So to further understand my perspective, frame of reference, let me elaborate a bit. This thread seems to be running over in other threads I have created, of course, there’s reason why that is, there is a connection. There is a connection to my philosophy in differing subjects and there are roots in this epistemic frame to essentially every philosophy I have stated. The branches are throughout the forum in my other threads, this being a root, so to speak.
There is incredulity on this philosophy so I think it is warranted to explain how I have gotten to this point. Although, this explanation doesn’t really matter or provide a case for this thesis of mine.
I have had multiple schemata destroyed, crushed, obliterated in my life. A schema is “an organized pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information. Schemata can help in understanding the world and the rapidly changing environment. People can organize new perceptions into schemata quickly as most situations do not require complex thought when using schema, since automatic thought is all that is required.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_(psychology)
The first big schema was destroyed through breaking free from religious indoctrination, it was a belief oriented schema that was based on dogma that was essentially forced upon me through indoctrination from childhood through 13 years of Catholic schooling. The second, was through mental illness. This was a perceptual schema, which is “A structured internal representation (1) of an object or image acquired through perception”
http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100316467
Both of these schemata were imperative to my understanding of reality. My understanding of reality was deeply flawed I found upon the destruction of these schemata. The destruction of my perceptual schema through mental illness lingers more prevalent today as critical to my current perceptual schema, which is inherently different from the schema that arose from religious indoctrination. When I was mentally ill, I naturally perceived reality through a highly imaginative state of mind. Hallucinations occurred constantly at times, hallucinations were optical, auditory, olfactory (related to the sense of smell) and to a lesser extent, somatosensory (related to the sense of touch). A perceptual schema is imperitive to understanding everything. Through my minds capacity to entirely create an alternate reality because of hallucinations due to mental illness and my subsequent recovery, I have been keenly aware of the power of the mind in general to do this as a mentally healthy person. While recovering from mental illness I spent great lengths of time reflecting upon what I thought was real from hallucinations to what probably really happened instead. I had to fix my understanding of reality because upon my recovery, I knew my understanding was based on a great deal of hallucination. I went down a perceptual rabbit hole and came out more aware of the nature of perception, cognition, and conceptualization. I became aware of how to identify the difference between hallucination and actual perception of reality - which I then came to find out there isn’t necessarily a whole lot of difference when you get down to it. Colors, are a product of our mind, for example. What we hear is a product of our mind. What we see, is a product of our mind. Our mind determines our perception of reality more so than many people would give them credit for. People think what they see is what is there, I know what we say is a product of our mind. This is an important distinction to make and one that eventually rose to weeding out belief due to this nature of perception, cognition and conceptualization. Perhaps its hard for others who haven’t experienced what I have to weed out belief, because there is no need to. They function fine. Perhaps they don’t know the depths that our mind produces our perception of reality. Perhaps they think what they see is knowledge and look no further.
I am grateful for my experience because it made me stronger. I took a great interest in learning so that I could not only catch myself if hallucinations struck me down again, but to understand why this happened, how this happened to me. What came of it was a greater understanding of essentially everything, I would say. If you would like to read more about my experience of mental illness, I wrote a book depicting the issues I had. I always was curious in high school, while learning what schizophrenia and psychosis was, to try to vicariously understand what it was. It was impossible. But now that I have experienced it first hand, I like to help others who would never experience it try to view it vicariously, and I hope that is why my book has done for those who have read it so far. The link is here: http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Madness-Christopher-Markowski-ebook/dp/B006ZR34BE
So I hope that this post may help with some of the incredulity that seems to be out there among my dissenters. Maybe it doesn’t, but I don’t mind trying.
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