George was a girl in The Famous Five but used to dress as a boy and get really cross if treated as a girl. The books were written by Enid Blyton and I don't know much about her. They were written a long way back in the last century but they are still being read nowadays in England.

It's funny to hear that you get hit on by gay men too because I do too. I am bi, but I look really gay and sometimes get approached by strangers asking me to be a rent boy.

I think that transwomen often have the hardest time of most groups because they are often so visible. I know a transwomen, who was beaten up so badly in her early twenties that she will have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Even during my time working in healthcare I have come across so many staff members with really hostile attitudes. For example, there was a trainee doctor who was a transwomen and one care assistant remarked , 'If I had a relative in hospital I wouldn't want them touched by someone like that.' Fortunately, the manager told this person off, but many staff used to make all kinds of remarks. There was some transgender training, which was important because we had transgender patients.

Anyway, I had better stop myself from derailing the sports thread, but I have been so irritated by this thread, or more especially the protest thread against the moderators, which got closed last night.

It's rather funny that I have even got into discussions on this thread because I don't like sports, playing or watching them, but I think that every trans person probably has to negotiate their place in sports and most aren't so good that they are competing in official tournaments. I don't know if there are any actual trans athletics as such and this probably varies across the world, but, of course, there are links between transgender and the gay community. However, there can be tensions here. In particular, there is a whole historical protest against transgender coming from radical lesbians.

Your point about segregation in children's groups, such as the girl guides and scouts is interesting but there is so much heated debate about children and transgender on this site and in the media in general. In England, it is fuelled by one particular individual, Kiera Bell, who transitioned from female to male as a teenager and regretted it, and is now transitioning back to being female.

But, even though trans issues weren't discussed so much until recently it is likely that many experienced them, even before physical treatment was available. I don't know if you ever read The Famous Five books, but I often wonder if George was a potential transgender person.

I just think the reality is so much more complex than it is being portrayed in this thread. For example, if someone identifies as a transman they may or not be taking testosterone. However, they may even have elevated t levels in the first place due to underlying endocrine disorders. The situation of transmen is so less understood than of transwomen generally, but of course, even some transwomen have underlying forms of intersex.

But, I think that the danger of most of the debates on transgender on this forum is that they make such sweeping generalisations about trans issues. I keep seeing this flash up today, and someone even comparing a person who wishes to transition with someone wishing to become a horse. I don't think it was written with any particular transphobia but with a complete lack of any knowledge of the experiences of transwomen or transmen.

I think that a lot of women would have a big problem if a transman wished to take part in a female tournament, but of course, it depends on whether the transman looked male or female. What this thread also ignores is that there is some overlap between transgender people and intersex. Each trans person has their own story. I think that it is a big mistake to focus on one celebrity, who really lived as a man for so many years, rather than look at the wider picture.

I do really agree with you that thoughts can be seen as 'guests' and that is why I don't see them as matter, even though they are transmitted, or arise, within the brain as a bodily organ. While I am not very familiar with cognitive science, I am familiar with the cognitive behavioral therapy model and that looks at the way in which thoughts arise in an intrusive manner, which does seem to involve seeing them as strangers which we house. I think that meditation is one way in which we are able to think about thoughts as guests, and the way in which decide to treat them in our own experience.

I do agree with you that it is difficult to escape dualism entirely, because while I was engaging on the thread I got to the point of embracing non dualism. However, when looking at specific philosophers who try to go beyond duality, I have not been convinced entirely that they really manage this. Yes, it's true that dualism and non dualism are once again binaries, which is why I thought about a whole continuum or spectrum of gradations from mind to body, even if there are points within the continuum.

But, as with all philosophies, we are trying to fit the reality into our constructs of this comes with certain limitations. I am sure that I am slipping into phenomenology, and I haven't read the significant writers, but I would ask where do emotions lie in between mind and body, because they are based on physical drives and instincts but also dependent on ideas, especially in the form of the ideals we have. For example, the heartbroken person may feel get to the point of being depressed clinically, which is based on neurochemistry but this is connected to ideas or ideals about the nature of love.

I am in favour of balance but, sometimes we need to get to the low and high points in our journey of becoming who we are. The contrasts can be part of the path, a bit like a game of snakes and ladders, and, finding exits within labyrinths.

