The Character of the Body

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I don't see how your view that we are only a body could adequately describe this phenomenon. You say that the mind can't believe a missing limb is still there, phantom pains prove that to be false.

It can feel as if the feet are there, but he's not going to believe that the feet are actually there. He's not going to go out and start playing soccer the day after he loses his feet because he has phantom pains and believes the feet remain. No, he does not believe the feet are still there.

How are treatments able to reduce the pain of phantom limb if they are administered to the body?

a reply to: Aphorism
These valid questions necessitate the spirit of inquiry, not the spirit of dismissal.

a reply to: Aphorism

When I say to you: Choose 5 numbers, of your choosing.

What is the mechanism, which chooses the numbers? How does it do it?

This is the mechanism that is meant, in regards to the term; Mind.

The body is whole and complete.

The heart bumps blood. The lungs distribute oxygen. The joints bed. The red and white blood cells do what they do and are what they are. The veins carry blood. The stomach breaks down food materials. The reproductive organs do what they do. The brain does what it does. Something the brain does, is think. A word used to describe the act and ability of thought, is, Mind.

a reply to: Aphorism

I don't understand your question.

What is it that hurts when someone has a phantom pain? It's obviously not the missing body part, so what is it? Your view cannot explain this phenomenon because your view does not allow for anything other than the body to exist.

In your view, a usb and the information stored on it are the same thing. There is no difference between the hardware and software. What you fall to acknowledge though is that the information stored on the usb can be deleted and replaced with different information. You an even transfer it onto a computer and smash the usb and the information is preserved.

The usb represents the body and the information represents the mind in this case. The mind is not the body and the body is not the mind. If you do not get it by now you never will. It's an extremely simple concept to understand. If you don't get it then that shows willful ignorance and unwillingness to change on your part in my opinion.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

A USB is a poor analogy. Software is machine readable code. Not any sort of mind-stuff. I already stated that the computational theory of mind is on its way out and will be replaced by embodied cognition. You can go research the facts for yourself if you like, but the computer analogy simply doesn't work anymore. The only reason people would keep using it is willful ignorance, or perhaps plain old ignorance.

The body hurts when someone has a phantom limb. Whether it is neurological, the visual system, the brain, it doesn't matter—all of these are parts of the body in a rich sensual environment. Cognition involves body and environment, no need to run to non-physical substances to explain them away.

Airforce pilots say that the plain becomes a part of them. Phantom limb patients feel better with a prosthesis. Your body is in an intimate relationship with its environment.Your mind theory has no place in empirical science, and therefor you rely on an assumption to explain things for you. That is an error.

a reply to: ImaFungi

When I say to you: Choose 5 numbers, of your choosing.

What is the mechanism, which chooses the numbers? How does it do it?

You want me to say "mind" does it don't you. I am saying there is no single mechanism but the body.

First I'd have to listen to you. This involves an environment suitable enough for sound to pass through it, and two beings, the speaker and listener, making utterances.

I would have to access memories relevant to what is being said. I would have to comprehend a stream of sound as being language, dividing it into distinctive phonetic features and segments, grouping them into morphenes. I would pick out words giving them meaning to context. I would notice and attempt to understand your body language. I would be anticipating where the conversation was going. I would be formulating an answer. All while this is happening my body would be sustaining itself, metabolizing, digesting, etc. etc. etc.

In real-time, not in an imaginary vacuum, there is a complex system of mechanisms interacting with its environment, sustaining itself, thinking, interacting with its surroundings. This mechanism is the body in a sensually rich environment. The mind is not an organ and there is no one mechanism but the body performing the act of thinking. The truth occurs in real-time, and if you have an interest in seeking the truth, it would be best to include, rather than discard, what happens in real time.

originally posted by: Aphorism


You want me to say "mind" does it don't you. I am saying there is no single mechanism but the body.

Not, necessarily, I do not care about the word mind. As you can tell from my statements, I care that there is something that occurs in the brain, that is different then what occurs in the foot.

