doubting the gut is a deadly act.

therefore the idea of signal to noise ratio becomes more concrete

I think this has to do with the notion of proprioceptive awareness but I am still working on the particulars.

just saying feel free to ask a question about what I have written and I will expand on it.

Why do you need to *give* us the freedom to do that? Don’t we have it anyway? Shouldn’t we? For what reasons might you assume that we don’t feel like we have it?

To find the signal (meaning) in the noise (reality). A bit off topic from what we are saying here but a point well worth making.

Towards the end of Hagakure, it says:

“Buddhism gets rid of the discriminating mind… The Chinese character for “cowardice” is made by adding the character for “meaning” to the character radical for “mind.” Now, meaning is “discrimination”, and when a man attaches discrimination to his true mind, he becomes a coward.”

Okay, my question is: What question should I ask that will prove the most valuable for your experience? What question do you want me to ask? Just tell us. We’ll ask you. It’s an easy part to play.

I’m not trying to prove a point or make a definitive statement, just saying feel free to ask a question about what I have written and I will expand on it.

Every communication is noise until you have the algorithm to decode the signal. There is a lot that can be said about this ie. Religion is the attempt by man to find the algorithm of the universe. OR that science is the attempt by man to find the algorithm of the universe. To find the signal (meaning) in the noise (reality). A bit off topic from what we are saying here but a point well worth making.

The a great demon (program)(daemon) to install in your own mind is the one that says 50% of the time I am right, 50% of the time I am wrong. In every circumstance I am going to observe what is going on before i determine which 50% i am currently in. Dogmatism and rigid thinking is not the way to truth, beauty, happiness, enlightenment, anything.

that episode occured in the early `70s.

i`m not sure that it would be possible to do that now, but i felt it appropriate to the point about going to other countries without a passport.

and regarding gatekeepers.

they exist in the corporate world to innure the executive class from the rabble……like us, who`s sole task is to convince them to subscribe to our plan.

and thier job is just to say no.

Doesn’t signal only become noise depending on what algorithm you’re using to parse it?

Sounds reasonable. Most of us don’t know truly why we choose a particular algorithim to parse data, at least that was how I operated for most of my life. Maybe the more aware we become the more we are able to actually consciously choose algorithims based on our knowledge level, and therefore the idea of signal to noise ratio becomes more concrete, based on what we value the most.

was inconsiderate and got ahead of myself there, sorry, it was directed to you Tim, and again inconsiderate in thinking that necessarily I have explained myself clearly previously or that any particular person might have taken interest in particular previous posts that I have made.

Hah!. That “poor me” dude slipping in again :>)

Who is that directed to and what does it mean. It is better just to be plain about these things.

Yes, I was inconsiderate and got ahead of myself there, sorry, it was directed to you Tim, and again inconsiderate in thinking that necessarily I have explained myself clearly previously or that any particular person might have taken interest in particular previous posts that I have made.

This was a suggestion from me based on what I observe in myself and from the flavor that I think I got from your post (again, I very well could be wrong, this kind of thing is tough through a computer screen). I can only give you examples from what I have observed in this exchange, in particular, individual elements of my ego popping up, specifically the one that wants to convince me that I am right and you are wrong, another that is dissapointed that I am not immediately understood (it’s one of my “poor me” demons). I now often go for much longer periods than I used to without these guys popping up, and I fall into a kind of complacency, sometimes subconsciously believing that they have given in. Well, in this case I learn that they haven’t, but I also see that they are much weaker in me than they used to be, and I find that very helpful.

I like that you are laying your assumptions on the line. It’s a useful exercise and needn’t be feared nor apologized for.

Well what do think then jwx?
Why do you think that you can’t go to most countires without a passport ?

Interesting how you have twisted my possible example gatekeeper into an argument about going to another country without a passport (I catch myself sometimes doing this twisting unconsciously also. Often, I am fairly sure I don’t , atch this unless I have a good friend that points these inconsistincies out to me) That is why I included “at least legally”. How do you know that traveling to another country would not be considered by me? That is pretty presumptuous. How does your argument prove the nonexistence of gatekeepers? You seem damned sure, I’m not.

I’m pretty sure, in my efforts to exercise external consideration here, that I have repeatedly tried to illustrate that I consider as many possibilities as I can. and what my biases are presently, and why. I am not capable of doing this all on my own, so I seek out hi signal to noise ratio sources like Tim’s. I would guess I have thought of other ways to travel to other countries than you have not. An you have probably thought of ways that I haven’t. I am interested in those all

I have found the noise to signal ratio high in this exchange, but that happens some times, and this type of exchange often proves to be some of the best learning experiences, at least for me and others with whom I have corroborated data. Stalking myself internally and in others.

