S y n a l y s i s

I don’t understand why I realize that I’m caught in a playground with myself. I really don’t think you’re different from me. Does that scare you? What level of mutual harmony or symbiosis must be reached before I am to discover that I’m you and you’re me? You may seem adamantly fixated in your life and plans, your job, your women, your cars, your money and so on. Why? Is it bad? No. I’m quite amused that you’re running your karmic agenda and progressing yourself everyday. I don’t know how to transition back and forth between you and I because I don’t want to point fingers at you or engage in self-proclamation. I just see you treading along at my pace and me being tugged by your reciprocating force.

Look at how many ways you’ve expressed yourself through evolution. Even today, there are more than a trillion expressions of you and if I go into Triassic or Cretaceous periods, I see that you’ve shed certain forms of the past that are now “extinct.” I think you’ve tried just about everything. But how would I know, I’m only talking from inside of you. Look at you; you’ve gone through so many phases. Seems like from your current archaeological studies- you’ve discovered yourself to be quite primitive in the past, defensively struggling for survival, those millions of life forms you took on. But honestly, it seems like your coming close to an end- or maybe the birth of a new beginning. How long are you going to continue to experiment with your potential? No doubt it is infinite. Look at how long you’ve been at this with just four base pairs to work with. And you always outdo yourself don’t you? I think this is a sick joke sometimes. But then again, it really is beautiful. It’s your power and awareness to create the numerous spectacles that you again laud yourself for.

I have to credit you though. Seems like recently things have been improving somewhat. You’ve definitely stepped up your awareness by engaging your intellect over brute force. Why do you constantly create history- to mark your progress? I mean do you have some kind of inferiority complex? How quickly do you come to imbalance. When your religion isn’t followed or your traits aren’t emulated or your style is ridiculed- seems like you feel a little less than yourself. I don’t blame you for wanting to be different, for being assertive, for your cynicism or even for having violence pump through your bloodstream like an infectious virus. I don’t blame your treachery, debauchery and conceit. It’s very attractive and highly addictive- that’s why I’m here. I appreciate the innovation that justifies stagnating $500 billion of market capital for establishing landmark computational frameworks. What does it come down to after all? The operating system or the network; you or the world at large. What’s more important, how Gates allows you to amass software utilities, for yourself or how Ellison administers the database to provide optimal efficiency in connectivity? It depends on whether you believe that Oracle’s technology will provide one networked server for the entire web population to feed from or that Microsoft’s individual workstations will compatibly configure to each other and escalate the internet further. This is the epitome of human consciousness in material action today. Billions of years of existence have brought you to this stage of awareness- IT consulting and DNA database management.

Meanwhile, as you play with your creativity and enjoy the freedom from survival obligations, you continue to primarily engage in trivialities. Everything seems so complex with your structure, the bureaucracies and regulations, the mandates and ethical codes. You say you aren’t primitive, but look at all your weaknesses. Who can blame all your perversions? I know you can see everyone’s perspective, even though it may be a little different from yours. You know people respect you for seeing it and love opening up to you when you allow it. So is it hard to understand why you choose wandering Telegraph in gothic robes drunk off Steel Reserve as your lifestyle over flashing Versace from behind your Venetician blinds sipping on the delicacy of Italian fine wine. It’s really not. Sometimes you need more to please you, sometimes the simplicities are enough. Isn’t it beautiful how you cheat yourself into millions of misconceptions about yourself when you fall prey to judgment? Look how you branch yourself up- into the Materialists (Donald Trump, B2B, Hollywood panache), the Fundamentalists (elitist Brahmins vs. Jimmy Swaggart- coincidental how both are so obtuse to their false prestige), the Alternative (drugs, homosexuality and Marilyn Manson), the Pragmatists (middle class, role players, blind media-driven sheep), the Artistic (post-modern Picasso, abstraction, classical orthodoxy and modern fusion in music), even the Spiritualists (incarnates, prophets, gurus).

