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The Doors of Perception

Strawberry_lovemuffin

Strawberry_lovemuffin

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"When the doors of perception are cleansed, things will appear as they really are"

Perception fascinates me.

Perception is the basis of so much misunderstanding in the world. One person sees the feet of the elephant, and says it's a big pair of feet... the other person sees the ears of the elephant and says it's all about the ears... but it's still the same elephant.

I wonder what would happen if all of a sudden, individual perception was taken away, and we all suddenly saw everything in its stark, naked truth.

Would that be something you see as desirable, or not?

Discuss.
 
The thing is, that our brains are wired to percieve things in certain ways and that perception is influenced by our view of the world, our ego, and pretty much anything that makes up your personality.

I don't think that we can percieve things objectively no matter how hard we try because things like the ego get in the way. Also, I don't think that we are able to understand certain concepts. Concepts like infinity, spacetime and extra dimensions, beyond the three that we are accustomed to are all difficult concepts to grasp. We might have an slight idea, but we can't completely understand them.
 
Strawberry_lovemuffin said:

I wonder what would happen if all of a sudden, individual perception was taken away, and we all suddenly saw everything in its stark, naked truth.
Click to expand...

What is "truth" anyway? I believe that reality is defined by our perception, and not the other way around. As such, there is no such thing as what you call "stark, naked truth".
 
I don't believe that reality is defined by our perception. But I'm saying experience is *our* reality. If all living things vanished tonight, the world would still exist exactly as it is, with all it's rules intact. This is why I hate arguing with post-modernists.

The "Stark, naked truth" of the world is exactly that: The physical world stripped of observation. But our observation does not effect the physical world whatsoever.

If we could "see" things exactly the way they are....we would probably be immersed in an ocean of swimming matter and energy, unable to distinguish anything from the storm of "stuff" making up the universe.
 
"I wonder what would happen if all of a sudden, individual perception was taken away, and we all suddenly saw everything in its stark, naked truth."

Its a hypothetical game but I'll give it a go anyways. And imbue your statement with probably more than what you thought it means.

If you took away individual perception and looked at things in a collective sense (very hard to rationalize, very hard to put details to I know). But that would be pretty cool. I think it would be possible to do both. Like if we all were
in a beneficial Matrix and could all think on an issue at once, a problem and come up with an answer, or a series of answers all collectively understand the process of discussion and then understand the resultant answers. Very sci-fi.
Sort of like a more complex internet. Everyone is wired to some complex wi-fi system in their brain thats makes telepathy possible.

Or if we all experienced everything communally. As one collective entity. Makes for an interesting storyline. Sort of weird to think of it, because it would be very hard to remove consciousness. Or identity.
It would be easier if you/ the We (for lack of a better term) were born into this collective and then know nothing else from the collective. Without it you would die (At least mentally). But imagine being born into a collective of millions. And raised in some sort of collective. What language would you use? Or would you need to? And would you have something of an identity?
I suppose you would. But you would experience everything collectively. All experience would be from one single instance not several. Would all thought extend from that moment? Consciousness would be from that moment. When I say that moment I mean say "seeing a flower" the We would all see the flower.

I guess where individual responses become problematic is that you couldn't think I don't want to look at this flower and move on to something else. Choice.

A newborn would see the flower as well. And then where ever "the host" would move to next. Or it could just be a spaceship.
Imagine seeing a supernova at birth instead of a cradle?

Fun stuff.


I follow with others in saying that there's no stark, naked truth. Its pretty much already there. We already experience things collectively. We know of things before we are born.
 
^ that's the sort of thing I was thinking of, only not to that extent! ;)

Several years ago I did one of those "courses" .... you know the ones... sort of a change-your-life & control-your-destiny thing.

And one of the things they said to us on the first day absolutely bowled me over. It was "The world is empty and meaningless"

That's exactly the way they put it. "The world is empty and meaningless" .

Now a lot of people in the room at that point in time started to get very angry. They argued that *obviously* some things are good, and some are bad. No, no, no said the lecturer.... everything is empty and meaningless. This went on for quite some time until one woman stood up and said "My CHILD DIED when she was four. Is that EMPTY and MEANINGLESS?". The lecturer said "yes". She left and didn't return.

