Part I Here

Here it is spelled out for you as concisely and plainly as possible. So how do we get to feel great all the time?

The simple answer is, that it is impossible. We can feel content and serene most of the time though, that is possible. Once we stop searching for something to bring us happiness, once we stop investing in to our illusory attachments and once we stop beating ourselves up over these trivial failures that we think of as perceived blocks to our happiness, then we can achieve a degree of peacefulness and break out of this cycle.

So after all this what can I really say apart from this is not ground breaking, nor is it some amazing conception. It is simply me trying to put it in to layman's terms for those that are not yet liberated.

The funny thing is if we remove the self from the equation, we actually breakdown the model at this point.

Whilst it still holds true, we have actually removed the core component of the model, the illusion of self. Since “I am not good enough” actually refers to a fictional reference, what we now observe is that in fact all the attachments are no longer there and the engine that produces the negative thoughts about the fictional entity becomes inert.

Once the self is removed from the equation, the attachment to outcome disappears and when things don't go the way you wanted, there is actually no identification made in the outcome anyway...

It is just accepted for what it is.

What really happens is, there is no entity called self to actually invest in to the equation anymore, no sense of self to be derived from any outcomes. When you realise that it actually is a fictional idea, then it becomes apparent that all the suffering is actually illusory in nature, produced by this engine of dysfunction.

It is not real because there is no entity called you that actually exists in real life. Whilst the mind still produces negative thoughts and the neuro - chemical “punishment”, these are actually a useful tool for an organism and as such are viewed as feedback in existential experience.

Once it is seen that there is no you, the feedback cycle of negative thoughts feeding back in to each other and causing this cognitive dissonance is essentially disrupted. Whilst the thought complexes may begin to form, there is the clear seeing in reality that they are in reference to nothing and as such, these thought complexes no longer are able to gain the momentum they once had.

 Essentially the brain does not have the belief in them, since it is realised that thoughts about the self refer to nothing. There is no you in real life it is an illusion. Any reference in thought to yourself or what something makes you as a person, is simply fantasy.

This is liberation, realising that the thought that occurs in terms of “I” is actually in reference to nothing. This is not denying your own existence, there is a body that is experiencing life, there is still thought but the references in this thought that refer to the illusory self are seen as fallacious.

That does not mean that they stop occurring but there is the clear seeing of reality and the seeing that they are entirely illusory in nature. This is essentially what liberation is all about.

There is no separation from thought or existence, there is no you, there never was.

Now anyone who tells you that enlightenment means being in a total state of ecstasy bliss is full of shit. What they are literally trying to tell you is that you can circumvent this biochemical mechanism. This is of course impossible. It can not be circumvented.

How would you be able to function if your body was telling you that everything was ok when you were not moving towards survival? This makes no sense in terms of our evolutionary survival drive. What they actually have is indifference or equanimity.

In seeing that the self you thought you were is actually false, then that is equivalent to witnessing the illusory nature of conscious thought in reference to this entity called “I”. On seeing this, the brain is still conditioned to think in terms of this fictional reference however, it does not have the same level of gravity as it did before as discussed.

Quite often, the so called enlightened have been de - conditioning themselves for many years before they see this truth, which is the actual core of enlightenment. What happens through something like advaita, is on seeing the truth, a lot of the conditioning has already been broken. People say I no longer have ego but in essence, ego is entirely illusory anyway, it does not exist.

Ego is just the label given to thoughts that reference an illusory entity.

There is no ego but the thoughts can be thought of as being egoistic in nature. So whilst ego is not a real entity, it can be termed as thought in relation to a fictional reference.

If we look back earlier in this post, you could be forgiven for thinking that the body requires a self to function but it is simply not true. All these drives in humans are the culmination of evolutionary design, if this was the case for a self being required, we would have to begin to question whether any other entities have a self. Look at pigeons, they can work out basic puzzles that require cognitive thought.

Does thinking require a self?

Well obviously not or that would most living creatures would have to have a self of some description. Think about a dog, a cow, a horse... they don't have self awareness yet they are driven by their instincts to eat sleep and fuck. Life just lives itself, it always has and always will until you die.

