"Thought does not originate in the brain, nor is it created by the brain. And it is the mind which remembers, not the brain cells. It is the Ego, the "I," which thinks; mind is the substance which "I" uses, and thoughts are the tools. Thoughts are transmitted to the brain from the mind, and it therefore follows that the brain influences and determines the type and quality of thoughts received." _Life and Its Mysteries_, by Frank L. Hammer, 1945, chapter II "Mind"Do bees have ego? (See comments from "A Students Work" for more information.)
Monday, November 12, 2007
Where Thoughts Come From
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43 comments:
what does the word 'ego' represent?
I always wondered whether or not bees have knees.
Ego represents a separate identity.
Mossy,
I think they have many. :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/60685364/in/set-5958/
Sophia,
I think Ego represents Society and is not really separate from it. Some crazy wisdom, I guess.
Siegfried,
Society can have its own ego, just as a person can. Society is just a much larger organism.
Well, at least society is not separate from the ego. Or the ego is not separate from society.
Anonymous #2,
I agree with you.
Why?
I just follow this one simple rule that is impossible to break: nothing is separate.
what does the word 'society' represent?
what is the mechanism by which the ego is created?
I think of a large group of people when I see the word "society". It's all the people that make-up a community.
Thinking creates ego. The mind.
so thoughts come from mind
thinking creates ego
ego represents a separate identity
and a buncha ego's make up a society
what make characterizes the 'human' state vs animal state?
Humans are aware that they are aware.
At least part of the time.
Humans are aware that they are aware.
At least part of the time.
The rest of time they are thinking, or are aware that they are thinking
thinking creates ego
thoughts come from mind
ego represents a separate identity
Society can have its own ego, just as a person can. Society is just a much larger organism.
does thinking really create an ego?
I thought so. Would my ego exist if I didn't think?
does 1+1 = ego?
the ego will be there until it is surrendered, or until its cause is dissolved
but how did it get there in the first place?
Mr Gurdjieff said, our work was to "make personality passive and essence active."
keeping the personality active and trying to get rid of thoughts...will just make your mind blank and wit dull
what makes a personality?
Sophia,
Thank you for the photo.
Now I can see that bees indeed have knees.
Does your ego exist?
Does a hive of bees have thoughts?
I don't know if 1+1=ego. Mathematically I'd say it could be, because two is dual, and ego thinks it is separate. Maybe I don't understand what you're asking.
I think the ego got here because it was part of our evolution. Early humans used their minds to survive, but as time went on we started to use our minds for other things.
I don't really want to get rid of my thoughts. I like getting lost in them sometimes. I know I'd be a lot better off if I could just be aware that I was getting lost in them. Can one be aware and lost at the same time? Can I deeply participate in the game of life while being aware?
Is my essence the same as everyone else's? Is there only one essence?
Personality is our behavior or traits, characteristics that people see in social interactions with us.
If we kill the personality, wouldn't we be zombies? Or maybe we can just wear a mask in order to get by, like, make it seem to everyone else that we have a personality, but not get so wrapped up in it.
My mind don't know if 1+1=ego. Mathematically It would say it could be, because two is dual, and ego thinks it is separate. Maybe my mind don't understand what you're asking.
my mind thinks the ego got here because it was part of our evolution. Early humans used their minds to survive, but as time went on we started to use our minds for other things.
my mind don't really want to get rid of my thoughts. my mind likes getting lost in them sometimes. my mind knows it would be a lot better off if It could just be aware that It was getting lost in them. Can one be aware and lost at the same time? Can I deeply participate in the game of life while being aware?
yes
Do you know where Frank Hammer got his ideas from? So many writers have used their "intuition" to make these kinds of assertions: in this case to define the difference between brain and mind. Often they claim, explicitly or implicitly, that their ideas are channelled from an infallible source, It would be nice if that were true, but I think it is just their intuition and that's something which can be wrong.
I prefer to use my own intuition after having absorbed as best I can a more informed study, such as Antonio Damasio's excellent The Feeling of What Happens: body emotion and the making of consciousness. It says on the back of the book:
"One of the world's leading experts on the neurophysiology of emotions, Professor Damasio shows how our consciousness, our sense of being, arose out of the development of emotion. . . . "
Writers such as Hammer who speak of "mind" as something separate from body are connected to theosophical and religious traditions. They have not taken on board the implications of Darwin's evolution.
Does the most primitive animal (such as a bacillus) have a mind? If not, at what stage in evolution does "mind" leap into the newly-conceived combination of DNA generated by sexual reproduction? Are we to imagine that mind is part of soul, and soul is hanging around ready to jump into the newly-generated individual?
