Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

RESPONDENT: Hello Richard, forgive me if this is known to everyone and an old subject here, but what exactly is thought?

RICHARD: Basically thought is covert symbolic responses to intrinsic (arising from within) or extrinsic (arising from the environment) stimuli. Thought, or thinking, is considered to mediate between inner activity and external stimuli. Depending on the relative intensity of intrinsic and extrinsic influences, thinking can be expressive (imaginative and full of fantasy) or rational (directed and disciplined). Other terms for the two aspects of thinking are, respectively, autistic (subjective, emotional) and realistic (objective, directed). Both types of thinking are involved in ‘normal’ adjustment.

Realistic thought includes convergent thought processes, which require the ability to assemble and organise information and direct it toward a particular goal; judgment, the discrimination between objects, items of information, or concepts; problem solving, a more complex form of realistic thinking; and creative thinking, the search for entirely new solutions to problems.

Autistic thought that is characterised by a high level of intrinsic influence and a low level of extrinsic influence includes free association, the giving of unconstrained verbal response to stimuli, found helpful in bringing repressed or forgotten experiences to consciousness; fantasy, characterised by imagery in which a person loses contact with the environment, and ranging from vague reveries to vivid images; marginal states of consciousness, such as those experienced just before falling asleep or those induced by drugs; dreaming and pathological thinking, which may be the result of antisocial behaviour disorders, neuroses or psychoses. The latter is characterised by major distortions in thinking and the lack of a realistic relation to the external environment.

RESPONDENT: What is the neuro-physiological process supporting awareness in the absence of thought?

RICHARD: There are scientific tests done which measure alpha, beta and theta waves – from memory – which show electrical activity in various stages of thought and no-thought, awake and asleep, aware and unaware. I do not have any material to hand so as to go into any detail, but these matter are now being widely discussed ... there has been a surge in interest in consciousness studies in the last ten to fifteen years. There has been a lot of research done in recent years with the advent of CAT scans NMR scans and PET scans which produce reasonably reliable data. The technology – and knowledge gained – is getting better every year.

You may like to access some of these URL’s if you are at all interested:

1. Journal Of Consciousness Studies: www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/home.html
2. Psyche: Consciousness Studies: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/
3. Association For The Scientific Study Of Consciousness: www.phil.vt.edu/ASSC/
4. Australasian Philosophy Home Page: www.arts.su.edu.au/Arts/departs/philos/APS/APS.home.html

RESPONDENT: You think you have free will?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: What determines your actions?

RICHARD: The situation and the circumstances in the world of people, things and events.

RESPONDENT: Your thoughts – right?

RICHARD: Not necessarily ... mostly ‘automatic pilot’ operates via habituation. Something new to experience requires thought ... reflecting, comparing, evaluating, considering and then implementing. Altogether a rather delightful episodic event.

RESPONDENT: Do you control your thoughts?

RICHARD: This brain thinks thoughts perfectly without any ‘I’ or ‘me’ in there stuffing things up.

RESPONDENT: Where do they come from?

RICHARD: Are not thoughts neuronal activity betwixt the synapses? An electro-chemical process? As such they come from the calorific energy of foodstuffs plus oxygen from the air breathed.

RESPONDENT: Can you CREATE thoughts?

RICHARD: This brain thinks thoughts all of its own accord ... easily, simply and fluently. It is altogether a marvellous occurrence.

RESPONDENT: If so – HOW do you create them? Spontaneously? Or by choice? If spontaneously, then you are saying they just come – so you are not creating them. If by choice – then that means you must DECIDE to think of a thought. If that is the case, then you must have a thought which says – ‘let me think of ... ‘. This is you deciding to create a thought. But where does THAT thought come from? You need another thought to create that one.. and so on. So you need an INFINITE number of thoughts in order to create ONE thought. This is clearly impossible. That means you cannot think thoughts into existence. So you do not create thoughts – you just appear to because you identify with the thoughts as if you had created them, saying: this is MY thought. So if you are not creating your thoughts – who is?

RICHARD: Not ‘who’ is ... what is: this brain is what is generating thoughts (as required by the circumstances).

