Tag: knowledge

The Concept of Mind: Structures of Experience

After many conversations with friends about experience vs. reflection, I decided I should attempt to extricate how it is I grasp consciousness and its inhabiting structures. These are simply ongoing notes and reflections written for my own personal reference. Though it may not be immediately obvious, there is a certain logic to the order in which these thoughts are introduced.

Being

A living organism is a subjective being, and a subjective being possesses a body. A subject possesses a perspective, while an object is possessed by a perspective.

Stimulation

Stimulation occurs due to a change or transference of energy, otherwise called an affect. Stimulation acting on the body produces an affect which leaves an impression on the mind. Sensory stimulation occurs due to an affect on the sensory organs located on the body.

Reflection

Memory is produced by recalling past impressions

Reflection is a synthetic process which integrates past memories with present experience; by retrieving past impressions, of varying quantity and quality, and creating new associations.

Reflection extricates concepts from their originally generated, or prior applied, context and introduces the concepts into the present consciousness.

Experience

Experience is a feature of all living beings, rendered by responding to stimulations derived from the external world.

Experience is feeling: the production of sensations on the mind.

Experience, prior to the introduction of any and all structural concepts, is a swirling chaos of pure feeling and sensation, with each sensation represented to varying magnitudes and degrees. The absence of any order is confusing, swirling, melting, blooming, variegating; a storm of senses, containing  every color, sound, smell, touch, taste; with all the accompanying pain and pleasure; boiling of shade, hue, tint, tone.

Experience can be conscious or unconscious.

Consciousness

Consciousness is produced by active reflection. Unconsciousness is produced by inactive reflection.

Consciousness is marked by reflection: it is the feature of reproducing impressions—memories— and hold them before the “mind’s eye” for consideration (for application or entertainment).

Reflective consciousness may produce the feeling of experience by reproducing memories of prior experience, otherwise known as imagining, but this experience is not actively “living”, but presently “dead”. According to the sensations produced, that which is living is fluid and changing; while that which is dead is static and persisting.

Consciousness has many levels: it is not simply being “alive”. There are many levels— or orders— of consciousness. Higher order consciousness arises in proportion to complexity: the greater the complexity, the greater consciousness.

The complexity of consciousness is proportional to the quantity and quality of reflection. By quantity I speak temporally of “how often”, specifically done. By quality I speak spatially of “how many”, specifically kinds.

The faculties of consciousness relate to both the sensory input organs and the sensory integration organs. The five senses constitute the input organs, while the integration organs relate to associative memory.

The sensory input organs are developed according to their sensitivity which arises from exposure. Each input organ develops independently from or in combination with other input organs. Independent exposure produces depth; while combinatory exposure produces breadth, with depth increasing in proportion to exposure of combinations..

The integration organs break down further into two aspects of integration, being intelligence and creativity. Intelligence relates to efficient associative memory, while creativity relates to effective associative memory.

Efficient associative memory arises from similar stimulation, repetition, or repeated exposure, or routine; which produce strengthened habits of thought.

Effective associative memory arises from dissimilar stimulation, instances, or diverse exposure, or novelty; which produce weakened habits of thought.

Conceptual Structures

How concepts structure experience into knowledge:

Concepts render conscious experience; that is, concepts render experience conscious.

Concepts are the lens, the paradigm, the filter, the mold, the scope, the structure, the order with which experience is made conscious.

Conceptual structures arise from reflection.

Concepts order experience; they serve to distinguish distinctions among the spectrum of colorful feeling so that colorful feeling can be indexed according to its kind and utilized when the appropriate context calls for it.

All knowledge resembles a polyhedron bi-pyramid. Each domain of knowledge (experience or thought) is a triangular face on the pyramid, with every domain representing a specific context, or culture or social structure.

Concepts are geometric shapes or tools; they exist as structures that organize the integration of experience.

When I imagine what a single concept is within a single domain, my thoughts produce a two dimensional geometric shape that resembles a snowflake.

If the concept is complex and developed by experimental experience, and incorporates many domains of thought, I imagine a three dimensional solid, with one face visible to the domain, and the interrelations with other conceptual blocks hidden from sight, existing internally within the pyramid.

