Thursday, February 21, 2008

the (near) end of my reading habit ...

A couple of years ago ... a question occurred to me ... is any of my thoughts an entirely original thought, or is it primarily a result of everything that I have read from childhood ? Is anything I think my own ? Can it ever be ? If the human mind is a system that is programmed by what the senses are exposed to i.e. DATA, and that in turn plays a major role not only in determining the limits of perception in the future, but also what actions are undertaken by the human body - i.e. if DATA is interpreted as CODE ... then what degree of security do we have. And should one allow oneself to be programmed by -any- book (or experience!) at all, even the Bhagvad Geeta or the Patanjali Yoga Sutras for that matter! If 'buddhi' is also programmed or colored if you will, by sensory input then we are not just full of buffers waiting to be overflowed but we are a system with a completely exposed code area that anyone can write to. (I have since discovered that it IS possible to find a mechanism that is not affected by I/O ... but that is another story)

Seemed scary.

This led me to seek answers to fundamental questions about the nature of information, and the human mind.

When I hit the limits of language as we know it - I needed to work then at another level and saw that I had nothing more to read!

3 comments:

Ashutosh said...

Perfect, it is suppose to be programmable memory and not read-only memory. why look at it as a negative thought that anyone can color it the way they want it...thats true with everyone..they reflect the surroundings.

but one can always program the mind to put a firewall..filter what it needs and what it doesnt..but take everything in because everything is beautiful.its mind that makes it good..bad or ugly..so we can change our perspective.

but i feel you are more defensive in your opinion.

when one gets one kind of experience..it creates a new path in the brain..but old one is still there..so all you have is a another angle to the situation wich makes you rich...i feel..more the angles wider the thoughts and more content.

Aalhad Saraf said...

re:I Have Something To Say - Kahi Bolayache Aahe ...

Nice. This reminds me of the view that held me up to 2005 - http://aalhadsaraf.blogspot.com/2005/06/man-wanting-to-read-book-is-not-just.html

Question for you: Do you really know who the "one" who can always program the mind is and where the algorithm to create the "firewall" you speak of comes from?

What I had in mind when I wrote this post was a need to distinctly understand the difference between the program, the programmer and the machine.

When you say - "more the angles wider the thoughts and more content." This is in conflict with your comments on http://aalhadsaraf.blogspot.com/2009/11/on-speech.html - "more the thoughts, more the complexity and then the content is gone, can we attain a stage where there are no thoughts, just relaxed and tranquil mind.","i dont really like thoughts now :)","simplicity makes things much more happy.."

Words and thought are both very poor at modeling reality.

Sandesh said...

Nice blog, good one. Re-kindled my interest in these things. It is indeed true, that instead of seeking out for knowledge, better to seek it inside.