Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Dawn_is_a_play
@ Lorelyen
Thank you for speaking out your mind.
I appreciate the honesty.
Firstly, let me make clear, the meaning of the word used to point out. I meant nothing in terms of that which is “not a thing”. Things are classified into animate and inanimate objects. A human, a creature, a tree, the mountain, the earth, the moon, the sun, the planets, the stars etc. All things exist within a certain boundary.
Now, is this boundary “actual”?
I apologise if you felt that I am talking “at” you.
I would like to listen, learn and if possible talk “with” you.
(I shall let go of my opinions and judgements about what I think to be true)
|
Really no need....
Quote:
|
What is the neuroscience perspective? I am much interested to listen to your views and learn.
|
Well, I'm only an armchair neuroscientist!
Thank you for your response.
Yes, that’s the gist of it. It’s too big a subject to expand here though. I mean, books have been written about it (hugely priced and go out of date far too quickly). Every question that’s answered, everything explained, just presents more questions. People know a lot about brain anatomy and how neurons basically work but our understanding of the processes like consciousness and thinking are still poorly understood which is why I’m sceptical but not dismissive of spiritual (as in non-physical) “phenomena” (putting that in quotes though much may be noumena). Where the stuff of dreams comes from is still a mystery, things that have never been experienced in the wakeful state….somehow this stuff “arrives”. It may be synthesised through the imagination but even that, imagination, we don’t understand.
Looking at the interface with the “outside” (the external particles and waves that end up through our perceptions as reality), sense receptor processing acts both through the autonomous system and the CNS through the usual thalamus/hippocampus route once it’s passed through the pre-conscious defense actions, amygdala/hypothalamus. But the processing that leads to “experiencing” or even choosing whether to bother with the stimuli or not, doesn’t seem well understood. If choosing yes it has to be compared with and integrated with previous experiences involving memory (probably of a far wider field than the topic of the experience itself), other parts of the limbic and plasticity. If choosing no, do the stimuli linger only in STM as we move on? Since as physical people we’re individuals no generalisation can be made about what brain functions are entailed.
It’s data processing to me. Though the processing may be similar the data aren’t. Then, when I read here about expanding awareness I wonder if the commenters means being more selective about experiencing – or less by taking in more in a more general way – or pondering deeper on the implications of what’s been experienced. Which leads into other branches: thinking; imagination; the plunging into our Mysteries through psychedelic action – and on and on… And we still haven’t got into where that elusive dream material comes from; or inventiveness; creativity… I mean, where do my symphonies come from (figuratively of course).
I doubt whether we’ll ever know how we individually perceive the reality we do, so we’ll have to rely on the more simplistic mystical explanations! I nonetheless believe that much spirituality (by which I mean how we live our lives) will be found under the neuroendocrine umbrella one day. Not all but more than we know now.
A most interesting, fascinating subject.
.