So This Is A Human Being?

We start from the Cell

It's funny how we overlook our multicellular status.

Two teenagers are in the library and one says to the other "do you smoke?", the younger one, replies, in a deepened and effortlessly deliberate voice, "yeah....why?". I sit there, stunned as to what this mind is doing to it's cellular community.

I ask that you close your eyes and imagine your body without all the products that cells secrete. That is, without all the proteins that connect cells together and the liquids that flow through us. Imagine, simply, the 50 trillion cells that make up our body (plus the 100 trillion or so bacteria that occupy our digestive tract). Imagine what this would look like. It would be visible, some cells smaller and appearing dust like, others as large as a grain of salt. But there would be a space in between them.

Cells live and act and perform the activities that give us our sense of life. But when you shrink the scale and look inside of us, the body is a universe unto itself. Cells send messengers back and forth to one another in a dazzling and dizzying dance of chemical complexity; this sugar having this effect on this amino acid which causes this nucleic reaction; and this happens in thousands of ways within one cell at any moment. Cells are communicating and connecting, but their entire logic is no longer simply cellular. The body they create at the macro scale possesses an intelligence and will that is independent of the focal interest of the cell.

The Body As Creation of The Cells

Through what we call habit, the consciousness of the cells impel feelings in the organism. Which causes which? Although the cells work and breathe in a world of chemical reactions, the organism encounters worlds from which a menu of responses can become activated. The responses are epigenetically plastic within the neuron system of the animals brain. The genes of the neurons "read" the meanings the organism encounters. Here, the world of external events, a mating call, a dance, a sound, elicits cellular responses that tune to the animals lived reality. Second by second, the dynamics of the cells synchronize themselves with the worlds outside them. Inside connecting without outside.

Society As Creation of Organisms

I wont stick to the animal model, though I use the word "organism" to point out the generality of my point. The cells in connecting with one another end up creating "body's". This is what we mean by the word 'evolution'. The secreted products are the "links" that draw cells into closer contact with one another. They possess positive or negative charge. All of life is held together by a force of opposite energies.

As human beings, we are born into a world that structures us before we realize who and what we are. Were "filled up" by experiences we didn't ask for, and strangleheld by perceptions we can't disengage from. The experiences of life create a "substance" we call a self. A strong sense that there is an "I" behind my actions. But in trying to locate this self, we come up empty handed.

The self is a 'necessary' illusion, akin to the protein products secreted by cells to keep the multitude of the cells in contact with one another. In the case of the self, something is 'there', but what it is seems limited to what it does. And what the self does is keep us in contact with the world around us.

The self "comes out" whenever it is gripped by a perception; thus, the self is made up of the images, sensations and perceptions we have, and how we apply it in directed action. The self is the sense of being aroused by the world about us, and in being aroused, we become 'structured' by it, because the cells within us have built a 'model' of the object 'out there' that produces this (pleasurable, prodigious) sort of experience "in here".

Obviously, I can't account for the substance of mind that the self unfurls within. Consciousness is a mystery that boggles everyone who has ever thought about it. How can the physical object, the cell, its molecular machinery - other chemicals which are 'used' by the cell to sustain itself - give rise to the type of creature - and being - we experience ourselves as being? Is consciousness different from matter? Is the relationship between the two literally a sort of yin-yang, positive world of matter which "posits" a world, a negative world of mind which 'negates' a world? What is the nature of the relationship between the two? Is life only that point where the two points intersect? Or, as it appears to be, if the physical can seem to exist apart from the mental, can the mental also seem to exist apart from the physical? Is there a vantage point from another side that somehow can be contained by a non-linear system?

Society is made up of individual minds who come together from symmetrical organizational beginnings. Our parents and early relations all shape us, so we all develop ways of dealing with our experience without knowing how we do it.