Unfortunately this false construct of self that formed from the “I” function, actually ended up introducing a feedback mechanism in human thought. That is all self really is, a glitch in thought that originated from evolutionary design. Whilst this “I” function is no evolutionary glitch in itself, the lie actually forms an anomaly, as an inhibitory mechanism from within this evolutionary function.

Now we have to stop here as I have ranted on further than I planned but rest assured, we will no doubt be delving in to analysis of this evolutionary function in the near future.

In the meantime this lie has been spelt out for you, so get cracking with the knacking and get looking in reality to break your conditioning and “update” the brains model of reality to what is real. That is all liberation is, the true seeing of what IS in reality. No magic tricks, just what is true.

As a bonus you will break this “I can't ever win” cycle, if you happen to be stuck in it.

Part I Here

This is exactly the problem with this illusory construct of self. In order to perpetuate the illusion, the lie needs constant reinforcement of its existence. 

How exactly does it do this?

Well as you can see and as you know yourself, our successes are very often short lived. Once our neuro - chemical reward system goes back to equilibrium, we are still driven to climbing this social ladder and chasing good feelings of sorts.

The lie is like a void that we are constantly trying to fill, we always think that if we can just accomplish this one thing then everything will be ok. I also covered this in another post so I won't dwell much further on this thing as a metaphor, as this is something we have already directly observed and can know from our own experience.

On an evolutionary level, it is worth pointing out that it makes sense that our neuro - chemical reward is short lived anyway. It is only recently in the history of homo sapien, that we know where our next meal is coming from. As a result of unstable survival conditions million years ago when mammals first appeared, it would make sense that our evolution would facilitate a short lived neuro – chemical reward system, as long term rewards would hardly be conducive to our survival.

In a sense we always seem to be chasing good feelings and avoiding bad feelings.

We are driven to do this anyway in psychological terms but through our false sense of self, we seem to put this over and above all else. As I say, this is just stating the obvious but there is some reasoning for this as far as our evolution is concerned.

Anyway back to the point. So we have this feedback system and eventually we come back to the point where we perceive that we need something else to complete us. In our positive feedback cycle we have our neuro – chemical reward and then it is not long before we feel we need the next thing.

We end up coming to the “I should be better” idea however, in this case the negative connotation is going to be neutral and represents our base drive to improve our survival prospects, rather than being entirely the result of dissonance.

In both cases the base survival drive is towards this anyway however in this half of the model, we are without the ensuing negative thought patterns that tie in to our illusory notion of self.

Then the cycle starts again. The outcome this time may be desirable or undesirable but this model is self perpetuating in the sense that cognitions are driven in this manner.

All it takes is one negative event sometimes and our whole sense of self can take a massive dent and we can get really down about stuff. Basically once our core belief is activated, this is where our cognitive dissonance comes in to play.

Whilst the brain holds this core idea that we are not good enough, we are driven towards improving our prospects all the time. At the same time the brain is holding two opposing ideas and this is where it gets messy.

We can look at any model of depression from this point and see how some people are quite prone to this cycle of “I can't ever win” which stems from this unfounded core belief and the resultant dysfunctional negative thoughts.

Interestingly we can substitute any core belief in to this model and it still holds true apart from our labels change. Even if people have a lot of good luck and things going right for them for a while, when things go wrong people will literally come back to this core belief and this provides the basis for the I can't ever win model.

It is completely false but as a result of the core beliefs being activated, the focus switches to the negative events and the positive ones are soon forgotten. This facet of dysfunctional thought is called maximising the negatives and minimising the positives.

Our sense of self is derived from these beliefs and all it takes is one negative core belief to interfere with our lives.

We also derive our sense of self from our ability to achieve things. If we take someone who had a good start in life and is used to operating on the positive side of the model, we can see how people can still function and still remain healthy psychologically, despite this core belief however, there will be times when something major such as the breakdown of a relationship, will trigger these beliefs and it is no surprise that it is estimated that one in three people suffer from clinical depression in their life time.

Many people do not hold this core belief but there are plenty that do.

Do you see the problem with this system?

With our sense of self, we are making attachments within our outcome system about obtaining these objectives and investing in to them. Very often we hold the belief that once this one thing is obtained, then we can sit back and be happy, like it is just something we can suddenly just decide to do one day.

