You Are Not Your Brain


anthony

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At the physical level, I think there's a lot of merit in stilling the mind with a regular simple breathing exercise.

My approach is exactly the opposite, Tony...

Instead of wasting my energy in the futile effort of trying to dam up the flow of thoughts, I simply watch them without emotionally reacting to them. like a good parent watches a child, calmly and patiently waiting for the child to settle down all on their own. Negative thoughts are like spoiled children, they taunt you to react emotionally to them, because the energy of your emotional reactions is the food they need to continue to exist. But if you deprive them of their food, they cease to exist as they should. :smile:

Life can only be properly lived when the mind gains mastery over the brain. But it is not a dictatorship... but rather a proper loving relationship of parent and child.

Greg

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Greg, There are times I think we're talking the same language with different meanings. If it works for you, it works. Quibbles with your methods and epistemology aside, you demonstrate a self-awareness which isn't something I count on any more with everyone, and which is the source of maybe everything.

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Greg, There are times I think we're talking the same language with different meanings. If it works for you, it works. Quibbles with your methods aside, you demonstrate a self-awareness, which isn't something I count on any more with everyone, and which is the source of maybe everything.

It's so much fun discussing these fascinating ideas, Tony. And that would not be possible if we did not have differing views...

...or even different ways of expressing the same view. :smile:

Greg

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At the physical level, I think there's a lot of merit in stilling the mind with a regular simple breathing exercise.

My approach is exactly the opposite, Tony...

Instead of wasting my energy in the futile effort of trying to dam up the flow of thoughts, I simply watch them without emotionally reacting to them. like a good parent watches a child, calmly and patiently waiting for the child to settle down all on their own. Negative thoughts are like spoiled children, they taunt you to react emotionally to them, because the energy of your emotional reactions is the food they need to continue to exist. But if you deprive them of their food, they cease to exist as they should. :smile:

Life can only be properly lived when the mind gains mastery over the brain. But it is not a dictatorship... but rather a proper loving relationship of parent and child.

Greg

The "mind" to which you refer. Can it be objectively observed by another person? If so, how. Please give scientific references, from refereed scientific sources.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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At the physical level, I think there's a lot of merit in stilling the mind with a regular simple breathing exercise.

My approach is exactly the opposite, Tony...

Instead of wasting my energy in the futile effort of trying to dam up the flow of thoughts, I simply watch them without emotionally reacting to them. like a good parent watches a child, calmly and patiently waiting for the child to settle down all on their own. Negative thoughts are like spoiled children, they taunt you to react emotionally to them, because the energy of your emotional reactions is the food they need to continue to exist. But if you deprive them of their food, they cease to exist as they should. :smile:

Life can only be properly lived when the mind gains mastery over the brain. But it is not a dictatorship... but rather a proper loving relationship of parent and child.

Greg

The "mind" to which you refer. Can it be objectively observed by another person? If so, how. Please give scientific references, from refereed scientific sources.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Having fun again, Bob? :smile:. I think we have gone round this before.

Your position is called "eliminative materialism", I believe. The most extreme sort: The mind doesn't exist.

'Monism', so old school.

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For those with visceral reactions against religion, I think you will get a lot of value if you set that reaction aside temporarily as you watch the video, meaning ignore the religious comments, and apply what Schwartz says to the way you think.

Michael

Maximum value to be had if one's ''visceral reactions against religion" are suspended - or if Schwartz' great research and ideas are "isolated" (per Rand).

Albeit, religion actually doesn't come into it - never into the neuroscience, of course - except for a passing mention to a "higher power" once or twice.

Top it all, it would be a good opportunity to 'reframe' his "higher power" into what O'ists relate to: existence and consciousness..

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I guess I'm a physicialist of sorts. There's no evidence for anything other than physical reality. Anything non-physical is actually reducible to a configuration or motion of the physical. They are relationships, arrangments, motions, system, movements, dynamicsm, states and so on of the physical universe. When people speak of the mind, I think of the state and operations of the brain. It strikes me as overtly mystical to posit some non-physical existing entity called the mind. In my view, the mind is not a thing, but a process.

