the two souls

Originally posted by karoly aczel
The "ghost in the machine" theory has its problems too, but I think its on the right track to understanding who we are.
After all none of the scientists can find anywhere in the body that could be called an observer. Its quite a problem for Newtonian scientists .

After all none of the scientists can find anywhere in the body that could be called an observer. Its quite a problem for Newtonian scientists .

Of course they won't find an observer! There is no ghost in the machine, the ghost is the machine.

If you wanted to understand a car engine, you could analyse the function of each component of the engine but you would not find the component that powers the car, because there isn't one. Powering the car is what the whole engine does.

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by Penguin
[b]After all none of the scientists can find anywhere in the body that could be called an observer. Its quite a problem for Newtonian scientists .

Of course they won't find an observer! There is no ghost in the machine, the ghost is the machine.

If you wanted to understand a car engine, you could analyse the function of each component ...[text shortened]... car, because there isn't one. Powering the car is what the whole engine does.

--- Penguin.[/b]

Nicely put. Which means that the observer is not physical and cannot be in any relation to any physical aspect of the (physical) body.

All tendencies to formation are doomed to fail beaause they also cause their inevitable counter-formations.

Having said that I dont think its bad to tell srories. Telling the truth deems to transend time and space. It opens the way for beloved to meet the lover.

To die a 'white death' .

Sorry , dear reader, but once you have come to my point of understanding,ie. that every single thing is about Zen, you cant really worry too much about any of the tendencies to formation any more.
Sure you make your chess moves. Feed the cat. Do what you have to do. But the 'thing' is in the 'doing' not the result attached to that 'doing' .

in the beginning mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. On the way to enlightenment mountains are no longer mountains and rivers no longer rivers.
After enlightenment mountains are mountains again and rivers are rivers again.

Originally posted by PBE6
I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but that baby is that baby. Were you referring to reincarnation? If so, no, no person who has lived before is inhabiting that baby, seeing out through that babies eyes. That baby is just that baby, nothing more, nothing less.

You said that “Every idea you just used, including physical systems, spiritual realms, paradox, and even the language you used and the grammar/syntax you used to organize your thoughts, was the product of meat thinking.”

Methinks it is not the “product of meat thinking” because the mental phenomena are not just material processes for the material is not more fundamental than the mental. We can reduce everything to physics but we still cannot find the inner connections between matter and mind. Our science becomes better but methinks we are still unable to offer a gradual reduction of the mental to the physical. We are able to bring up theories about the way our brain works but we are still in the dark regarding the meaning of its processing. Our mental concepts have not yet been reduced to physical ones, that is.
All in all, you do not accept that your mind is patterned after your image because your mind is idle; once your mind were ultra smart you would claim that it is patterned after your image.

So: that new born baby -You, when You were just born- and yourself right now, are the same person?
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
You said that “Every idea you just used, including physical systems, spiritual realms, paradox, and even the language you used and the grammar/syntax you used to organize your thoughts, was the product of meat thinking.”

If I am reducible to my brain, to what is my brain reducible? What ultimately am I the product of?

This is correlationism: to say that an object is merely a bundle of qualities, rather than a thing in its own right. I can distinguish between the organ in my skull (my brain) and myself. Is my brain capable of the same? My brain is a thing, I am a thing with a brain. My brain has its own mysterious existence, to which I am not privy ... although I can look at pictures produced by instruments that monitor the brain. Ha ha ha.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
If I am reducible to my brain, to what is my brain reducible? What ultimately am I the product of?

This is correlationism: to say that an object is merely a bundle of qualities, rather than a thing in its own right. I can distinguish between the organ in my skull (my brain) and myself. Is my brain capable of the same? My brain is a thing, I am a thi ...[text shortened]... vy ... although I can look at pictures produced by instruments that monitor the brain. Ha ha ha.

Sure thing -I am who I am and I am not my brain and I am not my thoughts just as I am not my hands and I am not my ears.

Who are you?
😵

Originally posted by Penguin
[b]After all none of the scientists can find anywhere in the body that could be called an observer. Its quite a problem for Newtonian scientists .

Of course they won't find an observer! There is no ghost in the machine, the ghost is the machine.

If you wanted to understand a car engine, you could analyse the function of each component ...[text shortened]... car, because there isn't one. Powering the car is what the whole engine does.

--- Penguin.[/b]

Yeah, but the car still needs a driver.

I happily accept that 'I' am powered by my brain, but to say that 'I am my brain' seems problematically reductionist. But I don't think 'I am ... ' is a sentence that can be completed, existentially speaking -- unless to say: 'I' is a grammatical convention.

Originally posted by black beetle
Sure thing -I am who I am and I am not my brain and I am not my thoughts just as I am not my hands and I am not my ears.

Who are you?
😵

I am here.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I am here.

Are you still in Leningrad?
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Are you still in Leningrad?
😵

The Winter War has claimed many lives, but the struggle continues.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The Winter War has claimed many lives, but the struggle continues.

You don't have to go to the mountain😵

Originally posted by black beetle
You said that “Every idea you just used, including physical systems, spiritual realms, paradox, and even the language you used and the grammar/syntax you used to organize your thoughts, was the product of meat thinking.”

Methinks it is not the “product of meat thinking” because the mental phenomena are not just material processes for the material is ...[text shortened]... at new born baby -You, when You were just born- and yourself right now, are the same person?
😵

Methinks it is not the “product of meat thinking” because the mental phenomena are not just material processes for the material is not more fundamental than the mental.

