How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?
My first thought is that the inquiry itself is a helpful place to begin exploring.
My second thought is to determine a basic foundation of what we are dealing with. What is consciousness? What is self-awareness?
Third; what are the barriers?
Fourth; the tools to break down those barriers?
Would love and greatly appreciate to hear your thoughts and will gladly share my own in exchange.
Warm regards
My second thought is to determine a basic foundation of what we are dealing with. What is consciousness? What is self-awareness?
Third; what are the barriers?
Fourth; the tools to break down those barriers?
Would love and greatly appreciate to hear your thoughts and will gladly share my own in exchange.
Warm regards
Comments (173)
2) Consciousness is awareness an evolved trait that allows us to observe and interact with the world
Three key bits of advice here.
First note you need to differentiate between the neurobiological awareness of animals and the language and culture expanded conciousness of humans. Awareness is biological. Self awareness is socially constructed. Knowing that should deflate a large part of the problem as it is the neurobiology that is the complicated bit.
Second, it will help to realise that awareness is not about a passive neural display - a representation of the world - that then requires some further mysterious witness. This is the dualistic Cartesian mistake. Awareness is a pragmatic and embodied modelling relation with the world. The brain exists to predict how the world could be in the light of actions that might be taken. It is an active engagement rather than a passive contemplation.
A third thing that could be added when it comes to getting started on the neurobiology is that neuroscientists prefer to talk about awareness in terms of its two critical levels of process - habit and attention. As part of the whole prediction-based design of the brain, it is set up to learn to process the world as automatically and unconsciously as possible. Attention only kicks in if the world doesnt fit the predictions and the brain has to pause to generate some new predictive state that better explains the available evidence.
Agreed that self inquiry is an important step for how can we recognize cognitive dissonance. To question is to open the windows to being wrong, which frees us. External can be tricky to navigate (at least, for me) but useful and probably necessary, as we do co-exist with other beings. I think that there is a bit of truth to every perspective.
And that it is important that we do not deem any reference point as superior or in-superior to another, but merely different and contrasting, revealing to us greater truths.
Quoting Deus
I appreciate what you are saying about first seeing the barrier but I do not understand how we are then equip with the tools needed to overcome them. Can you elaborate on this please?
I have been shown some tools along the way in my journey, but all of these were shown or hinted to me by external sources who they themselves have walked the path. Some a result of my own seeking and others, offered because they could see more than I. I have then sought to learn how to utilize these and adapt them to my unique needs.
The way that you phrase this brings to mind the idea that a tool could come from an internal source with merely the act of seeing the barrier as a catalyst. This is exciting but the depth of my understanding ends in this moment, at curiosity.
This is helpful! I am spending some energy digesting all of what you have shared here before I formulate ideas about these words of advice.
But my points do go to this issue. You cant do much about your neurobiology except to be in reasonably good health. So your focus would have to be on the socially constructed aspects of the human animal.
That would mean getting the best possible training in the skill of critical thinking - what philosophy is supposed to do of course. But also in a broader sense, the positive psychology movement uses social constructionist principles to help you develop the skills of self awareness and self actualisation.
Your framing of the issues could place too much emphasis on simplistic mind expansion of the kind that is like taking drugs or meditating to open the doors of perception. Some neurobiological gimmick.
Or it might over emphasise becoming super intellectual in terms of abstract thinking skills.
But if we are social creatures, then logically the mental technology that is most basic to improving our lot in life is that which allows us to understand how to construct our selfhood in relation to our social environment. Finding our place in the world.
Being in control of that would be a powerful aspiration. And quite trainable. It just doesnt conform to the usual stereotypes folk have about the nature of consciousness as something highly individual and competively ranked.
Positive psychology is about recognising that reaching higher levels of mind is a collaborative enterprise. Team work. A collectively developing community of minds.
Quoting apokrisis
To what extent, if at all, can one talk about an individual way of thinking that enters into territory not trod by others in the surrounding community? This would not be to say that an individual perspective is not formed through reciprocal interaction within the community , but that it is more than a node in a reciprocal network. It can exceed to some extent the culture it is shaped by. When Peirce introduced his ideas in the mid 1800s , were they only a variation within a larger network, or did they play a leading role in transforming the network?
But paradigm shifting means bringing the community with you. Otherwise nothing has happened.
It also helps greatly when the old paradigm had reached a tipping point. It become easy to shift.
And also there is no need just for this to be something exceptional. My systems view says a productive society produces creative leaps in scalefree fashion - large and small.
Peirce is perhaps a bad example as in his own life he signally failed to achieve the paradigm shift that I say he deserved. It was not a tippable moment, especially in his particular social location.
If he had been a professor in Germany, just imagine how the reaction might have been quite dramatic.
So Peirce dramatically changed my paradigm and that of the small community of theoretical biologists I was associated with in the late 1990s. We were all tippable in immediate fashion as we were already halfway there in looking for such a shift. There was hierarchy theory, category theory, second order cybernetics, Bertalannfys systems theory, dissipative structure theory, and much else all in the mix.
Peirces triadic semiosis and logic of vagueness then clicked everything finally into place. The last crystallising thought.
So yes, individual minds are always contributing in creative fashion. That is why the relationship can be a reciprocal one.
You cant go beyond unless there is something already there to mark a line. And then when you step across it, it depends how many rush to join you that decides whether you were the groups paradigm shifter or the lonely crank howling in the dark.
I guess technically a paradigm requires a partially shared set of practices among a community, so a lone genius is not the originator of a paradigm until they are no longer alone. But what does it mean to say that nothing has happened? Certainly nothing has happened for anyone but the lone innovator. But would you agree that someone like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard , who spent their whole lives with no recognition of their ideas, benefited from the guidance of those ideas as much in isolation as they would have if the ideas had formed the basis of a community paradigm?
You tell me. In what way did they benefit in their isolation? In what way would they have profited more if everyone else had joined them in applying the same existential analysis?
I have so little interest in them that I simply couldnt even guess. I never saw anything of pragmatic use, although perhaps you mean how their writings function as romantic spectacle or popular entertainment?
I guess the most important part of self-awareness for me is the understanding that it is nothing special, nothing magic. It's something we do every day and something we can get better at. There's one rule, one practice - just pay attention. And then, pay attention to paying attention.
I'm going to punt now, which is cheating. Forgive me. This is the original post from a discussion I started more than five years ago. Still one of my favorites. Lots of smart self-aware people participated.
Quoting T Clark
I'm often praised by others for being self-aware, I think it's something I'm pretty good at. In my view, one of the worst things you can do for self-awareness is to try to analyse yourself in a vacuum and use logic and reason to figure yourself out. We're pretty good at figuring people out, and at understanding situations socially, at least much better at doing that than figuring out ourselves. However, we're very biased when it comes to ourselves, and rightfully so, it's a good thing to view yourself in a more positive way than you actually are, generally speaking. The best way to circumvent this in so far as becoming self-aware is to use other people to understand yourself. The worst mistake is to think of yourself as an exception to how things work for every other person. Instead of trying to understand your bad habits or tendencies by thinking them through, look at other people who have those same bad habits and tendencies. When you're analysing others, things are much more simple, it removes your bias and all of the fluff that makes things more complicated. If when someone exhibits your negative tendencies, you're able to identify some intuitive explanations for why they're doing that, the chances that your reasons are the same are extremely high. Identify your attributes, characteristics, and experiences, and then analyse their nature in others and apply what you learn to yourself. It won't always be 100% accurate, not every explanation that applies to others also applies to you, you're allowed to be critical, but it's a fantastic starting point and it can help ground you. Don't feel that you need to limit yourself to your own analysis either, listen to what other people have to say, just don't think of yourself as a special case, that's the path to becoming oblivious and entirely lacking in self-awareness.
At times, you may fail to identify things about yourself or misunderstand your own qualities. In my case, I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism as an adult, I wasn't able to understand myself and so much never added up. Once I learned the truth, everything started to make sense, and by reading about the experiences of others, I saw how similar they were to mine, and that helped me to learn a lot. In that example, my blunder was accepting explanations that didn't fit, because I was out of ideas until I better understood these conditions and got myself diagnosed. So, if things don't quite add up, don't accept it, you are likely missing some piece of the puzzle. In this case, you could try to search for people with similar confusion to your own, otherwise, maybe consult others. If I had done that from the start, I would've saved myself years of confusion.
Also, consider whether your opinions about yourself are being reaffirmed by others or by the results. For example, if someone is attractive, they're likely to receive compliments about it etc. If your opinions about yourself aren't being reflected in the actions of others or in what you're able to do, chances are you've gotten it wrong. I'm not saying it's impossible that you're misunderstood but you should be highly sceptical in such cases where it appears that's the case. Because far more likely your bias has affected your self-evaluation than anything else.
I think you at least need this aforementioned mentality as a starting point, you are unique but you should at least look at how others are, and evidence your difference by the merit of your behaviour. It's always the most self-unaware that fail to understand others, and characterise others unfavourably, and then themselves in a positive way. The problem is that you're too damn smart, and it's hard to outsmart yourself. We can make compelling reasons that excuse our bad behaviour or interpret things in ways favourable to us, or the opposite if self-esteem is low. It is not only very helpful to learn about others to learn about yourself, but by listening to people you relate with and by learning from them, you might be able to overcome difficulties or challenges and gain valuable insights that would take you years of difficulty to figure out by yourself.
Quoting Universal Student
Absolutely. Philosophical inquiry is about engaging with self and others in a hopefully constructive dialogue. As you have done by posing an eternally fascinating issue or set of questions.
My first series of thoughts: Why do you ask? Why would we want to develop? How do we know what, if anything, is wrong with our current status?
Quoting Universal Student
'What is consciousness?' is a biggie with many definitions and approaches. So many theories...
So, specifically: What kind of 'consciousness' can be developed by ourselves?
I think you are talking about our individual awareness or knowledge of self, others and the world.
That seems pretty close to 'self-awareness'.
What's the difference?
I suppose it lies in the 'zoom-in'; the focus on unique, personal development.
Knowing yourself. All the better to improve practically for a greater sense of wellbeing.
Something like that.
Quoting Universal Student
The barriers to developing a better understanding of self and others?
Perhaps we need to pay more or less attention; observe what is happening right now.
As you say, what is your 'base-line'?
Where are you at in your life? Think about your values regarding care of body, mind and spirit?
