What is "Mind?"

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WBraun

climber
Aug 7, 2018 - 02:00pm PT
The thinking mind can justify anything if not backed by intuition and heart.

100% true and is an absolute FACT! Not an assertion at all.

Within the heart resides the soul (Atma) and along with the soul resides GOD in his localized form as (Paramatma).

When one meditates and dovetails ones actions correctly one naturally comes to full realization of this.

Not from walking a slack line.

WBraun

climber
Aug 7, 2018 - 02:21pm PT
Lucky for them.
MikeL the reason I'm not convinced by your raw experiences is that they are not observable by anyone else, nor do the experiences of others match yours.

Not true either.

Bonafide spiritual experiences are pretty much experienced the same by many different personalities.

That is how they are verified.

The gross materialists are completely blind to the real advanced knowledge and only mental speculate because they are ultimately completely clueless masquerading themselves as knowledgeable .....as,

the blind leading the blind.
jogill

climber
Colorado
Aug 7, 2018 - 02:32pm PT
MikeL: “The unconscious” cannot be found, measured, or delineated empirically any more than mind can. One cannot say what “the unconscious” is as a thing, much less what it does or how it does it.


Perhaps the unconscious is simply the physical functioning of the brain, and that might be trackable.
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 7, 2018 - 02:49pm PT
I get a kick out of the Zen "religion" tag of John G's. That, despite the fact that Mike and I and others have repeatedly said we are not religious, do not follow any doctrine, worship any deity, follow any codified method or teacher or path. As if looking at mind is itself 'religious." It is for john, apparently, which is why, I suppose, he posits MY experience in those cloths. But they have never been mine per se.

And Dingus' statement: But I don't assert you have to walk a mile in my shoes in order to participate in a discussion with me or to even have some curiosity about any given topic. Why? I'm not a preacherman telling others to 'follow me for I know the way.'

Never, in a single line of this exhausting thread, have I suggested that people walk in my particular shoes. In fact I've advised against it. Zen is too boring. My point is that if we are talking about mind, at least LOOK at your own mind long and seriously by whatever method you want. Without doing so, what reference point would you hope to draw from?

Another confusion is that while we rail against using a computer model to use in exploring mind, it should be made clear that we are not talking about WHAT you see or feel or think or remember or plan for or sense or any of that content. What we are talking about is the phenomenon that Hard AI folks promise to someday endow in a laptop: the capacity for awareness. This is the aspect that Nagel referred to as not being a question of causality, because sentience itself is not an object or phenomenon one can physically "find" in the brain.

Note also that the unconscious is not some self-aware process that bursts into waking awareness. If you look at your own conscious process you will find it is almost entirely mechanical.
WBraun

climber
Aug 7, 2018 - 02:56pm PT
Dead is the real unconscious.

The unconscious mind is in actual fact the subconscious mind.

Consciousness is always present whether one is conscious of themselves or not.

When there is no consciousness there is NO LIFE.

Consciousness is the very exact fact that life itself is there .......
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Aug 7, 2018 - 03:28pm PT
If you look at your own conscious process you will find it is almost entirely mechanical.


Very perceptive of you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Aug 7, 2018 - 06:01pm PT
Jan, I would once again say that you are conflating what minds are with what minds should do (for the good of the group). They are completely different questions. You seem to assume that a scientific, evolutionary origin for mind is not compatible with our noblest, humanistic instincts about how we should act. I would say that of all of the hypotheses for what mind is, the scientific one is the most egalitarian. The others really do rely on things outside of the scientific realm that pit believers against unbelievers and believers in this against believers in that. The scrutiny of science exposes charlatans, false prophets, and unsupported notions like karma. It's really nothing more than a common denominator of things that we can all agree on (before the Trump administration's assault on facts).
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 7, 2018 - 06:07pm PT
I look at my mind every waking day. But you already said I don't do it in a manner of which you approve.

My sense of it is that your fear or aversion or disinterest in looking directly at your own mind is not so much a revolt against my method, but of ANY method, which is queer seeming that the question is: What is mind?

No. Apparently, I lack the requisite interest or courage or desire, to look "directly" at my own mind.

Never, in a single line of this exhausting thread, have I suggested that people walk in my particular shoes. In fact I've advised against it. Zen is too boring. My point is that if we are talking about mind, at least LOOK at your own mind long and seriously by whatever method you want.

Dang it's hard to walk the talk, innit?

I live in my mind every waking minute. I know of no deeper, longer examination.
-


Dingus, you're just being cranky. You're also presenting an argument that would be absurd if you tried to apply it the the self-proclaimed "science types" here and the way they do science.

