Falling Into the Void

I sometimes wonder, given my preference for science and detail over mysticism and wishfulness, what would be the physical correlates of "the dark side" and the "good side"?

The question sounds weird especially when it is posed from a "top-down" perspective - as the whole idea of imagining we have absolute meaning of the structure of reality appears incredibly presumptuous. For example, my computer is currently making a rumble right now - rumbling like it was running in a particular way i.e. as a function of how computers work. No higher meaning here - the computer doesn't "fit" within any higher dimensionality - at least none which science is anywhere understanding.

Ok - you may say I choose an artificial/technological example. Fine. There is a feather moving through the wind, a rock which flows along a river, a cloud which flits in the sky: what is the meaning for all this movement? None. There is no meaning that can be discerned, and to imagine there is is to give preference and priority to magical speculation - speculation that can go in thousands of different ways depending on the mind which conceives it.

Herein lies the trouble, I think, with ascribing meaning to those parts of existence which lie beyond our linear-understanding: it seems totally subjective. I mean this, btw, in the worse possible way: things which are subjective are basically untruths - lies. Of course, from the perspective of the actor who prefers lies over truth, there is a "truth" in needing to believe what you believe, and there is also a truth that the person who interacts with such a person needs to understand the nature of this persons quandary. But even here, in this position I've just described, lies an objective fact: we are creatures which operate through symmetry dynamics, which is to say, when one person understands another person in the way that the latter person needs, it feels good. Feeling good is always related to some form of symmetry, even if it is sub-optimal. The symmetry in question here is brain synchronization, where what you do and what I do are "correlated" by processes within our brains, atop of which our perceiving, conscious minds emerge. Affect and feeling, remember, always forms the ground of our being, and so always underlies the decisions we make. Objective sciences say this is so, even if the subjective conscious mind, for instance, the mystically inclined mind, might imagine that its "will" is above its behavior, that is just mystical fantasy - fantasy made worse by doctrines like the sephiroth which place "will" above emotion - as a metaphysical system, and a way of conceptualizing reality through the adults "sense" of the different gradations of self-experience, an adult nevertheless always operates through the existing dynamics of a brain that emerged way before its consciousness came forth. As I say, this has to do with "what motivates you" to begin with. Fear, or love?

Geezelouis wrote a thread lamenting the sometimes quixotic attitude that "trauma is good for growth", but my feeling is that humans tend to exaggerate that - starting, it seems, with Nietzsches phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". No, unfortunately - this is just not so. Nietzsche, again, was telling lies he himself needed to believe: sometimes trauma just f*cks you up worse, given that it becomes a part of your brain-wiring, and no matter how much "emotion" exists, it can never seem to 'get at' those parts of our experience that preceded our conscious knowing. Indeed, it seems to me that people with seriously traumatic early-life experiences with others seek to completely escape the physical world all-together to find their peace - which is eminently understandable, given the physical world has been recorded by their brain to be a dangerous, unsafe, and threatening place. Escaping existence, moving back into the "void" of paradise (which only seems paradisiacal to the person who hates existing) seems to me a sad thing - as connecting, growing, and being with others is genuinely more enlivening than anything else.

Constructing Walls

Why do so many people think they "know" the nature of existence? Some people here deride the science I sometimes bring forth as evidence, as if anything else could exist towards the goal of building up true objective knowledge.

In any case, hubris, or narcissism, seems to be a relational state that derives from a state of deficiency, as Abraham Maslow recognized long ago. The mind which "pushes far", or seeks to undo or undermine the way reality works, only does so because he is acting from states that lie beyond his accessible perception: he has constructed walls within himself, or others have constructed walls for him - and these walls, in being metaphors for dissociation of feelings, meanings, and memories, are so scary, so destabilizing, that the "will" simply hides from it - hides as if the walls are genuinely stable structures - structures that will always be there for the person to protect them - as if the waters wont grow, and the self, one day, be too weak to withstand the force of the waters that come rushing forth upon them.

I would build a great wall, and no one builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively" - Donald Trump

When I first read this quote, I laughed-out-loud, because I knew exactly what Trump was talking about - as if he himself is quite aware at how delusionally out-of-touch he is with the Others' he relates with.

