naive realism and reality tunnels

[silent thunder]

Robert Anton Wilson and his concept of reality tunnels is fascinating. By age seven (roughly), our world view has been solidified by the stories and actions of our parents, reinforced by our cultural dogma. Once this tunnel has been created, it is rarely ever changed. We will perceive everything in our world through this tunnel.

Anything that we encounter after this that contradicts our view of reality is either attacked or ignored outright. Anything that supports our tunnel is held up for all to see as 'proof' we are right.

All perception is based on gambles... we operate on two false premises.
A: that we perceive the world accurately
B: that we interpret what we perceive correctly

What I perceive is reality... this is naive realism

Most are never even aware, that they are making interpretations at all, so remain unaware of the process. This can be observed again and again in any discussion between a theist and an atheist here on the board.

I get a lot of mileage from e-prime language adjustments. Our thinking so shapes our experience of reality and words are the basis of most thought, through thought-forms/word/symbols and our very personal definitions of them, we define our world based on our tunnel and anything outside this tunnel becomes 'crazy or stupid or both'.

Fascinating stuff... If I had a time machine, I'd roll a couple of big fatties, grab a few bottles of wine and head straight for RAW's house... followed quickly by a stop at Alan Watt's place.

here's a quick 7 minutes of RAW discussing this...

[Anoesjka]

RAW wasn't the only one to touch upon those things, Timothy Leary did so to. Expansion of our limited awareness at different ages are initiations and can be linked to certain chakras.

[Marblehead]

All tunnels have two openings; the one you were dropped into and the other is the one you can escape through if you run fast enough. But if you are using drugs all you will do is stumble all over yourself.

[silent thunder]

I may have found an exit to my birth tunnel around the age of 13-15, coinciding with reading the bible for myself and realizing there was some serious dissonance going on in my perception of reality, reality itself and what I'd been sold by culture and family.

 

More realistically, I didn't undergo any real change, I just realized that my tunnel had been different from my parents' and that of my culture all along and I was just playing along before that...

[silent thunder]

RAW wasn't the only one to touch upon those things, Timothy Leary did so to. Expansion of our limited awareness at different ages are initiations and can be linked to certain chakras.

Thanks for bringing up Leary... He actually came up with the tunnel analogy first, RAW adopted it and ran far and wide to good effect.

 

I was just wondering who it was that inspired RAW and bam, you come through! Thanks!

[silent thunder]

All tunnels have two openings; the one you were dropped into and the other is the one you can escape through if you run fast enough. But if you are using drugs all you will do is stumble all over yourself.

Or it gets turned flipped 90 degrees and we drop out into....

 

As to the drugs getting in the way, that really doesn't fit with my experience. It does depend on the affects of said plants, substances. However, I think we have far too limited a list of what drugs are...

 

I am finding it harder to discern anything that affects me (body mind and emotions), as not a drug. The 'highest' and most intense body high I've ever experienced, was during and after pranayama breathing. It was way beyond any of my LSD or Mescaline experiences. It was about on par with my experience of psilocybins.

 

For me, the crux is not in the substances, nor the thoughts, but in my reaction to the affect life has on me, based on my reality tunnel (perception), to use RAW's and my attachment or aversion to that which I consider beneficial, or harmful.

 

Some things we consider harmful and beneficial because of results in cause and effect that we can repeat and observe. I reach into fire and owie.

 

Others, have no apparent of observable affect of harm or benefit, yet I am prone to placing a value judgment on it, based on what I consider normal because of where I was born and how I was raised... this is the area I find so fascinating and where I think RAW is at his best in describing the benefits of using e-prime in our writing and speech.

[ralis]

Thanks for bringing up RAW. I read 'Right Where You Are Sitting Now' 24 years ago and it blew my mind in an unexpected, profound way.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PjHWAXnrn0

Edited August 8, 2014 by ralis

[ralis]

Thanks for bringing up Leary... He actually came up with the tunnel analogy first, RAW adopted it and ran far and wide to good effect.

 

I was just wondering who it was that inspired RAW and bam, you come through! Thanks!

 

 

Aleister Crowley, James Joyce and Korzybski all were influential on RAW. In fact, RAW wrote an entire book without using 'is' which takes the form of 'to be'. 'Quantum Psychology', if I remember correctly.

Edited August 8, 2014 by ralis

[silent thunder]

I wish I'd come across him 24 years ago! Man I could have skipped some serious self induced bullshit...

[ralis]

I wish I'd come across him 24 years ago! Man I could have skipped some serious self induced bullshit...

 

His writing helped me to jettison a lot of religious belief systems BS that kept me frozen. Another term he used which he picked up from Leary was 'socialized primates'. Describes much in terms of how humans in general remain unevolved.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I think I first read Wilson in the a Gnostica magazine article about Leary's eight brain circuits in the early 1970s. I had already read too much of better literature for him to ever be much of an influence on me and I view him as primarily a popularzer.

