When the Ego hinders the spirit

Originally Posted by hallow

The funny thing about the brain is that we only use about 10% of it. I am sure the rest of it is more than just to take up space. Hhhmmmmm. Just a thought there's people who use more of there brain but the majority of them people are in mental hospitals or prisons.

That's a very old view of the brain long since superseded. Research has come a long way since then. Maybe the other 90% in your model is spirit.

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[hallow]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

That's a very old view of the brain long since superseded. Research has come a long way since then. Maybe the other 90% in your model is spirit.

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maybe i just rechecked my info. I was just using 9% of my brain on that one. But you learn something new everyday.

[lemex]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Look, it's like this (I bin lookin up notes).

Ego happens in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. It has to call upon info from many other parts to present a context (which includes details of the situation plus risks associated with various outcomes taken from past experience if you have it (inc what the limbic has to offer) all brought into working memory in the pre-frontal. The orbitofrontal cortex warns of socially embarrassing actions. (I think some of that comes from the anterior cingulate cortex but that's a vague marginal note I made.)

On that basis your response is decided. Your behaviour and reaction to it are fed back to the areas the info originated from, modulating what’s there.

So it looks like you're in trouble at any level if your frontal lobe is shut down. You can't stop it working. Unless I'm wildly out that's the anatomy of it.
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Key

[lemex]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

That's a very old view of the brain long since superseded. Research has come a long way since then. Maybe the other 90% in your model is spirit.

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Actually this figure includes the subconscious now, right. The old10% rule was the thinking conscious part observed. The subconscious still takes up the largest part of consciousness by far is what I've read. I only mention this because I think there is far more information we don't access. There is a wealth of information we are not aware of. Can we ever touch it.

I've been looking through some notes, trying to remember stuff (which my 32Mb memory has lost it seems. LOL.)

I think that 10% thing was long before researchers worked out how inputs from the senses were processed in the brain. Visual processing (e.g.) uses a lot of brain. the receptors going through preprocessing via ganglia (to condense down the 200 million receptors to the (something like) 20,000 optic nerve neurons. That's where colours and edges and things are sorted out. Then to the thalamus which acts like a relay station, sending the info to the occipital lobe where it's processed some more and sends off into to all the other lobes and various bits of the older brain. What used to interest me was how things were sometimes transferred from short term memory to the long term one.

I found it quite interesting, got into semi-bad books at school almost obsessed with it! No doubt boring to everyone else so I'd better leave it off there! There are many unanswered questions...Freud didn't answer them either!
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[hallow]

I read just a little how the brain works, but your brain can only use like 10% at a time. If it get gets pushed more it overloads and you would likely have a seizure. Maybe during mediation and other relaxing exercises where you turn off certain parts of you brain then you can access the subconscious more efficiently. One part gets turned off when needed so a different part can be used. Also with brain injurys one part of your brain gets damaged so a different part trys to compensate. Or for example like me, i have issues remembering things but i have problem solving skills that are really good. My brain compensated. Maybe that's why some people who seem brilliant are institutionalized for whatever reason. There brain is compensating on skill for an other.

[Raziel]

Conversation seems to be sticking with science here - strange for a "spiritual" chat ...

The OP postulated that essentially before ego kicks in (in the science sense) that there is spirit. I hold no religious belief yet I would agree that I am more than ego, existing perfectly fine thinking & acting via soul/spirit but it would seem that lots of you believe that character, knowledge & personality are nothing to do with soul?

Science? Is that incompatible with spirit/spirituality?

Science, Scio/Scire Latin I know/To know/understand. Isn't it about systematic data collection? Isn't one aspect of this forum the presenting of data for others to assimilate or consider if they so choose?

The point being: how does ego work; how does spirit work? Is one a product of the other?

The crossover to me is my belief that ego is process not a static "shop front". As spirituality develops one's ability to interact with others/environment will get refined or expanded in some way - usually through a better understanding of that self (ego or otherwise) in relation to the encounter, that leads to a satisfactory outcome.

