What is "Mind?"

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WBraun

climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 02:51pm PT
The living entity itself (soul) controls the mind only when it's in original spiritual consciousness.

The gross materialists can never control their minds because they are engaged in dualistic material consciousness.

The gross materialists are controlled by their own materially infected dualistic minds.

Thus the gross materialists ultimately are always in poor consciousness masquerading as authority with their out of control minds fixed on material duality.

Gross materialists are blind leading the blind masquerading with their so called materialistic conscious science as ultimate truth to what their life actually is ........
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Sep 10, 2018 - 04:46pm PT
There has been great progress made in the investigation of mind (as distinguished from brain), especially in terms of what most intelligent and informed people accept as true, probable or most logically coherent.
You are hopeless (and mean-spirited with the "whole most intelligent and informed" bullshit)! You don't seem to understand what you don't know.
WBraun

climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 05:09pm PT
When you are angry you've already failed in your mind.

The intelligent class is not infected by duality, materialism and mental speculation .......
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Sep 10, 2018 - 05:22pm PT
The more I think of it, the more I appreciate your incessant "mental speculation" POV, WB. It really is something that could potentially be leading us astray, and you have consistently pointed this out. If you can prove that mental speculation is essentially useless, you would have made your point, at least in convincing me.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 05:34pm PT
Feline mind in trouble...

https://youtu.be/3mnZHBrmSqY?t=2m35s

A cauldron of tricks, I say!

...

re: good and evil

Our animal instincts/intuitions re good and evil probably have their origins tens of millions of years ago. That is the pov supported not only by the scientific evolutionary framework but also by today's life experience throughout the Animal Kingdom (thanks youtube), and extending across the many and various ecologies around the world.

Applies to our penchant for grouping up as well. (racism,tribalism)
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Sep 10, 2018 - 05:53pm PT
So here's my new (evolving) theory. I already said it, but I hadn't fully thought it through. I would conjecture that human mind is the result of a convergence of two different, but interdependent, evolving variables; intelligence and feelings. Intelligence ultimately comes from successful algorithms preserved in individuals (our brains and nervous system, mostly). We know that they are successful algorithms because all of us are alive. Feelings, on the other hand, although they are also preserved in our brains and nervous system, I would contend only have context in a group, even if it is just mother and child. I can see how our love for discovery of knowledge is consistent with a "happy" feeling having evolved that would obviously had an overall, positive effect on our likelihood of discovering new knowledge. It's a virtuous cycle.
WBraun

climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 06:20pm PT
Brennan has absolutely no idea what he's talking about as usual.

None!

Just starts making up fantasy horsh!t in his very own mind and projecting it here as usual.

You're not even in the ball park nor parking lot, you're just cluelessly grasping into thin air as usual ........
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 06:24pm PT
Feelings, on the other hand, although they are also preserved in our brains and nervous system, I would contend only have context in a group.

eeyonkee, you sure? when I was two or three I walked across a heater grate in my aunt's living room that, crazy enough, was mounted in the flooring. It was on. ON. (At this point, recall the slow transmission of C fibers in the human nervous system.) I really don't think I needed a social context to feel the pain resulting from that event. But maybe.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 06:49pm PT
Oh my gods! OMG!!!!!

Saw this comment in commentary section for my youtube link above...
Nothing is more vicious than a pack of hyenas /ads.

but with the word "hyenas" crossed out and "ads" in its place.

Then a bit lower saw this commentary...

"I guess I don't understand some of the comments regarding ads because I have adblocker."

So it left me wondering: Is anyone nowadays NOT using adblocker?

For kicks, I turned my Adblocker off for a moment at youtube - you can do that - and I was blown away at the number of ad additions to the video clip. There's like 20!!!

If anyone here doesn't have Adblocker, my apologies for posting video clips.

But you should know, AdBlocker Plus is five-star, I've had it now on all platforms for years, and it effectively removes all ads. Not only from youtube but also from all internet cable programs (eg, CNN, CBS, etc).

Come to think of it, it's beyond me why anyone would ever choose to suffer YouTube ads when they simply don't have to.

This has been my PSA. From above experience, if I didn't have AdBlocker, I would never go to some sites like youtube. Never.

