The Consciousness Wars

I have felt this way and feel that this article encompasses this idea well. I do not call this writing some holy scripture, I only see it as a mirror for my own view.

Taken from the article:

"The esoteric, Hermetic tradition, forced underground by the rise of material, mechanical science, has suffered, I believe, a full scale, no holds barred assault by the left brain and the deficient mode of the mental-rational structure. Its right brain worldview, with its sense of a living, intelligent universe with which we can participate through our imagination, was targeted for attack by its left brain antagonist. It is not the case, as it is generally accepted, that the Hermetic/esoteric view, anchored in what it erroneously believed was a profound “ancient wisdom,” was, with the rise of reason, rationality and the Enlightenment, simply superseded by a more correct view. It was not simply a case of “superstition” giving way to “science,” or of dogma dissolving in the face of free thought. That “more correct view,” informed by the proselytizing zeal of a competing form of consciousness, seems to have purposely and ruthlessly set out to consciously obliterate its rival. This was, indeed, a real war, one carried out on the fields of consciousness.

In the early stages of its campaign, the anti-esoteric view enjoyed many victories, and it eventually established itself as the sole arbiter of what is true, and what is “real” knowledge and what is not. But now, some four hundred years after Hermes Trismegistus the thrice great sage of magic and the ancient wisdom was dethroned, his usurper’s position seems threatened – or at least the foundations on which it established its supremacy seem somewhat less secure. In our time, the deficient mode of Gebser’s mental-rational consciousness structure has reached its peak, as it were. Developments like “deconstructionism” and “post-modernism” suggest that the western intellectual tradition has begun to take itself apart, with the left brain’s obsession with analysis turning on itself. Even earlier than these, the rise of the “new physics” of quantum theory and related fields in the early part of the last century has shown that the neat nineteenth-century vision of a perfectly explainable mechanical universe is no longer tenable.

But there are more pressing concerns. We’ve seen that Gebser in his last days believed that we were heading toward a “global catastrophe,” and the various crises – ecological, environmental, economic, social, political, religious, and cultural – that fill our daily news reports suggest he was not far wrong. Our era has had no shortage of Cassandras, and it would be easy to lump Gebser’s concerns together with other, less eloquent — not to mention researched — jeremiads. But there is a tension, an anxiety about our time that somehow seems to suggest that something will happen, that some dike will burst, and that we will have a flood. As the philosopher Richard Tarnas remarked, “late modern man”– that is, ourselves — is “the incongruously sensitive denizen of an implacable vastness devoid of meaning,” living in a world in which “gigantism and turmoil, excessive noise, speed and complexity dominate the human environment.” Things, many believe, cannot stay this way much longer. As Yeats said long ago, “the center cannot hold.”

http://realitysandwich.com/319247/consciousness-wars/

 

The whole right brain/ left brain thing in this context is pop psychology pseudo-science drivel.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-theory-cognitive-modes/201401/left-brain-right-brain-wrong

The functions of the hemispheres are in fact different, but these differences aren’t what the popular culture holds to be true -- the differences lie in how each side processes very specific kinds of information. Example: The left hemisphere processes details of visible objects whereas the right processes overall shape. The left hemisphere plays a major role in grammar and decoding literal meaning whereas the right plays a role in understanding verbal metaphors and decoding indirect or implied meaning. And so forth. Hardly the sort of stuff that can guide your life!

The popular narrative about the left brain versus the right brain has several major flaws. As we have noted, the functions of the two sides of the brain have been mischaracterized. But more than that, the two sides of the brain always work together. And, crucially, people don’t have a “dominant” left or right hemisphere. We don’t think primarily with one part of our brain, which may be in a tug-of-war with other parts.

 

I don't agree. There's potential to use both, but suggesting that we all always use both sides is like saying that we are all both right-handed and left-handed equally. There's potential, but it's not always there.

I don't buy that people don't have certain leanings towards one or the other. That's just more of the left-brain rationalists attempting to remain in control. Sounds as stupid as "Pluto is now no longer a planet"

 

You only agree with what fits your fantasys and myths

 

Same with you. So you do feel that Pluto is somehow less of a planet than it used to be, now that Scientists have declared that?

Fine, just replace the terms "Right-brain vs. Left-brain" and replace it with "Rationalism/Materialism vs. Esotericism"...the article is still about this battle of Consciousness in history.

