GENIUS FORUMS

Nick, I agree with all you wrote. Much of my efforts right now are to fill my mind with pleasurable images of gaining consciousness. I try to do a concentrated 30 minute self-image session daily. I also read my goals and visualize them when I wake up and before I sleep. I think filling my brain with these desires definitely has the same effect of what you're talking about with getting pleasurable rewards with increased consciousness.

What doesn't seem so clear to me with your system is finding the standard to reward. This judgment can be done by a wise person, but how do we transfer that into a purely internal process with the patient and himself. I'm not much of a science guy, but this is the problem I see.

Nick Treklis wrote:Provide us a chemical reward when we do something beneficial to our survival such bonding, conquering, or eating. It's evident in the 7 billion people on this planet that these chemical rewards have been successful in ensuring the continued existence of our species up until this point. So it makes sense to me that chemically rewarding truthful/logical behavior would result in a much more enlightened population.

Enlightenment comes from the inside out, right? Your system requires an elite already in place, already enlightened, to administer the chemical rewards and punishments. How would you select your subjects?

Nick, in a way, don't people already do this? After a good, solid week of work, people reward themselves on the weekends with chemicals all the time.

Skipair,

It's only accidental that I ran into the people I have. It scares me to think what I'd be doing right now if I hadn't. I could be a convict!

yes, i agree in a certain context, but then again you being an intellectual from the outset directed your seeking of answers. In my view, some intellectuals are caused to seek truth, but they have the disposition for it, while dullards have very little hope to ever find truth, drugs or no drugs.

skipair wrote:What doesn't seem so clear to me with your system is finding the standard to reward.

Perfectly logical thoughts, and lack of delusional thoughts.

skipair wrote:This judgment can be done by a wise person, but how do we transfer that into a purely internal process with the patient and himself. I'm not much of a science guy, but this is the problem I see.

I'm not too huge on science either, but I do have some good insight into human psychology, and from what I've read about future advances in technology, this will certainly be possible. Once we can pin point how the brain goes about rewarding us for certain thoughts and behavior, we can then manipulate the brain through drug therapy to make it reward enlightened thoughts and behavior. Humans have always been conditioning the brain on a macro level, resulting in the various cultures and the values they produce. Using drugs simply bypasses the macro level and goes straight to molecular level to produce the desired results.

brokenhead wrote:Enlightenment comes from the inside out, right?

Enlightenment is a side effect of rigorous and unrelenting logical and truthful thought processes. Whether you want to say it comes from the inside out makes no difference to me.

brokenhead wrote:Your system requires an elite already in place, already enlightened, to administer the chemical rewards and punishments.

An elite is in place, although not very many at the moment.

brokenhead wrote:How would you select your subjects?

That all depends on the circumstances.

brokenhead wrote:Nick, in a way, don't people already do this? After a good, solid week of work, people reward themselves on the weekends with chemicals all the time.

Blindly bombarding your mind which chemicals to catch a buzz or get high has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

Nick,

I'm not too huge on science either, but I do have some good insight into human psychology, and from what I've read about future advances in technology, this will certainly be possible. Once we can pin point how the brain goes about rewarding us for certain thoughts and behavior, we can then manipulate the brain through drug therapy to make it reward enlightened thoughts and behavior. Humans have always been conditioning the brain on a macro level, resulting in the various cultures and the values they produce. Using drugs simply bypasses the macro level and goes straight to molecular level to produce the desired results

.

It’s not that simple Nick. Think about how many years of searching, reading, contemplation, were necessary in your own progress as a philosopher It takes at least a five years to a decade for a dedicated intellectual to mature psychologically, and they are interested from the outset. Now, what you are proposing is to take a dullard with absolutely no interest in philosophy, and repeat that process in a lab using some drug experiments. It will never fly Nick.

Ryan Rudolph wrote:Nick,

I'm not too huge on science either, but I do have some good insight into human psychology, and from what I've read about future advances in technology, this will certainly be possible. Once we can pin point how the brain goes about rewarding us for certain thoughts and behavior, we can then manipulate the brain through drug therapy to make it reward enlightened thoughts and behavior. Humans have always been conditioning the brain on a macro level, resulting in the various cultures and the values they produce. Using drugs simply bypasses the macro level and goes straight to molecular level to produce the desired results

.

It’s not that simple Nick. Think about how many years of searching, reading, contemplation, were necessary in your own progress as a philosopher It takes at least a five years to a decade for a dedicated intellectual to mature psychologically, and they are interested from the outset. Now, what you are proposing is to take a dullard with absolutely no interest in philosophy, and repeat that process in a lab using some drug experiments. It will never fly Nick.

