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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Aug 19, 2013 8:21:07 GMT -5
There are at least three models that deal with how we see or don't through things like beliefs, illusions, delusions and finally how we attain realization. I will draw a sketch of all three and attempt to show the problems. 1) The snake/rope analogy. A man in a dark room encounters an object that looks like a snake. The man is terrified and screams. His wife enters the room with a lamp. The light reveals the snake to be merely a rope and the man's fear disappears.Here illusion is attributed to a simple misperception, or an easily correctable error of interpretation of a perception. And once perception is corrected (switching on the light) then the illusion effectively becomes non-functional, such that even when the illusion reappears in its phenomenal form (i.e. the light is switched off and the rope again is indistinguishable from how a snake would look like in the same condition) it doesn't become effective, in the sense that we are unable to be immersed in the belief of there being a snake in front of us. This model is one of a static/linear appropriation of information. Illusion/delusion/belief/realization are all happening on the level of the easily accessible and corrigible intellect. Here everything happens on the surface of the intellect and there is no effective unconsicous. 2) Burt the Bunny. www.realizinghappiness.com/delusion.htmlThis is a model that claims that the issue lies entirely in an inaccessible and incorrigible unconsicous, and that the intellect is merely an extension of the unconscious such that it can't ever escape its influence. And that no amount of reason and proof is able to correct the delusion. And that one can not even even on the intelliectual level be aware that there is an illusion. 3) The man who thinks he is a grain of corn. A man who believes himself to be a grain of seed is taken to the mental institution where the doctors do their best to finally convince him that he is not a grain but a man. When he is cured (convinced that he is not a grain of seed but a man) and allowed to leave the hospital, he immediately comes back trembling. There is a chicken outside the door and he is afraid that it will eat him. "Dear fellow," says his doctor, "you know very well that you are not a grain of seed but a man". "Of course I know that," replies the patient, "but does the chicken know it?"Here, at first the illusion functions on both levels, the corrigible intellect and the incorrigible unconscious. But finally the man does understand that he is not a grain of corn - in a perfectly consistent way (like in the snake/rope analogy and unlike in the "Burt the Bunny" story) the man understands that he is a man not from the assumption of being a grain of corn, instead he actually does entirely drop the belief that he is a grain of corn. It is the unconscious that still doesn't understand, and that's why it continues to produce the effect based on delusion. The unconscious, relative to the intellect, is the radically inaccessible other, it produces effects (behaviours and emotions that necessitate behaviours), but, unlike the intellect, its motivations for producing the effects are not easily accessible to reason and proof. I suggest that 3) is the most accurate model. And does it not also reflect our existential dilemma? We can easily understand many existential issues intellectually, but to get the unconscious to understand (embodied understanding) what we understand intellectually is an entirely different matter. I suggest that realization is precisely the moment when the unconscious finally understands, or at least where the unconscious ceases to assume a delusion. The great mystery is how to do it in a consistent and predictable way.
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Post by serpentqueen on Aug 19, 2013 10:23:44 GMT -5
#3 seems to me more of a matter of telling a different, better story. This is the standard advice given to seekers by spiritual gurus, and given to patients by their psychologists. The man had a story that he was a grain of corn. This story wasn't working for him, so in the hospital he was told to simply tell himself a different story, that he was a man. And he learned how to tell that new story in a very convincing manner, so he was deemed "cured." But, deep down he knew it was just a different story, which is why he worried about the chicken.
If he dropped all the stories altogether, what would have happened? What he is and whether the chicken would eat him or not would be unknown. Approaching said chicken would prove that chicken could not eat him, he would then have proven one thing to himself: whatever he is, he's too big for the chicken to eat. However, he may still be a very large grain of corn.... but in this way (story-free) he could continue to experiment and test what he is or is not.
In #1, once the rope is seen to be a rope theoretically it can no longer be seen as any other way. I say theoretically because there's always the possibility that someone may one day swap out the rope for a real snake, no?
