I Posit a Theory - ‘Perceptual Purity’

[Jacobsrw]

So for several years I’ve been contemplating and writing on a particular idea. This has lead me to posit a theory. And it is this...

“children perceive existence more accurate than the adult they become”

This leads to the child naturally having higher levels of consciousness than the adult.

How so? Well the child has been described to be a blank slate. An organism unrefined and with very little motor, operative and cognitive function. This means, the child is “unconditioned”. They are born as a pure sensory organism through which existence is perceived for what it is, not what is inferred about it. 

We can see and test this by observing a child’s inability to process “complex” tasks, fine motor function, memorise and maintain stable visual acuity. None of these occur in a child’s experience. A child wobbles, their reality is inconsistent, warped and difficult to comprehend. This is much like the psychedelic experience which leads the individual to a more integrated and connected states of consciousness, coincidently. 

 

The adult on the other hand, thinks of itself as a superior being due to its conditioned and “refined” intellect. But really all the adult has done is created a controlled hallucination through which it mistakes as reality. The adult perceives and interprets in an organised fashion and projects its cognitive distinctions onto the perception it sees. So the reality the adult sees is a tainted perspective, thwarted with assumptions, concepts and ideas. The child’s is pure, unobscured and natural.

The implication here is that the developed ego-mind is just a bag of conditioning assuming it develops by accumulating more knowledge. Thus, it’s level of consciousness technically recedes. The child is far more conscious. It just innocently navigates reality as any organism would with absolute awe of its remarkable incomprehensibility. Accepting it for what it is, a hallucinatory experience.

This turns out to be very important, since all governing scientific theory interprets this the other way around and as result basis it’s conceptions from such an assumption. 

If the child is perceiving reality with less conditioning it must be perceiving reality for what it is. In other words, the child is much wiser in its interpretive capacity and should not have its intelligence denigrated. If the adult is an conditioned assumptiuist delusionist, then it’s intellect should be strongly questioned.

 

This has sparked within me the desire to confront the scientific community of its naivety. I study psychology and find that all knowledge and teaching completely undermines this obvious observation. 

Would love to hear others thoughts on this proporsition ?

Edited April 30, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[tsuki]

Your theory hinges upon the duality between children and adults.

Humans never cease to be children - the adult grows "over" the child, in layers. 
One could even say that it is not the adult who created the armor built of beliefs, assumptions and projections. The adult is made of them and it's the child's doing. The child does it naturally and spontaneously.

If you think that the child only becomes 'corrupted' because it has been conditioned by the 'evil society', etc - think again. How did the first corrupted man, in the 'pure society' come about? I'd argue that there was never such a thing and this notion that adults are impure while children are pure (and vice versa) is false altogether. As it is taught by integral theories of human development, our evolution is driven by crises. We become conscious of something that was running amok and we need to own that part of ourselves and harmonize it with our entire being. It is no different for the thinking mind that first is absent, then dominates, and finally is seen through and put into proper context among feeling, intuition and sensing. 

I do agree, however, that we, as a society, are fetishizing thinking (verbal logic) over feeling and it is the root cause of many of our problems. We are also diminishing the importance of our bodies in favor of minds, which is preposterous, as our bodies are THE source of wisdom.

Edited April 30, 2020 by tsuki

[Jacobsrw]

@tsuki I agree yes it is dualistic, but only on the level of relative existence (the state we are currently living in). This duality ultimately collapses, however, until it dies one has to assume a position from which to operate.

Actually I would argue the child does not develop assumptions naturally but has them imposed upon them through rigorous conditioning. A child is a vehicle of its surroundings not the other way around. Thus, it is corrupted from what is outside of it not what’s inside of it. I would postulate a child could very well be enlightened had it not be predisposed to the environment it typically does.

But no, I do not by any means inferr a moral judgement, “one is good one is bad”. Morality is but another imposed illusion assumes by the ego. I am suggesting one stage is at a more advanced level of consciousness, that being the child.

I agree the adult is no different than the child as an entity or concept, since they are stemming from the same source. However, the difference lies in levels of consciousness not dualistic thinking. Different levels of consciousness manifest different levels of being, which is obvious in our heavily materialistic society today.

At lower levels of consciousness a “being” assumes the position of an adult ego, where at more advanced levels a “being” assumes the position of the child, as it is less imposed upon.

Both a states or activities in consciousness and as such are temporary, corresponding to a higher or lower level. I merely suggested the child position is a more conscious level than the adult position, from a seperate self point of view. From an absolute perspective they are one in the same.

However, rarely does operate from such a place.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[tsuki]

1 hour ago, Jacobsrw said:

Actually I would argue the child does not develop assumptions naturally but has them imposed upon them through rigorous conditioning. A child is a vehicle of its surroundings not the other way around. Thus, it is corrupted from what is outside of it not what’s inside of it. I would postulate a child could very well be enlightened had it not be predisposed to the environment it typically does.

