GENIUS FORUMS

jupiviv wrote:A computer doesn't use any reasoning at all. It just does what it does, without any consciousness of what it does.

There's no way to prove beyond doubt our mind, our consciousness is nothing but a very advanced, complex computer. A good case can be made that any feedback circuit is a simple consciousness. Like a thermostat: the resulting temperature (a signal representing earlier actions, memory) is used to control current action. How are you operating differently? Just because you have millions of parameters simultaneously?

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:There's no way to prove beyond doubt our mind, our consciousness is nothing but a very advanced, complex computer.

Consciousness is consciousness, not anything else.

Carmel wrote:there are specific feminine traits that are advantageous to wisdom also.i.e. receptivity, knowing when to yield, humility.

Not sure if these are feminine traits with any base in the real world, outside the myths being replicated inside our culture.

But in all the circumstances it might have looked these traits are actual feminine, I noticed the women were also more rational, practical and humorous than the males around. In other words: males can become so obsessed, distracted, attached or otherwise mentally handicapped, they become total morons. In that environment the women, or feminine minded men, are a relief and I'd prefer to work with them each and every time to get things done.

The goal therefore is to help the men, and it happens that one of the most important causes of their moronic behavior is the ideas they have developed about women, with the women acting like a blank sheet, a mirror like surface, where they draw their own delusions on. Women are often not helping by facilitating the behavior by receiving and reflecting back whatever is thrown or dictated.

Therefore the effort must not be to prove or convince women of their traits, but to point out to men where their emotional investments lie.

jupiviv wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:There's no way to prove beyond doubt our mind, our consciousness is nothing but a very advanced, complex computer.

Consciousness is consciousness, not anything else.

You seem pretty braindead lately.

jupviv wrote:A computer doesn't use any reasoning at all. It just does what it does, without any consciousness of what it does. Likewise - a rock. However, consciousness will perceive everything to be a logical operation, whether it is a computer executing an algorithm, or a rock falling down a cliff.

Reasoning is defined as "thinking logically." In that sense, a computer does not reason. If a person examines a set of circumstances and based upon that examination performs an action, we can say that person has reasons for the action. A computer follows an algorithm. Faced with input A, it delivers output B. If it is not thinking as such, it is still proceeding logically because it cannot do anything else. The distinction is murky when looked at this way.

But I do not think consciousness perceives everything to be a logical operation, unless you subscribe to the notion that the world is a big computing machine where cause and effect dictates what must happen. I will agree that everything that has happened was caused. What all the causes were is never possible to enumerate. For the same reason, no future event is certain because all present causes for it cannot be ascertained in their entirety. Therefore consciousness can only perceive approximations at best. And normally, I do not regard people as overly rational in their observations or behavior, so my take is that the logic that consciousness "perceives" is tenuous.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

jupiviv wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:There's no way to prove beyond doubt our mind, our consciousness is nothing but a very advanced, complex computer.

Consciousness is consciousness, not anything else.

You seem pretty braindead lately.

Your statement is wrong because it is like saying - "there is no way of proving beyond a doubt that a rock is actually a tiger."

cousinbasil wrote:A computer follows an algorithm. Faced with input A, it delivers output B. If it is not thinking as such, it is still proceeding logically because it cannot do anything else.

It is proceeding logically from the point of view of a conscious being.

But I do not think consciousness perceives everything to be a logical operation, unless you subscribe to the notion that the world is a big computing machine where cause and effect dictates what must happen.

What I meant is that a conscious person(to the degree that he is conscious) will perceive everything logically. He will even perceive feelings logically.

jupviv wrote:What I meant is that a conscious person(to the degree that he is conscious) will perceive everything logically. He will even perceive feelings logically.

I can't agree with that. Feelings are what is felt; analyzing those feelings is separate, don't you think? As in why do I feel this way? It seems as if you are saying one can feel in a logical manner. If that were the case, Mr. Spock wouldn't have had such issues.

cousinbasil wrote:It seems as if you are saying one can feel in a logical manner.

