can't be free of our thoughts. Dammit.
Chasing the rainbow to find the legendary pot of truth.
Even though logically speaking, certain things are assumptions, when we act on them, we may not treat them as assumptions, but as absolutes.
A good example is communication: A theory says that all communication is based on the assumption that we understand eachother. It is only when misunderstandings happen, that we can become aware that we acted on the assumption that we understand eachother. If a misunderstanding doesn't happen, we are not aware that we are acting on the assumption that we understand eachother -- as long as a misunderstanding is absent, we do as if understanding is an absolute.
We
infer that we were acting on assumption after the misunderstanding, but do we
know we were acting on assumption? It seems at best, we may say we assume were were acting on assumption. Why? Because we have second hand knowledge. The inference of an assumption was made by a phantom 'us'. But this will seem unclear until I later reveal the purpose of consciousness. Control your excitement.
This 'us', our identity, it itself an inference. Not a facet of the brain. The 'us' or the 'I' is inferred to be a conscious entity because all we experience is experienced consciously. We do not experience subliminal processes because consciousness is never exposed to these subliminal processes. The 'I' comes from experience. Our knowledge of the 'I' comes from experience.
And so, you now know, you do not exist. Shocked to death yet?
But maybe this inconsistency is exactly the thing that keeps us going. Inconsistency forces us into seeking equlibrium, but since we have started out with an inconsistency, we can't ultimately fix it (maybe death -- ultimate cesation would do that), so the best we can do is seek dynamic equlibrium. Fix one inconsistency, and another one appears, fix that one, and another one comes ...
Like chasing a rainbow..
Certain assumptions, led to other assumptions. One circle leads to another circle. But are they bigger circles? Or just different ways of looking at the same circle? It seems to me that we are programmed to think we are progressing, moving ahead, when we may not be. The idea of progress, of a state better than the current, leads us to press on - in this life or otherwise.
The stupid language -- but it's telling, isn't it?
The I is an idea, like there are other ideas. I don't know how to experience the idea of metacognition or unicorns, for example, but I sure as hell can say a lot about them. How ...
The idea of unicorns is similar to Hume's gold mountain.
This is why I said if we are to look for the origin of thoughts, we must look to random chance and quantum physics. Rigid determinism on the atomic level. Ironically you holists are the ones who don't get to see the big picture. And so do I strive to follow Hume's footsteps to "make a kind of merit of our very ignorance."
But that itself is a problem. I become more confident of my position, because Hume arrived at similar conclusions independently. That is of course a non sequitur and makes no sense! And yet. But your question will be surely answered fully when I tell you all about consciousness. Stay in your seat.
If you ask "What is the point?" you are expecting an answer made by reason, and assuming everything can be explained via reason.
In fact, everything can be *explained* via reason -- for this is what reason does -- it explains!
But the crux is that reason is not all there is to us, and that reason is not what ultimately directs our lives. It is values and preferences that guide our noses.
Reason does not explain. Au contraire, reason makes us confident that our inferences/assumptions have in fact been truth all along. The bridge is not there. All it does is to reassure us of ourselves. Using the very same circularity it wishes to linearize. But of course we don't care, as long as we can rationalize, we can feel good. Hypocrites.
Of course reason does not direct our lives. Chemicals (atoms to be precise) direct life. Not values and preferences. We think values and preferences guide us in life. But do we
know that to be true? Or do we just think it to be true - because we rationalize? It seems to me that this preposterous business of neurons rationalizing the behavior of neurons is eternally absurd. But that's just my line of reasoning.
Exactly. But this is where psycho-social conditioning comes in! "One body houses one I." It is from this (believing (thinking, being conditioned: ah, all concepts fail here!) that there is only one I) that we can say that the I is the space in which thinking occurs (for we do see that thinking occurs, or so we think, ah).
I don't wish to bring in MPD, for there may be reasons for this that healthy (" ") brains have nothing to do with.
I only bring in MPD because it of its importance in demonstrating the absurdity of free will and responsibility and its instrumental position in a
general theory of knowledge. I've shifted from bashing free will to bashing knowledge. Slipperier than John Kerry, I am.
The 'I', we will investigate shortly. But I am afraid the description will seem incomplete without incorporating consciousness.
The issue of the problems with the I is spread both in time and in space.
Problems with the continuity of the I through time have already been addressed.
But there is also this: I do feel like I am someone else when I study -- in comparison to what I am when I write a personal letter to my friend or when I hike in the mountains. As if I am so many I's. And what keeps them together, giving me the impression that the I is one, but has many facets? The body?
I thought of that too. It seems to me, as I mentioned earlier, that when we perceive others, we identify them by
behavior, which is no different from the way we treat MPD patients. But that is why reinterpreting identity is so necessary. The following example will demonstrate:
Patient X starts hearing voices in his head. He gets spooked and sees a psychiatrist.
