The nature of Mind

Hikaru,

Are you a naturalist,as stated here?

Is it possible that humans are on a lesser scale of "knowledge" than ants? Because we do not have this Oneness among our brethren? And, if we ever gain that Oneness ... will Humanity (as One) end up being just a little ant farm to some higher being? Will that higher being be an ant to an even greater being? Will that madness ever end? This is why I preach "scope."

How is our existance defined? Only within the world we live in, correct? We are HUMAN. That is, our existances are defined as being whatever human is. We don't know exactly what that means, to be human, yet. But, I think it is foolish to think about higher existance. As humans, we ARE human, and nothing more. And that, as humans, we should do what we can with what we have, the best way we know how. And that if we don't achiveve enlightenment, if we don't obtain Oneness, if we don't become a god, then that should be alright. After all, we are defined as HUMAN, are we not?

Or do you believe in universal transcendent metaphysics, as stated here?

Now, I realize many people are going to chew me out for believing in this entity simply due to a powerful psychoactive trip, but ... I find it odd to encounter the exacting essence of this entity on multiple voyages into that void, and I also find it odd that so many others have experienced that entity as well. So I am not alone in basing my beliefs off of it.

I see a being/entity which I will call "Gaia" to deviate from "God," since that word brings on many misconceptions about the entity I am referring to.

This being, Gaia, exists on two planes, a physical plane, and an astral/ethereal plane. On the physical plane, Gaia is all matter within this universe; the planets, the suns, the black holes, the physics and laws, and all of the phenomena of the universe. On the ethereal plane, Gaia exists as a universal consciousness, or at least as a single conscious being.

We, each of us individually, including all animals, and self-aware beings, including those unknown to us, we are all aware of the self and aware of the world around us. That is, we are all naturally aware of Gaia and the presence of that entity (I refrain from using "she" as a pronoun for Gaia, since Gaia is not necessarily feminine, though I would imagine Gaia has more feminine qualities than masculine, or at least feminine qualities that stand out more).

I believe that our existance is also two-fold. That we exist on a material plane, and also on the same ethereal one that Gaia exists on. In our material plane, we have concepts such as length, width, and breadth. In the ethereal plane, these concepts may very well not exist at all, and only concepts such as "spirit," or rather, "feeling/emotion" exist.


You should have no fear of being chewed out for believing in something existing on a metaphysical transcendant level, Plato called this the eternal forms. Aristotle did not dispute the universals but claimed that they did not exist in a transcendent realm. Actually most philosophers throughout time believed in a transcendent realm that they admitted they couldn't fully comprehend up until William from Ockam. Ockam's nominalism and denial of universal transcendents ushered in the Renaissance and the expansion of growth and trade and materialism that you don't seem very fond of. Once we remove ultimate virtue (as existing outside of ourselves), goodness and right and wrong, all we are left to measure ourselves against is each other = relativism. Relativism allows people to make such claims as "I am Catholic" and "I believe mass murder is OK" and see no contradiction because there are no universals to measure against.

 

I am kind of both, quotient.

I live my life kind of like a naturalist. But I believe that underneath it all, we may be more than just the product of millions of chemical reactions. I have my own theories of possibilities of what existances are like, and I have a generally panentheist-like outlook on life, which is why I call myself a Gaian-panentheist. But ultimately, I live my life regardless of what I consider a plausible possibility of the way things are, as I have no proof, material or ethereal, that anything exists other than in this universe. Which is why I don't live my life as if something was "out there."

I suppose it was incorrect to say that I believe SPECIFICALLY in that being ... I believe in the possibility of Gaia, and the probability that, if anything exists out there, it would probably be that, at least in my mind. But that doesn't hold true to others, and I certainly can't prove it, so for now it remains a product of my imagination.

Also, Catholicism disallows belief that murder is good, because of the ten commandments, does it not? Thus, there would indeed be a contradiction, unless the person's definition of Catholicism is purely wrong (and by wrong, I speak of Catholicism as it is widely defined amongst humans to be, not as it is defined -- interpreted -- by a single person).

 

BlackBill

Disagree..Minds may be conscious..But not self aware.
An ant [hello old friend] is conscious in that mind interprets senses and reacts to them in 'near' realtime.
A fly is quite conscious of your hand comming to squash it..If it were not.
It would not try to get out of the way. [and it usually gets away because it's subjective realtime runs at a different rate to ours]
However...A fly does not know what your hand IS. For it has no 'reason'
[]
to ask the question 'what is that?'

A conscious mind MAY be self aware.
A 'self aware mind' MUST be conscious.