What are your usual habits or patterns of thought, emotions and behaviour?
Are they helping or harming you or others?
Examples can help. How do you become aware that something isn't right with yourself?
A change in mood? A lowering or darkening. What is the cause? The state of politics, people, problems.
If that Unsettling is to change, what to do? Turn to philosophy?
One barrier to reading and knowing oneself is that of Distraction.
I take leave from TPF every now and again, for various reasons. The latest:
In a recent conversation, I said I was a fan of Goethe, Italy and Marcus Aurelius.
Then I realised that if I had been asked, "Why?", I would have struggled to answer.
It's been so long since I read the Meditations, would I now feel the same way?
So, I left this place of delightful but sometimes unhelpful distractions and I picked up a few books.
Bought but never read:
Pierre Hadot's:
1. The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
2. Philosophy as a Way of Life
Quoting Universal Student
Being curious about your own mind. How it works, effectively or not.
Quoting Universal Student
It would be good if you could expand on the sources you found helpful; what 'path' have they walked?
Also, what tools and how have you adapted them to suit your needs?
Perhaps, borrowing from a Stoic's perspective?
In 'Philosophy as a Way of Life', I'm reading about what Hadot has to say about Marcus and 'spiritual exercises'.
Here's a clip from p84 in the section 'Learning to Live'
'Attention (prosoche) is the fundamental Stoic spiritual attitude. It is a continuous vigilance and presence of mind, self consciousness which never sleeps...'
The benefits?
Perhaps improved moods and relationships.
Understanding the relationship between thinking and emotions. Regulation of anxiety.
Clearer thinking and decision making?
Having better dialogues with others. Listening and learning, like here, right now...
Writing in response. Carefully.
Thanks for starting this engaging discussion :sparkle:
If you are interested in cultivating an awareness of awareness then Idealism is a logical avenue.
Currently I'm reading Fichte, whose central concept is the self-positing of the I. For me, this really seems an extension and elaboration of "cogito ergo sum," which might be called the original intellectual intuition since it incorporates Fichte's notion of an original action (of positing) which precedes the consciousness thereof.
I find that, at its best, his philosophy reads somewhat like Patanjali's yoga sutras, which are meditative reflections-cum-exercises on the nature of thought. viz: "the act of pure reflection, viewed as a concept, is thought of by the I."
Simultaneously an exploration of the relationship between acting and conceptual knowledge, and where the thought of a concept becomes the concept of thought, becomes thought.
Is your first thought aware of itself? Or is your second thought a reflection on your first thought (as mine is).
My feeling is that thought distracts awareness away from the present into the labyrinth of thought. Thus the suggestion is that thought and effort in this matter are counterproductive, as if one would strain to relax. the only 'how' to relaxation is to strain, and then stop straining. Think very hard about stopping thinking, and then stop.
Thank you.
This is a different way of thinking about awareness than mine, but it's interesting and well thought out. It made me go back and look closer at how I experience my own awareness.
This is an interesting way of putting it. Now I'm trying to figure out if the first thought you're talking about is a thought at all. For me, at least, it's not in words. It's a wordless experience. I'm asking myself whether the second thought is where awareness begins.
This stirs something in my ever-diminishing memory bank.
I seem to recall something about access consciousness...
Primary and secondary- where primary is simple perception; animals have it.
Secondary is a level up - self-reflective awareness; human animals are supposed to have it.
So, you are arguably aware of an initial thought but perhaps not as to its cause. A perception?
The cause might indeed be an increased awareness?
Particularly, if the questioner has been engrossed in topics such as:
Metacognition -
Quoting Wiki - Metacognition
Art, then. Interaction between all kinds of consciousness and awareness.
A useful development using imagination and creativity in thought processing and product.
Quoting unenlightened
I agree that thought can be labyrinthian; a complex structure of pathways which can be a confusing maze and amazing.
It is always present and will not be stopped.
The effort to do so, in my mind, would be counter-productive.
It is more about training the mind. And that takes thought. And awareness. And focus.
I disagree that the only 'how to relax' is to strain, then stop.
What did you have in mind?
The technique of physical clenching or tightening of muscles, then their release?
Yes, that's a kind of mind/body awareness that can be helpful but not all there is to relaxation.
Interesting, as always, to think a bit more...but not too much...
Quoting Universal Student
Curious as to what exactly you are grateful for :chin:
Substitute a thinker you find relevant and see how you might answer the question.
My main concern in such discussions is to distinguish awareness from the objects or contents of awareness.
So one can be aware of feelings, thoughts, memories, sensations, and so on - or one can have these things but be more or less unaware of them. So, if one can be self-aware, the question arises as to what is the thing that one is aware of - what is the content of that awareness? It should of course be easy and clear what the answer is, because one ought to be aware of it. The answer i give is that self-awareness is always awareness of an idea that one has identified with - the self-complex. To the extent that awareness can be aware of itself, it seems (to me) to manifest as a silence, and an emptiness. I don't know if anyone else has another experience?
There is an assumption common to meditative practice and cognitive science that one can make a distinction between a pre-reflective and a reflective form of awareness , and a distinction between attention and what what one attends to. But if reflecting on ones consciousness is distorting, then so is the pre-reflective experience of awareness. Any form of consciousness or awareness is an awareness of something other than itself. There is no self to be aware of except a self that arrives to us from the world every moment as a changed self. To turn back to oneself, to turn inward in order to examine the being of consciousness is a being exposed to an outside. Studying consciousness is studying g self-transformation, and this means participating in the transformation rather than standing outside of it.
Interesting. What do you mean by the 'self-complex'?
How would that manifest as a 'silence' or an 'emptiness'?
Ideas and memories that one identifies with. Answers you might give if I asked you what you're like or who you are. I am ... 70 years old, male, a gardener, philosopher, mathematician, red hot lover, I like marmite and hill walking and I speak French and am married to... not the facts, the habitual ideas or thoughts that occur to me.
Quoting Amity
I have to say that, not because I experience something, but because in making the distinction, I have necessarily excluded every positive experience as being 'contents of awareness'. It doesn't manifest, it is the condition required for manifestation. Thus if my inner condition is a cacophony of noise, how can I hear anything? If my head is full of thoughts and anxieties about tomorrow, I cannot give attention to what you are saying. So to be aware is to be silent internally. It is to have room for something new.
I don't understand what you mean by the question. Sure, people bark on about consciousness and awareness all the time (especially in California), but what are you specifically referring to and what are you hoping to find? Personally I don't think these sorts of questions matter very much.
Way to welcome a new member pal. Just dismiss a line of inquiry which you deem pointless whilst to others is not.
Maybe channel your personal opinions in an appropriate area.
Quoting T Clark
I agree with this.
Ha! Abusive he says if you are truly struggling with the terms consciousness and self-awareness then a dictionary is your friend not your enemy.
Although the two above terms overlap consciousness extends to the other as well as to itself.
And yes we do this everyday whilst we are awake but that does not negate its value.
This OP to me is far from clear. Also, I do think setting yourself a task of self-awareness is pointless. Self-awareness, like happiness, is not something you can aim for - it happens as a result of other things. Like paying attention while you live your life.
Analysis is paralysis
- J Krishnamurti New York 1974
By attuned I mean the processing of sensory input for the organisms interaction with environment. But it goes beyond this to include the area of pure thought/reason as elucidated by Kant who provided more than a satisfactory answer on the matter.
Descartes confirmed that it is no illusion via his cogito argument.
Though people may disagree on what even a patato is it still produces vodka and chips.
Might as well disagree on the definition of tomatoes too plenty will.
So then just because there is disagreement to the definition of something then gaining consensus on that is important before imparting to discuss further ideas pertaining to it.
Again, and I must reiterate people may disagree on anything these days even what is gender what is man what is woman.
But this is not only stupid but a waste of time. For nature has differentiated the two gender by the granting of balls and vaginas respectively.
What about Victor of Aveyron? :grin:
So Romanticism says we are all our own precious and sacred spark of divine genius. Nous. Geist. Logos. PoMo translate this theistic tradition into something just as recognisable in its existential fetishisation of contingency, relativism, temporality, and autonomy.
Pragmatism/semiotics instead places genius squarely in the communal mind of a process of rational inquiry taken to its pragmatic limits. So there is no expectation that one has to be responsible for one's own individual genius. We are all clearly trying to stand on shoulders of giants and answer questions that have already been intelligibly framed by some community of inquiry. We start with an audience demanding a suitable reply and a little impatient with crackpot or naive responses.
To shift a paradigm thus requires both a tippable collective state of mind and also the event - the idea or observation - that tips it.
But sure, you would argue that "poetry" has its place in all this. Even a central place. Discourse need not be so rational. It could usefully be allusive and exploratory. A quiet stretching of possibilities. A way to deal with the indeterminate grounding of any axiom-driven mode of inquiry.
I've always found poetry tedious. I'll just admit it. And while I loved many high romantic works of art and literature as a teen, well now I find them mostly cringy and over-wrought. So I am very prejudiced against any idea that poetry is more than entertainment. It was once important when social memory was oral. And even early philosophy was often recorded in poetic form. But we can see how much it also suffered in that choice of telling.
And anyway, there is Peircean semiotics to deal with the vagueness or firstness the tychic spontaneity of existence. Rationality caught up there as well. The indeterminate grounding of any axiom-driven mode of inquiry was incorporated into the mothership as part of its ongoing development.
Victor of Aveyron and other feral children illustrate both the romantic expectations that surround the idea of human specialiness and the crashing fact that we are simply a socially constructed species, a linguistic community engaged in linguistically transforming the dissipative basis of our way of life.
A shared project has been in train since cave folk first started leaving their stained handprints on rock walls. Self actualisation is just the individual limit placed on Maslow's communally-defined hierarchy of needs.
We all have some vast weight of social history that constrains our personal journeys into the meaning of life. Our world is already deeply reasonable in some collective evolutionary way. We simply stand on its shoulders and debate what further truths we think we can see.
Unless you are a Victor and skipped that essential cultural download stage while your brain was still plastic and ready to absorb it.
Quoting apokrisis
I hear you and agree. I also feel that way about the music.
Quoting Tom Storm
I'm here to speak for poetry. I don't get a lot of it, but when I do, it goes somewhere really different than non-fiction or fiction. It can lead to awareness of a whole different part of who I am.
