Schizophrenics and the People who Are Them

[tyrannosaurus vex]

There's the guy who dreads spending time with his kid, because he's afraid it means no time left to himself.

There's the guy who spends time with his kid grudgingly out of a sense of frustrated duty.

There's the guy who, after spending a minute with his kid, has forgotten all about his complaining, and just plays like he's a 2-year-old himself, content to build big boxes out of those oversized legos and watch the kid tear them apart.

There's the guy who puts his kid to bed and thinks "FINALLY, some free time," and plunges into some activity, only to find that it isn't as interesting as he thought it would be, and wishes that the kid wasn't sleeping.

That's just a sample, of course, describing one tiny piece of experience that happens to a much larger mind.  But these four mindsets all carry with them their own attitudes, beliefs, and desires.  It's just one person doing what a person does, but from moment to moment in the control room, it seems like The Management has a turnover rate higher than a Burger King in downtown Baghdad.

The "kernel" of consciousness that watches all of this is sometimes powerless to do anything but see it go by.  As ready as it is at any given moment to exert its authority to commandeer its meatmobile, it is equally effected by things around it.

In any given mood, a person is working from a set of instructions that tell him how to react to stimuli, and what opinions to hold about various things at different times, sometimes strong opinions, often conflicting opinions.

I have had some success in overcoming this schizoid effect by imagining that what I thought was a "kernel of consciousness" is not myself any more than my middle finger is myself; but that it is more like a news-media broadcast that's terribly influenced by the Party Line.

In this way, I believe that Ultimate Consciousness is usually very similar to a couch potato, and if there is a Cosmic Truth, it's too busy watching Fox News to bother with being important.

[Cramulus]

In this way, I believe that Ultimate Consciousness is usually very similar to a couch potato, and if there is a Cosmic Truth, it's too busy watching Fox News to bother with being important.

mitts. I think Fox News is Cosmic Truth to the same extent that your ass-hair is you.

[Kaienne]

"We are large, we contain multitudes. The brain is not a fully unified organ but rather a collection of modules which are often out of touch with eachother and sometimes in conflict. The self is a (necessary) fictional construct the brain invents in order to maintain some sort of narrative continuity; this works pretty well but the downside to it is that it leads people astray."
-0033cc

[avatar]

In this way, I believe that Ultimate Consciousness is usually very similar to a couch potato, and if there is a Cosmic Truth, it's too busy watching Fox News to bother with being important.

mitts. I think Fox News is Cosmic Truth to the same extent that your ass-hair is you.

Avatar

[Triple Zero]

0033cc

is this perhaps a hyperintelligent shade of blue? 

[Kaienne]

It is, actually!

[LMNO]

Douglas Adams called.  He want you to cut that shit out, immediately.

[Iron Sulfide]

why is it that they are 'different personnae?"

you have but one brain/mind and regardless of the
program's script or the number of programs that
can initiate at any given time, aren't they just functions?

i can, for example, run numerous programs on my
computer, simultaneously (in fact, i have to for it to
be usable.) i can also close and open any number of
additional programs at any given time, and apply them
to whatever i need/want to.

does this mean my computer is fragmented? or merely utilizing it's
own capacity?

as for ultimate consciousness...i haven't run the defrag for a while...

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The Multitasking Mind is only the illusion that you must somehow apply some universal set of standards to all of your mental states, or that you owe it to yourself (or somebody else) to generally return to a familiar, 'baseline' mental state that somehow supersedes the rest.

In fact, while immersed in a particular mood completely, there is nothing objective that says you must ever 'come out' of that mood at all.  That it is only one facet of a multifaceted mind is irrelevant, at least for the duration of your stay in that particular segment of your consciousness.  When you are occupied doing something you are nothing but whatever it is you're doing; that you must stop or return to some 'normal' mode of thought is only a nagging thought that you obey out of habit.


*edit: just for clarity's sake, translate all that into e-prime in your head.