Month: February 2018

On Contentment

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: February 15th 2018

Is it good to always be content, or is it good to not be content so as to strive to better yourself or the lives of others? Always be content, but still strive on diligently, mindfully, with wisdom, to better yourself, and the universe. I believe it’s healthy to always be content with the present moment. This means that no matter what changes may take place in your life, which come to you through your conscious understanding, you will be content with the fact that the present is good enough. This doesn’t mean you won’t rise up against injustice, strive to help others, or try to better yourself. It means that in the process of doing these things, you will remain peaceful and calm, controlled and not chaotic. It seems like wisdom is the only answer to most questions. You can recognize something is not good, or be unhappy, or dislike something that is happening, while remaining content and accepting of reality as it is in the present moment. This doesn’t mean you quit attempting to solve problems because the present is good enough, it means you pursue them with wisdom, attempt to be virtuous, and whether you succeed or fail you remain equanimous and content with the result, always learning something new from the experience, then move on. It is this process of wisdom in testing and displaying virtue that naturally cultivates contentment and peace. Having few desires is crucial to this concept.

You should do what is right always, and if your present situation is one of much physical pain, or psychological suffering, or someone you care about is in these situations, the wise thing to do is not to be content with it and not react, but be accepting of reality for what it is, analyze what you can do to better the situation, then act accordingly. If there is nothing possible to fix the situation, you should be wise enough to accept that too. So it’s contentment, with conditions. Those conditions imply action and striving towards an optimal goal, and in finding meaning in every moment. We can do this by thinking of every moment as containing the potential for training towards our ideal aim in the domains of character traits, in embodying virtue that we value, and in progressing towards the potential person we would like to be. This training can entail multiple dimensions, depending on what we desire to improve upon, whether it be in developing the mind to be able to handle novel situations, in developing the character to react to the situation appropriately, or potentially in better understanding ourselves and reality through introspection into the content of our own Being in a phenomenological analysis. In any moment you can pay attention to your psyche, what’s passing in and out of consciousness, and create the preconditions for an intentioned consciousness directed towards what you value, or wholesome states of Being. In addition to the positive potentiality, we can also utilize the ability of conscious intentionality to direct our mode of being through causal instantiation of habits and action patterns that work to modify unwholesome or negative states of Being, or diminish the effect they have upon us (based on a solid understanding of the psyche and its contents). I understanding the causal relationships between stimuli, in the form of prior causes and their effects to the current state of consciousness, we can utilize the ability to modify our experience, in one way we can do this to remain content regardless of the content of experience, to merely accept what the moment presents and not be either averse or attached to the content.

Social interactions can be viewed in a similar manner, in the potentiality they contain to improve our habitual formation in solidifying virtuous speech, actions, and intentions in reciprocity as well as directed interaction. On a surface level, this can be done by speaking the truth, manifesting action out of compassionate intention, in managing the psyche by not acting upon egotistic or persona emergence in the psyche. In recognizing the mode of being which is present in the moment, through signals given off from action, thought, and in general, experience, we can take note of the potential manifestations which would stem forth from such a being, and resist or encourage actions depending on how the mode of being is situation in relation to our values. These are some trainings to better yourself you can undergo in any moment of your life, it can make any moment meaningful, and can teach you how to remain peaceful, and content in this very present moment, while not remaining stagnant, and instead being useful, and productive to society in cultivating a good person to reciprocate with, as well as bettering yourself in your own experience of life

