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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 28, 2011 - 09:50pm PT
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No thing has independent existence. No thing exists by itself.
how does that work? you would take the view that the entire universe is just a construct of an individuals mind, that it comes to be over the development of a child, and ends with death of the individual.
seems sophomoric...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 28, 2011 - 09:59pm PT
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I was intrigued by Base 104's account of himself and a friend on separate occasions in the arctic wilderness hearing "a deep dynamo hum".
It certainly wasn't the sound of blood in your ears. You can hear your own heartbeat and blood circulation when you quiet your mind, but that's a pulsating sound, not a hum.
If they had been meditating when this happened they would have been told that they were hearing the Om, the sound of the sacred energy that permeates the Universe. One guru refers to it as "the Cosmic Motor". Every Eastern writer I've read also equates it to the Christian Holy Spirit though of course, many Christians object.
To me, if it happens like that outside of a religious or spiritual practice (I know you could say that wilderness walking is a spiritual practice), it indicates a naturally occurring physiological state that one becomes aware of when the mind is quiet and focussed. Physiologically then what is the source? Is one hearing one's own metabolism at work or something exclusive to the brain?
Of course with this and all other such experiences, like NDE's, there can be two interpretations, one physical and one metaphysical. The physiological interpretation should certainly be easier to understand however.
And finally one wonders if early hunters and gathers maybe heard it most of the time and if this isn't what was meant by the rather widespread legends of a time when humans were able to talk to the animals and to God - which disappeared when people began to live in large groups, and do agricultural work, the monotony of which was relieved by group chatter and singing?
I've mentioned this before, but if one thinks about extraordinary mental states solely in physiological terms, then what they may represent is occassional access to more archaic states of mind?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Nov 28, 2011 - 10:08pm PT
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i am familiar with the cacophony of sound within our bodies from visiting anechoic sound research chambers
it is very quiet at night at my house in the mountains, and i turn off the main breaker
the nearest traffic flow is miles away
for years i've been hearing a deep pulsating hum at night; and didn't know what it was
at first i thought it might be a large motor-generator set somewhere underground; perhaps at the large secret Lockheed facility on the next range across the valley
my best guess for some time now has been that the constant vehicle traffic on the highway system has set the ground vibrating at something close to its natural resonating frequency
(hoping it's not HAARP)
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Nov 28, 2011 - 10:21pm PT
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http://www.fashioningtech.com/profiles/blogs/mind-control-fluffly-cat-ear
Mind Control Fluffy Cat Ear Headband
Posted by Syuzi on May 5, 2011 at 11:00am
Certainly the "most cute" mind control application to date, Neurowear is a pair of white fluffy cat ears that translates your brainwaves into ear gestures.
Anthropomorphic fashion is commonplace in Japan having many subcultures that fetishize the insanely cute. But this novel approach to a high tech "fashion" headband steps up the "cutesy" factor to an insanely new level.
I certainly can't help but want a pair. The headband is designed with biosensors that translate your brainwaves (aka emotions) into wiggles and twirls of the ears. When you concentrate the ears point upwards and when you relax they flop down.
I do wonder if the ears may reveal uncontrolled emotions that over time we've mastered how not to reveal on our face.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Nov 28, 2011 - 11:48pm PT
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Name a thing.
Q: Does that thing exist of no parts? No? Try again.
(Parts are problematical--when does a thing lose or gain its "thingness?")
Q: Can that thing exist in a universe with nothing else in the universe? Could it be logically possible? Are there other necessary conditions or situations needed for the thing to exist? If so, try again. The thing isn't independent.
Q: Does the thing change? If yes, try again. The thing isn't the same thing later on.
If no thing has independent existence, then the thing must exist because of other things. Other things must be a part of the thing in question. Repeat this infinitely. You now have the all. That is the thing (but not really since that's only a concept).
Things, objects, and events are made up by the mind. They exist by virtue of the mind, and only in the mind. Words and concepts are just semantic systems. They are imaginative creations that has given Man a heck of an evolutionary competitive advantage. But we shouldn't assume that the words have actual correspondence to the actual state of things.
There is no reason to jump to extreme levels (e.g., the universe) in the analysis. Any thing will do.
