The feelings which keep us alive

For every intelligent system, like us, like brain and soul, what really keeps us in motion are FEELINGS -- a kind of nonverbal direct sensory-like input to our mind. It is not words or mathematics, or even images or music, which keep us moving; these are very important TOOLS to help us understand and predict the feelings which come to us, but it is the feelings themselves which provide the primary motivation. Even at a relatively low level of self-awareness, we try to UNDERSTAND what these feelings are and where they are coming from, because whatever we SAY to ourselves in words, these feelings are what keep us moving. At higher levels of self-awareness, we pay more focused, intelligent attention to understanding these feelings.

One example: why get out of bed in the morning? 

In recent years, my wife and I have been having great discussions with a highly successful, focused and intelligent neighbor who, amidst the great complexities of his life, would return to the simple acronym -- FFF, Faith, family, friends. I would reply LLL, life love and light, an acronym I learned many decades ago from Rosicrucians. I have the impression that Yeshua has been using "I AM" in a similar sort of way. All three of these have some resonance in the minds of many people, whether they use these expressions or not. I find it natural and helpful to me, even more as I age, to keep all three in mind.

What does science say? B.F. Skinner does not represent the highest level which psychology reached in the last sentence, but he is worth understanding and considering, especially as people have built higher on what he started. (Some on this list!) His concept of "primary reinforcement" is one way of expressing and thinking about the kinds of very fundamental feelings, which drive the learning and behavior which emerge from all parts of the brain which are capable of learning. I prefer John Von Neumann's concept of cardinal utility U, which is more precise and is the foundation of "cognitive optimization" ( https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07579/nsf07579.htm ).  Precisely BECAUSE it is more precise, it requires that we pay attention to several related variables, but having a combination of connected variables is necessary to having a more definite and integrated understanding.

A more modern understanding of how brains work, based on the best real-time data available from neuroscience, was reviewed at:

Regular cycles of forward and backward signal propagation in prefrontal cortex and in consciousness

Unlike narrower local models, these models provide an integrated understanding of brains as "intentional systems," connecting the important pieces.

And so, when Camus decided to rise above the belief that "it does not matter" by getting out of chair, and going to the bathroom, he stayed alive because he responded to ONE simple easy clear signal of primal feelings. We do better if we understand better the whole range and power of all the primal feelings coming to us.

This applies BOTH to brain and to soul. And so, on most early mornings, before I get out of bed, FEELINGS which I associate with LLL flow strongly and come naturally to me. It is natural to associate these feelings with my wife, first, even when we are on opposite sides of the bed, and with the birdsong and sunlight pouring through our window. But as it flows... I can easily feel "qi," a feeling and an understanding which will energize our entire lives, brain and body and soul, enough to be active for one more day (albeit at a lower level in most cases for me as the day wears on). 

There are many weird theories out there about qi (or prana or vital life force or Freud's definition of "psychic energy or cathexis or whatever), but the FEELINGS are essential. As I see it, this flow is more clearly understood as an information flow in the intelligent system we are (or are part of), "designed" to convey "modulated backpropagation," information about value signals in our mind reflecting the U of our total larger mind or about the primary error signals calculated in the (nonverbal) part of our mind which tries to predict and represent the whole field of sensory inputs coming to us from all levels.

And so, with LLL, L for life and L for love are the primary fountains of U "energy" (feeling). L for "Light" stems from our cognitive prediction, mainly the thalamo-cortical loop in mammal brains. 

But where then is FFF?

In discussions with our neighbor... I come to see LLL and FFF as two sides of the same coin. They remind me of relatively well-managed agencies, where the guy on top interfaces with the larger world,

with a crucial deputy who makes it all work INSIDE the agency. The CONNECTION between the two dies of the coin are crucial to it working well. The LLL variables certainly permeate the follow-on, the FFF, foundation of the life of any mind. My neighbor certainly has worked hard for life, love and light in his FFF activities!

BUT-- where is I AM?

Yeshua may have something to say about that.