Context

A context is the associations established among objects by circumscribing the area around the location of a given point.

A context is determined by the degrees of relation among objects proximate to the given point of a subject’s location.

A context is an ecology and system: an ecology is the entire sum of objective demands acting within the context; a system is a series of connections produced by cause and demand.

The context produced by conscious experience is a domain of thought; a perspective of mind.

Each context is a unique, temporally and spatially located, experience with specific environmental demands, being physical or social. Context is the situation of a given organism or subjective being, in present or past.

Context is defined as the problem; the environmental demands. Every organism is programmed to self-preserve: survival is an organisms priority. As such, every context poses a problem, with the ease of the problem increasing in proportion to the level of adaptation.

The greater the problem or struggle or chaos or confusion, the greater the need for reflection, and the greatest potential for generating new concepts.

Concepts are always generated within a specific context, to solve the problem of context and its individuated environmental demands; therefore concepts are anchored to the context in which they were generated. Concepts may be unanchored when they are reproduced through reflection, introduced to the consciousness, and applied to the context of present or past experience.

Division of labor diversifies contexts by delineating and indexing concepts according to the specific context in which they were generated. In this way division of labor acknowledges the utility of context and the accompanying specialization of concepts.

Each face of the geometric solid represents a the conceptual structure of a single perspective.

Environment is determined by the temporal and spatial location of a subjective being in an external world constituted by finite matter composing infinite entities.

Particulars

All particulars are ideas of consciousness:: All facts are particulars of experience.

All ideas are indexed concepts; ideas are truth, and cannot be challenged by experience.

All facts are indexed experiences; facts are probable, and can be challenged by experience.

An untested fact is only an idea.

A tested idea is a fact only in the context in which is was tested.

All premises must be grounded in experience.

All facts must be grounded in experience.

Convergence

Convergence occurs due to association.

Convergent lines  intersect at angles which represent logical connectors, or operators or associations.

Operators connect or hold the concept together and give it shape.

Dualities of Consciousness

I come to possess concepts in two ways: passively or actively.

1. Passive concepts are yielded deductively, as given ideas.

2. Active concepts are yielded inductively, as created facts. .

1. Knowledge is ideas that have been passively structured with concepts: knowledge is rote, analytic, two dimensional, logically sequential, abstract and monochromatic

2. Wisdom is experience that has been actively structured with concepts: wisdom is intuitive, synthetic, three dimensional, holistic, concrete and colorful.

1. I passively receive concepts through books or passively listening to lecture or discourse. These concepts arrive prefabricated and incomplete. In this way passive concepts exist a priori to experience until the extent of their full nature fully tested through experimentation and the geometric solid can be developed. These concepts are linked

When I receive a passive concept, each sentence or logical operation produces or adds black lines, points, or angles to the shape. The lines are the premises; and the angles are the operators. The concept itself is hollow and possesses no internal color and therefore no way of distinguishing it from other similar concepts without an external indicator. In fact, when I think about an abstract concept, it’s sometimes difficult to see where premised lines begin and where they end, which angles of logic are part of the line or part of two separate premised lines intersecting.

2. I actively produce concepts though the process of organizing chaotic or confusing experience. That is, a problem imposes disorder on my experience and by turning over the problem within my mind— by reflecting and describing and rotating its nature; and asking how and why and when it works and where it comes from and what it associates with— I produce an erect a structure which orders the experience. This structure is a concept.

Every actively produced concept is a result of applied pressure, applied work, constantly squeezing, testing, stretching, challenging, and undermining its ability to yield a concept that orders and explains experience.

Synthetic Unification

New concepts are constructed when the particulars of mind converge in a context, as a result of reflection.

Wisdom is synthesis of contexts, or disparate domains of knowledge, and the concepts located within.

The process of testing particulars yields experience.

The process of testing concepts within a context yields understanding.

The process of testing concepts in various contexts yields wisdom.

The bipyramid capstone is the unifying concept; the pinnacle is the all seeing eye; the concept located at the highest point is the higher order self, or a consciousness that is fully aware of its self, due to reflection.

