Welcome to PTFTD, a (semi-)regular feature on my blog. Each (idealy daily) post I will raise a topic for consideration that may hopefully give you pause for some serious, or not-so-serious contemplation throughout your day/night/week/life.
It’s as much for my personal benefit as anyone else’s who may find it of interest, as we all try to figure out just what life is all about and what on Earth we are all doing here or to each other?
Today’s Thought:
What is the extent and limit to our self-delusions?
Where (when?) does self-delusion End?
Each one of us gradually builds up our own concept of who we are and what we are, individually, and as we relate to others like us that we share our world with. Sometimes a single event can show us how fragile and or inaccurate that construct can be as it relates to the ‘real’ world that we only thought we knew, or was all that we knew, but was, in fact, not as we used to see it before that event – we just deluded ourselves into seeing it that way.
That is kind of what i am talking about with the term self- delusion.
A representation of things based upon what we have known from our very limited experience that we believed was ‘accurate’, but which did not take account of some very real ‘reality’.
Can we ever be free of that delusion and achieve total awareness of a greater reality than the one we have acquired or constructed?
๐
love.
BLob's Blog 
To be brief, No. Afraid not. But perhaps that is what keeps us going?
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Some of us perhaps? For me it’s the thought of more chocolate to come! ๐
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The human mind is so intricate; it plays games with us from which delusions are derived. Some are able to escape through practice of meditation, through self-control; but I assure you it’s not an easy feat. It is indeed what keeps us going because we aren’t always in the “right place” and we try to find an oasis. Life in general is complicated. Just sharing my thoughts ๐ . Hope you are having a good weekend.
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Thank you – I’m very glad you have shared them! ๐ I fully concur.
I also think there are a few different ‘types’ of delusions’… there can be those which are primarily from misunderstandings between people (what they actually said/meant versus what we thought they said/meant. basically we got it wrong but did not realise our error at the time) and then there can be delusions caused by us not having suficiently detailed knowledge about a thing or process and we ‘make up’ some sort of ‘logic’ to fit it in with our current level of understanding. This can ‘burn’ pathways in our brain that then tend to establish a level of ‘wrongness’ in how we continue to see us or our world – a delusion that we build up later understandings upon, compounding the error.
Meditation may indeed help us by giving us the space and time we need to fully consider things, or just to clear the mind to make it easier to establish new pathways in our mind.?
The weekend is lousy weather here – but it means i spend more time on my blog! ๐
Hope ‘Michael’ does not affect either of you! ๐
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Love your response! Thank you. “Michael” was kind to us here in New York City. Have a great week.
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Thank you! It’s starting off pretty good so far!
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lol, this is what you meant by the wink. ๐ I had no idea that you host these philosophical thoughts for the day! I think some of these musings are explored in that movie, “The Fountain”. I wonder if your question is related to those who are trying to reach enlightenment or a type of nirvana. I think neuroscientists have discussed about how your brain initiates movements before the intention ever arises. I wonder when people talk about free will and agency, if that is a delusion as well. Our delusions feel so real to us. I wonder if actions headed towards self-awareness the first step to determining extent and perhaps determine the end of the delusion. Do we truly have a choice to end it? I wonder about the synchronicity in our lives and the part that the universe has to play….
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Can i first just say what an absolute joy it is to find someone who is able to consider and expound upon such thoughts as you included in your thoughtful comment here (as well as in all the other places! ๐ )
I forgot which wink you are referring to? I tend to wink a lot – it generally means: there is some truth in what i said but don’t take me too seriously or literally here. ๐
It was while commenting on your ‘Blitz poem’ post that i came up with the idea for PTFTD! ๐ You are an insipiration! ๐ ( I think i know which wink now! – i’m slow sometimes but i get there eventually! ๐ )
My question was deliberately left wide enough for anyone reading it to take it how they might, but my ‘intention’ was to open out thought to recognising the ways we delude ourselves which generally shows up whenever we think we are certain we know we are right and have ‘The Truth’.
I believe we can only ever consider and make decisions based upon all the currently available evidence ( although we rarely ever acquire ALL the evidence available but focus on the bits we want to believe – or can’t avoid. ๐ Personally my view of the question had more of a lean towards my personal enlightenment! ๐
I’m sure your right about the neuroscience – the brain operates at several levels simultaneously and the higher cognitive functions take longer to start, process and execute than do the lower levels for muscle movement and so on and our limbic brain which releases the hormones and chemicals involved in emotions like fear and the flight response are the fastest acting.
