The Source Of Human Problems

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Ormond
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Ormond »

Felix wrote:The division exists with or without thought.
I propose instead that division is a creation of thought. As example, functionally, in the real world, your body is a single unified system. It's thought that conceptually divides it in to parts. And then, it is thought which divides "you" from "everything else".

Once that's done, fear arises, for "you" is very very small. And then we try to bury the fear in more thinking, which feeds the problem.
Not thinking about food will not eliminate my physical need for it.
That's true. But please observe, much of the world now has all it's physical needs reliably met. And human suffering still continues. And it is that suffering of the rich which is the primary reason the poor don't have their physical needs met.
And what is "thinking"?
Conceptually dividing the real world in to symbols, and then playing around with the symbols.
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Felix
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Felix »

TSBU: If something will never have a solution, that's not a problem, that just "is".
That's pretty much the distinction I was making between abstract and practical thought: "Cat A" (practical designation) versus "Cat B = A nasty little animal that once scratched me." The name versus concepts about what one has named.

I don't see the naming process itself as the problem, but rather lack of awareness of the costume of attributes (good or bad) one has given to the things named. When one starts viewing this costume as the being/thing costumed, delusion sets in. Or as Alan Watts put it: "Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination." Thought may reinforce the tendency to segregate and "thingify" reality (another Alan Watts term) but it is not the cause of that tendency.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Ormond
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Ormond »

Felix wrote:Or as Alan Watts put it: "Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination."
Watts puts it well.

And note how even Watts can not discuss this without immediately being sucked back in to the hallucination he speaks of, because that hallucination is built in to our language. As example, the concept of "unity" requires separate things such as organism and environment.

The problem is deeper than "this idea vs. that idea", and thus can not be resolved within philosophy. The problem is that one can not experience the reality of unity within an information medium that operates by a process of division.

Thus, the more we think and talk about unity, the farther away we get. This inconvenient fact is understandably rejected by those whose highest loyalty is not to following an investigation where ever it may lead, but to philosophy and thinking as their chosen methodology. A group which often includes this poster. :-)
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Present awareness
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Present awareness »

It has been said that "desire" is the root cause of human suffering. Since most humans have the emotion of desire, there is a catch 22 associated with it, because the desire to get rid of desire, is also desire.

Attachment to things which are impermanent, will cause suffering when those things are gone. Since "ALL" things are impermanent, it may be useful to cultivate a state of mental detachment from things in general, so that when they disappear, as they always will, suffering will be minimized.
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Episode24
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Episode24 »

Felix wrote:
TSBU: If something will never have a solution, that's not a problem, that just "is".
That's pretty much the distinction I was making between abstract and practical thought: "Cat A" (practical designation) versus "Cat B = A nasty little animal that once scratched me." The name versus concepts about what one has named.
I think it's a little more complicated than that. What exactly does "Cat A" entail from person to person? Imagine if two people agreed about "Cat A" being an animal. One person is a Buddhist, vegetarian, veterinarian, while the other is a meat-eater, is in sales, has never had any pets and has no more than 9th grade bio under his belt. What does "animal" entail for either person? How much does it really take to form a practical thought?
Felix wrote:I don't see the naming process itself as the problem, but rather lack of awareness of the costume of attributes (good or bad) one has given to the things named.
Do you draw the line between abstract and practical thought only when considering good or bad? Ormond has been mentioning "your body," "everything else," "division," "thought content" and "thinking" in his arguments. Are they abstract thoughts or practical thoughts? Which type of thoughts does it require to formulate a valid, sound argument?
Ormond wrote:I propose instead that division is a creation of thought. As example, functionally, in the real world, your body is a single unified system. It's thought that conceptually divides it in to parts. And then, it is thought which divides "you" from "everything else".
"Your body is a single unified system" ...Are you considering the role of oxygen in your body? Are you considering your constant breathing? Have you considered the role of atmospheric pressure? Your body isn't an island. Your body isn't a static thing. It is not a single unified system. Or as Alan Watts put it:
Felix wrote:you are an organism united with your environment.
Your body is constantly interacting with the environment in order to exist at all. And it's a truth that our body is made up of parts, brain, nervous system, toenails, etc... that are all connected. Being able to conceptualize and think of your body in terms of identifiable parts that are distinguishable because of their shape and function is intelligence.

