Your body and brain can be broken down into subatomic particles that can be measured with physical apparatuses.popeye1945 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:08 am How indeed is a mind-body problem maintained when the body is part of mind as the mind interprets what is happening to the body without body there is no mind. What is the distinction that causes a problem, I am quite sincere in my ignorance here, please enlighten.
Try doing that with the palm trees depicted in my little dream scenario...
Or better yet, try doing that with the dreamer of the palm trees.^^^
And, no, you will not find the palm trees, nor the dreamer of the palm trees, anywhere amidst the constituent properties of the brain.
And that's because, in essence, the human mind (and its contents), along with the self-aware, internally-based owner of the mind, represent a separate "universe" unto itself.
(Indeed, I suggest that the Biblical assertion that we humans are "...created in the image..." of the owner and Creator of this universe, is far more profound than humans realize.)
The bottom line is that, sure, your physical body and brain were essential in facilitating the awakening of your mind into existence, however, your body and brain are not a part of your mind, no, they are a part of God's mind.
Or, more accurately, your body and brain are a part of the inner ("womb-like") workings of God's "spirit body," so to speak, that God uses to conceive and awaken her own literal offspring (human minds/souls, just like her mind/soul) into existence.
Now, of course, it is needless to say that it can (and will) be argued that the human mind, with its unmeasurable dreams and unmeasurable dreamer, is nothing more than an epiphenomenal (emergent) feature of the brain - a feature that will blink-out of existence once the brain dies,...
...however, that's only if hardcore materialism is true, and all metaphysical notions of the existence of God and a life after death are false.
Yet, if one wants to believe that hardcore materialism is true, then one is forced to entertain the utterly ridiculous assumption that the unfathomable order of the universe is a product of the blind and mindless meanderings of chance, which is pure nonsense.
And therein lies the crux of the perennial debate regarding the ultimate truth of reality - a debate taking place in this very thread in which the obvious hardcore materialist Peter Holmes' argument implies that life is basically a meaningless accident that holds no ultimate and eternal purpose for us as individuals.
While I, on the other hand, argue that our lives are imbued with a purpose that is so amazing, and so wonderful, that it must be kept hidden from us until death so that we are not tempted to seek it out prematurely.
And consequently, in order to keep the truth of that higher purpose hidden from us, humans are born with an attenuated level of consciousness that prevents most of us...
(as is obvious in Peter Holmes' case)
...from realizing that we are basically "sleep-walking" through life, and completely unaware of the fact that there is a higher level of reality (and wakefulness) above and outside of the "dream-like" illusion taking place within the "cosmic womb" of our ultimate parent.
And that is something that I have attempted to metaphorically depict in yet another of my (no doubt, too-often-used) illustrations...
The captions read as follows:
"...let us make man in our image..."
"...one of us..."
(Click on the following link to see a series of illustrations tied to the one directly above: http://theultimateseeds.com/murmurings.htm)"...The occupants of the realm on the other side of this barrier are as profoundly "more awake" relative to adult humans on earth, as adult humans on earth are "more awake" relative to a fetus in the human womb..."
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