Mistake in Leo’s video

[How to be wise]

This week’s video was quite good, and I agreed with most of it. But one part I didn’t agree with. Leo said that the brain is a special perception because it can alter your perceptions. The example he gave was that if you snort some psychedelics, then your perceptions change. 

However, isn’t the statement that “the brain controls your perceptions” itself another concept. It doesn’t matter if the fact holds that if you hit somebody in the head they will go unconscious. Still, it can never be more than a belief that the brain is any more different than the stomach, and that it can somehow control your perceptions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is how I see it. I’m a super skeptic.

[MM1988]

It is the same in my opinion. Wether you spray a wall with a blue paint bucket or you hit the bucket on your head, both will result in perception change.

[Flammable]

You can check this in your direct experience - all perceptions interact in complex patterns, sometimes unpredictable. You can check for yourself by, for instance, stabbing yourself in the stomach and then in the brain - just to observe what the phenomenological changes would be. You would definitely spot some differences between the resulting occurrences.

Not all perceptions interact in the same way - that is why reality is infinite as it has infinite possibilities of self-interaction.

Ken Wilber describes it really well in his book Integral Spirituality - he presents a holistic model showing how brains as a perception, for instance, have a relation to the global phenomenological reality. His model also serves to explain how models such as Spiral Dynamics or cultural artifacts or altering molecular structures all have a certain effect on the global reality even though they are all simply perceptions and 'parts' of the global reality (still made of consciousness since everything is simply that).

Edited November 12, 2018 by Flammable

[How to be wise]

16 minutes ago, Flammable said:

for instance, stabbing yourself in the stomach and then in the brain - just to observe what the phenomenological changes would be. You would definitely spot some differences between the resulting occurrences.

But can you really conclude from this that the brain or stomach have any effect on our perceptions. Can you really know that that's true?

[Flammable]

52 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

But can you really conclude from this that the brain or stomach have any effect on our perceptions. Can you really know that that's true?

Not really, what you know after this experiment is that they are part of a feedback loop - you can only conclude that the brain and perceptions are somehow self-interactive. As opposed to, for instance, smashing a Starbucks cup with a hammer which seems to be interacting with other perceptions and seems to have no apparent effect on your global perceptive field.

It does produce some local perceptions though - sound of smashing, sight of a broken cup, etc. The Starbucks cup does not SEEM to be directly related to the global field.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Flammable

[How to be wise]

28 minutes ago, Flammable said:

Not really, what you know after this experiment is that they are part of a feedback loop - you can only conclude that the brain and perceptions are somehow self-interactive.

 And can you really know that? Really?

[Flammable]

7 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

 And can you really know that? Really?

Yes, as it is your direct experience. Go and check it for yourself. No urge present to convince you. 

Stab yourself in the brain and see what happens if you are keen.

At the end of the day it boils down to epistemology - what can you really know if there is nothing to be known? You can just be it.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Flammable