Friday 30 November 2018

Contendment for Contentment

What is contentment?
What causes it, and how is it achieved?
Why does it seem difficult to achieve?

To be “content” is basically to be satisfied with current circumstances. Contentment insinuates to be complacently appreciative or grateful for present conditions. If being “satisfied”, “appreciative”, or “grateful”, are forms of a positive perception, then it seems it is relative and subjective to the individual, and dependant on their mentality (based on my previous post and understanding of “Positive Perception”).

The term “Satisfied” seems to basically refer to, an individual having a positive perception in relation to something (a particular factor or their general existence). If so, then the positive perception should be attainable from any of the 3 states of brain function; instinct, subconscious, or conscious comprehension.

“Appreciation” or “gratefulness” seem to require an additional comprehension of the cause of the positive perception, in order to be “grateful” for that cause of the positive effects. If so, then gratefulness should only be attainable by some degree of conscious comprehension, rather than instinct or subconsciousness. If consciousness is understood as accessing memories of a factor simultaneously to the cause of that factor, then “gratefulness” can be understood as being conscious of the cause of a current positive factor.

So contentment seems to relative to positive perception (which is relative to survival factors for the individual), as well as comprehension of some aspect of cause of the positive factors. Why does contentment seem difficult to achieve?

If positive factors are pursued with a lack of comprehensive awareness and focus on the current positive factors and the cause and effect of those factors, then there should be a lack of contentment. If an individual only focuses on positive factors which are not current, such as past or future potential factors, there will be a lack of satisfaction or appreciation.

Instincts trigger the subconscious part of the mind to pursue more positive factors, but the function of subconscious only involves simple short term memories of positive factors. With only the function of subconscious, there would be no capability of the individual to comprehend concepts of potential future. Without this capability, there’s no capability to over-focus on potential positive, reducing focus on present positive. Conscious comprehension of concepts of potential positive circumstances is what allows the over-focus. Consciousness seems to be a required contributor to 1 cause of lack of contentment.

With conscious comprehension of this entire topic & concept in itself, an individual can make the memory connection of these causes and effects of contentment or lack thereof. They could remember the concept that over-focusing on potential future or past positives is ineffective, and reduces focus on present positives. A lack of focus on present positives causes a lack of satisfaction, and a lack of focus on cause of positive factors (and therein appreciation). Consciousness may be an enabler of over-focus on non-present positive, but is also what enables the potential to counteract that over-focus, and for all the components to contentment.

Wednesday 21 November 2018

Positive Perception

What is good?
What causes a perception of positivity in a person or animal?

If something being perceived as good, is considered to be subjective to the individual, based on their psychology, then that which causes certain things to be perceived as good would be dependant on that individuals instincts, subconscious influence, and conscious comprehension.

Instincts would be the default triggers gained from birth, which cause the individual to perceive certain aspects of life to be good or bad. Typically, with animals, natural selection causes instincts to give positive reinforcement for occurrences which help that animal survive. When the animals’ sensory input receives general resemblances of these occurrences, the instinctual triggers cause it to perceive that occurrence, as good. Negative reinforcement instincts, of occurrences which harm the individual, cause the opposite perception, of bad. Based on instincts, the perception of good, basically depends on what helps that animal survive and reproduce.

Experience can alter what an animal or person perceives as good. Experiences cause the subconscious to to influence the individual on what is good. As an animal experiences something beneficial for its survival, and receives the positive reinforcement from instincts, that positive reinforcement can associate other things which the animal sensed at the time, even though the alternate factors were not a direct cause of the positive reinforcement. Say a raccoon sneaks into a yard at night, and after exploring, finds some tasty dog food in a dog dish. It will receive positive reinforcement from instinctual triggers, because the food helps it survive. After this experience, from that point on, the raccoons subconscious will associate positive feedback with the sight of a dog dish. The dog dish was not perceived as good before the experience, but the raccoons perception of good has been altered by those memories, to also include the sight of a dog dish.

Conscious comprehension can make things more complex. When a person actively accesses memories, making new connections based on comprehension of the interaction of different concepts or factors within memories, this can alter subconscious association between various factors and past positive feedback. With comprehension of how a factor (which is connected with positivity), affects alternate factors, those alternate factors can then also become associated with positive reinforcement, and therein perceived as good.