I would have to disagree in a sense to the message of the video. But firstly I want to state that I think language breaks down a bit when talking about this.

I can agree partially that you are not your brain per se. In a sense you are your brain's state, rather than your brain itself. There's nothing in sense data to suggest that the brain is just a receptor for the mind which is - unlike everything else in the universe - a process without a substrate in which to process, and it also goes against all other known philosophical and scientific knowledge. Rather than the mind being something completely disconnected and seperate from the physical universe, it makes more sense to assume it's a process just like any other process in the physical universe. No need to invent a new category of existence.

I am certain that cause and effect exists, and that all entities, including a brain, operate in this manner. Entities act in accordance with their nature. This leaves me seemingly with no choice but to concede that free will does not exist, but in actual fact I think this is the fallacy. It is clear that the nature of a mind is that it can make choices. It is also clear that the universe is deterministic. So I am left being a dumbfounded compatibilist. And I form no hypothesis to try to explain it. I think it's more of a question for neuroscientists than for philosophers. It strikes me as odd that one would try to 'figure it out' from one's armchair. It strikes me as like Aristotle's physics, completely unfounded. We may not even have the requisite knowledge about the brain and mind yet to begin to explain it. I think a proper definition of 'free' will and 'choice' is required to make sense of it too.

"I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction." Isaac Newton

Hypotheses non fingo

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It is clear that the nature of a mind is that it can make choices. It is also clear that the universe is deterministic. So I am left being a dumbfounded compatibilist.

Peter,

When I was at the stage where I did a lot of mulling about this, I suddenly asked myself if my approach was wrong. To put it as a graphic metaphor, I was thinking about the universe and causality as a straight line. 'This causes that which causes that which causes that' and so on.

What happens if I think in a circle? I still have 'this causes that which causes that' and so on moving in a line, but I also have another aspect--that any point I choose on the circle will be the start point and end point at the same time.

This means if I establish that clockwise means moving from determinism to free will and counterclockwise means the contrary, I can move in either direction (using this as a metaphor for an approach to thinking) without nullifying anything. When I move around the circle and get to the end point of 100% free will, I am also at the starting point of 100% determinism.

That's a mindfuck when you start going into it, but I see it as how the universe works. It is literally a holistic approach where the universe is one thing, not a movement from one state to another.

You can use this metaphor for form and content, for whole and part, for holon autonomy and for other metaphysical things like that.

Granted, we experience time in only one direction and linearly, but only in the non-mental realm. In the mix of the two, memories of the past and projections of the future all happen as the body and mind are happening in time. When you get to the purely mental realm, anything goes as far as time is concerned.

Do my or your thoughts not exist? They do exist. They may not represent other existents accurately at times, but even the most outlandish thought itself exists when it happens. Thoughts are things. And if a particular thought is so caught up in the past in its substance that it cannot be disconnected from the past without going out of existence as a thought, does it make any sense to call that a delusion? How about calling that its nature?

So keep on thinking.

It's good to realize there is more to learn.

Michael

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This is applying neuroscience and neuroplasticity to self-help at its finest. I love his four steps:

Relabel

Reframe

Refocus

Revalue

Hell, I can see this working not just as self-help (which I am HUGELY interested in), but as a way to format propaganda, marketing messages and persuasion in general, which I also study.

When I read the four steps a light went on, Michael.

The left is already effectively employing those steps.

First the perpetually emotionally offended, politically correct, liberal "word nazis" sue to gain legal control of changing the meaning and usage of their relabled words. Like __________ . for example

Then they use those redefined and legally regulated words to reframe the core story of America... like Howard Zinn's textbook " The Peoples History of America" for example.

Then the liberal media refocuses public attention away from themselves and what they are doing, and onto whatever they want the public to get upset about... like man made catastrophic global warming for example.

Then armed with their new fraudulent core story, they revalue (devalue) Capitalist America... into socialist Europe for example.

