Self-awareness is complete understanding of who/what you are. It cuts through the trance and illusions created by culture to protect us from the pain of our trauma imprints, and was called “enlightenment” by Gautama, or “Sanity” (being Real). Gurdjieff, the Buddhists, and trauma treatment specialists all use self-observing as the method to get it.
And recent neuro-science has shown that accessing the right hemisphere of the brain is the key to self-observing. THE LEFT HEMISPHERE CANNOT DO THIS BY ITSELF. IT IS PHYSIOLOGICALLY INCAPABLE OF SELF OBSERVATION.
Here is a video about it The Path to Emotional Healing and Sanity - YouTube - “The Path of Self-observing”.
PLEASE DISCUSS.
Self-awareness is complete understanding of who/what you are. It cuts through the trance and illusions created by culture to protect us from the pain of our trauma imprints,Right Brain Guy. How do you develop understanding of "who/what you are" if you disregard the environment (culture) each of exists in? Sociology itself is the study of culture. It seems to me you may disregarding the fact that "No man is an island." IMO if you disregard (not necessarily like) the influence the culture you exist in you will never achieve self- understanding.
Garythehuman wrote:
IMO if you disregard (not necessarily like) the influence the culture you exist in you will never achieve self- understanding.Your comment made me think of the following: Culture is to humans what water is to fish. We swim in it without even recognizing that it's there. It's not an original statement on my part. I'm afraid I can't remember who said it, but I like it! It suggests -- accurately I think -- that sometimes people are shaped by culture without being aware of how or why.
The right hemisphere of the brain observes all sensory input into and inside the body before the left hemisphere spins that information into a narrative. (This is neuro-scientific fact.) This is what Gautama’s “cease the chatter of the mind” is all about. Two hemispheres, two different functions. See the video: The Path to Emotional Healing and Sanity - YouTube
Culture is to humans what water is to fish. We swim in it without even recognizing that it's there. It's not an original statement on my part. I'm afraid I can't remember who said it, but I like it! It suggests -- accurately I think -- that sometimes people are shaped by culture without being aware of how or why.And yet one of the staple characters in science fiction is the alien or the android character (e.g. Data on Star Trek) who sits slightly outside the prevailing culture, aware of its influences and at the same time aware of its absurdities, too.
Culture is to humans what water is to fish. We swim in it without even recognizing that it's there.Plato had his analogy of the shadow figures projected on the wall of a cave and all the unaware people facing only forward, not seeing the real world outside the cave. C.S. Lewis had the man looking out at the garden, but not noticing the glass that he had to look through. Dick Cheney had "not knowing what you don't know". And let's not forget the man behind the curtain. None of these are wrong, but how they are applied can be just as horrible of a distortion as the original lack of vision that is being pointed to. Often, the next step is that whomever has just told you that you lack vision will now tell you what they know about the real world and how things really work. I have to admit that I've lost a couple decades following such mumbo jumbo. What's sad is, although the American education system is lacking in many ways, it gave me the basic skills to get out of the cave, see the glass, and figure out the currents that are pushing me around.
The contribution of the right hemisphere of the brain to human knowledge is neuroscientific fact. Its “mumbo jumbo” is the raw data from which ALL science comes. “The right hemisphere thinks in pictures and learns kinesthetically.” (Jill Bolte Taylor) Also see The Master and His Emissary by Lain McGilchrist. If you want to be a left-brain Fundamantalist, “it’s a free country”, but you remove yourself from the cutting edge of the evolution of human consciousness.
NOTE:
btw, the function of the right hemisphere of the brain in human knowledge has ONLY RECENTLY been substantially expanded (e.g. Taylor 2008, McGilchrist 2007). This new material radically changes our understanding of the relationship between conceptual (left brain) and non-conceptual (right brain) information. It also radically changes our understanding of meditation. But these new insights are indeed mainstream, hardcore science. The bottom line is that all traditional rationalistic explanations of knowledge are now invalid and need revision. The cultural implications are also huge.
Secularism does not suffer from this development, but it does become more complex. [See my web site.]
"The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? " Jeremiah 17:9
So self-awareness is really not any kind of measure for a Christian. I prefer to have spiritual gifts of knowledge, discernment and wisdom like Solomon prayed for and received. Each believer receives some kind of spiritual gift after their conversion. Then it needs to be recognized and developed for use for the congregations edification. It’s not for my benefit. It’s to be used by God for His purposes and glory. Besides I’ve found that too much knowledge puffs up a person with pride just like scripture says.
For example I was led almost immediately to a fabulous Bible study class that goes through the whole Bible over a course of 6 semesters that took 3 years. (Faith Bible Institute - Pastor John Yates)
It was a priceless gift I received and allowed me to become humbled and get most of the nagging questions I had answered (many are discussed in this forum) and prepared me well to share the Good News of the gospel without worrying about getting the message all goofed up by my own preconception/biases.
To us secularists, your experiences are all mere self-hypnosis, and your “answers” to questions are transparent delusions. In zen, your (right-brain) experience is: “When you realize that everything is just a passing into the vast universe, then you become very strong, and your existence becomes very meaningful.”
But thanks for highlighting why religion is so distasteful to reasonable people. (btw, I did 33 years of religion.)
The contribution of the right hemisphere of the brain to human knowledge is neuroscientific fact. Its "mumbo jumbo" is the raw data from which ALL science comes. "The right hemisphere thinks in pictures and learns kinesthetically." (Jill Bolte Taylor) Also see The Master and His Emissary by Lain McGilchrist. If you want to be a left-brain Fundamantalist, "it's a free country", but you remove yourself from the cutting edge of the evolution of human consciousness.I said "mumbo jumbo" so I guess this is to me, although it isn't about what I said, or at least meant to say. I didn't describe or explain what I meant by "mumbo jumbo" other than to say it is what comes after someone uses one of these analogies explain that we don't understand reality, really. 20th century science has quite clearly demonstrated that we don't experience many aspects of reality, at least not directly. We don't look at the stars and see the universe in three dimensions, experiencing the full depth of it's 13.7 billion years. We don't even experience thoughts as impulses inside our brains, so I don't know what you mean by a "left-brain Fundamantalist"
RBG, how do you include the data from children who are born with the umbilical cord wrapped around their neck cutting off blood flow to the brain (as I was) for varying amounts of time? A fair percent of these are obviously brain damaged and others who function normally show anatomical changes in one or the other of the hemispheres. The studies I read indicated that if one side is damaged, often the tasks are transferred to the other hemisphere.
Occam
The question to be asked is: “What does the right hemisphere of the brain know?” If you refuse to ask that question, then that is what I’m calling “a left-brain Fundamentalist”.
I hope that wasn’t supposed to be an answer to my question immediately above. And I’m sorry, but your question is quite incorrect as an initial one. Well before that we have to determine very precisely, the microscopic anatomy versus functioning in the various parts of the brain, exactly how sensory input is parsed between the two hemispheres, how the two hemispheres participate as a unit in determining behavior, etc. Only then can we begin to consider what neural input is stored in which half of the brain, i.e., what each half of the brain “knows”.
Occam