Apech

Marblehead you only exist because the rocks are watching you . Don't get paranoid now. ... but seriously I want to pursue the question of consciousness/ sentience. If we agree about plants then that's a start. Plants with some kind of sentience. They have no brains or complex nervous systems ... so at least their sentience is not the product of complexity. This suggests perhaps that the complexity we have in our brains and bodies is just a vehicle to allow us to express our consciousness rather than the basis for it. I suggested a long time ago that the interactivity of particles was the basis of sentience in 'higher' levels of life. Here is a Feynman diagram of two electrons interacting. The interaction which is shown as a photon exchange is the equivalent of one electron saying to the other ... hey I'm over here ... move over will you. Could this not be the basis for what develops as sentience??? Anyone?

I think you are still equating consciousness to human consciousness. Rocks don't talk ... they don't have mouths... plants don't talk either but I believe they have a form of sentience because they seek sunlight etc. in other words they sense something about their environment. If I am in deep sleep and you walk round my bedroom humming quietly to yourself (not that I am suggesting that you regularly break into peoples houses and do this ... I hope :lol: ) then I will not be conscious of you ... but that does not mean I have ceased to have any consciousness in any form whatsoever does it. It just means that my awareness has not distinguished you as an external object and identified your form. In fact I would suggest that it is likely that I would sense you in some way or other and wake with a vague (i.e. ill defined ) notion of some kind of presence in the room last night. Same for the guy in the coma. By the way .. you have started to talk about beliefs (because of my so called stretchy fingers ... err !) I am trying to come from a logical standpoint. Until someone shows me how sentience/consciousness can arise in something intrinsically inert (i.e. matter = energy) I will continue to doubt that this is possible. I'm not saying it is impossible but I am just asking for some kind of descriptive mechanism which stands up to reasoned analysis. My point is that we use these terms glibly. Matter, energy, consciousness ... by trying to define them properly we can get towards an understanding of what we are talking about. Until then saying 'everything is energy' has about as much meaning as 'everything is porridge' ... well almost ...

People recover from comas ... their consciousness has not been extinguished but has merely become dormant. Because you cant remember being asleep ... or your dreams does not mean you had no consciousness. It is merely a connection problem. So I don't buy the coma argument. If matter is a form of energy ... something we seem to agree on ... then to say you are a materialist or believe in the reality of the objective physical world just means that you think that energy is real. Since we are energy and it is energy (the world) ... there is nothing else ... then logically consciousness must mean energy recognizing itself. Or perhaps it is recognizing the forms which it is able to take up ... a chair, a table, you , me ... etc. So we have energy which has sentience ... we may not completely understand the mechanism of this but it seems an inescapable conclusion to me. Maybe the nature of this energy is ineffable ... maybe that's why we are struggling with definitions.

That's what I find interesting about these conversations. We all make bold statements about things that we cannot, or struggle to define. A physicist would say energy= capacity to do work ... which means basically its 'something that can do things' ... which gets us nowhere really. The word consciousness is similar ... a word which we would struggle to define. Literally it means 'with cutting' or something like that! So to know things we divide up reality ... into knowable bits ... hence the cutting part. The movement from the unknown to the known - or the mystery to the manifest. The implication being that the act of being conscious does this ... it breaks down 'reality' from an unknown mystery into known things. Which would also imply that we somehow create the things that we know... hmmmm. Sentience means to be able to feel. I would suggest this is basic to consciousness. I would suggest that all living things can feel at some level in some way. So our human consciousness is not the product of the complexity of our brains so mush as the evolution of the basic ability to feel which we share with all life. But where does that come from? If it doesn't come from complexity then it must come from that which makes up living entities ... i.e. forms of matter, proteins and so on ... And matter is energy ... so maybe hylozoism isn't so strange an idea after all. Absolutely. Even if we think its going to be difficult to get a perfect definition we should try to define terms we use. then at least we can agree what they mean. And I think you are right ... the reason for wanting to know ... is it to manipulate or to enjoy life??????

I agree with that. So matter is not inert lumps of dead stuff. Its energy. How are we going to define energy? What is it?

Ok here's an easier one ... what is matter?

K's pet rock has an astronaut cousin!

That's right keep dodging my bullets ... metaphorically ... Is it a sage rock? This cat is barking all right ...

Entropy is the degree of disorder in a system - which tends to increase over time unless energy is put in to give structure. Thus the earth because of the input of the sun's light/heat is in a reverse entropy phase ... this energy is captured by plants and put into the chemical structure of their metabolisms ... animals eat the the plants and so on ... feeding energy up the food chain to allow more and more complex structures to be formed (e.g. human brain). You could even argue that rocks on being subject to heat and cold ... causing exfoliation etc. form the basis for soil ... feeding the bacteria which feed the plants also ... so your pet rock may one day be sacrificed as part of this great enterprise. PS.. I still want to hear from the materialists ... where they say sentience/consciousness comes from ...

Hi, I meant what is 'now Iran' ... not 'not Iran' BTW ... rubbish typing as usual. Something in the back of mind says gold jewelry ... or was that the Thracians ... ??? I'm going to have to google ... got any links about those graves?