I believe in the concepts of free will and agency for human action although again i think there are elements of self-delusion (mostly sub-conscious ones) present. WE are free to think whatever we wish at any time but often ‘give up the right’ and let ourselves get either carried away by events and circumstance or have ‘programmed’ ourselves into a fixed behaviour and action before we have time to think it through and take the correct one. – the one we would have willed/liked ourselves to do.
YES! ๐
Yes! again – we have the choice – but rarely does anyone take it to an appropriately high level so as to be in complete control of our life. This could be because ‘life’ has a tendency to keep popping things up that distract us from the ’cause’ ๐
Synchronicity and The Universe…
Having spent much of the last 6 months developing the beginings of a personal philosophy based upon the numbers zero and one (which kinds of describes our known Universe) i can only recommend that you keep that wonder and delve into it with all your mind and heart.
I suspect you might already have done so? ๐
Sorry to steal your blog comments like this btw! ๐
I probably won’t stop though ๐
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Ah, that’s alright! I recognize you stealing my blog posts for the greater good like Robin Hood! ๐ A good fireside chat never hurt anyone! I didn’t realize it inspired you. Thank you!
This phrase intrigues me, “…free to think whatever we wish at any time but often โgive up the rightโ and let ourselves get either carried away by events and circumstance or have โprogrammedโ ourselves into a fixed behaviour and action before we have time to think it through and take the correct one….”
My philosophy teacher once mentioned about how many people give up the chance to think freely in order to fit into a crowd for one’s own ‘happiness’. I wonder about George Owell’s book 1984 as I’m pondering this.
Hm…a spiritual leader in my community once spoke to the youth about limiting time spent with video games as if it was a distraction to find your purpose (’cause’?) in life. Yet, I wonder about video game developers who feel like it is their life’s purpose to develop games.
Yes, as far as moments of synchronicity….the numbers 1 and 0 actually have been playing a huge part of my life as of late. ๐
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This has the potential to become a loooooong conversation you realise?? ๐ – I’ll try to be brief! ๐ ‘give up the right’ and ‘give up the chance’ is one perspective on our behaviour – one generally not seen by us as being that way at the time. ( possibly with the benefit of (20 years or so) hindsight.
I say this because we are largely beings of the present: we get all our information in the ‘now’ but process it and analyse it all after the event, generally – so while we are in the present our mind spends a lot of time considering ‘old’ information and comparing it with even older information that we have processed at a time when we do not have the knowledge we have ‘now’. Our brains, as i mentioned earlier, ‘cheats’ and uses old learned mechanisms/neural pathways to process the current data imposing an ‘out of date’ bias – to a degree. Confirmation Bias plays a larger part than we care to think about all that much in our decisions/choices we make. I call this programming or giving up the choice to think 100% ‘freely’. ๐
That may be a tad different to G Orwell and Winston’s programming and choosing happiness – mine is largely self-administered through being unaware of brain behaviour and how it may best be developed. ๐
Really? Synchronicity indeed? ๐ I wonder how far it may extend ( other people?) I saw 0 and 1 as being representative of ‘all or nothing’, Everything and nothing – the infinite magnification of the singularity of the Big Bang to the ultimate end of the Universe ( or multiverse?)
It also allowed me to see a way ‘God’ could be incorporated inside of everything. ๐
I found it of particular importance that there is an infinite number of numbers (fractions) between zero and one as there are numbers from 1 to infinity. One could in a sense be seen as the ‘centre’ just as we may be seen as the centre of our Universe (we can see infinitely far in all 3d directions making us equi-distant from any ‘edge’ – in the centre)
Everything in ( is the same as) One thing: All in One: One or No-thing!
There’s Synchronicity in there somewhere wouldn’t you say? ๐
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Yep, most philosophical Q&A can be pretty long! ๐ I do appreciate the elaboration of distinction between right and chance. As far as God being incorporated inside everything, for some reason, I think of an artichoke and the Fibonacci sequence and how great works of music are based on certain patterns of numbers. Life is beautiful. ๐
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Synchronicity! In my philosophy study i spent much time delving into Fibonacci and the associated Lucas Number series discovering a ‘base 5’ pattern to them as well as their relationships with right angled triangles and Phi!
Life is beautiful(ly mathematical!) ๐
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No way!! That’s cool! There’s a lot of beautiful mathematical movies. I really liked “Particle Fever”.
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Ok – now that’s another one i ‘ll be looking out for! ๐
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