Mortal unless made immortal?…some will face oblivion

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Mortal unless made immortal? …some will face oblivion at death.

Some more experimenting for you…

I’ll take the premise that ‘mind’ is something aside from material and is probably infinite and omnipresent etc, hence not specifically located in time and space. Material form can make utility of mind and that is what we are, once the material form dies that utility ceases to be. For me this makes far more sense than trying to imagine mind as something which belongs to us ~ that is to material form, as we would not know where to stop the affiliation [e.g. humans animals, insects, micro-organisms?].

However, the utility form makes with mind is a relationship, there is no reason why the omnipresent mind would not wish to continue that relationship when we consider that it is us ~ the very thing we consider to be our minds, imaginations and thoughts. However the continuance of that individualised mind would perhaps be unworthy if the utility had become detrimental to its betterment in future incarnations? Otherwise it would be beneficial to continue the ‘soul’ of a person so as to facilitate the proper operation of its vehicle, a ‘good’ or beneficial soul would achieve this.

Another way of thinking about it is that, our minds are part of the universal mind and from its perspective the material form is simply a vehicle to its existence in living form. Like us if it gets burned it will flinch away, and not want to recreate the manner of its harm. The material world is largely causal, and so mind as like us is simply the rider on the storm, it will continue where it feels is best [even though there is no ‘it’ as such] to do so, when and where it does we shall exist and reincarnate. It is not exactly that we the individual reincarnates, it is in fact that mind reincarnates because it is omnipresent and can do nothing else. Equally the material world is making utility of mind and by this alone it is incarnate in form.

As we the mind incarnate can imagine, think, perceive, feel, be, and do all the things we do [which are not material], that then should be thought of as universal mind doing all those things as us. Hence it is what has the potentiality to be those things and not the material form, if it can make these entities of mind in us then should we not presume it has the abilities generally? It can then make all the aspects of ‘you’ or any other mind nature manifest or un-manifest, yet as there is no ‘it’ [I state] the whole thing is a shared resource, and entity of mind can make itself or any nature of mind manifest or un-manifest, this is simply an universal ability of mind.

So, do we have control over our own destiny, or mind has control over it‘s own destiny? Is that the very same thing?

I am inclined to think it is us who have all the choices, it is us who decide to reincarnate or not, and that there isn’t anything else out there which can make such decisions for us.

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There are all these objects out there in the world. Thousands of them that we have given names to. There are thousands of words and all the semantics that go with them that we have acquired.

When we sit down and use the knowledge we have acquired, it’s like frames of knowledge going by in motion giving the illusion of time and giving the illusion that memory is something more than the words when we translate what we hear. But there is nothing beyond the words. The translator of the words is nothing special. It’s just neural activity in the brain. Just because it is your neural activity or our mutually shared neural activity, it doesn’t mean that without it there should be great concern for where you are as an identified entity.

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It doesn’t need to be special, and neural activity does not explain what information is to us, or mind etc.

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Well first we must realize is that the brain anyway is physical and by it’s physical nature when a person dies it ceases it’s functions. But does that mean its functions have been entirely ceased. Have they continued in the mind as you call it?
“The” question really is what is the relationship between the mind and the brain if this is the case and what defines both as being part of a specific individual?
Does this differ from individual to individual or is it the same. If there are similarities from individual to individual or is this only within a certain category of individuals and are there numerous categories of such individuals? What are these similarities nature? These are questions that might be asked.
Let’s start with the first part of the main question. What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? To define that we must first define the brain so as to see its parallel in the mind but at present that is impossible. So let’s define the brain vaguely.
The brain includes a memory. We won’t go into detail how this memory is structured but simply its purpose or function.
The function of the memory is to be able to build a series of facts around the same object, thing, relationship or being. We build this series of facts by starting with perceived characteristics of that thing which we’ve “clumped” together.
I think the reasons we clump characteristics together are various. For exp John may like tea. We see him drinking tea allot and by defining “like” in one way as doing something many times or doing it intently this means “that tea” when relating in this way to these things means John likes tea. So we clump liking tea together with John. Or we might clump together another characteristic to John.
He may be an artist. Artists come under the “category” of career. And the "rule” here precisely is that a career is what you practice regularly as an adult for money and perhaps just as well other things. So based on this rule artist comes under the category career. John you could say “lives out” this rule in a specific sub-category “artist”. Therefore being an artist is he’s career so we clump this characteristic that John is an artist to John. This is all part of our memory of John.
So we could say the basic function of memory is to be able to continue having knowledge that certain characteristics clump together with certain things such as John for example. So this is the basic or one of the basic functions of memory.
Now we could also say that the ability to make facial expressions is to communicate certain feelings, attitudes, opinions, etc. What is the purpose of this so we can affect the other person say in any desired way. So what are we getting or understanding from all this? We can’t keep going into how the mind works but what we can say and the pattern we can discern is that the brain is a series of functions. How these function interact or even function in the sense how the brain is physically structured not the actual functions of the functions that is.
But what is a function? It seems to be what something “does”. Or “how” (different meaning here from the last) it does something. So the functions of the brain is both “what it does” and “how it does” these what it does.
The what it does is the functions of memory such as to remember clumping. And the how it does of memory is the physical structure of that part of the brain-memory. So the brain is the functions of “how and what”. And each of these whats are hows. Memory say as a function is both what it does and how it does- the physical nature of that aspect of the brain.
So we could conclude in this part by saying the brain is a series of “functions of hows and whats”. So that is the brain basically.
The mind therefore must be the whats functions but not the same how functions of those whats in the brain as it’s not the brain. Therefore what make the brain special are its hows.
But the mind I imagine to exist must have hows even if it doesn’t occupy space which I doubt. More likely It’s invisible.
So the how’s must be different but to relate to a specific brain a specific person/individual. It must have the same “whats” in function and in a sense specific to the individual. I’ll call this sense the “Functionary specific”.
For exp John and Marry have different functionary specifics in the function of their memory and this is what makes them individuals. John remembers Peter as a bad person. Mary as a good person. So this is what makes their functionary specifics of their function memory different.
So the mind to be “our” mind must have the same functionary specifics as us as our brain. The brain definitely is the how functions of the functionary specifics so I doubt the mind is using the brain as a screen say you project an image onto. That is the nature of the brain of what functions comes through the mind. So if these functionary specifics continue after death that defines us I would say it’s as a “replication” of the brain functionary specifics. Or perhaps somehow the information of the functionary specifics is “translated” onto the mind’s “how functions”. But no way could it be “sent” there as the how functions of the brain and mind differ. So these functionary specifics that define us as individuals could only continue as the mind as “replications” or semi copies. But then I ask is the self preserved? But is the self even important?