I know we have done this before but I am going to ask anyway. If the objective world comprises insensate material (like rocks) then were and when does consciousness arise? And I mean sentience and not human consciousness. How can something that is not sentient become sentient ... explain this with the laws of physics ... its genuine question not rhetorical ....

I agree with effilang (and phosphor). Important thing is not to focus on the 'physical' sensations ... just do the practice.

Do you mean Scythian? ... not that I know anything about them ... but I think they lived in what is not Iran ... horses, nomads that kind of thing.

Dear Fellow Taobums, We (the mod team) have received a number of reports about the threads started by Immortal4life on various subjects but usually relating to alternative pre-history or intelligent design. The objections vary but usually concern the subject matter, which some think is not legit for this forum, the length of the threads and the number of them. For some time we have been trying to resolve this by finding a suitable home for them on here - the last attempt being the articles section. But this seems to have caused some concern in itself. So we have decided to ask for views from the TaoBumariat as to where you would like to see them posted. It would be a great help if you could vote on the poll and give us an idea as to what would suit most people. Leave comments on here also if you wish ... but please be respectful. Thanks. Apech for Mod Team

Hi folks, I'm going to lock this thread now because it was just for the poll really. The result shows that the majority of voters are happy with I4L posting in General Discussion (with the option of Off Topic for PUA (if you really must)). Obviously normal mod rules apply but apart from that ... the few who object to his posts well I guess ignore is the best option. I4L please don't flood the board though ... On the issue of subs and the stifling of debate ... I think now we have the subs we will have to learn to use them well. They seem to serve a purpose for some people and some topics ... but its an open forum and its not about the views of individuals dominating its about open, frank, respectful, humorous, sometimes tangential discussion. If you don't like subs then use the general ... its up to you ... make this place what you want it to be. PS. If you want to continue this debate please start another thread - I'm just closing this cos of the poll.

If you search on here or google 'thetaobums I ching' you'll get some helpful stuff and links I think. I use Stephen Karcher 'Total I Ching' a lot and also wilhelm ... also have Wang Bi trans by Lynne. If you want to study you should start with the 'Great Treatise' - start by examining the lines, the pairs and the trigrams to see how they build to the 64 hexagrams ... after gaining an understanding of yin and yang of course. A lifetimes study ... the more you look the deeper it goes ... also use it as an oracle so you can engage with it through real experience in daily life. My 2 c.

Don't worry I'm not offended ... I like you too. I am bit surprised by all this because I thought things were going swimmingly in the subs. I would say .... vote with your feet (metaphorically) and use the General Discussion to start the debate you want to have. I think the subs were meant to be a quiet reading room away from the hub-bub. Some people were finding that they might ask a genuine question about Taoism say, only to be told that they should not be asking that question but another one about a different system or the person's own view of reality or whatever ... @manitou ... I hear you. TTBs does not have an official view of what is orthodox ... not even about Taoism. Its not here to express an individual's views - and I wonder if this is something that is happening unconsciously rather than meant to be excluding people. Like you I study different systems and generally make my own way based on what I have realized (believe it or not lol). I think the structure of TTBs is there to be used creatively ... so I hope the general dis. will return to its previous liveliness (but no aggressive stuff I hope).

I don't accept the 'subtle version of censorship' idea at all and am surprised if anything we have done comes across as that. We moderate almost 100% on spam and conduct (i.e. insults and so on) ... I hold my hands up to moving one thread on race to the Pit ... maybe I was being a bit oversensitive ... but we never delete, edit out or stop ideas. The whole idea of this poll is to find a place where ideas that some object to can be expressed ... not to sweep them under the carpet somehow. All the subs were created in response to requests from members ... it wasn't a top down decision. It was what people said they wanted. In fact the example of the TTC sub made us think it would work. Anyway .. so far ... it looks like General Discussion is ok for most of I4L's stuff (with the exception of PUA) ... with maybe some of the more oblique stuff in Off Topic. Vote now if you want to express your opinion ... I'll probably close this poll tomorrow sometime. Thanks to all for the good discussion by the way ... its interesting to hear what you all are thinking. A.

Yes, basically ... I like it that General Discussion is as broad as possible ... for instance I put some science articles there if I think they have some kind of spiritual aspect ... Like I tried to say above ... people report stuff and we are just trying to see what people want ... Christian mysticism would be def 'in' ... but if (for the sake of an example) we got bombarded with fundamentalist propaganda then I think that would be 'out'. >> More general point ... if subs are stifling debate ... then don't use them ... if you want to discuss the subtleties of Chuang Tzu in a peaceful setting go to the sub ... if you want to question the validity of things (or whatever) then go to general ...this way we all get what we want yes/no?????

? the first recently created sub was for the TTC - you were one of the ones who pressed for it and were a moderator. Don't you think you are applying a double standard here? However I agree with your overall point and don't want to suppress debate. In fact the opposite - I want a place for I4L's stuff where everyone is ok with it and we stop getting reports objecting to it. I'm not trying to stop the posts at all. More votes please ...

Nice ... thanks.

INTJ Me and Hillary Clinton apparently : ( Oh and it says I'm a Mastermind ... ha!

Hi

What goes around comes around.