At 01:06 06/06/2003 -0700, you wrote:
Hello Keith,
You wrote, How do you know you are free to change mind from moment to moment? Leave it to the
scientific mind to ask and then try to prove the obvious!
I'm not sure I understand you.
Just because electrical potential builds up in relevant brain cells *before* "taking" (did you mean
extracting or making?--either way, doesn't matter) a decision, does not mean brain is behind creating
thought or offering response. Electrical potential building up in brain cells will also be responding
to input, and how to sort & store same prior to response.
Yes, this is true. The point is, however, is that it is quite clear that when we think "we" are deciding to do something it has already been decided. How much "we" have had to do with the preliminaries is a moot point. I happen to think that "my" decisions are "joint" decisions between me and what David Bohm called a "quantum field", but that is purely a personal speculation for which there is no proof nor ever likely to be.
Recent work on brain shows that women use
more areas of the brain in functioning compared to men, and also that for everyone--certain sections
do more than they originally thought and that more tasks are shared than originally thought.
Yes, brain studies show that this is true
What was conclusive before is subject to new conclusions. I will concede that brain is a vessel of communication.
Brain will pursue pathways of subconscious & conscious memory,
There's really no difference between conscious and subconscious memory. There's no separate mental "box" where the unconscious lies -- as implied by Freudian theory but a myth which still lingers on in the way that people think about the brain. Conscious and subconscious memories are both in the same place -- the cortex. There are some memories which are easier to recall than others.
and possibly collective conscious
in order to process new stimuli or questions or whatever researchers are providing to people used in
these experiments. Again, I suspect this type of research is the pre-amble to more advanced studies
aimed at trying to measure mind energy
You're posing a concept which you called "mind energy". How do you define this in terms which can be measured? Do you mean the total energy that the brain uses?
-at which they will never succeed, mind's abstract qualities
alone precluding that. How do you suppose they are going to research love energy? Or creative
energy or capacity for art, music or design? How are they going to figure out appreciation for beauty?
I am afraid that I have no idea what you mean by "love energy".
Though they may have some success at measuring brain energy output or intake, even to some extent
physical processes--mind function, as opposed to brain function, will remain a mystery to science.
I'm afraid that you will have to prove that there is "mind function" in opposition to "brain function".
When you were growing up you were constantly changing your mind due to new information. Then you
got to university, and the same applied, but you were trained to back up everything you put to paper so
that you could be taken into the commonly accepted paradigm of "scientific". From there, the scientific
self-censor insisted that you back up everything with usually other people's proof.
I think you have the wrong angle on what scientists regard as "proof". There are no scientific laws or beliefs which are considered to be proved once and for all. There are really only "working statements" which are amended from time to time if and when (and it's nearly always when) they (or parts of them) fail to be corroborated by well-designed experiments which probe the the weak spots in the "law" (and sometimes succeed in finding them!)..
Questioning everything
is good, so that you understand something for yourself, yet believing only that which has been proven in
the lab is not only limiting your consideration of other possible factors, holding you back from using your
mind freely, it is expecting you to relive someone else's past in for future work to proceed, thereby
slowing you down.
Once again, you are misunderstanding what is meant by "proven in the lab". Nothing is ever proven. A scientific fact or law or truth is always provisional. How do you know you are totally "free" when taking decisions or believing something? It feels like that, to be sure, but it isn't always so -- for example, a person who's been hypnotised says he is free when carrying out a post-hypnotic suggestion.
Scientist becomes mostly historian, designing "better" nukes and a more marketable pain reliever.
Significant research is hardly ever conducted because the petrochemical/pharmaceutical companies providing most funding even to universities have greedy agendas. Historical evidence has therefore been suspect.
Not at all. Independent foundations and governments fund much more research than petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies added together. I don't know the figures but I would have thought that the ratio is at least 20:1.
I'm afraid I don't understand much of what you write below, though every now and again you use phrases which suggest that you believe that it is desirable for an individual to make an act of faith, and in this I agree with you. However, I believe that any act of faith must be minimal, and it should always be consistent with current scientific language and not in opposition to it.
Keith
I'm certain you are familiar with the concept of projection in psychology. All people, not just those deemed to have mental illnesses, internalize thoughts or feelings they would rather not have, and, not wishing to harbour such feelings due to guilt, will project them onto someone else in order to alleviate the guilt. Of course, this results in further guilt, fractured and projected again onto others in an endless nightmare of projections until such time that you acquire a great psychologist who is able to help you recognize what you've been up to. With
luck, meaning a success rate of about one in two hundred and fifty-six, you will recognize why you create scapegoats out of everyone who fits the bill, and get over it.