RESPONDENT: Let us first differentiate thought from perception and from feeling. There are, however, many mental events that combine these: emotions combine thought and feeling, and may be triggered by perception. There is also some interpenetration of our categories: perception does involve some mental processing, and this too can be called thought, but we will simplify our discussion, by allowing this to fall under the heading of perception.

RICHARD: Can you actually separate the perceptive function and the affective function out from thought just like that? I would say that the entire range of a normal, average person’s thinking could be summed up as being dictated by the relative intensity of intrinsic and extrinsic influences. When intrinsic processes dominate, and are virtually free of environmental concerns, a person thinks expressively: they imagine, fantasise, dream, hallucinate, or have delusions, for example. When one’s thinking is activated by external stimuli, one tends to think rationally: one appraises, conceptualises, ruminates and solves problems in a reasonable, directed and disciplined way.

Generally speaking, this is mostly what people tend to do with their mind.

RESPONDENT: When we look at the varieties of thought we can posit at least six basic forms:

Would you like to add any before we begin our discussion on whether there is a common structure to all?

RICHARD: Is it actually possible to make an exhaustive list of all the varieties of thought? And if it was ... is it going to explicate anything substantive? Can we therefore simplify your list? Because it is the distinction between the expressive and rational functions that is what contrasts primary and secondary process thinking, is it not? One’s impulses and wishes arise from affective sources and determine primary process thinking, while the pursuit of exterior objects and goals determines secondary process thinking (planning, rational control, and continuous organisation). As I understand it, these two aspects of thinking are conventionally called autistic (subjective emotionally-motivated activities) and realistic (objective environmentally-motivated activities). The terms are not mutually exclusive, of course, but rather correspond to relative degrees of the influence of different conditions that enter into thinking.

In a broad sense then, the activity called thinking is adaptive responses to intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli; not only does it express inner impulses but it also serves to generate environmentally effective, goal-seeking behaviour.

But, let us not become bogged down by a scholarly debate. Remember that your original question was: ‘There are many sorts of thinking and they are not the same. But we need also to look at the underlying features that makes them all thought. What are these? Is it just the name that is tying them together or is it something more? It is that something more that I was getting at’.

It would seem that the ‘something more’ that you were getting at lies in the autistic field, as extrinsic influences are rather straight-forward and obvious.

Does this clarify something?

RESPONDENT: Thought creates the notion of a ‘me’ and a ‘not’ me. A ‘me’, a watcher, a detached something could never see this since it is what thought creates. The existence of a ‘me’ or an idea of some detached position is merely imputed by thought, so it can never see or observe anything. That is the meaning of ‘the observer is the observed’.

RICHARD: Is that, in fact, the meaning of ‘the observer is the observed’ ? This was a very popular topic for many years and became quite a catch phrase during the middle of this century ... and it appears to still carry some weight today. ‘The observer is the observed’ doesn’t actually refer to anything sensible whatsoever, although it is an apparently recondite statement. It can perhaps be taken as a ‘Koan’ to bring one to the limit of dualistic thought, but other than that metaphysical mediation it is of no practical use, as it has no basis in actuality.

It does, however, particularly point to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s propensity for the popular Eastern esoteric delusion that ‘I am everything and everything is Me’ ... no matter how much he endeavoured to distance himself from it. I would assume – and this is merely an opinion for I am privy to only one person’s every private thought – that this was in order to gain credibility as being somewhere betwixt this Eastern esoteric delusion and the accepted Western exoteric illusion that ‘I am a random, chance event in a mindless universe’.

It may seem that thought, creating the notion of a ‘me’ and a ‘not’ me, has divided itself into two parts. The thoughts that are the ‘observer’ or ‘me’ and all the other thoughts which are the ‘observed’ or ‘not me’. This is called being ‘fragmented’ or being ‘divided.