Burt the Bunny ... hmmm.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2013 10:32:34 GMT -5
There are at least three models that deal with how we see or don't through things like beliefs, illusions, delusions and finally how we attain realization. I will draw a sketch of all three and attempt to show the problems. 1) The snake/rope analogy. A man in a dark room encounters an object that looks like a snake. The man is terrified and screams. His wife enters the room with a lamp. The light reveals the snake to be merely a rope and the man's fear disappears.Here illusion is attributed to a simple misperception, or an easily correctable error of interpretation of a perception. And once perception is corrected (switching on the light) then the illusion effectively becomes non-functional, such that even when the illusion reappears in its phenomenal form (i.e. the light is switched off and the rope again is indistinguishable from how a snake would look like in the same condition) it doesn't become effective, in the sense that we are unable to be immersed in the belief of there being a snake in front of us. This model is one of a static/linear appropriation of information. Illusion/delusion/belief/realization are all happening on the level of the easily accessible and corrigible intellect. Here everything happens on the surface of the intellect and there is no effective unconsicous. 2) Burt the Bunny. www.realizinghappiness.com/delusion.htmlThis is a model that claims that the issue lies entirely in an inaccessible and incorrigible unconsicous, and that the intellect is merely an extension of the unconscious such that it can't ever escape its influence. And that no amount of reason and proof is able to correct the delusion. And that one can not even even on the intelliectual level be aware that there is an illusion. 3) The man who thinks he is a grain of corn. A man who believes himself to be a grain of seed is taken to the mental institution where the doctors do their best to finally convince him that he is not a grain but a man. When he is cured (convinced that he is not a grain of seed but a man) and allowed to leave the hospital, he immediately comes back trembling. There is a chicken outside the door and he is afraid that it will eat him. "Dear fellow," says his doctor, "you know very well that you are not a grain of seed but a man". "Of course I know that," replies the patient, "but does the chicken know it?"Here, at first the illusion functions on both levels, the corrigible intellect and the incorrigible unconscious. But finally the man does understand that he is not a grain of corn - in a perfectly consistent way (like in the snake/rope analogy and unlike in the "Burt the Bunny" story) the man understands that he is a man not from the assumption of being a grain of corn, instead he actually does entirely drop the belief that he is a grain of corn. It is the unconscious that still doesn't understand, and that's why it continues to produce the effect based on delusion. The unconscious, relative to the intellect, is the radically inaccessible other, it produces effects (behaviours and emotions that necessitate behaviours), but, unlike the intellect, its motivations for producing the effects are not easily accessible to reason and proof. I suggest that 3) is the most accurate model. And does it not also reflect our existential dilemma? We can easily understand many existential issues intellectually, but to get the unconscious to understand (embodied understanding) what we understand intellectually is an entirely different matter. I suggest that realization is precisely the moment when the unconscious finally understands, or at least where the unconscious ceases to assume a delusion. The great mystery is how to do it in a consistent and predictable way. What is happening is what is happening... There isn't a doer to "do it in a consistent and predictable way"... Nor is there a doer who gets upset about not being able to "do it"... There is only the perceiving of what is happening... And one of the perceptions is the belief that there is a doer that does things and a world that does things to the doer... The chicken is perfect, as is the belief that there's a doer that has to do something with the chicken... It's all perfection...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2013 11:05:44 GMT -5
Woody Allen: "It reminds me of that old joke- you know, a guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs!"
Woody then follows up: "I guess that's how I feel about relationships. They're totally crazy, irrational, and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs."
edit: that is to say, there's a collective story supporting the structures held in the unconscious and the conscious.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2013 11:12:01 GMT -5
There are at least three models that deal with how we see or don't through things like beliefs, illusions, delusions and finally how we attain realization. I will draw a sketch of all three and attempt to show the problems. 1) The snake/rope analogy. A man in a dark room encounters an object that looks like a snake. The man is terrified and screams. His wife enters the room with a lamp. The light reveals the snake to be merely a rope and the man's fear disappears.Here illusion is attributed to a simple misperception, or an easily correctable error of interpretation of a perception. And once perception is corrected (switching on the light) then the illusion effectively becomes non-functional, such that even when the illusion reappears in its phenomenal form (i.e. the light is switched off and the rope again is indistinguishable from how a snake would look like in the same condition) it doesn't become effective, in the sense that we are unable to be immersed in the belief of there being a snake in front of us. This model is one of a static/linear appropriation of information. Illusion/delusion/belief/realization are all happening on the level of the easily accessible and corrigible intellect. Here everything happens on the surface of the intellect and there is no effective unconsicous. 