My Thought Pile

I always seem to have these epiphanies but then I forget about them like a day or a week later.

I've had a bunch in the last few days and alas I forgot most of them. So this thread is for writing them down when I get them. I invite you guys to criticise, but most will not be criticisable since they will be based on things which probably aren't solid fact. You'll see what I mean.

This isn't exactly an epiphany but something I need to think about.
I have heard that a lot of people don't dream in colour at all or they have monotonous or dully coloured dreams. I have no idea how they would test this since the people who claim that also claim people think they dream in colour when they really don't. That aside, a few psychologists have recently thought of schizophrenia as 'dreaming while awake'. They say that the brain works things out during the night while dreaming and if you are anxious/depressed your brain doesn't have enough time to work it all out and that's why people with anxiety/depression sleep more. Then people with schizophrenia don't just have excess dreams, their dreaming is overloaded. I can't explain it great without turning this into a topic about it so if you want to read more go here.

However I find that a lot of the time schizophrenic people wouldn't be seeing in black and white, monotone or dull colours. At the beginning most of them, if not all, have really bright, flowing, intense visuals just like how Aldous Huxley describes it in Brave New World.
So if it is true that these mental illnesses are caused by the need to dream, dreams must be in colour.

Ok anyway. Here's a proper epiphany.

So I got out of the shower just before and put my undies on backwards. Lets just say I realised why girls wear g-strings. It's so awesome, the towel on my bare arse felt great.

Anyway, I started thinking about all these luxuries we have now. We don't need them. I'm not talking, in the hunter gatherer sense, not needing them. I'm saying they're pointless.

Think about it. If you ever put salt on your food. It tastes a lot more, tasteful. Then you get worried about your health and stop. After a while it tastes just as good without salt. I put my undies on backwards and it felt so nice, after a while it just felt normal.

Just shows what we can live without and just be perfectly comfortable, I'm sure you could replace your bed with a pile of leaves and be just as happy.

Well, that's it for today.

Mmyeah. I dunno about the bed thing. Some beds are significantly better for your back and body overall than others. Though a pile of leaves is probably way healthier than most of the fluffy puffy mattresses we sleep on now. The beds in Korea are really hard, and I was pissed at first... but now I don't even notice the hardness and it's just as comfortable as ever. And my back is better too.

Anyway I'm feeling like I'm typing pointless shit right now, so, peace out. :banana:

BTW I have no idea what you said about schizophrenia. :uhm:

Oh yeah I forgot to post the site. Woops. http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/psychosis.htm
Don't worry about typing pointless shit here lol. I don't think much will come of this, just so I can remember these things I think of which probably have no bearing for anyone who hasn't pondered the same things.

I also remembered another thing I thought of today.
Alan Watts, a Zen Master, talks about people who say to him, in regards to achieving enlightenment, "I know these things, I just don't really feel them".
He says, paraphrasing here, "There is no differencing between knowing and feeling. People just feel the need to hold themselves back, like they have to struggle to get something to happen".
"People want to struggle, for some reason they think nothing will come if you don't try really really hard for it"
"So we feel that we are really not worthy of being enlightened and not able to be".
"People want to say 'oh I'm just poor little me'"

Ok so now I come to my point. People for some reason or another want to feel sorry for themselves, they want others to feel sorry for them too. Alan Watts says "this is because it is just a way of holding yourself back". People are afraid to be better than others I suppose. Maybe because of fear of failing?

Anyway, I remember now my first feeling of this life controlling thought process happening to me. I was in grade 6 in primary school if I remember correctly. Some people were allowed to go out early for the bus and I can't remember exactly why but I was out too. Maybe the teacher was letting people out one-by-one or something, but that's not the point. People were complaining and feeling sorry for themselves. I looked in the classroom and thought "I feel like I should be in there with them suffering" or something like that, maybe "it would be nice to be suffering with those people". Maybe a sens of being part of a group? I really don't know why exactly this happens to us. But I believe if this event never occurred, and didn't ever occur later I would be a much better person. But still, that's feeling sorry for myself again. I am going to try and get out of this thought process through meditation and maybe certain drugs.

