GENIUS FORUMS

I can tell from the above response that the patient did not take the recommended prescription.

Oh well....

( I assure it will work wonders! )

Alright, more seriously, Kevin wrote (ignoring the two word change joke-point):

"Water is one of things that causes the seat I am sitting on. (eg, the workers who made the seat depend on water). But that doesn't change the fact that a seat is still a seat.

Likewise water is one of the things that causes the brain to be the seat of consciousness. And similarly, the fact that water is one of its causes doesn't take anything away from it."

Paragraph One: this is irrelevant because the 'argument' (always a minor parenthesis in the context of yr topic) was simply that I have yet to see any evidence that the brain - or as I said any aspect of the physical body at all - was 'the seat' of consciousness. So this point that one of the interdependent causes of a larger identified whole ('seat' being your example) doesn't change that it is a seat in fact simply means in terms of the original argument that just because water is a part of the brain, doesn't mean that a brain is not a brain. Fair enough and totally correct. But that has nothing to do with whether or not the brain is the seat of consciousness, which is the underlying topic.

Paragraph Two: Same as One. Just because water is a constituent part of the brain without which it could not be, does not establish one way or another whether water or brain is a seat of consciousness.

We all agree about interdependent causes and conditions etc. But that is not the argument about the brain being the seat of consciousness.

More lamb! More wine! More female companionship! More potatoes! They will work, I promise you!

tharpa wrote:So that apparently sane and solid situation without a sense of humour is the animal realm."

There's a place for humour, but some things are simply not funny.

For example, it's not funny to hear the Dalai Lama say that new souls perhaps come from other planets, to allow for population growth.

Likewise it's not funny when someone seriously believes that that long term memories are stored in the heart.

These things are more sad than anything.

tharpa wrote:I have yet to see any evidence that the brain - or as I said any aspect of the physical body at all - was 'the seat' of consciousness.

That's only because you haven't looked. As other people have wisely suggested, you should study what happens when different parts of the brain are physically damaged.

All people who have examined the issue recognize the brain as the seat of consciousness. (Which is not to say that they see the brain as independent of the rest of the Universe)

Kevin Solway wrote:

tharpa wrote:So that apparently sane and solid situation without a sense of humour is the animal realm."

There's a place for humour, but some things are simply not funny.

For example, it's not funny to hear the Dalai Lama say that new souls perhaps come from other planets, to allow for population growth.

Likewise it's not funny when someone seriously believes that that long term memories are stored in the heart.

These things are more sad than anything.

Well, I agree that was a most unsatisfactory answer, but I also happen to have no objection to people here coming from other planets. For those who follow the Darwinianist slime-to-hominoid argument this is a taboo notion to float, but since I don't subscribe to that overly simplistic notion at all, it doesn't bother me one bit. Not that I know one way or another.

I don't 'believe' that long-term memories are stored in the heart any more than I 'believe' like you do that they are stored in the brain. But I 'believe' that the old Asian methods of describing the functions of the major organs is far more on point than contemporary scientistic ones.

According to this approach - and I haven't studied this in years so I might be missing something out in the liver and lung departments -

Heart is long-term (i.e. deeply personal) memories zone;
Stomach-spleen is emotional memories zone;
Kidney is short-term memory (i.e. immediate intention/will) zone.

This explains rather neatly, for example, whilst old people whose kidney yang and yin is seriously depleted as they approach the end of their life span can often recall events from far distant past whilst they can't remember where they were going as they headed out the door.

Long before I studied this system - which is fascinatingly complete and complex and simple even if it is all totally wrong as you suppose it seems - I witnessed my grandmother-in-law shortly before she died. We were in her appartment and she was standing there, not seeing us at all, but moving her hand in a rhythmic, repetitive way and repeating something, though it was too slurred for me to make out. My wife (her grand-daughter) along with being moved at seeing her grandmother in this state, could also make out some words. What she was doing was handing out movie tickets in the cinema, wishing each person a 'good kino' as she tore their ticket stub and welcomed them in. She did not recognise me - no big deal - but also not her beloved grand-daughter, nor even her appartment room. But she did remember handing out those tickets. This was in 1990. Her job handing out tickets was in 1935.