In my late teens I started viewing reality as a timeline in hyperspace unified by consciousness, that I suppose was my version of 'reality tunnels'. I owed it mostly to Ouspensky's Tertium Organum and a basic understanding of special relativity.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I think I first read Wilson in the a Gnostica magazine article about Leary's eight brain circuits in the early 1970s. I had already read too much of better literature for him to ever be much of an influence on me and I view him as primarily a popularzer.

 

In my late teens I started viewing reality as a timeline in hyperspace unified by consciousness, that I suppose was my version of 'reality tunnels'. I owed it mostly to Ouspensky's Tertium Organum and a basic understanding of special relativity.

 

Now that I think about it, George Gamow's One Two Three . . . Infinity, probably helped too.

[silent thunder]

So glad I posted this... you've all just added some outstanding candy for me to go pick out at my favorite used book store.

[Wells]

.

Edited October 28, 2014 by ZOOM

[Zhongyongdaoist]

If you would like a really interesting read try:

 

Physics in Mind, Werner R. Lowenstein

 

Two separate links above by the way. Here you can read about information arrows, quantum sensation and about how Maxwell's demon found work designing quantum molecules, that cleverly exploit the relationship between entropy and information, which Lowenstein calls 'Demon Molecules'. I always knew there was a place for him somewhere in quantumville.

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: Corrected spelling of molecules and added phrase about entropy and information.

Edited August 10, 2014 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Nungali]

Thanks for bringing up Leary... He actually came up with the tunnel analogy first, RAW adopted it and ran far and wide to good effect.

 

I was just wondering who it was that inspired RAW and bam, you come through! Thanks!

 

More importantly, I feel, is Wilson's work (also) extending Leary and Lily's work on Exo-psychology, which explores the hard wiring of potential 'tunnel realties', their formations and possible re-formations (so you dont have to be stuck in any one).

 

That is ... what to do about it.

 

[ Exo-psychology was instrumental in curing some hard core criminals when it was introduced briefly into one of the prisons they were working in .... and this wasnt just taking drugs ... there are specific 'clinical 'things that need to be addressed during the experience - however that all got shut down, as most psycho-active treatments have been ... including Leary being locked up in maximum security isolation for being found with (official charge) 3 joints. ]

 

I have 2 books by Wilson on the subject of tunnel realities ( cant remember their names - in storage now). For a form of that in a novel I found his 'Masks of the Illuminati' interesting and amusing (especially the part where the stories 'hero' meets in bar James Joyce, Albert Einstein (who is offered a beer with the phrase ' Ein stein Einstein ?' ) and Aliester Crowley and they all have an acid trip together

[Nungali]

I am finding it harder to discern anything that affects me (body mind and emotions), as not a drug. The 'highest' and most intense body high I've ever experienced, was during and after pranayama breathing. It was way beyond any of my LSD or Mescaline experiences. It was about on par with my experience of psilocybins.

 

Oh. you should really read up on Exo-psychology if you haven't - the above quote has a direct correlation to it.

[Nungali]

His writing helped me to jettison a lot of religious belief systems BS that kept me frozen. Another term he used which he picked up from Leary was 'socialized primates'. Describes much in terms of how humans in general remain unevolved.

 

And the wonderful 'mammalian politics'.

 

Its the 'lower circuits' that remain unevolved, we are supposed to activate and programme the higher 'yet to be programmed' circuits, then they can modify or over rule the lower ones.

 

The lower ones get programmed during our growth towards individuation , the higher ones, supposedly after. The lowest ones come pre-programmed and many animals have them as well as mammals.

[ralis]

And the wonderful 'mammalian politics'.

 

Its the 'lower circuits' that remain unevolved, we are supposed to activate and programme the higher 'yet to be programmed' circuits, then they can modify or over rule the lower ones.

 

The lower ones get programmed during our growth towards individuation , the higher ones, supposedly after. The lowest ones come pre-programmed and many animals have them as well as mammals.

 

In general, I don't see much programming of the higher circuits.

[Nungali]

Solitary confinement in a maximum security prison might help squash any interest in that ?

 

I think it was Wilson that wrote about how concerned friends were about the effect that would have on Leary. They went to meet him when he was released and were amazed at how good positive and radiant he seemed.

 

Apparently he used the isolation as an opportunity to go into some deeep meditation.

 

Abdul Baha seemed to have a good take on that process ;

 

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/ABL/abl-71.html

[silent thunder]

“If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on.” McKenna

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life

 

So many aspects of life can open up our consciousness and give a glimpse beyond our tunnels.

The most effective I've experienced is breath work.