Qigong Psychotic Reaction

OK. I have no self pity to offend, so, your honesty is welcome.

 

Fear can be a core reason, but not ignorance. Ignorance is a product. Fear, we can be born with. But fear isn't everyone's deep-cause.

Well,t hat certainly sounds like the power of self pity in action. Still, these are all symptoms, products - not root causes. Well- in my view! There's a chance I could be wrong! Where did I put it....

Well, maybe they don't know - not consciously. What's the root cause of the way you see the world? Do you know, consciously? *Widens eyes....*

Bah! Foucault is a complex thinker, Julie - he can't just be glibly stroked aside - if that were possible,he wouldn't be recognized as a complex thinker int he first place. Most of all, he's an investigator in to assumption - examining first of all things like the assumption of what "I" am - what the person is, or what responsibility is, or what sexuality is. What he doesis demonstrate how all of our seemingly concrete principles of reality actually evolve and change over time.

Classic example is the idea that "everything is God." which would have had you burned to death a thousand years ago. It's the complete opposite of early Christian thought - and yet, despite being the opposite, a lot of Christians say things like that now. Sexuality is no different. Someone "judges" casual sex badm so then it becomes a sin, so then doing it means you're immoral, sothen you can be said to abdicating moral responsibility... eventually we get to burn you, i guess...

These are all just things we make up, to make us feel important.

Besides, what Foucault talked about, regarding sexuality in that context, was something that's going to take a whole lot more insight than just a glib wipe away to see - and that's that "taboos" are a focus on a thing as well. If it truly wasn't part of your existence, your humanity, you wouldn't ever be engaged in any conversation about it, either directly, or indirectly by feeling that it was taboo to talk about it. Sexuality is a part of human nature, as is just plain old lust - a very fun part - and it will be there, even if you don't look at it, and it will still be a part of you, even if you choose to call it "bad"... And in the end, calling perfectly normal aspects of yourself "bad" is the true corruption of the human spirit... and if you go back far enough in to the psycho killer's back ground, sure enough, you'll find some b'stard hammering home to them that they are terrible, bad, wicked, for having some perfectly normal, human thing. And although you might pretend to not think that's true, it is, so there's no getting away from it, even with pages to the contrary, or saying that we'll never agree. It doesn't need agreement.

Well, maybe, if we shifted culturally, to the point where the first things we were teachign people was concepts such as "you are completely responsible for everything in your world" and "you are completely perfect, just as you are" and "everythig in your life is there to teach you something" and most of all "you are not the judge of the world" then maybe we wouldn't have such terrible acts commited at all.

Great straightness seems twisted....

Julie, Julie... you're completely perfect, just as you are... Why ever did you believe anything different?





Whata tremendous discussion! I'm enjoying it immensely!

 

No - not selfishness. Something very important for everyone and everything.

Well you see I didn't have enough money to live anywhere else and being unable to work at the time due to ongoing post-cancer and post-pneumonia health issues (my fault of course - why on earth did I choose to get ill? - doh!) it was the only house I could afford. Secondly I knew that the family next door had some issues like an autistic son and quite a bad reputation, but we chose to give them the benefit of the doubt - we tried to be understanding and not judge them by the rumours we'd heard. We thought - maybe people were just being prejudiced and judgemental. Of course, the police said that they could only act once a crime had actually been committed so we moved rather than take the chance and ended up homeless for a few months.

Read "Jesus Before Christianity" by Albert Nolan. Tell me what you think.

Hmm. So YOU are saying that:
it was friend 1's fault he got decapitated, friend 2's fault he got hammered to death, friend 3's fault he got queer-bashed, friend 4's fault she got raped up an alleyway by her ex-boyfriend, friend 5's fault she was raped by her ex-partner, friend 6's fault she was murdered by her jealous boyfriend, it was my fault I was abducted and tortured, my fault someone tried to strangle me... it is a child's fault if a paedophile molests them... it is an Asian child's fault if a militant fascist takes a blow torch to her face... it was Myra Hindley and Ian Brady's VICTIM'S fault that they were killed, Harold Shipman's patients brought it on themselves, the Jews were to blame for being killed in the death camps - you think all of these things.

Don't come anywhere near my class because I have the safety of my students to consider and I do not consider you to be morally trustworthy.

 

Ah - I see you've got rid of lots of your comments - oh well, my responses to them still stand.

