They have an idea about being a spirit, most probably because they read a lot about that, esp. Eastern philosophy, but they have not realized it for themselves. It has not become part of their reality. — Alkis Piskas

Eastern (Buddhist) philosophy is about realizing emptiness and pretty much the opposite of what you appear to be indicating.

Still don’t get how being and having a body is fundamentally different from being and having a spirit, btw.

The first, and very obvious question is, "If you are a body, then why do you say 'my body', 'I have a body', and so on?" You can't be a body and have a body at the same time, can you? — Alkis Piskas

Okay, I’m not a body. The second, and very obvious question is, "If you are a mind or a soul, then why do you say 'my mind or my soul', 'I have a mind or I have a soul', and so on?" You can't be a mind or a soul and have a mind or a soul at the same time, can you?

You have no idea about the impact dreams and daydreams have had on the world. — TheMadFool

Unfortunately, letting go has had little impact.

mind remodeling isn't the same as a body makeover. — TheMadFool

Mind and body are inextricably linked.

The core of Buddhism is about letting go. Transhumanism seems to be about grasping, in the form of daydreaming.

Transhumanism may be a viable method to sell books and crap to other daydreamers and make some money, but that’s about the extent of its value.

Wow, thanks for explaining. I was missing context, and admittedly too put-off by the image to give it more attention. I thought it was twins or trick photography or something.

There’s no point to disputing poetry.
— praxis

Are you less of a mind if you're not smelling or seeing anything? That seems easy to answer: no. Do you think the answer is yes? — RogueAI

Okay then, let’s put the poetry aside and take the question seriously, or rather, realistically. What do you think would happen to a mind if all sensory input were blocked, if it were possible to keep the body sufficiently healthy in this condition? The mind would begin to degenerate, right? Brain cells and/or their connections would atrophy. We know this is true from studying people who’ve lost senses. The mind would slowly fade away.

That which sees is the mind; that which smells is the mind; that which tastes is the mind. You recognize this at some level, for you are not less of a mind when you're not smelling anything or seeing anything.
— Bartricks

This seems indisputable. — RogueAI

There’s no point to disputing poetry.

What does that image mean to you.

My sensible body - which if it is a material thing (that is, if idealism is false - which it isn't) - is in a study, my mind is not 'in' any place, as it is not in the business of having a location. — Bartricks

Actually a good portion of your brain is devoted to mapping your body parts and keeping track of their location in relation to other objects. If you don’t actually know where you are, no worries, cell phones work in the ideal realm.

Listen Halfy, physical things can be divided. Minds can't. Therefore minds are not physical things. — Bartricks

So you’ve said, and I’ve been attempting expand your apparently rather limited concept of what a mind is. The mind is generally regarded set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will and sensation. Much of these faculties operate subconsciously. It is not a binary process that is either all on or all off. A mind can be chipped away by degrees, just like a mug can be chipped away. Minor damage causes little loss of function or capacity. Major damage causes significant loss of function or capacity. You more than anyone should appreciate that a severely degenerated mind can still get by.

The soul dies with the body then?
— praxis

We do not fully understand body, spirit, or death — Gregory

In that case it’s best to go with what we do know rather than baseless speculation or superstitions, right?

Matter formed at conception is the soul. I don't subscribe to dualism. Humanity is the form but it is not separate from matter. The soul is all through the body and the body is all through the soul. We speak of them as two and must but I think they are really one. — Gregory

The soul dies with the body then?

That's half a brain. — Bartricks

Which is similar to half a mug. Half a mug is a diminished (loss of capacity & function) mug, right? Half a brain is a diminished (loss of capacity & function) mind, is it not?

The implication is that it’s not really about the sanctity of life, because if it were the concern would not immediately disappear after delivery.

It grants rights to whole process, not a slow growth of rights. — Gregory

Curiously, there’s strong evidence that when abortion is prohibited poverty and crime significantly increases years later, so in effect granting rights too early can eventually result in severely diminished rights later in life, as when incarcerated.