...and they are able to do all of this because they have the mandate of the political majority in America who are not Americans.

Greg

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I take Rand literally at her words here. A being of volitional consciousness - is exactly that, no more, no less. No guaranteed outcomes - or promises of anything.

An individual can switch on, focus, constantly re-direct - or lazily turn off - his consciousness at will. Not his brain, which keeps on going. The implications are important, as by doing so the man may (or may not) concentrate on furthering his character by repetitive, selective thoughts, over time. Equally, his application towards furthering his active goals and ambitions is also dependent on that volitional mental process, as well as indirectly by way of his formed character and convictions.

"A volitional consciousness" does not imply that every single thing relevant to one's life was, or will be, exclusively volitional, with no other causation. That's a false alternative.

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At the physical level, I think there's a lot of merit in stilling the mind with a regular simple breathing exercise.

My approach is exactly the opposite, Tony...

Instead of wasting my energy in the futile effort of trying to dam up the flow of thoughts, I simply watch them without emotionally reacting to them. like a good parent watches a child, calmly and patiently waiting for the child to settle down all on their own. Negative thoughts are like spoiled children, they taunt you to react emotionally to them, because the energy of your emotional reactions is the food they need to continue to exist. But if you deprive them of their food, they cease to exist as they should. :smile:

Life can only be properly lived when the mind gains mastery over the brain. But it is not a dictatorship... but rather a proper loving relationship of parent and child.

Greg

The "mind" to which you refer. Can it be objectively observed by another person?

No.

You can only see how others behave, not what others think. Only you are able to see your own thoughts. And only you can become aware of how your own brain operates. But you're unwilling to take the time to observe yourself, or to understand why you behave the way you do, or to reflect on why your own life has unfolded as it has.

So being devoid of self awareness, by default the point is rendered moot.

Greg

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Greg, that's a smart political application - the 4 steps actuated corruptly for power - nice one.

Bob has a mischievous side, he likes getting a rise out of us.

He used to get me going until I figured out he was playing with me.

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Greg, that's a smart political application - the 4 steps actuated corruptly for power - nice one.

That's a hallmark of a truth, Tony... It's a double edged sword that always cuts both ways. Being morally neutral... those principles can be used for good or for evil.

Bob has a mischievous side, he likes getting a rise out of us.He used to get me going until I figured out he was playing with me.

I enjoy Bob's input. He's a good counterpoint. :smile:

Greg

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It's a double edged sword that always cuts both ways. Being morally neutral... those principles can be used for good or for evil.

That is precisely why Aristotle was so driven to write develop his Rhetoric...

He believed that if both sides of an issue were equally armed with the same persuasive skills, the "good" would emerge victorious.

The truth would also be known.

A...

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Greg, that's a smart political application - the 4 steps actuated corruptly for power - nice one.

Bob has a mischievous side, he likes getting a rise out of us.

He used to get me going until I figured out he was playing with me.

You are mistaken. I don't play. I am serious unless I explicitly mark something as a jest.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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It's a double edged sword that always cuts both ways. Being morally neutral... those principles can be used for good or for evil.

That is precisely why Aristotle was so driven to write develop his Rhetoric...

He believed that if both sides of an issue were equally armed with the same persuasive skills, the "good" would emerge victorious.

The truth would also be known.

A...

In my life, I've yet to ever see good persuade evil... however, I have seen evil displaced by good, just like darkness can't be wherever there is light.

Greg

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In my life, I've yet to ever see good persuade evil... however, I have seen evil displaced by good, just like darkness can't be wherever there is light.

Greg

I must be living on the wrong planet.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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In my life, I've yet to ever see good persuade evil... however, I have seen evil displaced by good, just like darkness can't be wherever there is light.

