He was showing a lack of inhibition of many intense emotions. Instinctual fears and angers became intense impulses. There is more too it. I only have read a few articles on GUAGE and not any recently.

Sorry guys its wasn't HM IT WAS PHINES Gauge. Hm was hippocampi, Guage was frontal cortex.

If you look into brain anatomy of animals, you will realize that most birds, all dogs, and felines, have a frontal cortex. They can think with some depth of reflection. They can also make a choice, upon their minor reflection. I say I know this based on my experiences with them and with watching them on-line.Of course the less frontal brain matter you have the more instinctual your responses, as was seen in the famous case of Phineas Gauge or one could make more sense of this by comparing the frontal cortex of a small specific bird to that of a breed of large dog. Instincts are there in both cases, but the bigger brain offers a little more brain activity just necessary enough to distinguish between choices better.

I think "shared meaning" might be the result of knowledge modalities as well as similar experience and similar reference. I refer to a spider across the room, you see it and have similar reference and similar experience, and are thus able to know what I am talking about. Knowing and meaning are very close together in this sense, as is the similarity between awareness and reference. My question is, what is this similarity?

Jeez, there all invalid. The second one is poorly worded, badly formulated.

I make the understanding clear in my book (On Being and Consciousness) that "belief" should be substituted for "assent and dissent" (as the Stoics agreed) or simply "acceptance and rejection." It provides a lot more inner clarity.

When is the self not an image? People appear to be what is seen of them.

Aristotle wrote, "You are what you do repeatedly." Myself, I say "You are your own regularity of experience." And. agreeing with Aristotle again, that "actions define character."

Introspectively, you may find within your self a passion, a flame that ignites and wants to burn away your energies doing a specific something, or a general something, as in being in the medical field providing health services to people.

When it comes to species of being you are, you are a human. To understand your humanity look to the philosophies of all the great humanists.

I hope this provides some starting point for understanding your self and its image.

If moderation is an ideology, which it seemingly is, so too is mass consumption. I'd like to see an economy experiment with limitation on the amount of money one can make in a year. Black holes collapse because they consume so much, and we have the 1% that are fulfilling that nature or metaphor, which could result in the collapse of capitalism as we know it.

Positive correspondence takes place. AHA!

I have felt an immensity of emotions myself, probably due to the complexity at which I "sum" the world, as you have shared here. I have felt deep emotions. At one point my visions of the world were so immense that I almost cried tears of blood. Thanks to medication, my emotional senses have been numbed. Now its more apathy and occasional placidity that make up my emotional life. "Duty to Joy" not so much, but to each his own.

There are plenty of ways civilization as we know it could collapse. These threats are no less or more probable everyday, at all times. In truth, no one really knows where's it going -- when it will end or what is to come of this thing we call civilization.

It seems to me that there is more business in writing music than in writing poetry these days. Music seems more alive than poetry does. I could never write a decent song but I have written poetry.

I would totally agree that most of it is self-expression and that it does have aesthetic value. For you even, it has come to have more value than for some of us who do dapple with the art. I myself have put together a number of my poems, but all in vain, as my poetry has not bested the Christ like phenomena of resurrecting anything.

I have friends that are poets on the side, and they are some of the most sensitive and astute people I have ever known.

As for other supposedly special traits of humans, de Waal says they have fallen one by one: chimps and other species have been observed showing empathy, regret, and friendship; recognizing faces; recognizing themselves in a mirror; understanding when other creature know or don't know something; remembering distant events; exercising self-restraint; and more. (1)

Preliminary data suggest the chimpanzees do, in fact, understand the meaning of the words.(2) Dogs have also been able to know the referent meaning of dozens of words. There is even this one dog that broke the world record for a recognition task.

:::: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=_6479QAJuz8

1. https://www.businessinsider.com/chimp-intelligence-vs-humans-2017-1
2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/thinking-like-a-chimpanzee-55484749/

Ants are just intelligent enough to survive, meaning they have just enough cognition to do the things they do. When you compare us to the intelligence of ants its obvious that the human species' over-all intelligence is much higher. Neurologically speaking, we have trillions more connections than insects, yet insects are the most prevalent species on the planet. We might be considered the most intelligent species on the planet.

One of the major inventions of this century has been virtual reality. We can create worlds with in our own to interact with and to manage and design intelligently. I think this is a peak of intelligent life, creating simulations.

The purposes of the computer is so wide that it requires super intelligence to run, an intelligence of many individuals working together as a collective intelligence.

When we get down to individuals however, some of us can be plum dumb. It is human to err, some of us just do it more often than others. Avoiding the sufferings and problems in life isn't always granted even if you have the intelligence of a human. However, being able to escape the perils of life has become much more feasible within in the last hundred or so years. This shows us that even the not-so-intelligent can survive, and that the over all intelligence of the human race is hardly staggered (CURRENTLY) by our lack of intelligence. We have science to thank for that.