If a person attacks a pregnant woman and a fetus dies, they can be charged with murder.
If a doctor removes a fetus and it dies (abortion) there are no consequences. — Rxspence

Notably, in the latter example all parties directly involved are in agreement, and not so much in the former example.

Life must be assumed to have rights.
— Gregory

What does this even mean? — tim wood

It means that capital punishment, slaughtering animals, etc, should be illegal.

The concept of a mug is not a mug. — Bartricks

I have a good mental representation of a mug, if I may say so myself, and I can assure you that it’s a mug and not a piano or whatever.

Have you tried pouring tea into it yet? — Bartricks

I’ve imagined it, just as you are now imagining it.

Be clear: do you think minds can be divided? — Bartricks

You talk about half a mind and a divided mind. Split-brains, to my mind, are a good example of a divided mind. It just so happens that there are also people with half a brain.



Going back to your mug, if I cut it in half horizontally the bottom half will still be a functional mug, though it will have half the capacity and the handle won’t work so great.

Ehipassiko. — Wayfarer

Exactamundo. :razz:

Think of a mug. That thought is an idea. It's not a mug. If you don't believe me, try and pour some tea in it. — Bartricks

If my concept of a mug is not a mug then how can I reliably recognize mugs? I assure you I’m quite good at recognizing mugs. Maybe you don’t think I can tell the difference between a mug and an idea? Or perhaps you’re confusing my mental representation of a mug with my mental representation of an idea?

do you think minds can be divided? — Bartricks

I can appreciate Lizzie Schechter’s conclusion about split-brains, that “The impression that a split-brain subject has two minds is correct”, because I don’t think that a mind requires human self-awareness and identity. Please don’t ask me to repeat this again.

I don't think Buddhism is necessarily grounded in a mythological narrative but on an insight into a fact about the nature of existence. — Wayfarer

What’s the insight into a fact about the nature of existence? If you cannot say then perhaps it is incompatible with science, and that would suggest Buddhism, like all religions, is necessarily based in unverifiable metaphysics.

We have the idea of a mug. But the mug itself is not an idea. — Bartricks

Correct, the “mug itself” is not a mug without the idea of a mug.

minds are not ideas — Bartricks

I wrote that ‘mind’ is a concept.

Again, what the hell do you mean by half a mind? — Bartricks

I didn’t say anything about half a mind.

You'd sense or in some other way acquire information about the world through both. But there's still one 'you' right. — Bartricks

That’s about it, apparently. You seem to believe that a mind is only a mind if it possesses human self-awareness and identity.

I mean, here's a thought experiment for you. Let's say I owe you $1m. I then go and have half my brain removed and destroyed. Do I now owe you half a million? — Bartricks

Under the circumstances $500k seems fair to me.

It cannot because if science could explain things like karma and rebirth then it would deprive religious authorities of their authority and the puppet strings would fall, putting an end to the whole puppet show.

If mind and matter are mutually dependent then it is a completely arbitrary distinction to claim that one is cause and the other reacts to that cause.

Yes, you have a choice, the only choice you do not have is that of not reacting. … you have the ability to reason, to change your mind, and to not react in this way, but to react in another. — boagie

Basically all you’re saying is that everything in the physical world reacts. If you drop a rubber ball it will bounce when it hits the ground or if you bounce it on someone’s face they will react in some way to this stimulus. If everything is reaction then nothing is reaction and the term becomes meaningless.

Hunger is a need of something in the outside world, a necessity, an energy source. — boagie

The hunger or, as you say, “cognitive motivation” doesn’t come from apples or mom’s meatloaf, it is inherent to our body/mind, which isn’t the outside world, right?

