It goes something like this. Our brains solve problems, they are real good at it to. Ask a question and your grey matter will crunch away at it night and day, it can even imagine fresh possibilities. Ask it a question based on false assumptions and it may never stop.
Yes this is going to be another mind bender, so grab your favourite legal stimulant,(if desired) or close your curtains at least and get comfortable. I have been banging my head against this for years and it is still eludes me. So lets see if I can spit it out in simple language. Not bad to work all this stuff out for ourlselve's anyhow.. this is only my take, not “the truth”.
Knowledge is power, yep won't argue with that, but how often is power used wisely?
Power over who and what? what is power? is it the ability to change what is happening to alter the course of events?
What are the downstream effects of altering events? is there any end to it and can we ever know that, or is the power to change always greater than the knowledge that enables it?
If knowledge provides power but can not provide the wisdom of consequence, why do we value it so much?
I did warn you, this is going to get deep ;)
That is not the main thrust of todays expedition however, what I want to explore is what happens when we mistake a concept for a fact and try to embed that into our worldview, how does that effect our ability to focus?
Gaining Knowledge
Relatively few have access to the greatest teachers and universities, (none of my relatives anyhow ha ha).
Many of us can, however, access thousands of hours of video on any of the sciences. (even without torrents).
While knowledge may be getting cheaper, the time and ability to memorise it and the opportunity to practice applying and testing it actually remains scarce.
Children's brains may work like sponges when they are new and undamaged, but after a steady diet of sugars and polyunsaturated fats, (in the absence of anti oxidants). Add in some trauma and that sponge performs like that old thing under the sink in the laundry. It still absorbs, but may leave more mess than it can ever remove.
It's no secret that memorising useful patterns is actually not that easy, and it is only fun if we are interested in the subject.
Few of us take what we need from nature, so we must earn money and trade that for what we need. The way we value ourselves and each other can get confused with the way we display knowledge and the earning or “changing power” it provides. Their is a lot of pressure on us, and the quality of knowledge can suffer as much as the people who live under its influences.
What happens if we memorise something that is not strictly true?
Well it makes it very difficult for our minds to sort things out later.
We make connections between points of logic, that we like to call facts.
When we can verify these with experiences they gain credibility and become pivotal in our growing understanding of what our opportunities may be. (This is trust, which we have touched upon before)
A brain attached to a healthy nervous system playing in a safe environment full of rich sensual experiences learns like a super computer - (the kind of thing that AI is trying to emulate and exceed).
It learns fast because everything around us is accurate, inter-elated on some level and checkable, therefore it is easy to link "facts" together. It is easy to verify and cross reference the events that we can sense directly.
This is why experience is such a powerful teacher and book learning, while useful can leave us a little inept when it is time for action.
In reality everything is cause and effect - its perfect, to our senses, (if not our minds) everything balances, our biology does homeostasis, and its really good at it. Thats why it manages all the key life support systems and only lets us play with motor skills, (and thinking) we get to drive the bodymind but our biology keeps the wheels turning.
It takes us a year to learn to walk, longer to use our fingers with dexterity, about 20 years to build all the bone, muscle and organ structure of an adult. By that time, if we have not suffered undue physical or mental injury, if we have had time to move and play. It is possible that we can have a highly attuned, sensual, well balanced high performance mind/body.
So what's the problem?
If we are using our processing power to create real world solutions that increase playfulness, freedom and abundance that is pretty cool and super fun.
If we are coming from a place of fear and control or resistance to what is. If we are not playful, we become manipulative, miserable and addicted, what a waste of a life that would be. Misery loves company and power addicts love control. It’s just fear though.. fear born of mis understanding.
Misunderstanding born of trying to run on a broken world view. The world does not actually need our world views or our control, it was doing some pretty interesting things before we got organized.. (you know like biodiversity).
I will probably spend the rest of my life discussing this, so I don’t have to totally nail it in one blog lol... it is very hard to see the scale of Forrest from within it.
Un-tested "knowledge" may be the problem that keeps us in solving mode
"Facts" that we have taken on-board and never checked or no longer check become trusted "nodes" or reference points that we try to build the framework or our understanding upon. When we cant find a fit, our mind goes of into space trying to create one so that we can keep the damaged piece.
Imagine if you have a box full of jigsaw pieces in your mind/body - some are missing and can be found along the journey of your life as you gain rich experiences.
It’s actually not that hard to put together a working model of reality that you can use to recognise useful patterns.
The more easily we can recognise why events are happening , the less we need to work for our food and shelter. The more time we have for getting good at playing with what we really enjoy, (those activities that hold our attention effortlessly), the more unique pieces of jigsaw we find. Thats a beneficial loop - if we pick up pieces that dont fit - something else happens.