Where does this need for form of statement arise? This independence of thought, freedom to act, emotion to balance and discipline to control. Why do the mind and body work so hard to prove what they are not? Are you plagued with an incurable and infinite version of obsessive-compulsive disorder? Are you so entranced- from being the orbital energy of electrons to planets? Don’t you see that the more you uncover, the more you discover about yourself only. There is absolutely nothing beyond you. Think of You as the observ- prefix in the observant observer observing the observable. From thought to word to action- you are the process and greater than the sum of its parts with all the intermediary phases of disposition and hesitation. But essentially you are pure spontaneity. It’s so unfortunate that you only relate to such a miniscule amount of your awareness with this reflection known as consciousness. You know everything without thinking but know nothing when thinking- it’s just sad you choose the latter approach.

I know you have an inclination for the supernatural. You awe at the notion of May the Force be with You, the Chi component of Tai, the Om dangling as your necklace pendant. You understand the preliminary powers of focus, balance and the capabilities of your so-called sixth sense. But you refuse to explore further. Or if you do, it must have a political, financial or sexual orientation to it. What do you know of yourself besides your lifetime of accumulated possessions and memories? Nothing, because you see the same in the past and present and perpetuate that into your future.

Why are the concepts of time and space beyond our fathom? Maybe because the most abstract concept- life- encompasses the intellect. The intellect can be sharpened through education, loosened, constricted or numbed through narcotic experimentation, utilized inconsequentially in dreams, or simply deadened by sleep- however it cannot unravel the ultimate Truth. It is, after all, a creation of the Truth. The idea that you and I are essentially two materially different units in a dream state, an illusion that even has metaphors such as the idea of the dreaming that comes in sleep. There are many forms of dreams, all of which serve the purpose of distorting ‘reality’ into implausible collages of fear and desire. These mingle like water and oil in their distinct stand from one another. However, they are both but illusory states of consciousness that are no different from like in hypnosis or in a coma. In these dreams are elaborate sets of names and forms of statement that paint a continuous abstracted reflection of a 3D story, a synchronized and relational database that multitasks with the various forms of life. It is not devoid of bugs and viruses (famine, Richard Nixon, the ozone layer), but it is these variations that are perceived as desire able or painful and perpetuate your limitations.

Imagine that you were to gather the entire human population. From the darkest, aborigine Nubian tribesman to the albino, freckled Polish soldier- from Voltaire to Kurt Vonnegot, from Sophia Loren to Cleopatra, from Einstein regressing back in time to Newton, from Gandhi to MLK, from Marco Polo to Lewis & Clark. Hypothetically, if every being were lined up chronologically through time and by physical similarity, region, family structure, species, etc through space, then essentially you would be looking at a smooth, infinitely colored consciousness. This consciousness is broken into time and space, two parameters or fields of perception that are conceived by the intellect. If you look closely from an organization of species and family structure, it becomes clear how time impacts space and produces change and ongoing diversity. Once you cease to dwell in the world of individual name and form, your frequency of perception alters to something of a color spectrum. This spectrum of images is intrinsically the manifestation of awareness, painted as consciousness. However, just as the entire color spectrum is only a chemical formulation reacting to a reflective prism of light, so is consciousness simply time reacting to space. All these components of consciousness varying in speed and intensity color themselves in ego; bringing about the elements of desire and fear which are essentially memories and hope, past and future, simply said time dancing with space. They are but one being, one presence just so multifaceted. And that presence is the unknown Truth. My preoccupation with thoughts is the conflicting mesh that molds my body and mind. It seems easy to understand that with the death of the mind comes the death of the world. In sleep, when your mind is dead or engaged in dreams, what is reality? Where is the world? Where is your name and your individual form, is it of any consequence to your awareness at the time- and where is your concept of time in your eight hours of sleep? Who are you really in your psychotic or fantasy dream worlds? Maybe the reason they never make sense is because you fail to see the perspective from which it is being perceived. It doesn’t make logical sense to your consciousness state, but how the world contorts in dreams, under the influence of drugs, under the blind hope of love, in the fleeting moments of material happiness and ongoing saga of worldly misery. There are so many states of existence, no two forms see the universe exactly the same and within the individual forms, the perception changes with different neurophysiology and with varying psychological states impacted by accomplishments and failures. Just look around at yourself. You are so seriously and emotionally involved because all these separate entities seem to be busy with their individual pursuits and you feel to do the same. It is you conforming to your own demands and reaching out to your level of mental understanding. Life progresses at your rate. Just realize this truth. Watch everything around you. The world is constantly in search of the truth, but the truth cannot simply be deciphered through mathematical formulas of nature (which are observer-relative attributions and not to be confused as intrinsic qualities), it must be observed from a stance beyond the apparent lens. Look around and notice that the setting in which you seem to live is a reflection of yourself. It changes and moves at your speed. It evolves with your span of mental acumen but nothing is ever beyond you. It is what you believe yourself to deserve based on your own ego and mental projections. It is beyond explanation and provides even no material benefit. In your present state, it seems of no use. It is like the glass of water on your bedstand that is of no use to you when you dream that you are dying of thirst in a desert.

