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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Aug 30, 2011 - 05:07pm PT
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One problem with arguments like these is self-referencing. The mind attempts to analyze the process with which it analyzes. Hence, word games that rarely clarify anything. In mathematics, if I recall my course in naïve set theory from fifty years ago, paradoxes arise because of self-referencing or similar processes. For example, the Russell Paradox (from Wikipedia):
"Let us call a set "abnormal" if it is a member of itself, and "normal" otherwise. For example, take the set of all squares. That set is not itself a square, and therefore is not a member of the set of all squares. So it is "normal". On the other hand, if we take the complementary set that contains all non-squares, that set is itself not a square and so should be one of its own members. It is "abnormal". . . Now we consider the set of all normal sets, R. Attempting to determine whether R is normal or abnormal is impossible: If R were a normal set, it would be contained in the set of normal sets (itself), and therefore be abnormal; and if it were abnormal, it would not be contained in the set of normal sets (itself), and therefore be normal. This leads to the conclusion that R is neither normal nor abnormal: Russell's paradox."
More appropriate perhaps is the Godel Incompleteness Theorem:
"A set of axioms is complete if, for any statement in the axioms' language, either that statement or its negation is provable from the axioms. A set of axioms is (simply) consistent if there is no statement such that both the statement and its negation are provable from the axioms. In the standard system of first-order logic, an inconsistent set of axioms will prove every statement in its language . . . For each consistent formal theory T having the required small amount of number theory, the corresponding Gödel sentence G asserts: “G cannot be proved within the theory T”. This interpretation of G leads to the following informal analysis. If G were provable under the axioms and rules of inference of T, then T would have a theorem, G, which effectively contradicts itself, and thus the theory T would be inconsistent. This means that if the theory T is consistent then G cannot be proved within it, and so the theory T is incomplete. Moreover, the claim G makes about its own unprovability is correct. In this sense G is not only unprovable but true, and provability-within-the-theory-T is not the same as truth."
The Axiom of Choice is easily stated and understood by non-mathematicians:
"Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of bins, each containing at least one object, it is possible to make a selection of exactly one object from each bin."
And yet, assuming this axiom makes the following oddity possible:
"The Banach–Tarski paradox states that a solid ball in 3-dimensional space can be split into a finite number of non-overlapping pieces, which can then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball."
Admittedly, this is somewhat removed from the study of the mind, but it shows the extreme importance of language and axioms and where the two intersect. A study of the mind that actually goes anywhere beyond electrical and chemical impulses might require an alteration in the premises and the paradigm from which we argue . . . a task for which formal philosophy might be insufficient.
Has formal philosophy ever dramatically altered a person’s world view, other than providing merely intellectual alternatives? I suspect that Kant’s daily routines were much the same after he arrived at his ground-breaking ideas than before. On the other hand, the father of modern set theory, Georg Cantor, suffered severe depression in the later years of his life, no doubt partly because of the anxieties triggered by his unorthodox deliberations and commentary they provoked. But was this a fundamental change in his world-view?
"Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria."
Be careful what you wish for, JL !
Certain eastern religions putatively change one’s world view, but are these changes appropriate for a discussion of the mind?
Questions phrased within one paradigm possibly answerable in another.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2011 - 05:17pm PT
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Strangely, your attempt to understand consciousness through "the experience" is like trying to understand gravity by repeatedly dropping a rock on your head.
I think this pretty well illustrates the fact that ever for educated amongst us, dropping out of evaluating mind into experience is a non-starter. Of course the above is not drawn from any real world experience but is just another fatuous evaluation from afar - of that we may be sure.
Oddly, for people like this, they have to get up on an unprotected slab or something in order to finally get out of their evaluating minds and get absorbed in a real, first person experience.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 07:23pm PT
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"Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria."
maybe sly like a fox! excused from teaching!!
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LithiumMetalman
Trad climber
cesspool central
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Aug 30, 2011 - 08:15pm PT
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The mind is the greatest illusion ever created by man.
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PP
Trad climber
SF,CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 08:46pm PT
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I think this pretty well illustrates the fact that ever for educated amongst us, dropping out of evaluating mind into experience is a non-starter. Of course the above is not drawn from any real world experience but is just another fatuous evaluation from afar - of that we may be sure.
Zen Master Seung Sahn used to often say " more stupid is necessary"
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FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 09:22pm PT
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I think that a logical understanding of mind might be ultimately unsatisfying, especially since we live pretty subjectively. At least I do. We seem to have some kind of raw experience and then afterward we apply some kind of quality rating to it. We all have climbs or boulder problems we really like and that change our state of mind.
