Share With Me The Burden Of The Human Mind

The capacity and potential of the human mind is a burden. And so recently I've been interested in finding a group of like-minded thinkers, and some affirmation that I'm not a lunatic lol. Please keep in mind that I'm new here and unfamiliar with your standard practices and if I step any boundaries I apologize. I simply want to share my perception of life and reality. I've grown weary of the realities we have been conditioned to believe in. The standard western life that follows a rigid path, where one's happiness, success, security and survival depend on how closely we adhere. We overlook how every facet of our lives are dictated by a higher power, but one that really only differs from us by name. I feel like I have no control over my life. That every decision I make is influenced by the voices in my head that have been programmed from birth to keep me "in-line".

I do not believe reality is subjective, because if it was we would all be living in different ones. I'm not talking about individual perceptions of reality, I'm talking about the physical reality and forces that define nature and the planet in which we are simply another piece of the puzzle. Which begs the question: is society perhaps a microcosm of nature and the universe? Nature can be defined as the control/ power of one thing over another. This happens at every level of the cosmos, from largest to smallest on the infinite scale of being. For example, our solar system is heliocentric - without this division of power where the Sun controls the stability of our solar system, Earth would cease to exist. On the opposite end of the spectrum, embryonic development could not proceed without the induction of cells by other groups of cells. Even at life's youngest and most undeveloped state, one thing controls another - without this control, life would not exist.

So is this the inherent destiny of every living thing? To be controlled? To live by the script? Is human consciousness simply the curse of knowing this? The cursed ability to ponder our purpose and our place in a never ending cycle?

 

I understand why you may see it that way.

Certainly, not.

You seem to think of yourself as some sort of authority figure you must deal with.

To control and be controlled. We work towards empowerment throughout our lives, often without a clear idea what it is. When we have power over something it's because we direct it with a will that is in line with our nature. We wish to propogate ourselves, memetically and genetically. We strive for as much power as possible, the unachievable ultimate power for one would be to have the entire universe in one's image and rather than the universe be in flux, it be static - unchanging.

Only for consciousness turned against itself, which is the common modern plight.

 

how is the human mind a burden, save to those who choose to perceive it as such?

rather their is but one aspect of perception that is,
and that is the error that our own perceptions,
are the reason for the existence of all other things.

 

That's more or less what I said, not sure if you were disputing my point or re-iterating it?

 

I spent some good time with your post, thanks for the insight. What I gather from your reasoning is humans perhaps strive for purpose through "control", which makes sense because control is an innately natural phenomenon. But perhaps control is a double-edged sword - one must be controlled to control and vice versa?

The strangest thing is it just seems to me that human consciousness contradicts all of this, it contradicts itself. Turning consciousness on its head is simply a result of being consciously aware in the first place.

The mind is the single most important series of adaptations in human history. We've used it to ensure long term survival, a subjective place at the top of the biological ladder. But perhaps we've exploited evolution and natural selection, perhaps we've "won the game". And now we're left with a mind that can ponder the realities of the universe we live, that can search for a purpose outside of our biologically determined purpose. A mind that can seek power in all forms, even those forms which are unattainable.

What's the point?

Also if you could clarify what you meant by thinking of myself as an authority figure that I must deal with? Was lost on this point.

 

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:banhim:

just kidding. This is a rather enjoyable subject to ponder on. Though I have no input at the moment.

The first rule about standard practices is that we don't talk about standard practices.

 

When I said, "Control or be controlled." I was just following up the last line of yours I quoted, I then went into more accurate terms in how I see purpose and empowerment; which is through various types of propagation, and I forgot to mention expansion, which is similar.

We're ordering within disordering - the continual attempt to make a distinguished pattern in otherness. We have the need to sustain, then when possible grow, and when possible create or procreate. All those needs are fundamentally the need for continued and increased power. Power is measured in terms of how ordered a living being is, how distinguished it is in its environment, its complexity, efficiency, and size.