Does Frank L Hammer have answers to these mysteries of life, or is he just another mystic with variants on the old spiritual themes?
Anonymous,
I see your point. (Or, my mind sees your point.)
All of these thoughts are my mind. They are not me.
Interesting question. Maybe someday we will know that answer.
Sophia,
I guess this is how you separate yourself. By disidentifying. If you are not thoughts, what are you?
If you are not Tolle and your thoughts, who are you?
Vincent,
I had never heard of Frank Hammer before Monday. I was skimming through various "new thought" texts when I found that particular paragraph. It resonated with me and was very relevant to something another visitor and I have spoken about.
I am a firm believer that science can not answer all the questions.
Intuition is not always incorrect. I've used mine to get me out of many pickles.
Hey, watch it. I might be "just another mystic", too.
Mark,
The other day I was thinking to myself (as I normally do), "Thoughts come from the mind, but where does the mind come from?"
Siegried,
Part of me wants to say that without these thoughts, I am nothing.
what do you mean by 'soul' vincent
what does that word represent
Without thoughts "I" is nothing. Well actually it is always nothing but description, but without thoughts it can not even pretend do be something.
When thoughts are gone there is still something there, something other than "I".
I just tried it, it is strange to observe me without describing me.
Reminds me of "Thou shall make no graven images".
Mossy
Oh it's nice to be a mystic, Sophia! But it doesn't mean we know anything about anything. It's just that we are awake to more inputs.
To Anonymous: thanks for the question about soul. It is a favourite word of mine but I don't think of it as a separate entity from the body. I see it as a mode of being, visible when we apprehend in a certain sensitive way. I don't mean literally visible although some persons might use one or more of their five senses to apprehend it.
But in my comment I was referring to soul as synonymous with spirit. The ancients believed that the life force was contained in the breath and so we would die when we no longer breathed - hence "spirit" which refers to breath.
Now we know fully what the function of breath is.
I don't believe that human beings have more or less soul than anything else. We are animals with special senses and in particular a special brain. If there is something else - brain, mind or spirit - then I see no evidence that it isn't also in a cow, a bee, a leaf or a stone.
Ego is Latin for I. To say the "ego" is to say "the Latin nominative first person pronoun." Thoughts originate in the neocortex while the word "ego" is stored in Broca's area of the brain. That's it really...but where do thoughts go?
What is missing from these discussions?
functionally the power-to-be-conscious in the 'human' configuration has the ability to abstract and manipulate 'objects'
as modern 'humans' biologists, physicists, chemists, neuroscientists, we know that image in our minds appearing substantive is actually a dynamic configuration of cellular structures composed of molecules atoms subatomic paricles etc
it also happens to be that we are on a 'planet' spinning around the middle of nowhere
acting as separate individualizing forcing we've noticed that manipulating and controlling objects subtle or gross can bring us pleasure or reduce our fear and this keeps us busy ignoring the big picture
the structure resulting from this process, what we call the 'human' mind for most of us is sort of an ingrown toenail because the focus of being is on the motion created by the bifurcating intellect.
'soul' 'spirit' can be equated with mind also....but not the 'personal mind' created out of the state of objective identification.
The 'personality' upon seeing 'things' and 'objects' giving value to images refers back to itself and form concepts based on the most superficial layer of 'reality'
darwin's research is a beautiful example of the scientific study of the most superficial layer of objective inheritance. Im not knocking it, its great!
Mossy,
I do not think the ego can be completely destroyed. I think it can, however, be pushed to the brink of the furthermost edge of mind.
So, there will always be something. The no-thing called Nothing can not work full time jobs.
I wonder what level of thoughts there are for all creatures. I think some thoughts have to be thought in order to walk to the left, or to the right.
How deep a thought must be thought to love a man? How deep a thought to eat? Or to breathe or blink?
I don't think I can ever become nothing. But I can work on being more aware of the thing that I am being. I just have to take a few steps behind myself. I want to learn how to do this.
Without the I there is an essence.
Vincent,
I was just giving you a hard time, but only as a friend would playfully tease a friend.
What is there to know when most of the facts we have come from an illusory world?
Leighton,
As I can see no possibility for things to disappear completely - and thoughts are things - I therefore don't think thoughts disappear. Who knows for sure what a thought is, scientifically. Are they electrical impulses? I don't know, I'm asking you. I'm not too knowledgeable on anatomy or neurology. Maybe they are recycled.
Anonymous,
What do you think is missing? Let me know and I'll see if I can provide.
