Faith In Mind

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

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Dontaskme
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Faith In Mind

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FAITH IN MIND
By Seng Ts'an,
Third Patriarch of Ch'an

Do not abide in dualistic views;
take care not to seek after them.
As soon as there is right and wrong
The mind is scattered and lost.
Two comes from one,
Yet do not even keep the one.
When one mind does not arise,
Myriad dharmas are without defect.
Without defect, without dharmas,
No arising, no mind.
The subject is extinguished with the object.
The object sinks away with the subject.
Object is object because of the subject;
Subject is subject because of the object.
Know that the two
Are originally one emptiness.
In one emptiness the two are the same,
Containing all phenomena.
Not seeing fine or coarse,
How can there be any bias?
Walker
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

Give him credit for asking the question in his day, but these days most everyone knows about bias ply.

I’ve noticed a common rhetorical dodge. When the going gets Advaita, go relative. Any other time, jump to the absolute. Negation seeks negation and not integration.

Because truth is in all things and all situations, if you examine the distinctions between radial and bias, you may find some old philosophical principles. Less often, something new is found. Principles are found only in the dualistic contrast that separates two of anything, the border-line where philosophy is found. Philosophy communication is also dualistic.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Faith In Mind

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Walker wrote: Philosophy communication is also dualistic.
Philosophical communication appears to come from I, but the only I is the first person singular pronoun. It's a myth that I speak philosophy or self inquire. The only I there is - is a computer generated I that we all have faith in.

We're interacting with the internet all the time as if it was actually literally real. Same applies to the inner net..aka the mind.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

Dontaskme wrote:
Walker wrote: Philosophy communication is also dualistic.
Philosophical communication appears to come from I, but the only I is the first person singular pronoun. It's a myth that I speak philosophy or self inquire. The only I there is - is a computer generated I that we all have faith in.

We're interacting with the internet all the time as if it was actually literally real. Same applies to the inner net..aka the mind.
Literally, we can only say that what a word denotes can only be itself. The denoted cannot even be the word that denotes it, even if that word is the pronoun, “It.”

Literally, we can say that mind is mind, or we can say that real is real, but literally we cannot say that mind is real. We cannot even say that one is all, but we can say that one is one, and all is all.

Verbal communication, which is dualistic, requires simile and metaphor to impart understanding beyond the literal. To understand the intended meaning of the assertion that mind is not real, beyond one-dimensional literalness, requires the assumption of simile and metaphor built into the structure of communication. Because it is true that mind is mind, and real is real, all we can literally say of their relationship is that mind is not real.

However, because “is” actually is used to mean “correlates,” in the assertion that mind is real, then to say that the mind is real is actually saying that the definition of mind correlates with the definition of reality, in the same way that the definition of tall correlates with the description of a person.

Therefore, to shed the chains of one-dimensional literalness for the purpose of communication requires defining mind, defining real, and examining the correlations of how one describes the other, if there are any correlations.

For example, to say that this posting is patronizing is literally false. This posting is this posting. False is false. Shedding the chains of literalism reveals that this posting is in fact addressing fundamental aspects of language, thought, and the nature of understanding.

The freedom of being unchained from literalism allows for anything. For example, one may substitute belief in place of rationality supported by evidence. The question is, will doing so lead to a conclusion that has a lower probability of being true, that is to say, in accord with reality.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

Dontaskme wrote:Philosophical communication appears to come from I, but the only I is the first person singular pronoun. It's a myth that I speak philosophy or self inquire. The only I there is - is a computer generated I that we all have faith in.

We're interacting with the internet all the time as if it was actually literally real. Same applies to the inner net..aka the mind.
“Amness,” is a synonym for awareness devoid of "I".

Dualistic mind does serve a natural, physical, inherent and choiceless purpose in the individual.
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Re: Faith In Mind

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Walker wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:Philosophical communication appears to come from I, but the only I is the first person singular pronoun. It's a myth that I speak philosophy or self inquire. The only I there is - is a computer generated I that we all have faith in.

We're interacting with the internet all the time as if it was actually literally real. Same applies to the inner net..aka the mind.
“Amness,” is a synonym for awareness devoid of "I".

Dualistic mind does serve a natural, physical, inherent and choiceless purpose in the individual.
Yes, I agree with you ...the purpose being ''communication''....the mental narrative comprised of verbal language /aka knowledge is a natural human attribute. However, the belief that the words are to be taken as real literal things existing independently in and of themselves is just a programme conditioned into the human brain. It's a false dichotomy indoctrinated by human cultural where the conditioning sticks like super glue.

