You've set up the discussion nicely, but to be clear, is this thread intended to be about water, consciousness, emergence, or all of these? — bert1

I guess that’s up to your interpretation. I think it’s maybe a comparison between to things that seemingly don’t elicit information or behaviours as a single unit that they have as a collective. And why is this the case?

But that doesn't stop it from being a molecule of water. If it isn't water, what else is it? — alan1000

I’m not saying it isn’t chemically water. Of course it is. I’m saying as unit of water it does not have the properties we attribute to a fluid or crystal of ice. The point I was getting at is “why must it be a collective before it demonstrates certain behaviours that we associate with the fluid and its properties? And secondly does this phenomenon apply to other simple units like the cause of a neuron not being a mind. But a collective being so.

I have no belief in God — Tom Storm

Yeah but when you say this presumably you have a preconceived idea of the god to which you are rejecting?
Like would it not be more accurate to say “I have no belief in one version of a god” - your version, the one you’re rejecting.

But that’s one person - you. Or a group of people - Christians, Jews, Muslims etc. Not everyone’s god because to different people they have different ideas of the heavily loaded term.

Like the god I believe in is nature/ the universe . And by your statement “I have no belief in god” then logically you either a). Aren’t aware of my god/ don’t associate it the same way I do or b). You don’t believe in nature/the universe.

If anything that makes you agnostic not atheist.
You can be like “why do you call it god and not just the pursuit of natural sciences like everyone else?”

And I would just say it’s for several reasons, but one of the main ones is because I feel science as wonderful and powerful a tool as it is, is failing to address concepts that are very important to me like
Ethics and morality, subjectivity vs. objectivity, awareness, love, emotions and all that mysterious ewwy-gooey stuff which also exists in the universe.

Science only accepts something by objectifying it and establishing whether it is repeatable. But knowing that I myself nor you, can ever be repeated or objectified, it would seem to suggest that scientific method based on its principle could not accept that my specific unique personality exists. But I know it exists by virtue of the fact that I’m me. That’s where ethics comes in.

Ethics governs scientific method not the other way around. There is no objective scientific reason why we shouldn’t dissect each other or torture each other to gain valuable scientific insight. But we know it’s wrong. For whatever reason I don’t know.

This is why I call the universe god because - it is both a mechanical physical reality that we live in, as well as the conscious subjects that we share it with.

Hi, I am a theist and I have a question for atheists. I hope this does not cause too much turmoil. Do atheists actively not want God to exist? I am aware that many atheists come to their conclusion because they believe God is impossible and other reasons. However, is there ever an element of not wanting God to exists? I hope this makes sense. — Georgios Bakalis

I think atheism is a false concept on a rational basis. Because there is an issue with the official definition in the dictionary which renders the term “atheist” pretty useless.

It states “ disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.” but it fails to qualify what god/gods it is a lack of belief in?
Is it a physical person? Is it the universe? Is it an object or a subject or a place or a thing? Or is it nature or energy?

In order to reject a god you must have a preconceived idea of what that god is. When you reject Christian god you are rejecting all the characteristics of said god outlined in its doctrine -the bible or popular Christian culture - namely that he is a man (person) with a beard that floats around asking men to kill their sons as a proof of faith, evicting couples from gardens, causing disease and catastrophe and promising paradise etc.

But there are hundreds of religions. Should we not go about proving the falsity of each of them before we call ourselves a true “ultimate” “all encompassing” atheist. Furthermore it’s not like religions are static, eternal or finite in number. Old ones are lost to history and new ones develop continuously.
If I create a religion tomorrow - no one is as of yet atheist to it. Only agnostic. Sure they can question me on my doctrine until we reach a point at which they either agree or disagree and so the religion spreads or is rejected.

Suppose you have a religion with no authoritarian figure head. But rather a set of principles and philosophies. It is inherently more difficult to refute because whilst say “ a giant man in the clouds” is absurd given our current knowledge, the existence of “cycles of suffering”, “a means of mental training (meditation) in order to avoid suffering and the idea that nature recycles dead inanimate material into living creatures, is a bit more reasonable and harder to contest. It approaches something loosely scientific and can be argued with reason.”

So if a religion doesn’t require a “personified” god that can speak and behave like a human as we see in Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism etc then what’s to stop us from replacing “god” with the term “nature” (of reality). Surely “everything” is a good substitute for “god”. Everything = all energy (omnipotence), all places (omnipresence) and all information/interactions (omniscience)

Then we could have a strict and conserved dogma just like every other religion but rather then one based on “blind faith” without openness to discussion and questioning, we could have one based on “I’ll believe it when I see it.” A dogma that states if you can show someone that something is universally true (can be repeated, is consistent, not influenced by bias and variables) then it will be accepted as a correct understanding of our god (nature) unless later improved or proven otherwise.

Enter: science. The new religion so far removed from its ancestors that we don’t even define it as such. Much less controlling, manipulative and oppressive and much more fostering of inquiry and discussion and revelation.

