What I mean by this is that the interpretation is the response to some sensory stimulus but the interpretation can add (hallucinations) or subtract (ignore) portions of the stimulus.
Alan Watts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts) mentioned in one of his talks that ignorance in this case would not mean "not knowing" but rather choosing to ignore. In my searching for the book which I thought had a blue cover the signal of the red book was completely ignored because it did not match some preconceived conception of what the book looked like.
In addition as we go through life we are constantly adding to preconceived library which color the interpretation of stimulus which in turn flavors what we experience. To me this means that the character of the experience is largely tied to the interpretation.
This line of thinking lead me to the problems with the assignment of causes. We define causes as the origin of some thing. But I started to see a cause as a composite of conditions. But the conditions seemed to be a function of my awareness (what I noticed at the time) which was corrupted by my biased multiple internal mental processes (Multiple Drafts). For example, lightning hits a granite rock where dried vegetation has accumulated and ignites the vegetation. Then, the vegetation is blown about by a strong wind into the trees and a forest fire results.
We have the conditions of accumulate dried vegetation, a lightning strike, strong winds and the proximity of trees. These are the conditions that we have selected.
So what is the cause? If lightning had struck the bare rock -- probably no fire. No strong wind -- dried vegetation burns itself out on the bare rock, no fire. But what about if it had rained recently? Did a exceptionally dry summer cause the accumulation of dried vegetation and put the trees in a state where they were ripe to ignite? And there may be other conditions that are either being ignored or outside the "spot light" of our limited awareness.
This example makes the assignment of a condition completely subjective and arbitrary. The cause does not seem to exist in itself but seems to be a composite of conditions. And conditions are a limited subset selected and added to by multiple internal mental processes.
In addition, we have internally a competition by all of the multiple drafts to shift or move the spot of the flashlight exclusively on themselves. And it seems the winner tends to be the multiple draft analysis that has the highest emotional content. That is the one that stimulates the most fear, anger, love, etc...
Moreover, conditions are removed (ignored) or added (hallucinations) that would impeded the awareness from taking immediate action. Not only do we only notice a small subset of all conditions we remove some and add others.
This no doubt had some evolutionary survival advantage when conditions were such that short term thinking had an advantage. For example, running away from a predatory threat is an immediate necessity with tremendous short term consequences. In this case, there is a decided disadvantage to the individual that stops to consider the long term consequences before taking action. So under these conditions, short term reactionary thinking is a matter of survival. However, when the conditions change, as they have, long term thinking becomes an advantage since the consequences of short term thinking may jeopardize the long term survival of the species.
Futhermore, I have found in my behavior that I chose my reactionary course of action and then rationalie my choice. Although my reactions may be solely based on emotional content I am quite capable of cobbling up a rational argument for why I chose to do what I did. Rather than reasoning directing my actions it becomes a spin doctor for my irrational behaviors. Reason becomes the public relations manager for my nutty behavior.
What is really sad is that I will spin such a good story that, at least superficially, I may actually believe it myself. But always in the background, there are these nagging feelings that will not go away. And in most cases, I have to work very hard at ignoring them. Until of course they become impossible to ignore. And what is pathetic about this is that at this point I realize that those feeling I had were there at the very beginning trying to warm me.
This seems to explain a lot about how issues are perceived by various groups. Those to the left,as an example, intentionally or unintentionally select a subset of "observed" conditions and assign a cause. Those conditions that do not fit into the ideology are discarded, flavored or trimmed to fit. Similarly those on the right do the same. Sadly, I can not say that I am immune. We all do it!
Moreover, we select courses of actions based on our limited awareness of conditions even though they have made us unhappy in the past. Compulsive spending, in one bad relationship after another, eating and drinking too much... behaviors and actions that we seem to follow like programmed machines. And the sources that contribute to the programming are social conditioning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conditioning) and indoctrination. Further, we seem to add our own self conditioning to the system. A lot of the time we act like robots -- myself included.
Fortunately, as I continued meditating several things happened. First, I started examining past actions that resulted in less than desirable consequences in the "Why the Hell did I do that?" frame of mind. It was always the case, prior to initiating the action, that I could definitely remember some "feeling" that this action was not going to result in desirable consequences. And I could also remember choosing to ignore the feeling. I did the same for warnings from friends and family with a resolution to prove them wrong. What happened I proved them right and had the additional consequence of feeling foolish. I did this more than once, in fact, so many times that I can't remember.
And I do not think I am alone in this behavior. I have met people that have graduated from college, earned post-graduate degrees, found a job, married and had kids admit that they did not know what they wanted to do in life. I can only wonder what motivated them if not some kind of conditioning or mental programming.
I now hope to develop a strategy of living skillfully. I will try and embrace those feelings and experiences that I previously chose to ignore. In addition, I hope to expand my awareness to include more guidance from unknown sources. I think meditation is the best way to do this.
I don't have a definite path that I am following on these blogs. I write the blog and let the inspiration come for the next one.
So far, these blogs have stuck to the straight and narrow of interpretation in that hallucinations and such I attributed to my becoming aware of some before unnoticed neural signal. Whatever I experience -- real or otherwise -- I attributed to the interpretation of these neural signals.
And to be honest, I wish I could stay there since it is easier to explain and is in line with my training as a scientist. But as my awareness expanded, I became aware of more subtle neural signals. Unfortunately, although theoretical physicist think that we are aware of less that 5% of the universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe) and there is the problem of quantum entanglement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement) scientist seem to want to ignore some phenomena that can not be directly measured.
I can not blame them though. Can you imagine writing a paper or thesis with the incorporation of "feelings". I get the "feeling" it would not be taken seriously. But we see effects and phenomena we can not explain or measure. And I think we can not ignore them much longer. I will write about my perspective of this issue in the "Schism In Science" next blog.
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