Monday, July 13, 2009

Unreliable Understanding 7/13/09

Don't believe everything you think.

Unknown
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Hello again.
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There are too many questions. I think I know answers. But I don't believe it because every now and then I have to throw out one of those answers.

It becomes a very frustrating thing to face infinite ambiguity as one's mind opens up to realize how much we don't know. Even the most courageous thinker will give in to that frustration sometimes and decide something is true without challenging it. We all come into any level of consciousness with a bag of ideas from the past; opinions, prejudices, simplicities, rules for this and that activity and behavior confuse us and hold us in tethers.

One of the things about the mind is that, like the heart and lungs, it never stops working as long as we're alive. But how much control do we actually have over what it does, especially now that we know that some if its activity is unconscious.

If you commit a crime, if you kill, wound, rob, rape, damage property, slander, a court will decide if you did it and what your punishment is. But the court has no jusridiction over your thoughts. If you have thoughts of rage, hate, revenge, lust and other negatives you may never carry them out, because of you own sense of ethics. And you may say "Oh, I would never do anything like that." But you are having the same thoughts as the felon who did. So what, after all, is the difference?

Then these questions arise. Where do these thoughts come from? Do I own them? Do they come from me? Are they from my imagination, from some collective unconsciousness or from some diabolical mental swamp? Those are questions that have been puzzling philosophers, psychiatrists and theologians for a long time. And have they come up with any solid answers that they all agree on? Not as far as I know. I know what I think. But I don't believe what I think. What do you think?

DB
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Let the sun on you, or the rain, whatever nature gives.
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3 comments:

Ken Riches said...

Thought provoking entry :o)

I think that our civilization, our laws, our religions, have all grown to the point that few people act on our rages.

Conversely, that leaves us free to act on our loves and joys :o)

betty said...

I think just when I think I know something, then something happens and it throws me for a loop and I have to start from scratch again in my thinking. the brain truly is an amazing organ!

betty

Beth said...

I can't presume to know the origins of such thoughts in people--I'm sure there is no one answer, though. I believe the difference between having the thoughts and acting on them is knowing the difference between right and wrong...the sociopath does not understand that difference, and acts upon their most vile impulses. Thoughtcrime isn't a crime...action on those thoughts is. Hugs, Beth