Nothing is Random, and Your "Intelligence" is Not Yours To Gloat About

When people say to me, "you're so deep", or "you're so smart - like, on another scale", I am both humbled by the remark, and a bit irked that people think "intelligence" is theirs to begin with.

The insanity of the world we live within is basically based in ignorance - and in its place, is placed a self-serving (and deluding) idealism that ignores the effects it's mind creates.

The mind is like a "meso-scale" (emergent property), existing in between the neurons, glia and endothelial cells which together make up your brain (we can call this pole 1), and the individual objects in the outer external world, with their physical, practical, affective, interpersonal, social, and existential consequences for the organism.

If you understand the world dynamically - from embryogenesis, to birth, to all the various levels of biodynamical activity in particular and global interaction with the surrounding environment - everything you and everyone else experiences is emergent - which means, being dynamically regenerated again and again from one moment to the next.

Your brain is an extension of a structure-dynamic that precedes the Human form. Up until now, Humans have tended to denigrate animals because they unconsciously sensed in the animal similarity - yet, being traumatized beings who are acutely sensitive to the dynamics of social living in a traumatizing world (wars, pillaging, etc - doesn't exactly relax the nervous system or the amygdala, its primary threat/advantage organ) they habitually disavowed (antagonized against) others which showed vulnerability and weaknesss (such as animals, women).

Waking up is thus deeply related to "waking up to how this world has traumatized you". It means recognizing all those inhibitions in you - the fear, of shame - the fear of anxiety, which thus create and rebound into reflexive defensive behaviors that the perceptual (consciousness induced) makes to protect and help itself. This "second arrow" of Buddhist thought is that which the mind needs to get control of: it's very own self. It's reflexive turn. It's instinctive desire to self-protect, to defend, and to deny - even when the system (your self) well knows that it may be lying about something, still - you can watch that and see yourself enacting an opposite meaning. A weird dualism - out of step - dissonant, and not anything to gloat about.

In between 1 (embodied physiological structure) and 3 (external referents which evoke meaning from the structure) lies 2 - the emergent property - the higher level phenomena - quite literally, which is "carried like a wave" by the global activity of our neural dynamics. Epiphenomena consciousness is most certainly not. It is the real deal - as real as it feels.

Yet, just as quarks set the boundaries for neutron/proton formation, and cells form the boundary for multicellular organism development, the higher level emergent property is always constrained in some essential way by what's ontologically beneath it, even if, in its emergence, it transforms the lower-levels in such a way as to bring about something genuinely new.

Consciousness is that: it is new, causative, causally and ontologically "above" the physical medium it interacts with. Yet, it's activity is generated by the medium - generated by its movements, by its large-scale dynamical electromagnetic waves. To quote the neuroscientist Paul Nunez, an expert on brain-dynamics:

“Consciousness of an external event takes substantial time to develop, at least several hundred milliseconds. The early parts of a visual or auditory signal may reach the neocortex in 10 milliseconds, and it takes about 30 milliseconds for signals to cross the entire brain on cortico-cortical fibres. These white matter fibres connect different parts of the cerebral cortex to itself, with the so-called gray matter forming the outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex.”

It is rather remarkable to think about the way we work - that the physics of nature literally generates us: we were not "created", so much as being created by the physics made possible by the conditions on Earth and it's positioning within this solar system. Logic pervades the entire thing. Our consciousness happens AFTER a lot of stuff. We are not alone in ourselves, but are inextricably generated by phenomena at many different ontological scales - with us - the realest of all, only working properly when we acknowledge and integrate those dimensions below us which contribute to the wellness of our being.