The great wall-builder feels like wall-building is a useful process - but I am skeptical that anyone really wants to build walls: rather, the concept of wall-building only appears desirable to people who feel they need to place up walls to get away from something they don't like: whether it be invaders of the outside world, or the inside world i.e. feelings/memories which dysregulate self-experience.

The thing, I have noticed, about life, is that perspective is everything, but that perspective needs to be understood not as a subjective singularity, but as an objective interaction, or interface, between one thing and another thing: perspective is what makes an experience seem heaven-like, or hell-like. Perspective is what allows us to feel in control, alive, and strong (full-of-will) or, conversely, it makes us feel completely out-of-control, as if we have no control on the flow of events, and instead, experience ourselves as subject-to-the-conditions acting upon us.

Psychosis is the ultimate example of "losing control". A psychotic person has no ability to regulate his affective processes, but is instead taken up by them - swiftly taken up, so strongly and so powerfully that whatever "observer" self can be said to exist is purely and entirely enslaved to the feeling-processes which work through him.

Having experienced both sides of reality - with particular nasty memories from my teens of being "taken up" into a psychotic state of perception, and knowing how horrifying it can be to lose yourself in such a way, I am pretty sure that anyone in their right mind wouldn't ever choose to build walls to maintain the illusion of invincibility - trust me: you don't want to know what exists when you lose all that control, when anxiety takes over, and the mind "feasts" on the fat of its body, depleting its structure in a way that is possibly faster than any other weight loss strategy.

The Greeks were very wise in understanding what ego-worship does i.e. Medusa, and the turning into stone, that is, in becoming a "reified" process of self-experience which cannot bear to bear witness to itself. The Greeks realized this was problematic, yet, of course, everyone comes to certain issues from a different perspective, from a different life world, with different memories, different affects and different needs.

The Greeks, however, like the other ancients, had no access to ideas that have formed in the shadow of the sciences, such as evolutionary biology, and the various technologies that extend the range of human perception and understanding - such as fMRI, PET, EEG and other imaging technologies. These technologies and the markers they leave allow us to know with very great detail how experiences "become" brain-matter, leaving a particular trace that can be "found" again through particular mathematical and statistical analyses.

The Pythagoreans, and later, Neo-platonists, pursued and maintained a philosophy that was essentially about manipulating reality. However, one may well wonder: are they manipulating reality, or is reality manipulating them? Can it be both? Or is the causal arrow, particularly given it begins for the human at birth in one way, going both ways? Clearly, the human is being manipulated by reality at the beginning, and later on, decides to partake in the manipulation of reality. But the arrow, or the process, is one which is begun at one point, and then the person, feeling they have no choices, decides to simply go with whatever the process claims.

Viruses are not good for hosts, and neither are false-beliefs good for human minds. False beliefs grow because the host is weak'nd in some way; trauma "opens them up' to infection, to persuasion, and to 'just-so' stories. These just-so stories can grow fabulously complicated, and the more complicated, the more plausible: but the lies may just be lies built upon lies built upon lies.

Are people who get pulled into this evil? No. Take Prince Harry - the guy is pursuing a relationship with a black woman, and has suggested that he has little interest in being part of anything related to the aristocracy. Is this normal elite behavior? Or is it what happens when humans experience the goodness of living in a world with enlivening, kind, and responsive others? The man - and his family - like many families, might have all sorts of stories for why they think or do what they do (and mysticism might be the linchpin) but there is no doubt that such practices are exhaustively menacing especially when the social-reality we live within is mired in conditions that make us mentally sick.

The Buddha, or Siddhartha Guatama, is said to have left his palace life of luxury because he was burdened by the sight of poverty and sickness around him. Although he was not able to enunciate why this was - not being a political/social theorist - he did intuitively recognize that there was something wrong about this situation: that humans were unhappy when they lived in these sorts of false and unequal ways.

What a man this man was. Moses too, is said to have been an elite who felt traumatized by the situation of the slaves of Egypt, and like others, he sought to change it - change it because the sight of such abusiveness was recognized as illness masquerading as success.

Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, are three other people who sacrificed themselves because they believed in a deeper truth: equality between peoples. Although Gandhi once made racist comments, the adult Gandhi appeared to have recanted those views. Although Nelson Mandela appeared began as the son of a south African chieftain - and so an elite - he embodied and later on expressed an ethic of love, equality, and care in living - refusing to seek or encourage revenge against the Afrikaans leadership which ruthlessly sought to prevent the emergence of equality in south Africa. Martin Luther King, too, was killed for preaching for complete racial quality - and how can you blame him - given the conditions which obtained in antebellum and post-bellum America for blacks? It was inevitable.

That said, my ultimate criticism is of the trust people ascribe to mysticism, and the just-so stories that they create. Is it possible that, instead of being a genuine truth, it is just what all the sciences would claim it to be - selective stories that are able to persuade the perceiver, given that the perceivers objective state is itself "open" to a virus that might seek to manipulate its host, just as a virus "knows" the DNA structure of the cell it invades, and so, becomes adept at taking over the structure? Mental illness seems to work just this way. It begins when our feelings "fly away" from us, and the meanderings it makes lands upon certain just-so "truths" which compel belief.

a reply to: Astrocyte
It is easy shy away from what is not understood as there is fear in the unknown. Science was my world, my bread and butter if you will until I experienced things which could not be explained. Having built my foundation in the sciences these experiences were almost impossible for me to rationalise, my belief system was ripped away from me in an instant and I was left tumbling into the abyss with zero point of reference.

There is almost no point in setting the human mind the task of unravelling the mystery behind such experiences, it is a journey we may never and possibly shouldn't understand. On the surface the world operates through systems we think we understand, yet every time we think we step closer to unification difficulties arise when explaining certain phenomena.

There are things, consciousnesses if you like, that operate outside of our perceptions, this is not mysticism this is fact for anyone who observes/experiences them. We have not even come close to understanding this phenomena, yet they are talked about throughout ancient civilisations. Our modern society is so closed to this that our brains have been programmed to ignore this phenomena so even when we experience it our first response is to call it an imagining, yet it is around us all the time, we just choose to un-see it.

We are missing out on so much, we have lost the ability to see through our own ignorance and blind belief, it starts at school and is fostered from there on.

a reply to: Charlyboy

There is almost no point in setting the human mind the task of unravelling the mystery behind such experiences, it is a journey we may never and possibly shouldn't understand. On the surface the world operates through systems we think we understand, yet every time we think we step closer to unification difficulties arise when explaining certain phenomena.

I think what I mean to say is this: humans are humans: not frogs or anything else. Our vision of the universe is always framed through the human experience. Agree?

There are things, consciousnesses if you like, that operate outside of our perceptions, this is not mysticism this is fact for anyone who observes/experiences them. We have not even come close to understanding this phenomena, yet they are talked about throughout ancient civilisations. Our modern society is so closed to this that our brains have been programmed to ignore this phenomena so even when we experience it our first response is to call it an imagining, yet it is around us all the time, we just choose to un-see it.

To say science can't contain or explain all the myriad forms of consciousness is not true. Indeed, dynamical systems theory pretty much predicts what people who "astral travel" claim - except, instead of ascribing objective truth to it, is more so the "wish" that we make, and the "response" that reality unfolds for us. Feelings and needs precede us. Our thinking is not directed by us so much as we get "pulled" into certain perceptions.

But that is also my point: the nebulous nature of such experiences and how, when they become projected on social living, generally leads to societal chaos and the breakdown of the very order we need in order to feel happy and alive.

Take the stupid "Detroit right wings" - with the stupid chaos wheel etched in to replace the normal wheel axles of the Detroit red wing logo. Is it coincidence that whenever societies go crazy, its induced by ignoramuses being duped/taken in by something which they would be better getting-the-hell-away from? But it's egotism - the fantasy males (typically) have of being invulnerable. But its fantasy - worthless BS which will strike back at the people who indulge such fantasy.

So what is my position as to mind? I am not claiming that reality doesn't have a mental component, only that whatever "comes through" is filtered by our brain-semes - or the fact that the brain is itself a "filter" for the perceptions and cognitions we experience, with pride of place being given to the amydala.

