Anthony66 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:28 pm
This seems problematic for my understanding of A/SS. The Thinking process likewise will manifest as brain states, but they too must follow QM. So it would appear that Thinking is being hauled around by quantum dynamics, something Ashvin and Cleric will no doubt dispute.
There's no need to even bring SS into the picture. All we need is
not to allow thinking recede in the blind spot.
First, we need to be clear that there's no contradiction in being able to predict someone's behavior, especially if the individual operates on a much more instinctive stage. Most of our actions, speech, thoughts are templated anyway.
The really interesting things happen when we try to apply the theory to predict
our own thoughts. This breaks down immediately. It doesn't matter if it is quantum or classical. In all cases we have some kind of computation which predicts what we'll do next. The classic example is that the classical/quantum Turing machine analyzes the Universe (with our brain in it) and predicts whether we'll press red or green button. Of course, after presented with the prediction we can always press the other button and prove the algorithm wrong. The problem is that the Turing machine must calculate not only the Universe and the brain but also
itself as it interacts with our brain. This of course requires that the machine must calculate itself, as it calculates itself calculating the Universe and so on. This can never settle to a stable answer. There's no answer that the machine can give which can be universally valid. We can always negate it.
So once again we reach to a point which modern thinkers still resist to grasp in the proper way. All troubles stem from the fact that thinking splits against itself (and contrary to modern non-dualism, eradicating thinking doesn't solve the problem). When thinking thinks the theory of mind, thought-images precipitate. Thinking (which is in the blind spot, unaware of itself) tries to predict the emergence of thoughts through different arrangements of thoughts. As an analogy, this would be as to observe the continual shedding of dead skin cells, nails, hair and so on. Then we pile them up in different geometric configuration and try to develop theory how this bodily debris bump into each other and cause their own dynamic existence. As insultingly simple as this analogy is, it points at the plain facts. The problem lies in the cognitive patterns which are outside the thinker's consciousness. The thinker looks the facts straight into the face yet in the next moment, just like a broken record, with scratchy sound he snaps back to the semi-automatic thinking process. Interestingly, this semi-automatic thinking, completely justifiably, feels itself to be so lawful that it seems inevitable that there should be some mathematical formula that captures its dynamics. And the more we conform our own thinking to such causative formulas, the more we see the confirmation! If we postulate that our thinking can move only in rectangular forms, which we can describe very well mathematically, we enter these forms and say "Look, look! I told you that thinking moves only in rectangles". So we must be very clear about this. The more we try prove that our thinking can move only in certain intellectual patterns, the more we restrict ourselves into them. This is the only way we can feel satisfied with our theory. We must also be clear that all this has nothing to do with the supposed nature of the Universe - whether it is material, mental or whatever. It's all about proper understanding of thinking which is part of the given.
Instead of trying to use thinking to mechanically predict thinking, we can use it as perceptual organ which informs us about the patterns and templates that we're locked into. It's not about to revolting and saying "I'm free!" These will always remain empty words unless we can attain to
real inner transformation which layer by layer rises us into higher forms of spiritual activity. Then we look upon our past states and realize how we were really locked into the broken record patterns. But since we learn from our own experience, we're also fully aware that now we're in yet another such pattern, even though on a higher level. So we should never fall for the illusion of saying "Now I'm completely free". We're always operating within nested rhythms. It's like we're solving a labyrinth within a labyrinth with a labyrinth... Yet these are labyrinths that we can't very easily represent in geometric way because they are not linearly sequenced. We're active at all levels, even though most consciously in the most immediate ones. For example, one level of the labyrinth is our thinking patterns. People today spit out the contents of their intellectual labyrinths without ever occurring to them that these thinking movements may be investigated. A higher order labyrinth is that of our desires, likes, dislikes, sympathies and antipathies. We move even more blindly through that labyrinth than the one we bounce through in the intellect. Interestingly, people are even less inclined to investigate this deeper labyrinth. Actually most people fully identify with their likes and dislikes. It never occurs to them that these tastes are mostly contracted from the environment and they simply bounce in their poles. For the labyrinth of the will it is almost impossible to even speak about because here we're dealing with such features of consciousness which are so indistinguishably merged with the background that one can hardly even point attention to them. They are simply not seen.
Instead of seeking the 'true' pattern of reality which forces our thinking, feeling and willing to flow in a particular way, we continually find new degrees of freedom of our spiritual activity by overcoming patterns into which our spiritual activity has been locked into. This gives us knowledge of reality from quite another angle than the one the physicist seeks. As a matter of fact, the perfection of our spiritual conduct within each of the labyrinth levels leads to higher orders of consciousness. As our orientation within the three labyrinth levels is perfected, three higher worlds open before us - Imaginative, Inspirative, Intuitive. These are not simply domains of our local bubble psyche but the actual spiritual environment. Just as our mineral body soaks from the environment the fluid, airy and warmth element, so in our waking life the soul and spiritual elements are contracted in the sensory and bodily processes. Learning our way through the labyrinths allows us to loosen our "I"-activity from the bodily processes and spread our cognitive feelers in the soul and spirit environment, in the labyrinths of which we bounce blindly all the time.
The real art is to learn what is the most fruitful inner attitude towards the rhythms within which we're entangled but which we cannot yet grasp consciously because we're bouncing between their poles.