Moments of moral shame and dread, or in analyzing criticism of our own shortcomings, do not necessarily need to be impediments to this contentment, but they will inevitably be. We shouldn’t stop looking or listening to criticisms of our faults, and we shouldn’t be content in relation to those errors, we should seek to make amends for them, and to recognize the error in our ways. That being said, while we can hold ourselves responsible for our mistakes through acknowledging them and seeking to rectify them, we can, possibly, remain content within our being that doing so is the right thing to do. We should never seek to stagnate, or remain infallible in our beliefs towards better modes of being. We can always recognize the potential for ourselves to be better, and strive to do so, while simultaneously being okay with the state of things in the present. On a practical note, our desires and unsatisfactoriness is necessarily a condition of our experience, and drives every present moment, here we are seeking to instantiate a contentedness within our psychological relation to experience. The biological desire to achieve this contentedness, may itself produce suffering, and the desire inherent in us and our experience cannot be eradicated, but the psychological story and motivation we can give to ourselves to be able to deal with this fact of existence, can here be optimized to increase individual wellbeing. This is the possibility of contentedness which we are here describing. It is the psychological reaction to the stimulus of the world, it is putting ourselves in relation to the facts of existence, and being okay with the circumstances we find ourselves in, whether we’re rebelling against them or not. It can be developed as an underlying aspect of the mode of being which produces the experience that we experience, and this is something which must be trained, and consciously directed to begin its manifestation. We can understand the all-pervading dream of conscious contentment as being lofty, unrealistic goal, and seems like an impossible Utopian state of mind, which, in an ultimate sense, it is, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t get better at managing the different situations and experiences that shake us from it, and in so seeking, and in so training ourselves, we can move closer, to a degree, to that ultimate contentedness that we form as an impossible ideal, but recognize as being more conducive to a better experience through its production of better reactions to novel situations. In those times with which we experience unwholesome states of being, whether it be due to misfortune, injustices done against us, or acts we regret, we can seek to accept reality for what it is, seek to psychologically place ourselves in a position that is optimal to the overcoming of such difficulties, allowing a calm and rational starting place that is better suited to the reciprocity necessary in confronting difficulty.

Biological Function of Consciousness and the Ability of Directed Intentionality Towards Psychological Improvement

On By Chris Shuttleworth1 Comment
Originally Written: February 9th 2018

Here we are using the traditional form of the term “consciousness” in its conventional usage, and wish to expound upon its arising from a strictly evolutionary biological point of view. Conscious awareness exists as an evolutionary byproduct for good reasons, and is not merely arbitrary. It enables an organism to systematically observe what is happening within the present moment, in order to respond in a way most optimal to different situations, in promoting its own survival, for the purpose of heretical transference, and arose like other biological features through natural selection. The distinguishing of various external and internal stimuli floods the brain with relational importance to the wellbeing of the genetic material underlying the biological organisms Being. These many factors, are hierarchically selected for, and we cannot possibly compute and react upon all of them. Only those most in line with our belief structure, which is fundamentally tied to an underlying evaluation system, arise into consciousness. It is this propensity to act on singular goals, rather than upon every stimulus, that necessitates the system for a central operating system, one centralized in the brain, but which is only aware of the contents which are deemed most important by the subcortical connections, in reference to the organism’s suffering and wellbeing. This system where the most important phenomena are represented, is consciousness, and the emergence of phenomena therein, and then our propensity to direct actions based upon the conscious content (and our ability to reason and contemplate within the sphere of consciousness) drives optimal solutions of what to do next.

This process exists within a mechanical system, following a deterministic directed array of stimuli and prior causes on which it is dependent on for its arising, just like all other phenomena in existence. It has a reason for its existence, it has physical properties, and the subjective experience it gives us is determined by the state of the present physiological structure of the brain and nervous system, as well as interoceptive senses (internal), coupled with that of our 5 standard sense organs and their corresponding stimuli (external). We subjectively experience consciousness as a direct response to these two general factors (which contain many other specific parts, most noticeably mental, thought, emotion, etc). The reason why it was necessary for consciousness to be an evolutionary product, rather than the organism existing in the present moment yet unaware, points to the benefit it must have generated in improving survival and providing sufficient future genetic propogation, or else it never would have proliferated. The embodied perception that is filtered through the value system antedates the conscious presentation of stimuli, the bodies perceptive system inputs the data, the value system hierarchically organizes and the resultant most significant (individually judged as to most relevant meaning), dependent on many factors, is presented into conscious awareness, which potentially can be transferred to conceptualized form using language. Humans needed a more abstract processing mechanism to solve more difficult problems, and we developed it. Other animal life, and life in general, and really all matter, I believe, as later pointed out in the essay “What it means to be Conscious” has degrees of consciousness, but in a form which is far from our standard defining of consciousness, which is used in the biological sense in this essay.