In real reality, life is Nondual. There are no things, only thoughts about things. The obvious ''Amness'' is real in it's raw Nondual nature, but existentially anything arising within Nondual mind appearing as utterances or knowledge is not real, they only appear real as they rise and fall in realness that's always prior to any knowledge about it. In other words the real world is without attribute or identification...as soon as it's identified, it becomes a fictional story.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

Dontaskme wrote:
Walker wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:Philosophical communication appears to come from I, but the only I is the first person singular pronoun. It's a myth that I speak philosophy or self inquire. The only I there is - is a computer generated I that we all have faith in.

We're interacting with the internet all the time as if it was actually literally real. Same applies to the inner net..aka the mind.
“Amness,” is a synonym for awareness devoid of "I".

Dualistic mind does serve a natural, physical, inherent and choiceless purpose in the individual.
Yes, I agree with you ...the purpose being ''communication''....the mental narrative comprised of verbal language /aka knowledge is a natural human attribute. However, the belief that the words are to be taken as real literal things existing independently in and of themselves is just a programme conditioned into the human brain. It's a false dichotomy indoctrinated by human cultural where the conditioning sticks like super glue.

In real reality, life is Nondual. There are no things, only thoughts about things. The obvious ''Amness'' is real in it's raw Nondual nature, but existentially anything arising within Nondual mind appearing as utterances or knowledge is not real, they only appear real as they rise and fall in realness that's always prior to any knowledge about it. In other words the real world is without attribute or identification...as soon as it's identified, it becomes a fictional story.
Yes, I agree with you ...the purpose being ''communication''....the mental narrative comprised of verbal language /aka knowledge is a natural human attribute.

This is not what I was thinking.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Faith In Mind

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Walker wrote:
This is not what I was thinking.
Well there's one sure amazing thing about ''arising thoughts''.. is that they tend to be extremely silent and private, only knowable to the one experiencing them.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

Dontaskme wrote:
Walker wrote:
This is not what I was thinking.
Well there's one sure amazing thing about ''arising thoughts''.. is that they tend to be extremely silent and private, only knowable to the one experiencing them.
Dualistic mind does serve a natural, physical, inherent and choiceless purpose in the individual.

Uncritical feedback to your interpretation of this statement, by rephrasing the perceived meaning:

Yes, I agree with you ...the purpose being ''communication''....the mental narrative comprised of verbal language /aka knowledge is a natural human attribute.
Rephrased: If the purpose of duality is verbal communication and cognition, and if this is a natural human attribute, then the implication is that the physical structure of the human throat developed concurrent with the capacity to conceptualize.

However, the belief that the words are to be taken as real literal things existing independently in and of themselves is just a programme conditioned into the human brain. It's a false dichotomy indoctrinated by human cultural where the conditioning sticks like super glue.
Rephrased: words are signifiers for concepts. In other languages these concepts may not exist as a single word, but may require many words and other concepts to fit understanding from the other culture where the language developed.

In real reality, life is Nondual. There are no things, only thoughts about things. The obvious ''Amness'' is real in it's raw Nondual nature, but existentially anything arising within Nondual mind appearing as utterances or knowledge is not real, they only appear real as they rise and fall in realness that's always prior to any knowledge about it. In other words the real world is without attribute or identification...as soon as it's identified, it becomes a fictional story.
Rephrased: Any word or thought, any concept or cognition, is a signifier. The more that is known about the signified in terms of qualities, the more that mind contributes to the conceptual construct of what is being perceived. This construct then dominates the perception and understanding of the perception. This means that essentially, a large part of what we perceive is memory triggered by physical stimuli. In fact, when simultaneously perceiving memory and phenomena, memory can dominate the perception. For example, one can see more of the mental tree than the physical tree and not notice actual conditions of the physical tree, such as leaking sap, too many ants, or sickness.

Is the feedback accurate?
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Dontaskme »

Walker wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:
Walker wrote:
This is not what I was thinking.
Well there's one sure amazing thing about ''arising thoughts''.. is that they tend to be extremely silent and private, only knowable to the one experiencing them.
Dualistic mind does serve a natural, physical, inherent and choiceless purpose in the individual.