The top of the pyramid is where synthesis occurs: all concepts exist under this synthesizing capstone.

Structuring Consciousness

No matter what the domain, there is always a single unifying concept at the top, which resembles a capstone, in which all other concepts are built upon. This concept possesses the same shape and is positioned in the same location for every domain. Reaching the very point of this  capstone requires emptying all concepts from the mind, and feeling entirely. When this occurs synthesis can occur among other domains of thought and their concepts.

The concepts extending from under this unifying concept all resemble irregular geometric shapes. The farther down, the more irregular, and the less compatible with concepts horizontal to it. Extending away from the unifying pinnacle located at the tip of the capstone, the base extends down infinitely as each additional concept justifying existing concepts indexes a new aspect of experience.

Each concept possesses very unique features that allow it to integrate seamlessly with other concepts that possess inversely congruent features, so that they rest stable on one another. In this way all compatible concepts are inversely related (dualistic), like puzzle pieces, possessing a supply or demand that links them together, a void or an instantiating, a cause or effect, a deficit or surplus. Every concept contrasts with an interlinking, compatible concept in which it is connected.

New domains of knowledge cannot be built up from passive concepts. They can only reconstruct an existing domain of knowledge. Passive concepts can build down, developing or elaborating new concepts, from existing domains of knowledge.

Only when the unifying concept located at the point of the capstone is established can active concepts build up new domains of knowledge.

Adaptation and Evolution

Adaptation is an equalizing response; adapting is a response which creates equilibrium between two objects.

Adaptation is the appropriate response to environmental demands.

Adaptation of a subjective being is the appropriate response to proximate objective demands imposed by the given context.

The necessities, struggles, and demands original to a context does not guarantee adaptation.  If the subjective being is perfectly adapted to its environment– the objective demands of its context–, appropriate responses will occur fluidly and seamlessly.

Energy must be supplied to a system to produce change.

If a subjective being  is produced by the context, it is perfectly adapted. Wherever energy is highest, adaptation is fastest. Potential energy allows for future adaptation.

Concepts allow for adaptation by producing appropriate responses to changing demands.

Access to concepts and active reflection is imperative to adaptation.

Concepts without reflection cause functional fixation because they only consider the concepts—and the context in which they were generated— presently occupying the consciousness, which is incompatible with the demands of the current context.

Some personalities possess a chronic struggle which produces creative thoughts and solutions: madness of creative genius, anxiety, bipolar, depression, and the like.

 

Information Evolution: Language and Real-life Structures

Random thoughts on language as information evolution. And technology and digital information.

Continue reading “Information Evolution: Language and Real-life Structures”

Ran

‘Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.’
— Henry Brooks Adams

Your life is a lie. All is a myth. There is no matter of fact that lies beyond the assaulting grip of dispute. Everything can be contended.

I’ve been feeling great lately. Have a great story to tell. I need to begin blogging again. Starting… right now. Every day I’ll spew something about my day, about my thoughts, recent conversations, stuff I learned at work, etc.

But back to my original thought. All is a lie. A myth. We create these myths through out desires. We justify these myths, these upending urges that swell and burst into action, through irrational beliefs. But that doesn’t stop us from trying to rationalize these beliefs. Oh no.

What I’ve realized is that people are bat shit insane. I nod most of the time. They ask me what I believe, wouldn’t you know it, I say “what works.” They usually ask me to come again, to clarify. I say, I don’t believe anything. I just adopt beliefs that work within a given context to get me what I want or bring me where I want to go. These beliefs account for a multitude of emotional, social, and relational factors.

I am a skeptic. I believe in the ego, the I, the ‘consciousness’ and that’s about it. I believe this ego manifests desires and that it justifies its actions according to these desires, whether it is the desire the self-preserve, or look pretty, or get in shape, or be smart, or whatever.

