The cuckoo doesn't build a nest. No. It lays its eggs in another bird's nest. The other bird does all the work. Free childcare! It is a parasite. Ideas are like those eggs. The one's you have in your nest that hatch problems for you may not be your own. Whose are they?
What is an IDEA?
MOST DEFINITIONS (of "idea") are so ambiguous that they end up meaning anything. A word that can mean anything has no IDENTITY because it isn't distinct. (Go get me that thingy ma jiggy)
If our definitions are fuzzy and indistinct our concept of an idea doesn't exist! It is hazy and quicksilver elusive nothingness.
We reason by linking ideas. A chain is as strong as the weakest of the links. The cuckoo egg is the weak link in our thinking. The idea we don't own is the idea that wrecks our thinking and logic and derails our life plans.
Newsflash! We are trying to use IDEAS to understand IDEAS themselves. To do this we MUST begin with a clear definition. Otherwise we are operating without conscious knowledge of the operation. It is much like a person who can DO something but cannot explain HOW. It seems to come naturally to them but their mind cannot access the why or wherefore. (I knew a guy who was a marvellous artist but, he couldn't teach anybody anything because he didn't understand his own processes!)
DEFINITION OF IDEA:
An idea gives identity and existence to our thoughts.
It is a process of freeze-frame that we may examine our impressions and refine them into useful constructs.
What is outside our body but the world? The world reaches us by our senses. We form impressions by those senses. Our skill in refining those vague impressions determines the accuracy of our concepts. (Concepts are File Folders that label general things)
The definitions we use act like a focus knob on a microscope to unblur the images. A sharp idea is more useful than a blurred one. Sharp definitions make the Concepts useful for sorting, refining, interacting with other concepts.
What does all that really mean?
To be CONSCIOUS is to be conscious of SOMETHING.
To be AWARE is to be aware of SOMETHING.
To be is to be SOMETHING.
Existence is Identity and the means by which we form defined impressions of various identities is what we call IDEAS.
Our senses inform our brain with sensory impulses. What we do with those raw impulses from birth to death is a process of refining, sorting, identifying, categorizing and relating each to the other in a USEFUL form. The IDEA is the discrete means by which we do this. The IDEA IS THE EGG that hatches into -----something----eventually. What hatches is what we want to predict. We want no cuckoo surprises!
IF YOU HAVEN'T FALLEN ASLEEP by now I shall proceed to make a point that might be beneficial to everybody who uses it for themsleves.
What we don't bother to define we can never usefully understand.
What we don't understand we are confused about which leads to our making mistakes about it.
Human survival is largely a matter of using our mind, organizing our thoughts and employing useful IDEAS to achieve our goals and purposes.
The fewer our clear ideas; the fewer our useful strategies and the fewer our goals are reached.
Everything must begin with CLARITY of definition. Our IDEAS come from our observation and definition of sensory input.
HERE IS THE RUB!!! Warning! Warning!
OUR mind can be stocked with self-examined, self-defined IDEAS or it can be stocked with ready-made, off the rack (untested and unproved) IDEAS by default.
What we do not test for ourselves we swallow whole with all the resulting damage.
Rumour, urban myth, fallacy, superstition, fear, propaganda all penetrate our thinking if we are not ON GUARD to test these ideas and concepts by careful examinations and inspections.
IDEAS RULE THE WORLD. Where do these ideas come from?
They mostly come from default in the people who follow them without the trouble of examining them for accurate content and proof positive.
ARE YOUR IDEAS YOUR OWN?
How do you make an idea your own?
You must challenge yourself to take it apart and define it clearly.
Take any idea and demand of yourself that you give a brief definition of it that lucidly communicates what it means.
Example: What is JUSTICE?
If you hem and haw around with a lot of words you don't really have a concept that is YOURS, you have a cuckoo egg in your head. It has been laid by another bird and put in your nest to raise as your own.
Justice is the authority to render to each person according to what they deserve (i.e. they earned it by their actions and intentions) and not allowing any person to suffer the consequence of what they did not engender. (This is my personal definition.)
You make an IDEA your own when you OWN IT by defining it clearly with all its implications out in the open. You must understand an IDEA or it is that cuckoo egg.
Examine your IDEAS one by one regularly and try to discover the cuckoo eggs in your thinking.
Remember, if you cannot clearly define an idea it is NOT YOUR OWN.
Test your definitions against every day reality to see if they hold water or if they leak badly.
Your happiness and your survival come from how well your ideas work for you.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
The wrong ideas lead to obstacles in everyday living.
Root out the offending cuckoo eggs and replace them with your own pure ideas which serve your purposes.
How many Jehovah's Witnesses do you know (perhaps yourself once) who accepted concepts of a make-believe "reality" that did not make their life better because they did not clearly UNDERSTAND them?
How many JW's, for example, clearly understand how the year 1914 is the KEY foundation of the Governing Body's hold on JW's worldwide? How many clearly comprehend the nature of the reasoning that leads to 1914?
Those who DON'T suffer the consequence of using a cuckoo egg in their chain of reasoning. It goes like this.
FOUNDATION:
Cuckoo egg: Jesus Christ set up his kingdom in 1914.
Since this is true (note: it isn't!) therefore what follows is......
The True Religion was advertising this Kingdom actively. These faithful ones were inspected by Jesus and selected to feed all his sheep worldwide.
The central authority Jesus chose to do this is his "faithful and discreet slave" which is not a person but a class.
Etc. etc.
Notice it all stems from an IDEA that cannot be explained by a Jehovah's Witness using untainted evidence. It is taken AS FACT at the outset. No matter how seemingly each new link is connected in the chain of reasoning it will all fall apart.
Cuckoo eggs are laid in every JW's brain. They constantly hatch and interrupt the person's life and sidetrack them from having one of their own. They are too busy raising cuckoos to have their own agenda, their own life, their own purpose. It is a hijacking of the entire viewpoint to that person's own detriment.
What is the moral of the story?
Examine your IDEAS. Inspect them. Own them.
I spend time each and every day selecting an idea and trying to define it as succintly as possible. I've rooted out hundreds and hundreds of Cuckoo eggs in the process.
Try it yourself.
Try defining in a very few words:
1.REALITY
2. CAUSALITY
3.PERCEPTION
4.VOLITION
5.OBJECTIVITY
6.REASON
7.VIRTUE
8.HAPPINESS
9.GOVERNMENT
10.ART
How many CUCKOO EGGS are laid in your head???
Terry