Now, how did patient X know that those voices in his head were not him? If the 'I' is an inference, why did he feel separate from those voices? Why did he feel those voices were not his?
I think it has to do with us having an underlying self, or sense of self. This self is also identified by behavior, but in addition, is determined entirely by nurture (and maybe nature). The entire events of your life from birth to now have determined your behavior. You do not determine your behavior - what you are inclined to believe or disbelieve, the tone of your thoughts, the way you speak to certain people, the way you interpret certain situations, your morals. From these and other similar 'behavior factors', there consists an underlying you. (This is most fascinating by the way!) This is the blueprint of you. Anytime the brain creates a thought, it uses this blueprint. If your environment has led you to become a cynical thinker, the brain will create cynical thoughts as well. If your behavior is psychopathic, the brain will create psychopathic thoughts. (There is a nice 'mask' analogy at the bottom of this post to expand.) This is the way MPD operates incidentally. There are different blueprints for different personalities - and so each personality of an MPD patient
thinks and
acts differently from each other based on what the blueprint dictates. Remember also that since the brain never experiences itself nor this 'blueprint', it can never infer itself as the originator of the voices. Patient X's brain finds that the thoughts are not in sync with his 'normal' behavior and Patient X becomes alarmed and infers that a different 'person' is responsible for the thought. Now remember that the 'I' is associated with behavior and therefore each 'blueprint' neurologically represents a person, an 'I'. (Ask for clarification if I bungled something)
Now in your case, your general behavior too does not change between studying, writing, or hiking mode. You can be a doctor, a sister, and a mother at different times and yet be the same person. This is because there is a special element of the blueprint: memory. Even as these different 'people', you remember the same things and therefore do not think of yourself as different people on different occasions. MPD personalities probably do not share the same memories then, but do tell me if there are exceptions to the rule. Body of course plays a role as well. Just as an example, let us assume a brain has been transplanted into another body, so that the personality has a new body (just for pretense). We would prima facie assume a different person due to the different body, but imagine our confusion when we identify the personality (the behavior) as belonging to someone else! To digress a little bit, I think it would be more than a little shocking in such a scenario for a person who remembers himself in a body far different from what he happens to be in. From this, we may also say that another element of the blueprint is the self image - what our body generally looks like. Wake up in the morning and find your skin green and you'll be quite alarmed. Wake up in the morning and try to think only to hear a chicken squawking in your head and you'll be quite horrified. Again, the body uses these snapshots of the 'self' to maintain a consistent 'I'.
Do tell me if this description can be applied to amnesiacs.
A testament to the flexibility or 'rewritability' of a person's blueprint can be seen in hypnosis where a person is instructed to become someone, or something else. If a hypnotist told you you were a chicken, the 'I' would change and refer not to a human, but to a chicken. This seems also to indicate that our presence in society heavily influences the 'I' - what people tell us about ourselves continually reshapes the identity, the behavior of the 'I'. I do wonder if people under such suggestions still exhibit behaviors characteristic of their blueprints. Is a person 'pretending' to be a chicken similar to an MPD patient who has a peculiar 'chicken' personality? If so, behavior may have very little or nothing at all to do with DNA.
Because this is what reason does: it seeks justifications. And it seeks, and it seeks, and it seeks -- while life goes on.
If you
stop to think, life stops with you. Try it.
I think this is no good. It is trying to define a concept as if we knew objective reality.
You are doing it -- "Why do people live their lifes assuming that objective reality is at their fingertips? It's almost like they don't think!"
Judging from how many people will swear that they can and do think and the laws society has forcefully and foolishly imposed upon us, it becomes increasingly evident that an egomaniacal people believe that they can and do think - freely.
But identity is not what it appears to be
at face value. There is more to thought and action than meets the eye; we (plural) must stop this foolishness of appealing to ignorance because we don't know what goes on subliminally - our knowledge is ex post and therefore we must stop to realize that the concept of personal responsibility is also
a mere inference.
And you will then ask of me: will I then refuse credit for work I do? Will I reject praise for what I write?
That is not the issue. The issue is personal responsibility first, and then everything follows. This far, I have only elaborated on the identity and really haven't gotten too much into knowledge. Later on I will discuss that and consciousness and finally, the place and validity of free will.
It just so happens that I shouldn't be punished for something I didn't do. I shouldn't go to hell for something
I could not possibly have done. Especially when there is no 'I' in the first place. Like it or not, that is NOT justice. That is arguing from ignorance. The herd against the outcast. Woe is the society that creates truth.
And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye?
Oh society, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" (Rom. 9:19)
Because you are trapped in reason.
