I brought in a definition from a standard dictionary. — Alkis Piskas
Since joining this forum a few months ago, I've been surprised at the number of times people have appealed not only to "common sense," but specifically the dictionary, in an attempt to support their claims about the meaning of various terms. So I think it's worth making the following points:
1) Within philosophy and science, there is a thing called a technical language. In philosophy: "being," for example. In science: "energy."
2) These terms have a specialized, technical meaning, quite apart from everyday use and ordinary "common sense."
3) When discussing a particular word's meaning, it should go without saying that we are not interested in creating definitions outside of a larger framework or explanatory theory.
For example, when discussing physics, we're not interested in simply defining what "work" or "heat" mean out in space, so to speak. Likewise, we keep our "gut feelings" and "personal" semantics out of terms like being, mind, nature, universe, reference, event, meaning, etc.
If that is what you are calling "games" or you think that consulting dictionaries to get the meaning of terms is uselsess, no wonder why you find everything meaningless! — Alkis Piskas
Right, that would generally not be OK. But I don't have to answer all the questions after some point in a discussion, when an important mismatch has occurred. Yet, I will answer your question since you asked me to. Can you please remind me exactly what that question was?It’s not OKAY that you still haven’t answered my question — praxis
I can't really connect this to "I can see the physical world too." ... Anyway, this is not important. Let's drop it.To seeing the brain on a scan. — Newkomer
Can you please remind me exactly what that question was? — Alkis Piskas
OK, I believe you. But it would be better to look up the term "emotion": "A strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.", Oxford LEXICO).Well, my brain gives me emotions too! — Newkomer
I looked at your reference. You say "I've been surprised at the number of times people have appealed not only to 'common sense,' but specifically the dictionary, in an attempt to support their claims about the meaning of various terms." I am afraid to say that this is the only way a discussion or simple communication can take place. Common or similar definitions of terms consist the common reference on which both interlocutors can be based. And dictionaries are a means to provide that common reference. Another way is for one interlocutor to provide his own definition of a term, independetly of dictionaries. This way, the other interlocutor knows what he is talking about. Doing neither of them calls for unnecessary misundestandings and conflicts between the two interlocutors. It's only too logical. ("Common sense" as you mention in your reference of your link.)It’s unbelievable how often this mistake occurs. I’ve written about it elsewhere: — Xtrix
What the brain gives you is a physical response to an emotion. Not the emotion itself. The brain is only a stimulous-response mechanism. The vibrations you mentioned are such a response. The adrenaline you may feel in your body (they say dogs can smell it) from a strong fear is such a response. And so on. — Alkis Piskas
OK, I'm really sorry that I put into that trouble and waiting.How is being and having a body is fundamentally different from being and having a spirit? — praxis
Well, examine better what the other said before coming out with criticsm. More specifically examine again the meaing of emotion. I have put time axplaing all this to you and you seem to ignore what I said.This is nonsensical. — praxis
How is being and having a body is fundamentally different from being and having a spirit?
— praxis
OK, I'm really sorry that I put into that trouble and waiting.
I will answer with another similar question: "How is consuming and having an apple different from solving and having a mental problem?" Semantically, their difference lies on physicality. One is physical and the other non-physical. Otherwise, linguistically they are parallel grammatical constructions. — Alkis Piskas
This is nonsensical.
— praxis
Well, examine better what the other said before coming out with criticsm. More specifically examine again the meaing of emotion. I have put time axplaing all this to you and you seem to ignore what I said.