In essence if you aren’t god yourself (omniscient and all knowing) and keeping it very quiet, then you are agnostic (not all knowing/don’t know) but you can’t be atheist (refuse to know) towards all religions because it’s just a blind rejection of any possible description of reality which is absurd. Atheism is ignorance, Agnosticism is the process of inquiry and theism is well, I’m agnostic so I don’t know what theism is. Theism is I guess the end of our pursuit to understand the entirety of the universe - the answer to all of our questions.

The common answer is that God can't do that which is a logical absurdity. — Tom Storm

Question: why the existence of the absurd or the concept of absurdity then? Why would anything irrational exist at all? Or do you believe that everything fundamentally reduces to something rational and explicable.

The paradox of such a case is that I fail to see how logic can exist with no antonym, no opposing counterpart anymore than wealth can exist without poverty. They are mutually dependent phenomena.

Can God create a stone so heavy he can't lift it?" — Tom Storm

We as humans often create things that we cannot control. For example the internet as a functional platform was created by several people but it doesn’t mean they control the internet or how it behaves/ the things that occur through it.

If I were to accidentally consume a poison for which there is no antidote I have created a set of conditions I cannot overcome or undo which ultimately leads to my demise.

Up until recently we could spilt atoms apart (fission) but could not force them together (fusion) - once it was split it was impossible to put them back together and even now it’s still very difficult - such a reaction cannot be sustained.

Some actions are irreversible. Entropy always increases. We can try to decrease it but in any attempt to do so we inadvertently increase entropy.

I think what the op was explaining is that omnipotence is dependent on/ spread through time.
The existence of time means pure potency is impossibly within temporality:

power = work done/time taken to do it. The greatest level of power in such a case is a state of affairs where work done = infinite, and time = zero (instantaneous).

Parasitic: many loan words, especially those that have a critical role in life, politics, religion, etc. and so other languages lose their edge: what would've made it important to learn another language is anglicized (is that the right word?) — TheMadFool

That makes a lot of sense actually! How does a language master it’s descriptive power? By simply absorbing what it doesn’t already have from other languages with no shame haha.
Examples that come to mind: rendezvous, en route, en force, Bon apetit, chic, debris from french or iceberg, angst and “schadenfreuide” from German.

I think a lot depends on the prospective learner's native language and how it differs from or how similar it is to English. — baker

Well think in the sense of structure. Would it be easier to go from a highly structured and grammatical language (like German) where say every noun has a gender and every adjective has to agree with it as well as each pronoun having a unique verb conjugation (even the in German must agree with gender and plural/singular = there’s like a dozen “the’s”!) to one where much of that doesn’t matter: you just learn a few basic conjugations and the nouns (like English).

Or would it be easier for an English speaker to go to a language with higher structure many of which are not natural or inherent to the functioning of their own language.

How does one learn a concept it doesn’t have in its own means of describing the world?

For example Spanish has two words for “for” : por and para. This causes massive trouble for English speakers because we just can’t wrap our heads around when to use them and it takes much repetition or rote learning to crack it. For Spanish it’s easier because there is no other option in English to get confused by just use “for”

certainly does have genders. — tim wood

I can think of several word couples with inherent gender like the word “male/female” “girl” and “boy” “man/woman” “king/queen” “husband/wife” “daughter/son” but they seem to be restricted specifically to people and not inanimate things. Then of course we have the two adjectives “masculine” and “feminine” or “girly” and “boyish”.

As well as this some culturally based ones which are more of an assumption based on historical roles and not at all explicit like “fireman” or “soldier” and “nurse” or “midwife” which we kind of expect to be male and female respectively unless otherwise indicated. But as we are well aware in the modern age there are many male nurses and midwives and female firemen and soldiers (firewoman weirdly doesn’t seem to work).

There are some object genders but highly limited. For example a ship/ boat/ vessel is always “female” and the word “she” can be appropriately used in this context. “I bought a new boat. Where did you buy her?” Agriculture extends this to farming machinery (at least where I come from) a tractor is typically female. I have no idea why.

So of course there are exceptions to the general rule but nothing of the likes of Spanish french etc where every single noun is either male female or neuter and often the verb or adjective must agree.

English is probably not the absolute easiest language to learn. I have heard that a language called Esperanto is the easiest but that’s only because the language was basically invented in the 19th century for pretty much the sole purpose of being easy to learn. — TheHedoMinimalist

Come to think of it my friend learned Swahili and says it’s incredibly easy to learn. Because it uses “phonic mimicry” for many of its nouns and verbs - that means the word they use for something is based on the sound it makes.
It’s essentially like calling a cat “meow” and a dog “woof”. However sounds are subjective and onamatopoiea is specific to each language (see different cultures words for the sound of a heartbeat).

In Swahili the phrase “I’m going to bed” is reduced to the subject and the verb “mimi lala” - lala land supposedly being the dreamworld or “la” as a sound indicating rest and relaxation just as we can derive it from words like “lazing” “lackadaisical” “lounge” “lax” “lacking” or “lay” .

Perhaps the easiest languages would be ones where associations are made on specific sounds like this. If “la” means to rest then any word in the entire language containing “la” would indicate some passive or restful activity.

1. Can’t get something from nothing — Devans99

Can you get -1 +1 (something) from zero (nothing)?
Does the equation balance ?

