The Ultimate Truth

i dont have proof that there isnt a God, but i do know many things thought to have been acts of God have been proven false by science.
And my response was no more asanine than your sorry attempt to be deep in this thread, which was neither thought provoking nor interesting.

 

I think therefore God does not exist.

 

They all have egos.

"I think therefore I am". In a sense. Does that mean that when you sleep you are not? Or will the mind play little semantic games to try to define its own identity and uniqueness?

The plain fact is that whatever lives is. Do dogs think? Do fish think? Do cows and chickens and bugs think?

We know that dogs dream. They must therefore think. We know that apes and monkeys, and probably all mammals dream - so they must be able to think. Rats show intelligence, too.

The only thing which really separates us from animals is our ability to create tools. One of these tools is language and the ability to write. Another may be the ability to play a musical instrument. But it would not include the ability to sing as birds and whales can sing.

So yes, DesCartes was right - thinking is the "I". It's what Buddhists have always said. That doesn't mean that it is the epitome of Man, it is not the paramount of consciousness.

Then don't use logic. Everyone seems to have the same type of mind because of society - a commonness among the species. Other people are not multiple personalities of me - they are each unique in their own right, sharing certain common traits while also having other different traits common only to themselves, their race, their nationality, their upbringing, etc.

Enemies are enemies because they have a much different ego. Friends are friends because they accept each other's egos.

There is no hub mind. There is only mind. The mind only sees outward because of the ego (that's why it thinks its inside your head). If there was a hub mind then we'd probably be robots. (Well, we are, but... )

 

Dunno. Recently, I've been reading up on a lot of Buddhist philosophy, and now, I seem to think that cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") is a bit flawed, at least from the Buddhist perspective of the mind. Very interesting.

In my history class, my teacher pointed out, that the phrase should have been dubio ergo sum ("I doubt [my existance], therefore I am"). =P That does sound a little better, haha.

Either way ... just because a thought occurs, and the mind interacts with that thought, doesn't presuppose awareness of the interaction (also known as consciousness, or what we call the "I/ego").

 

The cogito is flawed, not because it's false, its obviously true, but because it fails to eliminate the possibility of the existence of the evil demon, which Descartes postulates in Meditation I. In the face of the demon, Descartes says that he cannot know that 2 + 2 = 4, which is true analytically and deductively. So, if deductive, analytic statements are out, then Descartes isn't justified in concluding that he exists by using the cogito, which, like math, is analytic and deductive. Descartes finally gives an ontological argument for God's existence, which is supposed to eliminate the possibility of the demon, but this argument is circular and vicious.

"Either way ... just because a thought occurs, and the mind interacts with that thought, doesn't presuppose awareness of the interaction (also known as consciousness, or what we call the "I/ego")."

Here, I disagree with you. The cogito certainly does prove the existence of the self, even if it can't get rid of the evil demon. And Descartes' cconception of the self, as thinking subject, is probablly not far from the truth either. The mind does not interact with thought. The mind is thought. And a thinking mind must be conscious. That's all the cogito says and it's just true analytically. For a subject to think, it has to exist.

 

Common Sense:

I am talking from a Buddhist view here. Buddha taught the Five Aggregates:

1) The Aggregate of Matter: That is ... stuff exists. Included in that stuff are your six sense-organs: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. (Thinking of the mind in such a way that the mind is a sense-organ like anything else.)

2) The Aggregate of Sensations: That is ... there exists interaction between the six senses and the rest of the world. Interaction between the eye and forms and colours is visual sensation. Interaction between the ear and sounds is auditory sensation, and so on. Similarly, there is interaction between the mind and thoughts (thought-objects), producing mental sensation. It is to be noted that sensation is NOT to be confused with perception; there is the sensation of interaction, but at this stage, there is not recognition of the things sensed.

3) The Aggregate of Perceptions: That is ... recognition of sensation. Recognition of forms, colours, smells, tastes, and thoughts.

4) The Aggregate of Mental Formations: This includes all volitional activities (all activities that are driven by your "willpower" so to speak; all things that you "will" to happen; they are carried out through the body). This includes only the activities of the mind, not of the body. That is ... moving is not a volitional activity; it's a physical activity. The act of willing your body to move is the volitional activity. Some sample volitional activities include attention, concentration, hate, conceit, determination, etc.

5) The Aggregate of Consciousness: That is ... awareness of sensation, the reaction to sensation (which drives perception; and perception turns the sensation into a thought, which is then again sensed by the mind and reacted to).