If it doesn't, i.e. puts the ego-owner to disadvantage then the backing spirituality is tunnelled in a particular way that some might just call bad, dark, a disorder or simply inexperience. Now, like it or not, the processing happens in the brain (responding to the situation) so one might be looking for either brain malfunction or if "normal" underlying information (or lack of) that causes the impasse.

....Or possibly some external interference that we don't understand at all well yet though often seems to happen.
It's difficult to separate ego-as-self from spirit as far as I can see - well, impossible.

It's like these people who try to separate the being into mind body and spirit. It doesn't work. They're all part of the same thing.
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[Raziel]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Science? Is that incompatible with spirit/spirituality?

Science, Scio/Scire Latin I know/To know/understand. Isn't it about systematic data collection? Isn't one aspect of this forum the presenting of data for others to assimilate or consider if they so choose?

The point being: how does ego work; how does spirit work? Is one a product of the other?

The crossover to me is my belief that ego is process not a static "shop front". As spirituality develops one's ability to interact with others/environment will get refined or expanded in some way - usually through a better understanding of that self (ego or otherwise) in relation to the encounter, that leads to a satisfactory outcome.

If it doesn't, i.e. puts the ego-owner to disadvantage then the backing spirituality is tunnelled in a particular way that some might just call bad, dark, a disorder or simply inexperience. Now, like it or not, the processing happens in the brain (responding to the situation) so one might be looking for either brain malfunction or if "normal" underlying information (or lack of) that causes the impasse.

....Or possibly some external interference that we don't understand at all well yet though often seems to happen.
It's difficult to separate ego-as-self from spirit as far as I can see - well, impossible.

It's like these people who try to separate the being into mind body and spirit. It doesn't work. They're all part of the same thing.
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Valid points certainly but is it not dissimilar with trying to find God?

Doesn't faith or belief take leaps that science would surely not since it is not empirical, impossible to catalogue?

Is it not a form of cognitive dissonance?

In the logical science explanation of brain - personality & ego would create the notion of spirituality, but if you believe in a soul that is here to learn then where is the information stored?

Those who have past life regression for example that know details that they shouldn't - would suggest that memory is not purely "brain" centric .

The counter argument to that would be when the brain is damaged then personality is lost or changed - however perhaps the conduit is broken alone.

I'm not saying that I know, but soul would be "above" the physical so brain is less important unless trying to refute soul/ consciousness merely as a construct of the brain?

Just bouncing ideas ideas here ...

[muffin]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Science? Is that incompatible with spirit/spirituality?

Science, Scio/Scire Latin I know/To know/understand. Isn't it about systematic data collection? Isn't one aspect of this forum the presenting of data for others to assimilate or consider if they so choose?

The point being: how does ego work; how does spirit work? Is one a product of the other?

The crossover to me is my belief that ego is process not a static "shop front". As spirituality develops one's ability to interact with others/environment will get refined or expanded in some way - usually through a better understanding of that self (ego or otherwise) in relation to the encounter, that leads to a satisfactory outcome.

If it doesn't, i.e. puts the ego-owner to disadvantage then the backing spirituality is tunnelled in a particular way that some might just call bad, dark, a disorder or simply inexperience. Now, like it or not, the processing happens in the brain (responding to the situation) so one might be looking for either brain malfunction or if "normal" underlying information (or lack of) that causes the impasse.

....Or possibly some external interference that we don't understand at all well yet though often seems to happen.
It's difficult to separate ego-as-self from spirit as far as I can see - well, impossible.

It's like these people who try to separate the being into mind body and spirit. It doesn't work. They're all part of the same thing.
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Good afternoon Lorelyen

One day I was walking along and step to the side, away from my body, at that point things became clearer, I saw things that I wouldn't normal see. When I turned in the way I was going I saw my body some 30 metres away still walking in the direction I had set before hand. Yet soon as I set eyes on my body I was back in it, that was not a soft landing

In that state I had no problem in processing my surrounding or in what I was doing.

Thing I pondered is why we are so tried to the body


P.S. don't ask how I do it, I don't know, I just do it