That's when it hit me. We were even adding meaning to the term "empty and meaningless" :D - imbuing that term with a negative connotation, as if to say if something's empty and meaningless, it's worthless or insignificant. It's not. It just IS.

I walked outside and I swear to god, the world around me had changed. All of a sudden that rain that was falling on me wasn't "bad" or "inconvenient", it was just rain. The people standing next to me weren't judging me, or possibly out to mug me.... they were just people. If one of them did mug me, I could *choose* to see that in whatever light I wanted to.

It was unbelievable. I felt like iron chains had been taken off me, and right then and there, EVERYTHING felt possible. Everything felt possible because the only thing holding me back were my feelings about things, not the actual reality of the situations. Previously I'd been distraught about losing a bunch of money when I'd planned to go overseas that year - after coming out of that lecture room I let go of all those fears and just started mentally *planning* instead of stressing. Those perceptions of "I can't do it" were actually the only thing stopping me doing it. I ended up doing that trip to Scotland, too. I found a billion little ways and avenues I'd never thought of.

Now this was - as I said - several years ago now, and of course you forget 8) . But I was watching the movie The Doors last night and the quote in my original post bought it all back.

If everyone were on that wavelength that things were empty and meaningless, how much more efficiently would the world work? We wouldn't take offense to anything - unless we chose to. We would just see setbacks as setbacks, not finalities. There would be no poor self-image, no suicides, possibly even no wars.

Obviously that's a pipe dream, and the problem comes in the fact that unless this change happens *simultaneously*, it wouldn't work. Because it's very hard to get along with someone thinking the "normal" way when you're thinking the empty and meaningless way. You offend a lot of people quite regularly, because they think you're some kind of unfeeling, unemotional bot. :D

Anyway... those were my thoughts.
 
Strawberry_lovemuffin said:

If everyone were on that wavelength that things were empty and meaningless, how much more efficiently would the world work?
Click to expand...

Some of us are already functioning collectively in such a way, you just have to find the perspective.
 
To see is to perceive.
Humans cannot see without perceiving.
Take for example the footstool in front of me. My experience of it starts of as light reflecting of its surface and hitting the back of my retina. Electrical pulses then enter into the maze of neurons that make up the sight part of my brain. My brain then recognizes an object called a footstool.

In the end my experience of the footstool is nothing more than my experience of a set of neurons firing. weird to think about?
 
I walked outside and I swear to god, the world around me had changed. All of a sudden that rain that was falling on me wasn't "bad" or "inconvenient", it was just rain. The people standing next to me weren't judging me, or possibly out to mug me.... they were just people. If one of them did mug me, I could *choose* to see that in whatever light I wanted to.

It was unbelievable. I felt like iron chains had been taken off me, and right then and there, EVERYTHING felt possible. Everything felt possible because the only thing holding me back were my feelings about things, not the actual reality of the situations. Previously I'd been distraught about losing a bunch of money when I'd planned to go overseas that year - after coming out of that lecture room I let go of all those fears and just started mentally *planning* instead of stressing. Those perceptions of "I can't do it" were actually the only thing stopping me doing it. I ended up doing that trip to Scotland, too. I found a billion little ways and avenues I'd never thought of.
Click to expand...
When I took a one test at school. My psychology teacher said, that I saw world throughtout "pink glasses". This means, that I perceive world as better looking or making "unconsciously things look better than they are. I thought about it very long time and tried to note how this works. I never got answer, but when I used first time psychedelics, I felt after use like I was ripped. This wasn't as bad like it may sound. With one trip, my perception was brought to new perspective. It was confusing, but after some time my mind or ego wasn't shocked so much and now all back normal. Still, it wasn't same my mind saw things on influence of psychedelics and that changed my perception for all. It's weird that you mentioned rain. This may sound low, but I also took rain now that its just a rain. It doesn't bother me. Few months after that use, I made successful improvements in my life. My distorted reality sense(perception) was changed for good. It seems, that my life is all about psychedelics, but they are "food of god". Dunno, if that makes sense?:\

Some of us are already functioning collectively in such a way, you just have to find the perspective.
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Yup, all working and going good.:)
 
Perception is awsome. Sit down and just be aware, silence your mind, your perception influences so much of what you believe and who you are. It should be developed.
 
