Paper #9- Possible sources of my spontaneous disinterst in people





The world is not made of matter; the world consists entirely of Wittgenstein’s atomic facts. The world to a single person consists of out interpretation of these facts. The human body collects its information through the basic five senses. Whether one smells a water lily, hears the melodious plucking of harp strings, or feels a knife through the gullet… it is all sensory input of some kind. These external stimuli are converted into electrical impulses that get sent to the brain for processing. After the brain does this, it (if certain criteria are met) comes into conscious awareness. Then the body either involuntarily reacts or gives us the choice of what to do. From birth to death, that’s all life is. We are continually fed this sensory input and we react, if not somatically then mentally in some fashion. In this way, the world is not made of matter. A rock is not simply a rock; a rock is whatever we perceive it to be. If we were lithovores, then we would view the rock a much different way. Not only would we view its properties differently but also it would exist differently. When one is dreaming, it is impossible to know you are dreaming. The dream is as real as the waking world at that moment and you will react to the artificial stimuli identically, your body can’t discern the difference. If it (the mind) perceives a threat in the form of a venomous snake, whether real or not, it will trigger the same emotional and accompanying somatic reactions. We are essentially slaves to the brain’s design.



The brain is a computer. It consists of a schema in which it fits all sensory information into. Free will, as we commonly know it, doesn’t exist; even THAT functions under a schema. Free will is having a choice, which we rarely have. Even getting down on the floor and do sit-ups isn’t free will. The idea enters our mind from some source, creates a list pros and cons sub consciously, then acts based on them. This list I will call the pre-action process, or PAP. The more quickly the PAP is done, the fewer items that were added to the list. In the sit-ups example, you would have items such as energy level, physical fitness desire, etc.



The world consists entirely of facts; nothing more or less. Every physical object has distinct properties. A simple box for example can be described by its exact height, width, depth, volume, shape, color, material, density, resistance to elements, et cetera. After assigning to something exact numbers, properties, and such… you have the object. This is scientific. No one could argue whether the box was square and white. Those are facts about it. In this way, everything physical can be broken into facts. The statement “this box exists” can be more argued, however. This depends on existential beliefs about the world. Opinions are also facts. If you don’t like someone, it is a fact that you don’t like them. If someone else perceives them differently and does like them, that would also be a fact. The statement “that person is unkind” is a fact to you but not to everyone. The statement “I perceive that person to be unkind” would be a fact, and is actually would you would be saying in both cases anyway. In this way, opinions are cognitive facts unique to the individual. Emotions also consist of facts, although it would be difficult to precisely discern them. They are physical reactions to stimuli. They have distinct properties also unique to the individual. Nervousness is a fear of some event in the future. The general symptoms are an uncomfortable gnawing in the stomach and the cognitive labels that go along with it. What the stomach is doing has distinct properties, or facts. Each person has a certain amount of a kind of stimulation they can take before nervousness will be triggered. This threshold is also reducible to facts. Although the technology doesn’t yet exist, it may someday be possible to record all the facts about a person (thresholds, memories, reactions, personality traits, etc) so it could be written on paper. Granted it would be a large amount of papers, but you see my point.



If you were to learn or experience nothing, then all the facts and figures that you are composed of will never change. The key to human development is acquiring knowledge, refining your traits, and developing a belief system. All these are interdependent as well. Gaining knowledge alters who you are and how you see the world. As the world only exists as you perceive it, one major way to change how you interact with it is to change your perception. Understanding how and why the world functions as it does is one part of available and acquirable knowledge. Physics, chemistry, biology, etc all explain why and how things happen. In these fields, there is no obscure knowledge. Everything there is to learn serves a purpose. Life is like a vehicle, to use it effectually and efficiently one must know the vehicle’s controls and limits. You never know when one might need to calculate something or know that when a golf ball hits a flat surface, it will reflect off of it at the same angle it struck it. As paradoxical as it seems, knowing these things both clarifies life and complicates it. More is understood and less is questioned on a systematic level, but now things are no longer black and white. Most very young children generalize all furry four-legged animals as dogs (or perhaps cats). As they get older they realize that they don’t all belong to the same taxonomy. There is a wide array of breeds of dogs, with varying temperaments and intelligences. Then there are also cats and the rest of the furry four-legged mammals. Everything is different and things are very rarely black and white. This is the complicated part. One can never learn ALL there is to learn. One should make an effort to learn all that one can, however. Another form of knowledge out there is that which is directly utilitarian. This includes skills (Knowing how to cook and change a tire) and “common knowledge” (understanding politics, finances, and how to buy a house. It’s already evident why these things are useful so I won’t bother with redundant explanation. The last kind of knowledge is a bit vaguer. It includes all of the others plus the metaphysical and intrinsic understanding. These things add new levels of thought and can change who you are. Explanations will be done later.



Our brain is the one thing we will always have with us. Athletics and a healthy body are also good as it is useful, leads to a healthy mind, improves mood, and helps resist disease. But the mind is what we will use until we die. The body is merely a conveyance for the brain. Its only purpose is to be an instrument for your mind to interact with the world. This being the case, one should focus on improving the mind as much as possible. To do this of course means to eliminate all that destroys brain cells. The only way after childhood to produce any new neurons at all is by experiencing new things. This is a proven fact. Neurons as an adult are no long a main concern however. Advancing consciousness is what is important. This can also be considered maturation or enlightenment. To do this means to increase judgment ability, logic, reasoning, etc. When young, you lean the ‘A’ leads to ‘B’ leads to ‘C’ and so forth. No one bothers to understand why and how there are so many other points that have overlooked between those.