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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 24, 2016 - 09:29pm PT
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To be victimized by one's mind is comparable to breathing the noxious fumes bubbling up from among old tires, tin cans, and aquatic excrement in Cattail Crossing . . . ducks serenely gliding above the miasma.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Oct 24, 2016 - 10:44pm PT
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That was good!
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 25, 2016 - 07:47am PT
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these guys have been trying point out in this "mind thread" for so long .....
Have they been missing this oft-repeated acknowledgement?
Science is far from perfect and I know of no result enshrined and immutable for all eternity.
Dennett and the scientists have not missed this oft-encountered reality:
you just fell victim to your own mind
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Oct 25, 2016 - 10:21am PT
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Nalle Hukkataival Sends First Ever V17
Things are moving forward with the Lappnor project once again! It's definitely a humbling process every time. Weeks and weeks of gruelling work just to get back to the level of the last years - and hopefully further. It takes constant effort to keep telling yourself that it's working when it certainly doesn't always seem like it. The only way I know how is to try to flip everything into a positive. Try to turn a blind eye to the fact that you fall on the third move and instead be happy that you did two moves. But it's easier said than done. The unconscious mind is a tough enemy. Our rational mind understands that without failure there is no success. But our unconscious mind wants none of that and will make it's opinion known often and loudly. Rather than a physical challenge, it's become a mental exercise above all. Some days - and those are usually the good days - it's mostly about the physical action of working with your body on the rock. My last session was like that. Doing moves. Making links. Feeling the control and the strength that wasn't there before. It's working.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2893642/Nalle-Hukkataival-Sends-First-Ever-V17-9a-Chapeau
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 25, 2016 - 11:37am PT
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Jgill:
“Irrational queries” would seem to be questions that are not rationally based or that cannot be answered by rational means. Folks here disparage them, as well as “nonsensical epiphanies.” They also appear to be particularly instrumentally oriented (honoring “high technical levels”) as if they are unassailable goods.
I’m sure that anyone here could come up with a long list of things in life that are irrational, nonsensical, and / or that exhibit “low technical levels” that people care deeply about.
I’m not a person on this thread who is saying what things are. I’m asking relatively simple questions. (Perhaps folks could see the implications in the difficulty that they experience in answering such questions.)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 25, 2016 - 12:35pm PT
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Yes, jgill, a main idea running through the film was Hardy pushing Ramanujan for proofs of his formulas. It was a pretty neat part. Hope you get to see it some time.
Jeremy Irons was an excellent Hardy.
The Imitation Game was most excellent, as well.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Oct 25, 2016 - 01:13pm PT
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Find a thing. Say what it is completely, accurately, and finally
Master: "And the sound of one hand clapping is . . . ?"
Disciple: "Apple cobbler"
Master: "With or without pine needles?"
Disciple: "Radio Andromeda"
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 25, 2016 - 01:27pm PT
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Says MH2:
Psychiatrists and scientists have learned things about your mind that you could not learn from introspection alone. That was the point Dennett was making.
This is known as "Dennett's Folly" because Dennett, psychiatrists and scientists are not talking about the 1st person phenomenon we care calling mind, rather the 3rd person phenomenon known as brain, then conflating the two.
Mike suggested: Taste sugar. Say what that taste is directly, without elaboration, without filters, without theories, without definitions (or comparisons).
MJ2 said: Sweet.
"Sweet" is an indirect, after the fact and secondary appraisal of an experience. You're missing Mike's point, but your miscue underscores some of the misunderstands that arise by way of our objectification process (labeling, evaluating, quantifying) that would lead Dingus to say, unequivocally, that "mind is a thing."
On the face of it, this is an absurd statement since a "thing" is commonly used to describe a 3rd person external object, not a 1st person experiential phenomenon. Where people get turned around here is that when we verbally or scientifically objectify a phenomenon we can symbolically consider it as a 3rd person external object. "His mind," "her thoughts," "my feelings." It then is possible to mistake the symbolic (numbers, terms, etc.) representation for the source, which in this case is not an external object (thing), but an internal experience (no thing). This is, once again, flouting one of the laws of mind: the map (thing/object) is not the territory.
It is worth noting the battle royale that people wage to deny this simple law. And a "law' in this instance can only stand unless you can provide empirical evidence to the contrary, that is, that you can demonstrate that mind and objective functioning are selfsame, that 1st and 3rd person are selfsame, and nobody ever can. If you believe otherwise, show us.
I remember when I was doing research using EEGs, one of the howlers was the belief, held by some, that a burst of Delta waves (for example) was itself a seizure, as opposed to the electrochemical activity that was often attendant to same.
Another interesting thing is what PPS was saying about dual and non-dual.
It's worth pointing out that non-dual is not derived from a perspective of duality. Rather the opposite is true. In this sense, a duality perspective - essential as it is for our survival and technology - IS a perspective, whereas a non-dual view is simply the way reality IS, before we start deriving from the whole.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 25, 2016 - 04:16pm PT
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"Sweet" is an indirect, after the fact and secondary appraisal of an experience.
