Category Archives: cognition

Plato’s Cave Analogy, Via an Intrauterine Dialogue

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Things are not as they seem. They never are; for we only can “see through a glass darkly.” But if darkness is accepted as our reality, and not subject to a mite of critical reasoning, then we will never see the light, i.e. “the Light.” Plato’s cave analogy put this on the table of human consciousness 2500 years ago. Here, I will share the same primordial truth from a dialogue between two children in the womb:

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other:

“Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

– Útmutató a Léleknek

‪#‎Mother‬ Mother Earth News

Embracing Ignorance Really Takes The Pressure Off!

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“Get in touch with your ignorance!”  That is the advice of Dave Gray in his book, “Liminal Thinking.”  I’ve been doing this for decades now and I’m discovering there is no end to it!  The more I can delve into this congenital “simple mindedness” the more I see how ephemeral my “wisdom” is and that actually…on the surface…it is just a bunch of words!  This is allowing me to find the value of these words, delving into them and exploring their depths as I revel in the field of meaning.

This “field of meaning” is simply the heart, that inexhaustible resource we are blessed with, where the Divine can be encountered.  In that interior world, that “Wholly Ground,” we learn to “pull on words” which is how one person described the making of poetry.  And as we “pull” on these words we find we are “pulling” on ourselves in a sense, our very identity is stretched taut as we do the bidding of T. S. Eliot and “wrestle with words and meaning.”  The discovery of this profound ignorance is the result.  Lest I mislead, by this “ignorance” I am still speaking of the Apostle Paul’s wisdom, “We see through a glass darkly.” ‘Tis such an humbling blow to the ego!

Trapped Inside,”A Life Safer Than We Can Bear”

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This cartoon made me think of the W. H. Auden wisdom, “We have made for ourselves a life safer than we can bear.” Auden knew that it is mentally healthy to take care of oneself, to maintain diligence about his own safety and welfare but that this precaution could easily go beyond the pale and create a dungeon, or a cage for oneself. There is a certain amount of risk in being human; after all we are physically and emotionally vulnerable and we are daily exposed to circumstances, socially and even physically where others wish us harm. Yes, growing a “thick skin” with firm ego boundaries is important but even this evolutionary tendency can go beyond the pale when beneath the surface we have not resolved the need for establishing a certain autonomy in life. Finding this autonomy, and its concomitant authenticity, will equip us to withstand even the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” making the cage unnecessary.

It is common also for a group to become trapped in a self-imposed prison, or “cage.” There they “hunker down” inside the cocoon of their belief system and wallow in the squalor of, “Why do they hate us so much?” when only a blip of self-awareness would answer the question. But the fear-base of a cultic group of this sort can only intensify their resolve to fight on, knowing that “right” or even “God” is on their side. The tighter the coil of their mindset becomes, the greater the likelihood of violence, on self and/or others.

This process, individually or collectively, is just “another day at the ranch” for an ego. We all have one and it is an incredible accomplishment to gain a degree of awareness to the point that we can daily watch it ply its trade in our heart…or at least try to. There is, in a sense, nothing “wrong” with this; it is just part of the “human-ness” that each of us is blessed/cursed with. This awareness is related to humility but only if this “humility” can achieve what I call “humility-ization” which makes this otherwise “accomplishment” a simple experience in the warp and woof of our daily life, and never a “fait accompli.”

That “Deep State” That Besets Us.

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I too have a “deep state” that is besieging me!  Yes, “they” or “it” is after me.  Oh, I used to think it was “out there” in the person of all those bad people and institutions who did not “see the light” as I did; but now I realize that my fears and insecurities were misdirected.  That “deep state” was within and will always be…as long as I remain a “paltry” human. I now realize that the “deep state” I always projected “out there” is merely the unconscious, that hidden domain of my heart which I did not have the courage to acknowledge.  And, yes it is a dark and ominous region of human experience, as in Goethe’s observations, “The heart has its beastly little treasures.”  My unwillingness to withdraw my projections for most of my life has cost me the store house of treasures in my heart which I catch faint glimpses of every now and then.  But the “beastly” dimension of the heart is always there! 

