Gilgamesh fails of course and that was the core message of this work — TheMadFool

Gilgamesh joins the immortal pantheon after he dies....kind of fits with something I've recently been toying with, are we spiritual beings "in-training"? Perhaps what is traditionally called the soul has its material birth....

The Epic of Gilgamesh - the most ancient recorded story

For anyone who enjoys Dickens or Victorian literature or just a good fiction, The Eustace Diamonds is quite a gem. I could not put it down.

But if we go by evidence, life wasn’t always around — Benj96

The scope of that evidence is tiny indeed, compared with the vast expanses of space and time of which we are aware.

Suppose there's a being that's made of and thus emits neutrinos. Neutrinos pass through anything and everything - it simply can't be reflected back at this being and so, this being would never see faerself in the way we see ourselves in the mirror kind courtesy of visible light let alone recognize itself. There's no image of itself; how can it ever then recognize itself such a feat only being possible with an image of the self. — TheMadFool

Yes, unless neutrinos in create some kind of disruption in the fabric of spacetime that the being can perceive as its own "mirror-image". It's a good example.

I like the idea a lot. Nothing really current to offer at the moment....

It disappointed me a bit the fact dogs failed the mirror test... I would bet some money to they have at least some awareness but it turns out not. — javi2541997

Actually, I'm not sure the mirror test is all that definitive. Passing the mirror test arguably does demonstrate self-awareness. But failing to recognize oneself "in a mirror" doesn't necessarily imply that one does not have self-awareness, only that particular level or type of perceptual understanding required to grasp that physical projection. A blind person also fails the mirror test. A dog knows when it bites its own tail.

edit: so I did a little digging and this article supports this interpretation Dogs may be more self-aware...

Nevertheless, when we take the entire body as a unit, the cellular allorecognition can be safely interpreted as the body being self-aware. — TheMadFool

Interesting to me in that I just started reading Brentano's Descriptive Psychology. His position is that psychognosy. the study of purely mental states, is differentiated from genetic psychology, which contains some physico-chemical component. The former being an exact and the latter (because of the admixture of the physical) an inexact or approximate science. So physio-chemical events may be preconditions of consciousness, but are different in kind from conscious events. Fundamentally I agree with this.

I guess my dog doesn't wonder "how is to be like a human" — javi2541997

Probably not. But equally I'm sure not a lot of humans wonder what it is like to be a dog. :)

she doesn’t know what actually means — javi2541997

Well, you don't actually know what it is like "to be a dog," to paraphrase Nagel's famous thought-experiment on the limitations of reductionism.

Isn't there a difference in kind between these two types of recognition though? Allorecognition really just seems equivalent to saying that the organism "is the organism that it is." A dog knows if it accidentally bites its own tail instead of the tail of another dog, even though it fails the self-recognition test.

Descriptive Psychology by Franz Brentano

Another point worth noting is the Buddha was reluctant to discuss metaphysical issues and avoided discussing such matters, instead adopting a noncommital stance on all such questions - Noble Silence. — TheMadFool

If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him.

praxis is the cornerstone of religions. The proof of the pudding is in the eating!
— TheMadFool

Are religious folk renown for practicing what they preach? :lol:

So the question becomes, what is the cornerstone of religion? — praxis

Just because most people are hypocrites doesn't mean this doesn't hold true for those whose practices are authentic.

a transcendent reality which, in fact, may be better described as being nothing more than a completely non-rational, thoughtless, blind Will-to-Live — charles ferraro

I think being mindful of this fact of simultaneous uniting and surpassing is indeed key. But is it non-rational, or simply not bound by or limited to rationality? I feel like there is a sense in which our minds, while they may not encompass this reality, nevertheless intersect it.

Why do linguistic animals think they are each two things instead of one? — bongo fury

:up:

praxis is the cornerstone of religions. The proof of the pudding is in the eating! — TheMadFool

And this argument undoubtedly has merit. As I just posted on my thread on "motivated belief":

"It may well be, for example, that there is some kind of spiritual or noumenal dimension whose information is only manifest to those who actually believe in it. Then people who deny and criticize those who claim to enjoy access to such information are really only confirming their own inability to achieve the requisite belief."

Religion's are at the core of many cultures, so are vital if you want to develop a more expansive understanding of the human experience.

I forgot to ask. What evidence do you have for this claim and what does it actually mean? I see the worked 'perhaps' nestling uncomfortably with 'firmly believe'. — Tom Storm

Yes, this does touch the heart of the matter. What can be firmly believed?

Who is to say what the universe says to each of us? Isaac Newton heard the story of gravity when no one around him did. What we perceive is very largely a function of what we already believe, our natural inclinations, and the scope of our experience. It may well be, for example, that there is some kind of spiritual or noumenal dimension whose information is only manifest to those who actually believe in it. Then people who deny and criticize those who claim to enjoy access to such information are really only confirming their own inability to achieve the requisite belief.

So, to answer your question, yes, this claim represents my intuitive grasp of the features of the universe based on fairly long lifetime of diligent study and dedicated practice. And the preceding is my explanation of the nature of the foundation of such knowledge.

