Identifying imprints or the reasons we act in certain ways (for the worse especially).
The importance of letting go and realizing that many problems stem from what we want / desire not being in line with the realities of others and objective reality in general; especially in cases where we want others to act in a certain way or feel a particular way. We can attempt to appeal to reason and empirical evidence to sway them to our mode of thought, but we cannot coerce them in any other way. Once one is able to cope with fact, then we are able to be at peace with many situations that may otherwise haunt us.
If you desire a relationship with someone who does not reciprocate such desires then we must learn to move on past that desire and allow them live their life separately, at least until such time as they see fit to act otherwise. The chances of them reversing their attitude and reciprocating is diminished if you fail to respect and dignify them by allowing them to continue their life without you and without any unjustified prying, etc. It is not your job to fix other people’s problems especially when they do not want your help.
Many further problems arise from others failing to leave others alone for one reason or another. This is an excellent example of why individuals should be extra careful with whom they have children or participate in mating practices in the first place. Coitus is the means by which humans reproduce and this should be apprised of at all times without compunctions to the contrary. Evolutionarily speaking, it feels pleasurable because that increases the chances of it happening on an oft basis so that the species replicates and ensures survivability, although we as humans, have reached capacity and are now surpassing a healthy population which endangers the species.
The sex act is primarily the means to reproduction. Emotional and spiritual aspects are secondary to this fact. It is only because of our self-referentiality and consciousness that these facts are extant at all. The sex act can be quite a useful and efficient facilitator in the emotional and spiritual arena (not to mention good exercise), but at all times it must still be acknowledged that reproduction may result from said act. This is mere causality; i.e., sperm enter an egg and a human may be the final result. Of course, there are any number of situations which may result in the human not being the result, such as successful contraception, infertility, miscarriage, etc. But, unless one is proven to be sterile, the fact remains. Henceforth, if the child is unwanted by either would-be parent, causal-related decisions must be made beforehand. The female at any given point during the pregnancy (if one results from the sex act) she may choose logically speaking, not necessarily legally) to terminate the pregnancy inasmuch as the fetus is viewed as functioning as an organ of the mother’s body, whereas the male has only until the sex act to decide whether he either desires a resultant child or not. The female has until birth because that organism is not separate from her body (it is an organ thereof) until birthed. The male’s decision is made at the point of ejaculation into the vagina (as this is the culmination of the sex act and ultimately the means by which humans attempt to reproduce) – his part is done.
Having a child – bringing a whole new life into the world – is such a big deal it is a wonder so many humans do not seem to view it as such. Unfortunately, the fact that it is not always viewed as much of a serious topic is evidenced in the way so many children are raised.
The symbiotic nature of priming and synchronicity
Due to individual ideospheres, personal time-binding colors all memes that are integrated into said ideospheres. All previously held memes and experiential memes / experiences are affected by this Korzybskian time-binding and priming and affect how each individual’s reality-tunnel evolves with each newly acquired concept.
My basic dichotomy here is this: memes = concepts; experiential memes = percepts / concepts about experience (which are understood sensorially, and hence, only understood in terms of the[relatively] few sensory perceptions both perceived and remembered thusly).
The distinction may thus be made that memes (going with the Dawkinsian view) are ideas / concepts which are transmitted from one individual (host) to another individual (although fidelity will never be perfect due to each individual’s widely varying reality-tunnels), and hence, the qualifier ‘experiential’ for experientially acquired concepts that an individual may hold / acquired via their own experience with res extensa (excluding of course, those experiences which were those of directly [or maybe indirectly also] experiences of receiving memes from another individual either explicitly or implicitly – i.e. conversation or reading of books, respectively; both directly and indirectly – i.e. communicated or imitated, respectively). This dichotomy may be further understood as those which are acquired via symbols and those acquired directly through observation (of behavior or phenomena in res extensa, i.e. of others).
