Pseudo-Philosophy and Mysticism

A nice thing about logic is that a reasonable conclusion is reasonable no matter what your subconscious does to you.

That is why reason is so important to the advancement of permanently increasing human knowledge.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
A nice thing about logic is that a reasonable conclusion is reasonable no matter what your subconscious does to you.

That is why reason is so important to the advancement of permanently increasing human knowledge.

Eh, I don't know. When you are good at it, you can rationalize just about anything, no matter what the actual source was.

a reply to: Bluesma

Eh, I don't know. When you are good at it, you can rationalize just about anything, no matter what the actual source was.

But that's just pure insanity... How can one say one knows anything about the true nature of the mind, or another person's mind, if by your own interpretation of the nature of the mind, it is impossible to know anything about even ones own mind???

originally posted by: nonjudgementalist


No, it really is that simple. If it doesnt cause you to act, its not a primary motivator behind your actions. If it does cause you to act, it is the primary motive behind your actions. ........decisions are made primarily by the conscious mind, in fully conscious individuals, and it is perfectly possible for those decisions to be absent of any shadowy demiurges as you and Nietzsche believe influence all our choices.

That's not to say individuals never act on demiurges, rather it is to refute the sophistry that assumes no conscious being is capable of fully conscious action.
And that fully conscious action don't exist.

Consider the word "subconscious". It means "not conscious", existing in mind, but below awareness. So that indicates that you would not be aware of their influence, so could claim other motivations and truly believe them, but be mistaken.
So how are you (the person unaware of it) able to judge if it is happening?

A person could have all kinds of motivations existing in them simultaneously, being aware of some of them does not eliminate others from existing.

The only way I have been able to observe and recognize my subconscious influence is in analyzing repeating patterns of my behavior, and the repeating outcomes/effects that they procure, in a behaviorist fashion.

I think I am doing this for this reason ______, and yet, I observe that every time I do it, there is something else that happens instead. This is why people repeat mistakes- because they are NOT mistakes. There is something they want that they are getting out of it, but they are in denial about that particular "want".

To think every thought and action as always having subconscious connotation and demiurges behind them is not an insight, its an obsession.

To think that the conscious mind is the sole source of action, thought and perception is a denial of half of the entity. Ego believing it is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.
Call it an obsession, if you like... I will call it a focus upon wholeness.
I am this. Always.

originally posted by: nonjudgementalist


But that's just pure insanity... How can one say one knows anything about the true nature of the mind, or another person's mind, if by your own interpretation of the nature of the mind, it is impossible to know anything about even ones own mind???

Read my post above. It is not impossible. But it is never "done". As long as you live and act, the exploration and discover continues. That's the beauty of living! Further discovery of self and other is always happening.

But, I do think that observation of the objective world, and ones place in it as object, is of great aid.
Simply looking within constantly (which has it's great advantages, of course) is not the only source of knowledge, in my opinion. I consider myself a spiritual person. I have practiced meditation since I was taught it at seven years old.
I have been through studies in all sorts of beliefs, religions, occult practices, and had a myriad of paranormal type experiencess.

And yet. I value looking at things in a down to earth pragmatic and logical way too. That provides balance.

I am curious LesMis, what is consciousness according to you?

AFAIK, current science is unable to answer this question. So consciousness, which eludes observation from an "outside" source, can not be said to exist in a scientific way. By which sense do we "observe" consciousness? Do I see it? Do I hear it? Can I feel it? Can I taste it? Can I smell it?

Can I/we in any way prove that consciousness "exists"?

It is commonly accepted that, among other species, humans are conscious beings. We take it for given that "it" is there, but there is no evidence for it. So if we can not provide evidence, is consciousness real?

As a side note, several different schools of thought, use the term: sat-chit-ananda to describe the nature of reality and/or of God. It means: Being-consciousness-bliss

a reply to: scratchmane

Most of arguments would be near to the embodied cognition school, with some externalism mixed in.

Consciousness is the body. When people speak of consciousness, mind, awareness and so on, I am reminded of the distinction between the morning star and the evening star—both are misapprehensions of Venus. An owl's consciousness is it's body, an ants consciousness is its body, etc. In other words, there is no "consciousness", there is only the body.

The hard problem of consciousness is Not a problem. Nothing of the sort arises. There are no such things or substances some inner point of reference is interacting with. No qualia, no subject, no subjectivity. It amounts to biology.

Common sense approves that the body is what we observe when we observe or attempt to observe consciousness in every single case. It is what goes in the fMRIs, it is what neurosurgeons examine and it is what psychologists observe. there is no substance, emergent property, or thing besides the body we can honestly call consciousness.