Chosen word: Gothic (Flash philosophy refection)

We all have a dark side, and sometimes we project it onto others. But, some people realise that it cannot be eliminated entirely. Even within the Christian striving for perfection and the idea of the imitation of Christ, the dark diabolical side was evident, as evident in church gargoyles.

Jung spoke of the need to integrate the shadow and we have done so through dark fantasy fiction and dark metal music, emo music bands like My Chemical Romance and, the goth subculture. All this may help us live with, rather than be consumed in the infernal underworld of inner darkness and demons, as we try to ascend to the inner light, and the colours in between the binaries of black and white oppositions.

The word opposites does indeed imply mirror images, but it is connected to binary thinking. Dividing the world into binaries is useful in some ways, and I believe that even the development of computing used this. But, the other possibility is thinking in continuums.

I have wondered at times whether the idea of the continuum is useful for thinking about the mind and body problem. Rather than splitting the mind and body as suggested by dualism, we may be able to think of a whole spectrum of subtle states in between body and mind, as we commonly call them.

As human rights we do project so much, especially onto other people's. I believe that if we realise that we are projecting and see what we are projecting as being related to us individually, we are likely to gain some increases self awareness.

I do realise that you probably see the arts as autonomous and perhaps, the best fiction writers and rock artists are engaging with thought in a shamanic way.

I don't think that we can separate the mental and physical entirely. In the previous post I have been engaging in discussions about qualia, in terms of the objective and subjective. They are different ways of perceiving, or of constructing thought but they come together in thought. Within our own experiences we can look out to the external world and within our own previous memories, but the two come together in our thinking in some kind of synthesis.

In my previous post, I forgot to say that I have read some writing by Oliver Sacks, and his observations are extremely interesting, in showing the variations of thoughts and perceptions which people can experience.

It is interesting to think about James' idea of the stream of consciousness in relation to the quantum world, and I must admit that I probably focus on how it relates to James Joyce's stream of consciousness in fiction. The two probably interconnect somewhere as well.

I had not really thought that much about qualia until I began reading a few threads on it on this site. However, I have always been aware the way our subjective experience are so variable, especially how when a group of people draw one object or person the portrayals are so variable. I think that even our own experiences vary too. In particular, I am aware that certain music seems to sound completely different at times, depending on my own state of mind.

I think that you are right to say that scientists incorporate art and, equally, the arts need to incorporate scientific evidence. It is probably a whole spectrum, especially with the social sciences falling in between the two. To focus on science or art alone would result in a lack of balance.

I am not sure that it makes sense to say that, 'Thoughts are matter'. This applies to individual thoughts especially. Let us say we take any individual philosophy idea, like, for example, the idea of freedom, it is a mental representation, and may be perceived by the brain or written about in many ways, on paper or spoken about but it is not a physical reality. Even ideas about physical reality, as for example the idea of a circle is separate from the physical circles in the real world. I believe that you are missing the metaphysical basis underlying thought. The empirical and metaphysical are both important in the way in which we construct and engage with thoughts.

I am not in disagreement with science and do believe in the importance of evidence based research. However, what about the arts? I don't believe that science has the exclusive view of truth. I am aware that most of my studies were arts based and I do often wonder how differently I would think if I had followed a science pathway. Psychology is interesting in this respect, because it can be studied as an art or science. But, it does seem to me that whether we study ideas as science or as an art, the result is models and metaphorical representations. Of course, these are important, but most ideas we have are only approximations, and they will be refined upon and rebuilt at some time.

I admit that I have not read much on cognitive science, and, strangely, even though I have done a fair amount of modules on psychology on various courses, it has never come into these. I do think that it is an area I probably need to read a lot more about, and I can see that it is relevant to the topic of thinking.

Some of the writers you mentioned are ones I have read, and I am not surprised that you think Jung is 'woo woo' because I realise that many people on this site take that view. But, I am a bit surprised that you view Capra in that way. What is your criticism of him? It was his book, 'The Turning Point' which I found so helpful for demystifying the new physics, and for seeing how the ideas of Descartes, especially dualism, were problematic.

Even though I realise that I need to read up on cognitive science, and probably phenomenology too, I still have some difficulty viewing thinking as some kind of electrochemical reaction. It does not seem to explain the content of thoughts, and, surely, even the cognitive theories are constructed as thought, whether expressed verbally, diagramatically, or in some other conceptual way.

