Nuances - Quareness Series 184th "Lecture".
I read recently where we are now being constantly bombarded with so much information that it may be exceeding the processing capacity of the human mind to cope with such overloading. Could this mean more and more people "going off the rails" unless we can avoid getting attached to any specific interpretation of what is occurring? Because of the ambiguity present in most issues, it's quite challenging to be sure of any interpretation...indeed becoming attached to any such may well prove a barrier to seeing the whole truth.
It's been said that to a large extent the subconscious directs our focus to what in the environment has value for the conscious mind to be aware of. A commonly experienced example here is when you distinctly hear your own name mentioned from across a crowded noise-filled room. It has been hypothesized that this filtering function evolved so that our ancient ancestors could rapidly distinguish sources of food and danger in their environment. For them the stakes were high and they had serious need of an effective mechanism to rapidly draw attention to essential things while simultaneously not failing to observe any vital part of the environment. Today the same mechanism is more focused on seeking what our modern culture has habituated us to value. In this regard it's very likely that our own words and actions are often far less influential than what any other has been primed to look out for. If someone's initial impression of you is positive they will tend to filter for things that show value for them in you. Conversely if their initial impression is negative they will filter for signs you have no such value. Effectively at play here is what's often described as "confirmation bias" i.e. only seeing that which conforms to one's pre-existing beliefs.
It's quite likely that most of human communication has little to do with the specific information being conveyed but rather is predominantly about what is going on in the body/mind/spirit of each participant...heavily influencing both what each conveys and how each interprets what is said to them. This is where one may have to focus in order to successfully reach out to those unwilling to listen. It seems there is an almost unlimited degree of complexity present in us human beings...unlike for artificial systems of whatever hue. It's true of course that as the complexity of any field of endeavour/knowledge increases, the number of assumptions one needs to make also increases. And given how immensely difficult it is to be fully aware of any complex system, people typically tend to see what their existing mental filters and largely unquestioned assumptions have programmed them to see.
There's so much going on around us at any given moment that our minds are screening out (and at the same time providing us with a perceptive illusion of a continuous "reality") thereby making it extraordinarily challenging to be fully aware of much of what is right in front of us. Of course the ability to be more aware of what's around us can come more naturally to some but the capacity to do so can greatly decrease as people become more disconnected from their bodies and predominantly come to live in their minds. Could pushing more and more automation now be
leading to more traumatized individuals who regularly disassociate?
Almost anything can be effectively argued for if we have carefully framed the debate and rearranged the available information to support our narrative. Being conscious of this gives one a deep appreciation for how illusory "certainty" or indeed accepted "truth" can be and how often what we are sure is true can simply be the result of a selective presentation of reality. It's also the case that whenever humans are exposed to an excessive (for them) amount of information, they lose the ability to be present to all of it...using their pre-existing filters to focus only on those parts which have value for them. This "bias" for relatively simplistic truth (usually a single or simple premise) has the advantage of being readily understood by most audiences. The major disadvantage of such is an inability to address complex subjects which unfortunately facilitates an ongoing polarization of viewpoints. We can readily see this tendency where many people unable to put individual premises together into a larger picture (because of emotional barriers to be present to that much information at one time) may angrily search out an individual premise they can attack for challenging one of their simplistic truths. For many complex issues, were their nuances fully understood, most people would likely reach a shared position they could agree upon. Sadly, however, for many amongst us when our awareness expands to a broader reality than we are accustomed to, there will be a natural strain created and a tendency to want to tense up and withdraw from that expansion. Offsetting this tendency would involve allowing our minds to expand so as to become fully conscious of a large amount of information without wanting to withdraw from it. With such a goal we could gradually move towards tolerating an increasing amount of ambiguous/excessive information without getting overloaded.
The challenges of our modern technological era involve many driven by changes of particular concern because they have tended to replace some of the most important things in life such as our connections to ourselves and those around us...changes which most of our traditional religious and secular texts neither explicltly addressed nor predicted. Nevertheless if people could now be encouraged to focus on grasping the timeless essence of those teachings by allowing their minds to expand enough to see the nuances within those texts (rather than having a superficial reading that fixates on specific simplistic phrases and rearranges them to support an agenda) we could reasonably look forward to a more genuinely holistic enlightenment. And this despite our modern day shortened attention span making it more difficult to perceive the real world around us.
Good luck to each and all in your own journey of discovery.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
June, 2023.