:up:

let’s collapse the dualism. Mind IS body. We live inside the illlusion. — Fire Ologist

:up: no dualism to collapse. The Mind part is fleeting No thing.

reality is illusion — Fire Ologist

Not dualism though it sounds like one. Not monism either, though ultimately it is. You're saying it yourself, dualism. When you concede that its not just reality, but illusion too. I know you're saying they're the same thing. But then why do we refer to the illusion. The illusion isn't reality, it's a fleeting appearance, which, like code, affects reality. Inconceivable oneness and difference; only the difference is an illusion. At best described as a qualified dualism: the duality is fictional projections.

As for knowledge and belief, they are the same thing. Belief is the last link in the dialectical chain that ends in knowledge. It doesn't always surface with knowledge, but its the settlement necessary to project knowledge. Whether it's 1+1 or e=mc² or there is a God, It is believed and known as one complete structure. In body, the real settled feeling is triggered by belief, giving it its only truth; which true feeling, in turn allows for the, always temporary, adoption of knowledge. But the knowledge for humans is not really, the settled feeling alone is real. The knowledge is a super sophisticated, super complex, highly evolved fleeting system of constructions and projections. And that's where we both experience time, (constructions and projections evolved to surface in the Narrative, linear form), and spend it.

And this, to me, ties in with the OP. For the sake of demonstrating, assume what we're after when we apply reason to seek God, is the ultimate Truth, the Reality of the Universe, in whatever format from Lord to God head to Nature. Then that Truth has to be "found" as a physiological feeling, and, reason can at best be a stimulus of the feeling. We call the feeling, among other things, faith. As for God, like the orgasm, no disrespect intended, and all real things; if it's real, use as much fantasy as you need to get you there, but know that it's fantasy, and truth is necessarily not in the fantasy, but in what the real organism feels.

Seek God etc. [in your hearts] all else is talk

But that is precisely what revealed truth means. It is the entire meaning of the Bible. It doesn’t mean you have to believe it. — Wayfarer

Fair enough if that's faith is revealed truth in the bible (and i know you agree you dont havd to believd it), but can't faith be explored beyond those boundaries. Are you suggesting no discussion about faith is meaningful without first adopting the definition that it is a revelation of something otherworldly?

Some people seem to believe that faith exists in a separate domain, as if it were a sacred thread connecting them directly to the truth, untouched by external influences. — Tom Storm

I know what you mean, and I agree, faith which claims to have such revelation into some otherworldly superior reality is not supportable.

But maybe, it seems like another domain, because it's in another, so-called domain; but its not really another domain; its the real and singular domain, where there is a natural body that feels; only we humans are so sucked in to the "fixtional" domain of our collective constructive imaginations , that we make-believe something out of what we really simply, physically feel. The feeling is soon enough "ignored" or displaced, by a make-believe, labeled (today's manifestated version of endless dialectic), because it is so alienated from the physical feeling, as something so outside of our constructions, that it must be Other. And from there we build our Babel of philosophies, getting further and further from the truth, that once crisp feeling we happen, now to vaguely call faith,


Tragically, the human body, the animal of nature, is the domain we ignore/are ignorant of. Not just re god, but always. And as for God, we take a real human feeling about something in Nature, and we settle vaguely on q thing labeled as faith. But only in the make-believe endless trials of the dialectic, are we so called choosing to believe it, and requiring tools to structure a place to settle/believe; tools like reason, and as you say, many other external influences, all of them filtered in, and taking shape, as constructions building over the truth.

We feel it. Just because our ideas are constructions, doesn’t mean it's not God we are feeling. I can't help but feel that it is. Not in any grandiose sense, but in the sense that we all do. We wouldn't be discussing it if we didn't feel it too. And those that don't feel it, build their antitheses upon our consensus. And I ignore the feeling as much or more than you and build my stories. Nevertheless, i do think everything we think, departs from the feeling, and in its departure alienates the truth of god as a
human feeling.

Faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought. — DifferentiatingEgg

I agree...ultimately

It's like Morality. It doesn’t matter what you think in your head. It's what your body does, your arms and hands, your legs, feet, your face, your eyes your voice, your feelings. The pursuit of "Morality," spends so much time on ideas; distractions and detractors from the real thing/Truth; instead, seeking truth in what goes on in the head about truth. It’s not our ideas about killing. The idea of killing comes up in many forms. Why and where do we think we can draw precise lines? It's the body killing; the movements of limbs or teeth, and the feeling. Yet we focus on endless debates about the thought. Like mathemeticians we tangle with intention, motive, mens rea, justifications, right and wrong, and think we discover truth in our calculations. If it feels good to kill, a feeling triggered by, and covalent with, natural feelings of the body we call compassion, pity, mercy, survival and bonding, then it’s one thing; if it feels like anger, jealousy or fear, it’s another; if it has no feeling because the body, in its motion just stumbled or happened upon killing, it’s neither.

I think the debates about God are the same. It’s a distraction from God to look for It in our thoughts. Thoughts are made up and, ironically, imprecise, not just subject to our prejudices, creations and whims, but constructed by them. As much as we convince ourselves that logic and reason are pre-existing truths, we argue and cannot agree about even logic and reason. Because we construct even logic and reason, they cannot uncover ultimate truth; if nothing else, at least that should apply to ultimate truth about God. If there even is a God, It has to be found with the body. We call it faith, but its not some scriptural directive, duty or virtue that we need to pretend to have (the sad mistake most of us invariably make despite our best intentions). It’s an actual, and real biochemical feeling in the body. And if its the Truth [about] God that we're after, that'sthe only place we'll "find" it. Only that feeling ultimately matters in our search for any truth concerning God.

Of course, that's not to say that thoughts don't trigger the feelings. Fair enough, they have their place for us humans, burdened and blessed with Mind. But ultimately that’s not where we find truths about things like morality or God, or even reality and whatever the real self is, for that matter. As distressingly anti-philosophical as it is, the ultimate truth is a feeling.

If Cat Stevens can call for Salmon Rushdie's execution — Patterner

If Cat Stevens--Mr. Peace Train--can be so radicalized, then yes, maybe Tom Storm's reasoning is not just functional but necessary.

:up:

Some of my Islamic and apostate acquaintances argue that Muslims need to be exposed to as much book burning and blasphemous drawings and scantily clad women as possible in order to wear away the layers of antediluvian thinking. I guess they are taking the Quentin Crisp view of tolerance - that it comes out of exposure and boredom. — Tom Storm

That's a good point. If that was the spirit of the OP's consideration; I get it. Perhaps I was wrong to read it as latent bullying in response to (pathological) fanaticism.

What did you think about it as a challenge? — flannel jesus

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. Maybe I addressed it above?

Worrying about offending them is much like worrying about offending some pre-Civil War Americans by burning copies of state laws that allow slavery. Sure, they got mad. But it was still the right thing to do. — Patterner

I was reading the book burning as having no positive value, but only as a gesture of offense. After reading Tom Storms above, I see that there could be value in reforming fanaticism.

So to refine my thought. If burning the Quran is intended only to offend, I see no good in that. If it is to demonstrate against, and reform fanaticism, yes.

Ironically, I see I was the one willfully blinded.

If I burn my own book that I bought, it's not the same as punching you — flannel jesus

It's not the same as punching me. No argument there. But I would speculate that the burning of the Quran was not done in the spirit of educating, but rather, violating. Violating does not have to include physical harm. And your question was whether there are "good reasons" to burn. So even in your last hypothetical about burning a book you bought; short of giving some cute response like, fuel or kindling, what would be a good reason. And to be clear, we dont even need to approach it as a moral question, but as a straight functional one. Assuming the underlying unwritten in your OP: Muslims are the kind of scary people who will stab you for burning the Quran, how can we stop this problem and livr in peace? I just don't think burning the Quran is going to stop it. If violating Muslims is a "good reason" (which perhaps for many it is) then yes, there is a good reason to burn through book. I just think the end goal is peace, and thus don't think violating Muslims is a good reason.