We each live in a cognitive 'bubble' that eludes the emotional language that governs our reactions towards one another. Where I see desire to act, there is also a fear of not acting. When others respond negatively to my assertions of self, I feel shame. This positive/negative dynamic mirrors the dynamics at the molecular level. My positive attempt at connecting with another person, if rebuffed, can generate a 'negative disposition' to the other who 'denies' my selfhood: my positive expression of self. Shame experienced slowly morphs into a counter-affect: anger. Anger and a desire for power, those emotions which link up with ways of being in the world - culture - underlies almost all narcissistic emotion. Whenever a kid at school teases another kid about some apparent vulnerability (short, fat) they do it partly - and as an organizing dynamic, totally - to disavow their experience of weakness and vulnerability in other contexts, when they, and not the kid they're bullying, were the ones shamed and humiliated by their weakness.

Just as an internal logic governs the activity of cells - the properties which essentially "create" out consciousness of selfhood - an internal psychological logic creates our selfhood. But just as cells are 'moved' by processes occurring elsewhere in the dynamic 'world' of the organism, so to does the activity of any human mind become 'structured' by the activities of other peoples behaviors.

If we connect just as cells do, what is the organism that we make up? Does its invisibility mean it doesn't exist? Yet, when my internal experience is logically predicated on a non-linear system of other minds, I'm left with no "thing" to speak of. Yet, am I not a "thing' made up of the cells which generate my consciousness?

Is God such a thing? Others give it a different name, Buddha, Tao, Universe, Energy. Point is, people have a tendency - an emotional predilection - to relate with those 'things' - those concepts - in an ontological, and substantial, way.

I think its ok and totally natural to think there is a 'self', beyond our individual self. And given our unique situation in the universe, I do not consider it too optimistic to think that life implies a God, because there truly is, something, at root, fundamentally meaningful about the human journey.

many of different religions are pointing to this which you are taking about. This is at the very core of true religion - this Self which makes everything thick.

We can name it whatever we like. The problem is that when you name it, that makes a concept in our mind and as such it falls under our limited understanding for that concept. But reality as explained by ancient mystics is far from concepts and it is not a thing. Just like we are not a thing. So who are we? That is the million dollar question who few know how to answer based on experience from true introspection.

satchitananda is the phrase I like to use and is describing subjective experience of this "hidden" power which is making everything into being. "being, consciousness, bliss".

What?!?

Dude, I just smoke because it gets my dopamine receptors pumping. Very primitive and also very simple.

imo, you've just made a perfect argument for why the human consciousness is simply a product of advanced chemistry, no higher power necessarily had anything to do with it.

a reply to: Astrocyte

As all the cells in a body get totally replaced over time. In fact You end up having about four total replacement bodies in a lifetime. It must at least hint that the operating medium is non physical in structure, as ones personal consciousness can only observe the other vehicles of consciousness, IE. other bodies, and not itself . Then al knowledge about consciousness,must be second-hand , and flawed. Ultimately we have to just accept the fact that it is.

Meh, that is too much to read. I'll just light up another cigarette and try reading it again.
2nd

a reply to: Astrocyte

I smoke so I can qualify to join an evil gang of jetski dufuses.



That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I find the idea of a disembodied self to be highly unethical. Such a postulation requires one to view past or through the real individual, into some imaginary place, where he will find only the reflections of his own mind. Such a disembodied selfhood is required in order to enforce every system of caste, slavery, and inquisition, where the disembodied self is condemned based on specious charges – impure, heretic, blasphemous, possessed – where we look upon the soul of someone as evil or corrupt, and we end up burning the body in the process to purify this ghost, or in other words, to purify the postulations of our own minds

a reply to: anonentity

The cells get replaced by other cells, which are still cells of the same body. No, we do not get replacement bodies, for the body consists of this death of cells, and their subsequent replacement.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I do not consider it too optimistic to think that life implies a God, because there truly is, something, at root, fundamentally meaningful about the human journey.

Why are many so keen on knowing how or why something is the way it is?

IMO, the beauty of life is found in the experience itself and not how the experience came to arise.

Sure, a flower can be appreciated more when one understands the dynamics involved in the creation of that flower but, it does not change the flower's outer appearance...or does it?

It only changes one's inner thoughts about the flower.

