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Kniva
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 Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 11:43 am Post subject: |
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Pardon, is this directed at me? What does this have to do with the topic (in a non-trivial closer sense)?
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Philosophos
When we look at you, we see an asshole
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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| baddogma wrote: | | My female lab is a little out of your league... |
You already said that your wife was unwilling.
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| r_kamikaze wrote: | | Everytime I see you post I just wanna punch someone. |
| stromboli wrote: | | As always, you make meaningful and thoughtful contributions to the forum. |
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baddogma
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Philosophos wrote: | | baddogma wrote: | | My female lab is a little out of your league... |
You already said that your wife was unwilling. |
 Nice!
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Just as a magician is the least likely to believe in magic, those that are least likely to believe in the supernatural, are those that most understand the natural.
A prayer for men:
I'm a man......I can change....if I have to.....I guess....-Red Green |
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Philosophos
When we look at you, we see an asshole
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:08 pm Post subject: Re: Vipassana Can Be Sad & Depressing |
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| Kniva wrote: | | Philosophos wrote: | | I've gotten to the point in my practice where I can occasionally be somewhat mindful of daily activities. However, when I do so, it kinda freaks me out, primarily because I realize that all intents to perform actions are coming from some part of my brain that I can't see. At this time, it also seems to me that my thoughts arise unwilled. With this comes the realization that I'm not really causing my thoughts in a conscious way. |
But isn't this perfectly normal? Our brains get constantly input from our surroundings, how can we really control this? |
Ha - that's kinda funny. I'm not talking about "input" from surroundings, but am talking about thought and emotion as if it is a sense. What you said is funny because Western psychology does not normal talk about things like thoughts as "input" from surroundings. However, Buddhist psychology in the form of the abhidhamma does: it states that the the things that makes consciousness arise is a "sense door" making "contact" with an object. In Buddhism, there are 6 senses: the tradional five plus mind. Thus, Buddhism treats what's going on in our heads as any other sense. Thus, what you said above corresponds with Buddhist psychology.
As a solid example: seeing a chair is contact between the sight sense door and the physical object. OTOH, imagining an image of a chair is contact between the mind sense door and a mental formation.
| Quote: | | I don't think there is such a thing as "will" at all, just preference. What would actually qualify "will" in comparison to unconsciously conditioned preferences? |
I would say having the experience of choosing to think a thought would be will. In daily life, however, I find this to be a surprisingly rare phenomenon.
| Quote: | | I don't buy this epiphenomenalism thing: consciousness obviously can cause physical phenomena, though it's power might be more limited than we usually think. But even if it would be this way: What would this cognition change practically in everyday life? And isn't an epiphenomenon comprehending itself somehow contradictionary? |
You're right. I was attempting to make an analogy with Western philosophy of mind that wasn't precise and probably went too far.
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| r_kamikaze wrote: | | Everytime I see you post I just wanna punch someone. |
| stromboli wrote: | | As always, you make meaningful and thoughtful contributions to the forum. |
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Kniva
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| Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:32 am Post subject: |
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Excuse my delayed response
I think that the mind is actually the only real sense we have, as the supposition to any sensual experience is consciousness. I'm rather coming from the physicalist-reductionist side in that matter, because i think that we cannot think independantly from our surroundings. Physically, the mind is an entirely determined process (QM rules don't play any role in the Brain, so no chance for quantum indeterminism) that is linked to systems (organs) that interact with our surrounding as a closed process, so the similarity to Buddhism seems indeed inevitable.
| Quote: | | I would say having the experience of choosing to think a thought would be will. In daily life, however, I find this to be a surprisingly rare phenomenon. |
Do you think a brain that is totally cut off from any sensation would develope consciousness? However, i believe that a consciousness that came into existance due to sensual perception would still work, if it's suddenly cut off from perception, but then it would still think in the way it has learned it through dealing with perceptions. I don't know what this has to do with the topic lol, but that's what comes to my mind.