Well, that doesn't prove anything about heart versus kidneys versus brains, but it does fit rather well with the old chinese descriptions of how memory works in old age in the kidney-heart way of describing it.

Meanwhile she could see and hear fine, meaning (to my mind) that her brain was okay. She also had balance (ears) etc. But her consciousness had moved more to the heart level, so although her eyes saw us clearly (as she handed us and others the tickets), her mind didn't perceive us in the room, nor her appartment at all.

Just a little anecdote.

"All people who have examined the issue recognize the brain as the seat of consciousness."

Prove it!

No seriously: more lamb, more vegetables, more potatoes, more companionship!! It will help, really it will!

tharpa wrote:

"All people who have examined the issue recognize the brain as the seat of consciousness."

Prove it!

Prove what? All you have to do is look. Other people can't do the work for you.

I am being somewhat flippant, Kevin, mainly in response to your haughty tone and your use of wild generalisations in order to deliver dagger-like blows. The generality blunts the delivery so much as to turn the blade into rubber.

Another anecdote - which you will no doubt ridicule but anyway. As I said earlier, I come to a forum such as this to stimulate contemplation and reflection, not combat. Our interchange has sparked this memory which is germane, and is again about the death process of my teacher which I witnessed daily over a period of a couple of years.

In the fall, he basically died but was brought back to life with mouth-to-mouth, an ambulence, paralysing drugs, respiration machines, and all the rest of it.

However, that life, once he was off the machines, involved a different level of capability in that although he could seemingly see something he could not identify people or furniture etc. at all, nor could he navigate through space by walking or using his hands with objects, nor could he speak intentionally, i.e. 'I would like this' etc..

He did do one thing for several months before he finally died. As people ( from all over the world) would come into the bedroom where he lay in a hospital type bed and an intravenous drip, he would turn his head towards them and say, in relatively clear english: 'How are you" and then, no matter what they said in response, sometimes very personal things etc., he would reply 'I'm fine, how are you?' and that was it.

Most people coming in and hearing these words would assume that the normal personality was still there behind them and were somewhat baffled that no further conversation would ensue. But in remembering this and in the context of this heart-brain-kidney polemic, it occurs to me that one might say that he had suffered severe (obviously irreparable) damage the first time he had 'died' before being brought back, and that clearly he was no longer able to relate with the outer world in a normal way, but yet his instinct to respond to others and ask after their welfare (his bodhisattva intention in some sense) remained, i.e. his heart type instinct.

Clearly there was still consciousness, very much so, a very strong presence. But also clearly there were no longer very many of the usual perceptional and locational functions in operation. Now you can argue that certain parts of the brain were functioning and certain not and there is nothing I could say to dispute that. But usually when we speak of 'heart' there is some quality of deep sympathy, kindness, warmth that does nto depend on thought or intellect necessarily. That was still clearly in evidence, even though sensory and intellectual cognition clearly was not. So in this sense I think one can see that perhaps there could be other 'seats of consciousness' than the brain, or at least other very important zones. Or at least that there are different zones or levels of consciousness, whether or not one wishes to pin them to particular organs. That is really the point.

My real, underlying point is that the body alone, nor any part/organ therein, is not truly the 'seat' of consciousness, rather the entire body is a processor of consciousness ( which is essentially non-local and non-physical) into the physical (i.e. particular space and time location modus) realm which we share somehow. A marvel, truly. Even in animals!

"Prove what? All you have to do is look. Other people can't do the work for you."

I have looked. Have spent years looking. Unlike you, I do not take refuge in vague generalisations like 'all people have...' etc.

Which is obviously not true ( the 'all' part) anyway (since some scientists now tout the lower brain as being more active - in accordance with much Japanese thought on the subject - but that's beside the point.

Obviously the prescription is not working. Instead of wine, maybe scotch. And maybe you need two female companions, both in high spirits, not just the one. At some point, you will truly get that there is more to consciousness than the brain!