The theory of corruption cannot possibly be true and here's why:

If children are "corrupted" by rigorous conditioning, how did the environment become corrupted in the first place?

This theory implies that environment is composed of adults which corrupt children because they have been corrupted themselves.
All of this is based on corruption that is assumed and never explained in its origin.

I never meant to imply that the child is "corrupted" from the inside and becomes the adult. What you call "corruption" is merely a part of natural development that has to go through phases of excess (like overthinking) to bring something into conscious attention (like false use of language and the nature of feeling). The child cannot be conscious of its feelings, what they are, unless it can think about them. A fish cannot know water unless it has experienced air. In terms of this metaphor, enlightenment is seeing oneself as a dolphin.

1 hour ago, Jacobsrw said:

A child is a vehicle of its surroundings

I think that this this is the basic misconception.

The child has the purest, most direct connection with its own essence, inner truth, via feelings. The child cannot ever lose that connection, be manipulated into being something else than itself, because the child is that connection. The child never "goes" anywhere, even in the most severe cases of narcissism, or mental illness induced by excessive thinking. In fact, that suffering is experienced through feeling, through the body, and is a clear message that the thinking narrative is false. Of course, this suffering is often blamed onto something external, which is an important mechanism through which the ego sustains itself.

Language has this curious property that it can relate back to itself. It creates the possibility of falsity through circular reasoning. It allows us to create paradoxical mental constructs that attempt to extend the lifetime of truth, capture it as "knowledge" that is disconnected from present, from feeling. It's no wonder that it takes us so long to mature, thinking is extraordinarily deceptive.

1 hour ago, Jacobsrw said:

Different levels of consciousness manifest different levels of being, which is obvious in our heavily materialistic society today.

Perceiving hierarchies is a by-product of thinking disconnected from feeling. Every person has a unique, incomparable, truth and its own path. All comparisons are relative to your own self-concept.

Edited April 30, 2020 by tsuki

[Jacobsrw]

This is my point though, you’re actually highlighting it. Corruption is a self fulfilling prophecy of the ego which is learnt in the adult state, not the child. This is evident.

The child “state” is not tarnished or altered, in other words it has not been corrupted. The adult “state” from which the child arises is tarnished and altered, therefore it is corrupted. So when the adult assumes the roles of a tarnished self or conditioned or developed self, it is then exporting this to other child self’s which have not yet been tarnished or altered. Therein, creating the very thing we assume as development but is actually just a state of conditioning.

Is it “bad”? No. It’s useful for a seperate ego self. However, is it truthful? No. Infinite consciousness is much more like the child untarnished, untainted and blank. This is my proposition. Adulthood is not development but illusory conditioning which concocts the very hallucination we call “physical reality”. This is also exemplified on a psychedelic state from which conditioning collapses.

I feel what you are saying assumes that when one shifts into adulthood they are shifting to higher levels of developed consciousness. This is where I disagree. An adult doesn’t develop perse, it assumes a role which in a relative human perspective is “development” but to infinite consciousness is merely a temporary state, no more developed than a rock.

I understand what you are suggesting here, but it undermines the fact that the adult mind manipulates reality where as the child’s does not. Therefore, it is more synonymous with infinite consciousness, as it is more consciously pure. It may not be focused and stable but it is far more conscious of existence as it is.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[Jacobsrw]

6 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

You could say children are less tainted, therefore less ignorant and closed. Their innocence is not mislaid to the degree of adults.

I would say newborns up to the age of ~1 are pure light. After that the subject-object/identity split seems to occur and darkness seeps into consciousness, until over time it becomes nearly completely covered up.

The younger the child, the ‘purer’ it is. It is like stepping out of the ocean. You are wet (with innocence, light, and beingness) the moment you come out, but over time you dry up.

Awakening is essentially reversing that process and stepping into the ocean again, until you drown in it.

Beautifully said! This is similar to what I was explaining. The child has a pure innocence to it which slows it to be more aligned with Being.

This is why children are so mesmerising to watch. They just move with fullness and beauty of their experience. The don’t try to superimpose upon it.

Thank you for such beautiful words ?

Edited April 30, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[tsuki]

45 minutes ago, Jacobsrw said:

I feel what you are saying assumes that when one shifts into adulthood they are shifting to higher levels of developed consciousness. This is where I disagree. An adult doesn’t develop perse, it assumes a role which in a relative human perspective is “development” but to infinite consciousness is merely a temporary state, no more developed than a rock.

What you seem to be saying is that children are more pure because they can't be deceived by the thinking mind.
What I'm saying is that the thinking mind has a purpose apart from mere deception, and this purpose evenly balances the inconvenience. Adults have as much capacity to partake in infinite intelligence as children do.