That overarching system is consciousness itself. — hope

Well, that's not what I was suggesting.

Mind and matter are both made of consciousness. — hope

I don't think that's the best possible description though. Mind and matter are both elements of some overarching system maybe.

It was already shared by Lao Tzu 3000 years ago. Modern people are becoming more ignorant haha — hope

No argument from me.

Now your confusing belief and mind. — hope

I'm not confusing them, I'm providing a phenomenological description that I personally find consistent with the fundamental experience of consciousness. You seem unaware that consciousness is a very hotly debated topic. If you already know the true nature then you'd best share it with everyone quickly so they stop writing all those books about it.

Sure, but belief and consciousness are two different things. — hope

Maybe. Or maybe belief aligns with intentionality at a level that is fundamental to what consciousness is. Thinking is always thinking "about" and the about is essentially some kind of belief, it has a direction.

hen give a definition for each term that makes it unique from each other term. — hope

If you need definitions then you could read a few books. Or start another thread. Has nothing to do with my post about motivated belief. I'm more interested in bad-faith versus authenticity as it relates to genuine versus feigned belief.

Perception, intelligence, mind, consciousness, conscience, senses, experience, beliefs, brain, are all different things. Don't mix them up. — hope

I am quite certain that I understand the different descriptive contexts. To quote one of Anthony Trollope's characters, "I know my own mind well enough."

You're talking about perception and intelligence not consciousness. Those are facets of and in consciousness not consciousness itself. — hope

Pretty sure I'm not. Pretty sure that I was and am talking about consciousness. I'm "conscious" of the fact that I am.

Yet, I don't have the personality and memory to really stand out at college. I have some issues and impediments that prevent me from becoming an academic is what I mean. I'm certain I'm not the only one that feels this way, and would like to ask what would anyone else recommend? — Shawn

I have found that one valuable principle of self-cultivation is to challenge yourself to work on your own weaknesses. Where you are naturally gifted, there is ample opportunity for reward and recognition, but little room for personal growth. I try to do this in all areas, physical, emotional, intellectual. It isn't an easy or a quick enterprise, but it can be very effective and rewarding.

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

Why do you suppose that it would have eyes? — Sir2u

Of course that is an analogy too.....

Well, the possibility at least exists that there are such causal schemas, perhaps only partially overlapping the boundaries of the world we inhabit with our current abilities and understanding. Hence the analogy between magic and advanced technology. viz also my lounge post on the realms of the amoeba and the human. Carlos Castaneda's books all revolve around this premise.

Well, any magic I have ever heard about has involved performing some non-arbitrary action or ritual in order to engender a result. What you have described is just causing something to happen by virtue of thought alone, nothing magical about that!

. (i) observing that stars had realigned themselves to spell M-A-G-I-C or (ii) using the most powerful planck scale imaging device to discover G-O-D-S-W-O-R-K spelled out in quarks in a (every) hydrogen nucleus or (iii) a live severed head of person able to speak see hear think etc — 180 Proof

Interesting that those are all anthropocentric examples. Perhaps the stars and quarks do spell out those messages, but we have not yet learned the language.

What is "magic" anyway except an alternative causal schema? Any system in which a causes b according to some rule c is equally comprehensible, whether it is magic or physics.

A lot of speculative inference, but so far hangs together, and seems plausible.

Not sure where you’re trying to go, or if I’m understanding you correctly, but I’ll say no, it isn’t. I can conceive of a world (reality) that doesn’t include thought — Pinprick

Says the thinking being.....

Simmel definitely had his ups and downs, but overall very stimulating.

Next up, for a larf, Yuval Noah Harari's history and prophecy of humanity:
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
and
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Is there something special about first marriages? — TiredThinker

Yes. It teaches you how to start over from scratch.

Talking about the role quantum mechanics plays in any purported 'theory of consciousness' is like talking about the role QM plays in a theory of music – reductionist pseudo-scientistic nonsense — 180 Proof

Is it though? Moving from the quantum to the macroscopic world is essentially just a type of phase-transition. Quantum biology seems a solid field of study to me:

"Inspired by the surprising phenomenon interpreted as long-living quantum coherence in warm, noisy, complex and yet remarkably efficient energy transfer systems, many models of environment-assisted quantum transport have been proposed."

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2018.0640

Just because we can't currently envision how living systems might create a framework for delaying quantum decoherence doesn't mean there isn't one. Quantum tunneling is an improbable event that is part of everyday technology now.

The whole concept of God doesn't need to be philosophically justified. Historically it has been something that humanity needs both psychologically and socially. Just like ethics. The negative impacts that have resulted from the gradual degradation of the role of religion as it has been supplanted - but not effectively replaced - by an empty scientific-cum-technical mentality are well-documented and lamented by a host of social philosophers.

You can't reduce a physically instantiated non-physical to a non-physical. It can't exist in that form. It's always a two part relation and irreducible. — Mark Nyquist

If it's irreducible then the same applies to the physical portion. So either way we are then talking about a mental-physical hybrid which is irreducible to either physicality or mentality. This also works for me.