Conscious awareness exists as a process determined by external and internal conditions, for the purpose of increasing survivability in analyzing the present moment as a whole, for the continuity of its genome. Its main feature is that it is a module of the organism which is to analyze, edit, and respond to other modules, much like how in DNA there is a mechanism that similarly cuts out parts, duplicates, and changes its structure to be most beneficial to the organism, I believe consciousness has a similar role on a larger scale in the observation of phenomena so that other mechanisms can act towards a unified purpose. This is a wholly deterministic process, which, if we understood more about the brain, we would be able to map onto the brain with increasingly more accurate measures. Yet emergence of this trait gave rise to many other similar behaviors not originally considered by the forces of evolution, which arose out of its selection, such as the psychological subjective idea that this consciousness is ruled by a controller, who dictates its actions, in order to be in the best interest of the organism, which turns out to be beneficial to the survival of the organism, while not reflecting any resemblance of the truth of the situation, or accounting for the individual, and his surrounding societies wellbeing, happiness, or reduction of suffering. 

Like the eye was a product of evolution for the benefit it gives to an individual in order to observe its surroundings, to increase fitness and survival, consciousness evolved for the same purpose. Now its functionality can be altered to be used towards different ends than it once had. This change in goal of conscious was, or in usability, is itself a product of prior causes such as evolution, but still holds many of the original groundwork upon which it was constructed upon, such as the lower brain, reptilian brain, and other parts behind the frontal cortex, so the ability of consciousness has grown with time as its physiological underpinnings have grown, and has altered itself through the experience it itself has been aware of. Sort of like a self replicating machine, or the future AI commonly referred to in modern literature, the human species has already carried out similar processes in its own growth thus far. If all before goes unaccepted, with the most doubt and the highest skepticism, it must be an infallible assumption to assume consciousness in its current state was bound to arise in the way it did from the cause effect nature of the universe, and the subjective proof we have of its contents within the present moment, as being a product of a series of prior causes, to deny this would to deny physics and hundreds of years of scientific progress giving to our current understanding of the universe.

The capacity for complex language which allows us to retain a higher magnitude representation of reality influenced this conceptualization of biological “conscious” development that wasn’t originally intended by the ancient underlying structures. Improvement in language has had a huge impact in our expansion of knowledge and perhaps even the future growth of the brain, as well as how we perceive the world, our place in it, and how to optimize that place, lending to not only the original evolutionary benefit, but also to extracurricular endeavors such as fun, beauty, flourishing, inner peace, non anger, psychology, philosophy, science, and almost all aspects of scholarly study. This fundamental change, that of the goal of consciousness, is like any other skilled endeavor we choose to pursue, it entails the possibility of change from purely survival based interests to anything else, which is a first for any species. In addition, it allows another possibility of increased concentration towards academic pursuits in finding the truths of reality, which is a scientifically feasible process of such a biological process, which we can take to understand things much further removed from our immediate survival, to increasingly greater degrees.

My main emphasis is in the training or development of the mind in such a way that optimizes the experience of Being towards the navigation of life, in understand reality farther on the spectrum towards objective truth itself and lastly to improve morality so as to act virtuously in order to improve the well being of other organisms. This type of autodidactic self conditioning is done just like any other training, through repeated practice and exposure to that which you wish to improve, in this case consciousness, or awareness, or the brain, or martial arts, or anything else of value to you. As far as I can see, this practice and training we can do mentally exists as expanding the minds knowledge through secondary sources, critical thinking, and introspection, as well as meditation and observance of the phenomena arising in the present moment, the contemplation and effort given to increasing beneficial states of existence, and how to further cultivate them. I say autodidactic, because the emphasis is here upon the mind’s own desire directed towards improvement in topics of his own choosing, using methods and tools he directs himself to be influenced by. Of course the knowledge comes from experience, and external sources, but the framework from which he learns is selected by himself with an intention of improving character, skills, and virtue. This includes concentrated goal oriented study towards the knowledge we wish to obtain, as well as the implication of continual striving towards purity and moral excellence obtained by virtuous action in every moment of life, with higher degrees of moral shame and dread towards smaller faults, so that our actions reflect the mindset or the memes you wish to spread and implement. The moral aspect of the expansion of the mind is not arbitrary, it is necessary in its expansion. We must develop this aspect due to its ability to harness cultivated intentionality in providing a mode of consciousness that allows more abstract modes of being from which solutions to set of problems, rather than individual problems, becomes optimized. This allows skills and traits such as single-pointed concentration or discipline to be more readily accessible, and not as hindered or fettered by the transgressions against our conscience. We must support the growth of our conscience by defining what it is we value, what is good and bad, what we value, the hierarchical placement of these things, and then we can pursue those with value and are able to continue along on our road to expansion. This topic is explained in depth in the essay “Value System Instantiation, Meaning Pursuance, and Progress through Overcoming Difficulty”. Throwing morality into the mix of aims of improvement in terms of conscious direction isn’t necessarily just an interest of mine, or something I value highly, it is something with an objective benefit to the totality of the individual in an objectively beneficial way in which we each ought to figure out and work to improve. Actions that disregard the conscience are proven in our experience to disrupt consciousness, and in the pursuit of expanding consciousness, disruptance is a hindrance. In this way the content of your consciousness, and the brains ability to effect speech and actions, effects the universe in a way that is beneficial and in line with the highest form currently conceivable of human usefulness. Every moment is a moment to practice, to improve, and to transcend our current biological state towards the next generation in a way which we believe to be best.