Your discussion of mirrors has lead me to think of my own trip on acid, which I took twice. It was my second one, at a dance music event, with crowds of strangers and I was tripping. I went up to a mirror and I expected to see a grotesque monster staring at me. But, instead, I could see the walls and the radiator behind me, but I was not there at all. I began thinking how I must be out of my body and worried about whether I would be able to get back into it again, ever. So, I went and lay down for many hours before the trip began to end.

The reason why I am recalling this here is it could be described as the ultimate dualist trip. I am aware that it was drug induced but it did really seem as if I had lost my body. I don't know why I had this experience on acid and I don't know if other people have experienced similar ones, because none of my friends have taken acid. At the time, I I think it felt like confirmation of dualism, but as it was a number of years ago I probably don't view it in that way any longer.

I think that a lot of terms which we use are ambiguous. It was interesting a couple of weeks ago that there was a thread on defining the term consciousness, and it became apparent that while we use the word so often on this forum we all probably come from different understanding and usage of the term. This ranged from the perspective of the medical model to that of philosophies about states of awareness. I think that the term soul is equally ambiguous, ranging from certain religious philosophies which maintain the existence of souls as entities which can be separated from the body to ideas about soul as being about meaningful heartfelt experiences, hence, soul music.

When we engage in philosophy discussion part of it is about the analysis of terms and partly about understanding and explaining the reality behind the terms. The two are separate but closely linked, because the way we use terms is partly related to how we see reality and, alternatively, our ideas are based on our use of language.

I am not saying for sure that the mind and brain are not identical because I am not sure that it is possible to be certain in any absolute way. I grew up adopting a dualistic picture of reality, and I have certainly questioned this. However, when you look outside the perspective of thinking of science, especially the behaviourist model developed by BF Skinner, which has been so influential, it becomes apparent that the particular approach of reductionism is only one way of seeing and not the only one. Even the picture of reality in quantum physics makes a mechanical picture of reality less solid, especially the division between mind and matter. Reality, including our thoughts, may be of an energetic nature.

I think that we are in the position of making decisions about how we place the emphasis on the material or the spiritual because we are coming with the vantage point of seeing the panorama of historical views, rather than just adopting one worldview necessarily.

What is interesting is how some of the Eastern thinkers really did see the physical world as illusion, or maya. I remember when I did study the module of Hinduism, I was at the time attending Christian Union and felt that the Hindu idea of Atman, man, merging with Brahman, God, made more sense to me than the idea of eternal paradise after the resurrection.

However, even within Christianity there have been different degrees of emphasis on the physical and the immaterial. In some ways, it does seem that esoteric traditions have generally given more attention to the nonmaterial. Some esoteric thinkers, especially within the esoteric tradition even interpret the idea of the fall of the angels and of mankind into a more gross physical reality.I find this approach to be interesting, but my thinking shifts between this kind of thinking, and of viewing esoteric ideas as symbolic depictions. In other words, my own thinking shifts a fair amount over the emphasis, and I keep a certain amount of flexibility but do dwell on it.

I am not sure that we can distinguish particular thoughts from the process of thought in any absolute way because while there are breaks in consciousness and, themes within our thoughts, it is an organic structure, with many interconnected overlaps.

I do wonder if the reason why most scientists are not wishing to challenge the attempt to go beyond reductionist materialism is related to fear of ostracism from the scientific community. On the other hand, I think it is partly because we have made such progress in connecting the mind to the body that many see the body and the brain as primary. It is all about which is emphasised. In my thread on dualism I definitely got to the point where nonduality seemed to be the way forward. I have began reading thinkers such as Plotinus and Huxley's perennial philosophy, but it does still seem that it is hard to place some degree of emphasis on mind or matter as being more real.

I suppose that it is useful in thinking about particular thoughts to consider them as having a beginning and an end, but as for the process of thought itself, this is open to question because in some ways it is hard to know when thoughts stop, and the closest may be in dreamless sleep. Certainly, when we are awake it is extremely hard to stop thinking. It is sought in various forms of meditation but to completely still one's own thoughts completely is probably an art achieved only by yogis, and probably still involves certain awareness, rather than complete emptiness.