I have heard it said that "understanding is the booby prize". They meant that changing the quality of your experience was the real game.
Discussing what we mean by I and me is pretty cool though because normally we take it all so for granted and it is not too hard to see the simple logical holes in our everyday assumptions.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:28pm PT
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actually I think Largo has a very literal approach to his exploration of consciousness, and his instance of a first person narrative of experience, rather than any attempt to quantify it... of course his objection to measurement is one that can be leveled at literature, too.
his exercise for me:
I think the challenge for you, Ed, in this regard, is to forego for the moment trying to quantify or define how this all works and leave off with my experience and drop into your direct subjective experience and try and describe what you find there. Trying to do so in the most simple terms is a task, for the mind revolts dealing with raw experience straight up.
I was thinking I could crib a bit from Proust or maybe Joyce... or quote from Gilgamesh, and work a bit of Homer in... spin it with the Upanishad and spice with a bit of the 道德經...
ok, you didn't like that so much you didn't even try to read it...WRONG! he says... bad boy, go back and try again... you failed...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2011 - 11:17pm PT
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I should have mentioned that you can get nowhere in the subjective soup unless you detach and don't let the qualia pull you into jaberwocky. This requires to maintain an open focus as opposed to narrow focusing on every bit of quail that floats by. It is entirely necessary to have language and constructs and memory to wrangle quail and content and "meaning," which the mind is habituated to do, as a kind of addiction. Just notice how hard it is to keep that focus open in "no mind." This is the POV where you have some little wherewithal to se what the mind is doing, IMO. If your mind is locked onto an idea or whatever, you'll get nothing but more jive from the very level you are at, "tryiing to analyze the mind from within the mind." Not sure this leads to the kind of madness John Gill warned us about, but it's largely a waste of time IME.
JL
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 30, 2011 - 11:21pm PT
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i think many folks in this thread wasted a great deal of youth focusing on quail
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 30, 2011 - 11:25pm PT
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Look at almost everyone's post in this thread.
They all start out with "I think".
This means they have no clue and are using their mind accepting and rejecting with their senses.
You can't understand consciousness and mind if one falsely identifies with ones body.
The root cause of all misunderstanding is one "thinking they are the body" .....
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 30, 2011 - 11:29pm PT
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werner, i think that many of the contributions to this thread have been tongue in cheek.
heh
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 11:42pm PT
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the direct subjective experience...
ok, I'm there,
now what?
I could give you a story from my past, but it probably violates your conditions:
Sitting and watching the illumination of the sun through the window moving across the room, the shadows cast by chessman on a chessboard making the gnomonic arc as the day progress, from morning to late afternoon, in one long mediation with no internal conversation, breathing feels animal like, but the animal is me, somehow, the flow of air through the nostrils, down the throat into the lungs in response to the powerful and supple contraction of the diaphragm.
The whole day passes like this, very very calm, serene, with a focus that has incredible depth of field. But no thoughts.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 31, 2011 - 12:49am PT
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99.% of the time when someone says "I" with emphasis they point to their heart because that is the seat of the soul.
This why people have incredible "feelings" when someone sings from their heart.
When someone sings from their mind it's mechanical, robotic and people become disinterested very quickly ....
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Aug 31, 2011 - 07:05am PT
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Long before any of those critters were ever conceived in design. Actually, longer than time itself. But I do not expect you to even understand let alone accept that answer.
Chief... You are right, I do not understand your answer, at all.
Please enlighten me. If you yourself understand it [your answer/belief], and you believe it is reasonable, then you should have no problem "reasonably" explaining it in detail.
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matlinb
Trad climber
Albuquerque
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Aug 31, 2011 - 09:27am PT
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Using the math (Hartouni) and language (Largo) areas of the the brain to process and describe their interaction with the world in only one way. It could be that Hartouni and Largo inability to share a common view of the world is nothing more than an expression of the strengths of certain areas of their brains. To quote a famous expression, “our strengths are our greatest weaknesses.”