These are very simple descriptions, though. Anyway ... Buddha taught that the combination of all of these is what we call the "I" or the ego. While Buddha's words should not be taken to be perfect or definately correct, Buddha put a lot of thought into it.

Looking at it from this light, if one is not aware of sensing things, and only percieves them and responds through voilition (as a machine does), then that does not presuppose consciousness (awareness of sensation, including thought objects, and the concept of self).

i.e. There is no consciousness unless you are aware of what you sense, even if you do not recognize it.

It makes sense to me. Just because you think ... doens't mean you are. Beacuse you aren't really "you" in the sense that you have an ego, because even if you think (you sense thoughts and percieve thoughts), that doesn't mean you are aware that you are thinking (that is ... consciousness, or more accurately mental consciousness). Such is the nature of machines; machines are not aware of their sensing and percieving (as a machine's sense organs are electrical circuits), and thus they do not have consciousness, and thus, machines think (in the same sense that they process data exactly as we tell them), but machines aren't "I"s and don't have egos; they aren't what we deem as "beings," which is why we call them machines instead of mechanical beings.

 

I don't think that the mind is a sense-organ like any other, but let's see where you're going with this.

So things don't make sense until they're organised or recognised. Makes sense. But isn't organising and recognising sense-impressions exactly what the mind does? Isn't the only reason we can make mental "sensations" because we have gained those ideas from our senses (not including the mind)?

What I don't understand is how it is possible not to recognise a thought. When I imagine a red blanket, I know that I am thinking about a red blanket. If I saw a red blanket in the external world, I would not recognise it as such until those perceptions were organised in my mind and something clicked in my mind to make me recognise, "Hey, that's a red blanket!" The difference between the two is that no sensation caused by the external world was perceived and so that pereception did not have to be recognised by the mind. It was already recognised because its a part of the contents of the mind to begin with.

[quote\4) The Aggregate of Mental Formations: This includes all volitional activities (all activities that are driven by your "willpower" so to speak; all things that you "will" to happen; they are carried out through the body). This includes only the activities of the mind, not of the body. That is ... moving is not a volitional activity; it's a physical activity. The act of willing your body to move is the volitional activity. Some sample volitional activities include attention, concentration, hate, conceit, determination, etc.[/quote]
No disagreement there.

Hmm... it makes sense, but I can't find a way to distinguish between reactive acts of consciousness and an act of volition. Also, what's the difference between awareness of perception and perceiving? How can you perceive and not be aware of it?

Hmm... that's interesting too. Perception can certainly be compared to input for computers. But I don't know if a computer running its program is a proper act of volition.

No doubt. But I still don't understand how you can not be aware of sensing.

Hmm... it's a good point. I've never taken a class in the philosophy of mind, so I can't say I have an opinion on whether machines "think" or not. Descartes was searching for a priori knowledge though, meaning a thought which is independent of sensory experience. If those kinds of thoughts are possible, which they are not, but Descartes thought they were, then do you think that would qualify as proof that something thinks, in the way we mean it when we say a person thinks?

 

The physical universe is an Act of God so how does something conforming to physical laws prove that something was not an act of God?

Thank God you were neither interested in or provoked to thought over what I said, because otherwise you would have responded.

Was I really being that deep? I thought I was drinkin' salty water.

 

Nice try, care to elucidate as to how I was being asinine? I wasn't the one instructing people to "shut the fuck up" because I didn't agree with their opinion. I simply offered a perspective of the possible truth and labeled it with a catchy title. Care to explain how that demonstates being an ass or stupid? And if this thread wasn't "thought provoking or interesting" then don't post in it.

 

That is what the brain does, not the mind. =)

I intend to be very clear; the brain is, as you observed, not a sense organ, it's a part of the body. Just like the stomach is not a sense organ.

The mind may be based in the brain, just as the eye is ... well, I guess based in the eye. But that is not to say that they are the same thing.

I can see how that is hard to understand. And I can't defend myself (or Buddha; not that I intend to defend him anyway) on that issue.

However ... must it be possible to not recognize a thought?

Let me answer this question with my reply to this part of your post:

This is the part of Buddhism that I disagree with a bit. I believe that there are two types of consciousness. There is a consciousness that is aware of sensation, and a consciousness that is aware of perception.

The part that acts when a sensation occurs ... that would be instinct.

The part that acts when a perception occurs ... that would be volitional activity.

