Deepermind
The Big Important Picture
The brain is extremely complex, thus it needs a CEO or president to control it. It needs a independent master which is difficult to explain. This master goes by many names: our conscious self, the I behind the I, our true spirit, that which is truly conscious, the soul, the human spirit.
Thus the brain needs a master which is our true self,
Above the brain lies the human spirit which experiences every moment of our lives. Thus our true self is the "experiencer" within us. We experience not only the world and our body, but our emotions and feelings as well. Without emotions and feelings the world would seem like an deception. Everyone we knew would be seem like an imposture. The world does not seem to be a fake, because we feel it is real. Thus truth is emotional and logical.
The emotions and feelings come largely from two sources, the instinctual feelings of body and the higher feelings. Jung described archetypes as personalities that lie beyond consciousness.
The archetypes can be seen as personalities with a singular goals. It is up to us to weave these personalities to form our own personality. Ideally people accomplish this during teenage years.
The archetypes (Jung describes many more) include: the criticizer who constantly points out what is wrong with us; the protector who worries and protects us; the pleasure seeker who seeks food, sex and getting high; the lover who constantly wants the perfect lover, and the parent who wants to teach.
I believe that the archetypes lie in the region between the brain and consciousness. The brain, of course, is physical and is located in our three dimensions and time. Consciousness is not understood but probably located beyond the physical world as we know it. I assume it is in another dimension.
Connecting the body to consciousness takes place through some sort of interface. This interface transports sensory information to consciousness and directs the body in the opposite direction.
I believe that music plays a fundamental role in this interface. Music on the physical pane is a great mystery. It is a mixture of vibrations in the air, yet it means so much to many humans.
Objects in the spiritual world including the archetypes might have forms that seem strange to us. They might be similar to the structure of atoms. Just as atoms are thought to made up of shells consisting of standing waves of probability, the archetypes might be seen as being made up of waves of musical notes.
One of the reasons I say this is that it seems that each archetype can be associated with a form of music. Baroque music may be part of the structure of the higher archetypes. One might assume that each archetype dances to their music.
Assuming archetypes exist, and they differ from each other, we can assume they are not equal in terms of how close they are to God and goodness. Many of our traditions have much wisdom hidden under what appears to be childlike stories. Thus the devil might actually be an crude archetype based on body desires. In contrast, the best angelic archetypes are simply that.
Thus one can choose from the best archetypes that define goodness, deeper knowledge, wisdom, peace of the good life or take short cuts in the opposite direction.
It is interesting that usually before a minister starts preaching there is music. Music must open spiritual pathways.
As we explore these waters, we have sense that there is so much we do not know. So many things lay hidden. It is not just a black area, but an area that we are simply not aware of. It is something like not being able to see behind us. Thus what we don't know is probably much larger than the mere missing gaps that we know about.
The deeper things in life are invisible (e.g., truth, love, God) and not apart of what we call science. Some of us wonder about things other matters, such as how we can recursively think about thinking, and try to understand consciousness and what our life means.
Our very nature limits us to what we can know. Within this range we have total responsibility to optimize our personal game plan of life. In spite of our limitations we have to assume that we know enough to form goals and follow our purpose.
We are not alone, everyone has the same problems. Through language, we can follow each others thoughts. Often people conform and do not think for themselves. A few take the various colors of cloth from all over the world, and weave a coat of many colors that includes all the best of what people can offer. Each religion, each philosophy can be pulled together, by taking the pieces and see where they match and weaving the cloth required to fill in the gaps.
We are advised to ask for help from our spiritual guides for this task. One way to unlock the best spiritual guides is to listen to the best music that will open our hearts to hear them whisper to us.
We are advised to avoid getting high, but to seek to remain high. For example, ingestion of intoxicating substances can give short term pleasure. The pursuit of long term pleasure is an imaginary illusion. One can spend most of their time in search of sex, true love and earthy pleasures. The trick is to speed very sort periods of time with these pleasures if at all. This is not to say that one can never release their desires. For example, for men, seminal fluid should be released as needed for medical reasons as it can get infected if it stagnates.
To make room for better stuff, one has to clean house. Mentally and spiritually we need to tear down old beliefs and build new foundations. This happens on the physical level. For example, the brain kills brain cells to make room for better neural networking.