Nunez writes,

“Since consciousness of external signals takes about 500 milliseconds or so to develop, conscious awareness requires many passes of signals back and forth between multiple brain regions. In other words, the emergence of awareness requires the development of numerous feedback loops, involving widespread cortical and lower brain regions. Consciousness of a sensory stimulus is apparently represented in the total activity of distributed cortical networks rather than any one network node. Consciousness is closely tied to the brains dynamic patterns.” – Paul L. Nunez, The New Science of Consciousness, pg. 65, Prometheus, 2016

He clarifies later, that normal conscious of stimulus occurs a little earlier than 500 milliseconds,

“In short, consciousness of the stimulus occurs after 300 milliseconds, perhaps accompanied by a brief period of large scale synchrony, and apparently followed by sustained gamma rhythm activity…In essence, coherence is essentially synchrony with significant time delays.” – Paul L. Nunez, The New Science of Consciousness, pg. 234, Prometheus, 2016

But the drift is clear: the 2, which emerges between the 1 and the 3, is a temporally emergent phenomenon. This is quite significant, as the "self" appears to disappear, and yet it remains dynamically real - dynamically operating in every normal human brain~mind, showing its reality through the transformations of matter that creates the experience of temporality, and ultimately, of the experience of consciousness and "being real". We are REAL only here - on Earth, and so our home, our planet - is so much more significant than many people realize. Its as much a metaphysical womb as a physical home.

On a more metaphysical level, reincarnation may be interpreted in light of Stuart Kauffmans recent distinction (2016) between the 'res-potentia' and 'res-extensa'. The potentia of matter would be related to what Rupert Sheldrake has called "morphic resonance", and perhaps dark matter may matter here. Res-extensa is matter itself - matter actualized, moving, organizing, self-organizing, to create or mediate the emergence of beings like us. Res-Potentia is subtle - it refers to that which "wants to be", more than that which is. That which is is embodied - and that which wants to be "waits to be embodied" - that is, to find a body that has a resonant teleodynamical organization as its previous body - to "reincarnate" as a function o the ecological posssibilities afforded by the res-extensa: the mother, the matrix, whom the being emerges within, to begin anew another round of existence.

Naw, not all the the purely science view, but

The regular view of spiritual .....Scripture touches on your details......we can do nothing without Him.....and our minds are not our brains

Our brains react to Spirit , and heal themselves even.....in the science view.....a lady scientist in a post here on Ats.....

Your interpretation and perception is quite smart and deep

and that, my friend, is a personal thing. knowledge may be universal, but your identity is not a computer, it is a perception and interpretion of the knowledge that resonates with others.

You are allowed to feel uniquely wise.

a reply to: Astrocyte

While I agree with and understand the concepts that are presented, I still conclude that a compliment or gloat of intelligence is not to be frowned upon.

It's clear that more grey matter and wrinkles in the brain equate to a higher intelligence by nature. For that aspect to be complimented or gloated upon is nothing more than an opinion that such possibilities of differences of intelligence in comparison to another individual(s) may exist. Anything beyond that, mother nature is in charge of, yes.

I think I need a drink after reading the OP. I never realized being smart was so complicated.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I think it's glial cell, but maybe glia is correct as well (plural possibly). Anyway, it seems that the astrocyte version is the marker for intelligence in brains. The higher the number of astrocyte glial cells, the higher the intelligence. They communicate with themselves and send messages to neurons. In your opening statements, you say "We' call them Pole 1. Who is we? What do you mean by Pole 1? I'm interested.

If it's all the same to you, I don't consider a lot of what you said as intelligent.

Maybe that will make you feel better.

I consider the third dimension of an individual to be spiritual in nature - not steeped in theory.

You may be a very intelligent creature, but it is not found in this particular instance to me. But I am not your judge.

In my humble mind, the three dimensional creature communicates with relevant concepts to its constituents. If it does not, it risks appearing as, or even being, regardless of the magnitude of the other two dimensions, stagnant.

The interesting thing; is even in system that are designed to start out as random... such as random number generators, and lottery ping-pong balls? They eventually develop a bias becoming more ordered or predictable over time something random or chaos as a permanence would not allow.

But chaos/collision only to then settle into some system of equlibrium; is of course the nature of the universe.

Humans are more then mind and intellect of the brain. There is also the other aspects of a person, such as the awareness of the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic. The so-called subconscious and dream states have so much potential.

And then there is Knowing without knowing how one knows.

There is so much more to a human if you bypass intellect and mind.

a reply to: Whatsthisthen

Very nicley put; if the mind is constantly chattering and grasping at the mundane via sense spheres... then those realms and waves of communication will go un-noticed and even taken to be a self; helpless to notice such things? Of course absence of free-will is going to appear as a reality. Of course that is a learned helplessness; taming that mental monster and then killing it; takes great resolve. Only then does the infinite tree of knowledge fall that gets ones mental goat; where the one of infinite life then finally presents itself in nothing but truth lain bare.

