Open chat / I'm on a mission / Nektar 21 years ago

I'm on a mission

Wanna fuel discussion a little more here. As fun as solrochat is, it's a place for goofballs. Yah, that's me, but sometimes I feel like philosophizing, and the solrochat mentality doesn't cut it.

You're familiar with the Matrix right? How the world we live in is virtual and shit. There's a whole school of thought behind that.

Took philosophy of mind about a year ago. First covered Descartes, the guy who brought up dualism between mind and body. "I think therefore I am." Common cliché everyone is familiar with, but it was his way to explain how we could be assured of our own existence.

But Descartes was riddled with inconsistencies. He proposed a hypothetical situation in which a demon created Life as an illusion, and refuted it only because of his faith.

He believed the hand of God linked both mind and body when the 2 should be mutually exclusive. The body is material, the mind is immaterial. In science, the material world is causally closed. Meaning it cannot be affected by the immaterial (although the immaterial can influenced the material).

So how is it that mind can will our bodies to move? Go to a bar, and try telekinesis on an ashtray. It won't work. Yet this ashtray is just as material as our own bodies.

Dualism led to 2 alternatives, both monistic in nature:

1) Mind is nothing more than the brain itself. Which poses problems because of human sentience. Can we reduce all our thoughts to simple brain processes? How are we then different from lesser animals who lead their lives through instinct?

2) Everything is a mental projection. Hence the beauty of Matrix. How can we be sure the environment we live in is real? We have 5 senses, and these senses guide our perceptions. But who's to say our senses are absolute? Might be a lot more beneath the surface we're simply not capable of detecting.

ROzbeans 21 years ago
Nektar
Wanna fuel discussion a little more here. As fun as solrochat is, it's a place for goofballs. Yah, that's me, but sometimes I feel like philosophizing, and the solrochat mentality doesn't cut it.


You aint just whistling dixie.

Nektar

You're familiar with the Matrix right? How the world we live in is virtual and shit. There's a whole school of thought behind that.

Took philosophy of mind about a year ago. First covered Descartes, the guy who brought up dualism between mind and body. "I think therefore I am." Common cliché everyone is familiar with, but it was his way to explain how we could be assured of our own existence.

But Descartes was riddled with inconsistencies. He proposed a hypothetical situation in which a demon created Life as an illusion, and refuted it only because of his faith.

He believed the hand of God linked both mind and body when the 2 should be mutually exclusive. The body is material, the mind is immaterial. In science, the material world is causally closed. Meaning it cannot be affected by the immaterial (although the immaterial can influenced the material).

So how is it that mind can will our bodies to move? Go to a bar, and try telekinesis on an ashtray. It won't work. Yet this ashtray is just as material as our own bodies.


There are tons of websites dedicated to discussing the actuality of the Matrix. Breaking each event down and discussing the philosphy behind it. http://x-matrix.net is one, but google and you'll find tons. There was a great one on the BOR board, but it must've been on the member section because I can't find it now. Gonna have to post and ask if someone with members access can find it and post it.


Nektar

Dualism led to 2 alternatives, both monistic in nature:

1) Mind is nothing more than the brain itself. Which poses problems because of human sentience. Can we reduce all our thoughts to simple brain processes? How are we then different from lesser animals who lead their lives through instinct?

2) Everything is a mental projection. Hence the beauty of Matrix. How can we be sure the environment we live in is real? We have 5 senses, and these senses guide our perceptions. But who's to say our senses are absolute? Might be a lot more beneath the surface we're simply not capable of detecting.


K lets take the Matrix then and start with alternative #2. We all know the explanation Agent Smith gives to Morpheus. They tried creating a perfect, happy world but we rejected it. Our instincts maybe told us that just wasn't real. Does misery separate us from "lesser animals"?

Isn't it a fact that we only use like 10 percent of our brain capacity? That's something that always perplexed me. We pass down inherit emotions such as fear of the dark/unknown and love. Well what else is stored up there? Here's something interesting, remember the movie 'Dark City'? An alien race that implants different types of memories to see how we react? To see what makes us human? But sometimes it doesn't take and again maybe its instinct that forces us to resist against urges that are not our own or not within us.

Can you live your life, eyes closed dreaming of your miserable life? Of course it could be that same misery that drives a person to want more. I dont think the mind is made up of synaptic responses. I'm not a philosphy major and during the college I did take, didnt get a chance to study it. I think our brains hide much more from us than we realize. I've often entertained we do carry down our ancestors memories. Their urges, desires...even down to murderous tendencies. I think we're more than what affects us, more than what our environment exposes us to.