The brain can be flooded with useless information which makes the task more difficult. For example, surfing the Internet, talking at random, or flipping through television channels can create lots of data that has no meaning for our lives.
The antidote for all this is mediation, the form that turns of the mind and becomes a pure witness to the all. Everyone does this during sleep, but it becomes more powerful when it is under our conscious control.
The Theory
Actually there are two worlds. One is simply in our heads and the other world is out there in the physical. What we actually experience is generated by our minds. We do not see the world directly. Our eyes pick up images of the physical world and our brain takes these electrochemical signals and converts them to what we actually see. The colors we see are what the brain likes, but other animals (we have an animal body) see in different colors.
Thus we live in what I call the proximal world, the near world, the simulated world in our heads. It could be called the world simulator software (wetware) that runs in our computer like brain.
The Brain
A typical healthy human brain contains about 200 billion nerve cells, or neurons, linked to one another via hundreds of trillions (100,000,000,000,000) of tiny contacts called synapses. It is at these synapses that an electrical impulse traveling along one neuron is relayed to another, either enhancing or inhibiting the likelihood that the second nerve will fire an impulse of its own. One neuron may make as many as tens of thousands of synaptic contacts with other neurons. (Stephen Smith, 2010)
The World Simulator
There is a world outside of us and we have to stimulate it rather well or we will not survive. This outer world I call the distal world, and this world is only indirectly perceived. This distal world is what we think we see and feel. We see and feel it second hand. It is there, but its really a massive amount of data.
The proximal world, our inner world is what we see day-to-day. This is the human experience. In the proximal world in our heads, we experience more than just sensory information.
The Inner Proximal World
The proximal world is based not only what our sensors tell us, but to a large extent on our memories, our thoughts and emotions. People who loose their power of emotions seem to think that their spouses and friends are impostors. Why? We see things with feelings as well as our eyes. The proximal world seems to go away when we sleep.
Important things stand out. If we are needing to know what time it is, we concentrate on a clock and ignore most other things. We classify everything as good or bad, background or foreground, and emphasize shapes and edges.
Who Experiences the Proximal World
The experiencer, the little green man in our brain watches all this on our internal entertainment center. The eyes acting as camera send video to our internal television set. The ears acting as microphones send audio to our internal speakers.
But the little green man needs all the stuff to experience the entertainment center. So there must be a little green man in the little green man.
Thus we have a infinite number of little green men. One way around this is suppose we have parallel facing mirrors that bounce the experience repeatedly, one mirror inside the other. This would take another dimension where the inside is the outside from another point of view
Mental Illness and Entanglement
Our perceptions, emotions and thoughts can get entangled. When the mind is not working properly, the mind can go too slow and not process information, or it can go too fast and skip critical thought processes. Thoughts can be jumpy and process out of sequence, or continue too long on a subject. In a word, the brain has to keep itself from becoming entangled.
One part of the brain has to be able to monitor another lower part of the brain. The cells that are higher up the chain of comment know more about the big picture than the cells that are under its command. If something is wrong or if something is not needed, the lower cells may be killed or re-assigned.
One person can be entangled with another person so that functionally crosses between minds. This can be good as in a good marriage, but if there is too much overlap co-dependency may occur.
Our mind needs a reference for the physical location of the body. If we read in a car, some of us will get car sick. This is largely due to loosing our horizontal reference point. When this occurs our eyes may move in circles while we experience spinning.
If we loose our reference, we no longer know what is real and what is not real. We are not sure if someone has a knife in a hand we cannot see. We are not sure if the world is real or not.
The World of Science
The outer material world, which I call the distal world, is the world of science. It is the world of nature, technology and follows the natural laws as discovered using the scientific method.
This is contrast to the inner or proximal world which is greatly influenced by emotion and purpose. It is the world of stories, of people's lives and dreams. It is the world of words and meanings.
Right or Wrong, What is the Truth
In the material world, the scientific method of open inquiry, experiment and building on accumulated knowledge produces a system of knowledge that works rather well. What is real for the inner mind is much more complex journey.
Words are Only Pointers
Words are only tags, or pointers. In themselves they are only scratches on paper, sounds in the air, but couple words with meaning and now we can store and transmit meaning which is very powerful.
A word like "table" points to table-like things, but in other languages other symbols are used. In Spanish a table is called mesa. Thus words themselves are arbitrary.
