Virtual-itis Four

V. Do you wonder about the wonder of your mind? 

MC. Huh?  How can I answer a question like that?  Why should I wonder about my mind? I’m not suffering from mental problems.  

V. Sure you are: virtual-itis, remember? Still, the human mind is a marvel; even your mind, which you hardly use and don't appreciate! Your mind is a wonder you should be in awe of. The fact that you are not even aware of this shows how little you appreciate the miraculous power you have going on in you.

  MC. Oh, don’t exaggerate. Today Science has explored the brain inside and out; science knows what every lobe of the brain does.  Science can even influence the brain’s workings with various drugs and stimulants.  The brain is no longer the mystery that it was in ancient days.  

V.  That’s true for the brain as an organ, but not true for the mind, which is the spiritual power of your soul at work in you.  Science does know more and more about the brain, but not enough about the mind. I bet you don’t even know what powers your mind has. 

 MC. Sure I do. Memory and reason.  

V. Fine. Let’s start with those two. How does memory work?  How does it happen that you can have a memory buried in your brain from, say, forty years ago, something you have long forgotten, and suddenly it pops up in your head out of the blue? Ever wonder about that?  How is it that brothers or sisters or twins can go through the same experience and yet have a different memory of it?  On the other hand, how does the spoken memory of one person sometime wake up the sleeping memory of the other?   Why does memory play tricks on us with the passage of time, so that details we would swear are true prove to be false?  

MC. You're confusing me with too many questions. I suppose the brain is something like a computer that has only so much storage space in its memory bank and sometime the data gets mixed up, garbled, stored wrong, or the storage space runs out,  or the wiring gets frazzled, and the computer crashes. 

V. You keep talking about the brain.  Remember, I am talking about your mind, not just the physical organ!The mind is greater than the brain! Also, the mind existed before the computer, remember? The human mind invented the computer. Like most moderns, you are more impressed with one of the mind’s creations, the computer, than you are with the minds that created it. If you could, you would probably  reduce the brain to a computer. 

 MC.  What makes you say that?   

V. You find computers more interesting than your brain.  Do you remember what we discussed about virtual-itis?  The virtual world is the computer world.  You have limited your world by living in the ego bubble, and then made it even more of a prison by encasing yourself in the computer world of virtual reality. 

MC. Another exaggeration!  I’m in contact with the real world out there.  I breathe real air, eat organic food, drink good wine, and I have honest relationships with everyday people.  

V. You are deluding yourself if you think that is the case. No matter what you do, you do it inside the parameters of the ego ecosystem. That is why I am talking to you about your mind. I want to show that you have the intelligence to break out of your confinement.  Try to stay with me and follow what I am saying.  When I asked you what your mind can do, what two things did you tell me?  

MC.  I said memory and thinking.  

V. Good. Can you come up with anything else?  

MC. Not off-hand. Those are the two big things the mind does, right? 

V. What about imagination? Does your imagination manage serve up an smorgasbord of delights , or is it dead?? Where does creativity come from?

MC. I don't know.

V What about free will?  How does an immaterial thought move you to concrete action?  What about consciousness and self-consciousness, knowing the world  around you and being aware of yourself in the act of knowing? Has science explained the mind to you:  memory, reason, imagination, and will? Consciousness and self-awareness?  Freedom?

MC. No....  

V.   The mind is mysterious! Wonderful! Awe-inspiring!  

MC. Okay, okay, I see your point. But so what?  What does it matter?

V. If you begin to wonder at the marvel of your mind, you will find your way out of your ego bubble and get back in touch with reality again.  

MC.  How so? I know plenty of intelligent people who are on ego trips all the time.

V. Does their error make it right for you to do the same thing?

MC. Maybe not, but it sure makes it easier. Go away and let me sleep.