the two souls

Originally posted by black beetle
I ‘m glad we agree that the baby/ person when you were born is neither the same person as your adult self nor different than that person. But who is that person of yours?
Methinks that curve -your illustration regarding your continuous progression- is related with the progression of your hair, of your nails, teeth, skin, muscles, sinews, bones, marrow, ...[text shortened]... e and the brain in your skull. Should I conclude now that all these things are the real You?
😵

Depending on the situation, it may be the case that others will not accept you as "the real you" if you make changes to some of these elements of the body. If you don't believe me, trying dying your hair green, growing your nails like a Chinese emperor, filing your teeth down to points, getting a tattoo on your face, bulking up, removing the sinews in your neck, elongating your bones, getting a chimpanzee bone marrow transplant, damaging your kidneys to the point where you need dialysis, drinking your liver into submission, removing the serous membrane protecting your heart, wearing your spleen as a hat, donating a lung, removing your intestines, puncturing your mesentery, stapling your stomach, carrying your excrement around in a jar, drinking your bile, chewing your phlegm, eating your pus, infecting your blood with HIV, stop using soap, gain 300 lbs, cry at the drop of a hat, stop showering, give people the weather when they ask for the news, eat your boogers, crack your knucles incessantly, drinking your urine on a regular basis, or getting brain damage. I expect that although you may believe in the consistency of your "you-ness" despite any of these changes, your friends and family will exclaim "you've changed!".

(That paragraph was more fun to write than it should have been... 😵)

Of course, I think what you're asking goes a bit deeper than all that silliness. I think what you're asking of my analogy is "fair enough, your life is a curve...so what makes that curve a curve and not just a sequence of points squished together?". Good question. I think the answer lies in the way the human mind perceives and categorizes the world.

Our brain has evolved to make use of certain persistent properties of the world (such as the fact that gravity always pulls things in one direction, which makes learning "up" from "down" much easier than learning "left" from "right" ), one of the most important being object recognition and tracking (i.e. the assumption that images of very similar objects that continuously change position in space imply that the images are all of the same object). Without this ability, it would be difficult to aim an arrowhead or avoid the charge of a wild boar. Of course, proficient use of this ability involves judicious criteria, one of which is that small changes (small leaps in space, changes to a only a few factors of appearance, small changes to many factors of appearance, etc...) imply similarity, while large changes do not. Motion pictures exploit this tendency to track objects by presenting a series of images involving small changes in rapid succession to make you think that the objects depicted are causally related, while disguises exploit the opposite effect, making large changes in appearance causing you to think that a person is in fact someone else. When you "visualize" the problem of which changes are relevant to the sense of self, note two things: (1) you already have in mind an "object" called the "self"; and (2) object tracking is a vital component of this visualization, subject to many of the same rules as the aforementioned process. This makes it possible for you "keep track" of this object called "self", especially when making small changes to the object to test whether the object still remains essentially "the same". So although small changes to this object called "self" occur, we still consider it the same object due to our mental predisposition to do so. This is why the curve is both a set of closely arranged points (past, present and future states of "self" ) and a continuous curve ("self" as we used it in common parlance).

Life is a series of changes. The net effect of these changes on your mind is what makes you "you". Simply put, the "real you" is built, not revealed.

Originally posted by black beetle
edit: "This is quite an assumption. If you can demonstrate empirically that thinking can be done without a physical substrate, not only will you prove me wrong but you'll probably win a Nobel Prize!"

The physical substrate is necessary for the process of thinking, but the physical substrate is a mind-only field of energy arranged in a particularly fa ...[text shortened]... ions are made according to our nature, and our nature is the evaluation of the mind;
😵

The physical substrate is necessary for the process of thinking, but the physical substrate is a mind-only field of energy arranged in a particularly fascinating way that has the shape of matter. The physical world as we know it is not made out of objects but it is a sensory mega-mechanism that we grasp thanks to our senses. It is my knowledge that the universe is a field of energy that has its centre everywhere and its periphery nowhere; when this energy is condensed it becomes nebulous, when it is spread it penetrates everything, when it takes shape it becomes matter and when matter looses its shape it becomes energy again. Life is just a specific action in a given form -it is a schema that rises from chaos and keeps its permanence/ order just for a while, for as long as it keeps its given form.

