Post by Jasun on May 15, 2012 5:37:20 GMT -5
Two nights ago I was listening to Cesar Teruel, in Tallinn, Estonia. He was talking about choice as being based on information. He gave the example of buying a house: he had been offered money to buy a house that he could live in but that would belong to the donor. He looked into Moscow flats, as that was the only country in this part of Europe where he could get residency (apparently he has quite a following in Russia); then something came up in Thailand that was a “paradise’” compared to the “mouse house” he could have got in Moscow. His point was that we can only make choices based on the information available to us, but what struck me as he was speaking, and which I blurted out at the time, was that “the information makes the choice.”
If there is no controlling self making decisions, then whatever decisions occur are simply necessary responses to the information available to us. In the absence of a controlling self, it is the information itself which decides. I can apply this to my “decision” to come to Tallinn, which was really the logical outcome of a process of information gathering, a process which included “random” events such as my meeting an beautiful Estonian from Tallin in Guatemala immediately after making my “decision,” thereby confirming it.
According to Cesar, there exists an intelligence in the body that is silent and “at peace” but which knows exactly what to do at all times, without relying on knowledge, or information, to do so. He calls this the state of not-knowing, and says that it is only because he lives in a society that “lives, dies, and kills for knowledge” that he is forced to rely upon knowledge to survive—and to keep up the “act” of being Cesar. As he described it, the state of not-knowing doesn’t even allow him to tell the difference between a chair and the Moon—it is a state similar to the one babies are in before they learn to separate themselves from their environment.
To what degree do we actually require information to make decisions when the intelligence of the body presumably knows everything without knowledge? For example, did my body want to be in Tallinn, for whatever reasons, as a result of the information that came to it? Or was my body already responding to some silent “pull,” and the information only the means by which it could generate the thoughts required to bring about the move?
I am often asked by people here what brought me to Estonia, and my answer is usually to do with Dave Oshana, because Dave and my interest in what he’s doing is the ostensible “reason” I chose to live in Tallinn. On the other hand, within a week of being here or less, I knew it was where I wanted to be, and that even if Dave moved to Melbourne (or Guatemala), I would still want to be here. So my conscious reason for coming to Tallinn has little to do with my reasons now for being here. That suggests that something in me, or in the body, already “knew” it wanted to be in Tallinn. Either there is some force called destiny, or (and perhaps it’s the same thing) the observations that lead to my “decision” included much more information than I was conscious of.
This is a question that can be asked throughout existence —fate or free will— and the answer seems to be that it is neither. The body has the capacity to receive and process information. The depth of that capacity—i.e. how receptive we are—determines the choices we make. The more receptive the body is, the more open the senses —which would seem to include “intuitive” faculties and even thinking as body-senses—the more it observes within its environment, the more openly or spontaneously it can act on that information. A state of complete receptivity or openness (response-ability) would mean that the information (environment) is making the decision, because there is zero separation between the body and its environment, or between the information and what is receiving it. To make the necessary choice based on the information means to give the only response possible, in any given moment.
There is a “grey area” between information we can consciously use (as when we base decisions on conscious preferences), and information which we don’t know how to interpret, but which still influences our choices. When shamans look for “signs” and indications, they are reading their environment, and it’s impossible to draw a line between mysticism or superstition and the practical appliance of knowledge. A farmer might know it’s going to rain based on the behavior of birds, for example (not sure if that’s accurate, but you get my point), and that might seem mystical or fanciful to a city dweller. But the farmer has simply learned to recognize a certain sort of information that the city dweller doesn’t.
When we see a car license plate that has some special significance, some of us want to interpret that as a “sign,” but the criteria for interpreting it is too loose for it to really be useful, at least at a conscious level. Interpretation is a habit that is very hard to break, but when it is habitual, compulsive, what happens is that we make faulty interpretations because we aren’t able or willing to leave things uninterpreted—to remain in a state of not-knowing.
A man stands at a junction. He looks up one street and then the next, trying to decide which one to take. It is not a big decision, he is just wandering, but even so, a decision has to be made. Merely by the act of looking down both streets, his body is absorbing information, and whichever choice he makes is going to be influenced by that act of observation. He may make his choice based on a “feeling”—something about one street “feels” more inviting or appealing. Or he may base it on a rational consideration, there being more or less people, a shop sign that looks interesting, more or less shade, up-hill or flat, and so on. What he doesn’t yet know is that, if he goes down one street, he will meet a thief and be robbed and beaten. If he takes the other street, he will have a chance encounter with a beautiful woman and get laid that night. There is nothing about either street that says “danger” or “opportunity.” They are simply random streets on which random encounters occur, all day long. And yet, his body knows, somehow, that it will encounter strikingly different experiences down each street. It knows and it chooses—and perhaps to the body whether it gets attacked or gets laid is not a matter of preference, but only of what it needs at that particular time?
