Nearly everything that ends with an 'ism' is an idea or set of thoughts that is believed in. 'Believed in' has to be taken into account here. Any 'ism', which remember is just a thing written by one or more people and then believed in by others, and sometimes changed. Because of how the brain works, that is it just takes in information, from the 'world' [the environment] around it, and then from that information then learns how to view things, the world around it, the way it does, AND, because of the "education system" and its way of teaching debating, people now either believe in one thing or another. If an 'ism', lets use materialism for an example here, is not agreed with, then instead of arguing with it in the sense of logical reasoning with materialism, some people will argue, with it from the fighting and debating sense. That is they will instead of working with that view of one or some people and work together to find more and truer knowledge together, they will instantly oppose it. They have been taught that if you do not believe in it, then you MUST believe in something else. So, they look for completely opposing views, and then try to back up those points of view. Through an education system teaching a certain way to debate things, which entails picking a side and fighting, (to the death?), for it, human beings in this age generally believe one side or the other, and then will try any thing and all they can to show that that side is right. To Me, there is no materialism nor dualism. These are just points of view, which are missing the mark, so to say. The Truth is in them. The Truth is not one or the other of them.bahman wrote:To my understanding both materialism and dualism have their own issues.ken wrote: More unfortunate is that you do not show any inquisitiveness.
Do you have any inquiringly questions?
What in particular do you want Me to elaborate on for you?
What is it you are not yet seeing and understanding?
Human beings have issue just trying to explain what consciousness and self IS first, let alone working out how they arise from brain activities. This is like fighting over whether God exists or not before human beings even decide what God is first. The ridiculousness of this is funny to watch. Imagine sitting back and watching two people fighting over whether something exists or not. Let them go for a while, and then ask both of them what is the actual 'thing' that you two are debating about whether it exists or not, and they both answer you, "I don't know". This is exactly what human beings have done for thousands upon thousands of years, and are still doing.bahman wrote: Materialism has issue to explain how consciousness and self arises from brain activities.
To Me there is no issue to explain how consciousness and self arise from brain activities. The very fact that without brain activities these "issues" would not arise at all shows in itself how consciousness and self arise from brain activity.
What do you mean by 'consciousness' and 'self'?
What is 'soul'? And, what do you mean by 'a sense of self'? Is 'a sense of self' the same as 'self'?bahman wrote: We have two substances in dualism and each are responsible for some activities. Body allows us to move around, grasp things, receive sensory data, etc. The soul in another hand allows us to experience and have a sense of self.
The issue I have to explain ALL of these things to any person is I firstly need to know their view and definition of things, I also need to know how open, if they are at all, to changing those definitions and views of things. If they are not open at all, then there is no use a proceeding.
What is the problem here?bahman wrote: Dualism however have interaction problem.
To Me, a 'problem' is just a question posed for a solution, which is the answer.
If no question is posed, then no solution for answer can be given. For example, it is said "There are thousands of children dying from starvation. How do we fix this problem?" To Me, the problem has not been posed. If an answer and/or solution, then pose the question, and then I can solve and fix the, so called, "problem". There are no problems in of themselves in Life. Only human beings cause, make, and create, problems, by asking questions.
Sure, what happened was I learned, accidentally by the way, how the Mind and the brain work before I even heard of or knew of materialism and dualism. These two things, like many, many things in Life, are just a perspective of reality. There is nothing that says one or the other has to be right. ALL older human beings at some points in their lives gain concepts of what is actually real in Life but then when trying to explain that relatively "new" right knowledge the explanation gets caught up with previously learned wrong knowledge, which can confuse issues more. This is the whole concept of 'inspiration'.bahman wrote: In your post you mentioned "Absolutely everything is relative to the observer. When I observe what is written about materialism and what is written about dualism I see a consistent Truth within and between the two.". I understand that materialism and dualism can each explain a part of problem we are facing but I don't understand how we are allowed to consider or possibly can construct a combine model to explain reality so I would be have happy if you elaborate on this issues.
