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Post by thedoktor on Nov 17, 2012 23:38:42 GMT
Last night, I t.hink it was, I wanted to have an open discussion on some of these things, stuff I find fascinating, I have a lot of interests in various things,
thought I'd talk about them. With You.
Last night, I was t.hinking of connexions between the Spirit, Mind, and Body.
Particularly the differences between Mind and Brain, to the degree that it may be interchangeable in some instances with Spirit and Body.
Or rather the Material and Spectral.
The Spirit has great influence over us, Abstract thoughts, feelings, emotions, channeled through and interpreted the Brain. Certain aspects do not come through fully, others are perhaps destroyed entirely, fragments collecting and clouding our thoughts. Those anxieties from a lack of fulfillment, when our Brains can not interpret the Abstract of our Spirit.
And there are especially grand cases where the Spirit and Body are at complete ends of each other, it's nearly a battle. There is no synchronization, Those whose Spirits do not match their Bodies, The Brain is caught be-twixt them and those anxieties worsen, as something has gone tremendously wrong in the development, as the Body is completed and the Spirit takes hold, the host, this ritual of Existence does not always go perfectly and has resulted in much stress and pain within those whose Bodies can not comprehend their Spirits.
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Post by Blother Had Me Like on Nov 18, 2012 0:43:25 GMT
Spirits you say
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 18, 2012 1:18:46 GMT
yes?
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Post by Voice of Reason on Nov 18, 2012 3:26:33 GMT
There is no spirit, and the mind and the body are one and the same, as the mind is generated purely by the conscious and unconscious brain.
Solved it.
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Post by dolphinslut on Nov 18, 2012 4:43:45 GMT
>wants serious discussion
>comes to the forum where "PENIS POPS!" is displayed largely every other post.
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 18, 2012 4:55:39 GMT
SPEAKING OF!
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DanTastic
Fiesty
Unarmed, unarmored, undaunted.
Posts: 230
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Post by DanTastic on Nov 18, 2012 5:12:24 GMT
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 18, 2012 5:31:16 GMT
There is no spirit, and the mind and the body are one and the same, as the mind is generated purely by the conscious and unconscious brain. Solved it. Solved what exactly? I presented no problem or puzzle. How does the Spirit not factor into any of the connexions? The body (including the brain) are simply meat. Meat and energy. Governed by something Spectral. Something more than the flesh. The flesh can be seen even as a prison, in a lot of cases this has indeed come to pass. The Spirit has not found its proper pairing, resulting in tragedy. While the Body and Spirit may be considered parts of the Whole Being. It also isn't too far to say they are indeed also separate beings. Unique in form. Each in its own purpose, the body is a lifeless vessel, without the Life, the Spirit, within, driving it as a pilot would. Damage to the vessel beyond the ability to command it further results in ejection, the Spirit to find a new host, perhaps back to the Void ? The only hope would be that the Spirit finds proper hosts forever. Strengthening itself, until it can sustain itself without a host and know peace. |
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 18, 2012 5:41:23 GMT
... No. The body is just meat, and the mind is just electrical impulses.
It's like a computer (in fact, it is a computer, just an almost infinitely complex one). You have all the hardware sending electrical impulses resulting in images on a screen. There's no magic there, no spirit-- just mechanics driving an output.
In short, that's all a living organism is-- just a supercomplicated machine. In essence, a better technology than anything artificial we've been able to build.
And as the quote goes, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, which is what gives rise to the ideas of spirits and souls, when in truth all we really are are super badass robots made of lots of tiny super badass robots. Nobody so far can truly comprehend the depths of our minds, though we're coming closer through neurology and related sciences-- finding that personality, morality, all those other abstract concepts, are not in fact linked to anything supernatural. They're just impulses in the brain.
Why do you believe in spirits?
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 18, 2012 7:32:28 GMT
Thing is I don't really really disagree with much of what you've said. That's a lot of the same beliefs I have on the organic components of Being. Very complex machinery. Biology is incredibly interesting and fascinating when approached from a Mechanical or Electrical aspect. I have thought at times how human beings are machines, that concept of a self-replicating (through mating) could be used to produce a slave race, or colonists. History has shown this, humans doing so to other humans. But it's interesting to think of a higher race starting humans to begin with. I remember reading something about how humans value metal like Gold and how that relationship is strange, because aside from being shiny, it has no constructive purpose, yet we value it? It's theorised that placing value in the gold was introduced for the early Slave Races. It's interesting, but not an avenue I've explored really. As far as why I believe in Spirits? Well even from a scientific perspective, as you've said the AC Clarke quote. Spirits could even be explaining as extra-dimensional beings. The thing about what is considered fantasy or fiction or the supernatural...is that it hold onto that tag, or stigma, until an explanation arises or it becomes fact. Such some of the early science-fiction about space travel, then humans (supposedly?) reach the Moon, land on it. and thus the concept of Space becomes a reality. So these concepts are simply ahead of the curve I suppose. and there's been nothing in the way of Necronautics to really close the book on something like a human soul. I've thought this has been interesting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_(doctor)I have my own level of skepticism, and I'm simply sharing (what I think) are interesting concepts. Combing aspects of Science and Faith is something of a hobby of mine. I enjoy reading about the unknown, the unexplained, fringe science, and so forth. It's at its most, interesting if not entertaining. I have a fascination of spiritualism and old science and medicine, how the two have merged and separated through the eras. My religious beliefs at the very core hold that there is something greater than humanity. Divinity or not, it changes nothing. All faiths tracing themselves to extra-terrestrial or dimensional beings, changes nothing for me. I have faith in the greater unknown, a higher power by Divine Right or Great Intellect, changes the definition of Godhood? Not to me. Gods are those who have achieved enough power to do great things, create worlds or destroy them. Great Wheel of Fire in the Sky? Lighting the way, from one horizon to the next? From the beginning to the very end. |
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Post by Blother Had Me Like on Nov 19, 2012 19:13:44 GMT
I guess it it possible because it has not been proven.