This does seem to remain somewhat counter-intuitive, especially as all acquisition of information (regardless of its qualifications as memetic or not, notwithstanding personal preference in the definition thereof) is experiential (even so-called intuited information by my standards).
Relevant to this topic, I also believe that the subjectivity / objectivity dichotomy is most clearly explained as res cogitans (subjective being that which exists in the mind) and res extensa (that which exists in objective reality apart from any one – or multiple – particular consciousness(es) measuring said objective reality through any form of measuring [which in itself affects the measured aspect(s) of objective reality / res extensa]) Of course, the Universe is always ‘measuring’ (per Seife, et al.).
All this said, we must remain mindful of the inherent wholeness and unity of existence (including res cogitans, since all minds are extant within res extensa) and that our perception defines fragmentation and ‘subsystemization’ of the Universe via categorical perception. We thusly ‘choose’ how to perceive our Universe (both via conditioning and imprinting of our reality-tunnels, not to mention Consensus Reality in general) and how to fragment into categorical perceptions res extensa into res cogitans for the purposes of conceptualized understanding of our sensory perceptions. Furthermore, the symbol-systems we develop to understand and communicate our conceptions are arbitrary.
To summarize, there exists an objective reality (res extensa) which we perceive via our senses (and thus measure) which we form concepts about (res cogitans). This res extensa is a unity, a whole although we perceive the distinctions in patterns which make this up and we arbitrarily categorize fragmented subsystems within the whole (which, if nothing else, enables us to make sense of the various aspects of the Universe which we sensorially perceive, as well as our theoretical models of many other aspects).
Any relationship or organization which is to last amongst the complexity of its environment must be an evolutionarily stable system. It will either evolve itself into an ESS or it will fail and become extinct so to speak.
In an increasingly complex, and hence volatile, world both relationships and organizations must adapt to given environmental situations / circumstances in order to survive. This requires properly functioning feedback loops and self-correction. The advantage relationships and organizations have over nature is that they have the faculty of intelligence and reason to aid them in this process. The given system(s) must take signals coming from both inside and outside the system and gather meaning from them and thusly (correctly or incorrectly) respond accordingly in order to adapt to any new situation. This is an ongoing process that takes place at nearly all times at which the relationship or organization is functioning. A good example would be conversation itself or day-to-day business.
The difference that is delineated by consciousness and/or self-referentiality between genetically affected aspects of life and memetically affected aspects of life. Suggested by both Dawkins (in the final chapter of The Selfish Gene) and earlier by William James, particularly in his speech commemorating Shaw’s Boston monument. Whereas genetically affected behavior seems to (by its implicit / implicate nature) play its roles with more subtlety, memetically affected behavior too seems (once ingrained) to be difficult to distinguish as such without careful speculation and analysis.
Is there then a strict demarcation between the two (keeping in mind that genetic evolution itself is responsible for the capacity for memes in the first place) or might it be possible that epigenetics plays some kind of role of corpus callosum – a specie of liaison between the two.
The hitherto nascent study of epigenetics is currently suggesting that memetically affected behavior may play a part in recoding the genome, via the epigenome, which entails a generational change subsequent to reproduction.
Being ‘successful’ in a productive / creative endeavor requires self-discipline and hard work and this is why, I think, that the trying, difficult, sometimes depressive stage of ‘paying ones dues’ is often so formative in the life of those who are creatively, productively successful. It oftentimes requires a time period of stressful ‘do or die’ situations to instill the necessary character traits. For some reason, the causality involved between the desire to have or do something and what it takes to acquire or achieve it seems to be missed by a fairly large percentage of the population. This invokes all sorts of parallels with alchemy's Chapel Perilous and Prigogine's dissipative structures...one could even divulge into the ESS model from this perspective (at a later date).
So much of life is affected, if not dictated by fear. Either fear of pain, death, or just what others think of you (which according to Howard Bloom in Global Brain may be the most debilitating fear of all), but fear nonetheless. There are obvious reasons. Fear of death – you want to live long enough to procreate (or your genes want you to). But not just genetically, but also memetically insofar as you want to finish your intellectual endeavors so that you may gain immortality via meme, not just gene. Most hindrances in people’s lives boil down to fear in some, or multiple, forms.