The question is, are there good reasons to justify the burning; not is the stabbing righteous (which, it is not); nor are jihadists acceptable (which, they are not)

Maybe. But end of the day, the burning of Romans is still not a functional response to the hypothetical conflict between the hypothetical Christians and the hypothetical LGBT.

Definitely not (a); but just because these hypothetical Christians are insane, why is burning their literature the solution. Especially knowing they're insane enough to perceive it as a stabbing (which, it is not).


I hope you didn't read condonation of the stabbing in condemnation of the burning.

With respect, it's that kind of wilfull blindness (likely rooted in fear and hatred, even if justifiable) which makes peace so difficult. Isn't that the end goal?

Maybe for some, the burning is not intended as a step toward resolving the problem of jihadism; but rather, just a disguised, legal, form of stabbing Muslims. Getting revenge.
Maybe for some revenge is a good reason for burning books. I just don't think so.

Someone burned a Quran in London yesterday. Another man attacked him with a knife in retaliation. — flannel jesus

Are there good reasons, today, to burn a Quran? — flannel jesus

How is it not obvious that both actions are violent and neither can be condoned?

Sure, the knife attack is more recognizable as violence, and a more objectively and directly harmful form.

But as for the burning of the Quran. Can the action be justified by the pretense of free speech, delivering, for example, a political anti-terrorism or anti-barbaric cultural practices message, when the message itself---patently offensive, and known to be offensive, or why do it?---is a barbaric practice, intended to terrorize an entire group of believers for the (admittedly contemptible) beliefs and activities of their most extreme few? [And if one believes that all Muslims are barbaric terrorists, that belief is at best naive, but more likely rooted in fear manifesting as hatred].

Can one justify burning the Gospels to protest Christian White Supremacy? Or the Torah to protest the actions of fanatical Zionists? Or the Vedas to protest Hindu Nationalists? (There are examples of violence perpetrated from all three of those groups) I say no, for the same obvious reasons. We cannot justify barbarism and terrorism if it's done by our team, while condemning it when it's done by a team we (even if justifiably) despise or fear.

Isn't this the kind of hypocrisy Jesus warned against?

One could find passages of both mercy and violence in most scriptures; just as you can find both violent and peaceful devotees in all religions.

The burning of the Quran is only an F you to muslims, hiding behind the pretense of political activism. The fact that we can openly entertain such a question without feeling dissonant reflects that islamaphobia has become our conventionally accepted response to the problem of terrorism in Islam. Islamophobia is not going to resolve that problem. If anything, it'll exasperate and perpetuate it. Jewish Holocaust survivors should hate Nazis, even if that meant the majority of early 20th C Germans, but not all Germanic people, most of them engaged in a war against the Nazis.

If the LBGT community called upon its members to burn copies of Paul's letter to the Roman's, I don't see how that could be seen as not offensive to the millions of Christians who might cherish that scripture, and have no ill regard for LGBT community; and I don't see how burning Romans would advance their cause.

Nice to cross paths again. It's an interesting topic with a variety of insights.

So to attempt to say that there is no difference between man and nature, or that human acts are simply natural acts, is really an attempt to dodge or hide from the reality of the human condition. — Wayfarer

I agree with you that they are different, except that you are ignoring the possibility of a hybrid, or a qualified "nature-ism."

To assume for illustration only that we accept the biblical story as helpful and refer to your re-reference to the myth of Eden, the so called fall represents the way/thing which takes humankind away from nature (compare to the cave). This movement to knowledge, is not a movement to an equal reality as the one God made, but an error. Hence, the "fall'. The choice made by Adam/Eve does not effectively eliminate or change so called God's creation. But rather, it is an error launching uniquely humans into a fall from their "God given" natures: nature. Their nature remains the same, Nature. Reality does not change, rather, human constructions of knowledge to displace life are just not reality, or, are 'false.'