Know that umpteen millions watch Youtube and other sites ad-free. Day in and day out. And they have been doing this for years.

But you guys are plenty smart, you all probably have ABP already and this was a useless post. If so, good!!!

FWIW. :)
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 08:07pm PT
I'll take a chance here. JB, I don't understand.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Sep 10, 2018 - 09:45pm PT
Wow, Dingus. Interesting.

I couldn't stand it.

You probably know already, and I failed to mention it. But these ad blockers, like ABP, are free.

If you ever change your mind and try it, let me know.

In the meantime, I should stop assuming everyone sees exactly what I see. At YouTube or elsewhere. That hyena lion link above, without ABP, is heinous.
Don Paul

Social climber
Washington DC
Sep 11, 2018 - 06:41am PT
Eyonkee, when you refer to feelings, I think you are talking about the power of the amygdala and how emotions drive decision making.
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Sep 11, 2018 - 07:23am PT
eeyonkee: If you can prove that mental speculation is essentially useless, you would have made your point, at least in convincing me.

Proof, proof, proof. What can one prove? The entire project of proving this or that goes nowhere final—nor with any completeness or accuracy. (What more proof could one call for?)

That which needs no proof is all that one needs for any reason, and it’s available in your face at every moment.

Not that there is anything wrong with mental speculation. It’s fun for most everyone. But it’s an attachment, and it becomes misleading in so many ways.

Living in the moment needs no proof. One sees all things as empty of any real substantiality, yet one jumps feet first into all of them with complete abandon. It’s watching the movie called, “Me.” You’re the star, the plot line, the moral of the story, the cinematographer, the scriptwriter, the director, and the producer. One misses the movie entirely by taking it seriously. It’s a crazy movie, full of illusion called “mental speculation” that requires reason, finality, and concreteness.


In the action movie, “Under Siege” Tommy Lee Jones plays an ex-CIA operative who (along with a team of mercenaries) hijacks the USS Missouri to steal and sell its Tomahawk missiles to terrorists, and attempts to raze Honolulu with a couple atomic missiles. Seagal, the protagonist who wins the day, plays an ex-Seal who’s been demoted to cook (due to righteous insubordination).

At the end of the movie, a fight-to-the-death ensues between Jones and Seagal, but not before this interesting exchange. (I think I’ve seen this movie at least 2-3 times but missed a meaning of the exchange when I first saw it.)

Seagal: Do me a favor. Tell me something. You really think blowing up a bunch of innocent people is going to change anything? What made you flip like this?

Tommy Lee Jones: I got tired of coming with last minute desperate solutions to impossible problems created by other f*cking people.

Seagal: All of your ridiculous, pathetic antics aren’t going to change a thing. You and I, . . . we’re puppets in the same sick play. We serve the same master, and he’s a lunatic and ungrateful—and there’s nothing we can do about it. You and I, we’re the same.

Tommy Lee Jones: Oh, no. No, no, no. There’s a difference, my man. You have faith. I don’t.

(A fight ensues, with Seagal’s character dispatching Tommy Lee Jone’s character.)


This is similar to how some mythological religions have looked at the The Human Condition with regards to an anthropomorphic Absolute. The Jones character, like so many people, is trying “to win” in the world by manipulating it. The Seagal character reminds me of The Bhagavad Gita and of so many liberated masters. There’s no real point to anything, but one is nonetheless fully engaged, playing out his or her role.

Not indifferent to the world, not detached from the world, with full “wu wei” engagement. In the world but not of it.

Be well.
Jan

Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
Sep 11, 2018 - 07:26am PT
I was just going to post what Don Paul has. I think eeyonkee meant intelligence and emotions since he was referring to the brain. Fructose was referring to feelings relating to the nerves.

Better yet, imo would be a reference to reason and emotions since all forms of self preservation are a form of intelligence, including the automatic withdrawal of a hand from something hot or a quick exit from an area full of snakes.

The senses of the body and the mind work together most of the time, the feeling of a floor furnace for example, followed by the word hot, once our rational minds are developed enough to speak.

