User:Subliminalinertia

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this has been my online 'handle' or nickname, or alias, or whatever you like to call it, for some years now. people often ask me what the hell it means.

Subliminalinertia............Sub-Liminal (slightly 'outdated' concept from psychology, literally means "below threshold", and is refering to what aldous huxly called the 'doors of perception') ... Inertia (inherent tendancy of matter to continue in trajectories laid by 'external' forces... collusions of forces... i'm not a physicist... might wanna look that one up.)

this is a concept I invented, largely for my own amusement, but it sprung from the combination of my areas of academic study (social sciences and philosophy). in spite of its 'unknown' status, i believe this term fills a niche in the intellectual world. I suspect it will evolve through my lifetime. what follows is a 'loose' or rough explanation that could use much refinement. anyone is (obviously) welcome to add or contribute ideas and discussion.

subliminal inertia, is meant to describe the tendency of many people, my self included, to accept the social definition of reality that is passed to us from our cultures and societies as absolute, without question, and for an idefinite period of time. it continues until some 'external' force (such as exposure to different social perspectives of reality,) knocks us on the head and awakens us to slightly different, and usually 'broader' perspectives because the new perspective often incorporates the old... this 'new' perspective is generally then adopted in the same manner, as if it were indisputeable truth... until some new convergence of events shifts our paradigm again. and on and on. (look up the physical law of inertia..)

self-awareness seems to be an exit-door from this 'law' of human consciousness, however, the existence of self-awareness is greatly exaggerated in human beings generally. Reflexivity does seem to offer the promise of true objectivity (the only plausible one that i can see...), in the sense that, to the degree that our ability to understand and perceive ourselves as objects in the universe emerges we are able to observe the forces at work on (and in) our minds. debateably (!) we can then come to influence the confluence of acting and reacting forces, to the degree that we might be said to be consciously directing the interaction of forces which influence our own state of awareness. that smacks of circular reasoning, in case you wondered, and that is why i called it 'debateable'.

perhaps the best we can aspire to, is to be aware of this tendency of our own minds, and in consequence not take our own social paradigms of reality quite so seriously. a little bit of cognitive flexability, can go a long way. mental elasticity? hmm. the ability to grasp a multitude of shapes and sizes of paradigm, and toggle around between them with little difficulty. accept them for what they are, and let them go.

this is the essence of much meditation and spirituality, some of which has been documented as long as 2500 years ago. so perhaps it is not such an 'unknown' concept. there is probably some buddhist or sanskrit word which describes it. but i want a word that describes it in the western intellectual context, because that happens to be my home playground.. not that i am averse to understanding and using foreign concepts.. heheh.