Or you can think of it this way: either “nothing cannot exist” (because it is nothing) therefore something must exist - it’s a double negative, or “nothing can exist” therefore again something exists.

things that have a limit and do not occupy a space — Daniel

Photon. A Photon is finite and quantised (Limited) but has no mass (cannot occupy space)

limitless and occupy a space? — Daniel

Black holes: occupy space because they have a gravitational field (due to their huge mass), limitless because of the huge time dilation caused by their gravity. Time dilates to a virtual endless standstill upon approach.

By the phrase “spooky action at a distance” Einstein was describing (rather skeptically/ cynically) the wave- particle duality demonstrated by the double slit experiment.

A wave function of possible locations of a particle would seemingly collapse into a discrete singular position when observed / measured. It seemed to suggest that somehow the observer played an integral role in the outcome of quantum physical phenomena.

The double slit experiment seemed to entail that particles behaved like waves even though they were always recorded as discrete particles - forming an “interference pattern” on the detector - a characteristic specific to waves. The spooky action was the inexplicable middle ground between the wave nature and the ultimate particle measurement.

What gave rise to the collapse? It seemed contradictory. Einstein was deeply unsettled by this baffling discovery saying that it was “unintuitive” and “nonsensical”.

If there was only black empty space it would be true nothing. Because there wouldn’t be something there to observe it as something. But you couldn’t even call it “nothing” because nothing to is as a word that has significance and indicates something. If you add something (mass-energy) then suddenly space is the “thing” that is not other things.
It is by contrast that things exist. No contrast, no polarity or dichotomy or pairs of extremes , then true nothing. But because energy is a spectrum there must stuff.

Just as zero is the same as -1 +1 energy time space and mass could simply be the property of true nothingness.

Or think of it as a double negative. Logically if “nothing” does not exist then something must exist.

By definition it is clear that religion is the search for a supernatural concept, which explains why certain happenings occur or how to behave ideally. Whereas science is mainly focused on investigating the natural world and everything evolving around it, so that we can adjust our behaviour logically. — Anna893

Whilst I agree with you in a general sense I would like to clarify my thoughts on the matter. I don’t believe the boundaries of religion and science are as clear cut as that. There is significant overlap with religion and philosophy and lifestyle.
We have a tendencies in western and near eastern societies to reduce religions to a belief in a mythical god/ deity.

However Buddhism is also a religion yet it has no supernatural being. In fact it is quite grounded in nature and the natural cycles of existence. It deals more with the psychological states of peace and suffering than with any presiding authority figure.

Taoism is also another cross-over and is often categorised as both a religion and a philosophy and deals with the interactions of passive and active phenomena - something it shares with science in topics like dynamics, kinetics and energetics as well as information theory.

Similarly science is not restricted to the natural external world but also the functionings of the mind and thus cannot ignore or omit theorising reasons for religious or spiritual experiences or to try and incorporate these manifestations into a scientific paradigm for consciousness.

As for a distinction between the real and ideal youre right. Philosophy and religion often focuses more on what ought to be than what is. But there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that.
Without idealism there’s no motive to change or improve what is.

I like how you compared science to a sort of religion of sorts because in essence it has similarities. It has a dogma by which to interpret the world. It follows a strict method. And like religions and philosophy it is grounded in observation.

The key difference is science works to unify observations and understandings based on repetitive and unchanging phenomena - laws and principles. Whilst religion and spirituality unifies observations based on subjective and emotive experiences which vary widely and are unique to the individual.

Both are tools to perceive and interpret reality and both have their own flaws.

No it was simply one example of how no discipline scientific or otherwise can ascertain a clear defined boundary between self and non self. Autoimmune disease suggests that even the physical constituents understood by the body to part of self are interchangeable to a degree.
Otherwise the biological system would not mount attacks on “itself”.

Another way to look at it is at what point does nutrition and gases that we exchange with the external world become “self” and vice versa when we excrete them. If we consider self to be awareness or the mind for example, when, if I eat protein and it is converted in the brain into neurotransmitters which supposedly contribute to the capacity of my mind, do we say that this protein is no longer a part of the external environment but rather intrinsic to my “self” or my awareness.

Or another, should we consider the trillions of bacterial micro-flora that are resident in our gut as a part of self? The immune system doesn’t attack them but rather permits them to stay. If we did not have them we would not have vitamin k which is essential to the function of our blood. They are essential to the body and yet we would not typically think of bacteria as part of the self.

All I’m saying is where would you place the physical and mental boundary of “self” in these cases?

It is not at all fallacious to assume self may not exist as anything else but a word we use to describe how our system living convinces itself as having an identity that is discrete defined and different to that of the outside world when it simply cannot be because we are not closed systems.

As far as I can see philosophically and scientifically there is no self. The boundary may exist as a loose idea but it is constantly changing.

when I rode a dinosaur to school, — fishfry

Lol. No we did learn it in school also. And I’ve never questioned it’s validity as it makes sense. I suppose what I’m getting it is there is a conflicting method by which we establish the “definite”.
One is “exhaustive” and the other is “predictive”.

