What is consciousness potentially capable of? Why would we be worth nothing if we didn't have this potentiality?If it wasn't for what our consciousness is potentially capable of we would certainly not be worth a dime, let alone saving.
On the worth of human beings...
On the worth of human beings...
Dan (drowden) wrote in another thread:
- Scott
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Chadwick Stone
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Re: On the worth of human beings...
I recall a b-grade movie a few years ago with a remarks made along the order of humanity being a virus, that we are harmful and invasive to the host, mindless consumers of natural resources, wasteful, etc. Add to that our selfishness, greed, lust, and other "shining" attributes and you have a sentient being with a worth somewhere between excrement and pond sludge. Me being an asshole, I know another asshole when I see one, and I have encountered very few people who aren't assholes.sschaula wrote:Dan (drowden) wrote in another thread:
What is consciousness potentially capable of? Why would we be worth nothing if we didn't have this potentiality?If it wasn't for what our consciousness is potentially capable of we would certainly not be worth a dime, let alone saving.
Re: On the worth of human beings...
Because nothing would be known to exist.sschaula wrote:Dan (drowden) wrote in another thread:
What is consciousness potentially capable of? Why would we be worth nothing if we didn't have this potentiality?If it wasn't for what our consciousness is potentially capable of we would certainly not be worth a dime, let alone saving.
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Sschaula, Consciousness is capable of higher consciousness, to answer your first question. As far as your second question, we wouldn't be worth much because we could be lumped into the same category as all the other animals on this planet without argument. At least no argument that would give us a higher value compared to your common cow.
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Carrotblog
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What is consciousness potentially capable of? Why would we be worth nothing if we didn't have this potentiality?
Scott: for a start. You would not even have the ability to phrase your question as you have done.
Your question presupposes consciousness. More than the original poster, your question presupposes second order cognitive thinking, and to ask what one's worth would be, without the necessary condition for the asking, is self-retreating in a futile circle.
Hope that helps.
xoxoxoxox
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
Scott: for a start. You would not even have the ability to phrase your question as you have done.
Your question presupposes consciousness. More than the original poster, your question presupposes second order cognitive thinking, and to ask what one's worth would be, without the necessary condition for the asking, is self-retreating in a futile circle.
Hope that helps.
xoxoxoxox
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Chadwick Stone
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.
sschaula writes:
So, we're stuck worthing things (valuing them or not), including ourselves.
I don't think Dan meant it this way, nevertheless . . . .
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sschaula writes:
It appears that 'worth' in itself [i.e. valuing] is a function of consciousnes itself. Quite literally, "worth" would be out of the picture altogether without some level of consciousness to identify it as such.What is consciousness potentially capable of? Why would we be worth nothing if we didn't have this potentiality?
So, we're stuck worthing things (valuing them or not), including ourselves.
I don't think Dan meant it this way, nevertheless . . . .
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R. Steven Coyle
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Dan Rowden
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My meaning was fairly straightforward but expressive, naturally, of my own values and judgements. Consciousness is capable of perfecting (or fulfilling) itself in the form of enlightenment. Without that potential we simply have ignorance and delusion and those are not things that I regard as worthy of preservation.
Chadwick asked:
Dan Rowden
Chadwick asked:
Evidence suggests that consciousness is an emergent property of a particular form. Where that gets difficult is in the arbitrariness of our determinations of where that form begins and ends. Does a brain exhbit consciousness if you pluck it out and stick it on a table? If so, how does that manifest? What does a disembodied brain think about?Does anyone here believe that consciousness is capable of existing by itself? That is, without some thinking organ such a brain?
Dan Rowden
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Evidence suggests that consciousness is an emergent property of a particular form.
And why shall we limit ourselves to what is evident only? If what we can evince is subject to the senses, already the empirical bias is going to blind one's consciousness to knowing what is possible other than what is empirical.
Does a brain exhbit consciousness if you pluck it out and stick it on a table? If so, how does that manifest?
The brain is your organ. Amongst others, which you use fondly in daily repertoire. Perhaps it is not your favourite organ, and most certainly, this is not the time to go into what your favourite organ might be. Is consciousness a function of the brain? Since when did the the human mind surrender its own consciousness to its brain? The danger of this empirical surrender is an imperial outcome of mindless colonisation by empiricists of everything in this world.
