What I Think: Thinking (Introduction)

Hello. My name is Justin and this is my blog.

I apologise for the confusing URL. 'Justified Justin' was not taken where 'What I Think' was. I couldn't decide in the end which idea I liked more so I went with both. The confusion this ensues kind of excites me honestly.

So this little blog thing exists for a few reasons:

1. I like to write things. I am a scientist now (okay, web developer but its a science dammit) and I spend a good portion of my days writing things. However, computers tend to get quite confused when you try to communicate with them metaphorically and that's something I enjoy about writing.
2. I rarely say what I'm thinking. This leads to what you might consider a disingenuous mode of being that I'm working on. This is another way of working on that. I can sit down and clearly articulate the things I am thinking about here.
3. People should probably engage in discourse. No brainer really. Well, unless you disagree with this statement. And if you do, then you clearly need to be able to engage in discourse with me about it...
4. Sharing these things with the world scares the shit out of me. In my modest 31 years of experience, I have noticed that doing things that make me feel like a young deer swimming in a tank of great whites tends to force me out of my own mental echo chamber.

So, that is me spilling out a likely fallacious line of reasoning behind this corner of the internet's existence. I actually tried really hard to be honest up there. There is that quote: 'wear your insecurities like armour' or some shit. I like that it's simple. I generally cringe at these kinds of clichés but I have come to realise that even if they sound like they were invented by Cadbury to sell chocolates, they generally contain seeds of wisdom. That's how they become cliché.

If you have read this far, I am impressed. I have carried on obnoxiously without even giving so much as a hint as to what's on the menu for your eyes in the coming paragraphs. That's likely because I am figuring this out as I write it. I think the basic premise is something like 'when Justin thinks of something, he distills it to a single word and then attempts to articulate his philosophies relating to it.'

This post's theme is on 'Thinking', as that is really what I am doing as I bash down these keys to the rhythm of my thoughts.

THINKING

Everybody says they do it. They're pretty happy to say other people don't do it. But what the heck is it?

I think a lot. I do this not because I am good at it, but because I'm not. If I were good at it, I wouldn't need to do it so much right? So let's try to understand exactly what it is that thinking is together.

For anyone who has ever dabbled in Eckhart Tolle's work, you might be familiar with the idea of 'getting to know the thinker' or something to that effect. What does this mean? My interpretation is that he is suggesting there is a separate self that exists outside of the thinking self. Now, this sounds like head-exploding shit to some and just shit to others. But let me expand on this premise somewhat.

It could be argued that everything expands infinitely up and infinitely down. So take me for example. I am an amalgamation of smaller subsystems existing within the context of many larger systems. I am made of organs, then chemicals, then atoms etc. Then upward, I exist on a planet, in a solar system, in a galaxy etc. Sorry if I missed steps. I know I said I am a scientist before and I want you to still buy that. 01110010, see?

One way of constructing a frame to understand this within is to say that all systems are nested inside of each other. I haven't been able to fully clarify these ideas in my head, but it seems to me that since the big bang, matter (or whatever it is that exists before it), builds and builds on itself. More or less, larger systems are just the result of the smaller systems making 'noise'.

Life is the result of brain-dead chemical reactions just doing what they do: reacting. Somewhere down that line of material evolution, the chemicals woke up. Now you can download a 'like' from your friend in Singapore from the bottom of the Pacific. Chemicals have some strange needs when they become sentient.

Molecules doing their complex behaviour creates proteins. They create organic material. They create a cow. Again, I am a computer scientist, not a farmer, but I do like to consider myself somewhat of an intermediate bovine-ologist. These macrosystems being born to microsystems could be conceptualised as arbitrary mutations of the material world. Then you get the brain, which underwent its own little evolution in the background of our larger, macro evolutions. Before we could think high level, we had to be low level. Like the cow. Small digression: what if we are a smaller system giving birth to a bigger one? Say... AI? Boom.

Now, all of the pre-cognitive instrumentation that drives the cow to moo and be delicious is still in our brain. We just have an enlarged cerebral cortex whacked on the front. This gives us our higher reasoning. Me + knife + ex-lover = jail. That kind of thing.

