Who's minding the store?

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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Dontaskme
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dontaskme »

Harbal wrote:
Dontaskme wrote: Thinking is not an independent affair either, but a dynamic, interrelated mind-body-world activity.
There are no such things as mind, body, world or even activity, don't you even read your own nonsense?
There are no things, yet thinking makes it appear as if there is. Thoughts arise out of thin air. No one knows what they are or how or why they arise, but they shape every aspect of our daily life and it's reality. Only A THOUGHT has birthed what you think you are. In truth, there is no birth or death for anything. For everything is without beginning or end changing from one state to another, going nowhere, yet always in constant flux.

The fixed belief in a division between life and death, is a great misunderstanding. There is no identifiable location from which things are born, or to which they return and so, there is no place to die. Nor is there a human species or self who from out of nowhere becomes conscious. We are of the world.

There are relative, conventional differences between life and death, loss and gain, mind and matter, the animate and inanimate, that are of consequence. The issue is to note that these contrasts are dependently arisen, dependently identified and therefore without their own nature. The understanding of interdependence avoids the extremes that phenomena must either independently exist or not exist at all.

The appreciation that everything reflects everything else, is the undoing of the belief in inherent separateness and along with it, conflict and fear. Under these conditions, the heart opens. There is the recognition that even the autumn leaf is not fundamentally different from the spring leaf. The autumn leaf is life, in a borderless, impermanent flux of causal continuance. It never was itself, and so the appearance of it's ultimate death is an illusion.

I don't care what you think of the nondual message Harbal, you can curse it, make fun of it, laugh and dismiss it all you like, you can even call me derogatory names..it makes no difference to me, it's all water off a ducks back to this one here. I've found my truth. I'm home. You can think what you like, you can reject it totally and utterly, if it's not your cup of tea, it won't effect me. I'm still going to carry on talking and writing about it.
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Harbal
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Harbal »

Dontaskme wrote:
Harbal wrote:
Dontaskme wrote: Thinking is not an independent affair either, but a dynamic, interrelated mind-body-world activity.
There are no such things as mind, body, world or even activity, don't you even read your own nonsense?
There are no things, yet thinking makes it appear as if there is. Thoughts arise out of thin air. No one knows what they are or how or why they arise, but they shape every aspect of our daily life and it's reality. Only A THOUGHT has birthed what you think you are. In truth, there is no birth or death for anything. For everything is without beginning or end changing from one state to another, going nowhere, yet always in constant flux.

The fixed belief in a division between life and death, is a great misunderstanding. There is no identifiable location from which things are born, or to which they return and so, there is no place to die. Nor is there a human species or self who from out of nowhere becomes conscious. We are of the world.

There are relative, conventional differences between life and death, loss and gain, mind and matter, the animate and inanimate, that are of consequence. The issue is to note that these contrasts are dependently arisen, dependently identified and therefore without their own nature. The understanding of interdependence avoids the extremes that phenomena must either independently exist or not exist at all.

The appreciation that everything reflects everything else, is the undoing of the belief in inherent separateness and along with it, conflict and fear. Under these conditions, the heart opens. There is the recognition that even the autumn leaf is not fundamentally different from the spring leaf. The autumn leaf is life, in a borderless, impermanent flux of causal continuance. It never was itself, and so the appearance of it's ultimate death is an illusion.

I don't care what you think of the nondual message Harbal, you can curse it, make fun of it, laugh and dismiss it all you like, you can even call me derogatory names..it makes no difference to me, it's all water off a ducks back to this one here. I've found my truth. I'm home. You can think what you like, you can reject it totally and utterly, if it's not your cup of tea, it won't effect me. I'm still going to carry on talking and writing about it.
I'm not reading all that.
surreptitious57
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by surreptitious57 »

