Friday 6 November 2020

We can't observe our think-ing - but should observe our thoughts


A mistake I have made is to try and (introspectively) observe my thinking. But this is not possible - at least not when the thinking is being done by the real or true self. 

The reason that it is impossible is that the real self has agency, free will: is a free agent. The thinking of the real self is the bottom-line. 

Being a free agent entails that the thinking happens creatively, generatively, originally - as an expression of the real self. Negatively put - the thinking of the real self is irreducible, un-analyzable, hence un-observable. 

 

If we consider a model of the real self, we could imagine something like an egg, from which thoughts are radiated in all directions. We can - and indeed should strive to - observe the thoughts as they emerge from the surface of the egg; but we cannot see inside the egg. 

Our consciousness is outside the egg, observing the outside of the egg, and the radiating thoughts arising at the egg's surface. 

It is as if the true-self egg was indestructible and its surface was impenetrable. What happens inside it can never be known - it is primarily creative. The egg creates by spontaneous generation, it creates thoughts from nothing. 

The egg is, indeed a mini-god! 

Yet the true self egg is sensitive. The egg can know directly what occurs in the medium of thinking, in the medium-between real selves (the medium in-which real selves exist), in the 'collective consciousness'. The egg senses - but its output of thoughts is not constrained by its input of thinking. 

 

A remarkable egg indeed! Each true-self-egg is, as I said, a god - capable of its own creating, albeit the creations will be ephemeral in this mortal world, which is ruled by entropy. But also capable (in principle) of becoming part of Heaven (where there is no entropy); and of participating with God in the work of eternal creation. 


Furthermore, any thinking of which we Are conscious is Not the thinking of the real self. It is merely superficial and secondary 'mental processing'. It is thinking that is not genuinely creative, but merely manipulative; taking inputs and deploying selection, combination, transformation of these inputs into outputs. 

Observable thinking is not divine but merely human. Observable thinking is materialistic; maybe thinking at an analogous level to computer processing.   

 

Anyway, this metaphor of the egg is meant to provide a way of thinking about thinking, and a way to graps how we should be conscious of our thoughts, but cannot be conscious of our thinking. 


Note: the real self is not actually solid, like an egg; but is a spiritual entity. However, I personally can't think about spiritual entities without things getting too abstract to be of any use; which is why I have fallen back on this indestructible, impenetrable egg.  

2 comments:

David Earle said...

I thoroughly enjoy these sort of posts. Thanks

Bruce Charlton said...

@Islanti - Glad to be of service!