Although there are endpoints, and a continuum, I think that it is also interesting to think of Heraclitus's idea of enantiodromia. This was about how when opposites are reached they reverse completely. So, we may be in the realms of walking along points along the continuum and watching binaries change into their opposites. But, of course, we are talking on an abstract level, but I think that the ideas of Gilchrist do show how opposites within the brain and consciousness are very complex indeed — Jack Cummins

:up: Good news & Bad news.

[...]I don't know whether to laugh or cry — Banno

I think that it the idea of opposites reversing is probably more good news, like, for example, extreme sadness can suddenly shift into joy. There may need to be some kind of intervening life experiences for this to happen though, although I suppose that it could happen spontaneously. But, if we could only shuffle along in various positions along a continuum life may be just murky greys, with less drama than the ones presented by black and whites. The only downside, however, is that when we experiencing some kind of polarised state we have to realise that it may shift into the opposite, and that life, including our brains, come with waves.

Standing still, I move,
Moving, I stand still.

Your response about standing has lead me to think about is the whole way our thinking is not just focused in the head, but in the whole of the body. It is extremely hard to stand completely still, and my balance is not perfect. Yet, the fullest picture, which I am not sure that Gilchrist's theory takes into account is how it is not simply the brain which is involved in experience and thinking, but the entire body. However, the head does play a key role, but other organs, such as the heart play a really significant role in consciousness, and this may go beyond pumping the blood around the body to keep us alive. But, I can see that the brain is the master, even beyond the spectrum of the division between left and right brain.

@Jack Cummins

When you play sport or dance or do something very physical you realise that to think the mind is the brain or purely in your head is nonsense.

Perhaps the reason why I am so poor at sport and dancing is because my brain is holding me back. Indeed, perhaps those who are not so inclined to think all the time are better at sports and dancing. But I am sure that there are some dancing philosophers.

@Jack Cummins

The brain or physical head is not the seat of your intelligence.

The reason some people are poor at sports is because they don't practice.

Even meditators will tell you the brain is not the mind.

And there are many many dancing philosophers and Poets.

I think that you have a point when you say that people are poor at sports because they don't practice. I do believe that this probably is based on early childhood experiences. Personally, my parents had me late, because they married late, and I was an only child, so I spent a lot of my childhood reading and drawing and did less sport than others. Of course, I can't generalise purely from my personal experience, but I would imagine that people who are good at sports began at an early age.

I also believe that the meditators are right about the brain not being the mind. I have done some mindfulness meditation and that involves awareness outside of cerebral experience.

@Jack Cummins
Childhood experiences can interfere a lot in our development in certain fields.

I have always loved sports.

The thing is Jack I bet as a child you loved crawling about and play,and that is exactly what sports and dancing are.

Can you imagine a child sitting in it's room thinking all day!
Not the most healthy thing.

The zen masters encourage lots of walking,talking and physical tasks in addition to study periods.

Nothing beats quality talking. Talking is a great exercise.

We could metaphorically say the Mouth is the mind!

how it is not simply the brain which is involved in experience — Jack Cummins

I've thought about this very briefly. Too briefly. I dunno.

words of wisdom. The Old Road indeed can be repaved but once you realize that magic is not an advantage but merely a trade-off and that you seemingly always somehow trade something that was of more value than the outcome of the magic you quickly understand that it's not worth it in best to just leave on a shelf somewhere to collect dust

The mind is definitely separate from the brain and yet the same. I have had several meditation experiences where i pulled information out of thin air so to speak
What i mean is i found information while meditating that i didn't have before that particular meditation session

words of wisdom. The Old Road indeed can be repaved but once you realize that magic is not an advantage but merely a trade-off and that you seemingly always somehow trade something that was of more value than the outcome of the magic you quickly understand that it's not worth it in best to just leave on a shelf somewhere to collect dust — MAYAEL

Spot on! For those who disagree, there's a thin line between adventure and misadventure.

I am a curious about your idea of the 'thin line between adventure and misadventure'. I wonder if you can explain a little bit further.

I am a curious about your idea of the 'thin line between adventure and misadventure'. I wonder if you can explain a little bit further. — Jack Cummins

Good video, and perhaps we need more misadventures. I think that I learn so much more from the misadventures of life, and they certainly break down the binaries of logic. The misadventures may hardwire us in exciting ways and result in entire new connections between the left and the right of consciousness. Perhaps we need to take more risks rather than staying in safe territories, in life, and in our philosophy speculations.

:up:

The question is where do we pull out answers from. Are they simply parts of ourselves, of which we are not usually familiar?