I thought this was when it first started but now I realise it probably just reinforced it.
This kid I was sort of friends with was telling me about how his parents only make $56 a week. lol. I now know that is completely wrong but yeah. I felt bad for him and his show lace was screwed and kept breaking (which is why he mentioned that in the first place; I asked why doesn't he just get new shoelaces/shoes). I was going to leave to go home but then I thought that I should stay with him to suffer with him I suppose. Really stupid hey. What is the point of more people suffering than necessary. heh.

I was just thinking before.
Since the beginning of human kind it has been our base drive, to destroy nature. Technically every animal does whether through just eating animals or plants or trampling bush etc. But we do it on a whole other level with our machines and whatnot. The thing is, in doing so we destroy ourselves, ala global warming, extinction of species etc.

Since it is man's nature to destroy nature; we must also destroy ourselves.

Another thought I had was about animals in general. A lot of people just think most animals are just autonomic 'machines', generally following the rule 'the smaller they are the less free choice or higher morals they are functioning on' and therefore less important.

If you believe this you must also believe that they are the same as us. Or we are the same as them. Because what could make us any different?
Unless you believe in a god that created humans separately from animals, you must believe that we are based almost solely on genetics and primal instinct. Studies with twins have shown that over 80% of what we do, even down to our little expressions which we think are uniquely ours, are determined by genetics.
But I predict anyone who reads this, despite undeniable evidence, will still believe 'I am different'.

Which brings me, imminently, to god. With all the choices of religion, from the mainstream ones to the little 2012 ones popping up everywhere. What makes a mere mortal decide that they can choose the exact right one?
If there really is a higher being I doubt we would be capable of even beginning to fathom it. So why bother?

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Originally Posted by tommo

I was just thinking before.
Since the beginning of human kind it has been our base drive, to destroy nature. Technically every animal does whether through just eating animals or plants or trampling bush etc. But we do it on a whole other level with our machines and whatnot. The thing is, in doing so we destroy ourselves, ala global warming, extinction of species etc.

Since it is man's nature to destroy nature; we must also destroy ourselves.

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I wouldn't put it as it being our base drive to destroy nature, but instead to be safe. According to what historians are saying, we originally dropped the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and took up the agricultural one because it yielded a higher chance for a surplus of food, which reduced danger. We started to form civilizations because living in a group offered safety(even though we may not have thought that directly).

We chopped down trees in mass numbers for wood, which reduces the danger of dying of hypothermia. We developed machines to carry out tasks faster and more efficiently, which increased the productivity of what we were doing.

A machine that cuts down trees and saws them into pieces for sale as firewood does it faster than a human, which means more wood in a given time, which means supply can outweigh demand, which means lower prices, which means more people are able to buy firewood, which means fewer people die from lack of a heat source. Sorry for the run-on there.

I think our destruction of nature in general is just us losing track of what we need as protection. Leaded gas was not necessary. No one was dying from lack of cheap gasoline, but indeed spending less on fuel allowed you to spend it elsewhere, such as recreational activities for stress relief. We all know the negatives of stress, so this was definitely removing a danger.

But we didn't initially pay attention to the fact that lead is a neurotoxin responsible for the decline of the health of millions. When we noticed, the companies producing leaded gas kept selling it for money. It's possible that they wanted the money because they perceived the loss of income as a direct threat to themselves, which they placed higher than the environment. It wasn't much of a threat, you can live on less income than what the executives were making.

If you look closely, a lot of the problems we have with nature today are caused by us losing sight of what we need to clear for our own good... and what we need to keep for our own good.

Ah, thanks for replying. That's what I was talking about because sometimes in introspection you lose sight of some of the facts.

I wasn't saying it was exactly our base instinct. I know I said that though but I tried to clarify in the last bit by saying it is our 'nature'. Because nowadays it is.
So to add to what you're saying, I think it is what you were trying to get at anyway. We basically destroy nature to profit ourselves, without realising that the very thing we need to do so is nature. Or plants, animals etc. We can't get anything without something being there first.
As Carl Sagan said "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe".

But I guess my statement still stands, but in a different way "Since it is man's nature to destroy nature; we must also destroy ourselves." Because we have to destroy other people to profit ourselves. Lead petrol for example :D.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tommo

Ah, thanks for replying. That's what I was talking about because sometimes in introspection you lose sight of some of the facts.