Only the previous winner and one in charge would declare that no such war exists...that being Rationalism and Materialism.

 

I wish you could go back to when esoterica ruled medicine...when people used to think smearing mercury on thier 'nads would cure syphillis, or blood-letting was a treatment for various diseases. Rationality and the scientific method saved us from that hell.

 

Yeah and replaced it with genetic modification, nuclear bombs, a shit ton of vaccines, pollution, technological obsession, and a bunch of other lovely things

 

Also I'm not necessarily suggesting going back to Medieval times but to resurrect aspects of it to fulfill a void in the modern times.

 

. The left hemisphere plays a major role in grammar and decoding literal meaning whereas the right plays a role in understanding verbal metaphors and decoding indirect or implied meaning. And so forth. Hardly the sort of stuff that can guide your life!

This remark of yours seems to be symbolic that the Left-Brain may indeed be the more dominant aspect of your personality. You have a certain bias towards it without even realizing it, but it shows itself in your above post. The Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain commentary may be a metaphor and yet still be completely valid with its points, but you are looking at it too literally; this is the more dominant feature with the Left-Brain.

 

someone's response to the article

"This is something the "new atheists" seem to be unable to grasp. I could be wrong, but it seems the Sam Harrises and the Richard Dawkinses assume that rational, reductionist thought is the direction that humanity is surely evolving towards--forever rising above and destroying irrational, superstitious right brain thinking and leading to an eventual perfected world/society.. But as you similarly state in the above article, I feel that the "religious" (for lack of a better term) impulse is hardwired into our very being and is something that humans are designed to need and experience and cannot be completely exterminated. The bright sun of material, masculine reason will surely burn you to death without the cooling balm of merciful, feminine, shadowy night to take refuge in. To deny this aspect of our essential make-up will only make things worse in the long run as you similarly state."

 

Less of a planet?

Planet is a term with a specific definition. To be classified a planet, celestial objects must meet certain criteria. If (due to new observations with advanced telescopes and deep space detectors) astrologists and space scientists decide Pluto doesn't qualify, so be it. It's just categorization, probably won't hurt the planets feelings any to be busted down to "just another Kuiper Belt object" status, lol

 

Isn't this the same as saying the left hemisphere deals with physical reality while the right deals with concepts? Because the details of the form are physical. We see how they work together to create something. But the form itself is almost metaphysical. It has no rhyme or reason, exactly. It just is the form, completed, self-sustained and self-perpetuating. Without dealing with the details, which are left to the left hemisphere, the form is really nothing more than a concept, because the right brain is not conceiving of any details being involved. There are details involved, but the right brain doesn't see that. All it is left with is the idea of something, the concept of something. And if something can be conceived of as both being a physical thing in detail, and a conceptual thing as a whole, how are we to say which half of the brain to trust? The one who conceives of the thing as it is whole, and conceptual, or the one who conceives of the details of the thing? Couldn't the right brain be correct in its perception of things as not being entirely made of physical relationships, but being self-sustaining forms? Or does the left hemisphere dictate that these final, completed forms are nothing more than the details?

 

It's another myth that there is an analytical side of the brain and a creative side of the brain. The left brain is no better at logic than the right, and the right brain is no more involved in creativity than the left. All the regions of the brain need to be communicating in both analytical and creative thinking

The whole right/left brain myth came from some experiments in the '60s where they were working with a treatment for epilepsy patients. They separated the brains hemispheres by cutting along the corpus callosum, and through a series of ingenious tests were able to determine which hemispheres were involved with language, math, drawing, etc
But what happened, pop (pseudo)psychologists went crazy with the idea and created the notion of personality and other human traits being determined by one hemisphere being dominant over the other.

Neuroscientists never bought into such nonsense, and today we have literally thousands of brain scans with no evidence indicating left or right dominance.

 

Perhaps we may consider a people who are repressed in conciousness . These people
are unable to act and interact from a fullness of knowing . Some aspect of knowing life
has been oppressed and it takes refuge in the sub-mind . Like as a whispering it is there ,
and not doing much . The people impose this condition on their children .

 

Neither is dominant, but are they compatible? Obviously they function together, but just because something is functioning doesn't mean its function is good or meaningful. They may be completely opposed, offering up a version of reality to one another that has no chance of ever computing in the other. And if they are, we'll never know, because they won't function together in such a way that could possibly determine that.

