Logical Evaluation of Human Self

[memester]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder

I believe the human is unique in its ability to access the evolved status of their consciousness which makes them different than animals

I would argue that we, all species of higher animals, merely share a bacterial supercolony awareness, which indeed has the historical memory in code, but that we have a more highly developed area for recent memory, for remembering every interaction with our environment, and so can sort our experiences in many ways.
So we can recognize what kind of door handle we are confronted with, when we approach a door..without going through a list of types of things, to compare to.

[Pathfinder]

Originally Posted by memester

I would argue that we, all species of higher animals, merely share a bacterial supercolony awareness, which indeed has the historical memory in code, but that we have a more highly developed area for recent memory, for remembering every interaction with our environment, and so can sort our experiences in many ways.
So we can recognize what kind of door handle we are confronted with, when we approach a door..without going through a list of types of things, to compare to.

I would argue that is the exact opposite of what I believe is the distinctive factor between us and animals.

It is, as I clearly pointed out in the thesis above, the fact that the higher human consciousness learns how NOt to use the habitual programming of the brain to develop logical reasoning ability. It is not so much the ability to sort out what we have experienced already, as it is the ability to separate what our brain is telling us from what our minds may be trying to get through to us instead. THAT is higher consciousness and animals do not subscribe to it. they work by brain alone.

[Subjectivity9]

Pathfinder,

I am sorry that I tied you up in knots, my old friend. That wasn’t my original intention. I mostly came by to say "hi." : ^ )

I hope we are not so diverse in this area that I will be unable to make myself understood. But, let me make one more attempt, and try to keep it short.

I do not think that Life requires the material manifestation of a body to be. So, it is the material manifestation that swims in Life, like a fish swims in ocean, and not the other way around. Life does not come about because of anything that material (AKA the body does.) In other words it is the body that burrows from Life.

Same thing with Consciousness:

The human brain only burrows consciousness. It comes about in the form of “consciousness of,” and requires both a subject and an object for the dualistic mind to understand it.

Consciousness without need of an object is more fundamental and unchanging.

You act like there is something that preceeds Life/Consciousness. There isn't.

Peace,
S9

[Pathfinder]

Originally Posted by Subjectivity9

Pathfinder,

I am sorry that I tied you up in knots, my old friend. That wasn’t my original intention. I mostly came by to say "hi." : ^ )

I hope we are not so diverse in this area that I will be unable to make myself understood. But, let me make one more attempt, and try to keep it short.

I do not think that life requires the material manifestation to be. So, it is the material manifestation that swims in Life, like a fish swims in ocean, and not the other way around. Life does not come about because of anything that material (AKA the body does.) In other words it is the body that burrows from Life.

Same thing with Consciousness:

The human brain only burrows consciousness. It comes about in the form of “consciousness of,” and requires both a subject and an object for the dualistic mind to understand it.

Consciousness without need of an object is more fundamental and unchanging.

Peace,
S9

Thanks for the clarification S9, I did sort of think that was what you meant by many of your other postoings here but I did not want to jump to assumptions.

I realize that you are of the life equals universe equals total creation sort of mindset. And as in other posts that can be discussed all the way into the chicken before the egg dilemma it always falls victim to.

I am sort of hoping we can keep this discussion bound to strictly the human quotient and our little piece of the whole pie. When speaking strictly in terms of the human species we can reason our interaction with that collective you are speaking of.

[memester]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder

I would argue that is the exact opposite of what I believe is the distinctive factor between us and animals.

It is, as I clearly pointed out in the thesis above, the fact that the higher human consciousness learns how NOt to use the habitual programming of the brain to develop logical reasoning ability. It is not so much the ability to sort out what we have experienced already, as it is the ability to separate what our brain is telling us from what our minds may be trying to get through to us instead. THAT is higher consciousness and animals do not subscribe to it. they work by brain alone.

I think that you cannot show that we are different.

[Pathfinder]

Originally Posted by memester

I think that you cannot show that we are different.

well I think that my evaluation was meant to bring one to thought about identity and not really meant to show difference between human and animal, but since you bring it up I think that this evaluation does go a long way to proving the difference with regard to higher consciousness; does it not?

[memester]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder

well I think that my evaluation was meant to bring one to thought about identity and not really meant to show difference between human and animal, but since you bring it up I think that this evaluation does go a long way to proving the difference with regard to higher consciousness; does it not?

No, to me it proves zilch; shows not a bit of it, is empty of proof or even evidence.

where is the proof contained ? I saw only unsupported assertion.