** Flow states revisited**
The magical flow state we covered a few posts ago, simply re-allocates circulation more evenly in our brains, while dosing us with natural pain killers, anti inflammatories, smart drugs and pleasure chemicals that reward acccurate jigsaw piece recognition.
Flow state is the biology, giving us a reality trip, so we don’t break it by acting out our fantasies.
The biggest thing it does, is shut down the stratigic imagining part of our minds - why?
Simple - that is where the noise in the system is, that is where all the jigsaw pieces that don't belong are still being churned, its where we store, what is not true, but can not be let go of.
The problem with solving is that in any one moment - everything in the universe is how it is because it can not be any other way, the events that led to it have already happened. Right now, we almost never need to be in our heads, in our thoughts. We are there because we don't accept the reality of right now and are working damn hard to alter it. Now that is not a bad thing, I kind of like this machine I am typing on, that began as a series of problems that were progressively solved.
Those kind of focused thoughts are not the noise in the system, they are the signal that we manage to tune into and develop into wondrous actions. Strict environmentalists may disagree here, but I am not anti technology. I am pro responsibility.
Have you ever caught yourself re-playing an argument in your mind....from 5 years ago!
Or a bullying incident, or some other time when you "let yourself down"?
How many hours a day is lost in fantasising about crap that is not helpful?
Now some day-dreaming is extremely healthy and can be fun and creative.
What about that other crap, the ceaseless commentary, the stream of opinions and labels about everything that we see and hear. That is noisy, and while our attention is with that it is not in our body, in our real feelings. It is our 5 senses that interact with the jigsaw pieces, we wont even notice them if we are in la la land.
Our biology responds to all this noise also, and we communicate our mood to others through body language voice tone and even our body odour. We are always the signal and the signaler - only the quality varies.
What if that mental noise is a function of our immune system?
Our body does homeostasis and keeps the party going, it fights infections and heals itself.
Why wouldn't it also try to kick out jigsaw pieces that don't belong to any picture representing reality?
Why would n't it give us the opportunity to be rid of mistaken beliefs, opinions and "false facts"?
We can't build a working 3 dimensional network on faulty nodes, or bad reference points - when we try to, our expectations are continuously challenged. This sends false warning signals to our biology constantly putting us into low level stress, it messes with our real motor skills, as covered in previous blogs. It sends strange signals to other people messing up the congruency of our communications. Its low level constant toxicity and we use alls sorts of addictive behaviour to cover it up, over-ride it or tone it down.
What if those noisy thoughts are our opinions being bounced back at us?
What if we have 2 choices?
1. Question the belief behind the thought
- can I absolutely know that this is true?
- who would I be if I did not believe this
- is the opposite possibly true?
(This is Byron Katies - the 3 questions).
2. Or keep imagining alternate version of reality where we get to be right.
where we dont have to let go of the toxic jigsaw piece.
where we keep trying to be in control
where we may seek knowledge for power
where we may not even be able to verify it
or care about the real world consequences for others.
Thoughts that carry the emotions of contraction or resistance, are usually just our immune systems way of saying “really, can we let go already?, do we still believe this?” - ok stay in tension, stay with the intension to control.
There are many ways to dis-charge these faulty programming loops.
Many ways to dump the toxic jigsaw pieces. To make it so much easier to build a more clear picture for our lives.
One that is verifiable by the senses and therefore in relationship with reality. Lets have a look some of those methods in future blogs.
this is psychobiology - its the comic version of the instruction manual I am writing for myself.
Its deep, but then so is the hole we have dug for ourselves.
ok so that was not funny...not everything is.
=8-P
Power lies there where we believe it is, the truth is when we believe it is. Absoluteness may be subjected to the meaning of defining the ideal criteria. I think whole of the objectification is also subjected to relativeness.
I tried to copy your writing skills but I think I need to study little bit of psychology, biology, philosophy and computer science to write a good article like you.
Value of knowledge is a matter of perspective.
What you value as useful knowledge, someone else might not.
"Power" from knowledge comes under many forms. Such as; Social (power), recognition, control, manipulation... reaching any type of personal gain or need by pure interest OR for the good of all...
The essence in having "Power" from knowledge often means that knowledge can potentially provide you the right support to realise your "goal(s)/dream(s)".
Information/Knowledge is a currency in an unregulated market.
Knowledge also has power in the sense that it gives you some steps ahead from everyone else.
Knowledge definetly shifts our focus.
It affects us by waking our awareness of certain things that we haven't thought of. Some knowledge might help our actions (decision-making) in a wiser way... although "processing knowledge"depends very much in who's hands gets into. If you give a certain degree of knowledge to someone that has the brains of a monkey, why not giving an atomic bomb to one and let's see what's going to happen.
Blockchain for ex; it is a "powerful" tool that has the potential to shift all current systems.. it is open source, everyone can access it. everyone can exploit it. it depends how. put them in the hands of gouvernments, banks, greedy brainless people, business corporations... what do you think it'll come out of it.. or if gouvernment had previously discovered it 1st...