My God is the divine imagination extending ITS hand (the subconscious) to ITSELF in human form.

If we connect just as cells do, what is the organism that we make up? Does its invisibility mean it doesn't exist? Yet, when my internal experience is logically predicated on a non-linear system of other minds, I'm left with no "thing" to speak of. Yet, am I not a "thing' made up of the cells which generate my consciousness?

Some people claim when they dream at night that the dream isn't real. What they are really trying to say is the dream is less real than waking reality. After all, how can one admit to having the experience and then deny its reality...? To do is an abstraction of thought. Contradiction at its finest.

Obviously, I can't account for the substance of mind that the self unfurls within. Consciousness is a mystery that boggles everyone who has ever thought about it. How can the physical object, the cell, its molecular machinery - other chemicals which are 'used' by the cell to sustain itself - give rise to the type of creature - and being - we experience ourselves as being? Is consciousness different from matter? Is the relationship between the two literally a sort of yin-yang, positive world of matter which "posits" a world, a negative world of mind which 'negates' a world? What is the nature of the relationship between the two? Is life only that point where the two points intersect? Or, as it appears to be, if the physical can seem to exist apart from the mental, can the mental also seem to exist apart from the physical? Is there a vantage point from another side that somehow can be contained by a non-linear system?

...they ignore the beauty of the flower right before their very eyes due to seeking the answer to why the flower is there to begin with.

Are you familiar with Bruce Lipton's work?

As above so below god is just the source energy a poster above me stated that the only thing that matters is experience and the here and now conveniently that's also what the bible teaches

a reply to: TheSubversiveOne

I find the idea of a disembodied self to be highly unethical. Such a postulation requires one to view past or through the real individual, into some imaginary place, where he will find only the reflections of his own mind. Such a disembodied selfhood is required in order to enforce every system of caste, slavery, and inquisition, where the disembodied self is condemned based on specious charges – impure, heretic, blasphemous, possessed – where we look upon the soul of someone as evil or corrupt, and we end up burning the body in the process to purify this ghost, or in other words, to purify the postulations of our own minds

Isn't there a middle way?

While I can acknowledge and accept much of what you write about the dangers of subscribing to a universal self (such as Hinduism does) we can make a distinction and thus find a harmony between ancient religious doctrines and modern day science, democracy and civil rights.

The problem - from a psychoanalytic angle - is that, when you describe the situation as you have - with as much emotion and fervor as you seem to be experiencing, we completely dissociate the ontological relationships that we can recognize between the relationship between cells in a multicellular organism and the relationship between humans in society.

In other words, the pullback and reaction against the 'dangers' can throw you into the opposite extreme, to a full-out ontological denial of your dependence on 'others' in both how you're structured (psychologically) and also, the responsibility we all need to cultivate in order to create a better, smoother and more compassionate society.

Hinduism, undoubtedly, is an extreme, and it in no way represents the type of relationship I am positing. While I acknowledge the possibility of their being a universal self, I do not assert any understanding of it; I also do not attempt the arrogant and peremptory task of knowing how that "self" should be "made real" in the social structure. As far as I understand, democracy, and equality, represents the truest expression of our universal "self-hood": that is, we are equal in our needs. What Hinduism engages in, from my vantage point, is a reification of concepts (theories) about how society should function that are not in any way empirically justified, but simply ideas that satisfy the egos of the men who devised them. After awhile, the prestige of being associated with an upper class (the brahman) overwhelms their ability to think rationally about the way they treat humans born into a lower class.

And this is really my whole point: just as the organism is it's wholeness determines the position of any one cell, so does the position of an "elite" determine his attitudes, feelings, and prejudices against others. Any time one is made to feel "better" or "worse" than someone else, they're suffering a delusion of perception.

a reply to: Involutionist

New things come into being with our ability to understand. Look at the internet. What we are able to know about one another has increased; our capacity to connect has been enhanced. Understanding the world DOES change the way we experience it - for us - and in howwe able to experience it; but more importantly, it allows us to more efficiently engage the world.