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Exactly. :slight_smile: … And yet neural activity is how one becomes aware/conscious of things. Neural activity does not ‘know’ … does not translate or interpret. What does Quetz?

Hint …. What do you use to answer that question?

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LotusTiger hi

The brain is part of the individual that much we know, I don’t think it makes sense that mind is [especially being it is non-material], it makes more sense that it is universal with the ability to become individualised. Yeast comes to ‘life’ when you add water, there are all manner of permutations of how the mind would have to pop in and out of forms in such cases ~ just as it would have to with humans if it is something aside from that form [spirit or soul etc]. If it can do that then it already has a universal base nature, hence I think it far simpler to just jump straight to the idea that it is not of form, but form interacts with it via utility. On another more mundane level I believe in a multifaceted reality map where mind is one such facet [along with infinity, time, space, energy, principles, archetypes etc], hence in such a case mind is part of everything and even the landscape is ‘alive’.

The basic way mind interacts with form is;

Form; Material object ~ metaphysical qualia ~ mind; mental object ~ mental archetype.

The latter two are mirrors of the former, such that a seamless interaction occurs. Within the later is the relationship with universal mind, we could think of that as like the water table existing where also earth and rock does. The relationship is the actual thing that is you thinking right now, the form is to facilitate its interaction with the world.

As to ‘individuals’ in the above context I am unsure if there is such a thing, at least as anything more than an epicentre of mind. However that epicentre has the ability to utilise certain universals, it has a will of its own and can perhaps think itself into re-existence. Once you take away the ‘it’ or an overlord of some kind which has ‘powers’, then everything becomes a resource always available to make utility of. This is similar to how the world is, there is no physical overlord that governs physical things, there are just a load of universal and other resources which the universe makes utility of.

I don’t wish to go to into the nature of the brain here, I make the simple classification of information as physical and non-physical. The physical objects in the brain which give us info, do that by changing frequency or chemical reactions both combining in neural networks etc. this informs us of information which we know of as literally pure info ~ what you are thinking right now. Once we make the distinction between the physical and non physical [which we know a great deal about], this should be enough to consider the ideas of this thread.

finishedman

I didn’t know you were with me on this, :slight_smile: I thought you propose an material explanation? What I use to answer this question is ‘my’ mind [or more properly ‘the mind‘] interacting seamlessly with the brain, like user and computer.

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… so you’re thinking that ‘mind’ uses the knowledge to translate/interpret.

The term ‘mind’ is subject to interpretation.

Tell me what is used to interpret what ‘mind’ is.

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Form; Material object ~ metaphysical qualia ~ mind; mental object ~ mental archetype.

The term mind may be subject to interpretation but the object is not, may as well leave semantics out of this. Can mind not know what it is when it is the very thing of knowing?

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If you want to call the totality of knowledge ‘mind’ that’s all right with me. But there is no entity there, no self there … nothing that reincarnates.

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That is not my objective, mind is that which knows and or is aware such is its entity. Knowledge is part of its function not the thing itself. There may not be anything which reincarnates, it is more likely that mind as a universal facet of reality simply continues.