Consciousnes means an entity has a co-ordinating sensorium.
That exist near wholely in 'realtime'..the NOW...
While as we well know...Human beings spend a whole lot of there existance thinking about past and future. [the bobsy twins of conceptual thought]
Occam posits that self aware consciousness is the abillity to conceptualise self and place that self in a processing reality.

An example is death. How do we know we are going to die?
Because we can conceptualise the thing called time/motion.
And our embedded position in it.

Yet an animal runs from danger. Not because it's conscious mind says so.
But because hardwired genetic coding transcribed to the architecture of the brain.
Results in an automatic response in the mind 'below' conscious level.

Our legs start pumping before we fully realise the danger.
Adrenalin is self injeted before we fully comprehend...

Nature KNOWS about the reality of processing reality.
For it is embedded in it.

Occam

 

Quotient

Or
The truth hurts.

To be more precise.
The only moral codes we have to measure against are our own.
There do not appear to be any absolute moral codes.
There are quite a few physical ones [objective laws]
But no objectively APPLIED moral laws.

Aside from the root life/ego desire to survive.

As the self styled 'civilised beings' of earth.
As the race of rational beings that we call ourselves.
We all must agree on one thing.
That each human being has an inherent right to life.
And an inherent right to protect that life..

The problem comes from the old conundrum.
Do we sacrifice the lives of the few. to save the many.

This is a question of the MANY..our species.
Because even if we say that one should be lost so the many may
survive...What if the one, has understanding of greater benefit to
humanity than the many who his life is lost for..?

Infinite regression..

MORALITY. Is a prime interface between reason and emotion.
Maybe THE prime interface.

Occam has no RIGHT answers..Only 'least painfull ones' . [sometimes]
Human morality is something we have to work out between ourselves..
No-one else will.

This is too much for most people. That is why religion exists.

Occam

 

I agree - and that brings me back to my original position that 'mind' is a purely linguistic/symbolic structure.
The fly and the doggie may have a co-ordinating centre, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has a mind.
A fly is probably not conscious of it's own existence. A dog would seem to be.
So to coin a phrase, what makes us different is not only that we know, but we know that we know.

As you say, an animal runs from danger, and that is an instinctive reaction, triggered by it's internal chemistry. The same thing happens in humans - indeed, this very 'fight or flight' reaction is thought to be the basis of anxiety in humans.
My own view is that we have all the instinctive reactive nature of the animal in us, but it is overlaid by lingistic and sub-linguistic cultural conditioning. Sometimes, as with the fear reaction, the instinctive side assumes temporary dominance in the overall psyche - but even then, it is usually 'rationalized' fairly rapidly.

 

I mostly agree with this. There are well defined examples of human instinct, especially in infants, before the cultural conditioning takes over. Such as the instinct to cry for food, the instinct to hold their breath under water, even the first breath is an instinctive reaction to encountering a breathable environment for the first time.

Our mind allows us to override our natural instincts, although the basics still survive in the majority of people, (the desire to procreate, the desire to protect our offspring - just two examples of very strong instincts - i'd postulate that love for our spouses is the manifestation of our inbuilt instinct for a, and our love for our offspring is the manifestation of our inbuilt instinct for b). In fact, i could go so far as saying that all human emotion is just an expression of our in built instincts.

The majority of animals have the ability to learn - a cat has the ability to learn - mine can open doors - they know what a door is, they know that when they open it they'll get to the other side, they also remember exactly where their food bowl should be once they are through that door, run straight to where it should be, even if its not there at the time, so they are quite clearly not instinctively sensing it. They just have less of an ability to learn than us, most probably due to their small brain size, so cannot develop language, or culture.

Basically on a chemical level, our brain works the same as any other mammal, its just more "evolved" - for want of a better word - hence our mind is just a more evolved version of theirs. How far ahead that evolution is is debatable, but its plainly clear that our intelligent mind is what gave us our evolutionary advantage, in the same way a cheetahs speed give it his - and that for me, is all there is to it.

 

Occam says

The truth hurts.

To be more precise.
The only moral codes we have to measure against are our own.
There do not appear to be any absolute moral codes.
There are quite a few physical ones [objective laws]
But no objectively APPLIED moral laws.


1) what is truth?
2) can you define absolute moral code v physical objective law v applied moral law
Certainly there are universally agreed upon morals other than right to life, though they may be difficult to define and vary by cultural definition, for example beauty and virtue or the ability to understand, even though I disagree with the latter at this time.

Occam writes

The problem comes from the old conundrum.
Do we sacrifice the lives of the few. to save the many.

This is a question of the MANY..our species.
Because even if we say that one should be lost so the many may
survive...What if the one, has understanding of greater benefit to
humanity than the many who his life is lost for..?

