ThorsHammer

So, being unconscious is the ultimate state of consciousness? That's like saying real existence is nonexistence.

ComestibleVenom

Danrael, I really do suggest you try his method. It will answer your little abstraction in a far more eloquent way.

Yahzi

The Baseball Bat test does answer the question. The source of the rational mind is the brain.

Once you understand that, everything else falls into place.

danrael

:rolling: LOL Oh, Really? If you don't mind my asking, who or what entity gave you THAT information? The mind?

Saying that your mind tells you that its source is the brain is like the Bible thumper saying that God exists because the Bible tells him so.

I stand by my original statement: THE MIND IS A SELF-CREATED PRINCIPLE. IT DOES NOT FUNDAMENTALLY EXIST.

Once you understand that, you realize that there is nothing to fall into place: it's always been exactly as it should, only the illusion of your "mind" created so much unnecessary turbulence as to cause you to think that there is actually something which falls into place.

But just to go along with your explanation: if the brain is indeed the source of the mind, exactly what are the details of its beginning? Before the brain created the mind, what was there? no-mind, just an empty brain? A brain without a function? Like, Duh? And then one day, the brain got lonely and bored, so it decided it needed a girl companion, so out of absolutely nothing it decided (using it's mind, of course) to create, TUH DUH: The Mind! Hmmm......are you sure it is'nt the other way around? Like the mind creating the brain, or something like that? Hey! I'll bet those wisecrackers in the East know something we don't know, like that maybe the center of consciousness lies just below the navel! At least THEY are not fooled by the concoctions of the brain. They know better than that, but it took them some hard work to find that out, like centuries.

danrael

It is. In order for something to exist, it must first not-exist. It is a duality, like figure and ground. They are inseparable, and co-dependent.

danrael

This is total c**p. Why bother posting it, to be clever? It does not even rate. They were right: there is no intelligent life down here.

danrael

So does chopping one's head off, or <edited>, but unfortunately, these methods do not answer the question. They just create the illusion that reality does'nt exist. Just another clever tactic by that old pro, the MIND, to divert attention away from the fact that it is an illusion, so that it can perpetuate its miserable existence.

Yahzi

I seem to have struck a nerve.

While I agree with you that the mind does not fundamentally exist - insomuch as it is an emergent property of many mindless interactions - it is still as meaningful to talk about mind as it is temperature (which is also an emergent property of many temperatureless interactions). As for the first claim, this is just incoherent: the mind is not a principle and it is not self-created.

This is a biological question best answered by evolution.

Really? Then why don't you try it out. It will be quite a coincidence when my mind creates the illusion that you are no longer part of reality when I was unaware that you were performing this test.

Your rebuttal seems to consist of incoherent claims and insults. That strikes me as less than helpful to rational discourse.

Yahzi

From this are we to conclude that for something to be true, it must first be false? So all statements are both true and false, in equal measures. And thus everyone is equally right, from the highest academic to the lowest babbling moron.

The Marxist Dialectic applied to epistimology yields about the same results as when it was applied to economics - grinding poverty and political oppression (of thought, in this case). The only amusing thing here is that danreal seems to think his communistic metaphysics are Oriental in origin, rather than being cooked up in a cheap flat in London.

danrael

No, at least not on this end.


You apparently did not read my reply to your previous statement that the mind is not a principle. I include it here so you can read it:

"One of the dictionary definitions of the word "principle" is that it is a "basic source." If it creates its own standards, as you have stated, then it is, essentially, self-created. It is judge, jury, and hangman. If this is not so, as you say, then from whence does the mind originate? (Please look at your own statement about the nature of mind: you said that the mind creates its own standards, and then tests them against the reality that it essentially decides is true.) So it creates reality as it sees it, not as it exists. This is fantasy."


What? The origin of the MIND is a BIOLOGICAL question? I had always understood that in the West, at least, the psychological sciences are the domain of "the mind". I think you are speaking of the development of the brain, as far as evolution is concerned, no? I don't believe the biological/zoological sciences address the origins of "mind".


Because I know for a fact that I am not a stupid fool.

Whaaaaa? This is incoherent mental gobbledygook to me. No comprendo.



Suggesting that one violently strike one's own head with a baseball bat is helpful to rational discourse? Doing so would most certainly make my claims incoherent, as I find yours to be. This must be a direct result of administering your violent methods upon your own person. I am not trying to be insulting, only factual.