In a way, it has a relation to cognitive prediction: how do we reconstruct an image and feeling of who WE are, as we try to to make sense of the entire gigantic flow of feelings and nonverbal input in general, from soul especially, at times of peak soul connection? Can we see really deeper into the whole? And then, as in the Zen exercise, as we feel and become aware of all in front of us, can we feel back without looking back, seeing in a way without looking, on who is doing the looking?

But the LLL level has enough challenges, and issues we are called to face up to and learn from in this "school of life." Lately I always remember Melissa Cody's image, "The World Traveler." Thinking about that image this morning, on a day when I plan to focus on THREE major objects of attention (this essay, new global existential threats emerging, and family logistics), I am reminded of the neuroscience of saccades. in Saccades, we can focus very intently on one object at a time...

WITHOUT losing the integrated big picture we maintain in neocortex.

 

Regular cycles of forward and backward signal propagation in prefrontal cortex and in consciousness

A further dialogue on god and spirit connecting Science and the highest Hindu thought

From a leader of the Ramanuja Foundation: 

I do get disturbed by a gnawing  concern that the premises of the ideologies and mindsets of the scientists and the spiritualists are like the north pole and the south pole.

My response: 

Chris did not like these words, but I agree with you 100%, if I understand correctly.

Certainly YOU understand the importance of dual aspect foundations, dating back to Ramanuja!

The dual aspects of direct first person experience versus reconstructed image of the larger objective reality of which we are part are important BOTH for us as individuals (as in my discussions of sanity or zhengqi linked to at werbos.com/religions.htm), BUT ALSO at a higher level, for humanity as a whole and for collective intelligence even at higher levels. HUMANITY (at ITS highest level of intelligence) has learned that the concept of objective reality still seems to work for all of us, at the level of fundamental physics (the law of everything),

BUT FOR US collectively our direct perception is the most absolute foundation. Just as first person sanity demands that we unify our image of ourself in the mirror, with the human body experiencing sensory inputs, COLLECTIVE HUMAN SANITY demands that we unify our best understanding of our solar system "in the mirror" with our higher collective Self of the solar system (and more, at times). 

And so... I hope Chris will not object too violently if I say I agree with you, when Spirituality: is defined as authentic direct sensitivity and attention to the WHOLE range of inputs available to our minds!

 

Science accepts only  those realities visible and nonvisible which it can measure and  quantify.

Science insists on questioning,  reasoning, logic, experimentations, hypothesisations and revalidations.  

Science demands repeated  validation experiments of the theories and universally obtainable and reproducible results. 

Science refuses to accept or believe  anything which  it cannot detect  or quantify, including the concept of God. 

OK, we must ask Chris to be tolerant of YOUR use of English words, even as we need to be tolerant of HIS use of English words. Frankly, very few of us on this list are so precise in the use of English words as are the best natural language programs and dictionaries!

What do we MEAN by the English word "science"? The word does not come to us from God! As a follower of Von Neumann (and of Jung), I urge us to remember and respect the DIVERSITY of definitions allowed for almost any English word; we can CHOOSE, locally, but we are asked to be CLEAR LOCALLY and not to waste energy stupidly arguing what is the "right" definition.

The word "science, like the word "Christianity", is sometimes defined to refer to a very large and diverse cultural tradition, with helpful and horrible subsets within the diversity. Horrible fanatic pseudo-science rejects all spiritual experience, exactly as you say, BUT NOT ALL SCIENCE IS THAT WAY.

The definitions of science which I use more are those due to Francis Bacon and Thomas Kuhn, which are quite different -- but the writings of Von Neumann can clarify both TYPES of science.

We would never attack ALL of German culture by citing a drunken Nazi on as streetcorner, even if he is an important representative of one group. Bacon and Kuhn represent BETTER types of science. To unify our collective thought, we need to work hard on building bridges between higher spirituality and the BETTER TYPES of science.

Francis Bacon, in particular, was BOTH a scientist AND a mystic (spiritual) as well as linked to the affairs of human society. HE did not promote the kind of idiot formalistic dualism which you rightly attack!