And yes, I've read Bruce Lipton. His views go further than my do.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Also, there's a simple logic to it. The structure of our relations in the world is dualistic and is always dualistic. Whatever Alan Watts or other "non-dualists" think or believe, to be in the world means to acknolwedge the ontological necessity of the other.

Even in our thinking, and if we find ourselves feeling bad in some way; what do we do? We posit. We tell ourselves - or, ignore the whole suggestive part of it - that we should just "let it be". Now in saying that, the power of 'let it be' can hypnotize our consciousness into a more relaxed state. If that doesn't help, then the person will go to a guru. But even the guru has his special 'thoughts' which he turns to - and of course overlooks the ontological status thereof - and brings himself to a state of calm through whatever inner objects he has internalized into his affective systems.

To be a self - or to be, or to express, at any moment in our lives - is to be inhabit a dualism.

And that's the paradox. Because although life is entirely connected and interdependent, we need meaning, we need names, and we need ideas, in order to orient ourselves to the world.

Thus, God, or what have you, is just that unity we see beyond the individuality of our bodily existence. It is in the confrontation of our existential pain and the safety and peace we experience in being recognized that forces one (or me, anyways) to acknowledge the paradoxical relationship between being an individual and needing others. The "need" is nothing to be dissociated or denied. It IS as much a part of us as it is for any other creature. The biggest need people need to internalize is the need to stave off narcissistic feelings that places the self in some 'special place' beyond the community of selves that defines his experience.

a reply to: Astrocyte

The problem - from a psychoanalytic angle - is that, when you describe the situation as you have - with as much emotion and fervor as you seem to be experiencing, we completely dissociate the ontological relationships that we can recognize between the relationship between cells in a multicellular organism and the relationship between humans in society.

I'm not sure if I believe that. There is no relationship between myself and someone on the other side of town. Could we measure the distance between us? Perhaps. But because we can be connected by an imaginary string does not mean we are connected or have a relationship, ontological or otherwise.

I'm not sure how a multicellular organism is analogous to society. If we compared the two side-by-side, we would hardly find any similarities in structure, dynamics, etc.

Yes if there was nothing holding the cells in our body together, there might be space between them, like there is space between humans in a society, but then we would no longer be a body, but perhaps a collection of dust. I think a dustpan is more analogous to society than a multicellular organism is.

a reply to: TheSubversiveOne

Maybe you two would have the same energy service, or HBO on your tv?
Well last time i checked society hadn't collapsed yet and we still had a functioning system (economical/commercial organism) running.
But maybe you're American...

a reply to: Astrocyte

New things come into being with our ability to understand. Look at the internet. What we are able to know about one another has increased; our capacity to connect has been enhanced. Understanding the world DOES change the way we experience it - for us -- and in how we able to experience it; but more importantly, it allows us to more efficiently engage the world.

I agree. We each live life according to our own reality tunnel despite the awareness we are sharing this landscape with 7 Billion + others.

...but more importantly, it allows us to more efficiently engage the world.

Many are conditioned at an early age to limit themselves and the world around them. We are all born free to create our own reality, but after years of forming false belief systems based on societal and parental conditioning, many have unwittingly created a reality in which they no longer seem to have the power (or belief) to create their own reality or carve out their own existence outside of the imaginary boundaries imposed by society. This causes people to live in fear; play it safe; seek security. It indoctrinates minds to the point they would rather invest thousands of dollars in university or college tuition during the prime of their life instead of travelling the world....where the real education and enlightenment is found.

To efficiently engage in the world is to become an active participant in your own life. You have a choice in this world:

A) You can be more a creator of cause.

or

B) An unwitting pawn of effect.

Most people go down this path of trying to explain the unseen because they are trying to escape the world that can be seen.

The irony is the insight is always meant to be applied here. You are a human being right now.

Would you rather have mystical cognitive abilities and divine understanding or would you rather be caking - $$$$?

I choose the latter, but use the former to get it.

I'm a materialist and spiritualist worst nightmare.

Bless