Actually what the article is getting at is that all these self-images (discovered or otherwise) are all false, as the other articles show.
Like this quote from one of the articles:
" I have just completed the first Self Mastery course but am troubled by something. I agree with all you say and can see the validity of implementing each of your suggestions. However, a couple of sessions led me to conclude that conversations with people are a waste of time as so much what is said is not true. The ‘finding neutral’ session troubles me nearly as much as it helps me. It seems I am supposed to basically brush off everyone’s opinions as their view only and not necessarily the truth.
Then the page titled, ‘understanding relationships and the source of emotional drama’ suggests that even our view of ourselves and others and other people’s view of us and themselves may also be false. So if people are telling me stuff about themselves or me I’m supposed to tune out to it as there may be no truth to it. But that leaves me feeling disconnected. How can I connect with people if I assume that what they have to say should be disregarded? Part of the joy of life is discovering that you have something in common with someone. But if that common element is an illusion they have about themselves then it is a waste of time engaging in conversation with them in the first place."
The links I posted would argue that such notions of a social reality aren’t real. Neither is a self or ego, and that when you say someone hurt you emotionally you’re lying because you caused that by assigning a whole theater production to yourself:
For example, if you hear a loud bang, it could be a car backfiring, a door slamming, it could be a gunshot. Your brain doesn’t know what the causes are, it only knows the effect, and so, it has to guess
You are quoting a person’s question and the answer corrects his misunderstanding. You can find people on the internet who agree with you, that doesn’t make you right.
In the answer:
Isn’t being a human being enough to have in common with people to begin creating a connection?
You seemed to have dropped the idea that we can’t know anything about reality and youre focusing more on knowing your own feelings.
The answer to this question about the cause of feelings in a relationship begins
Consider that it might be both
Worth considering. It talks about false feelings, which implies there are true feelings. Getting to absolute truth might be impossible, but since were alive, might as well try.
I don’t see it. It says 7 comments, but only shows 5. I can see why you don’t like it. It’s about the problem you can’t illuminate, that we can’t get to how it feels to be human via the physical sciences.
15:00 Rebecca wrote, “The mind/body problem”, a novel. What are we talking about when we say “consciousness"? We can be conscious of objects, and we can see the self as an object. We can describe our thoughts.
She goes through the history of philosophy because he asks. She starts with the Greeks, although I’d like to know more about what she alludes to, that there was a time when the separation of mind and body wasn’t a thing. We still say “gut feeling” and “from the heart”, probably because we viewed ourselves as a whole system, and of course all the stuff about gods pushing us around. Anyway. She quickly gets to the point where mechanistic science began, and the thinkers that we know of came up with the question of if we can break down the world into mathematical equations, and “read the book of nature”, can we do that for our thoughts? Is our mind accessible via scientific methods? We know color is the result of waves and the mind’s processing of them, but how does it feel to see red?
Phillip jumps in with “Galileo’s Error”, and says we can’t use quantitative vocabulary to describe the experiences. It’s an interesting point, that since science put consciousness aside, to study the physical, science has flourished. If we will ever be able to apply quantitative to the qualitative remains to be seen.
At 22, Ned brings it back to evolution and describes how philosophy and the physical sciences are working together. “Philosophers realize they need to learn the science, and scientists realize they need some understanding of the philosophical issues.”
25: Rebecca comes back and agrees and tries to explain where fiction fits in to that, because he asks. Before answering that, she says, “One of the things that philosophers are trained to do is to map out the space of possibilities given the science. There are often more possibilities than the scientists are aware of, or it’s not what they’re thinking about. Also, philosophers try to bring the original intuitions that people have about (lists the big questions) and see how they stand up against what the science is telling us. We share the basic human concerns of trying to get our bearings in this world.”