What I mean by this is you can establish the determined nature of something by “getting to the root of it ie find the origin (exhaustive) or you can take a sort of shortcut (predictive) by finding a pattern and relying on the assumption that said pattern repeats indefinitely by virtue of being a pattern.

But the problem I had with pi is that it didn’t seem to follow a predictable pattern so the only other way to determine it in the absolute is the exhaustive method - which is an endless endeavour in said case.

But what I didn’t understand is this equation (leibniz) that reduces the seemingly random and infinite progression to just 15 variables has in fact made it “predictive”.

The case is settled.

I do kind of see what you’re getting at and there’s some personal truth in there definitely but a few statements raised my brown and perhaps you might elaborate on them in your line of thinking so I can better understand.

* Matter has weight and extent, — hypericin

As far as I know matter only has weight when in the presence of a gravitational field. Weight is the effect of gravity pulling down on matter. In space or free fall, matter is “weightless”.

Secondly in regards to information. Both mind and matter are information are they not? This is because energy is equivalent to mass. So if energy is information matter must also be information.

Information to me is change. Because without change you cannot have the emergence of contrast/ dichotomies or “pairs of things”.

If all there was was “darkness” then darkness would not mean anything because there is no contrast to it. It is only when light and darkness are witnessed together that any appreciable difference or information can be obtained. Same with rich and poor. They can’t exist without each other. You cannot know anything of wealth without the information generated by opposites.

So matter and energy must be “informative” because matter is acted upon and energy acts upon it. They contrast each other and their interaction elicits information (change).

All I can offer is that the mind seems to dominate the electrical (energy) field as without any electrical activity in the brain we don’t appear to be conscious (Brain death) while the body (Brain) occupies the material field of physical substance. But both are equivalent (E=mc2) in a physics sense

ah. I see I have misunderstood the definition of irrational numbers.
Not so much whether it is infinite or not but whether it can be expressed as a fraction.

Okay so as for 1.33333’ I suppose the recurrent 3 is endless and so we could argue that we know that the number will be a 3 regardless of the decimal place.

But how do we know for sure? There’s no proofs we can do to determine if indeed it continues as 3 forever. It stands to logic that it does and we usually round it eventually to stop the recurrence but I just find it baffling that numbers are endless and yet we can still use them practically. We have no base lines - it’s all arbitrary. The standard by which we use maths is manufactured by ourselves. Our entire use of it is based on relationships and ratios between ultimately artificial symbols which go to explain the physical world very well but are themselves not intrinsic to it. Just useful make believe.

The second for example again is just a quantification of something that has no quantity - time. Then again, I suppose any biological system operates in quantities of molecule to discern rhythms and cycles and I guess therefore time.
The kingdom of life doesn’t have a watcher calendar like us yet they still make do quantifying time through the same ratios we use maths to figure out.

Did we acquire maths from nature and observation then or is maths a man-made convenience to describe the things we seen in nature?

Mathematical objects aren't limited by our physical limitations on what we can physically do in reality. — ssu

Interesting. Wouldn’t that mean that there’s no end point to increasing accuracy? If we suppose that perfection is reaching the point at which no further state of accuracy can be reached then everything we’ve ever done with maths is an approximation.

It’s a bit confusing because of the existence of rational and irrational numbers. 1 is what it is.. ..there is no “1” that is more accurate then another “1”. However as you correctly pointed out, the smaller we divide the number the more accurate it is. A measuring tool that can measure in mm is more accurate then one that measures centimetres. And one that measures in nanometers is again more accurate. Can this go on for ever? Surely there is a minimum?

Of course this requires spatial dimension/ distance. Without space (non physical maths) there is no need for this increasing division to get an accurate answer. 1 is ultimately arbitrary. Because in order to have 1 of anything we must somehow discern that it is different from its surroundings

3. The house = the universe
4. The bear = god — TheMadFool

Some theists believe the bear = house. What say you then? I’m not disagreeing nor agreeing merely curious. For some it’s an argument where one says no we have two things a bear and a house - the bear either being internal to or external to the house. And others saying it’s just the bear and others saying it’s just the house.

Maybe we should teach kids how to be better parents/teachers so their kids, when they finally arrive at school, are better leaves and flowers. — James Riley

I absolutely agree.

The education system in most countries presupposes the idea that “we must make children productive functional participants in the industrial machine. We must equip them with pragmatic task based knowledge in specific academic subjects and mould them to “convene” with the status quo.

How then do we nurture innovation? Lateralised thinking? How do we give children the knowledge to elicit change in a system that clearly can be much improved instead of “breaking them in” until they resign/ submit to what “is” rather than what “could be.”

If it were up to me, children would not be fed prescribed facts in a structured curriculum that they must learn off by heart without really understanding why or how those were formulated.

Imagine imparting to them the means by which to utilise logic and apply it to anything?
So many important teachings are omitted from the education system in order to narrow and restrict the scope to specific paths.

Of course some subjects are staples: reading and writing, mathematics and sciences.