I am a skeptic, I repeat: I doubt. I insert wedges of doubt behind every thought so that I may unhinge my biases, my habituations, my prejudices. I am a skeptic. I believe that knowing nothing is the best route to knowing more. When you have your mind made up, you have failed yourself. Always leave room for doubt. Even test the reasonableness of your methods for doubting. Doubt everything. Leave no stone unturned. We live in a web, a sticky web: a context where thoughts in the now are found at the center, where the periphery extends into the far reaches of the past. Let us probe. Let us look for where these webs unravel, let’s unravel these webs of beliefs and string together something totally new and magical. Something original and wholly mine.

I like my job.

This world is about power.

Everyone is blind. Blind to themselves.

I need to spend time fully typing out all my thoughts.

Money is power. Power is money. They are synonymous. They buy influence, satisfaction, discontent, life, death, whatever you can dream up. But money and power doesn’t give you answers. That is left for wisdom, something that supersedes and transcends both. I desire to have money, power, and wisdom. Eh.

Sage advice: Buy gold. The dollar is losing its value. The fed stopped quantitative easing/printing money. Deflation will be sure to ensue, briefly. So they’ll start again. Interest rates are at zero percent. Major trade deficits loom. The economy will be volatile the next few months. Buy mining company shares, like Newmont. And Microsoft, because it’s a severely undervalued stock right now. So help me god.

Anywho.

I need to go to bed.

Most people think they think big. But their idea of big is awfully small.

Evidentialism

The Principle of Evidentialism states that a Subject is justified in believing p if the belief is proportioned according to evidence at a given time. That is, S is epistemically justified in believing a proposition at time t if and only if the belief is supported by S’s evidence at time t.

Suppose I maintain the belief that I will pass all my philosophy classes. The evidence I have for this belief is that I have received all passing grades through the semester, that there are no new assignments, there is no class curve, and it is now the last day of classes. I am justified in believing that I will pass because all the evidence supports this belief; namely that all my grades are undeniably above passing and there are no more opportunities to earn credit toward my grade.

This belief is justified because the proposition “I believe that I will pass all my philosophy classes” is supported evidence “it has been confirmed that all the grades I received in all these classes are undeniably passing” at the time the proposition was stated, i.e. at the last day of classes. It is important that all evidence is properly accounted for, including knowledge of a class curve and the relation of these grades to other students. Also vitally important is that the proposition is stated according to the evidence at time t. If it was stated earlier there would be insufficient evidence to uphold that belief because not all possible grades were completed.

Pragmatism and a priori Knowledge

Can a pragmatist accept a priori knowledge? Consider the following statements of a priori knowledge:

1) 4 beer cans and 3 beer cans equals 7 beer cans in total.
2) A can contains the properties metallic and cylindrical.

The mind has inescapable a priori knowledge that operates as an interpretative function for ordering and categorizing experience. A pragmatist can instrumentally stipulate any definition. If we take thought as a priori, i.e.capable of intuitions independent of experience,  one can stipulate necessary conventions for assimilating experience. In this way the self generates a priori thoughts that function as an interpretive structure brought to experience, but this a priori knowledge is uniquely exclusive to the self. Revisions to current a priori knowledge have no affect on past interpretations as they have already been interpreted as experience. All a priori stipulations provide a ‘perceptual gestalt’ or ‘interpretive lens’ composed of axioms that categorize experience into concepts to suit personal ends. The implications of a stipulation may even yield new insights about experience, as when two stipulated definitions render incompatible (contradictory or inconsistent) experience.

The two examples given illustrate concepts with definitions stipulated a priori that categorize experiences a posteriori. In this way the definition of a can brings classification to experience, so that experiencing the properties metallic and cylindrical classify an experience as a can.

While experience may provide material to stipulate categorical definitions, such as certain predications, it is not necessary for stipulating. Stipulations arise from the mind and are brought to experience as a priori categorical structures.

 

 

Reliablilism

Reliabilism is a form of epistemic externalism that generally states that a belief is justified when it results from a reliable belief forming process that is either doxastically dependent or doxastically independent. That is, S knows that p iff p is true, SBp is true, and S has a reliable process for arriving at p.  In this way, SJp (att) iff (1) it is not in other epistemic evaluative terms, (2) explains how SJp is justified is a function of SBp’s genesis. This principle emphasizes the virtue of the belief forming mechanism and the veridical historicity of the belief over the truth value in order to account for the possibility of a false belief.

