Do thoughts affect reality?

[bahman]

How thoughts could be distinguished from each other if they don't have different forms? How such a thing that has form could not exist. It exists, therefore it is a substance.

You have confused material (ontological existence) with psychological (epistemological) existence. Material (or ontological) existence is all that exists and has the nature it has, whether anyone is aware of that existence or not. It includes all physical things, all living organisms, a conscious organisms, and all human beings. Only physical entities have form, or any other physical properties. Everything else that exists only exists as the content and product of human consciousness and has no material existence.

Cannot you distinguish your thoughts from each other? If yes, how?

That psychological (or epistemological) existence includes all knowledge, all knowledge methods like language, logic, and mathematics, all intellectual products like history, geography, all the sciences, all literature, all art, and all the ideas of invention and technology, none of which exist physically or independently of human minds. If human beings should cease to exist, all epistemological existents would also cease to exist, but material existence would remain.

Psycho exists as a substance too. Thoughts are information.

[Walker]

Of course, they do (we know the difference between a person who knows from the one who does not know). All conscious phenomena are irrelevant in what is going on in matter since matter behaves according to the laws of nature. Therefore, thoughts are irrelevant which is a contradiction since we know that thoughts affect reality.

Energy affects reality. Thoughts and energy affect one another.

[Terrapin Station]

When things are not non-arbitrary then it means that they are constrained which means that they follow some rules.

It's possible for it to be a brute fact that matter behaves in a limited way without following any rules.

The matter is free or non-free?

Both are logically possible so that we have neither rule-following per se nor arbitrariness.

It obeys its nature and not what is going on in our mind.

You just wrote that physical laws exist as thoughts in the mind of intelligent agents only. So how can laws also be "its nature and not what is going on in our mind"?

It's like you can't remember what you claimed two seconds ago.

The laws of physics do not exist in matter. It only exists in minds of intelligent beings. The matter however behaves according to the laws of nature.

As with the other post, your comment here has nothing at all to do with the inconsistency I'm pointing out. You're completely ignoring that aspect (as if you read it and then immediately forgot about it and decided to just make a general comment instead--or you're intentionally ignoring the problem and you're trolling).

[Sculptor]

Thought can steer the body into action. This is the only chance we have of using thought to affect reality.

Yes, and every artifact of human endeavor is evidence of how much human choice affects physical reality from every garden, building, and machine to all medicine and products in the world human life depends on. None of it would exist without human conscious intervention in physical reality.

Indeed this tiny particle of reality in an unfashionable arm of an obscure galaxy.

[Sculptor]

How? Could you control the electrons in your brain? How a conscious experience, such as thought, can affect the motion of the electrons in your brain?

How did you get up in the morning?

I cannot formulate it. I know that I wanted to get up. Then there was a motion in my body. There is however a gap between wanting and moving since wanting is a conscious phenomenon whereas the motion of my body is a physical phenomenon.

It is easy to say. Hard to prove.

RUbbish. All you have to do is get our of bed

So you move the electron in your brain in order to move your body.

Something like that. But I am not separate from the "electron", it is one of trillions of which I comprise.

[Hermit Philosopher]

.../We have two things, matter that process according to the laws of nature and conscious phenomena. The question is that how the second could affect the former when the former behaves according to the laws of nature, only.

Okay bahman, I think I understand what you wish to address here.

It reminds me a little of the theological questions about human free-will, in that it concerns itself with the paradox of a seemingly undetermined variable, within a determined environment.

In your case, you are asking: if we say that thoughts are physical signals and physical signals act according to laws of physics; how do we explain that thoughts too have an impact on physical reality?

Have I understood your question correctly there?

If so, I would say that the paradox that troubles you is somewhat of an illusion, because there is nothing “problematic” about determined variables affecting each other.

Their interaction is governed by laws of causality, but such laws are based on potential and only determine a consequence once actualised (if a, then b but if c, then not b, but d, etc). There will be probabilities and eventually, all probabilities may actualise, but they may also not and that would change the course of events.

Even if we say that all probabilities eventually will actualise, their frequency and chronology can change during the process, impacting on the overall effect.


Humbly
Hermit

[RCSaunders]

Indeed this tiny particle of reality in an unfashionable arm of an obscure galaxy.

And if you and I weren't in it, not even that much would matter. And when you and I are gone, none of it will.

[bahman]

It's possible for it to be a brute fact that matter behaves in a limited way without following any rules.

The matter is free or non-free?

Both are logically possible so that we have neither rule-following per se nor arbitrariness.

You just wrote that physical laws exist as thoughts in the mind of intelligent agents only. So how can laws also be "its nature and not what is going on in our mind"?

It's like you can't remember what you claimed two seconds ago.

The laws of physics do not exist in matter. It only exists in minds of intelligent beings. The matter however behaves according to the laws of nature.

