Well, tame would know better than I, but I think that the chain of causality that science operates under is more like this:

Brain = Mind

or even:

Brain [mind]

Isn't that just because the mind is not a thing? For the sake of discussion and understanding, isn't it acceptable to say they operate under the assumption that the mind arises from brain activity?

I think it depends a lot on who you ask, as this is still an issue we don't know all that much about. We know the brain very well on the micro-level (individual neurons or very small neuron clusters) and on the macro-level (what the different regions do), but the relationship between the two we know very little about. Nor do we know the exact cause(s) of consciousness / the sensation of feeling whole.

A very simple consequence of this is that, as craig correctly points out, psychiatry (and also clinical psychology) is mostly about alleviating symptoms. Except in very extreme cases (where the brain is very clearly damaged) the causes of various disorders are not well known . Psychoactive (medical) drugs are actually made by what can only be described as "informed trial and error", and their function is more analogous to carpet bombing than a scalpel. That isn't to say that they can't have their uses however.

What we can say with certainty is that there is no mind without the brain, and that neuroscience seems to confirm brain activity proceeding conscious decision-making. These facts combined is a good indicator that singular minds might not be able to explore their own causes, as consciousness might be limited to being only a very small part of cognitive function. An analogy is to view consciousness as the telescope of an observatory. It is good for exploring what you aim it at, but bad for exploring the observatory.

Needless to say, this is all very conjenctural. I know we have some resident neuroscientists. I'm sure they can explain this better than me.

I thought very little about and had little interest in the mind-body relationship until my meditation experiences and the idea of repression. When I changed how I thought about symptoms from not just occurring/not occurring but also repressed/unrepressed, that was a huge breakthrough for me in understanding.

I would agree that an individual mind cannot seemingly explore its own causes, and I've even seen something similar to this statement in religious writings dealing with introspection (Brahman does not know that it is brahman in certain vedantic schools)

I would say rather that in religious practice typically the aim of introspection is not to know what is mind, or how mind works, but to know who am I?, which does not ultimately have to do with objective or reliable descriptions of minds and brains. The self that is supposed to be arrived at finally is not body, or thoughts, or emotions.

This isn't theoretical though but based on my experiences in which through meditation I've made the non physical manifest physically. If this mechanism isn't "located" in the mind then I don't know how else to explain it.

I always try to qualify this by saying I don't know if someone can believe this without first developing their level of awareness and intuition to a certain point. When I write the book, I'll make my case the best I can but it will be more an invitation to go through the process. But first I have to finish healing myself.

I should say I'm aware all of this is similar to dianetics (I'm not a Scientologist) but I was unaware of dianetics until after I had already realized all of this. The difference is I know how to heal it.

On introspection, you realise that everything you thought you did, is just happening automatically. You arent doing your thoughts for example, they just appear and disappear. You also find there is no such thing as mind. Its just a convenient label.

You also find there is no such thing as consciousness, as in , a field, or container, in which things are cognized. You find that there is no separation between what is cognized, and what is doing the cognizing. Furthermore, there is no "thing" that is doing the cognizing.

I find this hard to relate to science, which seems to say that the brain is the seat of consciousness. Thoughts are always coming up saying "well, something must be conscious, brains are needed for consciousness" and so on

I've never been sure if I've really understood you properly neeeel but my impression is most of your objection arises from equating "existence" with some kind of ontologically fundamental substance or "thing".

I think it's very likely the case that thoughts and minds are not "things", I think it's well established that there is no such thing as the Cartesian Theatre of Descartes' dualism, and I think you are certainly right that the distinction between subject and object is not ontologically fundamental either, but I don't think any of those things diminishes the reality of thoughts and minds and selves. It just changes the way they fit into an understanding of reality as a whole.

Science notes that there are strong correlations between physical phenomena in brains and phenomenal conscious states, and that changes in brain state in some cases arise just prior to changes in phenomenal conscious states, which certainly implies causation, although perhaps it is more complicated. That's not really the same as saying that the brain contains such "things" as thoughts, or such a "thing" as consciousness. I don't know what sort of ontology for minds science will eventually arive at, but I think at the moment it's entirely agnostic about it.

You have a conscious and subconscious mind. The automatic thoughts are subconscious mind. The conscious mind is capable of conscious thought or intention.

I know a couple of us have brought this up before, but you should really read Hume sometime.

I havent read hume, was always under the impression that he generally agreed with me? What do you recommend I should read of his?

If you look , you will find this is not true

I think I am on the right lines in this question. I think that there is the chemical matter of the brain, and there is the electromagnetic component. The moments that we experience are electromagnetic fields, if we look within ourselves we can see a curved nature, there aren't boxes int he experience, but there are boxes in the game theory structure of neurones. The electromagnetic fields overlap and the effect is analogue with time from the neuronal structure changing and different areas firing in higher quantity.

