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Contemplation

ygolo

My termites win
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Aug 6, 2007
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5,988
Is it useful to you?

If so, in what ways?

Any particular examples you would like to share?

If not, would you continue to do it anyway?
 

Kiddo

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I speak to God and talk to trees; so I guess I contemplate. It's useful because it gives me spiritual clarity and new insight into my life. I've always found it to be a very euphoric and exhilarating experience.
 

Vortex

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Useful in determining past behaviour and patterns. Useful for connecting scenarios and rate the importance of past and possibly future events. Useful for balancing of self and determining true priorities. Useful for insights.
 

Geoff

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Is it useful to you?

If so, in what ways?

Any particular examples you would like to share?

If not, would you continue to do it anyway?

Lucid dreaming is the way to go... sink an interesting contemplation into a guided dream... it's quite enlightening. It's also a bit hit and miss. Sometimes I get insights. This morning, I got socks. Lots and lots of socks.

-Geoff
 

Athenian200

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Is it useful to you?

If so, in what ways?

Any particular examples you would like to share?

If not, would you continue to do it anyway?

I would have to say that it has been useful to me over the course of my life. In fact, it's what I look forward to every day rather than the things I actually do... just having time to contemplate and meditate.

It gives me insight into situations by understanding the nature of perception and information just a little better than the people who don't do this as much.

I would probably do it even if it weren't useful, because it's just so addictive to note all the qualities, perspectives, and assumptions inherent in an idea.
 
O

Oberon

Guest
Y, I'm afraid you'll have to define what you mean by "contemplation." Almost my entire life is inner life, thought-life. If that's something distinct from what you mean by contemplation, I'll need to know before I can answer.
 

ygolo

My termites win
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Aug 6, 2007
Messages
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Y, I'm afraid you'll have to define what you mean by "contemplation." Almost my entire life is inner life, thought-life. If that's something distinct from what you mean by contemplation, I'll need to know before I can answer.

WordNet Search - 3.0

I mostly favor, "intent consideration".

But we'll be post-modern about it and say it means what you want it to mean.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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Contemplation is useful for everything. Self awareness, personal growth, impersonal problem solving, creativity, new ideas, etc.... Like Oberon most of my life is inner, thought life, but I would distinguish contemplation from daydreaming. With contemplation I am somewhat in control of my thought processes, but when I daydream my thoughts seem to go all over the place without my control.
 

ygolo

My termites win
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Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,988
Contemplation is useful for everything. Self awareness, personal growth, impersonal problem solving, creativity, new ideas, etc.... Like Oberon most of my life is inner, thought life, but I would distinguish contemplation from daydreaming. With contemplation I am somewhat in control of my thought processes, but when I daydream my thoughts seem to go all over the place without my control.

That's an interesting thought. Could you elaborate on the difference between contemplation and daydreaming?
 

ptgatsby

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Is it useful to you?

Absolutely... it's how I try to make every decision in my life. Those times when I do it for some other reason is to fill the need, the habit... to train and refine.

If so, in what ways?

Making good decisions, understanding something, understanding someone, calming the emotions that force a decision, withdrawing to organise thoughts... Too many to think of in particular, I suppose...

Any particular examples you would like to share?

I don't even know where to start... If time was "slower", I'd do it more... but even now, I do it more than anything else. I contemplate anything that I need to solve, here or now. I continue to think back to when I used to ski, go through training in my head, the physics of carving slopes, etc... just because I'm going to take it up again, about a decade later. When I bought a tennis racket to teach non, I started going over how I learnt, the strokes, the spin... I'm playing D3fiance's ORPG in WC3 and I'm working out how combinations of double characters to take advantage of each classes's traits. Last night I was in bed working out how to increase my score in the Lumonisity processing speed test (whoo! up to 187 now!).

Sometimes I drift into fantasy world - I have a comic I want to make, a stop motion picture I want to do... I think about how I can generate the art, the characters... I think about Maya and Vue, I think about poser... I think about shading, rendering mechanics. I think about cameras, the math behind spirals to emulate flyby's in stop motion, concepts for rails, the geometry to folding up paper into marines... Artistic effects and green screens...

Then you have the technical stuff, like working out the SD for real estate, or working how investment strategies and tax configurations.

A lot of time is spent on ethical arguments, on moral calculations. I take scenarios from my management courses and work out matrixes of calculations, I apply them to work and work it out as well.

I use to spend a whole lot of time reading blogs and contemplating how personality and this really applies to the world. I would read through an entire person's life and look at pressures in their lives... I would try to understand them for hours - tens, if not hundreds, of hours. I often go through political information (current events) and work out all the pressures there too, likely outcomes, dynamics...

