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Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain?
    #1453160 -

Because if a chemical can alter how we think and do what drugs do, wouldnt that mean that its actually our BRAIN that gives us our 'thoughts' and not a 'soul' or anything spiritual?


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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1453924 -

Good question.
If your computer was infected by a virus, and it messed with yourprograms, this might cause you to react in a certain way, say if you lost some important files. So the action of the virus on your computer would influence your thoughts and feelings but you are still free to react and respond however you choose. This is how i view drugs. They influence your body machinery, which affects your consciousness, but no one psychdelic experience is the same as another and you can react to your high an dintegrate your experience in an infinite number of ways. So the brain is really like a grounding station of sorts for your consciousness which exists everywhere always. I think the physical machinery is merely a byproduct of consciousness and life force, not the other way around. For instance, if you learn something new, you are creating myelin(sp?) sheaths around nerve pathways, but the will and intent to create or learn preceded the new physical ability you have developed.

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1454160 -

If a TV repair man knows exactly which components make the picture go funny if you alter them, and can identify which bits are causing the problmes depending in what way the picture is fucked up, doesnt mean the television broadcasts are created inside the TV.


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:sleepingcow:  :penguinmonkey: :blah:

JOIN MAPS -> www.MAPS.ORG

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1454172 -

anything spiritual is nothing more or nothing less than what is real.
It is what it is no matter how we interpret it..well maybe, depends I suppose on if there is any thing that could at any given point in space/time be called reality, but since everything is always evloving maybe reality is just that..

From what I can tell our thoughts are mainly configured from our subjective self eating and feeding back what the outside world gives us with (the controversial) echo of true self, the one without the body.

Does the fact that you are just your thoughts frighten you?
Does that make you any less you?
I understand pretty much how the weather/sky/color works do I look at it with awe less often?..surprisingly no.

Have you ever lost your ego? where you still you?

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: MetaShroom]
    #1454174 -

Yet the TV still needs electricity.

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1454736 -

Because if a chemical can alter how we think and do what drugs do, wouldnt that mean that its actually our BRAIN that gives us our 'thoughts' and not a 'soul' or anything spiritual?"

That is an excellent question. My only response would be that it is only the thoughts of the ego that are transformed, not the underlying principle of conciousness per se


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"Being crazier than a shithouse rat is not sufficient grounds for banishment"


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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1454760 -

i think so.

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1454956 -

Maybe drugs just allow our souls to be 'loosened' from our bodies a bit? That's my theroy.


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What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: MetaShroom]
    #1455040 -

Metashroom- I have heard this before; it would be a good way of defeating the "Mind = brain" theory -but- if you're not just throwing that claim around to be difficult; if you *seriously* believe the brain is just a remote-controlled reciever... where does the cable go in?

From what little we know of the brain's operation, it appears to be a computing device, not a signal-recieving device.
Anyone with electronics knowledge could tell the difference between a computer and a radio by looking inside it- even one from an unknown alien culture.

There is no detectable signal coming in or out. The brain is made of neurons similar to those that control the behavior of much simpler animals that function in a well understood and totally self-contained, mechanistic way. (one species of worm has been completely emulated on a computer, from the genome on up...) We evolved from similar simple animals in the past, and there are living animals that represent a wide range of brain complexity and mind complexity and an obvious relationship between the two.

So you've got this complicated system where somewhere Out There (in a parallel universe or higher dimension or Heaven or Astral plane or some equally undetectable place) there is a big mind-computer and it is set up to undetectably beam information back and forth between itself and the brains of a certain species of bipedal apes, which look and act very much like the brains of lower apes but are actually an entirely different kind of machine.

To me the whole thing is almost like the creationists saying God planted the dinosaur bones to test our faith, and created the light from the distant stars already on its way to the earth, so it just looks like the universe is billions of years old.

If you're a dualist, I think you're going to a lot of trouble to deny your own mortality.