I think we understand each other and it's okay to agree to disagree.
All I'm saying is that paradoxically, when things go full circle, we don't end up in the same place because we're different people. This is why I think that children are not enlightened - because they haven't gone through the journey.

And yes, I agree that development and enlightenment are relative.

Edited April 30, 2020 by tsuki

[Jacobsrw]

9 minutes ago, tsuki said:

I think we understand each other and it's okay to agree to disagree.
All I'm saying is that paradoxically, when things go full circle, we don't end up in the same place because we're different people.
This is why I think that children are not enlightened - because they haven't gone through the journey.

Yes that’s very true, I respect your views. I agree with what you are saying here. The child hasn’t experienced it all. I was just suggesting the child is more aligned with consciousness, as it is a less obscured state, thus being more available to the process of enlightenment.

Appreciate your feedback, thank you ?

Edited April 30, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[tsuki]

18 minutes ago, Jacobsrw said:

Appreciate your feedback, thank you ?

Thank you!

[Osaid]

@Jacobsrw I very much agree with this theory. I think this might be why children are often reported to see ghosts or spirits so often. I actually saw a ghost/spirit when I was a baby. Children definitely seem more in tune with their intuition, not really thinking twice about what they say and do. 

[Jacobsrw]

@Osaid thanks for the feedback. That’s extremely interesting, I’ve heard of supernatural instances in children. Isn’t it funny how an adult will just brush off a child’s visions as just “monsters under the bed”? Yeah I agree, children are a lot more intuitive and can sense at deeper levels, their extremely sensitive to reality. Much like indigenous folks.

[Nak Khid]

On 4/30/2020 at 0:45 AM, Jacobsrw said:

So for several years I’ve been contemplating and writing on a particular idea. This has lead me to posit a theory. And it is this...

“children perceive existence more accurate than the adult they become”

This leads to the child naturally having higher levels of consciousness than the adult.

How so? Well the child has been described to be a blank slate.

Quote

T he first doctrine is the one that gave the book its title—The Blank Slate—conventionally associated with the English philosopher John Locke. He didn’t actually use the metaphor of a blank slate in his writings, but he did invoke a similar metaphor. He wrote: Let’s suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? … To this I answer in one word, from EXPERIENCE. That is the doctrine of the blank slate. The blank slate was not just an empirical hypothesis, but it had a moral and political import in Locke’s time, as it does today. It implied that dogmas, such as the divine right of kings, could not be treated as self-evident truths that just grew out of the structure of the brain, but had to be justified, by experiences that people share, and hence can debate. It undermined the hereditary royalty and aristocracy, who could claim no innate wisdom or virtue if their minds started out as blank as everyone else’s. And by the same token, it undermined the institution of slavery, by holding that slaves could not be considered innately inferior or subservient. These ideas are summed up in a New Yorker cartoon of about 11 years ago in which one king says to the other, “I don’t know anything about the bell curve, but I say heredity is everything.” The blank slate is not ancient history, but continues to be influential. Through most of the 20th century, my own field, psychology, tried to explain all of human behavior by appealing to a couple of simple mechanisms of association and conditioning. The social sciences have tried to explain the human condition by invoking culture as an autonomous force that can’t be identified with anything inside the heads of any particular individuals

_______________

So many authors have hastily concluded that man is naturally cruel, and requires a regular system of police to be reclaimed, whereas nothing can be more gentle than him in his primitive state. . . . The example of the savages…seems to confirm that mankind was formed ever to remain in…this condition…and that all ulterior improvements have been so many steps…towards the decrepitness of the species. Now, you can only really understand someone writing in a previous century if you know who he was arguing against. Rousseau alluded to “so many authors,” but there was one in particular he had in mind. This gentleman painted a rather different picture of life in a state of nature. He wrote:

Hereby it is manifest that during the time when men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war is of every man against every man.… In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently… no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, a continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

The noble savage certainly is the more appealing doctrine. It implies that there’s no need for a domineering Leviathan (an armed police force and government) to keep us from each other’s throats. If we’re nasty, then we have to accept conflict as a permanent part of our condition, whereas if we’re noble, we can work toward a utopian society of the future. Children are born savages, so if our inner savage is nasty, it implies that bringing up children will be a matter of discipline and conflict, whereas if our inner savage is noble, it means that child-rearing is a matter of providing them with opportunities to develop their potential.

-excerpt, Steven Pinker, Harvard University  from his website https://stevenpinker.com

article link >

https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/the_blank_slate_general_psychologist.pdf

 

 

You might want to read this article.  He has a whole book on this blank slate concept in 2002 which is well written called
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature 

He considers it a romanticized concept along with the "noble savage".   Both of these ideas have a literary history.  You may not agree with his opinion but this is food for thought and he has many examples of these ideas in different forms and time periods, going into detail and psychology.
The above quote  doesn't really do justice to the whole article and book. I takes a while to develop the point 

[Jacobsrw]

@Nak Khid Thanks for the info! I’ll explore into it.