On fiction, it’s another way we explore how we see ourselves, by inventing characters and showing how they react to the world, and sometimes showing how they think. “Anything that can be expressed in language is the easy problem. All we can say about the hard problem is, ‘what is it about this to-be-ness’? You know because you have it, but it’s not explained by words or math. Fiction is another way to attempt to get at it.”
Simply showing that input travels to the brain and its process doesn’t answer that. Knowing that we evolved in an environment doesn’t answer that.
“Where fiction fits in?” Wouldn’t a good place to start be to explicitly recognize that our fictions are part of our mind and its thoughts. Just as our Gods are. Even our science, philosophy, and laws and arts, all spring from our unique physical/body/brain and the human thoughts it generates.
Then move up from there?
Why? Why look at it that way?
We feel like something to be something because we are biological creatures,
each unique onto itself.
Why is so difficult to understanding fundamental reality?
Because the details are devilishly difficult, perhaps even beyond human ability to fully comprehend?
Why do so many project this sense of entitlement to know every detail, or the right to make it up and argue anything?
It would be better to spend more time digesting what we’ve already learned.
Why not?
That’s where understanding the significance of our Evolutionary Heritage is so key.
I believe it’s a pretense to assume we can’t figure it out via the evidence that’s accumulating.
We know that each biological creature produces its own “mind” (awareness), based the arrangement of its body/brain. We know the floods of sensory information and command and action flows. We have images of it. We keep getting ever closer looks at the plethora of mechanisms making creatures aware of themselves, receiving information, giving commands. Getting ever more complex for the past billion years of nature’s tinkering. Why do so many philosophers find such evidence irrelevant is beyond me. Worse, why the hostility towards it.
Why can we accept that iron and a magnet moved against each other produces electricity?
Why does bodily bio-electricity communication channels and systems producing an inner dialogue, and us picking on that inner dialogue, be dismissed with such alacrity by philosophers? As neuroscientists are recording the tracks of consciousness in action and learning more with every published paper and image.
Why not consider a fresh new Universal Philosophical Null Hypothesis in light of modern understanding?
Instead of “I think therefore I am”,
the “Hard Problem”
or "What does it mean to feel like something?
Instead of a intellectual gotchas, why not focus on appreciating the most fundamental observation we can make* regarding our human condition:
Human mind ~ Physical Reality divide, which seems a good first base, for any serious modern philosophical outlook?
*If you think that’s a bit much, I welcome alternate suggestions.
I think if you know what the word fiction means, then that’s already covered.
Most of those other questions you have are things that bother you. There is no sense of entitlement, we are spending time digesting what we know. I don’t know why you are asking, “Because the details are devilishly difficult, perhaps even beyond human ability to fully comprehend?”
Or why you think, “I believe it’s a pretense to assume we can’t figure it out via the evidence that’s accumulating.” Well, figure it out then. Are you saying no one is trying to?
There’s no hostility. They are talking about the thing that has not been done, getting inside someone else’s thoughts. Mapping a few neurons firing when you touch a button doesn’t come close to that.
No one is dismissing that. You can’t show the images inside the mind, the 20 reactions to a stimuli, the infinite thoughts that are triggered by the smell of cinnamon buns. You know it’s bio-electricity, and some general areas of the brain that are activated, but that’s about all you know.
We’ve moved way beyond Descartes. There are many arguments against the Hard Problem. Why you wouldn’t want to ask about feelings, I don’t know.
You are fighting battles that are over. You don’t seem to know where the front is.
No they are implying any self image that you form by default is false. The article makes that quite clear, even at the bottom where they explicitly mention that the ego is a source of suffering and pain.
Like…it’s pretty clear on it, the correct image is (ironically) no image:
Considering this guy read The Four Agreements and studied with the dude who wrote it (allegedly) it’s likely what I’m arguing is what he means.
I don’t think you understand what is meant by false feelings. He refers to pretty much anything negative as a false feeling and anything positive as not being false. You might have to look them over again as it’s rather clear what he means by good and bad.