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: Xibalba]
    #1455056 -

Also, I take issue with the original poster's implication that the brain is not "a soul or anything spiritual." It is kind of insulting to physical nature in the same way crackpot theories about how aliens built the pyramids are insulting to the abilites of the ancient cultures who really did. I think we like to underestimate ourselves. Give biology some credit...

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: Xibalba]
    #1455072 -

Maybe when we sleep, we get programed for our next waking period.

Just a random theroy. I don't give too much credit to it, but it might make people think.


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1455200 -

Reality is multidimensional. There are many, many schools and systems in the world that categorize the different dimensions. The Gnostics spoke of the physical, the psychic and the spiritual, for example. Indian Yoga and European Alchemy use Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Aether - so btw does Tibetan Buddhist Yoga.

Classic Indian Yoga refers to different bodies or 'sheaths' that we are comprised of. Each sheath corresponds to a level of Reality. The physical body that is made of the 5 elements; the astral body made of 19 elements (all non-physical of course); the causal body. The physical body has 1 sheath; the astral body contains 3 - vital, mental and intellectual; the causal body has 1, the blissful sheath.
Swami Vishnudevananda, who wrote 'The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga' said simply:
"Those different bodies and various sheaths cannot be understood by those whose minds are wrapped in material sheaths and who think that everything is only a chemical reaction of the brain....Modern psychology of the mind is nothing compared to the ancients' understanding of it. Today's psychologists and scientists do not clearly understand the difference between spirit, mind and body. No one, of course, can really understand mind and soul as long as he experiments on the outside, not turning inward and stilling all his thoughts to watch his own mind and soul.' Pages 17-18.

Psychedelics, or better, Entheogens, change us chemically, yes, but the chemical is of the physical body with all its neurological complexites. A more global analogy is the transformation of opaque carbon into transparent diamond - adamantine and prismatic. Or again, a chunk of quartz crystal, shaved down to a form that resonates at exactly One frequency; or even the oxide that forms between two overlapping rain gutters on a house that work like a crystal radio, allowing radio waves to be transformed into audible sound (I witnessed this as a kid on my parents' house; a crystal radio could be built with one Germanium diode, and a 'trench radio' could be built with only a peice of pencil lead on a steel razor blade). In other words, Idea may well be received by the receiving device of the brain - not manufactured there. Mind or Psyche may the same thing as space-time, and so our minds may be everywhere space-time is - which is to the 'edge' of the expanding universe. There are more possibilities, my friend, than what you imagine. As for me, the brain is a design, not the Designer.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1455217 -

I think the issue is that while there is no question that drugs and different brain chemicals can have an influence on our experiences, no branch of science as yet has any understanding what-so-ever of how the brain actually produces the experience we call consciousness. Seriously, ask any neuroscientist, or absolutely any body involved in the scientific study of the brain and they will tell you that there is no research, or any theory at all on how the brain produces concious experience. What they do know is how certain brain chemicals seem to correlate with different experiences, and how certain areas of the brain are related to different functions, but they have no idea how these chemicals actually produce the experience we call waking conciousness.

With Metta,
Jono.


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Our problem results from acting like cowboys on a limitless frontier when in truth we inhabit a living spaceship with a finely balanced life-support system." David C. Korton

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: jono]
    #1455580 -

I think the soul and mind are two different things completely with some sort of connection of experience. The soul is infinite and is here to experience the body and ego of whatever form the being is. Therefore the body and mind can still be effected by chemicals or whatever other force is possible in science. Our thoughts are created by the brain and it's state of mind. Of course, in some trips, you can completely leave your body, brain, and ego..
Drugs just change the state of mind that the soul is experiencing from.

And in no way does the soul create our thoughts, what would be the sense in that? Our higher selves would not experience your 'earth self' if they had control over you thoughts..thats more like playing a video game or something.