Bitcoin/Blockchain has alot of "power". It all depends of "the" person's perspective.
Technology can do beautiful things but as beautiful it can be, it can be also as uggly.
hello my friend.
yes I fell Into the trap of trying to capture reality as knowledge
that is the irony, and why the book of the Dow can not be written blah blah
knowledge is a sacred cow
knowledge is only useful when we don't believe it
if we do, we start reacting to assumption rather than reality
we embody the memory in non flexible ways
when the wave comes it pushes us of balance
I wrote the last post out of flow
so it lacks the quality of playfulness
the line between caring and scaring is subtle indeed
the tension in my tissues is where I may find it
but not if my attention is in my strategy
I see how my whole post reeks of righteousness
even love of nature can turn into something
un natural if I cling.... for nature does not.
perhaps it is my ordinariness that allows me brief moments of compassion :)
I too am lost in mind, using mind to find the way back to my senses...
this is what questions can offer, never the answers formed of words, symbols...structured forms that are not allowed to "dis - solve" lol...
I often find imagination and sci-fi more real than "reality".
Thoughts become reality. since imagination is made up of thoughts, we definetly without a doubt cannot consider it an assumption.
that sounds like a matter of timing :)
which thoughts become reality ?
all of them?
some of them?
When we are with them, how sensitive are we to our surroundings?
Are we still listening and feeling those around us?
are we in relationship with our imagination or with reality?
of course it is fun to be in our imagination, but if we believe it is more valid than our senses, then how graceful will our actions be?
there are times when scarcity is real, when only one can feed
most conflict though arises from alternate views of the same reality
when all parties could actually meet in the realm of their senses.
rigid belief comes at the cost of reality, or it would not even exist.
flexible belief is updatable and fluid, this is what science is supposed to be, until we take it personally, start using it to add value to ourselves - that always leads to control and fear, from what I have experienced so far anyhow..
your comments are always insightful, thank you
isn't flexibility itself a form of "rigid belief'?
.
It could be made into one, but then it would not be flexible anymore.
When we take concepts personally, when we associate our own value as a tribal member to the holding of the knowledge - thats when we have trouble up-dating or releasing.
that is when we take concept and make it an opinion.
A pinion, like a wheel - is a point of leverage, for applying force.
for altering the flow of events
that is control
The cheetah and the antelope both give and take from their environment, but neither, significantly alters the flow of resources in their environment by introducing rigid structures - either mental or physical.
The Beaver would be an interesting animal to study lol..
(certainly many men become obsessed with it ha ha)
Unfortunately, this is exactly what humans do.
Hello :)) The whole life of man is one big puzzle. Man constantly tries to find a solution based on his knowledge and solve the problem.
"What happens if we memorise something that is not strictly true?"
We will receive life beats, until we understand that we do not have the right knowledge and we do not act correctly. That is, only experience can help us change our knowledge.
Hello :)
yep, pain is the teacher of last resort
it says let go,
the greater the fear, the greater the pain
it might seem that cruelty is to increase fear by altering the course of nature's flow
Knowledge is pieces of patterns lifted from nature, to be applied later
for our own perceived improvements
can we heal that which is not sick?
what happens if we try?
anyhow, it is good to be alive
I shall greatly appreciate my next visit to the wilderness
solve the problem with a clear head cold mind and not make quick decisions. always focus with what is faced and control emosi
I dont know if we can control emotion.
I think emotion is either control or acceptance
the emotions of contraction may be like programs that are already playing
the only way to interrupt or dis-spell them is with focus
Thank you, that is a great lead-in to the next blog post :)
yes but we can control our emotions with the subconscious, but we can control it with the heart, the always clean heart and the relegion heart.
I always support you man :d
the subconscious is possibly where our embodied beliefs live
the programs that determine our actions and our emotions
if so then the way to control emotions
is to dis-spell beliefs
dis-charge the programs
avoid the emotion that feed the loop.
religion contains both the beauty of peaceful connection and the pain of rigid belief, control by guild and fear.
we need trust and religion so that we can control our emotions as well as our inner doubts
I borrow the methods of religion from time to time, but I do not need any man made structure to help me to re-discover my true nature.
for that all I need is a nervous system - to check in with reality and see if my fears and tensions are relevant right now, or if I have fallen prey to yet another opinion.
reality is that all my cells will die and the minerals they are comprised of will go back into the pool so that other organisms may arise, to resist this is to create an alternate version of nature.
having multiple versions of the same reality ensures conflict, better to accept my fear of death and be grateful to have lived?
can be inside us there is something that can not be issued normally both emotions and our behavior in the day
From fear to flow states? Awesome!
You've got some really groovy stuff on your Steem page. Started following you today.
Hi Lucid
Thank you, glad you found it readable
thanks for wading through it lol
will check out your page also
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