If I can extrapolate your point, it would be that if anything, the body is the mind, the foot would be an extension of the brain. But, I dont think you can argue that, the bulk of the 'activity' that we associate with human willful cognition, mental faculties, thought, vision, imagination, takes place somewhere, somehow in the head. Yes, you need the entire universe to exist before you can have apple pie, as Carl Sagan expressed, as you need the entire environment, and body system to evolve over billions of years, but to deny that there are fundamental differences between the parts and sectors of the body, that have specific functions and roles and abilities, is denying the existence of that which you are having and doing to deny that which you deny having and doing (thought, and thinking).

First I'd have to listen to you. This involves an environment suitable enough for sound to pass through it, and two beings, the speaker and listener, making utterances.

I would have to access memories relevant to what is being said.

Access memories relevant to what is being said? Where are these memories? how do they physically and tangibly exist? How do you access them? How do you control which to access? When you do access them, where and how are you viewing them?

I would have to comprehend a stream of sound as being language, dividing it into distinctive phonetic features and segments, grouping them into morphenes. I would pick out words giving them meaning to context. I would notice and attempt to understand your body language. I would be anticipating where the conversation was going. I would be formulating an answer. All while this is happening my body would be sustaining itself, metabolizing, digesting, etc. etc. etc.

In real-time, not in an imaginary vacuum, there is a complex system of mechanisms interacting with its environment, sustaining itself, thinking, interacting with its surroundings. This mechanism is the body in a sensually rich environment. The mind is not an organ and there is no one mechanism but the body performing the act of thinking. The truth occurs in real-time, and if you have an interest in seeking the truth, it would be best to include, rather than discard, what happens in real time.

Do 'you' have 'ANY' 'control' over 'anything'?

a reply to: Aphorism

A man who is wheelchair bound, his legs do not walk or move, he is disabled. Legs are for walking right, or at least, legs can walk, legs are how the body walks? How come when this disabled man body tells the legs to walk they dont? The legs are there, why dont they walk?

a reply to: ImaFungi

You're right to say much of it has to do with the brain. I obviously cannot deny that. And a brain completes many complex tasks. I am not here denying that the brain completes many complex tasks, I am denying that the mind is one organ, one mechanism, and one task. A brain does not think or mind. It is impossible; and if we had a brain in a jar it would be impossible to say "that is a mind" or "that thinks", by virtue of the fact that it cannot nor ever will think or mind.

Yes a brain is required for all cognitive activity. Yes a brain completes many complex cognitive tasks. Yes a brain performs differently than a foot. But why mentally rip apart the brain and the rest of the body, hold one in one hand and another in another and say this the mind, and that one isn't? How much thinking will be going on when you separate these two?

I would appreciate if you can answer these questions.

Since the brain is the mind, where does the brain end, the rest of the body begin?

Where does the mind end, and the body begin?

Through which mechanisms does single a mechanism somewhere in the brain control the entire body?

Where does one mechanism end and another begin?

What mechanism controls this mechanism?

I dont think anyone is ripping apart the body and saying the mind exists in a vacuum or a vat, or at least I am not. Nor am I saying that there is 1 mind particle for each human. I agree it is a sum or net of processes, but I do believe there are local processes which are more responsible for the invention of the term mind, and what that term is attempting to point to.

originally posted by: Aphorism




Since the brain is the mind, where does the brain end, the rest of the body begin?

I did not say the brain is the mind, I said, the brain is where the mind seems to reside and operate from, where the understanding mechanism of these words is located.

I would agree that you can call the body one big brain, and that what we call the brain, is the main hub, that the big brain, sends all the information, to the little head brain, which utilizes its properties to make sense of this information, the process of which, the brain see, experiencing, making sense, understanding, altering information, is referred to as the process of the mind.

Posting this for a picture: www.salon.com...

Where does the mind end, and the body begin?

The body is the term used to define the set, the whole. The mind is a part, or aspect, or function, or property, contained in the whole. Your question may be like asking where does the 1 pizza slice end and the pizza pie begin, but in that example it would be a lot easier to physically show you. We would assume the geometries and energies and molecular connections and functions thus far we are aware of and can detect and depict in imagery devices and such, are on the brain part, too subtle, vast, and fast, to directly point to, and on the technology scale, because our technology cannot achieve that yet. Perhaps there are theories though.

