Deepermind

Deepermind Philosophy 2/18/2019

by -George Norwood

Finding a More Optimized Life

There are so many philosophies on how to achieve a better life. Some believe in simply finding pleasure, others put their entire faith in a particular religion. Some make science their religion, believing that science alone has all the answers.

Sorry to say, that all philosophies and belief systems have their attributes, and their harmful effects. Some harmful e ffects really hurt people.

So what can we do? The answer is difficult, but truly worth it: build your own theology. Take a little of this and that, stand back a seek the truth and make it flow together

The way I did it, for myself, is to investigate everything I could. It joined many religions, studied science and in doing so found out what works for me. One of the best tools once one has enough knowledge and experience is meditation.

Meditation

Meditation is simple. You learn how to control your thoughts and relax. Our minds are like boiling water, bubbles of thoughts keep coming.

To train the mind to stop continuous thinking forces it to raise the bar of how good the thought might be. This is the opposite effect of using marijuana. With marijuana use the bar is lowered and ordinary experiences become enhanced. Dirt on a wall might seem beautiful artwork under its influence.

Meditation can reduce stress, enhance clarity and promote deeper happiness. Even a few minutes every day can make truly a huge difference. By witnessing our thoughts we can step out of our personal melodrama.

If a thought occurs we can watch it fad away like a cloud passing overhead. It is very difficult to force a thought to stop. If we hear of a pink elephant, it is hard to stop thinking about it.

Instead we can distract the thought with something else. We can only think about one thing at a time. Just as a child can be distracted, we can distract the thought.

For example, we can watch our breath, chant a special word, or enjoy the silence.

In Additional to Meditation

Meditation is a tool, and being a mind tool it is not a end in itself. There is more. What we are dealing with is our awareness, our being, our personal goals and beliefs. Using meditation we can understand ourselves, and stand back and see how we can sort out who we are and all though thoughts. This is a tall order.

Most of our own personal beliefs and not shared by others unless we are in a group that attracts people of similar beliefs. For example, if we visit a particular house of religion, we will find that they are followers of some authority.

Question Authority

Imagine how religions begin. Some people decide that certain things are sacred and holy. Certain things and thoughts are better than others. Yet in another culture, the selection can be very different.

Scienceism

Science can be a source of knowledge on how things work. It has been essential of all our modern gadgets. Yet real science admits that it does not know everything and never will.

For example, most neuroscientists will maintain that we are a simple product of our brains. We have 80 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses hooked together something like how modern computers are connected together of the internet.

Yet most people know they are not brains, but humans with a name, experiencing life, and not some mechanical machine.

Hierarchies in the Brain

There must be hierarchies in the brain, as if there were no controls and organization, the parts of the brain would fight together and a person would be torn in millions of directions.

But instead, most people only have one thought at a time. So the model that the neuroscientists is basically flawed. The best people have brains that do not have major conflicts. Our brains need an internal government so that it works together.

It has been found that as many as 80% of the brain cells die before we reach our twenties. If this is the case, the older and wiser we get, the simpler our brain becomes. It is a matter of weeding out as well as new brain connections.

Asides from science and beliefs is love and truth. At the higher levels of the brain in a good person we find a search for truth, based on love goes a long way in having an optimal life.

Valuable Postulates of Life

In geometry, a postulate is a statement that is assumed true without proof. By assuming certain postulates are true, we can generate theorems that are the results of postulates.

My postulates of life I call "Ideas."

The first Idea is: One should always treat everyone with kindness and love.

Is there anything better than the truth?

If you blurt out the truth you can do damage. Under certain conditions you could cause great harm by telling the truth. For example, you should lie to a person with a gun with intent to do harm.

What is better than truth is kindness and love.

So the second Idea is: Always be truthful, knowing we have the option to be silent.

But under normal circumstances it is best to be truthful. In this way we can be closer to the truth, and not create a make-believe world.

Dealing with Delusional People

There are some people that have strong belief systems. For example, people that believe in the Bible as the word of God may be your next door neighbor.

So how can you work with them without upsetting them.

One way is to say through your filters I believe in the Bible etc. This means to say I am also full of peace and love.

Of course, the Bible has conflicts, is X rated in parts, and promotes the idea that women are not as good as men and that that slavery is acceptable and so on. Atheist web sites have much to say about this. But the Bible is a cornerstone of western civilization, and solace to millions of people.

So an atheist might do harm in condemning what brings peace and happiness to so many people. Naked truth (you opinion of it) could cause great harm and often has no direction. Love has purpose and produces excellent effects.

So the third Idea therefore is: Love gives truth, direction and purpose.

The next idea is: In the material world, scientific method is our source of truth.

By careful observation of the material world, it has been found that the way things move can be described in simple mathematical equations.

