Missing in action: Where is the mind?

@stevecook172001,

When your cat shows this ability what does he do? Does he try manufacturing milk from your shirt? When he looks in the mirror does he even recognise his ego? Why do you think we developed language? Its not that language gave us this ability to be conscious, our conscious ability created the need for language. Its not my fault your cat is not driven by its conscious need to communicate its wonder.

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@Fido,

Beauty can be plain and simple like a rose or it can be seen in the complexities of an abstract poem, so whats your point ?

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@xris,

xris wrote:

When your cat shows this ability what does he do? Does he try manufacturing milk from your shirt? When he looks in the mirror does he even recognise his ego? Why do you think we developed language? Its not that language gave us this ability to be conscious, our conscious ability created the need for language. Its not my fault your cat is not driven by its conscious need to communicate its wonder.

What evidence or logical argument do you have to support this unsubstantiated assertion. Because thats all it is at the moment.

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@stevecook172001,

So you are saying I'm wrong?

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@xris,

xris wrote:

So you are saying I'm wrong?

I am saying there is no way of assessing whether you are or not since you have made the assertion without any substantiation whatsover, either of a logical or emphirical nature.

You must understand, holding a viewpoint does not make that viewpoint "true" merely as a function of holding it.

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@stevecook172001,

Its not illogical and if you think it is, its up to you to give a reason why . You just cant say , we don't know. How far would we ever get without reasoned speculation? Do you really think that language preceded our conscious ability? do you really? Now whose being illogical?

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@xris,

xris wrote:

Beauty can be plain and simple like a rose or it can be seen in the complexities of an abstract poem, so whats your point ?

My point is, that to judge something as beautiful one must abstract it from its setting, and context, and judge it by standards abstract to it... To call something beautiful is an abstract judgement, when what it is, no matter what it is, -is what it is-, neither beautiful nor ugly...

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@Fido,

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It does not detract from the idea that it is or is not beautiful. I cant see what point you are trying to make, your view is abstract. Every thing is placed in the mind and therefore can be said to be abstract. When we usually referring to something being of abstract beauty , it infers it goes beyond the normal confines of acceptable beauty. If you want to take the term literally, then yes, but its being a bit fatuous.

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@xris,

xris wrote:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It does not detract from the idea that it is or is not beautiful. I cant see what point you are trying to make, your view is abstract. Every thing is placed in the mind and therefore can be said to be abstract. When we usually referring to something being of abstract beauty , it infers it goes beyond the normal confines of acceptable beauty. If you want to take the term literally, then yes, but its being a bit fatuous.

It is not res/things which are placed in the mind, but forms/concepts/ideas, which as you say, are all abstract...I think fatuous as foolish may be correct... It is mostly redundant...

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2 cents. The mind is an abstraction. The subject is an abstraction. Matter is an abstraction. Consciousness is an abstraction. If you want a fundamental ontology, and what philosopher doesn't, you have to dig deeper than the mind.

The mind/subject is fine for practical purposes, but is dialectically vulnerable. It doesn't hold water. Hegel started the demolition. Wittgenstein and Heidegger finished it. Or maybe Parmenides finished it. Or maybe Buddha.

Of course this is all just my opinion, but I can say that I have thought on exactly this sort of issue for many years now. Mathematics also ties into this. The realm of concept is simply radically different than the realm of sensation and emotion, but this becomes pseudo-invisible because sensation and emotion are mediated by conceptualization. The problem of universals is central to philosophy and to the escape from the itch and entanglement of strange universals like mind, matter, subject, self, etc. None of these universals is primary or fundamental, except in a practical sense.

The practical obscures, at times, the most profound aspects of our being. Just thoughts. Thanks. Here's a great site w/ views I can relate to and praise, generally speaking. And here's an interesting person I found on wordpress. http://nonismo.wordpress.com

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Understanding mans conscious ability and how similar it is to animals has to be done subjectively, how else can we compare. Animals have not the language to tell us their inner most feelings. They have in my opinion never been driven to communicate complex feelings, by this we must assume they have not the same intense necessity. Our desire to communicate our consciousness to others developed language, our consciousness still drives our desire to understand ourselves through language.

