Introduction to Deepermind
Science and Metaphysics
Here we will go a little beyond science, and walk into the shallows of metaphysics but not drown in it. We can determine what we want by how it feels, but if we are working with the physical world (Distal World), feelings do not count. Working with the inner world (Proximal World) then feelings do count. There are two groups of feelings, the animal instinctive feedings (hunger, fear, sickness) and the spiritual feelings based on insight, love and goodness.
Choices
It all comes down to choices. At every little crossroad in our lives, minute by minute we drift towards certain conclusions until one day some of us make a big choice. We are always changing, growing, getting better or worse.
Enculturalization
We make all these choices surrounded by our culture that makes unconscious demands on us that we don't notice. We use a language we did not choose, we must ware matching shoes, we excuse ourselves for a sneeze or yawn. Thus most of us are enculturated and domesticated but do not pay attention to it.. We learned to believe in our enculturalization before we had the ability for independent thinking. We bought into everything until we learned to say "no."
Don Miguel Ruiz (2000) says that domestication causes us to believe in images of perfection that are used as the reference when we judge ourselves and others often severely and unfairly. (Living in the U.S.A., Alison Raymond Lanier, 1981).
World Views
Ancient World View
Over the centuries man has speculated on the big picture. Lewis Brown (1926) wrote a book called This Believing World that become popular in the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) circles. In the beginning savages explained the world as if everything was alive. Objects were seen as spirits, ghosts and early religion provided the magic to pacify these beasts. There were primitive gods everywhere that were to be feared and dealt with. Much of the dogmas of modern religious are based on these early ideals.
Modern World Views
The church identified the mind, body and spirit as three separate things. How they worked was a mystery.
In the 18th centry, efforts were made to establish new world views. Instead of elaborate dogma, efforts were made to greatly simply how things worked. One of the simplest was idealism.
Idealism
Idealism states that the mind is all that exists and that the outer world is but an mental illusion. There is no real world, no body... its all in your head (oops). Believers included Plato, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, and Hegel.
Dualism
Dualist said that the mind and the body exist but separately. The dualists include Plato, Aristotle, Sankhya, the Yoga schools of Hinduism and the 17th century philosopher René Descartes.
Monistism
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.
Each of these philosophies looks at the same world though different points of view. Everything is the mind as the mind is our lens to see the world. But we have to tend to the body. If we don't the body make the mind weak. Also the mind needs guidance from the spirit. If not the mind has its own life and nothing matters.
Deepermind
Deepermind is a philosophy that believes in the optimization of Body, Mind and Spirit. Each can be seen as separate or as a whole depending on the point of view. Thus a person is all three. But we can look at each aspect.
The body is physical, the mind reflects organization similar to software, and the spirit is the root cause of goodness and all physical form. It is possible through correct decision making to optimize all three aspects of one's self.
Deepermind attempts to use logic, data flow, mathematics to describe some aspects of metaphysics. Much of this is unprovable by experiment, but by just observing the problems reported in the news media, there has to be a better way. The better way is taken from many sources and his held together through a belief in goodness, love and physical reality.
Creation
Just to say there is the mind, the body and spirit does no speak to the obvious. We are alive. There are causes, processes, and effects. Everything must have a cause.
In the beginning there was only God. God was the cause and the process was God and the effect was God as there was nothing else but God.
- Cause - God's Thought
- Process - God's Law
- Effect - God's Creation
Consciousness
Consciousness is the crack in the materialistic egg. Consciousness is not matter, energy, space or time. Science finds it hard to explain.
Since God made everything, everything is God and so consciousness is part of God. When we use our conscious will we are a creative cause. This cause becomes a process, and an effect is made. We think about going to the moon, we make it happen and then we notice a footprint on the moon.
God continues to create through man. Thus Man puts things into motion in a similar three step manner:
- Cause - Man's Thought
- Process - God's Universal and Unchanging Natural Laws
- Effect - Man's Creation
(I give credit to the Church of Religious Science for the basic understanding presented here. As part of my creativity, I have expanded their teachings, based on some logic and scientific principles.)
Feedback
Negative feedback, taking the output of a signal and inverting it and feeding to the input acts to regulate. Positive feedback, taking the output of a signal and feeding back to the input without inversion creates as oscillator.
Man uses negative feedback to correct his His senses pick up the image of his creation and an image is formed in his mind for his consideration. If it is good, then the feedback is positive and the creation continues. If it is bad, then the creation is changed to make it good.
Crossover Points
As man causes a creative thought it passes into the physical realm. From cause to process the idea crosses over from the mind into the physical process. There is a cause to process crossover point here where the person through his or her mind pushes idea into the brain for movement of the body.
There are other crossover points. The eye allows light from say a star to crossover into the mind's eye of the observer. The photons from the star cross over to become an image in the brain consisting of changes in chemistry and electrical activity. The image at the back of the eye is up-side-down and reversed, but the brain corrects the image so the image looks as it does so perfectly.
Another crossover point occurs with sound, as vibration of the air is transformed by tiny hairs within the inner ear so that a sound image in terms of chemistry and electrical activity crosses the brain.
Ideas too crossover the brain. They are processed and stored countless times until a framework of working ideas is formed.
Observation
Descriptions are always based on an observer watching the progress of a cause changing into process, producing an effect that is reflected back to the mind.