This appears to be a False Dilemma, However I will accept it as a proposal that some decisions have an exclusive middle with "bad" results on either side.

Well, Occam says,
Human morality is something we have to work out between ourselves..
No-one else will.

I believe from the form of the original conundrum, question with exclusive middle that 1)for "one to be lost" is bad and also 2)to "lose the many" would be bad and also 3)to lose one who "if he has understanding of greater benefit ..." would be bad.

Aside from the root life/ego desire to survive.

The first 2 I assume you accept as bad because life is lost and this is tied to the only stated accepted universal moral, yet for 3, to lose someone who if he has understanding is also bad?
Why is this bad? because we have lost someone with understanding....

Then this would be another accepted moral, to lose someone with understanding is bad,

yet somehow this implies that to lose someone without understanding is not quite so bad, however this would violate the original, only moral, that loss of life is bad.

This is too much for most people. That is why religion exists.

Minimally I would ask, is the desire for survival the only moral?
It appears in your statement that having understanding is at least as moral
But this does not hold universally as Socrates surely could have not drank but left, you choose the other examples. Surely he was moral and would have made a moral choice.
Is the abiltiy to understand a universal moral? even supreme to the right to exist as it appeared above?

Religion exists because it is a philosophy that seems to anwer many of life's questions for many people which is also the reason that nominalism exist.

I suppose that many religious people would claim that following a religous code of some sort requires self sacrifice and discipline instead of self worship and that....

This is too much for most people. That is why nominalism exist.

But that wouldn't be a very convincing argument in itself, it would just be a snobish comment indicating that one set of beliefs is better than the other, which I guess is not possible without universal morals.

Empiricism assumes that experience will tell us what we are experiencing.
What is truth?

 

If we sense and perceive through our "soul," what does it tell us that we can make ourselves perceive utterly imaginary things by inducing reactions via certain chemicals?

I can sit in the dentist's chair with nitrous oxide flowing into my lungs and my brain, and it can make me feel like my eyes are closed even though they are wide open and staring into a bright light. It can make me feel like my limbs are taffy, melting into each other as my hands are crossed on my chest. It can make me hear warbles in people's voices when their voices are not actually warbling.

Anesthesia can make me go to sleep even though I am not tired -- even though I may fight not to go to sleep.

If you slice out part of my brain, you can make me be a totally different person!

What bearing does this have on the legitimacy of the claim that we have souls?

I would love -- LOVE -- to believe that we have an immortal, unkillable, invulnerable, ethereal soul. To have such a thing would make all worry utterly inconsequential. It would bring ultimate peace. The problem is, I see so much evidence to the contrary, that I can't put anything close to "faith" in the idea that we have souls.

If a truly loving and understanding and forgiving god really existed, why would he set us up to live lives of torment, fear and worry, not knowing what we are made of? That would give the big lie to the claim that he's so freakin' loving and stuff. As it is, if god really created us, he's a vindictive motherfucker. Read Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth" to understand just what a twisted shit god must be.

The whole text is here:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm

-Jeffrey

 

I completely agree.

It's difficult, maybe impossible, to conceive of the mind without language. How would you "think" of something, anything at all, if not with symbolic "sounds" in your head to represent words, which represent the concepts you are thinking of?

I suppose that one could string together "films" in one's head, like silent movies. That would be really difficult. What if you were to try to call up the mental image of the face of a friend's mother? How would you seek through your memories without at least thinking to yourself -- using language -- "Picture Matt's mom's face"? What if you were trying to think of a given actress' name? How can you do it without "hearing" actresses' names in your head?

[/quote]Language gives us the power of abstract reflection, and without that, it seems to me can be nothing we would recognize as mind.[/QUOTE]
Fascinating thing to think about, and yes, I agree with you pretty completely.

-Jeffrey

 

Language gives us the power of abstract reflection, and without that, it seems to me can be nothing we would recognize as mind.[/QUOTE]
Fascinating thing to think about, and yes, I agree with you pretty completely.

-Jeffrey[/QUOTE]

Well, the actress' name is a linguistic construct. So it is impossible to have concepts such as "names" without language.

That doesn't mean, though, that the mind cannot be rational without language. One could feel pain, and feel that it hurts, and realize that they don't want to feel pain, without being able to talk, or without knowing any words or sounds whatsoever. There are certain abstract concepts that allow rationalizing without someone placing a name on them. More abstract concepts can be thought about if language does exist, but that doesn't mean the mind is devoid of it if language doesn't exist.

 

I am not at all convinced that rationality plays any part in the process of registering pain or any other sensation, other than as an 'after the fact' thing. A human being feels pain and can react before the rational mind has had time to intervene. If I put my hand in a flame, I will withdraw it instantly, and only describe the experience to myself in rational, linguistic terms afterwards. It is not logic that makes me pull my hand back, but instinctive reaction.