Ormond, you seem to have a negative connotation for the word "division". Since we know the heart organ is "divided" from the gallbladder in terms of function and location, we can better understand how either organ operates. What's so negative about that? The keys on my keyboard are all divided so that I can punch them to type... Is that so frightening?


Bluntly, I feel like we're beating around the bush in this thread.
Ormond wrote: And human suffering still continues.
[/quote]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but do you mean people still die? Is it what's bothering you? Is it that the ultimate problem arising from thinking--the eventual realization of impending doom? Better not to be aware of it? Better not to think at all and be a horse, scratching its butt against a tree?
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Ormond
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

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Present awareness wrote:It has been said that "desire" is the root cause of human suffering. Since most humans have the emotion of desire, there is a catch 22 associated with it, because the desire to get rid of desire, is also desire.
Aha, very wise statement. Yes, that's so true. A partial remedy to this paradoxical conundrum is to develop one's sense of humor about the incurable absurdity of one's human condition.
Attachment to things which are impermanent, will cause suffering when those things are gone. Since "ALL" things are impermanent, it may be useful to cultivate a state of mental detachment from things in general, so that when they disappear, as they always will, suffering will be minimized.
Without disputing that option, here's another.

We don't really need to fear suffering so much if we know how to take breaks from it. Anybody can lower the volume of thought with fairly simple mechanical exercises pursued with some patience. It's not really any more complicated than doing situps to get a flatter stomach.

If one knows what to do when suffering emerges, then one is freer to engage more fully in life and risk potential problems.

As example, it would be a shame to give up on being attached to a lover, as such a withdrawal would itself also present a significant price tag. It's fear of not being able to manage the suffering that most limits us in this quite important human arena. The solution is to learn how to manage the suffering which is an inevitable part of the human experience. Then we don't have to fear suffering so much, and then we can engage more fully.
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Sy Borg
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Sy Borg »

Ormond, it sounds like you are suggesting we ought to meditate, to take a break from "discursive thought". Don't most people probably do that naturally when they are immersed in activities. Deep immersion in a task is basically a Zen state where the "self" is put aside, being a consequence of feeling a sense of security (aside from fight-or-flight mania, deep immersion is impossible when under threat or pressure without training and/or natural gifts).

While it is possible to redefine that which would normally cause suffering (famously demonstrated in Dan Gilbert's popular TED talk about happiness), there are practical environmental limits as suggested by a few others earlier.
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Present awareness »

You bring up a good point Ormond! The attachments we form in life, enrich our lives and the loss of a loved one (or thing) will always hurt. Learning to live with loss and suffering may not be such a bad thing, after all.
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Ormond
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Ormond »

Greta wrote:Ormond, it sounds like you are suggesting we ought to meditate, to take a break from "discursive thought".
Generally, yes. I tend to shy away from the word "meditate" as it may imply gurus and such to some readers.

My goal in writing about this is to keep it as simple as I can, for it is a simple thing. When we're hungry, the remedy is to eat. When we're tired, the remedy is to rest. When we're crazy, the remedy is to take a break from that making us crazy, thinking. Not always easy, but simple.

From my perspective, thought is just another mechanical operation of the human body which requires management by mechanical means. I prefer to look at it this way because doing so removes the subject from grandiose speculative philosophical mine fields, and suggests simple practical solutions that any one who is at least a little bit serious can implement on their own.

But, the lack of complexity can be an obstacle for many readers. It certainly was for me in my youth. I read every Krishnamurti book on the market 17 times trying to unravel the big mystery etc. Thinking, thinking, thinking, analyzing, analyzing, analyzing, that's all I knew how to do at that point. I was young, ambitious, and energetic and demanded that the problem be complicated, and so it was.
Don't most people probably do that naturally when they are immersed in activities.
Yes, it is the experience of psychological death which makes those activities so appealing. That's the common thread tying the many different forms of such activities together. For me, it's nature hiking. I don't formally meditate that much anymore, I just head to the woods, and the silence seems to seep in to me from all directions. Spectacular winter day here yesterday!

But then I made a huge mistake.