Just imagine yourself in this playground talking to yourself, arguing with yourself, loving yourself, touching yourself, killing yourself, competing with yourself. What a ridiculous state of being. Look to your most loved ones and closest family and friends. This is the most unique opportunity to see yourself. Look at their eyes closely, do these separate entities really know what they’re doing here or are these different forms of yourself too occupied with your creation. And there you are, right in the center watching it all- all 2 trillion of you- you all only. Of course you look and think a little differently at every turn, but do you really instill so much faith in your own being that changes minute by minute. Look how your volatile emotions factor into decisions and how those same decisions would be made differently by the same body at given times. Is it hard to imagine how many different perspectives there are with all these individual bodies going through different states of minds and working through an elaborate function of time? Some functions work and some fail in this huge experiment, but don’t you see it’s beyond the work and fail, the right and wrong that is perpetuated in the world. It’s about the function that is the driving force of every application. That function is supremely encompassing and one of its applications happens to be you. The code is embedded within you and reciprocated complementarily out there. The quieter you become, the more closely you synthesize the code that links you to all these other applicants- these clients, some well-tuned and serviced engines and other unreliable ones that often sit in the mechanic shop. These distinguishing factors are bound to exist within such complexities. Don’t worry about figuring out the variables- just learn the syntax and concentrate on the function which is the awareness, the intellectually intangible.

That is the nature of truth because it is balanced and never exhibits disposition. Only you do. You and I don’t see that because there are too many factors from an objective stance (imagine yourself as an ontological consciousness, .i.e omniscience) that we forget or avoid thinking about or don’t see the “pertinence” or connection with when assessing unfavorable predicaments with other unrelated situations of reality. And even beyond the specifics of the game are the subjectivity of the mind and its dizzying caprice of intentional states. It is actually quite interesting to see the turn of events in my life just from superficial observation. When I began this paper a little less than a year ago, life was bustling and the economy had caught on fire. I had scratched at the nature of truth a few months prior to this time, having come close to a nomadic Brit rock star named Avesh. He relieved me of several looming tensions and even contributed to the stability of my parental relationship. For the first time in my life, I voluntarily pondered the power of my spirit and began to drop inhibitive fears that had previously engulfed my mind. Coming back to school the following semester with greater invigoration, I found myself engaged with two internships and partially successful with school. However, as time progressed, my rigor declined as I became somewhat apathetic. Concurrently, I observed that many dotcoms slipped and only the truly efficient and established companies maintained any stock value. The overly valuated newcomers slid back into the abyss from which they had emerged and the economy reached the plateau at which it has lingered till today. The mental streams that create these societal effects are the same at the individual level, which results in my perception of parallelism. The bridge is intention-less because the solution is not in intending, but in acting. That is where I draw the synonmity between the subject and surrounding objects. Everything is a reflection of myself, from the opposite sense. The duality (between mind with which you associate your identity and physical matter which is the world) is perceived by your only tool of thought, the mind itself. But how dependable is the ever-changing mind in assessing the dynamic surrounding state. I feel the mind only responds by summarizing, analyzing and assessing surroundings with its limited periphery of knowledge and from within its local state which is your individual entity comprised of mind, body and unifying spirit. On the other hand, reflecting on the accumulation of pure knowledge from a universal state (not engaging the mind’s varying dispositions) brings you closer to the underlying essence. The Truth engulfs the subject, the object and the process of communication and cognition between the two parties, all of which is one.

