for - self - as unified, centralized inner perspective - Michael Levin - adjacency - self - as unified, centralized inner perspective - multi-scale competency architecture - Buddhism - spiritual practice - self actualization - illusory body - illusory self - enlightenment

adjacency - between - self - as unified, centralized inner perspective - multi-scale competency architecture - self actualization - Buddhist practice - illusory body - illusory self - enlightenment - awakening - adjacency relationship - Indeed, from both the mundane and the spiritual, religious perspective, the unified self as a fundamental assumption - "self-development" and "self-actualization" are terms that are only meaningful if there is a unified self - Is the Buddhist ideas of - awakening - enlightenment and \ - penetrating the illusion of self - based on a kind of experiencing of the multi-scale competency architecture itself? - What does "spiritual awakening" mean in the context of multi-scale competency architecture? - For instance, WHO is it that actually awakens? - Is it consciousness from the SAME level, a lower level or ALL levels of the multi-scale competency architecture that a multi-cellular conscious, sentient being such as a human INTERbeCOMing? - If it includes consciousness from lower levels, then it may be billions or trillions of cellular consciousnesses that are awakening to the higher order consciousness it composes!

• for: quote, quote - Michael Levin, quote - self as control agent, self - control agent, example, example - control agent - imperfection, spontaneous thought, spontaneous action, creativity - spontaneity

• quote: Michael Levin

  • the Bodhisattva vow can be seen as a method for control that is in alignment with, and informed by, the understanding that singular and enduring control agents do not actually exist.

• comment

  • adjacency between
    • nondual awareness
    • self-construct
    • self is illusion
    • singular, solid, enduring control agent
  • adjacency statement
    • nondual awareness is the deep insight that there is no solid, singular, enduring control agent.
    • creativity is unpredictable and spontaneous and would not be possible if there were perfect control
• example - control agent - imperfection: start - the unpredictability of the realtime emergence of our next exact thought or action is a good example of this

• example - control agent - imperfection: end

• triggered insight: not only are thoughts and actions random, but dreams as well

  • I dreamt the night after this about something related to this paper (cannot remember what it is now!)
  • Obviously, I had no clue the idea in this paper would end up exactly as it did in next night's dream!

• for: definition, definition - self, compassion, science - compassion, self-illusion, self-illusory, nilhism
• definition
  • Self is an illusory modelling construct created by perceptual systems of Agents

• paraphrase

  • Self is an illusory modelling construct created by perceptual systems of Agents
  • Agents construct models of causal Selves for others, and for ourselves, using the same machinery.
  • The same mechanisms that cause an agent to act toward stress reduction in itself
    • (even though the beneficiary of those actions is in an important sense impermanent)
  • can be expanded to extend to other Selves.
  • In this way, while our focus is on understanding and formulating Self in a way that is applicable to a broad range of scientific contexts,
    • we also see ourselves as here contributing to the treatment of perennial issues in contemporary Buddhist philosophy
      • such as the feasibility of genuine care in a world without real individuals

• comment

  • the last statement has always been a paradox for me
  • Buddhist teachers often warn of how mistaken, immature views of emptiness can lead to harmful action
    • Indeed, if no selves exist, then over can easily mistaken nilhism as the logical behavioural conclusion
    • yet, teaching texts make clear that there is something critical the student has missed it they come to that conclusion
  • the transformation is missing its most important element of that false conclusion persists

• for: emptiness, shunyata, non-existence of self, no-self, illusory self, deconstructing self
• comment
  • this short description of the reasoning behind deconstructing the self is quite fresh and insightful, especially relating it to cognition.

• for: illusory self, non-self, lack of self, organism - as process, human INTERbeCOMing, bio-buddhism, biology - buddhism

• for: constructing selves, constructing self, reconstructing self
• comment
  • this is a fascinating insight that gives us deeper nuance on what it means to construct our selves in every moment
  • we obviously know we don't have access to our past and only have access to engrams of the past , so it isn't wrong to say that we are constantly reconstructing ourselves like a Planaria worm does to regenerate its body, all the time.
  • engrams are abstract traces of the past
  • this goes to the heart of constructing the self, in the Buddhist sense, as a kind of illusion
  • Levin says he is somewhere in the middle between the two poles of illusion and solidity of self, the self is a pragmatic useful metaphor, like everything else we construct