I Am Soul

[lupus_in_fabula]

Yes, one can also take the materialist viewpoint that the experience of limited selfhood arises as a result of some natural brain function and thus should be declared a priori to non-duality. I don't like it so much but I guess it's also valid.

Here's an interesting read by V.S. Ramachandran (2007): The Neurology of Self-Awareness at the Edge-website. It's quite short and easy to read.

It's also possible to take the materialist viewpoint that the experience of limited selfhood and non-duality are both expressions of brainfunction.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Maybe the better question is "Why is the apple the color it is?"

Because the material of the apple's skin absorbers and re-radiates electromagnetic radiation in a very specific way. We can choose to call the EM wavelengths emitted from the apple "blue" if we like, but that will not change the physical properties of the apple one bit.

Subjective reality is fact.

If by that you mean that people have subjective beliefs then you are correct. But if you are trying to say that subjective beliefs influence reality then I fail to see any evidence of this in your argument.

My point regarding the innocent judged guilty by a group of individuals presented with evidence was to show that it does happen.

Except that in you analogy there is also an example that subjective reality can also be false.
Q: Does the man believe he is innocent?
A: Yes
Q: Is he innocent?
A: Yes.

Q: Does the jury believe the man is innocent?
A: No.
Q: Is he innocent?
A: Yes.

Another scenario:

Q: Does the man believe he is innocent?
A: No.
Q: Is he innocent?
A: Yes.

We can ask numerous questions about what various people believe regarding the man's case, but no matter what anyone believes the answer to the question "Is he innocent?" will always be "Yes".

Just because it is subjective does not make it false.

Nor does it make it true. You seem to be percieving a false dichotomy here. I am not arguing that subjective experiences are always false, I am arguing that subjective experiences can be false and that objective truth, such as our hypothetical convict's innocence, is independent of one's subjective experience.

Fact can influence belief, but belief has no influence over fact.

Is that a fact?

That is as near to a fact as we are ever likely to get, as near as gravity, radiation or thermodynamics.

The fact that the person knows he is innocent is what I am calling subjective reality. For the person, that knowledge, the experience, the fact of the matter is what makes him subjectively innocent, regardless of the outside influence claiming the opposite.

True. But his subjective belief is not what makes him objectively innocent.

If at some other point in time, and outside influence got into his head and through all sorts of verbal manipulations convinced the person he was guilty, then the person has simply allowed himself to be brainwashed, hypnotized…whatever.

True. And while it would be a fact that his subjective belief had changed this belief would have no influence over the objective reality of his innocence.

I am not sure why u say he would be objectively innocent, because he was objectively judged guilty and objectively convince later of his guilt.

Yes, it is objectively true that he was convicted by the jury. But he was convicted based on the subjective beliefs of the jury. Their subjective belief that he is guilty is incorrect and does not reflect object reality.

Subjective reality has been sacrificed for objective reality.

The subjective fact has been laid aside for the sake of collective opinion.

No, the collective opinion is subjective fact.

The fact that it can happen (no one denies this) points to the fact that it does happen, and that when it comes to throwing away the fact of personal experience for the sake of collective opinion…

Collective opinion is personal experience. I suspect you may be confused as to the nature of objective and subjective. Honestly, I don't know what you're getting at. Could you clarify?

...well, the fact is it is the choice of the individual.

What is the choice of the individual?

 

[Nick227]

The universe doesn't like or dislike anything, it just is. So something being valid has nothing to do with "like".

The universe is a concept. I like things, and dislike them.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

If by that you mean that people have subjective beliefs then you are correct. But if you are trying to say that subjective beliefs influence reality then I fail to see any evidence of this in your argument.

Well, the belief in God, for example, appears to have caused the appearance of numerous rectangular buildings with pointy tops. They seem pretty real to me. So, whilst the post to which you refer might not provide evidence, I would say that evidence is still available.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Here's an interesting read by V.S. Ramachandran (2007): The Neurology of Self-Awareness at the Edge-website. It's quite short and easy to read.