Just because you don't get it doesn't mean there's nothing to get. I feel the same way you do about poetry about jazz. I don't get it. It doesn't move me. On the other hand, I can see there's something there. Even if it doesn't work for me, I can see and hear value while not participating. Also, a lot of people whose judgement I respect are moved by it.
Sure. I accept that art can move us. But being moved in a physical or emotional sense is not the same as being moved in an intellectual and rational sense. It is not about being a community of inquirers in the pragmatic sense I specified.
And I even acknowledged that poetry originally had that pragmatic function in pre-literate tradition. It fixed social knowledge in easy to remember, attractive to listen to, rhythmic form. Oratory has its own rules of delivery because that is what works when truths and history must be delivered by declamation around the tribal campfire.
So go poetry. But my tastes were shaped by the modern information idiom of clear and sparkling prose.
I like that in my fiction as much as my faction. Cinematic writing. And of course fiction as an art form is also meant to shape us as social beings. It is entertainment, but expresses a social purpose.
My objection is focused on PoMo and its pivot to expressing feelings, asserting values. And the ugly constipated writing it too often employs.
Always there is the plaintive bleat. But what about poetics? It amounts to a demand to be allowed to hide half-baked thought in the garb of obscure locution and teasing paradox.
PoMo demands that meaning can never be allowed to settle securely in some form of words. And poetry is the art form that gives social legitimacy to that abdication of philosophical duty.
Fortunately a great many people don't share this unfortunate view.
"Anyone who says it is impossible to obtain this says no more than it is impossible for him personally to obtain it" ~Fichte
It might be partly my fault but you're missing my point that trying to be self-aware is probably not how it is done. Witness all the obtuse and self-serving wankers who embrace self-development and awareness workshops in the New Age movement. If you're working on it, you are probably moving away from it. Tao.
I'm glad people like poetry and I wish I did. But I don't. You're probably right about the jazz comparison. Do you consider Tao Te Ching a work of poetic imagination?
I'll go out on a limb, because I haven't thought this through. Yes, I guess I think poetry aims at the same target Lao Tzu does. That's how it feels to me.
For me, self-awareness is not an intellectual or rational exercise, at least it's not only that. It feels like most of my interaction with the world is intellectual, so that's where a lot of my awareness focuses. You can see that in a lot of my posts. I tend to be very aware of what I know and how I know it, how I process ideas. That's the engineer in me. It's both a temperamental inclination and a result of many years of effort. But those aren't the only kinds of awareness. Over the years I've become much more aware of my emotional and physical experiences. The way my body feels. Intuition about how other people feel. I'm probably weakest in my perceptual awareness. I tend to overlook a lot. I'm not very observant of the outside world.
But breaking it up like that is artificial. There's really only one awareness, at least for me. It all fits together and it's not rational at all at bottom. It's just a sense of the world and how it fits together and how I fit into it.
Self awareness is a cause of much mental ill health in modern society as people find it isolating and socially crippling. Drink and drugs are needed to blot it out.
The truth that the Tao captures is that we should aim for flow. What people enjoy is being in a state of unconscious habit and skill - engrossed in some useful activity.
And that is the equilibrium state that brains are designed for. To exist in the moment rather than to stand back from the moment.
Self awareness is socially constructed technology to get members of a society to filter their actions through a communal lens. It is the way we police our impulses and feelings. It is where we negotiate a social agenda from behind social mask.
That is what then makes us human. It goes with the territory. But that then is why it is so important to really understand what is going on and not fall for romanticised propaganda.
Does Western go-go society value flow? Does it value craftsmanship and true community?
That is why we recognising wokism as another damaging step in Western political technology. It is as bad as neoliberalism or any other social movement that requires us to police our minds in ways that are not necessarily in our best interest.
New Age cults even exploit positive psychology. I attended a Landmark Forum weekend as an observer to see what was actually going on. The social tech being delivered was in itself laudable and transformative. But that was the introductory course. Where it turns dodgy is the multilevel marketing of further videos, texts and deeper work than follows.
So self awareness is tech we can learn, a skill we can master. But you have to start with how neurobiology evolved to function. The general goal of the brain as a prediction machine is a state of skilled and unthinking flow.
And then when it comes to the socially constructed aspect of selfhood, you would want to understand the implications of what you are taking on board. There are choices. But few ever realise this is the game. They just go for whats on the shelf as the expected purchase. And if not that, they shop in the gluten free or organic aisle instead.
See my post above
Quoting T Clark
Its interesting to hear you describe that. And I understand as a lot of my reading to research these issues is case studies of this kind of thing. Oliver Sacks style reports.
Indeed I went through this myself right at the start when I began investigating the machinery of thought and trying to introspect. It was shocking how much I just wasnt in the habit of seeing because I didnt yet have the theoretical constructs to recognise it as it happened.
Now it is a learnt skill and I can do it without much thought and effort. It is part of what I have made predictable about my self.
Quoting T Clark
I disagree. If you have integrated your various forms of experience under the one running sense of self, then that has to be a learnt rationalisation now practiced to the degree it is a fluid habit.
But it doesnt matter how you frame the change. Obviously for you it is important that it has come together in a useful way.
And that is why I tout positive psychology. Generally it is a tool to articulate your own unconscious thinking - externalise it in a way that can be rationally critiqued and then reframed in a fashion that feels more pragmatically true to the life you must actually live.
If your parents always wanted to you to be a good straight Catholic, or some other such self, how do you kick out the old you and find the new you?
You have to change the framework rationally - linguistically - as it was all your old habitual self-talk that was keeping you locked in the previous place,
And if you had never developed the habit of noticing certain kinds of sensations or feelings, then again you would still have to talk out a plan of what a change in attentional habits would be like to start to then live like that.
Likewise at 10, I joined another friend in his judo classes given by a white zen Buddhist monk. I was fascinated as an observer of human eccentricities, but could never have been a convert. Especially not sat in the tropical sun in lotus position, supposedly meditating as I could hear the mosquitoes circling lazily down towards exposed flesh.
This makes me think of something my older brother told me. Welbutrin is an antidepressant that is also sometimes used to help people quit smoking. It was prescribed for him because he had tried to quit many times without success. He told me he stopped taking it because he became much more aware of how badly he had treated some people in his life. It became an overwhelming experience which interfered with his life.
Quoting apokrisis
I don't see self-awareness as a technology at all. Perhaps you could call the practices that lead to awareness, e.g. meditation, technologies, but I think that's a stretch. For me, the Tao and self-awareness are states where we are released from the communal lens and our social mask. The search for self-awareness is a search for surrender of our wills. I think to achieve that fully is impossible. It certainly is for me. In the meantime, the effort is enjoyable. The effort not to expend effort.
I agree it is a learned skill. It's taken me more than 50 years to get even as far as I have.
Quoting apokrisis
And I disagree. I don't think the experience of everything all at once is artificial or a rationalization. My intellect is not separate from my body, my emotions, my perceptions, all my experiences. On the other hand, it doesn't make sense for us to have dueling awarenesses here. There's no reason to expect that different people would think of it or experience of it in the same way.
Quoting apokrisis
I wasn't familiar with positive psychology, so I looked it up. It made me think of my father. He was an engineer working for Dupont his entire career, starting out as a supervisor on shift work, getting into management, and ultimately working on labor relations. The last years of his career he spent trying to get unions and management to work together. That involved committees of union workers sharing ideas with management and other I guess you would call them "stakeholder engagement" practices. He was definitely a pragmatist and he took principles and practices from all over the place - management theory, eastern philosophies, human potential practices like encounter groups. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew about and used positive psychology. I think he really did see what he was doing as technological - as human engineering I guess you'd say.
I hope the way I described it doesn't sound condescending. He was trying to do what all good managers do - balance the needs of the company with the needs of the people who worked with him and for him. He wanted to make peoples lives better at the same time making them more productive. He always said that workers got his ideas right away and were enthusiastic about them but management resisted every way they could.
But that way, his way, doesn't work for me. That's not how I see people.
Do you mind if I ask you what you mean? I am not clear how your father saw people from your account other than he tired to provide a positive work space based on an eclectic approach.
I think he saw people in a way similar to my interpretation of the kinds of process @apokrisis described. He was an engineer and he saw labor management processes as an engineering problem. He used to make lists and draw flow diagrams of how worker/management interactions should work. He tried to apply what he had gotten from his sources in what seemed to me to be a rigid, mechanical way.
Sorry, Apokrisis, now you can set me straight for any misrepresentation.
On the other hand, my interactions with other people are almost entirely intuitive based on my personal reactions to the situations and my perceptions of how others are thinking and feeling. I'm not a wonderful manager. It's very possible his style worked better in practice than mine did. I don't know.
By using a combination of ratchets & pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps of course! :snicker:
Very well put.
That isnt disparaging. It is to say it is is another level of semiotic regulation. And we can aspire to professional standards and evidence backed practice. It isnt something mystic that can only be acquired in encounter groups or exotic eastern practices.
Quoting T Clark
But is that attaining self awareness or shedding it? Im talking about finding a better way to integrate with a community of minds rather than just escaping its constraints. Our challenge is how to find a balance in that regard, not particularly about finding a way to disappear into some sublime sense of self.
A capable person can chose to lead or follow, assert or surrender. It is the rationality of making those choices - and not taking either choice personally - that is the skill.
Quoting T Clark
Again, holism is the oneness of the many, and the multiplicity that forges its oneness. Parts and wholes are that which are both differentiated and integrated. So it is not an opposition but a synergy in the systems view.
Quoting T Clark
Sounds like you think he achieved something nevertheless. But DuPont. How easy would it be to create genuine community values in an industrial corporation?
It's in line with Dennett's view.
OK. The answers concern 'identity'. An amalgamation of all of the above gives a steady sense of self?
How we know, or think we know, who we are lies in the telling of a short or long story by self or others. I'm reminded of Dan Dennett and, I think, the Narrative Self [*]. My story has gaps, I've forgotten the details but it left an impression.
Of course, we can always be lying to ourselves or others have taken control of our identity.
Are we who we should, could be or really are? The delusions of self, the relationship with the truth - all need to be considered. Is that not the point of 'getting to know you'? The basis from which we can start taking control of the way we go or think? Our paths...
Taking the time to notice, pause and reflect when a thought 'occurs' outside our usual pattern.
And then, if we're lucky, to share in a discussion by writing stuff down. Sometimes, we don't know what we think until we do that.
If our minds can be flexed, are flexible, then change can happen with increased awareness, I think.