Emotions are much more arbitrary and could involve complicated reactions like being angry that no adult warned us to beware, or perhaps one did and now we get a scolding for not paying attention to the warning and complaining about the discomfort. Years later, this could all come up in a psychoanalyst's office as a subjective early childhood example of careless or overly strict parenting which has caused the person to have a particular phobia or problem relating to parents or others in life. Reason is fairly simple and easy. Emotions are the complicated things.
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Sep 11, 2018 - 05:49pm PT
Feelings, on the other hand, although they are also preserved in our brains and nervous system, I would contend only have context in a group.

eeyonkee, you sure? when I was two or three I walked across a heater grate in my aunt's living room that, crazy enough, was mounted in the flooring. It was on. ON. (At this point, recall the slow transmission of C fibers in the human nervous system.) I really don't think I needed a social context to feel the pain resulting from that event. But maybe.
You're exactly right on this point, HFCS. Feelings are more fundamental than group-related feelings, DUH! This is exactly what I use in building my model. Thanks for that insight. Gotta bump some logic down one level.

Now that I think of it, seems like I had more than one post suggesting that "feeling" light or the heat the goes along with light is likely the ultimate, evolutionary source of feeling. I'm all over the map!
WBraun

climber
Sep 12, 2018 - 07:32am PT
The gross materialists are a rudderless boat drifting in the sea dreaming they are on course ........
jogill

climber
Colorado
Sep 12, 2018 - 11:23am PT
JL: "There has been great progress made in the investigation of mind (as distinguished from brain), especially in terms of what most intelligent and informed people accept as true, probable or most logically coherent."


Are you referring to psychology/psychiatry? Zen?

Are you referring to what the mind does?

I'm a bit slow today, so you'll have to elucidate.
Jan

Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
Sep 12, 2018 - 01:42pm PT
Evidence has been found for Homo sapiens art in a cave in Africa that is 73,000 years old. There are hints that art might have predated human language.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/science/oldest-drawing-ever-found.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Science
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Sep 12, 2018 - 02:46pm PT
Duck: The gross materialists are a rudderless boat drifting in the sea dreaming they are on course ........

. . . and yet there’s really nothing to be done about it. One might refer to a theory of evolution: things are exactly right where they could *only be* given beings’ state of awareness. We can lament the situations we think we see around us, but that’s wasted energies. “Rudderless dreaming” is exactly where things have to be, apparently. One does not have to complain about it; one can celebrate it just as easily. “Here we are.” Yay! At least “we are.”


Jan +1.

The finding could give evidence that expression is the most essential human urge and capability—perhaps the ultimate sign of intelligence. It would also suggest another meaning for Werner’s complaint about endless “speculation.” That expression (as “speculation”) is what shows human “being” their awareness.

Look how every animal expresses itself in its own plumage superficially—be it the colors of feathers, to the arrangement of appendages.. Plumage (and other surface embellishments) may indeed serve reproductive function, but can’t we say that their primary purpose is simply to express “I AM” of a species’ own uniqueness? We only focus on and celebrate instrumental functionality (over being) because that’s what we value in our time; that’s how we see the world. That’s our “speculation,” our expression of who and what we are.

All life forms seem intrinsically expressive, first and foremost.
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2018 - 03:31pm PT
There has been great progress made in the investigation of mind (as distinguished from brain), especially in terms of what most intelligent and informed people accept as true, probable or most logically coherent.


You are hopeless (and mean-spirited with the "whole most intelligent and informed" bullshit)! You don't seem to understand what you don't know.


Strange rant. Most would consider intelligence and being informed to be our best defense against bullsh#t.

The context of what I said pertained to those who have made mind a special study, as in the professionals who have made a career of looking at the main issues at depth. While I make it a practice to read those folks, I certainly am not one of them. Not surprisingly, most have a foot in both science and philosophy/psychology.

The level and depth of scholarship among those people is fantastic. Listen to lectures by Searle or McGinn, to mention just a few, and you realize this rather quickly.

The main advantage of trying to work at that level is that, while opinions vary greatly on what it all might mean or how it might play out, there are various global concerns and questions that have largely been worked out, so you don't waste time niggling over stuff that has largely been put to rest. That's one of the drawbacks of an open forum - you waste time on things that have already been widely resolved, as many of them have.

Is there a final solution? Not even, but progress has been made, for sure.
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