I do believe that you have raised some important questions on to the site. However, all your questions about ownership are making me wonder if you are wishing to seek to scrutinise it so much, rather than appreciating it for what it is.

Yes, I like Carseat Headrest. We seem to like some of the same music, especially some fairly obscure bands. I played 'Infected' by The The last night, and I have been listening to a band which formed in the 1980s, The Alarm.

I hear you mentioned Zoom and I am sure if a speaker was introduced in that way a lot of people would be very pleased. However, the introduction of Zoom on this site is my worst fear. That is because I don't want to end up engaging sitting on my unmade bed, in my cluttered bedroom. It is all very well for people who can appear in their designer homes. Also, speaking on Zoom might appeal to some, but not everyone.

I know that you are only speaking of Zoom as a possibility for the speaker, but once Zoom is introduced it tends to become the dominant mode. Most groups I would like to do, like art and creative writing are often only available by Zoom, and I wonder to what extent this will continue beyond the pandemic. So, if Zoom was introduced on this site I think that in time most of the discussion may take place in that way, as that is the way life is going.

I have always worried about the state of the world, but often feel a bit powerless. I have been on various marches and try to keep as politically aware as possible.

I do think that we need to be aware of what the scientists say, but it does seem that climate change is escalating. Even with the pandemic, it seems that so many new variants are arising that it is difficult to know how effective the vaccines will be.

I find it easy to get demoralised, as it does seem that nature is bringing us some tough things. At times, I do fear for the fate of humanity, not just through climate change but war and nuclear destruction.

But, I try to keep positive, as I do believe that we can make a difference individually in some ways. I do believe that there are many people in the world who do wish to work positively to try to sustain a planet which is inhabitable for future generations. One of the biggest dangers may be if we start to see ourselves as being the last of humanity, possibly creating a self fulfilling prophecy, and just focusing on our own survival needs recklessly. But, of course, this is complex when people are struggling and suffering in our times.

I think that you have a great idea for a thread because climate change, the pandemic, social inequalities are such big issues. I think that many in the world probably feel so overwhelmed by the immensity of all these problems.

I am of the view that we should most certainly do our best to address these problems. The biggest difficulty is that life is so unpredictable. For example, a couple of years ago no one would have expected the last year's events of the pandemic. It appeared as remote virus in China, and swept across the globe, affecting so many lives, and, even now, we don't know what is going to happen next. Nature will take its course, but are we just going to be swept along like passengers on a train which is about to crash?

So, the problem is that life is not always as predictable as we expect, but perhaps we need to wake up to this, and do our best individually, and on a social level to try to address the problems which are upon us.

I have always felt that time was more like a dimension, one of the ones beyond the three, but they are all interconnected and the three dimensional realities we experience are within the fourth dimension of time. I once read a book called 'Man and Time' by J B Priestley, which suggested that time can be viewed from the perspective of eternity and, in that context, the future may affect the past, challenging the way in which we usually understand the past to affect the future. I am not sure whether this makes sense, but it is interesting to wonder if time simply flows in one way, even though it appears to progress in that way.

I do agree that CBT is best used in conjunction with medication rather than instead of it. But, one newer development is online CBT. When a therapist told me she was leaving her job to work in the development of online therapy I was very sceptical, but I suppose it may help people before they get to the point of needing anything more, and I have found that just reading about habitual thinking, like in mindreading, black and white, as well as catastrophic thinking make a lot of difference in the interpretation of daily events.

I am not sure how much cognitive behavioral therapy does work on unlearning depression, but it does enable critical thinking about the way we view our experiences. I have worked with cognitive behaviorial therapists when I worked in an inpatient therapies unit, but the focus was more behavioral. However, that may have been because most of the patients were in hospital for obsessive compulsive disorder, so had programmes designed by therapists designed for this. However, I have been impressed by CBT, especially the ABC model. Did CBT come into your cognitive science course?

I do agree that it is important to unlearn misery because misery can be such a rut. Perhaps, that could even be a goal in the psychological treatment of depression.

I am probably not speaking of some kind of danger, as if we are going to come to harm through such thinking in such a way. I am speaking more of a 'philosophical danger' if such a concept makes sense.

I believe that the biggest danger is that when we are thinking about the self, whether in terms of Cotard's view or in other ones , to start thinking of the self as an entity as if it is in a box or a container.

I found what you have written about as interesting because I have often wondered about whether we can really say that the self exists. I have come across some Buddhist accounts which certainly challenge the idea of the self. I think that this is connected to the nature of impermanence, especially that of ego consciousness.

However, Descartes saw his own identification of the 'I' as evidence for the self, and most of us do have a sense of continuity of a self throughout our life experiences. But, we can question the nature of this self. It may be more of a construct perhaps, in establishing personal identity.

I wonder if rather than looking back with almost a sense of nostalgia to previous times on the forum, it is worth thinking how we can all work to make the forum a better place for exchange of ideas.

I have looked at the shoutbox several times while it was in the lounge and couldn't make much sense of it all. I read how some people seem to view it as central to the forum. I am a bit confused because it just seems to be a disjointed jumble, so what is the shoutbox meant to be, or is it just for people to say anything about anything?

I can see your purpose of naturalistic explanations. What I see as being a particular problem is when people make particular arguments which depend on certain ideas about the supernatural. Being by nature a bit of a 'woo woo', mystical psychonaut, I am inclined to contemplate all kinds of possibilities, but I am aware that these are only speculation, so I prefer not to use these as a premise or foundation. I think that I can live with uncertainty, and I do wish to be able to formulate arguments on the basis of what is known, rather than the unknown.

Thanks for your reply, and hopefully, the discussion we had on this thread will be useful for the topic here. So, I will get out of the discussion on sports because, really, I prefer philosophy...

I do struggle a bit with methodological and philosophical materialism, but I am hoping that I will get there at some point. If anything, I do smile when I look at certain books and begin to think, 'woo woo'. I am serious about my questions, but try to keep a certain amount of humour.

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.