Poof! Extinguishing the "I-Me" Neuro-circuit Completely

If the devout spiritualists (Zen Buddhism, Advaita non-dualist, and all other "self is suffering" or "ego transcendence" adherents) wish to transcend the "self" they should simply turn to the advances of neuroscience as objective proof that the neuro-circuitry of the self is nothing more than a electro-chemically induced brain experience having no more sacredness than the circuit that provokes you to pick your nose from time to time.

Actually, this self-transcendence stuff they propagate is nothing more than self-exaltation dressed up to look like a negation. When you tell them that they can rest easy now, cause science is proving they don't exist, they tend to get downright nasty.

I remember reading one of Ram Dass’s books (I think it was “Be Here Now”) when he talked about spending a very long and arduous time with his guru in India meditating his previously sinful arse off. He talked about joyously flying through consciousness and meeting his beloved guru in some cosmic nether land of "pure" meditative awareness. Hence, thinking he had reached a particular “enlightened” state, he flew back to the U.S. to teach it to others. Yet, while riding a bus home, he recalled looking out the window, seeing a pretty girl and experiencing all his past conditioning, socio-cultural and genetic, come cascading down on him (or 'up,' depending on your perspective) generating the same behavioral responses that occurred before his years of meditation.

The brain, and its quadrillion neural connections, owns you because it is "you."

The neuro-circuitry of the brain will not be overcome. It will either be accepted as “you” or rejected and even that is contingent on the neuro-networks level of development up to the point of decision. It will NEVER be up to “you.” You had no say in the development of its neuro-circuitry and you will have no say in changing that circuitry (although soon science may be able to download it to a CD).

Why do we seek so hard to overcome brain circuitry? Rejecting current neuro-circuitry does not extinguish any circuit, but only unconsciously constructs new circuits and squelches other electrochemical stimulations until the very moment an experience reinvigorates a current once again.

This is why there is NO “subconscious” mind. "Mind" is simply a concept representing an experience of electrochemical circuits in the brain and, although some circuits may not currently be electrochemically stimulated (and are thus "subconscious"), nonetheless, they exist as “dormant dendrites” (to conjure up a phrase) awaiting the opportunity to be fully engaged and experienced once again (memory).

Einstein discovered the Theory of Relativity simply because the genetic and socio-cultural conditioned circuitry facilitated electrochemical firings of neurons which generated the experience of thought processes culminating in the revolutionary Theory of Relativity. He was destined to discover it, based on the unique developing circuitry of a brain that he had absolutely nothing to do with.

Destiny is game of neurons. Ya never know what you're gonna get...

Note the premise of neuro-plasticity (or referred to as neuroplasty by some) promotes an understanding of brain malleability. It is brain plasticity that allows experience to be etched in the brain matter as electrochemical impulse circuitry occurring chronologically from birth to death. Hence, if life experiences sculpt the already genetically predisposed brain like clay, why not artificially generate experiences to construct new, more pleasing and adaptable, neuro-circuits?

Obviously the “spiritual,” new age charlatans and magicians will eventually jump on the neuro-plasticity band wagon as they have with all new scientific discoveries (like "Quantum Mechanics"), but they will be dumbfounded as to how to change genetics. You may succeed in generating experiences to change neuro-circuitry. But, unfortunately, it may NOT come out exactly as you’d like, because in manufacturing that one desired neuro-network, you have no idea how it will relate to the other 100 billion neurons, and their quadrillion dendrite circuits, that reside in your brain.

Neuro-circuitry works through neuronal relationships (think of it as a 'society of neurons'). You could construct a behaviorally influenced neuro-circuit to induce a specific electro-chemically charged action. But there really is no specific actions in life. All actions are influenced by numerous unintentional relationships with people and events. Consequences, thus, influence other actions with the people and events you encounter everyday. Neural circuits work the same way with experiential and genetic brain networks (billions of neurons branching out from a quadrillion dendrite connections) influencing other networks. You could alter brain circuits to engage a specific action (and this has been proven with stroke victims) but you could not rely on that circuit to fire in the same way all the time. Let’s say you wish to construct circuitry that improves your ability to have a more "positive" personality so people would like you more. Would you want that circuit to override other circuits if, in fact, an assailant runs at you with a knife, clearly intent on your destruction? And how would such a circuit benefit you if a loved one had died? Would your new improved “positivity” circuit interact or override your grief circuitry? How would that affect other circuits as well?

There is no sacredness to mind, because there is no "mind" at all. There are only brains. The brain experiences an outside world, inside bodily states and the electro-chemical charges of it’s own neuro-circuitry, which it then applies linguistic conceptual interpretations (also electrochemically stimulated neuro-networks) to generate additional meaning and value circuits. This is simply consciousness itself. The brain is essentially a hunk of electrified fat within a skin-encapsulated cranium atop a bipedal mobile organism and from that you experience an "I-me" charged circuit. There is nothing special or sacred about it, nor about its neuro-circuitry. This does not require religion or philosophy to define (in fact, it tends to annihilate all religious and philosophical concepts in one fell swoop). But as neurons exist in communication with themselves, so must human organisms exist in communication with other human organisms.

Try not to unconsciously construct neurological "meaning" behind those communicative engagements, because that would be an exercise in futility (in relation to circuitry you have yet to "experience").

Just simply engage and observe what arises.

You might consider this materialist reductionism rather empty and meaningless (in other words, fuzzy feel neuro-circuits related to your non-dual ego transcendence are not lighting up after reading this). Yet, many would contend that it is only through this extreme form of reductionism that real meaning can eventually be discovered, rather than genetically and socially constructed meanings, which are nothing more than electrochemically charged brain stimuli relative to the circuitry of each individual nervous system which, itself, is contingent on the neuro-circuitry of each individuals genetics and life experiences.

Eventually, science will extinguish the “I-ME” neuro-circuit as it serves no further purpose to the communal nervous system, just as it has served no real fruitful purpose to the communal social system.What gets built up to ridiculously absurd heights must eventually fall, circuit by circuit.

The real post-modern “spirituality” will seek to discover what exists when the “I-Me” circuit is reduced to material nothingness, with no more meaning than a slice of white bread. Once your every thought, every feeling and every action is broken down to nothing more than neurons, axons, dendrites, generating electrochemical spurts along a cellular network, what will become of “you”? How will you relate to yourself if NO such "self" is in there at all?

And when the “I-ME” is completely annihilated by neuroscience (as it is currently doing piece by piece, staring with "free-will") what will "you" then become? When free-will is eradicated as folklore, what will be the point of doing anything at all? If there is no “you” to experience happiness and suffering, will those experiences simply be extinguished as useless neuro-circuits?

Or will they take on new meaning, devoid of the old synaptic firings bubbling up useless concepts, generating new experiences not hinged on self-actualizing electrochemically charged neuro-circuits?

The real spiritual revolution will occur through accepting that “you” are not real, but simply interacting networks processing electrochemical charges in physical matter. The only evolution in and of consciousness will occur when consciousness is accepted for what it actually is and all mythical folklore is abolished by the weight of its own nonsensical implausibility, since all that any mystical theory of existence has ever done is electrochemically fire up self-concept neuro-circuitry through inane, but constant, self-exaltation in opposition and in competition with other neurons (and others seeking their own self-exaltation). 

The end of egocentricity is fast approaching.

Are “you” ready?

Artwork by DrunkenNinja - "Dissolving letter face"