 

In my opinion, all people have limits beyond which their belief system will not take them and nearly all people will react strongly when these limits are encroached upon.
As a seeker myself, I find that to get drawn into cyclic debate with people who do not have similar will, can become an entrapment of the psych and consequently my energy is re-directed away from where it may be more usefully applied to my own journey.
It is my experience that many belief systems based upon the Judeo/Christian & Islamic perspective have little tolerance for any perspective that places God within another context, because the idea is that God is supreme and contains all contexts... there is nothing greater than God. Whereas in some Buddhistic, Yogic and philosophical Taoism ideas, God (if one believes He or She exists), is contained within the IS, indeed the Self can be understood as the Creator of its own world, and the Self can certainly create a ubiquituos and all powerful Other to populate their world perspective.
The Judeo/Christian/Islamic philosophy however will say that God is IS but external to the Self, the problem with this from the other perspective is that IS does not have a personality, whereas God I'm led to understand does and so does the Self. From my perspective therefore Is just Is. The Tao Is and I haven't the capacity to explain it (it's beyond causality), but I do have the capacity to experience it.
What can be true, is that all belief systems, similar to martial systems are ways and methodologies to reach mastery, knowledge. IMO both types of systems eventually get the seeker to the same place of knowledge ... and I could be wrong heheh. Martial arts is about knowing the boundaries and limits of our psycho-physical structure, and some people use MA as a vehicle to explore the metaphysical, the limits of spirit if it exists. It's a matter for choice and knowing when the vehicle can no longer serve it's purpose.

Cheers.

P.S. I feel the urge to share a little my perspective, as some of the comments have been rather generalised in nature ... and if I'm to be lumped as a 'type of person' I might as well explain what 'type' I am.

Otherwise it is still a good discussion.

 

The Edit: Assuming we have free choice ...

... we are responsible for our selves. We are responsible for making our choices, monitoring consequences and making further choices ad infinitum in our life journey. Humans make choices all the time. Hopefully when we understand the implications, we begin to take responsibility for those choices.

 

Hi Kembang Alas,
I think you make some interesting points and have done so in a thoughtful and unprovocative manner - I'm not going to try to pigeon-hole you.
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We are not responsible for the harm others do to us - they are responsible. They, like us, have free will and can use it however they see fit. We cannot absolutely begrudge them their free will because otherwise we would have to give up ours.

What we can do is live by rules, by mitzvot, by covenants. We can build societies based on those rules for us all to try and live by. We can make laws based on those rules which may need re-examination and revision from time to time, hopefully always for the right reasons - the pursuit of greater compassion and justice. It is not simple - we need to be intelligent, adaptable and sincere in our execution of our benevolent morality because life will throw us complex situations that will require us to carefully consider the best thing to do at any given time.

The temptation will be to always do the easiest thing, the most convenient thing, the most self-serving or short-sighted thing. No - we as individuals are not perfect - we are far from perfect because the word "perfect" was not made to describe things merely as they are, but things at the very best imaginable.

There would be no progress if we did not constantly seek to make ourselves better and to make society better - to strive for what some might call "God's Kingdom on Earth." It is beneficial for humankind to strive for improvement and to feel that their actions are always being watched and judged. It makes us behave better and achieve more than we otherwise would.

When we stop striving we become stagnant and complacent, we let death take us. Life is a struggle to live, to improve, and to eat bitter now for the sake of better things to come. Without that drive there would be nothing to leave our children.

This basically describes the world as it is now - a world of good and bad, a work in progress - an imperfect world. Only those that prosper can say that things are perfect as they are - a great many people in the world have suffering thrust upon them, with no say in the matter whatsoever.

FQ - try telling a starving child to stop feeling sorry for himself; or a child sold into prostitution or a trafficked woman who has been forcibly given drugs until she is addicted to them to stop feeling sorry for themselves. Tell them that they are responsible for what is happening to them. I just pray they'd have the strength to laugh in your face and the righteous anger to spit in it.

 

Do we have free will? I would dispute that, I think we have the ability to influence decisions but not free will.

The Bear.

 

Hi PB - please could you explain why you'd dispute it for me, and what evidence or theories your view is based on?

Thanks.

