Iacchus

I have no qualms with saying the mind operates within the brain ... so long as the two connected that is.

So, are you making the distinction between matter and energy here?

And, if I were talking to somebody over the telephone, does that mean I'm in the same room with them? ... No, it does not.

Perhaps in the way "spiritual" may not be restricted to energy but, for the most part is?

And yet we know that both energy and matter do exist and, that they are inseparably related.

It's funny how said phenomenon seems to cross just about every cultural barrier though.

Or, whatever it is that makes us "self-aware," and feel like we're detached from "the reality" that we are supposed to be "intrinsically" a part of.

RAFH

Oh please, don't even suggest such. Its not spiritual, its just the exhilaration of experiencing sensation.

That's our brain at work. That's what mind is. Not some separate entity. Its just the awareness of the brain working afforded by accessible memory. You can remember previous instances of the brain working, indeed what amounts to a continuum, and so we have a sensation of the passage of time. That's it. No woo-woo. No cosmic mind. No extrasensory sensation. No disembodied minds. Just experience.

RAFH

Oh, I understand what you are saying, just not why you make such assertions. There's no evidence to support any of your assertions. They are empty and baseless.

safronlove

This is totally subjective matter and is vary from person to another person
it is more important how we pursue to this subject if somebody have faith
then he may experience spirituality but another did not have faith may not.

Iacchus

No, this is a very important point that I'm trying to make here ... What makes human beings capable of recognizing the truth? If*, as I say, the acknowledgement of truth is an inner experience, then it is that much closer to the dreams and myths that we also entertain in our minds. In fact these are derived from the same essence of mind, of which the mind is composed, as opposed to the "outside reality" that the mind simply observes.

So no, the two are not one and the same, and we should be very careful not to dismiss the reality of the one, simply because it does not jive with that which has no bearing on the dynamics of the mind whatsoever ... notwithstanding of course, that we may find ourselves at the very threshold of insanity but, only because we stand at the threshold of the one Great Truth. Take for example what happened when we began to mess with the "sanctity" of the atom (more so on a physical level), and initiated the insanity of the Arms Race.

Also, where you say solipsism, I'm saying no, it's actually dualistic, because I'm not discounting the existence of the "phyiscal world." I'm merely suggesting that the mind originates from some place other than the physical world.

* The word "if" is typically found at the beginning of most every logical proprosition, both formal and informal, and is usually followed by a "then" statement, which attempts to show the correlation with something else. Whereas if the mind is not given the opportunity to make such correlatations, then the mind becomes incapable of understanding anything. Comprende?

Alf

Wouldn't it be better to at first ask if the spiritual at all exist before one starts to ask about its properties and if it enjoys a continuum or some such?

First establish that there are spiritual things and then afterwards check those out to see if there is a spiritual continuum or not?

Alf

Iacchus

And you are assuming of course, that I or other folks have not done this.

The only folks that this will remain a "proposition" to, are those folks who do not understand.

Ieldra

I said I agree with you, didn't I? I was using the term "spiritual" in a different way (I admit, it was just to provoke): regarding matters of becoming more self-aware, learning things about yourself, following the ancient maxim "know thyself". Even though the ancient author of that aphorism probably implied something metaphysical about what we are, and I do not, I still consider it valid as a challenge to everyone. The term "spiritual" *has* been used that way, you know... although it has become unfashionable not to surround it with esoteric mumbo-jumbo, even where there was nothing more behind it.

Ieldra

The mind is not a thing, it is a sum of processes. It makes no sense to say that one is within the other.

You are still connected and not separate, or you wouldn't be able to hear each other. Perhaps I should say: not *absolutely* separate. The only way to be separate from the universe entails being irrelevant to it.

Actually, matter and energy are states of being. Of what...well, physicists are not sure if they can define it. You could say that matter is "frozen" energy. You *could* go on and say it's the same with the material and the spiritual, except that there is absolutely no evidence...

