Thinking About the Mind (A Rough Draft)

I view the mind as a gift. The mind is something that we have been given that allows us to comprehend the world. I would like to argue that the concepts of “peace, bliss, beauty, and sublimity could not be known except through active thought which is a function of the mind. I look at involuntary reactions such as heart beat, breathing, and some blinking… as actions that are mechanically controlled by the brain. Even in moving my arm I may not think or say in my mind “arm pick up that pen” but I am connecting the movement of my arm to the need of a pen to write something down.

If we are classifying the mind as the voice in our head then what do we do if I have five? Just kidding I don’t have five I only have two (Mine and Jaena's).

I would like to submit the idea that there are 3 levels of thinking (maybe more).

Active Thought - Mind

Passive Thought - Mind

Involuntary Thought – Brain

The grabbing of the pen is the interaction of first two levels of thought but both are controlled by the mind. Active thought is always language based (my voice in my head) where as passive thought is activity based (movements such as walking or running). Movement can be random or it can be controlled. When we speak I believe that the inner monologue is what comes out of our mouths. I can either think out loud or I can think in my mind but either way, speaking is thinking done on the outside. When I speak, the inner voice employs the movement of my mouth, the use of lungs and vocal cords to produce audible language.

A thought to ponder:

Is it possible to still the mind? What I mean by this is to hush the inner monologue or dialogue you are having with your self. Some religions and philosophies say that it is. The goal of this is to bring the individual to a state of total peace. I myself am not sure that it is possible or that true peace can be attained by trying to focus on nothing. The Biblical mandate for this is that our peace will come through Christ and centering our life on him (directing it toward his purposes). As long as man is the beginning and the end and self fulfillment and personal bliss are the goal then man will never find a state of true contentment and peace. The goal for a Christian is to be lead by the Holy Spirit and to allow him to bring us into alignment with God’s heart. The only way to find meaning in life is to allow our lives to become worship given toward the God who is near. This means employing the mind and the senses and surrendering them to Christ for his purposes.

C.S. Lewis

After thinking I was a seminal thinker (coming up with the title of this blog) it turns out that I am once again just an epigone. Or, maybe we are just on the same wave length. Either way I will probably purchase the book and see if we have similar ideas. It would be nice to say that I was following in the footsteps of Lewis but his are pretty big shoes.

When A Mind Awakes

A great example of this titanic shift from sleeping to waking is can be drawn from the movie The Matrix when Neo wakes up to the world that “Exists”. In this movie Humanity exists in a realm similar to a dream state or coma.

Through a computer program reality is dictated into the brain to determine the human perception of the universe. Everyone feels there is a problem though they cannot establish what it is. Even Neo, the hero of the story initially does not understand his feelings of imprisonment. He feels trapped even though he has no concept of the True universe and his actual slavery.

The reason this movie resonated so well with so many people is because it touched a foundational nerve. I believe that we all feel that there is something wrong with our world and with humanity itself. In a sense we are trapped in a prison that we have created. In turn Naturalism has closed our minds and closed our universe to the solution and reality of the “God who is there” (and a God who is near). Without the interaction of the originator of thought and enlightenment the mind has fallen asleep. We have excluded God from all equations and have said that Man is the supreme point of reference. This philosophy has ended in despair and hopelessness. If man is the beginning and end of all things, then the universe has no purpose and ultimately we live and die as aimless wonderers.

When Neo awoke he found that the world was scared, dark, and cold. Shock and horror filled his face as he wondered if had fallen asleep and if this awful place was the actual nightmare. As we watched this hero we wondered if he had been deceived and is now in a more hopeless situation than he was before. But there is a difference in our awakening. When a mind awakes into the world that exists it will find hope, purity, beauty, and truth. It is difficult to travel into a place that is unknown but it must be done.

The only way that we can begin to awaken is to place our minds and our universe back in the hands of the one who created them. It is time to unplug ourselves from the matrix of the sleeping mind and enter into the world that exists around us.

Why Do I Do This?

There was a time where people thought about ideas and were challenged to reshape their worldview based on what was reasonable and good. I argue that a great majority of people do not think for themselves but rather cling to whatever philosophy feels right or suits them best. It is not uncommon to accept what the media promotes rather than trying to look at things from different vantage points. Instead of trying to attain a reasonable balanced perspective and arrive at the essence or truth of an issue, we just accept what we hear.

Truth exists and is absolute, for without absolute there is not truth. Without truth there is no coherent communication or language. Without this truth there is not existence, there is no “reality”. Through this page, I hope to challenge the mind to awaken and to begin to shape a world full of minds that have fallen asleep.