Kevin: disregarding any value judgments in terms of lower or higher do you think that

a fly has less consciousness than a Buddha?

"So you're planning on rebirth as an animal again. See you in a few hundred lifetimes."

No. I checked my schedule and remembered: I'm invited for a week-long ambrosia-fest in Tusita Heaven. Since this week lasts several centuries in human-animal time, when I come back down, although assuredly I'll be ready for a nice lamb, veggy, potatoe and Barolo fest, I'll use basic super-sensory capabilities to make sure that you are not the animal on the plate after waiting around a few hundred lifetimes for our date. That would not be a nice way for us to 'see' each other now, would it?

tharpa wrote:Kevin: disregarding any value judgments in terms of lower or higher do you think that

a fly has less consciousness than a Buddha?

I suppose you're now going to tell me that all things have the same, equal consciousness?

If this were true, there would be no need for anyone to seek to be rid of their delusions and become enlightened.

P.S. I think the current consensus is that the brain stem is part of the brain. All boundaries, such as the boundary of the brain, are created for convenience. If we didn't create such boundaries, nothing would exist.

Kevin: disregarding any value judgments in terms of lower or higher do you think that

a fly has less consciousness than a Buddha?

"If we didn't create such boundaries, nothing would exist."

Very true. That is why one and many (local / universal) are both inseparable, different, true and false all at once - i.e. none more like it.

Which is also why neither the brain or big toe can possibly ever be 'the seat of consciousness' which is essentially non-local and non-physical without any shadow of doubt, equivocation or evidence to the contrary whatsoever. (except to animals).

tharpa wrote:Which is also why neither the brain or big toe can possibly ever be 'the seat of consciousness' which is essentially non-local and non-physical without any shadow of doubt, equivocation or evidence to the contrary whatsoever. (except to animals).

This is where you're wrong.

A person's consciousness is local to themself. That's why we call it their consciousness as opposed to someone elses.

And that's why we can say that a Buddha has an enlightened consciousness and an ignorant person does not.

If consciousness were truly non-local, then there would just be just one consciousness shared by everything, and there would be no need for anyone to drop their delusions and become enlightened.

Kevin Solway wrote:

tharpa wrote:Which is also why neither the brain or big toe can possibly ever be 'the seat of consciousness' which is essentially non-local and non-physical without any shadow of doubt, equivocation or evidence to the contrary whatsoever. (except to animals).

This is where you're wrong.

A person's consciousness is local to themself. That's why we call it their consciousness as opposed to someone elses.

And that's why we can say that a Buddha has an enlightened consciousness and an ignorant person does not.

If consciousness were truly non-local, then there would just be just one consciousness shared by everything, and there would be no need for anyone to drop their delusions and become enlightened.

That is a very good answer, Kevin, for which I thank you* though I am still waiting for a pronouncement about the fly question rather than a diversion....

I would not say that 'a Buddha has enlightened consciousness and an ignorant person does not.'

I would say that a Buddha does not have an obscured - i.e. animal etc. - consciousness. Furthermore, a Buddha is a situational term in terms of the role played by a Buddha at a certain time manifesting in a certain place to certain beings/situations.

Part of the problem here is that we need more than the one term 'consciousness' to describe what are actually different aspects of the same/similar whatever.

So now I would like to flip the debate/question, since you have firmly posited the existence of different individuals as such having earlier defined incarnation as interdepent influence only and not specific birth as such:

what do you think is meant by the old buddhist saying:

'wisdom resides in the body'. ?

* Did you have a nice dinner after all?

tharpa wrote:though I am still waiting for a pronouncement about the fly question rather than a diversion....

You know what the answer to that question is, so there's no need for an answer from me.

I would not say that 'a Buddha has enlightened consciousness and an ignorant person does not.'

I would say that a Buddha does not have an obscured - i.e. animal etc. - consciousness.

A consciousness unobscured by delusion is what an enlightened consciousness is, by definition.