Yeah, but Ryan, sages could be mass-produced this way. Think of it - no more searching for a wise mentor. They'd be everywhere. They'd be in corner kiosks and sage cafes.

Ryan Rudolph wrote:Think about how many years of searching, reading, contemplation, were necessary in your own progress as a philosopher It takes at least a five years to a decade for a dedicated intellectual to mature psychologically, and they are interested from the outset.

I'm not claiming that drug therapy will instantly enlighten people. I'm talking about giving people the ability to enjoy logical thought processes as much as they would enjoy a game of football, and discouraging the more delusional thought processes by making them feel bored, depressed, or fearful when they enter the mind, eventually resulting in a more enlightened individual. Obviously the patient wouldn't become enlightened over night based on how I've described the treatment(although that would be the ultimate goal), it could take years to potentially cure someone of their delusional mind, just like it takes any "natural philosopher" to cure them selves of delusion. I'm nearly 100% certain this would work if the technology were in place because this is exactly how it works with any other philosopher, i.e. they have a genetic/cultural predisposition to enjoy thinking logically which which naturally leads to a more enlightened individual. The only difference is one would be given a logical disposition through the use of drugs, bypassing the less reliable genetic/cultural predisposition.

I'm begining to suspect that you are writing this off as impossible based on your ego's desire to feel as if you have some special ability that "dullards" can't attain, but I could be wrong.

Nick,

I'm begining to suspect that you are writing this off as impossible based on your ego's desire to feel as if you have some special ability that "dullards" can't attain, but I could be wrong.

if it could be that easy, I'd be all for it. However, I don't believe its feasible based on how complex the character is. It isn't just neural pathways. The personality of each individual stretches into the furthest reaches of every cell.

Moreover, - if you want the strongest plants in your garden, you study the strong plants from one year, and save all the seeds from those plants for the next generation. You don't attempt to change weak plants that have already been created from defective seeds.

What do you mean an elite is already in place? Who are they? Name five. The elite would have to be enlightened. For them to be in a position of authority from which they could carry out this program, they would have to be appointed. If only enlightened people were to be so appointed, the people appointing them would also have to be enlightened so that their evaluation for who is enlightened would be correct. How did this appointing body come to be in such a position of authority? They could not have been elected, obviously. They also would have had to be appointed. And so on. Thus the very scenario itself in which the program could take place is a highly improbable one, if not all but impossible.

Then there is the problem of when to administer the reinforcing chemical treatment. There is no such thing as enlightened behaviour in itself if you have no way to identify the thought process that went into the the behaviour. People often do the right thing for the wrong reasons. How can the program's administrators infallibly know what someone is thinking? Also, thoughts are fleeting, the halflife of chemicals in the body much less so. You could correctly identify the proper thoughts for reinforcing, and end up reinforcing many more improper thoughts along with it.

It seems to me this proposal of yours somehow misses the whole "spirit" of the enlightenment process by deliberately side-stepping it. Its scale is all wrong. It's like trying to kill a mosquito with a howitzer.

Enlightenment and Drug Therapy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vAziBDUqRA

Nick Treklis wrote:

skipair wrote:What doesn't seem so clear to me with your system is finding the standard to reward.

Perfectly logical thoughts, and lack of delusional thoughts.

I mean finding these scientifically so we can reward them. Maybe you're right, and it will turn out to be easy. I have my doubts!

This sounds fairly brilliant to me. The overall approach sounds promising, although there would definitely some kinks to work out. For instance, I doubt you could identify 'absolute truths' in a person's thinking. On the other hand though, in the next few decades we should get to the point where we can certainly tell whether a person is in a brain state of love, compassion, empathy, creativity, patience, universal oneness, forgiveness, and so on and so forth. I found this post (and this forum) by the way because I recently had a similar idea and dubbed it "enlightenment therapy", so I searched google for that phrase and this came up. My idea is to study the habitual thoughts, feelings, and actions of successful, happy, enlightened individuals, and help people learn these habits through simple teaching, counseling, and hypnosis.

Keep thinking in this vein. People telling you you're crazy usually means you're doing something right.

What is your definition of enlightenment?

Nick Treklis wrote:What is your definition of enlightenment?

If you are addressing me, I would say experientially that enlightenment is what happens when suddenly many things make sense at the same time. I just used the word "many." That is a subjective term.