But what about subjects or modules on;
1). “The problems of humanity and failures of society.” - we should be offering children not just the successes of what we have achieved but also what we repeatedly fail to do. Outline where exactly we stand at the moment with issues that impact everyone.
“Culture. What is it? How does it form? Comparisons between different world cultures and their strengths and weaknesses” - a worldly view of humanity in all its diversity (sociology)

2). Interpersonal skills - we assume every child has an equal ability to understand the social construct or that they’re somehow going to succeed in it by themselves through experience. If we could teach them how to maximise their social relationships both on a micro scale - family, friends and colleagues but also on a macro scale - politics it would be very stabilising for their growth and development.

3). Maybe most importantly - we should teach them the method of inquiry. Not the results. What is logic? Methods of logic. Argument/ debate/ discussion. How to formulate theory and hypothesis as well as how to test them. Different modes of learning and how to make useful associations and correlations between any relationships they wish. How to philosophise, self reflect and observe and how to research.

4). Lastly we should give them information on doing taxes, understanding the nature of money and trade, how to maximise on personal finances - saving, management of all of the affairs of an adult and interacting with the bureaucratic process of governance in an efficient and effective way. All the things we are left to figure out for ourselves in the adult working world.

Then it is only a matter of asking “what do you want to do? What Interests you? And provide them with the means and resources to pursue that at a younger age than university. We don’t personalise our training for each individual we throw them all together and teach them the exact same things which I think is very ineffective.
Most of these outlines above are usually only briefly addressed.

The loss of interest in something is a necessary, meaningful part of the creativity cycle, just as important as curiosity. — Joshs

Well true. I guess when we consider that we have a limited span of attention then technically every “new curiosity” is the abolishment of a previous one to a state of indifference or boredom or lack of desire to continue pursuing it. We can’t be painting a picture and working out probabilities, and treating a disease while socialising at the same time.

If curiosity was not limited to attention span then the highest state of curiosity would be to experience everything in existence simultaneously. Which kind of leads down the path toward ideas like “omniscience”, “omnipotence” and “omnipresence”

Maslow (psychologist turned philosopher) talked a lot about your 'intrinsic passions', and I highly recommend any of his books to your friend. His first book is The Psychology of Being is an easy read and was groundbreaking at the time. That book explores the extremes of our human thought process (cognition and values), from the rather bleak side of the human condition, to the highest side of the human experience in concepts: — 3017amen

Thanks for the book recommendation will look into it and get a copy.
It’s interesting the topics he deals with because I myself being an informal Philosopher working from a very non- academically exposed personal investigation have also happened on the importance of several of these qualities outlined above. Dichotomies especially because I took an interest in physics/ mechanics and it’s correlation with Taoist philosophy of active and passive traits.

Currently I’m working on the basis/ assumption that a philosopher, scientist and spiritualist all occupy and witness the same intrinsic and fundamental nature of reality and therefore there must be a clear link between the conclusions of each discipline despite their differing means to extrapolate knowledge from it.

I see scientific objectivism and metaphysical disciplines at odds with each other passionately refuting the possibility of eons anothers conclusions due to the desire to conserve their methods without contradiction. I wonder if there is a method that resolves this dissonance - one that can fuse disciplines into a harmony, but it seems ultimately to boil down to the “hard problem” of consciousness in the end.

I enjoy the state of physics at the moment which is split into two directly opposing conflicting notions of the quantum and the Newtonian and I think there’s some major discovery to be made in that contradiction but we will just have to hope they figure it out

If life bores you, risk it. Me — James Riley

Pretty much yeah haha. I wonder how bored adrenaline junkies feel when they’re not jumping from heights etc

but few people have the time or the financial independence to take all things to the max. — Tom Storm

Do you think maybe the fast paced working life of living in a society/ collective may be propagated by the entertainment industry for this reason?

We don’t have the time to explore things in depth because of all these swirling obligations and responsibilities. So we let media do it for us.

We work often mundane or repetitive jobs and then having our minds and thoughts provoked by film, literature, music etc allows us an outlet to live vicariously through the art of others.

Their is some evidence for this in the case of many philosophers being inherently eccentric and introverted people that prefer alone time or refusing to follow social convention - think Diogenes the homeless philosopher, unemployed ie with time to spare, or the solitude, and isolated locations of some places as monasteries and retreats for mind/ body/ soul searching endeavours.

I suppose the only way to find out would be to observe a society in which social media/ entertainment industry doesn’t exist and see if there is an uptick in philosophy, spiritualism or profoundly curious and expressive art forms by the typical average person.

Media may be a placating us or distracting us. Who knows?

Children can also be relentlessly , impossibly bored. I have never been so bored as an adult as I was as a child. I think that’s no coincidence. Different moods and attitudes imply and are based on complementary ones. — Joshs

Yes I can understand that. I also remember being in my room bored to tears as a child (well more as a teen) and it can be intolerable.
I also agree that extremes do tend to provoke a consequential reverse reaction - pivoting to the other extreme.

The question then seems to be “how does one stabilise themselves?” The so called “Goldilocks zone” of not too happy not too sad instead of a tumultuous rollercoaster of ups and downs.

Any thoughts?

For me, coming from a biological standpoint as I would deem it my strong suit in this case - would point to the reciprocal relationship of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system or “fight or flight” vs. “Rest and digest”.