What is that “beastly” dimension of the heart?  In my experience, including reading and study but certainly including the intricate, frightening dimensions of “experience”, I have found that it is believing what you “believe” in an ironclad fashion, failing to recognize and respect the limitations of our human-ness, especially cognition.  We believe what we want to believe; and even if these beliefs might be very “noble” when we elevate them to sacrosanctity, we risk disregarding the wisdom of the Apostle Paul who noted that at best we only “see through a glass darkly.” 

The problem is “believing in our belief.”  One simple example is paranoia, If you believe the world is out to get you at some point it is likely to fulfill your unconscious wishes and “come after your ass.”  That is because the deep-seated distrust of life that you harbor will eventually spill over to the point that your judgement is gravely impaired, and the legal system will have to fulfill its responsibilities to intervene.  But the core issue is the insecurity, fragility, and terror that reigns in your heart. 

AND, on the matter of “believing in your belief,” I’m reminded of my favorite bumper sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think.”  So, you believe the moon is made out of cheese???  Why not consider what some of the other people in your world think about this notion?  So, you think “the Lord has ‘raised up’ Trump,” how about toying with the notion there might be some degree of flaw in that vein of thought?  But when a vein of thought is based on profound fear and anxiety that cannot be acknowledged, one will be enthralled with that vein of thought to the point of certainty. 

Aw, the sweet nectar of certainty!!! I remember it well.

Taking a “Gander” at Reality Once Again

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I have spent most of my life “gandering” at reality…as if anyone can do so.  With my intuition, and life-long study of psychology and philosophy, I realize that I was skeptical of reality from the earliest days of my life, even before cognition began to “convince” me that things were as they appeared.  I was born into a strange world and am now seeing this “strangeness” made even more manifest as Trumpian madness continues to maraud across the landscape of our soul. But a caveat is warranted.  “Reality” is not to be objectified as I am claiming to have done; daring to “think “ I have done so puts me outside of reality, beyond the pale, an offence to which I confess guilt.  Whew, what a blessing though it took me most of my life to find the existential courage to accept that lot.

Reality is a nuanced phenomenon, so “nuanced” that we are hard-wired to carve this nuanced world into which we are born into definition so that we can function in a very “defined” world.  But this same “wiring” permits us to find the courage at some point to contemplates that the world of “definitions” we have taken for granted needs a second glance.  But this “permission” is not a mandate; it lies in that “foul rag and bone shop of the heart” where, according to the Apostle Paul lie “the thoughts and intents of the heart” which require openness to the “Other.”

Artificial Intelligence Has Become Eerily Human!

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The London newspaper, The Guardian, has a wonderful story several days ago about artificial intelligence, aka “AI.” The paper commissioned a very sophisticated computer, the GPT-3, to write an essay about computers and their power over life as we know it and as it might come to be.  They offered three “prompts” to give it guidance and then this inhuman “heart” wrote a beautiful, thoughtful, and even “human” essay which you should read.  It is very revealing about the human heart and mind, both of which are guided by certain “prompts” which are difficult to ascertain; and even those we do “ascertain” are not its essence.  This is because the heart is Infinite and can never be “plumbed” though human nature is wired to think it can, and that it has even accomplished this.

This dilemma is the Mystery of Life which gave rise to religion, in addition to other “art” forms.  That Infinite Dimension which we ARE is designed to be curious and this “curiosity” needs to be explored… though within limits; for, remember, “Curiosity killed the cat!”  This limit cautions us to remember we hold within us a “treasure” which is but in an “earthly vessel.”  But human reason does not like this limitation, an existential understanding that I am only learning each day, “with fear and trembling.”

The delightful, frightening, though wryly-inspiring article can be found in the following link–https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3

Hannah Arendt And the Importance of Critical Thinking

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Hannah Arendt is visiting me this morning!  Yes, she dropped by in the form of one of her books and I am fully taken by her grasp of the Hitler era and the workings of the mind. In scholarly culture, if you think of totalitarianism you inevitably think of this woman because of her book, “Origins of Totalitarianism.”  But her visit this morning is via another book of hers, “The Life of the Mind: The Groundbreaking Investigation of How We Think.”