I would say the mind exists in the brain, and functions in the brain, and that it uses electrical impulses, billions every second, and the brain (not speaking for myself) is relatively small, so think how close together neurons are, even though they are extremely small, and think about electrical signals transferring between them, at even a small fraction of the speed of light, gives some incite as to how I can type so fast and hardly use any effort to think what I am saying, but I know that some how I am first typing in my head, which in 'real time' or 'as fast as I can' as this action in real time might be slower for others, as there are slower typers, and thinkers, is sending the letters to my fingers, utilizing muscle memories of my learned keyboard use, meaning I have a replica keyboard in my head, I understand in physical reality space, without even looking, where the keys are, because it is measured out, to some sort of scale in my head (people dont often think of this sort of stuff because it takes effort, but even something like basketball, is using this type of 'natural' extremely subtle or not, physics calculations), so the impulses go down each finger and type each letter very quickly, and then just as quickly the keys are pressed and they send a signal to the computer to put up the letters on the screen. I would not say, my mind is in my fingers, I would say my mind has access to my fingers, and can control them with what would be akin to wires, or, the nervous system.

Through which mechanisms does single a mechanism somewhere in the brain control the entire body?

no?

Where does one mechanism end and another begin?

It doesnt matter, unless you want to claim the entire universe is 1 single continuous object, you must contain it exists of different objects, which results in even, extremely intimate, symbiotic, unalterable connections between objects, they are still different objects that undergo and produce different and exact functions. The male reproductive organ is 'sensitive'. like you feel with your finger tips something, you can feel its texture, its like resolution, how much information you can receive, via electronic stimulation of molecules, that are sent up your nervous system to your brain to store and compare with all histories and knowledge. The male reproductive organ has more sensitive, nerve endings than your fingers (I think, and/or hope). So you can say in a sense, as it is colloquially said, 'ugh, men are such pigs, they all think with their ______' . When that part of the man is in a stimulating situation, the reason of pleasure or extreme stimulation, is all that information is being sent to the brain, from experience I can claim it is not as sensitive as the finger. So would one say, 'their brain is in there'? Their mind is in there? Or would one say, there brain and mind are always where it is, and the greater body, experiences sensations/information from the environment and constantly streams it to the brain, to be stored, judged/made sense of, experienced.

What mechanism controls this mechanism?

A question like this, is why the nature of mind/consciousness/awareness is mysterious, and currently not fully understood. How to escape infinite regressions I suppose. Like is the brain/mind just a hall of mirrors, that sustains a holographic projection of information, but like, where is the controlling factor, what is seeing the information and interacting with it. There are robots that can 'see' things in the environment, and interact with them accordingly. Its programmed to respond certain ways, when its instruments of detection receive something in the environment that is compatible for it to respond in the way it is programmed too if such a thing is detected in the environment.

a reply to: Aphorism

contemplation of the body is a good one

to me it seems that the mind and body are separate by way of it's functions in accordance to their boundaries set by our understanding, but one in the same by way of contemplating the entire being doing. Mind within body. The body is the machine, the processor, facilitator of movement and life. The mind are the aggregate components built from sensations arising through the different gateways of body deriving from sound, touch, smell, taste, sight, the reactions to these sensations in accordance to one's gathered experience, and the thread which binds them all and asks the questions of what it all means, how it all works, and what we can do with it, or about it.

there seems to be no separate entity existing within or without the body, yet, when we break down the body into its components, we can neither find ourselves in its skin, in its eyes, tongue, nose or ears. What we can learn from this sort of contemplation is that there actually exists no being separated from the body, or in any specific way shape or form permanent in any part of the body... it seems that we are truly an amalgam of complex going ons, and when we take a look at the impermanence of these things happening, we can see that there seems to be no permanent being as well

defining oneself as the character of the body, or an agent in form of a body, can be limiting as well, as this denotes a sense of separation from the world around you, isolation within your skin... and we can see that separation when viewed in this reductionist format is not only limiting in terms of being part of the world, but also limiting in terms of putting blinders on our ability to understand the interconnection of all phenomena in the universe, within and without. Through several studies we have seen that mind and matter are not that disjointed, in fact, they play upon the effect of one another, in a sense if we are to pull back and view the picture wholly, we see that there is no separation between the two, but a unified substance being molded by different forces, taking shapes, names, and stories to be heard and told.