Of course, there are many things that do not have any consciousness at all. Possibly the fly is one of those things, along with other things like rocks.

In the case of those things they would first need a consciousness if they were ever to attain a consciousness that is not obscured by delusions.

Furthermore, a Buddha is a situational term in terms of the role played by a Buddha at a certain time manifesting in a certain place to certain beings/situations.

A Buddha is simply a person with an enlightened consciousness, which is to say that their consciousness is free of delusions. Such a thing happens if Nature wills it.

Part of the problem here is that we need more than the one term 'consciousness' to describe what are actually different aspects of the same/similar whatever.

I don't think so. The one term "consciousness" is perfectly fine.

I think you want to call the whole of Nature "consciousness", but that's not useful at all, since Nature as a whole is not conscious. For one thing, there's nothing for it to be conscious of, since there's nothing other than itself.

what do you think is meant by the old buddhist saying:

'wisdom resides in the body'. ?

It could mean many things. I need to know the context in which the words appear.

Kevin Solway wrote: Likewise it's not funny when someone seriously believes that that long term memories are stored in the heart.

These things are more sad than anything.

That's a bit hyperbole, it's not fully understood yet what is stored and not stored in what is called the 'heart brain', the intrinsic cardiac nervous system. It can process information, has memory capability and can make decisions about its control independent of the central nervous system.

For example certain strong emotional memories (scars) might be part of this nervous system. Also some regulation of hormones and electromagnetic pulses are stemming from the heart area and could have great influence on the workings on the central nervous system.

It's not sad at all to imply the body is the most important part of the brain.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote: Likewise it's not funny when someone seriously believes that that long term memories are stored in the heart.

These things are more sad than anything.

That's a bit hyperbole, it's not fully understood yet what is stored and not stored in what is called the 'heart brain'

We know that the heart doesn't store a person's long term memories, because people who have had a heart transplant do not lose their long term memories. I think that's pretty straightforward.

Yes, there would probably be hormonal or chemical differences with having a new heart, and they would have an effect on the nervous system, but that's not the same as all of a person's long term memories.

Kevin Solway wrote:

tharpa wrote:though I am still waiting for a pronouncement about the fly question rather than a diversion....

You know what the answer to that question is, so there's no need for an answer from me.

Well, from my perspective: size cannot be measured when dealing with consciousness any more than location pinpointed. Thining the body is the producer of consciousness is like thinking the TV set is producing the program. Yes, if you break certain parts it won't work, but that doesn't 'prove' that the TV is the seat of the Moulin Rouge show that was on the screen until you pulled out the plug or smashed the screen.

This analogy works to illustrate ways in which people might mistakenly view awareness as being only a product of the body, or even that it mainly dwells in a particular organ - such as our infamous brain - but it breaks apart (as all analogies do) if it is taken to imply that somewhere 'out there' consciousness is being broadcast and we are merely picking up deliberately created signals as is the case with TV's and radios (and soon in movie theatres as well I gather).

Kevin Solway wrote:

I would not say that 'a Buddha has enlightened consciousness and an ignorant person does not.'

I would say that a Buddha does not have an obscured - i.e. animal etc. - consciousness.

A consciousness unobscured by delusion is what an enlightened consciousness is, by definition.

With respect, the two statements are not the same. Enlightenment is not something that is either produced or possessed. And as to the Buddha business down below, I am using that word in the traditional Buddhist fashion, whereas you seem to have appropriated it to mean something different - which you are free to do of course - but obviously I am not sure what you mean by it. Someone on the first bhumi of enlightenment, for example, is 'enlightened' by definition, but is not a Buddha by any means, rather a bodhisattva on the bhumis, i.e. think on the level of the Path of Seeing, but I might be slightly off on that one.
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Kevin Solway wrote: Of course, there are many things that do not have any consciousness at all. Possibly the fly is one of those things, along with other things like rocks.

In the case of those things they would first need a consciousness if they were ever to attain a consciousness that is not obscured by delusions.