The Self, Non Self, Illusion of Free Will, Objectivity of Morality

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: February 3rd 2018

If there is a soul/self then these are its properties – it is the accumulation of every aspect of human experience, it is that which has the possibility of being aware of some of the brain/bodies thoughts, speech, actions, feelings, perceptions, sensations, but the awareness is constantly changing, and every aspect of what is within its focus in the present moment is not in its control, and it never has controlled anything directly of “it’s own volition”. It’s the product of evolution, genetics, upbringing, society, influences and drives, molded through neural plasticity and eons of evolutionary construction, it’s the expression of the current state of neural circuitry affected by millions of factors expressing itself in what we intuit as being subjective experience, all of this acting upon the laws of the natural universe, cause and effect, and none of it is spooky, magical, or was chosen by any independent entity. It is an accumulation of nature molding stardust over millions of years, constantly changing matter until it develops enough to be able to produce what we experience as conscious human experience.

We all act in ways which proceed from a desire to do so. Every moment we are pursuing our will, whether it be unconscious or conscious. This will springs from our beliefs, not only conscious beliefs, but the things which we have adapted through our perceptions to be better or worse course of actions, this is dependent on our experiential knowledge, prior reasoning, genetic and other biological connections which deem what is better are worse for the organism, and his genes. In a word, we do not control these desires. Since we do not control these desires, we do not control the acts which stem from them. We do what we desire to do but we do not choose what we desire. We cannot alter a belief or a desire without evidence or some type of temporal or experiential stimuli. Since we cannot change our desire (albeit – it can be changed in the ways above described), and everything we do, every experience we have stems from this desire, we have no free will, and there is no permanent, or controlling “self” that exists, other than the illusion that we control our acts, which, if the premises above are accepted, is a mere fallacy of belief. Due to the goal of human’s desire to maximize pleasure, or wellbeing, or welfare, of its own genetic material and thus its survival machine, there inevitably exists better or worse methods of doing this. To move in the direction of ultimate suffering, not only for the individual in his own conscious experience, but to those in his expanded circle towards all sentient beings, would be to make a wrong decision. This wrongness is predicated on the standard of life which we perceive to be “better” for sentient life, in the sense of moving it away from that most possible suffering for everyone, which, if we are speaking of morality, is the standard and axiomatic fundamental truth which we must make, otherwise we are no longer talking about morality. As a side note- morality has to have life as its precursor, as the experience of pleasure and pain is what determines the rightness or wrongness of an action, to degrees, in reference to novel circumstances. The answers that are more “right” are more in line with that goal of fulfilling desire in a way that produces less suffering, and more pleasure, for the individual and his expanded circle of influence. In this way we can use the subjective basis of biological life’s ability to experience pleasure and pain, wellbeing and suffering, to make objective claims about the rightness or wrongness (perhaps wrongfully conceived as “good” and “bad”) of actions. Basically, from an objective standpoint, we acknowledge that the experience of life can be better or worse for all sentient beings, depending upon the amount of wellbeing and suffering they experience. Therefore, the answers to circumstantial actions, speech, thought, any form of being, is to be framed in morality in its relation to this objective ability to experience pain and pleasure, and its benefit, or rightness, or goodness, is determined in relation to other options effect upon sentient being’s wellbeing.