Our minds are, I believe--because it's the most logical theory in metaphysics I'm aware of--fractured ideas
of one collective mind, further fracturing in chaos and projecting our primary fear of separation from the source-
mind of a Creator. Liken it to the Big Bang theory. What great force could have initiated that kind of event, from
alleged nothingness? Matter born out of nothing? Our Mind (collective use, implying also one creation of Creator) being created in the image of the Creator (--Who is spirit alone--love energy) able to create in form though not in content (eternally), is capable of such an idea. Yet like all forms, the universe in all its seeming timelessness, cannot exist eternally because of its physical nature. Mountains will crumble, and suns get cold. Nothingness is only true in the sense that it's the playground of the imagination. Actually there is nothing out there that has a basis in reality--or eternity. The universe is one big projection of an insane thought of one tiny idea of the collective mind that the created (or effect, the one creation of the Creator) could also become the Cause. Said universe seems absolutely real because we created it, and one tends to believe in one's own creations, even when they are but illusions. This accounts for the fact that prayer to God doesn't really have an effect--because the physical universe is not part of God's realm (which is eternity). To acknowledge pain, wholly non-existent in Heaven, would be to acknowledge illusion as fact. It is an impossibility. Ask for guidance, and you will get it.
Hence a puppet show of physical bodies, using for our example those of homo-sapiens, dancing to the bidding of the puppeteer mind, projecting fear thoughts resulting from its separation from the source. Yet we know that ideas never leave their source, but as children do, we become convinced that what is projected is quite real. Further fracturing or filtering of the divine energy occurs and we split fear into new parts again, continuously acting out in different ways. What the mind can conceive, it can create ( and most typically on Earth--mis-create). It must also, by means of free will, arrive at the conclusion that only eternal energy is real and that we never really left the source. Because we made the world we see, we need help to dispel the illusions of separation and the permutations of endless fearful pathways. Perpetually trying to prove its existence simply perpetuates fear. It is tantamount to assigning control over an illusion.
Search for truth is admirable, and reason must help you decide, but try giving up control and ask the unknown
to guide you there. No one rests until the point that faith takes over.
Believing in God is not essential. It is, however, a genuine belief, rather than imposed, if you arrive at faith because of reason backed up by personal experience. The only alter is in your mind, devotion only by thought and action. The deity described in most religious books (a jealous God, a vengeful God, a schizophrenic God) could never have created Mind, let alone created in eternity or truth. The true Creator wouldn't even be aware of our
fearful imaginings because they are non-existent in a realm of peace. Love is where God resides, and your right-thinking mind is still safe in eternity. Now, kick-start that free will, and wake up to Heaven. There is no where else.
Obviously, there's a lot of unlearning to do before the Big Crunch is possible.
Just as you concluded, I claim the right to my mind.
Natalia
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson
To: Darryl and Natalia
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 12:27 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] RE: But where's the mind?
At 16:40 02/06/2003 -0700, you wrote:
<<<<
Hello Arthur,
Your remark about mind being a process that goes on in the brain echoed back at me in a meditative moment yesterday. You were wondering, Where is the mind?, and if indeed we have one. I really enjoy these kinds of questions, and ask that you consider the following:
Mind is quite apart from brain because you are free to change your mind moment to moment. You can do so because, unlike brain and body, it is unfettered by physical laws.
>>>>
How do you know you are free to change your mind from moment to moment? Brain studies show very clearly that electrical potential builds up in the relevant brain cells *before* you are conscious of taking a decision (and apparently exercising your freewill). This was a counter-intuitive discovery by Libet some 15 years ago of explosive significance to philosophy and has been more thoroughly investigated -- and confirmed -- than almost anything else in neuroscience
If the mind is unfettered by physical laws and outside their ambit, then how come you can think or say anything at all about it? Everything you think or say is governed by the neurons in your brain and these, in turn, are governed by exactly the same physical laws that govern every other activity.
If one persists in thinking of the mind as some sort of free-floating entity then you can have an infinity of different hypotheses about it and every single one of them can be thought to be true (if anybody believes you) simply because it can't be tested.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