Greg

I must be living on the wrong planet.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Well, today it seems like good displaced by evil if you take the macro view although a macro view stepped up to an even higher level can reveal the contrary. Greg prefers more of a micro view which he can control and direct. There's not much middle macro control and direct by the good guys these days. The bigger macro is just the sum of all the micros in the world apart from the politics controlled by the bad guys. Going after the bad guys needs a lot of work not then available for farming--productive activity--which is why so many of the bad guys have government-really-do-nothing jobs which come with the gift of time. Most Many foundations are similarly helpful.

--Brant

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Greg prefers more of a micro view which he can control and direct.

I do... because I am personally responsible only for what I personally control and direct. Everything outside my control or direction is the responsibility of others.

Greg

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Michael, was any of the persuasion the consequences of evil?

Greg,

Some. And some the attraction of the good.

"It doesn't have to be this hard or painful" is one hell of an effective message at the right time. But so is looking at love and wanting it just because it is what it is.

There's old Oriental wisdom that a former partner in crime of mine once mentioned to me after he got to know me. He said I reminded him of it, more than anyone he knew. For the record, I have searched for this wisdom in Oriental sources, but have not found it yet. That does not make it any less valid, though. It goes something like the following.

If a man is generally good and makes small compromises with evil, you never have to worry about him as a serious threat. If he decides to become a dark enemy, he can only make limited commitments to evil because he was only able to make limited commitments to good. So he is easy to combat and manage. But if a man of high integrity turns to the dark side, watch out. This one is dangerous because he turns to the full extent of his integrity.

That was me.

In that state I got tested--and tested hard. My proudest moment is when I walked away from killing a man (one who had grievously damaged me and there was practically no risk to me to kill him--it was all set up, motorcycle, gunman and everything--man, I wanted to waste that bastard so bad it gave me a high to think about it). I walked away because I did not want that in my soul. I knew once I did the first, many more would follow.

But the good called, too. A persuading good. I did not want to live in a world like that. I wanted something better and entertained messages of good, images of good, as I mulled everything over.

I gave up a lot at that time. My dark star was rising. When I walked away, I became the laughing stock of my so-called friends. I now wear the memory of their laughter and mockery like a badge of honor.

Man am I glad I made the right choice.

Michael

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Michael, was any of the persuasion the consequences of evil?

Greg,

Some. And some the attraction of the good.

"It doesn't have to be this hard or painful" is one hell of an effective message at the right time. But so is looking at love and wanting it just because it is what it is.

I agree on the pain part. We get to choose to learn the easy way or the hard way. And the displacement of evil by good doesn't need to painful either.

There's old Oriental wisdom that a former partner in crime of mine once mentioned to me after he got to know me. He said I reminded him of it, more than anyone he knew. For the record, I have searched for this wisdom in Oriental sources, but have not found it yet. That does not make it any less valid, though. It goes something like the following.

If a man is generally good and makes small compromises with evil, you never have to worry about him as a serious threat. If he decides to become a dark enemy, he can only make limited commitments to evil because he was only able to make limited commitments to good. So he is easy to combat and manage. But if a man of high integrity turns to the dark side, watch out. This one is dangerous because he turns to the full extent of his integrity.

As I see it, if someone turns to the dark side, they never had integrity in the first place. For once good has been tasted, no one goes back because they are already fully acquainted with what they left behind. We can never totally vanquish the evil within us, but rather it is subordinated or displaced by good.

That was me.

In that state I got tested--and tested hard. My proudest moment is when I walked away from killing a man (one who had grievously damaged me and there was practically no risk to me to kill him--it was all set up, motorcycle, gunman and everything--man, I wanted to waste that bastard so bad it gave me a high to think about it). I walked away because I did not want that in my soul. I knew once I did the first, many more would follow.

I see your point now. Understanding the consequences can indeed be persuasive. :smile:

But the good called, too. A persuading good. I did not want to live in a world like that. I wanted something better and entertained messages of good, images of good, as I mulled everything over.

I gave up a lot at that time. My dark star was rising. When I walked away, I became the laughing stock of my so-called friends. I now wear the memory of their laughter and mockery like a badge of honor.

Man am I glad I made the right choice.

Michael

I'm glad you did, too. :smile:

Greg

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