Fight or flight is reactionary and prompt by nature. It stands to reason that it then leads to extremes of emotions: “omg I almost just died there (fear, terror and anxiety) when that lion attacked to the profound satisfaction of having preserved your life (elation euphoria / happy to be alive).

Maybe then, the core difference between stable minds and topsy- turvy ones (eg. Bipolar disorder) is that there is a strong belief in the latter that their life is persistently under threat. They’re stuck in survival mode for whatever reason- both real or manufactured by the beliefs held in the mind.

The interesting thing is there is a strong association between “ persecutory beliefs” and many mental disorders ; PTSD (relieving that trauma that could have killed you), paranoid schizophrenia (someone is trying to attack, hunt, kill me delusion) and bipolar disorder (rapid alternation from everything is wonderful and I am invincible to what’s the point I might as well die).

As for boredom. That may be a severe parasympathetic state - too much resting and digesting - no fear or motivation to change your current state and the mind goes crazy without stimulus - see “sensory deprivation experiments”)


There is a balance in there somewhere.

I found your answer very insightful and enlightening.
I had never considered how wonder persists despite receiving answers to the questions that perhaps elicited it in the first place. If anything it is as tho confirmation of the basis for wonder by receiving answers or insights encourages it to persist. As it does in me writing this response having learned a lot from what you replied with.

Maybe in the great war against depression and other mental illness - a new field that studies how to offer curiosity and restore appeal or attraction to even mundane things to those who have befallen a state of apathy and disinterest would be of great advantage in treatment.

I have often found myself faced with a disenfranchised friend who is spiralling down to the depths of this nasty condition and I have tried to offer several “appetisers” to stimulate their thought and hook them on the mystery and seductive nature of questioning and curiosity that keeps me personally fed by my life and staves off my own negativity.

But it’s incredibly difficult. And each person I think likely requires a different trigger to put the purpose or “soul” back into their pursuit of an existence. If we could only create some formula of how to engage ones intrinsic passions - we would be on the right track.

A mental malady requires a mental tonic

Depressives don't lack stimulus, rather the stimulus doesn't seem to have the desired effects — Daemon

Yes you’re right, it’s qualitative not quantitative. The brains of depressives still have the same energy usage as those without depression it’s more of a matter of which part of the mind is consuming the stimuli and energy provided to it.

2. How do you end up classing sex as unhealthy? Are you religious — Daemon

See my response to apollodorus for this one. I’m not religious. I tried to use it in a very specific context. Context often determines the nature of a single act or thing. In some contexts it is good and in others it is bad. Depends what you’re referring to.

Your (somewhat moralistic) theories lie in ruins around you. — Daemon

Personally I don’t care what people choose to do with their lives or behaviour. Not for me to judge with any sort of moral high ground as I also participate in them and don’t fancy myself as a hipocrit .

Note the topic is “what is beneficial for both mind and body?” and the nature of “immediate gratification” vs “delayed - pros and cons It was not my intention to explicitly outline what is moral or immoral and if I have accidentally been biased I apologise.

However I was trying to define activities that represent immediate and delayed reward.

The reason I classified immediate gratification as unhealthy - was not from a moralistic perspective but one of advantage to the individual in the modern era - financially, socially, healthy wise and ultimately to the mind itself.

Being impulsive is good in a “reactionary” survival state - but for most of us in the developed world we are generally in a “self-actualisation” state - we have most of our basic needs met, now the focus shifts to longterm planning and pre-meditated thinking.

I would personally consider myself on the impulsive side naturally and have found great value in exploring the pros and cons of each. I think training myself in the art of things like sustained satisfaction, patience gratitude and longterm goal orientation helps me a lot in the balancing act between these two reward pathways.

I hoped to offer my insights into how I try to keep myself healthy when a). My mind needs dopamine and b). There are multiple ways to get it and c). How should one classify these ways in order to establish a balanced approach

Do you classify sex in general as "unhealthy activity", or is it just sex with unhealthy people? — Apollodorus

No I don’t classify sex as inherently unhealthy.
But I’m using it in the context of the brains preference for either immediate or delayed gratification with relation to intimate interpersonal relationships.

As in “I can get a quick hook up now and feel exhilarated and satisfied but most likely won’t have engaged the non-sexual partnership of another. Won’t be there in the morning won’t call back basically, or, I can invest in a longterm seduction and sequester a long term partner which will not only have sex with me multiple times but will also reciprocate several other beneficial emotions; empathy, compassion, affection and non sexual intimacy etc.

Obviously sex can be seen as unhealthy when done in excess with many partners as it has a direct correlation with an increase in sti transmission whilst being highly sexual with one person only usually confers more safety in that regard.

And would you classify theater as "unhealthy passive entertainment"? What if some regard it as intellectually stimulating and thus conducive to better philosophizing? — Apollodorus

Yes there will always be exceptions. It is a generalisation on my part in order to spend more time describing my line of thought rather than overly qualify a starting point to begin with. It should not be taken as exact nor literal but rather to generate a loose general idea of the now vs later choices we make with desirable things.

