by Gary 'Z' McGee October 19, 2019
from
TheMindUnleashed Website
Image source: Soul Forged by Lobotomy by Morgan Sorensen
doesn't do violence to one's settled mind is no philosophical thinking at all." Rebecca Goldstein
Beliefs have a similar effect on us.
Especially the core beliefs that we take for granted.
But beliefs are comfort zones with reinforced invulnerability; or, at least, the illusion of it. Such reinforcements are like prison bars that most of us are not even aware of.
We're so completely
indoctrinated, so utterly pre-programmed, that we don't even know
that we don't know that we've been conditioned to blindly believe in
something simply because enough people convinced us it was true.
It doesn't allow for "blasphemous" questioning, because it is taken for granted as already perfect or "simply the way it is."
It's a place where cognitive dissonance rules and any notion of attempting to think outside the box is met with:
is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."
Ludwig
Wittgenstein
Self-inflicted Philosophy,
But you can only get so far in such questioning before you are met with the reinforced comfort zone of a blind belief.
So, self-inflicted
philosophy is also about questioning the layer-upon-layer of
cultural, political, and religious indoctrination that led to that
reinforced comfort zone to begin with.
In the battle against bewitchment, the destruction of a belief, no matter how powerful, is mere collateral damage to the Occam's razor of universal truth.
When you don the cloak of a self-inflicted philosopher, the concept of belief is nixed from your interpretation of the universe.
There is no place for belief here, only thought, only deep inquiry, only imaginative curiosity.
So you remain
circumspect, for even your interpretation of your own existence
could be an illusion, no matter how "true" it may feel.
But that is patently false, because you are not "believing" in non-belief, you are "thinking/inquiring/imagining" through non-belief, with the understanding, the flexibility that your thinking "could" be wrong.
And that's the rub:
You are more likely to question a thought than you are a belief.
And so, rather than get
trapped in a reinforced comfort zone, you stay ahead of the curve by
thinking rather than believing, and then by questioning what you
think so that you don't accidentally begin to believe it.
You realize that belief in general is counterproductive, because you understand that the human mind is a delusion-generator rather than a truth-generator.
But, unlike the spider it tends to get caught in them.
Thereby, you understand that,
The only solution to a delusion-generator is a question-generator.
Indeed, you've transformed Descartes' "I think therefore I am", into I think, therefore I question...
grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
Carl Sagan
A kind of reverse Pascal's Wager.
It's almost always better to, as Aristotle suggested,
Just take it all into consideration and let it pass through the sieve of probability.
Then, whatever doesn't insult your soul,
You are more likely to grasp the universe "as it really is" by questioning it than by believing it.
You don't believe the universe is certainly a certain way:
If you cling to a particular belief of how the universe is, then you block yourself from ever getting closer to the universe "as it really is."
The opposite of belief is neither disbelief nor doubt, but clarity of a thought. Without beliefs reinforcing the comfort zone, you are liberated to stretch it.
You are clear enough to think outside it, you are courageous enough to question it...
Free of the "mindset" of a settled mind, you move into the mindfulness of a questioning mind.
In absolute awe over the beautiful unfolding of an ultimately unknowable universe.
On the edge of your own curiosity, questioning all "answers" countering all beliefs, elusive of all delusions.
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