@Jack Cummins
What if the subconscious and "unconcious" where we draw many of our answers are really our soul,our extended conciousness?

my theory based off of meditation and contemplation which I in no way can prove or even share the experience with anybody for validation so it is worth its weight in whose line is it anyways points and I think we all know how much those are worth but with that said

These tidbits of information we pull I feel we pull from our how would I put it? I guess you could call it your bloodline body? Basically I kind of piggyback some characters from a few sources to form my understanding and one of them is Manny p Hall

He once mentioned that the beginning of existence happened because of seven great spirits which are also the seventh grade luminaries in space and each Spirit was responsible for a phase of man's existence and we are in the Aryan phase currently which is phase 5 or root race is he calls it

so then if you look at existence as one big family consisting of people we come from mainly if your European like I am the fifth person in that family and that fifth person consists of everybody that has ever been born in that particular bloodline which is a very vague bloodline because it covers all of the Aryan bloodline and so try to envision it like I'm a blood cell within that massive body of the original fifth family member and I'm just one tiny little cell however I technically have the ability to gain information from all the other cells in that entire body which would be an unmeasurable number of cells /people

And this is how I explain how some people can pull certain information that others cannot and vice versa both people having gained information equally as difficult to obtain yet can't universally obtain it from either side and that is because they're from two different bodies and so in a way you have this unlimited plethora of akashic knowledge yet it is limited due to whatever body you come from

Now I'm by no means dogmatic about this viewpoint it's just a mental exercise I use and so far it seems to be difficult for me to defeat when arguing with myself LOL.

I am not sure about your idea of 'the bloodline body', but what it does lead me to wonder about is how we are connected to other minds. Perhaps, it is the left side of the brain which would allow for such connections, and that is accessible in meditation.There is the eternal debate about whether mind is simply brain, but this does still leave us as being individual cells of mind. However, there is also the connection with other minds, and to what extent we are interconnected. My own view takes on Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, but I am aware that many people see this construct as dubious. Nevertheless, our relationship with other minds is one which I feel is not explored enough, although it is central to discussion about intersubjectivity.

MAYAEL
I am not sure about your idea of 'the bloodline body', but what it does lead me to wonder about is how we are connected to other minds. Perhaps, it is the left side of the brain which would allow for such connections, and that is accessible in meditation.There is the eternal debate about whether mind is simply brain, but this does still leave us as being individual cells of mind. However, there is also the connection with other minds, and to what extent we are interconnected. My own view takes on Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, but I am aware that many people see this construct as dubious. Nevertheless, our relationship with other minds is one which I feel is not explored enough, although it is central to discussion about intersubjectivity


well keep in mind I'm just using this as a mental format or something to look at in order to keep track of my thoughts I don't actually think that there's a literal huge type of creature made up of every single person in the Aryan race walking around somewhere in the galaxy it's merely just a thought model.

And it works with Jung's collective consciousness theory

I'm extremely confident that our minds are more than just our brains however from a scientific standpoint I feel that this is unproofable because scientists consist mainly of mathematicians that want to quantize things and we're talking about a non-quantizable aspect of the human being which is unfortunately affected by what happens to the brain physically much so just like a radio isn't the music but it is the thing that makes the music so you damage the radio you damage the quality of the music but fundamentally speaking music remains undamaged

On several occasions I've been able to pull information that I did not know previously and confirm it upon waking up and or ending meditation and found it to be accurate

And there was a time several years ago where I was struggling with a severe chemical imbalance that left me extremely foggy brand couldn't focus my mind on anything was extremely depressed it was impossible to feel anything other than sadness and sorrow and the world felt fake (my dopaminergic system was fried)

But I had a realization one day when I was thinking about a dream I had because in that dream I was sharp minded it was an amazingly happy dream one of the best experiences ever I felt beyond normal and upon waking I was back to my foggy cloudy depressed self again

But I realized that we are affected and seemingly at the mercy of the body but we are more then the body and that are mind or at least part of it transcends the body and I knew this had to be the case do to how I transcended a mental state of terrible depression completely transcended it when even pharmaceutical intervention couldn't help but upon returning to the body upon waking I was submerged back into the issues the body had

Topping this thread for fun and because I'm strolling through McGilchrist book at 30 minutes a day.

The metaphor of the map and the territory is apt for the McGil's division of the modes of each hemisphere. The Left hemisphere deals with things as represented, reduced to what is known/habituated, to what can be reproduced and manipulated. The Right plays attention to what is "presencing" which in a way always defies capture by its phenomenal multivalence, even if one is focusing on a point.

The author J.L. Borges plays with these oppositional modes in his stories. Reading McGil, I'm reminded of Funes, who after falling off a horse and injuring his head is cursed with a torrential edetic memory.

Because Funes can distinguish every physical object at every distinct time of viewing, he has no clear need of generalization (or detail-suppression) for the management of sense impressions. The narrator claims that this prevents abstract thought, given that induction and deduction rely on this ability. This is stated in the line "To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes, there were nothing but details." — Wikipedia: Funes the Memorious: Generlization

Funes is in some sense trapped in the excessive fullness (unbounded infinity of) what "presences" even though he can still name/recall any and all particulars.