Anything you do in the outside world is first cognitively motivated by the outside world, and by this definition is reaction NOT an action. — boagie

This is clearly false. Thirst, hunger, and the desire for sex, are encoded into our dna, and what could be more internal than that. We’re even inherently motivated to consume specific kinds of food, such as those high in fat and sugar. In fact, on a daily basis we may have to internally chose to override our inherent motivations because they’re unhealthy or not socially acceptable. We have the capacity of reason and therefore we can contemplate how to best navigate the outside world in pursuit of our chosen goals. Granted we react in many circumstances, but as I’ve mentioned several times, we can train ourselves to react in particular ways.

Sensible things can be divided. Or at least, they can if they are physical things - that is, if they take up space. For anything that takes up some space can be divided in two. One can have half a mug, half a piece of cheese, half a molecule, and so on. But not half a mind. Well, if all things that are extended in space can, by their very nature, be divided and one's mind cannot be divided, then one's mind is not extended in space and is thus not a sensible object. (This venerable argument, versions of which can be found in Plato, Descartes and Berkeley among others, seems by itself sufficient to establish that the mind is immaterial, not material). — Bartricks

Significantly, both mug and mind are concepts. They are not actual things that exists independently and each have various aspects. Depending on how you cut a mug in half it may more retain or lose its ‘mugness’. If you cut it vertically it will no longer be able to function as a mug. It you cut it horizontally it can still function as a mug, though a shorter one with less capacity. In a very real sense the vertically cut mug is no longer a mug.

Moving on to minds, it just so happens that there are brains that have been medically split.
According to Lizzie Schechter, assistant professor of philosophy and philosophy-neuroscience-psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, “The impression that a split-brain subject has two minds is correct”. I won’t bother posting the evidence for her conclusion. If split-brain research interests you it’s easy to look up. Cutting the corpus callosum doesn’t produce two identities, however, so if your concept of a mind requires a human self-identity this example may be inadequate. Of course that would mean that you don’t regard most species as having minds because they don’t possess human minds with our sense of self.

there has to be something in the outside world which you wish to create an effect/change in, this is motivation, and by definition of motivation, it is necessarily reaction. — boagie

How does this rule of yours apply to conditioning yourself, as with breaking or forming a habit? If I deliberately form a habit in myself I'm not changing anything in the "outside world", nor is there any external object that motivates me. Say I have a habit of dwelling on misfortunes and because at some point I realize that it's causing me some unpleasant feelings I decide to stop dwelling on misfortunes and think more positive thoughts. Though my mood improves nothing physically changes in the world, besides some alterations in my neural pathways. According to your rule I would not be able to break the habit because there is no external motivation to do so or nothing to cause a reaction.

The problem with what you’re saying is that Red’s world and my world are quite different, even though we occupy the same environment. Our minds and bodies innately shape the world differently. What this indicates is that to a large extent I don’t react to the ‘outside’ world but to my internal representation of the world. Many human actions are based on social constructs or things that don’t actually exist. For example, Red will never realize the value of money and consequently it could never motivate him. In the human world money is probably the most widely accepted fiction there is, and obviously it can be highly motivating. If an alien behaviorist from outer-space visited earth and wanted to understand human behavior surrounding money they would need to learn what it is or form mental representations of it in their own minds. Depending on how their minds model reality that may be easy, difficult, or like Red, impossible.

Also, I can motivate and condition myself, with long-term abstract goals that require sacrifices and may only offer a potential reward. That is human action.

Red, as well as yourself, are reactive creatures. — boagie

We are also causal creatures. We can both motivate.

Three variations on the same question. Is abortion ok, or not, or sometimes ok and not? The only answer that can reasonably govern all is one that science gives. That is what science is supposed to figure out, if it can. — tim wood

Science is a systematic and logical approach to discovering how things in the universe work. It is also the body of knowledge accumulated through the discoveries about all the things in the universe. Science does not determine what actions are "ok" because what's ok and not ok is a moral question or a question based on things like moral intuition, subjective values, and cultural norms. If, for example, science somehow determined that personhood began at around week 23 and, miraculously, even the religious community accepted this as true, does that make it okay to terminate life that's becoming a person? That seems to suggest that it's more ok to terminate a baby than an adult. Doesn't really work that way, right?