Void said:
what you believe and who you are. It should be developed.
Click to expand...

Indeed. If you don't someone else will, whether you are aware of it or not.
 
I don't think we could see without subjectivity as long as we are in this human body. I think if you had to see without subjectivity, you would have to be either nothing or everything. But if you were nothing...well...you wouldn't be able to see...

Good post, btw, strawberry! I'll definitely agree to "the world is empty and meaningless" :) it's a good vibe & I think psychedelics can show that.
 
^ true for the most part. But I dunno.... sometimes I recognise that my perception is just that, perception therefore in all likelihood, flawed... yet it's so much more comfortable to believe it.
 
"The world is empty and meaningless"
Click to expand...

Surely the strength in this philosophy lies not in accepting that there is no meaning, but rather that meaning is provided by us, not for us?

In otherwords instead of bemoaning the fact you lost large amounts of money (you were providing a negative meaning to your circumstances) you became active in finding new opportunities to get yourself to scotland (thus adding positive meaning).

Certainly i've always believed that meaning is something we create rather than something that just is.

Or am i missunderstanding?
 
Strawberry this is a heaps cool thread, like you got your point across to me.

Like when you said the lady got up and walked off i like shouted out loud "Doesn't she get it, thats the point!!?!" and ahaha my mum was like "are you ok chris?"

I wish i could clear my perception, it distorts reality so bad.
 
MrM said:
Surely the strength in this philosophy lies not in accepting that there is no meaning, but rather that meaning is provided by us, not for us?

In otherwords instead of bemoaning the fact you lost large amounts of money (you were providing a negative meaning to your circumstances) you became active in finding new opportunities to get yourself to scotland (thus adding positive meaning).

Certainly i've always believed that meaning is something we create rather than something that just is.

Or am i missunderstanding?
Click to expand...

That's exactly what it means. It's half philosophy, half catch- phrase really.
The phrase was designed to encapsulate the philosophy, but could be used practically. For example, everytime you started to get angry, overwhelmed, offended, depressed, or so on. In the middle of an argument, you'd say to yourself "The world is empty and meaningless" .... in other words, this argument has no (intrinsic) meaning! It stops you in your tracks, and instantly perspective returns. You can see that all the "background noise" you were adding in terms of judgement, fears etc, was all simply coming from YOU.

Often it would actually make me laugh out loud - literally.

That's the thing about realising how much meaning we add to things; it can actually be hilarious. I laughed for days at myself over a million things :D

Another thing I did was quit smoking. Instantly. I decided it was bullshit all the meaning I was adding to quitting smoking and that it was just as simple as not putting a ciggarette to my mouth again. It worked like a gem, and I quit from that day forth for nearly 7 months, without patches or gum.

Of course as I said, unless you constantly remind yourself of these revelations they get lost.... just the quirk of the human brain I guess. So I'm smoking again, but I still remember just how easy it was to quit; and it makes me wonder how many other things are easier than we think.
 
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perception is the result of choices that our mind makes... and choice is the very thing that enables us to be "intelligent"

Perception and choice are the forces that make us all different... and diversity is an amazing thing surely? Allthough I guess diversity and its merits are subject to perception?? Ah.... i hate thought loops like that! But I think the nature of the world is cyclical and circular ideas cannot be avoided. It is the very nature of things.

So i think perception is a good thing for the most part. Having said that... having the "doors of perception cleansed" either by psychadelic experience, by thought and meditation...or just by being a genius like William Blake was having written the "doors" quote....is a valuable thing to experience.

Once you have experienced the world free from the restraints of perception... how you then percieve the world is a choice, rather than a reaction... you realise that your interpretation of the world is a choice you can make, rather than something you are subjected to involuntarily.

It is the choice of perception that makes all the difference.... to be in control of your perception rather than being a victim of causality.
 
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