How Attached to Your Ideas Are You?

[Encephalon]

I picked up a copy of “The Practical Cogitator: The Thinker’s Anthology” in the library bookstore for fifty cents. One of the luckiest purchases I’ve ever made. It’s the perfect book to keep in the car to take up slack time usefully. It was edited by a professor who commanded a destroyer in WWII who thought that naval personnel should have some of the world’s wisdom gathered into a volume that could fit in a sailor’s tunic.

 

I post an essay here for the purpose of investigating a plight that often afflicts the members of this forum; the degree to which we can become so identified with our thoughts and ideas (the only part of ourselves that we share with each other) that any challenge to them becomes a personal affront.

 

As someone who has been scolded and reprimanded in here for “going for the jugular” when attacking someone’s views I felt worthy of attacking, I also feel the sting of seeing my ideas dismissed wholesale with a flick of the wrist. At the same time, I took my college career seriously (students who are old enough to be the fathers of their classmates frequently do) and I know from experience that with a little effort it is possible to excavate the sources of our ideas. David Denby, a film reviewer for New York magazine did precisely this when he re-enrolled in two courses in Western civilization at Columbia University 30 years later because he “had lost touch with the roots of his own ideas.”

 

There was a wildfire that burned through this forum not too long ago regarding the subject of moderator policy. I still believe the real debate, personal accountability of posted content, never took place and I believe the quality of our online discussions will forever suffer for it, but for now, I’d like to hear what people think of the following essay and how it pertains to the psychological attachment to ideas (attachment in the Buddhist sense).

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We do not think enough about thinking, and much of our confusion is the result of current illusions in regard to it. Let us forget for the moment any impressions we may have derived from the philosophers, and see what seems to happen in ourselves. The first thing that we notice is that our thought moves with such incredible rapidity that it is almost impossible to arrest any specimen of it long enough to have a look at it. When we are offered a penny for our thoughts we always find that we have recently had so many things in mind that we can easily make a selection which will not compromise us too nakedly. On inspection we shall find that even if we are not downright ashamed of a great part of our spontaneous thinking it is far too intimate, personal, ignoble or trivial to permit us to reveal more than a small part of it. I believe this must be true of everyone. We do not, of course, know what goes on in other people's heads. They tell us very little and we tell them very little. The spigot of speech, rarely fully opened, could never emit more than driblets of the ever renewed hogshead of thought--noch grosser wie's Heidelberger Fass ["even larger than the Heidelberg tun"]. We find it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are.

 

We all appear to ourselves to be thinking all the time during our waking hours, and most of us are aware that we go on thinking while we are asleep, even more foolishly than when awake. When uninterrupted by some practical issue we are engaged in what is now known as a reverie. This is our spontaneous and favorite kind of thinking. We allow our ideas to take their own course and this course is determined by our hopes and fears, our spontaneous desires, their fulfillment or frustration; by our likes and dislikes, our loves and hates and resentments. There is nothing else anything like so interesting to ourselves as ourselves. All thought that is not more or less laboriously controlled and directed will inevitably circle about the beloved Ego. It is amusing and pathetic to observe this tendency in ourselves and in others. We learn politely and generously to overlook this truth, but if we dare to think of it, it blazes forth like the noontide sun.

 

We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told that we are wrong we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem, which is threatened. We are by nature stubbornly pledged to defend, our own from attack, whether it be our person, our family, our property, or our opinion. A United States Senator once remarked to a friend of mine that God Almighty could not make him change his mind on our Latin America policy. We may surrender, but rarely confess ourselves vanquished. In the intellectual world at least peace is without victory.

 

Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

 

Am I Thinking? – James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936)

 

http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/On-Various-Kinds-Of-Thinking-By-James-Harvey-Robinson.htm

Edited February 4, 2012 by Encephalon

[RiverSnake]

Many of my beliefs are based on my own personal experiences and wisdom that i have intuited from within. If my experiences of reality change then so will my own personal paradigm.

 

I think the problem comes about when our personal paradigms are based on very limited and fragmented experiences rather than the complete and wide ranging process we call life.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

Edited February 4, 2012 by OldGreen

[Aetherous]

Something I've been contemplating a lot lately...