I also never said we can’t know anything about reality, just that a lot of stuff challenges our notions of what is real.
I’m saying that it’s questioning the common thought process that people have, like the part about opinions. His correction is trying to insist that you don’t bond with people over shared things as this is illusory.
I will say that being human being enough to create a connection is, at best, woefully ignorant as to how and what connections actually form/are. It’s more than just a feeling, obviously. If what he said was true then every stalker would have a connection with their object of affection and so would every case of unrequited love. Even speaking for myself I know it takes more than just a feeling for there to be a connection, he’s wrong that we are just looking for a feeling.
Glad we cleared that up. It would be nice if you quoted instead of making me go find your references. Just basic courtesy. I thought we had something going for a minute, but I’ll probably be back to warning you again soon.
This is from the bottom. Doesn’t say what you said. Doesn’t mention the Id or super ego. Earlier it says positive and negative images make up the ego.
Because of its multiple aspects, it’s not practical or effective to dissolve all of it at once, nor is it likely that you could do so.
Much like a tree or large bush that is overgrown in the yard, you don’t just lift it out and throw it away – you cut off manageable pieces instead. The same approach is effective with letting go of the false beliefs that make up the ego. You begin by detaching from individual thoughts that reinforce it, then let go of beliefs, separating yourself from the false identity of your ego
You are so focused on finding gotchas, that you miss the message.
There’s a distinct difference between a fiction story, and the mental fictions such money, our Constitution, etc.
A) it’s about philosophers saying Chalmer’s Hard Problem can never be resolved, because we’ll never find, the magical direct connection between thoughts and neurons. Otherwise why are our visuals of brain activity not making more of an impact in this field?
As for the simple or devilishly difficulty - that’s fairly straight forward. For example, the fundamentals of weather systems and climate studies are easy enough for any half interested high school student to master. Whereas the fine details are difficult enough to keep super computers humming for days and still make mistakes.
It’s a question of what degree of knowledge is required to make substantive workable conclusions.
They are asking: Why does it feel like a bat to be a bat?
Yet, no one in the audience is pointing out - how else is a bat supposed to feel?
It inhabits a freak’n bat body.
With bat needs and bat appetites.
Why does it feel like you to be you? And listeners stand around as if there isn’t any answer, when the answer is right at the tip of your nose and in your fingers It feels like you to be you, because you are a unique creature, part of the animal species homo sapiens.
You feel and live via your body, there’s nothing else you could possibly be!
If folks can’t grasp that fundamental beginning, no wonder we are all so confused about everything else, all the while creating this self destructive society, that is slowly but surely turning Earth into a hell scape.
You are way behind the current state of the science.
Not according to public facing lectures.
Besides, it’s about what are we moving toward. I see too much contrived confusion.
Why shouldn’t we enunciate the obvious?
What’s being asked is:
Why does a bat feel like a bat?
A bat feels like a bat because it inhabit a bat’s body, and lives within a bat’s world.
Because our consciousness is the inside reflection of our body in action, the sum total, a symphony of all our bodily systems. Some known, some only glimpsed at, such as the recent realization of the importance of the facia network that runs through our entire muscular system. Communications running through our lymphatic system, the influence of our guts over how we feel, and lets not forget the driving pressure and tension coming from your cojones/ovaries, with their various cascading consequences in behavior, and much more.
Why isn’t that the centerpiece of the introduction to any “What is Human Consciousness” discussion?
Why do you wave that complaint away?
I try to understand, but don’t get it. Beyond the natural clinging to the tradition, it makes no sense to me.
You keep implying I’m worried about trivialities,
When I think they get to the essence of all the learned confusion being propagated because of that veneer of contrived mystery pasted upon nature’s processes.
Particularly, and especially that bizarre interface between science and the lay public.
Which has turned into another money making world of opportunism and celebrity worship, like it seems to have happened with everything else. Ever see the fed being given to our pre-schoolers via iPad and such.