Years ago... in probing the history of quantum mechanics (QM), I read deeply into the four most important founders of QM -- Einstein, De Broglie, Schrodinger and Heisenberg. Einstein's WORDS appealed to many mystics, but he was the only one of the four who did NOT firmly commit himself

to spiritual first person viewpoints! 

 

Science describes the human body as just a machine energised by vital organs like the heart carrying our blood pumping activity and describes death as the brain's  stopping of the functioning of these body machines. 

The human body certainly is a worthy, focused target of model biology building up models based on quantum electrodynamics (QED). Almost everything we know in biology can be reduced to QED physics. QED phyiscs has a LOT to tell us still about how the mammal body, based on QED, actually works. Hell, if Modi beleived this and understood what it could give him, he would get 500-1000 years more of healthy intelligent life, consistent with QED, and I even urged Amit to start connections which WOULD have led there.

BUT MANY OF US HAVE VERY STRONG REASON TO BELIEVE that the human mind (some or all of them) are MORE. I am cc'ing Rosicriucians, who argue that each of us relatively enlightened people is an "alchymical marriage", a symbiosis of body and "soul." AS A WHOLE SELF, we can move the flow of qi in our body, in ways of huge importance to health and to medicine. We can even learn to SEE it and MEASURE it, most likely by refining the axial Higgs detection technology led by LLNL connected to more advanced pattern recognition capability as in QAGI, which I have discussed here before. ONCE WE CAN SEE qi even in experiments which Thomas Kuhn would admit, we can substantially heal the division between science and spirit. 

Walter Freeman worked hard to build bridges between HIS neuroscience and the most real qi research in China. I am VERY sorry that I did not ask him for contacts when he was still alive!

 

Science advises that man is the master of this universe and that the universe that we see and perceive as defined by the three dimensional physical world alone is the reality.   

To be honest, most physicists in this decade have lost their way. 

Because of overspecialization, most physicists do not know the big picture of what REAL physics knows now: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qAy8giPzEjp1tZkj9

There was a time when Karl Pribram cried out in exasperation to me: "How can you be to the LEFT or me and to the right, BOTH at the same time?" But that is exactly what we need to reconcile science and spirit, to create a fusion of image for higher sanity!!!

I am to the far right of you -- I may be the only person on earth NOW who believes that the hard core Einsteinian view may well be true, based on EVERYTHING we humans have ever seen. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfHBO_uuRyE .

MOST physicists do not believe what you accuse them of, OR they see little chance of it.

BUT IN MY CASE... as I understand this physics better and better, I see that it does NOT contradict ... that Rosicrucian view of alchymical marriage, or the importance of qi.

MORE IMPORTANT...

As a follower of Von Neumann, I believe in the power of mathematics to INTEGRATE and UNITE

our understanding of the three biggest questions before us -- what is life? what is mind? How does the universe work?

HUMANITY can CONSIDER HCER, laws of physics, as a POSSIBILITY, BUT STILL admit that our collective first person experience is more fundamental for US. Understanding OUR first person viewpoint, governed by the mathematics of mind, is more "sacred" and unavoidable than beleif in HCER or any other theory of ultimate physics.

And so, for me, I accept MIND (and the experience of our life as a school, full of other intelligence beyond ours) as my real foundation.

The mathematics of mind, of intelligent systems, is the TOOL which allows iNTEGRATION of our understanding of mind and of all its manifestations and aspects. The need to work on technology like QAGI is a legitimate challenge, but it is also the key to better understanding of that universal mathematics of mind, illuminating levels of first person experience -- both personal AND collective -- far beyond what ancient obsolete books rotting in old human libraries could ever do. Those books CAN be useful,as DATA, so long as we strive to encompass the ENTIRE database and INTEGRATE it in a coherent well-defined way as we can only do by making full use of mathematics in our toolbox.

(But yes, Carl Jung also provides some important universal tools.)