As to our brains-being-closed? There's very good grounds for believing that our brains have been fundamentally altered from the brains we initially evolved in the forests of Africa 200,000 years ago. Everything is a symbol or sign - i.e. roads, streets, these differ greatly from the hearths that were half nested in the Earth, and half-out. The idea that the hemispheres were more "united", itself a function of greater myelin connection, also sounds plausible.

However, no matter how much people fantasize about things like this, evolution happens slower than human beings would like. No Buddhist monk exhibits a brain that is fundamentally different from ours. Hemispheres are still separated, although there is undoubtedly more activity in the left hemisphere than occurs in non-meditating people.

Is this because they are exposed to the same conditions that we are, albeit, in a different context? It's hard to know, although enactive cognitive science and ecological psychology suggests that the human brain is sculpted by the environments it engages in, which implies that different contexts afford different opportunities both for perception, and the subsequent neural-shaping that results from perception.

I believe no assumptions should be made - and certainly, above all, I would recommend that mystics with a scientific background stop trying to either split consciousness from the body (which is not true) or the converse, try to make scientific Buddhist, Vedic, ancient Egyptian, Kabbalistic, Hermetic or Sufi ideas. All such presumptuousness falls itno the category of "wishing" that what you deem valuable (mysticism) be found in reality.

The process should begin the other way around: opened minded study, which acknowledges what the "ancients said", but buttressing their positions with the superiority of the objective 3rd person, as well as 2nd and 1st person analyses.

originally posted by: Charlyboy
There is almost no point in setting the human mind the task of unravelling the mystery behind such experiences, it is a journey we may never and possibly shouldn't understand. On the surface the world operates through systems we think we understand, yet every time we think we step closer to unification difficulties arise when explaining certain phenomena.

To say that we may never and possibly shouldn't understand certain phenomena feels evil to me.

It's almost like you are part of the "cover up," encouraging cognitive dissonance and "dissociation" which actually just enables the strange uncomfortable traumatic phenomena to continue. Cause basically, you're denying (or willfully ignoring it, as you put it yourself) parts of life on purpose... and as long as we're not facing it/bringing attention to it, nothing is going to change. But I really do forgive you... and everyone, for being willfully ignorant. I think it's the dark side of the human condition that you're calling a phenomenon and it's natural to turn a blind eye to it, because people just want to be comfortable. And people aren't going to care about changing their own lives as long as they can turn a blind eye to it all and remain comfortable.

Maybe the answer to change that direction is making people uncomfortable in their lies. If the lie is just as uncomfortable as the truth? Then maybe people will start choosing to chase after the truth. But as of now... I think the "lie" is very, very comfortable.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Actually meditation as taught by many buddhist traditions are shown empirically to change not only how the brain functions but also has dramatic effects on the epigenetic component of our genome. During my early years in genetics we believed that it was just environment (learned) and inheritance (innate) influences that drove the phenotype. We now know that our conscious awareness also affects the way our genome functions with the up and down regulation of genes (as shown by micro array studies).

this suggests that not only is consciousness intrinsically linked to our genome it has the ability to 'tweak' it. Suggesting that consciousness is entirely meshed with the physical. This does not conclude however that consciousness does not survive the death process or that it does, it merely gives us a clue at how the 2 are linked.

The survival of consciousness beyond death is not something science can tackle as we cannot measure something we don't know how to measure. You can look at NDE experiences but these are subjective, OBE's are in the same bag. However if you allow yourself to look past this a little it gives a line of enquiry. Evolution does not act in wasteful and un-useful ways so why do many have NDE's and many not?? What is the evolutionary advantage of having an NDE at death if death is the outcome, why do we posses the ability to have OBE's what is the point in that? Is it just coincidence and a result of our complex brain?

