More You Know the Less You Know

Can you see what it is?

Interesting or annoying?

Just an optical illusion to play with?

Maybe, maybe not?

But can it talk to us? Tell us something we don't know or think we know, but not really know or understand?

Let me tell you, you can read this only by means of direct cognition and direct perception - that means if your knowledge,  memory, views and preconceived notions don't participate in the cognitive process. No inferences.

When seeing "just see" - seeing for what it is rather than what it should be.

Can we do that? How do we do that? 

Well, very young children do that all the time, such as when they select some object for it's attractive color rather than its value or some other attribute that you and I would, instead.

Well, if you must know of one technique, is to open your mind wide, stay in the moment for sometime, let's free us from the pulls and tugs of knowledge, then take a glance at it with wide open eyes. The best way to open your mind wide is to look at the sky to the clouds and beyond, out into the universe. 

Some of us may be able to do that by contriving various methods, and that's when we try to deceive ourselves from deceiving ourselves. Mental contrivance is not going to yield results, at least to most of us.. 
 
Sounds funny?  But true?

And, does that mean we see everything just the way we want to see it and not really for what it is?

Does that mean we are being deluded by what we sense, we are deluding ourselves all the time?

If we do find it annoying then why would that be?    

• because we cannot see what we would like to see?
• because nothing is fitting into the preconceived frames of mind through which we sense the world?
• because it doesn't fit into our molds and patterns? 
• Because what we see is what we are trained to see, which we like to see?

Let's see, what are what we call optical illusions, because that's what would come to our mind when we see this.  

And some may think it's childish or stupid. Is it?

Or, are we deluding ourselves?

How much of what we know and what we are taught helps us in this process of deluding ourselves? 
 
I suppose it happens all the time, does it?

So, that would mean the more we know would actually mean the less we know?

"The more you know the more you don't know", said Aristotle.

Optical illusions we would call it. What do we know of it?

We would say it's a visual perception, one that would appear to differ from reality? Yes, that's the short definition.

And, some have indeed gone further, such as to identify them as physical, physiological, and cognitive illusions - and each into ambiguities, distortions, paradoxes, and fictions, and so on.

And, so, if it differs from reality then that would mean it differs from our delusion of reality?

And, what would that mean? Would that mean that our reality is a delusion?

And would that mean that we are living in a world of our own created in our own minds? In a fantasy?

For what purpose? Why would we want to do that?  

Well, who cares, so long as we enjoy it , that's all that matters? Isn't it?  
 
Really?

But, funnily enough, we don't like others deluding us, do we?

So, that means it's alright as long as we delude  ourselves?

But then, we are very agreeable to putting  people away in mental institutions saying that they are suffering from delusion. So we say.

Is that because we are being deluded into believing that they are suffering from delusion, obviously a delusion different to our own?

And, this cognitive process as we see may well be deluded to the extent of a factor of three, as you can see with the word delusion occurring three times.

I suppose you could be  thinking about this as you read this.

So, that would mean that I have created a delusion for you, or say, playfully, I am deluding you into deluding yourself to delude yourself (delude yourself to come to whatever conclusion you may come to, which is a delusion).

So, how deluded are we? Collectively? Because we are all deluding each other, all the time. Aren't we?

Sounds scary?
Or,  just fantasy?
Or, am I deluded?
Or, are you?
Are we both?
Or am I trying to deceive you by helping you delude yourself?

Well, simply put it's just reality, a created reality, a conceptual contrived reality, a deluded reality that is our reality.
 
We just don't know what is real and what is not real. We never will, we never did. We have no clue of what is true and what is false. 
 
Many of us embark on journeys to seek the truth, a truth we think is found in scriptures, or some other place, or in some person. And, by doing so, what do we really seek?  Knowledge? More of the same?
 
So, shouldn't we be seeking the truth elsewhere? in the beyond? Beyond "knowledge" and "concept"? 

Ponder at leisure.