Self May Be The Most Important Thing We Have.

Alternative title:

My selfish view of life, the universe and everything.

Foreword

I'm writing this opening for a thread for two reasons.

Firstly as a challenge for myself, which is to explain a knack of navigating the intangible, and the tangible for that matter.

Secondly; maybe other people might find this interesting and practical.

I also like to avoid jargon, and like to use simple plain English. This way people can translate my words into their own world-view.

Remember this is just how I see things; so try to throw stones gently.

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I think that understanding self is really important in order to understand the intangible worlds around us. For in the final analysis; I think self may be all there is.

So, in order to explain what I mean; let's begin with spacial dimensions.

Surfaces are two dimensional objects; width and height.

A window is a two dimensional object that we can see through, but not move through. A window has a width and a height. A window also has two perspectives; a here and a there.

A door is another example of a two dimensional object. The difference between a window and a door is that a door can be open or closed.

From the perspective of the viewer the two dimensional door and window create here and there.

Now let's add a third dimension; length. That gives us a three dimensional object of length, width and height.

A sphere is an example of a three dimensional object. The three dimensional sphere creates two more dimensions; inside and outside.

So it follows that a sphere can be said to have five dimensions; height, width, length, inside and outside.

A house is another example of a five dimensional object. A house has width, height, length, inside and outside.

A car is also a five dimensional object. If we add the fact that cars can be driven on the road, we can include motion as a sixth dimension.

In the words of Mike the Martian; "Grok?"

("Mike the Martian" is the central character in the science fiction novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" written by Robert A. Heinlein. The word "grok" means to understand (something) intuitively or by empathy.)

Now let's define the word mind in dimensional terms. For the purpose here a mind can be defined as a two dimensional object having only an inside and an outside. One could also say that the word mind is synonymous with the word boundary. Therefore we can call mind a closed space.

The mind, in it's most fundamental state, is the first division or, if you like; the first separation. One could also say that consciousness is defined by boundary, thus the first self.

Thus consciousness can be said to know only it's self initially.

Perhaps one might say the challenge for the self is to become aware of a new dimension. This new (second) dimension is outside. Outside is that which is not self.

So, consciousness in it's most fundamental state is one dimensional; simply an inside. Then mind becomes two dimensional; inside and outside.

At this stage the self can grow in awareness through the presence of what is outside; another self for instance. When two boundaries touch, awareness exists and then the possibility of interaction. Where the two boundaries touch can be called an interface. The two selves can begin to perceive each other via the interface. When two or more selves touch and interface; learning accelerates, consciousness grows.

Perhaps one might suggest that a more aware self may assist the unaware selves to grow by pushing them together so they can firstly find each other and then interface, and eventually interact in various ways. Nurseries for selves can be created by surrounding them in a mind (a new closed space). The nursemaid is outside, the children inside.

The challenge for the children is learn to interact and by doing so boundaries are strengthened. But this is so very slow if the children are left to their own devices.

The challenge for the nursemaid is to introduce the children to the world around them. For instance, by adding the colour blue to the nursery (mind) that surrounds the children. The children can then perceive the boundary of the mind that surrounds them. The children don't know the nursemaid, for the nursemaid is outside. The children only know the other children and the nursery's inside dimension.

Grok?

The complexity of the nursery grows yet all are individual selves within a self created by a self. Individual minds within a mind created by a mind.

Now what does every nursemaid wish for her children?

For them to grow and stand upon their own two feet as individuals and leave the nursery for what lays beyond.

Graduation from nursery school is simply to realize that there is an outside.

What lays outside of the nursery are other graduates from other nurseries. They come in all flavors and some of them are predators.

I hope you get something out of this, perhaps some will find this an interesting read that evokes something from within or from without. Where this thread goes, well, I dunno yet. However I hope it is interesting and new.

I had fun groking myself (smiley icon)

I've got 40 oz of dimension fermenticating in my brain.
And it cost less than three dimensions of dollars.
I'm going to shoot that damned samsquanch if he don't quit raising hell outside.

Doing things in moderation in life builds character.

a reply to: Whatsthisthen

Interesting.

I have a few remarks ...

