I've been very busy lately reading, mostly in the areas of ethology and sociobiology, transactional psychology, and physics. Usually when I read, I spend the rest of my day thinking. This drives Mrs. Sauron up the wall as I wander through the house, pointlessly pacing and deep in thought. The kids love it because they can ask for anything and I'll generally give them an automatic "yes", a defense against intrusion while I'm deep in thought.

"Dad, can I go to Melissa's party this Friday?"

"Hmmm, huh? Oh, yeah."

"Really? Can I stay overnight?"

"Sure. Now go do something, I'm busy."

"Thanks Dad!"

Children will victimize you with drive-by requests if you let yourself get too deep into thought.

But as to what I've been thinking about, mostly it's the fact that most people spend the majority of their time living from their first or second neurocircuits, i.e. the first or oral bio-survival circuit or the second, the anal territorial-emotional circuit. We share these circuits with animals, and if you watch people, most of what they do or say stays well within the bounds of fundamental primate behavior and animal behavior in general. Watch what happens if someone at work disagrees with the boss. The boss will respond from the second neurocircuit, while the errant employee, if he wants to keep his job, will respond from the first neurocircuit. These circuits are automatic, making most people like robots most of the time. We're given the gift of humanity and we throw it away.

Very few people spend a lot of time in the third neurocircuit, the time-binding semantic-rational circuit, or the fourth, the moral socio-sexual circuit, the two of which are the basis of our humanity. Fewer still can even find, much less operate from, neurocircuits five through eight.

So if you watch closely, you'll find that for the most part, you're living on the Planet of the Apes. And unless a major portion of the human race were to be re-imprinted, you're likely to remain living on the Planet of the Apes. Most people are nothing more than domesticated primates.

Most religion operates from the second neurocircuit and sucks you in by appealing to your first neurocircuit. That's why I avoid religion. This is not to say that you can't learn anything from religion, all religions contain at least some value, particularly for those to whom they were addressed, but you'd be hard pressed to find a member of the clergy who would be willing or able to tell you much about what sort of ideas were really being transmitted. In the case of Christianity, they threw most of the baby out with the bath water at the various canonical councils down through history. Luckily, they didn't get the entire baby, but they got enough so as to cause most people who read it to not have a clue, and they condemned as heretics the people who hung on to the original message.

Take, for example, the statement in the New Testament, since everyone in our context is more or less familiar with it, that "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Well, that being the case, where do you suppose Hell is? Heaven and Hell are two sides of one dichotomy. Ergo, Hell must reside within you. Do you know anyone who resides in Hell? People put themselves there. And having free will, they can certainly take themselves out, just as they can find Heaven within if they look. But most won't take themselves out. Most can't find Heaven within, and don't realize that they've found Hell and are living there when it isn't really necessary. But people judge themselves.

Or how about "the narrow gate"? Any ideas what that is? "For straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto salvation, and few there be that find it. But broad is the way and easy is the path that leadeth unto destruction." How's that for an appeal to your first neurocircuit? Something like that is bound to have people polishing the pews with the seat of their pants next Sunday.

But the answer to it is simple. Man is immersed in the illusion of time. Most people spend their days listening to their ego as it chatters away like a demented monkey, keeping up a continuous, ego-sustaining internal monologue. The monologue is inevitably about the past or the future. Very rarely does your brain, which is the local transmitter/receiver, address the present. And the only time that really exists is the present. That's the only time that has ever existed. You will find it impossible to be in contact with your actual mind, which is non-local, except for fleeting moments, if you dwell in the past or future and don't bother to shut off your incessant internal monologue, the drivel that the brain spews.

So the narrow gate is the present and living in the present. "Give no thought therefore to the things of tomorrow, the morrow will take care of the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Live in the present. The present is the narrow gate. The broad gate is the past/future, which is infinite in either direction. This idea pervades virtually all of man's religions. And most people waste their lives dwelling on the past or anticipating the future. They're never really present for long, if at all.

Think about it. If you examine the ten commandments, would it not be difficult or maybe even impossible to violate any of them without allowing your brain to first wander into the past or the future? Remember the last time you were worried or angry? Were you living in the past, present, or future when those emotions overtook you?

The Buddha said that this world is suffering. But we do have a choice. You can let go of it. We can try living in the present, and operating from the third, fourth, or better still, the fifth through the eighth neurocircuits, and do our best to stay out of circuits one and two. And we can bear in mind that according to the most successful scientific theory in human history, quantum mechanics, upon which most of our economy is based, we live in an observer-created universe. Will you live in Heaven or Hell? What sort of universe are you creating for yourself with your thoughts? Do you ever try to shut off that internal monologue?

If you want to delve deeper into this, read Robert Anton Wilson's "Prometheus Rising" and follow it with his "Quantum Psychology". Both are worth a read and lay things out pretty well without having to delve into daunting tomes on ethology, sociobiology, transactional psychology, and physics.