Well, apart from the fact that flies clearly are sentient and have consciousness, basically yes, except that here a little joke by my teacher is apropos: 'enlightenment is basically everything the ego has always avoided and dreaded; the notion that you will possess or attain enlightenment is like assuming you will be able to witness your own funeral.'

Kevin Solway wrote:

Furthermore, a Buddha is a situational term in terms of the role played by a Buddha at a certain time manifesting in a certain place to certain beings/situations.

A Buddha is simply a person with an enlightened consciousness, which is to say that their consciousness is free of delusions. Such a thing happens if Nature wills it.

???!!! A new god? With a will? Somewhere or everywhere? When? Is this will constant and unchanging or does it vary from place to place. Are rocks shareholders?

Kevin Solway wrote:

Part of the problem here is that we need more than the one term 'consciousness' to describe what are actually different aspects of the same/similar whatever.

I don't think so. The one term "consciousness" is perfectly fine.

Then why did you suddenly bring in the deus ex machina Nature - not to mention her 'will'?

Actually what I was thinking is that partly we are talking at cross purposes because there is not the same view, which is fine and normal in a discussion (although they go much better after a good meal!), but also there is a difference between discussion the cause, the nature and the function of 'consciousness' (to give one example). Without clarity in exactly what is being discussed, things can get circular or simply 'yes but, no but' very easily.

Kevin Solway wrote: I think you want to call the whole of Nature "consciousness", but that's not useful at all, since Nature as a whole is not conscious. For one thing, there's nothing for it to be conscious of, since there's nothing other than itself.

Absolutely not. The point is that the essential nature of consciousness is not based in the physical or therefore the local. But that doesn't mean that all rocks are conscious. It might mean, however, that rocks and the field of consciousness are not two. But that is not the same thing. Also, for that matter, since you introduced it at the beginning as a major part of your theme, there is a difference between awakened/awakening/human style consciousness and stuck/blinkered/animal style conscousness. These would be more in terms of the function aspect, perhaps, but not necessarily on the cause/essence or nature aspect even though we are essentially using only one word to cover all three areas.

Kevin Solway wrote:

what do you think is meant by the old buddhist saying:

'wisdom resides in the body'. ?

It could mean many things. I need to know the context in which the words appear.

Texts on how to actualise 'enlightenment', co-emergent wisdom and so forth.

Clyde, sorry I missed your post.

Maybe the causes are not existent for such a discussion :)

Quite right, I’m caused to travel for now :)

tharpa,

For those who follow the Darwinianist slime-to-hominoid argument this is a taboo notion to float, but since I don't subscribe to that overly simplistic notion at all, it doesn't bother me one bit.

Darwin did not himself write anything in the vein of "slime-to-hominid". He simply described the process of natural selection as one possible way that species might differentiate over time. He took a bunch of seemingly unrelated and easily observable facts and extended the time frame to what was at the time seen to be a ridiculously large time-scale (geologic time, rather than the handful of millenia since creation).

I used to have software on my computer that simulated the process of natural selection. A bunch of objects in a restricted environment (I used a 75x75 mass) were given random lines of code that mutated every generation. They were fed numbers, and based on their output were rewarded or ignored. Those who could do various tasks (adding the numbers, subtracting the numbers, comparing the numbers) were rewarded. When I ran the program for a few real-life days (thousands of generations), virtually every entity could do every single task.

The neat thing about this program was it had a lot of customizability, and you could look at the code any given entity used to solve these equations. The code was ridiculous. No programmer would ever write code that weird. But it worked.

It's pretty much established that natural selection works. It can be simulated on computers, and each of the necessary short-term components are visible in the living world (mutation, reproduction, reward, fitness).

Heart is long-term (i.e. deeply personal) memories zone;
Stomach-spleen is emotional memories zone;
Kidney is short-term memory (i.e. immediate intention/will) zone.

Why do you find this more convincing than simply putting it all in the head? Distributing the mind all over the body like this would make access times incredibly long. Our bodies already have to compensate for the time it takes information to travel to the brain by reflex action.