No I'm talking about analysing one's feelings - finding out the causes of those feelings. Of course, if you do that then you can't have those feelings yourself anymore.

jupiviv wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:There's no way to prove beyond doubt our mind, our consciousness is nothing but a very advanced, complex computer.

Your statement is wrong because it is like saying - "there is no way of proving beyond a doubt that a rock is actually a tiger.

Then I'd qualify it with: a kind of very advanced, complex computer.

But really, a chicken is a bird, and is an advanced autonomous egg-laying machine, and is what comes before the egg. It means the word "is" can be used to describe things, not just equal them. Even my addition of "nothing but" depends completely on how far one might take the definition of 'computer', which is currenly an open-ended idea - mainly an indicator of the causality of all known mental processes.

Perhaps you're bit lost in pedantic word games, Jup. Don't get stuck!

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Then I'd qualify it with: a kind of very advanced, complex computer.

Nope, it's not even that.

Even my addition of "nothing but" depends completely on how far one might take the definition of 'computer', which is currenly an open-ended idea - mainly an indicator of the causality of all known mental processes.

If you define a computer to be every concept that you can think of, then you would be right. But I don't think a computer can be defined like that in the normal or technical sense.

cousinbasil wrote: Using either deductive or inductive reasoning can be considered as being logical, but one would have to be rational to know when to use which, and why, that is, to choose a purpose or basis for the decision.

jupiviv:
A computer doesn't use any reasoning at all. It just does what it does, without any consciousness of what it does. Likewise - a rock. However, consciousness will perceive everything to be a logical operation, whether it is a computer executing an algorithm, or a rock falling down a cliff.[/quote]

Carmel:
That was a nice try, cousinbasil, but you're talking way over jup's head. He doesn't seem to have the first clue as to what logic actually entails, nor does he understand what the terms inductive reasoning or deductive reasoning mean. He is working under the faulty premise that logic is simply consciousness or anything that appears to the mind as he previously described it to me when I asked him to define "logic".

jupiviv wrote:

cousinbasil wrote:It seems as if you are saying one can feel in a logical manner.

No I'm talking about analysing one's feelings - finding out the causes of those feelings. Of course, if you do that then you can't have those feelings yourself anymore.

If it were only that easy. Finding out the causes of a feeling may help you control how, when, or how often it is experienced, but it doesn't automatically mean you will never experience it again. A lot of things go into the experience of a feeling: what created it, what perpetuates or triggers it, its evolution over time, other feelings that may temper it, to name a few. Suppose a person feels relentless despair, all the time. Eventually, he goes to seek medical help. He is given a prescription for Zoloft or the equivalent. In a few weeks, the despair is just a memory. His doctor explains to him how such antidepressants work, that they are seratonin re-uptake inhibitors and what that means. This person has the same bank of memories and exists in the same external environment as before he went on the meds. Is it fair to say the cause of his original overwhelming feeling of despair was a neurological chemical imbalance? If so, he now understands its cause, that normal daily living combined with a chemical imbalance produced it. Now picture his medical coverage running out. He stops taking the Zoloft because he can no longer pay for it. The despair and depression come back. Do you see what I am getting at? He knows what causes his unwanted oppressive feelings yet he still has them. How is this different from your claim in the quote above?

cousinbasil wrote:Finding out the causes of a feeling may help you control how, when, or how often it is experienced

No, if I find out the causes of a feeling then I can't have that feeling any more.

but it doesn't automatically mean you will never experience it again.

True. But I will only experience it if I become less conscious, e.g, forget what the causes of that feeling were. This can be rectified.

As for the example you gave - there is no use trying to suppress feelings, which is what that person would be doing. Becoming fully conscious of a feeling is the only way to really stop having that feeling, although it would mean that we'd stop having other feelings as well.

jupviv wrote:No, if I find out the causes of a feeling then I can't have that feeling any more.

