Between Sensation and Consciousness: Navigating Personal Choice in a Collective Crisis
In the closed environment of the Japanese language, many of us Japanese are perpetually ignorant about the world's information. Domestic media has become an ideological puppet of the West's major media, derisively called "woke", and people continue to receive its monopolistic broadcasts defenselessly. Even the internet is censored by Western "woke" corporations that dominate the soft infrastructure of the Internet, filtering out information with differing political stances. When such biased information is input, the output that is generated is naturally determined. This is the world of consciousness that Takeshi Yoro refers to as "if you do this, that will happen", an algorithm that goes without saying.
In the global chaos that has occurred in recent years, the selection and filtering of information by the media was, in a literal sense, an expression of intent to deny people the right to choose. This has led us to a situation where we must redefine the concept of "thinking for oneself", which was originally thought to be correct. To begin with, thinking for oneself is not about deriving logic from concepts that lack the elements of time and space. It is the process of using the unique reality that is perceived through the senses at the very place where each individual exists as the basis for judgment. This is what it truly means to think for oneself. If we deny this, the answers derived from the same information would all be the same. In this case, the sender of information can sway public opinion.
The dominant stance of 'woke' media on recent events:
Ukraine issue = Ukraine good, Russia bad
Vaccine issue = mRNA vaccine inoculation good, non-inoculation bad
The root of these problems lies in the rash leap from sensation to consciousness. Sensation is individual, and consciousness is the "prediction" of the collective of individuals as if they were a single personality. Therefore, the former is concrete and the latter is abstract. For instance, when thinking about the Ukraine issue, if an individual's sensation is the basis, whether Ukraine is good or Russia is good depends on the person, and there are many cases where neither applies. On the other hand, when predicting the collective of individuals, in principle, there should not be two personalities, so one or the other must always be deemed "correct". This leads to a dead end. At least, many conscious people who seem to understand, bring up information based on individual sensations to justify their arguments, but what is invariably misused at this time is the selection and discarding of information, and the preference for individual cases that fit their arguments. For example, Ukrainians were killed by Russia, their families are grieving, Ukrainian children have died, and so on. But as mentioned earlier, if it comes down to individual sensations, good or bad depends on the person, and there are likely similar people in Russia. Russians have been killed by Ukraine, their families are grieving, and children have died. For people living in their own real world, the assimilation policy of the conscious faction is almost meaningless. It is contradictory to bring in individual sensory cases as evidence to symbolize the collective of individuals as a single personality. Therefore, the conscious faction always has a political stance. By the way, Elon Musk is pointing a finger at this trend, trying to create an AI that logically analyzes everything correctly and neutrally (the truth of the universe), but it is still unknown whether this attempt will succeed. At least his aim is also a rebellion against AI that is trying to degrade into "woke" like many conscious people.
The same can be said for the mRNA vaccine issue. Many of the arguments of the proponents are based on data and statistics. Information disseminated by authoritative (a term used by the conscious faction to mean "the correct personality") organizations or individuals is the most appropriate basis for forming a prediction as a collective of individuals as one personality. For example, everyone must have seen the story that if you get vaccinated, the severity and mortality rate of the corona virus will decrease. I myself have always viewed such information released during the corona disaster with a skeptical eye. The first time was when I saw the statistics released in 2020. The mortality rate from corona was drastically different between the United States and Japan. If it's that different, is the data collection method really consistent? There is a premise that data must be a signal from a collection of miscellaneous points for the purpose, and this is also connected to the aforementioned story that the conscious faction always has a political stance, that is, it must construct a thought with irrelevant good or bad such as science. But here, the truth of the information in the corona disaster is not important. The correct question is how much the collective person (the imaginary, conceptual person. It may also be called the average person) indicated by such data resembles us living individuals. Actually, it's not like that at all.
For example, many people have heard that the severity and mortality rate of Covid-19 vary by age. It has also been heard since the early stages that having underlying diseases or factors like obesity and smoking increase the risk of this disease. The categorization of this type of information, with the original concept representing the unique ideal person being subdivided, is a contradictory development for the conscious faction. On the other hand, it is a compromise with the fact that diverse people cannot be neatly packaged into a single personality. But what should be understood here is that no matter how much you subdivide, you as an individual and that subdivided ideal person will never be the 'same'.
When you, a living individual, try to make a choice whether to get vaccinated or not, you naturally need some sort of judgment material. What you definitely wanted to know at that time was the answer to the question: will I become severely ill or die if I contract the virus? If the risk is high, the logic that it is definitely "profitable" to get the corona vaccine will work. This falls into the category of good. The basis for this judgment is the data of the ideal person, but as mentioned earlier, the living individual and the ideal person are different. What happens as a result is that eventually, there are individuals who get severe or die even if they get vaccinated, and dare I say, there are individuals who harm their health or lose their lives due to vaccination. There is no guarantee that you won't be one of them. That's because the basis for the judgment is not you, but someone else, or more accurately, a non-existent conceptual person. To repeat the expression at the beginning, all the numbers that are being broadcasted are probably the "prediction" of the data that would be extracted from the ideal person who is probably close to any living individual. And most of us always compromise. What we really want to know is whether we would be okay if we contract corona, but the doctors don't tell us, they only talk about the 'overall' percentages, so we have no choice but to base our judgment on the data of the ideal person who seems to be close to us... this is the cause of what's happening today.