I think i just rambled off topic. =D
Droggen 21 years ago
He believed the hand of God linked both mind and body when the 2 should be mutually exclusive. The body is material, the mind is immaterial. In science, the material world is causally closed. Meaning it cannot be affected by the immaterial (although the immaterial can influenced the material).


I will only comment here cuz i think it is cool and i understand it. That there was a understanding of independent variables and dependent variables when dealing witht he human mind and body b4 the majority of the world believe the notion of Psychology.


Your knowledge of philisopy (sp?) is far beyond my imaginable dreams , but more power to yah man.
ssoulz 21 years ago
This is a deep one Nek. Since last night I've been trying to form a proper response to further the discussion but everytime I do... I just keep chasing my tail trying to tie up loose ends in the logic.

I will try to give input however.

1) Mind is nothing more than the brain itself. Which poses problems because of human sentience. Can we reduce all our thoughts to simple brain processes? How are we then different from lesser animals who lead their lives through instinct?


Being that I'm not a devout follower of any particular religion however I call myself spiritual, I believe strictly physically, we are not much different than lesser animals. They follow instinct as do we. They can't survive without a parent for which they rely on for training on how to survive like humans. Our mind is nothing more than the brain itself however the brain itself isn't so simple as that statement sounds but that is a discussion for when I have more time.

I believe however what you are failing to see is the trinity. Mind, Body, and Soul. The soul is what gives us existance beyond the physical world. Perhaps if you believe in reincarnation and such things, this is why there are no memories. It's like a computer being given a new hard drive. You have a new brain and body, but the soul remains the same.
Nektar 21 years ago
Being that I'm not a devout follower of any particular religion however I call myself spiritual, I believe strictly physically, we are not much different than lesser animals. They follow instinct as do we. They can't survive without a parent for which they rely on for training on how to survive like humans. Our mind is nothing more than the brain itself however the brain itself isn't so simple as that statement sounds but that is a discussion for when I have more time.


I'm gunna play devil's advocate and go on that line of reasoning. It's human arrogance to believe lesser animals are unintelligent. Some of them anyways.

My tabby for instance. Very sensitive creature who won't walk on me for some reason. Probably worried she'll hurt me, but I never taught her that. If I didn't know any better, she has a guilty conscience, and able to differentiate right from wrong to some extent (morals).

She also has a habit of racing me up the stairs. Once she ran too close, and I stepped on her foot. She meowed, but didn't give it much further thought. She knew it was an accident, and started begging for affection.

Things like that make me wonder about animal intelligence. They're obviously not as intelligent, but the grain is still there. And I think I can offer a plausible explanation.

Some 2000 years ago, this dude called Euclid came along, and proposed a geometry we use today. But let's imagine he couldn't write his theories down. Over the generations, they would become more and more distorted. Word of mouth isn't enough. There needs to be an immutable source everyone can refer to in the centuries or millenia to come.

What I'm getting at is language. Both animals and humans have some sort of oral communication. But what the former lacks is written language. It's almost like they start from scratch with each passing generation. Except for instinct that programs certain fundamental values.

Humans have instinct too. No denying that. But we have this edge because we can write. It's a bonus really. What we all share is the id:
The Id (Latin, "it" in English, "Es" in the original German) represented primary process thinking – our most primitive need gratification type thoughts. The Id, Freud stated, constitutes part of one's unconscious mind. It is organized around primitive instinctual urges of sexuality, aggression and the desire for instant gratification or release .


Added on the id is the ego and superego. It's what makes us truly sentient. As intelligent as lesser animals may be, they cannot philosophize. Their thoughts are primitive. But it could just be an issue of complexity. That we met the minimum criteria for wisdom, and a switch was suddenly flipped on.

That's why I have trouble in what to believe. The trinity confuses me even more. Now there are 3 variables that are somehow magically linked. Doesn't help when you're agnostic. The mind I can deal with, and obviously the brain.

You know, the soul might just be a misnomer for the mind. They're both supposedly immaterial, and memories can be chalked up to brain processes. Animals have memory too. Even immune systems do. So if reincarnation exists, the mind could be passed on without the necessity of soul. Perhaps explaining why some can recall past lives, because some memories slipped in the content of mind.
ROzbeans 21 years ago
I read a short story once about a woman so determined to bring back her husband, she pays millions to have her husband cloned and brought back. Only when he comes back, at the exact age that he died, the first thing out of his mouth...is a baby's wail.

