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Post by Portto on May 18, 2011 17:51:07 GMT -5
Regarding the original post: Thoughts are also intimate reactions to what is happening. Thoughts don't appear independently out of nowhere to influence things and do stuff.
It's you doing all the stuff, but you don't really know how and why you do it since these questions are also your manifestation (e.g. generation of illusion and confusion; there's no confusion until we imagine it into existence).
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alpha
New Member
Posts: 7
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Post by alpha on May 18, 2011 18:14:23 GMT -5
Dang ham! Hehe. That's funny! Some time ago, I was driving home and pulled into a left turn lane. The car to my right suddenly pulled into the turn lane and cut me off, I swerved to the left into oncoming traffic and somehow missed hitting it, then swerved back to the right to somehow miss the oncoming car as well as the first car which was fortunately behind me. The whole process couldn't have taken more than 2 seconds. The lady that was with me said "Jesus, Mario, how the hell did you do that!?" Hehe. Clearly, 'I' didn't, since I was also asking myself the same question. Sometimes ducking those hams can come in handy. Have you considered professional car racing as a career? do you mean car eeeeeeeeeer
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Post by therealfake on May 18, 2011 18:41:45 GMT -5
Something that works very well for relatively minor pains is to invite the pain. The more it's invited, the less resistance there is and the less the pain. The pain either stops, or it turns into an odd sort of body sensation that isn't actually painful, it's just noticed by the non-dude on the river bank. Migraines happens when folks fall into the river. There's actually nothing behind the resistance to the pain but a simple body sensation. Indeed, this works well and it's also very useful in cases of psychological stress. The only person who it's worked well for is the person who wrote the “The Law of Attraction”, oh and of course the dude who made the “Secret” movie. That’s all that’s being referred to here. The problem is that the claims made suffer from the lack of falsifiability and testability. Not only that but most of the evidence provided by folks is anecdotal and is susceptible to confirmation bias and selection bias. Furthermore it’s been criticized for being unmeasurable and questioned for the likelihood that thoughts can affect anything outside the head. On the irrational side if you have an accident or disease, it's your fault. "If an airplane crashes, does that mean that one or more of the passengers brought that on himself? Of course, being infallible I don't really know anything for sure... ;D
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Post by enigma on May 18, 2011 21:04:54 GMT -5
Dang ham! Hehe. That's funny! Some time ago, I was driving home and pulled into a left turn lane. The car to my right suddenly pulled into the turn lane and cut me off, I swerved to the left into oncoming traffic and somehow missed hitting it, then swerved back to the right to somehow miss the oncoming car as well as the first car which was fortunately behind me. The whole process couldn't have taken more than 2 seconds. The lady that was with me said "Jesus, Mario, how the hell did you do that!?" Hehe. Clearly, 'I' didn't, since I was also asking myself the same question. Sometimes ducking those hams can come in handy. Have you considered professional car racing as a career? I suspect the best racer is the one who's not really in the 'driver's seat'.
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Post by onehandclapping on May 18, 2011 22:23:46 GMT -5
Like E. I would seriously question the idea that a thought caused the bodily reaction that 1hc described. I have a fairly silent mind, and I often see the body respond to various similar stimuli in the total absence of thoughts, either before or afterwards. The body has an itch and a hand reaches out to scratch it. A bumblebee flies at the face, and the head ducks. These responses are probably muscle memories ingrained from years of past experience. When it happened, everything seemed to slow down. I saw this thought come saying "BEE!!! DUCK!!!!". Then I watched my body right afterward react. I've never experienced something like that before where the thought was so clearly the cause of a reflexive reaction. I'm talking about a split second before the reaction, came the thought. I would say that is correct with things like burning your feet on the ship deck, or scratching your itch, and other pain reactions because this is associated with the nervous system. The nervous system causes movement separate from the mind. But with a learned reaction like a bee flying over head, how can it not come with a thought first? Would a baby react the same way if a bee flew by it's head?? I'm not so sure they would. So at what point, if this is what you call just a reflex without thought, does it become a reflex and not a thought followed by an action?? If I was never taught that a bee would cause me pain, would I ever have a reason to duck?? And Zendancer, when ducking for the ham, was it you ducking without the thought "I'm gonna hit my head again!!!" or was that thought there but maybe not noticed because it had happened so many times before??