Thanks for sharing that it helps me understand what I couldn't put to words.

If there is causal closure what is its opposite? And how does that add on to an understanding of causation itself?

Hmm. Hume used the word conjunction. I could read up on it more. Events sounds right too. A good search might be something like "causation and physical events." That lead me to some info on "causal closure." Looks promising.

One example that came to mind quite quickly was Kant's Categorical Imperative, which I am sure your familiar with. Its a procedural philosophy. His categories, on that hand, are of declarative nature. Its ethics vs. epistemology, in another lingo.

Yes, the two do seem to intertwine. In physics we learn about INITIAL CONDITIONS, or Velocity at time 0, and than go from there to the effects. Causation can be explained through physics, and through syntax. However, they are both different areas and for a young man not learned too well in either analytics I am rightly boggled.

I think this jives well with Rands egoism.

"Care" as noted here, means to fulfill self-interests, needs and wants -- intentions. Remarkably, many philosophers had to say something about intentions.

I find Maslow to be the most clear cut when it comes to self-care.

It's also markedly important to note how self-care is the opposite of self harm. One is a creative expression the other destructive. I think most intentions will fit into the interests of self, harm or care, and can be judged from these in this value.

I think Thoreau went a step further saying, "A government that governs least governs best." Why? Supposedly the less you need government the more rational, self-caring, the members are.

I guess one has to step down from the fog into the kitchen and see what's cooking to get into the realities of cause and effect. The fog still roams around other parts of the home though, never really fading out. :)

There wouldn't be much to philosophy if it weren't for the philosophy.

Some one's philosophy may amount to a way of living. Quite certainly this can be seen in what is called "The Way." Even Jesus has this title for his followers, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

I find it useful to use the distinction between procedural and declarative propositions when analyzing my mind's content. Is this thought (x) declarative or procedural? Does it state something about the world or does it state something that I can do?

When you keep some track of your thoughts, the patterns and the like, rather it be through repeated introspections or insight provided by an other, you can come to self-actualization in the mind, which is a realization about yourself (declarative or procedural).

I don't know if you are fine just the way you go about analyzing things, with your own reference frames or if you think there are other methods. Here I make mention of one. I like the idea that philosophy offers both declarative and procedural content.

I think you are right.

The Stoics used the phrase, "Death means nothing to us." Why? Something you can look into...

There are many things that are dead, that probably don't experience being or time, but rather are dead to both. If most of the world is dead, than it is right to conclude that such a state of existence is entered upon the termination of a life.

However, there are many spiritual philosophies out there, and I weigh the truth of them myself as you might if you explore such possibilities.

Well, thanks for your elaboration of your understanding of cause and effect. I do think adding those factors in, most of them, kind of even complicates it more. The butterfly effect is essentially just a larger explanation for causal occurrences. Definitely complicates.

Models can be used in experimentations. These are usually closed system occurrences, which thus allow for some closure about particular events. Just thought of that.

:up: Great discussion guys, learning more about Buddhism here. Great analyzing from nearly everyone.

One problem I face with Buddhist philosophy/conception is the idea of "No desire".

When one thinks about it is certain that one will not survive life without desires. Cultivating wise desires that become the back-bone of good decisions is essential for thriving in any world.

Accepting life as it is, or having an ideal to work towards, in mind, are both possibilities, and excluding one from the Buddhist philosophy, should for the sake of intellectual livelihood and integrity of the philosophy, not be done.

Just to add, as long as you can intend in the future tense a state or reaction of emotion, it is ostensibly under your control.

Say for example, I am going to see my brother on vacation. "WHY? I think I am getting some happiness out of seeing him and being part of his life when I can be, and I think he is as well. Can I just as easily not see him? Yes I could withhold the intention to be happy as I could to choose happiness.

Control is opting for a select number of possibilities over others. As long as there are outcomes that bring about emotion, control over emotion is under human control.

I understand this, but when is emotion not under one's control?

I think empathy is a good starting point for understanding of the other. If it is expressed, in its emotional appearance it helps both parties feel better about communicating with each other. I have had conversation with the empathic and the distant, and been in both positions myself. To understand some one, to actually hear what they are saying about themselves, requires some kind of emotional engagement.

There are openings all across the nation to get in with out running into the wall. The border of California with the ocean, the Canadian border, etc. The wall would not eliminate the possibility of entering into the country illegally, and we would still have to have some form of enforced defense elsewhere. What more, have you heard of "a ladder?" :)

As a writer (Poet, Essayist), I do aspire to and admire Midgley's wise words.

Art and literalism are always creating something new with something old. This is oft how the mind works too, with old memories being used to reference new objects. So the chair you see is the chair you saw and the chair new as it is at the same time, and that is the most sublime look at the chair, the most artistic perspective one can take, the existential gaze.

To go even further one need only to use property addition or subtraction, to create the abstract within linguistic or artistic bounds.