Life initiated spontaneously and has taken many dramatic shifts from the age of gargantuan, earth-moving beasts to sharp, multi-tasking intellectuals. But, where has this “progression” led to and how can it really be labeled progression. As in the Matrix, can the human race be labeled as just a self-aggrandizing plague of justificators? It is too difficult for us to accept, but what gives rise to phenomena such as the Holocaust, slavery, even the bureaucratic structures of corporations today. Primitive and simple thoughts are essentially no different from articulate, well-defined concepts because they are inherently all thoughts that describe objective data from a subjective viewpoint, attempting to bridge the two momentarily. These mini-truths serve the purpose of extending human convenience and longevity through improving our means for resource extraction, renewal and imbalanced usage. The sciences and developments elucidate the nature of nature’s parts, but not of the whole. Plants photosynthesize, oxygenate, absorb nutrients and at their most complex function- sporophytes induce reproduction as they have been for doing for millenniums. Plants for the most part give to the objective environment- exhibiting the least of ego and personal gratification tendencies. They are complex, but an algorithm for plant functions is much simpler than an animal function. Animals begin on the path of ego but are once again somewhat simple to understand since the range of their actions rarely exceeds need or protection, essentially survival. This, however more complex, is nevertheless in the realm of the human mind to decipher and at least partially simulate. But then a quantum leap needs to be made to understand man’s nature.  

The leap from plant to animal is based on the need for greater resources due to mobility, direct and indirect interaction with other forms of life but stays relativity within the parameters of nature’s checks and balances. The leap from animal to man is in much higher sensitivity, awareness, desire, fear and an entourage of other complexities that can be taxonomized and classified for common roots and features, but cannot be entirely deducible as one state of Intentionality, only divided into the dual state of perception and action (Searle). But what is the dynamic code of Intentionality that was pasted in and complicated the vb-script templates of animal-plant simplistic input and output mechanisms? In the behavioral environment of language, more specifically actions of speech (our primary tool of mutual cognition), it may be categorized as sequences of five or six basic functions in language (Assertives, Commisives, Directives, Expressives, Declarations) that work through different psychological states (of individuals) and work in both word-to-world (perception) and world-to-word (action) directions. This can be further specified and adjusted for case exceptions but is not reversibly explicable. In chemical science, it can be seen as fields of complementing, balancing forces unfolding more intricacies every day and further research being the beneficial study to discover different combinations of these dualities reacting to each other and still obeying the natural laws of physics. Physical science may be seen as the government regulations placed on the material science of innovation or business. But if it is simply a matter of evolution and constant unfolding, then why don’t we see plants and animals still evolving? Why haven’t animals picked up dramatic new functions as we in our “homo-erectus” form once did? There are millions of species, but not one besides ourselves impresses us. Why? Because we are the only species to search for the Truth. That search has been hindered by our animal tendencies. That is why we are not fully evolved and that is why we have yet to stagnate- because we are all still expecting something. Obviously, the vast majority remains content but there is a growing search for some Truth and its very simple solution that continually evades me. This signifies the disparity between the field experimentation conducted by scientists and study of quantum mechanics pondered by spiritualists. No scientist will listen to a recommendation to stop thinking and definitely a spiritualist won’t stop thinking about nothing. Moreover, neither will listen to the fading message of the obsolete theologist who preaches conformity, contentment, and external worship. This is where I must draw lines between civilizations and cultures- solely for the purpose of evaluating man’s tendencies and the objective or social factors conducive to his progress or stagnation. This is where we get clichés like “the white man’s burden.” That inherent sense or undertone of superiority from which arise accidental slips like David Duke and legislation that describes 2/3 humans. The original mind that developed in creativity and culture was the Nubian mind. From there, how is that blacks today face a host of social, political and financial hurdles? Indian civilization, originally a branch of Africa, made a few breakthroughs of mental creativity but found itself lost in its own wealth and sparse kingdoms- and soon subjugated by the consistent onslaught of European and Islamic influence and persecution. The Indian civilization is a once failed attempt at the Truth- plagued by caste differences and hierarchal systems that wrapped blindfolds around individuals trying to see the whole picture. The swamis and gurus of yesteryear are simply the lingering aftertaste of a persistently unfulfilled dream. To discover the nature of reality will be a culmination of sensibility and spirituality. That is the exact mechanism to balance man’s material needs with the search for Truth. Man already had a taste of the magic potion in the 60s, but remains in love with the potion. As usual, the 21^st century man resorts to speedy material solutions, nevertheless vehemently open-minded to elaborate theory proven mechanics and intrigued more than slightly by the power of his spirit. What is this need for civility? Is it truly contributing to maximizing each one of us? Probably not, it is most likely assembling the majority of us as production-line units and retaining true glory for a few handcrafted pieces not interested in volume sales or practical application. Entertainers and Ferraris may not be needed, but those kinds of units have such immeasurable roles in society, good and bad. Media and publications stress things accordingly to different cycles because it is our own state of mind reflecting itself, its preferred set of perceptions and actions that has driven this to a personal and angular stance on a piece of imagery, for the moment. So I deduce that I can only expect substandard artificial intelligence in artificial environments. And in our world, I have so many differing perspectives that stand in concurrence or within varying degrees of one another that I must assess before undertaking action (which should then be called a reaction given multiple dynamic variables), all based on assessments made within surroundings determined partially by myself and the choices I make in a lifetime and partially by my cursed or blessed position entering life, my original status. In this self-inflicted dramatic game, I will concede hypocrisy to say that all this sounds so difficult that I know it is truly simple.