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Post by enigma on May 18, 2011 23:01:18 GMT -5
Indeed, this works well and it's also very useful in cases of psychological stress. The only person who it's worked well for is the person who wrote the “The Law of Attraction”, oh and of course the dude who made the “Secret” movie. That’s all that’s being referred to here. The problem is that the claims made suffer from the lack of falsifiability and testability. Not only that but most of the evidence provided by folks is anecdotal and is susceptible to confirmation bias and selection bias. Furthermore it’s been criticized for being unmeasurable and questioned for the likelihood that thoughts can affect anything outside the head. On the irrational side if you have an accident or disease, it's your fault. "If an airplane crashes, does that mean that one or more of the passengers brought that on himself? Of course, being infallible I don't really know anything for sure... ;D I'm fabulously curious to know what you THOUGHT you read in that post. Hehe.
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Post by enigma on May 18, 2011 23:30:46 GMT -5
Like E. I would seriously question the idea that a thought caused the bodily reaction that 1hc described. I have a fairly silent mind, and I often see the body respond to various similar stimuli in the total absence of thoughts, either before or afterwards. The body has an itch and a hand reaches out to scratch it. A bumblebee flies at the face, and the head ducks. These responses are probably muscle memories ingrained from years of past experience. When it happened, everything seemed to slow down. I saw this thought come saying "BEE!!! DUCK!!!!". Then I watched my body right afterward react. I've never experienced something like that before where the thought was so clearly the cause of a reflexive reaction. I'm talking about a split second before the reaction, came the thought. I would say that is correct with things like burning your feet on the ship deck, or scratching your itch, and other pain reactions because this is associated with the nervous system. The nervous system causes movement separate from the mind. But with a learned reaction like a bee flying over head, how can it not come with a thought first? Would a baby react the same way if a bee flew by it's head?? I'm not so sure they would. So at what point, if this is what you call just a reflex without thought, does it become a reflex and not a thought followed by an action?? If I was never taught that a bee would cause me pain, would I ever have a reason to duck?? And Zendancer, when ducking for the ham, was it you ducking without the thought "I'm gonna hit my head again!!!" or was that thought there but maybe not noticed because it had happened so many times before?? Yeah, i agree that a baby would not 'BEE/DUCK', and so we know the response comes out of conditioning. The distinction being made here is between a spontaneous 'ham alert' in which, if you want to say there is a thought, the thought is not conscious until after the action, and a conscious thought to get up off the couch in 5 seconds, followed by getting up off the couch. There might be an issue with 'thoughtless action' if there is the idea that there is a conscious controller of action, but of course the point is, there isn't. Action does not require conscious thoughts to drive it. The illusion that it does is created by defining a conscious intention to be carried out in the future (like maybe half a second from now) and then carrying it out, but the thought to formulate that deceptive intention was actually spontaneous and such conscious intervention is not necessary. Another way we seem to deceive ourselves is by noticing action and then declaring the intention to cause it, which all happens extremely quickly and we simply 'fail to notice' that the action may have preceded the thought to act.. The conscious mind is a little like the TV screen on which everything is displayed, and without which there is no experience, but the screen never causes anything to happen on the screen, or anywhere else.
