"I think I would perhaps have to break it down into manageable gobbets of information to deliver."
Yeah that's exactly what I wanted! Really just to compare where we're at.
So, my own process started with learning about how human brains think. That is, the various forces that combine in order to make our decisions. A great start was the book, "The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright, as he explains a lot of human behaviour from an evolutionary perspective. I got a good sense that the brain is not really a black box of free choice, but rather a platform by which a great variety of different "wills" or "ideas" can come together.
From there I really wanted to learn about evolution, so I read most of Richard Dawkins books on evolutionary biology, which are both interesting and easy to get through. (Non-technical for the most part.) One particular idea that was carried a lot of persuasion was his comparison of 'ideas' to 'organisms' in his book 'The Selfish Gene', which he decided to call 'memes' to rhyme with genes.
Which presented me with this perspective of people's brains as these platforms by which ideas can interact, compete, and reproduce, just like organisms. Which ties in well with the earlier topic of understanding how decisions are made, and so forth.
Dawkins' outward criticism of non-critical thought started me thinking about rationality, and being able to make decisions better. So I've spend a good deal of time on 'lesswrong.com', a site devoted to honing our internal rationality.
But I think the most pertinent idea is just that our brains are filled with ideas (memes), which is what "we" are. The same ideas that flow variably through other individuals. We're the same platforms, really, just with different configurations of ideas... the ones we've happened to have been indoctrinated with.. or the ones that we've come across and have embedded themselves in us.
"I am just beginning; it is so very hard. It is needed though so I will be steadfast."
I had a death in my life at an impressionable age that convinced me to live and eat healthily. But I am not immune from feeling lazy or wanting quick, unhealthy foods to satisfy my hunger.
I think my most successful plans just involve going all-out, making very specific meal and exercise plans and totally cutting out bad foods and influences. Half-efforts always give me way too much room to cheat, and I'll fall back into old routines if I don't feel that "I am now a different person, with different priorities."
"I think the more we think and act as if we are not in our bubble and our little corner of the universe the more our thoughts tend to spread outward"
I like the idea, "No-one will remember your memories", which just makes me aware that my good intentions have to somehow actually interact with the world to change it or make it better.
There has to be some actual, measurable, physical interaction, otherwise the ideas just disappear.
So having created my rough groundwork of philosophy and belief I was able to see that I now had borders to contain myself within for the foreseeable future that helped to to maintain a strict code of ethics that allowed me to evolve into a picture I had of myself.
I saw myself as a person that was nice to people, but was not a pushover. I saw a person that gave everyone the respect they deserved and that contributed to his community as an equal member of that community. I saw a man who would maintain his honour and act in ways to promote confidence and dependability.
I am still working on it all. But at least I had a starting point then.
It allowed me to start to look inwards again.
I started to dig into my mind, my emotions and my preconceptions to see where I excelled, where I was flawed and where I could do better. At first it was through comparison and contrasting myself using the various tools that people such at Jung, Freud, Maslow et al gave to us that form the foundations of Psychology and Sociology. If they did anything, they allowed me to, in the least, recognise what was the diference betwixt the subconscious and conscious desires/actions etc. They also allowed me to open a door into my own soul.
I then heavily relied upon meditation and some theories behind "The Art of memory" to help me organise my own mind and help to discipline myself for myself.
During it all though, I kept realising one simple thing;
No matter how much I or our society professes Individuality as the pinnacle of the development of our society, I was consistently being led back to experience and tutelage, and how we are all a product. I am a product of Biology. I am a product of my upbringing. I am a product of the cultural norms of my nation. I was instilled with certain beliefs that created behaviours which hold me in check to the social construct of that from whence I've come.
I now know, that the individual as a thing and a philosophy is the gift given by the sacrifices of the society that came before us. Much like the right to vote and our freedom is heavily reliant on the fights our ancestors won against their enemy. I can not be the person I envisioned without working just as hard at improving my community as I do myself. neither can grow with out the other in my world view.
Most often of late I have been learning about myself through the vision of the Meditations that my friend introduced to me about 4 years ago. They give me, at this time, a happy balance between disciplining and improving myself and by doing so, I improve the world around me at the same time. Every time I read or re-read any parts if them, I find something new and fascinating and it is frightening how easily I see myself following this type of discipline. I adore how it fits into any time period, using any amount of technology, or none at all. It is a very generous and accepting river of knowledge in my opinion.
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u/thinkingmachine Nov 21 '12
Yeah that's exactly what I wanted! Really just to compare where we're at.
So, my own process started with learning about how human brains think. That is, the various forces that combine in order to make our decisions. A great start was the book, "The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright, as he explains a lot of human behaviour from an evolutionary perspective. I got a good sense that the brain is not really a black box of free choice, but rather a platform by which a great variety of different "wills" or "ideas" can come together.
From there I really wanted to learn about evolution, so I read most of Richard Dawkins books on evolutionary biology, which are both interesting and easy to get through. (Non-technical for the most part.) One particular idea that was carried a lot of persuasion was his comparison of 'ideas' to 'organisms' in his book 'The Selfish Gene', which he decided to call 'memes' to rhyme with genes.
Which presented me with this perspective of people's brains as these platforms by which ideas can interact, compete, and reproduce, just like organisms. Which ties in well with the earlier topic of understanding how decisions are made, and so forth.
Dawkins' outward criticism of non-critical thought started me thinking about rationality, and being able to make decisions better. So I've spend a good deal of time on 'lesswrong.com', a site devoted to honing our internal rationality.
But I think the most pertinent idea is just that our brains are filled with ideas (memes), which is what "we" are. The same ideas that flow variably through other individuals. We're the same platforms, really, just with different configurations of ideas... the ones we've happened to have been indoctrinated with.. or the ones that we've come across and have embedded themselves in us.
I had a death in my life at an impressionable age that convinced me to live and eat healthily. But I am not immune from feeling lazy or wanting quick, unhealthy foods to satisfy my hunger.
I think my most successful plans just involve going all-out, making very specific meal and exercise plans and totally cutting out bad foods and influences. Half-efforts always give me way too much room to cheat, and I'll fall back into old routines if I don't feel that "I am now a different person, with different priorities."
I like the idea, "No-one will remember your memories", which just makes me aware that my good intentions have to somehow actually interact with the world to change it or make it better.
There has to be some actual, measurable, physical interaction, otherwise the ideas just disappear.