I guess we will all find out one day and mere speculation is futile.

a reply to: geezlouise

Why would it feel evil? Hundreds if not thousands of generations have come and gone and not understood a great deal of phenomena that we today have a greater understanding of. Its not evil its just a progression of understanding through the generations, if something is 'hidden' from us its only because we choose not to look...

while i generally enjoy your work, i am beginning to find your limited view of science tiring.

the problem with attempting to ascribe human relational cognition with an objective viewpoint is that objectivity requires a source of measurement *outside* of the system under observation. and yet observations of our mental function are limited to measurement apparatus which are constructed by this same mind.

this is the very definition of "socially constructed" science, as opposed to the "positivist" view you would prefer it to be. for this reason, you will at best only struggle to comprehend any phenomena which source is specifically outside the human 'semiotic' framework.

this is true for ALL science, but yours in particular.

therefore, your search for some positivist foundation feels naive, contrived, and perhaps inspired by some form of underlying trauma in your own life. you seem desperate for explanation.


that said, i think you're doing a fabulous job. thanks.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
I sometimes wonder, given my preference for science and detail over mysticism and wishfulness, what would be the physical correlates of "the dark side" and the "good side"?
The question sounds weird

You do realize you are using the word "physical" as a metaphor for ideas. There would be no "physical" correlates. The question you are asking is which idea would associate to the other idea. You have to be careful with mind-space. Too many people think their thoughts ARE reality. Every word and every thought you have is a representation. Words and thoughts are NOT the reality they represent. The words and thoughts we associate with ideas are arbitrary.

Everything we think about in our minds and our ideas about reality are delusions.

RE: "what is the meaning for all this movement? None."

It's also meaningless that it is meaningless. The human mind is a meaning machine. We associate meaning with every moment of our lives and compare our experience with every experience we've had in our lives forming new meanings we experience as thoughts. The meaning we associate with our experiences is arbitrary. Many people through spiritual discipline are able to control or choose the meaning of their experiences. Hence the idea: the way to get what you want is to want what you have.

RE: "Objective sciences say this is so, even if the subjective conscious mind, for instance, the mystically inclined mind, might imagine that its "will" is above its behavior, that is just mystical fantasy"

There are many people of certain religious sects who believe in absolute truth. The idea of relative truth is chosen to be considered to be nonsense. Your way of thinking is based on relative truth formed by subjective judgments. People who believe in absolute truth state do so without any reflection. You and I think too much about ideas. With absolute truth, you and I do not get to decide what is "right" and what is "wrong". What is "right and what is "wrong" is told to us by tradition and habit. We might object but that's because you and I are not "good" people in their way of thinking.

In terms of science versus mystical fantasy, you have to be careful. What is considered "good" science and what is considered "junk" science is NOT determined to be so objectively. All objectivity is determined to be so by subjectivity. So I would not be so fast in dismissing any system of thought as being mystical fantasy.

Science is good at describing "how" nature behaves. Nothing more. Science does not explain why electrons move in the first place. Science does not explain why any energy exists at all as opposed to nothing (a logical inconsistency with the law of conservation of energy). Science doesn't give us any meaning to our lives. It is a tool to used to satisfy our environmental needs. Science does not answer the question "why am I here?" or "what does it all mean?" People turn to religion and mysticism to provide a map on how to answer these bigger questions. Religion is just a made up system of thought to create a context through which we live meaningful lives. On a cosmic timescales everything you and I and all of humanity does is insignificant. But it is also insignificant that it is insignificant. So we might just make an arbitrary choice and choose "meaningful" as opposed to "meaningless". It makes no difference how we choose. However, if we choose "meaningful" then our lives have a richer more meaningful context even though it's clearly delusion on some level.

In terms of mental health, happiness, the human condition, and eastern religions I agree with some of what you are saying. The purpose of many religions is to teach people how to transition from immature consciousness to mature consciousness. Immature consciousness is self-centered. People who are immature have no empathy for other people. People who have a mature consciousness have an outward focus. Mature people are concerned with the well-being of others. Many people transition from immature to mature the moment their children are born. Having a baby forces you to change your focus.

In many societies, religions have rituals to help people transition from immature to mature consciousness. I suggest you look at the works of Joseph Campbell on comparative religions. Joseph Campbell spent his whole life studying the world religions to try to find out what were the most common ideas shared. He's a very compelling, entertaining, and animated speaker. His idea on what was going to happen to him when he died during his interview series with Bill Moyer was one of the most profound statements about death I have ever heard.

If you are interested in a psychological point of view on how to transition from immature to mature consciousness a little more rooted in science then I suggest you read this book:

www.amazon.com...