So selves and skills of listening can develop within this kind of community...or not...
The OP asked:
Quoting Universal Student
I hope @Universal Student is still around.
Already mentioned as a mental obstacle is 'distraction'. That can lead to not even hearing far less listening in a careful manner. Also, no desire to question if what we tell ourselves or others is true.
Perhaps, if we look too hard our sense of wellbeingness would be shaken to its core.
However, a core self is not completely shattered that can be rebuilt on a sounder foundation.
Change the narrative?
Know Yourself. As much as you can...
Quoting unenlightened
I've read this a few times now and the meaning is not yet in my grasp. In other words. I'm :chin:
Perhaps if you rephrase the first 2 sentences?
I agree that if you are too anxious about future events and these thoughts fill your mind to capacity, then it is unlikely that you are able to give full attention to the present.
However, we have the capacity to compartmentalise mental activity, our thoughts.
We 'get over' ourselves, when we need to fulfil our social roles as carers, doctors or red hot lovers.
I agree, sometimes 'to be aware' might mean an internal silence, depending on context.
What our aims are, what we hope to achieve. Internal silence is not always needed rather the opposite.
It might give us room for something new, or something old...another same old story but one which is unique to the individual. Something blue. The winds of change.
[*]
Dan Dennett:
https://philosophynow.org/issues/85/Spinning_Narratives_Spinning_Selves
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_the_illusion_of_consciousness
It sounds to me like you are referring to people who are trying to exploit other people who have a genuine belief, which isn't really an indictment of self-development as a genuine goal or a belief.
1. The content of awareness is experience.
2. Experience is everything one can be aware of -self, sensation, ideas, memories the taste of mango, the fear of flying, the sound of mother's voice. Present feeling, past memories, future imagining.
3. Awareness is an idea one has to have in order to understand the world, of something that is outside experience.
Thus one has the idea, but can give it no content, because if it had content it would be an experience that one was aware of not the awareness itself.
So in order not to recreate awareness as an experience one has, that would necessitate another 'one' to be aware of it, I say that we have the idea of awareness, but it has to be empty, silent. Unlike the self, which is this complex of memories ideas and sensations that one is aware of and identifies with.
[This is a repetition in other language of the homunculus problem of indirect realism. You know the story - the eye forms an image on the retina and the optic nerve carries the information to the visual cortex where it is processed, and somewhere behind that is the person who is looking at the screen, rather than directly looking at the world. This is indirect realism, and it is nonsense because the person looking indirectly needs also to have eyes and an optic nerve, and a person in the back of that... ]
Part of the problem is that the OP didn't really indicate what particular obstacles to self-awareness he/she was facing, only a vague and abstract desire to increase self-awareness.
In that context, I would say that becoming aware that the mind in its natural state is a creature of habit is the best starting point. Invariably, it is our own habitualized choices that form the first and biggest barrier to increasing self-awareness. Learning that we have the power to alter ourselves, even to choose something completely contradictory to what we take as our own inclinations (Sartre), is the beginning of awareness.
When we say that awareness doesn't require further witness, how would you say that attention interacts with our subconscious unraveling of experience? Do we have the ability to reason and thus change our habits through attention and doesn't there need to some kind of an awareness of the self during this process? A deeper and more expansive consciousness to our subconscious behavior which allows for change and movement?
Moving into self-awareness, which we are saying is social; do our external interactions not connect to our internal relationship with our sense of self which has the ability should we navigate it to show us where we are wrong in a given moment by means of sharing perceptions with others?
For example, if we feel possessive over an object stemming from the roots of our biological nature and another person triggers this within us by taking the object from us, there is the natural course for the subconscious reaction to occur. If we are only the embodiment of the actions taking place and unable to access any other mode of observation, then how could we experience the flooding in of emotion when we fully realize our actions? What is the source of that feedback?
If we attack the other person and thus gain our object back, that biological urge has been completed and there would be no further need for exploration or inquiry. One would simply continue on because that method works to satisfy those basic needs.
Those cues that we experience seem to be communicating a wealth of wisdom to us, which then allows freedom if chosen to accept it, for us to change our behavior. Would this have been possible without the social aspect of awareness? And could we learn from them without conscious observation of the exchange which took place?
Ah, I see this expansion of thoughts and ideas only after I've responded to your previous post. I look forward to digesting these as well.
1. OK, so I've got me a bucket of awareness. Hmm. No, awareness is not a container, material or otherwise. What is it? A type of consciousness, perception or knowledge of something happening or existing.
2. This is a subjective experience of our external and internal world or life. However, not all that happens or existed in the past, present or future can be totally known to us. Past and future imaginings can be problematic if we are not aware of their partial and illusionary qualities.
We have limited and different types of awareness. Some parts we pay more attention to, they are personally more meaningful and so, there is a sensitivity or 'heightened' awareness.
Examples: emotional, political, environmental.
Most of the time, we can choose to engage or disengage with thoughts, communication, and action.
However, we are not always aware we hold on to certain habits of thought or ways of thinking/feeling when it might be an idea to reflect and review our individual patterns.
We can be living with a religious belief bestowed upon us by our parents; we might hold them dear or fear estrangement if we doubt, challenge or change. This can be an emotional experience heightened by increased awareness.
So, I don't see 1. experience as the content of awareness, rather they are intertwined. Awareness has an effect on experience and v.v.
Quoting unenlightened
So, now 'awareness' has changed from subjective perception to an abstract concept. Who keeps that general idea or mental image in mind when different aspects of the world are explored? Scientists?
To understand anything beyond our experience, we need to travel - externally or internally - but we need to consider where we want to go. Which paths to take.
In a cage of negativity, the positives can't be seen or are out of reach.
Sometimes we are not even aware that we have been depressed until the shadows lift.
I suggest that we hardly ever have true emotional awareness.
To develop, we need to have or be shown skills; to identify moods, their causes, the tools to manage any problems. Understanding ourselves and others, to relate better is vital for holistic wellbeingness.
Quoting unenlightened
This doesn't make any sense to me.
Quoting unenlightened
Again, no sense. How can an idea be 'empty'?
OK, I think I'm in danger of repeating myself so I'll stop here.
Thanks for engaging and provoking thought. :sparkle:
I find that being able to share ideas and thoughts with other inquisitive beings to be far more valuable than an abundance of material wealth. It is a beautiful thing that we can experience.
Thank you, for both yourselves and for myself, for spending the energy to do so.
I am appreciative that we are all willing to learn, explore and seek understanding.
I may be unrushed to respond, but I wanted to take the moment before heading off to work to share this felt experience of appreciation and love that is flooding in - openly!
:up: :sparkle:
Take care and thank you, again :clap:
If there is a photograph, there must be a camera, but a camera cannot photograph itself, only another camera or a reflection of a camera Thus a camera cannot obtain an image of itself, but proposes that image 'beyond experience', or proposes itself as the unphotgaphable source of photos. One might say that awareness is a virtual image of the unseen seer. One cannot grasp it, but again one cannot dispense with it.
But perhaps I am wrong about this; perhaps someone can describe the experience of awareness. I await with eager anticipation a better explanation.
I didn't take it as disparaging, I just think it's inaccurate. I see self-awareness as a skill, not a technology. I don't see self-awareness as mystical either. As I said, I think it's everyday, bread and butter human behavior, although I admit it can feel magical sometimes.
Quoting apokrisis
I agree this has nothing to do with "some sublime sense of self." Oh, good. I get to quote from the Tao Te Ching. From the Ellen Marie Chen translation of Verse 10:
[i]In being enlightened and comprehending all,
Can you do it without knowledge?[/i]
This is one of several passages that say something similar - knowledge leads to artificiality - a false sense of self. I've had arguments about this before. Lao Tzu can't possibly mean that knowledge is bad, but I think he means just that. A release from knowledge and surrender to experience is what self-awareness is for me.
Quoting apokrisis
I agree.
Quoting apokrisis
You're right about big industrial corporations. It was always a struggle for him. I wasn't denigrating his way of doing things, it's just not my way.
We need scientifically astute philosophers and philosophically astute scientists in order to arrive at a philosophically and scientifically respectable position on human experience/consciousness/thought/belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms...
I'll try to describe how it feels for me to become aware of something. The first time I remember doing that was while learning Tai Chi. I was having trouble with a move, so I kept doing it over and over. I tried to focus not only on the movements, but how the movements felt in my body. I would ask my teacher "what's it supposed to feel like?" Tai Chi for me has to do with the movement of power through my body, so I would ask "What is the power supposed to do?"
While I did the movement, I would try to pay attention to how my body felt as well as I could. A couple of times I thought I felt something that might be important, so I focused on that feeling when I was practicing, but it didn't help. Then I felt something again, I always call it a "tickle." When I paid close attention to that feeling it grew and came into focus. It was a feeling in my body - the muscles, balance, stress - I had not been aware of. After enough practice, it became natural to be aware in that way. That experience and awareness was helpful in working on other moves.
Since than, I've found a similar process takes place in other areas of awareness - intellectual, physical, emotional, social... I guess that's awareness of awareness.
Thanks for that. It's a good description of becoming aware of a subtle sensation that one probably overlooks completely most of the time. I guess it's somewhat similar to the way a musician develops a very precise sense of exactly where their fingers are in relation to keys or strings, a form of proprioception for which we do not really have words.
But I don't think it's awareness of awareness as such. I lie awake in the dark, and very gradually it dawns on me. That is to say I notice the lightening of the sky. but all my description is of the sky of my developing experience of the sky, not my developing experience of what awareness itself is like.
Makes sense to me.
Get's along with how I understand the notion of "listening" too. Listening well requires me to have that silence.
Sure. We can act out of habit or we can act via attention. And indeed, every act is a balance of both in fact. The way the brain is wired means that arriving sense data will be allowed to trigger the simple emission of learnt habits to the degree is slots right into a state of prediction. That takes a fifth of a second or less. Then where something is unexpected or requires reorientation, then the brain squashes the habitual response to kick it upstairs for a full attentive response. That takes about half a second to arrive at a new state of intention and readiness.
So to change a habit, we have to get into the habit of interrupting it as it about to happen and instead replace it with some different attentional plan. We have to catch ourselves and remind ourselves not to snap at our partner, or whatever, until this just becomes the new desired routine.