Also, a word we use to describe the taste of sugar. After all, Mike did ask me to say what the taste of sugar is.
Saying or writing the word “sweet” would also be an experience, so it is not indirect, after the fact, or secondary.
Where people get turned around here is that when we verbally or scientifically objectify a phenomenon we can symbolically consider it as a 3rd person external object. "His mind," "her thoughts," "my feelings."
You mention the 1st person phenomenon you are calling mind. That is verbal objectification also. The notion that 1st person subjective experience is not a product of brain function could be called, “Largo’s Folly.”
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 25, 2016 - 04:36pm PT
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. . . a duality perspective - essential as it is for our survival and technology - IS a perspective, whereas a non-dual view is simply the way reality IS, before we start deriving from the whole
Just when I thought PSP was successfully leading us away from religious dogma, we again are confronted with the way reality MUST BE. It's true we learn at an early age to distinguish between objects in order to survive and thrive, but I sense you are saying there are no innate distinctions between objects until we apply our minds. The sun and the moon are one as is the whole universe.
On the other hand the passage of time occurs for us on a human scale, whereas from a geological or astronomical perspective our experience of time could be considered the blink of an eye. In fact, here is where there might well be non-duality, to the extent there is no passage of time - it exists as a whole unit from which we appropriate slices, like bread from a loaf.
And then there are Hilbert spaces . . .
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Oct 25, 2016 - 07:00pm PT
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You're very patient, MH2. I feel that I could use a little 'wax-on, wax-off' training. Might be easier if my car wasn't a 2007 model nicknamed 'Ding' (I suppose).
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 25, 2016 - 07:44pm PT
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I enjoy this, eeyonkee. I sometimes tell people I am happy because I laugh at myself because I do stupid things.
Find a thing. Say what it is completely, accurately, and finally.
When you bump into a thing in the night, all you may know is that it is solid. In the moment that is a complete, accurate, and final account of what you can say about the thing. Although it usually comes out as, "OWWooo!"
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 25, 2016 - 07:50pm PT
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Sez MH2:
"Sweet" is an indirect, after the fact and secondary appraisal of an experience.
Also, a word we use to describe the taste of sugar. After all, Mike did ask me to say what the taste of sugar is.
Still whiffing on this on MH. Remember, the descriptor is NOT the experience itself. Mike asked you to do the impossible - basically try and verbalize an experience ITSELF. The moment you go to verbalize the experience of sweet, you have translated the experience into a symbolic representation that is not, itself, the experience. It's basically a trick question found in all the esoteric traditions. You are merely tricking youself if you believe that the description IS the experience.
Going on, MH sez:
Saying or writing the word “sweet” would also be an experience, so it is not indirect, after the fact, or secondary.
It's secondary because the cognitive experience of labeling the experience of "sweet" is not the same thing as directly tasting a bear claw or Mud Pie, which is what the trick question referred to. You're merely feeding yourself double talk and calling it so.
Going on: You mention the 1st person phenomenon you are calling mind. That is verbal objectification also. The notion that 1st person subjective experience is not a product of brain function could be called, “Largo’s Folly.”
These are very different issues, but I will briefly try and unpack them.
Saying that X is a "product" of Y, or the cause of Y, is reductive, and implies that some material thing gave rise to Y. But when we stay with your reductionism, and keep reducing down to the fundamental bits that constitute the brain, we find that they have neither substantive structure nor yet mass, so what is "it" that you believe "causes" any "thing?" Also, you are trying to isolate out the brain as some stand-alone machine that "causes" consciousness. But in reality there is no stand-alone thing. We can say, Well if you blow Largo's brains out he no longer is conscious. But you could also say, let's suffocate Largo and watch how he is no longer conscious. Both would be true, but we don't say the air causes consciousness.
And John said: Just when I thought PSP was successfully leading us away from religious dogma, we again are confronted with the way reality MUST BE.
One wonders why you heap such things onto the discussion? Look at this as simply as you can. If you just sit still with your own experience, without trying to interpret or label it, how are you engaged in "religious dogma?" "Religion," so far as I understand the word, concerns dogma and deities. How is staying with your raw experience either dogmatic or "God" centered?
Our minds can certainly make distinctions between apparent external objects, but again, when we look at what constitutes those objects, the "innate" stuff that could describe said distinctions is simply not there. I am not arguing that our minds tell us there are distinctions, but these distinctions are not mind-independent. Nothing is independent or stand-alone. That's the basic insight of non-duality. My sense of it is you are positing non-duality as one of many possible perspectives. But a perspective is by definition exclusionary - you look at reality from a given vantage while ignoring other vantages. Non-duality is in essence abandoning all vantages. The symbolic representation of that experience is a vantage, afforded by language, but the non-dual experience is not a representation. That's the basic idea so far as I understand it.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 25, 2016 - 08:19pm PT
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But when we stay with your reductionism, and keep reducing down to the fundamental bits that constitute the brain, we find that they have neither substantive structure nor yet mass
Why keep bringing up an infinite recursive process that ultimately converges to zero? This of course is an attempt at reductio ad absurdum, and it might have merit if it was possible to know more about what's going on at quantum levels, but your appropriation of quantum theory is ill-advised and I dare say incomplete. The brain clearly generates the mind, and the foremost question is whether the latter can be described using the same logical, technical and semantic tools useful for exploring the former.
