That has a lot of resonance for me. In this modern age, we are all kings, and there are vast industries to save us from ever being alone from our thoughts. For December, I quit sugar, social media, and video games. It's been really interesting to notice what state I'm in when I go to reach for those things. Sometimes it's just habit, but often it's because I'm uncomfortable or in distress and want to avoid those feel…
If you are commenting here, you haven't really quit "social media".
You are a dunce if you think anonymous comments on a page is social media in the same way Facebook or Twitter are.
Yes! So one wonders if aboriginal foraging humans have a concept of enlightenment.
It is a misconception that all nomadic or foraging humans had to spend 100% of their time trying to stay alive. I'm fact, if you look at African tribes and their original lifestyle you will realize how little time they had to spend on getting food and how much time they were able to spend just being happy, playing, drinking hallucinogenic substances to get into an enlightening trance etc.
> It is a misconception that all nomadic or foraging humans had to spend 100% of their time trying to stay alive.
Agreed.
> I'm fact, if you look at African tribes and their original lifestyle you will realize how little time they had to spend on getting food and how much time they were able to spend just being happy, playing, drinking hallucinogenic substances to get into an enlightening trance etc.
Generalizations about foraging populations are fraught with problems because there was a lot of diversity among them and its not possible to study them in a "pure" (untouched by agricultural peoples) setting.
"Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking." I think Pascal was correct because at least those people I know well enough to discuss such matters with tell me they don't spend much time thinking or cont…
I find it disturbing the way a trait that seems to be very common among humans is being framed as a problem. External stimulus means you’re with other humans that you can cooperate with. That you’re sharing stories and learning. That you’re hunting for food. That you’re building a shelter. All these things are necessary for survival. It seems possible that being sociable and industrious might well have been bread int…
The problem is that we live in a society where one is constantly being bombarded with stimuli all the time. Because people cannot be in silence, you have to endure constant noise.
I began a new job recently and was shocked to find out they have a speaker system that plays music everywhere in the building including office areas. On my first day, they were playing gangsta rap all day long...
So now, in order for me to focus and do what I'm being paid to do, I have to separate myself from the environment by either working from home (in silence) or using ANC headphones all day, which is not pleasant.
"Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking." I think Pascal was correct because at least those people I know well enough to discuss such matters with tell me they don't spend much time thinking or cont…
>When I was at school one of the punishments was to be sent to stand in a corner and stare at the wall. It used to send some kids almost crazy but never bothered me much—all I had to do was to go into daydream mode to pass time away Me as well. I wonder if it is the upside to having near-crippling ADHD.
I suppose defaulting to daydream mode is moderately useful for the large portion of the prison population with ADHD.
Always been afraid of my terrible impulse control sending me to prison for one reason or another but never considered that I could just daydream the time away. Good to know.
> Then, you see the truth, of life, existence and the universe. Pretty words, but do they mean anything? For example, if I reach this state, will it be revealed to me why there is something rather than nothing? I think not, otherwise someone would have reported back with the answer already. I'm interested in meditation to learn more about my own body and mind, maybe improve my life somehow. But IMHO the discussions a…
Get Mind Illuminated by John Yates Phd. He breaks down the process into ten steps, woo free.
It is useful to add that even distraction and entertainment are suffering and unfulfilling in that they are impermanent, illusory and essentially devoid of meaning. All things have "equal taste", good or bad all comes to us through the senses which only produce a reflection of the world in our mind. Even our perception of our own inner world is an appearance of the same sort in consciousness. This shouldn't excuse in…
"It is useful to add that even distraction and entertainment are suffering and unfulfilling in that they are impermanent, illusory and essentially devoid of meaning." This doesn't fully make sense to me. Sure, at some point your pleasure will end, but do you have to judge something by its end? Why not judge it by its beginning or middle instead? It's like saying "don't enjoy your meal, because at some point later you…
Would you enjoy your favourite meal if it were the only thing you could eat for the rest of your life? If not, is it the food you enjoy or the variety, novelty and choice? After a strenuous workout would you prefer to sit down to a heavy meal or have a glass of water? The pleasure you derive from something is not an intrinsic property of that thing, the sense of pleasure comes from within your own mind. That is why pleasure is illusory, it is a state that exists only within your mind. The idea behind a practice like Buddhism is not to nullify everything, it is to draw the attention to the fact that all we know of the world is an illusion produced by our senses, we can never truly know the world outside of our consciousness since no matter how closely we examine it we are really just examining its representation within our own mind. It is meaningless in that all of these sense perceptions are essentially the same, the meaning we assign to them is once again something that originates from within us. This doesn't negate the external world, it is just a different way of viewing it and a useful one because it puts into perspective many of the frivolities and aimless paths we trace through it. You don't have to be an ascetic but you don't have to let the world subsume you completely either.
"Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking." I think Pascal was correct because at least those people I know well enough to discuss such matters with tell me they don't spend much time thinking or cont…
"Modern humans spend virtually no time on "inward-directed thought", and not solely because we're too busy: in one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for a leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking." I think Pascal was correct because at least those people I know well enough to discuss such matters with tell me they don't spend much time thinking or cont…
Great username. Fellow physicist?
Fellow physicist? No, more engineering but the username was inspired from distant memories of having to get my head around the mathematics of David H's famous space! And I've always been a fan of Douglas Adams and the similarly-inspired Red Dwarf (right, that's a category and now I'm classified). ;-)
I wasn’t speaking to a philosophical maxim, but rather practical application. Self-awareness is a real thing that can be objectively measured comparative between different people.
What's your method for measuring that? The general personality models that I've seen really only seem to be testing for a minimum amount of self-awareness.