 

A United States Senator once remarked to a friend of mine that God Almighty could not make him change his mind on our Latin America policy.

 

If human beings (who are all somewhat rational) can be so divided on certain issues, then it goes to show that holding to a certain viewpoint on those issues is only part of the picture. Having a strong opinion, which other people are capable of disagreeing with, is foolish...they disagree because there's another side to the story. Because your truth is only half of the truth. Just as they can be seen as completely wrong, so can you.

 

And I'm sure that you are.

 

People choose to disbelieve or ignore certain aspects of the whole enchilada, so that they can make easy decisions. So they can have a team to side with. So their view makes sense. Or for whatever other reason...but the point is that there's more to the world than our view of the world.

 

It's possible that great thinking can be cast aside by the herd...and that idiotic thinking can be elevated by the herd. Or vice versa. But the herd (or this forum) is made up of individuals. Individuals who can be either capable or incapable of juding "great" from "idiotic" due to their inability to see beyond their own views. And if they can't see beyond their own views, how can they even see themselves to determine whether they are capable of correctly judging anything?

 

It can be safe to assume: You are a fool. Your beliefs aren't fully true. And when you think someone else is wrong, that's the time when you are most wrong, and their opinion is most worthy of consideration.

 

Or maybe not.

[Encephalon]

I think this conversation can include beliefs that we construct from our inner experience, but I'd like to broaden it to include ideas that we build from external information as well, since arguing about subjective material is relatively futile.

 

Scotty, that escape hatch you built at the very end of your point - "Or maybe not" - seemed awfully convenient, did it not? I'm not sure I followed your dialogue completely but allow me another example.

 

There was an ex-army intelligence guy, "Bob," in our dept. when I was an undergrad. He wanted to learn GIS. One day I brought up the story of how the Clinton Administration was hungering for a means of retribution for the embassy bombings in Africa. They decided to fire 12 cruise missiles at the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, citing spurious intelligence that suggested it was a chemical weapons factory.

 

"Bob" insisted that the intelligence was sound, that he had seen it himself, and that the decision to destroy it was a legitimate one. His need to believe in the legitimacy of his nation's intelligence service and the work of his peers compelled him to accept his views (he struck me as an eminently thoughtful and bright young man, not your typical grunt).

 

The only problem was that the owner of the pharmaceutical plant, a wealthy Sudanese banker, did in fact run a medicine factory and successfully sued for compensation under the legal assistance of Vernon Jordan, a member of Bill Clinton's legal team. But Bob could not "hear" any piece of data that conflicted with the enormity of his worldview.

(At the time I was working as an intern with "PROJECT CENSORED," which included reading just about everything not cited by the American mainstream media, and I caught the story monitoring alternative radio. But I don't pretend that every American can come home from work and find the time to be a media analyst.)

 

I'm suggesting that what we often need in order to rectify our blind spots is beyond our scope, even when we feel secure in the validity of our erroneous views.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Encephalon

[Chang]

[Marblehead]

It has been my observation that nothing in the universe is static. Life itself is the process of change. So why do we think that our thoughts and beliefs should be static?

 

I have said at least once before that once we stop changing we are dead. I truely believe this.

 

(But then I will never deny my hard-headedness.)

[Nanashi]

[三江源]

 

I'm suggesting that what we often need in order to rectify our blind spots is beyond our scope, even when we feel secure in the validity of our erroneous views.

 

This is very much my experience. Being intellectually eviscerated, ie by conversation, confrontation on a logical left brain plain, is childsplay compared to truly have your inner structures deconstructed by practice.

[Protector]

AH! I get it, monkey mind, right?

[Birch]

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1589/754.full

[三江源]

That was an interesting piece, ~K~.

 

Conclusion being

 

However, when individuals hold some values to be sacred, they fail to make trade-offs, rendering positive or negative incentives ineffective at best. Our results suggest that individuals naturally retrieve sacred values as deontic rules, not as representations of utility, providing the first neurobiological evidence for what has been previously conjectured

 

did not know the term 'deontic' before!