What does a disembodied brain think about?
Well, we see plenty of this on the internet. How do I know you are not just a disembodied brain on the other side of the internet server?
The reduction of the 'mind' and its consciousness to a biological organ seems to be a popular strategy with empiricists.
What do other minds think?
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxox
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
And why shall we limit ourselves to what is evident only? If what we can evince is subject to the senses, already the empirical bias is going to blind one's consciousness to knowing what is possible other than what is empirical.
Does a brain exhbit consciousness if you pluck it out and stick it on a table? If so, how does that manifest?
The brain is your organ. Amongst others, which you use fondly in daily repertoire. Perhaps it is not your favourite organ, and most certainly, this is not the time to go into what your favourite organ might be. Is consciousness a function of the brain? Since when did the the human mind surrender its own consciousness to its brain? The danger of this empirical surrender is an imperial outcome of mindless colonisation by empiricists of everything in this world.
What does a disembodied brain think about?
Well, we see plenty of this on the internet. How do I know you are not just a disembodied brain on the other side of the internet server?
The reduction of the 'mind' and its consciousness to a biological organ seems to be a popular strategy with empiricists.
What do other minds think?
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxox
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Carrotblog
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Consciousness takes form. Form takes consciousness.
Beats me which takes precedence.
Those are cute maxims Zag. Btw - Zag is also a cute name, having being truncated to one syllable too.
Does consciousness take form? Why does consciousness not form taking consciousness? If forming takes consciousness, why does taking consciousness not form other forms of consciousness? If chiasmus [a form] can render truth, in the maxim: "consciousness takes form, form takes consciousness", are we really dealing with two independent variables and not a process in which the data encroaches on itself, and the question itself is unanswerable by this consciousness? It beats you to know which takes precedence: in truth it may beat all of us to know whether forms takes consciousness or consciousness is formed by a higher consciousness, since second and third order consciousness relies on the first consciousness which made us aware of the question of consciousness.
It's really simple huh?? :)
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
Beats me which takes precedence.
Those are cute maxims Zag. Btw - Zag is also a cute name, having being truncated to one syllable too.
Does consciousness take form? Why does consciousness not form taking consciousness? If forming takes consciousness, why does taking consciousness not form other forms of consciousness? If chiasmus [a form] can render truth, in the maxim: "consciousness takes form, form takes consciousness", are we really dealing with two independent variables and not a process in which the data encroaches on itself, and the question itself is unanswerable by this consciousness? It beats you to know which takes precedence: in truth it may beat all of us to know whether forms takes consciousness or consciousness is formed by a higher consciousness, since second and third order consciousness relies on the first consciousness which made us aware of the question of consciousness.
It's really simple huh?? :)
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Chadwick Stone
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No, but then the human brain requires the life support of the human body in order to properly function.drowden wrote:Chadwick asked:
Evidence suggests that consciousness is an emergent property of a particular form. Where that gets difficult is in the arbitrariness of our determinations of where that form begins and ends. Does a brain exhbit consciousness if you pluck it out and stick it on a table?Does anyone here believe that consciousness is capable of existing by itself? That is, without some thinking organ such a brain?
Nothing. It is dead.If so, how does that manifest? What does a disembodied brain think about?
Perhaps my question was not entirely clear; I was referring to the concept of consciousness existing independent of a brain under the assumption that one wouldn't advance a brain was capable of surviving without the benefit of the life support system of a body.
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suergaz
Simple in its chiastic complexity. I love you too bright bunny! You would have words from me, and not only truths, meaning you're worth more than my words. What lattices of life would we not find ourselves in? So why's done, but where? Hare-like I hop to you and there is despair. I cannot! Being is becoming, but look, only words left to recall this, our union! How in this disembodiment to leave myself for the lakes, for surrounds past these bounds...Those are cute maxims Zag. Btw - Zag is also a cute name, having being truncated to one syllable too.
Does consciousness take form? Why does consciousness not form taking consciousness? If forming takes consciousness, why does taking consciousness not form other forms of consciousness? If chiasmus [a form] can render truth, in the maxim: "consciousness takes form, form takes consciousness", are we really dealing with two independent variables and not a process in which the data encroaches on itself, and the question itself is unanswerable by this consciousness? It beats you to know which takes precedence: in truth it may beat all of us to know whether forms takes consciousness or consciousness is formed by a higher consciousness, since second and third order consciousness relies on the first consciousness which made us aware of the question of consciousness.
It's really simple huh?? :)
Yes, you're genius. Feeling its pressure, spot-lighted by it, now chasing your shadow, now fleeing it, ---I can't go on, I go on.
Dan:
1. The possibility of constructing a human logical language that corresponds to our senses? (Deduces exactly what we observe.)
2. The possibility of constructing a human logical language that directly corresponds to 'what exists' and explains the cause of our senses?
Get to it.
frank
What is consciousness potentially capable of? Why would we be worth nothing if we didn't have this potentiality?
1. The possibility of constructing a human logical language that corresponds to our senses? (Deduces exactly what we observe.)
2. The possibility of constructing a human logical language that directly corresponds to 'what exists' and explains the cause of our senses?
Get to it.
frank
Chadwick Stone,
The only assholes I know of are the ones that choose to do the wrong thing. The people that are unaware of what they do, or that they can't help what they know they're doing (such as stepping on small insects while walking across the grass), are innocent.
Just because the majority of people may choose to do the wrong thing, does this mean that they aren't worth a dime? I guess determining that is all about the things you value. If you value enlightenment, of course people that are unenlightened will seem like pond scum to you. But what does that make you?
Anyone who thinks another person is pond scum, is themselves pond scum. A good person, in my opinion, sees the faults of other people as things to improve upon...he keeps the future in mind. There is a saying somewhere about Michelangelo's sculptures...he said that he sees the finished product in his mind, and just chisels away the excess stuff until it's revealed.
I think I can determine, Chadwick, that you think it'd be better for people to be non-assholes. So that's our goal...now how do we accomplish the goal of everyone being good? Where do our actions begin and end?
With ourselves...
Does thinking of the human race as worthless contribute to the goal? Or does seeing the final product in our minds, and chiseling away at the excess, help more?
How do we chisel away at the excess? First, by starting with ourselves (since we are the thing we control the most). If you value goodness, remove all badness from yourself...then you can say "the rest of humanity needs improvement" and go to them.
Instead, you're like a blind person explaining to a blind person support group what it's like to see.
Speaking of goodness...a lot of philosophers want to skip over it to reach an understanding of truth. They scoff at it, thinking they are better than it because they can think. I'm sure a lot of people reading this right now are subconsciously thinking, "Wow this shit is boring...goodness and whatnot, blah blah blah. What a waste of my time! I know the truth...I don't need spiritual principles, and an ethical system." Unenlightened people desperately try to escape it, by whatever means possible. They want to think their way into an everlasting understanding of the truth, without ever changing themselves...they hold fast to their stupid way of life and delude themselves, thinking "I know the truth, therefore I don't need morality".
All the while, their subconscious mind is avoiding every actual stab the truth makes at their life. They retain their ego, actually boosting it up with thoughts of how great a thinker they are, all the while deluding themselves. The perfectly enlightened person is pure and good, therefore the thinker should also try to make themselves pure and good...otherwise he will never become perfectly enlightened. All the thought in the world isn't worth a dime without this potential.
As a test of your enlightenment, I challenge everyone at this forum to be perfectly good. What could it hurt? If you already know the truth, that all things are empty, why not let this person be perfectly good in emptiness?
When you find yourself failing in your own goodness, you'll hopefully realize that you've got some more work to do.
How are we different from everything else in this world? Is a bear an asshole because he catches a salmon out of a river? Is an elephant an asshole when he squishes a small rodent under his foot? All of these things are unaware of what they do...or they can't help it...or they could help it but choose not to.I recall a b-grade movie a few years ago with a remarks made along the order of humanity being a virus, that we are harmful and invasive to the host, mindless consumers of natural resources, wasteful, etc. Add to that our selfishness, greed, lust, and other "shining" attributes and you have a sentient being with a worth somewhere between excrement and pond sludge. Me being an asshole, I know another asshole when I see one, and I have encountered very few people who aren't assholes.
The only assholes I know of are the ones that choose to do the wrong thing. The people that are unaware of what they do, or that they can't help what they know they're doing (such as stepping on small insects while walking across the grass), are innocent.
Just because the majority of people may choose to do the wrong thing, does this mean that they aren't worth a dime? I guess determining that is all about the things you value. If you value enlightenment, of course people that are unenlightened will seem like pond scum to you. But what does that make you?
Anyone who thinks another person is pond scum, is themselves pond scum. A good person, in my opinion, sees the faults of other people as things to improve upon...he keeps the future in mind. There is a saying somewhere about Michelangelo's sculptures...he said that he sees the finished product in his mind, and just chisels away the excess stuff until it's revealed.
I think I can determine, Chadwick, that you think it'd be better for people to be non-assholes. So that's our goal...now how do we accomplish the goal of everyone being good? Where do our actions begin and end?
With ourselves...
Does thinking of the human race as worthless contribute to the goal? Or does seeing the final product in our minds, and chiseling away at the excess, help more?
How do we chisel away at the excess? First, by starting with ourselves (since we are the thing we control the most). If you value goodness, remove all badness from yourself...then you can say "the rest of humanity needs improvement" and go to them.
Instead, you're like a blind person explaining to a blind person support group what it's like to see.
Speaking of goodness...a lot of philosophers want to skip over it to reach an understanding of truth. They scoff at it, thinking they are better than it because they can think. I'm sure a lot of people reading this right now are subconsciously thinking, "Wow this shit is boring...goodness and whatnot, blah blah blah. What a waste of my time! I know the truth...I don't need spiritual principles, and an ethical system." Unenlightened people desperately try to escape it, by whatever means possible. They want to think their way into an everlasting understanding of the truth, without ever changing themselves...they hold fast to their stupid way of life and delude themselves, thinking "I know the truth, therefore I don't need morality".
All the while, their subconscious mind is avoiding every actual stab the truth makes at their life. They retain their ego, actually boosting it up with thoughts of how great a thinker they are, all the while deluding themselves. The perfectly enlightened person is pure and good, therefore the thinker should also try to make themselves pure and good...otherwise he will never become perfectly enlightened. All the thought in the world isn't worth a dime without this potential.
As a test of your enlightenment, I challenge everyone at this forum to be perfectly good. What could it hurt? If you already know the truth, that all things are empty, why not let this person be perfectly good in emptiness?
When you find yourself failing in your own goodness, you'll hopefully realize that you've got some more work to do.
- Scott
Chadwick Stone,
Thinking "Consciousness is myself, and it is the everlasting...blah blah blah" does nothing for the philosopher...because it can't be known!
You need a brain to reflect on the truth of anything (to know). If consciousness goes on after this brain decays, then that will be the case, but no living human can tell...therefore it is worthless to come to a belief about it.
It is pure delusion to believe that consciousness is the bedrock of the universe...without having yet experienced that to be the case.
I don't know if consciousness (that which sees) exists independently of a brain. Thinking about it makes no difference, in Advaita Vedanta (where this belief generally comes from).Does anyone here believe that consciousness is capable of existing by itself? That is, without some thinking organ such a brain?
Thinking "Consciousness is myself, and it is the everlasting...blah blah blah" does nothing for the philosopher...because it can't be known!
You need a brain to reflect on the truth of anything (to know). If consciousness goes on after this brain decays, then that will be the case, but no living human can tell...therefore it is worthless to come to a belief about it.
It is pure delusion to believe that consciousness is the bedrock of the universe...without having yet experienced that to be the case.
- Scott
A brain is simply a multi-prism reflected. It senses as it has evolved to sense and record for the sake of survival of that bubble of perception. That's what the brain is, a bubble of alchemy that can "see" what is there. Chemical structures that can sense other chemical structures.sschaula wrote: You need a brain to reflect on the truth of anything (to know). If consciousness goes on after this brain decays, then that will be the case, but no living human can tell...therefore it is worthless to come to a belief about it.
Reality as percieved in human terms is forms, seperation, one thing different from another. Through Genius perception all is the same, only appearing different through those very same senses. At the base level it is merely latching on to the fetish of a multitude of infinity.
Scott,
Would that be worth something?
Or is that a worthless argument?
I don't think so, and hope that you don't too.
I’m not in the position to explain things academically; you already have quite a few views in that regard. So the above is how I see it, that is, if thinking is worth any thing at all to begin with, and then all that it entails. If not, then you could always ask Dan to delete this thread. Not in my opinion though.
Perhaps not, but I wonder... why do you ask?Knowing things to exist...not knowing things to exist...
Why is knowing things to exist worth more?
Would that be worth something?
Or is that a worthless argument?
I don't think so, and hope that you don't too.
I’m not in the position to explain things academically; you already have quite a few views in that regard. So the above is how I see it, that is, if thinking is worth any thing at all to begin with, and then all that it entails. If not, then you could always ask Dan to delete this thread. Not in my opinion though.
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Carrotblog
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Dear Zag,Simple in its chiastic complexity. I love you too bright bunny! You would have words from me, and not only truths, meaning you're worth more than my words. What lattices of life would we not find ourselves in? So why's done, but where? Hare-like I hop to you and there is despair. I cannot! Being is becoming, but look, only words left to recall this, our union! How in this disembodiment to leave myself for the lakes, for surrounds past these bounds...
Yes, you're genius. Feeling its pressure, spot-lighted by it, now chasing your shadow, now fleeing it, ---I can't go on, I go on.
you too are on a journey? Have you left your shadow behind, or has mine followed me up to here? You have encircled mine, across the same roe-hemp fields, hopping hare over here and there, in search of being, becoming all the while, a self more known to oneself than one has ever known.
In chiasmus my shadow leaves me; I leave my shadow freely as truth finds a form original for an itinerant rabbit whose path traverses a handsome lop-eared hare. You can go on; on and on and on. Being faint and weak in resolve, I'll stop here and rest a while.
Lots of love.
xoxoxoxo
Miffy
http://carrotblog.livejournal.com
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Dan Rowden
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Miffy, having qouth Zagreus with wanton heart, but with innocent need of knowledge hitherto unrevealed, spoketh:
Said she, the furry but presumably toothy one:
My shadow never leaves, yet always follows. And when it leads I turn as if the natural wont of my nature is to tread on that sycophantic prick! But......
My shadow never leaves me; he is my closest friend, he follows without doubt or judgment or question or envy or haste or sloth or anything that gives me a reason to fuckin' hate his guts!!
But.....
Where was I?
Such intimacy pains me more than you could know , for 'tis I - "TIS I!!- that dubbed him "Zag". How can I express the pain that grabs at my heart like itchty, scratchy icky things, knowing that I alone call the one once known as Zagreus - "Zag". Knowing, or perhaps caring singularly that he, having bared his nomenclaturic soul to Ezboard and being rejected, laid bare his self and twisted it against the dire hand of providence and became the dread: Suergaz! (not to be confused with Sewer Gas) I must declare my unashamed love for the abbreviated name!.Dear Zag,
Said she, the furry but presumably toothy one:
Oh, my lady, um, Bunny, are we not all on a journey? But pray I confess lifeless platitiude doth taste sweeter from the soft voice of the carrier of myxomatosis.......you too are on a journey?
Oh, dear lady, dear rabbit, dearest bunny, dearest, dearest miffy muffy etc......'tis the shadow of the one for whom you have yet to take out a restraining order....Have you left your shadow behind, or has mine followed me up to here?
Ahhh, quoth thou the innocence of the experiential, such that it is, and is not. It dreams of its own wisdom, but cannot wake from that which is only a dream. A pleasant, enchanting, imaginative dream that is only wakefully dreamt by the wise who dream with lucidity...You have encircled mine, across the same roe-hemp fields, hopping hare over here and there, in search of being, becoming all the while, a self more known to oneself than one has ever known.
Please rest a while, for I say without hint of green, Zag is an ugly fucker - I hath seen it with thine own eyes!!In chiasmus my shadow leaves me; I leave my shadow freely as truth finds a form original for an itinerant rabbit whose path traverses a handsome lop-eared hare. You can go on; on and on and on. Being faint and weak in resolve, I'll stop here and rest a while.