Previously, I have done some reading on the ‘blank slate’ theory before and glossed over some of John Lockes arguments regarding it. Just from what I know and based off your references, blank slate theory still seems limited. It superimposes materialism and the self. Ie. the self exists as a biological conceptual sentient. My contention is that this is utter delusion.

Perceptual purity (just a term) is to understand all experience as blank, meaning uncultured and un-predispositioned, no preference from which to move. Movements of “the mind” and “the body“ are merely fluid and underpinned by the direct experience that interacts with them. In fact, conception of mind and body are non-existent until it is conditioned. Evident in child research. 

I feel John Locke undermines the implications of his theory. If blank slate theory is to be void of any position, materialistic assumptions should be out the question as well. I feel a further existential layer was missed in his proposition. That is, the material world and self are also  adopted positions. Just my thoughts.

Also, Locke reminds me of Hume and Nietzsche with his scepticism. Interesting.

Ill have a read nonetheless 

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[Nak Khid]

The article and book are more oriented toward the psychology of human nature rather than a philosophical analysis.

What happened was some literary and philosophical ideas  had biased a more objective observation on the reality of human behavior. 

[EternalForest]

@Jacobsrw I agree, and I think this is also why younger people tend to be more naturally creative. When you're young there's no filter to what you say, what you do, or what you create. No one's shown you the walls of the box yet. As far as you know, there is no box. Anything is possible! That doesn't mean that children don't put thought into what they do, but rather, they just let their creativity flow freely. As the drummer George Marsh said "It's not really me that's coming, the music's coming through me."

I believe this same principle applies to spirituality as well.

[Jacobsrw]

2 hours ago, EternalForest said:

@Jacobsrw I agree, and I think this is also why younger people tend to be more naturally creative. When you're young there's no filter to what you say, what you do, or what you create. No one's shown you the walls of the box yet. As far as you know, there is no box. Anything is possible! That doesn't mean that children don't put thought into what they do, but rather, they just let their creativity flow freely. As the drummer George Marsh said "It's not really me that's coming, the music's coming through me."

I believe this same principle applies to spirituality as well.

Precisely. Very true as well. That flow state of fluidity seems to be more apparent in the younger since they are more playful. I like what you said as well. Children may apply thought into what they do but is guided by the source of experience not the predispositions of mind. 

 

[SamueLSD]

My thoughts ( based on nothing because I cannot remember being an infant LOL ); 

On 30/04/2020 at 2:45 PM, Jacobsrw said:

They are born as a pure sensory organism through which existence is perceived

Senses are illusory, and an infant would be fully immersed in this illusion. Similar to adults in a way.

However, they are more connected with being in a sense, as there is no 'observer' / sense of self.  ( Less than 6 months old perhaps. )

Keep in mind: they are beige on the spiral  ( Basic survival instinct ), so there would be times at which they are in a state of extremely low consciousness (e.g: crying for their mother, chewing on a pacifier, idk )

I do feel like a child again when I am on acid. 

Edited May 30, 2020 by SamueLSD

[Jacobsrw]

46 minutes ago, SamueLSD said:

My thoughts ( based on nothing because I cannot remember being an infant LOL ); 

Senses are illusory, and an infant would be fully immersed in this illusion. Similar to adults in a way.

However, they are more connected with being in a sense, as there is no 'observer' / sense of self.  ( Less than 6 months old perhaps. )

Keep in mind: they are beige on the spiral  ( Basic survival instinct ), so there would be times at which they are in a state of extremely low consciousness (e.g: crying for their mother, chewing on a pacifier, idk )

I do feel like a child again when I am on acid. 

That’s true. Senses are illusory from the perspective of the absolute. However the child doesn’t know it is using “senses”, it is simply navigating its experience freely, without a cognition in which to be directed. From this perspective, I would say it is not as deluded as the adult state.

Don’t get to caught up on my statement on organisms, it was merely a relative example. The important point was that from the absolute, children are more in tune with the fundamental nature of reality. The difference with their instinctual responses is that it doesn’t come from ego but inborn conditioning (that’s my assumption of course.

I don’t think I child is beige either. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. Remember, those who presupposed and selected the child’s level were them self coming from a materialist lens.

Isnt it interesting that. We are more child-like when induced by psychedelics, have more mental connectivity and yet often assume the child inferior ?

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[SamueLSD]

5 minutes ago, Jacobsrw said:

children are more in tune with the fundamental nature of reality.

Agreed 

[The observer]

Good post, man. Thanks for sharing.

Conclusion: Children are stupid. Adults are stupider.