2) Burt the Bunny. www.realizinghappiness.com/delusion.htmlThis is a model that claims that the issue lies entirely in an inaccessible and incorrigible unconsicous, and that the intellect is merely an extension of the unconscious such that it can't ever escape its influence. And that no amount of reason and proof is able to correct the delusion. And that one can not even even on the intelliectual level be aware that there is an illusion. 3) The man who thinks he is a grain of corn. A man who believes himself to be a grain of seed is taken to the mental institution where the doctors do their best to finally convince him that he is not a grain but a man. When he is cured (convinced that he is not a grain of seed but a man) and allowed to leave the hospital, he immediately comes back trembling. There is a chicken outside the door and he is afraid that it will eat him. "Dear fellow," says his doctor, "you know very well that you are not a grain of seed but a man". "Of course I know that," replies the patient, "but does the chicken know it?"Here, at first the illusion functions on both levels, the corrigible intellect and the incorrigible unconscious. But finally the man does understand that he is not a grain of corn - in a perfectly consistent way (like in the snake/rope analogy and unlike in the "Burt the Bunny" story) the man understands that he is a man not from the assumption of being a grain of corn, instead he actually does entirely drop the belief that he is a grain of corn. It is the unconscious that still doesn't understand, and that's why it continues to produce the effect based on delusion. The unconscious, relative to the intellect, is the radically inaccessible other, it produces effects (behaviours and emotions that necessitate behaviours), but, unlike the intellect, its motivations for producing the effects are not easily accessible to reason and proof. I suggest that 3) is the most accurate model. And does it not also reflect our existential dilemma? We can easily understand many existential issues intellectually, but to get the unconscious to understand (embodied understanding) what we understand intellectually is an entirely different matter. I suggest that realization is precisely the moment when the unconscious finally understands, or at least where the unconscious ceases to assume a delusion. The great mystery is how to do it in a consistent and predictable way. What model are you working with here? Where does nonconceptual awareness fit in, if anywhere? I'm thinking that nonconceptual awareness, that which becomes dominant with ATA, for example, has a way of airing out the unconscious, making it more corrigible (perhaps).
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Post by topology on Aug 19, 2013 12:21:24 GMT -5
There are at least three models that deal with how we see or don't through things like beliefs, illusions, delusions and finally how we attain realization. I will draw a sketch of all three and attempt to show the problems. 1) The snake/rope analogy. A man in a dark room encounters an object that looks like a snake. The man is terrified and screams. His wife enters the room with a lamp. The light reveals the snake to be merely a rope and the man's fear disappears.Here illusion is attributed to a simple misperception, or an easily correctable error of interpretation of a perception. And once perception is corrected (switching on the light) then the illusion effectively becomes non-functional, such that even when the illusion reappears in its phenomenal form (i.e. the light is switched off and the rope again is indistinguishable from how a snake would look like in the same condition) it doesn't become effective, in the sense that we are unable to be immersed in the belief of there being a snake in front of us. This model is one of a static/linear appropriation of information. Illusion/delusion/belief/realization are all happening on the level of the easily accessible and corrigible intellect. Here everything happens on the surface of the intellect and there is no effective unconsicous.If you will permit me to engage. I have a slightly different ontology and I will reduce your presentation to that ontology as I think it is informative to do so. My as.sumption about your ontology: That by "no effective unconscious" you mean no en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind operating. You did not say no effective subconscious, so you will need to clarify whether you permit the operation of the sub-conscious. I see the sub-conscious as being an intermediate layer between the conscious and unconscious. In essence the sub-conscious is a layer of operation that we might be able to become consciously aware of, until that time we remain unconscious of what is happening sub-consciously. Please correct me if my as.sumption here about your definition of unconscious is wrong. To Wit, I disagree with your last sentence, the underlined. I want to give a thorough explanation so I will have to explain my model and reduce your presentation: The Reasoning Intellect -- I want to differentiate between the Intellect itself and the product of the intellect, which is the mental model of the immediate world. Your term "Corrigible Intellect" seems to include the knowledge state generated by the intellect in with the intellect itself. Where I see the Intellect being corrigible is with respect to Epistemology and revising what is considered to be valid inference for the derivation of knowledge. The actual knowledge state I leave separate from the intellect as it is a product of the intellect being applied to perception and previously acquired knowledge. In this sense the intellect is akin to a mathematical function whose input is current perception and prior knowledge to yield the output of a new knowledge state. Changing the behavior/nature of the function (corrigibleness of the intellect) is not the same as changing the knowledge state derived from applying the function. The Perceptive Intellect -- This is the intelligence (or lack there of) that is applied in deciding what is currently