Making sense of the senses

[paigetheoracle]

This is a follow on to my first thread, 'The Systemic Universe.' In it I relate thought to action and how two of the principle senses tie in - namely sound and vision.

 

Firstly, like matter/anti-matter, thought and action are mutually exclusive in my opinion (Thought stops action - action stops thought)* because attention is directed in opposite directions: Stay (settle) and examine versus ignore and abandon (move on). Silence and stillness is needed to 'see' (noise distracts/movement blurs vision), that is concentrate upon something: Sound and motion are needed to act (release of attention/energy into the outer world). Sound leads us up and out of ourselves as vision takes us down and in - hence music and dance relaxing us and images, leading to intense concentration upon them (The tension of the still mind and subdued body).

 

Intellect is movement within (insight/thought) as e-motion is movement without (action/noise): Watch a film with the sound turned down and see if it has the same effect on you as with the score blaring in the background, and the actors screaming in anger or the heroine, screeching in distress.

 

For this reason I equate the inward quest as the search for information and stability as I equate the outer quest for entertainment and adventure (Shallow action/deep thought or relaxing and letting go versus tensing up and holding on - the latter leads to more and more detail being noticed as the former is a return to general life: The complexities of intellectual and business life (matter doesn't mind) as opposed to the simplicities of sport and manual labour (mind over it doesn't matter). This is why I see exercise as creating confidence and doubt, leading to intelligence (depth of knowledge from checking and double checking). Hence taking things apart to understand them and putting them back together again, to make them work (bafflement and that 'Eureka' moment).

 

To me these passive and active states, indicate the true cause of elation and depression too. In other words, gravity and levity as they equate to human life, show the direction of attention in someone's existence - outward certainty and inner confusion (holding on because we doubt our own senses or letting go because we trust life and ourselves again: 'It does work like this!' 'It does make sense after all!').

 

Put in the context of time, it's also the reason happy people see a bright future for themselves because that is where they are going as sad people are obsessed about the past and retreat into their memories, rather than use their imagination to rescue themselves (see only limit, rather than the limitless universe).

 

Touch is movement without as feeling is movement within (the other versus the self). Taste too is more to do with the self and within than smell, which is about moving towards (sensing) an external presence.

 

When we fail to sense things it is through overexposure, leading to a kind of blindness as in white out conditions (The unknown is immediately sensed as the different - the known is acknowledged as a continuation of what has gone before and is therefore weakened as a response because you simply don't need to react to it anymore as it's not seen as a danger source or indeed anything worth exploring in any depth: Familiarity breeding contempt/ 'Somebody elses problem' The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy).

 

* Proof of this is to be found in the following experiment: Try to describe what you're doing as you're doing it (Sportsmen's inability to talk coherently about what they're doing, when they're doing it is an obvious example of this. This I believe is because action is an unconscious 'reaction' to something external as thought is a conscious analysis or stopping and examining of something internal (microcosmic reality versus macrocosmic reality).