Again, I don't purport to judge them ethically or functionally; but as far as ultimate Truth or Reality, we are nature. And as Nature, there is no judgement. It just is. And our make-up and clothes, that is the realm of judgement, where we are both transgressor and judge; and though useful, that realm is ultimately false. Those last words, particularly, (it.e., realm and false) to be understood loosely and broadly.

Now, respectfully, I will anticipate your reply might be directed at some literal interpretation of this suggestion, or a statement as to its failure to comply with a contemporaneous, scholarly, or biblical interpretation, so I reiterate, the myth was used in the same spirit as you used it, in the same spirit as Platos cave, not to be construed strictly, but as a fluid illustration of matters of which expression and discourse already remove said matters from the capacity to accurately pinpoint the truth.

.

I don’t think the ancient Greeks had much grasp of palaeontology. — Wayfarer

If I might chime in. My general agreement with the picture of Plato's allegory referring to prehistoric humans isn't to say he meant "cavemen." It's to say--whether wittingly or un--Plato was addressing an intuition he had (I speculate, from Socrates) that humans approach things already and inevitably "clouded" by the concepts history has constructed. While Plato then took a turn towards more history with his idea that reason is the path back to Truth; both his allegory, and the fact that he was already disciple of Socrates, suggests that his intuition was that the Truth lies in being (human-) unfettered by history, and hence, the 'animal' in its natural state of being.

Again, I don't dismiss history, nor reason. I'm not saying Plato's intuition was a return to nature. Just that the shadow paintings--constructions and projections--are not the locus of Truth, no matter how appealing or functional.

The truth is not knowing, but being. And what is being without knowing? Human [as] Nature.

ou know what Plato's cave allegory might be really talking about, at the end of the day? Maybe it's talking about the time, before the Paleolithic (before cavemen) when men and women were not human. — Arcane Sandwich

or, before they were historical humans.

I, too, see it that way.

To say we’re ’ultimately nature’ is to try to return to that state of primordial purity. And that’s what is a fantasy. The reality of the human condition is far from that. — Wayfarer

Paradoxically, I agree. To say we're ultimately nature is an idealization.

And I fully agree that the human condition is far from that.

But I still believe the reality is we are simply nature, and all else is the plasticization of nature, or as you noted, [not petroleum but] dead dinosaurs.

sorry, response above.

Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? — Charles Darwin, private correspondence

Right. A monkey is free from the burden of trust and convictions. We are enslaved by these fantasies.

Sure. I'm not proposing we go back. We can't. And it's far too late. And I'm not suggesting our 'fantasies' aren't often beautiful, functional etc. Just that they are ultimately fantasies, and we are ultimately nature.

Therefore, as mankind is a part of nature, not separate to it, mankind's relationship with nature is outside any judgment of better or worse. — RussellA

I question that, Russell. If you were parachuted into a completely natural environment with no artifacts and minimal clothing, I suggest you would find survival extremely difficult (depending of course on the specific nature of the environment, rainforest probably being easier to survive than tundra or desert.) But our 'separateness' from nature seems perfectly obvious to me - we live in buildings, insulated by clothing, travelling in vehicles, none of which are naturally-occuring. — Wayfarer

Just because history has brought you, me and Russell to a 'place' where we are alienated from [our] nature, doesn't mean we are, by nature so alienated.

We are conceited apes. Sure, the story about Eden is a myth; but an insightful one. If there is a human fall, it is our fall from nature; our infatuation with knowledge, the this and that of our own constructions, and our concomitant turning away from life, or nature, or so called God's creation, where, as Russell rightly observes, there is no judgement, no better, no worse; only 'is-ing'

Shouldn't we love other species — Arcane Sandwich

Absolutely.

Have fun! — Arcane Sandwich

It is fun, I'll admit; trying out arguments like moving chess pieces across the board. Especially when you're skilled, or have the necessary focus, which, I admit, I am not.

But aren't we just counting angels on the head of a pin?