My shadow never leaves, yet always follows. And when it leads I turn as if the natural wont of my nature is to tread on that sycophantic prick! But......
My shadow never leaves me; he is my closest friend, he follows without doubt or judgment or question or envy or haste or sloth or anything that gives me a reason to fuckin' hate his guts!!
But.....
Where was I?
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suergaz
You were calling me an ugly fucker Dan!
He has seen a tiny little photo of me, as some others here have, which isn't to say he'd find me less ugly the bigger I am, for I must at the very least look weird! I was zagreus, then ezboard died taking this forum with it, and I then found zagreus had been taken, and so I became suergaz, but Dan and others can play with my pseudonym, and you, Miffy, can play with me. :)
I am on a wandering. When very young I thought I had a home from which to journey, but later saw I hadn't even a landscape!
How I loved them still, these things that were their own against my holding them, how I resolved to...pursue them!
Faint at last, I sought myself. Led on by thought of the purpose of consciousness, of what it must culminate in, a chiasmus, then only an imagining, my secret desire, I, a March hare, discovered it, and have been lost ever since, which is not to say mad, but wandering, wondering how to find it again without going mad...
Don't mind Dan too much! He's arrogant, and a curmudgeon, and I don't think he ever forgave me for calling him a spiteful little garden gnome, but he's alright, which is to say I'll uproot him if he so much as looks at you again. ;D
He has seen a tiny little photo of me, as some others here have, which isn't to say he'd find me less ugly the bigger I am, for I must at the very least look weird! I was zagreus, then ezboard died taking this forum with it, and I then found zagreus had been taken, and so I became suergaz, but Dan and others can play with my pseudonym, and you, Miffy, can play with me. :)
Dear Zag,
you too are on a journey? Have you left your shadow behind, or has mine followed me up to here? You have encircled mine, across the same roe-hemp fields, hopping hare over here and there, in search of being, becoming all the while, a self more known to oneself than one has ever known.
In chiasmus my shadow leaves me; I leave my shadow freely as truth finds a form original for an itinerant rabbit whose path traverses a handsome lop-eared hare. You can go on; on and on and on. Being faint and weak in resolve, I'll stop here and rest a while.
I am on a wandering. When very young I thought I had a home from which to journey, but later saw I hadn't even a landscape!
How I loved them still, these things that were their own against my holding them, how I resolved to...pursue them!
Faint at last, I sought myself. Led on by thought of the purpose of consciousness, of what it must culminate in, a chiasmus, then only an imagining, my secret desire, I, a March hare, discovered it, and have been lost ever since, which is not to say mad, but wandering, wondering how to find it again without going mad...
Don't mind Dan too much! He's arrogant, and a curmudgeon, and I don't think he ever forgave me for calling him a spiteful little garden gnome, but he's alright, which is to say I'll uproot him if he so much as looks at you again. ;D
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Chadwick Stone
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Scott,
Being an asshole is a human trait, consequently, no animal executing a function of nature has this capability. A person manifesting themselves as an asshole can be benevolent or malevolent, intelligent or ignorant, wealthy or impoverished, refined or vulgar, it is not an indicator of one's station or accomplishments in life, rather a characteristic of one's personality.
As I said, as one I can readily identify another as one and very few people don't at sometime or another act like one. While I'm not in denial, most of the world is. Do I and other people exhibiting the same personality type garner scorn and contempt? Certainly. Of course, the opinion of most others are of no importance to me. I can still do good in the world while being such a person, as can anyone.
Being an asshole is a human trait, consequently, no animal executing a function of nature has this capability. A person manifesting themselves as an asshole can be benevolent or malevolent, intelligent or ignorant, wealthy or impoverished, refined or vulgar, it is not an indicator of one's station or accomplishments in life, rather a characteristic of one's personality.
As I said, as one I can readily identify another as one and very few people don't at sometime or another act like one. While I'm not in denial, most of the world is. Do I and other people exhibiting the same personality type garner scorn and contempt? Certainly. Of course, the opinion of most others are of no importance to me. I can still do good in the world while being such a person, as can anyone.