As you can see from the diagram, if we take feeling great as a biochemical induced state when our survival criterion are met, then we can actually see that it does not really make for lasting happiness.

If we are literally drawing a sense of self through external objects and criteria being met, we can see that really this is not a possibility. Since feeling great is a biochemical state in the brain, it is plain to see that when the brain is operating on this model of reality, that feeling great is a fleeting thing that is impermanent.

In this model of reality only once we reach our survival criteria, we get to feel great. This model does not really allow us to feel great, since we have a sense of self that literally needs feeding these new attachments all the time and after our fleeting reward, we are left wondering why we are not happy and desire other things to fill our void from the metaphor.

This

This is the void we are trying to fill through self and no matter what outcome we achieve we are still left yearning for more. You can't ever win, the system is rigged through this illusion of self. This is the void we are trying to fill on a cognitive and biochemical level. It can not be filled through self.

Here it is spelled out for you as concisely and plainly as possible.

So how do we get to feel great all the time?

Part VI Here

Part I Here

You have heard of “the zone” right?

The zone where everything is effortless and you forget yourself. This is the brain working temporarily without this inhibitory mechanism quite simply. Now before you even go in to the interview, you are probably nervous about the interview.

This is natural to feel nervous, we believe that we have to go in and make a good impression. Maybe you feel quite anxious and the thoughts arise about what the interviewers will think of you, whether you will be able to sell yourself in the correct way etc... This is exactly the inhibitory mechanism of self at work.

At this point this is the feedback of thought that starts to gain momentum and causes you some unnecessary worrying. You tell yourself not to worry but rather than calm you down, it actually has the opposite effect. It is the brain producing thoughts about an illusory entity and what this fictional entity has tied in to the outcome of this event. It is literally thought being produced in reference to a perceived threat, to a perceived entity that does not exist.

This is literally the brain warping reality to fit its beliefs. In reality, all you have to do is go in a room and talk to some people, its not such a big deal. However through this illusory construct of self, there is a sense of importance and the gravity of the situation is massively amplified.

As I said it is natural to feel a little nervous but if through the interview, you are constantly wondering what they think of you, analysing what you are saying and trying to come across as intelligent witty or whatever, you are actually repressing the brain through thought. Rather than focussing on the task at hand, the brain is diverting itself in to thinking about something not real. Rather than thinking about the task at hand the brain is trying to deal with a situation and imagining a false construct of self simultaneously.

The brain is actually subject to an inhibitory function, through this idea of self. Go figure.

We can also take any point in the diagram and we can try and layer another scenario on top. I read a post that a woman posted on a psych forum and the crux of the post was her basically saying that she had everything that she thought would make her happy, yet she was getting depressed about the fact that her life seemed empty. She had a loving husband, a family and a house and yet she expected that she would be living in domestic bliss.

You see, the self is always striving, always wanting more, hungry for the next set of attachments to feed on. Once it stops getting these new attachments, the sense of self starts to become threatened, as without new fuel all the time, the sense of self begins to lose its reinforcements.

As the brain is tricked in to thinking it is a real thing through the belief structure, we again start start a feedback cycle in which the brain perceives that without this reinforcement of the illusion, that it is actually a perceived threat to its survival. 
So you can have everything you think you need, yet you are still subject to this illusory mechanism. The self is tied in to this survival drive and causes negative feedback of thought about an illusory mechanism which sets off our neuro - chemical punishment system.

Right here we come against the neurological binding problem. That is a post in itself but here it is plain to see how our neuro – chemistry can be directly affected by negative thought about a fictional reference.

Depression not only affects thought, it has been shown to alter the bodies chemistry. This is not actually natural. Well it is totally natural but... it was never supposed to be this way. The entity of self was never supposed to be believed to be a real thing. 
The “I” function was there to give us the ability to analyse our own cognition which resulted in a massive leap of intelligence but it was not actually supposed to be believed as a real thing.

The brain has simply warped reality to its model, to reference a fictional entity. However, this “I” function was a very useful evolutionary function. It is in no way an evolutionary glitch however, the brain was never supposed to actually believe it to be real.

