What are we afraid of?

coberst

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What are we afraid of?

Humans are pattern recognition creatures. We survive by the patterns of which we are conscious. Math is the science pattern; we use it constantly to explore the deepest core of nature’s pattern. To be an enlightened citizen is to be a citizen who has rationally organized a matrix of pattern detecting systems.

We have in our genes some pattern detecting systems. When hiking in the woods I am occasionally stopped in my tracks with a deep chill by some kind of form or movement. Among this infinity of movement and pattern one particular set penetrates my consciousness. We have evolved with this detection system so as to survive the predators.

Artifacts have replaced tigers and bears. Our predators were once tigers and bears but today they are humans and artifacts (something created by humans).

A steady diet of Twinkies and chips leads to a fat gut; a steady diet of sound bites and bumper stickers leads to a fat head!

Knowing is like day breaking, understanding is like lightening striking.

Comprehension is the payoff for struggle. There is a hierarchy of comprehension. Like a pyramid with the base being awareness, followed by consciousness (awareness plus attention) then comes knowledge with understanding at the pinnacle of the pyramid.

We are meaning creating creatures; we constantly create things in which we place value. We create various ideologies such as nations, religions, political parties, economic theories, and we create wars, new technologies, cars, cell phones, shopping malls, bombs, complex financial systems, etc. Many of our creations are too complex and their effects are far beyond our ability to comprehend and to control. If we do not become more intellectually sophisticated our artifacts will destroy us.

Reading is the key to knowing and essay writing is the canvas for creating understanding.

Of all the creatures perhaps humans are the only ones who fail to live up to their potential. Obesity is the evidence of a lack of physical endeavor and boredom is the consequence of an apathetic and lazy brain.

Reading is fundamental. Writing is the art and science of creation.

We can take any policy issue that might enrage any one of us and we can discover that the root cause of it is the fact that we the citizens are not doing our job. In a liberal democracy wherein the sovereignty rests on the shoulders of the citizen any outrage committed by that society can ultimately be traced back to the lack of enlightenment by the citizen.

Enlightened does not equal informed. Information flows over us in a daily deluge but consciousness is the missing catalyst for action. Our daily dose of information might be compared to our drive to work each morning. We are deluged with information reaching our perception on our drive to work and very little of that information becomes an object of consciousness.

I think that if we make the intellectual effort to understand some domain of knowledge and perhaps take the additional effort to write out our understanding of that matter, our essay will serve as our pattern for recognition for matters pertinent to that domain.

I consider that writing an essay is a major means for reaching an understanding of a domain of knowledge.

I think that these forums offer a great opportunity for practicing our writing skills. Do you agree? Is writing in your wallet?
 
l agree that writing is superior to thinking in that it is more reflective and the body subject [mind/hand/muscles] is involved therefore more imprinted [no pun intended!] and more successfully stored in the long term memory for easy retrieval.

l admire all here who post long 'essays' and wish l had the time to improve my writing and therefore thinking skills but at the moment l seem doomed to 'do' gardening!
 
l agree that writing is superior to thinking in that it is more reflective and the body subject [mind/hand/muscles] is involved therefore more imprinted [no pun intended!] and more successfully stored in the long term memory for easy retrieval.

l admire all here who post long 'essays' and wish l had the time to improve my writing and therefore thinking skills but at the moment l seem doomed to 'do' gardening!

Ahhhh dear Cunégonde... gardening is what makes this the best of all possible worlds! :cool:
 
Ahhhh dear Cunégonde... gardening is what makes this the best of all possible worlds! :cool:

l'm scared to ask what cunegonde means! and yes its very soulful if l felt l was 'pottering' around, except its gogogo, then back to your own yard to do moremoremore....must begin mantra 'l have enough time for everything':p
 
l'm scared to ask what cunegonde means! and yes its very soulful if l felt l was 'pottering' around, except its gogogo, then back to your own yard to do moremoremore....must begin mantra 'l have enough time for everything':p

Lol, yeh even paradise can be hard going at times.

Cunegonde is the heroine, (or at least 'love interest'), in Voltaire's Candide... cant imagine where your line of thinking had strayed :rolleyes::D

http://classiclit.about.com/library/weekly/aafpr122203a.htm
 
I have heard that cune and gonde in different dialects were the rude term corresponding to English... well, you figure it out.
 
I have heard that cune and gonde in different dialects were the rude term corresponding to English... well, you figure it out.

wow was that some sort of intuitive knowing or was l just unconsciously picking up on the op by using the word 'scared' to a foreign unknown?

wish l had continued with a diary all my life then l would have known that one! [not the word but the knowing]
 
I have heard that cune and gonde in different dialects were the rude term corresponding to English... well, you figure it out.
Well I do not know about that, I'm not a cunning linguist :rolleyes: (Have you noticed a tendency amongst gay men to have a far more expansive sexual vocabulary than straights? )
 


I have been studying such things as our dread of death and how we repress this subject of our mortality because it causes us great anxiety.

In my effort to comprehend what this anxiety might be in its raw form I have constructed what I think might be useful in that understanding.

Suppose that we were placed on a platform high above the ground and were required to live there. And suppose that there were no guard rails on the boundary of the platform.

Do you think that this might be a useful imagination to help us understand these matters?
 
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