That is, people have been practicing science for several hundred years, at least by what they would describe as something akin to the scientific "method." The method does is not particular to any specific topic of investigation but is a general MO based on results.

Now when someone chimes in here with a fundamentalist stance toward the hegemony of measurements, how often do you A), accuse the person of "preaching" about their methods, B) accuse them of trying to accuse others to adopt "their" methods, and C), doubt that their methods are any better than any other methods to investigate physical reality.

What's more, if you asked a biologist what they actually did, and they said, they study very closely the organic processes associated with living things, what would you say to the person who said that because they live around people and animals "every waking day," they were, in fact, doing biology?

You see the point here. It underscores two rather glaring misconceptions running deeply through this thread.

First, self-observation methods are inherently "religious," seeking woo, as opposed to looking into what is true.

Second, the belief that the investigation per mind is an investigation about content, and since the only content that "leads" or "gets" anywhere involves quantifications, and since you aren't measuring anything, you are wasting your time.



MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Aug 7, 2018 - 07:40pm PT
the belief that the investigation per mind is an investigation about content, and since the only content that "leads" or "gets" anywhere involves quantifications, and since you aren't measuring anything, you are wasting your time.


If self-observation led to truth you would see yourself talking off the top of your head, while at the same time shooting from the hip and tripping over your own feet.


When it comes to your ideas about science.
WBraun

climber
Aug 7, 2018 - 08:15pm PT
The scrutiny of science exposes charlatans, false prophets, and unsupported notions like karma.

Such brainwashed horsesh!t from clueless fools .....
jogill

climber
Colorado
Aug 7, 2018 - 09:35pm PT
JL: "It underscores two rather glaring misconceptions running deeply through this thread . . . First, self-observation methods are inherently "religious," seeking woo, as opposed to looking into what is true."


And here it is, folks. JL's belief that what he experiences is the truth. That's the religious theme running through his posts: He believes, therefore it is true. The mind cannot, like Wily Coyote, play tricks upon this internal investigator. He knows the truth when he experiences it.

While Mike tells us over and over there is no "truth" to be found in anything.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Aug 7, 2018 - 10:55pm PT
I’m curious to hear how you experience deep self-reflection. Do you do so intensely or with circumspection while you’re multitasking or having conversations with others?

I find myself doing it in all situations, and multitasking, which includes talking.

When working on deeply vexing problems in the past, I remember giving a lecture on one topic, graduate classical mechanics, while thinking about a completely different problem in physics I was puzzling through for my research.

It was startling to realize that I was doing it at first, but it became a sort of game, being in two places at once as it were, though intellectual places. Perhaps because the "performance" of teaching involves rehearsing, for me at the time, note preparation. The style of teaching through lecturing also allows one to disengage from the class, you are talking, the students are listening, the level of the material is such that most students hadn't prepared before class, and so the questions were generally minimal.

Sometimes I am sitting quietly, sometimes I'm engaged in other activities.

You train to think, and if it is your life, your training is quite extensive, and is applicable to topics well outside your specific discipline.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Aug 7, 2018 - 11:16pm PT
MikeL: 1. “The unconscious” cannot be found, measured, or delineated empirically any more than mind can. One cannot say what “the unconscious” is as a thing, much less what it does or how it does it,


Oh, I don't think it's a monolithic "thing", I think it's a roiling and churning hierarchy of unbelievably distributed processes which filter, access, form, and aggregate sensory inputs and memories to create a real-time context which essentially amounts to Largo's awareness - and just to be clear, I'm not talking content, I'm talking pure awareness, but in that acknowledging and claiming there is no possibility of awareness absent context (again, not content).

3. There is an apparent inconsistency with those who argue for the substantiality of one invisible entity (e.g., the unconscious) while arguing for the insubstantiality of another invisible entity because it cannot be found (e.g., spirit).

Well, as stated, I have a regular conscious interaction and dialog with an aspect of my subconscious on a fairly regular basis and I know that aspect of my subconscious is responsible for delivering up all the speech I hear and possibly all the speech I remember and generate. So it isn't "invisible" to me in the same entirely opaque way spirits/gods/universal consciousnesses are.