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It’s interesting that you say there may be no individuals. However the question is in what sense? As anything more then an epicentre of the mind as you say. Well to be an epicentre of the mind I would have to say it interacts with the mind via utility but you know quetzacoat in my own ways I doubt this as that is of a suggestion that the mind is the thing that thinks. The brain anyways is what we know does the thinking. This is why I don’t agree with the brain or form using the mind to think. That’s why I also think if the thinking we have continues after we die it is as a replication.

But quatzacoat what do you mean by universal here anyway?

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Really what your assuming is that the mind is a process which can only “act itself” or function if it knows itself. As if it were the knowing of itself which enables it to be or act.
Like a a man who can only drive a car if he knows how to drive a car.
However I’d say the mind is not like that as i’t s not an action you need to know “how” to do. It just happens when it happens.
Otherwise what could happen in it as we don’t start with a lot of knowledge.

My own sorry Quatzacoat if I got you incorrect when you said mind utilises the brain. I thought you were saying that brain utilises the mind.

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LotusTiger

Thought is both of the brain and mind, as far as you are concerned your thoughts are non-material info and that interacts with the brain. The nature of mind as it is to you is not electro-magnetism nor chemical interactions.

Individuality is an interesting aspect of this, I have been wondering if saying that mind is universal is going to far, in the sense that there are no individuals. It may be truer that there is no universal mind as an individual entity - so to say. Perhaps it is best to say as like Buddha would that the self is an illusion and that includes any notion of it universal or specific.

My problem with this is that somehow we arrive at emptiness [nirvana] and then how do we get from that to universe. Throughout history from the Egyptians to Hindus humanity has been trying to see how you get something from nothing [creation], so you end up with something that does that ~ brahma, amun etc. if we take away the gods then you then have universals by which things manifest and the continuum as its drive [that things must always be manifest, potentiality etc]. then you have us, we have wills and the power to create new thoughts and there doesn’t seam to be anything else which does the creating. So it seams to me that if there are gods then they simply use the same universals we have access too, it’s a strange kind of spiritual democracy.

I agree and I think the mind is [=/] the knower, it is the ability to know and hence to make knowledge from sensory inputs. It has the innate ability to make thought manifest.

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quetz, there is an old saying from esoteric alchemy: as above, so below. In the case of mind and nirvana, perhaps one could say: as without, so within. The idea is to reach that glorious, overwhelming realization that you are “it,” in here (your heart or maybe your third eye) and out there, they are one and the same. That to me would be nirvana.

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Mind, thought and knowledge are all similarly non physical. If these concepts are part of reality in the same sense that the physical sensations and experiences are, then why can’t there be a separation of the self from mind, thought and knowledge?

You use knowledge to project it onto the objects which helps to strengthen the separation between you and the objects and which, in turn, helps strengthen you as a discrete separate ’self’ as an object. But it doesn’t mean to say that, without the knowledge of the object, you are the object. That’s ridiculous. Without knowledge there is no perception or understanding of what is there, including yourself as separate from it.

So, the flow of the knowledge and thought creates its own existence and all the more keeps you separate from everything. It allows you to be conscious of your ‘self ‘ as the illusion of a separate entity. This implies that you, on your own, or the brain, on its own, has no way of finding out what is there. Knowledge has to come in and tell you that that is that and that you are not included in whatever that is because it is precisely you that is the one who created all those things by the knowledge you have of them. But that is an expression of thought’s enduring purpose by playing games with itself and thus fortifying itself as the ‘self.’

This is what I mean when I say that you cannot separate yourself from thought and look at thought. All that will happen then is that thought will just look at itself. And since mind, thought and knowledge are all in the same boat, it is the thought/knowledge that you have about ‘mind’ that is masquerading as mind.

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jonquil

Indeed, that’s kinda how I am thinking, that what is within is without. After that here I am wondering what the relationships are, that nirvana mind/knower thing [ceugant] has the ability to utilise some fundamental universals, so in a sense I think we can make ourselves manifest in many ways. This is roughly how I see transmigration and conjuring, though I realise I am getting way out of ilp territory here.

finishedman

I was thinking that self is the combination of those things, that is where personality is more like that self acting as who we think we are.

I agree about knowledge and also that the process of knowing creates the ‘separateness’ of self ~ or the illusion of that.

I am unsure if the idea; ‘knowledge comes in’ is the right way of seeing it, I see the knower as having a direct relationship with reality. After all a computer gets input from external sources then displays them on screen but we wouldn’t say it is in any way subjective!

Here we disagree as ever, the knower is the ability to know and that includes itself, we cannot perceive that because perception is always acting as third party, but we can at least innately know what mind is.

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The one that tries to “see the right way” is the same as the one who wants to understand. So, whatever brought you to the place of the right way of understanding was something you were told. Much of what one chooses to come to understand comes from a source that he develops a sentimental attachment to.

You directly experience the world as real. If that’s what you mean, okay. But to know Reality requires knowledge if you want to experience Reality.