The error with religions that they teach you say these words, and something magic happens. Actually if you concentrate on meaning, some real actually happens.
Objects also can be pointers. A sign such as a stop sign can carry meaning. Thus the host (a piece of bread) can point to God, but is not God.
The Brain Must Have a Hierarchy
For us to think about thinking we have to be able to go up higher in the mind and observe how out minds work. The mind cannot think about itself if it was one solid thing. It has to have division. Without out division it would be like the same eye seeing itself without a mirror.
The brain is made up of millions and millions of circuits that act as computers or perhaps a better term "simpletons" (Robert Ornstein, 1991). If each simpleton did its own thing, then there would be war between the simpletons. For the brain to work at all there has to be a hierarchy of power within the brain.
The brain is plastic and continuously grows based on sensory inputs, thoughts, and memory. If something works, the information is fed back to the brain so that next time the brain will know how to perform in an optimized manner.
The simpletons are always wanting to take power from our true self. Our true self is our soul, our self that is aware of God and goodness. If the true self leaves the throne, a vacuum is created, and it is quickly filled by a lower personality (a group of simpletons perhaps) which is based on lower instincts such as sex or power. These lower powers have little prospective, usually have narrow purpose, and few spiritual considerations. People who have left their throne sink into crudeness and vulgarity.
God Exists
I was at a astronomy party, and while sharing a telescope, I got into a conversation. I made some remarks about what we were seeing. "There must be a God, just look at the vastness of space." My friend said he did not believe in God. I asked him if he believed in goodness. He thought for a moment and said no. I asked if it was ok if I kicked him. He said no. I said, "Then you want me to be good?" and he said yes. And I asked him, "Do you think goodness exists?" Of course he said, "Yes indeed."
If the brain is arranged in a hierarchy, one computer must be on top which has command over the rest of the brain. This computer cannot be reprogrammed by lower computers or it would not be in control. This principle has a practical application. For people who have trouble with alcohol, the lower self wants to drink and is in conflict with the upper self. This is why the second step in Alcoholics Anonymous is necessary. The second step is: "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity" (Bill Wilson, 1955).
There is no such thing as darkness as it is the absence of light. There is no such thing or power of evil, only the absence of goodness. There is no devil, only the absence of God.
But evil does exist just as darkness exists. People can be very mean and do wicked things. Evil exists due to the shallow mind.
If everything were perfect there would be no contrast, and nothing to improve. Life would be a boor.
Deeper Mind and Shallow Mind
As we said on the previous page, a shallow mind thinks about something nice and selects an easy way of getting it without considering longer term consequences. When someone does something evil, it is like pulling the key stone from a wall and all the rocks come fall down as a result. Goodness can be as knowing the bigger picture and knowing God. I say knowing God, as God is defined as pure good and pure love. Thus a person who walks along the wall will repair it instead of destroying it.
Single Mindfulness
The brain is busy with a huge amount of information being processed. The consciousness can only deal with one thought at a time. Somewhere in the interface between mind and brain, the information is filtered so only the most important data flows through consciousness.
Thus it is best to concentrate on one thing at a time. Make a list, sort it by priority and follow it as a divine ritual.
One Point, Zero Point
Each nerve in the brain is labeled, that is it transports only one type of signal. All these countless signals are distilled into one experience.
Since the brain filters our thoughts so we think only thought at a time in consciousness, we can conclude that consciousness itself is a one point. More than one point would allow more than one thought at a time. We exist as zero point, pure awareness when we have no thoughts.
Other Gods?
If the hierarchy is duplicated then there is conflict. If we depend only on taste we eat too much candy. If we depend only on health, we never experience candy. Candy tastes good, and it is good, but in small amounts.
So there is no Candy God or Diet God, but the one true God, that knows everything.
The Road to God
From our vantage, we cannot know, and will never know everything. We just keep getting better at it. It is like a road we follow. The trip is the goal. The goal gives us direction, but it will never be reached.
Bad things exists so that we know what to move away from. It forms contrast. Good things are things we more toward.
Yet we must take the first step, or we suffer in ignorance. We have to start drinking the pure water.
