Humanity is Basically Stuck in The Feedback Loop of Thought
As we’ve previously seen, thought is basically repetitive, mechanical, and limited. Thought is based on knowledge which is the recording/storing and recalling of life’s previous experiences via memory.
What is meant by “feedback loop of thought”?
We are using this exact audio analogy of feedback as it pertains to a pair of speakers and a microphone.
Well if we look at what a feedback loop is, according to wikipedia:
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop.[1] The system can then be said to feed back into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems:
Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole.
— Karl Johan Åström and Richard M.Murray, Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers[2]
Please notice the above two bold-face sentences in the quote as these two sentences point out the analogy that is being attempted here.
The way in which it appears to the author that we are caught in a feedback loop of thought is how thought is working. We appear to be taking a snapshot of the present moment, then recalling a prior moment, and comparing what we recalled with the immediate snapshot of the present moment. So in effect, what ends up happening is that, we are then being constantly informed, instructed, and guided by the results of these constant memory comparisons.
Thought is the response of memory, knowledge, experience stored up in the brain. Knowledge is the expression of thought. — J.Krishnamurti
Since knowledge is based on experience, and experience is always in the past, then when we live out of our memory such as we are we’re constantly living in the past. So the past in the form of this stored knowledge is then shaping, altering, influencing, and controlling the present experience which is then also being recorded.
Therefore we experience life through thought. That is, our thought is routed back as input into the present moment thus influencing our experience. This experience influenced by thought, is then also recorded as more experience becoming more thought. So the “first” thought winds up influencing the “second”, which then both go on to influence the “third” and so on. This process of recalling, comparing, and recording then just continuously repeats as thought re-influences itself.
We then have a situation where we have thought perpetually “feeding back on”, re-modifying, and re-shaping itself. As this happens it has the effect of altering our perception of the present moment by causing us to continually view the present through the eyes of the past. This is detrimental as it cripples our ability to “wholly” meet the needs of the present as we attempt to navigate life in unawareness as our attention is diverted by thought instead.
So the way in which we are using thought due to our lack of understanding and awareness of its true structure, nature, and purpose is causing it to fold back in on and re-influence itself, and the laws of psychics will tell you what happens if feedback is never halted — unending pain, misfortune, conflict, and suffering.
Is any of this true?
Please look to see if you can see what is being point to here for yourself. Observe like a scientist, impartially. If you’re partial to something other than what it is you’re observing while you’re observing, then you’re probably not really observing, and if you’re not observing then you have no chance of “seeing”.