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MH2
climber
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Nov 29, 2011 - 12:12am PT
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I think you better check your temperature, MikeL. Sounds like a fever.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Nov 29, 2011 - 12:17pm PT
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Great news!
Late last night I heard through the academic grapevine research developers at Columbia just successfully integrated three "neural laminates" - each of which was grown over many months to maturity to yield certain -as-of-yet undisclosed apparently proprietary circuit functions.
Objective 3rd person clinical testing strongly suggests that this integrated laminate (codenamed the M-5 Biotron) is actually hearing - that's right, hearing - a 1khz hum in the 1st person subjective!
Of course verification of this result at least at this point is a long way off as the M-5 has no vocal cord motor system or learned language capability of any kind with which to actually communicate to the developers, et al what if anything it is experiencing. -Which of course as we all know is the basic crux of the biscuit.
Unnamed sources report both Hubel and Wiesel, acclaimed neuroscience pioneers, are ecstatic over the news.
If I get any more info, esp re: the cochlear interface (to be installed in the next stage of dvt) or the memory slip-n-stream differential, rest assured I'll pass it on.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Nov 29, 2011 - 01:20pm PT
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Everything exists because of causes and conditions. Everything is interdependent. It is only because things have insubstantial natures that they can exist in a mutually interactive, dynamic process. Otherwise the world would be static, and nothing new could come into the world. Everything changes; everything is impermanent.
Regard all things as dreams.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Nov 29, 2011 - 01:31pm PT
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So if a rock is conscious - just as some claim on this thread - no doubt empowered to the claim by their extraordinary "open-mindedness" and life experience relating to the subject - can we hold it responsible? can we blame it? if in a rockfall it falls and kills a fellow climber brother? Wouldn't that just add to the mess of an already messy justice system?
Or maybe it wasn't the conscious rock but the conscious water that froze and fractured it? Somehow all this reminds me of that wise Indian's words in that Brad Pitt Anthony Hopkins movie - Legends of the Fall. You all I'm sure remember that sweet lass in the movie, broke asunder, what a shame.
.....
Everything exists because of causes and conditions. Everything is interdependent.
Careful now, you're sounding like a causalist, a mechanist.
(My position, identity, all along.)
Oh, the horror!
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 29, 2011 - 01:50pm PT
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A rock is not conscious.
Show where the symptoms consciousness are being exhibited in a rock.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Nov 29, 2011 - 07:57pm PT
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In grad school 20 years ago, I took one semester of pharmacology. That we didn't know the basic mechanism of action (or mechanisms of action) underlying general anesthesia was amongst the top most startling revelations to me and takeaways from the course.
Moreover, nor alcohol's. (that is, ethanol's)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 29, 2011 - 08:35pm PT
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Objective 3rd person clinical testing strongly suggests that this integrated laminate (codenamed the M-5 Biotron) is actually hearing - that's right, hearing - a 1khz hum in the 1st person subjective!
Any chance M-5 might join in on the discussion here?
And MH2 said: How can you understand "Mind" if you aren't willing to get outside of it and have a look and kick the tires?
Shows me MH2 is still mistaking objective functioning for subjective experiencing. That is, he apparently believes when you get outside your own subjective experience, then you can really - what? Work up some figures, correct? What's more, you can no more get outside your own mind than you can kiss your own lips.
You can, of course, look at someone else, but you will not be looking at subjective experience but objective functioning. It's a very basic idea. Some think the work-around is to say the objective IS the subjective, that Pluto is Mars, something that is done in no legitimate science I have ever heard of.
JL
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MH2
climber
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Nov 29, 2011 - 10:48pm PT
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What's more, you can no more get outside your own mind than you can kiss your own lips.
The Zen master Huang Po said about the mind, "Begin to reason about it, and you at once fall into error."
But there are other ways to fall into error, too. What makes you so sure that neurons firing cannot be the physiological basis of subjective experience? What else is there? You make use of your neurons to consider your experience and they come to the conclusion that they must have had outside help. Then your neurons decide to hit the keyboard with a little help from the good old body. Your neurons can play tricks with your mind, you know.
Riley, maybe you've seen it, but there was another way to check for brain response in coma patients, although it may have been only a flash in the pan:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-02/08/can-coma-patients-communicate-with-brain-patterns
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 30, 2011 - 01:00am PT
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Dream means conscious not unconscious.