so it's a game of constant change, from one form to another, our wisdom or discernment is derived in investigating these links, what causes the arising of a certain emotion, idea?

is it better to understand who we are? or is it better to understand how we become who we are?

a reply to: ImaFungi

I dont think anyone is ripping apart the body and saying the mind exists in a vacuum or a vat, or at least I am not. Nor am I saying that there is 1 mind particle for each human. I agree it is a sum or net of processes, but I do believe there are local processes which are more responsible for the invention of the term mind, and what that term is attempting to point to.

I did not say the brain is the mind, I said, the brain is where the mind seems to reside and operate from, where the understanding mechanism of these words is located.

I would agree that you can call the body one big brain, and that what we call the brain, is the main hub, that the big brain, sends all the information, to the little head brain, which utilizes its properties to make sense of this information, the process of which, the brain see, experiencing, making sense, understanding, altering information, is referred to as the process of the mind.

I understand what you mean. Obviously the brain is a sort of “hub” as you say, anatomically and functionally. However, it’s just tough for me to make sense of the idea that there is something called “mind” “residing” and “operating” in and from the brain. We have never found any such thing, despite fully exploring the anatomy. The arguments against computational functionalism are just too problematic for me to willfully accept. You’ve made great examples, but they all rest on the assumption of mind, which is easily doubted.

I am not trying to call the body one big brain, for that is a metaphorical claim and not actual. Let me speak from a soapbox for a second. What I’m saying is the body is a fundamental, necessary, and falsely overlooked aspect of thinking, learning, feeling, language and consciousness. First, it is the only object that displays what we call thinking, feeling and consciousness in terms of humans. We have only ever seen bodies think, feel and be conscious – and we can even ask them what they are thinking about. The empirical evidence for this is insurmountable. We analyze bodies to discern consciousness and if they are thinking and we can even ask them. It is visible. The empirical evidence for mind? There is none. So if observation offers any sort of truth value, we need to start exploring other ideas.

95% of all thought is unconscious. I think you’re considering only the tip of an iceberg. When we think of taking a sip of water, we are unconscious of an unfathomable amount of processes occurring in real-time. We just think “Oh, I’m going to take a drink of water”, without concern of grasping, rotating joints a certain way, breathing, flexing the muscles involved, firing certain neurons, tilting the neck, swallowing, digesting, filtering the water. The body allows this, just like it performs minding, and I see no reason to suppose a mind has anything to do with it. All of this occurs within the boundary of our skin at the exact same moment we think, with any element pulled or damaged within it, mind immediately affected. Even if we are unaware that we have lost a limb, the body knows immediately, with hundreds of thousands of years of evolution working to fix the wound at the moment it happens. Who controls this? We as bodies? or not we as minds? We must submit that if we are minds, with the majority of the body is in complete over itself without our involvement, and we are determinists, and will-less slaves taking a ride. If we are the body, then as bodies, we are the entirety of what the boundary of the skin contains; and it is not that we as bodies are unconscious, but that we are so conscious we don’t even realize it.

We lose over half our neural connections by the time we’re five. You would not know, remember or learn, anything about traditional typing if you had no fingers. In some way, however small, fingers have allowed you to type in your head. Your fingers have allowed you to think about typing. Granted, it is likely your brain that allows it to think in a particular fashion, but it is entirely built upon the neural connections we lose and form in our youngest years, which is when we’re learning to interact as sensual bodies in the world.

I agree it does involve a gestalt switch in order to think this way. I don’t think I can convince you, but I am confident that the empirical sciences will one day vindicate it.

A question like this, is why the nature of mind/consciousness/awareness is mysterious, and currently not fully understood. How to escape infinite regressions I suppose. Like is the brain/mind just a hall of mirrors, that sustains a holographic projection of information, but like, where is the controlling factor, what is seeing the information and interacting with it. There are robots that can 'see' things in the environment, and interact with them accordingly. Its programmed to respond certain ways, when its instruments of detection receive something in the environment that is compatible for it to respond in the way it is programmed too if such a thing is detected in the environment.

