I made this post about 7 months ago. I ended up inadvertently elaborating on it, elsewhere, just a minute ago, so I figured I'd share my results in this thread.
keep in mind I wrote this in regards to an entirely different subject matter. If you see something that seems responsive and it doesn't quite tie into what I'm saying, odds are it's unimportant, and unrelated. If you have any questions about this stuff, feel free to ask me. I could talk about it all day.
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I think the progression of human understanding begins with our consciousness as a sort of singularity. When our awareness is first developed, all input is indistinguishable. Can't tell color apart from sound apart from pain. It's all just random ass signals we're completely inequipped to process or differentiate between at all, which we must then learn, as we become more conscious.
ascension beyond this state likely begins very minimally while still in the womb. Even to a cognitively functional being, most stimuli within the womb is identical by default. I mean, think about it. The body is submerged underwater. No visual stimuli exists, no sound exists, and most all physical sensation is the same. The only input I imagine a developing child even has opportunity to perceive at all, before it is born, is its own development, in itself, via its own development. I've even toyed with the idea this factor alone may single-handedly be responsible for the unconditional human compulsion to aspire and understand oneself. You may agree with me by the time I'm done, but until then, I'll leave it alone; it's a bit beyond the scope of this discussion. Regardless, though, I imagine this rudimentary assimilatory process serves as a precursor, to whatever degree, for all future integrations of stimuli.
after birth, shit gets more hectic. Input is everywhere. Sight, sound, more diverse physical sensation. Then, reactions. First fears, then needs, then appropriations of value. This causal progression actually strikes me as very radically straightforward, in its essence. It's a chain reaction, just like any other, bound by entirely logical parameters.
awareness is first conditioned, by sheer necessity, to tune out noise, so to speak. The sensation of one's ever-present beating heart, for instance, becomes less perceptible than the existence of objects within one's immediate visual spectrum. I doubt these initial developments even rely on conscious will at all. Rather, they are all a result of the same quantifiable neurological process. That process is the physical adaptation of our brains, enacted to maintain our ability to exist, and to function. Interactivity, then, is quickly granted higher priority than dissociated observation, for reasons of inherent self-preservation alone. I suspect these are the first moments of the human ego; practically indiscernible from the first moments of life.
beyond this phase, child psychology already has all sorts of theories and observations on the further development of consciousness, many of which I agree with, in what little I understand and remember of them. Most high schools nowadays have basic psychology classes, and I know a lot of you guys are in college anyway, so I won't bother trying to explain, as my own knowledge isn't complete enough to imbue upon a person as truth. If you're curious what I'm talking about, though, feel free to investigate Piaget, assimilation, egocentrism, A-not-B errors, and whatever else you may find on the subject; these understandings all relate very closely to the suppositions I myself have made.
the transitions from childhood to adolescence to adulthood are very complicated, and their implications are very broad. I do not have the patience to explain my interpretations of them in much detail, but if you are reading this, I imagine you have experienced them for yourself to some degree. All that is necessary to contextualize them, though, is the understanding that all further development relies on past developments. This is common sense, more or less. Some of it is quite obvious: the progression from childish naivete to realistic expectations of life through the integration of previous experience, for example. Other examples, such as self-deception and biased input filtration, are a bit more subtle, and more complicated. I shall not bore you by explaining them.
to grasp the further evolution of consciousness, one need look no further than traditional philosophy of self. I'm not a fan of any philosophy, at all, other than my own. Rather, I'm bored by it, and a harsh critic of it. I don't think any one school of thought really has any more absolute a grasp of the truth than any other, but I do believe the constituencies between them serve as a fair indication of truth's true nature. Either way, citing some vague ass bullshit and making you figure it out for yourself is far easier for me than attempting to communicate my own understanding of it from scratch, so that's what I'm doing. When you get back from that long, arduous road, you will understand, just as I do, that the end-point of consciousness, so to speak, is a return to the singularity I initially described. Everything is essentially the same. Even contextually, even from the viewpoint of how things affect you personally, they are the same. The only possible way to experience this is by following the logical sequence of events I've loosely tried to describe. I'm not there yet, mind you, but I have tasted it plenty. That is how I know.
to summarize, and to finally tie this into the subject of this thread, I do not believe knowledge is heirarchial at all. I believe the assimilation of experience is sequential and essentially deterministic, and I believe knowledge is secondary to that, and subordinate to it. In this way, I believe every human existence serves as a microcosm of the development of the universe, and particularly, of its increasing ability to organize, process, contextualize, perceive, and eventually manifest itself. The more I understand this, the more it affirms itself, because that's the only way anything can even be possible at all. No matter how deep I try to go to legitimize these observations, I see nothing but more and more parallels. Fractal in nature. God has truly, truly created us in his own image.
I'm very, very close to cracking this riddle. Even if I turn out to be mad, it's all just a part of the plan, at this point.
I'm so fucking serious about this it's ridiculous.