?

Turns out souls exist and he got a brand new one. So more millions are spent and they discover that souls move onto new bodies being born at their exact time of death. She finds the boy that was born at the exact time of death of her husband. He's about 10 now.

Well the story continues on about the woman wanting to kill the boy and clone the husband again at the exact time..yadda yadda yadda, the scientist adopts the female child that is born at the exact time of death of the woman is. I know weird.

What are souls? Is it an age old explanation for the voices in our head? For what makes us unique? Does your cat have a soul? I bet it told you to fuck off, by the way :teehee. Is that what separates us from animals? A conscience?
Nektar 21 years ago
Maelarya
What are souls? Is it an age old explanation for the voices in our head? For what makes us unique? Does your cat have a soul? I bet it told you to fuck off, by the way :teehee. Is that what separates us from animals? A conscience?


I think certain animals have conscience. It's only a question of degree. They have the very basics. We took it one step higher.
ssoulz 21 years ago
I'm gunna play devil's advocate and go on that line of reasoning. It's human arrogance to believe lesser animals are unintelligent. Some of them anyways.


My point exactly. I wasn't saying animals aren't intelligent. Like you stated, we have written language which allows us to have collective learning. We are obviously more intelligent (capacity to learn atleast) than they are but I don't think by a whole lot.

The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice.


While you may not believe that God exists or just call yourself agnostic for lack of a better word to describe your lack of religion. I call myself spiritual because I don't follow religion but believe there is a God. I have my own relationship with God that doesn't fall under any religious practice. If you don't believe there is a God, there is little reason to believe we have souls unless ofcourse you believe in reincarnation.

Either way, logic alone can not describe much in the world. Either we just haven't figured it out yet, or we have and it's called ... God.

Who knows? I don't discount either possibility but you will get no where because you will be chasing your tail running in circles when that time could be better spend doing something else... uh like flaming on solrochat because there just isn't anything very entertaining while you are stuck at work or something.
Nektar 21 years ago
ssoulz
The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice.


That's why I'm agnostic and not atheist. I don't know what to believe in, but I do believe there is more to life than pure science.

If I had to adopt one religion, it would have to be pantheistic. Meaning god is the universe itself, and we are like cells working in his body; we're simply too inconsequential to understand the big picture. But that doesn't stop us from performing our routine operations.

Our brains, our minds, our souls, nothing more than energy that is constantly recycled.
Anulien 21 years ago
As much as I would like to provide deep insight and good argument on this interesting topic I will provide my actual thoughts instead. Being a religious person the idea of mind/body duality is very simplified.

Nektar
1) Mind is nothing more than the brain itself. Which poses problems because of human sentience. Can we reduce all our thoughts to simple brain processes? How are we then different from lesser animals who lead their lives through instinct?


Yes. Animal regression has been well studied over the course history to create 'perfect' soldiers. In fact it is an area of psychological study that recieves a grip of cash for annual research. The idea being that you have the most complex thinking machine on the planet, if you can remove emotion and train it to act on orders and instinct; remove critical analization, emotion and the idea of human preservation vs self preservation and you have one tough soldier.

What makes me different even at that points is that I am made in the image of God, made a king and priest on earth. Of all his creations I am the one given choice to accept who he is.

Ssoulz
I believe however what you are failing to see is the trinity. Mind, Body, and Soul.


I do believe in a Trinity but not this one. Mine is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Father being God, the creator of all things. Son being Jesus Christ, God born in flesh on earth. And the Holy Spirit (ie. soul, conscience) being the prescence of that being inside of me. I will never place the mind/body in the same trinity of spirit. The flesh fights the spirit because it exists in a place Satan has dominion and power in.

My viewpoints that actually get me through life are based on religous ones making any interesting feedback I could have given very simplified.

Edit:
Adding scripture refrences for presentation completness.

1 John 4:1-6 God is in us and Satan is in the world

Romans 7:14-25 Conflict of the flesh and spirit

Genesis 1: 26-28 Created in the likeliness of the creator and given power in the world
ssoulz 21 years ago
And eventually, this would come to religion...
Anulien 21 years ago
ssoulz
And eventually, this would come to religion...