being perceived. I am applying a purely phenomenological model of perception where what is directly perceived is patterns of qualities and from those experienced patterns an inference is made about what object is being experienced. Patterns of qualities I'll leave as abstract, defining classes or kinds of thing, while an object is an instance of a class. When the perceived pattern of qualities becomes clear enough, distinct enough, to where there is only one object that fits the description, this creates a singleton-class which is the essence of unique identity. Example: I have three identical coins. The class they all belong to is "coin" and in particular the sub-class of "what type of coin". That they are identical means that I can put them in a bag, jiggle the bag around, then draw a coin and not know which coin I have drawn. Now I etch one of the coins to mark it. This creates a sub-class of "what type of coin", namely "The marked coin" class. This is the only coin that is marked in this way, creating a singleton class, and thus the coin becomes perceptively distinct and takes on its own unique identity. All three coins still belong to the classes "coin" and its sub-class "what type of coin", but now there are two sub-sub-classes: "The two unmarked coins" and "The marked coin". Now your wife puts all three coins in the bag again and draws one coin out. You see enough of the coin to know that she drew a coin, but not enough of it to know if it was one of the unmarked coins or if it was the marked coin. Here are the possible intelligent knowledge states of the world derived through your perception: (1) Your wife has a coin in hand. (2) the type of coin is "what type of coin". (3) it was one of the coins in the bag. (4) which coin was it??? Given the intensity of mental focus on the distinction between marked and unmarked coins, the identity of the coin becomes a probabilistic entity: There is 2/3rds weight that it is an unmarked coin and 1/3rd weight that it is the marked coin. If all you care about is the class of "what type of coin" and forget about the distinction between marked and unmarked, then the mental model of the world has an unmarked coin as the identity of the coin in your wife's hand, ignoring the irrelevant distinction of marking with respect to identity. I hope the model of perception and recognition of identity that I am putting forward is clear. This construction is essential to the argument I am making. We can argue about whether or not the construction is valid after it is understood and the application of it is understood. Here's the scenario: It's late at night. Farmer Dan hears a noise in his barn and he goes to investigate without a light source. As he walks through his barn he feels something long, slender, and flexible, dangling from the rafters, slide across his shoulder. Immediately he becomes frightened in the perception of encountering a snake. When he screams and calls for his wife, she comes in with a flashlight to discover it is just a rope hanging from the rafters. Here is my argument: There is something most definitely unconscious (sub-conscious) operating in the mind with respect to the chosen identity of what is encountered. Both "snake" and "rope" are valid sub-classes of "the things that are long, slender, flexible, and possibly dangling from the barn rafters". The mental model chosen of the world was 100% conviction that a snake was present. The rational choice is that it is a rope, farmer Dan put the rope there half a year ago and it is more likely to encounter a dangling rope than a snake hanging from the rafters in a barn. Not only that, he likely felt the hemp fibers pulling at his clothing and skin, but the sensation of sliding across his shoulder was so reminiscent of when he was a child asleep in bed and woke to find an actual snake crawling over his body. The fear of snakes trumped his rational intelligent faculties and selected his mental model without his conscious intent to select snake over rope. Rationally, consciously, if you're aware of multiple possibilities, you look closer before deciding which is actual. Something unconscious was operating which made the determination of the identity of what was being perceived for him. The "corrigible intellect" was not at play until after the wife brought light in, making it clear that he was wrong about the assumed identity. How the intellect is corrigibly revised is with respect to inference of perceived identity. In the future the rational mind is more likely to step in and combat the fear based perception and recall the last time he felt that sensation it turned out to be a rope and not a snake after all. The change in mental model of what exists in the barn right now was not a change of how the intellect operates, its simply a more detailed perception forcing a different determination of identity under the same intellect. 2) Burt the Bunny. www.realizinghappiness.com/delusion.htmlThis is a model that claims that the issue lies entirely in an inaccessible and incorrigible unconscious, and that the intellect is merely an extension of the unconscious such that it can't ever escape its influence. And that no amount of reason and proof is able to correct the delusion. And that one can not even even on the intellectual level be aware that there is an illusion. I would venture that you're misunderstanding Phil's thesis and then constructing a malformed representation of his argument. The identities he is referring to as problematic are the identities of the subject and not identities of objects. We are also dealing with trying to fit something with a vast array of qualities into gross classifications. At the core of Phil's argument is that one does not need to classify themselves in order to be themselves. In fact operating under an identity, and particularly a gross identity (meaning unrefined in detail), is deluded behavior. The argument that Phil is making is to just be yourself, however that self manifests, without need for identity or classification of that self. You've misrepresented his writing in order to construct your post the way you have with respect to the "incorrigible unconscious" versus "the corrigible conscious intellect". 