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^^^ it's true, guys, it's true. :D
keep in mind I wrote this in regards to an entirely different subject matter. If you see something that seems responsive and it doesn't quite tie into what I'm saying, odds are it's unimportant, and unrelated. If you have any questions about this stuff, feel free to ask me. I could talk about it all day.
-----
I think the progression of human understanding begins with our consciousness as a sort of singularity. When our awareness is first developed, all input is indistinguishable. Can't tell color apart from sound apart from pain. It's all just random ass signals we're completely inequipped to process or differentiate between at all, which we must then learn, as we become more conscious.
ascension beyond this state likely begins very minimally while still in the womb. Even to a cognitively functional being, most stimuli within the womb is identical by default. I mean, think about it. The body is submerged underwater. No visual stimuli exists, no sound exists, and most all physical sensation is the same. The only input I imagine a developing child even has opportunity to perceive at all, before it is born, is its own development, in itself, via its own development. I've even toyed with the idea this factor alone may single-handedly be responsible for the unconditional human compulsion to aspire and understand oneself. You may agree with me by the time I'm done, but until then, I'll leave it alone; it's a bit beyond the scope of this discussion. Regardless, though, I imagine this rudimentary assimilatory process serves as a precursor, to whatever degree, for all future integrations of stimuli.
after birth, shit gets more hectic. Input is everywhere. Sight, sound, more diverse physical sensation. Then, reactions. First fears, then needs, then appropriations of value. This causal progression actually strikes me as very radically straightforward, in its essence. It's a chain reaction, just like any other, bound by entirely logical parameters.
awareness is first conditioned, by sheer necessity, to tune out noise, so to speak. The sensation of one's ever-present beating heart, for instance, becomes less perceptible than the existence of objects within one's immediate visual spectrum. I doubt these initial developments even rely on conscious will at all. Rather, they are all a result of the same quantifiable neurological process. That process is the physical adaptation of our brains, enacted to maintain our ability to exist, and to function. Interactivity, then, is quickly granted higher priority than dissociated observation, for reasons of inherent self-preservation alone. I suspect these are the first moments of the human ego; practically indiscernible from the first moments of life.
beyond this phase, child psychology already has all sorts of theories and observations on the further development of consciousness, many of which I agree with, in what little I understand and remember of them. Most high schools nowadays have basic psychology classes, and I know a lot of you guys are in college anyway, so I won't bother trying to explain, as my own knowledge isn't complete enough to imbue upon a person as truth. If you're curious what I'm talking about, though, feel free to investigate Piaget, assimilation, egocentrism, A-not-B errors, and whatever else you may find on the subject; these understandings all relate very closely to the suppositions I myself have made.
the transitions from childhood to adolescence to adulthood are very complicated, and their implications are very broad. I do not have the patience to explain my interpretations of them in much detail, but if you are reading this, I imagine you have experienced them for yourself to some degree. All that is necessary to contextualize them, though, is the understanding that all further development relies on past developments. This is common sense, more or less. Some of it is quite obvious: the progression from childish naivete to realistic expectations of life through the integration of previous experience, for example. Other examples, such as self-deception and biased input filtration, are a bit more subtle, and more complicated. I shall not bore you by explaining them.
to grasp the further evolution of consciousness, one need look no further than traditional philosophy of self. I'm not a fan of any philosophy, at all, other than my own. Rather, I'm bored by it, and a harsh critic of it. I don't think any one school of thought really has any more absolute a grasp of the truth than any other, but I do believe the constituencies between them serve as a fair indication of truth's true nature. Either way, citing some vague ass bullshit and making you figure it out for yourself is far easier for me than attempting to communicate my own understanding of it from scratch, so that's what I'm doing. When you get back from that long, arduous road, you will understand, just as I do, that the end-point of consciousness, so to speak, is a return to the singularity I initially described. Everything is essentially the same. Even contextually, even from the viewpoint of how things affect you personally, they are the same. The only possible way to experience this is by following the logical sequence of events I've loosely tried to describe. I'm not there yet, mind you, but I have tasted it plenty. That is how I know.
to summarize, and to finally tie this into the subject of this thread, I do not believe knowledge is heirarchial at all. I believe the assimilation of experience is sequential and essentially deterministic, and I believe knowledge is secondary to that, and subordinate to it. In this way, I believe every human existence serves as a microcosm of the development of the universe, and particularly, of its increasing ability to organize, process, contextualize, perceive, and eventually manifest itself. The more I understand this, the more it affirms itself, because that's the only way anything can even be possible at all. No matter how deep I try to go to legitimize these observations, I see nothing but more and more parallels. Fractal in nature. God has truly, truly created us in his own image.
I'm very, very close to cracking this riddle. Even if I turn out to be mad, it's all just a part of the plan, at this point.
I'm so fucking serious about this it's ridiculous.
-----
^^^ it's true, guys, it's true. :D