 The brain was supposed to be able to use meta cognition, to allow itself to build conceptual models. It was never actually supposed to map a fictional entity over reality that was responsible for the brains thinking and actions. To believe that this is so is pure fantasy. It IS simply the brain warping reality to fit its subjective model.

So say we don't get the job. There is some kind of level of negative feedback, especially if we staked in to our attachment and from this attachment began to form attachments to other desirable qualities.

For instance, maybe you had already started planning on buying a new place or a new car. So on top of our attachments we have formed another level of false attachments. When the failure becomes apparent, we will feel negative about it but hey, that is normal to feel disappointment.

Our body doesn't reward us with good feelings when we don't accomplish things. This is a normal part of the bodies feedback that we can experience and that is down to our evolutionary psychology and our neuro – chemical reward system.

There is no problem here until our façade of attachments comes crashing down. As the self invests in to these things and tries to derive a sense of self from the outcome, this particular outcome can be viewed as an inconvenience all the way to a total catastrophe, depending on the investment in to the attachment.

At this point, maybe the thought “nothing ever goes right for me” may crop up, as you beat yourself up over your failure to get the job. Now at this point, this is where thought is literally feeding back in to itself. The self image that crumbles causes negative thoughts about a non existent entity to self perpetuate.

 Thoughts about negative thoughts and what they make you as a person will continue to cycle and this feedback can cause from a little, all the way to a lot of distress for a person.

At some point, an evaluation will be made about this and a judgement will be made about what this makes you as a person.

Obviously you view yourself negatively in this light and the natural thought is to think you should have done better. It is a simple case of reactivating this core belief of I'm not good enough again. Even if life has been going good for a while, you will suddenly find that after all this time, this core belief will be reactivated.

Now for many people, it is not a catastrophe and they can move on from this but if you throw a few other negative things in to the mix that happen around the same time, you have this potent mix of negative feedback and a downward spiral of cognitive dissonance, that may or may not result in depression in varying degrees.

Some people are better able to cope than others with the cognitive dissonance, some people see it as a tragedy, others will see it as a minor convenience but all of us will experience some degree of negative feelings about this event.

On the flip side, we got the job and rather than be wallowing in self pity, we feel good, really good in fact. So good, we go and get a loan for the new car and everything is running swimmingly now. However, have you ever noticed that once everything is finally sorted, you are happy for a short time but for some reason, you expected to feel differently than you do?

It maybe a short time but as the old saying goes, “more wants more”. This is exactly the problem with this illusory construct of self. In order to perpetuate the illusion, the lie needs constant reinforcement of its existence. How exactly does it do this?

Part V Here

Part I here

On an individual level, there is no holds barred as far as far as flawed self reinforcing logic is concerned. First of all we have to take a look at the process involved in the survival drive. As you can see from the diagram below, we first want this survival equilibrium as our goal state. This diagram is not meant to insult your intelligence, it is merely to form a picture of what is going on to which, we then can transpose cognitions on top of the model.

The brain will decide a course of action depending on the biochemical need, to move the organism in to taking action. As we know, we are driven towards survival and our brain rewards us with good feelings and highs of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, when something is achieved that increases our survival prospects. Our brain has this neuro - chemical reward system in place to signal an organism it is moving towards survival.

This system then fills in a gap as far as evolution is concerned because before advanced cognitive thought, there had to be some kind of biochemical process, to give feedback to a brain.

We see that this not only appeared only in humans, we can see in primates, rodents and pigs for instance that they have the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. This indicates that without a language, there are limited cognitions and of course this biochemical feedback system which is intrinsic in the mammalian brain.

I labelled on the undesired outcome “neuro - chemical punishment”. This is inaccurate as it it does not work in this way however, as we know we do not feel great when things don't go our way. 
We have a Behavioural Inhibitory System (BIS) that is involved in us not taking actions that would decrease our survival prospects but that aside, for our purposes we will call it neuro-chemical punishment, as some neurotransmitters are involved in mood regulation and if we look at serotonin regulation for instance, we could deem that the brains re - uptake of serotonin being akin to a punishment system of sorts that tells the brain that the survival criterion are not met. So to keep it basic, we will use this basic idea of reward and punishment.