Hell, I sit down and seriously contemplate how to cook risotto. I take everything, down to the smallest thing, seriously... and anything serious deserves contemplation. It doesn't matter what I think, individually, about what is important. Ethics, religion, cooking, math, games... Everything exists and deserves to be understood. That's what contemplation means, and does, for me.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
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Absolutely... it's how I try to make every decision in my life. Those times when I do it for some other reason is to fill the need, the habit... to train and refine.



Making good decisions, understanding something, understanding someone, calming the emotions that force a decision, withdrawing to organise thoughts... Too many to think of in particular, I suppose...



I don't even know where to start... If time was "slower", I'd do it more... but even now, I do it more than anything else. I contemplate anything that I need to solve, here or now. I continue to think back to when I used to ski, go through training in my head, the physics of carving slopes, etc... just because I'm going to take it up again, about a decade later. When I bought a tennis racket to teach non, I started going over how I learnt, the strokes, the spin... I'm playing D3fiance's ORPG in WC3 and I'm working out how combinations of double characters to take advantage of each classes's traits. Last night I was in bed working out how to increase my score in the Lumonisity processing speed test (whoo! up to 187 now!).

Sometimes I drift into fantasy world - I have a comic I want to make, a stop motion picture I want to do... I think about how I can generate the art, the characters... I think about Maya and Vue, I think about poser... I think about shading, rendering mechanics. I think about cameras, the math behind spirals to emulate flyby's in stop motion, concepts for rails, the geometry to folding up paper into marines... Artistic effects and green screens...

Then you have the technical stuff, like working out the SD for real estate, or working how investment strategies and tax configurations.

A lot of time is spent on ethical arguments, on moral calculations. I take scenarios from my management courses and work out matrixes of calculations, I apply them to work and work it out as well.

I use to spend a whole lot of time reading blogs and contemplating how personality and this really applies to the world. I would read through an entire person's life and look at pressures in their lives... I would try to understand them for hours - tens, if not hundreds, of hours. I often go through political information (current events) and work out all the pressures there too, likely outcomes, dynamics...

Hell, I sit down and seriously contemplate how to cook risotto. I take everything, down to the smallest thing, seriously... and anything serious deserves contemplation. It doesn't matter what I think, individually, about what is important. Ethics, religion, cooking, math, games... Everything exists and deserves to be understood. That's what contemplation means, and does, for me.

That is quite admirable. My contemplations have not always yeilded results in terms of clear decissions. In fact, in recent years, they have been rather ineffective for making decisions. I am not sure what changed.

Have you ever regretted spend time contemplating something?
 
Last edited:

ptgatsby

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Have you ever regretted spend time contemplating something?

Every single time that I didn't have the information to answer what I was thinking about. Spinning wheels hurts a lot, worse if you force an answer. That's more often than I probably gave an impression of :D
 

ygolo

My termites win
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Aug 6, 2007
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Every single time that I didn't have the information to answer what I was thinking about. Spinning wheels hurts a lot, worse if you force an answer. That's more often than I probably gave an impression of :D

Yeah. Unfortunately, pure contemplation is not as useful for me as an adult, since I often start sufing the web, usually collecting resources for later. Usually, I have to put aside my line of questioning till I gain access to resources I needed. That is also annoying.

Somehow, I am not able to come to satisfactory answers from "first priciples" anymore. It may be due to not being able to identify "first principles" in the things I think about these days.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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That's an interesting thought. Could you elaborate on the difference between contemplation and daydreaming?

Well I think contemplation is fairly well covered in ptgatsby's post. Basically it's when you actively sit down and actively think about something. There are other times though when my mind is working and there is no one controlling it. I might sit down to do something, then my mind wanders all over the place, and after an hour passes I still haven't done what I set out to do. I'm not even trying to procrastinate (unlike other times when I really am trying to procrastinate ;)), but sometimes my imagination just takes over. This is what I consider daydreaming. When I contemplate I'm in control. My mind still might wander somewhat when I contemplate, but I'm in control of where it wanders and for how long. So that is the difference for me.
 

alcea rosea

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I didn't know the word so I looked it up from dictionary. ;)

It's useful at times I guess.
 

Snowey1210

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Jan 10, 2008
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Contemplation to me is a real double-edged sword, as it is beneficial but on the same token it is so easy for me to get caught up in it. In reality, it has only been the last couple years or so that I feel I'm becoming who I really want to be. Prior to that, I think I over-analysed situations when I should have just taken some form of action. Ideally I believe that there needs to be a healthly balance for it to be truly beneficial.
 

Benjamin

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Jan 24, 2008
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I often sit down and contemplate my life choices. I fine it very useful to determine where my wrongs are at and attempt to right them. To find my weakest parts and turn them into my strengths. Although it may take time, I try hard and usually succeed.
 
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