Suppose that I claim knowledge of my age, 24. I believe that my age of 24 is true. The process I possess to justify my age is to check my birth certificate. As a notarized document of the government, I believe the process of checking my birth date to its data yields reliable knowledge. I justify this belief forming process from the fact that everyone verifies their age in this way and it is most accurate and consistent. Additionally, I believe the government would not falsify this data as a notarized document. This is an exemplary example of reliabilism because my knowledge is based on the virtue of the belief forming process, naming checking the birth certificate, that is historically reliable and still allows for the possibility of falsity if say, my birth certificate was lost, or doctored, and I forgot my real birth date.

Pollack’s principle of objective epistemic justification

Pollack’s principle of objective epistemic justification, whereby objective epistemic justification entails justified true belief, states that:

S is objectively justified in believing P if and only if:
1. S is (subjectively) justified in believing P; and
2. there is a set of X truths such that, given any more inclusive set Y of truths, necessarily, if the truths in Y were added to S’s beliefs (and their negations removed in those cases in which S disbelieves them) and S believed P for the same reason then he would still be (subjectively) justified in believing P.

In an example similar to Pollack’s Tom Grabit case, it becomes evident that the structure of epistemic justification and the complexity of epistemic norms is the crux for objective epistemic justification:

Suppose I see a sign indicating that the home of particular neighbor Mr. Beech is for sale on my street. I am sure that I am familiar with this neighbor who is an economics professor at the local college and know he lives there. The following day I arrive at work and report that Mr. Beech’s home is for sale, on the account that I have met him and seen a for sale sign on my street. However, unbeknownst to me, my wife insists that Mr. Beech is not moving anywhere, on account that she spoke with him the day before and he made no indication of doing so.

However, my wife did not know that Mr. Beech was ashamedly the victim on a Ponzi scheme and lost all him money, and that he desperately wanted to move to save face and needed to sell his house to recoup money. In light of this evidence, it becomes apparent that I did know that Mr. Beech was moving.

This example supports Pollack’s principle of objective epistemic justification because S instantiated argument A that objectively justified P so that A prevailed undefeated in relation to the inclusive set of truths presented. In the example, S is objectively justified in believing P as a result of knowledge that was undefeated by true defeaters.

Pollock’s principle of objective epistemic justification

Pollock’s principle of objective epistemic justification, whereby objective epistemic justification entails justified true belief, states that:

S is objectively justified in believing P if and only if:
1. S is (subjectively) justified in believing P; and
2. there is a set of X truths such that, given any more inclusive set Y of truths, necessarily, if the truths in Y were added to S’s beliefs (and their negations removed in those cases in which S disbelieves them) and S believed P for the same reason then he would still be (subjectively) justified in believing P.

In an example similar to Pollock’s Tom Grabit case, it becomes evident that the structure of epistemic justification and the complexity of epistemic norms is the crux for objective epistemic justification:

Suppose I see a sign indicating that the home of particular neighbor Mr. Beech is for sale on my street. I am sure that I am familiar with this neighbor who is an economics professor at the local college and know he lives there. The following day I arrive at work and report that Mr. Beech’s home is for sale, on the account that I have met him and seen a for sale sign on my street. However, unbeknownst to me, my wife insists that Mr. Beech is not moving anywhere, on account that she spoke with him the day before and he made no indication of doing so.

However, my wife did not know that Mr. Beech was ashamedly the victim on a Ponzi scheme and lost all him money, and that he desperately wanted to move to save face and needed to sell his house to recoup money. In light of this evidence, it becomes apparent that I did know that Mr. Beech was moving.

This example supports Pollock’s principle of objective epistemic justification because S instantiated argument A that objectively justified P so that A prevailed undefeated in relation to the inclusive set of truths presented. In the example, S is objectively justified in believing P as a result of knowledge that was undefeated by true defeaters.

Spatia Ante Materia

Spatia ante Materia (Spatia Rem or Spatia et Materia)

Is consciousness chosen? No. Therefore, there is no free will.