Dontaskme wrote:
The objectifying mind of man can accomplish many wonderous things. It can build dams roads and machines that fly to the moon
But it stumbles in confusion when it mistakes its own labels for reality. It enters a dream world shadowland when it blends its own
labels for things that have an actual material counterpart ( rocks and rainbows ) with those things with no physicality ( truth and justice)
It lives in a world composed only of adjectives. It thinks that it can arrange its concepts in neat little rows and build a ladder to what it calls reality. It never dawns that so far no one has been able to do this
One should never confuse the map with the territory. One models the other
but they are not the same. Representations of reality are not reality per se
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dontaskme »

surreptitious57 wrote: One should never confuse the map with the territory. One models the other
but they are not the same. Representations of reality are not reality per se
In a sense yes, they are not the same, but the difference is the illusion. Since without the map there is no territory...and vice versa.
For example: There is no such thing as an empty cup, a cup is only empty in relation to the cup being there in the first place. The no thing of emptiness can't be known or defined without thing (cup) being there...they are each other, yet neither.

Reality presents itself. But the representation of what that reality is..is not what it is, rather, any representation is what it isn't.

Fundamentally, those two dynamics have to be in place in the same moment as they are dependant on each other for their existence, they are interrelated co-existing and mutually arising as the same phenomena...NOW

For example, in the emptiness teachings, awareness is empty because it depends on other things. It depends on the object it is aware of. It depends on a previous moment of awareness and it's own temporal parts. It depends on a sentient being who has the ability to be aware of things. So in the emptiness teachings, one doesn't reduce everything to awareness. Things depend on awareness, and awareness depends on things. Aawareness is the only seer here... Nagarjuna the 2nd century Buddhist philosopher says:

If it can abide
Without the seen, etc.,
Then, without a doubt,
They can abide without it.

– Nagarjuna's Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dontaskme »

Harbal wrote:
I'm not reading all that.
Dogs can't read.


It's no coincidence that man's best friend cannot talk.

Life is tacit.
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Trajk Logik
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Trajk Logik »

Dontaskme wrote:And being everything it is nothing, in the sense that it's like a flashlight in a dark room that can never shine light on the cause of the illumination.So there's just what's appearing and no one to reject any of it...including all these words and there meanings as they appear. In effect, nothing is ever happening, although it does appear to happen.
You can make the flashlight shine on the cause of it's illumination by placing a mirror in front of it. This is what the mind does - reflects upon it's own processing of information. This is similar to the feedback loop created when a video camera looks back at the monitor and creates an corridor of infinite depth. The self is a feedback loop of information processing - of processing information about itself processing information, and you can keep going - just like in the corridor of infinite depth - processing information about you processing the information of you processing information. I'd encourage you to read "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter.

Most people tend to forget about the intention and attention that is always existent in the mind. How is it that I can experience the intention of moving my arm and it moves, but my intent on moving a ball requires me to intend to move my arm first? Why can't I move the ball like a move my arm? Why is my body a proxy in manipulating the rest of the world? And what about attention where intention directs the focus on particular information in the mind amplifying that information over the other sensory information for the purpose of achieving a goal? What are goals and why do they exist to then direct the focus of my attention on information that is applicable to achieving the goal?
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dalek Prime »

Dontaskme wrote:
Harbal wrote:
Dontaskme wrote: Thinking is not an independent affair either, but a dynamic, interrelated mind-body-world activity.
There are no such things as mind, body, world or even activity, don't you even read your own nonsense?
There are no things, yet thinking makes it appear as if there is. Thoughts arise out of thin air. No one knows what they are or how or why they arise, but they shape every aspect of our daily life and it's reality. Only A THOUGHT has birthed what you think you are. In truth, there is no birth or death for anything. For everything is without beginning or end changing from one state to another, going nowhere, yet always in constant flux.

The fixed belief in a division between life and death, is a great misunderstanding. There is no identifiable location from which things are born, or to which they return and so, there is no place to die. Nor is there a human species or self who from out of nowhere becomes conscious. We are of the world.

There are relative, conventional differences between life and death, loss and gain, mind and matter, the animate and inanimate, that are of consequence. The issue is to note that these contrasts are dependently arisen, dependently identified and therefore without their own nature. The understanding of interdependence avoids the extremes that phenomena must either independently exist or not exist at all.