If you disagree with me and have no desire to proceed with this that is fine with me also. Just say so. And, also yours and others insight is always appreciated by me, and I am sure others also.

I may be wrong, but you may want to take a look at the part of you that just gave that response. I suspect it may prove fruitful for you. Just a suggestion.

Who is that directed to and what does it mean. It is better just to be plain about these things.

Ask me any question about it and I will provide you with my answer.

Okay, my question is: What question should I ask that will prove the most valuable for your experience? What question do you want me to ask? Just tell us. We’ll ask you. It’s an easy part to play.

I will post some here and at my blog over the next few weeks. Ask me any question about it and I will provide you with my answer.

There are thousands of reasons. Geopolitical, Economic, Sociological, Security etc. why you can’t go to another country.

think that our mental sphere(ego, personality, whatever we now consider as us) is a combination of installed programing, personal narrative (the story that you tell yourself about your past, present and future) and a few other factors.

Thats what 28 years of reasoning and personal “testing” on the subject (my life) have brought to me.

When buddhists and yogi’s say that the self is impermanent, and that re-incarnation is possible this is what they mean (IMHO). You are ever changing, new programs are installed by yourself and others every day. These programs install new parts into your new personal narrative. The change what you think about your future, what your perception is about the present, what an event in the past means to you. Your personal narrative is your lense with which you see the world, your programming is how you react to what you percieve. There are a few other parts to this little system i have worked out, which are internal states, external states and connections between the narrative, programing and states

Real world examples, methods, practical suggestions would be helpful.

It’s all about how the notion of doing something illegal fits into your personal story.

The rest of it is just the physical reality of the situation.

I don’t think so. But if works for you, ok.

The rest of it is just the physical reality of the situation.

Thats what 28 years of reasoning and personal “testing” on the subject (my life) have brought to me.

When buddhists and yogi’s say that the self is impermanent, and that re-incarnation is possible this is what they mean (IMHO). You are ever changing, new programs are installed by yourself and others every day. These programs install new parts into your new personal narrative. The change what you think about your future, what your perception is about the present, what an event in the past means to you. Your personal narrative is your lense with which you see the world, your programming is how you react to what you percieve. There are a few other parts to this little system i have worked out, which are internal states, external states and connections between the narrative, programing and states.

The “blinders” and any internal gatekeepers are either parts of your story that won’t let the new information in, or programs that react the stimuli in a negative way (fear, defense, attack).

I’m no longer convinced there are actual gatekeepers

I am not either, I am presently biased towards their existence (pretty strongly) but when you really start thinking about them they seem quite paradoxical.

Ludlum was a master at slipping powerful stuff past the gatekeepers of mass media.

remember and dis-meme-ber, they go hand in hand. The presents of mind, mined for a heart of gold. Milo minderbinder keeps you in a catch-22.

This is McLuhan about James Joyce via his son Eric McLuhan via Alchemical Braindamage. When I read it I felt it resembeled the path traveled by your site lately.

Nice :>)

I would like to live in a world where I don’t need to know what time it is. If anything I have a watch inside my brain, so I am more calibrated than most people to the rat race. I have intenalized it more.

So I was just wondering if there was a way to use this ability I have to my advantage. I look at it as being a response to anxiety. I am anxious about the time so I have come up with a way to keep track of it at all times. I mean, I’m not over burdened with anxiety, but when I am on vacation I try to forget what time it is.

So, Like, what is the advantage of this? I mean the only reason I care what time it is is because I am conditioned by living in a world that runs on time. if I didn’t, this ability I have would cease to be valuable.

It is posted for people that wear watches. It is another exercise in stalking one’s self and working for wakefulness. If this is not important to you than you will not see the value in it nor try to show it to other people to whom it might be of value. I have found it of great value to myself, but generally not by the “practical” standards of this realm.

Why did you do this in the first place, not using a watch? Was it an unconscious act? Maybe something good for you to think about. Then again maybe not.

Yeah, Now I see what you mean.

So, Like, what is the advantage of this? I mean the only reason I care what time it is is because I am conditioned by living in a world that runs on time. if I didn’t, this ability I have would cease to be valuable.

immigration issues. (politcally incorrect, but real.)

failure of socialised medicine.

big brother type intrusive surviellance, such as cameras in all civic thoroughfares.

active social welfare system. when i got my “o” levels in 1977 i got a dole cheque with them.

re-tribalised media that we are just now seeing here with “reality” shows and chris angel, but nothing of the strength of derren brown.

and when i said ahead, you assumed i meant in a good way.

go to http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com and listen to alan watt for a few minutes. he clearly spells out what we are heading for and have been for centuries.