"as modern 'humans' biologists, physicists, chemists, neuroscientists, we know that image in our minds appearing substantive is actually a dynamic configuration of cellular structures composed of molecules atoms subatomic paricles etc"
You'll have to forgive me, but I hardly have even a layman's level of knowledge on these things, but are you talking about the image we get in our mind when we visually see objects or images in our minds formed by thoughts? Or are they both the same?
By the way, what are you referring to by "big picture"? Death? Is everything we do in life some way of avoiding thoughts of the horror of dying?
How would you define the soul/spirit mind, as opposed to the personal mind we have develoloped due to identifying with forms?
the images that we pick up though our senses visually, through our ears and feeling faculities. do not belong to the configuration of things. they belong the capacity of our minds to organize 3 dimensional objects. We hold these 3 dimensional images in space.
big picture just means that if what is called a body represent 3 dimensional object in mind then one can dwell on a pimple on the arm. The personal mind contracts and pulls your attention with it to exclusion of other potentially useful information
if one releases that image one can see the whole room
spirit, mind soul registers that which is reflected it also registers itself
the law of thoughts is similar to chemical affinity.....or by the saying birds of a feather, flock together
the quality of thought depends on the affinity of psyche one has stored in their 'personal space'
thoughts come from within and without
just as their are wave in an ocean, thoughts pass through according what is happing and what affinity one stores .
the 'body' also stimulates thoughts about what it wants
Anonymous,
Thoughts come from within and without... what is the "without" they sometimes come from? Does this have anything to do with inspiration?
One's psyche is a conglomeration of all the events from the past, right?
I ask too many questions. I just realized that was three in a row. This is something my good friend would point out to me. I think it drives him nuts.
Are psyche and subconscious the same things?
For three years I missed the rest of the room because I was focused (obsessed, probably) on one object. My mind can still be like this at times.
If I may brag, I'm getting better about it, because I'm stopping a few times a day lately and looking at myself. It's an odd feeling.
Oh well, they're just thoughts.
Vincent,
You're right, how do we know whether or not there's not soul in animals? I think people who say animals haven't soul are egotistical. It's like saying there are no aliens. Are we that important?
Try telling my cats that they don't have a soul. They seem to behave as if they do. I wonder about my grouchy dog, though.
Our facts come from an illusory world?
Now, Sophia, you must know better than this.
Some mystics, especially from India, may have said, "All is Maya, illusion". But it doesn't entitle you and me to go around saying the same when we haven't experienced it, especially when we are talking about facts!
Sophia, you ask "Are psyche and subconscious the same things?"
Who knows? Out of context they are nothing: just words that someone might use in a certain way. When Sri Aurobindo talks of Mind and Spirit and Life and Soul, he might be talking about the same or separate things. He might just be talking nonsense from ignorance. It's no use going through life being awed by the wisdom of others, though of course that's a nice polite feminine thing to do.
the problem with "All is Maya, illusion" is that both the image in the mind and the configuration are ignored.
This semantic blockage in india's group psyche or meem causes much poverty, and disease.
teacher such as vitvan www.sno.org describe this human and animal development stuff pretty thoroughly. He tries to make this stuff as simple as possible with using 'esoteric notions' ...anyhow i will paraphrase:
as a whole the universe from atom to elephant consists of a universal mechanism at its core.... the power to be conscious (represented +), matter (the mother substance -) and a binding neutral force
he is not asking us to accept this but to put it on a 'mental shelf' until we can prove or disprove it
nature reeks of it though.
what makes a human, is basically
a human psyche....human is as human does right?
human are more indivualized that animals
There are tales of early humans, native cultures in which there was no "I" in the language...everything was 'we'
a pack of chips function as a group and indvidually, but only to the degree that they are aware of themselves as objects
we know that even if try really hard to be original and have original ideas...most of our thoughts and motivations come from a group field.
likewise with dogs and cats...they dont really have awareness of their bodies....this is evidenced by their behavior.
what vitvan uses as a referent for soul is psyche, or psychic nature
he tells a story of when that word was first written. warriors wounded from battle would find them self out of their body and would then come back and tell about it. this is was rose the notion of something that separate from the body that maybe lived after death.
due to their degree of individualization dogs and cats have a sort of oversoul which governs group behavior...
he gives the example of how dogs make a few turn before they go to lay down.....as if they were making a bed in tall grass.
the + power to be conscious is still the same in all beings (according to vitvan) since it knows it self through the negative substance which is individualizes itself at all levels..adding complexity from atom, mineral onward.
the psyche substance is not made from atoms which is why it has evades science thus far, but now with new technology...evidence of it is more evident.
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