Ian: “Am I a feature of your imagination?”
William: “Yes but then so am I.”
Ian: “So why do you bother to imagine us?”
William: “You - Ian - came into being a few days ago as a literary device. Rather than state my topics in an essay ‘I’ can make ‘my’ points through answering your questions. As William the witness I have been present on and off for several years. The cast of characters that make up the illusion of self or ego could possibly be expanded.”
Ian: “Can you give an example.”
William: “An obvious one is Ulric the unconscious who never sleeps. He continuously churns inputs from the sense organs together with thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) that are stored in memory. This leads to the creation of stories. Most of them are inconsequential but every now and again they will point to things which are rated urgent and important. (Eg a lion looking for lunch) These are passed to the executive functions in the pre-frontal cortex where particular, personal policies, programmes and projects are prepared.”
Ian: “Aha – that’s cute. Ulric the unconscious is a non-egoic, workaholic, maintenance engineer. Who else?”
William: “There is Victor the vital force that gets me out of bed in the morning with my heart pumping blood and passing it through the lungs where carbon dioxide is removed and oxygen is added. Victor also prompts me to find and digest food, to extract the ‘goodness’ and pass out the leftovers as pee and poop. Victor is also in control of many other life processes such as, irritability, locomotion and reproduction. The reproduction process includes transforming a fertilised egg into a baby in nine months. Victor does not say much. He is part of the old, ancestral mindbrain and predates language by a long way.”
Ian: “So we could say that Ulric the unconscious is an upmarket version of Victor and he integrates the modern, human mindbrain with the ancient parts. Victor is the engine and Ulric is the engineer.”
William: “that is cute. Next in the chain is Stanley the story teller who rose to prominence in the days following the evolution of language. He is capable of fast reaction or more considered response to the thoughts, feelings and moods that seep out of Ulric’s churn. Stanley does most of his work in the unconscious but when conditions are appropriate he can commandeer the attention centre in whole or in part.”
Ian: “So there is a chain – Victor the engine, Ulric the engineer, Stanley the PR man.”
William: “Yup – that works. When Stanley commandeers the whole of the attention centre he calls up Zorba the zombie who is blown around like a dry leaf on a windy day. Zorba does not pay attention to what is going on and is infested with monkey mind and the notion that the mind has a mind of its own.”
Ian: “OK - we can add to the chain - Victor the engine, Ulric the engineer, Stanley the PR man then Zorba the dim customer.”
William: “Right – and the story so far is the one that most animals and people use. This is possibly what it is like to have basic animal consciousness.”
Ian: “So – to summarise - non-stop Victor and Ulric churn data so as to have something to monitor in the environment. Stanley then creates stories which guide Zorba’s reactions and responses.”
William: “and the stories cover the idea of there being an abiding self, ego or I. Zorba the zombie runs on autopilot and illusion - but it would appear to be a winning formula – at least thus far – the human population is still expanding.”
Ian: “That feels disappointing. I seem to want to believe that there is some greater purpose.”
William: “No problems - there can be much more. Alfred is awake and aware. He notices and thinks about TFM. He is a learning machine. He is capable of sophisticated insights that go beyond the elemental reflexes and instincts. Sometimes he experiences numinosity and sometimes flow.”
Ian:”Aha – we enter the area of mind training through meditation where there are two tasks – stilling and seeing.”
William: “Yup I am William the witness. I am the cool dude who watches what happens with Zorba and Alfred as they slip across the attention centre. So long as I remember to drop off body and mind ‘I’ operate peacefully and non judgementally and recognise mind stuff for what it is – ie not ‘real’.”
Ian: “You presumably spend a lot of time just sitting and dropping off body and mind.
William: Yup – I am attracted to Zen Buddhism and to Dogen Zenji from 13th century Japan.
Ian: “But calm abiding is not enough. There is need for action, for engaged Buddhism.”
William: “Oliver the omniscient appears after Alfred and William. He knows that TFM is just mind stuff and he has a flexible, liberal Weltanschaung which is open to ‘meaningful’ TFM. He is rooted in science but transcends academic, western philosophy.”
Oliver: “Hi chaps! I thought to introduce myself. At the mega level I reckon that we are dealing with a psychology of perception. Most of us muddy our waters and lose focus and clarity. If we are to achieve clarity we must sit still and let the mud settle. There are now many developments of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR course. ‘Mindfulness’ is often characterised as Buddhism lite. I have not yet made up my mind (which part?) but there is still energy to keep trying. Do you two feel the energy?”
William and Ian: Yup
Alfred: me too and I can feel bodily stirrings which I interpret as Victor, Ulric, Stanley and Zorba being up for it as well. Coordinated voices – Yoh. If you sit still you will know them.
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