I Am Soul

[arthwollipot]

Hey, articulett! I think he's implying some kind of sexual foursome between you, dglas, Wings and Paulhoff! That's hardly nice, is it?

 

[Wings]

What is needed in this forum is a thread where folks can go sort their little spats out without spraying and pooping all over any other threads with unrelated off topical stuff.

I left you some questions about your topic in a previous post. If you'd like for us to get back "on-topic", then how about addressing those questions for a start?

 

[maatorc]

What is needed in this forum is a thread where folks can go sort their little spats out without spraying and pooping all over any other threads with unrelated off topical stuff.

I do not initiate attacks, I only answer them, and your point is well taken.
Many here cannot distinguish between principles and personalities.

 

[articulett]

Hey, articulett! I think he's implying some kind of sexual foursome between you, dglas, Wings and Paulhoff! That's hardly nice, is it?

Hmm... is that what he's implying..? I can't make sense of any of it... why is maatorc's name in there? To me he and Maatorc are cut from the same cloth-- new agey... holier-than-thou... woo-ish... hard to understand... imagined expertise... messiah complex...

The rest of us are just delightful skeptics doing our skeptic thang...



I still haven't figured out maatorc's reference to a male version of myself. I was think Mayday was a good female version Maatorc... but now I think Mayday is a better match for The Navigator. I'm thinking Amy Wilson and Maatorc... what do you think?

Don't you love it when people drop in and tsk tsk us? I do. It gives me giggle fits.

Now what was this thread about again...

Oh yeah... navigator was telling us all how he is soul.

(sshh be quiet, arth... quit pooping and spraying...)

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

I used the word soul, and it is interesting how individuals have responded.

I was informed that such words are only used to describe abstracts…I was told by others that a sense of self is an abstract itself, and that they believed that all concepts of the self are creations of the brain.
While I don’t believe this myself, I am willing to try and understand what makes these people believe it.

It’s actually a quite simple to see why people believe it: evidence overwhelmingly seems to suggest that, while evidence pointing to the contrary direction seems to be completely lacking. I really don’t understand how there’s an effort involved in trying to understand the point of view that the phenomenal self is an abstraction.

It’s also interesting to notice how the contrary view (which seems to lack evidence) is still quite forcefully held together by, what seems to me, emotional investment. Here we have a clear example where analytical veracity is contrasted with narrative affection.

What is known as certainty is ones own subjective experience.

Well, the thing is that it doesn’t seem all that certain after all: ‘one’s own’ implies ownership (in the absolute sense) over the ‘subjective experience’ (ultimately one aspect of existence). It seems that ultimately there are only processes and no absolute owners; ownership is relative to the self and how the experience of existence is interpreted and filtered trough that notion. What I’m pointing out is that the sense of ownership over the subjective experience is a subjective experience in and of itself.

Also what is known as certainty is this:

Just because we each have one, doesn’t mean to say we each have to be one. (*)

I would say that there are processes that create the experience of ‘each having one’ which then can go on and say: “doesn’t mean to say we each have to be one.”

 

[arthwollipot]

Now what was this thread about again...

Oh yeah... navigator was telling us all how he is soul.

(sshh be quiet, arth... quit pooping and spraying...)

(can you pass some popcorn? Thanks.)

 

[articulett]

(can you pass some popcorn? Thanks.)

Hey, maybe that foursome reference has to do with the psycho sexual hang up maatorc referenced. Maybe they ARE both speaking the same woo.

Let's recap-- Navigator is soul.

This forum has true skeptics "as distinct from" pseudoskeptics...

Maatorc holds the definition for "true skeptic"

I have a male counterpart on this forum that may one day be revealed by maatorc...

um... and what else...? something psycho sexual... something about someone feeling sorry for us... something about scientific reductionism... and something like "I know you are, but what am I"

... oh an something about some people not being able to distinguish principles from personality.

Now where else were we?

(is this the part where we offer each other the sign of peace?)

 

[articulett]

Hello, guys... oh... umm, wait a minute. What's this? You wouldn't be trying to reason with Maatorc would you? Oh I'm sorry, you must be new here. See: you can't.

I predict that you will not be able to reason with such individual for the rest of the following pages and the ones to come.

Oh come on... we already know that... we're just having a little fun... won't you join us in our reverie. You know how cute the woo can be when they get angry!

 

[Navigator]

It’s actually a quite simple to see why people believe it: evidence overwhelmingly seems to suggest that, while evidence pointing to the contrary direction seems to be completely lacking. I really don’t understand how there’s an effort involved in trying to understand the point of view that the phenomenal self is an abstraction.

