Friday, April 2, 2010

Understanding Movement of thought

There are many who have forcefully occupied my mental rack. And there are few to whom I would willingly give one. Mr J Krishnamurti will be the first of them. I bow to thou sir.

Mind creates an image on perceiving a given sensation. This image per se is not only visual but it may contain other sensory feeling such as sound. The image created can be static or dynamic. It is not 'is' but ‘to be’. This gap between 'is' and 'to be' is desire or wanting. Essentially it means that sensation and its associated perceptions are ‘taken in’ by the mind (made of memory) to ‘create’ an image. If in the example if you consider ‘taken in’ as event 1 and ‘create’ as event 2, then the activity or the flow from event 1 to event 2 is called the Movement of thought (MOT).But it is very gross. There are finer steps. Let us try to understand it.
Consider the following steps:

Step 1: One seeing an object (object of desire / hate).

The immediate recognition of the object as an object of desire or hate is mind’s pre-processing. The memory is composed of data and experiences; experiences being a coherent stream of time movements with data and its characteristics.This data can be you and me ; the basic unit of work,the atom of the mind

Step 2: Senses acting on the object.
The very act of seeing is an MOT( This is voluntary)

Sensory Organs are like data input systems. They merely take in the data depending upon its own making.So any sight is a 'seen data' by the eyes.This can't be heard or touched.They can only be referred to in the 'seen data'.Merely a reference.This reference is too subtle for us to understand.But it is there.The mere invoking the ‘seen’ data calls the faculty of hear or touch.

These are involuntary MOT's and we are used to it.Essentially everything was voluntary initially. And then we got used to it.They became involuntary.
Can mind be similar to a computer? I mean I understand computer algorithms are after all an outcome of human thought processing. Destination always has the source in it


Step 3: The thought then takes the input data and makes an image out of it.This is a voluntary MOT.

This image is output of mind's activity of dealing with the input on the basis of existing thought patterns.Biases and prejudices are minds 'way' to deal with a given kind of data at any given point of time.

Lets take an example

1. Let the data input be 'A'.
2. Mind matches with all the 'A's already present in memory. 'A' has multiple characteristics. They are mind's interpretations (Behavior and Characteristics)of the input with reference to many such 'A' and their behavior stored in the memory.
3. Mind scans all the related routines in the memory depending upon multiple characteristics of A.

An entirely new data may flummox the mind in and out.(Some thing never seen or heard about. Something never 'sensed' about)

It means that out of 'n' number of interpretations to the finally identified unique 'A', the mind decides (A voluntary MOT) to opt one of them.

4. This routine creates new data. This has become an involuntary MOT.
The data form is a mix of 'sensory' types. A sensation not in picture may too be involved. That is part of the routine.It is voluntary if you see it. Its just that we never tend to exercise the will to change it. Also it is uniquely defined for each individual as the memory is different for each one of us.

I would state without questioning that if my memory were to be completely replaced by someone else' memory then the first reaction to the first event in my new mind life would have been the same as what the replaced guy would have reacted to the same event.And then we would have split in our own ways

This newly created memory (thought) has its own features; like any other data which is stored in memory.The crucial difference is that this new data is 'created by the mind based on input data fetched by the sensory organs'. The new memory ('to be') doesn't have any 'existence' similar to that of the data fetched ('is').There is a gap. This is the subtle difference between 'is' and 'to be'. Mind doesn't really take the source in the interpretation and processing of any data. The mind's interpretation of the new data as existential and not being derived is the subtle drift in human life. This interpretation is what we call desire.