A window is a two dimensional object that we can see through, but not move through. A window has a width and a height. A window also has two perspectives; a here and a there. A door is another example of a two dimensional object. The difference between a window and a door is that a door can be open or closed.

Might I suggest you reconsider the difference between door and window? First of, non opening windows are quite rare in comparison to opening windows in buildings. German ingenuity has even led to a window being able to open by turning it horizontally as well as vertically. Two, not all windows are being used to look through to the other side, but to let light insight. Third, the word window is very old but did not pertain to glass in a frame, but to a hole in the roof to allow for fresh air inside and smoke to escape outside. The actual word is feneter, or Fenêtre in French. Fourth, a window in our current sense can, though not solely, also be used to keep the warmth inside, the cold outside but, it needs the property of the 3rd dimension to realize this. (HR++). Fifth, some doors are designed as a glass panel, either sliding or turning and even both. It has therefore two functions, to allow daylight in, a view to the outside on the one hand, but to allow access/deny to either outside or inside.

Even if you look at things like door and window, there is by definition always a third dimension to the form.

Mind is a curious thing. It may be relating to the body of recollection, a single memory or to thought, past and future projections, judgment.

Consciousness is a basic feature of our species. Pass out for a moment and try to come back slowly. What I found is that consciousness is primarily a nerve sensor driven awareness without prejudice. And the first that give their inputs to the brain, are those of the body as a whole. Not the eyes, ears, nose, tongue or even extremities. That short state of being is internal. So I do agree with you that it is "knowing" itself in terms of awareness of sensation without judgment.

Once you can become aware of the sensation, that is where the mind comes in in terms of judgment. What is it? What exactly do you feel, what does it mean? Where are you? What time is it? The mind as the organizer starts to go through other routines, testing functionality of indeed the eyes. Ah yes, you start to see certain things, to hear certain things, to taste certain things, all the while assessing whether you are fine, safe or not.

And indeed one could say that observing, only the observation without judgment is one dimensional, as dimensions are interpretations of the mind.

To really come to know (cognize) what is outside, the outside must reverberate on the inside, in order to observe the sensation without judgment.

a reply to: Yvhmer

(smile) Architecture is not lost on me Yvhmer. Perhaps I should have used the example of the surface of a body of water.

When a fairy flitters across the surface of a pond, nose down, bum up, where is she looking? It is not the mud at the bottom of the pond.

When someone scrys in a dish of water or through a stone, where are they looking?

When a Rosicrucian gazes into a mirror and speaks to the people there, is that Rosicrucian looking at the silver behind the glass?

What I was trying to get across in words was a particular point of view of a particular type of Being who take an interest in caring for new Beings in the scheme of things. To go back as far as I can comprehend from their consciousness and what they do.

That which incarnated in a human flesh and blood body began as one of those simple "one dimensional consciousnesses"

It's in their memories if they choose to share.

Of a friend, when I realised her ascestral memories go back before the earth was here, I asked "where did you come from?" She replied "Elsewhere".

To the question of just how far back? She replied "We have always been here".

The complexities of a modern human mind are far removed from what I wrote above. I like to understand the world in which I live, from the Underworlds to the high heavens. The books are so very complicated.

I think my friend is explaining to me in simple terms I can understand and I am simply sharing.

a reply to: Whatsthisthen

I have had the same thought along the lines of your nursery only mine... My thought is concerned with whether or not nursey is evil.

Second... You said graduation is realizing there is an outside. I have, you have. Where's our diploma?

I dont see or witness any jnurse helping us out. I see souls suffering on the inside with the concept of outside.

a reply to: LucidWarrior

I can see where your comming from LucidWarrior.

I have had the same thought along the lines of your nursery only mine... My thought is concerned with whether or not nursey is evil.

The narrative of my post was of a very fundamental beginning of life and not our modern world I said so fairly clearly. Though I can see parallels as you do.

I'll reiterate that the view was of how certain Nature Beings work with new germinal conciousnesses. What I described is before a sense of time even enters the life at that early stage.

Fast forward to humanity and our current position, or perhaps one might say predicament, I would suggest we are far beyond the nursery stage described.

If one can look at our world as minds, and stand back and look objectively at the collective consciousnesses of religeon, corporations and other ideologies we can understand that they are just things.