Religion, like everything else humans do, can be reduced to function. If we eliminate the detractors (opiate of the masses, justification for maintaining the power structures, excuse for bigotry and war; all of which, I reject) there are basically two functions, both of which use Narrative to trigger real bodily feelings that trigger belief, followed by action. It is only in the feelings triggering action that any Real Truth manifests. The rest is counting angels.

The first (an inferior function in the hierarch of so called truth) is ethical. And the Jesus Narrative (or Christianity) is supposed to function to promote love for the species as the drive for all of our actions (Although we have often failed). The message of love, highlighted by the sacrifice, triggers us to love our species and act in ways which promote its survival and growth.

The second ("superior") is metaphysical. And that's where your question is placed. So, not exactly this but, for example: the mythical human Jesus being the same as the mythical God (we cannot know either to be true) triggers feelings which settle at a belief that our own ultimate truth is not in the appearances which we cling to, but in the hidden. If he is human, and yet God, then we too are human, yet (of/in communion with/atoned by) God. Our Truth is not ultimately in our narrated experiences, those things to which we are so attached; but rather, in our mystery, the unspoken, unspeakable hidden/mystery which we are but have forgotten. There are better ways to put it; I'm just saying...Jesus must be God in the Jesus myth, otherwise it fails to serve its function.

And it's not in the facticity that the myth function. Rather, it is in the effect upon your mind, awakening you to--for example--love, and transcendance/the mystery of being outside of the cacophony of becoming.

As for suffering, vulgar time and mouthfuls proffered: suffering is an illusion because it is pain made to linger by mouthfuls proffered through vulgar time.

Ok, I liked that (unsarcastically) but.. among other things which I've yet to consider, or process, my admittedly shallow review of the Lorenz you present, suggests to me, [ to which I will attach the corresponding association with the question of, which is Tao and which is the 10K things]:

1. There is a reality [Tao],
2. Contrary to the (mis)assumptions of phenomenologists, et. al., a thing can and does sense that reality as real sensory beings with real senses [Tao]
3. There must be something (presumably unique to humans) which has 'obstructed' or 'distorted' or 'displaced' (loosely/broadly) our real sensation of the real world to bring us outside of alignment with Tao, and into the so-called world of the myriad or 10k things [which I am suggesting we 'attribute to' human history].

So far---super generally---we are on the same page, right?

4. And/But Lorenz suggests that obstruction/distortion/displacement took place within the biological evolution of the human. I.E., The human cannot sense reality/tao for what it is, because its brain evolved in such a way that it obstructs it. Very interesting, if I do not misunderstand....but then, if Lorenz is scientifically correct, then why even Taoism?


(Although efforts are exerted to find the contrary) Taoism concerns itself neither with cosmology nor with questions about the structure of reality which most of our sciences purport to address. It assumes the reality of the natural universe and allows for its mystery to remain unknowable by referencing it as the way (of things/things are) or the endless changes of things.

It is not even a moral code pointing to universal Truths, nor an insight into True Reason or the Logic of Nature/Reality, because it denies their accessiblity, and, I dare say, relevance.

Rather, Taoism is a shoving, or a poking:
1. wake up, it says, there is a reality, [Tao]
2. it is your nature to be that reality (and, I reiterate, not to know it) [Tao]
3. but it's all of your make-believe, constructed and projected in an ironic and pathetic, frantic effort to know/dominate/master that reality [Tao] which has pushed you away from that reality; make-believe which, because they are functional, you have layered or superimposed upon your natural sensations, including your feelings, instincts and drives. But these are also what has caused your going astray/disorientated from the way of that reality, leading to all of your errors and sufferings. And these make-believes are not nature (hence, not a natural or necessary function of your brain/body--albeit, possible because of your brain body). They are the myriad things, which we humans make displacing reality or the Tao. Ironically, they are the Logos, or Reason, or science, economics, governance, law, or philosophy, etc etc etc, no matter how neatly they function from time to time in making the universe seem orderly and predictable. They give order to the so called chaotic (not a fair term--ultimately what are we to call it chaos or order?) Universe; they dont discover it.