 

thanks for that.

[RiverSnake]

Interesting video

 

[Rishi Das]

Interesting video

 

 

Thank you OldGreen. It is interesting, isn't it?

 

The other day I read somewhere that Sadhguru (Isha) started and finished aviation school in 4 days; justice isn't done unless I mention it takes the average avid learner at least 4 months to actually acquire the knowledge to complete aviation school. Just wanted to share, I thought that was pretty interesting too.

 

So anyways to keep this thread on topic, i'll just throw in my 2 cents.

 

How attached are you to the idea that your ideas are you?

Edited February 5, 2012 by don_vedo

[Aaron]

I used to practice freeform writing, in other words you just write and let the words come out as spontaneously as you can. I wrote one verse that totally astounded me, because at the time it was the exact opposite of what I believed, it went something like this-

 

In order to understand who you are,

you must first understand why you believe you are.

In believing you are there comes a great weight,

one in which you believe you must survive

and in believing you must survive

the you you believe you are

takes whatever means it believes necessary to survive.

When the you you are is threatened,

then it begins to seek control

yet it can never understand that there is no such thing.

It is best to let yourself go,

to dissolve yourself of you

than to control those who believe they are who they are,

for any control you might have over them

is merely an illusion.

They may do what you want,

but in the end it is only because they want to.

So in knowing this,

how can we worry what others think or do,

rather it is more important to understand what you think or do,

to understand who you is, what you is, and where you comes from.

In understanding this, you must give up the you that you believe exists

and become something that existed before you ever came along.

 

---------------------------

 

Anyways, I think it has something to do with this conversation. I'll leave it at that.

 

Aaron

[JustARandomPanda]

I am very attached to ideas. It's like crack. I'm practicing so that someday I might actually be able to go a whole day without jumping to conclusions, forming a judgment, opinion or whatever else of that nature.

 

 

 

Man it is not easy at all to do.

 

 

 

And to actually be Eviscerated? *sees red*

 

 

 

 

Ego...dontcha just love it?

 

 

[Vmarco]

I think this conversation can include beliefs that we construct from our inner experience, but I'd like to broaden it to include ideas that we build from external information as well, since arguing about subjective material is relatively futile.

 

 

What ideas from so-called inner experience are not built on external information? Why is arguing about subjective material futile?

 

Is not all subject-ive experience founded on conditions? For example, take the Bodhisattva viewpoint:

 

The Way of the Bodhisatva says, "Although they have no ultimate grounds for doing so, all beings think in terms of "I" and "mine." Because of this, they conceive of "other," fixing on it as something alien, although this too is unfounded. Aside from being merely mental imputations, "I" and "other" are totally unreal. They are both illusory. Moreover, when the nonexistence of "I" is realized, the notion of "other" also disappears, for the simple reason that the two terms are posited only in relation to each other. Just as it is impossible to cut the sky in two with a knife, likewise, when the spacelike quality of egolessness is realized, it is no longer possible to make a separation between "I" and "other," and there arises an attitude of wanting to protect others as oneself, and to protect all that belongs to them with the same care as if it were one's own."

Could we argue that any attachment to ideas,...whether inner (self) or outer (other) are inherently flawed? That any idea which arises from the six senses is false?

 

Although intuiton has certainly led me to deeper inquiries,...such as in the 80's researching if one could actually think in the Now. It is impossible! No one can think in the Now. Thought is always in the past. And thus why Buddha instructed that the sense organ of thought must be transcended.

 

V

Edited February 10, 2012 by Vmarco

[Marblehead]

Why is arguing about subjective material futile?

 

Because the subjective really doesn't matter. Only the objective really matters. Therefore: nothing matters but everything matters.

 

And luckily we cannot argue about the objective because it is what it is regardless of what anyone thinks about it.

[Vmarco]

Edited February 10, 2012 by Vmarco

[dwai]

[Marblehead]

From another observation, as pointed to in my post, if the subject-ive really doesn't matter, than the object-ive equally doesn't matter, and all that separative nonsense is transcended.

 

The object-ive should have already been let go of in this culture,...it has been over a hundred years since quantum physics rendered it an illusion.