Since food causes positive feedback for a person, if they comprehend that money can cause them to acquire food to eat, money then becomes associated with positivity. Furthermore, if a person comprehends the connection of concepts within memory, that winning the lottery would allow them to acquire lots of money, they may then alter their subconscious to associate lottery tickets with positivity. Lottery tickets would then be perceived as good by that person, whereas without conscious comprehension of concepts, a ticket would be virtually perceived as a useless piece of paper.
If the goal is to achieve a maximum quantity of what is perceived to be good, then perhaps finding a positive instinctual trigger which can be implemented the most (without reduction of other positive feedback), or can be associated the most by subconscious influence, using available factors. Finding an overall balance of environmentally available factors, associated with positive feedback, might be the key. Making the best use of available factors, would additionally allow the conscious comprehension association between the factors, to make more positive connections based on comprehension of cause and effect of those factors. Generally, keeping overall good health, should be a common and effective balance of positive reinforcement based on survival. Using various factors associated with health, conscious comprehension of function can associate those factors with the instinctual positivity of health.

The core cause of the perception of good, seems to be instinctual feedback triggers. But experiences and memory access can influence additional factors to be perceived as good, based on factors that are caused by those reinforcement triggers which are acquired from birth. Since conscious, active memory access can cause the perception of positivity and good, by accessing memories of factors and connections to particular positive aspects, conscious comprehension seems to be an effective tool in orchestrating a comprisal of positivity.

Thursday 15 November 2018

Life Logic Philosophized (Post #100)

This seems to be my 100th posting (+ < 1 week to my 30th B-day), so it should be suiting to do an overview, review, & preview of the topics and concepts that I’ve covered. Perhaps I can come up with some sort of summary.

It’s been almost 2 yrs since I 1st started posting on this blog, though the 1st 37 were all reposted writings, which I had already written previously (then revised), so I had actually been writing for awhile before that. The earliest date I seem to be able to find is April 3 2015, so lets say its been about 3.5yrs of writing. After all this, I’m aware that still, little to nobody reads any of it or cares, meaning I’m basically talking to myself right now. But at a minimum, it’s still an effective way for me to think concepts through more distinctly, and have a recording for potential review.

Some concepts that I refer to here, will be linked (electronically, as well as conceptually) to another of my posts of an attempted explanation. If anyone does happen to read this and other posts, feedback is almost (no absolutes.. :) always appreciated. Now that I’ve expanded my philosiphizing (including adaptive vocabularisation ;) to regular discussion Meetups and some (previous) personal discussions (probably the best of my life, with someone in particular…): and online forums, I’ve had some feedback and and mental stimulation for ideas and topics (so can have some more confidence that I’m not just completely delusional about everything (wondering, may be a side effect of open mindedness)). But, more feedback would be potentially beneficial, adding input of additional perspectives.

So, what have I been writing about?
My post counts are at:
Psychogy 30
Dirivity of Divinity 21
Consciousity 16
Perspectual 15
Priciplication 6
Conceptary 9
(I seem to be missing 2 here, which I probably forgot to record in my chart. But I’m too lazy to figure out which ones..)

I write mostly about “Psychogy”, which is psychology and how the mind or brain works. This category would include all my posts in “Consciousity”, but the category was so big, it seemed practical to divide it, and separate my biggest subtopic, being consciousness. How the mind functions, is by far my biggest category, I suppose because it seems like the most widely relevant and important concept. Psychology could be considered to be the core of virtually every action taken by people, and therein the point of origin for all problems or successes in this world. If every decision and action that anyone has ever taken, is caused by the functionality of their brain, then it seems like a fairly significant prospect. (And yet, little to no psychology is taught in our lovely school system. hmm...)
Perhaps the importance adds the extra reason to pursue the topic, but also the mystery and complexity of function of why we and animals do what we do, is very intriguing to me. If we understand the cause and effect of how our brains work, we should be able to further develop our thinking methods, and therein improve decisions/ actions, and virtually improve every aspect  of humanity.

“Dirivity of Divinity” is my 2nd biggest topic. As the concept of God is quite relevant to life, in terms of whether or not “he” exists, also the significance in relation to common life, under the circumstances that he does exist (which I believe). From my perspective, God is probably even more commonly misunderstood than psychology.

Then there’s the last 3 categories. “Perspectual”, meaning basically differing concepts of perspectives, relevant to life. “Principlication”, meaning topics related to principles. And lastly, “Conceptary” is basically more generalized concepts, which don’t seem to fit the categories of perspective or principles. These are basically categories of concepts which can be applied to various aspects throughout life, once understood. All, of course influenced and caused by psychology, but these concepts are more focused on applicability to typically recurring scenarios within life.

