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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: White Beard]
    #18449330 -

White Beard said:
What are you talking about? Neuroscience has shown different parts of the brain are associated with different aspects of consciousness, and loosing those areas of the brain leads to loss of those areas of conscious activity. This isn't even a new understanding. If I loose my physical eyes, then I loose consciousness of the visual field. If I damage my physical ears, I loose consciousness of sounds.



You were never conscious of the "visual field." You're only conscious of sensations that represent a visual field.


--------------------
"They consider me insane but I know that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods."

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: viktor]
    #18449333 -

viktor said:
White Beard said:
If you take away all the sensations, there is no consciousness left.


How could you possibly know this?



It's a guess, of course. But where as I'm assuming an extra observer doesn't exist because I have no evidence for it, you're assuming that this extra observer behind all our sensations does exist! Since I can't prove something doesn't exist, I'd say the ball is in your court. How could you possibly know that consciousness exists independent of the contents of consciousness?

Edit: Here's some quick examples I just thought of. When I was put under to get dental work done, I experienced nothing. No sense of consciousness. Not even time. They put me under and instantly I woke up, with an hour gone by, and I was laying in another bed. In between was nothing. Also, deep sleep. I've never experienced a sense of consciousness during deep sleep.

Edited by White Beard (06/20/13 11:04 PM)

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: viktor]
    #18449347 -

viktor said:
White Beard said:
What are you talking about? Neuroscience has shown different parts of the brain are associated with different aspects of consciousness, and loosing those areas of the brain leads to loss of those areas of conscious activity. This isn't even a new understanding. If I loose my physical eyes, then I loose consciousness of the visual field. If I damage my physical ears, I loose consciousness of sounds.



You were never conscious of the "visual field." You're only conscious of sensations that represent a visual field.


"Sensations that represent a visual field" is what I mean by "visual field". I could reword it for you if you're picky.

White Beard said:
What are you talking about? Neuroscience has shown different parts of the brain are associated with different aspects of consciousness, and loosing those areas of the brain leads to loss of those areas of conscious activity. This isn't even a new understanding. If I loose my physical eyes, then I loose consciousness of the sensations that represent a visual field. If I damage my physical ears, I loose consciousness of the sensations that represent sounds.



Happy now?

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: White Beard]
    #18449388 -

White Beard said:
viktor said:
White Beard said:
viktor said:
What would the belief that the physical body generates consciousness be based on?


Modern neuroscience.
Also, an experiment we're all familiar with. when you take a drug, your consciousness changes. The fact that a physical material is shifting our consciousness in such dramatic ways leads me to suspect that consciousness is an emergent property from a physical brain.


Lol

Our consciousness doesn't change when you take a drug, only the sensations do.

Unless you or I have a different definition of consciousness?

I'm talking about that which perceives. Not what it perceived. That is, not tables, computers, keyboards, emotions, thoughts etc.


If you take away all the sensations, there is no consciousness left. Consciousness is a composite phenomena of all our perceptions imo.


I'm sure you have had a dream or two.

Take away all sensations (unconsciousness) and eventually some consciousness (sensation) returns, even though we are unconscious. As is seen when we dream.

Ever hear of John C. Lillys experiments with consciousness and sensory deprivation?

He reported several out of body experiences by attempting to stop as much sensory input as possible.


--------------------
zen by age ten times six hundred lifetimes
Light up the darkness.

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: White Beard] * 1
    #18449553 -

White Beard said:
Penelope_Tree said:
White Beard said:
Also, I could argue that believing there is eternal nothing after death is also impermanence anxiety, cause it's still clinging to a permanent state of nothing.



:slowreaction:


dude... do you know.. I'm in my kitchen making kale chips, when the profundity of what you just said hits me. Like wow. Call me stupid, but I never thought of it that way.


Eternal sleep would be a cake walk (I'm personally a big fan of sleep). Hamlet sums up this dilemma quite well in his well known soliloquy

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come



I'd never read that.... Thanks man. :thumbup:  I'm discovering more and more lately how much attachment I have to beliefs I didn't even know I was attached to. Pretty mind blowing when I consider it.


--------------------
full blown human

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: Penelope_Tree]
    #18449747 -

'They' get us while we're young and defenceless :frown:

Btw is the thing in your sig suppose to be a trap door spider?

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: White Beard]
    #18449768 -

White Beard said:
viktor said:
White Beard said:
If you take away all the sensations, there is no consciousness left.


How could you possibly know this?



It's a guess, of course. But where as I'm assuming an extra observer doesn't exist because I have no evidence for it, you're assuming that this extra observer behind all our sensations does exist! Since I can't prove something doesn't exist, I'd say the ball is in your court. How could you possibly know that consciousness exists independent of the contents of consciousness?



You have no evidence for yourself? Do tell me more...

I'm not sure what you mean by "extra" observer. Consciousness is all I know - the rest seems to be some sort of arbitrary flavour. By "the rest" I mean the physical world and all of the laws of physics, chemistry etc.

"The contents of consciousness," as a phrase, doesn't make sense to me, sorry.