It is possible for people to act both instinctively and volitionally ... I can't think of a good example at the moment, but you should be able to if you spend a few minutes thinking.

Edit: I thought of a decent example. Say, you're, uh, going into a dark dungeon or something, and you get a "bad feeling" and you instinctively pay closer attention to where you are. You can't explain why you have a bad feeling, because you don't (immediately at least) recognize the sensation that gives you that bad feeling. Later on, say, in another few seconds, you think hard, and realize that the darkness is what gives you the bad feeling, because you are scared of the dark. Thus, you have now percieved the darkness, and your response to that perception is to no longer feel bad, but also to pay closer attention.

As for the answer to the previous quote ... must it be possible to sense a thought without percieving it? It doesn't seem that there is any "instinct" for having a thought ... perhaps thought-objects are of the nature of being self-recognizable? Perhaps that is because thoughts are of all different kinds of all different natures, whereas blue is still a colour, sulfur is still an odour, boom is still a sound, etc.

A fax machine percieves (that is, recognizes and responds accordingly) instructions, yet it is not aware that it is enacting those instructions. =)

In all human beings, both states exist, but they should not be confused and mistaken for the same thing.

I'm sorry, I COMPLETELY misphrased that. =P

The computer percieves and responds, but because it does not have consciousness, it is incapable of volition. i.e. The computer cannot shift its attention, nor can it concentrate, nor can it have varying degrees of determination, or wisdom, et cetera.

Thus, computers act "instinctively" in a sense. While at this point, the terminology gets confusing, suffice it to say, computers don't have volition, but they still sense things, percieve things, and respond to them.

Honestly, I can't answer this question. Throughout my life (which until 3 days ago was void of any of Buddha's teachings, I just picked up a really great book), I've mostly believed in cause and effect, and Buddha teaches that as well. I don't believe that there are thoughts that have no causes (whether the causes are sensations, perceptions, OR other thought-objects).

Regardless, if they do exist (which I don't believe they do), then that might be proof of a soul or something, but ... I can't recall any thoughts I have ever had that weren't inspired by something else, so I can't consider this question a valid question or provide a definite answer, or even a "good guess" for that matter.

Michael:

I disagree. The structure of "I," in any language, presupposes the existance of an ego; that is, a self which is both independent of other objects as well as currently speaking.

While it may not be egotistical in that it isn't conceited, it does require the existance of the concept of self.

 

explain to me what relevance Frodo's post had to this thread and then explain to me why you are defending him. you can't, because it is utter nonsense. maybe if you'd wipe your shaggy hair from your eyes you'd see that.

 

Because it's his opinion and the HipForums are free speech forums. So you don't go bashing other's opinions just because you disagree with them.

 

I disagree. The mind, in relation to the other sense organs is exactly what was stated earlier ... as sense "organ".

Take into consideration the other five "organs," eye, nose, tongue, ear, body.

The Eye is made up of components such as the cornea, vitrious humor, pupil, iris, lense, scleara, retina, optic nerve. The Retna has a layer of nerves called cones and rods which are sensitve to various electromagnetic wavelengths, or spectrum of light. Once the object of the eye (light) and the eye come into contact with each other via the cones and rods, a sensation occurs. So in essence the eye feels the wavelength of light, because it is in a constant state of change due to the nature of the electromagnetic properties of light. In order to catagorize (label) the type of wavelength we are "feeling" (seeing) a consciousness occurs whereby we can identify this or that wavelength as this or that color. Typically in Buddhism this is called the Eye Consciousness because the consciousness that occurs from the sensations are only associated with the eye. The ear cannot sense these sensations (feelings), the tongue cannot sense these sensations (feelings), the nose cannot sense these sensations (feelings) and the body cannot sense these sensations (feelings) and thereby are not conscious of their existence.

Likewise the Nose with its Olfactory epithelium which is sensitive to airborne chemical molecules (feel changes in airborne chemicals), the Tongue with its papillae which contain microvilli which are sensitive (feel changes in solid/liquid chemicals), the Ear with the hairs in the cochlea which are sensitive to movement/pressure exhibited by the ossicles (malleus, incus and stapes) in reaction to sound waves, and the Body with its nerve endings in the skin and other body organs which are sensitive changes in tactial sensations (feels changes in touch).

Similiarly, the mind is all these other five sense "organs" reacting together as one, just as each sense organ is comprised of other smaller components which make up the sense organ(s) we call eye, nose, tongue, ear, body.