If we take our biochemical system as motivating us on a chemical level, the resultant changes in our brain chemistry form this basis for our reward and punishment system. In effect we are driven towards feeling good neuro – chemically as this is perceived as survival. 
Now, this reward system can be tricked as we know and as an evolutionary function it is merely there for survival however, by going to theme parks, going skydiving, taking drugs etc...

These things are ways of altering our brain chemistry and tricking the survival reward. For instance when the flight or fight response is triggered, we produce adrenaline and norepinephrine to prepare us and when the perceived threat to survival is over, we receive a rush of euphoria which is of course our neurotransmitter reward system at work.

This is how we can explain our propensity to do certain activities that are not specifically for the purposes of survival. Our primary motivation to accomplish something is survival.

Just by looking at this system, we can see that if we had enough events us going against us, our neuro - chemical punishment would increase. Now this alone is enough to see how it causes us problems however it does not operate on this one event = increased reward or punishment. There is just feedback in the system. Basically we are heading towards survival or not but in the short term, if things have not been going our way we get frustrated more easily that is plain to see and we also have a build up of stress.

Particularly where a fictional entity is concerned, more thoughts about more negative thoughts that a fictional reference in thought failed to accomplish. It does not really figure but now we will take a look at the cognitions behind this mechanism.

Now we are in a position where we can transpose cognitions on to our biochemical feedback system. Obviously our cognitions are governed by our drive towards survival and of course our map of reality. 
We could take a dodgy core belief such as “I am not good enough” as a good starting point. This seems to be quite a popular facet of dysfunctional thought, as far as conditioning is concerned.

A member at RT bought my attention to something called the Lefkoe method, which I had a quick look at but his conclusion was that most people hold this as a dodgy core belief and are not even aware that they hold it. So seeing as it is such a popular problem we can start to look at the dynamics of this belief structure, how it plays out and how it reinforces the illusory notion of self.

To start with, this belief was formed from an early age and as parents “never studied parenting at university”, it becomes easily apparent to see that sometimes a parent is often displeased with a child. There is no way a parent can be happy with a child all the time. A child merely wants to explore and play. Parents want their children to be quiet and behave. This causes a conflict of interest from the get go.

By encountering scolding and shaming from parents, it is quite easy to conceive how a child can feel inadequate, without having the cognitive capacity to work out that there really is no reason to hold this belief. It is just accepted as a construct of reality by the brain.

Now without actually even considering the logic behind the process, a child's brain will form this construct of reality, just from its existential experience. This construct is a fundamental building block of its reality and from this dodgy foundation, its experience will be framed through this view of the world.

We can draw a parallel with the concept of self. As the concept of self is forced on a child from a young age, it is also drawn as a construct in which the world is framed. That is why even to this day, you are still resting on this assumption. We already know this is purely thought conditioning and we also know that pretty much all of our responses are also governed by our conditioning.

If you start looking in to no self, you will notice that the experiments on my blog are actually designed to start you noticing the conditioning of the brain and highlight the faculties that you thought you were responsible for and demonstrate that in fact; you actually have no influence over these processes.

So we can simply take our core belief formed by our conditioning and look at how it works on a cognitive level. Now anyone who has suffered with dysfunctional thought before, will describe certain beliefs that keep popping up as negative thoughts. It can seem like there is no escape at times and at other times they can take things in their stride. We can look in depth at this process and form a model of the cognitive processes that occur with these conditioned givens.

Lets take the illusory notion of self in to account. As we can see we have a feedback system which is pretty elementary. At the undesired outcome level, we have an attachment formed in our perceived outcome. 
When thought is put through the frame of an illusory self, the propensity for the thoughts occurring, is always driven on some level towards propagating this self image and there is a constant running away from bad feelings towards our good feelings, generated by the perceived value of our outcome.

When we factor in the illusory self, there is this level of self image involved, how we feel about ourselves and how we look in the eyes of others. There is a level of what this makes you as a person and this is exactly how the lie works by attaching to these illusory attachments and is always coupled with how this or that thing will makes us better somehow.

Of course when we factor in our evolutionary psychology, we are driven towards survival within the confines of our socio – biological hierarchy. It makes sense that we are driven to achieve more and get higher status in our tribe and not act like a spaz in front of others, that would reduce our social value, this much is true.