 

Hi Joanna,
As usual, I am coming from a Scientific POV, the work of Benjamin Libet on studying the actions of the unconscious brain activity preceeding conscious decisions.
Also, I have had much exposure to research in the area of mental health and looking at the behaviour of the actions of those suffering from various mental health illnesses like OCD or schizophrenia and how the brain determines the actions a person takes. After my partner spending 3 years studying the topic and making many friends during the study and talking to them about their experiences.
It has leads me to the conclusion that we have a measure of control in our actions but by no means it goes to the extent of free will. There are a whole host of "hard coded" instructions in the human brain that can override the conscious centres of the brain. There are thousands of every day examples of this, for instance anyone who drives to work on the same road day in day out will, I'm sure, have started driving to the office on a Saturday before realising what they are doing. Many behaviour patterns in the brain are set in the womb and early childhood so that even before a person has the concept of self, patterns that determine their behaviour are already set.
In another piece of research I was exposed to for the criminal justice system, what surprised me was the number of people who had committed crime without knowing why they did it or were unable to foresee the consequences of their actions. Their unconscious mind just functioned without the person having to take any decisions.

The Bear.

 

Thanks PB,

I wonder though if we are able to do quite a lot of things to influence the process you describe.

For example, we can train martial arts which will enable us to perform certain physical actions seemingly "instinctively." We can consciously over-ride our impulses when we decide to "turn over a new leaf" and behave in a different way (perhaps spurred to do so by an ethical awakening). Importantly, I think it shows the importance of living by moral values so that "good" or "acceptable" behaviours become habitual, rather than "bad" or "unacceptable" ones. Does that sound reasonable to you? If it does, is it not reasonable to suggest that the thing we do the over-riding and re-training with is our conscious free will?

 

Oh I think you may well be right. I think it is entirely possible that there are many methods available to re-condition the mind. They are plenty of stories of ciminals find "God" in prison and the person's subsequent actions are dominated by trying the adhere to their adopted religion. Also techniques like meditation and positive thinks are well documented to bring on bio-chemical changes in the brain and affect behaviour. However, this still could be viewed as a deterministic process since it could be argued that simply the conditions were met where that individual would be open to new "memes", for want of a better term, and hence the radical change in behaviour.
There is almost no doubt now that our mind is a function of the brain and that changes in the brain determine the functioning of our mind but the amazing thing is the minds ability to effect phyiscal changes in the brain itself. The only analogy would be microsoft windows altering you CPU to change how windows works. I think this could be how there brain manages to create the very real illusion of "free will". Though I guess it's not beyond the realms of possibility to train your mind to dramatically effect brain chemistry that you could effect more control than most people. I know of some very dedicated Bhuddist monks appear to have some amazing control of their brain while in meditation. All worthy of research but a little out of my league.

The Bear.

 

Thanks for your replies PB.

I was also thinking just now about times when we might manage to over-ride our impulses such as when people are lost in a desert and they know they must ration their water - whether using conscious reasoning or received knowledge, they know that their best chance of survival lies in not giving in to their terrible thirst. They consciously decide to make short term sacrifice in the hope of long term gain rather than being a slave to their impulses. This is something else I'd normally attribute to free will.

Regards,
Joanna

 

Well I would argue against that. Since with proper conditioning resisting natural impulses can become a pattern of behaviour in itself. If you take the eating disorder anorexia nervosa the normal behaviour to eat is subverted and the mind is conditioned to resist hunger. You could say that they are exercising "free will" but once you widen the context to include socially induced ideas of beauty. Is this really free will or are they a victim of a set of conditions that triggered a pattern of behaviour?
If you think of a game of chess, now chess has no element of chance in the game and yet the variability of an 8X8 board and 32 chess pieces created a deterministic game of such complexity that modern computers still cannot be guaranteed to beat a human. Scale that up to the levels of complexity of a human being, even though it maybe deterministic it would have such complexity as to appear to have "free will" simply be the inability to know all the conditions that determined the actions of the person. It is an uncomfortable thought that we are just extremely complex deterministic machines and one that spikes a fear reaction through me I have to admit but it is a thought I cannot simply ignore because I find it distasteful.

The Bear.

 

Hi PB - I wouldn't reject an idea just because I found it distasteful either, I am just dubious as to whether the scientific theory behind your comments can yet be described as conclusive.

I take your point about anorexia and about the social factors that reward a person for not eating, but I think we can re-train ourselves in positive ways to selectively resist natural impulses too. Additionally we can selectively resist societal pressures and I wonder how we do that, if not by free will.