Cultural evolution as benchmarking new paradigms by way of counter-cultural ‘advances’ becoming mainstream. Whereas those who may consider themselves the ‘progenitors’ of any cultural ‘advance’ (the vanguard of the counter-culture, if you will) tend to have negative attitudes towards said cultural advances taking hold in the mainstream, it should be noted that the paradigm shift leads to cultural evolution for the society as a whole and the watering down is inherent in that process. It should, in my opinion, be seen in a positive light therefore because of the overall progress made by the society. The society, by evolving, is better in its adaptability in terms of how it can face further problems and challenges and hence we can say that there is progress.
Man is not born with purpose. Man may or may not choose a purpose for himself. This purpose(s) may change at will. We can play any number of different roles that serve one purpose or another. What we choose in any given circumstance depends on our metaprogramming, how we have been imprinted and whether we have the capability to realize when and how our imprints affect our behavior and whether we should act counter to what our imprints would ‘have’ us do. This is why Gurdjieff’s self-observation is important to the Great Work, it is because it enables us to realize the otherwise subliminal, subconscious behaviors and thought processes that we enact on a constant basis: why do we do what we do?
As the pragmatists would put it (Charles Sanders Peirce in particular I believe – not sure, check on) the probabilistic predictability of your actions from one given moment to another is what makes you who you are – if you always acted totally chaotically and random you would be considered to have no personality at all (as the Existentialists would put it, you are what you do).
Inversely, your reality tunnel, the way you see the world, may also not be in accordance with ‘proper functioning’ (another Gurdjieff / Ouspensky concept) and the Great Work must lead you through the analysis of all aspects, your ecology, of your ideospheric conceptions / philosophy.
As we accumulate beliefs / concepts in general, we develop a kind of personal time-binding phenomenon, whereas Korzybski’s is a generational time-binding mechanism for memes. Korzybski’s time-binding function in the context of post-postmodernism.
It is important to note that res extensa affects our subjective experience and how. Objective reality exists ‘apart’ from us (although we are part of it). Our perceptions thereof, via our senses, are conceptualized in our brains and those conceptions help create our reality tunnels. Our reality tunnels in turn affect how we respond to our perceptions. Every concept in our ideosphere colors how we integrate each new concept we receive or develop (memetic reception or memeogenesis respectively).
We need to analyze what our concepts are in order to realize how our ideospheres affect new concepts as well as our responses to perceptions. Seeing as how we have reality tunnels which affect how we view the world (i.e. how we respond to our perceptions) we need to understand what our reality tunnels are; what they are comprised of. We do this by analyzing our metaprogramming and finding our imprints (what they are, how they affect our programming, whether they should be changed, deleted, dealt with at all, etc.); not only looking at what our concepts are (what our ideosphere is comprised of), but also how they affect our responses to perceptions and how our imprinted metaprograms affect our way of integrating new concepts.
All these things affect how we give meaning to the representations we have in our mind of the sensorially perceived objective realities of res extensa. They affect our concepts of quality and how we feel we should behave (our behavioral strategies) in order to achieve certain outcomes.
It is important to find out what our programming is (via imprint) insofar as it dictates what our responses are to our perceptions of res extensa. We may see a gray building and our response is negative – sadness, for instance – and it makes us depressed – i.e. our hormonal secretions may increase or decrease (depending on which hormones) and change our overall mood which affects our reality tunnel. We may see a gray building and the inverse happens and we become happy – ‘this gray building reminds me of the abilities of the mind of man’.
The way we process the perceptions we receive via our senses is affected by our metaprogramming/reality tunnels. If we irrationally respond to certain perceptions then we must chunk down until we find the imprint, i.e. why we respond as we do, in order to change our responses because our physiology affects the way we respond to perceptions and vice versa.