As I consider all of my attempted Analysis Processing Comprehension & Understanding (APCU) to be philosophy. My topics are mostly, at least somewhat complex concepts involving a lot of variables, making it difficult, indistinct, and inaccurate to effectively comprehend. Science can take care of the mathematical and or precisely measurable prospects. I consider philosophy to be more abstractish questions, benefitting from a wide perspective of consideration -to theorize potentials, combined with rational understanding and reasoning -in order to carry concepts and distinguish probable cause and effect. Open-mindedness (or at least what I believe it to be ;) mixed with logic, seem to be effective ingredients for interpreting the mysterious complexities of life. Overall, in some ways, it’s just Life Logic.

Monday 12 November 2018

Potential Functional Consciousness of God

If God is a consciousness of this universe, does his consciousness function scientifically similar to a human brain?

As my best understanding of consciousness, I’ll assume that consciousness of a human brain functions by means of; memory access of a factor and memory access of the relative interaction of that factor, simultaneously. Basically, consciousness is thinking about how something works, or is affected by other things, at the same time of thinking about the thing itself. If this is the case, how could God’s consciousness function similarly?

For a human, the physical requirements for the function of consciousness seem to be the brain, to acquire information, store it as memory, then access that information. But as the seeming cause of consciousness only involves accessing the information, regardless of how the information was acquired, the basic minimum requirement would be a process of accessing information. As long there is some function of accessing info which is relative, consciousness should be plausible. If a human accesses memory information of cause and effect of factors in their surroundings, they can cause an alteration to the circumstances of the factors, to have a preferred outcome.

For God to have a similarly functioning consciousness, it seems he would need access to relative information about the universe. Since, to be conscious, information about any given factor and the interaction of cause and effect of that factor must be accessed, God would need access to information of any particles within the universe which are relevant to any changes he may make, based on his conscious awareness.

But timing is not so important as it may seem, for consciousness and change to particles. The info about the particles wouldn’t necessarily need to be at the time of the circumstances, which are consciously and intentionally being altered. If the info about the particles was accessed in the past, and the effect of the particles was altered the past, it would still have the same effect. As long as every interaction of all relevant particles is known from the past point of consciousness and alteration, up to the time of occurrence, the alteration could be made at any point in the past (including the beginning of the universe). Time is only an additional factor of information about how particles interact, which needs to be known. If completely accurate information is known about all future interactions, time is not relevant.

It seems that potentially, God could have been consciously aware of the cause and effect interaction of all particles in the universe (which are relevant to that which he alters), at the beginning of the universe, and could have made intentional alterations to the particles, at that point, which would then cause his will at any time in the future.

Friday 9 November 2018

Instinctivity

What is instinct, and what effect does it have on the mind?

My best description is; Instinct is a living organism’s automatic reaction to circumstances of sensory stimulation, which was acquired biologically and genetically.

So basically, it’s a reaction to certain situations, which an animal has had from birth.
The animal could be basically any living organism which has a brain or nervous system, including insects, up to humans. It needs to be an animal with a brain, since the term “instinct” typically refers to a reaction from sensory input, to circumstances. So the animal senses something, then has a reaction to what it sensed.

The reaction must be acquired genetically, rather than be a reaction based on the animals previous experiences. If an animal has memory of previous experiences involving the circumstances, the memory might influence it’s reaction subconsciously to differ from what it’s instinctual reaction would be. Or furthermore, a human (or perhaps at times intelligent animals) might use conscious thought and reasoning to alter what would have been instinctual reaction.

For eg. a deer might instinctually go toward an apple tree, as it was born with the reaction to go toward an apple tree when it sees or smells the apples, so that it can eat and survive. But if the deer is subconsciously influenced by memory of a past experience, of been attacked by a wolf near that particular apple tree, it might have an alternate over-influencing reaction to its instincts, and go away from that apple tree.
Or a person might have the instinctive trigger to be fearful and avoid spiders (as instincts likely developed to avoid venomous spiders), but conscious thought of past attained knowledge that a certain type of spider is not dangerous, may change their reaction, to let them pick up the spider.

Even though an instinct is a reaction to the senses perceiving circumstances which are relevant to that reaction, the instinct can also be strongly influenced by biochemicals in the brain, or emotions. The biochemicals are basically an instinctual reaction of positive or negative feedback, developed as a more efficient survival mechanism to influence a certain subconscious reaction. So in any given situation, an animal might have the instinct to feel the chemical feedback, as a reaction to the senses perceivance. The chemicals in the mind, would then cause a reaction relative to the situation.

