Sculpting Selfness: Transforming Information into Wisdom

Today we discuss the process by which seemingly raw data can be sculpted into our own philosopher’s stone of virtue. Information and perception together course through our neural landscapes like rivers carving canyons. It shapes perceptions, moulds habits, and spurs action in an eternal dance of creation and refinement.

First, consider the mind’s ability to adapt and the plasticity this entails as veritable smithy, where information and perception hammer out pathways of nearly any shape. Each datum, like a strike of the hammer, reinforces connections, straightens out unwanted dents, and carves grooves that guide all future perceptions. This isn’t passive reception and reaction on our part. This is active sculpturing action in a reactive environment.

Imagine minds as blacksmiths working on themselves, thoughts and discourse as tools, and information as the molten metal. With each exposure to data, discursive thoughts fire, reinforcing mental pathways and shaping perceptual habits. A virtuous cycle ensues: information moulds perceptions, which in turn influences how we select and interpret subsequent data.

Attention is the crux of this process. It acts as the alchemist’s lens, focusing energy on specific inputs. Through attention, we sift through the deluge of stimuli, choosing what to engage with; what can be transformed into moral gold.

Habits emerge from repeated actions. Virtues, then, are developed through habits honed in information’s relentless flow, like a prospector sifting for gold. They are filters that purify raw data, extracting insights like precious metals from ore.

Virtue acquisition is thus an ongoing alchemical process: information in and wisdom out. It’s not instantaneous but cumulative, each datum adding to the whole, refining our perceptions, and fortifying our mental architectures.

The Virtuous Filter

Now let’s examine Structural Virtues concepts which act as filters, each with unique properties that refine informational inputs:

• Honesty: This aspect of reason is both lens and solvent, clarifying data while dissolving illusions. It demands rigorous scrutiny of information, ensuring authenticity before integration. Honesty actively engages with raw data, questioning assumptions, challenging biases, and seeking truth amidst complexity.
• Temperance: Acting like a sieve, Temperance sifts through impulses, permitting only what aligns with virtuous goals. It restrains excesses, channelling focus onto salient information in moral alignment.
• Excellence: Seeking excellence is like refining gold: the pursuit of purity and perfection. It elevates our standards, compelling us to engage with high-quality information that fosters growth.
• Patience: This virtue acts as a crucible withstanding delays and tolerating ambiguities. It allows data to simmer, ensuring thorough digestion before extraction.

Information Action: Sculpting Self

Perception isn’t passive; it’s performative: an active display that shapes reality. When we demonstrate our future ideal self through action, we alter informational feedback loops permanently.

Consider the ripple effect of a single virtuous act. It sends shockwaves through neural networks, reinforcing pathways, and broadcasting new data to the world. This isn’t merely behaviour modification; it’s identity transmutation to the more ideal self, an alchemical shift from one state of being to another.

Courage exemplifies this process. By confronting fears, we transmute anxiety into resolve, the raw data of dread refines into fortitude.

Through courageous acts, information about self-efficacy and resilience courses through mind and spirit: bolstering the new, improved conception of self.

The Self as Alchemical

The self is crucible and catalyst. We select inputs, refine perceptions, and transmute data into wisdom in perpetual cycle of creation and discovery. Information isn’t mere fodder; it’s the elixir that fuels our ascent toward greater strength.

Willpower is the philosopher’s stone, transforming base metals into gold: the culmination of information’s alchemical dance. It is the apotheosis of virtues, embodying the alchemical journey to truth. It signifies self-fulfilment within community and virtues, mastery over perceptual habits, and harmonious alignment with universal order.

Purifying the Stream

To navigate this landscape effectively, we must tend to our informational streams to purge impurities and channel flows for efficiency and productivity. This involves:

• Cultivating discernment: Sharpening our filters, honing perceptual tools.
• Discernment enables us to distinguish between signal and noise, essence and extraneousness.
• Practising mindfulness: Engaging fully with present moments, attuning ourselves to the data’s nuances beyond immediate perspectives.
• Fostering curiosity: Embracing the unknown, welcoming new inputs that challenge and expand our perspectives.
• Engaging in dialogue: Interacting with other productive viewpoints; refining our filters through robust exchange. This is about exposure and broadening our informational palette.

The Process

Through this alchemical process, we ascend from base perceptions to enlightened insights and from raw information to virtuous action. Each datum is a step on the journey, each thought a spark in the forge.

Justice, born of prudence and ethics, exemplifies this ascent. It projects moral stances into society, negotiating power dynamics with fairness and grace.
Through just actions, information flows freely, fostering environments where virtue can thrive.
Information is the alchemist’s elixir; the raw material from which virtues are smithied.

It shapes cognitive patterns, mental pathways, moulds habits, and spurs action; an eternal dance of creation and refinement. As we navigate this landscape, let us embrace our roles as alchemists, tending to informational streams with discernment, mindfulness, curiosity, and dialogue.

So go forth! Uncover virtues, refine perceptions, and ascend toward greater virtues; that philosopher’s stone that transforms base metals of experience into the gold of wisdom.

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Myth of Immutable Selfness part 2: Truthful Reckoning Against Comfortable Delusions >>