However, with the self factored in, we not only have cognitions towards our goal state, we also have cognitions about an illusory sense of self, responsible for the actions and thoughts that occur, whilst going towards this goal state. This phantom self in that respect, causes feedback in thought.

Basically as cognitions are geared towards taking us closer to survival, when we have this illusion of self, the brain is literally tricked in transposing ideals on to an entity based in thought.

So say that our outcome is a job interview. At any point in the equation, any thought that is geared towards this false entity can become a disrupt to this mechanism. It is actually thought feeding back in to itself about nothing. In this sense the false self forms an inhibitory mechanism. You have heard of “the zone” right?

Part IV Here

Part 1 here

Why would they go to such lengths to deny reality?

It is simply because a belief is held and when it is called in to question, the belief is defended through this lie of self. It is a self reinforcing system. If a model of reality is threatened, an organism conditioned to a belief structure, will always try and seek out evidence to maintain the belief structure, to the point where we actually become blind to reality.

We know this because the brain filters the incoming sense data through its subjective map of reality. Only once its model is updated, can an old belief no longer be held. On an evolutionary level this makes perfect sense, as the brain needs to form a working model of reality, in order for it to be able to judge the appropriate action to be taken.

This ties in to the pattern matching nature of the brain, it is simply by pattern matching and mirror neurons that pattern matches are translated in to action and cognition.

Take a look at this picture:

Do you see a six of spades?

Look again

It is actually a red six of spades. As we know the six of spades is black, it does not exist. As you have never seen a red six of spades before, the brain filtered the incoming sense data in terms of its model of reality. Our beliefs alter the perception of the environment. 
Our beliefs literally blind us to reality. This is literally what is happening through this lie of self. It warps reality in terms of an illusory entity being responsible for thought, an illusory entity that suffers when things don't go its way, that worries about what people think of it and strives and strives for things formed by attachments.

To put it simply, the false construct of self, is always driven to try and be superior in some way simply because the brain believes it be real. Our evolutionary psychology is driven by the need to increase our value in the social strata, as it is perceived as taking us towards to survival.

Of course there is nothing wrong with this in itself however, through this base level socio - biological drive and the anomaly of self, we have this mechanism created where thought is feeding back in to an illusory idea of self. 
Why is it that we do not like being proved wrong? Why is it that we desire to make other people subscribe to our model of reality?

Of course evolutionary psychology made us so that we follow people who are sure of themselves and we have this desire to lead people. The point is, when we are proved wrong or ridiculed, this is perceived as taking us further from survival. Hence, we often associate this with some negativity. Even now being liberated, this holds true because it is witnessed simply as evolutionary function.

Our problem arises when this is tied in to our false construct of self. The belief is actually warping reality to fit the subjective model and through this illusory construct, we become identified with it. 
These things, rather than being viewed as a natural biological mechanism, it becomes what defines us as a person, it is our self image that is actually tied on to these beliefs. The beliefs form the attachments of the self, along with our desires and our empty labels that we impose over reality.

We can span out from religion here and we can see how peoples belief structure ties in to their identity. Look at politicians, animal rights activists, whatever the identity it always based on beliefs which form the basis of this imaginary construct of self. 
When this belief is threatened, not only is it a perceived threat to our survival in terms of our evolutionary psychology, it is also seen as a threat to the actual entity of self.

So not only are we naturally wired in this way, the lie thrives off this and self perpetuates its own existence. The end result of which, we see day in day out as people try to defend ideas such as religion in the face of insurmountable evidence. 
It is insurmountable but rather than look at it with honesty, religious people will always focus on any perceived fault in science and literally warp reality to fit their belief structure. It is not their choice to believe, it is simply this mechanism at work and is the construct of subjective thought.

Hence why religious people often insulate themselves from non believers, have a reinforcing circular logic for their belief and rather than actually embrace science, try and seek out every loop hole they can and exploit it to maintain their belief. 
You don't really get christian physicists or research biologists. What you do get is people masquerading under the science banner, trying to defend their belief.

It is tragic really, we see the gaps in the fossil record getting filled in, only for another set of goal posts in between the time frame of these new discoveries. 
We know how rare fossils are anyway, only forming in rare instances, so for us to have a full picture is never going to be possible. We only have to look at the overall picture to see what is going on and the evidence is simply overwhelming.