Now granted,
1. it is challenging as hell to sense with our senses, and live in accordance with truth/reality/the Tao, especiallygiven how our make-believes have generated so much desire as a by-product, luring us in and owning us; but it is in our natures to be our natures, free from the fetters of our make-believes. We are not as animals, uniquely singled out aliens from another universe, nor demons born with original sin etc etc, inescapably stuck in fiction (I.e. as Lorenz suggests, incapable of sensing reality) We too are natural, and therefore it must be within our natures to be natural.
2. We can and should continue to function in human history as historical beings---taoism is not a call to live like advance apes, naked hunters and gatherers, or some sort of return to nature in that sense. One can be an investment banker, or the American President, following Tao(ism). Taoism is just a shove: wake up and realize that history (I.e. everything we conventionally accept as so called reality) is a myriad of human constructions and projections, not the Tao, but rather, things made up and believed. Go ahead and play all you like, but for Tao's sake, realize you are playing. Expect, the unexpected, be ready for the inevitable twists and turns of reality--those which, without our make-believes, we would live with just fine:pain would be painful, pleasure would be pleasurable, neither would be a long story about pain and pleasure, and a subject who is victim and victor.

If Lorenz is correct, and if we leap from his conclusions (which I think, can be restricted to, for example, a scientific explanation of the neurological---but that is so definitely not a conclusion I am qualified to make) and there is no way for us but to sense/behave unnaturally; that we are biologically doomed to be obstructed from the Tao (which would be saying the 10k things, all of what each one of us would agree are conventional things, are actually also built into our natures and therefore the Tao, thus there is nothing which is not the Tao and was right to ask/suggest that all along), then taoism's wake-up call is a farce.

I say this, noting that Taoism as an ism is ultimately a farce, as is Einstein, and all human constructions, but its wake-up call, only its shove, is not a farce. Like, Socrates is a farce, all but his wake-up call which isnt a farce.

To once again borrow from Zen to illuminate Taoism (Although as a shield against the anticipated pedantic objection, I recognize that the two are not the same), that is precisely why, first thing you do when the shove awakens you: you kill the Buddha. Because the Buddha too is a farce.

I most assuredly don't. But am intrigued by your so noting. Please explain if you are so inclined. I won't be back to read it for several hours, feel free to take your time.

EDIT: But I hasten to add, unless you mean the concept of biological evolution etc.

Even though i know it's all a game or a simulation of sorts, i still like to take it seriously every once in a while, because it makes it more fun. — punos

:up:

What feature of the Tao is missing in the quantum vacuum in your view? — punos

The concept "quantum vacuum." That's the fearure you won't find in the Tao.

Sorry, you could probably run circles around me regarding quantum vacuum. And conceptually, you probably make an intriguing and useful point.

I just think Taoism is an attempt to remind us that while we produce concepts, no matter how genius and functional, we can reduce/alleviate our universal anxiety by simply being aware that we are just producing concepts. It's like we can play football and take it as seriously as we want, even with complete determination to win, and so on, but if we forget we're just playing a game, we risk all of the suffering associated with winning/losing.

It's the same with these discussions. I'm prepared to entertain a Hypothesis that Taoism influenced Cha'an, or was a reaction against Confucianism, or that Taoism contemplates the quantum vacuum (which I'm certainly not instructed enough to even chime in on). And I acknowledge these hypotheses can be very fruitful etc. But ultimately, they're all ironically adding to the layers of dirt under which we've buried the so called Tao.

I don't mean to spoil the fun, or purport to criticize the genius of the connections being drawn.

I'll bow out.

If something is not the Tao, then what is it, what could it be instead?
—

One of the 10,000 things. — T Clark

Yah, everything conditioning those of us born into human history is not the Tao. To borrow from Zen, the Tao is your original face, the face you had before you were born.