It's also possible to take the materialist viewpoint that the experience of limited selfhood and non-duality are both expressions of brainfunction.

I like his work, though he doesn't seem to have yet dealt with the issue of identification with thought, to me the subjectively apparent mechanism by which the experience of limited selfhood is created and maintained. Our selection of which thought to act upon, in many important decisions, appears to be motivated by a subconscious desire for increased awareness, not rational assessment. This desire is also one that, sadly, is frequently not actualised.

Nick

 

[Paulhoff]

The universe is a concept. I like things, and dislike them.

Nick

Concept and it is..........

Paul

 

[articulett]

Oh how I wish you were a monkey. I'd give you a toy and teach you to do all sorts of tricks. It would be awesome! I'd name you Poko and we'd go to the park and I'd teach you to lift up skirts and harass old men.

He's not a monkey, but objectively he is a primate-- a great ape, in fact.

 

[articulett]

ETA (And I'm using the term "great" to reference size and not eminence, of course)

 

[Nick227]

Concept and it is..........

Paul

Don't know.

Nick

 

[articulett]

Nope. It is not important for my subjective experience to be believed by you, or anyone else.

When you say subjective you are talking about things that are felt, believed, opined, mottoes, creeds, preferences, etc. Anything but "fact" and everything that isn't objective.

You can give your perspective of objective reality. As wings infers, there is no such think as a subjective fact. That is an oxymoron. People perceived the earth as flat (subjective), but that is not objectively true.

Theists have a real problem with this. You believe that you can exist without your body and believe you have had experiences which confirm this to you... but that is no different than Tom Cruise believing that being cleared via Scientology as gotten rid of body Thetans. It's a belief based on an invisible form of consciousness that nobody has established as existing in the first place. It has not been established by anyone ever that consciousness can exist absent a brain. All those who believe that are ONLY propping up a subjective opinion no matter how much they feel they KNOW it to be "true". All the word games in the world doesn't change it.

You believe you are "soul"-- you've failed even establish meaning in that, much less give anyone else a reason to buy into the paradigm anymore than to believe that we need to get rid of our body thetans or engrams or whatever the hell it is "clearing" does.

We're not giving you a hard time for your beliefs... it's your trying to get us to acknowledge it as "truth" or "objective" or "fact" that we have a problem with. To us you may as well be a person who believes you are possess by demons or are receiving psychic communications from the Pleiads.

You sound very sloppy and pedantic in your language, but nobody but you seems to think you are actually saying anything. If you tell us what your point for starting this thread is, then perhaps we can fulfill your expectations. But to blame others because your verbiage is incomprehensible shows a behavior flaw in yourself that you may wish to address if you want to have your goals in posting met.

Unless your goal is that of most woos that post here-- to prop up whatever they believe in their own heads by convincing themselves their "reasoning" has been subjected to skeptical scrutiny and withstood it.

Believing this, doesn't make it so--you know. Objectively, I mean. Subjectively you can think you are a reincarnation of Jesus Christ or that you astrally project-- but that doesn't make it objectively true.

You have no more evidence or coherence in your claims than a schizophrenic insisting that their delusions are true does. If that bugs you, you may wish to examine why. That is something that appears to be "objectively true", btw... the majority on this thread have been trying to tell you this.

 

[articulett]

Yes, one can also take the materialist viewpoint that the experience of limited selfhood arises as a result of some natural brain function and thus should be declared a priori to non-duality. I don't like it so much but I guess it's also valid.

Nick

This is the most logical conclusion given the fact that there is no measurable evidence of an alternative explanation... this is the conclusion that best fits the observed data. Sure, it doesn't fit the data most people believe or want to believe... just as the earth is not flat-- but people have been positing these invisible forms of consciousness for eons without have eked out the tiniest bit of evidence that it is even possible to exist as a personality without a brain or body or anything inputing and interperpreting the environment.

If this was ever show to be a possibility, then all conclusions including demon possession, fairies, Xenu, thetans, gods, and souls are contenders for truth and there is no way to distinguish them from "imaginary friends" or "mythological figures". It appears that humans are very prone to assigning invisible beings with agency to things they don't understand... but these beings (e.g. gods that require virgin sacrifices to ensure crop growth) tend to disappear as science discovers more (in this case weather and agriculture.)

No one has been a case for any invisible entity (including souls) to be anything more than weather gods or hobgoblins of the mind.

 

[articulett]

I like his work, though he doesn't seem to have yet dealt with the issue of identification with thought, to me the subjectively apparent mechanism by which the experience of limited selfhood is created and maintained. Our selection of which thought to act upon, in many important decisions, appears to be motivated by a subconscious desire for increased awareness, not rational assessment. This desire is also one that, sadly, is frequently not actualised.

Nick

Yes he has... read his split brain studies. And he sounds much more coherent and focused than you as well.

 

[Nick227]

Yes he has... read his split brain studies. And he sounds much more coherent and focused than you as well.

Can you link me the relevant article?

In the linked article a few posts back, the author states at the end...

"Have we solved the problem of self? Obviously not — we have barely scratched the surface. But hopefully we have paved the way for future models and empirical studies on the nature of self, a problem that philosophers have made essentially no headway in solving."

I don't know when the article was written though.

Nick

 

[Foster Zygote]

Well, the belief in God, for example, appears to have caused the appearance of numerous rectangular buildings with pointy tops. They seem pretty real to me. So, whilst the post to which you refer might not provide evidence, I would say that evidence is still available.

Nick

But does the belief in gods have any effect on the actual existence of said gods? You have pointed out evidence of the existence of temples, but not of the existence of gods.

In the earlier analogy the jury had the belief that the man was guilty and this caused him to be sentenced to prison. This is evidence of the jury's belief, it is not evidence of the man's guilt.

 

[Nick227]

When you say subjective you are talking about things that are felt, believed, opined, mottoes, creeds, preferences, etc. Anything but "fact" and everything that isn't objective.

But objectivity is a constructed viewpoint. It relies on the notion of an absolute subject-object divide. Yet there is no empiric evidence for this divide. Neurologists do not yet know how it even arises in the brain as an experience. Objectivity can thus be shown to fail by its own standards.

Your point of view is in actuality, I submit, no more objective than that of the apparently most deluded subjectivist. Am I wrong?

Nick

 

[Paulhoff]

Yes he has... read his split brain studies. And he sounds much more coherent and focused than you as well.

I seen the split brain stuff on TV, you almost have two people and not just one, where did that other soul come from.

Paul

 

[Nick227]

But does the belief in gods have any effect on the actual existence of said gods? You have pointed out evidence of the existence of temples, but not of the existence of gods.

In the earlier analogy the jury had the belief that the man was guilty and this caused him to be sentenced to prison. This is evidence of the jury's belief, it is not evidence of the man's guilt.

Well, I must admit that I can't really bring my brain to consider the story about the courtroom drama! It's not my thing. You earlier stated that subjective beliefs did not influence reality. I was just picking up on this.

As to whether believing in things causes them to exist, well, that sounds like what Plato used to figure. It's a bit chicken and egg, I think. Someone somewhere likely had the idea of a church, what it should look like, and now they're all over the place.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I seen the split brain stuff on TV, you almost have two people and not just one, where did that other soul come from.

Well, I'm not writing about souls. I'm talking about the experience of having a personal identity. It may well be a brain process, but as far as I'm aware neurologists have not yet tracked it down.