Les,
I just want to, late as usual, thank you for this clarification, I couldn't have phrased it in such a proper manner.
It has been a long standing annoyance.
Perhaps we could have a specific "New Age" Forum.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I stumbled upon this youtube channel and most of the videos are exactly how you described

any questions or criticism of the subject matter are met with anger and blatant racism

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Aye without the body we cannot have consciousness

a reply to: sapien82

what about the plants? They have it to, yes?

proof:
www.youtube.com...

video is about plants and conciousness which is evidently present in them? So on that note, you and Mister Les are wrong...
There are a few experiments in it which can show you some amazing and very thought provoking about the nature of our reality if this is true what they say in this movie.

You can watch only the first 10 minutes and till then you will see what this video is all about, because it is long...

Then there are mushrooms, not the edible kind. Which have some amazing feats about this regard and it is also correct to say that some kind of conciousness is present also in them and in my opinion in all living matter, not just the one with a body. If you want proof for mushrooms then watch this or google:
www.youtube.com...

So I think that is it premature to say something like that about conciousness, because we are still discovering new things about it even today, and it is good to keep an open mind until more is known and not draw the line!

So on that note, start meditating and experience your conciousness, you will learn a lot about yourself

a reply to: UniFinity

A plant is an organism. It is a body and has anatomy. On that note, you're wrong.

originally posted by: Bluesma

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: Bluesma

That's why putting all the power in the hands of one individual is very dangerous. Society turns into a swarm of sycophants who would give just about anything to experience a few more moments of that empathic relationship, until they are literally mauling each other in a competition for the most prime proximity.

Consider one-on-one relationships-
the teacher and student? The parent and child!
I do want to have power over my small child. I perceive they need it and it helps them. I think they want that from me too.
When I am in power over them, they feel safe, and they are drawn to that power as well, as something they would like to have themselves one day, and can learn about it through empathizing with me, watching how I use it, feeling being on the receiving end of it. Is there anything really dangerous about that?
Expressing power over another is not inherently or universally destructive or dangerous.

It's all too easy to blur the line between protection and control, or freedom and abandonment. It's in these moments that we learn how much alike vice and virtue really are.

a reply to: UniFinity

Plants have physical bodies too, they have cells and nuclei which make up the plant and is considered its corporeal form as do fungi as do animals !

They have physical properties without which they wouldn't have consciousness.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

A book which gently eased me into logic and reason and in general philosophy was Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
it made me want to read more about it.

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: UniFinity

Plants have physical bodies too, they have cells and nuclei which make up the plant and is considered its corporeal form as do fungi as do animals !

They have physical properties without which they wouldn't have consciousness.

what makes you say plants have a consciousness?

a reply to: TzarChasm

I was going by what Semicollegiate had posted a youtube video alluding to plants having consciousness.

Was there not a study done which showed that plants feel pain ?

In any case if plants do have consciousness which Im quite willing to accept then I think they have it because they have physical form

is consciousness and reality not some sort of paradoxical duality , that one cant exist without the other ?
consciousness manifests itself in 3rd dimensional physical forms in order to better understand itself.
at the moment consciousness came into being so did the physical universe!

Just a thought of course nothing new

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Ok,would you two carry on the 'seeing' philosophy conversation, I'm pretty sure I was a hair away from being able to read braille.

a reply to: sapien82

Plants don't exhibit autonoetic consciousness.

I'd much rather go with Socrates.

. In several dialogues, most notably the Republic, Socrates inverts the common man's intuition about what is knowable and what is real. While most people take the objects of their senses to be real if anything is, Socrates is contemptuous of people who think that something has to be graspable in the hands to be real. In the Theaetetus, he says such people are "eu a-mousoi", an expression that means literally, "happily without the muses"

In other words, such people live without the divine inspiration that gives him, and people like him, access to higher insights about reality. Socrates's idea that reality is unavailable to those who use their senses is what puts him at odds with the common man, and with common sense. Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind, and this idea is most famously captured in his allegory of the cave, and more explicitly in his description of the divided line.

Socrates says in the Republic that people who take the sun-lit world of the senses to be good and real are living pitifully in a den of evil and ignorance. Socrates admits that few climb out of the den, or cave of ignorance, and those who do, not only have a terrible struggle to attain the heights, but when they go back down for a visit or to help other people up, they find themselves objects of scorn and ridicule.

Pseudo-philosophers indeed. There are no real philosophers that haven't attained their first grade. They are merely vessels filled by the ideas of other people.

Either way.. philosophy as you understand it is just a waste of time. Metaphysics as you understand it is just a waste of time. You can't help but pour your scorn on mysticism saying it has never amounted to nothing.. but using your partial criteria that goes for philosophy too.