That's a simple question and your attempts at advanced physics really shed no light because you keep circling your wagon around no-thingness, which apparently you glimpsed while in a meditative state - which might well have been a deception created by the brain, as when I felt I could fly in the Art of Dreaming.
Non-duality is in essence abandoning all vantages
Here again we have a fundamental truth stated unequivocally. This is why I use the word religious, not with reference to some God. You are a believer, which is your right.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 26, 2016 - 10:22am PT
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The brain clearly generates the mind, and the foremost question is whether the latter can be described using the same logical, technical and semantic tools useful for exploring the former.
Excellent post JGill, with the slight exception of the above sentence. The distinctions between brain and mind are wholly artificial, unless and until "mind" can be proved to originate in some other place than under the skull hood.
It amounts to a sort of persistent and reflexive narrative that there are valid and exclusionary differences betwixt the two; and therefore that they represent two different things. Maybe there are such real distinctions - but have certainly hitherto escaped detection. If one destroys the brain then the mind is extinguished. Yet In order to destroy the brain by extinguishing the mind-- where or what does one do to accomplish such a thing? Where do you go to bring about the end of the brain by way of disabling the mind? Is there a government office for such things? ( Don't answer that question)
What OH what ist "my-und"
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 26, 2016 - 11:09am PT
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cognitive experience of labeling the experience of "sweet" is not the same thing as directly tasting a bear claw or Mud Pie
I did not say it was. I said that the labelling itself is an experience, in your terms. You have not identified a clear division between experience and not-experience. In the brain there is no clear line. I believe your words are confusing you.
Your trick questions trick you.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 26, 2016 - 02:35pm PT
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Chalmers ala Robert Wright...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVt40z5JIYY
.....
btw, the Turing Test aka the Imitation Game and the Chinese Room and... neuristors (replacing neurons)... were MORE interesting components of Carroll's latest work... all of course relating to mind... that this blogger who was cited earlier (via healyje) apparently completely missed, focusing instead on just the (relatively small) science v. religion component.
Here's Eagleman's piece re the Chinese Room...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNMFe0IpbUk
I thought it was very good... and I thought it demos the value of scientists... those at least who have the wherewithal... Sagan to Carroll to Tyson to Cox to Dawkins to Eagleman... taking the time to communicate science and its relations (eg, philosophy of science) to the public.
...
"Imagine that we take one neuron in your brain, and study what it does until we have it absolutely figured out. We know precisely what signals it will send out in response to any conceivable signals that might be coming in. Then, without making any other changes to you, we remove that neuron and replace it with an artificial machine that behaves in precisely the same way, as far as inputs and outputs are concerned. A "neuristor" as in Heinlein's self-aware computer, Mike. But unlike Mike, you are almost entirely made of your ordinary biological cells except for this one replacement neuristor. Are you still conscious?"
Yes?
"So what if we replace two neurons? Or a few hundred million?"
"Following Turing, if a cyborg hybrid of neurons and neuristors behaves in exactly the same way as an ordinary human brain would, we should attribute to it consciousness and all that goes along with it."
"If we weren't familiar with consciousness already... we'd have to invent it."
Sean Carroll, The Big Picture, "What Thinks?"
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Oct 26, 2016 - 05:03pm PT
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Our minds can certainly make distinctions between apparent external objects, but again, when we look at what constitutes those objects, the "innate" stuff that could describe said distinctions is simply not there. I am not arguing that our minds tell us there are distinctions, but these distinctions are not mind-independent. Nothing is independent or stand-alone. That's the basic insight of non-duality. My sense of it is you are positing non-duality as one of many possible perspectives. But a perspective is by definition exclusionary - you look at reality from a given vantage while ignoring other vantages. Non-duality is in essence abandoning all vantages. The symbolic representation of that experience is a vantage, afforded by language, but the non-dual experience is not a representation. That's the basic idea so far as I understand it.
Hmmm. Let's just look at the "these distinctions are not mind-independent". C'mon, John, a tsunami just hit your village. Tens of thousands of you experience the primary "it" and it sets in motion a bunch of consequent actions and experiences that are pretty much independent of whatever you might have been meditating on beforehand. The whole shebang can be easily explained by the reality of the tsunami.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 26, 2016 - 06:12pm PT
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And notice how easy it is to satisfy Mike's request re sugar:
Say what that taste is directly, without elaboration, without filters, without theories, without definitions (or comparisons).
All I need to do is say, "This is the taste of sugar," as I place a drop of sugar water on your tongue, and then let your neurons do the rest of the talking.
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