The combination of chemicals might then trigger other reactions, based on new sensory input, after the initial trigger of the chemical reaction. So the initial reaction from circumstances would be instinct, but short-term future reactions to newly perceived factors, as a result of the emotion latency effects, would also be instinct. For eg. a zebra might have the instinctual biochemical reaction to feel frightened when it sees a lion running toward it, then the instinct to run. If the lion goes after another zebra, and this one escapes, 1 minute later, while it’s still running with its chemically concocted rush of fear still influencing it, it might see a boulder slightly resembling the shape of a lion. The zebra would have the instinctual reaction to run the opposite direction from the boulder. Normally, in a calm state, it’s instinct would not be to run from the boulder, but under the influence of heightened chemicals (such as adrenaline etc) from the recent occurrence, it then has a different instinctual reaction, of running away from the boulder.

As long as the initial reaction is caused by the animals natural trigger (rather than influenced by previous experience), then the overall reaction can perhaps still be considered instinct (even if the reaction utilizes memory). Say a person smells bacon cooking in a restaurant, and has the instinct to eat the bacon (as a natural reaction to the smell of meat cooking). Even if the person has to use memories of concepts and experience, to order the bacon as part of their meal, the initial reaction of pursuing the bacon, to then eat it, is still instinctual.

Instinct is at the core of our genetics and minds as the default reaction to circumstances. It can often be the influential mechanism to cause an initial reaction and short-term future reactions. But ultimately, subconscious memory of experiences, or more accurate data of conscious memory of reason and concepts, can override that initial instinct.

Friday 2 November 2018

Traumaphobia

What causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and phobias?
How can they be overpowered?

PTSD, as it describes, is disorderly stress, after a traumatic event. As a traumatic event is basically a scenario which causes an extreme negative emotional reaction, it is this trauma which causes the recurring future stress.

When the mind experiences extreme negative emotional feedback, it deems that memory as extremely important. Signifying that memory as important, is a basic function of subconscious reaction. Developed for survival, subconscious brain activity will trigger a fear reaction, when a similar scenario arises, to a memory of a past circumstance with negative emotional reinforcement. This was generally beneficial to avoid scenarios which cause harm. The stronger the negative reinforcement at the time of the circumstances, the stronger the influence will be for the reaction of fear.

So with a traumatic experience, comes the future subconscious reaction to be extremely fearful or feel extreme negative emotions, as a result of scenarios arising with resemblances to the initial trauma. The trigger for the extreme negative emotions could be any part of, or an overall scenario which resembles the original traumatic experience.

Phobias might be caused by more gradual subconscious negative emotional reinforcement, or by fluke instincts from genetics. If caused by experiences, it may be from repeated negative occurrences involving whatever the phobia is of, or from negative experiences involving something similar, which the subconscious mind considers similar enough to. Often phobias are simply instinctual and gained by genetics from birth. If something proved to cause harm often enough in the past, throughout generations, and being born with a fear of it, proved to be beneficial to survival, then eventually it may have been worked into genetic instincts. For eg. fear of snakes or spiders would likely have proven to be beneficial to be fearful of right from birth, since many are venomous and will reduce survival.  

These negative emotional reactions could be counteracted with a combination of conscious awareness and positive reinforcement. Conscious awareness is often required in order to overpower the subconscious fearful reaction. Consciousness is generally the strongest controller of the mind, when used to at least a significant degree. This is why you are capable of consciously choosing to make a decision, when that decision is focused on (by consciousness), rather than the default of subconscious reaction determining the decision. So using consciousness in the specific situations which cause subconscious negative feedback, someone can focus on the function, and logical causes and effects of the scenario. If they can focus on comprehending the rationality that the negative emotional feedback is not relevant to the specific circumstances. Comprehension of this concept in itself (of the causes of subconscious reaction) should prove to aid in the conscious comprehension of irrational negative emotional reactions.

Once the person is consciously aware of the irrationality of the negative emotions, they should be able to persist the resembling circumstances which cause the subconscious reaction. If they then comprehend that it was a positive result, of successfully overcoming the irrational fear.  With recurrence of this process, the subconscious mind will slowly counteract the negative feedback, with positive feedback from the conscious control and success. Eventually the positive feedback can completely override the negative, creating rational subconscious feedback, with no more requirement for conscious focus during the circumstances.

PTSD and phobias seems to be caused by experiences or genetics with subconscious causing the irrational reaction, but most of these negative reactions should be overpowerable and counteractable with an effective use of conscious comprehension.

Thursday 1 November 2018

Seam of a Dream

What causes dreams?

Dreaming is a state in between being conscious and unconscious. It is a state of subconsciousness, as you are perceiving experiences without being consciously aware. If you were consciously aware of the experiences, then you would likely be able to remember dreams about as well as you remember being awake. Consciousness and accuracy of memory access are fairly distinctly correlated and connected. Also, if you were consciously aware during a dream, you would be able to make conscious decisions, as you do while awake. There is the state of lucid dreaming, where you are mostly aware and able to make decisions, and this seems to be a rare state, in between subconscious and conscious, where some consciousness is used.