The appreciation that everything reflects everything else, is the undoing of the belief in inherent separateness and along with it, conflict and fear. Under these conditions, the heart opens. There is the recognition that even the autumn leaf is not fundamentally different from the spring leaf. The autumn leaf is life, in a borderless, impermanent flux of causal continuance. It never was itself, and so the appearance of it's ultimate death is an illusion.

I don't care what you think of the nondual message Harbal, you can curse it, make fun of it, laugh and dismiss it all you like, you can even call me derogatory names..it makes no difference to me, it's all water off a ducks back to this one here. I've found my truth. I'm home. You can think what you like, you can reject it totally and utterly, if it's not your cup of tea, it won't effect me. I'm still going to carry on talking and writing about it.
The two truths of philosophy; there is thought, and there are things. The first is what makes you, you. The second, when you do not pay heed to things, you note they have persisted. Hence the things outside of the you, observing them, are real.
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dubious »

...chaos and its agents of disruption where thought shows itself, more often than not, to be a distorted web like those created by spiders on too much caffeine.
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dontaskme »

Dalek Prime wrote: The two truths of philosophy; there is thought, and there are things. The first is what makes you, you. The second, when you do not pay heed to things, you note they have persisted. Hence the things outside of the you, observing them, are real.
Thoughts don't make a mind, thoughts arise in mind as story. This thread is about the idea there is no separate you or self.There's just the recognition that there is only one self selfing.And that self is beyond and prior to thought. Without which no thought could arise. Things are only real in the sense they are believed.This, that is happening right now, is not bound to the story of belief, it just is. And if story arises, it is seen as part of what is, within it. Not the driver, not the separate self, just a thought story about what is happening, that is happening along the sense perceptions, feelings, AS thoughts. And sense of self can arise, no problem with that, but it's too recognised to be something that arises and passes away, like the rest of phenomena. Sense of self is no longer seen as something solid, permanent, existing of itself. Recognition is not intellectual, philosophical or matter of logic. It does not involve thought. It's awareness that something is true. Like a moment of cognition of something that we already know. It can be very subtle, as in a way it is a drop of belief. So self is both real and unreal, yet neither.
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dontaskme »

Trajk Logik wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:And being everything it is nothing, in the sense that it's like a flashlight in a dark room that can never shine light on the cause of the illumination.So there's just what's appearing and no one to reject any of it...including all these words and there meanings as they appear. In effect, nothing is ever happening, although it does appear to happen.
You can make the flashlight shine on the cause of it's illumination by placing a mirror in front of it. This is what the mind does - reflects upon it's own processing of information. This is similar to the feedback loop created when a video camera looks back at the monitor and creates an corridor of infinite depth. The self is a feedback loop of information processing - of processing information about itself processing information, and you can keep going - just like in the corridor of infinite depth - processing information about you processing the information of you processing information. I'd encourage you to read "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter.
Thanks.
Trajk Logik wrote:Most people tend to forget about the intention and attention that is always existent in the mind. How is it that I can experience the intention of moving my arm and it moves, but my intent on moving a ball requires me to intend to move my arm first? Why can't I move the ball like a move my arm? Why is my body a proxy in manipulating the rest of the world? And what about attention where intention directs the focus on particular information in the mind amplifying that information over the other sensory information for the purpose of achieving a goal? What are goals and why do they exist to then direct the focus of my attention on information that is applicable to achieving the goal?
Everything happens by itself.

For example: No one is growing the tree, the tree is not growing the tree, the tree knows exactly how to grow all by itself, it has no goal. Same with human body, there is no I growing that body. It's the same with every other living thing in life. This mind/body mechanism called a human needed to move in order for it's survival and to function. That's what life factored in - no person does that, no person moves. Life moves, movement is one unitary action. Notice how the self cannot move out of itself to get a peek at what's moving and growing itself. It's all moving within itself, meaning it's not going anywhere, for oneness is everywhere doing everything.