If the eye were not present, and did not become conscious of what color felt like, the mind would not be conscious of color. It would not know the particular electromagnetic wavelength to associate with color. Nor could anyone explain red, blue, or green in such a way that you could comprehend color because you have never sensed, or come into direct contact with color. To say that red is red, does not produce the sensation or feeling of red and therefore no consciousness of red ... however, you can become aware of the existence of red, because everyone is using it, they sense red and are able to tell you that red exists even if you cannot directly experience the sensation yourself to become conscious of it.

If the ear were not present and did not become conscious of what sound felt like, the mind would not be conscious of sound. If the eye and ear were not present, the mind would not be conscious of color and sound. If the eye were present and the ear were not present, the mind would be conscious of color, but not of sound. If the eye and ear were both present then the mind would be conscious of both color and sound. Now if the eye and ear were the only organs you posessed that allowed you to interact with reality, then your total consciousness would only be that of sight and sound and you would have no awareness at all of touch, taste and smell because you would not be conscious of its existence ... no organs in which contact between object and organ can be made to produce sense consciousness.

The same with the other sense organs.

So IMO, mind consciousness is the total consciousness of each organ as if each organ were the cilli of the mind. Now Thought ...

Again, this is only opinion as I am not a definitive authority on Thought.

The Dictionary says that thought is to have or formulate in the mind. To reason about or reflect on. To decide by reasoning, reflect, ponder. To judge or regard. To suppose. To expect. To intend. Remember, call to mind. To visualize, imagine. To devise or evolve; invent. To bring into a given condition by mental preoccupation. To exercise the power of reason as by conceiving ideas, drawing inferences, and using judgement. To weight or consider an idea. To recall a thought or image to mind. To dispose the mind in a given way. The act or instance of delierate or extended thinking.

Where thought comes in is a learned response to a specific stimulation/sensation experience. Learned meaning one has to be tought that what one is experiencing is this or that. And, using thought, one can take the sensations being felt and with the knowledge of what it is, create independent communication in various forms; words, music, art, buildings, books, food, aromas, etc., even weapons ...

One can become conscious of objects, either visually, auditorially, aromas, tastes or touch, and without knowing, or having any knowledge of what it is you are conscious or aware of you will not know what to call or classify it in order to make logical reasonings or inferences to ... i.e, thought. You will not know that red is red, yellow is yellow, bitter is bitter, sweet it sweet, a tree is a tree, solid is solid. You will not know how to organize your experiences in order to relate them. You can be born in total deprevation of the senses and upon experiencing the sensations, not know or even be capable of thinking of what it is you have become conscious of because there has been no prior communication on what it is you are experiencing, therefore no relation to what the experience is. You can't even ask, "What is that" because you have not yet been exposed to words or language in order to formulate words to express your curiosity. All you would be at this point is a walking sensory bag, incapable of thought, or thought the way we experience thought, because you have no idea on how to process the information you are receiving or feel. You don't know what feeling is ... all you know is that something is going on and you don't know how to intrepret it ... you can't even think "something is going on and I don't know how to intrepret it."

In order to think, you need to have a learned response to formulate ideas correctly in a comprehensible way for others, and your self to understand what it is you are expressing or feeling. Someone somewhere was the first experiencer who classified each experience and related these experiences in a form of communication that others could mimic in order to express their feelings identical to the way others were experiencing them. This way they could interact on some kind of level of communication where they could become aware of themselves as this or that and as such and such. They can communicate their experiences and classify them so that everyone is capable of independent thought in order to formulate an order of communication for interaction. Communication in language and action then evolves, becomes more complex as beings are capable of recriprocating understanding and interaction, and subsequently, thought becomes more developed.

So, in conjunction with the responses of others, and the sensations and feelings you experience with your own senses, you create thought. Thought then becomes the object of the mind, and a consciousness occurs in the mind (called mind consciousness) based and related on the interactions and experiences of all the senses and their related consciousnesses.

Again, I am not an authority on Thought so this is all pure speculation and reasoning on my part ...

How can you imagine "red" or "blanket" if you have no visual consciousness of "red" and no tactile consconsciousness of "blanket"? If you had no eye to produce the visual consciousness "red", how can the mind imagine "red" anything? If you had no skin, or more to the point, nerve endings in the skin to produce the tactile consciousness of "blanket", how can you identify blanket? I suspect that "blanket" requires more than a tactile consciousness, however. More like a visual and tactile consciousness. You can feel "blanket" without seeing it, and it will not always feel the same because of the various kinds and textures of blankets, one could easily mistake a rug for a blanket.