 

Still living with your illusions and delusions, aren't you?

 

My ass is presently seated on my chair in front of my computer. My ass, my chair, and my computer are the objective. Quantum physics is subjective just as any other valuation of the objective is.

 

Please either stop pretending you don't exist or disappear. You cannot exist and still make as much noise as you are making.

 

And I will state again: The objective is the only true reality. How my senses recognize the objective is the only way I can relate with the objective, myself also being an objective thing in the universe.

 

The tree is still a tree no matter what anyone says it is. That is a fact.

 

Please pardon my thinking:

 

I wonder what life would be like if I took as a fact that Vmarco does not exist? I mean, afterall, from a quantum point of view there is no such thing as a Vmarco - just a bunch of strings and particles, possibly even jumping from one dimension to another.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Marblehead

[dwai]

Still living with your illusions and delusions, aren't you?

 

My ass is presently seated on my chair in front of my computer. My ass, my chair, and my computer are the objective. Quantum physics is subjective just as any other valuation of the objective is.

 

Please either stop pretending you don't exist or disappear. You cannot exist and still make as much noise as you are making.

 

And I will state again: The objective is the only true reality. How my senses recognize the objective is the only way I can relate with the objective, myself also being an objective thing in the universe.

 

The tree is still a tree no matter what anyone says it is. That is a fact.

 

Please pardon my thinking:

 

I wonder what life would be like if I took as a fact that Vmarco does not exist? I mean, afterall, from a quantum point of view there is no such thing as a Vmarco - just a bunch of strings and particles, possibly even jumping from one dimension to another.

 

It is impractical to reject the objective, but it is intellectually irresponsible to reject the subjective as well. Each has it's place and a normal (average) individual would be well advised to not conflate the two (or reject one over the other).

 

Object needs subject, without one there is not the other (dare I say "Dependently co-rising")

[Louie]

I have completely changed my entire world view at least twice in the past year so I guess that means that I am not too attached my ideas about life. There were several ideas that I dismissed as garbage the first time that I encountered them, and then later adopted into my personal beliefs. The first time that I saw these ideas I was not ready for them. They challenged what I held to be true. These ideas could not co-exist with my world view at that time, so I had to dismiss them. A few months later my world view had shifted enough that these same ideas could be incorporated without so much internal conflict.

 

As for other people attacking my ideas, it does not bother me. No two people have the same truth. Even in close knit spiritual communities, no two people will agree completely on what the truth is. I am willing to hear other people out and I may even decide that some of their ideas are better than mine. My world view is a work in progress and I assume that it will always be that way.

 

These days I am trying to stay open minded and remember that new wisdom can come from anywhere. It can come from a song on the radio, from a child, from a person that I do not even like. My soul will use any medium available to communicate truth to me. Somtimes it will communicate with me through a harsh critique from someone else. So be it. Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of how it was delivered.

[Vmarco]

[Vmarco]

 

As for other people attacking my ideas, it does not bother me. No two people have the same truth. Even in close knit spiritual communities, no two people will agree completely on what the truth is. I am willing to hear other people out and I may even decide that some of their ideas are better than mine. My world view is a work in progress and I assume that it will always be that way.

 

Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of how it was delivered.

 

Real truth cannot be different between two people. Personal or relative truth is always different. A key is to uncover an absolute truth,...for example, there is no Present in time. Then, even in a close-knit spiritual community, the dialogue is pivoted from the absolute truth, and not presonal or relative truth.

 

"Relative and absolute,

These the two truths are declared to be.

The absolute is not within the reach of intellect,

For the intellect is grounded in the relative."

Shantideva 9.2

 

ps,...be careful about wisdom,... It literally means knowledge accumulated through philosophic or scientific learning. In other words, wisdom points to the highest and most lofty ideas of ego consciousness, whose sole purpose is to sustain itself.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Vmarco

[Marblehead]

And in the dream you had last night, ...

 

I did not dream last night because I am at peace with my Self. And I woke with no worries. I later pulled weeds from one of my gardens. And my life continues very contentedly without any guidance from Vmarco. Just like majic!