Are people on dialysis (no kidneys) unable to form short-term memories or will anything? Do people with entirely artificial hearts no longer have the ability to form or access deeply personal memories?

I have heard of head-injuries that cause similar events as these, but never in my life have I heard of kidney malfunction or heart failure doing so.

tharpa (part 2),

Sounds like your monist defintion resembles one of them, usually known in english as 'absolute truth'.

I wouldn't be surprised. Monism is hardly a new idea, nor is it restricted to Western philosophy.

But then there is relative truth which simply put admits multiplicity/differences/particularities into the equation. Although not at all the same as yin-yang theory, structurally it ends up being somewhat similar. And as such I suspect it is not quite monist.

If there is fundamentally one substance, then it is monist.

Another thought: any notion of monism might, if applied unskillfully, exclude that which is not monist, in which case the monist position contains two again.

That's a play on language. Monism doesn't prevent a person from making comparisons. It is strictly a metaphysical position about the nature of the world. It has entirely to do with whether or not there is something that has been variously called "Reality", "the Absolute", or "Tao".

There are alternatives to monism, but unless someone is actively trying to avoid monism, I suspect that most (if not all) assume that there is only one Reality.

That said, I would be hard-pressed to consider someone who doesn't actually understand the complexities of the -ism a member of it. I don't consider children to be atheists or theists, and I don't think that most adults have the depth of thought to be much more than an atheist or theist -- let alone a rationalist, empiricist, idealist, monist, dualist, postmodernist, etc.

-isms are only for people who actively consider them.

For example, is the typical 'Western' monotheistic notion monist?

Monotheism can be monist, but it doesn't have to be. I have heard defenses of God that he is not exactly part of Reality, but above it. The attempt is made to try to exclude Him from certain necessities of being real, such as being subject to causality. In the process, a magical dualism between Reality and God forms.

Some, however, are willing to consider God the same thing as Reality, or as part of Reality: these are monist positions.

Or how could you put the whole thing together monistically without upsetting Goedel?

I know very little about Godel, but I know just enough to agree with Kevin on this one:

"Firstly, truth has nothing to do with language. Only the expression of truth is dependent on language. Secondly, all languages necessarily have parameters defining them, otherwise they would be meaningless. And languages do have meaning, otherwise nobody would understand any of the words on this page. "

"Why do you find this more convincing than simply putting it all in the head? Distributing the mind all over the body like this would make access times incredibly long. Our bodies already have to compensate for the time it takes information to travel to the brain by reflex action.

Are people on dialysis (no kidneys) unable to form short-term memories or will anything? Do people with entirely artificial hearts no longer have the ability to form or access deeply personal memories?

I have heard of head-injuries that cause similar events as these, but never in my life have I heard of kidney malfunction or heart failure doing so."

Well, in terms of access times and distributions, I go along with the daoist assumptions that the entire body is mind, so that is a non-starter. For those who believe mind is essentially directed from the brain, I can see why this is a problem logistically speaking. Again, the essence of mind is a non-local field, so time and access doesn't enter into it.

In terms of the dialsysis query, I really don't know, not being in the medical field and having successfully avoided hospitals thus far in life except when assisting someone during their death process in an ICU and at home. But as I said a few posts back, even people with removed spleens still have to perform the function of the spleen overall, and other organs take up the slack. Also, I don't 'believe' that memory is a physical thing that is 'stored' in any organ or cell, so even if the heart is removed and a person continues to have long-term memories, it was never the physical heart alone that 'stored' such 'memories' anyway, rather was the radio set which transmitted them. If that set gets broken, the transmissions will come through elsewhere, but different organs have to modulate their own frequencies somewhat to compensate. Again, this is not to say that something out there is transmitting, but it is an analogy describing how the organ does not produce the perceptions/mind just as the radio does not produce a broadcast.

There are two main reasons why modern western (vs medieval) medical practitioners do not evidence much connection with mind and the main visceral organs:
1. They believe the mind is in the brain and do not look elsewhere
2. The brain, being more a switchboard than real 'storehouse' organ, is far more easily to manipulate or damage in limited areas and the overall organism will continue, albeit changed. However, if you take away a dialysis machine and have a truly failed kidney system, you die in hours; you take away lung, heart, liver and so forth and you die within seconds. So it is much harder to experiment. The liver is not a switchboard mechanism so if you cut a slice from it it probably won't exhibit the same sort of precise mental results, i.e. a slice from X produces mental effect Y, whereas a slice from Z spot produces mental effect T and so forth, but there is no doubt that taking slices from the liver, or stimulating certain parts unnaturally will produce acute, observable 'mental' results. Try giving your heart a 12 v shock and see what happens!!

Just as for you the idea that the mind is not seated in the brain seems bizarre, let me assure you that for me the idea that it is seems no less bizarre to the point of being idiotic. I frankly cannot understand how anyone can have such a ridiculously simplistic, matter-based notion of the functions and nature of mind and consciousness insofar as they relate to the body-mind processes of a human (or animal ) being. I am not disturbed that others feel that way, but I am bemused that most who do take exception to anyone perceiving it differently, reacting somewhat as if their entire belief system is being undermined. It is almost taboo in modern society to question the veracity - let alone consistency - of science, and yet when you dig a little into each field you can always find many inconsistencies, controversies and huge disagreements about fundamental issues. Same with modern medicine. Very good at some things, totally in the dark about others, but insisting that in those very areas in which they blunder about, they have nothing to learn outside the confines of their own paradigms which have created the darkness in the first place.

This thread - I think, although Kevin refused to redefine it when I requested him too - is about misconceptions about reincarnation, especially about the fact that most humans are in fact animals, and most notions of one being reincarnating as another are simplistic fallacies.

I have been attempting to provoke questions and contemplations about the notion of being at all, let alone what rebirth or reincarnation might mean, let alone discriminating between so-called animal and so-called human being. If we have no clear sense of what the nature of our being is, how can we discuss whether or not reincarnation is a valid notion, whether or not the realm teachings are only metaphorical, or only literal or, as I maintain, they are both, that both are essentially the same underlying dynamic since the very nature of a realm is essentially fictive, emotive, imagined, mental etc. even though such causative/motivational 'elements' produce space and time, seemingly solid realms, and fantastic beings such as flies, ants, caterpillars, marsupials and Australians in fishnet stockings making omelettes!

Anyway...

tharpa,

Just as for you the idea that the mind is not seated in the brain seems bizarre, let me assure you that for me the idea that it is seems no less bizarre to the point of being idiotic.

Well, the fact of the matter is: I have suffered damage to the brain, and it did affect my personality.

In the first case, I am bipolar, and take three different medications: an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor --that only acts on serotonin, preventing the levels from ever getting too low), a mood stabilizer (that acts primarily on dopamine, keeping the levels constant over time), and an atypical antipsychotic that prevents my serotonin levels from spiking (and cures my insomnia).

Serotonin and dopamine are only present in relation to the brain, so when I take the medication, I am only affecting my brain. The amount of changes that this can cause are staggering: other than completely restoring me from total mania (or depression), my mind is kept at a relative calm at all times, my body mass increased, my sex drive diminished, not to mention a bunch of other little quirks that occasionally surprise me.

On top of that, I suffered damage to the brain due to a two month period where I didn't sleep. It's visible on both an MRI and CAT scan. Something my mind was doing during these two months -- refusing to sleep -- caused physical damage to my brain tissue, and no damage elsewhere.

When you say it's "idiotic" that someone would associate the mind with the brain, you completely forget that there are people who suffer damage to the brain that directly and unequivocally affects their mind. When the dopamine and serotonin levels in my skull are too high (or too low), I may as well be an entirely different person. Mind is not something simple: it can and will change (often in subtle ways) with any change to the brain.

Quite simply, there is no doubt in my mind that there is a one-to-one correspondance between mind and brain. If you don't believe this, sample a few hits of d-lysergenic acid or pop a couple pills of MDMA (both drugs whose only agency is the transmitters in your brain).