What quote? I responded to a whole article
What so you believe people living in the “wild” or in “nature” don’t have society?
I ask because that is what it’s sounding like what you are assuming up there.
Please clarify.
This quote:
“You spend enough time in meditation, you will realize that you never genuinely feel feelings in the first place
it is all just cause and effect response
and a lot of the time the specificity of that response is ascribed to how societal expectations dictate one should be effected by a particular cause
loss–>sadness
gain–>joy”
If they did have society then that really speaks to my point about how what you feel isn’t your feelings or thoughts but what society tells you to feel and how to respond.
I’m sorry inthedarkness
Okay, feelings are caused by triggering events. I won’t argue against that.
Not sure why that’s a problem though - where would you propose our feelings should be coming from, in order to make them valid in your eyes?
Doesn’t it start with how mom and dad’s expectation and upbringing dictate how your mind developes.
We are social animals, we live within societies be the tiny family units, tribes, for nations - why shouldn’t “societal” expectations be related how we behave as individuals.
To me this sounds like complaining that gravity only pulls things in one direction, even though we (or at least the instruments we create) experience gravitational forces pulling at us from every direction.
If they do have society?
You don’t think a family is a society that follows certain social structures?
What’s the alternative?
To lock yourself in a cave where nothing can influence you?
It’s all very confusing to me. Both what you are complaining about. And even more, what do you expect it to be replaced with?
I hear you saying nothing is anything, nothing matters, and we are supposed to be perfect individual beings, independent of outside influences.
Where does that take you, or us?
[quote=“inthedarkness, post:203, topic:10083”]
“You spend enough time in meditation, you will realize that you never genuinely feel feelings in the first place
it is all just cause and effect response
and a lot of the time the specificity of that response is ascribed to how societal expectations dictate one should be effected by a particular cause.
Yes, it is a survival technique. Safety in numbers. Safety in anonymity.
loss–>sadness = Minus (-)
gain–>joy” = Plus (+)
change" = Differential equations (=).
The natural tendency to achieve balance (rest) shows up everywhere.
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”
I don’t see how that speaks to your point at all. You need a comparison, a control group, something that’s alive, but doesn’t have feelings. Not sure how you could that, since as we are able to see simpler organisms we see what appears to be motivations, something at work.
Anyway, why don’t you try the experiment of having no input from society? Go and sit in a field or wherever you’d like, just shut the electronics off for a few hours. Can you describe your feelings as “nothing”. Do you even desire to do the experiment at all?
I think you misunderstand.
From within, I guess the argument is something like a soul. Because if it’s just a response because society says I ought to feel that then do I really? Can any of my own emotions, wants, desires, all that really be true and honest or is it just “brainwashing”. Nothing is really my own, it all just comes from somewhere else. How can I be sure anything I feel is truly genuine?
I’ve done that before and felt nothing, and it reminds me of what she said:
“fter that first level, it is appropriate to feel a variety of ways to share in social experiences
if people around you are depressed over loss, the compassionate thing is often to commiserate with them, rather than tell them their loss is false and not worth crying over
if people around you want to give you gifts and celebrate their promotion at work, the compassionate thing is to thank them for the gifts and share in their celebration to maximize their feelings of joy
in both situations, the individual with “true understanding” knows there is no reason to feel anything with regards to either situation as they are just random things that occur through particle and waves in reality colliding
but the conventionally appropriate way of being in the world may include feeling depressed over things to empathetically connect with other people”
Natural selection, you are here and now is proof of adaptability.
Yes, and it is not exclusive to humans. Many animals grieve when losing something they deem precious.
The reason why an empathic response is an honest reflection of the observed behavior in another true neural response is due to mirror neurons" in the brain.
Mirror Neuron
A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an organism acts and when the organism observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.
Mirror neurons are not always physiologically distinct from other types of neurons in the brain; their main differentiating factor is… Wikipedia
Compassion is a feeling. Did someone teach you to feel it?
Okay so think about what’s inside of you.
Your insides is a something,
your body is born with the ability to figure out how the world around it operates and how to get what it needs. and what it needs to do to survive.
Ever think of where that body came from?
If you answer from your mom and dad joining egg and sperm,
you wouldn’t be wrong, but you’d be far from correct, because those genes that joined, went through billions of years worth of experimenting, the survivors where able to experiment some more, and so on. Your body is the product of hundreds of thousands of years of a recognizable body having survived long enough and well enough to be able to sire surviving creatures.
Think about the heritage within your body.
Every new generation - your body is a new beginning for what your parents started; and their parents; and the whole mind boggling pageant that went into making your current body. You ought to trying glorying in its magnificent.
It’s that body and the brain that creates you. That’s why it feels like you to be you - because there is no other f’n thing you can be! But the body that fate bestowed upon you. Everything you think and feel is processed through your body, through physical relays and such. Nothing imaginary or woo about a millisecond of it, there’s simply too much there to comprehend.
That’s all confused, you think society is the only thing that has influence over you?
Or heck, that simplistic generic “society”, what society? What are you talking about? At what level? Think of your varying network of acquaintances and friends don’t they represent various sub societies depending on ethnic background and such. Different influences from different groups.
Or blame yourself?
What about your attraction to one influence over the other?
Who’s really at fault for the situations we put ourselves into,
while secretly waiting for the random roll dice?
What about your body. Even in the worst of world, in prison, or a slave, or dying from illness, still you are your body. Your body owns you.
So everything else comes from somewhere else.
Why is that a problem?
How else would you want it to be?
And no matter where you go, there you are!
Well sure, but don’t over do it either. .
After all, as you point out it’s all meaningless in the end,
so perhaps the only meaning there is, is in living as well as one can.