I was trying to make a dichotomy between the "physical" and the "supernatural", and was asking for empirical evidence of a supernatural entity thinking. I think your physical explanation of the universe is entirely plausible, in that it predicts and explains our everyday experience of matter as a manifestation of an energy/matter continuum. I'm just trying to deny the idea of a "ghost in the machine" by providing a physical explanation for what we perceive as thinking. If the explanation includes energy popping up in various forms throughout the universe, so be it, just as long as it doesn't involve a supernatural spirit acting as puppet master to the body (unless there's empirical evidence, of course).

So, if you get a functional brain out of a functional skull and put it in a jar you will face difficulties whilst trying to show that it is still able to think although functional it remains.

I think your first difficulty will be in removing the brain while keeping it functional. 😉

Originally posted by PBE6
Depending on the situation, it may be the case that others will not accept you as "the real you" if you make changes to some of these elements of the body. If you don't believe me, trying dying your hair green, growing your nails like a Chinese emperor, filing your teeth down to points, getting a tattoo on your face, bulking up, removing the sinews in your nec ...[text shortened]... ". Simply put, the "real you" is built, not revealed.

You said it all when you stated that "...the answer lies in the way the human mind perceives and categorizes the world". Since your bodysoul is the sole link of your inner world and of the physical world that surrounds you, your understanding of the physical world and of yourself is a mind-only construction that is related to your nature, and your nature is the evaluation of the mind. The fact that you see "your self" different than your "no-self" conceptions is dualism, a false dichotomy that is caused because you believe that your mind is yourself and not just another sense of yours
😵

Originally posted by PBE6
Depending on the situation, it may be the case that others will not accept you as "the real you" if you make changes to some of these elements of the body. If you don't believe me, trying dying your hair green, growing your nails like a Chinese emperor, filing your teeth down to points, getting a tattoo on your face, bulking up, removing the sinews in your nec ...[text shortened]... ". Simply put, the "real you" is built, not revealed.

Simply put, the "real you" is built, not revealed.
... and yet, we name.

Originally posted by PBE6
[b]The physical substrate is necessary for the process of thinking, but the physical substrate is a mind-only field of energy arranged in a particularly fascinating way that has the shape of matter. The physical world as we know it is not made out of objects but it is a sensory mega-mechanism that we grasp thanks to our senses. It is my knowledge that the unive ...[text shortened]... ink your first difficulty will be in removing the brain while keeping it functional. 😉

I do not believe in supernatural entities😵

Originally posted by black beetle
You said it all when you stated that "...the answer lies in the way the human mind perceives and categorizes the world". Since your bodysoul is the sole link of your inner world and of the physical world that surrounds you, your understanding of the physical world and of yourself is a mind-only construction that is related to your nature, and your natur ...[text shortened]... sed because you believe that your mind is yourself and not just another sense of yours
😵

If the mind were just another sense of mine, that would mean there must be some other entity receiving information from the mind, but in order to process that information that entity would require a mind of its own, thus begins the chain of logically infinite regression consisting of ever more compact homonculi doing their best impression of a Russian babushka doll. That is the dualism, the false dichotomy.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Simply put, the "real you" is built, not revealed.
... and yet, we name.[/b]

And?

Originally posted by black beetle
I do not believe in supernatural entities😵

At least we agree on something! 🙂

Originally posted by PBE6
If the mind were just another sense of mine, that would mean there must be some other entity receiving information from the mind, but in order to process that information that entity would require a mind of its own, thus begins the chain of logically infinite regression consisting of ever more compact homonculi doing their best impression of a Russian babushka doll. That is the dualism, the false dichotomy.

Of course our mind is a sense -the sixth one, and it evaluates the information it receives from the other five senses of ours in order to let us proceed. The entity that receives pieces of information from our five senses and evaluates them by means of our mind is our self and not our mind😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Of course our mind is a sense -the sixth one, and it evaluates the information it receives from the other five senses of ours in order to let us proceed. The entity that receives pieces of information from our five senses and evaluates them by means of our mind is our self and not our mind😵

The mind is the only thing we have that is capable of doing what you just described. However, I think there is some truth in what you said in two regards. First, the mind is full of different and sometimes conflicting impulses. The mind has to have a mechanism to sort through and prioritize these impulses in order for directed action to take place. This process, or this part of the mind, could be thought of as the "self", a finer assessment of the sum total of the mind's workings. Second, the mind is both an input and an output to itself. For a fascinating treatment of the subject of consciousness, I highly recommend "I Am A Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter. Hofstadter argues that this strange self-referential loopiness of the mind is not only fascinating feature of its workings, but in fact a requirement for consciousness!