That's because we all share the same kind of agent detection module. We all know the feeling of walking down a dimly-lit street, being almost certain someone is behind us, maybe even hearing steps, and then turning around and seeing it was a flickering streetlamp, a shadow from a lit window, and water dropping down from eaves onto a piece of cardboard. Similar experiences without the easy explanation, collectively elaborated by culture, that's what supernatural entities are. They may even be useful (we wouldn't have religion if they hadn't been put to some use), but that doesn't change the fact that they don't exist.

We feel as if we were separated because we have a bodily integrity that can be damaged, and we need to know when this occurs. There's nothing mysterious about it. Why we feel self-aware, I don't know, but I'm rather sure something like "truth ions" doesn't come into it.

RAFH

What truth? You keep going on about this 'truth' yet you can't explain what it is.

But you are very close to being right about one thing: This truth you refer to is "that much closer to the dreams and myths that we also entertain in our minds." Exactly, dreams and myths. Imagined experiences. Not real. Artifacts of your brain working. That's all this 'mind' you are referring to is, your brain working and you being aware of it and the passage of time. That there was a past, there is a now and there will be a future, all of which are transitory and during all of which our brain was working. We tend to think of the past as thing and even so the future, they are places. But now is constantly going by, its not a place, but an event. A continuous event. Just like the past is not a place but a continuously changing event that happened while the future is also not a place but an event that is continuously changing. That's all 'mind' is, the awareness of the passage of the future into the past.

Oh, don't be so silly. Or so dramatic. There was an arms race the moment one critter figured out a better way to catch and eat another critter. Humans have been in an arms race (or should it be capitalized because now its the formal Arms Race) ever since one of us picked up a rock and bashed in another one's head. Since somebody realized a sharp stick was better than a hand and somebody else realized a longer sharper stick was better and somebody realized being able to throw that stick was better yet and somebody else realized they could use a stick to increase the length of their arm to throw that sharpened stick further, faster and with more force. Like I said, do be so silly or so dramatic.

Suggest what you will, but until you provide some evidence of such, that's all it is. Until you present a coherent model of this some other place and how this remote mind exists there and works here along with verifiable observations supporting such a model, I'll stick with the one we have which is mind is here and now and is just the awareness of the passage of the future into the past and the workings of the brain during that process.

You need to establish this 'some other place', how the mind exists there and how it gets information from here in your brain to there in 'some other place land' and back into your head and your head alone and not someone else's head. You need to establish the medium all this data is moving on and how it works. You need to establish the organ in our heads that facilitates all this transfer of data.

And here's a big question for you to deal with, is this 'mind' in 'some other place' unique to humans or does it include the other great apes, the other primates, the other mammals, the other vertebrates, the other animals, the other biota? If its human only, why do we find no special organ to facilitate this phenomena in our heads and not in other animals' heads?

Why are we unable to detect this huge flow of data?

You have a lot of work to do before your 'theory' gets off the ground. First off you need to describe the observations which lead you to such a hypothesis. Which you haven't done. Do that and get back to us and we'll let you know if there is anything to it. Then you can go on to formally formulating your hypothesis.

You see, that's one of your problems. You are going at it the wrong way. You are hypothesizing before you are observing the need for a hypothesis. You have an answer and are searching for the question it answers. Wrong methodology.

This is the fundamental problem with theists. They have the 'answer', the 'solution', they just need to find the 'problem'. If they can't, well, one problem is as good as another, what counts is having THE answer, THE solution.

The methodology is bassackwards.

You keep thinking its a problem with comprehension of what you are stating, I assure you it is not. I fully grasp your words and what you imply. What I don't get is where you get this silliness. Yeah, if such and such, then this and that. But you haven't established the such and such. So there's no resulting this and that. You haven't even tried to establish the such and such, you just assert it and move merrily onto this and that and wonder why everyone is staring at you in disbelief. Yeah, if there were a herd of elephants in the room, then it would be really crowded. If cats could project laser beams from their eyes then we could use them as weapons. Simply stating If does not establish then. You are real good about putting out IFs and coming up with THENs but you are really bad at establishing your IFs.