I agree. It needs grounding. We need something to work with. 2500 years and still nothing.

a reply to: Aphorism

Still blasting your pathetic look on life and trying to justify your reasons is see

a reply to: Aphorism

my arguments dont rest on assumptions, only one fact. I am not talking to your foot right now, I am talking to 'something' which has the ability to see options, and make choices. That is the mind. Just because we dont know how it works does not mean it does not exist or doesnt work. Will. Choice. How is this possible? Everything in the universe is determined besides 'life', how? How does material escape pure determinism? If you claim humans have 0% free will I will spare you the argument and claim you are wrong. If you admit humans have greater than 0% free will, than the word used to describe this truth, is 'mind', the mind is 'will', we dont know how it exists, how it can exist, how it works, but we know it exists. Because we are it. You are suggesting the whole body as a whole is the will, or the mind? Yes, it is complicated because there needed to be billions of years of linear trial and error, slowly building these structures which work together, so it would help to better comprehend how the earliest forms of 'consciousness' might have developed. Yes, I agree you cant separate it, but the fact that a human with no limbs can exist, and maybe one kidney, stuff like this, expresses that the entire body is not needed for the will to function, for the mind to think. So there is the body structure, a system of structures and networks, cells, organs, developed to withstand a difficult environment, that needs to take materials from the environment to fill itself with, to continual refresh its systems, keep them updated, and the decision making, the king of this colony of body, is done by the mind. It is a calculator, if you put a body in a field, you can say it wouldnt need to use its mind to think to run away if there was a bear it sees, the information registers as danger, get away. Or if there were different options of food in the field, the body would have to make a choice, using odds, and history of what foods are the best, or if these were animals, which it would be more likely to capture. The whole system works in unison for the common goal, of remaining existing, the whole system plays a role in the nature of the choices, the stomach says 'dont eat rocks and dirt...i cant use that', that means the body has made a decision for the mind, but the mind can still eat rocks and dirt, the mind can do anything 'it' 'you' wants, because it has power, it has its own choice, it is will, it is its own will.


" The empirical evidence for this is insurmountable. We analyze bodies to discern consciousness and if they are thinking and we can even ask them. It is visible. The empirical evidence for mind? There is none. So if observation offers any sort of truth value, we need to start exploring other ideas. "

This is the difference between objective and subjective, and a funny tricking of yourself on your part. You look at the outside world at objects, and you dont see the mind, you see a body moving. What I have been talking about, is with knowledge, and to your knowledge, of your experience as a body. A subjective experience.

Before I go further, can you please define your definition of the term 'mind' that you are denying exists? Because I have used several sentence of free thinking descriptions of interrelations, and I get the the feeling you are still talking about it in an odd manner, as if it some 'solid' thing that exists, like a baseball. I am not suggesting the mind is 1 thing that is found in the body like, a heart is one thing found in the body. I suggested it is the sum or net of processes in the brain, and interrelations between structures and mechanisms that are complex, and sophisticated, multi layered and faceted and mysterious to us at this time.


Animals are evidences of what bodies do with lack of mind. They are manly body, a more immediate relationship between mental faculty computation systems and the physical world, a more immediate connection. Though they also have amazing memories and abilities certainly, birds remembering their environment, most animals remembering their environment, hunting timing and patterns, stalking prey etc. But the difference between human and other animals, well, all that humans accomplish as far as building tools and changing their environment, is responsible mainly, yes, the structure of the body and brain, but also how the will uses this structure. All humans dont have to build sky scrapers and jet planes and nuclear power plants and play music and make art and write a novel, all humans can sit in the dirt like monkeys and eat fruit and meditate on nothing all day, humans can do this for thousands of years, or work out everyday, and that is it, only eat, work out, and sleep, and that can be the humans life for thousands and thousands of years, or will, our mind, is what allows us to make choices, out of information, to accomplish more with our bodies and environments.