One of the annoying things about religeon, is that they are all inclusive. Everyone is a part of their universe. Buddism is very good at that.

From inside the Catholic collective mind the view is of an infinite world. From inside the Bhuddistic collective mind the view is of an infinite world.

But the Catholic world is not the Bhuddist's world, they are two separate collective minds.

Those minds are rather preditory when you look at them objectively and especially historically.

These minds are occultly called egregors, collective consciousnesses.

One of the reasons I have gone to so much trouble over three threads to describe dimensions, mind and selves is to give people a way of understanding of the preditory egregors and how to step outside of them. It is actually deceptively simple.

Second... You said graduation is realizing there is an outside. I have, you have. Where's our diploma?

(wry smile)

I dont see or witness any jnurse helping us out. I see souls suffering on the inside with the concept of outside.

I'm not quite sure of what your getting at there. But I would suggest the nursery life of humanity was over long ago.

What I do see are well crafted traps that people walk into, or are born into. Like a house of mirrors, how do you get out once inside?

I see religeon to be like that, a house of mirrors.

a reply to: Whatsthisthen
Can be said on a lesser scale when you see brainwashed shout and act violent against the other team and it's supporters in sport more so Soccer and yet praise their own team players who act like demi gods.

a reply to: 808Funk

Yep, perhaps one can say that people are generally nice folk until they get into a collective consciousness and then they almost seem to become possessed ; )

a reply to: Whatsthisthen
I been checking your posts out and really enjoying ( don't worry i'm not a stalker).
I like thinking out the square be it in Music for example as all music doe's not come the USA be it Blues, Motown, Rock, MTV and Rap yet we are fed it's video pop crap from Jay Z to Kate Perry and sadly I can't tell the difference now from music from Jamaica, Trinidad, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Ghana and Nigeria as they are all mimicking the horrible Rap/Bling Hip Hop culture yet 30 years the ago that wasn't the thing.

I think out of the square nut only on this plane ? but not just music but food, drink and sport and I call myself a crosscoder as like both Rugby codes and appreciate Aussie Rules , NFL,CFL and GAA but I need to see out of the square on a more spiritual level but have been trying for a long time but looking up to the sky and asking things have never worked YET.

a reply to: 808Funk

Keep going, eventually you'll find a way. The sibling I mentioned elsewhere knows so a link there.

Just listen to her "intuition" and try and stay positive.

originally posted by: Whatsthisthen
a reply to: 808Funk

Keep going, eventually you'll find a way. The sibling I mentioned elsewhere knows so a link there.

Just listen to her "intuition" and try and stay positive.

Going crap a beer a scroll through your posts but shame you don't have a blog or webpage.

a reply to: 808Funk

Be my guest and fossick through the posts.

No webpage, no blog, just here on ATS.

No worries, enjoy your beer.

So your saying that essentialy.. all things are an extension of the self.. and without the self which is our experiencer we therefore dont have any relationship to people or objects at all..

This is interesting because we can then map everything as a basis in consciouness as experience of the one extending from the self to the outsides of the universe..

We have the circle and a point for example

So with out any objects at all.. we would be left with the last/first final object... the self as everything and a whole from which all things are extended from..

a reply to: Boundless1

'day Boundless1.

So your saying that essentialy.. all things are an extension of the self.. and without the self which is our experiencer we therefore dont have any relationship to people or objects at all..

In a nutshell; Yes.

This is interesting because we can then map everything as a basis in consciouness as experience of the one extending from the self to the outsides of the universe..

Yes again.

We have the circle and a point for example

So with out any objects at all.. we would be left with the last/first final object... the self as everything and a whole from which all things are extended from..

I'm having a bit of difficulty following your thinking there.

So breaking the concepts down . . . . .

So with out any objects at all.. we would be left with the last/first final object.

I see the logic there Boundless1, and your thinking is way beyond my practical knowledge of what is.

By saying "last/first" wouldn't it follow that we are giving what is a limitation?

If "self" is defined as that which is contained within a boundary, to remove all boundaries would logically be selflessness.. Wouldn't that sort of selflessness be a nonexistence?