So, regular dreaming being a state of subconscious brain activity, is arguably similar to an animals normal mind state. The difference would be a lack of sensory input to act as a trigger for memory access, while dreaming. When an animal is awake (or perhaps a human drugged/ drunk enough), their active sensory input is the regulator for triggering which memories are accessed, and which reactions are taken. When someone (or an animal) is dreaming, there are very limited senses inputting data to trigger memory access.

With a lack of active sensory stimulation, the brain moves on to be triggered by the most recent sensory input, which then accesses new memories resembling the most recent. From recent activities (likely throughout recent hours of being awake), the subconscious mind will default to memories which were very recurrent with a well worked neural pathway. From that point on, while dreaming, the most profound sensory trigger for which memory to access next, is usually whichever memory is currently being accessed in the dream. This creates a seemingly bizarre, inconsistent, ambiguous, and unorganized stream of memories, as 1 indistinct memory triggers another. Since the brain is not accessing all the neurons of entire memories accurately, only portions of memories are accessed. If the brain is accessing a memory of an overall scenario, but details of the memory are inaccurate (as those details may have been deemed unimportant by feedback), then the mind seems to fill in the details with portions from other memories. Portions used to fill in detail are likely based on the most often recurring memory of that detail. With numerous portionate details within an overall streamed scenario, a lot of triggers to other memories and other portions are likely to occur, making dreams all the more chaotic.

While awake, some memories are linked as most important by instinctual emotional reinforcement. These memories connected to significant emotional feedback, are more likely to be accessed as a result of another similar memory being accessed. Any sensory experience is more likely to trigger the resembling memory, since it was saved more accurately and distinctly, by emotional reinforcement. This is the basis function for subconscious brain activity, as is the cause of trauma as a significant negative memory, or addiction as a significant positive memory. Trauma or an extremely negative memory, is more likely to be accessed by sensing a similar scenario which triggers it. So that negative memory is more likely to be triggered and accessed during a dream, as well as while awake. With these memories, comes the negative emotion connected to them, such as fear (ie. a nightmare).

So if dreams are initiated and filled in with the most recent and recurrent wakeful memories, but more probable to be driven in a direction of what the mind has deemed most important, they should be a good hint at what you are regularly dealing with and concerned about. Dreams seem to be an illustration of our subconscious mind.

Greater Good

What is the Greater Good?
How is it determined?
How does it compare?

If this term is considered to be adaptable to varying scenarios, then in general, it seems it intends the meaning of; most universally beneficial. By this definition, it should generally be applicable to most circumstances. The variables of which are taken into consideration for the degree of beneficiality, would depend on the extents of variables which are affected. So basically, as long as a factor is influenced (by whatever is in question for causing the “greater good”), then it should be taken into account, when determining the greater good.

Determining the “greater good”, will often be a vague inaccurate estimate, but a rough estimate will still give you higher probability of benefit, than lack of estimate, and therein random fluke. The basic of determination would be estimating which effects of the options at hand, will be the most beneficial for all that are affected. Figuring out what is the most beneficial for the total sum of factors that are affected, can be estimated by comparing a theoretical value, based on the resulting effects. If there is a small value for many factors which are influenced, compared to big value for 1 factor, the quantities of value on each side can be weighed for which is greater. Even if a theoretical value seems minimal (say 2), if it is for a lot of factors (say 1000 people), it can still greatly outweigh a high value (say 100), for few influenced factors (say 5 people). The theoretical value comparison turns out to be 2000 to 500.

Decisions made in favour of the greater good would prove to be significantly better for the entire group. For eg, those 1000 people were in a small town, and they each had that option, of either 2$ for everyone, or $100 for themselves and 4 others. If each person took the $100 (since it seems better for themselves!), the towns total gain would be $500 000. But if each person went for the greater good of $2 for all, the towns total gain would be $2 000 000. The unintuitive option of the greater good, would be 400% better.

This can often mean a reduced benefit individually, since your portions will be reduced, in order to spread more portions. But it is most beneficial overall, and if others were to make similar choices, you would benefit more overall as well. If each individual doesn’t make their own contribution to the greater good (despite initial personal reduction of benefit), then they can’t complain, without being a hypocrite, about others choosing selfishness over overall benefit, or complain about accumulated universal problems, which are a result of mass negative contribution. If the concept of contribution is understood in combination with the greater good, then each person could do their part, and there will still be an universal gain, regardless of number of contributions.