BTW i find it interesting to imagine a state of mind, that would simulate a brain which gained it's consciousness without ever having experienced any sort of perception. I think this has something to do with how the human consciousness learns to distinguish between "me" and "my surroundings", because this is actually how the consciousness comprehends that it exists. I think this has to be necessarily illusionary, because physically, there is no way to spatially separate a process of thinking between brain, body and the physical world it interacts with. It's a closed system that wouldn't work if it's cut off at any position. Even if we reduce it to the brain, there are spatially separated parts of the brain that need to interact so the consciousness comes into existance. So the question is for me, if the apparatus of thinking can be localised in a strict sense. I don't think it's possible and this suggests that the "self" is actually illusionary, but of course necessary to keep the system intact. Maybe it's just like a wheel or a set of wheels in a pulley. |
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Philosophos
When we look at you, we see an asshole
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:31 am Post subject: |
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| Kniva wrote: | | Do you think a brain that is totally cut off from any sensation would develope consciousness? |
No. But I do think that it's somewhat of an open question whether an artificial intelligence could be developed totally cut off from any sensation (or the artificial equivalent thereof).
| Quote: | | However, i believe that a consciousness that came into existance due to sensual perception would still work, if it's suddenly cut off from perception, but then it would still think in the way it has learned it through dealing with perceptions. I don't know what this has to do with the topic lol, but that's what comes to my mind. |
That was discussed somewhat in this thread.
| Quote: | | BTW i find it interesting to imagine a state of mind, that would simulate a brain which gained it's consciousness without ever having experienced any sort of perception. I think this has something to do with how the human consciousness learns to distinguish between "me" and "my surroundings", because this is actually how the consciousness comprehends that it exists. |
Some, like Daniel Dennett, have gone even further to suggest that consciousness as we know it not only depends on perception, but also language. Without the abstract concepts involved with language, he believes that we wouldn't really have the concept of "self" that we do.
| Quote: | | So the question is for me, if the apparatus of thinking can be localised in a strict sense. I don't think it's possible and this suggests that the "self" is actually illusionary, but of course necessary to keep the system intact. Maybe it's just like a wheel or a set of wheels in a pulley. |
The thread I linked to above and the book mentioned therein discusses this possibility.
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| r_kamikaze wrote: | | Everytime I see you post I just wanna punch someone. |
| stromboli wrote: | | As always, you make meaningful and thoughtful contributions to the forum. |
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Hundovir
I determine nothing...
Joined: 29 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:41 pm Post subject: Re: Vipassana Can Be Sad & Depressing |
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Hello, noob here. Apologies if butting in...
| Philosophos wrote: | I realize that all intents to perform actions are coming from some part of my brain that I can't see. At this time, it also seems to me that my thoughts arise unwilled. With this comes the realization that I'm not really causing my thoughts in a conscious way.
(There's an analytic way to look at this, too: assume you just had a thought - probably an unrealistic assumption for most people on this forum, but humor me. Either you willed it, or you didn't. If you didn't, QED. If you did, then did you will your willing? If no, QED. If yes... ad infinitum. Thus, whatever thought you may have had must, at some point, have emerged somewhere out of your conscious control. Either that, or you must somehow reconcile your will with an infinite regress.)
At this point, I'm finding this realization somewhat dismaying. I feel like my consciousness is just an epiphenomenon observing stuff, but with little say in the matter. The good part about this is I can let go of thoughts, emotions, or even physical discomfort if I'm mindful. But I'm still clinging to the dismay of this insight, and can't seem to let that go. |
This is where some aspects of Buddhist theory and practice link up (for me) with Western "philosophical naturalism".The naturalist view is that there are no "uncaused causes" and that we thus do not have "contra-casaul" free will. What we will is caused by previous events. There are causes for what we think, feel, will ("karma"?) We are "embedded" in the unfolding process of the universe and therefore do not "create" our own wills. Whilst this can initially feel somewhat disconcerting, it can also feel completely liberating.
Sorry, been on the Sauvignon Blanc this evening, so a bit squiffy and incoherent.
Recommended: www.naturalism.org
Quote from this page http://www.naturalism.org/tenetsof.htm
| Quote: | The causal view: From a naturalistic perspective, there are no causally privileged agents, nothing that causes without being caused in turn. Human beings act the way they do because of the various influences that shape them, whether these be biological or social, genetic or environmental. We do not have the capacity to act outside the causal connections that link us in every respect to the rest of the world. This means we do not have what many people think of as free will, being able to cause our behavior without our being fully caused in turn.
The self: As strictly physical beings, we don’t exist as immaterial selves, either mental or spiritual, that control behavior. Thought, desires, intentions, feelings, and actions all arise on their own without the benefit of a supervisory self, and they are all the products of a physical system, the brain and the body. The self is constituted by more or less consistent sets of personal characteristics, beliefs, and actions; it doesn’t exist apart from those complex physical processes that make up the individual. It may strongly seem as if there is a self sitting behind experience, witnessing it, and behind behavior, controlling it, but this impression is strongly disconfirmed by a scientific understanding of human behavior. |
My italics.
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Wickedtruth
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| Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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