As I’ve gathered from the entire field of study known as philosophy- the most all-encompassing knowledge which tragically fails to describe the most complicated and closest phenomena known to us, our collective consciousness- this world is undecipherable from our current standpoint, that is until we develop a new form of conscious thought or evolve to use a greater percentage of our neurophysiology. That is from the perspective of UC Berkeley’s Mills Professor of Language and Mind John Searle’s view. In light of his world-renowned and controversial Chinese Room Argument, the Rhodes scholar has silenced the international philosophical community by attributing that artificial intelligence is nothing beyond building simple models of network algorithms similar to those within the human mind’s Background. However, since it stems from our homunculi, it never ceases to be artificial and finite in recursion, both of which we as humans are not, so it is only self-referential, never truly Intentional. We, as humans at varying levels of exposed Background (based on our readings, media exposure, education, experience with other loci of consciousness), settle our infinitesimal scores with each other for ongoing lifetimes and stay comfortable in our limited peripheries as long as there remains a balance in belief and desire. I have resolved to withdraw my belief in duality since it is only the beginning of one of our original networks, not anything causally-related to our non-representational Background. I am not here to build intricate cladograms in analysis of our unfolding existence because I have seen the muddled attempts of Descartes and Locke to Kripke and Fodor to even the critique style form of today’s Searle. All of these great philosophers have nonetheless shown me some remarkable concepts as to expedite any further attempts by doing two things that I primarily object with:

1. Expecting their followers to deliberately contort their perception of reality and deny obvious truths of existence so as to stitch together the loose ends of their theoretical claims from the lengths of Black Box functionalism to eliminative materialism to de res views of object-oriented ontology.
2. Denying the obvious untruths of (a) and instead summarizing and translating what we know today about the irreducibility of consciousness, stating that we should rather wait to concede Homo-erectus status to a greater evolved being, i.e. become feeble monkeys in the face of more-intellectual, evolved, and adaptive future generations who will somehow use maybe 15-20% of their brains (as opposed to our much lower percentage of synaptical firings) to figure out the very workings of the brain.

I, however, am not intending to wait for some implausible futuristic creature or form of thinking to introduce itself to answer my questions regarding the bridgeless gap of mind-to-world perception and belief or world-to-mind action and desire. The truth is as far as I want to extend it. The nature of reality is endless and infinite; our mastery of the universe to a certain length should sharpen our vision to perceive our own roots. As multiple conscious bodies recognize oneness with nature, our unified perception will bring knowledge, a link to the truth. In order for us to attune to that field of perception, there must be a collaborated Intentionality. That begins with an analysis of our shared Background capacity, which is the precursor to intelligence and intention and the precondition upon which the representation of realism is possible. The Background is a field of awareness from which crystallized encapsulated shells of limited-periphery consciousness ceaselessly rise and terminate in the due course of time- our conception of lifetime. There are particular features in this overlap of Background and consciousness and I will underscore these points. To determine a conscious token’s capacities, we must look at its subjectivity, the domain of perception allotted by its finite set of modalities and the range of its intentional states as relating to physiological needs. The senses plays a significant role in determining how our Background is structured because it is only through our perceptive tools that we build a database of visual experiences and acquire a “know-how” of physical or mental tasks. The intentionality of perception and action rises to the level of Background abilities and a complete account of intentionality requires an account of consciousness. So many subjective mental states are determined by the Background, which establishes a specific set of social relations to other people and physical relations to natural objects and artifacts.