Creating New Ideas
We actually create new ideas from nonsense or what we call noise. Noise is random and is like scattered dots. The brain like resistors in a electronic circuit makes noise signals. The noise impulses travel to certain areas of the brain are incorporated as ideas. Most of this noise makes no sense what so ever, but and is normally filtered out, but one out of a huge number of ideas becomes a productive thought. Thus we can creative ideas that have never been thought before.
The Pursuit of Happiness
In the Declaration of Independence we read:"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The goal of life is long term happiness. As one walks up the road towards God, there is more understanding of how to be joyous and truly happy over the long term.
Short term happiness is hedonistic and long term happiness is spiritual.
Is it the Brain or Us?
Consider the brain as water, and us (our consciousness) as salt. If we mix the two, the two flow together. Thus a sleeping pill affects the brain and also consciousness. Also a thought of sleep may put the brain to sleep. Thus the brain and the soul are mixed, and flow together, but are actually two different things.
The Interface Between Brain and Consciousness
Although the brain and consciousness physically are mixed, functionally they are separate. Consciousness is the feeling and experience of being alive. The brain serves as a go between the physical world and consciousness. The brain also reports the condition of the body and where it is in physical space.
The interface between the brain and consciousness is largely unknown, but we can make some educated guesses. The so-called subconscious is the elephant we ride. Most of the things we do and think about are a direct result of the subconscious.
Most people divide science and humanity studies. Science tends to see us as a brain and the English and psychology departments sees as people living lives. It seems like the brain and consciousness are two sides of the same sheet of paper somehow the same and somehow very different. Perhaps we need to make the paper thicker and consider the interface.
Knowing We Don't Know
Who is the mayor of Zhilinda, Sakha, Russia? You answer, "I don't know" and you know for certain that you don't know.
Not only does the brain keep track of what it knows, it also tracks what it does not know. If this mechanism is broken, can loose the sense of awe and feel that we know it all.
Two Sides of Sheet of Paper
We see one side of a paper at a time. Looking from the top we see thought in the form of writing. Look underneath we cannot see the writing.
With consciousness we "see" our experiences. This is the top view. We have our impressions of our life's processes.
From a scientific point of view we look at the underside of the paper. This is the bottom view. We cannot see experiences in someone else. Thoughts and feelings are private things we alone experience. Though language we assume others have thoughts and feelings too and we are not alone.
The sheet of paper represents the connection between the three dimensional physical space and the world of experience itself.
The subconscious according to Freud is filled with primitive nasty stuff, and I agree, but I also think we have guides that help us do truly great things. So I would like to rename subconscious to side-conscious.
Jung spoke of four universal archetypes: Mother, Rebirth, Spirit and Trickster. He also mentioned the shadow, the anima (female with a male), the animus (the man within a female), and the persona (a functional complex). I think there are more such a worry-wart, the teacher, and the follower.
Music
Music is regarded by science as a mystery. Why should music have such an impact on the human being? My theory is that music consists of complex waves. Just as the atom can be described in terms of wave functions, I believe that the interface between the brain and consciousness will some day be seen as more complex wave functions.
Thus the archetypes are composed or are surrounded by wave functions and "dance" to the sounds we call music. Thus music at its best can calm our soul and allow us to move closer to God, love and peace.
Consciousness After Death
We do not know what consciousness is. It seems to be some type of energy. Energy can never be created or destroyed. Therefore consciousness goes on and on, past death.
Why So Many Religions?
Often it's a matter of language instead of different truths. By standing back and looking at various religions we can see that sometimes they're actually saying the same thing. For example, a protestant might say "saved" and the Catholic might say "being in the state of grace." The Islamic people use the word "Allah" and the Christians use the word "God." What is important is the meaning, not the actual word.
Words by Themselves
Belief in words themselves have terrible consequences. The words "You are a witch" is the basis for the killing of many women. In the extreme, believing in the letters of words have hidden meaning (numerology) is pure nonsense.
Believing in special words by themselves can be lethal. Those just that recite words (prayer) instead of using medicine have caused many people to die. Prayer with meaning, however, can work when one concentrates on healing, one wraps another with love, and becomes closer to God.
Enculturalization
We are all enculturealized. We are called by a name we did not choose. We use a particular language because everyone around us speaks this language. We conform to dress and must wear matching shoes. We started believing before we had a chance to say "no." Don Miguel Ruiz (2000) called it "domestication." Like fish that do not see their water, we do not see our culture. People do not see their own country until they travel. If you live in the United States, you might enjoy reading Living in the U.S.A. by Alison Raymond Lanier (1981).