Always expect religion to come up when questions of existence, reality or causality come into play being that most religions offer the simplified answer.
Nektar 21 years ago
Anulien
What makes me different even at that points is that I am made in the image of God, made a king and priest on earth. Of all his creations I am the one given choice to accept who he is.


No offense, but I think this is human arrogance at its finest. In the grand scheme of things, we're nothing. Dust in the wind. But for some reason, the power of mind makes us think we're divine. We're not.
Anulien 21 years ago
Nektar
Anulien
What makes me different even at that points is that I am made in the image of God, made a king and priest on earth. Of all his creations I am the one given choice to accept who he is.


No offense, but I think this is human arrogance at its finest. In the grand scheme of things, we're nothing. Dust in the wind. But for some reason, the power of mind makes us think we're divine. We're not.


Sorry but these are the words of God. Human arrogance would be me trying to explain the world any different than has been presented by God.

Genesis 1 AKJ

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Nektar 21 years ago
Anulien
Nektar
Anulien
What makes me different even at that points is that I am made in the image of God, made a king and priest on earth. Of all his creations I am the one given choice to accept who he is.


No offense, but I think this is human arrogance at its finest. In the grand scheme of things, we're nothing. Dust in the wind. But for some reason, the power of mind makes us think we're divine. We're not.


Sorry but these are the words of God. Human arrogance would be me trying to explain the world any different than has been presented by God.

Genesis 1 AKJ

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.


This is the one major problem I see in religious folk. Quoting holy scriptures when those scriptures don't mean a damn to me. They were written by humans, and humans are inherently flawed.
Anulien 21 years ago
Nektar
This is the one major problem I see in religious folk. Quoting holy scriptures when those scriptures don't mean a damn to me. They were written by humans, and humans are inherently flawed.


This statment acts as a double edged sword to you. If you discount one writing as false because 'humans are inherently flawed' would you then not be required by the same logic to discount all writings? And on the same note, all scientific study? Is the statement 'Humans are inherently flawed so any system devised from human understanding is flawed' going to be what we come to?
Nektar 21 years ago
Anulien
Nektar
This is the one major problem I see in religious folk. Quoting holy scriptures when those scriptures don't mean a damn to me. They were written by humans, and humans are inherently flawed.


This statment acts as a double edged sword to you. If you discount one writing as false because 'humans are inherently flawed' would you then not be required by the same logic to discount all writings? And on the same note, all scientific study? Is the statement 'Humans are inherently flawed so any system devised from human understanding is flawed' going to be what we come to?


The passages you quoted are not backed up by logic. Not in the slightest. They're nothing more than beliefs, asserted by ordinary humans. Why should I believe them?
Anulien 21 years ago
Nektar
Anulien
Nektar
This is the one major problem I see in religious folk. Quoting holy scriptures when those scriptures don't mean a damn to me. They were written by humans, and humans are inherently flawed.


This statment acts as a double edged sword to you. If you discount one writing as false because 'humans are inherently flawed' would you then not be required by the same logic to discount all writings? And on the same note, all scientific study? Is the statement 'Humans are inherently flawed so any system devised from human understanding is flawed' going to be what we come to?


The passages you quoted are not backed up by logic. Not in the slightest. They're nothing more than beliefs, asserted by ordinary humans. Why should I believe them?


The same reason to believe anything, religous or not, faith. You've already made logic an irrelevent discussion with your 'humans are inherently flawed' statement, so whats left after logic?
Nektar 21 years ago
Anulien
The same reason to believe anything, religous or not, faith. You've already made logic an irrelevent discussion with your 'humans are inherently flawed' statement, so whats left after logic?


If logic is irrelevant, then why bother argue?
tamaelia 21 years ago
Jumping right in here :)

The bible claims to be the inspired word of god. It claims infalibility. It demands acceptance without proof other than faith. It speaks in prophecies and parables that are interpreted by priests and scholars and whom argue continually over the interpretations. Yet the words are inspired of a perfect god. There should be no confusion when you are dealing with perfection.

A scientific journal or paper doesn't claim to be inpired of anything. It admits falibility in the face of greater learning. It provides proofs of its propositions. It speaks in logical, methodical, repeatable terms. When theories are challenged and proved wrong, knowledge is expanded.

Curiously, when religion gets involved in science, people like Galileo get killed for heresy.

My money is on science.