Self awareness thus would have to start in getting used to noticing how we have been interacting. Or indeed, pay attention to the rationalisations that likely have always supported our habitual responses. We might have victim thinking or other habits ingrained since childhood.
So the brain is designed to reduce as much of action to an unthinking flow as possible. Its like learning to drive a car as an automatic activity. You want to free your attention to deal with genuine novelty. Then to change a habit, you must bring attention back to what you are doing automatically. And because your habits move at a faster pace, they can be slippery buggers.
Quoting Universal Student
You are talking about thought at the level of training a toddler. Telling kids that it is not polite to snatch. The basic standards of social interaction start with simply training some impulse control and self regulation in kids.
But if we are talking about doing better as adults, then there is a whole complex web of thoughts about rights and wrongs we must learn to navigate. Whether or not to snatch something back could be an impulse that needs to be negotiated in any kind of social context. Are we playing rugby or is it a policeman who had just grabbed something off us.
To be prosaic, it is just noticing and fixing a sensory-motor pattern in memory so you can recognise or execute it again.
The brain works on prediction. To find the same thing again, you have to have to have developed a memory that could recognise it. It is then noticing it for the first time which is the tricky bit.
That is why sports coaching is all about suggesting cues to notice. Start your deadlift by pushing the ground away with your feet.
I love this almost poetic description and the timings, how are they arrived at?
Quoting apokrisis
That makes complete sense.
Developing a keen observation of thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Asking relevant questions.
Also trying to understand any reasons, conscious or subconscious. Keeping an eye on internal dialogue...helpful or harmful. Paying attention to mind/body interaction.
Quoting apokrisis
:rofl:
Thanks for all your most informative posts. Smoothing slithery subjects :cool:
Yes, and that's the tricky bit to even talk about. How to notice, how to even notice what it is to notice or as you put it Quoting apokrisis
But who is upstairs if it is not the homunculus in chief?
The homunculus exists if you treat the brain as being about Cartesian representation - the neural display of information. But a predictive and enactive approach to brain processing says the brain forward models its inputs so as to be able to cancel all that arriving information away
It is an anti-representation theory. Your model of the world works if the end result is that you managed to make nothing unexpected happen. The goal of the brain is not to be aware in an attentive sense.
So the homunculus in chief is the sense of self that arises from being in full control of the flow of reality. The world is unfolding as you already imagined it in terms of your wants and needs. Life is easy. You dont even have to pay attention or remember.
The future is being cancelled from mind as fast as it can happen. You are driving through busy dangerous traffic and you cant even really remember the tune you were listening to on the radio as you vaguely daydreamed about this or that.
You are the boss of the situation. Until you mow down the elderly cyclist.
So it isnt about a mental representation of the world that someone then has to react to. That someone is already driving the car through their routine life as mindlessly as they can get away with. It doesnt even matter that they day dream as there is no neurobiological reason to be having grand and important thoughts.
It is purely a social construction that a persons state of mind should be any different. If you are a good Catholic, you would need to be feeling guilty about something at other. If you are one of lifes busy entrepreneurs, you would have to be maximising your productivity by consuming another Tony Robbins podcast.
Society demands the existence of an eternally attentive homunculus as the brains command module. That is the technology it means to insert in us to make us properly socially regulated beings. So no wonder that is the standard folk psychology model of consciousness. We should just expect to find that little vigilant person who misses nothing and is responsible for everything.
Whether we flub a tennis forehand, or mow down a cyclist, it is all the same. The social expectation is that we were always attentive, and own every act as something carefully planned and thought out, even if we are in fact quite naturally creatures of habit.
Being aware of the feelings in muscles, balance, and energy when I move in certain ways is awareness. Observing and being aware of patterns in the way I learn to be more aware in different situations is awareness of awareness.
The most vivid research is from reaction time studies in sports psychology. You film folk as they have to react to the bad bounce of a cricket ball. This shows that it takes 200 milliseconds to see and respond that you mispredicted but found time to correct. The simplest reactions, like hearing the starters pistol in a race takes about 100ms. That is how they can make rules around false starts.
So that gives you concrete timings for habits. And then there are a variety of psychological tests for showing that attentive awareness takes 500ms or more. You have phenomena like the attentional blink that shows it takes that long to switch attention from one event to another,
There is plenty of lab evidence. But it is not a standardly taught way of understanding the brain. Cognition is treated like a branch of computer science and so thinks of the brain in a very disembodied fashion.
For us humans, it is all about the biological embodiment, and only secondarily about the abstracted or disembodied point of view that is our social programming.
Why do you think building robots that can move fluidly is so hard, yet building a computer chess program is so easy? It is not tripping over your own feet that requires true genius in the real world.
That has happened to me a few times driving a familiar route, that I find myself arriving with no memory of the journey. And of course the were no cyclists mown down, because if there were any risk of such, the homunculus would have been alerted. Your account of the functioning of the thinking, remembering and decision making mind rings true to me and accords with my experience.
But in relation to the matter of awareness, it simply avoids the question. While I cannot tell you much about that state of absent-mindedness whilst driving, I can confidently say that there was awareness and attention to the road and traffic, because without it there would have been a crash almost immediately. Rather, i would liken that state of mind to a meditative state of alert awareness without the thought narrative.
My theme for the thread has been to distinguish (particularly verbal) thought from awareness. This is naturally rather hard to do in words, and inclined to provoke resistance and incomprehension from thinking verbal minds that dominate philosophy.
Science begins with the observer:- "I think therefore I am", and it seems natural to presume that if I think not, then I am not, but this turns out not to be the case, and the absence of mown down cyclists rather demonstrates it.
Quoting T Clark
No. Learning is about memory, and memories are things one becomes aware of when something reminds one. Learning about learning is doubly so. I could put it this way; "Awareness is the present moment", and one can be aware of the past but not in the past. I remember being aware as I wrote that last sentence, that it would likely be confusing, and I am aware as I write this one that I may not be clarifying things much.
Quoting Universal Student
My first thought is that I don't know.
My second thought is the same.
And no matter how I try, all my thoughts result in the same conclusion as the first two.
The lack of working memory formation tells you there wasnt full attention of the kind needed to underwrite aperception of the perception. Like a dream, it was a flow of experience being forgotten as fast as it happened. No imagery was being retained in a way that would allow introspection.
Quoting unenlightened
Very true. And the kicker is that forming sentences relies on a lot of unconscious habit. Note how that just before a sentence forms, you have the general gist of what you want to say. You are orientated and ready to go with an utterance.
When you are using your inner voice to create an internal monologue or regulating narrative, this means you dont actually have to hear yourself saying the full sentence. You just have to get as far as being about to say it for that nascent thought to already have sufficient effect. So even the essential role of the inner voice bubbles along at almost unverbalised levels as one half formed speech act is overtaken by the next to keep things zipping along.
Self awareness is a skill, just like any other. It is developed through practice. Everything boils down the ability to discriminate and differentiate the subjective from the objective in experience. Because even the "objective" is, for the human mind, a representation of the objective. Consider that objective means both that which is (thought to be) mind-independent and also the state of being independent of subjective predispositions or bias. The Husserlian phenomenological reduction presupposes an accurate self-awareness. The practice of good science requires achieving objectivity.
So yes, the inquiry is itself a helpful place to begin exploring.
Clever. You become aware of a gradual change; enlightenment from both a physical and mental 'darkness' or a not-knowing. You are awake. You are describing to yourself, in an internal dialogue, your sense of how the sky changes. You liken the lightening sky to your mental state enlightening. Are they the same kind of thing? It seems not. You can't put into words how your 'dawning' is happening.
And yet, you did.
Or at least, what you wrote seems to indicate a high level of self-awareness (SA)
I would say that your SA has been developed by the practice of writing.
I might even go further and suggest that SA is key to being a compelling writer.
They are intertwined.
Quoting unenlightened
I think we might be talking about different kinds of awareness. My focus has been on SA, inseparable from thought. If any TPF reader fails to comprehend words or thoughts about awareness, it is not necessarily because there is resistance. Often, the confusion lies in different definitions or meanings.
Or habitual ways of thinking. We can talk past each other and end up :chin: :brow: :smirk:
When what should be happening is accepting questions and trying to respond as best we can.
Even if we still disagree, that's fine. We've explored and the sun still shines :cool:
Quoting unenlightened
This shows the great benefit and challenges of writing.
Previously, I've written that I sometimes don't know what I think until I write.
Even as I write, there is a general background awareness or knowledge that whatever is produced can be changed, misinterpreted or misunderstood.
I question my inner voice: Is that right, is that really what I think?
It's a wonder anything gets posted at all...actually, things posted have been self-edited and deleted!
And that brings me to confidence and I guess to the OP question. How to develop SA, the barriers, etc.
Lack of confidence, being too self-conscious are hurdles to overcome.
If writing is one of the many tools to develop SA, then all the more reason to value it.
Words matter.
Being creative and productive matters. Even if nobody listens or responds.
It is a way to find your self, your voice in relation to others.
Check-in to your state of mind...or awareness...in the moment.
Some call that mindfulness...it can be therapeutic.
Yes. Self-awareness is awareness of self - a complex of habit, memory, thought, narrative, identification.
I am talking of what awareness is, not of what one might be aware.
Quoting Amity
Now here is something intriguing, or perhaps it is just a matter of accretions of meaning in different contexts ... you seem to be saying that self-consciousness is a barrier to self-awareness. Now I'm wondering what that could mean?
This point is probably not worth arguing about more than we have.
Self consciousness is the language-scaffolded skill of applying a socially constructed lens to ones own behaviour and existence as a creature.
And when we enter a social situation, we are aware we are among other such self-scrutinising selves who will also be scrutinising us as selves.
This will cause the appropriate degree of physiological arousal, as the brain being a prediction engine must gear the body up for the action it must prepare for.
The self conscious is a label for those who habitual react with activation of their fight or flight response - a potentially overwhelming anxiety at being trapped by scrutinising judgement. A fear of being exposed to a room of critics.
Others more confident or extrovert may feel some very different physiological reaction. Aha, a chance to put my self on show for all to appreciate!
Appreciate the follow-up to something I hadn't thought of as 'intriguing' when I wrote it.
What was the lead-up to this idea? I need to backtrack:
Quoting Amity
So, how can too much self-consciousness be a barrier to self-awareness?
I'd been thinking of writing as a tool to develop SA; the way we grow ourselves by thinking and sharing.
The external and internal obstacles in our path, including our inner voice. The ongoing dialogue which we pay more or less attention to.