Yes there are holes in the theory but as our understanding increases, these gaps get filled in and as our friend Dawkins put it “religious people fear the advancement of science, like a witch fears the encroaching light”. 

All it really needs is some honest looking in reality to see what IS real.

Belief can be so strong, that some people devote their lives to reinforcing this collective religious delusion. I am anti - religious in that respect but I would not devote my life to the cause of proving it for the escapism that it is. 
As our understanding increases, we will eventually view it as some silliness that played a useful role in the advancement of the socio - biological beginnings, of the structuring of a large scale human society. 

Dawkins advocated the fact that there is a propensity to believe in god and this would tie in nicely as a result of this “I” function and the desire of the self to avoid the perceived threat of its non existence. That is for another topic though.

When we look at the self, it is nothing more than a core belief. That is literally all the conditioning of the self is, a subjective map that was accepted as reality since no other alternative model was presented. 
You simply believe that you exist, it is nothing more than a core belief, which forms the basis for the map of your reality. That is why the only way to break out of the conditioning is looking in reality, then the brain can no longer hold a belief that is not cogent with reality. That is the whole idea of looking to find liberation, simply to break the conditioning of the brain.

At what point did you ever question your own existence? Your core belief is that you exist.

When you were younger did you actually turn around and decide that you actually existed or rather, did the brain just fill in the blanks? This demonstrates exactly what control you have over your beliefs, there is no conscious control of beliefs. Beliefs are literally these givens of experience. 
Now people who choose not to look at this no self idea, are simply subject to this mechanism that we have outlined. The brain is driven to protect its model of reality by the self identifying with it and it is little wonder that many people are too cowardly to look. 

Even during the looking process, people need repeatedly kicking up the ass. That is why people do not look, they are trying to understand no self. A little understanding to start with is very useful but there is no substitution for the actual act of looking in real life for this fictional reference.

We need to take a look at something more personal to cement our understanding regarding belief structures but religion is always a good starting point to illustrate how a collective self reinforcing delusion works. 
We need to look on an individual organisms level, to try and quantify how this illusion of self causes problems on a day to level. The thing is with religion it is collective and it has the illusory nature of free will behind the decision making progress. The process is also diluted by a peer group. On an individual level, there is no holds barred as far as far as flawed self reinforcing logic is concerned.

Part III Here

This post started out as a short piece about belief but I let it roll and now its going to be a series examining belief, the resultant cognitions and how we work on a basic neuro - chemical level. I promise you it is not complicated. In fact it is spelled out pretty simply and there is nothing amazing here for anyone already liberated however, this is for the layman. We have discovered at the core of reality, there is an illusion of self that actually does not exist in reality. On observing this, it becomes quite simple to explain away some simple phenomena.

So if there is no self, how is it a human is able to form core beliefs?

Well first of all we already know that life lives itself. If there is to be no self, “you”, “I” or whatever label you want to give it, the core of liberation, is seeing that it is just not there in real life.

For starters we know that “I” is a fictional reference in subjective thought. Thought just happens anyway, it always has done it always will, whilst you are alive. Without delving in to the origins of self awareness, we know that at some point the functionality of the human brain in conjunction with the origins of language and our evolutionary psychology gave rise to an “I” function.

This not only facilitated communication but was also responsible for giving us massive scope for the brain analysing its own cognitions.

Now this human is simply an organism living, it just so happens that this “I” function gave rise to an idea of a thinker eventually, which as we already know, is exactly what “you” is; a fictional idea in subjective thought. We know thought happens, we have already seen evidence of thought and planning in other creatures. Check out monkeys making spears in National Geographica as a great example of this. Obviously they don't speak language, so there is no internal dialogue going on but there is the capacity for the brain to function in a coherent planning capacity, without language.

So animals have cognitions, so do humans but it is our arrogance that assumes we are so special. We are biological organisms as it happens and whilst our cognitive capabilities far surpasses other creatures, we are still biological organisms and as far as the earth is concerned we might be the smartest but we are still biological organisms existing on earth. There is no mystery there really but we have advanced to have a cohesive and co operative society (I use this loosely :)) and show many more traits other animals do not seem to have.