There are other “right brain” areas which are used to process our interaction with the world. I recently read “My Stroke of Insight”, by Jill Bolte. Here is a TED talk she gave on the subject www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU. In so much as these right brain areas are found across many species, they are ancient in our evolution and deserve every bit as much “respect” as the newer areas of the brain. Just because you fall short in describing your perceptions of the world in language or science does not mean that these perceptions are not common to all mankind, or even all higher order animals. Furthermore, Dr. Bolte argues that if more people cultivated their right brains the world would be a happier and more peaceful place.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 31, 2011 - 12:15pm PT
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Another literal approach:
"Lost ye way in the dark, said the old man. He stirred the fire, standing slender tusks of bone up out of the ashes.
The kid didn't answer.
The old man swung his head back and forth. The way of the transgressor is hard. God made the world, but he didnt make it to suit everybody, did he?
I don't believe he much had me in mind.
Aye, said the old man. But where does a man come by his notions. What world's he seen that he liked better?
I can think of better places and better ways.
Can ye make it be?
No.
No. It's a mystery. A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?
I dont know.
Believe that."
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Aug 31, 2011 - 12:43pm PT
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Werner states, Look at almost everyone's post in this thread.
They all start out with "I think".
This means they have no clue and are using their mind accepting and rejecting with their senses.
You can't understand consciousness and mind if one falsely identifies with ones body.
The root cause of all misunderstanding is one "thinking they are the body" .....
I prefer to preface my opinions with, "I think... In my experience...I feel... In my opinion" because I only speak for myself. It is only my viewpoint and not the viewpoint of God or science or ultimate truth. Only my viewpoint which I hope reflects truthfully on some tiny part of the larger picture.
I object strongly to the idea that we are not our bodies. My life feels much more wholesome when I am using my body and not just my mind. I have been profoundly influenced by Bioenergetic Psychotherapy which uses body exercises and body techniques to work with our minds and emotions. So I am biased on this matter.
If consciousness and mind are separate from matter and held back or hidden by matter, then it makes sense to eliminate as much as possible the influence of our material bodies in order to better experience true consciousness. If we can eliminate the noisy influence of matter, then the signal of consciousness will be easier to detect. But that has not worked very well for me.
I think the material world around us is an incredibly complex and fascinating place. I think people often underestimate it and sell it short. We get fixed in certain patterns and viewpoints, so the world starts seeming bland and boring and fixed and dead, when it is just our personal viewpoints which are fixed and dead. If we think the material world is dead, but we are alive then it is only logical to think that there must be something else besides this dead world from which we get life and consciousness.
In dance, when I move with feeling and emotion and spirit, it feels nice. If I have a partner who can also move with compatable feeling and we resonate in our movements, then it really feels beautiful. Whether it looks beautiful is something I prefer to not think about. Some might say we are moving from certain chakras or from our hearts or from our spirits. I personally, don't find those ideas helpful. I am aware of inertia and acceleration and centers of gravity and how amazing it is to speed up and slow down in time to the music.
So, my body is important to me and I am happier when my mind and body feel at one, when I don't feel any separation. But if I sit here at the computer too long, not using my body in a healthy way, I start feeling pretty bad.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Aug 31, 2011 - 12:49pm PT
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Paul, worthy post.
I think the material world around us is an incredibly complex and fascinating place. I think people often underestimate it and sell it short. We get fixed in certain patterns and viewpoints, so the world starts seeming bland and boring and fixed and dead, when it is just our personal viewpoints which are fixed and dead. If we think the material world is dead, but we are alive then it is only logical to think that there must be something else besides this dead world from which we get life and consciousness.
Hear, hear.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Aug 31, 2011 - 12:51pm PT
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So, did you guys get anywhere yet?
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Aug 31, 2011 - 01:20pm PT
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Chief... You are right, I do not understand your answer, at all.
Please enlighten me. If you yourself understand it [your answer/belief], and you believe it is reasonable, then you should have no problem "reasonably" explaining it in detail.
That is not possible as it is an "inside job" sort of speaking. One must do their own research and then come to the place where they themselves accept the concept/s that exist and have done so since before time.
Enlightenment is an eternal infinite process of self. Each individual comes to their own place of "mind". That is the beauty of it all.
Understanding through ones meat brain has nothing to do with it at all.
So, do I understand you correctly... You CANNOT reasonably articulate what it is you believe, and why?
If, so, that begs the question... How can you have any reasonable undestanding of whay you believe? And, more importantly, how can you claim to to be true with such certainty if you cannot even explain it?
See... I too am into edification, and that demands at least a moderate understanding of things in order for me to objectively weigh them.
Would you not agree with the statement:
One's certainty of something should be directly proportional to one's understanding of it AND the evidence that supports it?
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