Also, I'm quite content with my own [animal] "spirit" and the more probable likelihood it's meat endowed. And I guess at root I entirely fail to understand why a meat-generated spirit would somehow be less likely or miraculous or somehow valued with less esteem than some god- or universally-derived spirit. To be honest I view that as yet more turning-up of the nose at any idea or suggestion we're just animals.
nafod

Boulder climber
State college
Aug 8, 2018 - 04:34am PT
I remember giving a lecture on one topic, graduate classical mechanics, while thinking about a completely different problem in physics
Yeah, it’s tough when you get that hot looking coed in the front row
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Aug 8, 2018 - 07:28am PT
^^^strange comment, I never really thought of my students in any way but as students.
nafod

Boulder climber
State college
Aug 8, 2018 - 07:29am PT
I think the author may have been joking
Jan

Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
Aug 8, 2018 - 08:13am PT
eeyonkee, your post has left me with head scratching. I have no idea where you got the idea that I assume a scientific evolutionary origin for mind is not compatible with our noblest humanistic instincts? However, you are not the first on this thread to conclude that the only choice is one between science and fundamentalist religion.

Rather, I would suggest that your own implicit assumptions about science are in fact, rather religious in nature. Is the scientific mind really the most egalitarian? I would argue that it is the most elitist view, one which cuts out the vast majority of human beings who have no education or not enough to comprehend much science.

Rather, I think a simple ethical rule like only do to others what you would have them do to you is much more egalitarian. It can be understood and applied by anybody. It also cuts across religions and belief systems. It could also be applied usefully to science before some of its inventions are widely propagated just because they can be.

As for exposing charlatans, false prophets, and unsupported notions, I think humans actually did this for a couple million years before science came along, their main hindrance being those in power not their own naivete. Evolution has endowed most humans with a very good nose for hypocrisy.

As for conflating what minds are with what minds should do (for the good of the group), humans are social animals whose survival has depended on the cooperation of the group. All of the social customs and rules that we see around us have evolved to enable this under varying circumstances. None of them have been handed down from on high. To study the evolution of the human mind is to study the evolution of human technology and culture and vice versa. Brain size can be directly corelated with this evolution up until the invention of language which found a way to use the brain more efficiently. The main impetus for language however, was not the brain but the desire for better communication among intelligent animals. Several animals have larger brain to body weights than humans yet we seem to be the only ones with such highly developed language.

Since I am puzzled by your post, it is also possible of course that I have misunderstood you??
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Aug 8, 2018 - 08:24am PT
I would argue that it is the most elitist view...

you state that you "would argue" but you don't make the argument. What is your argument that science (or the scientific mind) is the most elitist? In particular, what do you mean by the word "elitist"?
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Aug 8, 2018 - 08:25am PT
eeyonkee... I would suggest that your own implicit assumptions about science are in fact, rather religious in nature.

So what you're saying is eeyonkee's religious?
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Topic Author's Reply - Aug 8, 2018 - 08:28am PT
And here it is, folks. JL's belief that what he experiences is the truth.


Lord. I said we were LOOKING for truth. No claims to having "found" it.

My sense here is that when someone other than a scientist says something about truth, some go literally crazy. Goethe, Stevens, Whitehead, Ellison, Jung - all these posers should have been doing their math...

And Healje, the business of awareness without content is hardly disproven because you have not been there yet. There's a massive amount of material on this but it all has to do with HOW to get there. If interested, check out the methods described in "The Immaterial Jhanas," especially the one on "Boundless Consciousness." It's not a quick or easy study - none of this stuff is - but it will cure you of the misconception that awareness is anchored and only anchored in content.

You sound like the guy who said El Cap will never go free because you haven't done it yet, and then won't take the word of those who did, who "only think" they have, and are bragging about it. Not even. This is not even advanced stuff, amigo.

For example, look at this quote from Healje:

...a roiling and churning hierarchy of unbelievably distributed processes which filter, access, form, and aggregate sensory inputs and memories to create a real-time context which essentially amounts to Largo's awareness - and just to be clear, I'm not talking content, I'm talking pure awareness, but in that acknowledging and claiming there is no possibility of awareness absent context (again, not content).

Context, in it's general meaning, refers to: the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs.

This is the bit-torrent model I've referred to, whereby awareness is an output or is "caused" by brain activity (and that anything else is "magic," ie, a phenomenon sans cause). The problem with this model is that it implies a linear sequence in which content births or gives rise to awareness, which is impossible because content only becomes as much when it becomes conscious. Before that it's neural activity. There is no content, fully formed, camping in the unconscious and waiting to present itself to awareness, like a computer file waiting to be opened. Prior to awareness, it's all machine works.

The question is what is the relationship between the machine and consciousness, and how do they dance together to form a seamless whole.
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