If we perceive something in res extensa which does not threaten us in reality, but ‘triggers’ something in our brain which causes us to respond with panic and subsequently triggers the appropriate physical responses for panic via the parasympathetic system, i.e. quick breathing, sweat, inability to focus on anything but the situation at hand – all evolutionarily stable responses when the threat is real. But when these responses are not appropriate this is not an evolutionarily stable approach to said situation. It is thusly necessary to find the imprint which has caused the brain to react to such perceptions so one can change this.
One’s metaprogramming has been such that ‘it feels’ that this response is appropriate because it has always worked in the past (even though the conscious mind may not agree) and so it does not change the response to the signal. Once you can change what originally caused you to react a certain way to a certain perception then you in essence (at least in theory) change the ‘coding’ of the metaprogram which instantiates the irrational response to said perception.
The concept of indigo children as those born outside of Consensus Trance/Reality; i.e. born awakened. The idea that they may or may not choose to enhance their awareness or ‘fall back asleep’.
Lockean empiricism (tabula rasa, etc.) and liberal individualism (both in terms of atomism – i.e., as an analog to Newtonian physics – as well as in terms of individual rights – freedom / liberty, property rights, libertarianism, etc.
Instead of saying that atomistic individuals are nothing without the group in which they exist (holism) look for ways to understand that they do have meaning as separate entities (the Law of Identity) but (cybernetically) are affected by their environment via feedback loops and adaptation (according to their [empirical] perceptions of res extensa). Whereas agreed upon meanings for any number of memes rests upon the larger social framework in which they exist this does not necessarily connote the inability of individuals to gather meaning on their own without a socially agreed upon ‘consensus’ meaning’s existence.
Whereas, phenomenal systems of meaning such as language are functionally worthless unless there is an agreed upon meaning for any given code being employed from sender to receiver, and vice versa, it does not at the same time negate the possibility of an individual developing a system of meaning that only said individual understands. If nothing else, it may be that qualia fall underneath this category of systems of meaning insofar as ‘redness’ can only, in practical terms, hold meaning for an individual qua that individual in so much as ‘redness’ can be considered a meme in the first place.
Individual entities in objective existence are perceived by individual consciousnesses who, in turn, develop concepts thereof via the employment of reason and thusly are given meaning in the mind of the beholder who then (through the apparatus of language) conveys (or attempts to) that meaning to another individual. Hence, a consensus meaning may be achieved, but not without the individual consciousness first developing meaning prior to the memetic transmission from one individual to the next; ergo, memeogenesis. QED.
One point that must be made here though is the arbitrariness in deciding upon given meanings.
It seems (unless I am missing something somewhere or looking at this from the wrong angle) that the holists are applying a false dichotomy to liberal individualism. I believe the appropriate approach is to acknowledge both aspects for they both bear relevance to the way actual existence plays out.
It makes the most sense to me to realize that individuals make up groups (i.e., society) and thus interact in groups – hence, societies are made up of individuals, yet individuals interact in societies. So we are interested in individuals and also how they interact with other individuals. But they are always acting as individuals. A mob may have a mentality, as it were, but that mentality is both shared by and affected by the individuals who comprise it. We can look (and should look) at both the individual parts of the system and the system itself.
The individual is always the ‘atomic’ lowest common denominator of any societal group. From within the individual you must look inwardly and outwardly to understand the makeup of said individual though. Both their environment and their genes effect ‘who they are’. Physical attributes are largely dictated by an individual’s genes, but their diet and habits also play a large role in how they turn out. One who exercises regularly will inherently have better toned muscles than one who does not. One with higher intake of particular vitamins and/or minerals will both appear and behave differently than someone with lower intake of said vitamins/minerals.
In terms of behavior and philosophy of life, one who abides by a strict diet and workout regimen may tend to have a more self-disciplined approach to life in other areas of their life as well, whereas someone who does not may be less disciplined in general. The amount of factors that play into all aspects of life are myriad, but not unchangeable (for the most part, at least).
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