The gross voices; as thoughts of others in clairaudience, subconscious and programmed dreamer state should be avoided; when mental quiescence presents itself at all times; from the practice of sitting that developed it, but always quiescent in walking, working, eating, laying down and in all activities, the knowing without knowing how one knows? There is a very high pitched sound almost like a wet finger circling on a wine glass; that is the only sound to focus on as that is exactly where all such knowledge comes from. The others just clinging and attachments; not suggested to allow oneself to get side tracked by as they only serve to limit instead of advance.

originally posted by: Whatsthisthen
Humans are more then mind and intellect of the brain. There is also the other aspects of a person, such as the awareness of the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic. The so-called subconscious and dream states have so much potential.

And then there is Knowing without knowing how one knows.

There is so much more to a human if you bypass intellect and mind.

In one word:

Intuition.

a reply to: TarzanBeta

"Intuition", yes of course.

But we also have instincts, and possibly other ways of knowing.

I guess i like the term knowing without knowing how one knows because it leaves a door open for something new.

a reply to: TarzanBeta

The intelligence piping such to oneself and others on extremely fast frequencies might take offence to being called such a thing; but likely not.

originally posted by: Whatsthisthen
a reply to: TarzanBeta

"Intuition", yes of course.

But we also have instincts, and possibly other ways of knowing.

I guess i like the term knowing without knowing how one knows because it leaves a door open for something new.

I think intuition sums that up. There are two ways of knowing, in my mind: noticing and intuition. There is a third way, but it's divine.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: TarzanBeta

The intelligence piping such to oneself and others on extremely fast frequencies might take offence to being called such a thing; but likely not.

I've dealt with it. As I've said in similar threads - I've had a long-standing argument with my father who says that no one can do what I do. My argument has always been, "Everyone is doing it. The only difference between me and you and them is that I know that I am doing it."

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

Hi BBD

You do like your upward path BBD.

Our paths are perhaps equal because you love your upwards path and I love my sideways paths and even some of the downwards. I love these lower worlds and those who reside here.

I have heard of that sound. Your words remind me of how my uncle speaks, I think he devoted the best part of his life to listening for that sound.

Perhaps one day I perchance may hear it. Don't think so though.

There are other ways BBD, as Cayce said (I'll try to get it right this time, apologies Mr Cayce.)

"My Father's house has many mansions."

Outside those walls of his Father's house is a wonderful place for me, thus my turning my back on what is within those walls.

Yes, the mind is a trap, a clever one at that. One my friends do not have.

This really is a wonderful world . . .

Words keep getting in the way.

originally posted by: Whatsthisthen
a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

Hi BBD

You do like your upward path BBD.

Our paths are perhaps equal because you love your upwards path and I love my sideways paths and even some of the downwards. I love these lower worlds and those who reside here.

I have heard of that sound. Your words remind me of how my uncle speaks, I think he devoted the best part of his life to listening for that sound.

Perhaps one day I perchance may hear it. Don't think so though.

There are other ways BBD, as Cayce said (I'll try to get it right this time, apologies Mr Cayce.)

"My Father's house has many mansions."

Outside those walls of his Father's house is a wonderful place for me, thus my turning my back on what is within those walls.

Yes, the mind is a trap, a clever one at that. One my friends do not have.

This really is a wonderful world . . .

That's not Cayce. That's Jesus Christ who said that.

a reply to: TarzanBeta

Have you ever concidered a moment where all else already knows; and one is in the role of the fool and yet not knowing or aware of such? It occurs in a state of reality very hard to percieve but it does exist if only to keep one humble and progressing towards equanimity.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: TarzanBeta

Have you ever concidered a moment where all else already knows; and one is in the role of the fool and yet not knowing or aware of such? It occurs in a state of reality very hard to percieve but it does exist if only to keep one humble and progressing towards equanimity.

Totally aware. That's why my argument against my father. But knowing you know something doesn't make you ignorant; it makes you the opposite.

Take note: knowing something does not equate to knowing everything.