OK. That's it for me. I'm out of this utterly failed comminication. — Alkis Piskas
I am afraid to say that this is the only way a discussion or simple communication can take place. Common or similar definitions of terms consist the common reference on which both interlocutors can be based. And dictionaries are a means to provide that common reference. — Alkis Piskas
Another way is for one interlocutor to provide his own definition of a term, independetly of dictionaries. This way, the other interlocutor knows what he is talking about. Doing neither of them calls for unnecessary misundestandings and conflicts between the two interlocutors. It's only too logical. — Alkis Piskas
Misunderstood and unknown words are the main reason why comminications fail. — Alkis Piskas
Maybe I’m missing the point here but the concepts of ‘body’ and ‘self’ both change, are composed of parts, indeed millions of neural connections, yet have a simple unity. — praxis
Also Buddhist medicine is based on a holistic view of the human being. However, the meaning and use of term "spirit" is different in Buddhism. They have another term for what in the West we call "spirit": Atman. — Alkis Piskas
I think that is a very important point. The subjective unity of consciousness is very hard to explain in physicalist terms. One aspect is the neural binding problem, specifically that there is no identifiable neural system which integrates disparate visual data into the integrated whole we actually experience. — Wayfarer
I just finished a book on thousand brain theory that accounts for this, I believe. Take a look if it interests you — praxis
OK. So, if you agree with this you should also agree with bringing up a definition from a dictionary, because it's the same thing. One has just to remove the source! :smile: (Only that mentioning the source is more honest than looking as if one has conceived that definition himself. The same holds when you quote another person, e.g. a philosopher, as this is often done in here.)Another way is for one interlocutor to provide his own definition of a term, independetly of dictionaries.
— Alkis Piskas
Agreed. — Xtrix
we can define words however we want. — Xtrix
I agree. This is the best way.Best to clarify what you mean by your words. — Xtrix
Didn't get that.We’re not interested in defining things in a vacuum. — Xtrix
It won't have any effect at all on medicine, as far as you are not a doctor! :grin:I can define the heart as the liver, if I want to. That’s what I mean when I say “heart.” Okay…does that advance the field of medicine? — Xtrix
But then, why are you participating in it? You could just ignore it. And thus avoid passing your hard critique as well as wasting the time of others ... So which of the two is actually a waste of time: my topic (in which 22 members have participated and has 139 replies up to now) or your participation?Which is exactly why this entire thread is a complete waste of time. — Xtrix
Ātman is Hindu terminology, not Buddhist. — Wayfarer
Atman is a Sanskrit word, normally translated as 'soul' or 'self' (also ego). In Buddhism, the concept of Atman is the prime consequence of ignorance – itself the cause of all misery - the foundation of Samsara itself.
As it happens, I did an MA thesis on this topic. Whereas I think you're using the word without much idea of what it meansĀtman (/ˈɑːtmən/), attā or attan in Buddhism is the concept of self, and is found in Buddhist literature's discussion of the concept of non-self (Anatta).[1]
Most Buddhist traditions and texts reject the premise of a permanent, unchanging ātman (self, soul).
We never see it as it really is — Forgottenticket
If you are a body, then why do you say 'my body', 'I have a body', and so on? — Alkis Piskas
If you are a mind or a soul, then why do you say 'my mind or my soul', 'I have a mind or I have a soul', and so on?" — praxis
I was wondering about this. Will not reducing everything to information and interacting forms forming each other take all meaning away? Except that of information... — Nosferatu
Computers [can] outstrip any philosopher or mathematician in marching mechanically through a programmed set of logical maneuvers, but this was only because philosophers and mathematicians — and the smallest child — are too smart for their intelligence to be invested in such maneuvers. The same goes for a dog. “It is much easier,” observed AI pioneer Terry Winograd, “to write a program to carry out abstruse formal operations than to capture the common sense of a dog.”
A dog knows, through its own sort of common sense, that it cannot leap over a house in order to reach its master. It presumably knows this as the directly given meaning of houses and leaps — a meaning it experiences all the way down into its muscles and bones. As for you and me, we know, perhaps without ever having thought about it, that a person cannot be in two places at once. We know (to extract a few examples from the literature of cognitive science) that there is no football stadium on the train to Seattle, that giraffes do not wear hats and underwear, and that a book can aid us in propping up a slide projector but a sirloin steak probably isn’t appropriate. — Steve Talbott, Logic, DNA and Poetry
Is the self a thing that transcends this our reality - its referent, what it is, resides in a realm beyond the one we know? — TheMadFool
If you consider yourself the body (I know, too much to bear for some...) than points 2-4 disappear as snow for the fucking sun. The brainless body, that is. — VerdammtNochMal
Therein lies the rub. — TheMadFool
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