I was thinking some more about my "rationing water in the desert" example and thought maybe it was natural survival instinct to ration and we might be re-training ourselves with unhealthy habits in our credit card / consumerist "but now, pay later" society. I guess some animals just gorge themselves and others might seem more prudent in their behaviours. I know C.S. Lewis saw evil as "good corrupted" so, for example, a desire to hoard and eat more during a time of harvest in preparation for a lean winter (which might ensure your survival) can become gluttony if we just indulge those impulses all the time.

It's a complex issue - thanks for your input - I'm glad to be able to have this conversation.

 

Oh I would agree there is no absolute proof of us being deterministic and I am unsure whether proof is possible or even desirable. I think at heart you are a social engineer and believe religious moral teachings are the best method to achieve a better world. You may well be right despite whole of recorded human history demonstrating otherwise. If your side win, I will be one of the first against the wall I fear. If my atheistic humanists win, you will still be have religous freedom.

Afterall what is life without strife.

The Bear.

 

Damn! I thought you'd be training! I think through writing very often, then delete my thoughts, because they were only for me really - it's a bad habit on the net, I know. What you believe or think or whatever, is none of my business.

 

Nothing is important, least of all everyone and everything.

You are responsible for your decisions. I don't pity myself, so why should I pity you? You could have used cancer as an opportunity to face life impeccably, as a warrior, but instead, you choose to feed your self pity.

And then, you want the world to believe that it blew you like a leaf on the wind in to that house. How long have you been in conflict with the world, Joanna? Can you even remember any time when you weren't?

All you do is geared towards conflict... because you've done it so long that you only have the skills necessary to live in conflict with the world.

In fact, you choose conflict - it's a choice... you desig nthe conflicts - you use the words, you take the positions, you move in to the house, you pass sanctrimonious judgment on others... you, you - you are completely, utterly responsible for the world that you have designed around yourself.

And they only freedom from that trap is awareness of it.


Psychobabble... quest que ce...

All your life you have faced prejudice - pre-judice - pre judgment... judgment, judgment... And now, you meet me, and I totally accpet you as perfect, totally as you are, only, I do that with honesty, and clear, profound insight because of my journey - it's my gift. At last, you meet someone who totally accepts you, just as you are, perfect in every way, and what do you want to do? You go mad - because there's no way for you to react to that - if I'm not in conflict with you, you have no skills to interact.

Who was it, Joanna, who's acceptance you couldn't gain? All those people, all that pre-judice, and in the end, as a psychological defence mechanism, you've become them - you're the most prejudiced person that anyone could ever meet - ever. You couldn't get their acceptance, so you became them...

And yet, the manifestation of that is conflict... conflict... My God, what a terrible , suffering being. Enlightened Buddhas, we beesech, do not abandon us to the hell that we have created for ourselves.

Yeah? Well, what do you think - the world owes you? Be homeless - you own your actions.

What I think is... different to you.

Judeo Christiantiy - the religion that pretends to love, but hates humanity so deeply that they actualy made it a sin to be human; who steal from people the impeccable ownership of their own journey, replacing it with sickly self pity. All false, all fake. Jesus himslef taught us that - it's what the story of the Pharisees means - the samctimomious, parading as the virtuous.

Now here's some wisdom for you, the decapitator wasn't in that person's world - we're utterly alone in our worlds. We have ownership of everything in our worlds - but all that world is is how we feel, how we interpret perceptions - that's all we own, and no one, but no one, can ever take that ownership away from us. The Jesus liars try to steal it, but that's illusion - you are still, utterly repsonsible for your world.

We choose what to feel... The decapitator who comes in the night and kills us while we are asleep not within our power to affect - all we have the power to affect is how we face life.

In the mean time, what you see as the work of Satan in my thought, is the work of empowering people to face life, and suffering, and hardship, with diginity and courage... the very thing you steal from people with the infection of self pity.

Your morals are a sham - just a means towards causing conflict with others.

 

Don't worry, PB - I wouldn't put you up against the wall. Anyway, I thought we might all be able to work together yet.

 

We can only ever have free will as far as we understand the choices in front of us. Awareness grows, or limits.... depending on how we nurture, or stifle it. As ever, questions like free will/determinsim are really just ideas "inside" a very narrow conceptual bandwidth of binary ideology.