Emergence, Perception, and the Power of Will

There are just two vectors for where energy can be derived: one is the way we all know too well: eating, drinking, defecating and urinating. Energy in, processes of energy so that it regenerates our physical structure, and then the unusable elements are ejected.

The mind "rides", or "emerges", from the systematic processing of the entire system. The energy from our food gives the mind energy - so when we are satiated, our cortex is receiving 'max energetic input', which permits us to experience states of being that are probabilistically unlikely without the metabolic surplus generated by the food.

Metabolic Surplus

This idea is so important that it deserves its own subsection. A metabolic surplus is what allows an organism to move into's "adjacent possible" - a region which, in complex organisms, is mediated by the emergent semiosis of a perceiving, feeling, cognitive agent.

This agent's mind is constantly being 'generated' - emergent - from the metabolic activities of the body, so that if energy is low, perceptual, affective, and cognitive behaviors will be correspondingly degraded.

In humans, we must remember that our semiotic systems - headed by the 'intelligence' of our brain - are being built up from non-verbal meanings - what psychologists nowadays call implicit meanings which are communicated through sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, but an equally important 'non-verbal' dimension is the way the meanings of the world 'activate' us. Emotional Intensity is the crux and core meaning of preverbal experience. How things are done - the emotions, or affects, we bring, is the meaning which precedes linguistic awareness, and indeed, being a primitive organizational vector that binds social minds into a singular continuum, enables language to form, and, eventually, to coherently order reality in self-represented, logical ways.

The language or representation which emerges, and to which our ego's make ample use of, are a function of surplus. Why are people so incredibly obnoxious nowadays? Because the western world (and increasingly, the eastern world) is reaping a very large surplus, which allows our bodies to be well fed and energized, and in the process, enabled to form 'coherent' selves that become carried away with feelings of self-importance, power, and ability.

Youth typically fall for the faustian bargain - and its a function of the strength of the attachment and affiliation system, probably goaded on by sex and testosterone, so that the self begins to fancy that it is much more invulnerable than it in fact actually is. This delusion erupts from a steady metabolic surplus - giving rise to a mind that is able to believe this about itself - at least at this 'early phase' of its robust youth, yet what will come to such a mind, metabolically regulated by such megalomaniacal fantasies, when the emergent capacities of youth (teens, 20's) transforms, steadily, overtime, into a mode of regulation which no longer supports such generous states of being free of charge (i.e. short of the partial self-abnegation of actual love) and begins to 'reveal' the real nature of the semiotic objects, or couplings between self-and-world, which makes a human believe as they do.

Finite Will

Sadomasocism doesn't make sense. Even if a person is 'in a phase' where it seems appealing, it is certainly not sustainable, and indeed, it is inherently depressing and disenlivening - constantly attacking its own roots, its own needs for security, attachment, respect, responsbility, and recognition.

Yet, people are draggged by ignorance into all sorts of situations that offered them some immediate pleasure. I'm thinking mainly of those people who believe that they can become 'like God', and, through some sort of alchemical transformation, develop powers that give them a sort of independence from causal laws i.e. the "laws of symmetry", as smart people understand.

To be honest, such a view strikes me as absurdly hubristic. On what grounds does a person poise himself against the universe, when the laws of the very universe he opposes creates the very conditions for his opposition? Opposition isn't necessary - mind you. I am not opposed, but can understand the reasons other humans could have for opposing the universe. The irony is that such a socially asymmetrical thing could be pursued by a group of people who socially motivate and regulate one another - who make life and reality coherent - and yet together, they make the monstrous error of assuming that the universe doesn't expect you (or incline you by physical laws) to use your reason to reflect, and then ask through the golden rule - would I want someone to do that to me? gods don't exist - they are imaginary properties of human self-idealization. How could a property like that exist? Or rather, if it did exist, wouldn't its existence post-death be a function of the fullness of its nature - that is, wouldn't you see the injustice and harm and pain that comes with valuing a stupid self-image over the values that draw all human beings together?

Does a stupid value system not exist? And isn't the ultimate goal of evolution to purge stupid and wasteful philosophies from our species? If the ubiquitous laws of symmetry remain in power, the path of least resistance will no doubt be, following the loss of metabolic surplus and the 'happy-go-lucky' party times it creates, will generate self states that force people to better recognize what is important, and therefore, how necessary it is for each of us to be maximally educated in our life, and so be maximally equipped for intelligent, self-aware decisions.

Knowing and accepting - ideally, joyfully celebrating - your finitude and containment by the laws of the universe is the only truth that will set the human species free from the suffering which has plagued us for over 10,000 years.

It is not the excessive extremism of Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, Theosophy and the other pretentious arm-chair philosophies which ignore objective reality. Their views are the views which make todays world as incoherent and morally corrupt as it is. It's a world influenced by people who think they can dissociate all undesirable knowledge, as if their dissociation isn't for their own needs - as if they aren't hiding from their own suffering by doing so. And, most importantly, as if their own deficits aren't be transferred and outsourced to others. The arrows of causality - the linkages which make things what they are, are never lost, and hence, heaven and hell, or coherent and incoherent, are essential consequences of essential facts which are likely eternal.

Prisions walls built from the bricks and mortar of body and mind.
The system teaches us the description of the prison and its sociological power ladder.
So them who are walking on the walls and living in its guard houses are
the controllers.
Their vantage point needs constant recognition the imates
see them as gods.
But this is where I cannot feel sympathy for any person who stuck
in the prison.
They prison gives you the necessities of living, and for many
so much so there is always surplus.
A surplus you all willingly give up to the maintain the
strength of the walls.
These Slaves choose gladly to be slaves.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Is that the long way of just saying that people should be nice to each other?
Seems easier to comprehend.