Nick

 

[articulett]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I think Ramachandran is much more comprehensible and brilliant than any dualist here...[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]He's interested in the real truth--not what he wants to be true. It appears that one part of our brain is the "interpreter"... we perceive this "narrator" as another....or separate self or "soul"... it subscribes agency to things (makes up reasons) in order to keep a cohesive story of the world.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From the link above:[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran07/ramachandran07_index.html[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I turn now to the main concern of this essay — the nature of self. When you think of your own self, what comes into mind? You have sense of "introspecting" on your own thoughts and feelings and of " watching" yourself going about your business — as if you were looking at yourself from another persons vantage point. How does this happen ?[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Evolution often takes advantage of pre-existing structures to evolve completely novel abilities. I suggest that once the ability to engage in cross modal abstraction emerged — e.g. between visual "vertical" on the retina and photoreceptive "vertical" signaled by muscles (for grasping trees) it set the stage for the emergence of mirror neurons in hominids. Mirror neurons are also abundant in the inferior parietal lobule — a structure that underwent an accelerated expansion in the great apes and, later, in humans.. As the brain evolved further the lobule split into two gyri — the supramarginal gyrus that allowed you to "reflect" on your own anticipated actions and the angular gyrus that allowed you to "reflect" on your body (on the right) and perhaps on other more social and linguistic aspects of your self (left hemisphere) I have argued elsewhere that mirror neurons are fundamentally performing a kind of abstraction across activity in visual maps and motor maps. This in turn may have paved the way for more conceptual types of abstraction; such as metaphor ("get a grip on yourself").[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]How does all this lead to self awareness? I suggest that self awareness is simply using mirror neurons for "looking at myself as if someone else is look at me" (the word "me" encompassing some of my brain processes, as well). The mirror neuron mechanism — the same algorithm — that originally evolved to help you adopt another's point of view was turned inward to look at your own self. This, in essence, is the basis of things like "introspection". It may not be coincidental that we use phrases like "self conscious" when you really mean that you are conscious of others being conscious of you. Or say "I am reflecting" when you mean you are aware of yourself thinking. In other words the ability to turn inward to introspect or reflect may be a sort of metaphorical extension of the mirror neurons ability to read others minds
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
And here is more on split brain studies:
http://www.annalsnyas.org/cgi/content/abstract/1001/1/65

This stuff is pretty well established in neurology and we have several neurologists on this forum as well.
[/FONT]

 

[Nick227]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I think Ramachandran is much more comprehensible and brilliant than any dualist here...[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]He's interested in the real truth--not what he wants to be true. It appears that one part of our brain is the "interpreter"... we perceive this "narrator" as another....or separate self or "soul"... it subscribes agency to things (makes up reasons) in order to keep a cohesive story of the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This stuff is pretty well established in neurology and we have several neurologists on this forum as well.
[/FONT]

Yes, we are now aware of the role of mirror neurons and the somatosensory cortex. But, as Ramachandran himself points out, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the issue of limited selfhood from a neurological standpoint.

Speaking as someone who is not a neurologist, what I have subjectively experienced is that thoughts, and likely unconscious thoughts, play a big role in the experience of limited selfhood. In a self-conscious being there is the experience of free will, of choice. Yet, of all the thoughts upon which we could act, those upon which we do act in many situations are those which appear to be the most "our" thoughts, frequently regardless of how sensible or logical they are.

People frequently make core decisions in life, such as deciding who to go out with or what job to go after, not through logically evaluating the choices, but through following the thought which seems to be the most "theirs." What's also evident through examining this closely is that the presence of repressed conflicts appears to drive this process. We are subconsciously attracted to situations where there is the liklihood that repressed dramas can be made manifest. The underlying drive, at an unconscious level, is towards greater self-awareness.

I figure that it is this unconscious drive towards greater self-awareness that creates this experience of acute identification with certain thoughts, causing them to be acted upon. Of course, whether self-awareness actually does rise through this process is still up to the ego and the world, but the pattern is consistent in my experience as a therapist.

I think neurologists are going to have to research emotions much more if they are going to be able to unravel the experience of limited selfhood. It is clear to me that repressed emotions dictate patterns of behaviour created through acute identification with thought. The drive is for the energy of emotion to be actualised physically, and for self-awareness to rise.

I mean, in neurologic terms, I figure it has to be mediated by dopamine. The experience of identification is for me subjectively similar to addiction, it's classic reward behaviour.

Nick