I mentioned that it's a wonder anything gets posted due to the self-questioning related to a lack of confidence. [*]. Too much 'self-consciousness' can lead to paralysis; we stop in our tracks.
If this becomes a permanent feature of our being, our personality, then how are we to develop?
I was also thinking of the 'creative spirit'...and how that can be squashed or not given space.
If we are labelled or self-label as non-creatives, then that is a major kill-off!
The idea of some kind of invisible 'flow' or 'energy' between mind and body is important to consider.
How aware are we of what is, or is not, going on...?
Quoting The Art of Creativity - Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199203/the-art-creativity
An excellent article, worth exploring, I think.
Think back to building blocks for children; naturally building new empires! And themselves...
Different sets of blocks; different levels of awareness.
[*]Quoting apokrisis
Excellent explanation, thanks.
Appreciate your 'show' :up:
I had a similar but not quite so intense an experience in Pilates.
I needed to know how to think about the movement and what it was supposed to achieve.
How to engage the toes, for goodness sake!
Quoting T Clark
Intriguing, this 'tickle'. I'm trying to remember what my 'feeling' was. I think more of an energy 'trickle'?
Sometimes a bit sparkish or sparklish...dunno :chin:
As you say, it's difficult to describe!
I'd like to hear more if you wish, about the effects of this practice in other areas of self-development.
For example, in your writing?
I'll respond, but it's taking me some time to figure out what I want to say.
:fire: :fire: :fire:
Obviously, then, I have no self-awareness whatsoever.
I think I should be celebrated as one such to be first on a philosophy site.
Hah. Sorry but no glittering first prize for you, dear
Your SA level is equal to, if not higher than, your IQ!
Genius :fire:
:lol: No problemo, we can wait.
OK :up:
Are you following me about?! :lol:
For 2 months, 5 days, 3 hours, 30 minutes, 20 seconds and counting! :lol:
Not before that, then :cry:
I wish we could do Self-Maintenance...'How to Fix a Brain'.
I can't remember. Have you written anything in this discussion about the OP?
I hinted at a mechanical method - ratchets & bootstrapping - but I don't think the OP had that in mind when he started the thread. Self-awareness, two options, both actualized. Consciousness, if the former, is also complete to that extent. It's time for some psychotropics (drugs).
Stay well and take care :pray:
Why, merci beaucoup mon ami!
De rien :cool:
I am! I am working towards my responses, though I've been reading as these moves along and digesting. I am in the middle of a big transition as we are moving into a new space, so my focus is on getting through the big pieces of that while it's right in front of me and then I'll be able to bring more energy and focus into being apart of the conversations here.
In my writing, hmm... I've been writing so long I can't remember how it felt when I started. I know how it feels now - just like talking. Words flow out like water from a hose, sometimes a firehose. I don't always pay attention to what comes out until I go back and edit later. The right word just feels right. If one comes out that doesn't feel right, I change it. I'll often to go the thesaurus to find a better one. I tend to be very aware of the structure of what I'm writing, even while I'm writing. The flow. The arc. Where it starts, where it ends, how it gets there. The story I'm telling, even in a post like this one. This one's easy. You asked for examples, I'll give you examples. Good and linear with no side spurs.
Another one... Emotions and ideas. If I have to figure out how to express an idea or feeling, for example, if someone asks a question, I often don't know right away. I have to stop and pay attention. When I look inside, it feels like a small pool or basin, empty. While I wait, water flows in to fill it. When it's full, I can answer.
Another... Dreams - I dream a lot. Maybe I always have, but I only in the past 10 years or so have I paid attention. I'll wake up with a mood, often anxiety. I won't know why. As I think about it images will come to me and I'll realize they're from a dream. I tend to have anxiety dreams. When I realize it was a dream, I feel a tremendous sense of relief that there's nothing real I have to worry about.
One more... getting sick. Lots of times, if I'm getting a cold or sick to my stomach, I don't recognize it till it's full blown. Other times I'll feel it coming early. That tickle again. A feeling of discomfort. Like a storm coming, hearing a little rumble of thunder in the distance, maybe not sure if it's that or a truck going by. Then I can keep track of the storm, my sickness, as it gets closer. Then it's here and I feel miserable. If I'm really paying attention, I'll take some tylenol or stomach medicine early in the process to try to cut it off at the pass. That doesn't usually help much.
Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Yes, it's difficult to rewind to particular moments when something clicks in your brain in the learning process. Whether it is in acts of reading, writing, listening...the consumption or the production.
I remember the transition from manual to keyboard writing. For a while, it seemed my brain couldn't adapt to transferring thoughts to a screen. I had to write the text out, then copy it word for word.
Then, the pathways changed. Voila! It was like a new awareness, a connection...
The words flowed easier.
When I was first introduced to a philosophy forum, I lurked for so long. Being out of my comfort zone, that first post felt like quite the achievement. A leap of faith. It took time to find my voice. Even yet, I write posts and cringe. That's not me. Why did I write that?!
The bits I miss when reading and responding to others. My own laziness and reluctance to relate what might be uncomfortable. And so on. Pretty boring stuff really...
Unlike you, I am not so aware of structure in my responsive posts. And yes, my OPs suffer from a lack of attention to requirements. I write before, or as, I think...almost spontaneously.
Re: paying attention. I found this article on the merits of handwriting:
Quoting NY Times- Why Handwriting is Still Essential
There are so many aspects to the OP questions, I think it best to leave it here.
Even though I would like to respond to your post more fully...particularly with regard to emotional awareness. Again, thanks for sharing examples, each of which would merit its own thread!
OK. It sounds like you have a lot on your plate. I hope you will be able to pick up earlier questions and respond. It's difficult when the flow is broken. Almost like passing a window of opportunity.
I remember that too. I used to write out my reports and letters on a yellow legal pad then give it to someone in administration to be typed. I wasn't happy with the change, but I adjusted quickly. I think I was helped by the fact that I had taken a brief course in typing in high school. I've often said it was the most useful course I took in high school. Now I can't imagine writing things by hand.
Quoting Amity
This is exactly why intellectual self-awareness is so important to me. Knowing something and how I came to know it, how certain I am, and what will happen if I'm wrong gives me the confidence to lay my ideas out for dismantling by others. Over the past few years I've come to see I sometimes have skimped on the justifications for my claims. I've worked to remedy that by spending more time making sure the things I spout out are reasonable.
Quoting Amity
That makes sense to me. I think doing things the hard way before you start taking short cuts helps you understand what your gaining and what your loosing by taking that path. I've seen myself how easy it is to use a computer to perform calculations and run models without understanding the underlying principles. When you do that, it's hard to know whether the results you get make sense. It's surprising how often they don't.
Quoting Amity
This was a very useful exercise for me. Making me inspect the ways I am aware of things was interesting and enlightening. And fun.
I'm late to the game in getting around to these responses but the energy and effort is still bouncing around in here and wants to move! At the very least, they're is a wealth of back and forth from all of you awesome humans for me to read through and that alone, is valued.
I appreciate this thought Clark. I often, though less so than a couple of years ago, have to remind myself that many of the things that I think, feel and experience are all simply normal aspects of the grounded, physical human experience. Doing so does wonders for keeping my perception of reality within reasonable parameters of truth. At least, that's the idea.
And hey! Recycled or not, useful is useful. I'm not complaining. I'm just appreciative for the receptivity.
This is my first post and in honor of transparency, I feel a smidge out of my league.
Perhaps it is my youth (I have the sense that I am on the younger end of the spectrum of folks here) which will not prevent my curiosity from propelling me forward.
If I may, how would you describe the experience of awareness from the outside?
Quoting T Clark
This is interesting. I'll have to think more about these distinctions. How did you come to the...awareness, that awareness is pre-verbal? This brings up quite a bit for me.
I'm my own personal journey with working through my internal relationship with emotions, as I'm sure many others are as well. Emotions are a unique aspect of our whole experience on earth. Thank you for sharing a little bit of what that has been like for you.
It can be quite the shift to be going about the flow and to stop and simply tune into the deeper felt layers of what is unfolding. Being able to know what an emotion is for example, what it means and to put words to it, can be a challenge. From what you have said here, that sounds like at least part of your description of consciousness?
Would we say then that awareness is the knowing that there is something occurring within ourselves and consciousness is the ability to identify and describe what is felt? At least, within the realm of emotion as the plugged in variable to the equation here.
Thank you Judaka.
I myself have tended toward lower self esteem and being hard on myself. Downright abusive, frankly. I've been making my way back from years of self inflicted damage while learning how to cultivate a healthy and balanced sense of self.
Your points here of reminding one to reality check by means of interpersonal relationships is golden! This strikes me as a useful tool.
How did you personally come to learn about your own biases? Did you seek for them? Did you feel initial resistance when it was time to face and then break those belief systems down and if so, what did you find to be the most memorable to overcome the tendency to cling to what is familiar?
Thank you for engaging!
It has been a pleasure to read your reply. Somehow, for reasons which are beyond me in this moment, doing so has brought warmth into my chest. Perhaps there is something kindred in your path which my soul identifies with. I am fully uncertain. And that is perfectly okay.
Quoting Amity
I suppose the inquiry comes with knowing that by asking questions, we are exploring. It is knowing that I can be wrong, which is a lesson that I am grateful to have learned. I am capable of operating from a place which could be different and better and I could be totally unaware of that fact should I sit in a stagnate soup of comfort without asking myself why? Why do I feel, think and behave as I do.
This feels natural to me. To explore, to question, to wonder. I don't even have to find the answers. I want it to be deeply felt in that moment when my transition from this form comes and I return all which I have borrowed in this lifetime, that I spent at least some of my moments seeking valuable insight and understanding of the nature of reality and existence and my own place in that. That I didn't allow my days to be whittled down by sitting idle without a sense of direction.
There is a deep place within me from which the question emerges. A powerful yearning, like the beating of my heart as I feel the blood in my body flow to energize and bring vital movement to each of my organs which operate this vehicle.
Perhaps we know that something needs to change when we begin to watch ourselves act and behave in ways which stir either internal conflict and/ or bring any measure of harm to those around us. I think that it is in those moments which compassion compels us towards learning. I know it does for me.
If I am capable of reason, I'd like to use it. The alternative feels like being trapped in formative years of primitive patterns which fuel my animal roots. I can see clearly that while I share fundamental similarities with wild animals, that humans are evolved different. My undeniable awareness of that urges me into a sense of responsibility.