All we can know is confusion and mystery. But we don't give up. Despite this state of confusion having persisted for the course of human history. We think it's a passing phase.

We gather more and more information and still we are confused, and still we insist there will come a time when we are not confused. But our brains will always tell us two different versions of reality.

The left brain seems dominant because the right brain won't give up. The left, we think, gives us science and reason, rationality. It must be dominant. But this means nothing. We are still confused.

 

No, it's more like, one side lets us recognize a particular shape and form as a spoon, for instance, and the other side of the brain lets us say the word for spoon.

 

Are you sure about that?

I agree in part with what you are saying, but I don't think you have it right either----there is the book, copywrited 2006, by the Neuroanatomist, Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. titled, 'My Stroke of Insight, A brain scientist's personal journey.'

In this book she details her own stroke that ocurred on the left side of her brain in 1996, and her subsequent recovery, and what she as a scientist learned from this experience. She does describe the personality differences she observed between the two hemispheres and how they played different roles.

She wrote, for example, that, "...my left hemisphere is preoccupied with details and runs my life on a tight schedule. The right side is, "...all about right here, right now." The left side is analytically critical and judgemental, while the right side is nonjudgemental, and, "...all about the richness of the present moment." The right side made her more adventurous and so forth, and she refers ot it as more creative. The left side, she says, is one of the most amazing tools in the universe for organizing information. She says that one area she lost in the left side of her brain was that of anger. But she does speak highly of her left side too---having spent almost a decade reviving her left side. SHe said it is amazing at taking the possiblities envisioned by the right side, "...and shaping them into something manageable."

She also wrote, "I have found that often the last thing a really dominating left hemisphere wants is to share its limited cranial space with an open-minded right counterpart!"

She also gave a very famous TED talk on this.

 

Such things as mercury on the nads? That was all done in the name of science. Are you familiar with how poisonous the chemicals used for chemotherapy are today? Or, we can just inject radioactive material into our system to fight cancer---oddly enough radiation also causes cancer. And guess how much one would have to pay to have any such treatment done. And how good are we at curing heart disease??? How about mental illness----I would say that we have a very poor record at healing mental illness-----generally we just use drugs to manage it.

Every healing ceremony I have taken part in with Native Americans has been succesful. A women was healed of breast cancer. I saw an elderly man healed of heart disease after the doctors at Indian Health Services failed to heal him, even after 1 or 2 operations (I forget how many he had). A young man was healed of kidney stones. I've seen others healed of cancer, and so forth.

I participated in an Ainu ceremony in Japan, I forget what the ailment was, but the person was healed.

None of these ceremonies were invasive, or painful, or required many return visits (in fact not even a second visit), or even cost a lot----basically the cost was some tobacco----and then a thank you to the community, such as a give away, or simply preparing some food for the next ceremony once the prayers were answered.

Back in the 80's when I had given up on spiritual things, and had become very agnostic, I watched a traditional native healer in the Philippines heal my stepdaughter. She was suffering what several doctors, including one who was a close friend, called a severe mental breakdown----she was in a near catatonic state. The doctors said it would take years for her to heal, and probably require institutionalization, and chances were high that she would never recover. She was 9 years old, and each of them said that this kind of breakdown was unusual for someone so young.

The taxi driver of the taxi we took from the last doctor knew of this Native healer, and agreed to take us the next day. It cost us some tobacco---not knowing how to give it to this healer---we just bought him a pack of cigarettes. He had us stand in a stream and pour water on her (which actually felt good in the tropical heat), he bent over, and it looked like he said something in her ear----suddenly she looked up and said, "Mama, where am I?"

She has never had a relapse, and shows no signs of any kind of mental illness---that was about 20 years ago. That blew my mind, and is partly why I follow native ways today.

Don't get me wrong-----I am not saying that science is bad. Technology and medicine has given us a great and very comfortable life. But the cost of the advancements of the Modern Age have come due----costs in terms of alienation, and nihilism. Unless we can come to terms with these 'costs' technology will lead us straight into our own demise.

 

I thought you said in a previous thread that you didn't think consciousness comes from the brain ChinaCat?

I'm not sure how you would reconcile that view with this view in the article, where apparently our entire conscious disposition is brain hemisphere based. Care to explain how the ideas are compatible?

 

What I am wondering: why do you write Scientists with a capital S? What's purpose behind it or the added value of it?