The concept of control is only secondary in this equation. One needn't control what naturally acts inline with our nature, in other words, we needn't control those who share our purposes. When we do control things and other people, it's because we need to, as a part of meeting our objective. All need is a measure of weakness, in other words, to need is to have a weakness. So when we must actively go out and control something it's because we haven't the strength to remain indifferent to it.

For example, we may have to control wild dogs, by capturing them, so that they don't bight people, but we don't need to control ants, because unlike wild dogs, for which we're vulnerable to, we aren't vulnerable to ants, they're small nuances at worst.

Right, as I was just saying, one who controls does so to avoid being controlled, such as capturing wild dogs so as not to have to avoid being bitten by them and thus being controlled by them. One avoids this double edged sword by gaining strength and therefore indifference.

I don't think it actually contradicts itself, it simply questions itself, which I don't think is quite the same thing, it depends on what exactly you mean by contradict.

It can and often people do. I try to avoid seeking such purpose.

It can seek the conceptualization of power as something-other-than-it-is, such as the common idea that if people for which one has and will continue to have virtually no contact and virtually nothing else in common than belonging to the same species become empowered one supposedly does as well, but such conceptions of power are false, they simply aren't power for oneself, and one who seeks it is wasting one's time, which is a form of disempowerment - pointless.

You were born with a certain nature and rather than embracing it you seem to think of it as something controlling you. You perhaps want to be free from your nature, but to act outside one's nature is essentially to be a slave to whatever forces are compelling on to do so. I mean the common modern cultural ideal is to be spontaneous and act 'free-willed', but that idea is largely propagated by people selling things, and by making one think he is something he's not, he may be more likely to buy something he doesn't have use for; all in all, the whole process is sacrificing one's own power and empowering strangers.[/quote]

 

Well not all of us. I think part of the reason why the mind seems like such a burden is that those of us who are advanced enough (for better or for worse) to engage in such thoughts are surrounded by fools who will never possess the mental capacity to do so. Even those people who possess cognitive abilities sufficient to engage in hypothetical reasoning are laboring under the burdens of an ancient ape brain, with all of its ancient ape predispositions and focus on raw animal survival.

To put it another way: The mind is a burden because only a portion of the mind has risen above the evolutionary pressures of the past.

Think about it, we live in a world where some people have walked on the moon and others are still arguing over whether the pigment content of a person's skin is a valid reason to hate them.

 

That's the difference between a collaborative effort and a single person vendetta.

Together humans have acomplished and can continue accomplishing great things.

Alone, we can't even reproduce.

"Apes, together, strong."

There is a lot of brain power on these forms that seek to accomplish one thing or another and they are often diametrically opposed and it turns into arguments. I wonder how we can channel all that brain power into something collaborative.

I feel like we should at least have a very well defined sticky outlining our current understanding of realities parameters.

Instead we have a bunch of different subforums for each and every story the majority of people choose to entertain.

What we need is consolidation.

 

Hey! This is a forum for a bunch of hippies---and we all follow the voices in our head that keep us in line. You cannot shake up the status quo, or strive to be different! What is wrong with you? You need to get with the program. And we don't appreciate you bringing your clandestine radical thoughts here and stirring up dissidence. Since the early 1960's we have been fighting to stick to the straight and narrow...


-------Ok, I couldn't help myself! I'm joking. (And even when you went on in subsequent paragraphs to explore how we may all be stuck in conformity.)

I have a very existentialist outlook on life so I would say---no, we can be different. The hippie movement was all about individuality. But I will respond later---I will have to read through this thread first.

 

Individuality as the bases for the Hippie movement or was the Hippie movement more about 'sticking it to the man' as apposed to individuality?

Hippie to me is an idea; a thought of what if, not of a movement.

