Forget about ‘us’ for a moment… has it been that way for you up to know, if I may ask?
Let me ask… what can one do to eradicate ignorance in others, when even Buddha, Jesus, K and all the rest, have not been able to do so?
But one can eradicate ignorance in oneself, can’t one?
‘Before making attempt, before we try to change, we must really understand…’ - the follow-up at minute 33:45 of this audio-video on YouTube (link starts directly at that point)
Mechanism behind thought is a material process. True. But does that make thought devoid of any intelligence? Intelligence of thought is what we call the intellect. It can measure, analyze, etc., what the scientists use in their study & discovery. It can invent. Otherwise how are we having unmanned Rovers on Mars?
What you say brain here is still thinking. It is the measuring ability of thought that is correcting itself & progressing. That’s how we made to the rocket from the bullock cart.
This is thought that says this. Thought unaware what it can do & what it cannot do & attempts to bring order inwardly.
This is thought realizing it’s limitation.
Thought can’t stop thinking because there is no separate controller apart from thinking. A separate controller is fictitious, non existent. The very effort itself is functioning of thought.
Are you saying that we don’t know whether thought is or isn’t?
The one is the one particular brain.
So you’re opening the door that there is a part of the brain that can observe itself functioning without any judgment, and it’s not thought, right?
No. I am saying that awareness, in and of itself, is choiceless, regardless of how the conditioned brain “chooses” to react to by distorting or denying what is revealed. We know awareness is not a function of the brain, is beyond the brain, because every living thing, with or without a brain, is aware.
The conditioned brain cannot “observe itself functioning without any judgment”, obviously, because it is bound by its beliefs, conclusions, judgements, etc. But for the one or two seconds it takes the conditioned brain to reflexively react to what it can’t help but be aware of, awareness is choiceless.
And there is the possibility that there are ‘deeper’ parts of the brain that are free of any conditioning. These would be the source of insight and direct perception.
Bohm: “If we once assume that there cannot be the unconditioned, then we’re stuck. On the other hand, if we assume that there is the unconditioned, again we are going to be stuck- we will produce an image of the unconditioned in the system of conditioning, and mistake the image for the unconditioned. Therefore let’s say that there may be the unconditioned. We leave room for that. We have to leave room in our thought for possibilities."
(Thought as a System pg. 73)
Yes, and this means possibilities we can’t imagine because our conditioning is all about imagination.
Thought can leave room only for possibilities it can imagine because thought is a limited mechanical process that can be understood, seen for what it is. But if the brain can allow for what it cannot imagine, it is aware of awareness as something beyond imagination.
The ‘possibilities’ being mentioned here are ‘seeing’ the conditioned reflexes that ‘run’ our lives. Some are ‘coherent’, necessary, useful etc, many are not. It ‘may’ be possible to see them. This would be a seeing from outside of the conditioned responses as I understand him. According to Bohm, we are a complicated system of reflexes with no one in control. The ‘I-me’ center is just another reflex. If there is no possibility of an unconditioned awareness of our situation, we are stuck. But we are also ‘stuck’ if we propose that there IS an unconditioned part of us that can see the situation from outside (which would be only another image formed by the system itself)….so he’s suggesting that we leave it as a ‘possibility’.
The ‘system’ is conditioned to ‘become’?
A big “if”. Can awareness be conditioned, or can it only be reacted to by the brain’s conditioned response?
What do we know about awareness? Is it a function of the brain, or is the brain dependent on awareness to function?
Awareness is ‘in’ every living thing. The degree to which each is aware varies according to the complexity of its nervous system, its ‘brain’. Everything is in it. The human brain (and some others) have evolved to be ‘more’ aware (more receptive to, of it) than other life forms. But in our case that fuller awareness that we are capable of responding to has been ‘blocked’ by the brain’s occupation with the past. Awareness is in the present and we live in the past. Our ‘reflexes’ are formed in the past and they function (jerk) in the present.
Yes, but knowing this doesn’t make it clear why the human brain does this. Think it through and you’ll find that it has to do with the power of narrative, story-telling.
A brain must have a storehouse of practical knowledge for its survival, and the best way to retain this kind of memory is illustration: short, simple stories, fables, cautionary tales, jokes, etc.
But the more populous and complex a group of people gets, the more important it is to determine who I am because not everybody knows me well enough to trust me. So I must form an image of myself as a trustworthy, honest person to survive in this complex society. Over time I realize I must believe I am this person and that others are the persons they would have me believe they are.
Maybe that was the “wrong turn” our species took, but it may not matter why we began doing this if we’re not aware of how we’re doing it now.
Right but we are considering the possibility that none of that is the truth and whether or not it’s possible, if it isn’t the truth, to go beyond those beliefs before the whole system fails through old age or illness. K has suggested that it may be possible by bringing the ‘highest form of intelligence’ to our situation: awareness without judgement.
Seeing that the brain’s false sense of reality is based on beliefs, the question is whether the brain can function without beliefs. The information the brain needs to survive is stored as experience or common sense, but how much of that information is false or no longer valid is unknown until demonstrably debunked. So the brain can be skeptical of everything it knows instead of being confident that it knows enough.
Which raises the question of whether the brain can not be limited to its intellect, thought; whether it can be free to commune with intelligence and know what it needs to know to be secure, and thereby silent and empty.
It’s a big question, and as much as I’d like believe that it can, I don’t know. I can only say it may be possible, but I won’t get my hopes up.
It may be. But I’m thinking that we have to be aware of the ‘reflexes’ of believing and hoping…they fortify the illusion of a future time when the beliefs and hopes will come to fruition. Is that what K was warning about when he said “freedom is at the beginning not the end”? The system is set up to believe and hope in a ‘future’. If that’s an error, how or why did it come about? Is it useful to analyze or just be aware when they arise in us? Or maybe both? Maybe we need to ‘think’ differently about the way we operate ie. about belief and hope?
In a society of brains that imagine themselves, the future is no less imagined because the present is as imaginary as the people that compose it.
Maybe we need to ‘think’ differently…about belief and hope?
Not “maybe” but obviously because when you can’t live timelessly now, past and future (neither of which exist), are all you have.
I see. Then perhaps you could explain how a fully conditioned brain suddenly becomes totally free of its conditioning for a couple of seconds.
I don’t know, do you know?
Awareness is beyond the brain, and the conditioned brain reacts to it.
What is the basis for such a categorical statement if I may ask?
As I said earlier, all living things are aware, but not all living things have brains. A brain with a capacity for elaborate thought can choose to be at odds with choiceless awareness by distorting or even denying it.
If you’re aware of how you are not silently aware of actuality because your stream of consciousness is constant, you know you are your content’s reaction to awareness. Were you empty and silent, “you” would be awareness and the organism’s response.