It’s also interesting to notice how the contrary view (which seems to lack evidence) is still quite forcefully held together by, what seems to me, emotional investment. Here we have a clear example where analytical veracity is contrasted with narrative affection.

Is life an abstraction then?
And love?

Is emotion?

What about things that seem to be?

Well, the thing is that it doesn’t seem all that certain after all: ‘one’s own’ implies ownership (in the absolute sense) over the ‘subjective experience’ (ultimately one aspect of existence). It seems that ultimately there are only processes and no absolute owners; ownership is relative to the self and how the experience of existence is interpreted and filtered trough that notion. What I’m pointing out is that the sense of ownership over the subjective experience is a subjective experience in and of itself.

Yes – my subjective experience is my own.
So is yours…your own

A brain cannot live outside its body. It cannot exist on its OWN without the body.

Without its own body.

A brain has no way of knowing what it would be like to be outside its body.

I do know what it is like to be outside my body. It is still my own subjective experience and my brain acknowledges that I have had the experience, independently of the human instrument.

I am Soul.

It was suggested that I am afraid of death. What is there to fear?

Loss of this life’s experience?

Life is Life.

While I am within human form, I own the experience of that reality.

It is mine to do with as I decide.

If I choose to forget it I will – and if I choose to remember it I will.

This should not offend anyone.

I am Soul.

 

[dglas]

A check of a dictionary reveals that the incessant attacks against 'woos' by pseudo-skeptics on this site bespeaks a deep psycho-sexual hangup.

Which dictionary is that?
What's a pseudo-skeptic?
I could be wrong about this, but that looks like a personal attack to me....



Will spraying poop help you...
Win Powerball!!!

 

[Navigator]

I know that you are convinced that you are brain and when brain is dead, so will you be.
I understand that it can be no other way for you.
I understand that you cannot believe that it will be any different for anyone else.
I don’t altogether understand that this offends or bothers or upsets you or causes you to act with silliness and disruptively.
But I accept that you do and it may be nothing more than as you said…how would a forum with other beliefs react if you went there and spoke of your own beliefs which were contrary to theirs, in the way you do here?

It is human nature at this stage of evolution. I don’t take it personally – just study it for what it exhibits.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Is life an abstraction then?
And love?

Is emotion?

What about things that seem to be?

In a sense everything is an abstraction, especially in a communicative setting, although the abstraction levels differ. However, some phenomena seem to be less abstract and appear to exist without the need for anyone acknowledging them. I’m simply saying that the phenomenal self doesn’t seem to be such a phenomenon; it’s so abstract and dependent on acknowledging that when acknowledging ends the self also disappears. Life seems to be able to exist without acknowledging. Love, not so much. People have the propensity to narrate things into existence (that’s how brains work), albeit which with closer examination disappear again. Ultimately everything we treat as nouns disappear into verbs; things disappear into processes; some things disappear far more easily than others. One might say: That’s Life!

A brain cannot live outside its body. It cannot exist on its OWN without the body.

Yes, it seems that way… precisely like the case with the phenomenal self: It seems that “it”, in turn, cannot exist without the brain.

I do know what it is like to be outside my body. It is still my own subjective experience and my brain acknowledges that I have had the experience, independently of the human instrument.

… and it appears that such experiences cannot have happened without the body in the first place. Did you also know OBEs have now also been produced in the lab?

I am Soul

…which seems to mean the same thing as ‘I am’.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

I know that you are convinced that you are brain and when brain is dead, so will you be.
I understand that it can be no other way for you.
I understand that you cannot believe that it will be any different for anyone else.
I don’t altogether understand that this offends or bothers or upsets you or causes you to act with silliness and disruptively.
But I accept that you do and it may be nothing more than as you said…how would a forum with other beliefs react if you went there and spoke of your own beliefs which were contrary to theirs, in the way you do here?

If this was directed at me, I must say that I’m not offended. I general, I’m usually offended by behaviour, not so much in regards to beliefs as such. However, I’m curious of how people arrive at certain beliefs and conclusions; that’s why I try my best to show how I have arrived at my own conclusions (or why I think other conclusions might me mistaken); and that’s why I’m curious about almost completely opposite conclusions than my own.

It is human nature at this stage of evolution. I don’t take it personally – just study it for what it exhibits.

And yet one cannot escape the sense that when you say “at this stage of evolution”, “don’t take it personally” and “for what it exhibits”, you are portraying a scenario where you seem to have some pioneering knowledge that some here don’t have, but which they eventually will come to possess.

