RE: Are You Living For Temporary Relief From Your Mind? (Part 2)
The principle of charity is attempting to understand the authors statements and considering their best form of interpretation.
That's such a beautiful concept! :) I'll keep that in mind in the future. Still, I think the point of communication is understanding what the author meant and in platforms like Steemit where interaction is quite common, I guess it's always worth asking. But yeah, asking might have been a better way to go instead of starting with expressing disagreement.
Ego driven thought patterns involve the internal dialogue creating identity.
Aren't they likely to involve brain chemistry, too? They probably do, don't they?
This is getting too long to rehash the concept of living in the future and living in the moment, but the statement "I am afraid of needles" doesn't relate to a fear response in the moment, it relates to ego identification.
It doesn't mean your ego is feeding the fear though and it doesn't mean getting rid of the fear by acknowledging the ego component is likely to work as the ego is not the root cause of the fear. Same goes for addiction.
I just think in a forum like this (social media platform) we need to be generous toward other's ideas and allow for things like generalizations and such since that is how people talk casually. These articles aren't primary research articles meant for peer reviewed journals where precise language is required.
I think there is always going to be brain chemistry taking place. Neurons fire when we are thinking and neurotransmitters are released constantly when our brains are active. However, when we refer to the ego in this context, we are basically referring to ones internal dialogue - the ongoing conversation with our "self." Aside from knowing that neurons within our brain are firing, I do not think that we can identify a very specific brain process like those that are known to be involved in physical addictions. So I think we should simply consider the ego as a type of thinking.
Regarding your second statement. I want to clarify that I am not denouncing the bodily sensation that is associated with fear. I am pointing out how the concept of fear can become a part of ones identity. Individuals certainly have a fear response in a moment of danger, but other individuals identify with their fears and they become a part of who they are. So ego doesn't feed the fear (the actual body sensation or body response), it feeds the identification of "self" with the concept of fear. Saying "I am afraid of snakes" is not a fear response it is an identity, just like saying I am "leaky20" is an identity.
I think we are getting muddled here because we are comparing physical dimensions (IE. the fear response and physical addictions) to mental dimensions (the ego and thought processes). The two cannot really be compared cohesively, but they were never meant to be compared in this way. The bodily sensation associated with fear is irrelevant to what I am saying about the ego and physical addictions was originally meant to be an analogy to describe habitual thinking patterns.
Anyway, you seem to like to discuss things which is what I am all about so I'm going to follow you lol.
sounds like you are a good candidate for @steemdeepthink
ok I will check that out. thanks!
Apologies, i was unaware of this conversation taking place as it didnt pop up in my replies. @leaky20 we are definitely on the same wave length when it comes to identifying with the mind and what it poduces. You interpreted the post exactly as it was meant.
That's no problem
Yes I agree. It appears that we think alike :)
Followed