We usually do not think about “thinking” because we are too busy thinking, too busy with the white noise we are accustomed to. To “think about our thinking” is to bring to bear thought upon the very process of our “thinking,” or cognition. This complicated involution of the mind is one dimension of the thinking process and is commonly called, “critical thinking.”  Arendt’s work posits the notion that if we are not willing to employ  “critical thinking” there is a sense in which we are not thinking at all but are “thought” by what are merely the machinations of our unconscious mind.  As a result of this, we are carried along life’s way by a subterranean conglomerate of unacknowledged premises and assumptions which do the “thinking” for us. Someone once said, “Our thinking is but belated rationalization of conclusions to which we have already been led by our desires.”  In simple terms, “We think what we want to think.”

This is a very complicated vein of thought I am presenting here and merits further explanation; but that would take me too far from what I am trying to present.  In simple terms, Arendt teaches us that if we never get beyond “thinking what we want to think” we become easy prey to totalitarianism.  There is sense in which we are imprisoned by our very thinking and will make decisions that can be catastrophic in the long run.  This is what Socrates told us about in his famous “Cave” allegory, a delightful summary of which can be found in a cartoon—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RWOpQXTltA

Here is a brief selection from Arendt’s “Life of the Mind”:

Non-thinking, which seems so recommendable a state for moral and political affairs, also has its perils. By shielding people from the dangers of examination, it teaches them to hold fast to whatever the prescribed the rules of conduct may be at given time in a given society.  What people get used to then is less the content of the rules, a close examination of which would lead them into perplexity than the possession of rules under which to subsume particulars.

The “non-thinking” which Arendt’s work explores relies heavily on that term, “subsume particulars.”  This refers to taking in what we read or hear and “subsuming” it into “categories” which lay unexamined in the realm of perception.  Here in perception, as opposed to cognition, one can reject anything coming his way that is antithetical to this perceptual field.  Within the perceptual field lies unquestioned assumptions and biases which almost always “dictates” our thinking, ruling out anything not consistent with our view of the world.

Buddhism, Wisdom, and Cognition

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“A lot of thinking without wisdom will lead to suffering.” This Buddhist wisdom cuts right to the heart of life.  Yes, “thinking” or “reasoning” are Divine gifts but they are dangerous without some wisdom.  Let me put this in personal terms.  I have spent my life in the category of humans that W. H. Auden described as “logical lunatic..”  With this spiritual imbalance, I’ve had the illusion that I could “figger” things out with my mind.  This did not include the belief that I knew more than anyone else, that others were “stupid”, this was more of a personal matter.  I now realize that in the depths of my soul I had the illusion that with my mind I could “assess” most situations and know how to respond appropriately.  This stemmed from a hyper-vigilance attitude I took very early in life, having realized that I was born into a “crazy” reality that skewed reality to fit its own unquestioned premises.  With the intuition, and wisdom that comes with age, I realize that I made the conclusion that the pain that was my reality could be mitigated if I would pay close attention to what was going on and learn what the rules were.  Then, I could make sure that I was doing “the right thing” which simultaneously became “thinking” the right thing.  But I was keenly sensitive even then and realized that it was impossible to remember all the rules as the rules were always changing.  But, with that hypervigilance I must have assured myself that I was better off making the effort and could then at least lessen the blows (emotional/psychological) when they came. Thus my early life put me on a course of “seeing” and categorizing (diagnosing), life, eventually leading to a career in the social sciences…history and psychology…as I adopted the stance of Emily Dickinson, saying, “Life is over there, on a shelf.”  And, this has done me well in life…but certainly with a significant price as far as authenticity.

Just today I discovered the Buddhist wisdom displayed above and immediately had a light bulb turn on in my soul.  Somehow, this quality of “wisdom” is slowly sinking into my thick skull, allowing me to see…and feel…the limitations of rationality and understand even further that, “we see through a glass darkly”; my rational grasp of this world is limited.  This understanding is introducing me to my finitude and the humility that comes with it.  Wisdom is to realize that you might “know” a whole lot, but that bank of knowledge is always self-serving and thus destructive to self and others. And yes, as noted above, suffering is accompanying this wisdom.  To understand and “feel” finitude always brings one to his knees; there we have the opportunity to appreciate what one poet noted about this moment, that there we can, “glory, bow, and tremble” as we face the Otherness that we have avoided. If we don’t at least hunger for this wisdom, and realize that we will never “own” it, our thinking will produce great suffering, the pain of which is usually avoided with distractions, one of which is,“them.”