Consciousness is difficult to observed directly, as the thing that is observing cannot observe itself directly. As we raise our consciousness high enough we can see into our self and others.
However there is a quantum leap in consciousness. Just as a piece of paper with writing only one side can be read when the observer is looking at the writing and cannot be read when the observer is looking at the back side.
So is it when looking at a human, one can see atoms, chemicals, cells and circuits, but this is look at the blank side of the paper. We have to see consciousness from the conscious view point, otherwise we are blind.
Zero Point of Observation
All our senses images travel down nerves to the brain. The senses take things in three dimensions and translates them so they travel down the nerve. This is a three dimensional to one dimensional transform.
At the end of the last nerve, the one dimensional image is translated to zero dimensions. It ends somewhere as a point. Otherwise it would continue to travel. This zero point is observed by a higher dimension, that of consciousness.
Time stops at the zero point. It takes time for the image to travel the nerve. When it gets to its resting point it stops. It is no longer moving, and like a black hole time stops too.
We Are Beyond the Zero Point
We exist as experiencers of the body on the other side of the zero point. We witness the world through the knothole of the zero point.
Not all the information in the brain goes through the zero point. Only what we experience crosses. The other processes are not experienced, but they happen. The brain is attending to all the things it needs to do to keep us alive. Breathing, heartbeat, chemical balances and all performed without control.
Loss of Consciousness
The zero point from the brain side can stop working. When we sleep and are not dreaming, then the zero points are shutdown.
The zero points require energy from the consciousness side in order to operate. If they are shut down, then consciousness itself looses energy and consciousness can slip away. Like two computers sharing information, when one locks up, the other computer can lock up as well. This is because they are waiting for a handshake. Consciousness waits for acknowledgment through the zero point for a person who is unconscious.
Layers of Consciousness
Consciousness is concerned with emotions, thought and sensory information. All three must pass through the zero points. An image of the body and its surroundings is created in the brain and also on the conscious side of the zero point. Information stored in the brain is duplicated on the other side from the zero point.
Thus consciousness can ponder what to do next, and execute its will power to select the next thought and any activity.
As the body moves, the image of the body in the brain moves and the image of the body in conscious moves two. Thus the body can be seen in layers. It has a layer corresponding to the brain image and the non-physical image beyond the zero point.
Like layers of cloth, what happens in the brain is duplicated on the other side of the zero point. And verse-versa. This the cloth is bidirectional.
Mental Illness and Entanglement
The brain can have physical illnesses. But the brain can also become slowed down, confused, or speeded up due to lack of reference. There are three references, that of reality, that of other people and that of the Source of goodness.
Without reference, there is no degree of importance, and classification becomes a tangled mess due to lack of a hierarchy.
The Brain is a Bag of Marbles
A healthy brain has a hierarchy. Processes are arranged in layers. Multiplicity of the brain means conflicting and isolated meanings emerge. The goal is to have one integrated personality.
Each marble is a simpleton that is an expert at one small job. For example, one simpleton job might be to recognize a rose, and another to understand if the rose is a pretty one. The marbles are not aware of the big picture as this is reserved by consciousness on the other side of the zero point.
Hierarchy is a requirement otherwise things would overlap in purpose. Higher layers would not observe and control lower layers. There are many structures in the brain so this hierarchy of layers must be very complex and actually unknowable. We cannot think about things if the thing we are thinking about is the object itself. It is like the same hand drawing itself.
The Source
Beyond the zero point there is higher layers that one can just speculate about. We receive inspiration and understanding knowing that there are non-physical beings above our non-physical being.
Without God, we become lost. We lose track of what is good. One of the most essential steps in overcoming our problems is to believe in God. Those in Alcoholics Anonymous use the twelve step program to help them stay sober. The second step is so essential: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Goodness Really 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."
Migration of Lower Marbles
If there is a vacuum in the upper levels due to lack of purpose, and no spiritual considerations, the lower simpletons such as the urge to keep clean or to eat gain power. Thus we have people who constantly wash their hands or eat all the time. As this process continues, the person seems to sink into crudeness and vulgarity.
Love
When the references are working well, and the Source of Goodness is near at hand, other people feel close there is love. There is also love of material things, of invention and the arts.
Evil
Evil is just the lack of goodness and love. When things are ignored, when there is no control, when there no love then things are cold and dark. Evil is not a substance but a lack of substance.
When one turns off the light they do not turn on darkness.
Thus apathy, not wanting to learn and grow is evil. Not wanting to help is evil. It is just a vacuum of love and goodness and has no power except to cause pain. The lack of air, light or food is bad, but if there was no air, no light or no requirement for food, then we would not miss these essentials. Thus is no evil per se.
Just as Love is associated with goodness, fear is associated with the lack of goodness. Fear is the belief that bad things are going to happen. But there is no badness, and no evil. There is only a lack of goodness.
More chapters are listed below:
1 Detailed Introduction Part 1 (this page)
2 Detailed Introduction Part 2
Creation of Deepermind
Deepermind was developed by George Norwood, based on a composite of many sources. Some of the sources are in the form of books I have read. Currently I am a senior in the field of Cognitive Science at the UTD in Dallas Texas. I am a graduate of many courses at the Center of Spiritual Living also known as 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.
Updated
August 21, 2009
© George Norwood 2009. This web site is in copyright. No reproduction can take place without written permission.
Revision 16