Excellent questions to point me toward self inquiry.
Quoting Amity
Definitely. It's done far more for my mental and spiritual development than religion or escapism ever did.
Quoting Amity
There are a couple of individuals in my personal life who I've walked with that have taught me a great deal in showing me some basic building blocks.
When I say "path", I suppose I point to their navigation which has born similarities to my own that in their well earned lessons further along than me, I have been able to see how they handle circumstances to which those corresponding tools are in alignment with my own needs and nature. We have shaped one another.
Our needs differ and what works for you, may not work for me. But it also might just be adaptable and useful to someone else.
These souls in my personal life do have strong philosophical and spiritual roots.
I could speak of course for any philosopher as well who has shared their wisdom with us. I have only scraped the surface when it comes to philosophical teachings. I am looking at the wisdom that Socrates has left behind at this time.
Quoting Amity
The tools themselves vary from being as physical as training myself to breathe more consciously to being as conceptual that I wouldn't know where to begin with explaining them.
Meditation both in sittings and in that of viewing life as such in practice, fasting and various approaches to our relationship with food, physical movements, mindfulness of various forms of consumption, reading, journalism and sharing ideas, learning the usefulness of establishing reference points, mental exercises and learning tricks of the brain are some examples of what comes to mind without effort in this moment.
Quoting Amity
I actually did find the stoic perspective to be quite helpful for me during a difficult period. Not to say that I've ceased integrating and learning from those unique teachings. There was just a time when they had a greater effect on my daily life.
This has signaled to me a deeper investigation of the nature of thoughts and concepts. Thank you for your reply I am excited to explore what is arising.
Quoting Pantagruel
Would you expand on your view of this?
How would one know that she is aware of being aware? And could she be aware without awareness of such?
My appreciation of this reply stems from its simplicity and reminder to relax into this process. I take from this to allow the process itself to carry me and I view myself as being along for the ride.
Brings to mind "effortless effort."
This stands out to me. Particularly the last bit about how you experience your own awareness.
Is awareness in whatever degree of clarity you happen to experience it really yours or are you experiencing awareness and privy to something outside of yourself, within yourself?
Is it ours? Shared? Collective? Connected? Separate? Unique? Dependent? Independent?
Does this instinctively easy sense of ownership and perhaps even division distract us from anything?
I agree. This is where I am at presently and is in part, a motivation for my original inquiry.
What I first take from this is that if someone is to first become aware of their own thoughts and then to reflect on them and the result is distortion, then there is an indication that something is amiss and that perhaps it is time to change. To avoid this is to perhaps avoid the source of the internal conflict which is being reflected in those mental thought patterns?
I'd like to spend some more time with these points as well.
It think it is wonderful that you don't understand the question. That implies that understanding may be within reach and that there is something to potentially explore.
Quoting Tom Storm
My meaning of the question speaks for itself. It doesn't need a complete answer. The question itself and all which arises with it, is enough. If I have an expectation, then I have already limited myself.
An inner stirring desired to express itself and to be shared amongst other minds, particularly those of which seemingly like myself, willingly choose to put their mental energy towards the study of truth and principles of being.
I chose to initiate broad as to leave the door wide open to invitation of as many perspectives as possible. And as naturally occurs without effort, we have each brought relatable and narrow focus to the content here, based on own unique experiences. How can we have greater room to shape the conversation if it already has a defined form?
Fascinating that these inquiries would coagulate most densely in a single geographical region.
Quoting Tom Storm
If you don't think that these sorts of questions matter very much, why are you allowing this discussion to take up space within your mind?
I welcome your view!
I am sure that you will share and contribute whatever feels right for you to do so. I ask for nothing less, nothing more.
I do not have a definitive answer to the questions that I have asked here.
What if we re-framed this instead as someone suspecting that they are experiencing greater degrees of awareness and consciousness and as a result, they experience this mental initiation into the new and unfamiliar territory. Does this change anything for you?
So instead of aiming for something that they are trying to achieve, it is already happening to them and they are simply attempting to intellectually understand what is unfolding and what place such an experience has in the physical world where they share in life with billions of other humans.
Also, what harm can come of asking these kinds of questions? If a conversation doesn't attract us, we can easily access our freedom to move on to another which speaks to us more deeply.
This is interesting.
I like the connection here of the two, the thinking processes and the senses.
Thank you for sharing.
Agreed.
Your way of existing may be different from mine. What feeds you, may not be adequate nutrition for me.
What moves one, may be lost on another.
None is greater or lesser than another.
It's about being reached, not the "what" of what reaches us.
:)
In other words, which beliefs have captured us?
For some reason, none of your tags of my name show up in my "Mentions" page. If I don't respond to a comment of yours, that may be why.
Quoting Universal Student
It doesn't seem that way to me.
Quoting Universal Student
The average age of forum members is 86. We call anyone under 60 a youngster. Anyone under 45 is a whippersnapper.
Quoting Universal Student
Your opening post and most of the other posts on this thread are looking at awareness from the outside.
Quoting Universal Student
I can experience something without putting it into words. Wait for a second.....There, I just did it. From there, I can either just let it go or I can put it into words.
Quoting Universal Student
I don't think awareness has anything to do with knowing. For me it has to do with paying attention.
Quoting Universal Student
It's happening in my mind. Yes, it's really mine.
Okay, that makes sense. It's the attention and focus on what is taking place.
Quoting T Clark
Noted!
No. 'Mental initiation' is not a term or process I recognize. But if you are just saying people see and try new things and orientate themselves in the process, I would argue that it is a rare person who doesn't do this intuitively throughout their life, unless they belong to a very conservative or insular community.
Quoting Universal Student
I never said there was harm. But now you raise it, there are plenty of people I've known across the decades who have disappeared up their own rectums through a process J Krishnamurti describes as 'analysis paralysis'. Self-reflection can become compulsive and end up in ceaseless inaction and solemn festering. There is also a lot of explicit and implicit status seeking bound up in the self-reflection movement as people jostle to prove their innate sensitivities and higher awareness to others and themselves.
Quoting T Clark
Same here.
I'm also keen on paying attention.
A grounding reply.
I think it's pretty important to explore and talk about the things you don't believe in, don't you? I get a lot from hearing what others believe and why. :wink:
I do! I like to challenge my own ideas and concepts while seeing where others are coming from. I think that it is arrogant to be unwilling to do so.
There could also be people who may be unable to do so. How would we know which is in operation?
When you lose, you win.
I don't know.
If arrogance is a kind of developmental barrier to the ability and therefore willingness, then are they really distinguishable?
In which case, perhaps I should rephrase as, "it is arrogant not to do so", and omit the "unwilling" bit.
Strongly agreed.
Likewise!
Quoting Universal Student
Is there hierarchical thinking predicated in this construction? You've stated that you privileged self-awareness/journeys of personal transformation, so it would follow that someone who does not is developmentally challenged, right? What if they are not? What if they simply do not share your perspective. Does this suggest a lesser being?
I'll grant you that one of the most fascinating things about people are the intricate pathways they take to getting in their own way.
Perhaps knowledge that is overly identified with, held fast to and solitary instead of used wisely as an aspect the whole navigation process through life is the danger?
An idolization of knowledge, if you will.
Knowledge can be passed along and shared with others like a torch and we can light the way through mutual learning but we can not bring our knowledge with us when we our bodies return to the earth.
Anything can be spoiled when used improperly.
We learn through our experiences and like reminds us (if I am understanding his perspective correctly), overly analyzing them instead of just allowing them to shape us can perhaps lead us away from being in harmony with the Tao.
Certainly not!
When I speak of a developmental barrier, I don't mean in the way of intellect.
I think that there are different types of development and that in each unique unraveling of experiences, we have a different view and way that we learn. Albeit with enough similarities that humans can communicate and have conversations and form societies.
I don't think that it has anything to do with superior or in-superior, lesser or greater. I think it just is. I think there is a certain amount of acceptance that one can practice when it comes to seeing where someone is at. And being able to do so is tremendously helpful.
I suppose at this point it would be useful to focus also on what a barrier means which is something that I am presently looking at a little more deeply.
Sometimes they are necessary, keeping a natural pace until there is a readiness to move forward in some way.
Other times, they are to keep something in, or out.
To clarify, when I use the word arrogant for example, I do not mean it as an insult. I do not see it as good or bad, I just see it for what it is. I am pointing to the description itself as being accurate to describe something for the sake of making clear connections in conversation.
Quoting Universal Student
Though I am not excluding this either. A intellectual developmental arrest could contribute to the conditions for this kind of mentality. As could many other factors.
Yes, this is fascinating. I've watched myself do it many times.
I was an engineer for 30 years. I've got knowledge coming out of my butt. I know lots of things and I take pleasure and satisfaction from that knowledge. I don't see any contradiction between that and the quotations from Lao Tzu. Why not?.... Good question. I'm not sure I have a good answer.
Awareness comes first. I guess it comes down to whether your knowledge makes it easier or harder to be self-aware. That's the best I can do for now. I need to think about it more.
Appreciate the time and energy you have given to respond carefully to all. A pleasure to read.
Quoting Universal Student
As you know from your explorations, some questions have no answers. Or so many that it can be confusing. I think we gravitate to those which make sense to us, even though it also makes sense to question that too. That is why this forum can be illuminating in different ways.
See my bolds: There is an almost religious element here. A certain philosophy or faith?
What kind of transition are you talking about? What have you 'borrowed'? From where and how would it be returned?
It seems like this is your prime motivation: to develop and grow so that you can live on in some other life.
Perhaps I missed this, but did you mention what faith you follow?
OK, thanks for this. A holistic practice and development, then.
The conceptual is always more difficult to understand far less explain. However, what concepts are most important to you, other than the thread topic?
I read on and note: 'Consumption'. Best use of resources? Environmental concerns.
'Cooperation'. Rather than competition?
So, political concerns?
These are not so difficult to explain so perhaps you mean:
'Establishing reference points' - what are they and how can they be established? How are they useful?
'Mental exercises and brain tricks' - have you any specific examples?
You mentioned 'journalism'. Your writing and thoughts have been well-informed and expressed.
Do you write elsewhere? Articles? Forums? Magazines? Essays?
Do you forage for ideas on places like this as research for a particular writing project?
Yes I agree. Positing the question and being curious about it in the beginning is a very good place to start.