That there appears to be intention, will, or a goal is just an artificial programme running through the mechanism put there by life itself as an energetic function. As in energy flows where attention goes.
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dalek Prime »

Dontaskme wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote: The two truths of philosophy; there is thought, and there are things. The first is what makes you, you. The second, when you do not pay heed to things, you note they have persisted. Hence the things outside of the you, observing them, are real.
Thoughts don't make a mind, thoughts arise in mind as story. This thread is about the idea there is no separate you or self.There's just the recognition that there is only one self selfing.And that self is beyond and prior to thought. Without which no thought could arise. Things are only real in the sense they are believed.This, that is happening right now, is not bound to the story of belief, it just is. And if story arises, it is seen as part of what is, within it. Not the driver, not the separate self, just a thought story about what is happening, that is happening along the sense perceptions, feelings, AS thoughts. And sense of self can arise, no problem with that, but it's too recognised to be something that arises and passes away, like the rest of phenomena. Sense of self is no longer seen as something solid, permanent, existing of itself. Recognition is not intellectual, philosophical or matter of logic. It does not involve thought. It's awareness that something is true. Like a moment of cognition of something that we already know. It can be very subtle, as in a way it is a drop of belief. So self is both real and unreal, yet neither.
What I meant by 'there is thought', is that there is mind, awareness, consciousness. And that is the 'you'. It's the only thing we can be certain of. And as I've stated, I'm not a solopsist, as you seem to be. Things exist outside myself that persist, so much so that I cannot ignore them as real. Peril awaits if I do (think Mack truck). You'll not convince me otherwise of these fundamentals, and I strongly suggest you rethink your premises, in light of this.
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dontaskme »

Dalek Prime wrote: What I meant by 'there is thought', is that there is mind, awareness, consciousness. And that is the 'you'. It's the only thing we can be certain of. And as I've stated, I'm not a solopsist, as you seem to be.
You'd have to have a self to be a solopsist. The self is, but it's not being anything in particular, and yet it is all things as thoughts dictate.

Dalek Prime wrote:Things exist outside myself that persist, so much so that I cannot ignore them as real. Peril awaits if I do (think Mack truck). You'll not convince me otherwise of these fundamentals, and I strongly suggest you rethink your premises, in light of this.
Nothing exists outside of self/consciousness. The truck is real only insofar as it is labeled by thought, otherwise it's just an image of the imageless.. however, when it collides with the image of a human body there will appear the sensation of pain. Pain is memorised by consciousness as being unpleasant so there will be a knowing not to collide with the truck after the initial collision/experience...this is all happening to consciousness experiencing itself.

There is no person with a consciousness, consciousness is arising as the person via the thought which is inseparable from the conscious experience of being a thought person. The sensation of being conscious is felt, but not by a person, a person is just a label, it's just a thought...sensation of any kind is felt by direct experience of consciousness itself. Is thought needed to know being or sensation? no it is not, there's just the sensation arising known instantly by the consciousness in which it is arising the only knowing there is..thoughts don't know anything...they're just empty labels that consciousness uses to express itself.

Thought knows nothing, but YOU are not a thought... the 'person' is a thought because there is no separate individual/person.
Is it clear that ALL thoughts just appear, and that there is no one controlling what thoughts appear or when they appear. If you were your thoughts you could have control over them, but that is not possible.

So going back to who suffers who feels...When hit by a truck..The label ''I am suffering pain'' is the actual experience of ''thought'' and NOT the actual experience of (someone) suffering and feeling pain. No one ever suffered pain or anything, there is only sensation arising to no one or thing.
The sensation labelled 'pain' is the actual experience of sensation and not the actual experience of 'pain'. So yes, pain (label) in the 'body' (label) is sensation + thought (pain) + thought ABOUT pain.
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Trajk Logik »

Dontaskme wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote: What I meant by 'there is thought', is that there is mind, awareness, consciousness. And that is the 'you'. It's the only thing we can be certain of. And as I've stated, I'm not a solopsist, as you seem to be.