This is quite an assumption. If you can demonstrate empirically that thinking can be done without a physical substrate, not only will you prove me wrong but you'll probably win a Nobel Prize!

We can reduce everything to physics but we still cannot find the inner connections between matter and mind.

That's because matter, arranged in a particularly fascinating way, is the mind. I believe your assumption is what's known as a category error.

Our science becomes better but methinks we are still unable to offer a gradual reduction of the mental to the physical. We are able to bring up theories about the way our brain works but we are still in the dark regarding the meaning of its processing. Our mental concepts have not yet been reduced to physical ones, that is.

The science is not yet done, that is undeniable. But is there any ongoing scientific research that presupposes something other than the brain is doing the thinking? I'd be very curious to read it. I also know that a multitude of brain-damage patients and their families would give anything to have their lives back, maybe the fruits of this scientific research would give hope to millions.

All in all, you do not accept that your mind is patterned after your image because your mind is idle; once your mind were ultra smart you would claim that it is patterned after your image.

What does this mean? What does "image" refer to here?

So: that new born baby -You, when You were just born- and yourself right now, are the same person?

I hope I'm not being tricky here, but the answer if of course yes and no. Yes, the entity that identifies itself as me (not a general "me", but me specifically) is the same entity that existed when I was born, in the sense that this entity has progressed continuously into the entity that I am today. Of course, I have undergone many changes since my birth, so to say that I am "the same person" is not quite correct, but my continuous progression marks me as the same entity. By way of analogy, consider a continuous curve in the process of being drawn. The moment of my birth would be a particular point on that curve, call it "b". My current existence is the endpoint of the curve, call it "c". If you're asking whether "b" equals "c", the answer is no. However, if you're asking whether "b" and "c" lie on the same curve, the answer is yes.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Yeah, but the car still needs a driver.

I happily accept that 'I' am powered by my brain, but to say that 'I am my brain' seems problematically reductionist. But I don't think 'I am ... ' is a sentence that can be completed, existentially speaking -- unless to say: 'I' is a grammatical convention.

The brain is the only thing doing the thinking. We know this because if you remove the brain, all evidence of thinking stops.

I agree with you that "I am my brain" sounds wrong, mainly because your brain is just a part of you. "I am my mind" is a little more acceptable, although it doesn't encompass certain things about you like your appearance, your actions, your history as seen by others, etc... Maybe "I am me" is the best we can do, it's sufficiently vague enough to permit almost anything but still excludes anything that isn't "me".

Originally posted by PBE6
[b]Methinks it is not the “product of meat thinking” because the mental phenomena are not just material processes for the material is not more fundamental than the mental.

This is quite an assumption. If you can demonstrate empirically that thinking can be done without a physical substrate, not only will you prove me wrong but you'll probably win a Nobe ...[text shortened]... re asking whether "b" and "c" lie on the same curve, the answer is yes.[/b]

I ‘m glad we agree that the baby/ person when you were born is neither the same person as your adult self nor different than that person. But who is that person of yours?
Methinks that curve -your illustration regarding your continuous progression- is related with the progression of your hair, of your nails, teeth, skin, muscles, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, serous membranes, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, stomach, excrement, the bile, phlegm, pus, blood, grease, fat, tears, sweat, spittle, snot, fluid of the joints, urine and the brain in your skull. Should I conclude now that all these things are the real You?
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
I ‘m glad we agree that the baby/ person when you were born is neither the same person as your adult self nor different than that person. But who is that person of yours?
Methinks that curve -your illustration regarding your continuous progression- is related with the progression of your hair, of your nails, teeth, skin, muscles, sinews, bones, marrow, ...[text shortened]... e and the brain in your skull. Should I conclude now that all these things are the real You?
😵

The baton of consciousness!

Originally posted by PBE6
[b]Methinks it is not the “product of meat thinking” because the mental phenomena are not just material processes for the material is not more fundamental than the mental.

This is quite an assumption. If you can demonstrate empirically that thinking can be done without a physical substrate, not only will you prove me wrong but you'll probably win a Nobe ...[text shortened]... re asking whether "b" and "c" lie on the same curve, the answer is yes.[/b]

edit: "This is quite an assumption. If you can demonstrate empirically that thinking can be done without a physical substrate, not only will you prove me wrong but you'll probably win a Nobel Prize!"

The physical substrate is necessary for the process of thinking, but the physical substrate is a mind-only field of energy arranged in a particularly fascinating way that has the shape of matter. The physical world as we know it is not made out of objects but it is a sensory mega-mechanism that we grasp thanks to our senses. It is my knowledge that the universe is a field of energy that has its centre everywhere and its periphery nowhere; when this energy is condensed it becomes nebulous, when it is spread it penetrates everything, when it takes shape it becomes matter and when matter looses its shape it becomes energy again. Life is just a specific action in a given form -it is a schema that rises from chaos and keeps its permanence/ order just for a while, for as long as it keeps its given form. So, if you get a functional brain out of a functional skull and put it in a jar you will face difficulties whilst trying to show that it is still able to think although functional it remains.



edit: "The science is not yet done, that is undeniable. But is there any ongoing scientific research that presupposes something other than the brain is doing the thinking? I'd be very curious to read it. I also know that a multitude of brain-damage patients and their families would give anything to have their lives back, maybe the fruits of this scientific research would give hope to millions."

I don’t know if there is such a scientific research;



edit: What does this mean? What does "image" refer to here?

I mean that our interpretations are made according to our nature, and our nature is the evaluation of the mind;
😵