What is "Mind?"

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MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Dec 14, 2016 - 10:13pm PT

Jgill: So many things happening in the brain in so little time, there must be a controller of sorts.

“The Big Guy?”

Just kidding. Oh, what the hell, who knows? (Sorry. Wrong thread.)

HFCS:

Nick Bostrom has a point of view he’s trying to push forward. He’s written a controversial article, and now he’s invested in the idea.

There are so many papers we wrote in the past that were just ideas that flowered and took life of their own. We didn’t necessarily want to stake our careers on them, but we got pubs out of them, and for some strange reason, we got known for those little ideas. That made us committed to them. Beliefs have a way of becoming us. We didn’t mean for that to happen, but that’s one of those mysterious processes that start to control and steer our lives. I think that most of us hold dear one particular paper or effort that hardly ever got its head above water. They ended up wasting away. But even today, we think back on them fondly and wonder whether we were too early with the idea, whether we articulated and sold it adroitly (some call it “positioning”), or whether our views of it are just weird. Once you get an idea that takes hold of you, it tends to become you. (It’s a comment on beliefs.)

MH2: Or it could arise from the sort of simple interactions that likely operate in a school of fish, a flight of birds, or a herd of zebra.

This I like, although rather than a kind of synchronicity among others of my ilk, I’d say that the “others” that I am synchronizing myself with is this soup of activity all around me: flow.

I’m not synchronized with it all that often, but at times I feel “drawn into” a flow rather than helping to generate it.

There is so much beyond my apparent control. I feel helpless and wonderful for it. It’s not even worth the effort anymore to ask myself WTF is going on.

I like that metaphor. . . birds, zebras, wildebeests, flights of birds, school of fish (like sardines). When I see those in motion, I get mesmerized. Erickson said we are in some kind of trance or another all the time. It’s more of a question of what kind of trance one is in at the moment. To this, the depth psychologists might say that “trance” = mythology / archetype / complex. As Werner might say,. . . a delusion or projection.

Well, . . . anyway, “swarm intelligence” may be a metaphor for being here and now if seen globally.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Dec 15, 2016 - 07:46am PT

re: the mental life

"Humans can do something amazing that no other creature on Earth can do—they can imagine. If you show an animal a tree, they see a tree. Only a human can imagine the acorn that sunk into the ground 40 years earlier, the small flimsy stalk it was at three years old, how stark the tree must look when it’s winter, and the eventual dead tree lying horizontally in that same place." -Tim Urban

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/10/religion-for-the-nonreligious.html

"The major institutions in the spiritual arena—religions—tend to focus on divinity over people, making salvation the end goal instead of self-improvement. The industries that do often focus on the human condition—philosophy, psychology, art, literature, self-help, etc.—lie more on the periphery, with their work often fragmented from each other. All of this sets up a world that makes it hard to treat internal growth as anything other than a hobby, an extra-curricular, icing on the life cake."

...

Would you make yourself smarter if it would also mean happiness would be harder to come by?

http://waitbutwhy.com/table/iq-dial

"Asking a human to internalize the vastness of space or the eternity of time or the tininess of atoms is like asking a dog to stand up on its hind legs—you can do it if you focus, but it’s a strain and you can’t hold it for very long." -Tim Urban

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Dec 15, 2016 - 12:12pm PT

think what you want but we still know what you're going to do

Not possible in all cases.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CrocodilesDilemma.html

PSP also PP

Trad climber

Berkeley

Dec 15, 2016 - 01:29pm PT

Mike L said I wonder what one calls it when one has gone beyond nihilism and solipsism?

Unconditional Love.

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Dec 15, 2016 - 05:08pm PT

Yeah, that's good. I wish I were so enamored with everything.

(Yeah, but, ya know. . . . .)

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado & Nepal

Dec 15, 2016 - 05:08pm PT

Unconditional love takes many forms.

For some people it's unemotional science and the quest to know the material universe. For other people it is momentary heroism and for yet others, normal everyday existence.

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Dec 15, 2016 - 05:10pm PT

And I might imagine that's you, Jan.

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado & Nepal

Dec 15, 2016 - 05:11pm PT

Sorry I'm not that evolved but I've met people who were.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Dec 15, 2016 - 07:20pm PT

Is it possible that unconditional love may occur before nihilism or solipsism? It's comforting to think it might.

Back to the mind as Organizer:

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Dec 15, 2016 - 08:07pm PT

Truly. That is a good diagram of Mind as Pink Route Achiever.

Oh, wait a minute. Reduce carbon footprint? Maybe I'm on a different program.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Dec 15, 2016 - 09:40pm PT

I'm concerned that meditation is such a small part of Mind (as Organizer). The Wizard led me to believe it was over 70%. What gives? Where's the quantum flux???

PSP also PP

Trad climber

Berkeley

Dec 15, 2016 - 10:31pm PT

Jill said Is it possible that unconditional love may occur before nihilism or solipsism? It's comforting to think it might.

From a buddhist POV Unconditional love is your original self; you just have to be able to let go of your conditional self and then you are the unconditional original self who relates to others unconditionally by natural process. Easier said than done conditioning is very strong. Hence practice.

As far as nihilism and solipsism IMO I think they are constructs created by speculators that are inaccurate definitions of something they have not experienced..

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Dec 16, 2016 - 04:18pm PT

Mind seems to be more than just a kind of janitor for the ego, an organizer.

As I look at Jgill’s whirly diagram (Strategies for Taking Action), it all seems oriented to do achievement and doing, not so much to being. Even “Positive,” “meditate,” “knowing that you are doing your best,” “watching your thinking” all seem to be instrumentally oriented, so that one becomes, gets somewhere, or becomes something.

I get why you might see mind as organizer.

Where or what is living without achievement, analysis, strategies, plans, projects, etc.?

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Dec 16, 2016 - 04:39pm PT

PSP: As far as nihilism and solipsism IMO I think they are constructs created by speculators that are inaccurate definitions of something they have not experienced..

It seems to me, at least in my limited experience, that one finds nihilism and solipsism in the space of emptiness in a middle phase of one’s practice. Things no longer are quite real. Objects are merely conceptual and evanescent. However, it seems to me *that spiritualism* is ungrounded. That spiritualism seems too ascetic, pure, masculine, unitary, refined, clear, firey, sharp, and straight—even intellectual. What seemed to be missing was all the mundane muddy messiness that my life appears to be. It's life in everyday living found in chopping wood and carrying water.

At first there is the mountain. With practice, the mountain disappears in emptiness. After a while, the mountain shows up again. Every object seemingly returns as it was initially. Nothing is special. There’s just living, without all the sureties and interpretations.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Dec 16, 2016 - 05:16pm PT

Another mind map . . .

Remember, the map is not the territory!

Where or what is living without achievement, analysis, strategies, plans, projects, etc.?

Some would question if that is really living. Reminds me of my grandfather sitting on the porch swing seventy years ago, just relaxing and being in the moment. Times were so different then.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Dec 16, 2016 - 05:23pm PT

But can the territory be the map?

And is that a Mind Map in the upper left, or a Mind Mop? My eyes aren't that good.

A Q matrix?

edit: an IQ matrix?