The consciousness of "red" and the consciousness of "blanket" is not already part of the contents of the mind until the mind is aware of what "red" and "blanket" are. Again, if you are born without eyes, or nerve endings in the skin to become consciousness of tactile sensations, you would have no idea or thought at all about what "red" or "blanket" was. Someone can say, "This is a blanket", but you would still not be become conscious of "red" or "blanket" without prior direct experience of what "red" or "blanket" feels like, and then you would not be 100 percent sure of "blanket" without both visual and tactile sensations.

_____________________

Darrell

 

tuum ascendo

I love therefore I am.
I yearn therefore I am.
My heart aches therefore I am.
I cry
I laugh
I

 

To Hikaru:

I just thought of something and wanted to get it down as quickly as possible. Even if the Buddhist conception of self is correct, Descartes' cogito still proves that you exist as a "thinking" (in the ordinary sense of the word) subject, even if that subject is just an automaton. To tell you the truth, this doesn't surprise me because the rationalists tended towards determinism anyway. Descartes felt that a choice between two options, neither of which being better than the other, is no real choice at all. Our choices are predetermined by the light of reason, which is true and immutable. Choosing wrong is just the result of not thinking things through clearly enough. It's sounds to me like the Buddhist view can be reconciled with the Cartesian view, which would probably be philosophically disasterious, but an interesting thought experiment nevertheless. Just wanted to hear your thoughts.

 

I'm going to skip over a lot of what you posted, which I feel a little bad for since you obviously put a lot of time into it. But we all know what the five senses are. The question is, what is the mind? It seems to me that you get into that right about here:

Not exactly, and here's the key difference: the sense organs {mind excluded) collect data from the outside world. The mind merely organises that data and cannot come to any conclusions about the universe which have not been supplied by the senses. Your mistake becomes a little more obvious right here:

The eye itself can never be conscious of anything because the eye all by itself lacks consciousness. To perceive something is to be conscious of that thing. There is no intermediary stage where the eye has perceived something but the mind is not yet conscious of it. A lot of neuroscientists and philosophers of mind would back me up here too.

Mental states aside, the statement "red is red" can be known to be true by anyone, even someone who hasn't experienced the colour red, because its a tautology. You know very well that, "all gnomes are gnombs" even though you've never actually seen a gnome. Likewise, you know that, "all bachelors are unmarried men" even though you've never seen all bachelors. That last statement isn't a tautology but it is analytic, and all tautologies are analytic.

Now, as to thought, I don't really deal with philosophy of mind, so I can't say that I know what, exactly, thought is. Your guess is as good as mine.

 

I wouldn't consider the mind an organ or a sense. An organ is tangible; the brain is an organ, but the mind isn't. It's not one of the senses either because it isn't "stimulated" in the way the others are. The mind, in my opinion, is merely the control center for the self.

 

I must disagree here. Consciousness is most often defined as "awareness." Well, the eye has awareness of sight; it has "visual consciousness." If it didn't have visual consciousness, we would be unaware that we are seeing anything at all (which is not the case).

Aye, but red is {experience of red} cannot be known by a blind man. This is what darrel meant by "red is red," I believe.

Clearly, the word red is the word red. But the word red is not the concept red, and a blind man cannot experience the concept red.

Unfortunately ... I don't have any thoughts here. Determinism ... Cartesian view ... these things don't have meaning to me, because I haven't got a clue what they are. =P Sorry.

And ... according to Buddha, there is no "self" that "thinks," it is just a mind that interacts with thoughts. To say "I" exist because a mind that interacts with thoughts exists, presupposes that the mind is part of some construct that can be labelled as "I," in which case, "I" would not be able to include the body, or the other senses. So, that doesn't seem correct to me.

If interaction between mind and thoughts can be called "thinking," where does the "I" come from?

I disagree. The mind is stimulated, and quite often. It's stimulated whenever you have a thought.

Buddha's reasoning (if I have it right) was that the five tangible sense constructs were capable of sensing tangible changes. Whereas, the mind, an intangible sense consctruct, is capable of sensing intangible changes.

 

CS, this is the second time in my life that I have ever called a human being this, but you are a foolish man (or woman). And a silly one at that ...

Darrell

 

CS knew this also ... he was just being argumentative for arguments sake ... foolishly silly !!! And just plain humorous ...

Darrell