Consciousness was pulled out from within, forced into by demand.

The objective of life is to satisfy demands. All matter is a response to space. As matter, we exist to fulfill these flowing demands of space.

I want to write a magnum opus on a theory of everything which explains phenomena such as mind, knowledge, and reason. The theory will take on a form resembling mathematics, whereby balance and equilibrium serve as the natural progression for all cause and effect.

The exposition will begin by grounding three main concepts: polar pairs  (+, -), equilibrium (=), change (, ->)

What is important is not what is included, but what is excluded. Cause precedes effect, just as demand precedes supply, as space precedes matter, as form precedes substance.

Demand and Supply

Demand: (-),space, empty, negative, cause, pull, question, eternal, infinite, possibility, freedom

Supply: (+), matter, full, positive, effect, answer, temporal, finite, actuality, necessity

Equilibrium: (=), balance, harmony, synthesis, (life energy of being)

Change: (), (->), condition, (A third relation between +&-)

Why do we live in a dualistic world?

Phenomenon: L.L. phænomenon, from Gk. phainomenon “that which appears or is seen,” noun use of neut. prp. of phainesthai “to appear,” passive of phainein (see phantasm). Meaning “extraordinary occurrence” first recorded 1771. Plural is phenomena.

What is the origin of phenomena? Occurrence? Change?

Equilibrium, a balance of tensions, results from change.

Why is there space at all?

Life is a progression of changes toward equilibrium.

Entropy is a progression toward an equilibrium state.

Is life the most efficient form of entropy?

Reality is a question; not an answer.

Time a measure describing a rate of change, . Time is not constant but relative to rates.

Knowledge is never so pure than in its moment of conception.

Change must not be rigid, otherwise is will not adapt. Knowledge is inherently rigid: determinate; composed and formed. Understanding is fluid: indeterminate; flexible and open. Knowledge sufficiently supplies for necessary demands.

Where S & + are matter and D & – are space:
MP: S->D/ S// D
MT: S->D/ ~D// ~S

Demand is a necessary condition for all supply: without demand, there is no supply; without space, there is no matter; without problems, there is no knowledge. Supply is a sufficient condition for demand; knowledge is a sufficient condition for problem. As a sufficient condition, demand may be satisfied by any posited supply; problems may be satisfied by any posited knowledge. Equilibrium is reached by a supply that accounts for and satisfies maximum proximate demands.

LEM: (+ v ~+), that is (+ v -)
LNC: ~(+ ∧ ~+), that is ~(+ ∧ -)
LI: (+=+), that is (+<=>+), reflexive relation/ tautology

Mind

Intentionalism:

“In an intentional state, something is presented to the mind. So any intentional state is a presentation. What is presented is called an intentional object; for a state of mind to have an intentional object is for it to be directed on that object, So, insofar as a state of mind is directed, it has an intentional object. The intentional object of a thought is given in the answer to the question ‘what is your thought about?/what is your thought directed on?’ For a state of mind to have aspectual shape is for it to present its object in a certain way. And so, insofar as the state of mind has aspectual shape, then it has intentional content. The intentional content of a thought is given in an answer to the questions ‘what are you thinking?/what is in your mind?’ Since, according to intentionalism, all mental states have directedness and aspectual shape, then all mental states have an intentional object and intentional content.”

-Crane, Stephen: Elements of Mind (2001)

I would like to explore the origin of presentation. The presentations that give rise to mind result from causal demands. All matter maintains a spatial relation between other matter. Equilibrium progress manifests relations as tension from unresolved demands. Bodies present themselves in relation to other bodies; everything else. Matter is not inclusive, but exclusive. This relational tension manifests a pull, a demanding force, a gravitation. All bodies, exclusive and distinct, are in misrelation until an equilibrium reaches universal homogeneity.

Consciousness

Consciousness was pulled out from within, forced into existence- into a condition, a being, a change, a continuous enactment- by demand.

Silent Virtue

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” -Plato

I am ever painfully aware of my contributions.