You'd have to have a self to be a solopsist. The self is, but it's not being anything in particular, and yet it is all things as thoughts dictate.
Dalek Prime wrote:Things exist outside myself that persist, so much so that I cannot ignore them as real. Peril awaits if I do (think Mack truck). You'll not convince me otherwise of these fundamentals, and I strongly suggest you rethink your premises, in light of this.
Nothing exists outside of self/consciousness. The truck is real only insofar as it is labeled by thought, otherwise it's just an image of the imageless.. however, when it collides with the image of a human body there will appear the sensation of pain. Pain is memorised by consciousness as being unpleasant so there will be a knowing not to collide with the truck after the initial collision/experience...this is all happening to consciousness experiencing itself.

There is no person with a consciousness, consciousness is arising as the person via the thought which is inseparable from the conscious experience of being a thought person. The sensation of being conscious is felt, but not by a person, a person is just a label, it's just a thought...sensation of any kind is felt by direct experience of consciousness itself. Is thought needed to know being or sensation? no it is not, there's just the sensation arising known instantly by the consciousness in which it is arising the only knowing there is..thoughts don't know anything...they're just empty labels that consciousness uses to express itself.

Thought knows nothing, but YOU are not a thought... the 'person' is a thought because there is no separate individual/person.
Is it clear that ALL thoughts just appear, and that there is no one controlling what thoughts appear or when they appear. If you were your thoughts you could have control over them, but that is not possible.

So going back to who suffers who feels...When hit by a truck..The label ''I am suffering pain'' is the actual experience of ''thought'' and NOT the actual experience of (someone) suffering and feeling pain. No one ever suffered pain or anything, there is only sensation arising to no one or thing.
The sensation labelled 'pain' is the actual experience of sensation and not the actual experience of 'pain'. So yes, pain (label) in the 'body' (label) is sensation + thought (pain) + thought ABOUT pain.
Gibberish. Just plain gibberish. Reading this and then re-reading the last part of your previous post in response to mine creates a contradiction. You say things like "the tree grows itself", and go on to make strange claims about life while now making claims that nothing exists outside of thought which would be "trees growing themselves" and "life moving".

If you are arguing that there are no things independent of your mind, then you are arguing for solipsism. You are arguing that the text on this screen isn't the result of other people with minds typing and posting on a philosophy forum. You are arguing against yourself if there isn't actually anyone behind the creation of the other posts. And if there isn't a self, then whose post is this that I'm replying to?
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Lacewing »

Dontaskme wrote:...
Can you answer this question:

What is the purpose of your posts?
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Re: Who's minding the store?

Post by Dontaskme »

Trajk Logik wrote: Reading this and then re-reading the last part of your previous post in response to mine creates a contradiction. You say things like "the tree grows itself", and go on to make strange claims about life while now making claims that nothing exists outside of thought which would be "trees growing themselves" and "life moving".
No one is thinking, thoughts arise in consciousness...which is not a thought or a thing.There's nothing outside of that arena. "trees growing themselves" and "life moving" is a movement of thought within consciousness only. Movement is just sensation which is labelled as 'movement'
Trajk Logik wrote:If you are arguing that there are no things independent of your mind, then you are arguing for solipsism. You are arguing that the text on this screen isn't the result of other people with minds typing and posting on a philosophy forum. You are arguing against yourself if there isn't actually anyone behind the creation of the other posts. And if there isn't a self, then whose post is this that I'm replying to?
You are replying to an idea there is another separate from you...there is not. Although it does appear that life is a verb and a noun in the same moment as evidenced by me posting and your reply. But this is the work of oneness, appearing as the many.

There's just story via thought arising out of nothingness. And sensation.
Thoughts appear but can you find anyone/anything that is doing the thinking?
Can sound think?
Can thought think?
Can smell think?
Can sensation think?
Can colour/image think?
Can taste think?

Can a thought tell a story, or are there thoughts appearing, including the thought about thoughts appearing that tell a story?

This is not what you've been taught about yourself. And so you may find it confusing, even contradictory. But that's because the you that you think you are does not exist, it only appears to exist in imagined sense.

The self is not what you think it is. The self is the emptiness prior to all thought,and is that in which all thought arises and falls. Nothing is real.
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