As with the other post, your comment here has nothing at all to do with the inconsistency I'm pointing out. You're completely ignoring that aspect (as if you read it and then immediately forgot about it and decided to just make a general comment instead--or you're intentionally ignoring the problem and you're trolling).

I am saying three things. The laws of physics do not exist in matter. It only exists in minds of intelligent beings. The matter however behaves according to the laws of nature. What is inconsistent here?

[bahman]

How did you get up in the morning?

I cannot formulate it. I know that I wanted to get up. Then there was a motion in my body. There is however a gap between wanting and moving since wanting is a conscious phenomenon whereas the motion of my body is a physical phenomenon.

RUbbish. All you have to do is get our of bed

So you move the electron in your brain in order to move your body.

Something like that. But I am not separate from the "electron", it is one of trillions of which I comprise.

I don't know how I affect the electrons of my brain.

[bahman]

.../We have two things, matter that process according to the laws of nature and conscious phenomena. The question is that how the second could affect the former when the former behaves according to the laws of nature, only.

Okay bahman, I think I understand what you wish to address here.

It reminds me a little of the theological questions about human free-will, in that it concerns itself with the paradox of a seemingly undetermined variable, within a determined environment.

In your case, you are asking: if we say that thoughts are physical signals and physical signals act according to laws of physics; how do we explain that thoughts too have an impact on physical reality?

Have I understood your question correctly there?

If so, I would say that the paradox that troubles you is somewhat of an illusion, because there is nothing “problematic” about determined variables affecting each other.

Their interaction is governed by laws of causality, but such laws are based on potential and only determine a consequence once actualised (if a, then b but if c, then not b, but d, etc). There will be probabilities and eventually, all probabilities may actualise, but they may also not and that would change the course of events.

Even if we say that all probabilities eventually will actualise, their frequency and chronology can change during the process, impacting on the overall effect.

Humbly
Hermit

You understood my point well. But I don't understand your answer.

[bahman]

.../We have two things, matter that process according to the laws of nature and conscious phenomena. The question is that how the second could affect the former when the former behaves according to the laws of nature, only.

Okay bahman, I think I understand what you wish to address here.

It reminds me a little of the theological questions about human free-will, in that it concerns itself with the paradox of a seemingly undetermined variable, within a determined environment.

In your case, you are asking: if we say that thoughts are physical signals and physical signals act according to laws of physics; how do we explain that thoughts too have an impact on physical reality?

Have I understood your question correctly there?

If so, I would say that the paradox that troubles you is somewhat of an illusion, because there is nothing “problematic” about determined variables affecting each other.

Their interaction is governed by laws of causality, but such laws are based on potential and only determine a consequence once actualised (if a, then b but if c, then not b, but d, etc). There will be probabilities and eventually, all probabilities may actualise, but they may also not and that would change the course of events.

Even if we say that all probabilities eventually will actualise, their frequency and chronology can change during the process, impacting on the overall effect.

Humbly
Hermit

You understood my point well. But I don't understand your answer.

[Terrapin Station]

The matter is free or non-free?

Both are logically possible so that we have neither rule-following per se nor arbitrariness.

The laws of physics do not exist in matter. It only exists in minds of intelligent beings. The matter however behaves according to the laws of nature.

As with the other post, your comment here has nothing at all to do with the inconsistency I'm pointing out. You're completely ignoring that aspect (as if you read it and then immediately forgot about it and decided to just make a general comment instead--or you're intentionally ignoring the problem and you're trolling).

I am saying three things. The laws of physics do not exist in matter. It only exists in minds of intelligent beings. The matter however behaves according to the laws of nature. What is inconsistent here?

"Not what is going on in our minds" is different than "what's going on in our minds," right?

[bahman]

Of course, they do (we know the difference between a person who knows from the one who does not know). All conscious phenomena are irrelevant in what is going on in matter since matter behaves according to the laws of nature. Therefore, thoughts are irrelevant which is a contradiction since we know that thoughts affect reality.

Energy affects reality. Thoughts and energy affect one another.

So you are violating the laws of nature when you move your body?

[bahman]

Both are logically possible so that we have neither rule-following per se nor arbitrariness.


As with the other post, your comment here has nothing at all to do with the inconsistency I'm pointing out. You're completely ignoring that aspect (as if you read it and then immediately forgot about it and decided to just make a general comment instead--or you're intentionally ignoring the problem and you're trolling).

I am saying three things. The laws of physics do not exist in matter. It only exists in minds of intelligent beings. The matter however behaves according to the laws of nature. What is inconsistent here?

"Not what is going on in our minds" is different than "what's going on in our minds," right?

Sure.

[Terrapin Station]

I am saying three things. The laws of physics do not exist in matter. It only exists in minds of intelligent beings. The matter however behaves according to the laws of nature. What is inconsistent here?

"Not what is going on in our minds" is different than "what's going on in our minds," right?

Sure.

Right. So you can't have physical laws both be ONLY what's going on in our minds AND not what is going on in our minds, can you?