Any organism with a central nervous system senses, perceives and is conscious of an environment that is real in the sense that it is external to, and exists independently of, the organism and its inner processes. The sun is not a neuronic interaction in the visual center of a brain but an external object that causes such interactions and that preexisted all sighted organisms.
With increasing cerebral complexity, self-conscious organisms generate many inner mental processes that are self-referential as against reality-oriented. And, when reality penetrates, it is sometimes deified. Thunder, a real phenomenon, is Thor. War is the activity of Mars. Sex is the Goddess. Etc.
The Yoga Sutras teach that yoga is control of thoughts, that then man abides in his real nature and that otherwise he is identified with thoughts.
Experience reality. Don't just think about it.
11 comments:
You can argue that what human beings perceive is precisely neuronic events -- we don't see "the sun", we see a construct in our brains, comprised partly of neural impulses from our eyes which register -some- parts of solar radiation, and just as much of "stored images", memories.
Furthermore, the -meaning- of "sun" in a human personality is entirely internal.
When I was at law school, we were shown a video of what we were told was a bank robbery, and were asked to identify features -- eg., the robbers' weapons.
All sorts of answers were given, except the 'real' one: it was staged, and the 'robbers' were carrying bananas, not weapons.
Eyewitness testimony is similarly unreliable.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Ha! I think I first came across that truism of police work, the UNRELIABILITY of eyewitness testimony in one of Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, possibly WHOSE BODY?
Paul: And I simply don't believe it's literally true that pagan "gods" are aspects of natural phenomena. Because Mars, Jupiter, Baal, Thor, etc., don't exist. But I do agree that was how some in the past thought.
Ad astra! Sean
I don't put it that way. My way of putting it is that we do see the external sun and that the process by which we see it involves neuronic interactions in our brains. That our perceptions are filtered through memories, preconceptions etc is also true.
Kaor, Paul!
MY "preconception" of the Sun is that it's a giant flaming ball of gas. But, then, that was "filtered" thru memories of what I have read of astronomy.
Ad astra! Sean
The sun appears to us as a yellow disc in the sky. We do not literally see anything inside our heads. We see the outsides of our heads in mirrors. If we were able to look inside our brains, then we would see in there interacting neurons but not a yellow disc surrounded by blue.
I hope I am not being pedantic or perverse here!, just trying to formulate a clear account of what happens when we perceive an object like the sun.
Sean,
But your perception of the sun is of a disc above us in the sky.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but also of a disc which is a giant blazing ball of gas. I never ever thought of the Sun as the aspect of some pagan god.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The fact that the sun is a ball of gas is not part of your immediate perception of it. That fact is, as you said, provided by books on astronomy.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
True, at first I merely took the sun for granted. Knowledge about it came later.
Ad astra! Sean
The mirror image is also internal. What goes onto your head is not photons, it’s partially a neurological -response- yo photons and partially ‘stored files’.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And how strange and mysterious are the workings of not just the brain, but also of the "mind" making use of that brain.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment