But that is what they are saying though. That the mind creates pictures about the world based on our experiences with it, but that these pictures are not reality. That reality is empty of what we think it to be.
But if I “cleansed” the false mind (according to them) then I’m not sure what follows can be called living. No likes, no dislikes, just empty. It seems like being a robot. They say that your relationships with people would improve and that you would get compassion, but the opposite seems to be the case.
You can’t tell a depressed person this because the truth would be that they are nothing. There is no positive or negative, those are mental creations based on experience.
I don’t want to believe it to be true but I don’t know how to argue against it.
The term “mind” is a construct, used as a short hand compilation of all of the behaviors that we can subjectively become aware of that take place mostly in our brains (covert behaviors). These behaviors include our various perceiving behaviors, and various thinking behaviors, and visualizing, and remembering, and dreaming, etc.
Just as there are neurological correlates for physical behaviors, there are such for our covert behaviors. (e.g. Moving one’s index finger has a correlating pattern of neurons firing. And picturing something, also, has a correlating pattern of neurons firing.)
It is a mistake to think of “mind” as something that exists independently of the composite of neurological behaviors that it refers to.
These links may be of interest and shed some light on the mystery of the mind which already start at the bacterial level in the form of “quorum sensing”.
Next are two lectures by Anil Seth who reminds us that our brains can only make a “best guess” of the second hand information given to us by our senses.
Xian said; “I know you keep posting that’s Seth video, but that has nothing to do with the mind or what I am talking about.”
Then you are neglecting to establish some very fundamental physics about what your mental pictures consist of.
To the guy who drew his arm from being stabbed “saw” the fake arm as his own. What say you to that?
Contrary to your premature rejection of my important contribution of “controlled hallicination”, it has everything to do with our mental pictures.
In the previous clip by Bonnie Bassler, she explained how information is transmitted via “quorum sensing”, which I believe lays the foundation for a proto-intelligent information processing system.
What do pigeons “see” when tracing magnetic faultlines?
What do butterflies “see” when observing infra-red?
How does a blind person “see” when navigating by clicking of the tongue.
Notice that all species “see” patterns. It is our ability to sense detailed patterns which allows for internal mental 3D “visualization” of what we are seeing.
TimB - It is a mistake to think of “mind” as something that exists independently of the composite of neurological behaviors that it refers to.
To take the one more step on that question.
Logic would be that the mind compares things that your brain has acquired and makes a choice. Using knowledge as the data and wisdom as the choice. You then become who you are by your wisdom. Then we learn of people like Kim Peek and it destroys that hypothesis altogether. Kim Peek had savant syndrome and through him we were able to view some of the mind’s ability. Daniel Tammet, Stephen Wiltshire, Leslie Lemke, Matt Savage, Derek Paravicini and Richard Wawro are other savants that are impressive. If you never read or watch a TV segment on any of these people. Do, it is totally worth it.
I have also been impressed by Marilu Henner’s hyperthymesia.
Let’s say you ask a savant to recite the first fifty prime numbers. They don’t think about it at all like you and I would have to get the first ten numbers. The numbers come to them, not as numbers you and I are used to visualizing. But as colored pictures of wavy numbers.
I found that some savants also have total hyperthymesia. No problem reading a couple of books and remembering every word. Point being that they must have unlocked or use the same parts of the brain that we are unable to reach.
A hypothesis of Hyperthymesia fits very well into pre-history and the reason for no written language. This takes us back into the age of domestication. The domesticated horses were created 6K years ago. Chickens were created 8.5K years ago. Goats created 10K. Pigs, 11K ago. And man created or domesticated 14K to 17K years ago. Note, there are still two unknown branches of mankind that have yet to be found that makeup modern humans. As the difference between man and ape is very little. The domestication of man would show very little or almost nothing in the DNA from undomesticated man.
The second hypothesis to look at and follow is the rate of genome changes. Mother Nature has a rate of evolution change that is known to scientists. But are the domesticated animals following Mother Nature’s evolutionary timeline? Take the chicken for example, it evolves a little at a time, once ever 50K years if I remember right, according to Mother Nature. As far as I can tell the only science trying to follow this evolution patterns of the chicken have had four changes in fifty years. This is looking like Domestication is something that Mother Nature never saw coming. How much of these evolutionary changes are controlled by the brain? And since the brain is the most important item we have. Shouldn’t we be looking at what went on during the Age of Domestication and try and keep tabs on what mankind has done when playing with Mother Nature?
Point being. Are the savants and hyperthymesia actions just a window into our past? The human bottleneck happened 80K years ago. There are several religions in India that claim to go back to and past the bottleneck. The three DNA findings all claim that mankind just about went extinct during the bottleneck. The three DNA results are 5000, 2500 and 500 people left on earth. There was one branch of humans that were known as the people of knowledge. Is what we are seeing possibly some of the genome from this branch?
Write, Hi. The Bassler vid is interesting on various levels. In terms of this thread, I think it is only relevant to the extent that is suggests that verbal behavior, on a very basic respondent level occurs in bacterium. This is consistent with the necessary elements for verbal behavior to develop, i.e., a social organism, and a “listener” that responds favorably to the signaler. In the case of bacteria, the signal is a produced molecule. The “listener” is a group of bacterium that respond when the molecule reaches a density threshold.
So it is interesting that verbal behavior on this most basic level occurs with this level of organisms. And I suggest that our own extraordinarily complex verbal behavior (evolved over eons beyond that basic bacterial language) is necessary for us to even conceive of this current topic (of “mind”).
What we call “mind” encompasses more than our verbal behavior (which is a critical element) however. It includes, as suggested in this thread, visualization behaviors, but also, all of our perceiving behaviors, our remembering behaviors, and other of our behaviors that occur inside our own skin (i.e., behaviors that we can subjectively be aware of but which are covert to others).
Write, I know you THINK that your Seth video answers it, but I saw the whole thing start to finish and nowhere does it address the “mind is pictures” thing. If you saw the link to the meditation site you would see that it has nothing to do with what they are getting at. These are people who say that “you are the universe, because before you there was the universe”.
Xian, the difference between you website and Write’s videos is, one is based on experimentation, the resulting data, and logical conclusions, the other is pure fantasy. Figure out how to tell those two things apart, then you can start forming an opinion on topics like this.
But if someone believes it to be so there surely there must be something to it that we aren’t seeing right? I mean most things don’t just persist without some kind of foundation. Like that article I posted from the buddhist guy about the body.
I don’t think you actually believe that reasoning. You should be able to think of lots of things that persist with no foundation. Have you noticed that Nazism never really went away, and all it’s permutations, like white supremacy and prejudice? How about flat earthers? Or any religion. Maybe one is correct, but they can’t all be true. Maybe there is some core truth in there, but efforts to find it have led to humanism and that is being resisted. This forum is a chance to exercise your reasoning skills. Try doing that.
I have but the reasoning seems to point to them being right. I mean the world that we live in is pretty much a human fabrication. We assign meanings and judgments to things that are inherently empty of them. The fact that everything in the universe is made of the same components since the big bang lends credence to the “you are the universe” and that sense of “separate things” is just in our heads (maybe). That there is no real death just the passing of form, which might have credence due to matter not being created or destroyed.
If people have counters I want to hear them because whenever I run the numbers it points one way.
What do you mean by “you”. Of course you are made of the same things that the universe is made of, what else would you be? You aren’t separate from the universe, but that doesn’t make you the universe. When I think of “me”, I mean the things I can sense and control. I can think about other planets and other times, but those are thoughts occurring between my ears. When my brain stops functioning, those thoughts will be gone. Likewise, other things are also other things. The world will exist without me, just like it did before me. I didn’t fabricate it. Humans fabricate culture and we affect our environments, but there are limits to that. It’s good to understand all that, but you are removing all meaning from words. Matter isn’t created or destroyed but it does form into different things. We aren’t protons that don’t care what thing they are a part of, we are things protons make, and we do care.
But the argument on their side is that the separateness with which we call things is arbitrary. Who are we to say where one thing ends and another begins. It’s like the neck, or arm, or a mountain, a mountains height is pretty much relative. Knowledge is relative. A hand is only a hand in relation to other things. What I think they mean by nondual is not A or B, but not both or neither. You think there is an “atomised” you separate from everything, but who you are is essentially built by the things that came before you, everything having a cause and all that. Hence where they get “you are the universe”. Because “you” are based on everything that came before you, the same as other “things” which would lead to one focal point.
Like I said, I have tried to argue against it but I just keep coming back to them being right.
You did a pretty good job of arguing against them just now. “everything came before you”, “who you are is built by the things that came before you”, “everything having a cause”, those are all explanations of a cause and effect universe that builds things from the available material then gives in to entropy and the material falls apart, only to be built into something else. Some of that material never comes together, never has any interaction with other material. None of it has direct interactions with all the material in the universe. We did just fine as humans for hundreds of thousands of years without any knowledge that we came from star stuff. So, yes it’s all relative, that’s the point. The mountain doesn’t mean anything to the rings of Saturn but to us both are magnificent and inspiring.
Who are we to say where one thing ends and another begins? We are thinking beings who are designed to do exactly that. How could we do otherwise? If we didn’t, we’d miss where the ground ends and the cliff begins, and we wouldn’t be here, we’d all be dead. That I exchange particles with a desk surface when I press my finger into it does not make me one with the desk. To say I am the desk is to use words in a way that they lose meaning. This is something that only someone who is fed and clothed and sheltered can do. Philosophy has it’s place, but you are hung up on it, like it’s something that you have to figure out or you can’t move on. That’s not how you should do philosophy. Spend some time in a soup kitchen, see what that does for your questions about life.
But most of the problems and ways of the world are founded on philosophy. IF we can’t figure out what the truth is then we would be living a lie and no one wants to do that.
This “divine” darkness is likely what they might mean about the “source” of it all. That the true divine light is darkness, not clear light because clear is an attribute and that black light is the source of all light.
