On 13 May 2019, at 20:48, Philip Thrift <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 1:23:22 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 11 May 2019, at 08:13, Philip Thrift <[email protected]
<javascript:>> wrote:
https://aeon.co/ideas/how-the-dualism-of-descartes-ruined-our-mental-health
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Faeon.co%2Fideas%2Fhow-the-dualism-of-descartes-ruined-our-mental-health&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHE2JiWV3LHmz8TKy5ZflJKDY5x1Q>
...
Nature was thereby drained of her inner life, rendered a deaf
and blind apparatus of indifferent and value-free law, and
humankind was faced with a world of inanimate, meaningless
matter, upon which it projected its psyche – its aliveness,
meaning and purpose – only in fantasy.
...
The bifurcation of mind and nature was at the root of
immeasurable secular progress – medical and technological
advance, the rise of individual rights and social justice, to
name just a few. It also protected us all from being bound up in
the inherent uncertainty and flux of nature. It gave us a
certain omnipotence – just as it gave science empirical control
over nature – and most of us readily accept, and willingly
spend, the inheritance bequeathed by it, and rightly so.
In the face of an indifferent and unresponsive world that
neglects to render our experience meaningful outside of our own
minds – for nature-as-mechanism is powerless to do this –
Yes, nature does not even exist as mechanism, so the notion of
“nature-as-mechanism” is globally non sensical, yet locally, it
works for person supported by highly probable computations, but
nature becomes a projection, like in a dream.
our minds have been left fixated on empty representations of a
world that was once its source and being.
That is due to the reductionist conception of machine and number.
Today, we can defeat it, mathematically.
All we have, if we are lucky to have them, are therapists and
parents who try to take on what is, in reality, and given the
magnitude of the loss, an impossible task.
The loss is due to the separation of theology from science, and
the impeaching of the fundamental questioning for a long period.
That has led to the separation of human sciences and exact
science, making them both into pseudo-metaphysics and
pseudo-religion. Then we see only the “superficial” technologies,
without understanding of what they implies. To separate science
and theologies is a con artist trick to steal your money, and in
passing, your soul.
When “equated” with the machine, the negative pessimist will say,
“oh damned I am only a machine”, but the positive optimistic will
say, “nice, so machine can be as nice as I am”.
The interesting thing is only that this can be tested. Mechanism
has observable consequences.
Bruno
...
"How did we ever get the notion of the mind as something
distinct from the body? Why did this bad idea enter our culture?”
-- Richard Rorty
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/april13/rorty-041305.html
<https://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/april13/rorty-041305.html>
The problem (aligning with the above article by psychotherapist James
Barnes [
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-barnes-msc-ma-90766b159/ ]) is that
there is no (A) mind *and* the body (or matter), there are (B)
experiences *of* the body (matter).
