Sublime

‘Then try the thought experiment I just hinted at: pretend right now that you forgot everything you know. Pretend that all your memories, theories, opinions, beliefs, everything, dissolved into oblivion without your losing consciousness. What’s left?’

One always lives according to a myth, for a continuous interpretation of consensus reality is inherent to the human condition. The question is whether one’s chosen myth resonates with one’s deepest intuitions or runs counter to them.

cultural conditioning.’ This ‘hole’ entails self-reinforcing, circular patterns of thinking—intellectual models—that prevent us from becoming lucid of the many layers and nuances of our own cognitive processes.

The building blocks of facts and religious myths are the same.

if a prereflective axiological self-understanding exists, we may assume that it is ultimately anchored in our biological heritage.

Whatever evolutionary pressure pushed the human organism towards self-reflection also rendered it vulnerable to the myth of separateness. Perhaps this delusory myth was never the point. Perhaps the delusion of separateness is merely an unwelcome but natural side-effect.

we are programmed to find evidence that supports what we most want to believe.

Isn’t it a fact that, without the light of our lucidity, nature would remain shrouded in the darkness of instinct?