An animal would react similarly, but without the intellectual 'post mortem'.

I don't think myself that we can equate instinctive reactions necessarily with mind. Plants also react to changing cues from their environment, albiet more slowly.

Rationality seems to me to be wholly part of a symbolic order, dependent on language for both its basis and its function.

"There are certain abstract concepts that allow rationalizing without someone placing a name on them" so you say. But I'm not sure what you mean by this.
How can a concept exist unless it has a 'name' and unless it is formulated in linguistic terms?

 

True enough, that it may be an instinctive reaction, but those instinctive reactions are products of rationality, are they not? We would all be dead if we weren't born with the ability to quickly react to the realization that we are in pain and need to get away from or stop whatever is causing the pain.

I think in most animals, instincts are definately a lot more powerful than rationality, because their minds aren't capable of higher rationalization such as human minds are. However, I can't say that this makes them completely devoid of rationality.

 

I would say that we don't realize we are in pain then react, but that the reaction happens prior to any thought.
I don't see how instinctive reactions could possibly be products of rationality. It's more likely that reason is a refinement of unconscious instinct that is unique to human beings. Humans can learn to control their impulses, and can see the necessity of doing so because of the capacity for abstract thought and self-consciousness.

The way animals act is instinctive - but we look at it and say it seems rational. But thats only us applying our subjective reason to reality. Because the behaviour seems rational to us, doesn't mean that it does to the animal.

 

True, but have you ever had a dog? One that, if you were feeling really shitty or really depressed, or ended up crying because something was wrong, the dog would come over and sit by you, or start licking you or rest its head on you? I'm sorry, but I fail to have the ability to see that as instinct; that's both emotion and rationality; the emotion to care about you, and the rationality to know you need a friend. =)

Edit: And a dog does all this not knowing what "love," or "comfort," or "friend," mean. Perhaps many animals are incapable of doing this the same way a canine does, but I think that it still exists, at least in a small form, in each creature.

 

This doesn't prove at all that dogs are rational. It simply shows they are adaptive.

 

quotient

Sorry it took so long to reply

1}what is truth.

In this case.. that we must make our own moral codes.
Who else will..and enforce them?

This appears to be a False Dilemma, However I will accept it as a proposal that some decisions have an exclusive middle with "bad" results on either side.

At first,,yes it does...but it is actually about the ballance between
'many lives' ,,and a 'racial benefit'
And that answers all the rest of your post as well.

WHo would you save...
*1 million innocent children.
*Or one human who knew how to extend human lifespans by 200 years
and make us immune to all virii and bacteria...?

Human Morality is a yinyang of mind and heart...reason and desire..
Occam does not believe it can ever be logically understood.
Logic/reason can be 'applied' to it...but cannot BE it. For a morality of pure logic would be 'efficient' as nazism only dreamed of being.

Occam

 

Occam-

Do these moral codes arise because we learn to live within the laws of the physical universe?
Does living within these physical laws give arise to the need for moral codes to live happily?
Is it good to have physical laws that constrain and guide us into morality and active caring?

 

Kharakov

Physical laws are but the structure of the reality we are embedded in..
They do not 'guide' us anywhere.
They simply establish what is possible [or not.]..
We guide ourselves by the desire not to die stepping off a cliff.

Reality does not care if we exist..but we do.

WE, make the moral laws we live by and have done so for all
human history. Even if some say 'a' morality came from the bible..
well WE wrote the bible [and left a lot out we didnt like]

Morality is what WE make it. For human morality is not a 'thing' .
No more than beauty or justice.

It is a product of rational common sense,,and emotion/desire.

Occam

 

To me the fact that I would hurt myself and others by disregarding physical laws guides me into morality (which is loving action). Without physical laws I could push my mom over a cliff and not worry about the consequences. I couldn't learn to care for others without any laws restraining me. Physical law is a necessary part of my education, along with emotional law.

I know that I can make a child cry by being scary (or pretending to be mean), but with kids who are comfortable with me, it just makes them laugh or giggle.

Actually God does care that we exist, and we do.

Spckam, I agree.

As physical and emotional laws are written into our souls we become more understanding and complete. It put's the lotion on it's skin or it gets hosed.

 

Kharakov.

Occam exists because of the physical laws
He is guided into morality by social conditioning
He has a current code of ethics/morality through undersanding and free will.

Linking morality to the physical laws is saying

"morals exist because there is existant reality"

Patently true... but everything else in reality can make the same claim.

You are guided into morallity just like occam was..by the acts/words of
your parents and society.

Occam