My advice would be establishing the boundaries of the self image that you have in your mind in the first place.
Where does your "self" end and "other" begin?
And how many things do you have in common with the "other" beyond yourself and how many do you not have in common?
For example are you made of the same stuff? Is your self just you body? Is it just your mind? Could it be both? Neither? Do you behave in similar ways with what you consider "other". Do you exchange or share things between you and it?
Once you establish what exactly the limits of your "self" are, then you have a propionate "self awareness" no? Have fun with it and stay curious
Those are scientific questions.
a. "What is consciousness?"
-"Consciousness is an arousal and awareness of environment and self, which is achieved through action of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) on the brain stem and cerebral cortex (Daube, 1986; Paus, 2000; Zeman, 2001; Gosseries et al., 2011). "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/
The content of those states is introduced by the cooperation of the Central Lateral thalamus with different areas of our brain responsible for storing memories,symbolic thinking and language, pattern recognition, reasoning etc etc.
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/tiny-brain-area-could-enable-consciousness
b."What is self-awareness?"
-Unconscious self-awarness is an essential property of the mind, produced by biological brains. It only comes second to Awakeness and it is followed by consciousness composing the three fundamental mind properties of our brains. There is also the concept of the "self" which is produced by our conscious states but it a whole other topic.
https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/what-is-a-mind.
-"Third; what are the barriers?"
-You need to clarify that one, barriers of what?
I will also address the title of this thread:
-"How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?
-Organisms that are mobile need to seek for resources and homeostasis (food,shelter and avoid suffering). Being aware of our state and our environment that alone increases our survival advantages and the possibility of our evolved brain features to pass to the next generation. Organic and Environmental stimuli provide information and biological brains have been selected to interpret them and guide the behavior of an organism based on previous experiences, current state (emotions) and existing biological setup.
-"Self awareness is socially constructed. "
-Well there is Unconscious Self awareness(second fundamental mind property) and there is the concept of the self. The first is a biological driven Property of the Mind while the second is a construct produced by our conscious states as a result of interpreting Environmental stimuli, emotions and experiences.
All living beings with brains have a basic unconscious awareness of their existence as a physical agent and it is essential to take actions for their survival, so this is why it is recognized as a drive. The concept of "self" is easily observed in social species where interactions and feelings define more complex characteristics of an agent.
Quoting Amity
This is what I am seeing in the little glimpse I've gotten myself. This forum seems like a real treasure. I'm glad to be on board.
Quoting Amity
Not quite.
When I say transition, I speak to form changing from one thing into another. We collectively debate what this will look like, if anything, post death. I do have my own personal reasons for why I have the sense that the essence of me will continue on in other lifetimes, as I have the sense that it has done so already. This sense however, is not religiously motivated. If anything, I am careful not to attach to belief systems.
I do not have attachments to any faith based religious structures. I did, in my youth. Those have been broken down. They are no longer useful to me.
I do not consider anything that I utilize to be mine, if I am capable of losing it. In death, I will lose my intellect, my possessions, my hands and feet. If I can lose them, then were they ever truly mine to begin with?
In this acceptance, I can shed attachments to that which I have no control over. So in a way yes, I do prepare for death. But that is not the end of it. I wish to be at peace with myself, when I take my last breath. Who knows what comes after? If my soul does continue on, it will be stronger for whatever comes along because I wasn't distracted by things that are fleeting and temporary.
I do not feel certain that I can identify my prime motivation at this time. This is something I will need to spend time with.
Of course!
I'm going to spend some time with this one before I reply.
Quoting Amity
We consume every day. Food (fuel), stimulation (movement), information (learning). My observation is that over a period of time, these intakes change us. In some ways, these changes are subtle and others are more obvious. This is one aspect of life that we have some measure of control over. We can actively choose what we take in. I work to be mindful of my intake while maintaining a balance so that I don't end up with decision paralysis. There are plenty of things that could influence the choices that I make. I think to dive into those would be opening up a whole conversation, albeit a fun one! My choices do tend to be motivated by cooperation over competition.
Quoting Amity
Reference points to me, are sometimes little nuggets of wisdom that we have earned along the way. A reference point can be a tough lesson learned or a significant realization that comes with experience. It could be a mistake that has shaken us to our core.
Knowledge can fail us in vital moments, so it has to be something that we can see clearly while in a storm. Something with strong roots. This can be particularly useful in moments when emotions run high, difficult circumstances emerge and the more primitive parts of us threaten to take over the full use of our facilities. These have also aided me in times when I become lost in my mind space and need to find my way back to reality.
Can you think of the tones of ink that have been spilled on this subject since eons and that we still lack a detailed description that is acceptable by most "thinkers" --letting scientists aside-- and the only we can read or hear on the subject is personal views, most of them unsubstantiated or unfounded?
Well, this is a long question but it is ony a rhetorical one! :smile:
But it begs for a real question: What do you expect to receive as responses and get as a product from this discussion?
Have you read the rest of the posts on this thread? If not, why are you pontificating here. If you have, I think you'd see what @Universal Student is getting at.
Yikes. That was a typo. No journalism here. I meant to say that I journal. I use personal writing as a tool. It's a rather powerful tool for me that I've utilized since I was a pre-teen.
I do have some personal projects that I am developing and perhaps if I get around to returning to school one day, I'll dive into more. My education is nothing special or noteworthy.
I keep fairly busy as is, as mother of two boys working full time. I do work to maintain a balanced and simple life, so I only select a few things to channel my energy into.
Writing, reading (almost exclusively non- fiction - can't recall the last time I read a fiction novel) and having these kinds of conversations are my preferred ways to spend my time when I'm not attending the basic needs of myself and my family.
I wrote poetry when I was younger but my writing developed to be more philosophical in nature pretty quickly. I still write poetry. I have ideas, thoughts and various writings scattered about my life but I haven't put the real work into formulating anything constructive yet. Perhaps one day, when my kiddos are a bit older.
I think I'm just here to learn from others and myself, to see what there is to see. It is nice to have a space to go to for my ideas to flow into and change.
You talk about a 'sense' that your 'essence' will continue as it has done before and will do again.
What kind of 'sense' is this? And how do you detect it? Where is its source?
The concept usually identified with this is that of 'reincarnation'. Is that what you mean?
Quoting Universal Student
So, you don't consider the brain inside your skull to be yours?
Does this mean you take no responsibility for your mind, body or actions taken?
This doesn't make sense to me. You own your words and your actions, don't you?
You can change your mind e.g. as to religious or spiritual affiliations and beliefs, no?
Questioning your ownership doesn't make sense to me.
Quoting Universal Student
It is not necessary to disown your own brain, indeed quite the opposite, to put into perspective that over which you have no control.
Quoting Universal Student
How do you know or 'sense' that any surviving soul will be stronger?
Quoting Universal Student
OK. Thanks for that. I understand the need for time to consider.
Even if not identified, there is clearly a strong need or desire to develop yourself as much as possible.
Plenty of thoughts to mull over :sparkle:
Thanks for the explanation.
Re: nuggets of wisdom 'earned'. Is that a typo? Or a karma cause-and-effect thing?
Quoting Universal Student
Hmm. What we can see 'clearly' when going through tough times can vary, depending on state of mind, context and circumstance. What kind of 'vital moments'?
Our perceptions can be faulty. Do you mean something to hold on to? What?
Are you suggesting that 'knowledge' doesn't have strong roots?
Yes, our emotions can take over but it is in utilising knowledge and experience gained that control can be exerted.
So, what provides the 'strong roots' that you can easily see when mentally 'lost'?
Where are you in your 'mind space'? What kind of a 'reality' does it return you to compared to what?
So many questions. More 'distractions' ?! :wink:
Quoting unenlightened
Love this metaphor. It really brings the image of what you trying to show us into view ;)
This brings to mind for me the idea of "looking for that which is looking." The camera or the looker, can not see itself. It can only see an image or a refection, in the visual field.
My thought is, if we can't see ourselves, what does it mean to feel and sense ourselves? I wonder if this is part of the reason why we have evolved to become so acutely aware of others viewing us. I understand that some of this is just our innate sense of survival instinct. We know scientifically about the observer effect in quantum physics. I've always found it interesting that we tend to behave similarly to quantum particles in this sense, as social animals.
Have you heard of the philosopher Douglas Harding, by chance? He talks about the, "headless way".
You may find this relevant to the track that you are on.
See -
https://www.headless.org/on-having-no-head.htm#:~:text=Douglas%20Harding%20The%20best%20day%20of%20my%20life%E2%80%94my,it%20in%20all%20seriousness%3A%20I%20have%20no%20head.
An abundance here for me to mull over. Lots to digest and reflect on. I sense a potential conflict of ideas within myself to evaluate.
Thank you!
I'll be sure to quote ya once I'm ready to move forward with my responses on these.
:smile: I think that is an excellent practice. Another exercise I've failed in. I admire those who have what it takes to do this.
Quoting Universal Student
I wish you all the very best in your life-long learning. There are now more opportunities than ever.
Quoting Universal Student
Again, I take my hat off to you. I know when I studied with the OU that some, like you, managed to gain a degree over several years. I don't know how they managed but they did...with honours. :100:
Quoting Universal Student
Dedication plus.
Quoting Universal Student
So far, so very well done!
I've a lot of scattered ramblings and could probably do with more self-discipline. However, now of a certain age and mental decline, I'm in relative relaxation mode.
I come here for such as this and a bit of fun.
Really good to talk with you...
Quoting Amity
I use the word earned because any wisdom that I have personally gained feels as though there was an exchange which took place. A loss, pain, a sacrifice, etc.
I am uncertain of karma beyond the potential of it being a possibility, however I do think that there is a balance in the universe. Whatever that is called, or how it functions exactly, is beyond me.
Please take all the time you need. I prefer this more leisurely way, rather than the knee-jerk responses.
Heh.Thank you for the questions!
I'm reaching that point of needing to return to these in another moment.
Take care! :)
I've now reached maximum mental output for today. Time to chill :sparkle:
A great pleasure to share with you as well!
Till next time :)
Thank you for the reply!
I am reaching my limit for being in optimal mental capacity for now but I'll be sure to return to this later.
Have a balanced day :)
Thank you for the reply!
I am reaching my limit for being in optimal mental capacity for now but I'll be sure to return to this later.
Have a balanced day :)
Haha you too! Have a lovely day :)