There are few things more enlightening than to listen to what people say about themselves. In most cases people are far too modest.
For example, there is a growing tendency in these modern times for people to think of themselves as essentially machines. Some will openly declare as much ; while others speak of themselves as if they were but machines,- leaving that conclusion as a strong inference. Ask someone how his eyesight works, and he is likely to reply that it is something like a video camera that registers whatever objects he happens to look at. And his ears are like a tape recorder that registers whatever sounds happen to fall in range of hearing.
In other words, people see themselves as passive observers of the world ; the world does what it must, and the senses merely register and record what is going on. But this way of thinking can have pernicious effects, which politicians and other clever people with ‘an agenda’ are not slow to take advantage of.
Also this way of thinking says that the world does what it likes to us ; and, being mere machines, all we can do is respond mechanically to what the world does. Thus the world makes us what we are in the minutest details of thoughts, words and deeds.
So, we are just machines ; but the world also is just a machine, and so we are nothing more than cogs in its complex mechanism. It is a world of causes and effects, and nothing more. Whatever happens must happen ; and there could not have been an alternative, except by chance.
And yet, when people reflect more deeply on their relationship with the world, they are not convinced that everything is mere mechanism ; in particular, they have feelings that they themselves are more than just machines. They feel that they have the will to act somewhat independently of what the world is doing ; they feel that they have the power of making real decisions ; they feel that they have the ability to perceive the world, and act upon it, in their own ways.
If it is true that we can perceive the world in our own way, then at least one interesting conclusion arises : that the world is becoming as we make it.
But, it will be objected, How can our perceptions of the world affect the world itself? How can our consciousness (which is non-material) affect the world (which is material)? Surely consciousness and matter are different kinds of substance ; therefore, how can they affect each other? How can they act and react upon each other?
Very interesting, i will surly ponder on this all day until i have an answer.
Thank you for posting
And have a wonderful day
Thank you for your kind words, MMCDJ. I am glad you enjoyed reading. I look forward to your answer!
Enjoy your day of pondering, too,
Jamie M
JM
How about We are the World? We have animals and trees, flowers and bees to enjoy it with us. There is nothing mechanical about this World; we must enjoy life and do everything we can to protect it.
I agree, Ike, the World is lovelier than any machine could be. And it is given to us to enjoy and respect.
I think part of the problem is that ‘modern’ man is increasingly divorced from the solidness of the world around us. Our food comes packaged and sanitized, we work in sealed buildings, removed from what is happening outside our double paned windows, we are trapped in the vacuum of our cars to and from work. More and more the rhythms of life which we used to be an implicit part of are disappearing and being replaced (with unfortunate results) by created rhythms. I know that when I began cycling a few years ago, it was like a revelation – the whole concept of self as a cog in a machine began to disipate in the reality of wind and rain, in the gradual but profound connection I began to establish with the world around me. It is as if I were opening my eyes for the first time… as if my vision from before was merely a dream and this was the real thing. Ultimately, it is us to each of us to re-establish our connection with the universe around us.
Hello, CB, I hope you’re well.
I think you have hit a big nail square on the head. This question of ‘alienation’ was raised a long time ago – in the eighteenth century at least. It was the growth of technology that fuelled the idea that we could be independent of Nature ; that we could forget about our roots. But that brave new world has proved to be a mixed blessing. True, we are in many ways more comfortable now, but at the cost of a sort of discontent with the world and with ourselves.
I remember reading the words of GW Dunne, who lived in the early part of the last century – he said that, if we continued to see ourselves as simply machines, then we would indeed become machines – and be slaves to whoever happened to invent the technology to control us.