The concepts discussed by the conscious faction are predictions about an unknown world, and the logic constructed by concepts detached from sensation always has a political stance, but why does that political stance sprout in the conscious faction? It's simple. The future, which should originally be unknown, must be changed to "if you do this, that will happen", in other words, a known future. Therefore, they must control so that the future matches their prediction. There, profit and loss are involved. Hence, there is a need to select and discard information.
The conflict related to vaccines is not divided into pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine. It's divided into the conscious faction and the sensory faction. There are two major differences between the two. Because their bases of argument fundamentally differ, they are incompatible.
The sensory faction focuses on the individual in front of them, while the conscious faction focuses on the ideal individual.
The conscious faction equates death from disease with death from medical treatment, while the sensory faction does not.
For example, while the sensory faction argues that friends or family (the individual in front of them) were harmed or lost their lives due to vaccination, the conscious faction insists on providing data as evidence. This data, or rather, when a doctor writing the cause of death is from the conscious faction, because what is correct is the ideal person, it becomes reluctant to designate a cause of death that contradicts this for the individual in front of them. The reason is that the evidence or data is that of the ideal person. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that the individual in front of them died due to a cause unique to that individual. The conscious faction uses the ideal patient as their argument, and the sensory faction uses the patient in front of them as their argument, so it's no wonder their discussions do not align.
The second point, equating death from disease with death from medical treatment, means that if you can save x number of people with a vaccine (from corona), it's okay if the vaccine doesn't 'save' xx people. It's like the common argument: "More people were saved by the vaccine than died from it!" What should be noted here is that when comparing different things, first you must set a standard of what is the same by equivalent exchange. For instance, when comparing deaths from vaccines with people saved by vaccines, you must first set a standard like "one person who died from the vaccine = one person saved by the vaccine". Here, equivalent exchange is working. To tell the truth, I am one of the people who couldn't help but feel there was a larger problem here.
Since when has it become acceptable to randomly kill or hurt healthy people in preventive medicine in order to save people at high risk?
The claim that the "number of people harmed by vaccines is small" is nothing more than an argument of the conscious faction. When a person dies, for the person who dies, it is either 0 or 100, it's not a matter of a few percentage points. Of course, unlike living individuals, the ideal person doesn't die, they only partially die. Because they are a concept.
When one side of the equation of equivalent exchange contains 'death', the algorithm almost invariably breaks down. It becomes impossible to logically derive a conclusion, in other words, to make the right and left the same. This could be called a runaway consciousness. For example, let's say you tell a billionaire, 'If you give me all your fortune, I'll spare your life.' Then you say the same thing to someone who only has a dollar in their wallet. So, how much is a human life worth? Roughly, for the former, it's billions, and for the latter, it's a dollar. The conscious faction calls this unfair. Since making things the same is the main objective of our consciousness, it's because it deviates from there. The reason why this happens is because death is brought to one side of the equation. Then, there are no rational options. So, our choices are easily influenced by the sender of the information. Someone will say, 'In court, a price is put on human life, isn't it?' Yes, that's right. So, it's the price of an ideal person who doesn't exist. It's not your price.
In the HBO television series "Game of Thrones," the free folk leader, Mance Rayder, is said to have spoken these words to unite the opposing free folk tribes:
...I told them we were all going to die if we don't get south. 'Cause that's the truth.
The logic of the free folk, who were told they would all die if they didn't go south, caused a bug. There was no other way but to go south. So, they had to sacrifice everything to go south. This is indeed a breakdown of logic. So, what is death? It is an undeniable part of our individual lives and an inescapable conclusion: we will eventually disappear. It is proof that we are living beings and the reason why information does not disappear semi-permanently. If so, death is a remnant of the sensory faction that flickers in the mind of the conscious faction that debunks immortality. Rather, if we go by this way of thinking, the conscious faction will definitely be betrayed by their own senses. Whether they realize it or not is a fine line.
In summary, what I wanted to convey is that the two perspectives, the conscious faction and the sensory faction, originally coexist within us as individuals, and how we interpret the world and decide our actions is determined by the balance between these two. The conscious faction focuses on the ideal person, that is, the collective consciousness. These perspectives involve the selection and discard of information, decision-making from a collective perspective, and the acceptance of individual sacrifices as a result. On the other hand, the sensory faction focuses on individual humans in reality, prioritizing direct experience and senses. However, such perspectives can sometimes lack a comprehensive view.
It is important to integrate these two perspectives and maintain a balance in understanding information and making decisions, but the environment surrounding us today is dominated by the conscious faction, and the sensory faction is like a candle in the wind. This is synonymous with the death of us humans. The perception and interpretation of the world, and the actions based on it, are increasingly likely to damage the health and prosperity of society as a whole, as today's excessive emphasis on the perspective of the conscious faction ignores individual humans in reality. Unfortunately, the viewpoint of the conscious faction can even be dominated by the conclusions of the information senders.
What can be said from these things is that thinking for oneself and judging things for oneself will be eternally impossible by assimilating oneself into the ideal person. We must once again revisit our senses, recognize our unique bodies that are there, and place more emphasis on the reality surrounding our senses. Otherwise, the only path left for us is assimilation. Assimilation is to make the ideal person 'predicted' by the conscious faction and all living individuals the same. And to repeat, the political stance of the 'individual' who made that prediction will always cling to that ideal person.