dave_a_mbs
Super Member
Offline
Afterlife Knowledge Member
Posts: 1655
central california
Gender:
|
Hi Rob- I think that for the same reason that we seem to be "visualization oriented" we also are "matter oriented". Else what could we talk about? However, consider something like a teapot. It makes its nature known by virtue of the relational properties that it manifests - and when it isn;t manifesting (like sitting in the cupboard) we only know it by the residues of its prior activities, and their residues in the form of other things that relate to us. We are unable to sense constancy - vision, for example, requires constant stimulation, else it greys out and becomes chaotic noise. (A sheet of paper coverig your face is a fair substitute for a non-stimulating field. Quickly we cease to "see" and start hallucinating on noise.) The key to perception is process, change etc. Thus, we are actually not able to sense anything that is not involved actively with us. The hammering of photons on the retinal nerves does this, which is a bit deceptive, but the still object-ibn-itself is beyond our direct perception.
The ideas of "entropy" or "information content" or "akasha" or even "empty space" are efforts to identify patterns of stable interactions by referring to the presumed underlying "stuff" by which they occur. But, no object can sense its neighbors without interaction, nor can any person sense anything except in terms of process and interaction, so again, the only thing happening is process and changes of relationships. In that sense, everything is nothing but a non-material voidness in which patterns of relationships are in perpetual flux - ourselves included. Occam's Razor thus obligates us to deny matter as a convenient myth by which to explain seemingly stable interactions and seemingly constant relationships. Thus we forget that what we are looking at, feeling, tasting etc is change, and not the putative "materiality".
I suspect that this might be upsetting to people who spend their time collecting objects like diamonds and gold bars, since it implies that at death, when the interactions cease, they have nothing. But for them we have the power mantra, "I am no-thing and no-body" which focusses us back into what we are doing and how we do it.
As for "associative reasoning", notice what happens when you walk by an Italian bistro and smell the garlic and spices - this calls up prior experiences of Pizza-eating etc - that then becomes the "meaning" of the experience. That is a primary response, and is accopanied by physiological actions and changes. The gestalt psychologists of earlier days worked in this area, but had trouble getting to secondary operations such as those acquired by reinforced learning and abstraction. (Which can be reduced to levels of logical abstraction, it turns out.) As another example, notice the "meaning" of a large, yellow, juiicy lemon, dripping with sour juice and that lemon fragrence that tickles the nose - there is a global primary response that pulls your pucker string. Then there are secondary asociations that are similar to grapefruit, vinegar, yellow paint etc, due to the existence of overlapping attributes of their attributive sets. Severe schizophrenics generally can't separate one from another, and lump everything together as the same thing, which means that they live in "the world of puns" on a primary level.
I'm babbling. Enough. - have a great day- d
|