I find too much focus on the highly specific nature of various definitions can often stagnate a good discussion. Language is interpretative after all - there is always discord between personal definitions as they are personal: based off each of our observations.

Trust that I - like many others - will surely omit many valid points and noteworthy deviations from the argument to keep it focused on the topic I’m trying to explore. Definitions are important but so is fluid progression

Speaking for myself, I do experience hunger-like sensations for ideas. — TheMadFool

Haha yeah it’s definitely a path we should explore - to make loose analogies between the mind and body in terms of basic needs - to gain that dimension of perspective.

So if nutrients to the body are what neurotransmitters are to the mind, then curiosity, wonder, awe or “appetite for knowledge and engagement” - is to the mind what hunger is to the body.

By virtue of that line of thinking, the contrary- apathy and psychological withdrawal and a lack of care for anything - the feeling that everything is futile and pointless and meaningless - is the “loss of appetite” of the mind. When the body is ill it loses its appetite. When the mind is ill it too starves of specific stimulating and excitatory neurotransmitters - healthy brain food.

And just as a body that does not eat progressively weakens its resistance to stressors and saps it of nutrients necessary to prevent it from “self- eating” a which results in “death”, so too must the apathy and lack of engagement slowly sap the minds resistance to negative thoughts and self destruction - slowly causing its own form of starvation and self eating or “depression”.

Here, the phrase we use commonly use to console people - “don’t eat yourself up over it” in response to cynical/ pessimistic/ overtly negative self expressions, comes to mind.

So what is to be said about the ultimate result of severe depression in this paradigm? Suicide.

It stands to reason that if the body can no longer sustain its basic functions, cannot subserve the mind then both the mind and body perish.

Maybe then in a similar fashion if the mind cannot maintain some form of psychological “vitality” it can no longer justify serving its body and switches to a state of mind- body discord - “ the body must be destroyed” and unfortunately goes about making this happen by committing self- murder.

An interesting note to make here is that drugs that cause mind- body dissociation such as psychedelics; LSD and psilocybin and mescaline - have noted anti-depression effects. Maybe it is because it gives the mind and body a “break from each other” - just how unhappy couples “take some space from each other” to regroups themselves.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder after all”.

That was fun I enjoyed running with that line of thought.

. I wonder how the physical (neurotransmitters) and the nonphysical (ideas) "talk" to each other as they certainly seem to be doing? — TheMadFool

Ah. The hard problem. Yes it’s a very important feature to address. Sadly I can’t offer a solution. But In my opinion the nature of the mind- brain couple is interdisciplinary as it is both an object and a subject simultaneously. We cannot reduce it to solely a subject nor can we fully reduce it to an object. Doing so would surely fail to explain it in its full breadth. And ethical principles prevent us from doing either because: it has physical needs (being a biological object/system) as well as emotional/ compassionate needs (being a self-referencing “feeling thing that can be victim of states of suffering and pain).

Philosophy comes in handy because it can mingle with both empirical evidence based or material scientific data and behaviour/ psychology. It is not confined to either the metaphysical nor objective method.

I would say the brain describes its inner working best when given full natural freedom to do so. Philosophy.

It bothers me when people who start discussions don’t define their terms at the beginning of the thread. — T Clark

I understand what you mean but it is an inherent limit of language. We all use the same terms but due to “personality” and “individual identity and experience” the terms will always vary in what we each associate them with and understand.

A simple example is the term “colour” means something different to a professional artist than it does to ophthalmologist because they are both exposed to different training and education surrounding the word.

I think if we try to define every term unanimously we end the fluid nature of language. Think of an infinite regress of qualifying: if I qualify a term in my own words then I must qualify the words I used to qualify the initial one, then I have to qualify the ones that qualify the ones that I used to qualify the first ad infinitum.

To give you my true interpretation of the word there would be no difference between your awareness and level of knowledge and experience and mine we would be psychological twins. Identical in perspective.

The irony of such a case is language between us would become pointless. We would not be able to learn anything new from each other because in essence it would be like “talking to oneself”.

The functionality of language depends on us partially/imperfectly communicating exactly what we mean and thereby becoming aware of discrepancies which are informative.

As for the term “consciousness” I think it’s one of those hyper-vagueries - words that are so broad and ill defined that it would take an endless dimension of information to understand them sufficiently. Other hyper-vagueries would be to define words like “imagination” “you” “I” “abstraction” “everything” “energy” “information”.

We can give them brief and accurate surface level descriptions but of limited informative value. You can’t define “everything” without inadvertently referring to the term “everything” or common synonyms: totality, universal, entire, absolute etc.

Similarly I cannot refer to the term “consciousness” with anything but the content of consciousness. It’s self- referential and therefore can never be objective.

The true purpose of philosophy is to maintain nature's course---to make sure humans don't depart too much from it. That's it. — Daniel Banyai

This presupposes humans are somehow outside the realm of nature; despite the facts that would suggest otherwise: chemistry in our body operates the same as external chemistry if the universe. We share our biological mechanisms with many other species and fundamentally we are made of cells like every other truly living thing.
Our bodies also have to abide by physics and we evolved through natural selection like all other kingdoms.