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Post by zendancer on May 19, 2011 17:03:19 GMT -5
Like E. I would seriously question the idea that a thought caused the bodily reaction that 1hc described. I have a fairly silent mind, and I often see the body respond to various similar stimuli in the total absence of thoughts, either before or afterwards. The body has an itch and a hand reaches out to scratch it. A bumblebee flies at the face, and the head ducks. These responses are probably muscle memories ingrained from years of past experience. When it happened, everything seemed to slow down. I saw this thought come saying "BEE!!! DUCK!!!!". Then I watched my body right afterward react. I've never experienced something like that before where the thought was so clearly the cause of a reflexive reaction. I'm talking about a split second before the reaction, came the thought. I would say that is correct with things like burning your feet on the ship deck, or scratching your itch, and other pain reactions because this is associated with the nervous system. The nervous system causes movement separate from the mind. But with a learned reaction like a bee flying over head, how can it not come with a thought first? Would a baby react the same way if a bee flew by it's head?? I'm not so sure they would. So at what point, if this is what you call just a reflex without thought, does it become a reflex and not a thought followed by an action?? If I was never taught that a bee would cause me pain, would I ever have a reason to duck?? And Zendancer, when ducking for the ham, was it you ducking without the thought "I'm gonna hit my head again!!!" or was that thought there but maybe not noticed because it had happened so many times before?? Human beings learn in two distinct ways, through the body and through the mind. Of the two, body learning is far more powerful than mind learning, and much of it occurs beyond the level of conscious thought. A baby will not respond to a bee until it is stung. When it is stung, it will respond instantly, and its body will then associate the buzzing sound with potential pain. Very few babies get stung by bees, and most of this kind of body-learning occurs after kids are four or five years old and begin playing outside, but most of us can remember stepping on bees or getting stung by wasps. Some children have more painful experiences than others, and the response carries over into adulthood. Carol, for example, goes nuts when any kind of bee or wasp is anywhere in a room with her, whereas I am far more sanguine about the threat. Nevertheless, I have been driving a car when a large wasp or bumblebee flew in through an open window, and I didn't have to think any thoughts to pick up something on the seat beside me and start trying like mad to kill the thing or drive it back outside. I only have to see one yellow jacket rise out of a hole in the ground to start running like crazy because I've been eaten alive by those critters several times, and the memory is in the body. There may be a consequential or peripheral thought, such as "******ing yellow jackets!" but the body has already started running at the mere sight of the critter. I suspect that most people respond in a similar fashion to this kind of stimuli, but if a bee appears (which is usually much less aggressive than a yellow jacket), and there is sufficient time to think as it approaches, then, yes, there could be thoughts preceding any body response. As the mind becomes increasingly silent and non-reflective, there is so much mental "space" that noticing the advent of thoughts and their relation to what is physically happening becomes more obvious. If I am hiking in the woods and come upon some deer, there is rarely any thought, but occasionally I may look and think, "Wow, seven deer!" or something like that. Today I was driving along and saw a piliated woodpecker with a huge red crest beside the road in a subdivision, and the sight was so surprising and unusual that I remember thinking as I drove by, "a piliated woodpecker on the ground; that's pretty unusual. I wonder if its injured?" Currently I'm finishing some concrete, and just this moment I had the thought, "I better go check on the slab because I may need to swipe it again." In this case, the mind reminded me that I've been sitting at the computer for a while and need to go see how the slab is progressing. So, see ya later, alligator! Gotta go.
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Post by Portto on May 19, 2011 17:37:10 GMT -5
Lots of nice posts. The only thing that wasn't really mentioned is that we are born with many reflexes. They are 'in the genes.'
One of these is the eye-blinking reflex. If an object approaches quickly the eyes, blinking occurs without the need for any conscious thinking. Babies do this too, without any 'training.'
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Post by Portto on May 19, 2011 17:49:23 GMT -5
The only person who it's worked well for is the person who wrote the “The Law of Attraction”, oh and of course the dude who made the “Secret” movie. That’s all that’s being referred to here. The problem is that the claims made suffer from the lack of falsifiability and testability. Not only that but most of the evidence provided by folks is anecdotal and is susceptible to confirmation bias and selection bias. Furthermore it’s been criticized for being unmeasurable and questioned for the likelihood that thoughts can affect anything outside the head. On the irrational side if you have an accident or disease, it's your fault. "If an airplane crashes, does that mean that one or more of the passengers brought that on himself? Of course, being infallible I don't really know anything for sure... ;D I'm fabulously curious to know what you THOUGHT you read in that post. Hehe. Yep, that was quite a stretch!