If everything that can be said misses the mark then there is no point discussing it. On the other hand how could you know if the mark has been missed if you don't know what it is? — Janus

The "mark" is the "problem." The mark is not a place, or a fact, or a destination. You're already the mark. If the mark is the hand pointing, of course it's missing the mark when it points [away]. Then why point? Because with all of our pointing; not just wisdom like so-called Taoism; but calling a certain fruit an apple, proposing that e=mc², etc etc, we've succeeded at something spectacular and functional, and thereby forgotten that the hand pointing is the mark. At least, the wisdom like taoism and phenomenology, etc etc, is attempting to remember that the hand pointing has been and will continue to be the mark. But because we are so attached to the [language of] the pointing, and forgotten that the hand pointing is the mark, pointing is the only thing we've got. How could you know? That's the problem. You can't know the hand pointing at the mark, knowing is pointing. You must be the hand pointing at the mark. Then both pointing and mark finally fall away.

Do you have any reasonining to back it up? — wonderer1

No strong reasoning. Not dogma, hyperbole. Sorry. Did not intend to pass it off as either reasoning or law. If I feel inclined, I might provide more of my reasoning than the admittedly little I already provided in my first post on this thread; but being neither a scientist nor prophet, no doubt it will be lacking, and unsatisfying to you and me both.
Then why even chime in? Just to suggest a place where someone might start hammering

we could engineer something like a sympathetic nervous response for an AI. Would it be sentient — frank

My intuition tells me that could be the tacky superficial replica of a human. Its words, ie thinking would certainly make our words/thinking fall prey to believing it had feelings, like a toddler could be fooled by its toys. But it would be us, not the computer, making that actual leap.

Nature is natural, machines are artificial, and never the twain shall meet

Hinton's argument is basically that AI is sentient because they think like we do. People may object to this by saying animals have subjective experience and AI's don't, — frank

My objection would be nearly the opposite. AI might think like we do. Other animals might not. But animals are sentient. AI are not. Because AI doesn't feel like we and other animals do. Any thoughts, ideas etc., which AI might have, might be 'generated' by 'itself',seem organic, might not only resemble, but even exceed our own. But any pleasure/displeasure AI has, and any corresponding drives, cannot resemble nor exceed our own, or that of many animals, without being obviously superficial, even tacky. There is no drive to avoid discomfort, or pain, to bond with others of the species, reproduce, and survive; no organs besides the thinking and perceiving brain, being replicated.

It's not so much what that says about AI that interests me, but what it says about what humans and AI have in common, not sentience, but thinking. Unlike the other animals, human thinking is an artificial intelligence. Perhaps, a leap of logic, on its face, but perhaps worthy of deeper contemplation.

why do you assume being human "means" anything at all? — 180 Proof

Exactly.

Whether there is a God(s) or not isnt relevant to my view which follows.

In my view the Eden myth referred to in the opening, was designed to express that humanity's desire for meaning is its downfall. In a nutshell, its message was, although humans have the physiology to go beyond nature and construct a universe of make-believe, don't. Choose living over knowing.

Sure, the side effects have given us things like quantum mechanics and an ever increasing advancement of technology. And unsarcastically, I am generally not maligning knowledge.

But as a species, we definitely chose knowing over living, and that has lead to an insatiable desire to construct meaning.

It is only because we construct meaning that we have irresolvable suffering.

As an animal, I fracture a bone, or cannot sustain my group with adequate food and safety, and that leads to pain, which prompts my next actions. The pain may continue until I am able to heal or procure the necessities. Then I return to a stable bliss until the next painful trigger comes along.

As a child of so-called Adam/Eve, I take those pains, and construct meaning to attach: damn it, why did I have to climb that tree and sprain my ankle? Damn it, why are my kids worse off than my neighbor? Etc. I know why, because Im stupid, or a sinner, or that is the plight of humankind, etc. Now, with a narrative [made up meaning] to attach to the pain, it is able to linger as suffering.

See also Ecclesiastes: [finding meaning is] vanity and chasing wind. Reproduce, labor only for sustenance, and try to survive into old age. All meaning is not only vanity, bur goes against so-called God, or as I prefer to think of It, Nature; our nature.