I wasn't saying it was exactly our base instinct. I know I said that though but I tried to clarify in the last bit by saying it is our 'nature'. Because nowadays it is.
So to add to what you're saying, I think it is what you were trying to get at anyway. We basically destroy nature to profit ourselves, without realising that the very thing we need to do so is nature. Or plants, animals etc. We can't get anything without something being there first.
As Carl Sagan said "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe".

But I guess my statement still stands, but in a different way "Since it is man's nature to destroy nature; we must also destroy ourselves." Because we have to destroy other people to profit ourselves. Lead petrol for example :D.

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Now I see, that exactly was what I was trying to get at. I wonder if this behavior is some sort of universal defense mechanism, like our destruction of nature is supposed to kill us to stop us from becoming too powerful and widespread. If humans were to disappear, most of nature would eventually recover.

Yeah, that's true. I spose it could be. I mean whenever say, a big population gets to big (usually I should say) another thing comes to wipe it out. I had aphids in my garden and ladybugs started coming (they eat them heaps) unfortunately I forgot about it and sprayed soap everywhere to kill the aphids lol.

But yeah, you can see how things can get interrupted. Like nowadays we simple cull species that threaten us.

Maybe I'm getting off track of what you were saying. Universal defense mechanism. Could be right. Because, if not, how would so many species be alive right now? If one species just grew and grew until it was the only one left, they'd either die or have to switch to cannibalism. I'm pretty sure most animals don't even consider eating their own species, so if one species got to large in history, ergo not enough food, they would die en masse. Maybe even become extinct. But the little tiny things and/or bacteria surviving would evolve slowly, and probably be less likely to do the same. (since there would be less food at this time and therefore the ones who started evolving and eating too much would just die again).

Talk about eating ourselves to death o_0

To truly teach someone you must take what they know and apply it to what you know.
It is the basic method of all teaching.

For example, if someone knows that 1+1=2 then I can show them how this automatically implies that 2+2=4, and so on. That's how we learn everything.

Now, how to put this into practice when trying to get your point across to someone.... If I wanted to teach a Christian/Catholic that Cannabis is a good herb.... I would acknowledge to myself first that they believe primarily in the teachings of the bible. This is their first source of reference when trying to understand something they are told (Not taught; they are only taught once they have understood it. i.e 'Checked' their current knowledge to see if what they are being told harmonises with what they already know).
So once you know what their current beliefs are, whether it's religion or science or that they only know that they are human, you can relate to what they believe and explain what you know in terms of that.

So.... I would explain to a Christian, the bible tells us that god put all these plants on earth for the people to consume. He said they are all for us. Cannabis is a plant, ergo Cannabis was meant for us to consume. I would also tell them that the actual translation for the annointing oil ingredient of 'Kaneh Bosom' is not Calamus, but is in fact Cannabis. God wanted us to use this plant.

Another example would be if a person, a child, knows they have their own thoughts. At first when we are young children, we don't realise that everybody else has their own thought as well.
So to show a child this is so, you must explain, you are a person, I and everyone else are people too, we all have thoughts, just as you have thoughts. They usually figure this out for themselves, but they also just use the same formula for figuring this out; unless they are the type that grow to be extremely narcissistic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tommo

So.... I would explain to a Christian, the bible tells us that god put all these plants on earth for the people to consume. He said they are all for us. Cannabis is a plant, ergo Cannabis was meant for us to consume. I would also tell them that the actual translation for the annointing oil ingredient of 'Kaneh Bosom' is not Calamus, but is in fact Cannabis. God wanted us to use this plant.

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My favorite exposition of this point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baeT3g7udho

Haha yeah, that's funny. I like the one where he says "doesn't making something natural, illegal, seem a bit Un-natural to you!?" HAHA

I was thinking today about the fact that people find ancient torture and such things interesting. But yet when we see something on the news about someone bashing some else or killing someone else in some weird way we feel horrified or disgusted. (This is for most people, I know some people are different).

Then compare this to if something good happens like some girl get's the man of her dreams. We find this interesting. We think about it quite a bit. The same is true for old tales we hear of.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I will give it some more thought.

It seems ancient torture holds the same level of interest and sometimes enjoyment when thinking or hearing about the crazy things they did, as the good things we experience today.

But again, I'm still thinking about this and I just needed to post this so I don't forget.