How do we understand our conditioning & decondition ourselves?......My views

[hellas1]

Hi all,

I was just thinking the other day.

Wow.

So many different perspectives, so many different experiences concurrent with them.

Now the issue:
Conditioning is so ingrained in us that we do not perceive it.

The issue is to perceive objectively or factually without fantasy or imagination. In that objectivity, the subjective can easily come in and skew our perception.

I advocate a "Naked or Choiceless" type of perception/viewing-seeing, one which cuts past emotional states and misinformation, on an raw data level.

It is easier, in my experience, to perceive external objects and activities than it is internal phenomena & noumena.

Comments?
hellas1.5

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Yes, and the answer to your question is:

1) Noesis.
2) Noesis.
3) Noesis.
4) Noesis.
5) Noesis.

You can never have enough noesis.

[Col. Tartleton]

Yes, and the answer to your question is:

1) Noesis.
2) Noesis.
3) Noesis.
4) Noesis.
5) Noesis.

You can never have enough noesis.

"We are the Knights who say Nous!"

"Arrrrrggghh!" *dead*

[Border Patrol]

It would be nice to think that you could look at something unemotionally, but the fact is that you will always feel something and thus you can never be truly objective, just like you can't get a clear view of the universe unless you leave Earth.

[Justice and Mercy]

Easy. Introspection and merciless analysis.

[Taiji]

At least part of it could be the 'consciousness of abstracting' that Alfred Korzybsky describes in his book on General Semantics entitled 'Science and Sanity'.

I advocate a "Naked or Choiceless" type of perception/viewing-seeing, one which cuts past emotional states and misinformation, on an raw data level.

You might advocate that, but do you really think you can achieve it? I'd imagine the the inherent loss implied by the inevitable abstraction of information makes it impossible to fully achieve.

The map is never the territory because of the abstracting process used to derive the map.

[Denny Crane!]

Meditation breaks conditioning, that is why it is an effective tool for breaking addictive habits and anxiety or it at least gives us a better perspective of them.

[Helm]

Everyone is conditioned to believe something, even if you're conditioned to believe in the universe in purely material scientific terms it still counts.

[chriscase]

In my experience attempting to attack conditioning head-on is painful and often futile. I have seen much better results from body-oriented approaches.

Feldenkrais is a systematic movement therapy that dismantles habitual, unconscious movement patterns.

EMDR is a therapeutic modality that uses eye movement. It's kind of like having someone massage your brain through your eye sockets.

Holotropic Breathwork is probably the most direct de-conditioning practice I have experienced. It works by accessing non-biographical regions of the unconscious. Such experiences tend to wash away psychological rigidities and unfinished business.

[Denny Crane!]

Chriscase have you heard why EMDR works? If I am correct in thinking it is the same thing I heard about it is by taking an isolated short term traumatic memory and the eye movement and other stimulation forces attachments with the memory moves it into long term memory and stops the constant and cyclical recurrences of the memory. I've come across similar theories in some Zen books about different forms of meditation and dealing with memories conscious or unconscious. It is a really interesting technique though I find thinking about it in metaphors far easier than trying to understand the processes of forming memories and how they are structured biologically.

Edit: Helm, always pusing your agenda I see, you are single minded I'll give you that.

[chriscase]

Chriscase have you heard why EMDR works? If I am correct in thinking it is the same thing I heard about it is by taking an isolated short term traumatic memory and the eye movement and other stimulation forces attachments with the memory moves it into long term memory and stops the constant and cyclical recurrences of the memory. I've come across similar theories in some Zen books about different forms of meditation and dealing with memories conscious or unconscious. It is a really interesting technique though I find thinking about it in metaphors far easier than trying to understand the processes of forming memories and how they are structured biologically.

Edit: Helm, always pusing your agenda I see, you are single minded I'll give you that.

Yes, I'm familiar with at least some of the theory behind EMDR. I had about 15 sessions of it back in the 90s. I found the physical aspects of it to be really satisfying, though the attachment process was less powerful for me.

Helm, what we are talking about is not conditioning in principle, but poor (inefficient or damaging) conditioning, particularly bad conditioning that has passed out of conscious awareness and is inaccessible to self-inspection. Many therapies address this type of conditioning.

[Helm]

I don't have an agenda as such I'm just pointing out that everyone alive is a product of cultural conditioning without any exceptions. Everything you're talking about here is conditioning as well, you can condition yourself with Zen or whatever takes your fancy. You could even crack yourself out a Bible it's all good stuff.

[Denny Crane!]

I don't have an agenda as such I'm just pointing out that everyone alive is a product of cultural conditioning without any exceptions. Everything you're talking about here is conditioning as well, you can condition yourself with Zen or whatever takes your fancy. You could even crack yourself out a Bible it's all good stuff.

And yet you are missing the point entirely we aren't discussing who is conditioned or how but ways to address conditioning.

[Helm]

You can address conditioning with more conditioning, though some conditioning is better to have than others. It's good to be able to delberately condition yourself the way you like.

[Denny Crane!]

You can address conditioning with more conditioning, though some conditioning is better to have than others. It's good to be able to delberately condition yourself the way you like.

Not everything is conditioning Helm.

[Helm]

Well I suppose you can't condition the immortal soul element if that's what you mean but the physical brain is an entirely conditioned computerised system. The only people to not be fully conditioned by culture would be new born babies. Even if you're a liberal, you're liberal because you were brought up or otherwise influenced to be that way.

[Denny Crane!]

By that I meant that an action that breaks down conditioining is not in itself a conditioning process like meditation.

Conditioning is definitely a part of our character but you are mixing up determinism with conditioing to closely and removing from the equation things like all antecendant events in our lives that can create change or remove operant conditioning effects - that isn't to say we won't become conditioned again of course we will it is how we work but perhaps through one of these exceptional or intentional antecendant actions we can create better operant conditioning that leads to a better life.

http://www.behaviorology.org/pdf/Dis...tDetermism.pdf Long read but worth it if anyone is interested.

[Helm]

Meditation is a form of mind (religious) conditioning, which you're placing upon yourself based on the teachings of someone else who conditioned themselves this way. I'm not saying it's bad conditioning not all conditioning is.

[Denny Crane!]

Meditation is a form of mind (religious) conditioning, which you're placing upon yourself based on the teachings of someone else who conditioned themselves this way. I'm not saying it's bad conditioning not all conditioning is.

I disagree 1. It isn't religious its just a functional exercise. 2. I don't think it is conditioning...or not all of it. Learning the behaviour is a conditioning exercise but there are effects that aren't what I would call conditioning so much as a breaking of patterns and behaviour.

[Helm]

Meditation is a form of conditioning that allows you to become calm, centred and focussed. And it is part of a religious (or spritual) discipline, which you're practising of course. All relgious practices are various different forms of conditioning, some of it can be good and beneficial and some of it can be damaging. Even if you take atheism that's a form of conditioning that allows you to think like a scientist, or view the world in purely those terms.