Although it seems that way, thought hasn’t actually divided itself into two parts. The physical body is encumbered with an instinctual entity called ‘I’ which assumes that it is the feeler of feelings and the thinker of thoughts. It is possible to have a ‘pure consciousness experience’ (PCE) in which ‘I’ am not present, temporarily at least. In such an experience it is easily seen that ‘I’ have been standing in the way of a perfect freedom from ‘self’ happening for this bodily organism all along. During the PCE it is a case that thinking happens of its own accord ... and much, much better than when ‘I’ am present. This clear thinking – called apperception – has no problem in discerning the physical distinction between this body and that body or a tree. All the while there is a keen awareness that there is no instinctual ‘I’ as an observer inside the head ... or the heart or anywhere else either inside the body or out of it. This apperceptive awareness happens of itself, effortlessly. Feelings disappear entirely as the absence of the instinctual ‘I’ makes them and their ‘feeler’ redundant. Thus, although there are people, things and events happening, there is no ‘observer’. There is simply an utter freedom to be participating in all that is magically occurring ... and a delightful and sensual participation at that.

So, is there a ‘me’ that thinks or is at the centre of thought, or is there just thought imputing a ‘me’? Is the ‘me’ just an illusion created by the thinking process?

(This is a seminal question and could be at the core of a breakthrough into apperceptive awareness.)

In a normal person in the real world there is indeed a ‘me’ that arrogates the thinking process ... but it arises from the feelings because ‘me’ is, in fact, not an illusion created by the thinking process. It is an illusion created – at root – by the instincts that one is born with. In all sentient beings these instincts have created a sense of ‘self’ and ‘other’. These instincts manifest themselves as emotions, and all the myriad feelings stem from approximately four basic passions, situated in the ‘reptilian brain’, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire.

So, first there are the passionate instincts that ‘blind nature’ endows us with as a start to life ... and a rather clumsy start at that. These express themselves as emotions inside the heart which give rise to the feeling that there is a ‘feeler’ in there. This feeling creates the illusion that there is a ‘thinker’ inside the brain. The ‘thinker’ then attempts the impossible: To eliminate the ‘I’ by stopping thought, permanently. Of course, thinking recommences as it must. When practiced assiduously, and a rare success ensues, the ‘thinker’ disappears from the head. ‘I’ then identify solely as the ‘feeler’ in the heart. The resultant oceanic feeling of ‘Oneness’ and ‘Unity’ gives rise to the misconception that the separate self has been eliminated.

It has not. ‘I’ still survive, self-satisfied. Now that ‘I’ have made a connection with the ‘other’ via love, ‘I’ feel that there is nothing further to be done – yet it is only that the separation has been bridged. Having made a quantum leap from the head to the heart, there is nothing to stop egomania turning into megalomania. The ‘self’ now manifests itself as ‘The Deathless Self’ existing for all ‘Eternity’. ‘I’ am ‘Unborn and Undying’; ‘Spaceless and Timeless’; ‘Never Beginning and Never Ending’ ... and so on.

It is not thought that imputes a thinker.

It is the passion engendered by the instinctual self in the reptilian brain that remains the real culprit.

RESPONDENT No. 19: Feelings and thinking are inextricably linked where there is re-action.

RICHARD: Not necessarily ... and feelings come first in the reactionary process (albeit a split-second first) anyway. This has been scientifically demonstrated under strict laboratory conditions, again and again, by Mr. Joseph LeDoux, for example. It takes 12-14 milliseconds, from the first sensate contact, for the nerve signal to reach the amygdala (where the passions are triggered) and a further 12-14 milliseconds for the signal to then reach the cerebral cortex (where the thoughts are triggered).

RESPONDENT: What was the instrument used to measure all this?

RICHARD: In the article I read three or so years ago implanted tungsten electrodes were used.

RESPONDENT: How is thought measured and how is it determined as arising from that source?

RICHARD: There are many methods of determining thought activity ... apart from implanting electrodes as already mentioned there are surface receptors that can be attached to the scalp to detect up signals as well as RI scans (Radio Isotope), CAT scans (Computerised Axial Tomography), CT scans (Computed Tomography), NMR scans (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography), MRA scans (Magnetic Resonance Angiography), MRI scans (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and fMRI scans (functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging).

There are literally hundreds of books on the various fields of neuroscience and thousands upon thousands of articles. Speaking personally, I did not know of any research on this subject when I started to actively investigate the human condition in myself 20 or more years ago: as I intimately explored the depths of ‘being’ it became increasingly and transparently obvious that the instinctual passions – the source of ‘self’ – were the root cause of all the ills of humankind ... it was the journey of a lifetime!