The Hippie concept was a great idea but seemed to take a back seat to the unfortunate popularization of LSD at the time; to which the idea of the Hippie movement became construed. That destroyed the idea for the movement; the idea of freedom and peace became a race for Drug use. This lunacy created the subsequent loss of power for the movement to take shape and become reality. This gave 'the man' ammunition to ward of the thought of rebellion.

Ken Kesey (great writer) and his merry pranksters buried the movement.

LSD did not make the movement, it destroyed it.

In saying that, I find no problem with dropping a few tabs on occasion and learn something new.

 

LSD was an integral part of Most of the watershed moments of the hippie movement( Acid Tests, Be-ins, Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock)

The only incident I might hold LSD somewhat culpable in the destruction of the hippie movement is the abuse of it in the Manson family.

The role of other drugs gets glossed over when talking about the hippie movement but I've heard speed and heroin were prevalent during the Summer of love, also Owsley who manufactured LSD manufactured speed as well. The appearance of some of these other drugs may have contributed to some shifts in values.

 

You should study Nietzsche. Politically, I would say, Herbert Marcuse (One Dimensional Man). These are right up your alley, though with different conclusions.

The programming is a cultural dynamic. However this bit about staying 'in-line' is most strongly forced upon us when the Apollonian forces (Nietzsche) are the strongest. In my own observations, I feel that the Apollonian forces rise up when a society or culture faces its limits of growth, and especially as it faces its own demise. Nietzsche was writing about this as the European Bourgeoise culture was facing its demise. The Apollonian dynamic is characterized by oppresion, control, manipulation, repression, management, and so forth---and indeed we see that happening in America today. It is as if the powers that be are trying to squeeze blood from turnips (or whatever the phrase is). I feel very sorry for the people that have to work in this environment----long hours, low pay. I look around me and see everywhere one person doing the work that two people would have done 10 years ago.

Nietzsche would say that we all have an inherent will-to-power. Your feelings that you have no control over your own life is because Western Culture suppresses the will-to-power and creates a herd mentality. However, it is your own nature that you express your own will-to-power.

I find it interesting that you come to this conclusion. In my own writing, I explore the blatant overemphasis of objectivism in Modern Culture. Because of this we have become alienated from our true selves. But even though we may all experience the same reality in a physicle manner, we still interpret this from the perspective of our individual selves. We each have our own reality.

The hippie side of me has trouble with this conclusion of yours that everything is subject to a dominant and subservient relationship. What about co-dependence? I think that such a concept of dominance as you share here is also a product of Western culture which is obsessed with domination. Going back to our very cultural roots, at the dawn of civilization, we were not happy being a part of nature. We had to dominate it. I believe that such thinking grew out of, what I refer to as, Post-Planter cultural ethic---namely a planter group ethic, dualism, objectivism and rationalism. This was very different from our hunter gatherer ancestors (who placed more emphasis on the individual (subjectivism), were multiplistic, and who civilized man looked upon as irrational).

Even Nietzsche felt that ideally the ultimate expression of our Will-to-power was not power over others, but power over ourselves. The Apollonian dynamic is of course one of control and dominance. But the opposite of this is the Dionysian dynamic which was one of unbridled explosive growth---it is nature in all of its glory (though it is also excess, intoxication, insanity---the Bacchanalia). In my own observation, it is the rise of the Dionysian that saves society and culture from its own demise. The hippies were just that, and rose up to save Western culture from the Dominant Apollonian forces of the 1950's and early 60's. Even Nietzsche's ubermensch or superman embraced the Dionysian to rise up above the morass of humanity--but even then, the superman did not rise up to dominate. Nietzsche saw him as man's chance to save himself, and so he would appear as a leader by example. But Nietzsche also pictured him as realizing that it was man's own destiny to choose his own path, and that it was not the superman's responsibility to save mankind, and thus he would leave to do his own thing (need I point out the parallel to the hippies here?)

Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, said that man was free to do as he chose, but that this freedom scared him----it was his fear and trembling. Rather than stand out and become an authentic individual, people chose to conform, and stand in line. Rather than take control over their own life, they choose to allow others to control it. This freedom would come to be known as our existentialist freedom---or we could simply refer to it as free will.

Carl Jung would say that it is man's goal to become individuated---which equates to being an authentic individual. Very few people make it very far in this process of individuation---but Jung said that such individuals as Jesus and Gautama Buddha (Siddhartha) represented fully individuated individuals.

To experience a feeling of helplesness, and as you say, the burden of the human mind, is to experience an existential crisis. It is related to another side of an existential crisis---Kierkegaard's fear and trembling, the difference is that in fear and trembling you are facing the fact that you have complete freedom to choose control over your life---even to the point of suicide. The other aspect of existential crisis is facing the nothingness---the nihilism of modern life. The question is, do you take the leap, and regain control over your life from the forces of culture and the masses, that seek control over you?

 

On the issue of drugs---see my comments about the Dionysian in the post I just wrote about. Drugs were very much a part of the movement, and helped shape the values---but it also represented that Dionysian excess.

But the movement was very much about the individual---granted everything became cliche' as it became enculturated into pop culture. Long hair was no longer an expression of individuality but a style, for example.

But in the beginning there was no style---and yet everything was style. The kids of Haight Ashbury wore anything and everything---it didn't matter how outlandish, or vintage, or straight-laced, or weird any of it looked----it was cool because it was your expressing yourself. In the book, Counter-Culture, Roszak (Rozak? whoever the author and social commentator was) described being a hippie as spontaneous individuality.

 

My previous response was not to say that you were completely wrong in this regard:

There is something to it---as far as drug use itself, as guerillabedlam, there were destructive drugs that were probably more destructive to the movement. And yes, LSD, along with the others was certainly used by the man to fight the movement.

Though I would also like to point out that the Anti-war movement was very effective in turning public opinion against the war, and the hippies created much social change through out the world really.

There were other factors as well that defused the movement (and here I am lumping the New Left in with the hippies, because even though there were close ties and shared beliefs, the hippies themselves were more apolitical, rejecting politics in general)---Herbert Marcuse, who did much to shape the political beliefs of the 60's warned us of repressive desublimation, for example. Repressive desublimation is kind of like when a parent wants a child to lose interest in something the child thinks is cool, by also showing an interest in it, at which point it becomes no longer cool to the child. As I referred to earlier, the more pop culture embraced being hip, the less a factor of rebellion it became.

This is not always because of 'the man.' It was also about money, and about how culture works and moves anyway.

An example of this that refers to the OP, is how Dr. Pepper, for example, defuses the individual drive for individuation, when it advertises that all you need is to drink Dr. Pepper to be unique--to be a pepper. I don't think this was a conspiracy to keep people in line. I don't think any marketing executives were even beginning to consider social impact, or maintaining the status quo when they came up with this slogan. They were simply seeing that as a driving force in our culture, and realized they could sell drinks and make more money by playing on it.

Having said that, I do think it is interesting that while our culture is crying out for a return to the subjective, and the rise of the individual, that there is an increase in advertising that appeals to this, and therefore represents repressive desublimation.

 

As Wolf pointed out, Humans have a co-dependency with Nature. She is needed by us to survive; everything we need, she provides. Albeit with a few tweaks here and there for our own benefit: an expansion in crop production provided variety and a diverse abundance. In turn though, it led to the Agriculture phase which, in our fragmented minds created wealth; then onto the abuse and over production of the Earth and loss of its natural provisions.

Previously cultures understood the importance of nature and the value she holds to our survival. They worked within the means of which nature provided them. Which is a completely different concept to manipulation against nature which the Industrial Revolution bought upon this green Earth.

Nature is wonderful and mysterious in her workings and still remains our constant through our evolutionary state.

Suggested reading: Viktor Schauberger and his study of water. Walter Russell and Ralph Waldo Emerson.