This ultimately means that digital/physical things are not real, all experience has the common denominator of requiring light - in vision obviously, but also internally within bio-'electric' systems .

http://www.konkoly.hu/staff/grandpierre/wf97.html (This guy would agree with Planck?)

I am at a loss with language, it is very annoying. If I didn't smoke so much weed would probably be arrogant enough to think I could decode it.

if they dont exist as an ontologically fundamental substance or thing, then what do they exist as?


Yes, It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Your views seem primarily negative (in the sense that you mostly criticize other views rather than offer your own alternative) and are similar to Hume's, however, he also has a positive philosophy that he builds on top of this generally skeptical outlook. While A Treatise on Human Nature is generally considered Hume's best and most important work, it is pretty long, so I would probably recommend An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

There is no particular reason to doubt empirical inquiry into the mind.

You can always pursue philosophical skepticism to the point where no position can be argued as absolute, but that applies to anything - including said philosophical skepticism. All you are left with then is an intellectual void and the conclusion that nothing is knowable.

That would be fine if it was a position carried honestly, as it then would resolve itself within a few days when its proponents died from thirst. This is rarely the case however.

Where Hume agreed with you was in rejecting substance dualism

Where he (seemingly) disagrees with you is in rejecting the reality of selves or minds entirely.

His proposal as to "what they exist as" was bundles of properties which may or may not amount to some kind of property dualism (see the SEP article on Dualism)

There are also process ontologies, epiphenomenalism, or emergentism, and probably other views.

In any case, I think the point is that even in a view where consciousness and minds are functionally reducible to a lower level description, it can still be meaningful to talk about the "existence" of minds and selves. Someone like Douglas Hofstatder (see Godel, Escher Bach, or I am a Strange Loop) would even argue that it is necessary to speak of these things in a higher level language, because pure reductionisms miss something essential, but not in a way that makes a "self" an object in a naive sense. Unfortunately I don't think I can summarize Hofstatder's arguments very well.

It would probably be enough to realize that criticizing the use of the words "self" and "I" and "mind" probably misses the point in that not everyone (or even necessarily most people) using the words are thereby endorsing the kind of dualism that you are rejecting

So now that I've shared all that, what are your guys's initial reactions? I already know to expect resistance so feel free to speak candidly.

jesus christ "is come"? Back to school with you!


this is why I cannot respect religious people.

also i like saying ****ing jesus ****ing christ a lot and they don't appreciate it.

It's not clear at all what the subconscious has to do at all with DNA mutation or that the two share a "chain of causality" in any meaningful way, at least as far as I understand random mutation and natural selection. I can't really make sense of it. It's obvious that it's meant to be an elaboration on your model where "mind" is causally prior to "brain" but given your methods it's dubious that the kind of introspection you mention actually leads to conceptual knowledge about DNA mutations, or that you have any chance of using technical language from scientific fields in a meaningful way. (This is generally a problem in my experience with non-scientists adopting scientific language in support of spiritual ideas).

You seem to refer a lot to a process or set of experiences you've had but you never really say enough about what the experiences actually are or where they've led you for it to be easy to relate to. The same with the mind/brain stuff or the mechanism of "freezing" muscles. I don't really care because I don't know why I should.

I don't know what your experiences were or are, so I can't say that they weren't profound or meaningful for you. It doesn't seem very likely to me that the interpretation and conceptual views you've constructed around them are likely to appeal to me.

Not a fan of the King James edition I take it

The idea is that the unresolved "freeze imprints" from this mechanism serve as a negative signal to the cell and mutations are the result. Here is a video of a biologist breaking down the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjj0...jS46wKVl_FS1vg

Keep in mind, he is unaware of the existence of this mechanism so his argument centers around belief which is not quite right. The signal from this mechanism (subconscious mind) is much stronger than the signal from belief (conscious mind).

Also, have you read this article?
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....e-epigenetics/

Edit: The 'freeze' response is a frozen stress state which produces a continuous stress signal.

I can't speak for philosophers, but in psychology it is unproblematic to speak of a mind or a being. It is also unproblematic to use reductionism or higher level terms.

I think people forget that these typical criticism aimed at reductionism can be aimed at any ontological position that seeks to explain a phenomena. It isn't what you experience? No explanation is what you experience. Is there a gap in saying something caused something else? Such a gap will exist in any statement of causation, including probabilistic ones.

Some would try to extrapolate "pure" (non-existentalist) phenomenology or qualia to avoid these trappings, but that in itself is speculation. Speculation is problematic in phenomenology.

Good luck Lucid Dream. People are stubborn and resistant to alternative viewpoints. I don't understand it either but it just goes to prove how much of a religion science really is to some people.