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Many, most, or all philosophical problems result from a basic misunderstanding of the human mind, which I will call the tyranny of the ego.
Basically, the ego has a strong tendency to think it is a god. I will define the ego as the personal self, the social self, the concept of the self as separate from other humans and from the world. It is our consciousness of the moment.
We review the past, try to predict the future. We do all sorts of calculations in trying to survive and enjoy our lives. At each waking moment, this is our ego's activity.
The ego is our servant, we can't live without it. But it is a machine with very limited and restricted abilities.
As an analogy, you trust your computer with certain kinds of tasks. But you are aware of its limitations, and you don't expect it to do everything you would like.
The ego is like a computer, with different kinds of limitations.
However, unfortunately, the ego often tries to take over the entire self. It is NOT the entire self. The entire self is connected with the subconscious, with intuition, with spiritual ways of knowing. It is vast and unlimited, compared to the ego.
The less spiritually awake a person is, possibly, the more they identify with the ego.
Spiritual progress depends largely on seeing all this, and on fighting the ego all day every day. That is the personal side of it. But the society as a whole struggles with ego problems. And philosophers, and people in general, tangle themselves in knots because they over-estimate the ego, the conscious intellect.
The ego is also closely connected with language, and we often think in words. We try to figure things out by using words.
This actually cannot be done.
How is that possible? Haven't people figured out an awful lot by using words?
Well yes and no and it depends. Words are actually so much more limited than you believe they are. We do not express ideas in words, we do not communicate with each other, or with ourselves, in words.
Ridiculous, you are thinking. Well it may seem that way.
In computer languages, a word is the name of a program. Sending a word to the computer's operating system causes a program to be run. That program could include many millions of instructions.
That sort of thing goes on in our minds. You hear or read a word, or phrase, and that lights up things in your mind. Memories of what you have previously learned and experienced become activated.
The same word can activate different individual's minds differently, all depending on their past experience.
Now that alone causes tremendous complication and confusion. But wait ... it gets worse ...
As I said already, we are actually connected. In my opinion, and in the opinion of anyone who is spiritual and not an atheist. We are connected on deep levels that we are not normally conscious of.
However, those deep levels on which we are connected, but mostly subconsciously, are very much involved in all our communication.
So, I would like to say (and not everyone will see it, or agree with it) that communication is essentially telepathic.
If you practice meditation, for example, you might get this. If not, if you are entirely dominated by your conscious ego, you probably won't.
So many things can be better understood if you see it this way.
Many, most, or all philosophical problems result from a basic misunderstanding of the human mind, which I will call the tyranny of the ego.
Basically, the ego has a strong tendency to think it is a god. I will define the ego as the personal self, the social self, the concept of the self as separate from other humans and from the world. It is our consciousness of the moment.
We review the past, try to predict the future. We do all sorts of calculations in trying to survive and enjoy our lives. At each waking moment, this is our ego's activity.
The ego is our servant, we can't live without it. But it is a machine with very limited and restricted abilities.
As an analogy, you trust your computer with certain kinds of tasks. But you are aware of its limitations, and you don't expect it to do everything you would like.
The ego is like a computer, with different kinds of limitations.
However, unfortunately, the ego often tries to take over the entire self. It is NOT the entire self. The entire self is connected with the subconscious, with intuition, with spiritual ways of knowing. It is vast and unlimited, compared to the ego.
The less spiritually awake a person is, possibly, the more they identify with the ego.
Spiritual progress depends largely on seeing all this, and on fighting the ego all day every day. That is the personal side of it. But the society as a whole struggles with ego problems. And philosophers, and people in general, tangle themselves in knots because they over-estimate the ego, the conscious intellect.
As usual your assertions suffer from the known scientific problem of cognitive bias.
I wonder what the relevance to religion is. This sound more like philosophy or mental biology. Apart from telepathy through meditation, which just sounds Mental.
That sort of thing goes on in our minds. You hear or read a word, or phrase, and that lights up things in your mind. Memories of what you have previously learned and experienced become activated.
The same word can activate different individual's minds differently, all depending on their past experience.
Now that alone causes tremendous complication and confusion. But wait ... it gets worse ...
As I said already, we are actually connected. In my opinion, and in the opinion of anyone who is spiritual and not an atheist. We are connected on deep levels that we are not normally conscious of.
However, those deep levels on which we are connected, but mostly subconsciously, are very much involved in all our communication.
So, I would like to say (and not everyone will see it, or agree with it) that communication is essentially telepathic.
If you practice meditation, for example, you might get this. If not, if you are entirely dominated by your conscious ego, you probably won't.
So many things can be better understood if you see it this way.
I don't agree with your claim. If communication is telepathic, as in knowing the thoughts of others, then we wouldn't have "tremendous complication and confusion."
The only thing I know for sure, is that people get hungry at certain times and think of food.
I don't agree with your claim. If communication is telepathic, as in knowing the thoughts of others, then we wouldn't have "tremendous complication and confusion."
The only thing I know for sure, is that people get hungry at certain times and think of food.
The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that if we knew the thoughts of others there'd be one whole hellova lot of unhappy and/or pissed off people
The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that if we knew the thoughts of others there'd be one whole hellova lot of unhappy and/or pissed off people
At least we wouldn't be confused. Ooops. I made Mexican but I see he is thinking Italian.
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