Science doesn't determine our moral intuitions. Regardless of science, abortion feels wrong and that's "ok", we're not slaves to our intuitions. We're also not slaves to our values and culture, though science is notoriously bad at influencing these things.

Until science sorts it out to a certainty — tim wood

What exactly is science supposed to sort out to a certainty?

Damn, he was a powerful actor.

If one believes that people act badly through spontaneous action, this leave us in complete bewilderment as to cause. All reaction of reactionary creatures is first motivated thus, it is reaction. — boagie

Since he was a pup, I trained Red to howl at sirens by simply howling myself whenever one was audible in the neighborhood. I’m not exactly sure what the motivation for his compliance might be, there were no treats involved. Maybe kind of a pack mentality thing and I taught him a pack behavior. Whatever the case, he’s fully conditioned to react in a particular way to a particular stimulus. As I mentioned, there’s no practical reason for this behavior. There’s no goal achieved by it, other than my simple amusement. Though the conditioning may naturally fade over time if not reinforced with practice, Red will never consciously plan to change his conditioning himself. Dogs don’t have the capacity of abstract though and planning in order to do that.

If I don’t like the way that I react to a particular stimulus I can consciously change how I react. In other words, if I have a bad habit that interferes with my goals I can recondition myself to act in a way that better suits my goals. This is a uniquely human ability, it is human action.

I suggest there may be something wrong with Red, was he abused before he became your dog? My experience with animals is that if they are asured of their food, there is none of this behaviour of eating as much as is possiable to the point of illness, has Red ever known starvation? — boagie

Most people, in America anyway, are overweight and suffer serious health consequences of poor dietary choices. Dogs do not consider the consequences at all. Red is no exception and has suffered no abuse of any kind. We’ve had him since he was eight weeks old, and he comes from a reliable breeder.

Coincidentally, the photo may suggest that Red is conscientious about what he eats, appearing to be reading the label of a bag of food, but that is not the case. It’s just the earliest photo that I have of him, and when he still lived with the breeder.

Anyway, you’ve asked for an example of human action and I’ve been attempting to provide such examples. I will offer another that also involves Red. I’ve trained Red to howl when he hears a siren. If he hears the siren of a police car, fire truck, or ambulance his reaction to that stimulus will be to howl. There is absolutely no practical reason for this reaction or training for this reaction. I started training him to react this way out of mere whimsy and because I find it amusing to see him howl. So what am I reacting to that I train him to react this way?

This thread reminds me of it again.

The fact that my country, and Sweden and Norway and Iceland and Denmark are in fact are legally tougher at women getting an abortion than the US as abortion laws in the US are actually more lax than in the Nordic countries. — ssu

Yet the abortion rate is about the same as in the US, at least in more recent years.

Abortion in Norway has an interesting history, as it does most places I imagine. An important milestone for the issue of abortion on request came on 15 January 1915, when Katti Anker Møller gave a speech in Kristiania (now Oslo) calling for legalized abortion on request. She said that "the basis for all freedom is the governance over one's own body and everything that is in it. The opposite is the condition of a slave." Apparently it was a feminist movement that eventually prevailed in the fight.

From what I read the primary driving forces were poverty and lack of education. Women are still intentionally educated at a fraction of the rate that men are. The gains in child mortality are primarily due to government midwife programs.

:chin: No, for instance, I’m continually motivated both within and without to consume foods that are unhealthy (fat & sweet), at least in too large a quantity, and yet I abstain from consuming them too often (for the most part :grimace: ). I reason and make projections of future outcomes for the dietary decisions I make. In contrast, Red has little if any capacity to realize the consequences his insatiable appetite. I feed him well, but left to his own devices he would eat himself sick at every opportunity. He has no choice, I do.

I’m thankful for the question mark because it helps me ask questions?