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Post by Portto on May 19, 2011 17:51:25 GMT -5
Have you considered professional car racing as a career? do you mean car eeeeeeeeeer What did you sayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? ;D
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Post by Portto on May 19, 2011 17:54:18 GMT -5
Have you considered professional car racing as a career? I suspect the best racer is the one who's not really in the 'driver's seat'. That might work. Or, one who's in all the seats could do a good job too.
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Post by onehandclapping on May 27, 2011 14:32:14 GMT -5
As the mind becomes increasingly silent and non-reflective, there is so much mental "space" that noticing the advent of thoughts and their relation to what is physically happening becomes more obvious. If I am hiking in the woods and come upon some deer, there is rarely any thought, but occasionally I may look and think, "Wow, seven deer!" or something like that. Today I was driving along and saw a piliated woodpecker with a huge red crest beside the road in a subdivision, and the sight was so surprising and unusual that I remember thinking as I drove by, "a piliated woodpecker on the ground; that's pretty unusual. I wonder if its injured?" Currently I'm finishing some concrete, and just this moment I had the thought, "I better go check on the slab because I may need to swipe it again." In this case, the mind reminded me that I've been sitting at the computer for a while and need to go see how the slab is progressing. Zendancer-- I'm wondering if you say a silent mind as in void of all thoughts or as in no attention paid to it, thus "silent"? Similar to what Enigma describes as standing on the river bank. I find that while I'm at work I have many thoughts appear about what I'm doing at that moment. Use of the mind as a tool is essential to getting my work done. I guess I don't know how to do work completely void of thought, or haven't experienced that yet. I would say I don't experience a silent mind that is completely void of all thought very often, especially at work. But I almost always have a "silent" mind where no attention is paid to what it is saying and "focus" is on the present moment of action. Using the mind more like a tool and it not using me, I guess you could say. Also do you become completely void of thought on your walks? Or is it once again that thoughts come and go, but no attention is paid to them? Thoughts??
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Post by zendancer on May 27, 2011 16:44:07 GMT -5
1hc wrote: "ZD: I'm wondering if you say a silent mind as in void of all thoughts or as in no attention paid to it, thus "silent"? Similar to what Enigma describes as standing on the river bank.
I find that while I'm at work I have many thoughts appear about what I'm doing at that moment. Use of the mind as a tool is essential to getting my work done. I guess I don't know how to do work completely void of thought, or haven't experienced that yet. I would say I don't experience a silent mind that is completely void of all thought very often, especially at work. But I almost always have a "silent" mind where no attention is paid to what it is saying and "focus" is on the present moment of action. Using the mind more like a tool and it not using me, I guess you could say.
Also do you become completely void of thought on your walks? Or is it once again that thoughts come and go, but no attention is paid to them?"
Both. During working hours thinking occurs, but there is no attachment to the thoughts. They're not being ignored, but they're not being reflected upon. Activity and thought are all part of the same flow.
On walks, thinking sometimes occurs, and at other times there is absolutely no thought at all.
While composing this post, words appear, and are tried on for size before typing, but attention can shift to the actual at will and no thoughts at all will arise. There is then seeing and hearing without name or comment. This is "don't-know mind."
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Post by enigma on May 27, 2011 16:49:01 GMT -5
As I see it, thoughts aren't really a problem, they're just a distraction from noticing what the thoughts appear in/to, and so we do stuff to slow those buggers down enough so that it can be noticed. No thought has the power to pull you out of the presence that you are, so they become pretty much irrelevant in that sense.
As long as you stay on the 'bank' (stay as that presence/awareness/whatever) thoughts can float down the river and splash and cavort. Doesn't matter. The difficulty is usually that we believe we're the cause of those thoughts and that they'll drown without our help, so we dive in after them. Hehe.
Staying on the bank will demonstrate in your own experience that your help is not needed. It might be a bit demoralizing to notice that. HA!
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