3) The man who thinks he is a grain of corn. A man who believes himself to be a grain of seed is taken to the mental institution where the doctors do their best to finally convince him that he is not a grain but a man. When he is cured (convinced that he is not a grain of seed but a man) and allowed to leave the hospital, he immediately comes back trembling. There is a chicken outside the door and he is afraid that it will eat him. "Dear fellow," says his doctor, "you know very well that you are not a grain of seed but a man". "Of course I know that," replies the patient, "but does the chicken know it?"Here, at first the illusion functions on both levels, the corrigible intellect and the incorrigible unconscious. But finally the man does understand that he is not a grain of corn - in a perfectly consistent way (like in the snake/rope analogy and unlike in the "Burt the Bunny" story) the man understands that he is a man not from the assumption of being a grain of corn, instead he actually does entirely drop the belief that he is a grain of corn. It is the unconscious that still doesn't understand, and that's why it continues to produce the effect based on delusion. The unconscious, relative to the intellect, is the radically inaccessible other, it produces effects (behaviours and emotions that necessitate behaviours), but, unlike the intellect, its motivations for producing the effects are not easily accessible to reason and proof. I suggest that 3) is the most accurate model. And does it not also reflect our existential dilemma? We can easily understand many existential issues intellectually, but to get the unconscious to understand (embodied understanding) what we understand intellectually is an entirely different matter. I suggest that realization is precisely the moment when the unconscious finally understands, or at least where the unconscious ceases to assume a delusion. The great mystery is how to do it in a consistent and predictable way.When the irrational mind is holding the rational mind at ransom, there is no amount of rational reasoning that is going to placate the irrational mind. The only effective way I have to deal with fear is to continually throw myself into situations where the fear arises until the fear bleeds away and the irrational mind evaporates leaving only the rational mind. Throw the man in the hallway and lock the door so he can face his non-existent chicken. Now if he's so gripped in fear that he begins to hallucinate the presence of a chicken, that is not the right approach. A better approach then would be to keep the man calm and continually engage his rational faculties until he is anchored in his rational mind and slowly approach his fears so that he can establish an incremental comfort zone and baseline for rationality. Example: If I fear snakes, then I would want to find the boundary of my comfort zone, maybe 5 feet, and then slowly push closer until I am comfortable being closer. 4 feet, 2 feet, 1 foot, touching the snake, holding the snake, starting with benign snakes, etc. Incrementally you reclaim the territory you have lost to fear and irrationality. A similar process happens for remaining consciously present. (1) realize one has drifted off in thought and return to a present moment focus and awareness of thought. (2) getting lost in thought and then becoming aware, coming back to present moment awareness. With repeated practice, the interval of being "lost in thought" shortens and eventually one is able to maintain a continual present-moment awareness and observe thoughts as they happen as opposed to getting swept away in the chain of thought. This is the mode of active listening. It is practiced as a skill. This is how one's conditioning is evolved, through continual awareness of the conditioning as it plays out. Continually challenging the conditioning to remain consciously present despite the operation of the conditioning. To not be so ruled by the conditioning. The selection of rationality (corrigible conscious intellect) over irrationality (incorrigible unconscious) is about conditioning and training the mind and attention to stay present, aware and clear. The realizations about the nature of identity and that the identity and nature of the subject are more of a hindrance than a help come after one has become very conscious and aware of all the mental machinery as it is operating. The unconscious never understands. The unconscious evaporates from becoming fully conscious of it. In this equation: unconscious = conditioning + lack of awareness conscious = acute awareness of operation of conditioning, challenging it, etc. => conscious conditioning In the end I don't see our models as being that different (with respect to the bold). With respect to the underlined, there is the prescription of continually being aware of the operation of the conditioning and challenging it when appropriate. Whether or not realizations happen is up to happenstance. When the fruit is ripe, it falls from the tree. There comes a point where even the rational/reasoning Intellect must be left behind for an intuitive sense of direct-qualia knowledge. The conceptual classifications of identity of things is so gross (unrefined) in detail that it becomes an error to operate from them instead of operating from direct experience of qualia. At this point all we can intellectually say about the identity of something is that "it is what it is", meaning that identity is in the richness of the experience. Much of transcending conditioning is unhooking oneself from conceptual reasoning and embracing direct experience. Full immersion into the experience leaves no room for fear. Fear is a product of the conceiving mind. It takes a lot of self-awareness to see that clearly.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Aug 19, 2013 15:35:53 GMT -5
