Cardinality of choice

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Every choice is dependent on the context in which the choice is made.

In the human mind, that context is knowledge, experience, emotions,

feelings, perceptions, intuition (whatever that is) and will, or we

could perhaps say that will is the total of this context of the mind.

 

Cardinality usually means the number of elements in a set, e.g. a set

of two apples and three oranges has a cardinality of five. In relation

to choice we can say that cardinality means the number of different

paths one can take. For example when choose a candy bar in a grocery

store, then the cardinality of choice is the number of different candy

bars sold by the store, let's say 12 different candy bars, giving a

cardinality of choice of 12. But we can also choose not to choose any

candy bar, and then we have to add another choice to the set of

possible choices resulting in a cardinality of 13. Also, we can choose

from a subset of all possible candy bars, for example not choosing

among the sugar-free candy bars, and this reduces the cardinality. We

can also choose more than one candy bar, and in different

combinations, giving us a vast number of possible values of cardinality.

 

Whatever cardinality we have to begin with, that cardinality is

reduced to 1 as soon as we make the choice. The process of reducing

the set of possible choices to 1 and thereby making a choice can be a

more or less complext process. The example of choosing a candy bar is

just a simple illustration. In reality many other choices are made in

parallel with choosing a candy bar; we have to choose what to look at,

body posture, breathing, choosing memories from the past about

favorite candy bars experienced, choosing how many calories we can

allow ourself to ingest in order to retain a slim body, and so on.

Many of these choices happen on an unconscious level so that our aware

focus on attention actually is on the high-level abstraction called

" choosing a candy bar " , and thus the cardinality of choice is then in

normal circumstances a well-defined small number.

 

What will happen if we always have the highest level of abstraction

available and our awareness is only focused on that? The highest level

of abstraction is when the cardinality of choice is 1, which means

that we then have entered choiceless awareness; meaning: our awareness

is totally liberated from choice and can diffuse and blend into

everything we experience as a total movement.

 

Choiceless awareness is to have a context of vast cardinality of

choice, the full context unbroken at all times. Choice means the

process of reducing this full context into smaller and smaller sets of

possible choices. Many of these processes of reducing the full context

is subconscious leaving the mind to focus its awareness on the

interesting high-level abstractions such as type of candy bar.

Choiceless awareness happens when all processes of reducing the full

context happens subconsciously, and then awareness is liberated to

choose on a higher level, i.e. choose where to put awareness. When the

mind is trapped in the choice-making process it is not free to

observe, it is then locked into that process itself, creating a narrow

and limited focus of awareness.

 

/AL