What I mean is this:

A drop of water removed from the ocean exists by virtue of it's boundary. If we were to put the drop of water back in the ocean the boundary would be lost. We would never be able to recover that drop of water ever again for it's boundary would no longer exist.

the self as everything and a whole from which all things are extended from..

Depends on how one looks at this perhaps.

If this is so, then that would perhaps be what people refer to as "God" or the "universal consciousness".

For me, that would imply a hierarchial approach to thinking, not so much the pyramidal hierarchy, but more like Russian dolls where everything is contained within a final container. Maybe.

As far as I can extend myself it is the view of a network of selves that extend outwards on one level. The egregors, such as a church act as if they are shells that enclose a great number of individual selves. Looked at this way even the egregors are on the same level. The level of self.

I look at egregors as existing as enclosing boundaries. Logically that makes a church a self. That is a bit of a worry one might say; if the church self became a self aware self.

Perhaps one might suggest that fundamentally speaking there is only what is and within what is there are many selves?

Your taking me places I haven't been before Boundless1.

a reply to: Whatsthisthen

Interesting reads so far, though I'm torn between "isn't this obvious?" and "something is missing, so am I getting it right?".

Since I approach these things philosphically (you can say I'm not into the practical side, but perhaps that's a boundary by itself depending how look at it), I still get the sense everything is engineered. Then I would ask, what is the purpose?

From an IT standpoint (a lot of concepts are similar): what is the purpose of the function, what is the reason of the interface, what does the program where the function is part of do and will we ever understand if we are acting inside specified private confinements where all we get is queries, missed calls and stumble upon a lost artifact from time to time that wasn't even intended for us...

Perhaps I'm overthinking it all. A famous quote from Carl Sagan springs to mind making things simple.

a reply to: zeroPointOneQ

Yeah, it is obvious, yet people often miss the simple.

The Unix perspective is one I like. Those dungeons and dragons folk who designed Unix were quite intuitive when it comes to how the human mind functions. Very practical.

If one thinks of the boundary of self, inside and outside as a potential interface with outside one can "program" the interface as one chooses in the final analysis.

In the metaphysical approach the boundary of self can be thought of as a "window" to view the occult things, like looking at a crystal ball from within to see things. What is that if not a monitor?

A little more advanced would be the interactive display like a tablet touchscreen where one can interact with outside. Our consciousness in a way.

And then there is networking with other selves.

So yeah, engineered. To what purpose? Well if one asked a yogi he might say to interface with the "all" or something like that. Depends. I often wonder if the whole point of kundalini yoga is to program our interface in a certain way.

I'm a long term Linux user so, I try to keep a pragmatic.

From an IT standpoint (a lot of concepts are similar): what is the purpose of the function, what is the reason of the interface, what does the program where the function is part of do and will we ever understand if we are acting inside specified private confinements where all we get is queries, missed calls and stumble upon a lost artifact from time to time that wasn't even intended for us...

The reason for the interface?

Nicely put, I dunno the ultimate reason if there is one. But that suggests a higher order programmer and all that follows from that thought.

Perhaps it is a matter of a simple interface of inside/outside first that is self learning according to what it encounters?

Your understanding of programming is undoubtably better then mine, A command line and basic Linux system admin is about as far as I go. Basic bash occasionally.

Personally, I look at established philosophical disciplines as existing within an egregor, say the Church of Rome for example. The way they say the world works works within the egregor because that was the incorporated design. The OS one might suggest . . .

OS2, Linux, BeOS, MS . . . .

Bhuddism, Catholicism, Rosicrucianism . . .

I'll get rocks thrown at me for suggesting the comparison.

Yet outside the egregor there is a basic way things work that is common to all the egregors. Some egregors can be said to have better programmers perhaps. But that is just how I look at it.

But the danger here is that people will think everything is a computer simulation or just a program running. I don't believe so myself. That belittles us.

I think the way Unix was designed copies the human mind rather then the other way round where we are living in a "Tron" universe.

Anyway, I think the Unix model works, and it is practical for navigating the intangeable world around us.

But don't ask me about quantum computing and tangled strings, way over my head.

a reply to: Whatsthisthen

Thanks for clarifying!

The simulation hypothesis is a compelling one to be honest, but it might as well be there is just nothing. No purpose, just what we imagine it to be.