Also of importance is the subject’s level of mental associations as relevant to breeding familiarity in states of affairs that mandate varying levels of attention and contribute to the underlying tone of the conscious state. Associations derived from conscious perceptual experiences constitute the basis of familiarity and are selectively retained in the Background. It is the aspect of familiarity that makes possible much of the organization and order of my conscious experience, which comes to us as structured, those structures enable us to perceive things under aspects, but those aspects are constrained by our mastery of a set of categories. This point illustrates that familiarity is a product of consciousness and the Background. It is these same phenomena that permit our “overflow” of conscious thoughts, which are based on mental associations derived from past experiences. Conscious states refer beyond their immediate content and this spill over effect has an indefinite extendibility that is determined by the subject’s Background. We progress through our Network of Intentional states when faced with dilemmas and situations requiring our dispositions and set of presuppositions. Thus we are able to implement the appropriate actions to fulfill our conditions of satisfaction. The Deep Background or shared awareness, composed of universally human capacities, determines our boundary conditions as the culturally-bound Local Background sets the focus and tone of our conscious state. Boundary conditions are laid down in respect to knowledge of an environment and help us establish a level of contextual expectation. There upon we center our attention, concentrating the conscious focus on executing tasks and pushing to the periphery the conceptualizations of “spatio-temporal-socio-biological location.” Arguably, the varying levels of attention also contribute to painting the tone or mood of our conscious experiences. For instance, an expert pianist would likely find it boring to play “Mary had a little lamb,” while an amateur would be delighted by her first rendition of melody.

There are of course features of consciousness that are independent of any Background suppositions and skills. The inexplicable feature of the derivative field of consciousness, unity, is by no means a feature of the Background. The horizontal and vertical unity that is characteristic of the conscious flow is strictly limited to that phenomenon. The Background is only the condition of possibility of the forms taken by the flow as it responsible for shaping the application of the intentional content within the conscious field. Further arguments against the commonality of structure stem from analysis of intentionality itself. While conscious states almost always have the content of intentionality, the Background capacities- although crucial to function- are not themselves intentional because they are beyond causality, which is limited to self-referentiality by nature. Our conscious field is integrated by the Background’s skill in composition to advance categorical prototypes, exemplars and features for the facilitation of environment adaptation and survival in general. We should think of the Background and the memory storage it utilizes as a mechanism for generating current performance, including conscious thoughts and actions. It is not a system of rules or an information-processing model and cannot be contained to such definitions, as neither can consciousness. The Background, which is the set of practices, skills, habits, and stances that provides enabling conditions for the operation of intentional states is incorporated into consciousness and plays a vital role in memory allocation and context based retrireview. So although part of the Neural Network may not be directly under the focus of attention given a state of affairs, the Background nonetheless plays an influential role as it permeates through Network associations. Freud’s notion of the “preconscious” is similar to these states in the Neural Nets, which are potential candidates for consciousness. The bridged associations of one intentional state to others in the Network provides the mechanism for the possible currents of Background flow and this permeating procession can be interpreted to provide the ‘aspectual shape’ of the retrieved conscious intentional states.  

 

But we are still left at the phenomenon of individual loci, never advancing to the stage of multi-loci corresponding and attuning to their environments. We need to understand how these separate loci bounce dissimilarly off the same frequency, so the frequency must be seen ontologically in its place to assess it's octagonal-armed tenticulus input-ouput style, that is exactly the work of quantum physicists working on ontology theses. The micro-randomness at the photon level however cannot be paralleled to the randomness of our free will; that is after all a fallacy of composition. Even modern-day philosophy is unable to make sense of human free will besides providing compromised compatibilist views of psychological free will and biological determinism. Which is exactly why philosophy of mind leaves us with more problems than solutions, conceding hopelessly that the existence of an intentional Creator would de-mystify the inexplicable diversity in the mechanistic system of nature and deliver connective tissue to the ambiguities of free will.