 

Thoughts About a Chattering Monkey Mind

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In the following epigram, one of four epigrams under the title “Four Poems after Callimachus” by Stephanie Burtt, I discover the presence of a cautionary self-reflection with anyone who deigns to write…even in the humble milieu of the blogosphere.

(Epigrams, 60)

Lucky Orestes.
          If you know his story,
you probably think that saying so makes me a jerk.
Fair enough. But I’ve been losing my mind
in my own way this week: Orestes lost his,
but at least he didn’t insist
on asking his loyal companion to read and critique
his own book-length original fictional work.
That’s why he kept Pylades as his friend.
True friendship can exist.
          As for me,
I need to learn how not to speak,
when not to hit send.

I am “full of words”; yes, even too full of them, like Elihu in the book of Job who noted, “My belly is full of words, like a taut wineskin, about to burst.”  And that is ok; all of us have our “belly” full of something and I’m glad my stubborn willfulness is sublimated into verbiage as opposed to less benign “stuff”.  But I’m certainly learning how to “not hit send” more often and the same discretion is being exercised in my daily life.  It makes me remember a bromide from a pastor in my youth, three filters through which should pass anything we might say—-1) Is it true?; 2)Is it kind?; 3) Is it necessary?  Number three is really challenging, putting about anything we do or say into question.  I recall the tune from the ‘60’s, “Silence is Golden” by the Tremeloes.  My meditation experience of the past ten years gives rise to these thoughts about silence.  This practice continues to remind me of the chattering of the monkey mind and how that much of this chattering can take the form of “noble” thoughts.  It often is still “chattering.”  W. H. Auden noted, “We are afraid of pain, but more afraid of silence.”

Republican Party Stymied by Its Own Self-Referentiality

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Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is not “playing fair.”  The House has impeached Trump, but she is refusing to formally passing the formal impeachment document to the Senate where it has already been determined, and announced, it will not go anywhere.  The Republican Senate is now crying “foul play” as according to them the protocol clearly calls for this impeachment referral to be simply passed on to them.  But Pelosi is refusing to do this until she has the reassurance that a “fair” trial will take place, including one with witnesses. It is very ironic that the GOP is now diligently calling for protocol and “the law” to be followed though they have systematically followed the bidding of Trump to over ride such niceties when it serves their own interest.

 This is very revealing about the heart of this matter, and all matters of any magnitude involve the heart.  Yes, the GOP is correct that the Democrats have an agenda here, an “ax to grind” if you please, but then who doesn’t?  The Republicans have hoisted themselves on their own petard, hypocritically accusing the Democrats of the very thing they have assiduously practiced throughout the Trump administration…and before.  The GOP does not see that it too, like all humans, has “intentionality” though they readily see it with others.  But to those who lack “self-awareness”, the gift of at least rudimentary meta-cognition, there is no “intentionality” with themselves there is only the proclamation of what “is true.”  They fail to see that what they see as “truth” is a self-serving perspective and subject to the review of the rest of the human race.  But if you are locked in your own narrow little view of the world it is frightening to loosen the lock a bit and come to find that there are other viewpoints that need to be considered.  The more rigid one’s “narrow little view of the world” is the more difficult it is to loosen this lock a bit; at times for some it is not possible.

 Poet Emily Dickenson has a little quip that is so relevant, “The mind too near itself cannot see distinctly.”  She realized that a mind that is knotted into a self-referential ball of yarn, pulled tightly, it cannot see clearly.  It can only see what it wants to see, even if it is harmful to themselves and to those around them.  This is clearly seen in a religious cult; it is very telling that many people are seeing the Republican Party as very “knotted,” comparing the predicament of that party to cultic behavior.