Am I oversimplifying your conundrum? Is it not because the human processes of reflection and perception are structured and conditioned by language, and therefore grammatic? That is, the thinking cannot be isolated from the subject thinking, without evoking the uneasiness of the bad logic. If there were no grammar conditioning how we think in the first place, we would look at oak tree shedding leaves without separation of oak tree and perceiver. It would just be--without the words or concepts--oak tree shedding. There would be no subject/object distinction, therefore no I superimposed into the event.

I agree that we cannot think without the I think at the very least subtly implied or lurking in the shadows of thought, but I do not think that reflects the ultimate reality. It is like a virtually permanent glitch we must endure with the advantages of having a Mind beyond our animal consciousness or, the pure untainted aware-ing of our senses and drives within nature.

beauty could be very much closely related to bodily sensory perceptions, which cause aesthetically pleasing emotions in us. — Corvus

I agree...for what it's worth

them sitting in the same spot for prolonged periods of time without doing too much, just staring off into the distance), — Prometheus2

Thank you.

My thinking is that my dog did that too. And likely other advanced animals. Likely, if it weren’t for thinking, any spare time we had prehistorically/pre-advanced-linguistically, would have been occupied in a blissful bonding with Nature.

don't you think this is maybe more of a problem of language and not the mind itself? — Prometheus2

Without the extensive explanation required, and which you are entitled to. Yes, precisely. But I think Mind is structured by/emerged with (or out of) language ( using that word very broadly).

Do you think there is a way (or ways) for us to actively stop this process from happening or at least try avoid it in order to enjoy such moments and experiences for what they truly could be? — Prometheus2

Very briefly; only as glimpses. You indeed, had such a glimpse. But you cannot do that through language (e.g. don't think of 'monkey'--if you are familiar with that little gem). But I don't fret. 1. Mind and Language obviously have their pros. 2. A glimpse might be enough to raise the awareness so that attachments and desires are put in their place, and Nature/Reality can at the very least be appreciated.

Again, all to brief, likely dissatisfying, but what can we do?

Sorry, but this is an essential final point. For all we know, every time a sophisticated animal, or prehistoric human animal looked at nature the way you did, the same blissful feelings are always aroused; but with Mind, constructs are always flooding that experience and displacing or diluting it with well tread paths of conditioned responses. I am confident you have described something real and venerable, but by so describing, you have also inadvertently buried its true potency. Again, 'you' here applies similarly to me, and all of us.

The constructs are useful as hell, but they are also what has alienated us from always feeling that bliss. Ironically, you were, at that moment, not expecting it; thus, not paying (conventional) attention and so reality was able to slip through. Lucky you!

this experience in essence really is might not be describable in mere words (at all)?
Therefore, as soon as we label this moment as 'something' (for example as the word 'beautiful') it loses some (or all) of its' actual 'meaning'/essence of what it is? — Prometheus2

Yes, exactly. I would dare to go as far as your parenthetical 'not at all'. Your experience was one thing: real, natural, felt organically by the real you in the present, i.e. the only 'place' where reality is. Then--owing to the human condition, I.e. that we have built a cage and locked ourselves in it:Mind--that feeling in its entirety, is displaced by the construct, say, 'beautiful', which in turn begins a process of triggering more 'constructs' by association, then triggering other feelings, all of which are utterly not that initial so called 'beautiful' feeling long gone.

But as you say, we all do this. And I suggest inescapably, and autonomously, Mind being that process of triggers leading to responses, in a continual feedback loop which we think of as time.

Without Mind, but only consciousness, like our advanced cousins among the animals; that real feeling would have been present to our aware-ing, but only in its presence. There would have been no dragging it with the Subject into the future by attaching it to a word, nor looking back, both a function of attachment and desire, and both at best, re-presented but no longer real.

That's as briefly as I am capable of putting it. I do think you already got the gist.

because our "folk" idea of what memory actually is, has become somewhat "tarnished", if you will, by the "commonality" of our ordinary lives, if that makes any sense to anyone. — Arcane Sandwich

Makes sense to me.
I should read Eco. Does the film do it justice? Thanks