yeah said:

thought is an obstacle in the way of enlightenment

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redgreenvines said:

Duncan Rowhl: you are in a cult "Nothing can be destroyed." How does that help in understanding what thought is.

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To extract an accessory comment subsequent to a relevant answer, is a cult in itself, and an ineffective one in a forum of debate.

Quote:

Google/Wikipedia link
'The flight zone is the distance within which a person can approach an animal before it moves away. Herd animals usually turn and face a potential threat when it is outside of their flight zone, but when it enters the flight zone, the animal turns and moves away.'

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In this image all members of the herd share a sense of flight zone permitting
other herd members or no observable creature/person. It also appears that,
the people around whom the circle forms, are projecting the circle, the circle
is actually an artifact of the sheep behaving normally and excluding undesirables
using the same sense of safe distance

This seems to be about the boundary of self/herd and other, all that is within is good/safe, and all that is without might be a threat/unsafe.

If this behavioral mental process is extended to humans, then it could well map into what people are calling awareness, or sense of self, as a subset of things to consider, or things that one should attend, a circle around which one should promote the attention or alertness to flow around.

Again I am using words that are not fully defined to help describe something we are familiar with yet that no one has quite explained satisfactorily, however, I think that by looking at what we find in animals and mapping it to ourselves, there is a great opportunity for discovery.

So if thinking includes all sensations, linked memories, connecting (i.e. an ongoing stream of mental objects in response to the world and linking to more so as to keep the stream moving) then awareness is the centered core of that process, where we allow a sense of defensible self.
Awareness would be some mental sphere that may move around mental formations and sensations, but which takes us or makes us happen where ever it should roll.

Many people seem to think this is true, and equate Consciousness to Awareness, because there is a distinction between what we are concerned about (i.e. mental object activity in the flight zone), and Subconsciousness which is commonly accepted as thought that we are not aware of (basically mental object activity that is NOT in the flight zone).

my own take is that consciousness includes all mental forms that arise (sensation and linked from memory) even if they are not safe, so what is called subconscious is not really excluded from consciousness, but may be avoided/suppressed and that this avoidance too is still part of consciousness, as is the sub-process of evaluating herd members (safe) and non-herd members (unsafe).

Quote:

redgreenvines said: Sudly: "To conquer all there is to know." Genghis khan would love you.

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Maybe you are right.



Now that you’ve brought up the flight zone, it’s interesting to mention there’s evidence to suggest it can change or adapt over time for the same species within different environments.

As exampled by this study that outlines how magpies can become habituated to urban environments from rural ones.

It is shown how the distance at which the birds project the flight zone onto people is dramatically decreased as they lose their fear of people.

Quote:

The flight-initiation distance, alert distance and several dependent variables were measured to examine the tolerance of Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen towards an approaching human. Comparisons were made between Magpie populations located at differing points along the urban gradient. The results show a high degree of intraspecific variation in the responses to humans. Magpies living in urbanised areas, where more frequent human contacts are experienced, responded in a highly habituated manner, whereas Magpies located in rural and semi-natural areas gave a typical fear response when a human approached them. Furthermore, following an approach by a human, the Magpies in rural and semi-natural areas always flew away and remained absent for some time. In contrast, Magpies in urbanised areas either flew away or walked away, often only a short distance. A small percentage of suburban Magpies responded in a highly aggressive manner and attacked the human intruder; such aggressive behaviours were not observed in Magpies located in rural or semi-natural areas.

Tolerance of Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen Towards Humans: A Comparison Along an Urban Gradient, p. 29-35
D. J. ROLLINSON, D. N. JONES

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Quote:

These abilities have been a clear advantage in their successful exploitation of the human-dominated environment. It has allowed them access to new food resources (by foraging on crowded lawns, school-yards and bird-tables close to people, for example) while remaining only moderately attentive. It has also enabled them to build nests and raise their young in places full of people and their associated disturbances (dogs, cats, cars and kids) without being overly worried.

Magpies may be tame and seemingly fearless, but they still face serious dangers in the suburbs from a variety of enemies. As we all know, magpies are very capable of looking after themselves!

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