Reality is not found in being allowed to consider nor in possibly constructing a combined model here. Reality is found in the way you are looking at the so called "problem" here. By the way I am going to have to ask you, "What exactly is the problem we are supposedly facing here?" (Remembering that just because 'you' might be facing a "problem", that does not mean Me nor others are also.) Anyway I think trying to construct a combined model of materialism and dualism might be a hard ask. What I found is by understanding how the Mind and the brain work firstly, and how they can work together and oppositely, automatically allows the Truth to be seen within and between the two subject and only topic matters of materialism and dualism. I know this is of no help to you here now, and I apologize for that, but I still think if you ask Me direct questions, then this will help you more.
You said, "that materialism and dualism can each explain a part of problem", maybe if you explain what the actual problem is that you have, that is, ask the actual question, which you want solved, and also say what "part of the problem" that you think materialism and dualism can explain.
This is how I view this;
There is a physical body with a brain, we can see and feel these organs, and, there is a Mind. Until the Mind can be felt, seen, heard, smelt, or tasted as far as we, human beings, know in this era the Mind is not a physical thing.
We say things like, "With an open mind we can do anything", "We have to keep an open mind if we want to find and learn (discover) some thing", et cetera. To Me, there is only one Mind and It is always open. This Mind is what has allowed human beings to go as far as they have, which is way far beyond any other animal, (that we human beings know of), has gone and can go. The Mind can imagine anything, and is what has allowed human beings to continually learn how to create and achieve more and more things, at an exponential rate I will also add. This progression is because of the ability the open Mind gives human beings. This potentiality of exponential progression is because of how the human brain works.
The brain is not open like the Mind is. The brain can only work from what information has been fed into it, just like a computer can. If the brain is taught to believe in things, then it will. Some brains will, depending on past experiences, even believe that a person can not live without believing in things. Because of this power of belief, which comes from the brain only, the belief in a human being's and human beings' potential, which is exponentially growing with the advancements made by human beings with the technology they are inventing and creating, then this believing can interfere with, or enhance the ability, which comes from the one and only completely open Mind. The brain can and does prevent this potential for learning, absolutely all things, from coming about. But, the Mind already KNOWS how It and the brain work. The brain just stops this knowledge from coming to light, because of some of the beliefs, which it holds onto. The Mind allows human beings and gives them the ability to learn, understand, and reason, anything (everything). The brain, however, allows human beings to grasp the knowledge of anything (everything) learned, understood, and reasoned. But because of beliefs the brain can, sadly, learn, understand, and reason, absolutely anything including anything wrong, and then believe is it right. Thus, the human brain just does not have the ability to grasp wrong knowledge, but also to believe in that wrong knowledge and believe that that knowledge is true, right, and correct, and, most unfortunately, also teach that wrong knowledge onto others.
To Me, there is a 'self', little s, which is a construct of the brain. This self is the one we believe or think we are, for example a doctor, a priest, a mother, a grand-father, a skier, a footballer, a "whatever". When we say, "I am... "whatever", then we believe/think we are that self. This is how the brain works, it constructs things from what gets fed into it, and then compartmentalizes or separates things. Whereas, the Mind works by seeing things as they really are. The Mind allows ALL things to be united as One.
Consciousness is just Self-awareness, which the Mind knows It is Its Self and is able to see ALL because the Mind is completely open. The Mind is not limited nor restricted at all because It is of no physicality. It can sit "outside" and "within", as they say, and look at ALL things as they really are.
An individual person is just the self, or sense of self, created by an individual brain. This person can only think, it does not know for sure, and it can only see from what information the brain has grasped and is holding onto, which is what is actually creating this (sense of) self.
How the (non-physical?) Mind interacts with the physical human body and brain is the Mind just allows human beings to have the ability to learn, understand, and reason, anything (everything), thus allowing them to imagine, invent, and create absolutely anything also. To some this is just dualism.
How the brain, creates or constructs concepts or (sense of) selves is because that brain just works that way, information in - information (knowledge thoughts) out. To some this is just materialism.
Both are correct certain ways. To tell you the truth I do not recall ever reading anything much at about the two, but if you can see that there is a brain self, which is just the 'person', which is just the thoughts (and feelings) within a body, which come only from the brain. There are as many as these selves as there are human bodies. Then there is a truer Self, which is the Mind, Its Self. There is only one and only Self, which is found and known with the knowledge that all the little selves agree with.