Uncritical feedback to your interpretation of this statement, by rephrasing the perceived meaning:

Yes, I agree with you ...the purpose being ''communication''....the mental narrative comprised of verbal language /aka knowledge is a natural human attribute.
Rephrased: If the purpose of duality is verbal communication and cognition, and if this is a natural human attribute, then the implication is that the physical structure of the human throat developed concurrent with the capacity to conceptualize.
Yes, evolution got us here to that point where we are able to talk and communicate with others.
Walker wrote:However, the belief that the words are to be taken as real literal things existing independently in and of themselves is just a programme conditioned into the human brain. It's a false dichotomy indoctrinated by human cultural where the conditioning sticks like super glue.
Rephrased: words are signifiers for concepts. In other languages these concepts may not exist as a single word, but may require many words and other concepts to fit understanding from the other culture where the language developed.
All concepts are unique to human being.. once that human being has become aware of it self and OTHER...the ''other'' apparently appearing outside of them, but is in fact only a projection of their own being/consciousness...from that understanding, there appears to be other consciousnesses doing same albeit illusory since it's all one consciousness appearing as the many... It's kind of set-up like a self to self sustaining feedback loop in operation from environment to senses and vice versa. So in that sense dualism does serve a purpose for humanity as a way of surviving in the world of apparent other conscious people.
Walker wrote:In real reality, life is Nondual. There are no things, only thoughts about things. The obvious ''Amness'' is real in it's raw Nondual nature, but existentially anything arising within Nondual mind appearing as utterances or knowledge is not real, they only appear real as they rise and fall in realness that's always prior to any knowledge about it. In other words the real world is without attribute or identification...as soon as it's identified, it becomes a fictional story.
Rephrased: Any word or thought, any concept or cognition, is a signifier. The more that is known about the signified in terms of qualities, the more that mind contributes to the conceptual construct of what is being perceived. This construct then dominates the perception and understanding of the perception. This means that essentially, a large part of what we perceive is memory triggered by physical stimuli. In fact, when simultaneously perceiving memory and phenomena, memory can dominate the perception. For example, one can see more of the mental tree than the physical tree and not notice actual conditions of the physical tree, such as leaking sap, too many ants, or sickness.

Is the feedback accurate?
It's hard for me to tell what you are saying Walker, but I'll add this..

We only see what we mentally perceive onto the image. So in a sense we don't always see the bigger picture. We can't see the bigger picture since each unit of perception is only a pin hole of a perception, or put another way..one pixel perceived within the whole picture. In other words, no 3D object has ever been seen, an object is only a known idea as it is mentally perceived to be. We can only see facets of the whole self never the whole self, we can't see the whole self because we ARE the whole self...being itself looking at itself.

More importantly is that, what ever is seen, lets say a tree, that tree is only a projected image of a tree as a known idea, it's not an actual tree, since all images are as empty as the space in which they appear, just as all images on a tv screen or in a dream are empty....so similarly, no physical thing existing as an actual tree has ever been seen. A tree is just a known idea, known by the seer which is imageless and empty.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

I see.

You muddy the waters by amplifying at this point of the dialogue.

To be clear, I was not making assertions.

To be clear, I was rephrasing your words. Either I got your meaning right with the rephrasing, or I didn’t.

Your subsequent posting doesn’t make it clear if I did, or did not.

What would make it clear to my capacity of understanding, is a yes or no, in answer to each of my interpretations of your interpretation of my sentence, which to repeat is:

Dualistic mind does serve a natural, physical, inherent and choiceless purpose in the individual.
(This is a very significant sentence and should remain the focus, to be constantly referenced)

Thus, if your purpose is to communicate to my capacity, then you must answer each of my responses with a yes, or a no. Then if I request it, we can get into the meaning of your yes or no.

Just as we could have gotten into my meaning of the seed sentence, had you requested it.

Anyway, this is the principle of Socratic dialogue.

Also, I see where this is going, and voluntarily withdraw participation at this juncture.

Don't worry, it's my limitation, not yours. I've seen the length of some of your postings. :wink:

:)
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Re: Faith In Mind

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Walker wrote:
Also, I see where this is going, and voluntarily withdraw participation at this juncture.
Okay bye.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

You bet. Thanks for the info.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Faith is poison in the mind.
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Re: Faith In Mind

Post by Walker »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Faith is poison in the mind.
Many people have faith, or say they do.

Is faith a natural function of the mind, like an infant faithfully and non-conceptually bonding with another for survival?
Or, is faith caused?
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