 

Today's  scientific instruments have limited capability to detect and measure the subtler vibrations and rays, which fall beyond its  realms. 

Yes, so let us work together to do better!

Science has evolved only in the last four hundred years but has acquired a bloated arrogance to dismiss any type of  human experiential observations as nonsense. 

ONLY SOME scientists...

It is terrible that science sometimes uses PR people as bad as some parish priests and lynch mobs!

Science has absolutely no control over the moral or ethical behavior of humanity including acquisition of wealth by individuals.

These are certainly important aspects we all need to account for better. Project Amaterasu was intended to include that, but no one project can do it all alone.

 

Science and technology have made very significant contributions towards the upliftment, progress and prosperity of humanity in the last three hundred years. 

Science and technology  have also developed deadly arms and ammunition  which  have done enough harm already in the previous decades and which can potentially annihilate the entire humanity if they fall in the hands of mad leaders. 

ABSOLUTELY. Even Chris might agree with this imperative, which requires MANY players and networks, of which QAGI would be just one (but an essential one).

 

  

Spirituality  on the other hand has a history of thousands of years. 

Spirituality demands total and unquestioning faith in the words of the sacred texts and its Masters. 

Spirituality describes the reality where the physical world that we see and live is only the tip of the iceberg and there are layers and layers of subtle spiritual and divine worlds existing in a different dimension of deeper consciousness. 

Spirituality includes MANY diverse cultures, some elevating and some degrading, we have discussed before. And even the entire noosphere of this solar system includes a diversity, as does a mammal brain from periods before personality integration.

We are entering a period like adolescence, which may mean growth or may mean death, depending on how much energy and clarity we develop for survival, growth and situational awareness of the truly bigger cosmos we are part of. 

 

Spirituality propounds the existence of the Ultimate Divine Creator as the Master of the entire universe and allows various names and descriptions to define that Providence. 

Spirituality describes human existence as partly physical but partly spiritual and that man transcends his death to remain as soul. 

We have discussed MANY views common about these issues.... I claim no human on earth knows for sure, in enough detail to fully guide and make sane our lives, even myself after many deep probes

But if we open our eyes and minds as far as we can, and connect better, there is some hope for us.

 

Spirituality postulats that  the human soul has close spiritual association with the Universal Creator who remains as embodiment of the divine attributes of Love, Mercy and Compassion for all. 

Spirituality commands and demands that humanity  receive these divine attributes in abundance and radiate and transmit them all around in their existence in this world. 

Spirituality commands and demands humanity to follow ethical and moral codes of behaviour and warns of grave consequences for their violations.  

Spirituality respects and accepts the individual experimental observations  and they do remain individual specific only. 

Not entirely. We can connect.

 

Spiritual vibrations and radiations belong to the subtler than the subtlest grades and remain undetectable so far by any known scientific instruments. 

Yes... and we can do better. It is essential to growth that we try hard and work together to do better.

Both Science and Spirituality are indispensable. 

Certainly. Sensor fusion" at a higher level. 

The positive attributes of both science and spirituality need to be harnessed simultaneously  for contributing to the progress and prosperity of humanit

AND SURVIVAL ITSELF, per the seven challenges for this century.

The challenge ahead is  how do we bring these north pole and south pole concepts to the middle area of around the equator and evolve what the political coalitions would call the Common Minimum Program to generate a new direction of ideological approach for the welfare and sustainability of human existence in the coming centuries. 

ABSOLUTELY. 

How can  we Spiritualize the Scientist ? 

How can we sensitise the Spiritualist towards Science ?

INTEGRATION...

Forgive me, but my REAL understanding comes from extending what I know of mammal brains, a lower but illustrative intelligence. [HTML] frontiersin.org

Our noosphere can attain sanity only if we train more powerful "giant pyramid" cells, concepts or souls or archetypes within the noosphere, which provide specific kinds of universality or integration which only THOSE kinds of variables can provide.

 That is why the mathematics of intelligence is an essential tool to self-awareness general and powerful enough to survive the many challenges coming to us already even in this century.