[Subjectivity9]

Pathfinder,

Basic Awareness is not senses undefined. Basic Awareness is Awareness without any need of an object TO outside of itself, to define it. I believe that you see Awareness as being trapped within time, instead of time being a temporary dream manifested within Awareness. Am I wrong in this?

I am not sure that it is a good idea on your part, to expect people to just buy your basic premises and then with your close direction to go on to build upon them, (although we all like it when people agree with us. We cannot always expect this).

Peace,
S9

---------- Post added 12-21-2009 at 01:44 PM ----------

memester,

You have no idea when we start our interaction with our environment, or in fact if there is any real separation between our environment and ourselves. In fact I believe that is just a favorite idea of the Christians, and some other religious folks that we begin at conception.

Not so, this is just an agreed upon idea, conventionally accepted, we may be actually birthed into the womb as a first stage of birth, and we birth right along as we enter into new stages of our life like adulthood and old age, and death too may be a birth of sorts. What if I simply describe (its my dictionary) that birth is any new beginning?

DNA in a way is an environmental signal, or has environmental effects upon us, depending on where in your mind decide to make these arbitrary lines of separation, or cuts of demarcation. We humans like to think that we are in charge of such things and just saying it, makes it so.

Higher animal is also arbitrary, depending upon how you define higher. Is higher simply more complex, or does it depend upon the direction of which you are traveling, as in arbitrary progress of some kind or towards some goal?

I see you as taking an awful lot for granted here. Most everything that we think we know is often proved incorrect given enough time and research.

Most of what we think we know and even hold instinctively is nothing more than adjustment, and this is in constant flux, so that accumulation is not necessarily truth, or workable in some constant sense for survival. Cancer is a supercolony is it not? It just doesn’t play well with others, and therefore kills its host.

S9

[Reconstructo]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder

I try to have an open mind for possibilities but I also try not to give credence to anything that the mind can devise without reason.

You know I'm kiddin'

I think consciousness is the root of being. The body is just an object of consciousness. The concept of consciousness is just an object of consciousness. From Wittgenstein:

5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)


5.631 There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains
ideas. If I wrote a book called The World as l found it, I should have
to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were
subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method of
isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense
there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book.--


5.632 The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of
the world.


5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found? You will
say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field.
But really you do not see the eye. And nothing in the visual field
allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye.

[memester]

Originally Posted by Subjectivity9

Pathfinder,

memester,

You have no idea when we start our interaction with our environment, or in fact if there is any real separation between our environment and ourselves. In fact I believe that is just a favorite idea of the Christians, and some other religious folks that we begin at conception.

I don't say there is separation from the environment at all.

You seem confused about that.

You use the word yourself

..But - if there is no separation, what are you doing using that word to indicate something in contrast to "ourselves" ?

And how can there be any "us", if the "them" is an environmental factor, and environment is not separate from "us" ?

You only entangle yourself, not me.


I say that "we" start, when there are no longer two distinct parental bits; when they become one.

Not so, this is just an agreed upon idea, conventionally accepted, we may be actually birthed into the womb as a first stage of birth, and we birth right along as we enter into new stages of our life like adulthood and old age, and death too may be a birth of sorts. What if I simply describe (its my dictionary) that birth is any new beginning?

That's fine, I see senescence as part of Life, not just as some kind of ending. What's your problem with that ?

DNA in a way is an environmental signal, or has environmental effects upon us, depending on where in your mind decide to make these arbitrary lines of separation, or cuts of demarcation. We humans like to think that we are in charge of such things and just saying it, makes it so.

If you say so, it must be so. So what of it ?

Higher animal is also arbitrary, depending upon how you define higher. Is higher simply more complex, or does it depend upon the direction of which you are traveling, as in arbitrary progress of some kind or towards some goal?

I used it in the usual, or common sense of the term. Of course it's "arbitrary" in some way. So what ? It's a description. Here...look at this.
Sandwalk: Lower Animals and Higher Animals

It matters in some contexts, but not in the context I used it in, as I included, and did not exclude. That's where you went dead wrong in your criticism.

I see you as taking an awful lot for granted here. Most everything that we think we know is often proved incorrect given enough time and research.

well, then, it's commendable that you'll be considering that with regard to your comments.

Most of what we think we know and even hold instinctively is nothing more than adjustment, and this is in constant flux, so that accumulation is not necessarily truth, or workable in some constant sense for survival. Cancer is a supercolony is it not? It just doesn’t play well with others, and therefore kills its host.

S9

Cancer is a super colony ? Yes it can kill...the organism...if you insist that it is a "host", so be it. So what ?