What is Real
The Proximal World
God is Our Reference
Other Gods?
How do we know Good from Bad?
Deeper or Shallow Mind?
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Brain Circuits
Some knowledge is required
in order to create.
Can we see through the fog
There is more than the
physical world
In which world does beauty lie?
What lies between the brain and consciousness?
Where It All Began
How did we to where we are today, with religions trying to sell us their beliefs?
Lewis Brown (This Believing World, 1926) explained that primitive man was like many animals, afraid of almost everything. Everything seemed alive. As primitive man began to think, lightning, trees, rocks were seen as gods, spirits and ghosts. Without knowledge, their world was magical and the gods might produce great harm when they angry. Tribe members were killed without warning. There was danger everywhere including other tribes, wild animals, lightning, swift rivers and falling rocks. Something had to be done. Projecting human traits into these objects and forces, some atonement must be made. Primitive altars were build and valuable items were sacrificed such as food and trinkets and sometimes their children.
The tribes followed their leader who could help them fight evil and help them find food. If a leader forecasted a successful hunt, and this prophesy came true, the leader became very popular. If the prophesy did not come true, the leader was replaced.
The leaders who lasted the longest placed the blame for hard times on other members of the tribe. They came up with a clever idea. Everyone was to do a magical ritual. If it was not done right, bad things were to happen. If it was done right, then prosperity would follow. Now the leader was never blamed for misfortune, and instead it was all up to the tribe members.
The book, This Believing World became popular in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) circles as it points out that all religions have a more or less common basis.
One of forces outside religion is psychology.
Psychology
Psychology is supposed to be a science, but science deals with the distal world as we have said. The inner world or proximal world is where psychology lives.
By using materialistic methods to study the inner life, one must look at the mind as a great mystery as it is invisible. This is the main idea behind behaviorism, where we just observe a person from what they do in the outer world.
Psychology is based a series of zeitgeists. A "zeitgeist" is a German word that means the "spirit of the times." Psychology and psychology have had their share of popular themes. These themes are like looking through a telescope with a very narrow focus.
Philosophy
Lacking a true integrated big picture, philosophy has a many narrow points of view.
Idealism states that the mind is all that exists and that the outer world is but a mental illusion. There is no real world, no body... its all in your head (oops). Believers included Plato, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, and Hegel.
Dualist states that the mind and the body exist but separately. The dualists include Plato, Aristotle, Sankhya, the Yoga schools of Hinduism and the 18th century philosopher René Descartes.
The monists disagreed and argued that mind and body are really made of the same stuff. Monists include Parmenides (5th century BC), and rationalist 17th century Baruch Spinoza
Why is Consciousness Not Part of Science?
Consciousness is not part of science. Joseph C. Pearce (1973) stated that Consciousness is the crack in the cosmic egg." What he meant by that is there is a lot more going on in the world than what is currently called science.
So what is consciousness? It is not matter, energy, space or time is it? I have tried to find some help through reading psychology books, but to little avail. Consciousness is very difficult to explain.
Perhaps consciousness is part of God (Ernest Holmes) and we are all parts of God.
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg
Cite: Deepermind.com, George A. Norwood (2011)
Complete Deepermind On-Line Book
Chapters
1. Introduction (you are here)
Creation of Deepermind
The Deepermind website was designed and written by George Norwood. It is a composite based on a wide area of resources ranging from physics and neuroscience to spirituality. There are many books I have used to connect seemly diverse disciplines.
I studied Electronic Engineering at RCA Institutes in New York City. I am a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. In addition, I completed a series of intense spiritual courses at the Center of Spiritual Living (formally, the Church of Religious Science).
Deepermind is concerned with spirituality, freedom, goodness, truth, brain functions, mathematics, and psychology. It is leading edge, but based on science, and many other sources. As you learn, so many of the pieces fall into place, making a much larger whole.
This is an on-going leading edge inquiry into consciousness, purpose, and spirituality. It is in process, yet getting better. Your comments are welcomed.
Cite: Deepermind.com, George A. Norwood (2011)
Updated
November 12, 2011
© George Norwood 2011. This web site is in copyright. No reproduction can take place without written permission.
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