--------------------
"They consider me insane but I know that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods."

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: hTx]
    #18449788 -

By sensations I mean both inner (thoughts, dreams, emotions- which all btw have been connected with areas of the brain) and outer (vision, hearing, etc). The fact that the brain isn't getting any exterior stimuli doesn't matter because thoughts, emotions and dreams could also all be based on the mechanics of a physical brain.

I personally don't put too much faith in so-called "out of body" experiences. I've had several, but one convinced me that they are similar to dreams. I had one where I felt like I flew out of my body and hovered over my bed, looking at my door-it was wide open. Now I return to my body and wake up. My door is shut. Of course all the obe buffs I told this too said things like 'in the physical plain your door was shut, but on the astral plane your door was open. This is pretty normal. ' This is really too silly for me too take seriously. Why is the astral plane identical to the physical plane except for mundane changes such as doors changing their open or closed state? I think the simpler answer is my brain dreamed what my room was like from past memories- a memory where my door was open.

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: White Beard]
    #18449815 -

White Beard said:
By sensations I mean both inner (thoughts, dreams, emotions- which all btw have been connected with areas of the brain) and outer (vision, hearing, etc). The fact that the brain isn't getting any exterior stimuli doesn't matter because thoughts, emotions and dreams could also all be based on the mechanics of a physical brain.

I personally don't put too much faith in so-called "out of body" experiences. I've had several, but one convinced me that they are similar to dreams. I had one where I felt like I flew out of my body and hovered over my bed, looking at my door-it was wide open. Now I return to my body and wake up. My door is shut. Of course all the obe buffs I told this too said things like 'in the physical plain your door was shut, but on the astral plane your door was open. This is pretty normal. ' This is really too silly for me too take seriously. Why is the astral plane identical to the physical plane except for mundane changes such as doors changing their open or closed state? I think the simpler answer is my brain dreamed what my room was like from past memories- a memory where my door was open.


Who said anything about the astral plane? IMO, the simpler explanation is that you were in a different reality.


--------------------
zen by age ten times six hundred lifetimes
Light up the darkness.

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: viktor]
    #18449823 -

Contents of consciousness is what I used to describe what you call sensations. I'm sayings the collection of these sensations and the links that connect them is what consciousness is, where as what you're saying (I think) is that consciousness is aware of these sensations. This is assuming there needs to be a thing that is aware of these contends, but I propose that such a duality doesn't exist, and what consciousness is, is the contents of consciousness itself.

I also edited my previous post and included examples to support my claim, I'm unsure if you saw them or not.

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: hTx]
    #18449850 -

The obe people I talked to claimed it was the astral planes fault.
How is entering a different reality simpler then saying it was a dream? We know dreams exist, and we only know this reality exists, so you're throwing in a whole new reality with very little evidence. I also read some articles a while back linking obe and nde to parts of the brain. I'll find it in the morning when I'm using a computer instead of a phone.

Edited by White Beard (06/21/13 12:55 AM)

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: White Beard]
    #18449897 -

White Beard said:
Contents of consciousness is what I used to describe what you call sensations. I'm sayings the collection of these sensations and the links that connect them is what consciousness is, where as what you're saying (I think) is that consciousness is aware of these sensations. This is assuming there needs to be a thing that is aware of these contends, but I propose that such a duality doesn't exist, and what consciousness is, is the contents of consciousness itself.

I also edited my previous post and included examples to support my claim, I'm unsure if you saw them or not.


I don't believe that you need physical eyes to experience sensations from a visual field, unless you think your eyes are open when you are dreaming. You could just as well have started with consciousness, then sensations, and then you imagined a physical body that fit the sensations - i.e. it was necessary to imagine you possessed eyes in order to make sense of some of the sensations.

If this is true - and it is no less plausible than the belief that a physical world magicked itself out of nowhere and then magicked up life which magicked up consciousness - then there is no reason to feel death anxiety, because the existence of your body and mind may have just been arbitrary beliefs anyway.

There could also be value in feeling death anxiety even if there is no such thing as death. Perhaps our will to do anything is the same as death anxiety. I haven't thought this bit through yet.


--------------------
"They consider me insane but I know that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods."

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: White Beard]
    #18449968 -

White Beard said:
Contents of consciousness is what I used to describe what you call sensations. I'm sayings the collection of these sensations and the links that connect them is what consciousness is, where as what you're saying (I think) is that consciousness is aware of these sensations. This is assuming there needs to be a thing that is aware of these contends, but I propose that such a duality doesn't exist, and what consciousness is, is the contents of consciousness itself.

I also edited my previous post and included examples to support my claim, I'm unsure if you saw them or not.


you claim no such duality yet do so in your post. contents of consciousness? it is all consciousness, nothing you see is a content of consciousness it is consciousness itself. You only are able to see (perceive) something like 1% of the EM spectrum and this is what is "visible" to you, yet you are surrounded and effected by radio waves, ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma rays...at all times.

I see what you are saying though, you are saying the parts make the whole.

I am saying the whole makes the parts.