It didn’t strike me as being a place free of all the types of Problems we lament in the US.

But I don’t doubt that people in UK on average are more sophisticated than Americans. I just was wondering if they are “ahead” somehow. I think maybe they may just have more witty observations about the world going down the toilet.

Interesting presupposition ;-D

Isn’t the UK a mess?

british media, like thier entire society, is about 15-20 years ahead of ours.

what would the effect of broadcasting derren brown on tv here be?

one has to ask, at some point, where our pre-suppositions come from.

whoever has control of the installation of pre-suppositions has control of the mind(s).

I am only beginning to see these effects take shape. So far it is incredibly powerful though, and extraordinarily simple. I guess to me, right now, enacting these changes in my life is far more important than a lot of the more theoretical questions used to be. Certain things come into focus when you start acting this way.

Don’t you feel though, that your personal perspective of what you are terming as “self-mastery” is an “incredibly powerful” fact of life. Whilst on the other hand people who have a different perspective would merely say to you; “Hey, nice theoretical concept mate!”

Would you say that, for someone who hasn’t experienced something - then that thing is a theoretical notion, rather than an actionable fact? I don’t mean everyday activities or things such as sky-diving. I mean more along the lines of Leary’s and Wilson’s Eight Circuits. For someone with experiences of the fifth or sixth circuit these circuits are actionable fact. For someone that never got past the third circuit though - all the rest may appear as mere theoretical possibilities.

A chap called Argyris did experiments in the 70’s where he essentially beat his subjects assumption-systems into submission with the aid of a tape-recorder, demonstrating to them that certain cherished assumptions about the effects of their actions were almost entirely bullshit. It was a painful process: subjects would protect their assumption-systems (he called them ‘theories of action’) with all their might. It eventually became apparent why: without a ‘theory of action’, his subjects would eventually reach a crisis point at which they became /unable to act/. Their mental survival systems had been incapacitated. However, they retained the ability to rediscover /for themselves/ new ways of acting which more closely linked intent and effect.

What is it that makes a person willing to believe in something as absurd as the value of paper currency?

“It’s fine. Just take it”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vz_YTNLn6w

I am only beginning to see these effects take shape. So far it is incredibly powerful though, and extraordinarily simple. I guess to me, right now, enacting these changes in my life is far more important than a lot of the more theoretical questions used to be. Certain things come into focus when you start acting this way.

Not surprising to me. What is it that makes a person willing to face their deepest assumptions with honesty? What is it that makes a person willing to believe in something as absurd as the value of paper currency? I don’t need to tell you the profound power that sleeps in the word “trust”. Please, think deeply and tread lightly, my friend.

what we discover in nlp is that the pre-suppositions are fluid and flexible.

and so that changes the if….then program.

if we pre-suppose, for instance, that as we age then it becomes more difficult to lose weight, then as we age we have an excuse to gain weight.

but it is clear logically that there are thin seventy-year-olds.

so pre-suppositions collapse and a new one can be installed.

the nlp practitioner is sensitive to how pre-suppositions can be accepted as solid and immutable in the client and so with the correct approach an appeal can be made to logic and a new pre-supposition can be installed.

we are all master logicians and breath-takingly constistant in our application of logic.

the precepts is where we are vulnerable and where media gets us every time.

Don’t believe everything that you think

“By taking the ’subjectivity’ of instruments into account in this way, we obtain correct readings from them, in spite of their flaws. To observe the phenomena of our internal world and those of the external world with precision, we must have recognized and determined the reading error of our mental instrument for observation, one of the main tools of the Personality. All esoteric teaching is oriented towards this goal, which is reached with the second Birth-when man attains a new form of consciousness and existence which is quite different - objective - and which exterior man can only represent to himself in a vague and obscure way. [ ...]

“Our perception of time varies. This is true in two ways: it varies from one person to another and, for each person, it varies with his physical or mental condition. The influence of age, health and emotional state are well enough known.

“Beside these general examples, there exist particular cases where the disappearance of time is complete: for example, during dreamless sleep, a brief loss of consciousness, or under general anaesthesia. The loss of the notion of time in such cases is due to physiological causes.