Why do we persist in a belief that humans are outside of nature. Even the things we make which we call “artificial” is a false separation from nature - the natural materials and elements available and the biological human that repurposes them. There is no such thing as “not in nature’s course” it’s only nature fooling itself into believing it is something else.

well yes in a way I see what you’re saying.
But then this would be a question of the diminishing returns of free will... that each choice reduces the degree to which we can operate from free will. With an end point - death - in which really the only option left is to cease existing. We have at that point exhausted all of our free will.

So in this case the strongest form of free will is the free will we have when we begin life. And we are continually restricted in our access to it as we progress through our life choices. The path we take becomes more and more defined and uncertainty less and less until everything is absolutely certain.

But if that’s the case then we could argue the same for determinism in reverse. The degree to which we operate from determinism increases as we age.

For example the choice to begin smoking increases the determinism of the means by which we die. Overeating and drinking alcohol furthers us down that path and increases the definite nature of our death as caused by our toxic habits. If one quits all their bad habits after 40 years they will never regain the free will to die another way that was offered to them before they began that lifestyle due to the accumulative damage.

If in the case of two identical twins one chooses an outdoor lifestyle in a hot country and the other an indoor lifestyle in a cool climate... the degree to which their skin ages and is damaged by sun is determined and the sun exposed twin can never go back to a point at which they can look as youthful as the other who chose not to to be irradiated by uv longterm.

There’s definitely an interplay between the consequences of our choices setting up a restricted state from which we can operate wish diminished effect to resolve or omit past choices.

False dilemma as already demonstrated IRL. — Pfhorrest

Im inclined to agree in the sense of relativity. For example if the spectrum of achievement is 0-100% ie from sad, depressed and impotent to satisfied with a deep sense of purpose we would say someone operating at 50% is the average. But if we give everyone a pill that makes them work at 90% then we have simply exchanged 0-100 for 90-100 in which 95 % is the average. Then someone giving 90% is seen as weak and impotent and undriven.

It seems that whatever the minimum is ... we will always shun it and expect more. In that respect no pill would every make us satisfied it would simply augment our perception of what level is deemed sufficient and acceptable

despite Energy's Achilles Heel of Entropy, — Gnomon

I find this interesting that you understand entropy to be energies Achilles heal. I actually believe it’s energies greatest feat.

“Rate” = energy/ time or “work done” divided by the “time taken to do it”. So if we see energies potency seemingly diminishing as entropy increases... and we know that energy cannot be created nor destroyed.. then where is it going? I believe it’s not going anywhere but rather being transformed/ converted into time itself.

“Entropy” in this case is the “rate at which energy is converted into time” - it’s reciprocal.

I believe the creation of “matter” to be this process of conversion as matter and time dilation go hand in hand (see gravity).

What’s interesting however is that unlike energy matter does not disperse. It congregates. It is the form of energy that comes together (negative entropy) as time dilates. We know this because the greater the mass - the greater the time dilation (see black holes/ gravity).

So maybe this is the key to how the potential of energy is collected as entropy increases. Maybe matter balances the equation of entropy. Would this mean black holes would eventually lead back to the singularity that spawns the universe? Who knows, I haven’t thought into it.

I agree. Every time I was inclined to say "everything" I found myself put off by the suffix "thing." It implies too much concrete. — James Riley

“Everyness”might serve better haha :p

If we take it in a strictly matter- energy paradigm... whereby ecosystems exchange energy and matter through cycles of life and death. And seeing as both you and the bat are composed of the same stuff and live in the same place - earth, then statement would be ... it’s likely that once I or part of me was a bat and that again in the future a bat may be composed of stuff from my body, I cannot remember being a bat nor will the bat remember being me. Therefore awareness of oneself must be restricted to/ Gained only in the state of living.

it’s not the size that matters but what you do with it - civilisation cerca 12,000 BC

I like this. Well said.

Then the sort of idealistic self-sacrificing love that you speak of in the OP is unavailable to humans. — baker

How so? I think we may be talking cross- purposes here. No mother is perfect but that doesn’t stop her from constantly trying to do right by her children. She loves them and wants the best for them even if that means that sometimes she commits wrongful acts or incidentally hurts their feelings.

I think it’s the capacity to look beyond personal shortcomings that arrives at an appreciation for love. How one expresses their love for another is often at odds with their intentions. But it doesn’t subtract their motives. That’s why forgiveness and conflict resolution is intrinsic to long lasting compassion and love.

In a world where we are always prey to our own failings and imperfections one can only do their best. I’m not indicating that true self sacrificing love requires a utopian backdrop. Because if we lived in the pure ideal then sacrifice or “detriment to ones self for the benefit of others” would not exist and not be necessary.

including lies by omission. — FlaccidDoor

Is failure to reveal a truth really a “true lie” though or simply an “inactive or passive” approach. For example if we take the example of someone with no curiosity for apprehending the truth. They prefer to stay ignorant to such things. Can we really say they are a liar? I’m not sure if I’d agree.

I think to lie actively one must be reasonably sure of the right/ correct way/ truth and then choose to ignore it or actively deceive people.

Someone who “doesn’t know any better” is different to “someone who knows better but chooses not to behave in line with that.