But a similar scenario can be directed at the notion of universal or collective consciousness. Even though there doesn’t seem to be such a phenomenon, we could be in the process of building something of the sort, almost at an exponential rate. Nevertheless, asserting it’s already here (“just tap into the matrix” or "feel the force Luke") seems to be a delusion, although that might be a reality some day, but we have to make it true first (if it's manifestable in the first place), it’s not out there waiting for us, [FONT=&quot]and it will probably not be like we now think it to be like (if something of that sort is to be at all).
[/FONT]

 

[dglas]

I know that you are convinced that you are brain and when brain is dead, so will you be.
I understand that it can be no other way for you.
I understand that you cannot believe that it will be any different for anyone else.
I don’t altogether understand that this offends or bothers or upsets you or causes you to act with silliness and disruptively.
But I accept that you do and it may be nothing more than as you said…how would a forum with other beliefs react if you went there and spoke of your own beliefs which were contrary to theirs, in the way you do here?

It is human nature at this stage of evolution. I don’t take it personally – just study it for what it exhibits.

Whether an act is silly, disruptive or off-topic is a matter of interpretation, Navigator. Our concept of self is under constant negotiation and different people bring different things to the figurative negotiation table. We have the benefit of being, seemingly, wonderfully malleable in this regard. Silliness, disruptiveness and being off-topic are methods of influencing what's on the figurative negotiation table.

The difficulty is not so much about what is true or not (in the Idealist universe you paint for us), but rather the implications of accepting and/or adopting this or that concept of self. Having seen no evidence for any kind of existence beyond the one we are familiar with (not having experienced the passenger you posit in any way whatsoever, and not able to prove in any meaningful way the existence of that passenger to others), I am not convinced that there is a passenger, nor (by extension) that there is another transcendent existence that supervenes on or is independent of the reality we experience - even if we could come up with a coherent understanding of what an "existence independent of reality" might be.

If I understand you correctly, you have now come to accept that a thing can "exist" without a consciousness to recognize it's existence. Speaking this way entails a meaning of existence independent of experience of existing. One can stipulate a meaning of "exist" such that existence is contingent on some experience of that existence. Whether that stipulation maps directly onto reality is an open and extra-system question. The important question at that point is which of these stipulations provides efficacy. What are the consequences of stipulating this stipulation instead that one.

You put forward the analogies of the driver, the passenger and the vehicle. That's all wonderfully imaginative, but there is no reason to suppose that these analogies hold true. The driver and the vehicle may very well be the same thing. That has been suggested by others. If you have the distrust of mere language that you have suggested you do (if I have read you correctly) then you understand that an analogy is not the thing itself. It is, at the very best, an imperfect descriptor. The difficulty with the descriptors/analogies you have posited is that they have little, if any kind of verifiable relationship to reality.

I can see you balking at the word "verifiable" as I type it (in my brain's eye). While it is true that our experience of reality is subjective, we seem to acquire a greater measure of human efficacy with reality when we measure things in terms of inter-subjectivity coupled with a determination to reference external referents (Realism). We suppose that there is a world as it is (Skeptics are, admittedly, Realists who recognize a reality as it is, but recognize also that our knowledge of that reality is inherently flawed). Scientific skepticism posits that we can conditionally "know" something of that reality, by means of evidential bases that seek to remove as much subjectivity as possible. While it may not be possible to remove all subjectivity, we can move in stages away from a purely subjective, intuitionist "method" to greater degrees of inter-subjectivity moving towards, but never achieving objectivity. That exercise has done wonders for modifying our (humanity's) ability to be efficacious in a "Realist" existence (in terms of that existence, of course).

We can posit another existence beyond that of the vehicle, the road, the destination and so forth, but we really have nothing but wishful thinking to support this positing. The passenger is an imaginative and eloquent invention, but that is all it is until we have some reason to suspect it actually exits. Until we establish a referent, we don't even have a metaphor, let alone a reality. The important thing, amidst the rampant speculation, is to ask one question: "What if we are mistaken about the existence of the passenger? What if there is no existence beyond our material lives?"

If that is the case, then casually dismissing our material lives is the highest tragedy imaginable, is it not? No, I shall correct myself immediately, with a deferential nod to humanity as a social species (a bias on my part). Dismissing the material lives of others would be the highest tragedy imaginable. Given the risks involved - what's at stake, do you not think it is reasonable to require something more than speculation before surrendering the value of our, and others', lives, the only ones we can reasonably verify?

We have to kick the tires, because for all we know, the crash might very well be the end of the road, vehicle, driver and passenger. I cannot take that risk, at least not on behalf of others.

Hopefully, that was not silly, disruptive or off-topic.