#3 seems to me more of a matter of telling a different, better story. This is the standard advice given to seekers by spiritual gurus, and given to patients by their psychologists. The man had a story that he was a grain of corn. This story wasn't working for him, so in the hospital he was told to simply tell himself a different story, that he was a man. And he learned how to tell that new story in a very convincing manner, so he was deemed "cured." But, deep down he knew it was just a different story, which is why he worried about the chicken. It's just a story to illustrate the relationship. In the story the patient is fully rid of the delusion of being a grain of corn. He didn't just keep his old deluded identity and superimposed on it another narrative (like in the Burt the Bunny story), instead he does understand that his old identity was indeed always false. The point is that despite him understanding who he is, the unconscious does not respect his understanding and continues producing the effects that caused him to seek psychological help.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Aug 19, 2013 15:38:40 GMT -5
What model are you working with here? Where does nonconceptual awareness fit in, if anywhere? I'm thinking that nonconceptual awareness, that which becomes dominant with ATA, for example, has a way of airing out the unconscious, making it more corrigible (perhaps). The model is based on the little of what I understand of Lacan, who continued Freud's work. That's correct.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Aug 19, 2013 15:46:18 GMT -5
I see the sub-conscious as being an intermediate layer between the conscious and unconscious. The correct term is "preconscious". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PreconsciousHow exactly the calculating mind works is not so important. The point of the snake/rope analogy, and that which I'm critisizing about it, is that it delegates the problem to the calculating mind (both conscious and preconsicous) and fails to acknowledge the dimension of the unconscious. Maybe so. I would have chosen a different analogy if I remembered one. I simply mention it as a model which, at least in my interpretation, puts the focus only on the unconscious. The unconsious is not irrational. It is in fact a perfectly ordered structure, if it were chaotic then we couldn't account for why its effects are so repetetive. The problem is simply that it is precisely not conscious, i.e. it is an "other" relative to the conscious intellect. That's why just because we have figured something out with the intellect it doesn't mean that the unconscious is going to respect this new information. Instead a way must be found to bring the unconscious to acknowledge new evidence. The Kafkaesque bureaucratic apparatus is one analogy to describe how it functions. The bureaucracy has an extremely strict internal logic, everything has its place, all rules must be followed to the last detail. Even if you do have absolutely convincing evidence, it is of no importance whatsoever for the lower clerk, he doesn't care. He will instead forward the information to the next authority, and he will do the same etc. In other words, even though the bureaucratic entity is perfectly structured, its structure is not transparent to the guy who is making the request to have his information acknowledged. The unconscious appears to be irrational only because its rules are not known to us. It does have rules, and it does not negotiate them, instead it is as if it says "this is so and so because that's what the documents say!" This is why, although the patient does with total certainty know that he is a man and not a grain of corn, the chicken (the unconscious) doesn't care. His challenge is how to make the chicken acknowledge his evidence. It seems that you are proposing that the conscious entity simply insists on its version of things in the hope that one day somehow the unconsious acknowledges it. It is a sort of "brute force" method, I guess it's the common sense view and I don't know whether it is correct or not, but I suspect there has to be a more elegant solution. My intention for now was simply to present the view as a point of reference for future discussion.
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Post by serpentqueen on Aug 19, 2013 16:03:50 GMT -5
#3 seems to me more of a matter of telling a different, better story. This is the standard advice given to seekers by spiritual gurus, and given to patients by their psychologists. The man had a story that he was a grain of corn. This story wasn't working for him, so in the hospital he was told to simply tell himself a different story, that he was a man. And he learned how to tell that new story in a very convincing manner, so he was deemed "cured." But, deep down he knew it was just a different story, which is why he worried about the chicken. It's just a story to illustrate the relationship. In the story the patient is fully rid of the delusion of being a grain of corn. He didn't just keep his old deluded identity and superimposed on it another narrative (like in the Burt the Bunny story), instead he does understand that his old identity was indeed always false. The point is that despite him understanding who he is, the unconscious does not respect his understanding and continues producing the effects that caused him to seek psychological help. It's okay, Q, you don't have to drop your "I'm so special" story. And now I want to have chicken for dinner.
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Post by Beingist on Aug 19, 2013 16:06:29 GMT -5
It's just a story to illustrate the relationship. In the story the patient is fully rid of the delusion of being a grain of corn. He didn't just keep his old deluded identity and superimposed on it another narrative (like in the Burt the Bunny story), instead he does understand that his old identity was indeed always false. The point is that despite him understanding who he is, the unconscious does not respect his understanding and continues producing the effects that caused him to seek psychological help. It's okay, Q, you don't have to drop your "I'm so special" story. And now I want to have chicken for dinner. mmmm... chicken enchiladas ....
