We can’t say that knowledge is worthless because we need practical knowledge to survive and avoid danger, but we can say that psychological thought is the greatest danger. So why aren’t we aware of psychological thought as it occurs? Could it be because it’s constancy as the stream of consciousness has an immuring effect on the brain?
Yes that could very well be. So constant that we don’t know what it would be like to be without it for a moment.
Feeling represents the external form in which you are aware of the movement of thought.
why have you shared this statement @walkus ?
It sounds like you are saying that when we have a thought like “that guy is awful” - the feeling that accompanies that thought eg. distaste, anger - is a form of awareness.
Am I following you so far?
Can it be said that the brain’s image of itself as an individual person may be an ‘error’? And that that image is sustained by an almost constant flow of thought / feeling? Would that be accurate?
If so, can this ‘sustaining’ movement of thought come to an end?
Error means something like innacurate.
1.this is usually in terms of descriptive accuracy ie. does one image accurately reflect the other? as in what I think/feel something might be vs what it actually is.
2. or it has to do with motivation and outcome eg. throwing someone into a lake in order to dry them out = error.
These things are contextual, not absolute (unless stated by some authority like God or your boss or guru)
This too is contextual - also freedom cannot be yoked to what I want or what might be - actual freedom cannot depend on whether the self centered experience ends or not.
However, depending on our understanding of 1. & 2. above, our relationship to the self experience changes.
Yes, we know that for humans : familiarity = truth
Yes as in missing the mark. The question is, did the brain by creating a limited central image of itself: you / me, limit itself to a ‘mess of potage’ and inadvertently deny its birthright? (Its birthright possibly being what K has suggested: to participate in the immensity.)
And if the brain did for whatever circumstances, miss the mark, can it now see the ‘error’ of its way and allow the illusory (?) image of itself as separate from the ‘world’, to dissolve before the death of the body?
(In K. speak: can psychological thought come to an end?)
1 Like
Mature rational brains perhaps. But unsane-conditioned brains dependent on magical thinking for their well-being perhaps not? Does witchcraft only end when there is no alternative? Someone with OCD can be very aware of the OCD mechanism, but keep doing their daily rituals.
1 Like
Our mature rational brains practice magical thinking when we believe and disbelieve, despite being honest enough to admit not knowing what to believe or disbelieve. We all do this because we can’t see things for what they actually are when the brain is confounded by time, the forth dimension.
Until the brain has the insight that it is not so much the prisoner of time as the negotiator; not bound by time so much as informed by it, it can only hope, pray, practice witchcraft, piety, anything it can think of until…
Depends on our motives.
What motive regains “its birthright”?
All motives regain their birthright.
There was the question about not being aware of ‘psychological thought’ as it occurs.
To put it briefly, what I mean: One is aware, but one don’t know about it. And this is because thinking reflects its self-movement in the form of abstraction from the outer, superficial form of the movement and thus the connection between the outer form and the inner logic of movement remains hidden. .
You ask, if you follow so far. I think I must explain more clearly. And I start with your example meeting the ‘awful guy’.
Let’s say it happens that you notice a person coming towards you. With him, an impending disaster is coming towards you. By recognizing this person, you already see it. Before you know it, you are already busy in trying to avoid this disaster. This means: your relationship with this person is fear, which lasts as long as you see the impending disaster in his appearance. Afterwards, when the situation has been dealt with or is in the process of being dealt with, you will say that this person is an awful guy. This is the way in which thinking seeks to find a balance with the social consensus or justifies itself with all the complications involved in that.
Generally speaking: you perceive something and in it you already see something coming towards you and are challenged by it. In Krishnamurti’s terms, you are in conflict with this, which on the other hand represents a disturbance in the sense, which is feeling. This can be of a ‘positive’ nature if you can capitalize on the encounter, or of a ‘negative’ nature if friction is to be expected.