So what exactly is a belief? A belief is simply a part of the subjective map the brain has made of reality. Our existential experience dictates any beliefs we hold. People can say I choose to believe in god but quite simply it is part of human nature to follow others. If we look at what can cause someone not to believe in god, it is usually the direct experience of not seeing evidence to prove its existence and the societal conditionings of others, who would claim the god squad were silly etc...

In other words the brain does not form a cogent model of reality through this belief structure that

a) satisfies its survival and replication prospects and

b) does not tie in with existential experience.

The brain is strictly only able to form its model from what can be observed in reality. That is why you can be tricked in to believing something but once it is seen for fallacy, it is not possible to hold this belief again. This is why you can not logically convince people of some things, because a map is formed of reality and any deviation from this construct is seen as something that will affect our survival and replication prospects in a cognitive psychological capacity.

People who believe in god may well be ostracised by their non believing peers somewhat and they will often align themselves with others, who believe the same story. In other words people will seek to align themselves with people who hold common beliefs and values. This is merely human nature and is self explanatory of course.

So lets look at where this belief arises. Often religious people are born in to religious families and are conditioned in to believing in god. Also take many schools that have school prayers etc... From this point in life, religion is seen to be a normal thing, religion is at home in the school, it is pretty much all you would know and you would just accept it as your reality. As time goes on the belief would be called in to question numerous times and people would have to cling hard to this belief but as long as you had your little clan of believers to keep you in this reinforcing circle, as long as you found solace in your beliefs, you thought hey I'm a good person and I will have an afterlife, you have a nice little model of reality. The threat of oblivion which the false concept of self fears, plays nicely in to this model. Whenever the going gets tough, you can pray to this entity upstairs and hey, if you genuinely believe it is in your head looking out for you, you have the equivalent of an imaginary friend helping you.

This model of reality has it perks, it may be insular and requires a lot of belief but it does tie up all the loose ends. There is a definite attraction with this model of reality and if it was imposed on you from a young age and you never found reason to question it, then why would you?

You can turn round and say I choose to believe but if you had already been conditioned in to it, then it is not your belief. New converts etc... are often introduced to this model, get to meet nice people and have a good time doing the whole thing, the attraction is there, there is no denying this.

 However, most rational people will not entertain this model and as such you find born again christians, are often people who have had many problems in life and find a convenient escapism and stability in the idea of religion. I am just generalising here but my point is they don't get people to convert by rational thought alone, this simply does not happen.

They could hold the belief that this was their decision but you can not choose your beliefs. That is right, you can not choose your beliefs. Core beliefs are arbitrary givens, of an organisms experience. They are not your beliefs in any way shape or form because there is no you to own the beliefs or influence them. Life lives itself, it always has done. You don't get to choose what is worthy of believing there is just a model of reality that the brain accepts or rejects.

In other words, you do not choose what is believable or not, it just simply IS believed or it is not. We know this because we only have to take newspaper stories that are simply repeated enough times and unless there is some threshold of belief in the opposite camp, it is usually taken on as a belief among the population. This belief is not some decision we actually sat and thought about it is simply conditioning through repetition. We only need listen to all the crap they spew about immigrants in the UK coming over taking all our money and jobs for instance.

Whilst religion is a wishy washy subject anyway, it is well intentioned core belief, even if it is grounded in nothing substantiating.

Whilst people harp on about how the bible is the most accurate document ever and all that carry on, we can simply see within the circle that a belief is self-reinforcing. Any belief that is held by an organism, will cause the brain to look for evidence to reinforce that belief. So you get these people stating these things they have heard elsewhere and all the time they ignore the fact that some parts of the bible were repressed, the overwhelming evidence of evolution and of course physics.

We have proven the earth is older than 8,000 years old, just by simply measuring light wavelengths from the far reaches of other galaxies. However, they just ignore the stark facts and their belief is still staked in the bible. How can this be? The truth is already there and yet, the belief still remains. Take evolution, you can go on Conservapedia's evolution page and don't forget they tout it as “the reliable encyclopedia” and it is merely a collection of anti evolution propaganda. Why would they go to such lengths to deny reality?

Part II here