What if you yourself deliberately supply the cause?

As for the example you gave - there is no use trying to suppress feelings, which is what that person would be doing.

I don't think you really get the picture in my example. If the person taking the meds were somehow suppressing the feeling, it would still be there. You cannot suppress something that isn't there - you are implying that the feeling still resides within, perhaps somewhere in the subconscious, and the medication helps keep it submerged somehow. The key concept here is chemical imbalance. Once the neurotransmitters are brought into a normal range, the counter-productive feelings the imbalance engendered do not exist. Period.

It would be great if all feelings were amenable to one's rational analysis. Naturally, some are. Some can be dismissed even without fully understanding them. Some you might not want to think away, even if you could. If you had a young child you loved, would you try to understand why you loved the child so that you would no longer have to? You could learn everything there is to know about biochemical bonding, parental psychology, and modern genetics and apply it to your situation - would that make the love go away?

Aren't you saying that you cannot know why you like a thing, and still like it? Personally, I find that the truer my understanding of anything is, the greater my freedom is, not less.

Plus you seem to be ignoring the evidence from pathological examples. If a person has crippling OCD, years of therapy might help him understand that his fears are not based in reality, but he is still going to have to count all the tiles in his bathroom before he lets himself take a leak. Yet a competently supervised regimen of medication and behavioral therapy could allow him to resume a normal life.

I just don't think being aware of the causes of a feeling makes it impossible to have that feeling.

jupiviv wrote:If you define a computer to be every concept that you can think of, then you would be right.

That would mean you think consciousness is also "every concept you can think of"?

If a computer could think, or display behavior close enough for us not to be able to tell the difference, it certainly would include "every concept it can think of" if given enough time and capacity.

cousinbasil wrote:

jupiviv wrote:No, if I find out the causes of a feeling then I can't have that feeling any more.

What if you yourself deliberately supply the cause?

I can't supply the cause once I understand it, because I will be separating myself from the feeling.

I don't think you really get the picture in my example. If the person taking the meds were somehow suppressing the feeling, it would still be there. You cannot suppress something that isn't there - you are implying that the feeling still resides within, perhaps somewhere in the subconscious, and the medication helps keep it submerged somehow. The key concept here is chemical imbalance. Once the neurotransmitters are brought into a normal range, the counter-productive feelings the imbalance engendered do not exist. Period.

The feeling, viz. the irrationally, is still there. Only the thing which led the person to irrationally experience the feeling is not there. Now the person is irrationally feeling "good" because something else other than the previous thing is there.

If you had a young child you loved, would you try to understand why you loved the child so that you would no longer have to? You could learn everything there is to know about biochemical bonding, parental psychology, and modern genetics and apply it to your situation - would that make the love go away?

It would go away if I understood that the love is a delusion. I don't need to learn about genetics and parental psychology to do that.

Aren't you saying that you cannot know why you like a thing, and still like it? Personally, I find that the truer my understanding of anything is, the greater my freedom is, not less.

Depends on how you define "freedom." I don't define freedom as being able to do things that make me feel good.

Plus you seem to be ignoring the evidence from pathological examples. If a person has crippling OCD, years of therapy might help him understand that his fears are not based in reality, but he is still going to have to count all the tiles in his bathroom before he lets himself take a leak. Yet a competently supervised regimen of medication and behavioral therapy could allow him to resume a normal life.

On the other hand, if after the therapy he comes into contact with something that genuinely scares him - like a large spider which scampers through the wall just when he has begun to take a leak - his OCD might well come back, and he'd be checking the bathroom for spiders before taking a leak.

