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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 29, 2019 - 06:56pm PT
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Does a feeling hold emotional content if there's nobody there to feel it?
If there is no body there is no mind and no feelings as we usually use the word.
Do you mean no human when you write nobody? It is usual to use the word nobody for humans but I would guess that cats and dogs have feelings, too, in addition to smarts that may trump humans.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 29, 2019 - 06:56pm PT
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Thank you for the prompt, John Gill.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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May 29, 2019 - 08:08pm PT
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Better hurry up, only a few days left to come to an agreement and a conclusion. We're close right?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 29, 2019 - 08:32pm PT
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only a few days left to come to an agreement and a conclusion.
I think you are confusing the SuperTopo Climber's Discussion Forum with a search for knowledge. Largo might say you are guilty of conflation. Though reaching agreement and a conclusion on that may also be beyond us in our ST incarnation.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 30, 2019 - 07:49am PT
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The need for conclusions exposes an instrumental view. There are some things (like conversation) that are intrinsically rewarding without any need for extrinsic rewards: ends vs means?
What is climbing for you? Extrinsic or intrinsic?
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WBraun
climber
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May 30, 2019 - 07:54am PT
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This thread should really be called "What IS mental speculation" as 99.9999 percent of this thread is just that .....
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 30, 2019 - 08:25am PT
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What is climbing for you?
Scary at times but fun as long as I don't get too hurt. Achievement can be part of the fun but the experience itself is good enough.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 30, 2019 - 08:44am PT
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The need for conclusions exposes an instrumental view.
the need to criticize seems to expose yours, MikeL, presumably you enjoy conversation, alone.
At least in climbing, you climb (and not just talk about it). Is climbing "instrumental"?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 30, 2019 - 12:10pm PT
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From the Desk of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī:
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop
The whole universe is contained within a single human being – you.
What you seek is seeking you.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge.
If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.
Be drunk with love, for love is all that exists.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 30, 2019 - 12:11pm PT
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Ed: Is climbing "instrumental"?
In that it took me to fear, yes.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 30, 2019 - 12:15pm PT
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The idea that "feelings" appeared earlier than awareness is a non-starter if you think about it. Does a feeling hold emotional content if there's nobody there to feel it? Just as blue is in the mind of the beholder, so goes it with feelings. Blue is not an external thing or phenomenon "out there" (on in the brain) that is passed on, in whole cloth, to consciousness, nor does it exist in a bucolic state in the unconscious. None of this stuff is like inventory in a store.
I consider feeling pain, feeling cold, and feeling love to all be types of feeling that preceded human mind. I mean, is this really controversial?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2019 - 12:19pm PT
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Will leave you'al with this, a quip an old Zen teacher told me maybe fifteen years ago.
"We're not talking because something else happened first."
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 30, 2019 - 03:23pm PT
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We're not talking because something else happened first.
Perhaps this:
"There is something I'd like to say before I begin."
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 30, 2019 - 04:09pm PT
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The something that happened first is the ability to experience -- to feel -- things like cold, hot, pain, love, sadness. They all preceded mind. Seems pretty obvious to me.
The ability to experience is practically built right into the architecture of the neuron. The sensory neuron essentially conveys "feelings" of pain or hot or being touched or being in the sunlight, for instance. The sensory neuron evolved maybe as early as the Cambrian Explosion -- not too much later, in any event. I like to think of the sensory neuron as conveying the conditions of the outside world to the organism, which is then persisted as memories (by other types of neurons).
So, I'm thinking that feeling happened first. Then mind. That's what some philosophers get wrong, IMO. They assume that the big problem with mind is the feeling (or subjective) part. They fail to understand that it is not a problem at all, since feeling preceded mind. Again, what I mean by feelings is an organism's ability to feel things like pain and cold and being touched and being sad. I'm suggesting that the feeling of being conscious lies along this continuum -- the feeling continuum.
Mind seems to be some convergence of intelligence and feeling. I have struggled on this thread with the word intelligence. I got it now, I think. Intelligence is not conscious. It is a manifestation of non-declarative (unconscious) memory and genes, and maybe some epigenetic variables. Genes are the code; intelligent memories and epigenetic factors comprise the data that the code can work against to make an intelligent decision to help the organism survive (actually, epigenetic factors are likely both data and code). Feelings and intelligence seem to be relatively independent variables. This is key, I think.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2019 - 06:24pm PT
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I can't help myself.
He said: They assume that the big problem with mind is the feeling (or subjective) part.
Nope. The ungraspable part is sentience. Not what is IN mind.
Work with that till you see they are "the same ... exactly."
Both are empty. There is no "thing" there, here, before or after.
In my experience...
Off belay.
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WBraun
climber
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May 30, 2019 - 07:06pm PT
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I got it now, I think. Intelligence is not conscious.
Good grief!
Pure stabbing into the dark at something you have no idea or clue at all.
You can't blindly guess but that's what you gross materialists always do.
I mean it's unbelievably horrible .....
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zBrown
Ice climber
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May 30, 2019 - 07:10pm PT
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say hB
is that an anti-materialistic gang sign?
keep smilin' and the whole material world smiles with you
i was always smilin' when you laughed at one of my jokes
and likewise when you took some serious comment to heart
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 30, 2019 - 07:46pm PT
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There is no "thing" there, here, before or after.
We should just forget the whole thing.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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May 30, 2019 - 08:16pm PT
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The need for conclusions exposes an instrumental view.
But I like vocals too.
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