Cheers!

Rick...

Mystery spread it's cloak
Across the sky
We'd lost our way
Shadows fell from trees
They knew why..



Much of this reminds one of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha...

The second or anal territorial-emotional neurocircuit governs things such as patriotism, team loyalty, human "pecking order", and so on.

Here we have an example of how smart the majority of people really are. You are wandering in a world of automated robots so stupid that they'll give you a savage beating for daring to cheer for a team other than the one to whom they give their loyalty. The majority of people operate at about the same level of intellect as other primates, i.e. macaques, spider monkeys, capuchins, vervets, et al.

This is what the "let's save the world" crusaders fail to comprehend. While they may be dripping with altruistic ambition, the people whose cooperation and assistance they're trying to recruit are dumber than a fence post.

Cheers!

Rick...

Facinating as always Sauron

Not to bring it up again but have you revised your thoughts after reading this on our conversation about the righteous kills of the Rare Animals that escaped?

Rare Animal > 7 Billion Humans

As far as "Shoot first for safety"? I mean why save us lamos? At least animals don't have wasted possibility. :P

No need to revise.

Animals will always be limited to basically two neurocircuits until evolution takes place that brings them circuit three. The only creatures besides man which have a higher brain and therefore probably possess neurocircuits beyond one and two are cetaceans. But they lack opposable digits and are limited to the aquatic environment so they probably won't be interacting with us much until evolution resolves those deficits.

Seen from the cetacean side of things, humans lack fins and the ability to hold our breath for very long, limiting us to terra firma for the most part, so we probably won't be interacting much with them until evolution fixes us.

On the other hand, humans can potentially access eight neurocircuits, some of the higher ones being extremely weird as well as very funny. They have six more circuits worth of potential. And not all humans are imbeciles who beat fans of opposing sports teams. Some humans are worth knowing.

There seems to be a very high percentage of people here on SimHQ who operate above the first two circuits, which is why I've been here since the start of the millennium and keep coming back. I've been to a lot of other forums, but can't get interested. If you want to discuss the really weird stuff, you have to hang around SimHQ. This forum has people who will understand it and actually be interested.

Personally, I'm against killing anything if it can be avoided. I carry bugs out of the house instead of squashing them. I think it's some sort of visceral reaction to my military career. But the bottom line is, animals have two circuits (except cetaceans), humans eight or more. With six more neurocircuits of potential, the smart money says shoot the animals, save the humans. Some of them may be nothing more than domesticated primates, others will no doubt spend their lives stuck in an endless loop of Aristotlean logic, but others might be worth having around.

Cheers!

Rick...

The circuit stuff is all BS. You do have a great many inherited base behaviors (brain stem and mid brain/limbic) but they do not total the human experience.

Ah, but the neurocircuit model isn't only about inherited traits. It's also about imprinting, conditioning, learning, and other things.

And you have to add a lot to the model, from ethology, sociobiology, et al.

Besides, how could anything Timothy Leary came up with be BS? Stop decelerating human evolution by operating from your fourth neurocircuit or we'll make you become a clergyman.

Cheers!

Rick...

Yeah, don't kill the animals...they're busing building hospitals, composing symphonies, etc etc etc.


Here's what I want to know...if dancing is a metaphor for sex, is Gene Kelly the poster boy for masturbation?

I think most of us here know the situation with the sheeple factor , the thing.. is what are going to do about it

One amusing thing is knowing how certain people will react to a situation or event and then creating that event and watching it play out. Other times just random acts that puts someone in a situation were they clearly do not know how to respond and retreat. Mad ? me?..maybe it is a madness but then i can act like a normal person anytime i want to fit into what is clearly expected in the day to day drudgery of the standard work/social life.Of course life is not all standard and boring and does have its great highlights but egads..if there is a new way..i'll be the first in line.

I had a conversation with a lady on new years night, she tells me i should contact my sister and patch things up.I wont go into all the details but i am quite happy with the distance me and her now have. I asked this lady why? Why should i contact her? She says ..because she is your sister. I say.. so? why because we are bonded by blood and have come from the same mother that means i should make a bigger effort ? Because she is family you automatically forgive forget everytime, am i not allowed to say enough is enough and i can do no more? ? She was like yes, yes you do. I told her my new perspective was that their is billions of people in this world, tell me why this one is more important and why i should continue banging on for another twenty or thirty or forty years in the relationship instead of looking around at the many other offers of friendship the world offers.Family was the answer. Not good enough say i, maybe for you to continue being shat on from a great height and putting up with it , i simply refuse that now, family or not. She had absolutely no understanding of what i was saying.

In the extended and long drawn out conversation we had there was many times when before i even said what i was going to say i knew what her answers would be, it was like talking to a robot that could not think for itself.I was not trying to press her into my view or accept it, but even talking extremely basically and breaking it down as simply as i could ,just try to make her understand.. not a chance.