I bought a Mac.

Don't ever do that! :-)
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

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But then I made a huge mistake ... I bought a Mac.
So the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an apple after all?
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Sy Borg »

Ormond wrote:My goal in writing about this is to keep it as simple as I can, for it is a simple thing. When we're hungry, the remedy is to eat. When we're tired, the remedy is to rest. When we're crazy, the remedy is to take a break from that making us crazy, thinking. Not always easy, but simple.
I can work with that. We humans are hugely visually oriented and increasingly so. To that end, I find that closing my eyes i most useful, just perceiving oneself as a human shaped bundle of sensations. It makes me feel less "solid", more dynamic and ephemeral (read: spiritual) rather than the relatively static, slowing disintegrating creature I see when looking down or in the mirror.

Just about everything you refer to seems to pertain to information that is conceived of and communicated in the visual domain, or spoken language. Push visuals and words out of your head, and reality seems very different - much more present moment oriented. Which may be good - or bad. When in pain, shifting from the present moment can provide distraction and relief and, ultimately, healing (the less stressed you are, the more the resources the body has free to heal itself). The present moment for many people is awful, and it's no surprise that they often retreat into the mental world of religion.
Ormond wrote:I bought a Mac.

Don't ever do that! :-)
I can't be a funny as Felix (this time) but in a way this harmless comment leads us to the question you raised from another angle.

Hopefully your Mac will work. I find that new appliances these days are often shonky out of the box. I'm guessing that the idea is to cut costs in quality control. If a consumer has a problem with a faulty product, then it's the buyer who effectively pays for that CQ with their time and effort. Since consumer watchdogs everywhere have been de-fanged and de-barked, companies can play this game with impunity, effectively using their customer as unpaid employees.

This brings us to the biggest of human problems - other people. Studies show that around the world, people living in more sparsely populated areas are happier than their city peers. It's not that we are bad, it's that en masse we are powerful and hard to handle - as any other species can testify. Why do we do it? From the start humans have been compelled to live in groups, "social animals", as they say. The bigger the group, the more power, then the better chance of surviving. So we gathered in greater and greater numbers. What gives us competitive advantages today gives us the existential threat of environmental system breakdowns.

The poor are most in danger but it's the super-wealthy - the only people on Earth completely insulated from Earthly environmental threats - who are making policy. So I see our main problem as the propensity of the humans to gather in maddening but efficacious groups, and for an empowered few in those groups to ride roughshod over everyone else.
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

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Ormond wrote:But then I made a huge mistake ... I bought a Mac.
Felix wrote:So the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an apple after all?
I would agree this is just superstition, but I must admit that part of my brain really does believe that it's not a coincidence that the company who would do the most to bring computing (intense immersion in the symbolic realm) to the masses would have the name Apple.

What drives me to write on these topics so often is a very real daily life experience of bouncing continually back and forth between the real world and the digital world. When I'm not here blowing hard and coding and such, I'm deep in the north Florida woods from sunrise to sunset. Back and forth between the real and the symbolic, back and forth, back and forth, for over a decade now. This dance has become pretty much my entire life.

I seem to be living the Garden Of Eden story in my own personal experience. I have these deep experiences of reunion with reality in the woods and then I come home, fire up the Mac, discard the real for the symbolic, and eject myself from the Garden Of Eden.

Why do I do this? I think it's because uniting with reality requires a process of surrender, whereas in the symbolic realm of thought we are like petty gods, ruling over the tiny kingdom of concepts in our minds. My opinion is this, my opinion is that, my opinions will invade your opinions and conquer them.

In the real world, I am the tiniest grain of sand on a beach vast beyond comprehension.

In the symbolic realm, I am the center of everything, the Supreme Pontiff, the ruler of that tiny kingdom of fantasy between my ears.

And it's not always easy to give up the throne, even though it's an imaginary one.

So here I am, again.
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

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Ormond wrote:Why do I do this? I think it's because uniting with reality requires a process of surrender, whereas in the symbolic realm of thought we are like petty gods, ruling over the tiny kingdom of concepts in our minds. My opinion is this, my opinion is that, my opinions will invade your opinions and conquer them.

In the real world, I am the tiniest grain of sand on a beach vast beyond comprehension.

