I’m wondering if this is not a case of confirmation bias? The author also writes: “While various neuroscientists have made the claim that the self resides in this or that neural location, there is no real agreement among the scientific community about where to find it — not even whether it might be in the left or the right side of the brain. Perhaps the reason we can’t find the self in the brain is because it isn’t there.”
However, in a Scientific American article, “(P)revious research employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a method that uses blood flow and oxygen consumption in specific brain areas as a measure of neural activity, to identify regions that were activated by self-reference. These studies identified the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as a brain region related to self-thought. This area, the mPFC, can be further divided into upper and lower regions (called dorsal and ventral, respectively), and it turns out that each one makes different contributions to self-related thought. The dorsal section plays a role in distinguishing self from other and appears to be task-related, whereas the ventral section, the vmPFC, contributes more to emotional processing.”
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Bias is surely a given. My conditioned perspective is practically the definition of bias. (Big up to logic and the scientific method for helping to weed out the nonsense btw)
Now, if we can find the exact part of the brain which makes me feel like the the central most important entity, makes me feel separate from “non-self” (aka my environment) what does this change about our situation?
Even if we find a tiny holographic Ceklata (or macdougdoug) at the center of the brain, whose job is to pilot the body - does this change the problem that the teachings are dealing with?
If we admit the fact that an electrochemical process happening within this biological framework (aka the body/brain etc) is producing a delusion that is the cause of continuous suffering in the world, that is what must be addressed.
It is being addressed (when it becomes unpleasant ) with drugs, psychedelics, meditation, drink, entertainment, money , fame, sports, fashion etc. I think K’s point was that none of this leads to the ending of the ‘self’ but only mitigation and dependency. Only awareness of ‘what is’ without judgement or condemnation was his suggestion and that freedom ‘from’ the known is at the beginning, not an ‘accomplishment’ over time… his secret he said was that he didn’t “mind what happens”.
Yes, if the conditioned brain believes it is true that there is no “awareness of ‘what is’ without judgement or condemnation” until the brain is transformed, and that “freedom ‘from’ the known is at the beginning, not an ‘accomplishment’ over time”, the conditioned brain wants to do what it can to facilitate the transformation.
But the conditioned brain can only do what it is conditioned to do, so until/unless it awakens to the mechanics of its self-limiting operation, all it can do is be interested in what it is doing.
So who/what rewires the brain?
Why wouldn’t the brain rewire (free) itself upon realizing how it is wired to conform to a culturally imposed system of self-limitation based on fear, desire and egocentricity?
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