I'll respectfully request that you do not class me with maatorc. That's downright insulting. At least I can define a skeptic, pseudo, real or otherwise.


To try to...
Win Powerball!!!
...when the probability of winning is next to zero, is to pay a "stupid tax."

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Oh come on... we already know that... we're just having a little fun... won't you join us in our reverie. You know how cute the woo can be when they get angry!

Oh....

Well, in that case... should I bring a bottle or something?

 

[HghrSymmetry]

What's a psycho sexual hang up?

I think it's that deal where you call a "Ted Bundy" , start panting on the phone, then hang up on 'em before they respond.



-H "Hence, in due time expect science to formulate a mathematics of mind = energy = vibration = universe = Being = God."S

 

[Navigator]

In a sense everything is an abstraction, especially in a communicative setting, although the abstraction levels differ. However, some phenomena seem to be less abstract and appear to exist without the need for anyone acknowledging them. I’m simply saying that the phenomenal self doesn’t seem to be such a phenomenon; it’s so abstract and dependent on acknowledging that when acknowledging ends the self also disappears. Life seems to be able to exist without acknowledging. Love, not so much. People have the propensity to narrate things into existence (that’s how brains work), albeit which with closer examination disappear again. Ultimately everything we treat as nouns disappear into verbs; things disappear into processes; some things disappear far more easily than others. One might say: That’s Life!

Yes, it seems that way… precisely like the case with the phenomenal self: It seems that “it”, in turn, cannot exist without the brain.

… and it appears that such experiences cannot have happened without the body in the first place. Did you also know OBEs have now also been produced in the lab?

…which seems to mean the same thing as ‘I am’.

My human instrument was not in a lab. (happy for the link to the info though)
… and it appears that such experiences cannot have happened without the body in the first place.

Cannot have happened?

The varification of the universe cannot have happened without the body in the first place.
It seems that “it”, in turn, cannot exist without the brain.

Nouns cannot exist without the brain, but verbs can? Is that what you are implying?

 

[Navigator]

If this was directed at me, I must say that I’m not offended. I general, I’m usually offended by behaviour, not so much in regards to beliefs as such.

I don't think you needed to ask that. While we both have stepped near that line in regards to our communication with each other, it surely is obvious that I was not directing that comment to you.


And yet one cannot escape the sense that when you say “at this stage of evolution”, “don’t take it personally” and “for what it exhibits”, you are portraying a scenario where you seem to have some pioneering knowledge that some here don’t have, but which they eventually will come to possess.

I have no such belief that 'some here' will eventually possess (own) any direct subjective knowledge of what I am saying.


But a similar scenario can be directed at the notion of universal or collective consciousness Even though there doesn’t seem to be such a phenomenon, we could be in the process of building something of the sort, almost at an exponential rate. Nevertheless, asserting it’s already here (“just tap into the matrix” or "feel the force Luke") seems to be a delusion, although that might be a reality some day, but we have to make it true first (if it's manifestable in the first place), it’s not out there waiting for us and it will probably not be like we now think it to be like (if something of that sort is to be at all)

Out there?
Already here?

Have you had an OBE?

 

[Navigator]

dglas

I am part way through reading your post.

The thing that throws me in trying to understand "I Am Brain" is that a word you are using - the word 'reality' means what exactly, when they are used as abstracts.

The picture I am seeing forming is that brain decides reality based on abstracts.

Gotta go - catcha lata.

 

[articulett]

I still don't know who my male counterpart is...

I kind of enjoy the Messiah Complex thing...

Who do you think has it worse... Tom Cruise, Navigator, or Maatorc? I know... I know... it's hard to tell when they aren't really saying anything.... they're just implying that they have deep wisdom that other's need...

I don't know if Jesus actually existed or was a single person... but suppose he was someone with a Messiah Complex like these guys...

Say, does anyone remember Interesting Ian... ?

That's the thing that bugged me growing up... there was a world of infallible leaders, prophets, priests, gurus, shamans holy book writers and interpreters, etc. always men... always so sure that they had some "divine truth". Some were schizophrenic (Charles Manson... Jim Jones?) -- most of them didn't agree with each other... none of them had evidence... all claimed to have necessary divine truths...

To me they just seem so creepy and dishonest and self important. I recommend skeptic men to all my female friends. Can you imagine that people buy into this stuff and then prop up the egos and delusions and growing fiefdoms of the ones that are most convincing? Even if I thought someone might have some divine truth.... I can't tell one from another... if there were real "prophets" they sounded identical to the "false prophets" to me.

I think when you raise kids to think that "faith" is good or a way of knowing stuff you make them vulnerable to stuff like this... or (egads) encourage them to become people like this!