Edited by dustin (04/13/03 09:19 PM)

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: ]
    #1457585 -

actually, there are some alternitive scientists who actually belive that the brain is like a receiver for waves called "morphic feilds". here is an an analogy: if you sent a radio back in time 200 years, they would assume that the noise was generated from with in the radio, because when they took out parts, the music would stop. modern day scientist take parts out of the brain, and it stops working. so they say, hey!, your conciousness must come from inside your head. so, if the brain was a type of receiver, that would explain many phenomenons, such as schizophrenia. the voices you hear in your head are actually your brain "tapping" into a different personality. also, how people think that they have been reincarnated. all they are doing is tapping into a different person "brain waves". morphic feilds may sound odd and far fetched, but they really arent as strange as any other feild such as gravity, electricity, etc. the main person behind this therory is rupert sheldrake. its an incredibly interesting therory. check out his site:

http://www.sheldrake.org/


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Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route.

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: sancho]
    #1457726 -

I believe that to be somewhat correct.
I think those 'brain waves' are just another force in this reality that can change the brain's mind state or thoughts. Just like how chemicals can change our mind state or thoughts. Chemicals themselves can't possibly change those kinds of waves to my knowledge. So to say that the brain and ego is only comprised of those thought creating waves would be nonsense, chemicals wouldn't be able to interrupt a transference of that kind of force. So therefore, the brain must be made up of chemical AND wave transfers (having receptors for both) and that ultimately makes up our ego at one point of time.

Maybe it's this connection and collection of 'thought data' constantly being brought into the brain that makes us able to create our own thoughts inside of it. It's like our brain is constantly putting two sides of thought together to come up with it's own explanation for something, ultimately creating something unique. And we're all unique.

Who knows, maybe the reason for living is to add different forms of thought together (human's basis being chemical and that 'morphic wave' thought). Imagine how many different ways thought can be transferred, not just chemically or by some sort of morphic wave. Then imagine every form of thought throughout the universes inside one giant collection of streaming thought data. I know I'm not the only person who's experienced this state of 'one' with everything.
I also believe that the soul is what connects every form of thought together. Hence the reason for so many people here believing that our souls are interrconnected somehow, because of the experiences they've had.

Edited by dustin (04/14/03 05:04 PM)

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1458282 -

I think we have access to everything in the universe, but that our brains only allows us a sample of that because it would be too overwelming for our physical bodies.

When you change your brain with drugs, you change what part of the ALL you're letting in.

It's not that your brain creates everything. It's just the part of you where the wheels hit the pavement.



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Mp3 of the month: The Mamas & the Papas - Strange Young Girls


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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: Learyfan]
    #1458484 -

I can tell you're a Leary fan... I was about to say the same based on reading "The Psychadelic Experience".


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Anything stated above is fictional roleplay dialog by the character that is Slapnut Rob, in no way representing the actions or beliefs of the man behind the keys.

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1458505 -

Quote:
Because if a chemical can alter how we think and do what drugs do, wouldnt that mean that its actually our BRAIN that gives us our 'thoughts' and not a 'soul' or anything spiritual?


Yes, similarly dream states negate the existence of the outside world.

At least you're thinking.

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Re: Arent drugs proof the mind is created by the brain? [Re: SHiZNO]
    #1458829 -

Quote:
Because if a chemical can alter how we think and do what drugs do, wouldnt that mean that its actually our BRAIN that gives us our 'thoughts' and not a 'soul' or anything spiritual?



:confused:Recently i have been exposed to some mind/brain/body theory, and have done a fair deal of thinking on the subject.  I favor the Identity approach to the mind/brain problem. 

To me, it seems obvious that the mind is nothing more than a symbolic concept created by our brains.  Perhaps the only reason we think we have minds and animals don't, is that only our more evolved brains contain the ability to grasp and/or fabricate a concept of the mind.  It makes sense to me that being able to form the idea of a mind, regardless of whether the mind is real or just a concept created by physical processes within the brain, would be evolutionarily advantageous.  A species most likely could only acheive higher intelligence if equipped with the ability to conceptualize their thinking selves.

So i too think that the mind is nothing more than the brain, and the fact that psychoactives can alter our mental states by chemically affecting the brain seems to provide another supporting argument for brain=mind Identity theory. 


--------------------
ow, i poked my brain,
now it's leaking all over...
i guess it's ok

Edited by ninjahedge (04/14/03 11:23 PM)

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