But, you can get there much faster and more completely by recognizing what your body is, and where its consciousness comes from. That is simple evidence based stuff, but better not bring it up in a philosophy discuss. What’s up with that?
… The virtual self is a the ego. It can encompass many aspects of our personality and drive our emotions, often unpleasant. The ego can hold us in a cage of that virtual self. It has bars made of beliefs as diverse as righteous anger, and feeling powerless of our sadness. The ego is constructed from the beliefs we have about our self, thus creating a false identity held virtually in the mind. …
This wording offers no graspable guardrails for understanding ourselves. Wavy Gravy.
Mucho blah. Why not start by recognizing,
I AM AN EVOLVED BIOLOGICAL THINKING CREATURE, the product of Earth’s Evolutary process.
My body has been refined and honed through millions of years of evolution.
All I experience and learn and believe cames from within my biological body processing my interactions with the reality that surrounds me.
My body produces my consciousness. I am aware of the dynamic between my biological body and the me, myself, and I on a much deeper level.
This enable me to be more cognizant of the living duality between my body and my thoughts.
In turn, this awareness puts me and my impulsed on a different relationship footing, then when I was clueless about my insides and the evolutionary journey my body took to get me to this point in time and space.
Does any of that make sense?
Sure, no arguing, guess my point is, that’s just word salad, we love it, get me going with some attentive ears and I can go back and forth for hours, and go home feeling better. But, what can we really say about:
“separating yourself from the false identity of your ego”
What false sense are we talking about?
Are we taking about ego, as in how we feel about ourselves?
Or ego as in the essence of the self?
Or ego as the observer?
It’s all gets so confusing and philosophizing.
Whereas what I’m talking about has real world practical application for some.
A foundation of real world awareness to build upon.
You’re so focused on finding something wrong with philosophers, you have to ask for definitions of the most common words.
If what you are saying is, we know the mind is a result of our brain, and that’s good enough, then fine. That is how I live my life, when my body stops supplying energy to my brain, then there is no more physical me. I’ll be nothing but memories in other brains. But why not let some people work on finding out more, like how matter creates consciousness?
Bill Cosby asked “why is there air” when he was young, and his brother, “to blow up basketballs”. It’s just a joke. Why do you have to go around telling people what they should think about?
A lot of people don’t think that, and they are in congress and saying God is speaking directly to them. If I you go shake them and tell them they are wrong, and they would start caring about starving children in North Carolina, I would do it. But that’s not how it works.
You extrapolate the science beyond it’s scope. You have shown nothing other than talks on how we know if someone is anesthetized or not, or how the hard problem doesn’t exist (which you might be right about, but you still have to demonstrate it with physics, and you haven’t)
And there you go again with your reductionism. You ignore all the things that need to be done to understand consciousness, and pick out one of the examples of how to approach it, one of the thousands of ways to frame the question, and say “this is what’s being asked”. That’s not it. It’s one sentence. Mystery is not contrived. That is so arrogant. And you wonder why people aren’t interested in your, whatever you call it, theory.
You’re quoting from the articles as if I said those things. The articles are messed up enough and that’s why InTheDark is in the dark. I’m not going answer all those questions.
It just gets better. I would think you would love it just for the question of “does any of this matter?” Maybe it bothers you that they answered it. It comes at 49:00
For me, when I’m thinking about my own approach to the world, the first thing I think is that I don’t know. I can build that up using probabilities, but I’m starting with not knowing, so my calculations could be way off. I’ll say right off, I agree most with Rebecca. Here’s the panel;
Ned, scoffs. Are consciousness and cognition different? Two theories try to square them, and it includes animals, not just adult humans. So, it matters to how we think about ourselves, are we thinking things, or do we think and feel?
Rebecca. People seem to be afraid of death. The question relates to consciousness, ourselves, can we continue after death. She says no. The mind is what the brain does, even though we don’t know exactly how. That matters to purpose, are there rewards after a good life or is this it?