As I have looked and looked at nature, I have come up with less and less to be poetic about. Been there done that. But if you have the existential gaze, as mentioned above that gaze allows one to know that they can always go back to the filled canvas and create a new look from an old look.

My theory of infinite variation makes the potential creativity one can exhume from the world of phenomena, boundless, and the existential gaze is all that is required for artistic prowess to run over that world.

Morality is not often like this, as some laws are set in stone. But any person that works in the legal system knows the minor yet profuse changes in laws that takes place all the time.

This is basically what I was going to posit, after coming up with the answer to this question with some off-line thought.

When reality sets in human nature gets in the way of any Utopian state. Capitalism is suitable and functional for the greedy consumerists. One solution is to educate greed out of people instead of making it the ideal method by which the system functions and by which a kind of human nature is actualized. Even if we did educate into the minds of the young, moderation, there would still be the problems of greed taking over. Greed, social jealousy etc. is learned but also impulsive.

I firstly advocate socialism to an extent. I will not get into it unless triggered to. I also think we can make communities/societies that are made after the ideals of Jacque Fresco's RBE. However, some are globalists, and I don't think that is going to happen. "We" still have democracized and humanized the globe yet.

When has that ever worked out? XD

"GTm applies to number theory. @MindForged

Yes, but the number of possibilities for a single things spatial relation reaches infinity; it very functionality is potentially infinite (my theory called "infinite variation"). Its not a practical life/decision theory, though, like you stated.

I don't know what you mean when you say, "We know all things about logic systems." Apparently I don't know them all, or even a good number of them. What is noumena to me, may be phenomena to you. XD

Nomena = Unknown
Phenomena = Known

Having both is essential, as you cannot have complete knowledge of any one thing, but some knowledge of what it is. This prediction is a postulate of Gödel's Incompleteness theorem. .

Reasons are determinate. Feelings are determinate. Its seems to be an equivocation.

"x approves of y" = "x likes y"

That's what general statistical psychology does it provides those who know it with a normative set of values, values concerning groups of people. The psychologist is prone to 1) biases from statistics as well as 2) biases from his own sense of regularity and commonality among his patients. The effective psychologist will make due note of his own normative stances and stand back from than when viewing individual patients, attempting to have a non-bias knowledge of who they think they are talking to. However, it may be helpful at times to categorize or generalize patients. Knowing when to and when not to is a learned skill.

Hello, yes well I ran into an issue when contemplating the ontological argument.

Sure, we can each reach a conception of "the greatest of all beings." But if you drew a unicorn we could all form a conception of it as well.

The argument would imply that all things that can be conceived exist, have an ontological basis, outside of the mind. This of course is fallacious, as intrinsic fictional things can be conceived by the mind just as extrinsic existent things can.

"It lacks the experimental requisite." Right.

Since Descartes lived in a time when there was governing power in religion, it was a safety protocol to turn over some material supporting the existence of the God, i.e. he came up with his own type of ontological argument.

That anyone would not feel in life is unlikely. Certain events arouse emotions or feelings. You can be Stoic to a point, but there is also Hedonism and the Utilitarian principle to think about. Why choose one over the other? Why not try them all out?

The Big Bang is just one model for how the universe came into existence, there are others.

I think since probability exists hard determinism is incorrect. Current physics uses the Schrodinger cat experiment to make this apparent. The cat is either alive or dead, there is no certainty, no hard determinism, no omnipresent observer making all things certain and predetermined. This of course is just theory too.

The human lexicon has surely grown since we were herders in Mesopotamia. As a result of word invention we are more informed, more intelligent than ever.

If any one person desires to specialize in a particular domain of knowledge, they will read. The more they read in that domain the larger their breadth of understanding, consequently the increase in their intelligence.

You can be intelligent here but an idiot there.

I think once you attribute eternalism to the universe, there is no longer a justified belief for an external eternal creator.

You can also look at the evidence for the absence of a creator. How much of space is empty? Why is there such a low life to space proportion if we are here intended by some higher being?

You can also look at the pieces of evidence that show that the universe is EVEN NOW forming naturally, with no apparent intelligence behind its formation (thus automatically).

You can declare that anything is "Caused by God" but that never really explains much at all. As Dawkins wrote, its an explanatory gap being filled with a deity. See: Occassionalism.

Anything relating to the origin of life and its processes should by virtue of modern science be linked back to evolutionary theory.

As I have yet to personally research the "evolution of sentimentality" I have little to offer myself, but I am sure there is plenty on google.

Social animals are likely to feel bonding emotions, such as affection. There is a reason this is the case in that social animals tend to survive better in their grouping. So you get natural selection fine tuning the brain in such a way as to strengthen the pleasure that comes from attachment.

Another example would be in the bonding between child and parents, which too requires that some pleasant feeling evolve, in order to ensure survival.

Interestingly, evolution doesn't just evolve a mechanism whereby something happens, it also provides the mechanism with "sentimentality." Where exactly it started in the evolution of life, is probably a mystery to scientists.