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@Fido,

Comments stimulated by Fido's reference to Einstein comment that what he sees in " Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism." I assume that Einstein assumes that humans can comprehend the whole "only very imperfectly" because their comprehension (mathematical and otherwise) must necessarily reflect their nature. I'm thinking of the signature line: We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are."
I also feel that Einstein's "genuinely religious feel has everything to do with mysticism, properly understood.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Comments stimulated by Fido's reference to Einstein comment that what he sees in " Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism." I assume that Einstein assumes that humans can comprehend the whole "only very imperfectly" because their comprehension (mathematical and otherwise) must necessarily reflect their nature. I'm thinking of the signature line: We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are."
I also feel that Einstein's "genuinely religious feel has everything to do with mysticism, properly understood.

Thank you for the response... Best to you!

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The sense of someone's mind, or "Self", is in fact, an illusion. People's memories, thoughts, and sense of your Self are derived from a continuous stream of consciousness. Who are you? Most may say, "Well I do not feel as though I am this leg or an arm. Neither do I feel like I am the brain itself. It feels as though I am the entity that sits somewhere in the head and looks out through these eyes. I am my Self." Well, back to the continuous stream of consciousness.. If the stream of consciousness is broken and a moment goes by that you are not aware of, does that mean that you did not exist for that time? Where was your Self? If the Self is an independent entity than the brain and the body, would you not be aware of moments of consciousness and unconsciousness alike? Take a patient suffering from brain damage and are in a coma. When they wake up from it, they will not 'remember' anything that happened while they were in it. Does that mean they did not exist? The brain and body obviously are capable of existing without this Self. The heart was beating, the lungs were breathing. But the Self was not aware of its own unconsciousness while being unconscious until they awaken and the stream of consciousness resumes..

The Self is simply an illusion. We will always be hostage to our senses, objective, and subjective experiences alike. Unlike DesCartes argument, not even my thinking mind is a concrete judge of reality.

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@Caytlin3,

I do get your point and agree to an extent although on the other hand it can be argued that the effect of Selfness is legitimate given essentially what it does is to process information and bring it to a cohesive state...of course in consequence the implication is that attributes that are often solely related with mind can be extended to the entirety of Reality and thus state that language is everywhere.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

It is not limited by physical conditions because it is not within the four dimensional space of physical existence.

Your joking, right?

Would you say the same thing about running qua running?

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@NoOne phil,

This is old, so memory is a little fuzzy.

But as I recall it this quote is saying that the mind is not limited by physical conditions because it is not within the four dimensional space of physical existence.
Please not that I would not say the same about the brain.

This is not a joke, and the explanation is simple. You can imagine an object suddenly "losing gravity" and just soaring up. It is possible for your mind to create that image despite the fact that such a thing could never occur in the physical world. Simply because the mind, while capable of observing physical "rules", is not bound by them.

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@Cyracuz,

Don't get me wrong. I really do feel sorry for you. You have my deepest sympathies.
But I have never known a dead man to imagine anything, nor a broken tv let me watch reruns of I love Lucy.

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@NoOne phil,

...that was efficient... Laughing

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@NoOne phil,

Where, in your self deluded existence, does that even make sense.

I am so tired of punks who read a newspaper article about philosophy thinking they know all there is to know about the world.

And then delivering phrases like "I do feel sorry for you" and other self-righteous attempts at ridiculing something that is so lost on you that you are only displaying your own ignorance.

If this is what a2k has turned into recently I will find somewhere else to explore my ideas. All I've met here recently are people who are hell bent on ignoring or denying anything that doens't fit with what they already think they know. People like yourself, who have no creativity or imagination, and if a statement is such that it's meaning isn't immediately clear from what you have been taught you refuse to even consider it.

If all you have is this, then you are merely an and pissing on my leg. Your ability to form words does not make you intelligent.

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Missing in action: Where is the mind?

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