I have nothing to prove to myself. My knowledge is my own and needs no verification on the ears of others. I do not offer a supply where there is no demand for fear of flooding the citadels where fragile egos reside.

When one is fully competent in their knowledge, in their experience, in their ability to responsibly manage their inner life, one earns a reverent respect for humility and the virtue of silence. Open doors reveal the inner chambers of existence and expose the relative beauty or disarray where mindful solace is sought. When one speaks incessantly, without merited or solicited warrant, one does not offer up new knowledge but new insights to these potentially barren chambers of existence.

When we talk, we do not extol the storehouse of our knowledge but, more often than not, the lack thereof.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed Review

Chapter One

  In chapter one Paulo Freire addresses the matter of humanization, or the problem of dehumanization. Initially the reader is left wondering what it means to be fully humanized. As he talks of these hierarchal roles of subject-object, of oppressor-oppressed, he refrains from explicitly prescribing what it means to be fully human. This is not unintended, for such a prescription would vitiate his message by qualifying the very structure he seeks to eliminate. For Freire, humanity is not a thing to have or possess, but rather a responsibility towards freedom that allows being more fully.
 
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Freedom and Spirituality

Abstract
This essay explores the phenomenon of spirituality by delineating the rise of free will as a product of a reflective consciousness synthesized from conditioned responses resulting from external demands.

Contents

  1. Reflection as a starting point for analysis and reducibility
  1. Necessity of cause
  • Freedom
    1. Predictors of Demand
    2. Rise of Ideas
    3. Free will
    4. Reflection as Action
    5. Distance Defines Knowledge
  • Spirituality
    1. God’s Nature
    2. Conversions
  • The Rise of Spirituality

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    Prehension.

    If only people were more concerned with learning the truth than being right. It is uncomfortable, dare I say painful, to navigate into unfamiliar waters. You bump and skid and fumble in the murky unknown, moving ever so slowly and grasping ever so gently for something to guide you. This is where understanding begins to blossom.

    I detest using language with sweeping generalities like ‘the majority of people’, but I’ll say it. The majority of people are more concerned with being right than being correct (correct in the sense that the focus of the intellect should be to reveal and expound upon truth, not defend pride). No ones senses are any better equipped at feeling out the world than another. Every human experience is valuable. Each person’s input contributes to the larger picture, the ethereal essence we swim through called life.

    It is terribly difficult to live along side people who are uncompromising, and incorrect. They would rather form gross prejudices and have the world cater to narrow belief systems them venture into uncomfortable compromise. Learning from someone, especially someone who’s background is quite contrary to yours, is not only disorienting, it is threatening. You open yourself up to vulnerabilities. You arsenal of knowledge is useless in this foreign land. You are at the mercy of time and humiliation (humility should be practiced anyway).

    Over time, after you’ve felt your way around the new sanctuary of perspicacity, you begin to make yourself at home. You begin to trust your senses and use the footings and tools previously overlooked. This is when understanding is garnered. Let others hurl insults from their fortified and familiar bunkers, filled with the stench of stale familiarity. They take no risks so they never breath the fresh zephyrs trailing after pursuit. Instead they become entrenched in their defenses, fastening themselves to the most hackneyed ground.

    Sad, sad, world. If we would only unhinge from our precious securities, cast off the trammels holding us down, we would see a world beyond our narrow apertures as we explore the vast wilderness of imagination.

    You must be willing to endure the humiliating pains of blindness before true insight is gained. anyway.

    tinkin tings.

    well… I miss being in love with learning. The acquisition of knowledge for the sheer sake of furthering my understanding… motivated by sheer passion and will.

    I recognize that I’m often confused. I don’t know if that makes me any more or less of a man, but I’m open to it. I do know one thing for certain. I will be successful. In what way? I usually struggle to find that answer… but I do know I’ll never ever settle. At the end of the day I strive and reach and grab that which is most excellent. I always call on the best I have to offer. Sometimes I undermine myself but such is life. It’s a learning experience.