What else in life will satisfy the mind - when I am by myself?
“To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. When we are alone we are not always busy; the labour of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights, which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow.”
Not but the labour of excogitation? I pray that it lasts.
I am really nice though, you know.
Yes. I have been wondering why.. to me...
So help me
Quine.
The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.
Apart from the fact that he could have said that in plain English..
Wilt society ignore this confilict, which is not at all new, to keep the field of ignorance as sturdy as it is? How long shall we remain in this stagnance?
What else do we have to fall back on when even our knowledge is marred? Surely not the same field? Not the same arbitrariness? Quickly! we must humble ourselves and know that we are not.
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isa. 64:6)
I know I have said before that for us to get somewhere by plan, we must make assumption.
But there is one very important phenomenon that does have great influence on our lives: surprise.
How come it can happen? And how come it can have a profound effect on our lives-- when we said that we are bound by our assumptions?
Nature. Or
someone. hath mandated that we not stay in the same circles all our lives. Left to ourselves, Sir Newton's Laws damn us, damn us to death. We would remain in the same stagnant beliefs all our days, but we are saved from ourselves. Hath programmed us to feel and think as if we are progressing, as if we are going somewhere. A very cruel joke.
And so do we think, "we are so much better than we were". But in truth, we have no standard to determine this; we lie. Do we not contrive our own bridges and walk on them? It is from this profound effect that we are driven to what we think is progress. We think we are climbing the mountain, we are getting closer to the top.
Man has been running in circles like a hamster in a wheel, like a dog on a treadmill. Yes, life goes on. Life passes him by. But man stays still.
See how foolish! He thinks it is he who is moving and so he runs and runs from morning till night, from life till death, till he tires and beats no more.
24Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 25And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. - 1 Corinthians 9:24
Now you see the problem.
I am a hypocrite.
But how?! When there is NO YOU!!?!
Who or what is forcing you or leaving you no choice but to live a life of hypocrisy, inconsistency, unjustifiable arbitrariness and double standards?
Nature. Or someone. Has trapped me in my thoughts. I am snared for my own sake and I cannot be free. Neither can you. Trapped in the herd, trapped in fate.
Think of consciousness as a faceless mask. And think of the 'I' as paint for the mask. And think of the brain as a man. The mask is facing the man. Now the man is in charge of painting that mask into a happy mask, an unhappy mask, a satisfied mask, a pessimistic mask, a cynical mask.
But the man himself is not self aware. Because of this, when he looks at that mask, he infers that the mask must be him. Since he is not self aware, he does not know that he is the one painting the mask either. And so when the man feels angry, he paints the mask to be angry. Now since he does not know he is angry, by looking at the mask, he can infer that he is angry. When he is happy, he paints the mask happy and then infers that he is happy. When he is thinking optimistically, he paints the mask to be an optimistic thinker and infers that he is thinking optimistically. When he thinks about food, he paints the mask to think about food, and therefore infers that he is hungry. When he sees that the mask is painted to be a hypocrite, he infers that he is a hypocrite. Now know that since he is not self aware, he has no "choice" or "free will" to paint the mask as he pleases.
And so when 'I', look at the mask and find that I am staring into a hypocrites face, I infer that I am a hypocrite. I have no "free will" to paint the mask into the face of an optimistist.
I have no "free will" to paint the mask into the face of a believer, or a non-believer.
All I see is a hypocrite.
I think the essential information here is that the girl was pretty.
No! That is what I used to rationalize. To make me feel better. An ex post defense. Ad hoc madness! If I do not know, how will I be satisfied?
Hm. Who is the "I" in this, and who or what, or how does that will come to be?
Patience. The next post will spill the beans. Only remind me so I do not forget.
So would you agree that some intimacy (of some kind) is needed in order to trust?
By no fault of ours. It is the way we are programmed. It does not make sense to me but that is just the way we are inclined. It is the unreasonableness that gets to me.
This question? You mean answer?
It doesn't satisfy you because you have placed reason and consistency to be the highest principles of life.
What then, prithee, are the highest principles of life - for you?
Conditioning. If I were, from earliest age on, told that I am my neurons, then I think I would "experience" myself as my neurons.
Interesting. I disagree because there has been no such thing. But it would be an interesting case. Say more first.
This is because we are, as living beings, left to seeking dynamic equilibrium -- see above.
A terrible, terrible trick. Knowing very well that we would not find for we did not know the thing that we sought. And yet we still run.
And remember: You had to gather wood and carry water before you were enlightened, and you will have to gather wood and carry water after being enlightened.
But will I not be satisfied with reason and consistency? Are these not the highest utopias? Why settle for less?
I will be satisfied to know. If I had what I wanted, why, I would be like unto God.