So I say, one is aware of the conflict by the feeling. I don’t speak about awareness.That’s an other topic. In the example above, it was said that the relationship with the person you meet is fear. However, this fear is the way in which you are aware of the inner contradiction of image formation as a disturbance in your sense. (For example, in the same way you are aware of the fact that you are in contact with water through the sensation of wetness). This image building always takes place in an area in which ideas and the associated expectations are compared with what is received from the outside, an area of conflict. In thinking, however, fear appears as something separate from this process, as something external to the movement, as something that either accompanies, causes, creates or is part of this movement, or is initiated by the characteristics of what comes at you from outside, so you call him an awful guy…
Note:
And here I would like to point out that I am not interested in making statements about whether things are one way or another. My considerations are guided by the question of how thinking approaches reality, what this means in relation to reality and what effect it has on reality in turn.
@walkus I think your answer was yes.
A follow up yes or no question : Are you familiar with Integrated Information Theory? Is that what allows you to make statements like :
In the same way that a rock is “aware” of gravity when it falls to the ground, or “aware” of erosion as it is affected by erosion? As in : it is in some sense “processing the information” of its environment by reacting to its environment?
Sorry, but I’m afraid we’re misunderstanding each other.
This thread is questioning the mind’s relationship to a conditioning mechanism.
The first question I’m asking here is how do we even come to talk about a mechanism of conditioning? What is this idea based on?
The concept of conditioning is taken from psychology and simply generalizes in one term the fact that from the records of observations of human behavior one can repeatedly state that in certain external situations similar reactions occur repeatedly. Once the concept is defined in this way, the following happens: If a similar reaction occurs again under the same circumstances, one says: That is the conditioning. This statement has two sides. One side consists in relating the new observation to the conclusions drawn from past observations and classifying it. That way we have with this term no construction of a relation of cause and effect. The other side consists in the fact that ‘conditioning’ now becomes a cause of the reaction, something that is external to the reaction, something that produces the reaction. And as such, it is understood as a mechanism integrated into the brain. Conditioning becomes the cause with the effect of the reaction and all the problems that come with it. Therefore, when problems arise from human reactions, one is compelled to look at the way this mechanism integrated into the brain works, which is then also understood as a mechanism through which the past shapes the present. In this way, the reaction is viewed in isolation from the relationships of immediate perception. Perception is reduced to a stimulus whose significance consists in acting as a trigger for a mechanism that is independent of the rest of perception. Thinking is concerned with the problem of how it can influence or override this mechanism. There is therefore an external relationship between thinking and experience. On this basis, one then repeatedly approaches the problem of experience without questioning it.
The brain’s conditioning reacts to perception by distorting or denying it instead of responding intelligently.
Thinking is concerned with the problem of how it can influence or override this mechanism.
Thinking isn’t concerned with anything because it is just a mechanism.
The brain thinks it can “influence or override” its conditioning until it realizes that by constantly streaming its content it perpetuates its conditioning, and it can’t stop streaming its content.
The brain knows its conditioning is the mechanism of constantly updating its beliefs to keep them relevant and effective. But the brain knows also that it is conflicted by its determination to be who/what it believes it should be, and the knowledge that believing is insanity.
Is the main ‘distortion’ that the brain brings to perception : ie. I am seeing that, I am hearing that, I am feeling, thinking that etc? The illusory ‘me’ that stands at the portals of perception?
It’s more mechanical and less confusing.
The brain’s conditioning reacts to direct perception by denying or distorting it, and the conditioned brain is too sluggish to see what it’s doing. It has seduced and drugged itself for so long that all it can do is get better or worse at being seduced and drugged.
Help! I’m an escapist.
1 Like
“Thinking is concerned with the problem of how it can influence or override this mechanism.”
“Thinking isn’t concerned with anything because it is just a mechanism.”
Thinking is a problem-solving mechanism. It is there to solve practical problems with acquired knowledge and experience, e.g. in a craft.
It becomes questionable when it offers an idea of how it should be (solution) in the area of the psyche in order to deal with the idea of how it is (problem).
In this case, there is no separation between problem and solution (loose roof battens and then the hammering in nails to fasten roof battens) necessary for the solution, but only two ideas that arise from thinking, which is why the problem cannot be solved.
2 Likes
When we see clearly that we are caught up in our own confusion, that confusion immediately loses all its authority.
Both thinking and experience are expressions of conditioning, one cannot solve the other, they are part of the same movement.
The awareness that liberates is just the realisation that confusion is happening when it happens.
2 Likes