When dreaming one is conscious of their dream ......
anesthesia means unconscious (suSupti).
Consciousness would be pain and that is why anesthesia is applied.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Nov 30, 2011 - 12:23pm PT
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So, it's been argued from the beginning in this thread that mind is a function of brain because a meat cleaver sunk into the brain gives rise to brain dysfunction. Purportedly, it was implied, these causal effects could not be reversed. Mind could not cause brain changes. Most importantly, there can be no mind without brain.
Mind can cause brain changes: e.g., through volition (suicide, drugs, etc.). When MRIs show heated patterns, what comes first--the mind or the brain? (Why must there be this or that?)
The real question for our scientifically minded brothers and sisters is whether mind can exist without brain (as lifeless brain can exist without mind)?
So we go back to the question, "what is mind?" JL says it's subjectivity or experience. Others say it is varying degrees of consciousness.
The science types don't want to say what any of these are beyond claiming that they must be explained materially.
(I've been trying to explain how scientific materialism is created entirely by mind alone, hence making experience superordinate to materialism, but apparently people can't do the analysis. Ed called the analysis "sophmoric," and it is. It is an exceedingly simple analysis. No one needs an advanced degree in anything to make the most simple observation and reasoning.)
Experience. Experience is an infinite, constantly changing, non-repeating, undefinable (in any final way), unknown reality, consisting of unknown "energies" existing nowhere else than IN experience, perceived by unknowable appearing consciousness. It is the Tao.
Words cannot express it; concepts cannot define it; metrics cannot measure it; feelings cannot plumb it; images cannot capture it.
Look, and it's right before your eyes.
------------------------------
Chao-Chou: "What is the Tao?"
Nan-ch'uan: "Everyday mind is the Tao."
Chao-Chou: "How can I approach it?"
Nan-chu'uan: "The more you try to approach it, the farther away you'll be."
Chao-chou: "But if I don't get chose, how can I understand it?"
Nan-Ch'uan: "It's not a question of understanding or not understanding. Understanding is delusion; not undstanding is indifference. But when you reach the unattainable Tao, it is like pure space, limitless and serene. Where is there room in it for yes or no?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 30, 2011 - 02:42pm PT
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The real question for our scientifically minded brothers and sisters is whether mind can exist without brain
I already answered this question up thread... and I said yes... but perhaps it was too nuanced to be noticed.
As for "sophomoric," certainly one could posit that the only way the universe exists is because the mind is there to make it so... it is a philosophical "anthropic principal" and I believe the criticism of it is similar to the one in physics, which is: one has to do the work to show it is so, the mere existence of humans and the human mind is not sufficient to select any particular "theory" as there are many (perhaps an infinite) number of ways humans could come about...
...the real work is showing that your assertion is true.
As for words and language, and the approximation of the subsequent description to an objective reality... if you would say there is no objective reality, you would have to demonstrate that, somehow. In such a world, it is true, the 14 billion year age of the universe is just as valid a claim as a 6000 year age, as the idea that this is all just a "dream."
Somehow, in this world view, we just convince ourselves of a truth, and no matter what we do, we can confirm that truth, so nothing is more true than anything else.
I suspect this has a lot to do with our misconception of what "mind" is... but then, I'm a card carrying physicalist...
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Nov 30, 2011 - 07:18pm PT
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This ongoing badminton game of a thread with its philosophical birdies is too general and frankly too boring for most of us.
How about looking at particular and unusual mental phenomena and see what those who have experienced them have to say. My own experience lies in the realm of separation of "I-consciousness" from its bodily host - or at least the appearance of such. I suspect Zen followers will simply say this is an impediment to spiritual progress and an illusion at best. However, these experiences for me (no drugs) opened a new perspective on reality and I would strongly disagree that they constitute merely an interesting hallucination.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 30, 2011 - 08:33pm PT
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so jogill, dissociation is an interesting experience, indeed, but it begs the question "how are we associated?"
it seems even more interesting than the rarer form...
how is it that we have a "body centric" coordinate system, and why don't we alter the reference frame more when we are doing stuff?
in some ways, we might displace our reference frame in an athletic performance, though I'm not sure that this is at all common.
thoughts?
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