Originally posted by PBE6
The mind is the only thing we have that is capable of doing what you just described. However, I think there is some truth in what you said in two regards. First, the mind is full of different and sometimes conflicting impulses. The mind has to have a mechanism to sort through and prioritize these impulses in order for directed action to take place. This pro ...[text shortened]... not only fascinating feature of its workings, but in fact a requirement for consciousness!

Nope; my self is primordial awareness, has no form of its own and is capable of experiencing all form without being affected by those forms in any permanent way –and it is not my mind😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Nope; my self is primordial awareness, has no form of its own and is capable of experiencing all form without being affected by those forms in any permanent way –and it is not my mind😵

All evidence to date suggests awareness is dependent on certain forms of matter/energy for proper functioning. No form, no function.

Originally posted by PBE6
And?

Uh, personality?
As you and bb continue batting back and forth, this thing we elusively know as consciousness ought to be considered nothing more than the sum of several moving parts. In fact, one of the two of you even went so far as to say the mind is a sense--- in the same manner as the other classical physical senses.

When's the last time you looked at one of your loved ones and called out to them--- endearingly--- "mind?"

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Uh, personality?
As you and bb continue batting back and forth, this thing we elusively know as consciousness ought to be considered nothing more than the sum of several moving parts. In fact, one of the two of you even went so far as to say the mind is a sense--- in the same manner as the other classical physical senses.

When's the last time you looked at one of your loved ones and called out to them--- endearingly--- "mind?"

Maybe I didn't understand your original objection. You responded to my statement that "the 'real you' is built, not revealed" with "--and yet, we name". I thought you were challenging the idea that your mind is something that develops over time into what it becomes, as opposed to being some pre-formed spirit whose entirety is eventually revealed on some sort of journey of enlightenment, using some vague argument about "naming" as justification. To me, this seemed like a non sequitur, hence my reply "And?".

But you're right, I don't think I've ever called anyone - friend or foe - "mind". However, just as a mother can also be a daughter, a wife, a grandmother, an aunt, a friend, a co-worker, etc..., so can a person be a person and also serve in abstraction as a useful example when making an argument.

Originally posted by PBE6
All evidence to date suggests awareness is dependent on certain forms of matter/energy for proper functioning. No form, no function.

In general, the products of our modern science (known to everybody slightly versed in quantum mechanics) are considered the following:
1. Consciousness seems to change our kosmos
2. We limit ourselves within our kosmos so much that we have not an objective perspective of the world; our interpretation for the "world out there" is merely an analysis of "an idea of ours about the world out there"
3. The perspective that there is a linear past, present and future works not at the subatomic level, and many scientists have the conclusion too that there are zones in which time does not exist
4. The cause-effect status is out of order; the cause-effect process within linear past-present-future status it appears to exist solely because we believe that it exists
5. If consiousness is an agent that does change our kosmos, the result is that there is not a "sole reality"
6. The "reality" is closer to "nothing"(mind-only) than to "something" (matter)
7. Consciousness can be understood the way gravity can be understood (two or more fields are related and they produce a continuum), therefore matter and consciousness are considered as two waves on the surface of the same ocean;

Regarding the case 7, my knowledge is that in the case of the formation of the life of the sentient beings, the wave of “matter” and the wave of “consciousness” are identical on the surface of the ocean: my Energeia (Energy)/ Ki/ Spirit is a dynamic self-organised creative system that has the ability to overcome physical and temporal constraints by means of using and producing energy in order to support my entity in full. And it has the shape of my awareness at every given time. Therefore: No Energeia, No Form.

My Energeia manifests equally in my body, and since a part of my body is my brain it manifests in my brain too, so: no energy (mind-only) means no brain (no full functionality of brain and lack of mind process). An Eastern would point to her/ his heart or to her/ his lower abdomen if you ask her/ him to point to her/ his “mind”, whilst a Westerner would point to her/ his head because in the West “mind” is related mostly to “thinking” and “thought” instead to the primordial energy (Self). I calm my mind-only Energeia by coordinating my thoughts, my actions and my breath, and I empower and actualize the process of my brain by coordinating my thoughts, my physical actions, my breath and my spirit (Energeia).
Calming my body I calm my cognitive thought process, and during meditation my non-conceptual awareness reveals my Self
😵