--------------------
zen by age ten times six hundred lifetimes
Light up the darkness.

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: hTx]
    #18450200 -

so the need for healthy shields to our anxieties.

Quoted but sums it up.


--------------------
hmm...

"I'm naked and fearless... And my fear is naked."

"life isn't worth living without the threat of death"

"I got my plans in a ziploc bag, let's see how unproductive we can be"

"nobody lives their lives fully except for bull fighters"

My Trade List

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: Icelander]
    #18450303 -

Quote:
Icelander said:I see what you are saying. Well that's true and the Buddha possibly  uses the concept of emptiness for the same purpose.


As far as I understood Denial of Death, Becker is trying to bridge existentialism (Kirkegaard) with 'mythic' psychoanalysis (Freud, Rank), so according to Becker we will never know the truth about anything, we are forced to so to say make it up each moment.  We can perhaps use rational analysis to figure out that some things are obviously wrong (for instance believing in Santa Claus) and how they are driven by basic fears like fear of mortality, but  we can never fully determine what's right, yet our life depends on some idea of what is right, what's up and down, and where we are going.

While the subjects of ontology and epistemology in Buddhism are pretty complex in particular if you start calling on Mahayana philosophers like Nagarjuna and so on, I think we can say a bit crudely that in comparison to Becker, Gautama was a realist, believing that there is a basic truth about life and that you can come to know it. So to Gautama/Buddhists clearing away illusion is to see things like they are, to Becker clearing away illusion is to not be able to see anything. Beckers meta-truth is becoming aware of this basic existentialist conundrum, and to seek the most beneficial solution to it on an individual and societal level. If I understood these things right, I think it's one reason why they don't end up in the same place. I understand what you mean about the similarity in spirit though.

Edited by husmmoor (06/21/13 03:46 AM)

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: husmmoor]
    #18450461 -

From what I understand the buddhists don't know anything about ultimate reality and why buddha never addressed this issue, instead focusing on the cause of suffering and it's cure.  What is this basic truth you speak of? How I understand it is they believe everything we can "know" is a creation of the mind and so an illusion and dream like or ultimately empty.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: Icelander]
    #18450517 -

I think that's correct. I think also if they saw someone full of death anxiety, they'd assume he was enjoying a fear trip and wouldn't bug him about making a show of thinking like them.


--------------------
"They consider me insane but I know that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods."

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: Icelander]
    #18450907 -

Icelander said:
From what I understand the buddhists don't know anything about ultimate reality and why buddha never addressed this issue, instead focusing on the cause of suffering and it's cure.  What is this basic truth you speak of? How I understand it is they believe everything we can "know" is a creation of the mind and so an illusion and dream like or ultimately empty.


I dont mind discussing Buddhist philosophy but I'm not sure what the point is re: Becker. Are you saying that Buddha is in agreement with Becker that people need to find some level of happy illusion to exist on?

As I said Buddhist epistemology is complex (just for one example difference between relative and ultimate truth) and it was a crude categorization for the purpose of understanding what I think is a crucial difference, to say that the Buddha is a realist. I don't mind calling it something else. But to start with, the four noble truths. If we get very philosophical about it and act like beat-Buddhists we can perhaps say these statements represent a relative truth and not an absolute truth. Is this it? And what about all the stuff about karma, rebirth, levels of existence, levels of insights attainable, etc?

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: viktor]
    #18450943 -

I totally get what whitebeard is saying WRT contents of consciousness (which is the mind experiencing through a period of time),
but to be more direct I call it mental contents, and for the most part there is not much distinction (in consciousness or in mind) between
1. mental contents that are sensational (i.e. new environmental sensations) compared to
2. mental contents that are from memory
(the only difference is the origin of the feed for the signal pulse trains - one being a recollection/perception and the other being environmental sensory)

I think both victor and whitebeard actually can agree that the mental contents arise and pass away after a brief existence, and that these mental contents do relate to brain activity with localized characteristics (i.e. visual objects have a visual cortex signature activity and auditory objects have an auditory cortex activity - regardless of the source being from exernal events - sensory, or memory events - perceptual)

in the meantime, ice, I have to interject that Buddha did not have a cure for suffering nor a cure for the cause of suffering,
but he did have reliable treatments for these chronic conditions - generally described as "unsatisfactoriness", and those treatments for this chronic condition resolve as contemplation (meditation)


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Becker and Buddha [Re: husmmoor]
    #18450961 -

husmmoor said:
... the four noble truths. If we get very philosophical about it and act like beat-Buddhists we can perhaps say these statements represent a relative truth and not an absolute truth. Is this it? And what about all the stuff about karma, rebirth, levels of existence, levels of insights attainable, etc?


when the buddha gave charismatic public talks (many of the written (edited) records of these are now suttras)
he would figuratively speaking, go around the issues and end up with a few specific recommendations: the 4 noble truths (relative as they may be) are part of him taking the dog for a walk around the park.

later on , as with all cult figure enlargements into a religion, this has moved beyond scope into doctrine.

with becker, we can see a direct leap into doctrine and an attempt after the fact to create a cult figure.


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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