    I don’t want to be one of those people you see that’s all smart.. and has all this potential… but you look at him and he’s not doin too much. You look at his life and he’s in some kinda perpetual transition. Still finding himself, or the ideal situation. I recently read that if you’re waiting for something to turn up, the first place you should try is your sleeves. Nothings gonna happen for you unless you make it happen.

    I always wonder if I’ll find those ideal circumstances that I dream about. Then I wonder if it’s just about me making those ideal circumstances. So I do my best to hone the skills and attitude and emotional resilience to make the absolute best out of my situation. I practice seeing the best in every one, everything, everytime.

    I won’t lie.. I’m not flawless at this. I lack patience and sometimes throw my hands in the air and let it all out. Maybe my integrity gets jaded for a time being but thats ok. Thankfully I always remember that which I value most- passion to excel. Arete.

    If you’re gonna spend time and energy thinking, exerting your influence upon the world through your thoughts and feelings, mine as well do it on your way towards something worthwhile. Like a goal, or an ideal. My fruitless thoughts, superfluous time wasters, and fickle attitudes should be given a direction.

    ***********

    Making up our mind is powerful. Putting yourself around the right people might actually be more powerful. It is easier to pull others down than to pull others up. Doubt it? Try dragging someone up a hill. Now drag them down it. Hm.. not the same you say? Put yourself around a group of people. Now try being as happy and optimistic about your ideals, goals, aspirations as possible for a week. Notice their response and reaction. Now be morose and careless and negative for a week. Notice the response.

    That paragraph above is silly. I just needed to illustrate the importance of choosing your friends and influences wisely.

    Powerful:
    Every thought we think is who we are.

    If you want to change who you are, change what you think. Moreover, change how you think.

    It’s that simple- you can be anything. Do it long enough and these thoughts become habitual, and you start acting on them. Next thing you know your character changes. Your integrity, the collection of your past actions and their influence on your present and future actions, changes.

    ****

    9 More days till I go home to FLORIDAA! Can’t wait! Sunshine, beaches, warmth, relaxation!
    I’m buckling down this week. It’s tough. I’ve been very lax the past few weeks with Thanksgiving and all. That’s over now. I’m a machine. Tranchina Machina. I get things done. I am proactive. I control my attitude which, in turn, controls the outcome of my life.

    🙂

    Can’t wait to go home and read my books! Read read read! Write! No pressure! No guidelines.. no one tellin me what they wanna hear. Just me and my opinion weighing against my experiences. Lovely!

    knowise

    I’ve been mentally drained lately. I slept 15 hours yesterday… took a 4 hour nap today. I’ve been putting off all stress and shrinking from all academic pressure. I feel so confused. Confused in the sense that I’m at a loss. For words; for thoughts; for novel ideas. I feel empty. Like I’m lacking the necessary fuel to push me along. The fuel that helps me deduce my world and come to viable conclusions. I feel that all the knowledge I’ve gone out of my way to accumulate means nothing. Other times I feel that this isn’t the case. The optimistic side of me starts to speak up, telling me that everything I take into my senses, if I really took it in and it meant something to me, is still in there. Its in my brain somewhere, just waiting to come out. I just need the right stimulation. The right environment, or challenging problem to rub me the right way so my neurons can fire off and recall all that ‘knowledge’. I don’t know why I get so caught up in knowledge. I want wisdom. Knowledge comes and goes. Wisdom is what makes this world keep going. Its what to do with knowledge. Knowledge is just about equivalent with information. Its just stuff to recall and do. Wisdom. For some reason it rings divine. I feel that wisdom inspires and magnetizes. It draws people in and points you in the right direction. Its apart of your character.

    *****

    Need to go to bed. Busy day tomorrow. I can feel the pressures of life… i feel like they’re beating on the windows of reality. I can hear them far off in the distance, like a roaring zombie mob. I just ignore it. I feel so cool. Collected. Calm. I know that I will be great. I need to push on. I feel reinvigorated. Life is taking on a new form.

    I don’t even think when I type. I don’t know what the hell comes out of these fingers half the time. I have a judicial hearing tomorrow. Spooky. With the big dogs. Hoping that nothing will come of it. Petty petty stuff. Responsibility calls. Consequences await. Bed!