I guess it is not possible because it has not been proven.
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 19, 2012 19:44:01 GMT
That is the attitude I like to have.
shows a bit of optimism it think.
I want to strive for something better than this place. Ultimately the fate is what I make, rather than accept, I have to make my own dharma.
I believe in some things, and others I do not. for one, I am not a monotheist. Monotheism strikes me as something incredibly unbalanced. I believe in multiple gods and goddesses, to balance the aspects of the omniverse.
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Post by Matt on Nov 19, 2012 21:11:10 GMT
i dont like to consign myself a belief
except that blatant stupidity and hypocrisy are sins so please stop it or you will be spanked for eternity
unless you enjoy it
id like to believe in a spirit or soul simply because a single timed existence on eart irritates me a little
however logic and intuition tell me otherwise.
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Post by thedoktor on Nov 19, 2012 23:04:17 GMT
are you saying I'm stupid and a hypocrite? o.O
also it's strange that mention something aside from a "single timed existence" is illogical...and also cite
intuition...
Explain? I'm confused...
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Post by Sawslig Steve. And William. on Nov 20, 2012 5:07:42 GMT
He's not talking to you, he's saying in general. Like when the pope says killing is wrong and then says you should go and kill some sarissans.
Oh that pope.
You want something better? Why not strive to make this life something better rather than assuming the existence of an afterlife?
This is actually a problem we're beginning to face in combatting climate change. A lot of religious folks (I could even quote US senators) say, well, we don't have to fix anything because we're going to heaven soon enough anyway.
Anything other than a single timed existence is illogical because the idea of a soul, or a spirit, or anything that continues after the death of a living thing is illogical. These theologies had a place way back when, when life was still a struggle for our species; when we couldn't explain just about anything that happened around us.
For me, the concept of a soul is flawed because of a simple question. What has a soul? At what point does organic matter become something worthy of possession by some other entity? Do robots have souls? We can program them to have emotions-- eventually we'll be able to program them to be exactly like us. Why shouldn't they have souls? Do animals have souls and if so, will they all go to Hell because they had sex before marriage (as they almost universally do)? Souls, thus, don't make sense to me. I could go on about them (particularly about the use of the soul by religion to justify human, particularly white human male, superiority) but I suspect I'm boring y'all already.
And the idea of an eternal spirit? I can't buy that, either, also for a whole bunch of reasons. For instance, if everything has a spirit that survives after death, where do they go? For me, this doesn't ring true, simply because energy is a finite quantity that cannot be created or destroyed. If every spirit either goes to a good place or a bad place after death, then new spirits have to be created for every new living entity-- just springing up out of nowhere, and then going to somewhere with infinite spirit storage capacity.
Which I guess raises the question of cyclical spirits, like in Hinduism, where your spirit or soul gets reincarnated. Again, that doesn't make sense, because it assumes a roughly constant number of living things on the planet at any point in time.
What about in the very beginning, when life was first starting to diversify? There was a time when there were only a few living things on the planet. Assuming that they had the first spirits, where did they get them from? Was there some soup of spirits floating 'round the ether?
It's just... Illogical. And even disregarding what I consider reasonable argument... Like Matt said. Intuitively, it feels wrong. This is something I've felt ever since I was old enough to understand the concepts of eternal life; it sounds like something we made up to explain stuff. Like how my parents made up Santa to rationalise throwing money around at Christmas.
This is a belief only strengthened by the fantastic work going on in neuroscience. "Brain science fills the void left by the atrophy of religion and theology", to quote (I think) the New York Times. Everything we discover about the brain implies, more and more firmly, that when life ends, life ends.
It's not something that a lot of us want to believe, because mortality is something that scares us, and second chances are a very intoxicating idea-- you might fuck up this time around, but you'll get it right next time. I kind of feel the opposite. The idea of lasting forever...
There's a great peace in the idea of eternal death. It's natural to fear mortality; it's what keeps us alive, and I believe death is something we should avoid for as long as we want to. But that said, death isn't a bad thing. It's not like you'll be subjected to suffering for evermore-- certainly, you'll never feel happy, or proud, or excited ever again, but you won't care, because you've ceased to exist. It's the ultimate problem solver for all of the issues of existence. Rather than punishing you for being hit by a car or getting too old, death is, I guess, kind of a reward for living life.
But, I stress again, that doesn't mean you should seek it-- or I don't believe so, anyway. Life is like a holiday; it's limited, at some level you realise that, but you should do what you can to enjoy it. And then, at the end, you go home.
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