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Post by enigma on Aug 19, 2013 22:52:59 GMT -5
I would venture that you're misunderstanding Phil's thesis and then constructing a malformed representation of his argument. The identities he is referring to as problematic are the identities of the subject and not identities of objects. We are also dealing with trying to fit something with a vast array of qualities into gross classifications. At the core of Phil's argument is that one does not need to classify themselves in order to be themselves. In fact operating under an identity, and particularly a gross identity (meaning unrefined in detail), is deluded behavior. The argument that Phil is making is to just be yourself, however that self manifests, without need for identity or classification of that self. You've misrepresented his writing in order to construct your post the way you have with respect to the "incorrigible unconscious" versus "the corrigible conscious intellect". The story is intended to clarify the dilemma of attempting to be the cause of another's self realization and the paradoxical nature of seeking oneself from within the delusion of being other than the self. The essence of the dilemma is here: "You see, they knew that Burt's identity as a rabbit was entirely in his imagination, but it's from this identity that the desire to realize his humanness can even arise. The desire to realize his humanness, which they had worked so hard to encourage in Burt, is really as imaginary as the identity through which he wants to realize his humanness. Actually, they pondered, Burt is already what he seeks, and is in fact the one seeking it. The desire is the desire to be what he already is, and the desire itself is based entirely on a misunderstanding of what he is. Now he's left with two delusions instead of one; the delusion that he is a rabbit, and the delusion that this rabbit can realize it's humanness. The dilemma is further exacerbated by the fact that the whole plan was destined to fail from the start, since of course Burt's identity as a rabbit cannot possibly succeed in realizing it's humanness as the identity itself would simply vanish at the precise moment of realization, eliminating the very reason for even realizing it, and so the best that can be hoped for is a total failure to awaken. There isn't actually a rabbit there that can awaken, there is only Burt, who never for a moment stopped being Burt."
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Post by enigma on Aug 19, 2013 23:26:01 GMT -5
The unconsious is not irrational. It is in fact a perfectly ordered structure, if it were chaotic then we couldn't account for why its effects are so repetetive. The problem is simply that it is precisely not conscious, i.e. it is an "other" relative to the conscious intellect. That's why just because we have figured something out with the intellect it doesn't mean that the unconscious is going to respect this new information. Instead a way must be found to bring the unconscious to acknowledge new evidence. The Kafkaesque bureaucratic apparatus is one analogy to describe how it functions. The bureaucracy has an extremely strict internal logic, everything has its place, all rules must be followed to the last detail. Even if you do have absolutely convincing evidence, it is of no importance whatsoever for the lower clerk, he doesn't care. He will instead forward the information to the next authority, and he will do the same etc. In other words, even though the bureaucratic entity is perfectly structured, its structure is not transparent to the guy who is making the request to have his information acknowledged. The unconscious appears to be irrational only because its rules are not known to us. It does have rules, and it does not negotiate them, instead it is as if it says "this is so and so because that's what the documents say!" I don't see rules or rigidity of structure in the unconscious at all. The unconscious is what is permitted to dominate in the fluid, and often discontinuous and illogical, structure of the dream state, which demonstrates the lack of respect for structure and reason, and seems more driven by feeling association. In the absence of conscious reasoning in the dream state, this lack of continuity and logic doesn't seem to be a problem.
This 'irrational' motivation is precisely why the unconscious cannot be reasoned with through the conscious application of logic, and why corn-man still fears the chicken. I don't know when the chicken became the unconscious. Hehe. I thought the chicken was just there to expose the shallowness of his belief that he is a man. The unconscious doesn't lie. The split between conscious and unconscious is exploited to make self deception possible.
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Post by topology on Aug 20, 2013 4:55:08 GMT -5
I see the sub-conscious as being an intermediate layer between the conscious and unconscious. The correct term is "preconscious". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PreconsciousHow exactly the calculating mind works is not so important. The point of the snake/rope analogy, and that which I'm critisizing about it, is that it delegates the problem to the calculating mind (both conscious and preconsicous) and fails to acknowledge the dimension of the unconscious. Maybe so. I would have chosen a different analogy if I remembered one. I simply mention it as a model which, at least in my interpretation, puts the focus only on the unconscious. The unconsious is not irrational. It is in fact a perfectly ordered structure, if it were chaotic then we couldn't account for why its effects are so repetetive. The problem is simply that it is precisely not conscious, i.e. it is an "other" relative to the conscious intellect. That's why just because we have figured something out with the intellect it doesn't mean that the unconscious is going to respect this new information. Instead a way must be found to bring the unconscious to acknowledge new evidence. The Kafkaesque bureaucratic apparatus is one analogy to describe how it functions. The bureaucracy has an extremely strict internal logic, everything has its place, all rules must be followed to the last detail. Even if you do have absolutely convincing evidence, it is of no importance whatsoever for the lower clerk, he doesn't care. He will instead forward the