I was not ignoring your comment, but simply had not got the chance to reply to the comments. I don't necessarily believe in a soul. I think that it is a term, like most others which we are accustomed to using, which is dubious. I was certainly believe in souls, but that was in the context of my Catholic upbringing. I do use the term on occasions like that of the self, or even the mind, but they are all abstract approximations. So, when I say that the thoughts come from some source, it is a statement which implies that there is something beyond the physical brain, but this could be more like Jung's collective unconscious. Or, it could be like Bergson's idea of 'mind at large'. I am just not convinced that consciousness and the brain are identical.

Holding a mirror up of the universe and all our own previous thoughts does in some ways sound a bit like the cross between the day of judgement and an acid trip. However, I do think that in a way we do hold up such a mirror, because no matter what model of the mind we adopt we do have a certain impression of the universe and the history of our own thoughts somewhere in our consciousness....

However, the question is how accurate our mirror is and, if we carry the mirror analogy further, we have to remember that the mirror image which we see of ourselves is round the wrong way and not really accurate because most of us are not really completely symmetrical.

It is questionable at what point experience becomes thought. We are facing sense impressions and coping with the stream of thought at the same time. In some ways, perhaps we could say that the dialogue may be like a war with the possible competing demands for attention going on.

Your point about non verbal aspects of communication is important because in the processing of thought we are mostly taking more in than we can process consciously. Of course, that doesn't mean that it is forgotten. We may be asked to recall aspects of experience which we had not really thought about, such as the colour of the eyes of the person we are speaking to, and we may or may not be able to remember the correct detail. But, it does seem important to see how our thinking process involves aspects of which we are aware as well as subliminal aspects of perception. The question is whether such parts of perception are thoughts until we try to think about them?

I can see the relevance of the idea of a mirror as a way of seeing the whole process of thinking. It is also easy to see the danger of thinking in a narcissistic way, or of just in ways which enable us to buffer up our own egos. I would imagine that the one way we have of preventing this from happening is that we share our thoughts through conversing with others, and this exchange of thoughts probably stops us from living in our own little thought bubbles.

I think that knowledge is important, but it depends what we do with the knowledge. It is a bit difficult to narrow goals down to the main one and, so, my choice of creativity probably includes knowledge, because that involves the creative interpretation of information into knowledge. I believe that creativity probably includes most aspects of our existence.

I am sorry if I appear to be referring to specific ideas of particular writers and this is just because they seem to have thought so much about the subconscious or systems. I see your point about a database and how we could be like databases. However, while the model of information may have some usefulness for considering our processing, but it is a picture based on our particular perspective, whereas people who lived in different historical eras may have thought in an animistic way, or in connection with the planets and stars as a basic construct for viewing and explaining the content of thoughts.

It is interesting to know at what point thoughts arise whether we adopt a naturalistic approach or otherwise. Part of it probably comes down to the role of language although images and sense impressions are probably important too. I am sure that people do have some sensory impressions. However, I imagine that reflection on thoughts in the development of memory plays an ongoing role.

I can definitely remember my own life in connection with the thoughts which I had about it. I am often surprised by the way many people don't seem to remember aspects of life, like their first day at school, and it is probably connected to it not having been internalised as a thought. A little while ago, I met a woman on a bus who I sat next to on my first day at school and I mentioned that to her and she was astounded by me telling her this. I can probably remember because I have always been someone who thinks a lot.

I think that goals in life probably fluctuate at various points in our lives. When I was working in mental health care, I remember part of my work involved sitting down with people and helping them to identify their goals in order to work towards them.

On a personal level, I have a lot to sort out on a practical level, including getting a job, and many mundane aspects of life. However, on a deeper level than finding work to support myself financially and even the fulfilment of basic pleasures I think that one of my main goals is always creativity. I am not saying that the social aspects of life aren't important but having creative outlets is essential for me.

I will have a look at your thread and try to put in a response in the next half hour.

I think that it is a very helpful quote and I feel that my thoughts seem like they are from some underlying source, such as that of a soul. One aspect of this is the way in which thoughts seem to rush in, like stimuli from the brain and senses and it is as if one's highest consciousness has to shift and select from them, as the guiding force. I believe that Plato believed in the idea of a 'daimon' as being the higher aspect which is able to oversee the thinking process.