“But time can also be made to disappear by voluntary, conscious effort, especially an effort of concentration. By practising the latter assiduously, we observe this phenomenon from the very first exercises. As we intensify our concentration more and more, we perceive time less and less.

“If, by methodical and sustained effort, we manage to eliminate everything from our field of observation apart from the physical or moral object on which we concentrate, and if, in addition, we are able to hold this fixed attention on a single point - which gives birth to contemplation - time entirely disappears.

“Conversely, the more man’s attention is dispersed, the more time drags for him. This phenomenon is objective in itself. It is a law. Its reason for being - as well as the mechanism by which it works - will be explained later, in the Doctrine of the Present.

“It is interesting to point out another phenomenon: our ability to modify the rate of our own perception of time. This happens many times every day. We pay no attention to it, because this phenomenon occurs mechanically on a small scale. But it can also be produced voluntarily on a much larger scale.”

Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis, Vol. I

There are a couple of things that can get in the way of this process. One is the notion that there is a right way to take a step, or a right way to do anything, for that matter. Oddly enough, worrying about the right way to do something, or even thinking I know the right way to do something, can actually prevent me from seeing what I am really doing. Because there are myriad sensations that accompany any activity, if I am worried that I am not doing it right, I can always find something that feels wrong. If I think I know the right way, I can always find some sensation to prove to me that I have done it right. If I really want to know what I am doing, I have found it best to forget my preconceived notions about what is the right or wrong way to do it. On the other hand it is possible to prefer one way of doing something to another, after the alternatives have been experienced.

Also from that: “By returning to what we can actually perceive, we have a chance to make fresh choices about what we think and do, free from preexisting conditions.”

I do have a diagram that I drew the other day which might help though.

This is McLuhan about James Joyce via his son Eric McLuhan via Alchemical Braindamage. When I read it I felt it resembeled the path traveled by your site lately.

In the Wake, Shem the penman is, Eke Moses, an “outlex.” The seer cannot be a rhetor. He does not speak for effect, but that we may know. He is also an outlet, a shaman, a scapegoat. And the artist, in order that he may perform his katharsis-purgative function, must mime all things.

http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-106/106-mcluhan.html

I wonder what starts to happen when people do this around each other, how relationships and groups change, what they are able to accomplish as teams.

I am only beginning to see these effects take shape. So far it is incredibly powerful though, and extraordinarily simple. I guess to me, right now, enacting these changes in my life is far more important than a lot of the more theoretical questions used to be. Certain things come into focus when you start acting this way.

I know that in real life conversations I have a tendency to do that, so i try to watch it.

You too? No wonder we get along.

As to the other stuff, The implication for me is vast. Basically I see this question as being a big part of the Life work of Philip K Dick. What’s the difference between an android and a human being? That was a huge question for him.

There are people today who would answer “nothing” that our brains are a computer and that consciousness is nothing more than an “emergent property” of our brains. Often people with this view think that, some day we humans will achieve imortality by transfering our consciousness from a carbon base to a silicone base.

I think its a huge question. I think that for people that can clearly see this situation and choose one or the other, there are huge ramifications. I think a materialist worldview leads to nihilism. It was leading me to nihilism.

I think the only way out of this is gnosis. I think the answer to this question is a large part of the whole purpose of my life.

See, I had a bicamral mind for 20 years. I had a “genius” living in my mind or what Socrates would call a “daimon” I wrestled with the ramifications of having access to God’s voice at all times in my head.

Julian Jaynes premise is that the ancients all heard the voice of God and didn’t experience consciousness the way modern people do. I have good reason to believe that this time is coming again and will lead to the redemption of all creation. The “Zebra” as PKD called it is on the process of swallowing the whole world.

But anyway, i cut myself off from this ever present alien intelligencem living in my mind. But now somewho through reading PKD’s cosmogony and cosmology we have been reuinited.

I feel like a hound dog following a trail. But i have a sense that this path will lead to a change in the universe as we know it, through humanities perception of it.

this brain vs. mind thing has real life implications for the direction of my life.

What are these implications?

I guess for me self mastery would be getting to the place where I can solve this.

How do you plan on getting to that place?

I can understand if you think it misses the whole point of what you are saying.

I didn’t say that. I meant that I didn’t know how to respond because the questions aren’t the ones I’m currently wrestling with.

So I can butt out.

That’s a very defensive emotional response, wouldn’t you say? What is the stimulus which triggered it? Is it required by these circumstances?

I guess for me self mastery would be getting to the place where I can solve this.

But Hey, I can understand if you think it misses the whole point of what you are saying.
So I can butt out.