You have to take into account that most people who have therapy live in artificial conditions after the therapy meant to prevent them from coming into contact with the same types of things which caused their problem("abstinence"). That is a suppression of feelings, because it is an attempt to keep the feeling itself down by avoiding some of the external particular causes of the feeling(which aren't really its causes). A person may try to dismantle his fear of cockroaches by carrying a cockroach in his hand all day, but that doesn't mean his fear of cockroaches is gone. It will simply be replaced by another fear, given the right conditions. It may even become a fear of cockroaches, if the cockroach in his hand, instead of staying still like he wants it to, starts biting him(and cockroaches can and do bite.)

It seems to me that many western people, because of the facilities they can avail themselves of, think that any "problems" they have can be solved if they spend some money on a course or session, or get in some government funded program, or take a massive loan from a benevolent bank with an apparently infinite amount of money in its possession. The fact is, they can't. This particular separation from reality is not going to help the people of the developed countries of the west in the future, and may well cause their demise.

I just don't think being aware of the causes of a feeling makes it impossible to have that feeling.

You are thinking of "causes" as being genetics, chemical imbalance in the brain, parental psychology and suchlike. These terms sound reassuringly professional and scientific, but they don't actually explain anything about a feeling. They may explain why a feeling of bonding is there, but they don't explain what the feeling of bonding itself is. The statement - "I feel sad because I'm not wearing clothes" - doesn't explain anything about feeling sad. It just explains that you think that not wearing clothes makes you feel sad, and that you think the feeling is real.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:If a computer could think, or display behavior close enough for us not to be able to tell the difference, it certainly would include "every concept it can think of" if given enough time and capacity.

Yes, if the computer were conscious, it would have concepts, and that would mean the computer was conscious(at least to some degree).

My point was that consciousness neither is nor resembles an advanced and complex computer, although many people do think so. Consciousness and a computer are just two different things.

Carmel wrote:Kelly: The only reason I focus on gender is to elucidate wise psychology. If you're not focussed on that deep and profound perspective, and use it to consider human behaviour and motivations, you'll misconstrue everything I say about gender. You'll even regard what I write to be out of touch with reality. I'm sorry if you didn't realise this, but I would have thought it very obvious.

Carmel: ..."out of touch with reality" yes, indeed, but there's no misconstruing on my part. You're so thoroughly fractured from your "feminine" side to the point that it has become pathological.

That's your perspective of reality, isn't it?

I think the key to this conflict between your perspective of reality, and the way you see masculine and feminine aspects of the human psyche, and my perspective, is based on whose understanding of reality is accurate.

Yours isn't, because you haven't yet found a way to see the true nature of reality. Nothing else could be the basis of "wisdom" - which is knowledge, understanding, the basic truth-foundation of all life and non-life.

The thing you're missing is that the nature of reality doesn't change. While the contents - forms, finitudinous elements, and the stuff that is all a part of reality - does change, reality itself remains non-finite and empty of all intrinsic form. The shifting forms are actually emptiness itself.

When you wrote, in response to my question:

Can I ask, how wise do you think you are?

Carmel: compared to whom? It's a relative matter and it's clear to me that we have different conceptions of what wisdom is. Also, it's not as though the state of wisdom or enlightenment is static. What can be gained, can be lost. Furthermore, everyone, even the wisest people have blind spots, that includes you, me and everyone here...and there.

.... this tells me that you don't yet perceive the profound substratum that is the source, and actual existence, of enlightenment.

Enlightenment isn't something to be gained, in the sense of a finite object. Rather, it is about understanding the nature of reality, which is everpresent, and literally the nature of everything. Delusion and false thinking closes the mind to perception of reality ---- and yet, such delusion is actually reality as well.

Because of this, you can't see why I'm promoting masculinity, and pointing to the drawbacks of feminine psychology. You can't see the point. That's fine - it's your prerogative to be uninterested in perceiving the true face of reality. I won't trouble you to change that perspective, if you're comfortable with it.

But at least have the guts to acknowledge that this difference really exists, even if you don't want to explore it.

Otherwise, you're wasting time arguing over these matters - your own mostly, but also other people here, who also see the relationship between sex and character, and the path of enlightenment.

