Jesus, Edg, you've been doing some deep thinking during your hiatus. I'm trying to find some place to plug in here, but not having much luck.
But maybe a few comments below, on a re-read. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : Plato and Aquinas believed in a "core person" who is imagined having some sort of eternal existence, and more, that that core's history was "responsible for itself." I guess, I believe this too, that I have an individualized soul, that does transmigrate. This requires free will. I don't believe in causality. It's not a matter of free will vs determinism. I don't believe that "the soul" exists -- except as a construct. To me, it's not an "entity of some as yet unknown materiality" that transmigrates to another body/incarnation or that journeys in astral realms or that enters an eternal heaven or hell.....or other explanations -- all of which seem to propose that "individuality must necessarily imply continuity" because: karma. Yes, karma. I can't make sense of things without it. How can God be fair if a soul doesn't live again and again in order that IT gets "corrected" from having a tilted POV (warped plus attachment) due to damage from previous incarnations? We ask. Gotta be the same exactly entity that gets its rewards or comeuppance -- this is a basic moral tenet of most scriptures: evolution. We insist. But, BAH. This addiction to "explaining and understanding the content of consciousness in MY nervous system" is simply tawdry. Better to read tea leaves than take a snapshot of your mind at any given moment and then predict its future. Picasso said, "Why ask me what a painting means if you're not asking a bird what its song means?" Or something like that. Same deal for every thought that arises -- the divine intent is not something that can be sussed. M commented one time, when asked why the experience of PC is blissful, and when continually pressed, said, "why is water wet, why does fire burn. It is its nature" That answer impressed me. As an aside, in the Upanishads, I always like the answer to unrelenting questioning about an entity which really can't be described, the response by Yajanakvalka, or maybe it was Gargi, "You are asking questions about an entity about which further questions cannot be asked. If you ask further quesstion, your head will fall off And Sure enough her head fell off and robbers took it away, thinking it was something else" (or something along those lines. We are witness solely -- but not at all soully. And even the witness is a bogus entity in that it comes and goes "as needed (heh)." It is merely the least "unit" of identification -- not identity. Only awareness is identity -- everything else is a symbol of it...even the witness. Only awareness is generally defined in such a way that it is truly transcendental to all definitions. Ask Godel about this. Consciousness always implies individuality because all such "entities" seem easily differentiated from the others; whereas, awareness is the same for all reporters. Every mind. Every entity is witnessed. Awareness is an all time reality even if the consciousness is in a deep resting phase...or for that matter "just now dead." Heh. Awareness isn't some THING that can be imagine as having an "off switch." Careful consideration about "awareness" forces a logical conclusion: it is the only "worthy concept" with which one can build an understanding about identity. To identify with any particular nervous system is to be in error. It is the act of NOT seeing that boundaries are projected and never truly validated by any looksee by any discipline; be it scientific method, scriptural syllogisms, or whatever. I am clueless about Advaita, or Neo Advaita. It sounds like these are concepts from those philosophies, based on some of the things you've posted in the past. To identify is to NOT KNOW THE SELF. If you think you're Krishna or Joe Schmoe, you've just lost the game. The same awareness informs both nervous systems. To me, "awareness" and "the Absolute" are as close to being the same concept as possible for two different words. Heh. To me, every speck of ALL THIS springs into "existence" moment by moment as does any thought....as we easily see in a dream...where all the characters and even the chairs they sit on and the air they breathe and the laws of physics they obey.... ALL THAT is sprung/spun wholly -- in one piece -- by the brain. There are not parts that caused other parts in that dream -- no true individuality of any "item" in any dream. A ball doesn't fall to the floor because of "dream gravity." Same with waking life. Exactly the same. Dead dog's smegma or ojas entering Lord Indra's duodenum -- it's all divinely dreamed.....only entities in the dream can care about which qualities are present in any given moment in the dream. Entities are liars addicted to certainties. Self blinkered. Bubble jailed minds. Egos are exactly like Moriarty in Picard's holodeck -- we all think we can walk out of the holodeck. As if. Bottom line: I'm not a scholar, but I'd be sorely disappointed if Plato and Aquinas had not at least considered the above -- but in their terms. Anyone here up on Plato or Aquinas? I see "the Absolute" in all the scriptures, but it's usually a "fuzzy" snapshot. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Edg, That's a heavy conclusion. So what do you say to philosophers, like Plato and Aquinas, who have tackled questions like this and wrote books on the subject? Are you saying that they're egotistical and not sentient? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : The word "know" makes this a primal question. My answer: no. New question: can a human nervous system know ethics? My answer: no. The ego lies to itself. IT IS NOT SENTIENT. It is a process. An artifact of a vastness. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : Of course we can. The query to be answered is whether it is worth the computing time and the bother of implementation. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : One machine said NO...which is correct. It's database was based on movie scripts. But if the database included philosophical and ethics discussions, the machine could have gotten the correct answer from those discussions. Even if it got the correct answer, the machine still does not know what it said. Artificial Intelligence Machine Gets Testy With Its Programmer http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/26/artificial-intelligence-machine-gets-testy-with-its-programmers/?mod=yahoo_hs http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/26/artificial-intelligence-machine-gets-testy-with-its-programmers/?mod=yahoo_hs Artificial Intelligence Machine Gets Testy With Its Prog... http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/26/artificial-intelligence-machine-gets-testy-with-its-programmers/?mod=yahoo_hs Machine is asked to define morality, gets annoyed when it can't. View on blogs.wsj.com http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/26/artificial-intelligence-machine-gets-testy-with-its-programmers/?mod=yahoo_hs Preview by Yahoo