information to the next authority, and he will do the same etc. In other words, even though the bureaucratic entity is perfectly structured, its structure is not transparent to the guy who is making the request to have his information acknowledged. The unconscious appears to be irrational only because its rules are not known to us. It does have rules, and it does not negotiate them, instead it is as if it says "this is so and so because that's what the documents say!" This is why, although the patient does with total certainty know that he is a man and not a grain of corn, the chicken (the unconscious) doesn't care. His challenge is how to make the chicken acknowledge his evidence. It seems that you are proposing that the conscious entity simply insists on its version of things in the hope that one day somehow the unconsious acknowledges it. It is a sort of "brute force" method, I guess it's the common sense view and I don't know whether it is correct or not, but I suspect there has to be a more elegant solution.My intention for now was simply to present the view as a point of reference for future discussion. The unconscious is filled with thoughts that have been bought into implicitly on a sub-conscious level. While one has bought into those thoughts, they will stick around and rule the hen house. Consciously examining the thought-system operating in the unconscious begins to challenge that belief and degree to which the thoughts have been bought into. When the belief in the unconscious thoughts evaporates from the thought system, the thought structure collapses. The unconscious does not need to be convinced of anything, it need only lose its falsely held conviction. This is done through conscious examination of it's thought structure until the thoughts become meaningless. While there is meaning and value placed into a thought or thought-system, it will dictate how things play out in the mind. There is a science behind evaporating the meaning attached to a thought: place your full unwavering attention on the thought. When you get distracted, come back to the thought and keep looking at it until the mind becomes bored with it and releases the meaning it has invested in it. Meaning can only exist in contrast and relationship between thoughts. By fixing one's attention on a single thought and refusing to go along with the train-of-thought transitions, you begin to decohere the meaning that has been invested in the thought. Try it out with an image or picture. Look at the picture with a fixed gaze, no wandering attention. Fix your attention on a single thought or impression and simply watch what happens. If the thought fades, do not re-assert the same thought, simply let it fade. If an alternate thought enters the mind and you are distracted, come back to the thought being focussed upon and focus on it until the mind loses focus but does not get distracted by other thoughts. While there is any meaning or value in the thought, focus on it until the value bleeds away. The mind and it's thought system thrives on contrast. When you rob the system of it's ability to generate contrast, meaning and investment of belief evaporates. But a word of caution, the mind will buck at being starved from the meaning it is addicted to.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Aug 20, 2013 16:20:23 GMT -5
"You see, they knew that Burt's identity as a rabbit was entirely in his imagination, but it's from this identity that the desire to realize his humanness can even arise. The desire to realize his humanness, which they had worked so hard to encourage in Burt, is really as imaginary as the identity through which he wants to realize his humanness. Actually, they pondered, Burt is already what he seeks, and is in fact the one seeking it. The desire is the desire to be what he already is, and the desire itself is based entirely on a misunderstanding of what he is. Now he's left with two delusions instead of one; the delusion that he is a rabbit, and the delusion that this rabbit can realize it's humanness. I think it's not so inconsistent and actually it's a nice example of Hegelian logic. I would say his humanness is not at all realized before he falls into the bunny-delusion and finally dismisses it. And even for his friends and family the humanness is also not fully realized before they at least encounter a human caught in the delusion of not being human. In other words, first comes the fall into delusion, the delusion is inconsistent and produces a conflict which means that it produces the motivation to overcome the delusion, and realizing humanness is only possible against the background of the delusion. This does not mean that the realized humanness is a fake one, i.e. only an extension of the rabbit delusion, instead it means that without the conflict there is no motivation to become aware of the human dimension that one already embodies. There is a difference between the pre-delusion and post-delusion humanness, namely that the former was unreflected and without defense against the bunny-delusion, the latter however is a humanness that can't again fall back into delusion. Yes, the realization is strictly speaking an "I am not that", the dropping of a false idea. But before the realization there is no proper knowledge of an "I am that", and even if there were, strictly speaking we do not return to this kind of unreflected knowledge anyway. But this view is inconsistent. You have written it, so it is possible to realize. Not from the bunny-prespective, but instead the "I am not that" can be realized where the bunny-delusion is fully abandoned. Just because the bunny-delusion is given its proper place in the process doesn't mean that everything must be poisoned by it. Lacan claims that the unconscious is structured like a language, i.e. that it does have an internal structure and that it functions on a symbolic level. If I can fly in the dream then it is a symbolic expression for something - usually a fulfillment of a desire. Freud claims that all forms of dreams are wish-fulfillment, i.e. there is an internal conflict in the unconsicous and desire is the desire to resolve the conflicts. It's an old joke from psychoanalysts and the chicken stands for the unconscious. Of course, as all things, it can be read differently, but I'm using the originally intended meaning here.
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