I just put black electrical tape over all the logos and brand names in my immediate field of vision. You don’t know how nice that feels until you try.

I also finished memorizing the Gettysburg Address today. It’s better to set yourself to accomplishing small concrete tasks than to spend time pondering imponderables. This is where self-mastery comes from, and all knowledge flows out of it.

I do have a diagram that I drew the other day which might help though.

I enjoy thinking of the organic protoplasm that we call ‘brain’ to be the 3D temporal manifestation of whatever it is that we ‘are’… sort of an incomplete manifestation of our higher dimensional self ‘dipping’ a tendril ‘down’ into this plane of temporal solids. Almost like a higher dimensional broadcast/ receiver antennae… or sumthin’… that accretes material substance, our bodies, so that it might more readily effect change upon this more ’substantial’ level of reality

Oooh! I like that!

…I am trying to figure out what mind is. If its an emergent property of the brain, or if its the foundation of reality.

I enjoy thinking of the organic protoplasm that we call ‘brain’ to be the 3D temporal manifestation of whatever it is that we ‘are’… sort of an incomplete manifestation of our higher dimensional self ‘dipping’ a tendril ‘down’ into this plane of temporal solids. Almost like a higher dimensional broadcast/ receiver antennae… or sumthin’… that accretes material substance, our bodies, so that it might more readily effect change upon this more ’substantial’ level of reality.

To separate mind & body (or soul for that matter), I suspect, is to - in effect - be putting on self-imposed blinders to the fact that we - our totality, as it were - is all the same ’stuff’. To forsake the body, for instance, would be to forsake the soul… and vice versa. I’ve always found beauty in the doctrine of the resurrection for that simple fact: its all good…

I get the impression that Tim is talking about the former, and that awareness of the conditioned mind helps you to enter the latter. At least that is how I was reading it.

My point was that maybe getting past thinking in terms of algorithims, through meditation might be the way.

That’s what “Then…If” is, algorithmic thinking. Negative injunctions don’t get outside the algorithmic thinking.

I was wondering about that because what Tim seems to be talking about is reprogramming your own algorithims, making them more coherent and rational.

This peaked my interest because I am trying to figure out what mind is. If its an emergent property of the brain, or if its the foundation of reality.

I would guess Tim, that you would choose the latter but this post seems to support the former.

Anyway, I know my mind is no doubt screwed up with irrational algorithims, but I wonder at the prospect of being able to reprogram them with different, better logic.

thereby restructuring the state of being in an elastic manner as opposed one of negation & loss…

Yeah, never, ever try to lose weight. It’s impossible. You can change your lifestyle, get fit, try new forms of discipline etc., those work. “Losing weight” is like saying you want to lose the last few decades of your life. I’m not an adult anymore (the person I grew to be) I’m 10 years old, or 3 or 19. You detect the imbalance and put the weight back on to correct things. You’ve written off that person as dead so your brain won’t let you continue in a dead person’s body because it’s seen as more unhealthy that the weight.

What I love about your take on this subject, is the context you have put it into. The use of computer terms, I feel, casts a very clear light.

Now, I have been considering how (and if?) Intuition fits into this. Any thoughts on that?

As I understand it, based on some exposure to NLP & the like, the mind is an accretion of experience: you can’t take something away, only add to your experience.

When you try to take away/ negate bad habits, the ego/mind, being a highly refined survival mechanism & the ultimate ‘hoarder’, never really lets stuff go, instead tucking away & cross referencing it for later possible use (thus we can experience phenomena such as synchronicity, etc.).

This may be why, for instance, weight loss can be horribly problematic, because the very thought of ‘losing’ weight throws the subconscious into a frenzy of worry: why should I lose it? I may need it for later… what if an asteroid hits & food becomes scarce; I’ll need the fat stores then…’ etc, etc. Kinda goofy but very survival- minded in its own way & sensible… according to a very primal form of logic. Thus, despite weight loss, often the body tends to revert ‘back’ to being overweight because of that subconcious fear of loss; its not really a fear even, so much as it is a state of being fundamentally opposed to the proposed basic structure of the human mind. Rather than weight loss, in this example, one would focus on creating a fit, appealing body… thereby restructuring the state of being in an elastic manner as opposed one of negation & loss…

At any rate, Tim, before I digress too much… what might be some of your thoughts regarding this? I have noticed that you have made a number of referrals to Ruiz & his four agreements over time, & while I don’t fundamentally disagree with the basic gist of what he is saying, I do wonder if there is a better way of saying it. Perhaps there isn’t, but perhaps there is…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Agreements