In the symbolic realm, I am the center of everything, the Supreme Pontiff, the ruler of that tiny kingdom of fantasy between my ears.

And it's not always easy to give up the throne, even though it's an imaginary one.

So here I am, again.
As I wander through the bushland past so many simple entities I am akin to a goddess, striding down the bush track with uncanny energy, freedom and control.

Then I come online and I am just one more pointless voice saying things that have probably been said better dozens of times beforehand. Still, I find pleasure in articulating thoughts or in someone really nailing down a thought that had been buzzing around in my head.
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Ormond »

Hi Greta the Great!
Greta wrote:Push visuals and words out of your head, and reality seems very different - much more present moment oriented.
Yes, because it is the divisive nature of thought which creates the illusion of time. Time is a conceptual division, right? There is no actual real world place called "the past" or "the future". We believe deeply in these concepts because they feel so real to us, but the past and future are as devoid of concrete tangible substance as any god ever proclaimed.
The present moment for many people is awful, and it's no surprise that they often retreat into the mental world of religion.
Religion is just one of the mental worlds we retreat in to. There's no fundamental difference between the person who distracts themselves from personal pain with immersion in religion, and the person who distracts themselves from personal pain with immersion in anti-religion. The apparent great divide between these two groups is mostly an illusion.

In both cases, religious and secular, we suffer from the thought generated illusion of division. And in both cases we try to heal that wound by applying more thought, that which is causing the wound.

This theory explains why such conversations have been going round and round and round for endless centuries, and they never accomplish anything. It's like trying to cure alcoholism with cases of scotch. The more thought booze we consume, the deeper our addiction becomes, the more we suffer, and thus the more we reach for the next bottle.
Ormond wrote:Hopefully your Mac will work. I find that new appliances these days are often shonky out of the box.
It's funny that you should say this, as I find myself engaged in what may become an epic battle with MacOfAllTrades, a Mac vendor who shipped me THREE broken Macs in a row. The story is told at the following link for those of sufficient nerdiness. :-)

https://www.mac-help.com/threads/proof- ... st-1543934
I'm guessing that the idea is to cut costs in quality control.
Ha, ha! Me thinks you are a psychic. Yup, that's exactly what's happened in the case described above, MacOfAllTrades outsources quality control to it's customers.
If a consumer has a problem with a faulty product, then it's the buyer who effectively pays for that CQ with their time and effort.



Good God woman, you are a mind reader too!
Since consumer watchdogs everywhere have been de-fanged and de-barked, companies can play this game with impunity, effectively using their customer as unpaid employees.
Seriously, did you somehow discover the thread linked to above on your own? If not, this is really spooky!
From the start humans have been compelled to live in groups, "social animals", as they say. The bigger the group, the more power, then the better chance of surviving. So we gathered in greater and greater numbers. What gives us competitive advantages today gives us the existential threat of environmental system breakdowns.
Yes, the urbanization of humanity. As best I can tell, the next stage now beginning will be the digitization of humanity, going "in to the Matrix" so to speak.

Think about it. We select particular people as friends in order to better control our inner psychological experience. So for instance, if I yell too much, you'll dump me as a friend because I'm creating too much noise inside of your head. The key here is to see that friends are not really the issue, they are just a means to the end of managing our internal experience. And so the question arises...

How much longer are any of us going to be interested in real humans whom we have to compromise and negotiate with etc when...

Digital life forms can be anything we want them to be.

Once this forum is updated to the next software version, I'm going to click the button that turns all of you in to gorgeous 25 year redheads who think I'm the most handsome brilliant genius you have ever laid eyes on. The rest of the story is X rated, so go mind your own business... :-)
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Ormond
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Re: The Source Of Human Problems

Post by Ormond »

Greta wrote: Still, I find pleasure in articulating thoughts....
Indeed. For me it's beyond pleasure, more a typoholic addiction. I don't even believe in this process anymore, but still feel an overwhelming compulsion to engage in it.

But, well, the upside is that such sillyness is teaching me to have a sense of humor about the absurdity of my very human condition. I am His Flatulence Sri Baba Bozo, the founder of Bozoism, the next great Fundamentalist Agnostic world religion!!
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