And by well I don’t mean wealthy, I’ve found it looks great from the outside, but therein lies insanity and real emptiness. The emptiness of the soul which one had to sell off bit by bit, in order to achieve their wealth.
I think he might be thinking about feigned compassion, false sympathy intended to impress society, rather than that empathy, that is one’s natural reaction to another’s great loss or suffering - a kinship in relating to the pain being suffered, feeling an echo of the pain being suffered.
Still good question Lausten. We’ll see what he thinks.
But then, why would we feel a need to feign compassion?
This is beautiful. It’s a way of describing the self, something that meditation reveals might not exist. Or, as tradition calls it, the soul. That ineffable inner feeling of who we are. The part of us that we feel was there before society told us what we can’t do and shouldn’t do. The part of us that wants to push the crayon outside of the lines of the coloring book.
How can I be sure anything I feel is truly genuine?
@inthedarkness, i missed this earlier, because it was a response to CC. What an awesome question. I’m afraid there is no simple answer. It’s a question I ask myself all the time, but don’t let it slow you down.
I believe it can be genuine, but not necessarily correct. You just have to trust what your brain tells you.
Careful with those voices in your head! They aren’t always right.
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Ah, but I have only 1 voice in my head, and I have never known it to be wrong! 
I ignore the whispers… 
Have I got a bumper sticker for you:
“You’re just jealous because the voices aren’t speaking to you.”
I still giggle when I remember seeing that one.
Okay, now seriously, I won’t try to guess at your experience, then again, it’s also difficult to think I’m particularly unique, so I’m imagining the following is a shared experience to a greater to lesser extent.
When one is playing devil’s advocate with oneself, isn’t one enlisting different “voices”. Doesn’t one’s temperament hit all the different notes on the scale at one moment or another?
When you entire a room full of people, doesn’t your behavior naturally adjust to who is present, don’t you allow different “voices” to come forward and preset themselves according to particular circumstances? And isn’t that absolutely human, we interact with others, thus they influence us, and visa versa. And to varying degrees, according to a formula too complex to imagine and circumstance too random to anticipate.
I can’t think in terms of a voice, or even voices anymore, it closer to recognizing a veritable chorus.
And when I think about such, the cuddlefish comes to mind, the way its skin is always adjusting to its surroundings. We people are a bit like that. Constant changes, yet the same creature.
Having a more personal understanding for being an evolved biological thinking creature really helps to sort it out, a bit like benchmarks for the mind.
Part of it comes from understanding that our reactions come from many places, still they follow predictable patterns. Better understanding the structure of the various sources of one’s “influencers” (the drivers of our behavior) empowers us to pay better attention to what’s happening (no longer groping in the fog of not recognizing oneself), and to systematically resolve issues, rather than endless flaying at the unknown.
It also enables one to recognize other sources that can be eliminated. Such as being more selective with whom we hang with, or the places we go to.
It helps us get clear on values and making good use of one’s remaining time on this Earth.
It has the power to make one feel good about themselves in spite of what’s going down around us.
Understanding is power. But only for those who chose to accumulate and exercise it.
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Aahh, yes. I do have different voices for the people and my animals I deal with.
We are all actors on the stage of life. But it is the internal voice that needs to be dependable and trustworthy or it can leave you unable to act at all.
There is an excellent book I read a long time ago. About a schizophrenic woman who recovered, but remembered her “voices”.
Operators and Things:
The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic
Barbara O’Brien
A little excerpt:
Part One
The Operators Leave
The Operators left me at the door of the analyst’s office just as they had on my prior visits.
Dr. Donner was standing in the middle of his office waiting for me. Uneasiness hung around the room like a thick mist. He’s been walking up and down, I thought, spraying worry around. The room is filled with worry.
He smiled and motioned me to the couch. I sat and waited for him to explain about the worry.
“I’ve been discussing your case with an associate.” He waved an arm vaguely and looked away at one of the walls, and the fixed, amiable expression on his face collapsed. His face suddenly looked worn and tired, and somewhat fearful. Something has him scared, I thought, and leaned forward to study his face.
“Schizophrenia rarely clears up after this length of time without shock therapy.” He walked to his desk and looked at a little notebook that lay open, “You’re sure of the date when it started?”
Yes, I was quite sure.
“It’s been six months.” He brooded at the wall. “I don’t like shock treatment. It isn’t effective in most cases, and sometimes the results are— are not desirable.” The fear on his face was quite clear now.
Then I realized why I was studying his face so closely. Hinton was tuned in on my mind and was studying the analyst’s face through my eyes.
more…
There is no “little brain” inside your brain.
There isn’t something inside your perception/processing that percieves, and there isn’t something delivering thoughts to the rest of your brain that then thinks about them. There’s your body/brain doing all that at once.
There can be multiple “minds” inside your brain. It depends on your feedback system.
How to break the negative thinking loop
- Recognise your thoughts.
- Challenge your thoughts.
- Be your own friend.
- Focus on positive people (and aim to be one)
- Watch what you’re watching (and reading)
- Focus on the present.
- Bring the inside out.
- Talk about it.
(https://mensline.org.au/signs-and-symptoms-of-depression/how-to-break-the-negative-thinking-loop/)
Except there is no such thing because it’s all part of society. Their description of the self and who you are is mistaken. If everything comes from somewhere else then no one can really call their feelings their own. Like the quotes I posted mentioned it’s cause and effect response and that response is based on how society dictates we ought to feel. So yours and my life are just manufactured, not really, just…fabricated.
Following a script, not really connecting to anything going on around you because when you break it down there isn’t really a reason to feel X or Y over something since stuff just happens randomly. We feel that because society says so, we fall in love and value what we do because society says so. Nothing is our own and we’re just mere puppets being told what to do and following it.
That never works when it comes to breaking negative thinking.