Kelly: I think the receptivity, openness, and tolerance that is characteristic of women, boils down to an inability to perceive contradictory ideas. They are quite happy to embrace diversity - because they don't tend to place value on intellectual coherence. Men tend to be far more intolerant of different ideologies, and argumentative, because they perceive the contradiction. Men buck cognitive dissonance because they value intellectual consistency, women submit because they don't.

Carmel: The intolerance of ideological differences some men experience can be the result of extreme or even pathological narcissism as well. It's not always the case that there is a higher goal. Fred Phelps, Jim Jones and David Koresh are intolerant of others' ideological differences, for example, yet they mistakenly believe(d) themselves to be promoting spiritual goals. All of these men certainly lack the more positive feminine traits that have been mentioned i.e. "receptivity, openness and tolerance."

Kelly: [humility.] The only humility is understanding the truth about self. But I know of no women whose very being is immersed and founded in such understanding.

Carmel: That's anecdotal, so not a particularly convincing argument, in fact, it's not an argument at all, but nevertheless, how many men do you know who have this understanding and why do you think you're qualified to judge? are you claiming enlightenment too?

I'm qualified because I know (am conscious of, am aware of, am immersing my very being in, am founding my "true north" in) my own nature, which is the same as yours, and everyone else's.

There are many men I know who have dedicated themselves to this very same object of perfect enlightenment, and whose writings and behaviour shows and showed it. But unless you can perceive emptiness, and understand what I'm talking about, you'll not recognise them. That's just how it is, I'm sorry.

Carmel: and there are masculine traits that can hinder wisdom, most obviously the "male ego", when it becomes too hard and unyielding, it becomes a petty tyrant.

Kelly: It all depends what the object of domination is. Yielding, if the object is an argumentative person, is equally petty.

Carmel: I rather expected that you wouldn't grok this point. It points to a deeper problem, but you don't possess the self honesty that is required to see it.

Kelly: No, I'm not done learning, but I've made sufficient progress to know no women who have put down deep roots, deep whole-of-the-mind roots, into formlessness.

Carmel: Translation: No, Kelly is not done learning, but hey! look over there at those women! Kelly is better than them! Nearly everything you say about others, men and women alike, is an attempt to place yourself above them. i.e. constantly referring to people as "mediocre".

I'm always deeply delighted and refreshed when I encounter a wise, courageous person. My entire life purpose is about trying to engineer and stimulate such growth. So what you suppose is not true. That should relieve you.

What more do you have to learn and how do you plan on going about doing it?

Philosophically, I have nothing more to learn, but the larger component of enlightenment is having the courage to live by it. Learning to abandon old false habits, neuron by neuron, second by second.



.

Kelly:
Philosophically, I have nothing more to learn, but the larger component of enlightenment is having the courage to live by it. Learning to abandon old false habits, neuron by neuron, second by second.

Carmel:
res ipsa loquitur

That's all I really need to know. You're "enlightened" in the same way that jupiviv is "enlightened". You believe you have nothing more to learn therefore, you won't learn anything more. You are forever doomed to remain a preacher and that is why I consider it a waste of time trying to discuss anything with you.

Carmel wrote:You're "enlightened" in the same way that jupiviv is "enlightened". You believe you have nothing more to learn therefore, you won't learn anything more. You are forever doomed to remain a preacher and that is why I consider it a waste of time trying to discuss anything with you.

So you think you know more than her, and have nothing to learn from her? That is extremely arrogant of you.

jupiviv wrote:

Carmel wrote:You're "enlightened" in the same way that jupiviv is "enlightened". You believe you have nothing more to learn therefore, you won't learn anything more. You are forever doomed to remain a preacher and that is why I consider it a waste of time trying to discuss anything with you.

So you think you know more than her, and have nothing to learn from her? That is extremely arrogant of you.

