Hello SteemIt Family!
My second post on Steemit I wrote about two great thinkers and founders of fields of studies: Ayn Rand and Alfred Korbzyski.
As you can see, a battle of thoughts took place in my head that didn't feel too pleasant, but finally the pregnant thought has given birth to a wonderful child!
I see the objective of this post as such: We can use our consciousness to properly judge right and wrong on the correct levels of abstraction.
In Virtues of Selfishness, Ayn Rand talks about the differences between man and animal. She believes that our ability to think and ignore savage tendency is the essence of being man. For example, even building a simple fire in the cold requires conscious thought and effort.
Korbyski agrues with this premise about man's nature. However, he also believes that we can transend old habits, and that the human nervous system has room for alteration.
Why would someone want to use drugs? Turn off their brain during meditation? Have lots of sex? Dance for hours? Throw a tantrum? Why would someone ignore these desires? Most look at Escapism through these lenses, however, escapism can also happen thorough robotically working, always reading philsopohy, not allowing your body to feel.
People who meditate suspend "thinking," meaning, they stop using their conscious brain. How strange? The one thing that makes us human and we want to turn it off through drugs, sex, and meditation? Why? I see a non-verbal intelligence, a consciousness that can only exist on the feeling level. During off your conscious brain, and "not" experiencing your common human thought, allows for something that has not been felt.
Now, during off the "feeling" consciousness, and suspending reaction to a desire allows for another form of practicing consciousness. When dealing with objective morality, we suspend the non-verbal need to do things, such as steal, in order to practice higher forms of ideals.
As you can see, applying proper abstraction can help us use our nervous system in ways that expand "one" way of thinking. I see many ways of expanding our minds. By not allowing words to take root in our nervous system we understand language as just an inefficient technology, that tries to verbally explain the non-verbal.
I see these two thinkers as a large WEDGE into reality. We must not stop using our consciousness (Rand) and we can do so in a holistic, and sane way (Korzybski). Properly judgment of right or wrong can occur, yet it must has to match the right level of abstraction.
Thanks for listening to my rant. Attempting harder to explain content will help me teach and explain in the future. So bare with me as I get better at these things! I have a lot of fun making these!
Books Used:
Introduction to General Semanitcs by Henry L. Weinberg
Virtues of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
Science and Sanity by Alfred Korzybski