If there is no controlling self making decisions, then whatever decisions occur are simply necessary responses to the information available to us. In the absence of a controlling self, it is the information itself which decides. I can apply this to my “decision” to come to Tallinn, which was really the logical outcome of a process of information gathering, a process which included “random” events such as my meeting an beautiful Estonian from Tallin in Guatemala immediately after making my “decision,” thereby confirming it.
According to Cesar, there exists an intelligence in the body that is silent and “at peace” but which knows exactly what to do at all times, without relying on knowledge, or information, to do so. He calls this the state of not-knowing, and says that it is only because he lives in a society that “lives, dies, and kills for knowledge” that he is forced to rely upon knowledge to survive—and to keep up the “act” of being Cesar. As he described it, the state of not-knowing doesn’t even allow him to tell the difference between a chair and the Moon—it is a state similar to the one babies are in before they learn to separate themselves from their environment.
To what degree do we actually require information to make decisions when the intelligence of the body presumably knows everything without knowledge? For example, did my body want to be in Tallinn, for whatever reasons, as a result of the information that came to it? Or was my body already responding to some silent “pull,” and the information only the means by which it could generate the thoughts required to bring about the move?
I am often asked by people here what brought me to Estonia, and my answer is usually to do with Dave Oshana, because Dave and my interest in what he’s doing is the ostensible “reason” I chose to live in Tallinn. On the other hand, within a week of being here or less, I knew it was where I wanted to be, and that even if Dave moved to Melbourne (or Guatemala), I would still want to be here. So my conscious reason for coming to Tallinn has little to do with my reasons now for being here. That suggests that something in me, or in the body, already “knew” it wanted to be in Tallinn. Either there is some force called destiny, or (and perhaps it’s the same thing) the observations that lead to my “decision” included much more information than I was conscious of.
This is a question that can be asked throughout existence —fate or free will— and the answer seems to be that it is neither. The body has the capacity to receive and process information. The depth of that capacity—i.e. how receptive we are—determines the choices we make. The more receptive the body is, the more open the senses —which would seem to include “intuitive” faculties and even thinking as body-senses—the more it observes within its environment, the more openly or spontaneously it can act on that information. A state of complete receptivity or openness (response-ability) would mean that the information (environment) is making the decision, because there is zero separation between the body and its environment, or between the information and what is receiving it. To make the necessary choice based on the information means to give the only response possible, in any given moment.
There is a “grey area” between information we can consciously use (as when we base decisions on conscious preferences), and information which we don’t know how to interpret, but which still influences our choices. When shamans look for “signs” and indications, they are reading their environment, and it’s impossible to draw a line between mysticism or superstition and the practical appliance of knowledge. A farmer might know it’s going to rain based on the behavior of birds, for example (not sure if that’s accurate, but you get my point), and that might seem mystical or fanciful to a city dweller. But the farmer has simply learned to recognize a certain sort of information that the city dweller doesn’t.
When we see a car license plate that has some special significance, some of us want to interpret that as a “sign,” but the criteria for interpreting it is too loose for it to really be useful, at least at a conscious level. Interpretation is a habit that is very hard to break, but when it is habitual, compulsive, what happens is that we make faulty interpretations because we aren’t able or willing to leave things uninterpreted—to remain in a state of not-knowing.
A man stands at a junction. He looks up one street and then the next, trying to decide which one to take. It is not a big decision, he is just wandering, but even so, a decision has to be made. Merely by the act of looking down both streets, his body is absorbing information, and whichever choice he makes is going to be influenced by that act of observation. He may make his choice based on a “feeling”—something about one street “feels” more inviting or appealing. Or he may base it on a rational consideration, there being more or less people, a shop sign that looks interesting, more or less shade, up-hill or flat, and so on. What he doesn’t yet know is that, if he goes down one street, he will meet a thief and be robbed and beaten. If he takes the other street, he will have a chance encounter with a beautiful woman and get laid that night. There is nothing about either street that says “danger” or “opportunity.” They are simply random streets on which random encounters occur, all day long. And yet, his body knows, somehow, that it will encounter strikingly different experiences down each street. It knows and it chooses—and perhaps to the body whether it gets attacked or gets laid is not a matter of preference, but only of what it needs at that particular time?
