Philosophical ideas and acting "as though"

[bennyboy]

The part of our mind that we call conscious doesn't run the show.  It's one little voice in our head that sometimes is working against millions of years of evolution and/or a lifetime of social indoctrination.  The little voice having knowledge of something doesn't undo everything else.  

I know there's no reason to be afraid of heights if I'm not at risk of falling.  But my knowing that doesn't turn off all the physical and psychological impulses that goes along with being up very high.  At the same time, the knowledge I'm not truly at risk may help me reduce some of the symptoms that go along with the natural fear of heights.

Now we're getting somewhere. The reason you can't suppress your fear is that while you hold an idea on a cognitive level, you haven't yet dedicated it to your world view. You must meditate on the truth that you are unlikely to fall, until you believe it not as an idea to acknowledge, but as something which FEELS true enough to be acted on. If you REALLY believe that it's safe to climb a tall ladder, you won't feel insecure anymore.

You have to overrule your subconscious in every instance, which itself may not even be possible.  And maybe someday down the road, if you do it enough, you'll have reprogrammed yourself enough that your behavior lines up better with the ideas the voice in your head is coming up with.

That's the key. You can't make yourself believe. You have to change the self, because the self is a collection of beliefs. "Reprogramming" requires constant vigilance and attention to an idea, until it can be moved down from the conscious into the preconscious/subconscious. Most people are collecting glass beads in life-- those things which shine enough on the surface to hold their attention-- and in doing so, they are neglecting the real value of knowledge-- the ability to perfect the self through an increase in understanding.

The other trick with some of the scientific discoveries, is behaving accordingly isn't necessarily in our best interests.  It's probably better we all just pretend to have free will for example.

Why? So we can continue to condemn those whose genetics and life experiences lead to an unfortunate state of affairs in which they offend the rules of society sufficiently enough to be punished? So we can happily maintain a delusional sense of control over our world while big businesses tear holes in the atmosphere and wipe out species one by one?

I'd say as a general principle that we should put our money where our mouths are-- any idea we insist on asserting as truth, we must dedicate to integrating into the ego. And example is the many people here who say they're not afraid of death, for this and that philosophical reason. The actual cessation of the fear of death would be a real philosophical and personal achievement, but the reality is much different-- if any of these people had a gun pointed at them, they'd shit their pants. I'd like to MEET a person who legitimately had managed to rationalize away their fear of mortality-- this would be a person I would be very interested in learning from.