Carmel:
I believe you and Kelly suffer from psychological pathologies which cause you to have delusions of grandeur. It is indeed a waste of time talking to people who are deluded to the degree that you are.

but, if you want Kelly to take you under her wing, perhaps she could start by teaching you the definition of logic. Yours was woefully inadequate.

Carmel wrote:but, if you want Kelly to take you under her wing, perhaps she could start by teaching you the definition of logic. Yours was woefully inadequate.

And knowing so much about logic as you do, you yet again fail to provide any reasoning for your claims...

jupiviv wrote:

Carmel wrote:but, if you want Kelly to take you under her wing, perhaps she could start by teaching you the definition of logic. Yours was woefully inadequate.

jupiviv:
And knowing so much about logic as you do, you yet again fail to provide any reasoning for your claims...

Carmel:
So, you're going to pretend you didn't completely mangle the definition of logic as if we all didn't see it? ...or is it that you actually believe your definition had any merit whatsoever? It didn't.

You described logic as consciousness-anything that appears to the mind.

wrong. If a green unicorn appears to your mind that is a product of your imagination, not logic. Logic is comprised of systematic thought processes. Take some initiative and research the subject for yourself. or ask Kelly, she is actually much more educated on the subject than you are.

Carmel wrote:If a green unicorn appears to your mind that is a product of your imagination, not logic.

If a green unicorn appears to my mind, then there is a green unicorn(A=A). How do you know it's necessarily a product of imagination? It would be a product of my imagination only if I said that something appears to my mind, which doesn't actually appear to my mind, like a square circle. Another definition of imagination might be - the appearance of a thing that isn't perceived by the senses.

Logic is comprised of systematic thought processes.

And what are "systematic thought processes"?

jupviv wrote:You are thinking of "causes" as being genetics, chemical imbalance in the brain, parental psychology and suchlike. These terms sound reassuringly professional and scientific, but they don't actually explain anything about a feeling. They may explain why a feeling of bonding is there, but they don't explain what the feeling of bonding itself is.

And your explanation that it is a mere delusion actually accomplishes what? You are saying it is possible for a person to "understand" his feelings and therefore overcome them. The point I was taking issue with was your claim that understanding a feeling necessarily makes it go away.

cousinbasil: Once the neurotransmitters are brought into a normal range, the counter-productive feelings the imbalance engendered do not exist. Period.

jupviv: The feeling, viz. the irrationally, is still there. Only the thing which led the person to irrationally experience the feeling is not there. Now the person is irrationally feeling "good" because something else other than the previous thing is there.

You have lost me here, jup. What is it that you claim is "the thing which led the person to irrationally experience the feeling"? And how is it no longer there? Say a person is afraid of going outside. He then gets on a Zoloft regimen. The thing he feared - the outdoors - is still there. The feeling of fear is what has vanished, exactly contrary to what you are saying here. You are not understanding the effect of the SRI drug. Someone on Zoloft or the equivalent does not then feel "good" when he goes outside. He will simply not experience the same level of anxiety as previously.

cousinbasil: Aren't you saying that you cannot know why you like a thing, and still like it? Personally, I find that the truer my understanding of anything is, the greater my freedom is, not less.

jupviv: Depends on how you define "freedom." I don't define freedom as being able to do things that make me feel good.

Yes, well I would want that to be a part of any useful definition of personal freedom. I have no desire to be free of my feelings, just to be in control of them. I think they are as necessary as water, but like water, they can drown you. I am not about to move into a desert just to make sure I do not drown. Freedom is having a hand on the faucet.

It seems to me that many western people, because of the facilities they can avail themselves of, think that any "problems" they have can be solved if they spend some money on a course or session, or get in some government funded program, or take a massive loan from a benevolent bank with an apparently infinite amount of money in its possession. The fact is, they can't. This particular separation from reality is not going to help the people of the developed countries of the west in the future, and may well cause their demise.

I understand what you are saying here, but what this has to do with our discussion about feelings escapes me. Are you implying it is folly to seek help from other people?