Our ideas that are not of the material world cannot be described in mathematical equations, but though life experience.

Thus the fifth Idea is: Our beliefs are our personal truths developed through experience and contemplation.***

Science has showed us that our brains are made up of about 86 billion neurons. These neurons are somewhat independent, analyzing hundred, to many thousands of inputs from other neurons.

But we are more than a mechanical system of brain cells. These brain cells need prospective and purpose so that they can do their jobs. The brain has some type of overall government. This overall government has not been observed, but without it we would not be sane.

We also have consciousness, a feeling of being alive. We work our brain to serve us and what we believe... our purposes in life. What is this "we"? I call it an old fashion word "the soul".

The sixth Idea is: Beyond matter, energy, time and space, people have souls and souls enable consciousness.

In science we find the idea that everything in the material world is made up of atomic particles. For example, the brain is made up of these particles, which build up atoms and molecules. The molecules build up brain tissue.

But atomic particles have no feelings; no consciousness. Have you ever heard of an atomic particle that was happy or sad? Is there a particle out there that has feelings or consciousness? But everyone has feelings and consciousness. Hey something is missing.

Consciousness has been called the crack in the cosmic (scientific) egg.

Since consciousness exists, there must be a mechanism causing it. I will define this as the soul. The soul allows us to experience life. It is the mechanism that allows consciousness. Without a soul there could be no science as there would be no consciousness.

How the brain interfaces with the soul and consciousness no one understands. But it does.

The seventh Idea is: The brain and the soul work in hand in hand. What we do and think is reflected in both the soul and the brain.

The reason for the Idea above, is we can see the brain causing us to (1) lose consciousness, and (2) we can also lose consciousness through the soul.

(1) If the brain is physically damaged we can lose consciousness. A head injury can knock us out.

(2)If the soul is damaged we can lose the will to live. A sick soul can cause us to be depressed or cause other mental health problems.

When we sleep, both the brain and the soul seem to go into repair mode. During sleep we dream in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep.

During non-REM sleep, perhaps the brain slows down and almost stops, but the soul remains, keeping us alive.

The eight Idea is: The brain has 100 trillion brain cells and something needs to manage all these cells.

In addition to producing consciousness, the soul may be responsible to the organization of how different parts of ourselves work together. It may be the central organizing factor that help produce an overall government of these 100 trillion brain cells.

Without an organizing factor the brain would immediately fail. There would be no overall purpose. Different departments of the brain would fight. Barriers would be created making some departments walled off from others. Wars between departments would be common. People would have many personalities and the left hand might beat on the body while the right hand would try to stop the left hand.

There has to be something that is the head of all these cells. With this many brain cells, something has to keep all the cells to work together and not fight (conflicts within the mind) or isolate themselves (multiple personalities).

There must be a government of the mind to keep it working together. Otherwise some lower departments who only know one aspect of life would try to take over the brain. We see this in deviant people who only think about drugs or sex.

The ninth Idea is: There must be brain cells who are top managers in the government of the brain. These top brain cells must have simple basic standards to govern the brain.

In any government there is a president, CEO or top manager and so there must be top brain cells. These top brain cells must have a reference or set goals.

For any complex system there must be a loop between what is being done and the controls for the operation. There must be a reference that sets the standards.

A car on cruise control, has a reference speed. If the car senses it is going too fast, it will reduce the gas flow to the engine. If the car sense it is going too slow it will increase the gas flow to the engine.

Brain cells lets us know if we need water by telling us that we are thirsty. Somehow the amount of liquid in the body is measured.

In a similar way, the top brain cells need to measure the progress of the person. The top brain cells reference a standard of what is good and what is bad. This is our basic belief system. If this is taken away, we become aimless.

Each brain cell in the brain has a support network. The top brain cells are remote from the day to day activities of complex activities that occur in everyone's life. Exactly how to we wash the dishes. We just get the job done. It is done by lower brain cells.

So at the top, the top brain cells have to keep things simple. For example love and service may be our top purpose. Each organized religion has a small collection of simple beliefs that define the core of the belief system.

For example, the Unitarian Universalist Church has two main beliefs and those are love and service. Christians believe in love and the ten commandments. The newest world-wide religion, the Baha'i Faith believes the essential unity of all great religions, that we have an immortal soul, and the equality of men and women. Buddhists believe in prajna (discernment, insight, wisdom and enlightenment). Hindus believe that truth is eternal, Brahman is truth and reality. Hindus also believe that the Vedas are the ultimate authority, and that dharma must be observed.

About this site.

There are about twenty web pages on this site. This first page contains my most up to date ideas. Other pages may not be as current.

Feel free to browse around on this website using the Deepermind Table of Contents. I recommend certain books which support many of my ideas.

Feel free to write me if you have questions or comments.
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