Thus I found out for myself ... I only provide examples (such as above) so that nobody has to take my word for it.

RESPONDENT: Richard, I have some questions: Is ‘human intelligence’ or ‘thinking’ or ‘thought’ (as distinct from the mind of a dog or even a gorilla) the result of or the property of or the ability to abstract?

RICHARD:  No, not necessarily ... in evolutionary terms the long, slow evolution of intelligence has its roots in the most ‘on the ball’, the most shrewd and/or sharp and/or smart and/or cunning and/or wily and/or sly, and so on, outmanoeuvring the least ‘on the ball’ – the most dumb – and there is nothing abstract about that (the term ‘survival of the fittest’ does not mean the survival of the most muscular, as is often commonly misunderstood, but means those most fitted to the environment live to pass on their genes whilst the least fitted languish and die out).

And, even more prosaically, the long, slow evolution of intelligence is also the result of successfully negotiating what has been called the vicissitudes of life: not only obtaining such basic necessities as air, water, food, shelter and clothing (if the weather be inclement) in the face of fire, flood, famine, tempest, vulcanicity, pestilence, disease, and so on, but prospering whilst doing so because of tool-making, for instance, or the utilisation of fire, for another ... none of which are abstract.

Intelligence is the cognitive faculty of understanding and comprehending (as in intellect and sagacity) ... which means the cerebral ability to sensibly and thus judiciously think, remember, reflect, appraise, plan, and implement considered activity for beneficial purposes (and to be able to rationally convey reasoned information to other human beings so that coherent knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations). Yet there is more to intelligence than the faculty of the human brain thinking with all its understanding (intellect) and comprehension (sagacity) as, along with the self-referential nature that being conscious implies (agency, or intervening action towards an end, implies self-interest), the brain’s cognisance of being a conscious body – thus being self-conscious or self-aware – in the world of other animals, vegetation, things, and events, is an essential prerequisite for intelligence to arise ... and, again, there is nothing abstract about being aware of being conscious.

Incidentally, abstract (conjectural) thought is but one of the many ways of thinking: for instance there is practical/impractical thought; pragmatic/imaginative thought; reasoned/ expressive thought; adventitious/ principled thought; prudential/ philosophical (or politic/philosophic) thought; insightful/ intuitive thought; judicious/ injudicious thought; rational/ irrational thought; logical/ illogical thought; salubrious/ pathological thought, as well as illative thought (inferential, deductive, inductive thought) and reflective thought (contemplative, meditative, pensive thought) and so on.

As thought is broadly categorised as being perceptive thought (sensible thought), or realistic (extrinsic) thought, and imperceptive thought (intelligible thought), or autistic (intrinsic) thought, then I guess the latter could be broadly categorised as abstract thought.

RESPONDENT: Is cause/effect the way thought must operate, otherwise it is not called ‘intelligence’ or ‘thought’?

RICHARD: Perhaps it would be clearer to say that non-causative (unrelated to cause/effect) thought is not intelligent thought?

*

RESPONDENT: But thought is not an awareness, is not a perceiving faculty, not a sense organ, so that couldn’t be right.

RICHARD: Indeed not ... apperception happens irregardless of thought (thought may or may not be operating).

RESPONDENT: What is the relationship of thought, language, intelligence, the power of abstraction and apperception?

RICHARD: There are too many things mixed up together to make a meaningful all-inclusive response ... thought and language are related, obviously, but do not necessarily have a relationship with abstraction; beneficial ways of thinking are related to intelligence, obviously, but do not necessarily have a relationship with abstraction; neither thought/language nor intelligence – let alone abstraction – have any relationship with apperception: apperception occurs irregardless (when alive, not dead, awake, not asleep, and sensible, not insensible).

This is because apperception is current-time awareness, in that it takes place presently, at this moment in time, and is the unmediated perception of what is happening right now, at this very moment, thus staying forever current, surging perpetually on the crest of the ongoing wave, as it were, of this moment in eternal time and is the immediate experiencing of actuality at this moment in whatever form it takes ... there is only the pure conscious experiencing of the awareness of perpetuity as it is never not this moment in actuality.

This moment in eternal time is the arena, so to speak, where all things happen ... and apperception makes this apparent.

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