At this stage, I am aware that this seems like more of a lecture on things other people have told me and indeed, that is the case. I believe only a small percentage of the things you know about you can actually take credit for as most of everything anyone does or says is the result of someone else coming up with it. Therefore, this meme from my favourite movie can be applied in context metaphorically:

Isn't he glorious? This piece of dialogue is dripping with metaphorical value, I'm not even going to try to disambiguate it. 

All this context I have been building is a prerequisite to understanding my thoughts on thoughts. Without the relevant information surrounding ideas, people just can't communicate properly. If I talk about eating my salad, you're not going to understand why the fuck I am stabbing at my greens with a small, metal trident if you do not understand the concept of a fork and therefore, the greater point of 'my salad' would be missed. Of course, I have to make some assumptions like 'you speak English' (we have to operate on faith at some level), but I'm trying to be as clear as possible. You end up with threats of nuclear Armageddon if you don't bother with context. I really believe that. If you don't see it that way, you may come to understand how I do provide I continue writing these.

Back on point because I'm too lazy for a segway...

Biologists have not been able to find any clear reason for why we are conscious. The higher reasoning makes sense, but it does not require us to be conscious to function. So what is consciousness? I think it may be the result of our brain making 'noise'. It may be the unavoidable conclusion to the myriad complexities that are unfolding under the proverbial hood.

We have our basic, emotion-driven selves lurking deep below what we can articulate to the world. Our consciousness, I believe, is the result of this system banging on with the articulated reasoning faculties of our brains and producing friction. Our thoughts: the vivid and articulate centres of our cognitive universes exist on the platform of articulate reasoning. Above the thoughts, high in the electrically charged air as the tension between our desires and our reasons fight for supremacy, our experience is born. This is the consciousness.

The awareness of the conflict between our animal selves and our particular, pedantic, anxious and precise selves is the result of thinking about feelings. Or something to that effect. Say we are two armies who come into conflict: one being our reason and the other being our emotion. I am saying the awareness is the smoke in the air from the combustion of gunpowder. It is the result of the battle.

So what can we do with this? We can try to understand that the thinking self, as Tolle called it, is more so much of a tool than a person. It is an instrument we use to navigate the plains of reality and make it bend to our will. It is what we use to separate us from the cold, cruel and harsh realities of existing finitely on a malevolent planet. It is the intermediary that separates our consciousness from the primordial impulses of our reptilian brains.

It has a bit on. While it is responsible for getting this shit done, it cannot be held accountable for who you are. You can think to yourself 'I should stop attacking people with bats'. This would be a reasonable thought as that's a bit of a dog act. But are you gonna do it? Hell no! You're a fucking psychopath! You're gonna keep on doing what you've always done because that shit is deep. It takes a good deal of time for the rational mind to communicate its ideas all the way to the subconscious level. It sinks down slowly like a passenger cruise ship with a hammer-sized hole below the waterline.

The point is, you (aka the thinker) cannot directly control that preconditioned, primordial animal that lurks deep inside. You can guide it, but you can't control it. Just realise that you are what you do and not what you say. Real change is bloody hard. Not impossible, but hard. Who knows if change is even desirable? This is assuming the thinker is a good entity. We have no choice but to assume it is because it would not be useful to assume the opposite.

So those are my thoughts on the idea of thinking. I hope you found them interesting. Whatever you thought of them, feel free to let me know. I don't necessarily consider these thoughts to be entirely right. They very likely aren't. Actually, I am not even sure I believe in the concept of 'right', but that's a thought for another day.

I consider them to be merely a lens through which a person could potentially conceive of particular phenomena. If it's helpful to you, I am glad. If it makes you laugh, I am glad. If it makes you cry, then you probably have some serious introspection to attend to.

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I hope ya'll enjoyed that introduction to the possibly overstated cyclone that is where I spend all of my waking moments. I apologise I only toyed with the idea of sticking to a certain point. My mind isn't very linear and I have a hard time getting to a conclusion without deviating substantially from the original point first.

Any questions or comments, I would be delighted to respond to them. Suggestions for another one-word meditation I can embark upon in written form I would also greatly appreciate.