Ned comments that if consciousness is information, then we can load it into a machine.
Phillip. Says the upload thing is saying we are zombies. Then, consciousness is at the root of identity. We have subtle thoughts and a sense of beauty. He sees this as incompatible with the materialist view. It is why people don’t feel they fit into the world science tells us about.
55:00 The question about the personal level.
Ned, not much. Rebecca is awed by what matter can do. There is mystery. We have a structural view of the physical world, but, “that can’t be the whole story of what matter is”. Physics doesn’t describe how matter can wake up to the world and realize that it is not just in the world, but the world exists as a result of it, that it is the same stuff as the non-thinking particles. The difference between matter with consciousness and without it is an extraordinary difference that lacks a complete explanation. The implications of consciousness existing at sub-cellular levels are enormous. Even simply the idea of consciousness in plants. If we can’t draw those lines, what are we basing our choices on?
Phillip’s journey is little strange. He says it himself. So I’ll skip it.
If you would be more clear about what you are talking about, that would help.
Yes, the “What Is The Ego” article starts with
The ego is the identity concept our mind constructed. It is an identity that is false.
AND, AND, it is immediately followed by
We are more than just the mind and the ego.
I don’t hear you talking about the “more”. I’ve pointed out and asked a few times, what about the other aspects of “you”? If someone can write an article, and you can evaluate it, what is doing the evaluating? If anyone can say “society shapes you”, how do they know? How did they find themselves outside of the society-shaped self, and make that statement?
These questions all have answers. no matter how imperfect, we can talk about them. Buddhism talks about the “self” not existing, and that’s thousands of years old. You can verify it by sitting quietly and letting your thoughts go wherever they go. That “self” that you normally focus on as you, will float and you might start to wonder just what part of you is breathing. You can “take a breath”, or you can “just let it out”.
As your link says, “The ego is difficult to define because the ego isn’t one specific thing.”
And it’s difficult to develop the vocabulary. As your link also says, “One of the most deceptive aspects of the ego is that it generates powerful emotional reactions and then blames us for how it made us feel.”
So where is “us” and “it” in this sentence? IMO, it’s a bit clumsy, but it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you and I agree there are different ways of being of aware of who we are. Only then will this conversation start to make any sense.
Because philosophers are always telling me what to think
and what they are telling me has become wholly inadequate
and not keeping up with the science of consciousness!
Why do philosopher types always want me to shut up?
Then dodge my questions,
and ignore my challenges with misdirection?
===========================================
What’s that really talking about?
Within reality your ego doesn’t have much choice over breathing.
What part of you is breathing? Your body is breathing.
You can choose how you breath in and out to a very small extent.
You can focus on body doing that and how you perceive it.
But you can’t command you body to not breath,
no matter how much will power you have, if you’re will power is super human, you’ll pass out,
and your body will continue the breathing and keep your ego alive for you.
Focusing on breathing will get you more focused on body and feelings, but trying to commingle ego with breathing, confuses what your body actually is. You come off, as so many as though the body were almost incidental to what it means to be you, or your ego.
Well here’s another simple reason why it’s important to gain better appreciation for your body - to leads to a better understanding of where your emotions spring from, thus offering tools for better self-awareness and self-moderation.
It’s clumsy because we haven’t integrated a deeper understanding of our body/brain~mind system. I believe the short coming is highlighted in the way most still cling to that proud conceit that notion that, I think therefore I am. Lordie knows it’s still waved around plenty.
How can you take a person on a stage somewhere personally? They aren’t talking to you. I’m not counting the one professor you talk about.
Are you trolling me? This is a perfectly standard explanation of meditation. Google it.
Yes, that’s a valid next step, but inthedarkness is still making a connection from the ego creating a “false” sense of self, to there being no real “you”. Or something like that, it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking, so I’m asking him, not you.