The area of the subconscious is a large one indeed because it does involve many interpretive viewpoints. I have come across psychology texts which see the subconscious as more of a processing of data and I think that it is possible that you see it in this way because you mentioned data and systems.

However, we do have to bear in mind that ideas about the subconscious also emerge within psychoanalytic thought. In particular, both Freud and Jung speak of it, and their approaches are extremely different from one another. I am aware that many may see the ideas of both these thinkers as being outdated and not evidence based to be worthy of serious debate. However, they do provide frameworks.I think that both writers would probably see nightmares as material which is repressed and surface.

One aspect which I am aware of is how I often notice that I begin having nightmares, or even hypopompic and hypnagogic experience when I am in stressful life situations and I know many other people who have found this too. This probably points to chemicals which are triggered by stress.

Also, I think that the systems approach of Fritjof Capra is very useful and that thoughts, including those which are consciousness and those emerging from the subconscious can be viewed as arising within us as living systems, and as parts of larger systems.

I just wish to add that I do hope to be able to read to follow through any discussion with reading, but just waiting to see if the thread is even going to work at all, because it may be that it fizzles within less than a day. I do wish to make it work, and will try to do further reading when I can work out a picture of the way in which the thread may develop.

I would certainly not wish to leave psychology out of the discussion, because I do believe that it has so much to offer. It also has a variety of perspectives. Also, I am certainly not opposed to neuroscience, but just feel that it is almost being seen as of such importance in questions of consciousness as if it probably has all the answers.

I added an edit to the post which I wrote to you. I am not saying that I think that you should focus too much on questions like Atlantis or writers such as Sitchkin. The reason I brought it in is because I am sure it has to come in at some point in the topic which you are discussing, so I thought that it may as well be addressed sooner rather than later.

One aspect which I do consider to be extremely important is the nature of sources of information and the need for critical examination of these. I did study a term module on Hinduism and I remember one aspect which the tutor drew attention to, which was a certain limitation through not being able to read Sanskrit. However, I don't think that we should stop trying to understand but approach it with the best authoritative knowledge sources, and perhaps my own digression into the more outlandish areas of points to the way that there is so much material available which is mostly speculation. I see the area you raise as being important but it will probably need backing up with various sources and texts. However, you have given a couple already and it may be that others will be able to add more.

About a month ago, someone wrote a thread on esoteric knowledge, although that was based more on the idea of the knowledge as being part of power elitism rather than the ideas of the esoteric knowledge. However, it does seem to me that the underlying traditions underlying Egyptian, Indian and Greek thought can be traced back to knowledge as esoteric wisdom. I believe that Sumerian knowledge, especially Hinduism was important in the development of these ideas, but I do think that it is probably also useful to frame these partly in the historical contexts in which they arose and passed into other traditions.

Edit: I just thought that you may be interested to know that there is a website called 'Forgotten Books', which is a way of accessing books on esoteric wisdom. One particular book which I downloaded was one by Plato on the lost civilisations of Atlantis. I know that many people do not believe in the historical existence of the idea of Atlantis, but in considered lost knowledge and wisdom I do believe that question such as the existence of Atlantis do seem to come into the picture. For example, I am aware of writers, such as Zachariah Sitchkin, who saw early human beings as communicating directly with the 'gods'. However, some of this writing is far fetched, but it seems to have some importance in the consideration of the early traditions of spiritual and philosophical thought.

I am planning to read more on phenomenology because I do see this as a missing link, but not quite sure where to start exactly. I just see such divergent approaches to the nature of thoughts. In many ways, the various perspectives are only models, but, nevertheless, I do believe that there is a great bias within current philosophy to that of the neuroscientists, and it is almost overlooked how that in itself is only a model. It is from the outside looking in, with a possible claim to being objective. It all seems to me to be about angles of viewing. We have metaphysical systems which looked from the consideration of a divine order to perspectives of mind which are self organising. I am sure that they all contain elements of truth, and it all comes down to different starting points or frames of reference.

I think that your discussion is extremely interesting but one underlying issue which is also applicable is the nature of early civilisations. It seems that the early thinkers were so advanced, and I wonder about the epistemological foundations of their knowledge.