Moore and Gillette are Jungian psychologists who create a psychology of types with two distinct types. The two types are immature types and mature types of archetypes. The cool thing about this book is Moore and Gillette cite many examples to support their ideas using scenes from popular movies. It's very interesting. Clearly Donald Trump is a "High Chair Tyrant" type according to their system of thinking.

Moore and Gillette's book is neither "right" nor "wrong". The book is simply a system of thought that provides you context of meaning if you accept their base axioms and theories as being true. I think every system of thought whether it is science or religion has a set of axioms you must accept as true without proof for the system of thought to work or make any sense in language. For example, one axiom you might have would be "time" is real. Another axiom you might have is "Jesus is God". People do not easily accept someone else's way of thinking unless they agree with the initial axioms. This is why everyone thinks' their own dogma is the only "right" way of thinking and everyone else has "insane" thoughts. Dogma is dogma. And my dogma is clearly better than yours!

I think you are right, and that people create gods and demons with their cognitive dissonance, with ignorance (like possibly the Minotaur with the Island of Crete), and with dissociation/trauma.

In the instance of the Minotaur, the Island of Crete was subject to earthquakes- but back then they didn’t have the science to understand what that really meant… thus the creation of the monster bull that lived under the island.

I agree with basically everything you say… and I guess it’s no surprise that we’re very unpopular, lol. I get a lot of heat for my unconventional idea’s too, but that’s ok too because I was once like them.

I forgive people for it all. Because I know what it’s like to be in so much pain… and I myself have turned a blind eye to myself- the greatest betrayal I have ever faced in my life. The one of self betrayal. I understand completely. And I want to break free from all of that myself, but I can’t blame people or fault people for not wanting to break free from their dissociation and religious delusions because that’s where they are most comfortable. I fugging get it. They're nice and comfy there like I was in mine.

But just because I forgive? It doesn’t mean… I’ll tolerate it, lol. Within myself, or my own surrounding and environment. Whenever I see it, I want to point to it and call it out. And I will. Which maybe explains my really triggering and unconventional and possibly forward thinking blog entries. And also it explains my arguments/debates with my friends and family whenever these kinds of subjects turn up.

And I agree, belief doesn’t make it true. People get confused about that all the time.

I try to remind myself often about how I’m possibly wrong about the things I think… and that’d be ok, cause when I find out I’m wrong then I’ll accept it and readjust my perception- but until then I’m also not afraid to know things. Or learn new things. And like, I really KNOW things. But it’s different than how people believe in things and never let their knowledge grow- they get stuck in an idea and never expand out of fear of finding out it’s possibly untrue, or that even parts of it could be untrue.

I think the self betrayal is the hardest thing for people to face. That they could believe in something that’s not true- their ego can’t handle that betrayal of self.

I think mysticism/religion caters to that self betrayal, yes, even in a survival mechanism type way (coping through trauma) and like you said, yes, it is also a control system that relieves guilt for wrongdoing (ex: it's ok to rape children because God forgives us and loves us anyway), and then it also is a control system to accuse and judge others for their wrong-doing. And yes to everything you said.

But also the other day I had this new thought like maybe the bible was just an attempt to show us the rise and fall of a civilization- and warning us about what could possibly happen. And like, it could be the victim of whisper down the lane effect, where it’s message got garbled, with a touch of minatour circumstance (people didn’t have the science to understand the message). Cause like, you know how there were ancient civilizations before the ancient civilizations- and some say some of them were possibly even more advanced than ours…. but they all fell. They keep falling. And if I was a witness of that, or heard distant tales of the rise and fall of civilizations… I might try to capture the story in order to possibly warn future civilizations about how it happened… so then the Anti-Christ is born in the minds of men who are trying to understand, to blame the fall of civilization.

What I do sense is that you have a good mind, and I understand the things you’re saying even if it doesn’t seem like it. You’re more technical about it, and I’m more female about it, lol.

And I also know that I like you because you're there reinforcing things in my mind- so that feels good too. It always feels good when someone else is saying the things inside of you that wants to be heard... putting it all together, voicing it. All organized and nice and neat. I love that.

People making God so they can have someone to blame? Back then people needed reasons, even though they didn't have a good ones like the technical explanations or context that we can form today.

If trauma can have such impact, does the mind simply say screw the left side of me, I'm just going stay here? Denial?